Masters of the Maze

by Avram Davidson

  So Nate just rode or coasted along with the story. He just kept quiet about its nightmare elements, not being any too sure about them, anyway. Not on this clear winter day with the dull sun beginning its short climb up the bitter sky. Keziah made the phone calls to attorney, bank, undertaker, minister, and masonic lodge. “I’m going to go down and make about five big pots of coffee and start some food going,” she said, rising. “We’ll need all of it. You, first, though. All night long, poor Mr. Jordan, you’ll get the first cup and the very first plate. Only — ” She paused at the door. “Maybe you better turn off the electric heater. Don’t know how soon the undertaker can get here. Or how late.”

  Nate did. He heard her feet going down the hall. He blinked sore-edged eyes. For the hundredth or the five-hundredth time, he looked at the blanket-covered body on the floor. For the five-hundredth or perhaps only the hundredth time he observed the rounded shape of one hip thrusting its outline up. But this time the nagging thought surfaced: The way he’s lying there he must be uncomfortable … Ridiculous thought, but not ignoble. But now he understood it, he had to act upon it, don’t-touch-till-the-police-come or not. He knelt on one knee, drew back the blanket from the lower part of the body, winced a bit at sight of the thick white ankle revealed as trouser leg rode up past sock, and tried to make the minor adjustment. But the body did not adjust. He rummaged and groped, found something … something smooth and hard … pulled it out. The body settled slightly and, covered again, no longer seemed to reproach him.

  He stared at what he saw.

  The nightmare stirred again.

  Keziah called.

  Walking and holding it very carefully, Nate went over and opened the door a bit, “Yes?” he asked.

  “Mr. Jordan, I can’t come up and be with you,” she called. “I’ve just got too much to do. I’m making a ham and a leg of lamb and, oh, whatever I can find. I remember that when old Mr. Bellamy died there were just dozens of people here, even before the funeral, and they all got to be fed, it’s not like the city here, you know, and, well, Mr. Jordan, but even if I can’t stay up there with you — ” She hesitated, then her voice plunged on, a bit quickly, “ — you could come be down here … I suppose … If you like …”

  He waited just a moment and then said, “Thank you, but I’ll be okay up here.” Her relieved tone told him that he had made the correct response, that Keziah, in thinking of him and his own possible feelings, had been thinking at least as much of that deeply felt and ancient customary law, Thou shalt not leave the unburied dead to be alone.

  Closing the door again, Nate looked at what he held. A sort of pyramid of stone, though what kind of stone it was he could say or guess only that it appeared crystalline — using the term in its vaguest possible sense of color for which he had not quite a name, a tinge of pink, a touch of purple: it seemed to be changing shades in a subtle fashion while he was staring at it. But within the object, and running through it were lines and lines of glowing light. Sometimes they seemed to form a pattern, but this shifted and appeared to fracture with the faint pulse tremors of his hands. The lines were straight, they were curved, they moved at angles, they overlay one another, they were often infinitely close but indistinctly separate. And all this changed, changed, changed, yet did not ever entirely change; and always his eyes, attempting to follow, found themselves deceived.

  Nate found himself certain of several things. For one, this thing was somehow connected to what lay behind that non-wall in the windowless room. For another, he was not going to tell anyone, anyone, about either one of them. Not now, at any rate. He felt an absolute conviction that it would be an act of idiocy, and of dangerous idiocy, to do so.

  The form under the blanket had not of course grown smaller in the hours of lying there. Somehow, though, it seemed to have. Nate wrapped the stone and the bottle in his scarf and knotted them. He said, “Good-bye, Mr. Bellamy.” He went into the adjoining room, slid up the wooden panel, walked backward through the wall, and slid down the panel. Then he closed his eyes.

  The place he had come through appeared as a dark rectangle in a golden, glowing orifice of irregular shape at the end of a corridor. That was where the corridor went; clearly, then, it had to come from somewhere. Desiring to see how the exit appeared from a different prospectus, he walked backward and to the side, meanwhile turning his head a few inches. He was not particularly surprised to see the dark rectangle change in color, size, proportions, location — it was no stranger than the effect of this new vision, so different in kind and quality from ocular vision, so increased in area. He compared the way the exit into Darkglen seemed to hop and spin and move from side to side with everything else he was seeing it do — he compared this with his memory of watching the dark young man who had shot at him vanish. Evidently it was the same phenomenon, viewed from two different directions. He was moving … or the “door” was moving … or both were moving … or else, in some way, neither was: but something else was happening.

  Meanwhile, through the translucent sides of the corridor he could see other ones. Some were parallel, others were at different levels, or crossing his at different angles, or cutting it through in wide parabolas — he passed through these with no more than a flicker of awareness — or descending like shafts from nowhere to nowhere; until, off in the distances, they blurred and dwindled and were lost. A rather belated sense of his own rashness now occurred to him. But all he did was try to walk another few steps. It was not like walking on any surface which he had ever trod before, but there was a purchase for his feet, that was the main thing, and his feet left the corridor — the “gate” through which he had come now small but still visible and no longer changing — and he found himself in a vast and vaulted area to one side of which he saw a dark triangle.

  He walked toward it, from time to time turning to reassure himself that the way back was not vanishing, and, when he got there, cautiously pushed an end of his scarf through it and drew it back again. It seemed utterly unaffected. He thrust through his head. He looked out upon a warm, wet, narrow gully lined with great ferns. From somewhere above and ahead came a deep, loud, and presumably animal grunting. Nate withdrew his head rather thoughtfully. “This is quite a peep-show,” he said. After rubbing his chin a while he walked back the way he had come and left the open place for the corridor. He intended to go back all the way, but when he stepped through the rectangle once more he felt sand yield beneath his feet, and, opening his eyes, saw a huge red sun resting upon the horizon of an all-encompassing desert.

  His heart gave a great lurch of fear, his breath left him, his lungs strained futilely for air, and his incredulous eyes observed a train or procession of what seemed to be unicorns winding across the dunes like a serpent. He stepped back, stumbled, fell on his knees in the darkness, found he could breath again, closed his eyes so as to be able to “see,” and saw the two men. One of them had in his hand something rather like an automobile antenna with a hilt, ridiculous as this of course was; other than that the two men were identical: young, scantly and strangely dressed, hairy in some odd way which he could not quite put his finger on, and resembling no race or people which he had ever in his life seen or heard of. The one with the object thrust it at him. Nothing happened. The two spoke with each other, and their voices had a pleasant timbre, though seemingly puzzled. Nate was not frightened now.

  And one reason why he was not was because he recognized the object as being identical with the one he had seen in the corner of the windowless room at Darkglen House.

  • • •

  Nate was a while with Et-dir-Mor before he remembered what was still wrapped up and knotted into his long woolen scarf. “Yes, yes, yes,” the old man said, when he saw it. “A ward, a ward-stone. It is not precisely the same as mine, I suppose that no two are, as no two men are, not even my twin grandsons. But it is enough like mine … I will show it to you presently. Well. There can’t be much doubt. Bel-am-My had the ward, he had the sword, he must have been a Watcher
. I don’t know them all. I couldn’t. No one can. But there must be a group or guild or office or corps or caste … words! words! — who does know him. So this must go back to them.”

  They sat in a … Nate assumed he must call it, as he thought of it … in a room: a low-walled, furnished platform built up almost to second-story height within the great central chamber of Et-dir-Mor’s three-tiered dwelling. An S-shaped table which, like a love seat joined and separated them, bore food and drink; and as Nate ate and drank he thought with some guilt of Keziah’s promise that she would bring him the first cup of coffee and the first plate of food. Perhaps he ought not to have done as he did. There were a thousand good reasons for him not to have, but the curiosity which had been building up all night required more power to resist than he had had in his fatigued and light-headed condition. Of course they would wonder there at Darkglen what had become of him, but not for very long. There would be just too much to do. Nate had no fear of their discovering that the panel slid up: why should they? Besides, unless he was completely mistaken, someone of those on the list Keziah called would have another on duty, so to speak, in jig-time. Duty. Old Bellamy’s conversation last night began to make more sense now. A Watcher …

  All alone there, year after year, a crystal gazer of a vastly different kind, watching … watching …

  “But what is it?” Nate asked. “What is it made of?”

  Et-dir-Mor dropped his hand at the wrist in a gesture the equivalent of a shrug. “We do not know. They may be pieces of the Maze itself which split off from it, perhaps at the moment of its creation. If it was created. Or perhaps later. We have never heard of anyone actually finding one there. The ones we know of have been among the Watchers forever, as it were, although there are many legends of them having been stolen by or lost among those who didn’t know their use. Or who did know … or knew something … and who would misuse it — if they could. I need hardly explain to you — ”

  Hardly. That had been almost instinctively evident.

  “It seems that there is something like cell memory at work in these wards. That is, that if it is really a fragment of the Maze, it shows something of the structure of the Maze. We think so. That it adapts itself to show at any rate a certain area of it, the area it is nearest to; and that, entirely out of that area, it would change to mirror or to indicate another one. Am-bir-Ros compared it once to a periscope. Another time he said, ‘It’s like an immensely complex thermometer. You have to learn to “read” it.’ ”

  “Am-bir-Ros?”

  “My friend, whom you may meet, who taught me English. He comes from — not quite your time, I should guess; but close to it. I don’t know if he was before or will be after you. Try some of this — ”

  His hand, with its curious, long, distinct white hairs offered a container of something. Nate took it but did not take of it. “Now, hold on … hold on … easy,” he said. “You mean that the, the Maze? — it doesn’t just cross the dimensions or whatever it is? It crosses time as well?”

  The vessel, hourglass in shape, stayed suspended over the table as they each held it with a hand, one hand on each section of it. The gesture seemed mystical, hieratical. Then, “Oh, yes, I mean that,” said Et-dir-Mor. “Dimensions, times, sections, sectors, parallels, places — all these and more, and things for which we have neither name nor conception nor capacity. It was a fortuitous accident which brought you so easily from your place and time to ours. If, that is, if there be fortuity, if there are such things as accidents. But it is, I do assure you, it is a maze. So you were fortunate.

  “You might quite easily have wandered in it until you died, you know. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. But do not be fearful. I am sure that you — at any rate, we can show you the way back. Some, we cannot. And some,” he added, with a pleasant smile; “some, of course, do not wish to go back.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Some sort of private thing was clearly going on between the tall man and the short man. Some of it, probably, was endocrinal. The tall man swelled out at the middle — hip and thigh and rump and belly — and tapered at the ends: small head, hands, feet. The short man seemed momentarily about to undergo an explosion or implosion which would result in his being not short at all. For the moment (something about him seemed to say) he was holding himself in … but any moment now — There was something false and sly about the tall man, his good humors and his bad ones seemed alike assumed. The short man was all of a piece, but there was nothing reassuring in this; it was a piece of the same material that too many high school principals, boys’ camp directors, and military and naval officers are made of: a texture or quality often dignified by the description, “ability to command” — the desire to bully, override, bear down — the capacity to do so by virtue of office — the habit of having done so for a long time and the confidence of continuing to do so for a long time.

  There was another difference between them, for the tall man was the county sheriff and the short one was captain of the state police troop: dog’s head and lion’s tail. The sheriff appeared to be continually torn between the recollection that Nate had no vote in the county and the possibility that it wasn’t impossible he someday might. The sheriff had only his one paid deputy beneath him and nobody above him except the sovereign citizen-voters — and, at least in theory, the governor of the state, who might (but probably wouldn’t) remove him for misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance of office. He was a tradesman in his private life and a politician in his public one. Almost every legal paper he ever served and almost every arrest he ever made meant not only a fee earned and a duty done but an enemy made, a customer and a vote lost; he gave, therefore, the impression of a man busily engaged in trying to avoid being sucked up by his own rectal orifice. This was Sheriff Nobeldorf.

  The public had no hold on Captain Congers; his eyes, when they turned from malefactors potential or kinetic, were directed toward a hierarchy he no longer entertained much hope of climbing. Middle age now held him fast, he hated the scene of his exile, found refuge from his bitter wife and severe superiors in the unshined boots of a trooper or the possibility of browbeating an offender against the general code.

  Congers barked and snapped, Nobeldorf prowled and looked watchful. The immediate menace of the former seemed to hint, nevertheless, of possible and future protection based on experience; the present non-involvement of the latter threatened, just the same, future and possible menace growing out of ignorance and the need for popular reputation.

  “I’d like a better explanation of where you have been!” Captain Congers bared his teeth.

  “Oh … Just around,” said Nate, vaguely.

  Sheriff Nobeldorf arose and scratched his ass. “Maybe he took a nap,” he suggested. “Must be a million beds in this house. Christ.”

  Nate wasn’t sure if he was being offered an excuse to use or a trap to fall into … or if the tall man was merely thinking aloud.

  A spasm of annoyance passed over the symmetrically seamed face of the state police officer. He ignored the sheriff, but not his remark. “We were all through this place. Went away and thought better of it and came back, I suppose. Well. What were you afraid of?”

  Soft as lard, the sheriff asked, “Went where? Went how? Came back when?”

  Nate said nothing. He was fully aware that he had not been arrested, not — in fact — accused of having done anything except causing his own absence and reappearance. This was not in itself a criminal offense and he was, he felt, not bound to explain it. He was also fully aware that these two men, individually or collectively, had the power of causing him much grief, and he desired not in the least to provoke them into remembering it (if, indeed, they needed any reminders) by any vocal declarations of what he felt he was not bound to do. So he continued to say nothing and tried to look vague rather than stubborn.

  Meanwhile he went on mentally playing one questioner against the other. Congers had less to gain by involving Nate in any criminal charge than Nobeldorf had. He didn’t have t
o seek re-election, a conviction would mean less to him. On the other hand, he had less to lose: an acquittal would mean equally less to him. He didn’t have to consider the cost to the local taxpayers of a trial whose expense was unjustified by the satisfaction of a sentence.

  “How soon’ll they have that report, you suppose?” Nobeldorf asked.

  Congers looked at his watch, shrugged irritably. “Report …” The word echoed, silently loud. Report … report … what kind of a report? Only one answer supplied itself: a medical report. It fit in. Fit in with the fact that he had been neither charged nor accused, fit in with earlier questions concerning his relationship to Joseph Bellamy and did he know the contents of Mr. Bellamy’s will. Yes, indeed. Also: no, indeed. Suppose — damned unlikely to Nate — that he was the dead man’s heir? — maybe a lot less unlikely to Congers and Nobeldorf. After all, he had been invited to Darkglen, he was related by marriage. Suppose the report were to show that neither the bad heart nor anything else of the sort had caused death. Suppose … after all, Ned hadn’t examined the body, hadn’t turned it over … a bullet hole? A knife wound? No … No one had searched Nate or even asked if he owned gun or knife. So … well … a contusion, say. Something like that. “Deceased met his death by violence and Accused stood to profit by his death.” They didn’t talk like that in the United States, but, still.