Hunter Brown and the Eye of Ends

by Chris Miller

  “Yeah, well, we’re not out of the woods yet,” I said nervously, thinking of what lay ahead of us.

  “No, we still have to get lost in them first,” Dad corrected. “Come on, the tunnel ends this way. That’s where the entrance to the Maze begins.”

  I retrieved the backpack I’d dropped and followed my father into the darkness ahead. We were between two rock walls: one the towering cliff face, the other the outer wall of the Maze of Rings. The ground was gritty beneath our feet, like a smooth, solid slab of rock that had been sprinkled with sand. Each crackling step echoed off the grey stone walls. It gave the space a certain, creepy ambiance. The good thing about hearing your own footsteps is that you can’t easily be followed by anyone else. You know when you’re alone.

  Eventually, we came to an arched hole in the wall to our right, the entrance to the Maze. An inscription was carved overhead that read: WHAT THE EYE REVEALS, IN FATE IS SEALED.

  “That’s a cheerful thought,” I muttered, remembering what Dad had said about the visions. Was the end truly coming? Would Tonomis win?

  The floor was scattered with the bones of those who had met their end, searching for a glimpse of the future. They hadn’t made it far; the Crag Spiders had finished them before their journey began.

  I knew this because the lifeless remains of one of the spiders was curled atop the bones of one of the dead, a spear having penetrated its abdomen, but not before it had dealt a death blow to its victim. I gasped, seeing the creature for the first time. Dad had been right…. These were not your ordinary household spiders. The black, rock-encrusted body lived up to what I’d thought were Dad’s exaggerations in size. This killer arachnid was perhaps even bigger; its jagged, bulbous body as imposing as a wrecking ball. I shuddered at the two skeletal forms, locked in an eternal battle like a sign posted at the Maze’s entrance, serving as a warning to all visitors: This was dangerous ground.

  Dad wasted no time scavenging the fallen. Like clockwork he moved from body to body, gathering whatever items had been left behind. A swarm of moths, hidden in one of the remains, fluttered out as Dad rummaged for items. The undersides of the moths’ wings were black, but the backs were an entrancing, incandescent gold, which glowed in the darkness as the swarm of moths entered the mouth of the Maze and turned left. Dad gathered a pair of curved knives, a velvet pouch that seemed to be full of sand, and a spear, which he took for his own personal protection. He tucked the knives in both sides of his belt and pointed the spear out in front of him.

  “Beyond this point anything can happen, so keep alert, and stay on your toes. Don’t forget, Tonomis may be here already—could be waiting around any corner. Most importantly, if you see a vision forming, look away. If you don’t, your visit here will be over and it’s poof, back to Solandria.”

  “Got it,” I said, feeling the excitement building in my chest. A low howl of wind escaped the gaping mouth of the Maze, hitting me in the face. The first thing I noticed was that the labyrinth had bad breath; it smelled of sulfur. The second thing I realized was that it sounded hungry—ravenous even. It had been a long time since a mortal had wandered into its throat and it was ready for another visitor.

  “So how exactly will we know if we’re going the right way?” I asked as we stepped through the archway and into the first ring of the Maze. Dad glanced to the left, then to the right. The passageway seemed to disappear into the inky blackness in both directions.

  “I’m kind of hoping it will come back to me as we go,” Dad confessed. “It’s been so long and my memory of this place isn’t exactly all there.”

  “How much do you remember?” I asked.

  “Pretty much everything up to that arch we just passed through,” Dad said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

  “You mean you’re just…winging it now?”

  “Yup! From here on out, we’re going on instinct.”

  My own instinct told me to panic, but I did my best not to show it. “Okay then, to wherever the Author leads us,” I said, hoping to inspire him (and myself) with Hope’s words.

  “Something like that,” Dad replied. His message was clear: he knew the Author was in control, but he didn’t have to like it.

  After considering the branches off the entrance, Dad finally made the decision to head down the passageway splitting off to our right. For the next half hour he led me through a series of twists and turns that seemed to move us closer to the center of the rings, and then back out. At times, it felt like we were wandering aimlessly. The only good thing was that our wandering had been fairly uneventful to this point—no Shadow monsters. Considering all of the stories Dad had told about the dangers of the Maze, I was glad nothing had shown up…yet.

  The further we went, the stronger I felt that each step forward was another step closer to, not just our quest’s end, but ours as well. I knew what Dad had seen in the visions. If we didn’t get to the Bloodstone first, this very well might be my last adventure ever. Remembering Hope’s advice, I tried harder not to dwell on those thoughts.

  Instead, I decided to engage my mind with repeating to myself the riddle my father had written from his original quest through the Maze. We enter the circle by night, and are consumed by the fire. I even made a rhythm of it and marched to the beat of the words as we walked. There had to be some reason he wrote that….

  As we continued down the passageway, I began to hear soft fluttering sounds, like bats or small birds darting about in the darkness behind me. Every time I looked, nothing was there, but the near-silent noise made me uneasy nonetheless.

  “Why is it I get this feeling we’re being watched?” I asked.

  “They don’t call it the ‘Eye’ for nothing. Down here, you’re always being watched.” Dad pointed up at the column of fire piercing the darkness high above us...always constant, never wavering, never blinking.

  Thanks, Dad, I thought. Way to calm a guy’s nerves.

  I decided to chalk up the unsettling feelings and sounds to my overactive imagination, forcing myself back into step with my silent rhythm. We enter the circle by night….

  “Hunter! Watch out!” Dad shouted to me, waving wildly at the floor.

  Too late. I felt something shift beneath my foot.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” he cautioned, pointing down at the place where I had just stepped. I slowly looked down to see what I’d stepped on. A thick thread had been stretched across the passageway only a few inches from the floor.

  “What is it?” I asked, more frightened by my father’s reaction than by the actual threat. “A booby trap?”

  He nodded intently, getting down on his hands and knees next to me for a closer look at the thread. “The deadliest kind—a Crag Spider made this.”

  I suddenly got this image of an enormous spider hidden in the shadows, with one foot resting on this very thread, waiting patiently for the vibrations that would signal its next meal had arrived…namely, me.

  “Whatever you do now, don’t panic,” Dad coached me. “We’re going to take this slowly.”

  Easy for him to say! He wasn’t the one with his life literally on the line. I felt like every pounding of my heartbeat was pulsing down the line to ring the “dinner bell.”

  “I’ll need your sword for light,” Dad said, taking it from my hand. He started walking away. “I’ll be right back. Just…wait here.”

  What else was I going to do? As Dad quickly disappeared down the tunnel, so did the light. For a tense moment I was left alone in the dark, trying to master my fears.

  By his fear, a man appoints his master, I breathed over and over to myself, drawing upon the strength of the Code.

  Even so, Dad could not have returned soon enough. The blue light from my Veritas Sword was just as much a hero as my father was, chasing away the lurking nightmares in the shadows. Holding as still as I could, I peeked through the corner of my eye and saw he was
carrying something.

  “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Dad said calmly. “This rock is going to take your place. The important part is that once the line is stretched, we can’t let it up. From what I know, the spider doesn’t strike until the line goes loose.”

  I gulped and waited patiently as Dad pushed the line down with a hand on each side of my foot. Then, he instructed me to roll the rock over the middle. We both held our breath as he slowly lifted his hands off the line.

  The line held tight. Not hearing anything, Dad breathed a sigh of relief and tried to wipe off the oily substance that came from the spider’s thread. He made a face and held out his fingers to me. “Weird smell, isn’t it?”

  I leaned away from the offer. “If you know so much about these Crag Spiders, don’t you think you could have said something about watching out for the trip lines sooner?”

  “Cut me a little slack,” Dad said. “I’m still trying to remember everything. But, no harm done, right?” He patted me on the back, and not waiting for my reply, said, “All right then. Let’s get back to it.”

  Dad handed back my Veritas Sword and led us on up the trail. We had only gone a few yards up the path when we both heard the sound.

  TWANG!

  The sound was like…a note being plucked.

  We both stopped dead in our tracks.

  “It knows we’re here,” Dad whispered. The way he said it, I didn’t need to ask what “it” was.

  “What do we do?”

  “Stay alive,” Dad said simply. “The trap is behind us, but the spider can approach us from any direction. They’re not stuck down in the Maze like us.”

  Gripping sword and spear, Dad and I positioned ourselves back to back to defend against both fronts. After a few minutes of silence, we decided the best course of action would be to keep moving. So, with Dad leading the way, I walked backwards to protect against a rear attack. This went on far too long.

  After nearly half an hour, we’d still not seen or heard any response from the tripped Crag Spider line. By now we were well away from the original site. Feeling convinced we were past the danger, I decided to turn around and walk forward again.

  Big mistake!

  As soon as my back was turned, I heard a hissing sound from behind me. I whirled back around and came face to face with a Crag Spider, hovering about six feet from the ground. The black exoskeleton shell covering its body and legs glinted like polished steel in my sword’s light. Its long pinchers were only inches from my head. The spider made a strange hissing sound as it spread its jaws and readied for the kill. My feet felt like lead and I froze in place.

  “Get down!” Dad shouted behind me.

  I did, just in time to miss his spear, which planted itself right between the spider’s fangs. The stunned creature howled and shook its head, trying to get free from the spear. Dad launched himself into the fray, grabbing hold of the spear and shoving it back further into the spider’s head.

  “Don’t just stand there!” Dad shouted as he struggled to hold on to the spear. “Cut it down!”

  “Where?”

  “The legs,” Dad grunted. “Go for the legs!”

  I ran past the spider and severed all four legs on its left side with a single swipe of my Veritas Sword. The unsupported body fell lopsided to the floor and squirmed in circles. Dad finally freed his spear and delivered a death blow to its face, piercing its forehead.

  “Wh-where did it come from?” I asked bewildered. “I’d only turned around for a second….”

  “From above,” Dad said, looking up into the darkness. “It must have been following us for some time, waiting for the opportunity to present itself.”

  I suddenly felt horrible. I’d nearly killed us by neglecting my post. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “We’re just lucky this one was so big,” Dad said, wrenching the spear free from the motionless foe.

  I looked at him like he was crazy.

  “I’m serious,” Dad explained.

  “How did it find us?” I asked, noticing something odd about the creature’s face for the first time. “It doesn’t have any eyes.”

  “You’re right,” Dad agreed, leaning in for a closer look. “Whoa! Do you smell that?”

  I did. It was the same scent we’d discovered on the spider’s thread, only much stronger. It seemed to be coming from the oil-like liquid pooling up under the dead creature.

  “They probably hunt by smell,” Dad observed. “Maybe coat the thread with their own scent and use that to track their prey…or just make a claim on them.”

  After Dad convinced me that we were free from the Crag Spider’s threat, we set back off down the passage. That didn’t stop me from keeping a wary eye to the sky, though. In my opinion, we couldn’t get out of the open Maze soon enough. Imagine my relief when we discovered a doorway cut into the end of one of the Maze’s passageways.

  Dad seemed just as excited, but for a different reason.

  “A decision point,” Dad said, motioning me to shine my light into the opening. The roughhewn door led into a large rectangular room with white limestone tile on the floor.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “It’s coming back to me now,” Dad said, choosing to leave the Maze’s path to enter the room. “The Maze presents various decision points that can alter the path of the Maze.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “It’s at least worth exploring,” Dad said.

  As soon as I stepped inside, the passage behind us sealed shut, blocking any chance of escape. The stone wall itself had closed up in the same way the Tempering Stone had healed itself. Unlike the open passageways that had led us here, this room had a ceiling twenty feet high.

  “Oh yeah,” Dad said, his voice echoing off the walls, “and every decision we make in the Maze is final; there’s no going back.”

  “I kind of got that point,” I said, glancing nervously across the room. The light from my sword cast a dim blue light on the scene. We were standing near the middle of the room, which stretched out twelve feet in either direction. There was a chandelier of unlit candles, hanging from the center of the ceiling. The walls were solid dark stone on all four sides, and the tile floor was a ghostly white. The stark contrast of the two created an eerie effect that the floor was floating in space. The illusion was only heightened by the fact that the white floor tiles reacted to the glow of my sword like a black light.

  “It’s our first test,” Dad said thoughtfully. “Each room has one entrance and one exit…assuming it isn’t a dead end, of course.”

  I really didn’t like the use of that phrase, “dead end,” in context with our current situation.

  “So, where’s the exit then?” I asked anxiously.

  “That’s the test,” Dad said, as he continued to eye the space.

  “A hidden passageway?”

  Dad nodded, “Except, not quite that easy.”

  With a puffing sound, the candles of the chandelier flickered to life on their own, causing our shadows to dance on the walls behind us in the warm light of their glowing. A golden sparkle of light I hadn’t noticed before reflected off a tile near the center of the room.

  “Hello, what’s this?” Dad wondered. He strode to the place and bent over to examine the golden inset.

  “There seems to be some kind of inscription here,” Dad said, clearing his throat and preparing to read it aloud:

  One door is Truth, the other one Lies.

  Which one can you trust? Only Truth leads to life.

  This key you are given: one question you ask.

  Knock, then discern through which door you must pass.

  “Might make a little more sense if there were any doors,” I complained, looking around at the empty room.

  “Like I said, these tests are tricky,” Dad said. “Look f
or anything that might symbolize a door. It’s not always clear.”

  Glancing around the bare-walled room, I happened to notice a strange movement along the floor to our right and left. A pair of rectangular shadows danced in time with the candlelight, just like our shadows. The only difference was that unlike ours, these shadows seemed to have no source.

  “Check this out,” I said, pointing to the flickering shapes on the floor. “Does that look right to you?”

  Dad cocked his head and investigated the shadows with childlike curiosity.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he muttered, reaching out above one of the cast shadows. With his palm outstretched, he connected with the front of an invisible object. Rippling out from his touch, an ancient, wooden door appeared. The rotten frame almost looked as if it would fall apart at any moment. Over the door frame a single word was written in red letters: TRUTH.

  “Well, that was easy,” I said, reaching out to open the door.

  “Not so fast,” Dad said, grabbing my arm. “There are supposed to be two doors, remember?”

  “Sure, but this one says TRUTH,” I pointed out. “What more do we need to know? This is the one we needed to find.”

  “Still, we might as well see what our options are.”

  I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Dad walked over and touched above the second shadow and a second door appeared, identical to the first: old, wooden, and a sign over its frame that read (you guessed it), TRUTH!

  “Well, that’s confusing,” I said, pondering the situation.

  “I think that’s the point,” Dad said, glancing between the newly revealed exits. “One of them lies.”

  “Great. So how are we supposed to know which one is the real door of truth?” I wondered.

  “This key you are given: one question you ask,” Dad repeated. “I think we’re supposed to ask the doors a question of some kind.”

  “How about just asking the door if it’s the door of Truth?” I suggested.

  “The door of Truth would say ‘yes’ and so would the door of Lies. Won’t work.”

  Dad was right, and now that I thought about it, asking which one was the door of Lies wouldn’t work either; the door of Lies would lie and say “no,” just like Truth.