Mazerynth

by Jeffery Russell

  The entrance lay between two shimmering pools of water shaded by a row of palms. Inside was dark and, if not cool, at least stuffy rather than searing. She stepped to the side so as to be out of the way while she waited for her eyes to adjust. The building was a long hall with a smaller wing extending from each side, a pillar-supported balcony running the entire circumference beneath the ceiling another twenty feet above. All of it was shelved and all of the shelves were stuffed with books and scroll tubes. There were a dozen or so local-looking scholars at tables piled with scrolls as well as a few adventurers poking around—the sort that wore purple robes, pointy hats and burn scars.

  A small man in crisp robes scurried up to them, managing to add in a couple of bows along the way.

  “We are most honored by your visit, scribe.” He nodded toward her scribe cassock and followed it up with another bow toward Ginny by way of apology for not knowing who she was. “I am Mayne. I am only assistant librarian but my Karthorian is said to be the most pleasing. I believe this to be your first visit here? May I show you to the shelf?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Ruby answered. They followed him on a weaving route through the tables. Ruby worked for the largest library in the Northern Kingdoms and they had a good relationship with libraries the world over. The Athenaeum maintained a shelf at each of those libraries aimed at providing resources for any scribes passing through the area. A few books on the local language, vocabulary, customs and history combined with a scribe’s scriptographic memory could have any scribe new to the area orientated and acclimated within a few hours. It was the means to unlocking the contents of the entire rest of the library. Ruby had learned dozens of languages during her time as a scribe but Karsinian gnostiglyphics hadn’t been one of them.

  “In order, please,” she said as she sat down on a bench Mayne gestured them to.

  “Certainly,” the librarian said. He began darting back and forth between the shelf and their table, making a line of scroll tubes in front of them.

  “I like all them little pictures,” Ginny said as they examined the first scroll. “Seems like it would take a long time to write anything though. Can you imagine learning this in gnostiglyphic grammar school? Probably with some of the boys getting in trouble for drawing wieners on their crocodile-man glyphs.”

  “I’m afraid this is going to be rather dull for you,” Ruby said. “Watching me read in a library full of books you can’t read.”

  “That’s the rule, though. No one goes out alone. Passing time in a library has lots to recommend it o’er being on one of the dungeon teams. I’ll just ask that Mayne fella where the engineering section is. Those will have pictures I understand without needing the language that goes with.”

  “Excellent idea,” Ruby said.

  Ginny left her to her scrolls and within a minute was following Mayne to another wall of shelves. It did not take her long to find a stack of papyrus relating to pyramid construction. There were two entire rows dedicated to it, just above the rows for ‘Giant Statue Construction’. Oooh, and a shelf for tomb-trap design.

  She returned to the table a few minutes later with her arms loaded. Ruby was gone.

  “Oh, bugger,” Ginny said.

  ***

  “What’s up next?” Thud asked.

  “Well,” Keezix said, “with a name like ‘The Mazerynth’ you’re going to expect a maze of some kind, eh? This is it.”

  “I hate mazes,” Thud said. “A maze on its own ain’t nothing but a time delay. Even adventurers are smart enough to bring chalk or twine to trace their way or, barring that, just follow one wall. Inevitably you’ll get through it.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” Durham said.

  “Aye, too easy. There’s always something else in a maze, otherwise it ain’t worth the time to build. Traps, monsters, hostile livestock…”

  “Mirrors in this one,” Keezix said. “Placed in ways to make it look like there’s halls where there’s walls and walls where there’s halls. And some of the mirrors, once they catch your reflection, create a copy of you that comes out and attacks.”

  Thud gave an appreciative nod. “Mondolian dueling mirrors. Nice havin’ that part written down for us instead of havin’ to discover it. Suppose we have the whole route mapped?”

  Keezix nodded. “Except the dueling mirrors are in different places each time through.”

  “Can we break them?” Durham asked.

  “Not easily,” Thud said. “Not if they’re Mondolian mirrors or anything similar. Anything coming at ‘em gets reflected in the mirror. If you fire a crossbow bolt at it then it reaches the mirror and goes nose on with an exact copy crossbow bolt traveling just as fast. Just pings right off onto the ground. Hit it with a hammer and you’re going to meet a reflecting hammer hittin’ just as hard. Now, I ain’t one to worry, but I’m a pain in the ass to fight against.” He nodded at Keezix. “You got a plan so we don’t have to fight copies of ourselves?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think that’s how they make the goblins?” Durham asked. “Reflect a goblin in the mirrors and get a bunch of copies? Mirrors are made of glass, after all, and glass is made from sand. Maybe reflections fall apart into mirror sand.”

  “That’s a fine hypothesis,” Mungo said in a way that clearly communicated he was about to refute it. “But reflective constructs dissipate as soon as they lose visual contact with their mirror.”

  “Maybe Frothnozzle found a way to improve them.”

  “Fortunate that we have some available here for testing,” Mungo said.

  “Wait,” Keezix said. “Activating mirrors was not part of the plan I had for going through. Thought that was the part we’d be wanting to avoid.”

  “What’s yer plan?” Thud asked. “Might be easy to slide a modification in.”

  “Well, Plan A was to just to eliminate the room’s light source if possible. No light means no reflections and we can just work through the route we have on the map.”

  “And if we can’t eliminate the light source?”

  “There’s a blanket in each of our packs. Hold it up in front of you when approaching the mirror and then block the mirror with it.”

  “Would that allow us to break the mirrors?” Durham asked.

  Thud shook his head. “You hit the blanket with somethin’ and it’s just like the mirror on the other side is a blanket too.”

  “What if you soaked the blanket in oil and burned it?”

  “I like where yer head’s at. Been tried, though. Has to be something that burns hot enough to melt the mirror glass and burn the frame or your blanket and its reflection burn away and it’s just a mirror again. A dragon can do it but that’s the only thing I’ve heard of working. They come with a lifetime guarantee when you buy ‘em.”

  “The blankets do allow us a perfect means to test the reproduction’s persistence,” Mungo said. “We can block one of the mirrors until we’re prepared to activate it under controlled circumstances.”

  Thud nodded. “Anything created in the mirror has to step out of it to be relevant and that first step can be a doozy.”

  “Fine,” Keezix said. “But if we’re going to spawn a copy of anyone it’s going to be the gnome.”

  “Me?” Mungo squeaked. “My espionage training and mental faculties make me the most dangerous one here!”

  “If you say so,” Keezix said. “But you’re also the one that will fly the farthest when I apply my boot.”

  “And the treasure?” Leery asked. “The last room had the gem. What’s there to find here?”

  “There’s a treasure room at the center of the maze. The map says they use mirrors to make it look like a bigger hoard than it turns out to be. That and the local rates on dungeon salvage make it barely worth carrying. There’s a scepter in there you’re supposed to get to defeat the big monster at the end of the dungeon but I already got a better plan for that. We’ll be passing through, naturally, so I’ll leave it to you to decide if it’s worth takin
g. Just be prepared for disappointment.”

  “Can we take the mirrors?” Durham asked. “Maybe we could put them on the shields.”

  “You keep the enthusiasm rollin’,” Thud said, “but it may be time for you to consider movin’ on from your mirror obsession. They’d make terrible shields. Say someone holds up a blanket in front of you and then stabs a spear through it? Regardless, you can only move ‘em if they’re turned off. Otherwise you’re just grabbin’ the reflections of your fingers. They have a power crystal that activates ‘em. Probably not something they leave laying around but keep an eye out all the same.”

  The entry to the labyrinth had no light source at all, both fulfilling Keezix’s Plan A while simultaneously making it irrelevant. A skeleton in tattered armor and thick with cobwebs lay against the wall with a pair of lanterns, one tucked under each arm. He was propped on a third lantern, one bony arm stretched out and pointing at a fourth and fifth across the passageway. A sixth lantern was balanced carefully on his head.

  “Subtle,” Thud said. “Let us carry around our own means of activatin’ the traps. Salvage ‘em if you want but don’t light ‘em.”

  “I am not clanking around the dungeon with lamps all over my belt,” Leery said. “Are we going through this with no light?”

  There followed a round of not too subtle glances at Durham.

  Dwarves had no problem navigating in the dark as long as they were in an enclosed space. They were hopeless in a forest at night but could make their way down a dark mine tunnel at a jog. It wasn’t so much that they could see as it was just sensing where things were around them, like walking through your own bedroom in the dark. For gnomes it was sound. Gnomes squeak at night in the darkness for the same reason bats do. They can hear their way around, ears waggling in a way that might be funny except for it being too dark to see. The races that could see in the dark were either too polite to mention the ear waggling or the sort that avoided hanging out with gnomes at night due to all of the squeaking. Squeaking wasn't practical for most dungeon work, however. Mungo had adapted his goggles for night-vision, an effect created by green lenses with a pixie crammed behind each one to send out a wan beam of light. It was more helpful for others than it was for Mungo due to the pixies wedged in front of his eyes. Now the goggles presented the same danger the lamps did and Mungo was already squeaking.

  Durham had neither night-senses nor squeaking. He was human, a species that navigated its way through the dark via their shins.

  “I would like a bit of light,” he said. “If that’s possible. Didn’t you say something about blankets?”

  Keezix nodded. “And you’re here because you’re the one tall enough to hold them up.”

  “Ah, so not just walking through the dark, but holding a blanket up in front of me and walking through the dark?” Durham asked. “Wait, you only invited me to come because I’m tall?”

  “One question at a time,” said Keezix. “Here’s your blanket.”

  The darkness brought even the tiniest of sounds into sharp focus and the tight confines of the stone hallway ensured flawless acoustics. The air was still and stuffy. Every rustle of clothing, every throat cleared, every stomach gurgle was like a shout in a temple.

  Durham shuffled forward, feet leaving furrows in the sandy floor. He wondered if it were ordinary sand or the accumulated remains of mirror reflections. He had one hand stretched out in front of him and the other clutching the blanket to his chest, ready to raise when given the signal. There was a loud squeak from next to his knee. Mungo was there, keeping pace at his side and muttering under his breath.

  “Right in 3…2…1…,” the gnome said. “Now!” he finished predictably and with far too much urgency. Durham turned right, not knowing if he was avoiding running into a wall ahead or turning into a passage to the side along the way. The hand he held out was at face level. He’d learned quickly that being tall and in front meant you cleared the cobwebs for everyone following whether you intended to or not. Better his hand than his mouth.

  Durham didn’t know if his one step per second estimation was accurate but, if it was, they’d been navigating the maze for around fifteen minutes. There had been at least seven turns so far, enough that Durham had lost track of the order they’d been in. Leery was behind him and Thud behind Mungo, each with one hand trailing along the wall to call out when they felt mirror glass instead of stone. There were more mirrors than Durham had expected. Enough that the dwarves stopped calling them out due to it interfering with conversation.

  Another dozen steps forward and the sound changed. Durham could tell that they’d left the confined hallway and entered a larger chamber. A fraction of insight into how the gnome was able to squeak his way through the darkness.

  “This is a likely place for one of the dueling mirrors,” Mungo said. “Assuming that an open space for combat is desirable. If you wish to conduct any experiments with the reflections this would be the time.”

  “I’m guessing there will be other mirrors too,” Thud said. “Any ideas on telling which from which?”

  “We’ll start from the hall,” Keezix said. “Blanket up. That will let us get a light-source out and get a look at where the mirrors are. Should tell us something.”

  Durham allowed himself to be led backward a few paces, back to where the echoes were smaller. He raised the blanket up, holding his arms high and wide. It brushed against his nose and smelled like oxbear.

  “You ain’t lined up.” Keezix tugged on his waist to get him to turn slightly to the left. “There ya go. Thud? You wanna make with the cake?”

  There was an affirmative noise from Thud and he swapped places with Mungo to put him next to the blanket. A few seconds later a gyro-globed pixie lamp flared into red light, the pixie within sitting cross-legged, face buried in the wad of fresh fairy cake she held between her hands. The hue of the light made Thud look flat, red features traced out in stark black shadow. The gnostiglyphics painted on the wall next to him had a bizarre cast as some parts disappeared under the red light while others changed to dark blues and greens.

  “Got little peep-holes cut there in the blanket for ya,” Keezix said. “And some others cut low for us. I put a set of ‘em on each edge so it wouldn’t matter which way you held the blanket up. Long as you look through those the worst that’ll happen is you’ll spawn a pair of hostile eyeballs.”

  Thud pulled the edge of the blanket aside slightly and rolled the lamp out into the room, the pixie inside floating unconcerned and still feasting on the cake as the globe rolled around her.

  The room in front of them was beautiful madness. A thousand red-globed pixie lamps, bouncing and rolling identically at a thousand different angles. They all came to rest at once, the room looking like an infinite frozen sea of red stars.

  “Oooh, pretty!” Leery said.

  “Get back behind the blanket,” Thud said. “Last thing we need is you getting duplicated. We’d be here all week.”

  Leery was a dwarven stonebones, which meant that she’d survive anything short of having her head vaporized. Durham had seen her snap both of her legs in half backwards at lunchtime and be up and jogging by dinner. He wondered if a mirror image would have the same properties. How would the reflection mimic a quality that wasn’t visible?

  “There’s a lot more mirrors in there than I was expectin’” Thud had stepped back from the eye-holes in the blanket. He was barely visible in the soft red glow that seeped around the blanket’s edges. “Even if we figure out which o’ them mirrors is dueling mirrors I’m not sure there’s a way to approach it without it catching your reflection from one of the others before you got anywhere close to it.”

  “Perhaps we could…” Mungo began before Keezix cut him off.

  “No,” Keezix said. “I get that you want to do your experiment but tactics-wise this ain‘t the place to do it. Pull your lamp back and we’ll try again somewhere other than in here.”

  Mungo whistled. Lamp-pixies weren’t the sort o
f thing that most people bothered to try and train to do anything other than eat cake and produce light. Ginny had figured out some sort of training angle, however, and several of the pixies had learned a few basic tricks. At the sound of Mungo’s whistle the pixie in the lamp began strolling back toward them, rolling the lamp back in its gyroscopic frame as she walked the inner circumference of the globe. She munched on her cake as she walked. She’d eaten the frosting first, of course, and now that she was on to the cake her light was starting to shift in hue from the red brought on by the frosting to the usual sparkling white light. The infinite reflections around her changed also making the room glitter and shine.

  Except for one. A lone globe to their right, still glowing red.

  “Ah, there you are,” said Mungo. “One dueling mirror, ten paces forward and twenty to our right. Two meters tall, one wide and flush with the floor.”

  “Why didn’t it change with the others?” Durham asked.

  “Once the mirror creates a reflection it becomes independent. Otherwise you could defeat it by stabbing yourself to death. It also can’t be reflected in other mirrors. As soon as the reflection stepped out it would just create another one behind it.”

  “So it’s not going to stop shining red?” Keezix asked.

  “Not until it’s destroyed!” Mungo answered.

  “It’s just going to sit there, giving off light for all of the mirrors in the room?”

  “Yes and…ah, I see the issue.”

  There was a grinding and clicking noise from Gong’s crossbow as he made a few adjustments. “Ruby keeps telling me I can’t solve every problem with a crossbow.” He spun a small crank on the side then took a swig from the mug in the cupholder. “But that has not yet been the case.”

  He raised the crossbow to his shoulder, aiming through the gap between blanket and wall.

  “No!” Mungo grabbed his arm. “We need to get it out of sight of its mirror for the experiment to work.”