The Mad Apprentice

by Django Wexler

  Even from her high perch, Alice could feel the tension as he pulled hard on his threads. Shadows raced toward Garret from all directions, wrapping his body in shivering darkness. Waves of shadow, like rippling black ink, fell all around him, until he became a black splotch against the torchlit stone. Then he unfolded into a humanoid figure, twice the height of a man, shreds of blackness swarming and boiling around it.

  The thing Garret had become stepped into the air, as though climbing an invisible staircase, moving to intercept the whale-thing descending like a falling mountain of tumorous flesh. He raised one hand, palm up, then closed it into a fist. A puff of inky smoke shot outward and wrapped the whale-thing completely in dark mists. The pale green lights vanished, and Alice’s heart leaped.

  He did it! He—

  The pall of black smoke shivered. The shadow-creature cocked its head, as if curious.

  Then the bulk of the whale-thing hurtled out of the cloud. A huge wound on its flank trailed a streamer of blue-black blood, but that didn’t seem to slow it down. Its mouth opened, yawning wider and wider until its whole head had levered itself apart, the ring of teeth forming a perfect circle, like the jaws of a bear trap.

  Garret raised his hands, but too late. The whale-thing was already on top of him, and its jaws snapped closed with unbelievable speed, as though they really were a bear trap and Garret had taken the bait. Teeth met with a clack like a gunshot, and Garret was simply gone, vanished inside the creature’s huge bulk as if he were no more than a passing fly.

  Alice heard Ellen scream. The whale-thing descended toward the bridge, plummeting almost straight down, its broad tail lashing wildly. The apprentices ran in both directions, sprinting for the relative safety of the towers at either end of the span.

  “Isaac!” Alice’s shout was lost in the crunch and clatter as the creature hit the bridge. Huge blocks of stone groaned and fell away. It tore away a section fifty feet wide, and the surviving ends began to crumble, unable to support their own weight. A billowing cloud of pulverized rock kept her from seeing what became of the others, aside from glimpses of shrouded figures running for dear life.

  She was so focused on trying to see what was happening below that she didn’t see the whale-thing’s tail coming until it was too late. It snapped up and slammed against the bridge she was standing on with colossal force. The impact threw Alice into the air and clear of the walkway entirely, with nothing beneath her but empty space. Too stunned even to scream, she could only close her eyes as the endless fall began.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  INVITATION

  ALICE HIT A FLAT stone floor, but not very hard, as though she’d accidentally rolled out of bed. She lay absolutely still for a moment, spread-eagled on her back, her breath coming shallow and quick and her heart hammering like it might explode. In her mind she heard the clack of the monster’s teeth coming together as it swallowed Garret, over and over, followed by the crunch of stone as the bridge came apart while she stood watching, frozen and helpless.

  Isaac and the others had already been running. They might have made it.

  She opened her eyes. The stars looked down at her, brilliant, distant, and uncaring. The dark, torchlit bulk of several towers loomed nearby.

  So I’m still in Esau’s fortress. She’d entertained a wild hope that she might wake up at home in bed; after all, that was what had happened the last time she’d nearly died, fighting the tree-sprite. But this is different. That had been a prison-book, and Geryon had been watching over her shoulder. Here, inside another Reader’s labyrinth, there was no way for the old wizard to even know she needed help.

  I wish Ashes were here. The cat was never much practical use, but having him around was comforting nonetheless. Or Ending. Or even Isaac. That brought her full circle, though, to her last glimpse of scurrying figures on the collapsing bridge. I’m sure they made it. They had to. Except for Garret, who’d been directly in the monster’s path. Alice swallowed hard and blinked away tears.

  If Ashes were here, he’d tell me to get up and start doing something about it. Alice sat up, rubbing at an ache in her shoulder where it had hit the stones, and looked around.

  She was on another stone walkway. But if the bridges between the outer towers had been garden paths, this was more like a downtown high street, broad enough for two cars to drive side by side. Smaller spurs peeled off on both sides, stretching out to nearby towers and weaving above and below each other like a knitter’s nightmare.

  And straight ahead was the dome of the central keep, lit by its ring of torches.

  Okay. Torment must have brought me here. But why?

  Alice fingered the pair of acorns that remained in her pocket. All around her was stillness, except for flickers of light from the endless torches. No monsters seemed to be in evidence. It was, she decided, as good a place as any to catch her breath.

  Part of her burned to go rushing to the aid of Isaac and the others. But another, more logical part, pointed out that she didn’t know which direction to rush toward, and running through the labyrinth at random was not likely to help.

  It had been hours since her last meal, and she’d had only a couple of swallows from Dex’s canteen in the meantime. Let’s hope this works.

  She flicked the acorn to the ground, bent over to put her finger on it, and pulled on the tree-sprite thread. The life-energy packed inside the little seed burst out, sending roots burrowing through the cracks between the stones and branches shooting upward like waterspouts. Alice grabbed hold of the torrent and controlled it, carefully, leveling out the tree’s growth when it was five or six feet high and pushing it in a new direction.

  Before long, a small, leafy tree stood incongruously in the middle of the bleak stone path. Alice, one hand on its trunk, watched hungrily as green buds formed on its branches, swelling rapidly into small, round fruit hanging from thick stems. It was a little odd, she reflected, to get fruit from what was after all an oak seed, but the power of the tree-sprite overrode any petty biological limitations. It was merely a matter of directing the life-force she’d packed into the acorn along the proper channels.

  Two dozen of the fruits were ready, turning a bright orange-red as they ripened in seconds. Alice picked one and took a cautious bite. It was almost like an apple, but not exactly. It was sweet, though, and so juicy it practically exploded in her mouth. She rapidly munched it down to the stem and reached for another.

  A few minutes later, satisfied, she picked the remaining fruit and stuffed them in her pockets. The tree’s leafy branches, relieved of this weight, rustled in the breeze. Alice felt a pang of sympathy for the plant—conjured by magic into the hostile environment, it wouldn’t survive for long—and shook her head as she sat down with her back to the trunk. Now is not the time to get sentimental.

  She let her mental grip fall on the black thread at the back of her mind, winding beneath the others. The Dragon.

  As soon as she touched it, she felt an odd tension thrilling through the dark strand. Somewhere, another mind was reaching out for it, and there was only one person that could be. Isaac! He’s alive. The knot of worry in her chest loosened slightly, and she had to remind herself that she was angry with him. Besides, we’re not out of danger by a long way.

  She directed her thoughts toward the Dragon itself.

  I know you think it was foolish of me to come here. You’re probably right. But I am here, and I need your help, or else I really am going to die. Please.

  There was a long silence.

  I am listening, the Dragon said. But I may not be as much help as you imagine.

  There is no way you can talk to Isaac?

  No. As I said, he is . . . closed to me.

  Alice frowned. Do you have any idea why Torment would bring me here?

  This appears to be the front entrance to the keep. I would surmise that he is offering you an invitation.
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  But why? Why me and not any of the others?

  I don’t know.

  I think you’re lying. Alice clenched her jaw, waiting for a roar of rage, but it never came. Instead there was a pause, so long she worried that the Dragon had stopped speaking to her entirely.

  Then, a hint of steel in its rumbling mental voice, it said, Why do you say that?

  Because I think you’re one of them. Alice took a deep breath. A labyrinthine. You can sense the labyrinth, and Ending called you her brother. When Torment called her his sister, I thought—

  I see. Very logical.

  Is it true?

  . . . yes. We are kin.

  So do you think Torment singled me out because of my bond with you?

  Perhaps.

  In that case, Isaac would probably be safe as well. Alice’s fear eased a little more. Isn’t there anything you can do to help? Can you . . . fight him, or show me the way out of here?

  I cannot.

  Alice drew herself up tighter against the tree trunk. Is it because I’m not strong enough to use your power?

  It has nothing to do with you. The matter is between myself and my siblings, and I am under no obligation to explain it. Suffice to say I cannot intervene. I have said too much already.

  A spark of anger surfaced in Alice’s mind. Then it doesn’t matter to you if we all die?

  I do not believe Torment means to kill you. Indeed, he saved your life when you fell from the bridge. As for the others, they are not my concern.

  I suppose you’ll still be safe in your book.

  As you would be safe in a prison cell. The Dragon’s mental voice became a snarl. Spend a thousand years locked in irons before you presume to lecture me.

  Then it was gone. Alice breathed out and relaxed her grip on the thread, leaning her head back against the rough bark.

  An invitation. She stared down the broad avenue at the dome. I’m supposed to just follow along? At the bridge she’d been reduced to a bystander. Now she was apparently to be a passenger following along a set of rails.

  She got to her feet, dusted herself off, and gave the dome a vicious glare. All right. You asked for it.

  A few minutes later, a distant scream drifted across Esau’s fortress. Alice stopped in her tracks, straining to listen, but it wasn’t repeated. It had been a girl’s voice, though, and as far as she knew, there were only three human girls in the fortress at the moment.

  The domed keep was just ahead, but Alice turned away from it and ran in the direction of the voice. She followed it down a narrow, curving bridge that arched through the night air for a considerable distance before ending in another tower, pausing every so often to listen. Another scream, louder, told her she was at least headed in the right direction.

  She reached the end of the bridge, and the tower loomed ahead of her. She could see another bridge, two stories up, so she ducked through the archway and up the familiar spiral staircase, two steps at a time. The doorway out was right where she expected, and she ran through to find herself—

  —back on the avenue, near where she’d begun. The domed keep rose up in front of her. Her little fruit tree, already wilting slightly, was the only landmark on the endless walkway.

  Torment. Alice gritted her teeth. There was another scream, distant now, and she started running again, down a curving bridge that turned into a helical staircase. She descended for what felt like an age, but when she neared the bottom, she saw that it joined up with the same broad avenue, just where she’d started. Alice growled and turned around, running up the stairs at a dangerous speed, but after a single turn around the spiral, she stumbled out onto the flat stones in front of her tree, panting for breath.

  Labyrinth. For the first time, she really understood what that meant. She thought of Vespidian, who’d fled from her into the dark reaches of the library, and felt a sliver of pity for the vile little sprite. She pictured Ending playing with him, like a cat with a half-dead mouse. Except now, I’m the mouse.

  The keep was ahead of her, once again, closer than ever.

  He is playing with me, Alice realized. If he wanted her to go to the keep, he could have simply sent her there. He’s made that clear enough. The labyrinthine wanted her to give up, to acknowledge his power and go there of her own accord. To surrender.

  This is my labyrinth. Here am I everywhere and nowhere. I am the walls, the stairs, the floors, and the sky. Who are you, Reader, to let me do anything?!

  “I won’t do it!” Alice kicked the wilting tree in frustration. Somewhere, close by, Isaac and the others were in danger, but she couldn’t get to them, couldn’t do anything to help.

  A low sound drifted through the air. Alice recognized Torment’s soft, wet chuckle. She wanted to scream. She set off at a run, not caring that she didn’t know where she was going, down one walkway and up another. A stairway led up, and she took it, but when she saw it was bringing her back to the keep, she jumped off to land on a nearby bridge between two towers. Her boot slipped, and for a moment she teetered on the brink, arms windmilling wildly, before she managed to push herself forward and fall painfully hard against the unforgiving stones of the walkway.

  “I won’t do it,” she said, tasting blood from a split lip. Another scream drifted across the fortress. “I won’t.”

  She sat up, shaking, and was unsurprised to find that the bridge now led directly to the keep. Alice turned resolutely away from it. Ahead of her was another tower, but there was no doorway, just a blank wall of solid stone. Alice, her body humming with rage and frustration, ran straight at it with an angry shout. She braced for a painful impact.

  Instead something shifted, deep inside her. It strained, twisted, and broke with a crack, like one of her bones had suddenly given way. But there was no pain, only a profound sense of space all around, as if she’d been wearing blinders and heavy earmuffs all her life and they’d suddenly been removed. She was still running, and she could feel the texture of the world, like sheer fabric sliding through her fingers, and feel where it was twisted, bunched, and folded over.

  The screaming came from over there. A long way off. But it was just a matter of grabbing hold of the cloth, pulling it into a new shape, bringing here and there together so they were not so far apart after all. And then—

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE GRASPING TOWER

  ALICE SKIDDED TO A halt. She was still on a bridge, but not the same bridge. The towers rising around her were different. The dome of the keep was nowhere to be seen. Ahead of her, where a blank wall had been, there was an arched doorway into a tower. The scream had come from inside.

  She had no idea what had just happened, but there was no time to waste. Alice grabbed the Swarm thread, just in case, and hurried inside. There were no torches on the walls here, and she hurriedly yanked at the devilfish thread as well to light her way. As the pale green glow revealed her surroundings, she stopped dead, staring around in horror.

  The interior of the tower was not like the others at all. There were no floors, just empty space. The entire tower was one giant cylindrical room, with a rusty iron staircase winding perilously around the edges.

  As her eyes adjusted, Alice could see what looked like tiny, iron-barred windows, though no windows had been visible from outside. When she looked up, she could just see a ball of dull crimson light hovering three or four stories above her. The devilfish light and the hellish glow made for twisting, lurid shadows.

  The screams had definitely been coming from above. She began to climb, quickly at first and then more cautiously as the iron steps shifted and squeaked in their bolts. She reached the first of the little iron windows, but nothing was visible on the other side except a darkness so black the devilfish’s glow could not penetrate it.

  As she passed by, something moved behind the bars, pushing through the narrow space and reaching out for her. It was an arm
, thin and sickly looking, with grubby skin and long, filthy nails broken into splinters at the ends. The fingers groped blindly, trying to get a hold of Alice, and the nails scrabbled at her sleeve. Alice very nearly took a step backward to get away from the thing, only remembering just in time that “backward” was off the stairs and over a long drop. Instead she batted the thing away and hurried onward.

  More arms were emerging from their tiny fixtures, like horrible insects coming out of their cocoons. They came in every variety and skin color, men, women, and small, pathetic children. It was as if an army of prisoners were locked away on the other side of the wall, blind and mute but desperate to grab whatever they could. Alice pushed them aside where she had to, tearing out of their grip whenever they clawed for a hold. They grabbed at her clothes, her pouches, her hair; broken fingernails left long scratches on the back of her hands, and she pulled the Swarm thread more tightly to harden her skin. The temperature rose as she went, as if she were climbing inside a giant oven, and her face was soon sheathed in sweat.

  When she came level with the sullen red globe, she could see a small rectangular shape hanging suspended inside, turning slowly as if dangling from invisible wires. It was a book; all of a sudden she understood where she was. It was a piece of another world that had leaked out of a book, like the jungle in Geryon’s library. Esau clearly used his towers like Geryon used clusters of shelves. But what’s inside that book, if this is what leaks through? Alice decided she didn’t ever want to find out.

  A few more turns of the staircase, dodging eager claws all the while, and she saw that she was nearing the roof. An opening at the top of the stairs showed a circle of blessedly cool and distant sky. Alice ducked under a huge, hairy arm that looked like it belonged to a circus strongman, sprinted the last few steps, and emerged onto the broad circular roof in time to hear another shrill scream.

  It was answered by a new sound, an awful wet grinding, like someone crushing a raw steak in a vise. When Alice raised her hand to shed the devilfish’s light on what was happening, she let out an involuntary shriek of surprise.