Maze Running and other Magical Missions

by Lari Don

The youngest of the Three was forcing the minotaur’s eyelids open with her red-nailed fingers.

  There was no one else there, no fauns, no uruisks, no ropey snakes. The Master was keeping this healing private.

  The friends pulled back into the slate-lined corridor.

  “What do we do?” Yann whispered. “I could have taken the vial from the Master, but I can’t steal it from the women who saved my life.”

  “We don’t have to steal the vial,” said Lavender. “Could we make them spill it?”

  “Or offer them something else?” suggested Rona.

  The chanting reached a higher pitch and Sylvie said, “Don’t be daft. This is about our lives, not about being nice to old ladies.” She flickered into a wolf and sprinted past Yann.

  Her friends ran after her, just in time to see the wolf leap up at the Three.

  Before she reached them, the women tilted the vial and poured the water into the Master’s eye.

  Then the Three turned as one and flicked their cloak, which was suddenly as solid as a shield. Sylvie bounced off and fell to the floor.

  “If it’s too late to stop the healing,” said Yann, “then I can’t let him live.” He lifted his bow, an arrow on the string, and aimed it at the Master.

  But the Three had the stunned wolf wrapped in their red-hooded cloak. “No boy … We will only free the wolf … if you put the bow down.”

  Yann sighed and lowered the bow.

  Suddenly the walls opened. A tabletop swivelled on one wall. A Turkish rug lifted on another. A picture of a deer pivoted right over on the third wall.

  A long line of fauns entered through each hole. More fauns than Helen had ever seen.

  She noticed Lee, Rona and Tangaroa raise their weapons. She remembered she had a sword and lifted it too. But the fauns didn’t attack.

  They gathered at the other side of the space and lined up between the Turkish rug and a faded green tartan couch, chattering softly in a foreign language and watching as the Master stood up. He had tears streaming from his left eye, but a fierce grin on his face.

  The scar tissue on the minotaur’s head smoothed and sprouted soft black hair, his left eye opened fully and started to glitter.

  Then he turned to Frass. “How touching, you have summoned your whole family to watch my triumph!”

  Frass, standing in the middle of the fauns, smiled but said nothing.

  The minotaur pointed at the faun. “I can see your weakness, Frass. I can see your lack of faith and your doubts swirling round you. But let me put your mind at rest. My plan has worked. Look! I am healed and I can see everyone’s weaknesses.” He whirled round. “Everyone’s!”

  Frass folded his arms. “Your plan has worked, Master, because the Three have healed you. But it hasn’t worked entirely as you promised, because the centaur is still alive, still challenging you, and at this moment of your triumph the centaur is standing in the heart of your own secret maze.”

  The minotaur stamped a bare foot. “A minor detail, easily solved. We have numbers on our side, so grab those insolent children and show them who is the Master!”

  The friends pressed together, aiming their weapons.

  Before the fauns could move, the Three said, “Oh no … that’s not what we want…”

  They glided over to the green couch in the corner. As they moved, Sylvie fell out of their cloak, scrambled to her paws and slunk over to her friends.

  The Three settled themselves, patting cushions and pulling cloak edges out from under each other, then spoke again, “We do like a nice big battle … but today we’d rather watch … a duel.”

  The Master shook his head. “With respect, ladies, why would I bother to duel with any of these children when I already have them at my mercy?”

  “Because your healings … are linked,” the Three said, sharing the sentences. “We were given two tokens tonight … but they were from the same rainfall … from the same footprint … so each contained only part of the healing force … You’re both healed now … but come the sunrise … the healing force … will settle in only one of you.

  “So you must fight a duel to decide … who keeps their healing … The winner stays healed … the loser returns … to how they were this afternoon … On the verge of death,” they nodded to Yann, “or blinded and scarred,” they nodded to the Master.

  Helen glanced at Lee. The faery’s face was white. “I’m sorry my friend,” he said to Yann. “I didn’t realise my trickery meant you only got half a healing token.”

  Yann smiled. “It was enough to get me here, for which I thank you all. But now I must earn the rest of my healing myself.”

  The Master frowned. “But I’d be mad to agree to a duel when I already have them trapped in the heart of my power, surrounded by my loyal soldiers. If you want to see a victor, then I will force this colt to bow to me. That will show who is the winner here.”

  He turned to Yann. “Horse-boy, bow down to me and I will let your friends go.”

  “I will not bow to you.”

  The Master said, “Frass. Grab his friends.”

  Frass said calmly, “Are you sure, Master? It would be an unfortunate start to the story of your triumph if you let others win your fight for you. The world will only get a true sense of your power if you defeat this young challenger on your own. I think the Three are right. I think you have to win this duel for yourself.” The faun leant back against the wall and smiled at the Master.

  The Master stared at the faun. “I will not forget this, goat.” Then he glanced at the Three, who pulled their hoods round their faces. “So, you want a duel. To the death, or surrender?”

  “That sounds lovely, dear … either would be nice,” they said.

  “And the winner stays healed and the loser, if the loser is still alive, loses his healing?” asked Yann.

  “Quite right, dear … so get on with it.”

  The Master turned to Yann. “You can’t fight with bow and arrows. It’s a long-range weapon, it wouldn’t be fair.”

  “No weapons at all,” said the Three. “We healed your bodies … so you must fight with your bodies … with hooves, horns, hands … Come on, we’re waiting.”

  Yann laid his bow and arrows down in a corner, then looked round the space, as if he was measuring how many paces he could take.

  Helen looked round too. To her left was the wall with the upside-down painting of the deer. Opposite them, the wall with the Turkish rug, where the fauns were standing. The next wall had a large wardrobe, which hadn’t swivelled, and the long tabletop, which had.

  The only furniture on the floor was the saggy couch the Three were sitting on.

  The Master stared at Yann. “You are so young, so arrogant, and you have so many weaknesses.”

  He turned to the group of fabled beasts, then, before any of them could react, he plucked Lavender out of the air.

  Yann shouted, “Let her go!”

  “No, boy. I’m just testing my new sight. The duel hasn’t started yet, so keep your distance or I will squash this little one.”

  He stared at the fairy for a minute, then kept hold of her as he examined the rest of them. “If I describe all your weaknesses, you might learn to overcome them. Perhaps I will keep my new knowledge to myself.”

  He looked hard at Lee and nodded. “I know that feeling.” He just shook his head when he looked in Rona’s face.

  Then he looked at Helen, standing behind Lee and Tangaroa. “A human. I see your weaknesses just as clearly as I see those of my fabled neighbours.” He grinned. “This sight will allow me to conquer every world!”

  He opened his fist, let Lavender go and strode back to the middle of the space. “Ready, boy?”

  Yann said, “Almost,” then stepped closer to his friends and whispered, “Get out of here if it looks like I’m losing. Lavender will lead you out. You’ve saved my life once today, don’t risk yourselves for me again.”

  The Master looked at all the friends gathered beside Yann. Then he f
rowned, and turned towards the Three.

  They pulled their hoods tighter. “Don’t look straight at us, minotaur … we would prefer you did not see…”

  “Of course, ladies, my apologies.” He spoke to the air above their heads. “But the sight you gave me is fading already. I can’t see the children’s weaknesses from here. Does it only work close up?”

  The Three laughed. “It works from any distance … but you are now seeing them as a team … Perhaps as a team … they have no weaknesses at all?”

  Yann smiled at his friends. “I wonder if that’s true?”

  “Even if it is,” said Lavender, “you have to fight this duel on your own.”

  So Yann stepped into the middle of the maze, to meet the Master.

  Chapter 28

  As Yann and the Master circled each other, Helen tried to work out who was bigger and heavier. There seemed to be more of Yann, because of his long horse body, his two arms and his four legs. But the centaur was slim and elegant, not heavy and muscular like the minotaur, who had a huge chest and shoulders holding up his massive head. The Master had longer, stronger arms too. If he managed to grab Yann, he could probably crush him.

  Though Yann had laid down his bow and the Master’s axe was leaning against the tartan couch, they both had weapons. Yann had four heavy hooves and the Master had two long horns.

  The Three watched the centaur and the minotaur walking round the space, but they were also busy with their hands. The oldest was knitting a mitten, the middle one was darning a sock, and the youngest was braiding a friendship bracelet.

  Suddenly the Master lowered his head and charged at Yann, his horns aimed at the centaur’s human chest.

  The centaur stepped out of the way and let the minotaur run past him. The Master skidded to a stop, so he didn’t run into the deer painting on the wall.

  Yann said, “Do you want to try that again, bull? I think you missed.”

  The Master roared and charged again. Yann leapt away, his fast hooves keeping him safe.

  Helen relaxed a little, wondering if Yann’s speed meant he could survive this duel.

  But escaping injury wouldn’t win a fight. And Yann had to win, to keep his own healing and to deny the Master the power for which the Great Dragon would punish her friends.

  Yann couldn’t spend the whole duel dancing on his hooves, he had to attack.

  She needn’t have worried. The next time the minotaur rushed at him, Yann stepped sideways, then reared up and crashed both front hooves onto the Master’s back.

  The Master grunted with pain and stumbled forward.

  Yann reared up again to attack a second time. But the Master spun round, seized Yann’s front legs and threw the centaur to the ground.

  Before the Master could lower his horns to gore him, Yann rolled and leapt up again.

  The two of them stood still, staring at each other, reassessing each other’s strength and skill after those first attacks.

  The Master smiled. “But your long delicate legs aren’t your real weakness, are they, colt?” He circled round, dipping his horns occasionally, slashing the sharpened tips towards Yann, laughing when the centaur jumped out of the way.

  “I know what your soft centre is, centaur!” The minotaur strode over to Yann’s friends. “It’s them, isn’t it? I could throw you down, stamp on you, stab you, and you’d bounce back up again, because you’re young and arrogant and don’t mind a bit of pain.

  “But if I hurt them…” He grabbed for Lavender again, but she’d already dived behind Helen.

  The minotaur stared at them with his glittering left eye. “I see their weaknesses. The fairy’s fear of being ripped apart. The selkie’s fear of teeth.” He opened his bull mouth and bellowed, showing his huge crushing molars.

  He turned back to Yann. “I won’t hurt them now. I’ll hurt them once I’ve killed you. I’ll pull the fairy apart, feather by feather. I’ll give the selkie to some long-fanged friends of mine, so they can chew her to bits.”

  Helen heard Rona gasp behind her and felt Lavender nestling deep into her hair.

  The Master boomed, “I’ll hurt them once I’ve killed you. Unless you surrender right now. Unless you bow down to me!”

  He jabbed his horns at Yann, who backed off and kicked out, almost losing his balance as he tried to watch the Master and look over to his friends at the same time.

  “It’s not honourable to threaten the audience at a duel,” gasped Yann. “This is between us.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, boy. I don’t care about honour. I care about victory! So surrender. Put down those hooves, or I will tell your friends what else their weaknesses suggest to me.”

  Yann kicked out at the bull’s left eye. The Master twisted away just in time.

  “Don’t you care about them? The faery boy, I could scar his face so badly with barbed wire that he would never glamour anyone again; the blue boy, I could tie him down in a desert and let him dry out until his tattoos flake off.”

  He charged at Yann again. The centaur leapt to the side and cantered over to his friends. “You have to get away! Please…”

  “No,” said Lee. “We will stay here and we will watch you win. That big bully’s threats don’t scare us.”

  But that wasn’t true. Lavender was shivering in Helen’s hair. Rona was sobbing behind her. Tangaroa was barely breathing in front of her. She’d even heard an unfamiliar shake in Lee’s voice.

  The Master knew how to get to the heart of each of their fears.

  Helen could hear him now, threatening to pull out all Sylvie’s teeth or lock Catesby in a freezer.

  Helen wondered what he would suggest for her, what weaknesses he had seen in her face. But the Master had stopped talking, to concentrate on avoiding Yann’s angry flurry of kicks.

  Then Helen wondered what weakness the Master would see in himself. What he would see if he looked at his own face in a mirror? Would he see his own fears, his own nightmares, his own hidden weaknesses? Would that make him shake the way her friends were shaking?

  She watched Yann, less sure on his hooves now he was worried about his friends.

  She watched the minotaur, striding about the heart of his own maze.

  She watched the Three, busy on the couch.

  And she wondered if she could force the Master to look in a mirror.

  She had seen that bedroom mirror out in the maze, but she wondered if there was anything in the heart of the maze which would show his reflection.

  She stared at the walls, past the fast-moving bull’s head and horse’s legs.

  Yann landed a kick on the Master’s chest, but while the centaur was close enough, the minotaur swung his horns and cut open Yann’s left arm.

  Now Helen was distracted by blood on the floor, as well as her friends’ fear. She tried to concentrate on the walls again. Picture, rug, couch, table, wardrobe…

  She remembered the antique wardrobe in her gran’s old house. It had a wire tie-rack, a shelf marked ‘hats’ and an oval mirror on the inside of the door.

  Would there be a mirror in that old wardrobe? Could she ask Yann to open the door, without alerting the Master to her plan?

  She whispered, “Lavender, can you get a message to Yann?”

  “Not if I have to go near the Master’s hands!”

  “He’s not going to hurt you now,” Helen murmured. “He’s just using your fears to hurt Yann. He’s only going to hurt you if Yann loses, and I have a way to stop Yann losing. Fly over there and ask him to kick the wardrobe door open. But don’t let the Master hear you. Pretend to be saying something else.”

  “What else?”

  Lee turned round and whispered, “Pretend to be begging Yann to surrender. The Master will believe that, even if Yann won’t.”

  Lavender wriggled out of Helen’s hair and hovered in front of her. “The wardrobe? Kick it open?”

  Helen nodded.

  So Lavender fluttered round the walls to the corner nearest Yann and called ou
t, “Yann, please. I can’t bear the Master knowing my weaknesses and threatening me with them.”

  She flew closer to Yann and landed on his shoulder, as the Master backed off, listening intently. The tiny fairy said loudly, “I beg you to surrender, to put our lives above your own.”

  Yann frowned at her and she moved closer to his ear, as the Master strode over to his fauns, yelling, “You see, Frass, knowing his weakness is the way to defeat any warrior! However many hooves he has!”

  Helen saw Yann nod. Lavender had delivered the message, now the flower fairy had to escape the battle ground. So Helen shouted, “Lavender, how dare you! Get back here and stop undermining Yann. We don’t all feel like she does, Yann. The rest of us think you should keep fighting. Her wishes don’t reflect ours. They don’t reflect ours at all.”

  Yann frowned again and Lavender, sobbing noisily, flew back from the centaur to Rona’s arms.

  Yann looked at Helen. At Lavender. At the Master. And at the wardrobe.

  Then he edged round the walls, ducking fresh horn attacks, flicking fast hooves back in return. When he reached the wardrobe, he kicked out with his left front hoof at the top corner of the door.

  The door flew open with a crash and shards of glass clattered onto the floor.

  Yann’s kick had opened the door, but he’d also broken the mirror.

  Chapter 29

  Helen watched Yann limp round the room, blood dripping from his front leg. She sighed. Her stupid idea, asking a centaur to kick a mirror, had weakened Yann rather than the Master.

  The Master was taunting Yann. “You missed that time, boy! But please, blunt your hooves on my maze as often as you like!”

  Helen sighed again, but with relief this time. The minotaur hadn’t understood what Yann was trying to do. So they could try again. But with what?

  Lee leant back and whispered, “What was that about?”

  Helen replied, “I wondered what the Master would see in his own reflection. What weaknesses he’d see, what that would do to him.”

  The faery smiled. “Clever. Sneaky. So we need another mirror. You attacked a mirror halfway through the maze. We could go and get that.”