For now, at least.
* * *
Alice was leading Gypsy through an unadorned arc of passageway when they became aware of distant noises. It was Gypsy who detected them first, stiffening and coming to an abrupt halt, clutching at her mother’s arm with uncharacteristic force. Alice could hear nothing for several moments; she was at the point of asking for an explanation when the sounds finally reached her ears.
Soft scuffling, too irregular to be anything mechanical.
Someone was on the move. Or something, perhaps.
“It’s Krikili,” breathed Gypsy, her voice wavering and barely audible. “It’s still after us.”
“No,” responded Alice, trying to sound reassuring while keeping her own voice to a whisper. “That’s not the sound it makes. We’ve left it behind.”
The first part of her statement was certainly true: this wasn’t the series of clicks and scrapes they’d heard so often during the second Examination. It sounded more like a brushing, or a swishing perhaps. Clearly different. Probably better, but she couldn’t count on that.
Alice hefted the weapon she’d acquired a short while ago – a crude wooden club, one of a number that they’d found piled higgledy-piggledy in the centre of a passage. It was top-heavy and awkwardly long, but she felt capable of getting at least one good meaty blow in if she swung it two-handed.
Gypsy, similarly armed, gulped and raised her own club with an effort.
“Stay close,” cautioned Alice. “Quietly now … maybe it’ll pass us by…”
Precious little hope of that; the scuffling was getting louder, closer. She was starting to get a feel for which direction it was coming from. Her eyes locked on a pair of tunnels in the left-hand wall a few yards ahead of them. One of those. Yes, the far one …
Alice crept over to the opening, aware of Gypsy shadowing her. She motioned her daughter to back up a few paces so that she’d have room to swing.
She hoisted her club, letting the heavy end oscillate slightly, like a baseball batter facing her first pitch. The opening was perfectly circular and a little over a yard wide. No reason to miss.
The sounds of approach were very close, and Alice now felt she could make out the sound of ragged breathing, though distorted by echoes.
Good: flesh ‘n’ blood I can handle.
Alice slowly tightened her grip …
… and realised that she’d made a mistake. The source of the noise abruptly clarified – not in front, but behind. She was standing at the wrong opening.
Whirling, she saw a dark hand grasp the rim of the tunnel at her daughter's elbow. Gypsy yelped and staggered away, dropping her club with a clatter.
Cursing, Alice tried to reorient herself to face the correct source of attack.
Then a round, wide-eyed face followed the hand.
“Ki!”
Alice practically screamed the word. She sprang forward and physically hauled Kiaya Ferguson out into the passageway.
“Ki, thank God!”
“You said it, lady.” Ferguson looked bruised, battered and bedraggled, but she still managed a toothy smile as she hugged Alice. “You’re a sight for mighty sore eyes. You too, Honey Girl. How you doin’?”
This last was addressed to Gypsy, who responded with an automatic “Okay I think,” but Alice new her daughter's voice well enough to detect an easing off of nervous tension. This was just what they needed – grounds for optimism at last, however small.
They filled each other in on recent events, which didn’t take long – lots of curving passageways, no signs of an exit.
“Been turning left at every junction,” said Ferguson. “Seems as good a way as any. Leastways, I’ve done that when I can fit – some of these’d be a tight squeeze for a worm.”
“Going left sounds good,” replied Alice. “We’ve just come from the right.”
“Sweet! Let’s go.”
“Wait…” Gypsy picked up her club and proffered it to Ferguson. “Why don’t you take this?” She smiled ruefully at Alice. “I don’t think I’m going to be much use if it comes to that.”
Alice ran an affectionate hand through her daughter’s hair. It was tangled and full of soot. Definitely in need of attention when they got home.
“You have your own ways of saving the day, love. You’ve proved that already, remember?”
“Uh-huh.”
The three of them set out along the passage, taking left turns in accordance with Ferguson’s method. They tried to remain vigilant for pitfalls, traps and other surprises, but several hours spent without facing immediate danger had dulled the edge of their watchfulness somewhat. At length, they began talking as they went.
“Wish I had Jess here,” said Ferguson, her gaze sweeping idly from side to side as they entered a stretch of green-lit passage. “Aside from the obvious reasons, she’s got a crazy-good sense of direction. Me, I’d get lost walking to the mall, never mind a messed-up warren like this.”
“I suppose there might be some sort of logic to it if you could get a proper look at the layout, the whole thing, I mean,” mused Alice. “I wonder whether we’re supposed to be looking for somewhere int’ middle of the maze, or the edge?”
“Be in the middle: ‘seek the heart’, remember?” Ferguson took in their blank expressions. ‘Guess you guys missed it: that’s what it said we had to do here, right when we got in the lifts.’
“Yes, didn’t spot that. So, what’s likely to…” Alice trailed off as she noticed that Gypsy had stopped again. “Heard something?”
But even as she spoke, she realised that her daughter wasn’t reacting in fear. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open in dawning epiphany. Even in the dim light, Alice could recognise Gypsy’s eureka face. The young woman began speaking, the words tripping over each other.
“Oh, oh … the heart of the maze. But it’s really a heart! Why didn’t I…? It was, ah, the thing in the blue room, it were, it was saying a map, with the heart right there! Right there!” She looked in frustration from Alice to Ferguson, realising that they weren’t understanding her.
Alice fought back against a surge of excitement to keep her voice calm. “Steady now, love. Three deep breaths, then tell us what you’ve thought of.”
Gypsy did as she was told, the first breath hurried and uneven, the second and third much improved. She addressed Ferguson with only the slightest of quavers in her voice.
“Ki, do you know if, if Matan hearts are shaped like ours?”
“Mm-hmm, pretty much. Four chamber set-up. Why d’you ask?”
“I think it’s a play on words. ‘Seek the heart’. Do you remember the room where I solved, erm, where Professor Rivers and I solved the number sequences?”
“Of course,” said Alice.
“Some equations appeared on the ceiling afterwards: they were describing a Mandelbrot set. That’s a mathematical pattern – it can be used to make all sorts of beautiful shapes, in two dimensions, or three, or more.”
“This labyrinth,” said Ferguson slowly. “That’s the shape the equations were describing.”
“Yes.” Gypsy smiled. “Yes, exactly. Now we know where we are.”
“But it was Rivers who wrote them down. We don’t have a copy.”
“That won’t matter,” said Alice with a strong surge of pride.
Gypsy nodded. “I can remember them.” The mathematician’s eyes glazed over as she focussed her attention inwards. “And I can see the pattern they make. I know what the labyrinth looks like.”
“Do you know where we are in it? Can you lead us to an exit?”
“Oh, yes, I think so.”
Ferguson grinned, shaking her head in disbelief. “Lady, you’re a lotta work, but when you score, you score big.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, I should have thought of it sooner.”
Alice smiled at the sight of Gypsy, blushing and eyes downcast. Just for a second, she could forget where they were and enjoy a moment of normality.
Then her
nostrils twitched. She frowned.
“What’s that?”
A rotten odour was filling the passageway. The scent of decay, of death.
Recognition dawned for all three of them. They’d smelt that scent before.
Dust drifted past their eyes in a small cloud. Powdered stone, falling from above.
Alice’s gaze tracked up to the ceiling. They were standing directly below a squarish hole. It was rough around the edges – not a natural part of the labyrinth but a later addition.
A pair of arms shot down through the hole, skeletal in shape and metallic in nature. Six wicked fingers closed about the throat of Kiaya Ferguson, each of them long enough to fully encircle her neck as they locked in a horrific, unbreakable grip.
The scientist bared her teeth, her scream choked away. She managed to heft the club Gypsy had given her, jabbing upwards with all her strength. The weapon found nothing but empty air.
With no apparent effort Ferguson was hoisted aloft, vanishing into a cloud of inky blackness.
Krikili was still stalking them.
XI
Get up, stand up, don’t give up the fight.
– Bob Marley
“No. No, no, no. It can’t do that, it didn’t make a clicking sound, it’s supposed to…”
“Gypsy.”
Gypsy Cumberland stared at her mother without seeing her. “It cheated! It can’t do that! It can’t-”
Alice slapped her daughter sharply on the cheek. “Gypsophila! Pull yourself together!”
The younger woman sagged against the passage wall, despair coursing through her. Just for a moment, she’d allowed herself hope. This was her punishment. “She was nice, Mum. She had a wife. What did she do wrong? It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not.” Through a haze of tears, Gypsy saw her mother reach out to draw her away from the deadly rent in the ceiling. “But we can’t help her. Can’t even mourn her, not till later. We’re in danger now.”
With a jolt, Gypsy realised that that was true, her attention lurching from the fate of Ferguson to that of herself and her mother. She pushed herself upright.
“Yes, we should, ah, we should hide quick.”
“Hide where?”
“Don’t know, we’ll find a side passage, somewhere small where it can’t get us. Come on!” Gypsy tugged at her mother’s sleeve but found her suddenly to be as unyielding as the stone beneath their feet. “Come on!” she urged again.
“You said you knew the way out.”
“Yes, but…” Gypsy tried to summon the image of the Mandelbrot set in her mind’s eye but the result was hazy and unfinished. “I can’t concentrate out here. Let’s find somewhere safe where I can think.”
“If we do that, I’ll never get you to shift again.”
“Please, Mum! Just for a few -”
“No.”
Alice stepped close. Gypsy felt her mother’s arms wrap about her in a partial embrace; Alice’s hands, instead of meeting each other, rose to cover Gypsy’s ears.
Spreading her fingers slightly so that she could speak through them, Alice whispered urgently. “You’re going to close your eyes, and you’re not going to open them again until you know the way out. This needs a clear head now, love. No more worrying. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Gypsy doubted that was a promise her mother could keep.
But she closed her eyes nonetheless.
There was nothing but fear and chaos at first. As Gypsy’s gaze turned inwards, she saw Hisano and Ferguson snatched away again, saw their deaths in the most precise detail that the ever-churning sea of her imagination could reflect. Might they still be alive? Perhaps Krikili had only captured them. Perhaps the Zakazashi wasn’t a lethal game at all, but merely a pantomime, a show with a false veneer of danger slapped on to thrill the watching public. Wasn’t that possible?
But surely someone couldn’t survive being lifted up by their neck like that? Too much pressure on too weak an area. How must it feel, being caught in that grip, the sudden jerk as you were hoisted up and away …
Clear head now.
She focused on her mother, the way her chest rose and fell with each breath. Slow and steady.
Mum must feel as sad and frightened as me. How can she keep so calm? It should be her who has this gift for maths, not me. What a waste. What a cruel trick of the universe, to take such capacities and cram them into my poor brain, a weak ship sinking beneath a heavy load …
Enough.
Stop.
Clear head.
Gypsy let her mind go back to the room where she’d seen the Mandelbrot equations, remembered how she’d felt as she’d first looked at them.
Yes. I can see them.
She let the map of the labyrinth unfold naturally in her mind instead of trying to force it. There it was, symmetrical, roughly almond-shaped.
Beautiful.
It had been flawlessly crafted by Vitana – she recognised the architect in a flash of insight. The Matan Earth God had almost nothing in common with the fleeting organic life that had sprung into existence here and there about the expanse of creation, but the laws of mathematics had existed immutably since the Big Bang. They were there for everyone to enjoy, great or small. This work of mathematical art had existed since the birth of the universe, like a statue in a solid block of marble, waiting for the right artist to come along and set it free.
Vitana sculpted all this, then the Gatarans came along and found it, and worked out the equations that governed it. Now here we are in the middle of it.
No, not the middle. We’re … there. Just there.
Gypsy opened her eyes. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, but her tears had dried; her vision was clear. Gently, she pulled back from her mother’s protective embrace.
“You know which way to go?”
“Yes.” Gypsy pointed to a side passage. “That’s the quickest way.”
“Is it far?”
“Hard to judge, but yes, quite far I think. Probably over an hour if we walk.”
Alice’s jaw was set firm.
“Then we run.”
* * *
When Krikili came for the rest of the team, it did so without subtlety.
They all heard the sounds of its approach at about the same time. Conversation died as they strained their ears for confirmation – yes, there was that scraping once again, coming from behind them, distant but drawing rapidly closer.
While her companions cursed this latest ill fortune, Bala simply nodded. She hadn’t ever truly believed they’d seen the last of this creature. The creators of the Zakazashi had plainly planned for this to be the central menace, the primary obstacle for contestants to overcome. It would be with them right to the end now.
She looked to Rivers. The professor was grinding her teeth. A sign of frustrated realisation, Bala guessed, that they only had one option, and it wasn’t a good one.
“Sandra …?” she prompted.
Rivers nodded, accepting the inevitable. “It’s no use running when we don’t know where we’re going. We fight. Buchu, you’ll charge Krikili as soon as it comes into view. The rest of the team will follow up while it’s off balance. Try and aim for the head and keep striking it in the same place. We can do this.”
Buchu had already taken up his place as the vanguard. It was a sensible decision to let him go first, Bala mused as she dropped into a defensive crouch. The Gataran didn’t look likely to have the discipline to hold back. He was bouncing on his heels, broadsword swinging from side to side, making melodramatic pronouncements about glorious battle; she wasn’t sure whether he seriously expected to win, but perhaps that didn’t matter. Buchu had been ready to fight since the moment his hands had touched a weapon, and the feeling of power it brought with it.
Bala herself felt less well prepared, both physically and mentally. A few more hours practising with the flail would have been helpful, but that wasn’t what concerned her the most. There was a feeling of wrongnes
s about this, a sense that simple violence couldn’t be the answer. But what else was there?
She tested the weight of her weapon. The wooden grip felt course and rough beneath her fingers.
Sorry, Father. It looks like I’ll just be relying on my body this time.
The sounds of approach had been rapidly drawing nearer. Now they abruptly changed in pitch, becoming a continuous ragged screech. Bala had to fight the urge to clap her hands over her ears to protect them from the assault.
Around the corner came Krikili, clad in darkness with eyes blazing and arms flung wide. The passage here was some twenty feet across, but the demon’s outstretched fingers grazed the walls on either side as it glided towards them. Sparks flew where metal met stone, while a quartet of scythe-like secondary appendages waved and crashed overhead.
It was a horrific vision. Bala found herself taking an involuntary step back, her instincts begging her to flee.
Buchu also appeared briefly cowed by the display, but he rallied quickly, letting out a wordless battle cry and charging headlong at the grim abomination, sweeping his sword in a wide arc. Bala heard the clash of metal on metal, but the contact seemed to have little impact on Krikili’s advance. With a surge of speed, it flung itself into the midst of the four women, drawing its limbs inwards so that they momentarily vanished into the inky darkness.
Bala began to swing her weapon, then paused. Her instincts told her that this was not the moment.
They were spot on. Krikili’s many limbs whirled, circling about its body in a blur of motion. Bala barely had time to duck a swinging scythe, and she felt another rush of air down by her feet, signifying a narrow escape.
Others were less fortunate. She heard a cry of pain to her right – Annie, by the sound of it – while from the other side came the thud of a body hitting the deck. No time to think about that, though; Krikili had stopped spinning.
Now or never …
Bala was careful not to rush her stroke. She spun the heavy spiked ball several times about her to build up speed, eyes searching the darkness for any sign of the monster’s head. And there it was, twin pools of blazing light in a dark silver skull.
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