by Hayes, Drew
“Too true. Amy is our connection, and she doesn’t fit. So we expand outward. Who would Amy definitely have with her, in this situation? Those are the next most likely targets.”
“You and me,” Neil replied. “Given the situation she was presented, her accountant would have had to come along, and it would make a fine teaching opportunity for her student. Possibly Bubba, too, if someone was playing the odds. Those two spend a lot of their free time together; he occasionally tags along on minor mage business, but that one might be a stretch.”
Nothing about what we’d seen felt therian-directed any more than it had been designed for a vampire, which didn’t tell us much. Neil was right; Bubba was something of a stretch, even if he and Amy were close friends. But that notion got my brain itching as I considered things from a new angle. The only three who would almost certainly be here were me, Amy, and Neil. Except that Neil wasn’t really an individual entity anymore.
“This might be crazy, but I wonder if the target was Albert.”
I felt Neil jerk to a halt behind me, body stiffening, so I hurried through my theory before he could cut me off. “We just said you’d definitely be here, and who goes virtually everywhere that you do? Albert’s your partner for training, adventure, whatever it is that Arch has you both doing; it makes sense to expect that inviting you would also bring him.”
This, to me, seemed a theory like everything else we’d been bandying about: interesting, and worthy of consideration, if not necessarily definitively true. We were brainstorming, grasping for ideas, seeing what stuck against the wall. Evidently, to Neil, it sounded a great deal more plausible.
“Shit. We have to hurry. Albert could be in danger.” The words were more or less expected. What followed, however, was not. Neil forced his way past me, moving so fast I didn’t even think to stop him, attempting to barrel forward into the hallway on his own. While I still felt more or less composed, Neil was visibly rattled. Sweating, eyes bulging, he appeared on the verge of a heart attack.
Despite the impressive breakaway, I was at his side again in seconds. Of all my vampire gifts, the enhanced speed is absolutely the one that has paid off the most, both in the office and the field. It made me a world class champion at running away, as well as helped me plow through some of my more tedious tasks.
“Whoa, calm down. It was just a thought. Why would anyone want to hurt Albert, anyway?”
“Albert wields one of the most powerful weapons known in our world. If someone thinks they can take it, they’ll try—doesn’t matter if it works. Worse, it could be someone Albert might eventually be set against, some bastard snuffing out a potential threat before Albert can come calling.”
The leaps in logic we’d already been forced to take were turning into wild bounds. I was starting to get worried; this was a rapid slide into panic for Neil, especially given how much he’d already seen. This shouldn’t be rattling him so much.
Reaching out, I took him by the shoulder, forcing him to a halt. “Neil, pause for a moment. Something is off, can’t you feel that?”
With a whip-like strike of his thin arm, he smacked at my hand. “All I feel is you, slowing me down. By the dark moon, Fred, isn’t it enough that you hold everyone back in your personal life? Must you stop me from saving my friend, too?”
I almost let go at that, so shocked was I by the vitriol in his voice. Neil and I had never had the same sort of friendship as I had with the others, but we certainly didn’t hate one another. He was a member of my clan, and therefore, my family. When my grip didn’t loosen, the torrent continued.
“You don’t even see it, do you? Krystal would have moved on to bigger, better assignments if she weren’t tied to one town. Bubba could be climbing the ranks of a therian hierarchy, except he has this pesky friendship with a vampire holding him back. Richard constantly has to defend his alliance to your house, Amy wastes most of her time pissing around instead of wielding her genius, Lillian once held a real position and is now strapped to a clan that’s doomed to fail. The only one you almost set free was Albert, yet even now, you persist in maintaining that hollow friendship to keep him close. Now, let me go, before I remind you that one of us has magical power over the other.”
It was the silence that tipped me off. For all the power in this place, nothing so far had neutered my hearing like this. Cutting off the natural noises of the world, the shifting of rock and skittering of bugs—that was nearly impossible from what I’d seen, and I’d dealt with a few mages of potent power. As Neil ranted and I looked over our surroundings, hunting for a solution, I paid special attention to the walls, floor, and ceiling. All the same materials as before, which Neil had described as extremely well-warded.
Well-warded, and reflective . That was why I couldn’t hear anything. We were in a magical echo chamber: everything reflected back at us in perfect time, hiding the actual noise. The sound wasn’t the only thing that was getting turned around on us, I realized.
“Neil, you’re a fine young man. When we first met, I admit, I had a poor impression of you. Being chained in silver and threatened will do that. But I’ve been remiss in letting that image color my perception of the person you’ve become.”
“What are you talking about?” Neil was confused, which was a start. He also seemed slightly less on edge, and I dearly hoped that was a sign my theory was right.
“I’m telling you some sincere truths, because I think this hallway reflects and amplifies everything we put out. Being undead, I don’t feel it as much, but you started to grow worried the more we talked about fearful things, even in passing. Since I don’t think calming you down with normal methods will work, I’m hoping calm honesty gets you back to being centered, which is why I’m telling you that you’ve made tremendous growth these past few years. And while I’ve never said it, which is a failing on my part, I’m glad to have you in the House of Fred. No, scratch that, I’m proud to have you in my clan.”
His face contorted, red and still sweating, as he turned quickly away from me. For an instant, I thought he was going to cast, which could prove to be serious trouble, given that he was a necromancer and I a vampire. Thankfully, when the words came, they were just that—words, rather than arcane utterings.
“It is… possible that when I look at you, I see that night. My youth, my blind ambition, my stupid ego. Some of my disdain for you could, maybe, be my own shame for who I was.”
With every word, his body seemed to come further back under his control, until he finally faced me once more. He was by no means fully restored, but the wild look on his face was tamed for the moment. “And I’m sorry about what I said, about you holding people back. I don’t even know where that came from. I just suddenly felt so furious.”
“Anger always builds upon itself past the point of reason. I think, in here, it just happens far more quickly. But now that we know the trick, let’s focus on putting out positive feelings to echo back. Starting with me saying that I forgive you. For the words, for that night, for whatever guilt still clings to you. I can’t make everything right, but you and I are square, Neil.”
I extended my hand, which Neil soon accepted and shook. “Thank you, Fred. I think I needed to hear that, somewhere deep down.” We held like that for only a moment before Neil continued. “When you’re ready, want to very calmly keep going down the hall?”
“I think that sounds like an excellent idea. Well, the best idea we can manage given our circumstances, anyway.”
Seeing as we had an honesty vibe going, I saw no reason to mess things up.
7.
We didn’t have a lot more hallway to clear; part of me still suspects it would have stretched on until we realized the test. Upon reaching the unlocked door, we stepped through into what was immediately evident as the final chamber. There could be nothing else we were looking at.
The entrance let us out in a small alcove at the top of a winding slope. Our position gave us an excellent view of the tremendous cavern that seemed to stretch
for over a mile. Along the walls, I saw more alcoves like our own, elevated entrances that I presumed came from other chambers. They were spread out, encircling the rest of the cavern and the enormous maze at its center.
Stone walls rose from the floor, each one at least ten feet tall, twisting and winding round on themselves after only a few steps, creating a gnarled knot of paths that I couldn’t untangle even with a partial view. Some sections were obscured by large stone pillars thrusting up at seemingly random intervals from the ground. From up here, it looked quiet and deserted, but I knew that once we drew close, the dangers would reveal themselves. Unfortunately, I also knew that if we wanted to find our friends and make it out of here, that was clearly the only direction to go.
“Seems like it’s all been leading to the center of the maze.” Neil was wiping his brow on his sleeves, mopping up the last of his momentary panic sweat now that he was free from the hallway’s influence. “We just…” As Neil’s voice trailed off, his face lit up, relief and joy bursting through his normally sour veneer. “He’s here! Albert is probably in the cavern already. I can sense him.”
That was a mighty relief, if not much of a shock. I’d more or less expected the others to arrive first once it became clear we were largely dealing with puzzles. Neil had been an invaluable resource in making it through the rooms, but he was still Amy’s student. She’d likely cut a much quicker pace through their various challenges than her pupil had.
“Then we shouldn’t keep our friends waiting. Before we head down, though, do you see any traps or spells we should be aware of?”
Despite his visible desire to go tearing down the slope, Neil controlled himself, carefully examining the room from every angle our alcove allowed. Only after a full minute and a couple of minor castings did he shake his head. “Nothing I can see. Obviously, things will get crazy once we’re down there, but I think exactly how that shakes out is going to be a surprise.”
“I’ll take the front, you back me up?”
“Might as well. Seems to be working out so far.” Perhaps it was relief at knowing Albert was near, or a good mood filling the place of his artificial anger, but Neil flashed me a genuine smile at that. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was enjoying himself.
For that matter, perhaps I was too, a tad. With only a nebulous potential threat to worry about and largely non life-endangering stakes, the whole ordeal had been almost fun. It tickled something in my brain. However, before I could fully chase the wild thought down, Neil slapped me on the back, heading toward the slope.
“Let’s get down there. No telling if they’ll need help.”
“Or vice versa.” He was right, though. Flights of fancy could wait; finding our friends was the top priority. With more grace than my living body could have managed, and far less than someone like Arch or Krystal would have displayed, I careened down the steep slope, breaking into a run after the first few feet by gravity alone. I could, in theory, rescale this slope if needed, but that would grant me little more than access to an alcove with a now locked door. Everything about this place pushed us forward, driving anyone trapped to the same point.
It was hard not to wonder what we’d find at the center of that maze, especially as my vantage point lowered and I lost my peek ahead to the twisting labyrinth awaiting us. The tradeoff was that I got new details as I drew closer, starting with the arcane runes running up and down every wall in the maze. These were physically present, etched into the stone itself and visible to the mundane eye; I could only imagine what sorts of magical effects Neil could make out. I’d sipped from a mage once during a murder investigation, and it had been curious, seeing magic woven and integrated into our seemingly mundane world. While I didn’t miss the distracting displays of sudden color, part of me couldn’t help wondering what the show was like.
That is, until the moment I heard Neil mutter from behind me, “Cauldron cocks. This is… whoa.” He grabbed me by the sweater vest, yanking me to a halt as our momentum petered out on flat ground. “Fred, that thing is serious.”
“By ‘thing,’ you mean the maze, right? Not trying to be difficult, just making sure there’s not some magical monster I can’t see.”
Neil shook his head, too stunned to even be flippant. “The maze. The walls—the spells, specifically. Everything we’ve encountered so far has been at a certain magical threshold. Despite the array of what we’ve seen, there hasn’t been anything truly exceptional. With enough time, energy, and materials, Amy or I could have eventually constructed something like this. Well, mine would be worse, hers would be better. The point is that this has all been very doable.” He pointed up to the towering walls and the single entrance we could make out near us, though I knew from our prior view that others dotted the maze’s exterior.
“That is something else entirely. The magics I’m seeing are old, and I mean ancient . They go further back than I’m capable of measuring, and as for what they do, I’d barely make a better guess than you. I’ve never seen spellcraft quite like it.”
“Which means we have no idea what happens when we go in,” I surmised.
“Except that it has the potential to be on an entirely different level than anything we’ve encountered so far,” Neil added. “I’d like to officially update my theory, as well. I think whoever brought us here found this maze, and then built everything else around it. Still no idea on why, and I suspect we’re not far from either dying or finding out.”
Under different circumstances, it might have been worth stopping to evaluate our other options. While we were stuck underground, Neil had spent the whole day proving just how competent he was. Between a necromancer and a vampire, it wasn’t impossible that we might hit on a way to escape. But the simple fact remained that our friends were here, which meant we weren’t going anywhere. Terrifying as the unknown was, I’d had to face down far more frightening foes than a bunch of enchanted walls.
“As things happen, keep me in the loop,” I said. “If you scream an order, I’m just going to trust you.”
“Good call. I was going to offer you some blood so you can see, too, but now I’m wondering if that might be a little… distracting.” He paused for a moment, swallowing once. “I think you’re better off not seeing what I do.”
From Neil, that was more than enough of a warning, even if I’d been tempted by the offer initially. We fell into silence as we crept forward. The looming entrance to the maze waited like a patient mouth, content to let the food wander into chomping range. I hesitated for a moment at the threshold, waiting for Neil to offer some sort of warning. When none came, we pushed on, stepping into the maze proper.
No sooner had Neil cleared the threshold than the flames appeared. Blazing a brilliant white so bright it hurt to look upon, they filled the doorway we’d just stepped through, heat tangible even from several feet away. It wasn’t a slamming door, yet it sent the same message quite effectively. There was no turning around: it was forward, or nothing.
“What the… How…” While I’d been staring at the flames, Neil was looking anywhere but. His gaze flittered about, from wall to floor to wall, until he was practically spinning in place. “This is crazy.”
“Something I should know about?”
“Yes, but not how you’re imagining it. Remember all that magic I was telling you about before?” Neil had stopped spinning, though his face looked a tad queasy. “Gone. All of it. The moment that fire kicked on, I lost everything but my dark-sight. Except all that magic can ’t actually be gone, especially since we see it active with the flames. This place has the kind of wards capable of cutting off even the basic capacity to see magic. I realize none of this is your specialty, so trust me when I say that is insane . That’s the sort of magic you’d only expect to see from someone on par with a dragon like Gideon.”
Setting aside the notion of Gideon being a magical standard of measurement rather than an implied ceiling (because I did not have the mental energy to stop willfully ignoring that co
ncept), I tried to pare Neil’s statement down to the most immediately relevant pieces. He couldn’t see any of the magic at work around us, which meant we were open to ambush and surprise. Worse, the mere fact that the maze had this kind of ability meant that its creator had been crazy powerful. We might be up against very dangerous threats, things far outside our capabilities to deal with. The only silver lining was that the obvious solution already fit with our existing goals.
“We have to find the others. Strength in numbers might be the only advantage we have left. Neil, you said you could sense Albert before. Is that at least still working?”
To my immense relief, he slowly nodded. “Albert and I are bound by the magic that animated him, and the connection was reinforced by all the spells that followed. Limiting a mage’s vision is one thing—that’s just about manipulating what’s visible in the magical spectrum. Severing my connection to a spell is something far more complex and couldn’t be done with a generic area enchantment. But it’s also not exactly a homing spell, more just a vague intuition.”
From his pocket, Neil produced a compass, around which was bound a strand of black hair.
“What are you doing?”
That earned me a look almost—but not quite—on par with the usual Neil glare. “Casting an actual homing spell to find Albert. You’ve got the right idea, only we need something more efficient. This wasn’t useful when we were stuck in our rooms, but now, we’re finally in the same place again.” Neil waved his hand over the compass, muttering phrases that held no shape or meaning in my ears. The dark hair, one I now recognized as Albert’s, lit up and turned to ash in less than a second. When it was gone, the compass arrow suddenly whipped around, pointing toward what it identified as the east.