by Lari Don
Everyone stared at him silently. He grinned. “Cheer up! I’m back. And I’m looking for a fight. So where are we going?”
“He’s the Master of the Maze,” said Lavender. “His healing will be strongest at the heart of a maze. We should go back to Traquair.”
Tangaroa looked at the western horizon. “The sun is down, the equinox is in the dark half of its cycle. We don’t have much time.”
Yann said, “We’re not aiming to outwit the Master. We’re going to fight him. So gather your weapons and your courage.”
Chapter 26
As they all squashed onto the dragon, who could now carry an almost full-grown centaur on her almost full-grown back, Helen tried to calm Yann down. “We don’t have to fight the Master. We just have to stop the healing. Once we’ve destroyed the token, we can leave without a fight.”
“He’ll protect that token with his life, or at least with his minions’ lives. It won’t be possible to avoid a fight.”
“You’re only saying that because you want a fight.”
“I’ve been stuck in bed for two days,” Yann laughed. “You’ve had all the fun; I want a bit of action!”
Just after Sapphire took off, they heard Yann’s parents yelling his name. Helen frowned. If her parents were yelling, they were too far away to hear. But she’d need a convincing excuse if she ever made it home.
On the flight to Traquair, Yann and Lee spoke quietly on the dragon’s back, and when they landed in front of Traquair House, the two of them announced their joint plan.
Yann spoke first. “The Master will be in the middle. I know the layout of that maze pretty well by now, but I don’t want to get into scuffles with fauns on the way through. It’s a waste of time, energy and arrows. We have one priority: the token. So we’re going straight to the heart of the maze.”
“How?” asked Helen.
Lee said, “We’ll fly there. Sapphire can drop the two of us in the middle, we’ll destroy the token, then get out.”
“How will you get out?”
“We’ll have to fight our way out.”
“But you don’t know the layout, Lee.”
“He can follow me, covering my back,” said Yann confidently.
“That’s a stupid plan,” said Sylvie. “There are nine of us, and your selfish plan only uses three of you. Why don’t we all leap off Sapphire into the maze? One team can concentrate on the token, the other team can clear the way out.”
“I like the wolf’s plan,” said Lee. “Is everyone up for a full-on fight?”
Helen looked round. She was the only one not nodding, and the only one without a weapon.
Sylvie would have teeth when she changed, Lavender had her wand, Sapphire had fire, and Catesby had his beak and talons. Rona had remembered to bring her golden spear, Tangaroa had his fishing trident, Lee was bristling with swords, and Yann had his bow and a full quiver of arrows.
Helen was about to say she didn’t have anything to fight with, when Lee handed her a sword. “You’ve fought with this one before. Please be careful.”
“Of the sword?”
“No, of your fingers.”
She laughed. “You don’t want me to punch any goats then!”
He smiled. “Just be careful. You don’t have to save everyone on your own, they can fight for themselves.”
She nodded, and they all climbed back on the dragon, as Yann split them into two teams.
Sapphire flew low over the maze, to its very heart, where they all leapt, screaming, yelling, howling…
Onto a bare wooden altar.
The middle of the maze was empty.
There was a stepped arrangement of smooth tree trunks, the tallest trunk charred by the interrupted unicorn sacrifice, but there was nothing else there. No goats. No minotaurs. No red-cloaked women. No healing tokens.
“Have we dropped into another trap?” asked Helen. “Are they hiding in the maze?” She looked up. “Sapphire, can you check?”
The dragon breathed a flare of flame and spun round, keeping the fire safely above the hedges, but lighting up every corner. She growled a negative answer.
Yann led his friends out of the maze and Sapphire landed beside them on the grass.
They stood in puzzled silence for a moment, then Rona asked, “What do we do now?”
Helen looked to the west. There was still a glow in the sky.
“We have more than an hour of dusk left,” Tangaroa said. “But we don’t know where they are!”
“We should have followed the Three,” sighed Lavender. “I should have thought of that.”
“They wouldn’t have been easy to follow,” Lee pointed out. “And if they caught a spy they would enjoy taking painful revenge.”
“They weren’t easy to follow,” said a new voice, “but they didn’t catch me.”
Epona trotted out of the splintered trees.
“I followed the Three to their destination and when I came back home to tell you, I saw you all fly off. So I followed you too. I can gallop,” the dappled centaur said proudly, “almost as fast as a dragon can fly!”
Sapphire rumbled and Yann laughed. “A fully laden dragon, to be fair to her, Epona. But why did you follow the Three?”
“Because the herd did nothing to heal you except keep you warm. Your friends showed us what we should have done.” She glanced at Helen. “They worked together, they risked their lives for you. I wanted to help too. I’ve never trusted the Three, so I followed them. And I have smaller hooves than you, Yann, so I kept silent behind them all the way. They went to an old house called Whitestane Tower, in the hills towards the border.”
“Thank you so much, Epona.” Yann patted her shoulder.
“I could show you the way,” Epona offered.
Yann shook his head. “I know the way to Whitestane. And you must be exhausted after your gallop. Anyway, we’re a team, we know each other, and we work together.”
As Yann gave Sapphire directions and everyone else clambered onto the dragon, Helen looked at Epona, left on her own at the corner of the maze.
Helen walked over. “Thank you. Your quick thinking and bravery might mean my stupidity doesn’t cost my friends their lives. Next time, I hope you can come with us.”
Epona frowned. “Perhaps.” She walked off, limping a little.
Back on Sapphire, Helen was crushed between Sylvie and Lee. She could hear the faery behind her and the centaur behind him chatting. They decided to see how the Master’s forces were arranged around Whitestane Tower before they came up with a detailed plan, then Yann asked quietly, “At the hill fort, did you actually set them all up in a line, like skittles, for the Master? And they fell for it?”
Lee said, “Every single one of them,” and laughed softly.
“How did you manage that? Did you glamour them?”
“Just a little, but they haven’t realised.”
“Well done. Thanks. But don’t ever do that to me…”
“I won’t. You wouldn’t fall for it, my strong-minded friend.” Then Lee leant forward and whispered in Helen’s ear. “No one ever thinks they can be glamoured. That’s why everyone can!”
It was a short flight in the darkening sky to the hills around the tower, where Sapphire circled high above the old house.
Whitestane Tower wasn’t tall, thin and pointy, like a fairy-tale Rapunzel tower. It was a large house that was higher than it was wide, with small windows and one big wooden door. There were no lights shining inside, but a circle of dark figures outside suggested they had come to the right place.
Sapphire landed round the side of the low hill to the west of the house.
“I don’t understand why the Master isn’t in a maze,” muttered Lavender once they were on the ground. “Why isn’t he being healed where his power is greatest?”
“He knows his enemies expect to find him in a maze,” said Yann. “Perhaps he’s avoiding mazes until he’s healed?”
“Or perhaps there’s a maze under the hou
se?” suggested Helen.
“There isn’t,” said Yann. “I played hide and seek in there when I was young. It’s just a big old house. The roof is half-collapsed, the stairs are falling down, most of the rooms are filled with ancient human furniture. It doesn’t even have a cellar, let alone a maze. It’s just a hideout. If we get in, we can find him. But first we have to get past those sentries. Are they fauns or uruisks?”
Lee scrambled up the side of the hill, peered over, then came back. “Uruisks. I saw long horns and heard one of them bleat.”
“That makes sense,” said Yann. “His hired help outside, his closest followers inside. How many are there?”
Sylvie said, “I counted ten sentries as we flew round, four at the front and two each at the back and sides.”
Yann laughed softly. “Ten means one each, except for the lucky warrior who gets two.”
Sylvie and Lee raised their hands, but Yann said, “Come on, guys, I missed the giants, the lizards and the rope snakes. Can I have the double act? Please?”
Yann was enjoying himself, but Helen was getting nervous. Did he really expect her to walk up to the house and attack an uruisk? In the dark? On her own?
Though as she watched Yann draw a rough sketch on the ground, marking out the sentries’ locations, she could see the sense in it. The sentries were all the way round the tower. A concerted attack in any one place would leave sentries on the other sides of the tower free to raise the alarm. They had to silence every sentry at the same time.
Yann announced that he would take both sentries at the back, Catesby and Sapphire would attack from above on the east side, Lee and Lavender would deal with the west side. Which left Helen, Rona, Sylvie and Tangaroa with the sentries at the front.
“I don’t want a feud with the uruisk tribe, so try not to kill your sentry. Just disarm, disable or knock them out when you see Sapphire’s signal,” said Yann. “Then we’ll meet at the front door. Once we’re inside, Sapphire will gather the unconscious wild goats into a heap and guard them. Alright?”
Everyone nodded. Even Helen, who couldn’t suggest anything better. Then the friends moved away carefully.
Helen muttered to Rona, as they crawled through the black heather, “Are you happy about this? Sneaking up to fight a monster on your own?”
“Not really, but I seem to be spending the whole weekend proving to Tangaroa that I’m not a complete wimp.”
“Because he found out you cheated?”
“Yes,” Rona whispered. “He didn’t take it very well.”
“So why did you tell him?”
“He sort of guessed. Then I admitted it. Telling lies beside the seven waterfalls didn’t seem like a good idea.”
“This doesn’t seem like a good idea either,” Helen murmured, then stopped talking as they got nearer the tower.
She was responsible for the sentry to the west of the door. She crouched in a shallow dip, close enough to smell the hot meaty stink of her uruisk.
He was chatting to the sentry on his left, the one Tangaroa was going to tackle. Helen tried again to open her ears to the meaning she knew was there, but all she could hear were grunts and bleats.
She grasped the sword hilt tightly, then realised she couldn’t attack the uruisk with it. She didn’t want to kill him, and she wasn’t sure how to inflict a minor wound with a sword, so she put it down.
She felt around the ground and found a rock which might make a decent weapon. But the uruisk was taller than her. To hit him on the head, she’d have to stand right beside him and stretch upwards. That would leave her vulnerable to the axe he was swinging around.
So she opened her rucksack quietly, pulled out several packets of bandages and pushed the stone deep inside. She slowly zipped it closed and gripped the straps.
Surely everyone must be in place by now? She was getting even more nervous waiting.
Suddenly a silent fountain of flame blazed above the tower.
Then Helen heard thumps and groans from all around. Her uruisk stepped forward, raising his axe.
Helen jumped up in front of him.
He looked surprised. He took a step back. And Helen swung the rucksack as hard as she could, right into his long-nosed hairy face.
There was a crack and a squelch, which she hoped was first aid equipment breaking, not his bones, and the uruisk fell backwards against the wall of the tower.
“Sorry,” she muttered, and she almost meant it.
Then she picked up Lee’s spare sword and ran to the front door. Within moments, the friends were all there, breathing hard but smiling.
As Sapphire dragged the floppy uruisks into a heap, Yann said, “How long do we have until full dark, blue loon?”
Tangaroa looked at the pale line on the horizon. “Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”
Yann grinned. “Plenty of time if they’re easy to find; not much time if we have to play hide and seek. So let’s get inside.”
Yann reared up and kicked the door of the tower to splinters.
Chapter 27
They shoved the shattered door open and walked into the entrance hall.
It was narrow and low ceilinged, not high and wide like halls in other old houses Helen had visited. It was built of stone and brick, with furniture and pictures, but nothing was where she expected.
The walls were made of rubble, with broken legs of furniture and backs of framed pictures mixed in with the stones and bricks. The ceiling was lengths of floorboards with carpet and lino hanging down, balanced on top of the patchwork walls just above Yann’s head. And the corridor split into two narrower tunnels ahead.
“The Master has built his own maze,” Lavender whispered. “He’s ripped the rooms apart and built his own maze with the debris.”
“So let’s find the middle,” said Yann. “That’s where he’ll be.”
“How?” asked Helen. “This isn’t a maze we know, and Catesby and Lavender can’t fly above and guide us.”
Rona pointed to the choice of ways ahead of them. “Should we split up or stay together?”
“Split up,” said Yann.
“Stay together,” said Lee.
They looked at each other.
“Stay together,” insisted Lee. “We don’t want to find the Master and lose each other.”
Yann nodded. “I’ll go at the front. You go at the back, Lee. Tangaroa, stay beside Rona. Sylvie and Helen walk together. Lavender and Catesby, can you be scouts?”
“We need a plan, so we don’t get lost,” said Lavender. “Let’s turn right at the first five junctions, then see where we are. That way we can get back here by taking five left turns. If we stick to that theory, we won’t get lost, and it might even help us find the middle.”
So they followed the flower fairy, quietly and carefully, through the dusty lanes of the dark maze.
Lavender’s lightballs brightened their way, but she kept the bobbing lights close, while Catesby peered round corners to check they were clear.
Helen walked beside Sylvie, who’d turned back into a girl, whispering that wolves weren’t keen on small indoor spaces.
They turned right at every junction, but that didn’t take them in a square spiral, because there were lots of corners, left and right, which gave them no choice at all. As they crept deeper into the labyrinth, Helen soon had no idea which way she was facing.
Every time they had a choice, they turned right, and after five rights, they found themselves in a wider space: the wreck of a bedroom. A rusty iron bed had been jammed into the wall. Opposite was a door, upside down. Helen pushed at the door gently. It didn’t budge, so she pulled, and it creaked open. Behind it was a solid wall of more rubble, including a chamber pot at head-height, and a single leather boot above that.
Helen shut the door and turned round. She caught sight of movement to her left and slashed out with the sword.
Lee laughed. “Good reaction time, bard, but you just attacked yourself!” He pointed at the wall and Helen realised she had se
en her reflection in a tall mirror, stuck lengthways at waist-height in the wall.
The friends looked at the two exits from the ruined bedroom.
“Do we keep going right, or head back to the door and try left this time?” Yann asked Lavender.
“Stand still. Listen,” Lavender instructed.
They all listened.
But there was nothing. No voices, no footsteps, no hoofbeats. Just silence.
Lavender sighed. “Let’s keep going to the right and see if we can get nearer the middle.”
So her friends followed her through the maze.
They passed a bath standing on its end. A whole wall of fenceposts covered in moss. A bookcase with no books. A baby’s cradle filled with bricks.
When they had chosen right four more times, Lavender held up her wand.
Everyone listened carefully, standing by a wall of velvet striped wallpaper slashed by claw marks. They heard faint voices.
Helen whispered, “We don’t have much time. Can we follow the voices?”
Lavender shook her head. “Following sound in a maze can be confusing. We must stick to the theory.”
“We could kick our way through,” whispered Yann.
“Not if we want any element of surprise,” said Tangaroa.
So they walked through tunnels of angled wooden steps and banisters, and a space hung with velvet curtains, the voices getting louder, then quieter and then louder again.
After another two junctions, as they crept along a corridor lined with broken roof slates, the voices became overwhelming. Three chanting voices.
The friends bunched together and peered round the next corner. They saw a large open space. A square room with black and white floor tiles, lit by candles high on the crumbling walls.
The heart of the maze.
Helen could see the Three chanting and the Master kneeling at their feet. And she could see the vial held high in the hands of the Three.
