The Crosser's Maze (The Heroes of Spira Book 2)

by Dorian Hart

  “If the person using the maze is inattentive or insufficiently skilled, the people serving as the focus will find their arcane potential burned away, consumed by the process. And of course, if the user is particularly careless or loses her concentration entirely…”

  The crystal swiftly blackened, then hummed and crackled, the sound of ice surrendering to the first warmth of spring. With a soft pop, the crystal shattered into a cloud of dark flecks.

  And yet the hole in the wall was gone, mended and sealed, as though it had never been there at all.

  “I have great confidence that Abernathy or one of his confederates will be able to use the maze properly,” she said, as much to herself as to Solomea.

  Solomea said nothing.

  “I wonder,” Aravia continued. “Enchanted objects also hold an arcane potential, some of them a great deal of it. Could one substitute Ivellios’s bracelet, or Parthol Runecarver’s earcuffs?”

  Solomea shook his head. “It must be a living being, and the potential must be surrendered willingly.”

  Aravia had a sudden realization. “Ivellios’s bracelet! It should have prevented him from being drawn into a pocket dimension like Calabash, but it didn’t.”

  “Very true,” said Solomea. “I created Calabash using the maze, and I found it necessary to make its theoretical boundaries extremely…porous, shall we say. His bracelet offered some resistance, but that only served to delay his arrival by an interval. That is why he was not placed in the Sands of Time along with the rest of you.”

  “Do you know why Kibi’s mother keeps an identical bracelet? Or how the one we have came to be on a statue of Ernie buried beneath his hometown?”

  “My dear Aravia, I’ve no idea. Would you assume that someone living in the world’s largest library has read all the books? And that’s enough questions for now; we’ve nearly arrived.”

  “Arrived where?”

  “At the moment of truth. I’ve explained most of this to Lapis already, so now is the time for me to make a choice in the matter.” He looked at her sadly and added in a whisper, “I’ve wanted for so long to be rid of it.”

  With a wave of his hand, the door to the bedroom creaked open.

  “Solomea, please listen. Lapis has been using her magic to influence your mind. I beg you, don’t let her have the maze!”

  His gaze sharpened. “I’m not going to let either of you have it. You’ll have to earn it.” He stepped out of the door and vanished into the darkness beyond.

  Aravia hurried after him. “Wait!”

  She emerged not into the spiraling metal hallway, but into a huge arena—a recreation of the goblin stadium where Kibi had bested Vawlk, though in this version the stone benches and dirt floor were fashioned of gray iron plates. Torches burned in sconces all along the perimeter of the lowest wall.

  Pewter rested on her shoulder. What do you think he’s playing at?

  I don’t know. But be watchful.

  Aravia glanced behind her; she had seemingly exited from a dark, wide hallway, just as Kibi had done when entering the goblins’ Yarakt. Fifty feet opposite stood the Sharshun Lapis, arms crossed, a satisfied smile on her face.

  The rest of Horn’s Company sat upon the front row of benches, watching her nervously. Tor smiled and gave her a thumbs-up. Did they know what was about to happen? That Solomea would soon make his decision?

  Solomea appeared in the center of the arena floor, his black robe sucking in the surrounding light, making it look as though his old head rested on the neck of a silhouette. This was the first time since their arrival that he showed himself as an old man, his hair thin and gray, his cheeks spotted and wrinkled.

  “Lapis of the Blood, Aravia Telmir, you both have made compelling cases,” Solomea intoned. Then he smiled impishly. “I feel like a young man again with two lovely suitors. But as I cannot give you both the Crosser’s Maze, I have devised a final, simple test to see who is most worthy of it.”

  A test? That sounds promising.

  Pewter, hush.

  Lapis’s smile widened; she knew! She knew what the test would be and expected to pass. It was entirely possible that she had devised it herself. Solomea turned in a slow circle, then took a step away from the dead center of the arena. A second person appeared where he had stood, as though teleported from elsewhere.

  It was Certain Step. His eyes were closed, his face peaceful, and he showed no sign of being aware of his surroundings.

  “The test is simple,” said Solomea. “The one of you that kills Certain Step gets the Crosser’s Maze.”

  Aravia looked down; a long, sharp dagger rested in her hand.

  Aravia looked up to see an identical knife in the hand of Lapis.

  Many thoughts came to her then, which she sorted out as quickly as she could. She had to kill Certain Step, so that Solomea would give her the maze. She couldn’t kill Certain Step; that would be murder. She had to balance the outcomes. Step was one life, weighed against millions.

  If Lapis gained the maze, Step would die anyway.

  Perhaps this was the true reason that the god Quarrol had made her a Spark—so that she could measure the moral and practical weights of this decision with dispassion.

  If she was going to kill Step, she would have to hurry. Lapis might reach him first and make her internal deliberations moot. She took a step toward Certain Step but stopped. Lapis hadn’t moved. She smiled smugly, watching her, twirling her dagger idly in her fingers.

  Pewter’s voice was frantic in her mind. What are we going to do? And why is Lapis just standing there?

  Aravia walked slowly toward Certain Step, her footsteps ringing on the iron plates. The dagger felt heavy in her hand.

  Boss, what are you doing? You can’t kill Step!

  What choice do I have? And it’s possible his body will still be alive in Calabash. It may even be possible to bring him back from the dead, once I have the Crosser’s Maze.

  Come on! You don’t believe that for a second!

  No, she didn’t. If she killed Certain Step, there would be no coming back from it.

  She took another step. Maybe the Kemman acolyte had been their enemy from the beginning, an ally to the Black Circle. In that case he deserved death no less than Lapis herself. Or this could be the “certain doom” to which Step’s prophetic poem consigned him. He was meant to die here, a sacrifice made to save the world from Naradawk.

  Two more steps, and she had closed half the distance. Certain Step had not opened his eyes, which was a blessing. Would he feel any pain? Would he forgive her?

  Aravia tried to put those thoughts out of her head, to return to her state of detachment. How much easier this would have been before she had begun to tease out her long-dormant emotions. She simply would have cut Step’s throat and been done with it.

  She shook her head. That was still what she needed to do. Step was but one man, a man who had already accepted his fate. Solomea had given her this decision to make, her and no one else, and she would make it, no matter how difficult, distasteful, evil…

  Aravia looked back at Tor, sitting with the others. None of them had stood. None of them spoke. But while Morningstar watched with stony anticipation, and Ernie stared in outright horror, and the others wore their conflicted hearts plainly on their faces, only Tor strained against whatever compulsion Solomea had laid upon them not to interfere. His face was red, his eyes wide, his body quivering. Her eyes locked upon his, and—did she imagine it, or had he shaken his head, no more than a tremble, a tiny gesture of negation? Don’t do this, his eyes pleaded.

  She turned back to Lapis, who still had not moved toward Certain Step. What was she waiting for? Was this a trick? Was the true test here that the one who committed murder would prove herself unworthy of the maze? That seemed too easy. And yet…

  Once more she looked to Tor. She fancied that she could read his thoughts. Don’t do it, Aravia! It’s not worth what it will do to you.

  And he was right. They would find anoth
er way.

  She dropped the dagger.

  Lapis slowly applauded her. She and Solomea exchanged a knowing look. “You see, Solomea? Our test showed exactly what I said it would. Aravia is not worthy of the maze. She is unwilling to make even the most obvious sacrifice, let alone the more difficult ones to come. But I am more than willing.”

  She strode forward quickly, raised her knife, and drove it into Certain Step’s back. Its point poked out through his chest, smeared with blood. Step broke his silence at last, let out a gasping cry, and fell dead to the iron floor.

  “Excellent.” Solomea walked to join Lapis, standing over Step’s body.

  Aravia felt paralyzed, helpless. “Solomea!” she cried. “Lapis didn’t sacrifice anything. She committed murder! Shouldn’t that make her unfit to wield such power?”

  “Not at all,” said Solomea. “She was decisive, focused, and…” He put his hand to his head and lurched toward Lapis. She propped him up as she smiled indulgently. “And extremely persuasive,” he finished.

  “Solomea, she’s controlling you!” Aravia cast arcanokinesis, intending to fling Lapis away, knock her out, kill her, whatever it took to keep Solomea from giving her the Crosser’s Maze. The aether here crackled with so much arcane potential that she felt that she could tear Lapis’s head from her shoulders, blast this whole arena to bits. In that half-second she understood the terrifying power of the maze, the destruction one could wield with it, and she flung that energy out at Lapis, a bolt of unstoppable force.

  It stopped.

  The energy transfer of arcanokinesis should not have been visible, it having more in common with sound than with any visual phenomenon. But there it was, a melon-sized patch of blurred air shot through with glowing white veins, like the errant threads of a wind-blown spider web. It hung suspended half way between Aravia and her target.

  Solomea narrowed his eyes. “That was rude, Aravia Telmir. I expected better of you.”

  She made to protest, but no sound passed her lips.

  “That’s right. No more talking. My mind is quite made up, so there’s no use in further arguments.” Solomea turned back to Lapis. “Lapis of the Blood, are you ready and willing to receive the Crosser’s Maze?”

  “I am. Pass your burden to me and be done with it.”

  Solomea closed his eyes and released a long, weary sigh. “The maze has been handed down from Keeper to Keeper for time out of mind. It is a thing easily done.” He turned and placed a hand on Lapis’s head. “Still your mind. This is going to seem…strange.”

  Boss, do something!

  I’ve tried, Pewter. What more can I do?

  Despair overcame her. She was only a construct of herself, trapped inside Solomea’s mind, and he had removed all agency from her shadow-existence. Tears of frustration brimmed in her eyes as Solomea whispered words she could not hear.

  Light flared up around Solomea and Lapis. A tracery of white lines appeared on Lapis’s bald head, her face, her neck and arms, lines that drew themselves into a pattern like a complex labyrinth. Lapis’s eyes blazed with a hot, white light.

  “Yes,” she breathed. “Glorious.”

  The arena vanished for a scintilla of time, replaced by a vastness of starry space. Several times it flickered in and out. Solomea slumped to the floor, his hand sliding away from Lapis’s head. Sprawled on the ground beside the corpse of Certain Step, his withered-stick arm flopped out of his robe to rest across the iron-plate floor.

  “Easily done,” whispered Lapis. She smiled at Aravia. “You will remain here for a time. I have so much to learn and so much to do, but I will not forget you. Once Naradawk has served his purpose and been disposed of, I’ll return and decide what torments will suit you best. Goodbye, Aravia.”

  Lapis vanished from the arena. Aravia’s muscles loosened, and she took a gasping breath. The other members of Horn’s Company, released from their paralysis, scrambled down over the wall and rushed to her side.

  “Are you hurt?” Tor blurted. “What happened? Did Solomea give the maze to Lapis?”

  Aravia felt cold, the first time since arriving in Calabash that she was aware of her internal temperature. Her mentor, the wizard Serpicore, had often told her that success could only follow failure, but from this failure there could be no recovery. Lapis had the Crosser’s Maze, and all hope of stopping Naradawk was shattered.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I couldn’t…I…”

  Tor took her hand. “You did the right thing. Certain Step was a good man.”

  “And he’s dead, regardless,” said Aravia bitterly. “I shouldn’t have allowed sentiment to poison my logic. Step is dead, Lapis has the maze, and we’re still here, trapped like insects in a jar. My personal notion of morality has doomed the world.”

  Her friends were silent. For a moment they stood, despondent, while the ever-present sound of breathing blew like a dirge.

  Was that Lapis’s breath that they heard now? It sounded the same as before.

  “Is he dead?” Ernie looked down at Solomea, prostrate on the ground.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m not dead.” Solomea’s eyes snapped open.

  Aravia stepped back; the man might still be under Lapis’s influence.

  “Now, let’s talk somewhere more comfortable than this wretched goblin pit.”

  The iron Yarakt shifted, blurred, vanished, and became the much smaller Greenhouse living room. Certain Step’s body had vanished. Solomea still lay on his back, but comfortably recumbent upon the largest sofa. “Better,” he said.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now; the Crosser’s Maze was in the hands of their enemies, and they were stuck, trapped inside Lapis’s mind, their bodies left behind in Calabash.

  “Now that you’ve given the maze to Lapis,” said Ernie quietly, “what happens to us?”

  Solomea smiled and sat up. “Given the maze to Lapis? To that despicable, overconfident harridan? What a nonsensical notion.”

  Had she heard correctly? “But isn’t that…isn’t that what you just did?”

  “Of course not. My dear girl, Lapis may be formidable in her own fashion, but the idea that she could control a Keeper’s mind inside the maze itself is preposterous.”

  “Then where is she now?” asked Tor.

  “Adrift,” said Solomea. “I’m not certain where, exactly. But wherever it is, it will likely be a long, long way back.”

  Aravia hardly dared to hope. “And the maze…?”

  “Still in here.” Solomea tapped his wrinkled, spotted head. “Do you still want it?”

  “Yes!”

  Solomea gave her a searching look. “Of course you do. Aravia, from the moment I drew you in, I had a feeling about you. In some way I can’t describe, the maze feels as though it is meant for you. Like a glove that any person could wear, but which was tailored to your hand.”

  Pewter purred. Solomea thinks a god made the maze. I’ll bet your Sparkyness makes you suited for it.

  It’s as good a theory as any.

  “But don’t let that go to your head,” said Solomea. “It doesn’t mean you’re ready for it.”

  “I still don’t understand what happened with Lapis,” said Kibi. “And Certain Step, he didn’t deserve to get stabbed.”

  “Do you take me for a monster?” Solomea gave a look of mock offense. “Remember, I am the Keeper of the Maze. Crafting a believable illusion is a trivial thing. Certain Step is fine, and he’ll join you when you leave. I’m nearly finished untangling Lapis’s mental control over him. Yes, I know I made light of her, but I warn you to take the Black Circle seriously. Lapis may have failed in her attempts to influence me, but I had to fend her off quite strenuously. I don’t understand the source of the Black Circle’s power, but it’s terribly strong, stronger than anything else you are ever likely to encounter.

  “As for what happened to her, she made my decision much, much simpler. From the moment she arrived, she battered at me, demanded, threatened, th
ought that she could wear down the resistance of a tired old man. Her life had taught her to use force to solve her problems. And, yes, a part of me might have gone along with it. But as for the part that wanted—and still wants—to keep the maze for myself, Lapis’s heavy-handed bludgeoning only made me dig in my heels.

  “You, on the other hand, actually spoke to me. Kibilhathur, I could tell that your concern for me was genuine, not self-serving. All of you, in a final analysis, are decent people. You have your weaknesses and your faults, your foibles and follies, but you recognize them and want to better yourselves. That’s rare enough in one person, but in seven? That your cause is also just is icing on the proverbial cake.”

  Aravia still couldn’t quite believe that this was real. After all of Solomea’s trickery, what if this was simply more of the same? What if this was Lapis in disguise, toying with them?

  “It is no trick,” said Solomea, as though reading her thoughts—which in all likelihood was exactly what he was doing. “Though I cannot prove it to your satisfaction, and you won’t know for certain until I’ve given you the maze.”

  “What will happen to you once I have it?” she asked.

  “I could remain here, in the home I have created for myself,” he said wistfully. “Many Keepers are unwilling to move on properly after death and remain in the maze, outliving their bodies, inhabiting their structures. It wouldn’t be the worst idea, Aravia, for you to seek out one of those former Keepers for advice. The maze isn’t a child’s toy whose functions can be ascertained at a glance. But I am finished with the cursed thing. If I seem lucid to you at the moment, it is because nearly all my energies are being spent on that lucidity. My mind is fractured, eroded, and I feel as though I have earned a place in some pleasant afterlife or another. I will give you the Crosser’s Maze, and then my time will be over.”

  “But isn’t your body still in Calabash? Doesn’t that mean you cannot die?”

  “Young lady, I am the Keeper of the Maze and the creator of the City Vitreous. Extinguishing my mortal spark and sending my soul to the heavens is entirely within my powers.”