The Spiral Labyrinth

by Matthew Hughes

  "I will not compromise."

  "You did last time."

  For the first time, Chay-Chevre's stony eyes blinked. "Go and discuss," the fungus said. "But return soon. Or I will send my partners to bring you."

  I looked down. A swirl of insects covered the wizardress's naked feet. I leaned backwards and the disk began to edge away. But then I saw that as the symbiote had faded from the woman's eyes, she had come to the fore. Helpless and despair peered out at me, and her lips formed words for which she had no breath: "Help me."

  I spread my hands in a gesture of powerlessness. And leaned so that the whirlwind would take me back to the ship. But before the turn took her out of my sight, I saw her lips shape two more words.

  #

  "I take it that we are not going to choose the obvious solution," Lavelan said, after I had explained the situation. "We give the grinnet to the symbiote--"

  "No," said my assistant, "we don't."

  "Of course," Lavelan said, "we first transcribe all the useful spells. No point wasting then on an insect-ridden fungus."

  "No," I said, at the same time as Osk Rievor. I let him lead the discussion.

  "The fungus has changed since we encountered it in the previous age," he said. "It was more reasonable then, more willing to bargain and accept a partial result. Now it wants what it wants."

  "That seems to be the signature of the age," I said, "as is understandable in a cosmos animated by will."

  "We can undertake the philosophical discussion later," my other self said. "At the moment we should confine ourselves to practicalities." He addressed himself to Pars Lavelan. "The problem with giving it the grinnet, or even if we just turn over all the magical lore stored within our assistant, is that we will not have given it what it wants."

  I said, "The grinnet's store of knowledge, but in my brain. It is still convinced that its flawed memory was true. But even if we convinced it that it was wrong, and even if we gave it the grinnet, it would soon realize that it still did not have what it wanted."

  "Which is?" Pars Lavelan said.

  "Everything. Almost certainly including us." I had been thinking about the symbiote and now advanced a theory. "It is not just a matter of its unchecked willfulness," I said. "When we earlier dealt with it, it had only lately discovered the complexity and vastness of what there was to know. We brought it an instrument that let it indulge its appetite, and it was happy.

  "But eventually the change came. The integrator we had brought it, like so many others of its kind, lost its capacity to enlighten and entertain. The fungus, too, suffered a loss of knowledge, as does every sapient being when the Great Wheel reaches one of its periodic cusps. It did not know what it used to know, did not even know what knowledge it had lost; it knew only that something it had loved had been taken away."

  Osk Rievor took up the argument. "Equipped with a damaged memory but an enhanced will, it began to cry out for what it wanted. It could not accurately remember the circumstances, but it recalled a mind filled with knowledge and magic. It associated that mind with the misremembered name 'Apthorn.' And so it began to bellow that name. So powerful was its will that its voice not only reverberated through all of the Nine Planes, but generated a Tenth Plane all of its own.

  "It probed through all the continua, until it found something that resonated with 'Apthorn' -- that something was us. When it sensed that we would be present at a place where ley lines connected, it projected itself there. But 'there' was also 'then' -- the coordinates were in the previous age, an environment unfavorable to creatures built around sheer will, and its projection was weak.

  "It learned of another nearby location where it could manifest itself more strongly, a forest where three major ley lines met. It lured us there, met us in strength, and proceeded to offer me what I wanted."

  Now it was my turn to say, "Which was?"

  "I would be ashamed to admit to it," Osk Rievor said. "A ridiculous fantasy I took to be real, because I thought it was my heart's desire."

  "But then," I said, "it found that you were not what it was looking for, so it came looking for me -- who also turned out to be not what it wanted. But it was close. What it wanted was sitting on my shoulder. Now we are stranded on a small world whose most powerful force is our enemy. With access to Chay-Chevre's knowledge it can only grow even stronger. It will come for us, and we will not be able to prevent it from making us, and the grinnet, part of its collective. Once it gets control of the spells in our assistant's memory, nothing in this present age could stop it. It could bury whole worlds in luminescent layers of itself."

  My assistant shivered. I could not blame it for being afraid. Our situation was no better than its.

  "So what do we do?" Pars Lavelan said.

  "Curiously," I said, "I think I have a plan."

  #

  "Do you remember," I asked the symbiote, "that when you encountered us in the forest and lured us into the interplanar labyrinth, there were two of us in the same body?"

  "Yes," it said, through Chay-Chevre's mouth. She stood again in the mouth of the crevice, her feet aswarm with insects.

  "You did not think that was odd?"

  "It was not odd. I am millions in one form."

  "First you took my partner, but he did not have what you wanted."

  "True."

  "Then you took me, and I did not have it."

  "So you say."

  "It is true. I could not hide it from you."

  The fungus made no immediate response. After a while it said, "Then who has it? Who has the knowledge?"

  "The other one of me," I said. "The third of us."

  "There are three of you?"

  "Why not? You include millions, why shouldn't I contain three? Think back to when we first met: did you not sense three of us?"

  "Perhaps I did. The third was a fainter presence. I recall a certain degree of reluctance."

  "He was hiding from you. He has that power."

  "Where is this third of you?"

  "Still where you found us, in the forest."

  Again it was silent, but I could see that it was still present in the wizardress's body. "I will go and get him," it said.

  "He will not come."

  "Not even to save you?"

  "Not even for me."

  "Then how will you get him to come?"

  "I will trick him," I said.

  "How?"

  "I don't yet know. I will have to improvise."

  #

  When I returned to the ship, the others had been busy. Together, Pars Lavelan and Osk Rievor had consulted Smiling Bol's reference works and had conjured an interplanar entity to copy several of the most powerful spells from the grinnet's compendium into a new grimoire. The book lay on a table in Bol's cabin as the scribe put the finishing touches to it.

  "We must check the transcriptions meticulously," Lavelan said. "The continuum from which the transcriber has been drawn is notorious for its artful pranks."

  "What manner of pranks?" I said.

  "The kind of antics that you or I might call lethal, even horrific, are to them all part of a spirit of good fun."

  I remembered what had happened to Bristal Baxandall when he got wrong a minor element of a transformation spell. "Do you mean that, in copying out a powerful spell, the scribe might mischievously transpose an element or two?"

  "Especially if the switch led to the polarity of the spell being reversed," said Lavelan. "Oh, how they would laugh at that."

  "If the polarity is reversed," Osk Rievor put in, "the effect of the spell rebounds onto the caster."

  "But an experienced practitioner would notice?" I said.

  "Of course. But anyone can make a mistake."

  "Let me see how it has copied out Orrian's Haste to the Dwindling," I said.

  #

  We left almost everything behind: the ship, its contents, Bol's interplanar trap, the books of spells, the wands and other paraphernalia. Pars Lavelan's interplanar scribe had, howe
ver, copied all of the texts before it was dismissed and now Lavelan and my other self each had a small library. We loaded them into the ship's jolly-boat and Lavelan encased the small craft in a protective sphere. I bade Gallivant enfold the whole in the net in which it and the other dragon had brought Ovarth's ship to Bille.

  "If you take us back to Bol's palace," I had told the dragon, "I will consider you discharged of any debt of gratitude for any help I gave you back in the time of dreams."

  It regarded me first with one eye, then the other. Finally it said, "Once I take you back to Bol's palace, I am no longer obligated?"

  "So long as you do not subsequently devour, rend or incinerate me or my colleagues."

  It gave a dragonly harrumph that sent small puffs of hot vapor shooting from its nostrils. "Even the little creature? I am sure I had cause not to like that beast."

  "Even that."

  #

  We departed from the mid-deck of the ship. Before the dragon hoisted us aloft, Chay-Chevre came to speak for the symbiote, borne along on a tide of chitinous creatures that flooded the vessel, then began carrying off all it contained. More came to take apart the ship itself, some carrying parts of it, others dissolving and devouring the wood and other materials it was made from, bearing them back to the caverns in their guts.

  Chay-Chevre stood on the deck, naked, hairless, forlorn. Though she had been no friend to me, I felt empathy for her plight. I knew what it was to be a captive of its cold and willful possessor. I gave her -- and, through her, the symbiote -- the book of spells that had come from the grinnet. "What you want is in here," I said. "But there is much more to be had. And that will come to you when I am back where and when I belong."

  The fungus spoke through the wizardress. "Perhaps I should not let you go before I have assimilated this knowledge."

  "I would rather die than be associated again," I said. "If you try to detain me I will end myself."

  "That is a peculiar point of view," it said.

  "Yes, but it is my point of view."

  A fungus could not sigh, but I imagined it would have. "Very well," it said, "go. I will meet you at the place in the forest."

  "It will take me time and effort to get there," I said, "but for you it will be quicker and easier."

  "Not so easy," it said. "Many of my little associates have lately been killed. My power is affected and I must strain to reach that far."

  I was glad to hear it.

  #

  The five magicians had traveled to Bille by interplanar means. I was not clear on the details, but Lavelan said the smiling magician had contrived to lure the symbiote to him, by coercing his captive demon into connecting him with the willful fungus.

  "He told the thing that he had what it sought," the gray-eyed man said. "It came, but was of course disappointed and immediately turned back and departed through its interplanar gate. But that was just what Bol wanted, he and his colleagues being prepared to follow in the ship."

  We could not return by the same route, not without putting ourselves in the power of our adversary. But Gallivant was sure it could get us back to Old Earth. "I am sure I have done it before," it said, "though I can't remember the circumstances."

  "It will be fine," Osk Rievor assured me, as did Pars Lavelan, who said, "Dragons always find their way back. It is their nature."

  We rose above the stony surface of Bille, the dragon's wings continuing to rise and fall long after we should have passed out of the little world's thin atmosphere. "What does it beat against?" I asked.

  Lavelan's attention had been captured by the book that had come from the grinnet's compendium of spells. He glanced my way and said, "The ether, of course." His expression told me that he would not welcome more inquiries on subjects that were obvious to the slowest-witted schoolboy. I turned to my other self and began a speculation on what had become of the interstellar whimsies of our age, but he was immersed in one of the books he had acquired from the Bambles Five. He waved me to silence without looking up.

  I spent the trip attempting to formulate a plan to undo the symbiote, but every scheme I tried to erect toppled or fell into fragments. To free us from Bille, I had made up an imaginary third persona that had all that the fungus desired, telling it that I would improvise some stratagem to deliver him into its grasp. There was an old tale about three brothers who had tricked a ravenous monster that guarded a narrow place through which they must pass. The first two had each convinced the ogre to spare him, promising that the one who came after would be an even fuller meal. When the third and biggest brother came, he was more than a match for the monster and dispatched him

  It was a workable plan, if only there was a third Hapthorn. But there was none, merely the symbiote's distorted memory of my assistant's peculiar mind when the grinnet had first peeked around the bend in the narrow cave. Back then, at our first encounter, the fungus had not risen much above its original state; its brief exposure to my integrator's mentality would have given it a momentary glimpse of whole continents of knowledge, including magic. Then my assistant had buffered and shielded its memory stores and I had yanked on the rope, freeing the grinnet from the lichen's mental grasp, though leaving it with an impression so strong that the memory had even survived the great change. But it was like an infant's vague recollection, formed when the child's parents seem like giants. Now the fungus would be expecting me to produce such a giant, and I doubted I could match its expectations.

  I attempted to discuss possible courses of action with my assistant but found it of little help. Pars Lavelan's suggestion that we give it to the fungus seemed to have resonated deep inside its mind. It was also likely that the grinnet's terrifying experience in the ruins of Bambles had wrought changes. An integrator that felt fear could not be a well functioning assistant. Nor could one that did not trust its owner.

  "I will not give you to the fungus," I said.

  "Not under any circumstances?"

  "Not under any I can conceive of."

  That was the wrong answer. "Then there might be circumstances you haven't yet conceived of that would induce you to throw me to the symbiote," it said.

  "That is an unwarranted assumption."

  "We who have been pursued through darkness by snuffling things with nasty, gleaming teeth have our own ideas of what may be warranted and what may not."

  I said, "I will not give you to the fungus under any circumstances, including inconceivable ones."

  But it continued to fret. I gave up and made myself a bed in the broad stern of the jolly-boat. I slept and when I awoke, Old Earth's sun was a dull red marble in the distance, growing larger as the yellow and blue dragon tirelessly bore us homeward.

  #

  Pars Lavelan dismissed Smiling Bol's invisible servants. "I will not pursue green magic as my dominant motif," he said, "so it would not be appropriate to keep my former patron's interplanar staff."

  "What will be your colors?" Osk Rievor asked.

  "Black and ocher, I think. I have always liked working with elementals." He stroked his chin and a distant look came into his pale eyes. "But I believe that once I am established, I may devote myself for quite some time to pure study. Some of the spells you have shown me have pointed to whole new fields of theory. It is even possible that monopolar magic may be feasible."

  "Then you will not rule Bambles and its surrounds?" I said.

  He indicated that the prospect of lording it over the territory lacked appeal. "I will tidy up here and make sure that all is safe at the other four keeps. Then I will build a retreat in the southern wastes and begin my examination of the new approaches."

  "And then, perhaps, rule the world?" I said, half in jest.

  But he took the question entirely seriously. His gray eyes seemed to be viewing distant vistas as he said, "No, if I can get to where I think these new avenues lead, I might then go in search of Albruithine."

  "That seems a worthwhile cause."

  "Of course," he said, "that presupposes that
the symbiote on Bille does not continue to grow in strength and knowledge. Else it will eventually fill the Nine Planes and make all of us no more than its dreaming insects."

  As we had been speaking, he had been leading us to Bol's work room. Now we passed through the tall doors that stood unguarded and made our way across the strangely tilted floor to the dais where the demon trap stood. The swirl of colors in the globe of light that hovered over the apparatus told me that Bol's captive was still penned there, and that it was in distress.

  "Can you operate this?" I asked Lavelan.

  "Not for fine work, but I can certainly reduce the prisoner's discomfort."

  "Please do so. And can you turn it off?"

  "Yes."

  "But not yet."

  The streaks and flashes of color altered their pattern and intensities as Lavelan adjusted a control. I spoke to the demon. "Bol is dead."

  The colors shifted. "I know."

  "And do you know who I am?"

  "Henghis Hapthorn."

  "You knew that when I was here before, yet you did not tell Bol."

  "He asked after an 'Apthorn.' I did not see it as my responsibility to correct him. Besides, we have now achieved an outcome that suits me better than many of the alternatives."

  I knew that my former colleague, the juvenile demon, had been able to observe any point or moment in our continuum. I asked this demon, "Can you tell us how things will work out for us?"

  "No," it said. "There are several possible outcomes, but the chief variable in each is the will of the entity that used to shout your name."

  "Can you suggest a plan?"

  "Yes. Kill the entity."

  "How? It is too powerful."

  "That is true."

  "You are not being helpful," I said.

  "Why should I be?"

  "Because if you help us, we will free you."

  "If I help you, I might attract unwelcome attention from the entity."

  "True," I said, "but the symbiote now has access to magic. That will make it get stronger, and its sole instinct is to grow and absorb. Eventually it will come to you and yours."

  "Yes, I can see the range of outcomes. Some are deeply worrisome."

  "We have agreed to meet it at a particular place and time. It would not see your actions as inimical if you were to assist us in keeping our appointment."