by Dorian Hart
Solomea stayed just ahead of them, always vanishing around the next corner before they could fully catch up. Grey Wolf soon became frustrated enough to run after him, turning left around a sharp-edged block of hedge and nicking his hand against it. It opened a short, shallow cut near his thumb; the hedges weren’t actually plants at all. They were painted iron, sculpted with meticulous detail to resemble natural flora.
That last turn had brought him out into a little pebbled courtyard, dotted with abstract sculptures and gray metal benches. Water plumed in a squared fountain at its center, falling back into a little pool into which Solomea stared intently. Grey Wolf slowly walked to join him. The surface of the water was a perfect mirror, unrippled despite the cascade of water falling into it.
“Ivellios.” Solomea looked up at him. “You have guessed Mazzery’s game. He lures in people like you, people who have somehow wrested themselves away from Calabash’s enchantment. He brings them close enough that they are drawn into my mind. Then, as you say, he loots the bodies.”
“Gods damn it,” Grey Wolf muttered.
“Mazzery isn’t his real name, of course. He thinks it terribly clever.”
Grey Wolf turned around; the rest of Horn’s Company hadn’t yet caught up or were lost elsewhere in the maze.
“He rescued me, you know,” said Solomea. “Mazzery found me when I first—oh, I’m sure my tales wouldn’t interest you.”
True, Grey Wolf couldn’t have cared less about Mazzery’s personal story, or Solomea’s for that matter, but if he kept this man talking, he might learn something, might glean a clue about how they could steal, trade for, or wheedle away the Crosser’s Maze.
“Go on,” he said. “I’m listening. I find I have little else to do and nowhere else to go.”
Solomea produced a black coin from a pocket of his robe, then flipped and caught it with his left hand. His right was still hidden, folded into the front of his robe. Grey Wolf couldn’t see if the coin landed heads or tails; Solomea glanced at it quickly before tossing it into the fountain.
“I am the last of the Keepers of the Maze, a secretive order in Kai Kin on the southern coast of Kivia. The Crosser’s Maze came to us centuries ago, in a manner lost in the fog of history, but our order has always treated its ownership with the reverence and responsibility one ought to show for the most powerful magical device ever created. We used it to explore the universe, to gather up knowledge lost, forgotten, or never known at all. We wrote hundreds of histories, thousands, committing to ink and parchment an immense collection of facts, accounts, secrets—the greatest library in the history of the world.”
A sad look came over Solomea’s face. “Though now it has been long since any new works have been added to the library. Bereft of the maze these last ninety years, the Keepers have grown few, not maintaining the archive the way they should. Priceless works crumble on the shelves or are borrowed and not returned. I look, sometimes, though it distresses me. I cannot help myself.”
The others still hadn’t reached the courtyard. What if they had become permanently separated? Would Aravia’s left-hand rule lead them here?
“I don’t understand,” said Grey Wolf. “How can you use the Crosser’s Maze to explore the universe? Isn’t it in your head?”
“Ah, Ivellios. I have used the Crosser’s Maze to explore the universe because it is the universe. It is a reflection of everything that ever was or ever will be. Imagine that! All of creation, right here in my brain.” He tapped his head. “So, as I was saying. I was a Keeper of the Maze, and as many Keepers did before me, I sought to use its power to create something lasting, something real. I have always been troubled by the misery and poverty one sees in Kai Kin—conditions that are multiplied a thousandfold across uncountable worlds. I spent decades of my life crafting a solution: the city of Calabash. An escape for the wretched. A haven for the dispossessed. Even a place for prisoners, removing them from society while giving them new hope and a new life.”
Grey Wolf fought off an urge to grab Solomea and shake him. “But we were none of those things, and you trapped us in there anyway.”
Solomea didn’t seem to have heard him. “I solved arcane puzzles that had never been solved, even by previous Keepers, even by King Vhadish XXIII, greatest of our lineage. Calabash is a bounded pocket dimension of variable size! Generations of arcanists wrote with absolute certainty that such a thing would violate all known physical laws. But with the Crosser’s Maze, all things are possible.” The corners of his mouth turned up in a sad smile. “I didn’t mean for you to end up here. That was an accident.”
“Can you fix it?” asked Grey Wolf. “Let us out of Calabash?”
Solomea’s smile vanished; he narrowed his eyes. “Release you from the City Vitreous? You’re not even getting out of the maze! I’m keeping you here, Ivellios, you and your friends, until the vastness of creation breaks you to pieces and you go mad. Like me.” The man blinked, gave his head a little shake. “That’s one possibility. Or I might give you the maze and let you free. I haven’t decided.”
Gods, it wasn’t bad enough that they were inside a magical device contained in a man’s mind. They were in a madman’s mind.
“The bottles were the problem.” Solomea again stared into the fountain. “Such a small thing compared to the staggering complexity of Calabash itself, but in some ways even trickier to craft. One-way magical conduits into a bounded variable pocket dimension were hard enough, but I failed to account for the stabilizing feedback they exerted on one another in the close proximity of my workshop. Once scattered across fifty worlds, the modified aetheric membranes began to oscillate uncontrollably. I should have seen it, but…” Solomea shrugged. “The bottles ended up drawing people into Calabash all on their own. And I was trying to fix that problem when it happened to me. I was drawn into the city with the Crosser’s Maze still in my head, and it broke me. I was lucky to have survived.”
Where in the hells was Aravia? Grey Wolf could make only the most rudimentary sense of Solomea’s ramblings; he needed Aravia to explain them. It became more and more worrying that he was all alone with a powerful madman in the middle of…of…but wait. If Solomea’s mind contained the Crosser’s Maze, how could Solomea be here himself? Was Solomea in his own head?
“That’s when Mazzery found me.” Solomea spat into the fountain. “He discovered me wandering the streets of Calabash in a stupor. There were already thousands of people here by the time I myself was brought in, but Mazzery was the only one to have broken its hold. He wore a charm of minor enchantment, one that protected his mind from small influences, but by unlikely chance its aetheric frequency was…oh, it doesn’t matter. I almost drew him in right then, sucked him into the maze just as the City Vitreous had done to all of us. But I still retained a shred of sanity in those early days. I warned him of what was going to happen, that a time would soon come when I would retreat into the maze entirely, capturing any who came too near. I didn’t understand then what kind of person Mazzery was.”
Solomea stopped talking and stared down into the fountain’s black water. Grey Wolf tried not to let his impatience show on his face while he waited for the man to speak again. What had prompted Solomea to tell his story? Loneliness? It must be a rare thing for people to throw off Calabash’s spell and rarer still for Mazzery to find them and strand them in Solomea’s mind.
“Solomea,” Grey Wolf said slowly, “has Mazzery brought you a woman named Lapis?”
Solomea reached into the fountain with his left hand, keeping his right hand carefully hidden. After a moment he pulled out the coin he had tossed in earlier and held it up to his eye. It had become hollowed out, a little black circle through which Solomea peered at him.
“Yes. She is here. She wants the same thing that you do. She wants the Crosser’s Maze.”
“You mustn’t give it to her!” said Grey Wolf, more sharply than he intended. “Please. We need it to save our world from destruction.”
Solomea pal
med the coin, making it seem to vanish. “I’ll keep my own counsel concerning what I must or must not do. She tries to convince me that she is worthy of it. And her arguments are compelling. As one of Kivia’s preeminent arcanists, I understand the allure of a world ruled by its wizards.”
“That’s her plan?” This was one more thing heaped on Grey Wolf’s pile of confusion. “How can she use the Crosser’s Maze to put wizards in charge of Charagan? We thought she’d been sent to keep it out of our hands, out of the Spire’s hands.”
“She could use the Crosser’s Maze to do almost anything she wants, but it’s a little more complicated than that.” Solomea gave Grey Wolf a sly look. “And I expected you’d be more accustomed to thinking things that aren’t true.”
Grey Wolf put that comment out of his mind. “Listen to me, Solomea, I don’t know what Lapis told you, but the Crosser’s Maze is the only way we can stop a very powerful and evil man named Naradawk Skewn from invading our kingdom. If he does, he’ll kill or enslave everyone. He’ll be unstoppable.”
“I know exactly what Naradawk is capable of,” said Solomea quietly. “I know what he plans to do, and it’s worse than you think.”
Worse than mass murder? “In that case, how can you consider giving the Crosser’s Maze to Lapis?”
Solomea produced the black ring from nowhere and tossed it into the fountain. “Because she also wants to stop Naradawk—in her own fashion. Though it would be more accurate to call that the motivation of the man who sent her.”
“Who was that? Who sent her?”
Solomea turned his back. “Ivellios, do you think you are more worthy than Lapis to receive the Crosser’s Maze?”
“Yes!”
“Ah, here are your friends.”
Grey Wolf turned around; the other members of Horn’s Company were arriving in the courtyard, each from a different entrance in the metal hedge maze. They looked dazed, but each rushed to the fountain to join him. They all spoke at once, but Solomea held up his hand and glared them into silence. His mouth twisted into a sneer.
“Ivellios here maintains that I should give the Crosser’s Maze to you and not to the Sharshun Lapis. Let us examine your collective worthiness.”
The courtyard, its fountain and benches and knife-edged hedges, faded slowly from view while another scene beneath it came increasingly into focus. It was a large room with round tables, toppled wooden chairs, and lumpy piles of clothes scattered on the floor. No, not just clothes…
“It’s the Shadow Chaser,” Ernie whispered.
Yes, this was the place where Ysabel Horn had died. They stood with Solomea near the center of the wrecked commons, the air filled with the charnel stench of the gopher bugs’ victims. A quiet buzzing sound came from the kitchen in the back. Grey Wolf’s companions shuffled in place, glancing around nervously.
Voices sounded from outside the door of the inn. Ernie drew his sword.
“What is this?” Grey Wolf asked.
“Your glorious moment,” said Solomea. “Darien, why don’t we start with you?” He gestured toward the door with his chin. It opened, revealing Dranko standing right outside. But there he was also, observing with the rest of them.
“Look at that handsome devil,” said Dranko. “I’ll bet he’s the leader.”
“May Delioch have mercy on their souls,” said the Dranko in the door. He didn’t seem to have noticed them standing there in the commons, even as his gaze swept around the room.
Ernie—the other Ernie, the one from the past—poked his head in next. “What…what happened?”
“Looks like the stew didn’t agree with them,” said the other Dranko.
Grey Wolf remembered; this was exactly how the horrible scene had begun, the one that led to Ysabel’s bloody death.
Tor—not the real Tor—pushed past Dranko and Ernie into the Shadow Chaser. “There could still be someone alive in there!”
The scene froze. Solomea shook his head. “Ironic words, young Firemount. Had you not blundered in, shouting, needing to be first, things might have played out very differently.”
Tor paled. “But…there could have…”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Aravia. “None of us suspected what would happen.”
“Partially correct,” said Solomea. “It wasn’t only Darien’s fault. All of you share blame in varying amounts. But none of you should be surprised that Darien’s inability to think before acting resulted in someone’s death. I promise you it won’t be the last time, either.”
There was something chilling in the way Solomea spoke that final sentence. Aravia stepped forward. “Are you saying you can predict the future?”
Solomea walked to where the frozen past-Tor had just begun to reach for his sword. He reached up and flicked a piece of grit from Tor’s shoulder. “What an interesting question. The Crosser’s Maze spans all of time and space, so in a way, yes, a Keeper could see the future. Our order considered it an immoral and dangerous undertaking, and anyone wise enough to be granted Keepership would certainly know better.” He faced the company and winked. “But maybe I’ve peeked a time or two.”
“Who dies?” Grey Wolf resisted the urge to grab Solomea by his robe. “Whose death does Tor cause?”
“Catching a glimpse of the future and keeping it to one’s self is one thing,” said Solomea, suddenly grave. “Telling other people is quite another. Despite the great inertia of the universe, I would not be so foolish as to share that knowledge.”
“But you just told us what would happen!” said Tor.
“Generalities are safer than specifics,” Solomea said, “and not all events are of equal weight. I could also tell you that all of you, over the course of the next minute, will believe yourselves to be breathing and not worry myself overmuch that I’m violating causality.”
Frustration burned in Grey Wolf’s stomach.
“Aravia, you knew as well as anyone how helpless Mrs. Horn would be in any kind of attack. But instead of keeping an eye on your elderly companion, you thought of nothing save how you could impress the others with your magical skill.”
The scene kicked back into motion. A gopher-bug flew at Tor, easily ducking the boy’s swing and landing on his neck. Exactly as Grey Wolf remembered it, the boy dislodged the creature and pinned it beneath his boot, whereupon Kibi killed it with his pick.
“That…that didn’t seem so dangerous,” said the Ernie from the scene. “I wonder how it managed to kill all these people?”
Six more gopher-bugs flew out of a door behind the bar, and chaos ensued. Every shout, every scream was recreated while Solomea spun the room around them slightly and somehow slid the focus of the scene onto Aravia. Sure enough, she spent the next few seconds with her back to most of the company, following the trajectory of one gopher-bug in particular, muttering words and flexing her fingers as though practicing for the spell she would eventually cast. Not once did she spare a look to Mrs. Horn, and while she prepared her magic, her eyes locked on the one gopher bug that had spent the battle spiraling around, the beast on Ysabel’s shoulder delivered its deadly bite. Just as blood began to fountain from the old woman’s neck, the scene froze once more.
“Had your priorities been in order, you would have noticed Ysabel’s predicament, but instead you only had eyes for challenging targets. Ernest could have taken care of himself, but that didn’t matter to you.”
“Aravia had never been in a battle before,” Grey Wolf said to Solomea. “It’s hard enough to—”
“Please,” said Solomea. “Aravia was not flustered. She was not panicking. As a Spark of Quarrol, she was naturally inclined to set emotion aside, and she spared no thought for the rest of you. Her only emotion even mildly in evidence was an enthusiastic anticipation that she could flaunt her arcane prowess. I doubt she would deny it now, after the fact.”
Grey Wolf couldn’t stop himself from turning to Aravia, whose face had gone as pale as he had ever seen it.
“Ignore him,” said Tor. H
e reached out and took Aravia’s hand in his own. “Without you the rest of us would have been dead many times over.”
Solomea shrugged. A dog-sized silver spider scuttled out from behind the bar, climbed over one of the corpses, and skittered out the door. Solomea either didn’t notice or pretended not to.
“Kibilhathur Bimson.” Solomea rounded on the stonecutter. “‘I’ll do my best to protect you.’ Do those words sound familiar?”
Kibi looked down at the floor and mumbled something unintelligible.
“Of course they do,” said Solomea. “You spoke them to Ysabel Horn just days before she was killed. But when it came time to actually do something, you stood there like a piece of furniture while a skellari landed on her and bit through her artery. And yet you still shoulder less of the blame than Ernest Roundhill here. Ernest, who watched the little biter crawl over her shoulder and couldn’t even bother to say something, let alone take three steps to his left and pull the thing away. Ernest Roundhill, the golden boy of White Ferry, whose greatest achievement in his first battle was not soiling himself. Though who knows, maybe he—”
“Stop it,” said Morningstar. “If you’ve already rendered judgment, what is the point of—”
“I am not finished, Outcast of Ell. I haven’t yet arrived at the most embarrassing moment. Here.”
Again the vision from the past jumped to life, and they were obliged to watch as the chaos played itself out, a frenzied assault of little flying monsters ending with Mrs. Horn bleeding to death on the floor. Grey Wolf himself knelt by her side, trying futilely to staunch the bleeding with his sleeve, when Dranko pushed him out of the way.
