"You know where we need to enter the maze?" I asked the elf as we started across the green end of the valley. We were lower than we had been while we skirted the rock shoulder, so now we were climbing an easy slope toward the nearest wall of the maze. The temple itself was out of sight.
"Choose as you will, Hero. It makes no difference. Every opening leads to the shrine and none gets there."
"Is there a point to this riddle?" I asked.
"The maze lives, breathes, thinks, moves. It is the first defender of the shrine. It can admit anyone it chooses to admit. And if it doesn't choose to admit you, the only way by is to kill it, and it can't be killed."
"The way you elves can't be killed?" I asked.
"The maze has been there since before the beginning. It is promised that it will remain after the end."
"And if we don't get in there, and back out, the end is upon us, right?" I asked, to remind him of our position. His good cheer was really beginning to annoy me.
"And worlds lost or won!" he boomed. That such volume could come from a mouth with no lungs below it still astounded me. "Think what a tale they'll tell of us in the Netherworld!"
"He's fey," Lesh said.
"He can't be fey, he's already dead," I said. "Despite his feeble boasts, what more can he lose?" I didn't try to keep him from hearing me. "Let's get there," I said, without giving the elf a chance to add another wisecrack. "If I listen to much more of this crap, I'll teach him what soccer is all about." That was for my own benefit. I didn't expect the elf to understand the reference, and apparently he didn't, but Timon got a laugh out of it.
There were tiny white flowers scattered throughout the grassy part of the valley. In some places, the flowers were so thick that there was hardly room for the grass. I knelt down in one patch and pulled a flower on a four-inch stem. I couldn't smell any scent from the flower, but I slipped it into a buttonhole on my jacket. I was going to have something to show for this trek.
My danger sense had been relatively quiet until we rounded that rock shoulder and I got a good look at the shrine. It started doing a tarantella as we started moving toward the maze. Then the feeling built. I tried to deal with the concept of a field of rocks being a living creature and failed absolutely. Our elf was not being allegorical. The way he spoke, I was certain that he believed what he said, that the maze was a living defender of the shrine. The first defender.
"Where's its brain? Where's its heart?" Lesh asked, almost shouting at the head just in front of him.
"Wherever it chooses to be," the elf replied.
"If you want to hold any hope of getting home to your father, you'd better come up with something better than useless riddles and inane patter," I said. "If that's all you can provide, we might as well dig a hole and bury you here, save ourselves the bother of toting you around and listening to the sound pollution you spout."
He hesitated a moment before he answered. That was promising, even if his words weren't.
"I can't give you hope that doesn't exist," he said. "If you find your way through the maze, it will only be because another defender feels confident of destroying you later. I can only sense faint hints of their minds, but they have their politics, like all sentient gatherings."
I reciprocated by taking my own time considering what he said before I spoke again.
"Can you guide us through the maze?"
"For what good it may do," he said. "I can sense the proper course to take at any specific moment. An elf can't be lost. But the maze can shift, and any correct choices can be made incorrect at its whim."
I thought of one possible loophole, but I didn't say anything, just in case the maze had good hearing. If it could read minds, we were out of luck anyway.
A mile isn't far to walk on a sunny day, even if you're loaded down with a heavy pack and a heavier heart. But not all miles are equal. We got to the top of the slope, and it looked as if we had a mile to go to the beginning of the maze. But that last mile was extraordinary. After ten minutes of level and then slightly downhill walking, we were still just as far away and the rock we had started from appeared to be a mile behind us.
I stopped walking. My danger sense had been getting progressively more agitated about what I would expect as I covered the distance separating me from a threat. But my eyes were telling me that the enemy, the wall, was no closer. The easy guess was that my eyes were wrong.
"What is it?" Lesh asked.
I told him. He looked at the wall of the maze, then back to where we had started. Timon and Harkane went through the same motions. Harkane's movements gave the elf his chance to judge the distances too.
"You realize, of course, that we are almost on top of the maze," the elf said.
"I figured that out," I said. "That's why I stopped. But my eyes don't agree, so I have to try something else."
There weren't a lot of options popping into my head. All I could think of was If my eyes are lying, I've got to try it without them. I drew Dragon's Death and closed my eyes while I started pacing forward carefully, sliding one foot in front of the other.
"Stay close to me," I warned the others. I took only five steps before my blade encountered stone. I opened my eyes and the outer wall of the maze was right there.
"How did you do that?" Lesh asked.
"What did it look like to you?" I asked.
"It looked like the maze came tearing straight at us and ran itself right into your sword."
"I'm impressed," Xayber's son said. "I would have thought that you would need much longer to think of that."
"Maybe if you hadn't been so quick to assume that our minds are puny, you wouldn't be in the position you are," I said quietly-trying to avoid making it sound like an insult. The insult was there, of course, I simply wasn't trying to emphasize it at the moment.
There were two openings into the maze about equally distant from where were. I mentally flipped a coin and headed for the entrance to our right. I kept my left hand on the outer wall of the maze to make sure that it didn't zoom off on us again. The wall was stone, cold, hard, and smooth. I didn't feel any throbbing pulse, any rise and fall of breathing lungs. I still couldn't conceive that it might actually be alive.
"Stay close together," I said before we entered the maze. "Keep a hand on the back of the man in front of you. Grab a strap or something. If this maze can shift, I don't want to let it separate us."
We were near the center of the north wall. Our straight-line distance to the shrine couldn't be more than a mile and a half, not that straight-line distances would mean much in a maze. My danger sense clanged like a fire alarm at the entrance, then settled down to something bearable, leaving itself room to signal a panic if the occasion arose. I hesitated for a long time at the start of the maze, trying to feel something of this creature we were about to enter, to violate. I even tried communicating with it, tried to project a thought ahead of us.
Why don't we make this simple? Make it easy. I'm already suitably impressed.
I didn't hear any replies.
One foot in front of the other. Shuffle off to Buffalo. Or someplace. Put your left foot in. Put your left foot out. Walk the line. There was no static, no resistance, no fireworks as we entered. I walked straight ahead along the first passage, staying close to the wall on my left, touching it, dragging my hand lightly along the rock about half of the time. Whenever we came to a choice of paths, I let the elf decide which way we should go. He might have been leading us in circles, or into any number of traps, but I thought that he was doing his best to keep his end of the bargain. True, he had damn little to gain by helping us if our mission was as hopeless as he claimed, but he had absolutely nothing to gain by betrayal. As long as he was intelligent and rational enough to figure that out, I didn't think that we had to worry about betrayal. But how rational can you stay when all you have left is your head in a birdcage?
The walls of the maze and the ground beneath our feet were a uniform slate gray. The walls were fourteen feet high and the passage seven feet wide. Negotiating a static maze like that, against a stopwatch perhaps, would have been a stimulating challenge as a game or intellectual exercise. The chance that the maze was alive, able to shift its configuration at will, and possibly able to throw more deadly obstacles in our path, made it much, much more. The tension I felt was maddening, waiting for something-anything-to happen. But the maze remained passive, quiescent. I wasn't sure what to expect-sudden trapdoors to deep pits, armed and hideous-looking creatures, extremes of one sort or another-active defenses certainly, not just boredom and the drain of nervous anticipation. For two hours there were no sounds but our boots scraping stone and the elf's terse directions-left, right, or straight ahead; second left, third right, when several passages appeared close together. Then we turned one corner, and a second, immediately, and the elf said to stop.
"The pattern has changed," he announced. "We have to backtrack."
I almost asked how far back we would have to go, but didn't.
"Which way is it to the shrine from here?" I asked instead. "Direct course."
The elf thought about it for a second, then said, "To your right." I pointed and he said, "Just a little more this way." I adjusted my aim and he said, "Precisely."
"Plan B," I announced, though I had never said anything about alternative plans. This was the possibility that had popped into my head before we reached the maze.
"Don't say anything, not one word," I warned my companions, though I had no real cause to believe that silence would provide any measure of surprise.
I took a rope from the side of Lesh's pack and a grapple from Harkane's. I attached the grapple, paid out forty feet of rope, then had the others each take hold of the line farther back, all without saying a word. It was going to be tricky doing this in a seven-foot-wide passage, but I coiled the rope at my feet and started to swing the grapple around my head, building up momentum. Finally, I launched the grapple over the wall in the direction of the shrine. The hooks clanged softly on the other side, and held when I drew back on the rope.
"Quickly!" I said, and pulled myself up the rope first. When I reached the top, I crossed to the middle of the seven-foot-thick structure and stood on the rope to make sure that the hooks didn't pull out while the others climbed-Timon first, Harkane with the elf, then Lesh. I had one hand on my elf sword, but no opponents appeared to challenge us.
I coiled the rope and slipped it over my shoulder, ready for the next time. We were closer to the shrine than I would have guessed, about two-thirds of the way across the maze, and we were able to gain another fifty yards moving on top of the labyrinth before we had to climb down again.
"When the deck's stacked against you, cheat," I told the elf. I was feeling pretty smart just then.
That was before the wall fell over on us.
My danger sense gave me just enough warning to scream "Down!" and to drop to the ground myself. It was lucky that we had stayed in the habit of remaining next to a wall at all times. The wall that fell hit the wall next to us but didn't shatter. We were able to run to the next intersection, past the fallen section of wall, before it folded in and collapsed completely.
I looked back. The wall had not broken. There wasn't even a crack at either end of the fifty-foot-long collapsed section. The wall had simply warped at each end, then folded lengthwise to cover the passage we had been in.
We moved on, turning left, right, then left again.
"This way to the shrine?" I asked the elf, pointing. I was trying to keep track of directions, but I wasn't positive.
"That way," Xayber's son agreed.
I got the rope with the grappling hook set to throw again. I didn't know if the same trick would work twice, but I was going to try. There was an intersection behind us, so I had more space to stretch and swing the hook. It didn't catch the first time, but it did the second. I gave the rope a tug… and pulled the wall over. Halfway. It rested against the side of the opposite wall. We backed off and waited to see if this section would collapse the way the first had, but it didn't. And the grapple held, so we climbed to the top and moved along the canted section to where the wall remained upright and level.
When we had level rock under our feet again, we were very nearly at the inner limit of the maze. There was one more passageway, and one more wall, between us and the temple yard. And I could see an exit in the final wall, not twenty yards to our left.
"Let's try for it," I said. We scrambled down from the wall and ran for the opening, still linked together. I expected the opening to close in our faces, but it didn't. We got through and ran on far enough that a maze wall couldn't fall on us from behind.
Then we stopped to catch our breath before the next threat, whatever it might be, turned up.
The temple yard, hundreds of acres, had carefully manicured grass, a number of rock-bounded formal gardens full of blooming flowers in a dozen colors, and many wandering pathways of gravel that was a brilliant snowy white. A hundred and fifty yards away, more or less, the shrine of the Great Earth Mother rose more than a hundred feet high, gleaming white marble without visible seams, almost blindingly reflective in the sunlight. The columns along the facade were merely half-columns attached to the main wall rather than freestanding pillars, but the effect was still reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple. Gold double doors in the middle of the wall we were facing provided the only hint of color against the white.
"The shrine of the Great Earth Mother," the elf announced in deep, important-sounding tones.
I fought back an almost irresistible compulsion to go down on one knee to bow my head toward the shrine. Lesh also stayed on his feet, but both Harkane and Timon went down.
"Get up," I told them quietly, and they did, but they didn't take their eyes off of the shrine.
"The jewel will be inside?" I asked Xayber's son.
"The right one," he said. "Inside, in the shrine's most secret recess. I can feel its pull now."
The double doors swung open without any evidence of anyone touching them. Twelve soldiers marched out in double ranks. They wore leather skirts and gold chest-plates and helmets, outfits that looked Roman in design. Short swords hung at their sides, and each soldier carried a spear taller than he was.
"More defenders?" I asked quietly.
"I don't think so," the elf said. "These are merely their tools, created for the moment. Disposable."
"Then let's dispose of them," I said. "Don't drop your packs until we get close, though. Our supplies might disappear."
"And be careful of me," the elf said. "I may be able to help you if I can see what's going on."
Harkane looked to me, and I nodded. "Set him down so he can watch the fight when it starts," I said.
The odds weren't really twelve to four. Timon and Harkane together were about as effective as one fully trained, moderately experienced soldier. They worked well as a team, though, Harkane taking the brunt of any attack, Timon covering his back, making up for Harkane's youth with his own. But even if you viewed the odds as twelve to three, or twelve to three and a half, you wouldn't be right. The Hero of Varay isn't just some big dumb sucker who has to do everything just with muscle. I'm not that damn big to start with, and I hope I'm not that dumb. But the Hero of Varay is, according to the advertising, invested with a certain magic that comes down from the first of the line, Vara. And the elf sword I inherited on the Isthmus of Xayber after I killed my first dragon also possessed its own potent magic. If the soldiers marching out to meet us had been everyday mortal soldiers, the odds would clearly have been heavily against them. But they weren't common mortal grunts, and I didn't know how to figure in whatever magic the defenders of the shrine gave them. Of course, I have trouble handicapping a horse race too, and after growing up in Kentucky, not much more than a couple of stone throws from Churchill Downs, I find that embarrassing.
Harkane and Timon started using their bows when the soldiers were eighty yards away. Scratch two pseudo-legionnaires, one with an arrow through his throat, the other with a kneecap messed up. The other ten started running silently toward us.
"Let them do the running," I said softly. I drew Dragon's Death, and the sword song started to work its way past my lips. We slid our packs off and got ready to meet the attack. Harkane set the elf down, facing the right way to watch the fight.
Harkane and Timon had swords, good weapons forged of low-carbon steel back in my world. I had Dragon's Death. Lesh used a short sword in his left hand, mostly as a defensive weapon, and swung a battle-axe with his right. Although Lesh had to be closer to fifty than forty, he had stayed in top fighting condition. He didn't tire easily, and he was good with his weapons, experienced and cool.
Behind us, Xayber's son started a chant that wasn't quite his sword song. I couldn't tell what conjuring he was doing, but I hoped it would work.
There was nothing extraordinary about the mechanics of the fight. The spears the guards carried were wood. They couldn't stand up to sword or battle-axe. And their swords were shorter than ours, and not just shorter than my claymore. Their body armor wasn't enough to make up for the deficiencies of their weapons. They all went down, most terminally.
We retrieved our packs and went on to the shrine's entrance.
"What's next? This eunuch you were talking about?" I asked our elf.
"Perhaps," he replied, "or there may be other surprises. The building may have its own traps for unwelcome visitors."
The golden doors had remained open, so we didn't have to worry about picking locks or breaking the doors down. We walked right in and stopped just inside.
The inside of the shrine was brightly lit even though there were neither lamps nor skylights-no apparent source for the illumination. Columns ran along all four sides of the hall, different kinds of columns-round, square, fluted, smooth-setting off the outer portion of the building as a series of aisles, like the side sections of a cathedral. The central part of the shrine was one immense chamber, at least sixty feet high, one hundred and twenty wide, and maybe three hundred long… the size of a football field. The ceiling was a complex vault, but there were no central pillars to support that expanse. It was impressive.
"You could get a Super Bowl crowd in here," I mumbled, more to myself than to my companions. I cleared my throat, then asked, "Where's the jewel?" louder.
"Below us," the elf said. "It's in a basement or vault, something of that nature."
"You have any idea where the stairs are?" I asked, hoping that there were stairs. We weren't equipped to mine our way through a marble floor.
Xayber's son closed his eyes and took what seemed to be quite a time considering that. When he opened his eyes, he said, "It feels like there are several passages to the lower levels, but I can't tell which leads to the repository. In here, the magic of the defenders is much stronger than my own."
"Another maze?"
"In effect." If he still had shoulders under his head, I'm sure he would have shrugged them.
"Booby traps or just blind alleys?" I don't know how the translation magic rendered those terms in the elf's language, but he didn't hesitate.
"I can't tell. There is danger everywhere within these walls."
I already knew that much.
It was time for another mental coin flip. We went left, clockwise, staying out in the aisle area that girded the huge central chamber. There were echoes, and echoes of echoes, as we walked. Whenever a blade scraped against wall or column, the clang seemed magnified in the distance. It wouldn't take a supernatural talent to know that we were there. There were a lot of doorways off to the side. Most led to small side rooms. Some led to stairways, up or down, most of them up. The side rooms weren't nearly as high as the aisles or the central chamber. The building was a rectangular block on the outside, so there was a lot of room above us on the sides, maybe as many as eight or ten floors' worth.
We checked eight doors before we found the first stairway leading down. The stairway was as brightly lit as the rest of the shrine, still without any visible source. We went down forty-three steps before we reached the bottom, and three more doors. Xayber's son didn't have any certain feelings about which, if any, of the doors might lead us to the jewel, so I started with the right-hand door. It led to more stairs, down another thirty steps.
"It's above us now," the elf said when we reached the bottom. "Unless there's another stairway, or a ramp, leading up, this is the wrong way."
There was a long corridor at the bottom, with a number of doors on either side. We opened each door. Some led to sleeping rooms-no beds, but with cushions and blankets on the floors. There were other rooms that seemed intended for people to spend waking time in. The corridor had a blind end, maybe halfway across the shrine, so we retraced our steps, went back up the lower flight of stairs, and tried the middle door. There was just a single room leading off of it, as bare as could be. Xayber's son said that the jewel couldn't be in there. It still felt too far away.
When we tried the third door, my danger sense went off the scale, completely berserk, and I couldn't see the threat. Neither could the elf.
"The jewel isn't in there," he said. "I am certain of that."
That was a relief. And no, I didn't have the slightest urge to go in and find out what the terrible danger in that room was. I may be a certified Hero, but I am not a certified idiot.
We went back up to the main level and continued our circuit. A little farther on, we found another stairway leading down and took it. This one turned out to be as fruitless as the first. All we did was lose time.
On the way back up those stairs, Xayber's son shouted, "Stop!"
We stopped and waited for his explanation, looking around, weapons out, ready to meet any threat.
"The jewel has moved," the elf said. "It is above us now, on the main level of the shrine."
"Someone has moved it, you mean," I said.
"It can only be a defender, the Great Earth Mother's eunuch," the elf said.
"Found hisself one ball, has he?" Lesh said, trying to make a joke. Nobody laughed.
We got back to the main level and moved toward the large central chamber. As I moved around one column, I saw the defender standing in the middle of the room, with all that elbow room around and above him.
The Great Earth Mother's eunuch needed all the room he could get. He was one big sucker, twelve feet tall and six times my weight-at least. He had a sword in each hand that made my claymore look like a toothpick. A gold chain hung around his neck with a brilliant ruby hanging from that.
"The ruby is the right ball of the Great Earth Mother," the elf said.
"That figures," I mumbled.
"All you have to do is take it off his dead body."
"I thought he was immortal," I said, sliding off my pack and drawing my sword again, while my companions made their own preparations.
"As far as I know," Xayber's son said, "he is."