“Keep your arm elevated.” Iris stepped over to one of the saplings and began pulling experimentally at a branch.
“Vandal!” hissed Annie playfully. For all that they’d suffered, she refused to abandon her sense of humour.
The doctor glanced back with a slight smile. “You need a splint. Unfortunately, these are pretty tough; I can’t break them off with my bare hands.”
A rustling of fake grass made them both glance up. They saw Rivers returning from her reconnaissance of the passageway. There were dark rings under the scientist’s eyes, an unwelcome reminder of how tired Annie felt. She wondered what the time was, back on the Bona Dea.
Past midnight, she decided. The witching hour.
Further rustling alerted them to Bala and Buchu returning from the opposite direction. The latter’s arms were laden with a number of metallic and wooden objects. Weapons, she realised, as he drew closer.
Buchu was evidently pleased with the find. “Hope, my friends! Our destiny lies in our own hands once more.”
“They were lying in a heap at the point where the passage forks,” added Bala.
“Anything else of interest?” asked Rivers.
“There are further forks ahead. Another maze, I think.”
“I concur; it’s the same up there.” Rivers jerked her thumb back the way she’d come from. “I can’t see any clear hints as to which way we should go, but I could hear running water up one of the passages. We’ll investigate there first, I think. But before that let’s arm ourselves.”
Annie grabbed a sword from Buchu’s arms. It was large, rusty and, as she soon discovered, extremely heavy. It slipped from her fingers and landed with a muffled thud.
“Whoa! How’re we meant to use these? Can’t hardly lift it, let alone swing it.”
“Remember where we are,” responded Rivers with mild rebuke. “These weapons are meant for Gatarans. The weakest of them is still twice as strong as any of us. Still, there are a few smaller specimens here …’ She plucked a dagger from Buchu’s collection. It had a twelve-inch blade – as rusty as the sword’s had been, but serviceable.
“If they’re giving us weapons, I guess we’re gonna have to fight. I wonder who? Krikili again? Hope not.”
“Be careful what you wish for. The alternative might be worse.”
“Can’t imagine anything much worse than that creepy jackass.”
“It’s not about what you can imagine, it’s about what the Gatarans can imagine.” Switching once again to Matan, Rivers addressed Buchu. “Do you have any idea what to expect now?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve never seen this part of the Zakazashi before. It must be new. Won’t the rest of you take up arms?”
Bala selected a flail – a wooden handle with a spiked ball attached to it by a chain. Iris picked out a wooden stave, but not for her own usage. As she explained, it would make a serviceable splint.
The doctor tightly bound the splint to Annie’s forearm and wrist, using strips torn from her trousers. Iris wanted to place the arm in a sling as well, but Annie adamantly refused. She hated the idea of having her mobility restricted the next time they had to fight or run. Bala, meanwhile, had been practising with her flail. She claimed to be unused to fighting with weapons but picked it up quickly with a few tips from Buchu. Soon they were ready to move.
“Any master plan to get out of here, Prof?” asked Annie, as the five of them started towards the passage where Rivers had heard the running water.
“We’ll follow the instructions we were given before we boarded the elevator.”
“Instructions?”
“Yes. Written on the wall above the doors. You didn’t see it?”
“Saw it, yeah – just didn’t have time to read it all. Other things on my mind, y’know?”
“It said, ‘Examination 3 this way - seek the heart’.”
“The heart, hmm? The heart of the maze? How we gonna find that?”
Rivers frowned. “Technically, it’s a labyrinth, not a maze, but we can quibble over lexical semantics another time. As to finding the heart, the centre … that won’t be easy, but the more we explore, the more we learn about the overall layout. We need to build up a picture of this place in our minds, find the underlying logic behind the layout. Look for patterns. You should excel here – people from engineering professions usually score highly on tests based upon spatial awareness.”
“Right.” Annie’s successes had always been built more around creative thinking than the kind of spatial reasoning Rivers was describing, but this wasn’t the time for pessimism.
She strode forth with as much confidence as she could muster.
“Let’s get to it.”
* * *
“Chin up, lass, we’re not beaten yet.”
“Mm.” Gypsy nodded absently. She knew intellectually that her mother was right – every corner they turned might reveal the exit. Oh, to see open air again! She longed for it in a way she never had in all those years spent in her room back on the Bona Dea.
But she couldn’t believe they were getting out, could hardly even imagine the possibility. The Zakazashi had been playing with them from the start – now would come the final, killing stroke.
We’ll all die here. All of us. Please just let it be quick …
Her gaze ran over the smooth, elegantly curving walls of the tunnel. They’d already passed through one area where the temperature was uncomfortably hot, then another stretch where it was bitingly cold. In both cases, they could hear the whirr of machinery about them, and see vents cut into the ceiling; the environmental conditions were artificially generated.
By contrast, the basic structure of the labyrinth itself felt natural to Gypsy, as though it fully belonged here beneath the earth. She might even have called it beautiful, had she been at liberty to explore it at her leisure. There was something … logical about the precise way in which the paths curved and branched, as though some higher law had governed their creation. The contrast with the crude tunnels of Examination 2 was striking.
Yet surely they too had been made by the Gatarans. Who else could be responsible?
She tried her best to focus on that question, or to think up a proper plan to find the exit. But she couldn’t keep her mind off the ever-present shadow of death for long. Side passages opened up at regular intervals, smaller than the main way, often winding up or down. Many of them were too narrow for even Gypsy to squeeze into.
But something else might squeeze out.
Her fears swept once again to the forefront of her mind. She pictured Krikili or some other monster lying in wait down one of the passages. She pictured the floor giving way beneath their feet, plunging them without warning into a dark abyss. She pictured spikes, blades, nooses, guns …
Just let it be quick.
Alice came to a halt at a split in the passage, a point where one elegant curve became two. The two new paths swept onwards, largely parallel and almost identical in size. Both these ways were lined with little mirrors that shifted back and forth, creating a disorienting effect.
They made quite a racket while doing so, a grating assault on Gypsy’s eardrums. She winced, wishing once again for the protection of her headphones. How could her mother just stand there, unaffected by the noise?
“You know, I’ve been thinking,” said Alice suddenly. “Maybe we ought to try something different.”
Gypsy frowned as she tried to concentrate. “What sort of thing?”
“Well, this place is huge. It could take forever to look down every passage if we’re sticking together.” Gypsy was already shaking her head, but her mother pressed on. “I’m not saying to split up permanent like, just to explore down different ways for a bit, then meet up back in a place like this that’s easy to find. We can pick out the path that’s most promising, and we’d be twice as likely to find the way out.”
“Ah, no, bad idea, I mean … not good,” said Gypsy, then paused to try and figure out why. “Erm, there’s got to
be more danger if we’re alone. Half as many eyes to spot traps.”
“Maybe.” Alice regarded her daughter thoughtfully. “But we might have to split up sooner or later. What if the way out’s down one of them little side passages? You might fit, but not me.” She pointed to an aperture in the wall behind Gypsy’s left shoulder. “How about trying one of them, at least? See if there’s anything different there.”
Gypsy turned to look down the passage. Actually, more tunnel than passage, she thought. It was smooth-sided and waist-height. From what she could see of it, it grew smaller as it went along. Gypsy had never had a major problem with confined spaces, but she’d never met a phobia she couldn’t acquire with a little exposure. The thought of getting stuck somewhere her mother couldn’t reach didn’t bear thinking about.
“I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” she said.
“Why not?”
The screeching mirrors seemed to be getting louder to Gypsy’s troubled mind. She pressed her fingers in her ears, scrunched her eyes closed and tried desperately to concentrate.
“The way out couldn’t be down one of them,” she said at length. “This maze is for Matans – they’d never be able to fit. Please – we need to stay together.” She looked into her mother’s eyes. Grey, like hers. To Gypsy, they looked not frightened as her own must, but calm and wise.
“Okay,” said Alice. “I suppose that makes sense. Let’s try and stick with each other.”
“Thanks, Mum.”
As they resumed their search, Gypsy paid little heed to the shifting reflections to either side. She focussed her mind on the woman she walked with, a life preserver keeping her afloat.
There’s still hope …
* * *
“Well, Iris? Anything different?”
“No,” the doctor replied, working her way carefully back from the tunnel she’d been investigating. “Just the same layout we’ve been seeing, but on a smaller scale. Circles within circles.”
Rivers tutted lightly. It was taking more and more willpower not to cry out in frustration. Again and again, they were encountering the same pattern: two loops joined at a single point, with a series of smaller tunnels linking the two. The loops would grow thicker as they followed them, becoming twice as wide once they reached the point opposite to where the inner and outer circles joined.
For all that the curving paths gave the illusion of multiple choices, there was only ever one way to progress – back at the point where the two circles touched, a single path would lead gently upwards, until it came out at another, identical version of the same pattern, but slightly smaller. They’d already investigated a couple of these shrinking towers, each time being foiled when the way onwards simply became too narrow to follow, each time being forced to trudge back the way they’d come and admit defeat.
Rivers had been hopeful that this time would be different. This series of levels had been completely dark, forcing them to explore by torchlight. An extra challenge, perhaps, to deter contestants from finding the exit?
Apparently not. Once again, they’d gone as far as they could. In frustration, Rivers had despatched the slender Iris to crawl up the tiny path to the next level. A wasted effort, it seemed.
“Very well. We retrace our steps and press on.”
Annie sighed with what struck Rivers as excessive volume. “We definitely gotta try a new approach. This is getting us nowhere.”
The professor didn’t trust herself to respond. Wordlessly, she retrieved the torch from Iris and began crawling back down to the lower level where they’d left Buchu, the bulky Gataran being too broad-shouldered to easily manoeuvre himself this far up.
Bala responded on her behalf. “It isn’t getting us nowhere. Think rationally. We’ve a finite area to explore. Each square inch we cover alters the equation a little in our favour. More done, less to do.”
“Sure, sounds simple like that,” Annie responded. “Maybe that’s our problem, though. Too simple. We’ve had to use our smarts up until now. What if there’s some sorta clue we’re overlooking?”
Rivers paused, glancing back at the technician. Annie’s face looked haggard in the harsh light of the torch, her eyes sunken and face smudged.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Rivers prompted.
Annie frowned. “Well, what about that pattern that kept coming up in the second exam? You know, in that bit with the tunnel and the weird gravity.”
Rivers shook her head as she resumed her descent. “No, I thought of that a while back, but it was a pattern that only works when confronted with a series of junctions with four branches. This labyrinth doesn’t qualify.”
“Okay, so why is that? It’s all so elaborate and … precise down here. Maybe that’s a clue, somehow?”
“A clue in what way?” asked Bala.
“Don’t know,” responded Annie reluctantly. “But that’s how you solve a riddle, right? Come at it from every angle you can think of till you hit on the answer.”
Rivers fell silent for a moment, listening to the squeak of her shoes on the smooth stone of the tunnel floor. Speculating based on little to no data was, she’d always felt, an odious habit, and often the mark of a greedy scientist, one eager to skip straight to the conclusion of a study without putting in the hard graft, be it mental or physical. But this was no lab experiment. Annie was right, they had to pursue all avenues of thought.
“I do have a theory, but I don’t think it will get us anywhere. We’ve all noticed that these tunnels seem to pre-date the Zakazashi – that is to say, the challenge designers have tunnelled into an existing structure and added their own enhancements. So, who was the original designer? A Gataran from generations past? I doubt it. Buchu hadn’t heard of this place existing before he came here, and who would go to the trouble of chiselling a labyrinth out of solid rock only to keep it a secret?
“I think this was all here centuries before the Gataran colony was even established. I think it’s the work of Vitana.”
“Vitana? That no-good ship-wrecker? Hey, you might be onto something there, Prof. I remember someone saying that it had visited all the colonies in the past. And it seems to have a thing for making tunnels.”
“Quite so. It would also explain the size and the scale – feats of design that might be impossible for creatures of flesh and blood are nothing for an Earth God. Or at least,” she added quickly, “for an alien intelligence of vast capabilities that has been granted that label.” Referring to deities was improperly unscientific.
“Okay!” said Annie with renewed enthusiasm. “So we’re makin’ some progress. Now if we could just kinda … get inside Vitana’s head for a minute, maybe we could somehow, ah, get a picture of what this place is and what it’s for, figure out the overall shape…”
“Precisely why I said that my theory wouldn’t help us. Vitana, as far as we know, has no head to ‘get into’. It’s utterly alien and incomprehensible in a way that no Matan could ever be.”
“Chamonix might understand it.”
“Not much, based on my conversations with her. In any case, Chamonix isn’t here.”
“Yeah, but she’s told us some stuff about it. Vitana’s cold, clinical, believes in order. It’s aloof, self-centred maybe.”
“None of which helps us in the slightest,” responded Rivers, a trifle more sharply than she had intended. She sighed. “My apologies. It is worth further consideration.”
They emerged into the lower level – the eighth from the bottom, if Rivers’ memory served. Buchu rose to his feet as they entered; the burly Gataran was forced to remain slightly stooped to avoid cracking his skull on the ceiling. In contrast both to the women and to his own earlier appearance, he looked almost cheerful as he greeted them. Having a weapon in his hands was evidently a cure for all ills.
“Nothing up there,” reported Rivers, moving on to the next downward passage. “Buchu, are there any old fables that your people have about labyrinths built by Vitana?”
“Yes, many,�
� replied the Gataran, falling into place behind her. The works of the old chititha poetry masters are still with us today.
“Always, the stories would follow a set form. A party of four adventurers, journeying beneath the earth to seek Vitana. One of the four would turn on their companions and be struck down in self-defence. Another would be borne away by a monster, set in place to guard the deep, secret places of Srisade. In most tellings, that monster was Krikili.
“The final two adventurers would stand before the Earth God, which would appear to them as a five-armed giant, hewn from stone. They would petition it to grant their deepest desire. Vitana would slay one for being unworthy, then accede to the wishes of the other. The poem would end with the hero’s triumphant return home.”
“And how would their worthiness be judged?”
“That would vary. A highly skilled poet could gauge by her audience’s reactions which character they considered the most noble and see to it that their quest succeeded. But these are myths, my alien friend. Vitana never appeared to our ancestors that way.”
He seems able to consider Vitana far more clinically than Krikili, thought Rivers. But then, an imitation of Vitana hasn’t killed seven of his friends.
“Vitana itself was a myth, one which proved to be true,” she noted. “It may have built this place, or at least inspired its creation. Tell us one of these stories, and we’ll see if there’s a clue to our own situation hidden in there somewhere.”
“Very well. I am no poet, but shall try to fill the role faithfully…”
Buchu proved to be an adept storyteller. His deep voice rumbled through the passage as they retraced their steps. Even if we don’t find any clues in this story, mused Rivers, it should provide enough of a distraction to keep this little team from turning on itself.
Her stomach rumbled; she checked her backpack. Two nutrition bars and a few mouthfuls of water left.
Amygdala Page 27
