by Shae Hutto
It looked like magic as well as physical force had been employed to move the bed Roger had so laboriously dragged over the trapdoor. The bed was in two pieces and on fire. Two men in the Queen’s Colors were warily engaged fighting Roger with swords. A third of their number was lying on the ground in a growing pool of blood, testament to Roger’s prowess with his blade. The wizard who had bested them earlier was half out of the floor as he climbed into the room. All three men looked at her in shock as she stood in the doorway appraising the situation. She had chosen one of the Queen’s riding outfits that looked like it had come straight from some hoity toity equestrian club in New England, except for the color. Instead of the usual cream, the form-fitting jodhpurs were a bright orange and the blouse was a royal blue silk with a lace ruffle at the throat. The boots were a black shined to the point of looking like a bottomless pit of crude oil. She hadn’t bothered with the jacket or the hat. She did give everyone in the room a moment to admire the admittedly fine figure she cut in her new outfit before she blasted a bolt of lightning at the wizard who was trying to lever himself into the room in time to parry her devastating magical attack. He failed miserably and left a trail of acrid smoke and the scent of singed hair and wool as he disappeared back down the trapdoor with a wail and a thud. Spanky the Wonder Monkey clapped his hands in delight from his new perch atop the magical glowing orb in the center of the room.
One swordsman dropped his weapon and sprinted for the ladder, deciding cowardice was the better part of valor. It did him no good. Claire waved her wand in a circular motion and a sizzling lasso of energy wrapped the fleeing man in a painful embrace. “Yes!” she exclaimed at having made the spell work properly. She gestured toward the window and the lasso followed where she pointed. The hapless man went zooming through the window out into open twilight air where she released him. He was quickly joined in his long (but quick) journey to the ground by his compatriot who was likewise whisked out the window like so many unwanted sweepings by a white-hot lasso of energy. She sent the flaming bed pieces after them for good measure.
“Yer a hard woman, Claire,” said Roger as he tried to catch his breath. It was hard to tell if he thought that was a good or a bad thing. He certainly looked appreciative. That might have been because she just saved his life, though. Claire didn’t reply but moved to the soldier Roger had managed to put down without her assistance and knelt next to his crumpled form. “He’s brown bread,” said Roger.
“Yeah, but what’s he got on him?” she asked rhetorically as she started patting him down. “Cash? Magical items? Taylor Swift CD’s?”
“Pocket lint? A year’s subscription to Poorly Dressed Mercenaries?” chimed in Roger helpfully. Claire smirked as she tossed Roger a small leather purse full of coins. She kept some cheap jewelry. With no further comment, she used her wand to drop the dead soldier down the stairwell on top of the out of commission wizard. Fireworks from outside drew her attention.
She and Roger looked out the window and saw lightning and fire rising from several different locations around the castle to chase the attacking dragon across the darkening sky. Apparently, the sorcerer she had scorched and dumped down the stairs wasn’t the only pet attack magician the Queen kept around. She might even be lending a hand, herself. A magical tornado dipped out of the dark clouds to attack the menacing reptile but Connix evaded it easily and rained his own magical destruction down on his tormentors. More of those odd energy bolts rained down on targets below him. His attacks must have had some impact on the controller of the tornado because the twister stopped chasing the dragon and began to meander toward the town itself. As it got darker outside, the magical energies being expended on both sides reminded Roger of footage from coverage of the Iraq War from the night attacks on Baghdad.
“Well, this looks like it’s going to get out of control quickly,” mused Claire.
“Which side should we help, do you think?” asked Roger.
“How ‘bout we help nobody? I say we just chill up here until they kill each other.”
“Until someone knocks this bloody tower down around our ears,” growled Roger. Claire pressed her lips together in grim contemplation of that possibility.
“Do you think we should make a run for it?” she asked.
“I dunno, Claire,” he responded. “You probably had the right of it, mavourneen.”
“There’s that word again, Paddy. What’s it mean?”
“I woulda told ya if ya hadna’ called me ‘Paddy,’” he said with a frown, his Irish accent thickening up. Claire briefly considered a conciliatory approach, but decided to let him stew.
“Suit yourself,” she said nonchalantly and started pushing the chest of drawers toward the hole in the floor. “You think Nick and ‘Manda will show up anytime soon?” she asked as she stopped pushing the furniture after realizing there was a more efficient way. She used her wand and her newly mastered lasso spell to slide it over the hole with a few simple motions. It left scorch marks on the finish, but she didn’t care.
“Time is wonky here, Claire,” he responded. “You know that. They could show up five minutes from now or five months. I don’t know any more than you how time passes in more than one world at once, you ken?”
“Let’s hope they’re close,” said Claire grimly. “And with that horrid eye.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Dance the Night Away
“If you have to ask what Jazz is, you’ll never know.”
-Louis Armstrong
Weenie was leading the way again. They trooped past the elevator, gleaming dully in the diffuse light, and both Nick and Amanda paused in wistful contemplation of the way home. They didn’t push the button that sat there, staring at them like a one-eyed sphynx; both inviting and mildly malevolent, like a temptation to do evil that good may come. Instead, they followed their faithful spotted guide and his faint scent of unwashed canine and soon turned another corner, hiding the elevator and its baleful button from their sight. Beyond their direct observation, it was less a temptation and they were able to concentrate more on what they were about and gave both the elevator and the unheeded stirrings of the reptilian portions of their brains not another thought. Weenie sped up as they neared their destination: the fairy tale world. He was both excited about completing his mission and about seeing his favorite humans: Claire and Roger. Although Weenie was fiercely loyal to his current companions, he honestly much preferred the other two of his people. These two were tryingly stubborn and a bit stupid. Neither of them had ever given him any treats, either. Nick stopped abruptly by a door that was distressingly close to their objective. Of course he did, thought Weenie.
“Hold on, boy,” he called. Weenie stopped dutifully but whined in anxiety. He could see the door he wanted just down the hallway. Lately, he sometimes wanted to bite Nick. The thought made him feel like a bad dog. He hung his head.
“What is it?” asked Amanda.
“It’s the Minotaur’s maze world,” he replied with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “I hate that place.”
“Well, let’s keep going then,” said Amanda, tugging on his shirt sleeve. “From the way your dog is acting, we must be close. Either that or another deathbot is about to come stomping around that corner, guns ablaze.” She grinned, but her eyes flicked anxiously to the corner involuntarily, belying her nonchalant facade.
“I’m thinking maybe we should just look in,” said Nick with obvious reluctance.
“What for?”
“We need the horn from this world to wake up the Queen’s family,” explained Nick. “If we just popped in and grabbed it right now, that would save us from having to come back and get it later.”
“But aren’t your sister and her cute Irish boyfriend waiting for us to come save them from our friendly neighborhood dragon?
“Yeah. But time works differently in here. There might not be a difference in what time we show up there even if we spend a week in here,” explained Nick unhappily.
“Or ten years might go b
y even if we’re only in there for an hour?” suggested Amanda.
“I don’t think anything that drastic will happen,” said Nick. “I think worst case is the time in both worlds syncs up and we lose the same amount in both places.”
“Well, I don’t know squat about the big picture, Nickster,” said Amanda resignedly. “I’ll follow your lead. Do you think it’s worth it?”
“Let’s just peek in and see if conditions are favorable. If it’s overcast or a long way from sunset, it’s not worth it.”
“Ok. Pop open the door.”
Nick was hoping conditions were not favorable. He opened the door, fingers crossed that it would be the middle of the night, knowing deep in the part of his stomach that was intimately familiar with Murphy and his dreaded law that it was near sunset on a beautiful summer evening. He was greeted with a bright blue sky deepening to purple in the East. There were no clouds and the sun was just about to set between two peaks. There was probably a little over an hour left before the sun set completely. A sunny path of sunlight stretched off into the East, framed in stark relief by the shadows of the Western mountains. Nick could not have picked a better time to start the maze. He groaned.
“Good thing you’ve got your running shoes on, hot stuff,” he said to Amanda, then whistled to Weenie. “We’ve got a jog ahead of us.” He opened the door and started jogging toward the path of light, trusting them both to follow him without giving them a chance to question his decision. Amanda stared after him in confusion and he sped off into the bright sparks of dust suspended in the air and glistening with reflected solar glory. Weenie barreled past her and took off after Nick.
“Jog?” she finally asked as she stepped into the dying light of day in the maze world and closed the door behind her with a click that reverberated through her soul. The door on this side was set in a stone cabin that looked like something you would expect to find somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. “In a dress?” she asked the empty field before her.
At least she was wearing sneakers. After a couple of minutes of trying to run in her red silk dress, Amanda growled in frustration and hiked up and gathered the dress around her waist and jogged much faster. She was still hindered by not being able to swing her arms and hold the dress at the same time, but her longer legs allowed her to gain on Nick. She had no desire to actually catch him up with her dress like that. Besides, she didn’t know where the hell they were going. She growled some more and blew her hair out of her eyes ineffectually.
Nick continued a steady pace for what seemed like forever across gently rolling hills covered in soft meadow grass that was cropped in places and fairly shaggy in others. It would have been idyllic if not for the labored breathing of both a teenager in a dress and a less than enthusiastic Dalmatian. They both wanted to yell to Nick to slow up, but Weenie lacked the necessary anatomy to form words and Amanda had too much pride. So, they both suffered in relative silence. For the first several thousand years of uninterrupted, tortuous running, nothing seemed to change. On either side of their illuminated path stone cabins that looked suspiciously similar passed by at regular intervals. The sun’s bulbous orb slowly sank behind them and their path stood in sharp contrast to the dusk on either side. She wondered what would happen when the sun finally vanished entirely behind the curve of the planet and they ran from penumbra to actual honest to goodness umbra.
Before that happened, she saw a grey wall start to rise from the coming horizon. Made of some drab stone, the wall was the epitome of massive and stretched as far as her eye could discern in both directions perpendicular to their path. Once it was no longer just a hint and a promise on the horizon, but unmistakably in front of them and real, Nick slowed his jog to barely more than a walk and after a few minutes, turned to face his two exhausted companions. Amanda quickly released the folds of her dress, hiding her legs once more.
“Once we can see the walls, we’re safe from the first part,” Nick managed to say between deep, gasping breaths. “Which is a good thing, because it’s another half hour jog from here. I plan on walking.”
“Woof,” agreed Weenie in between pants, his bright bubblegum-pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
“Yes,” said Amanda in between pants, her tongue redder than Weenie’s, lolling out the front of her mouth. “Woof, indeed. Let’s walk.”
Walk, they did. With the disappearance of the sun behind them, a chilly breeze began to blow softly, drying their sweat, but making Amanda wish she had a jacket and jeans on instead of a silk dress. She considered digging her old clothes out of her backpack, but couldn’t bring herself to put on clothes that were so filthy and smelled so disagreeable. As they walked and their sweat evaporated, she grew used to the new temperature and aware of the warmth of the earth below as it radiated its stored heat back to the heavens.
“What did you mean, ‘the first part?’” asked Amanda as they walked and caught their collective breath.
“If the sun had set before we could see the walls of the maze,” explained Nick. “then we would have been back in the loop, walking over the same ground again and again.”
“What loop?” asked Amanda. “How does that work?” Nick remembered that Amanda had not been with them when they first came to the maze world together and been chased away by Connix.
“This whole world is a maze,” he said, gesturing expansively at the surrounding darkness and the deeper, greater darkness of the wall looming ahead of them. “The first part of the maze is more subtle than stone walls. When you emerge from the door, any direction you go you will arrive back at that little stone cottage. As many times as you try, you will get nowhere. But, inscribed on one of the rocks on the hut, there’s a little dinky rhyme that explains you have to follow the path of the sun between the peaks of those mountains.” He waved his hand at the slightly lighter darkness behind them where the sun had sunk behind twin peaks of granite. “Now that we are in sight of the walls, we are out of that infernal loop. Make sense?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Amanda. “In a cheesy kind of way.” Nick grunted in acknowledgement of the corny nature of the maze. They walked in silence for a few minutes until they could feel the imposing height of the wall blocking the night sky in front of them. Amanda felt the need to stretch her hands out in front of her, afraid that she would run smack dab into the stones with her face. “How do we get in, anyway?” she asked Nick. “Is there a door?”
“No, that’s the part I really hate,” replied Nick with some resignation in his voice. “This part is designed so that we arrive at the wall in full darkness. At some point, we will just be in the maze. When we touch that wall, if we were to turn 180 degrees and walk back, we would hit the wall behind us. You can’t see it happen. It just does.”
“Bullshit,” said Amanda and pulled a flashlight out of her backpack. Light flared, blinding to their dilated pupils. She shaded her eyes against the glare and shone the light on the impossibly unbroken wall of stone that stood not ten feet in front of them, absorbing the light implacably. It rose to a dizzying height above them. Etched deeply in its surface was an etching of two mountain peaks. She turned and shone the light behind her, illuminating an impossibly unbroken wall of stone that stood not ten feet from them, darker than night, drinking in the beam thirstily. It, too rose an improbable distance into the air. On its surface was a sun; a stylized orb with rays shooting out from it. The strip of stars above them was a narrow ribbon of faint sky running straight as a ruler over their heads. They were in the maze and Amanda felt the weight of innumerable, immeasurable tons of rock pressing in around her. She felt trapped. As she gazed upwards, she slowly sank to the ground with a slight whimper. Her flashlight dropped to the soft earth beside her, unheeded.
“Yeah, let’s have a rest,” said Nick, pretending that Amanda had sat down on purpose. He sat next to her and pulled a couple of ship’s biscuit from his bag and handed her one. She took it listlessly and went through the motions of tapping it against her knuckles to enc
ourage the weevils to leave before gnawing on the almost inedible brick of bread. They nibbled in silence for a while. Amanda seemed to perk up a bit in her usual way.
“How do we get out again?” she asked.
“I hope that there’s another exit at the other end,” replied Nick. “But if there isn’t, we come back to this spot and wait until the sun sets between those mountains. When it does, this wall with the sun on it will vanish and we walk out.”
“I think it will be less oppressive when it gets light again,” she said finally, obviously hoping Nick would assure her that it would be better in daylight.
“That’s the other thing I hate about this maze,” he responded reluctantly after taking a deep breath. “The sun will not rise while we are in here. It will be dark, moonless night until we get out.”
“I hate you,” she replied listlessly.
“That seems a little harsh,” said Nick who had once told his sister that she smelled like dog farts. Amanda, who was aware of some of the hypocrisy, tried to suppress a grin and failed. Like a faulty and unpredictable switch, Amanda’s brain clicked into a new mood and she sprang to her feet, energized and optimistic. She looked around at the gloom a little too eagerly and started humming softly to herself. Nick didn’t know what ‘bipolar’ was, but it occurred to him that Amanda might be somewhat unstable. Not that he could blame her. He climbed to his feet more slowly than his companion.
