by Eric Vall
“How much further is it?” Annalíse called to Rana from the back of the group. The swordswoman had been quiet for some time. Had she finished with her sulking, or had she posed the question because of her impatience?
“How would I know how much further it is?” Rana hissed but continued to face forward as she plunged deeper and deeper into the maze. “It’s not like there’s a map or something. We’re in a labyrinth with thirty-foot walls. And I thought I said no questions?”
“Yes, I know that.” Irritation dripped from Annalíse’s distinct raspy voice. “But it seems like we’ve been walking for ages. Are you sure we aren’t lost? Perhaps I should lead for a bit,” the swordswoman said quickly. I had to force myself not to groan in response to Annalíse’s stubbornness. She still thought that she was best suited for leading us through the maze.
This time, Rana did briefly look back at the freckled woman. She shot the human warrior a quick glare as she turned back around.
“Annalíse, we’ve already discussed this,” I tried to say with a patient tone. She needed to let this go. “Rana is--”
“I’ve never gotten lost in my life,” Rana bitterly interjected. “Everyone knows that fox folk have an excellent sense of smell, hearing, and direction, and I’m much better than the average fox. And as for your other little comment, forget about it, not gonna happen.” The curly-haired fox’s tail thrashed the air in frustration. “You know perfectly well that I’m the best person to lead us. If you were in charge, we’d be running around aimlessly like headless chickens. So why don’t you just--”
Without warning, a deafening, rumbling sound drowned out the rest of Rana’s words and tremors began shaking the entire maze. It was as loud as when the maze had erupted from the dungeon’s floor, so we halted in our tracks, and my minions gazed around in anticipation of our next unpleasant surprise.
“Oh, you’re going to love this.” The obnoxious deity clapped his hands together excitedly. “It’s a real crowd pleaser. Too bad the crowd always dies,” he added with an evil chuckle. “Oh well, you can’t win em’ all as they say.” The quaking was so intense that my minions and I struggled to keep ourselves upright and we did what we could to steady ourselves against the stone walls.
“What in the world is going on?” Annalíse said shakily as she knelt down and pressed a hand to one wall.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure we’re not going to like it,” Rana said as she too kneeled. Being closer to the floor seemed to help matters, so Morrigan and I also lowered ourselves down.
“We can’t simply sit here and wait for the shaking to stop,” Annalíse shouted over the rumbling. “Who knows when it’s going to end? Staying here is only going to waste time. We could at least crawl along the ground to keep ourselves from falling over.”
“Believe me,” Rana shouted back. “I’d love to move things along, but moving around in here while this is happening doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me. We don’t know what’s causing it. Let’s wait until we find out more of what’s going on.”
Annalíse didn’t reply, she simply sniffed disapprovingly.
“Hey guys,” Rana said suspiciously after we had been silent for a few moments. “Does it seem like... the floor is moving or something?”
“How do you mean?” Morrigan said unfeelingly.
“I don’t know, it almost feels like--” All of a sudden, a piece of the floor beside Rana began to crack. “That can’t be good,” Rana said under her breath.
Annalíse’s eyes widened, and she held her breath in anticipation. Morrigan’s dark eyes narrowed, and the ravens that perched on her shoulders cawed and beat their wings uneasily. I too felt that the unexpected rift in the rocky ground was cause for concern.
The crack began to grow, and it split into countless other cracks that started to spread throughout the passageway we were in. Without warning, a large chunk of the rocky ground between Rana and Morrigan began to crumble, and within seconds, it had broken to pieces which dropped down. What was left was a gaping hole in the floor. Rana’s mouth hung open in surprise as we all leaned forward to see where the pieces of rock had fallen. The women released horrified gasps at the sight that lay below us, and a grimace spread across my face.
“By the gods,” Annalíse whispered.
A few hundred yards beneath us was a vast sea of boiling lava. The orange liquid bubbled, and it oscillated as though it were an ocean. We watched as the bits of rock that had fallen away splashed into the lava and began to melt as they sank.
“Umm, guys?” Rana said slowly as she stared down into the hole. “Is it just me or is the lava getting closer? Please tell me the lava is not getting closer.” Rana’s words echoed in my head and my breath caught in my chest. The other two women looked up at the fox female, and their eyes grew wide with horror. They hesitated for a moment to look back down, but they finally lowered their gaze once more.
The rest of us scrutinized the deadly liquid fire. Rana was right, it did appear as though we were getting closer to the lava. The movement was gradual, but the maze was definitely lowering itself. So, this was what the rotund giant had meant when he said he wanted to make things more interesting. It was sick and diabolical, and that pompous floating eyesore was loving every bit of it. It was no surprise that no one had ever lived through the maze. Those villagers from the valley probably hadn’t lasted ten minutes inside of this perilous labyrinth.
“No wonder the temperature started to get crazy,” Rana said as she frowned at the lava.
“Oh dear,” the giant god said with mock concern. “Is it too hot in here for you?” Rana shot the deity an angry glare but decided not to respond to him.
“I thought something was off a little after we started into the maze,” the fox woman said as she wiped her sweaty brow. “But the movement was so smooth and slow I thought maybe I was imagining things. We’ve probably been descending this whole time.”
“Yes, that’s correct, give the fox a round of applause ladies and gentlemen!” the fat god clapped his hands giddily.
As if by the god’s command, a chunk of ground beside Annalíse began to crumble, and it fell away. Not five seconds had passed before a piece next to my feet disappeared. No sooner had the hunk of rock splashed into the lava when the wall beside Morrigan began to collapse and at the same time, a gaping hole appeared in the ground to Rana’s left.
“Okay, I think it’s time to start moving,” Rana said, and her blue eyes bulged at the rapidly deteriorating ground beneath our feet. This place was falling apart all around us.
If we didn’t figure something out soon, we wouldn’t be able to survive the labyrinth. Rana was fast, but we needed to be even faster if we wanted to make it out of here. On top of that, she could smell approaching enemies, but I doubted if she would be able to sense which paths had gaping holes in them. We couldn’t waste time turning back around if a path was too damaged for crossing, and I realized that I was going to have to give my minions a hint.
“Morrigan,” I said quickly to the pale elf beside me. “As I recall, you once said you could see out of your raven’s eyes. Is that correct?”
“Yes…” Realization suddenly flooded into Morrigan’s dark eyes, and she nodded in agreement. “I should have thought of that before.”
The childish giant that hovered over our heads wore a look of confusion, and he cocked his head to the side as he studied the tattooed elf and the pets on her shoulders.
“How are birds going to do you any good?” The bald deity scratched his head.
He didn’t know what Morrigan was capable of, and we could use that to our advantage.
“I can get us through here,” Rana said in exasperation. “We don’t need to use her ravens.” I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was offended that she had been replaced by birds.
“We don’t have time to argue about this, Rana,” Morrigan said over the sound of the rumbling maze. “Let me do this.”
As soon as she finished spe
aking, Morrigan’s eyes became consumed by blackness, and Fea and Macha took to the air above us. The white-haired elf walked around a sulking Rana and a slightly smug Annalíse to lead us through. I looked at the irksome god that hung over us in the atmosphere and smiled to myself. His facial expression changed from curious and watchful to sour and pinched. He was confused, and he was angry. He didn’t know what was going on or how Fea and Macha were able to help us. All he saw were two ravens flying through the air. He didn’t know what was happening, and he didn’t like it, he wanted to be in control.
“Why are you using ravens?” the god frowned as he called down to us. None of the members of our party bothered to respond to him, and we continued to follow the dark-eyed elf. The god’s face began to turn purple in response to our silence and clenched his great fists.
“Don’t you dare ignore me,” he screeched in a whiny, high-pitched tone. “Tell me what you’re doing right now!” The giant deity shook his fists in the air as though he were pounding a table.
The more I watched him, the more I loathed him. How could he call himself a deity? Yes, he had some tricks up his sleeves, and he was powerful, but I had never seen a god behave in such a childish manner. It was revolting to share the same title as him, he didn’t deserve his power.
I would gladly take it from him.
Morrigan led us through the maze swiftly while her pets cawed and circled in the air above us. Their black feathers shone in the bright orange light that radiated from the lava, and though our progress was fast now, the maze was still lowering itself, and the temperature was getting unbearable. Carmedy’s cooling elixir didn’t seem to be working at all now. Sweat dripped down into my eyes, and I wiped the droplets away with the back of my hand. My forehead was on fire, and my breathing had become very labored, as had my minions’. Such were the burdens of taking a mortal avatar, but I pressed on. Morrigan silently made sharp turns exactly as Rana had before, but as I had thought, she was faster. The god hovered down closer to the labyrinth to get a better look at the black winged pets that soared over the maze.
“I don’t get it,” the god whined and folded his arms as though he were a child who had lost a game. “They’re just birds.”
I loved seeing him get riled up like this. In fact, I reveled in it.
My minions were beating him.
As we navigated through the maze, more and more chunks of the ground began to fall away. Without warning, a piece would disappear beside one of us or in front or behind. Annalíse almost stepped through a hole that was large enough for a human to fit through, and I had to yank her away before she fell into it. We had to pay attention at all times. One unlucky step and that would be it.
“Are you okay?” I looked over my shoulder at the panting swordswoman as we continued our perilous journey. Annalíse’s chest heaved, and for a moment, she glanced back at the space that she had almost fallen through.
“I’m fine,” she said with a quick nod.
The labyrinth continued to shake and rattle, and the giant deity continued to pout and heckle us into telling him what we were doing. I held back a smile. This would certainly lead to his downfall. He was so caught up in trying to figure out what we were doing, and he hated being the only one who didn’t know. It was as though he were a little boy in a group of friends who knew a secret, and he was the only one who didn’t know and felt left out. He was consumed by it. Had he been able to compose himself and move on, he could have used some other strategy to keep us from escaping. But he was narrow-minded, and it would be one of the last mistakes he ever made, I’d see to that.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Morrigan began to lead us, but I guessed it had to be somewhere between fifteen and thirty minutes. I couldn’t let my mind get bogged down with keeping track of the minutes, there were far too many dangers at present. All of a sudden, I heard Morrigan’s ravens shout out three distinct caws, and they fluttered down to return to their master’s shoulders.
“What are you doing?” Annalíse panted from the distress of the extreme heat. “Why did they stop?”
“We have reached our destination,” Morrigan said calmly as her eyes returned to normal. She gestured to one of the three paths that lay before us to the right. Without another word, the pale elf stepped into the passageway, and we followed behind her.
“Oh, uh, okay,” Annalíse breathed in surprise. A small smile came to my lips. I was proud of Morrigan’s triumph, she had led us through with confidence and without difficulty. But as we followed behind the elf maiden, my smile began to fade. I had expected to see a doorway of some sort that would lead us out of the maze, but there didn’t appear to be any such thing here.
As we walked down the path, I observed that we had arrived at a square area surrounded by walls. How puzzling, were we not meant to be led out somewhere? I had assumed that we would end up on the outside of the maze once we had completed it. Had Morrigan and her ravens somehow made a mistake? I looked around the room we had entered. Strange, no pieces were crumbling away here, but I could still hear the rumbling and hear mighty chunks splash into the sea of lava below us. What was this place? The one obvious feature was a large symbol etched into the stone at the center of the floor, a large circle that looked to be over ten feet in diameter. Without speaking, Morrigan walked toward the ring and studied it closer.
“Come,” the pale elf said plainly after a moment of silent study, and she signaled for us to approach the symbol. As we neared her side, the design began to become clearer. The inside drawings of the circle actually resembled a large maze.
“What is that? A drawing of a maze?” Rana frowned at the symbol on the ground. “I think you made a mistake, Morrigan. We’re still stuck in here. You led us to a dead end. You should have let me--”
“I have made no error.” The white-haired elf raised a tattooed hand to silence the fox. “We were not intended to reach the other side of the labyrinth. In fact, there is no way out.”
“What?” Rana shrieked. “What do you mean there’s no way out of here? You mean we’re trapped here?”
“Not at all.” Morrigan shook her head. “The object of this puzzle was not for us to discover a way out. There is not one. He attempted to deceive us.” Morrigan gestured to the fuming god that hovered over our heads. “He wanted us to believe that getting out was our goal, when in fact we were meant to find the labyrinth’s center in order to triumph.”
“Okay well, if that’s the case then why hasn’t anything happened?” Rana threw her paws into the air in frustration. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re still stuck in here.”
“Yes.” Morrigan nodded. “I had expected the puzzle to be completed upon reaching the center. However, nothing changed upon our entrance.”
“So now what?” Annalíse said with a raspy huff.
“Step onto the symbol.” I gestured to the circular puzzle, and the three of them blinked at me in surprise. Then Rana shrugged her shoulders and began to walk onto the circle.
“Well, there’s nothing else we can try,” the fox woman said. “Might as well.” The rest of them followed suit and stepped onto the strange symbol. As soon as we were all standing on it, the symbol began to glow. The ring of the circle, as well as the lines that made up the maze inside of it, began to radiate a brilliant white light. The rumbling stopped, as did the shaking, and the enormous deity let out a scream of frustration. We had indeed conquered the labyrinth.
The maze abruptly halted its descent, and we rocked to a halt. Then the labyrinth began to rise back up. My minions looked around at each other curiously, but I remained more focused and watchful. We had cleared the maze, but I didn’t want to fall prey to another one this deity’s tricks. Based on the plump giant’s reaction, I knew that we had triumphed and that this challenge was over. The deity’s reaction was truly a sight to behold. Our party watched as the so-called god threw a tantrum in the air above us. He lay on his humongous belly and kicked and flailed like a rampaging infant.
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“No, no, no, no.” The deity pinched his eyes shut and clenched his fists as his ample cheeks turned a bright crimson. “No one has ever lived through my labyrinth,” the god cried out. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!” The four of us scowled up at the deity. His behavior was nothing less than appalling.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Rana said with disgust as the maze continued to ascend. “I have four-year-old cousins who behave better than that.”
Finally, the labyrinth stopped its ascension, and it trembled a bit as it stopped. Once more, without warning, the ground that we stood on began to crack. The four of us jumped in surprise. Had we not won this round? We braced ourselves in anticipation of whatever was coming next. The disintegration of the labyrinth had been perilous enough. I couldn’t imagine what could possibly follow that, but I was ready for whatever dastardly obstacle the loathsome giant wanted to hurl at us.
I glanced at the whining god. He was still throwing his fit, he did not wear his usual smug grin, curious.
“Hey, look.” Rana’s voice got my attention. I turned to see her pointing at the cracks that had formed around the circle. All of the cracks seemed to surround the circle and crawl toward the ring in which we stood. They made jagged lines toward the symbol and all at once, they touched the circle’s edges. The ground began to rumble once more. With wide eyes, we looked at the ground beneath our feet. The circle started to break away from the rest of the ground and raise itself in the air.
Within seconds we were floating through the dungeon in the atmosphere high above the ocean of boiling lava. The disk on which we stood flew through the air until it touched down on solid ground. We had arrived in a space that was similar to the one we had seen when we had first entered the dungeon. It had the same glowing cracks in the floor and the same streams of lava cascading down the walls. The disk lowered to the ground and finally set down.
“Yes, solid ground,” Rana shouted blissfully as she leapt from the stone circle. She knelt down and kissed the floor repeatedly. “My paws are never leaving the ground again,” she sighed as she hugged the floor.
