by Ted Neill
“Dameon, Dameon, look at me. You have to walk in a straight line, only step on the very next tile in front. Do you understand?”
He nodded. It was the best she would get out of him. She could only hope that his obsessive nature would serve him well. “Just do this, and the sooner we are done the sooner we can go home, and you can track the tides and categorize birds again.” She thought she saw a flash of acknowledgement in his eyes, but it faded. She willed her body to stop shaking.
“Get on with it,” Mortimer ordered.
She released Dameon. He walked slowly forward, wobbling as he often did with his head tilted downward. Gabriella watched each step. She strained her ears for the sound of whirring gears or slipping tiles. Dameon neared the doorway, walking heel to toe. She could still hear him humming that flat note. There was a click of sound. Gabriella spun around. It was only Mortimer’s sword sheath.
“He’s made it to the doorway,” the hunter said.
“Don’t touch anything,” she reminded Dameon. He entered the room foot by foot, his arms outstretched as if he were a tightrope walker. He continued past the door into the room.
Nothing happened.
When he was in the center of the room, Gabriella screamed for him to stop. He did, his arms still at his side, wavering. Gabriella took a deep breath.
Adamantus turned to Mortimer. “I hope you are satisfied.”
Dameon kept his arms out at his sides until Gabriella reached him. She told him he had done a good job.
“My arms are tired,” he said. “Can I put them down?”
“Yes, yes, you may.”
Mortimer and the princesses followed Gabriella unquestioningly after that. The route took them on a circuitous path away from the bridge as Gabriella had expected. Now, the symbols were nearly identical on every door in every room, with only the most minor differences. In one room, each door had a spinning scythe, the only variance was in hash marks through the handle. The doors of another room had drums with different patterns on their sides. After traveling through seven more rooms, they finally entered the chamber with the bridge.
The map was finished. Not a single symbol remained.
Chapter 17
Numbers of other Numbers
The edges of the map were wet with perspiration where Gabriella had gripped it. She folded it up and placed it in her pocket. Now that the bridge stretched out before them, Mortimer and the princesses lingered in the doorway. After so many traps, walking out onto the bridge, over what seemed to be a bottomless chasm, did seem foolhardy.
Adamantus offered to walk across first, inspiring Libys to immediately dismount. Gabriella saw the relief in the elk’s eyes to be free of his burden. He started across the bridge. The blood on his leg had saturated his fur all the way down to his hoof. He left a bloody print with each step.
Gabriella could not stand to see him walk alone. As she had on the wyvern’s island, she ran up to him.
“What are you doing, Gabriella?”
“We’re crossing together.”
“It is not necessary . . .”
“It is,” she insisted, and continued forward, her hand on his shoulder to support him.
They walked in silence. The bridge was narrow and appeared to be carved from the same black stone as the surrounding mountain. This was no crude mason work. The railings were thick, chiseled from a single piece of stone. Their surface, and the surfaces of the bridge’s supporting columns, had been incised with fine bas-reliefs. It was as if the bridge had been meant to be placed in a garden, for all of the designs were of nature—flowers, trees, and bunches of grapes. The columns had the likeness of vines curling around them. Contrasting with the thick columns was the stone between them: the builders had carved it so finely that it resembled lace. Gabriella half expected the stone lattice work to move with the breeze of her passing body.
Below the bridge, at the bottom of the chasm, a silver thread of water shimmered. Across the bridge, doorways to more rooms stared out over the emptiness to their twins on the other side. So many open doors left Gabriella feeling uneasy, as if she were looking at a riddle waiting to be solved.
They reached the doorway at the end of the bridge. Now she could see that the carvings on the bridge extended into the next room. The others began making their way across the bridge in single file, Dameon first.
Adamantus took the moments they were alone to whisper, “If we reach the treasure, you must find the Eyes of Garmr before the others.”
Gabriella understood, but she thought it would take more than jewels to drive a wedge between Mortimer and the sisters. Ruefully, she reflected that her kindness to Mortimer had not won. They would have to resort to greed to try to sway him back to their side. The jewels represented money, the wands power and force. Which of his gods would win Mortimer over in the end?
Gabriella and Adamantus waited until everyone had crossed before proceeding into the first room. It was the same shape and layout as the previous maze, eight sides, four doors, and four walls. The bridge had been only a prelude to this masterpiece of sculpture, a room where nymphs danced in woodlands, dolphins frolicked in feathery waves, and birds soared between cottony clouds. While her companions marveled at the stonework, Gabriella searched above the doors for more signs and symbols. There were none. These doors were simply numbered, 0, 1, 2, and 3. They had entered through door number 0.
“Such craftsmanship befits a treasure trove,” Mortimer said.
“It is more fantastic than anything we had at Foyle Castle. I will have to enslave artisans to create such art for us,” Sybil said.
“Then when they are finished, we will cut off their hands so they can never make a masterpiece greater than ours,” Libys added. Both sisters cackled, pantomiming slicing of their own hands. Even Mortimer shuddered.
Gabriella pulled the map out of her pocket and studied each doorway. She searched the map for clues. She found none.
“What is taking so long, slave?” Sybil asked.
“She might be tired,” Libys answered.
“Ha! I fell for that once before,” Sybil said. “Nothing like a shock of lightning to wake you up.”
“I just don’t know what door to use.” Gabriella tensed, awaiting another strike from Sybil.
“Perhaps we could send Dameon again.” Libys laughed.
Mortimer was checking his bag of torches. Six remained. “There is nothing on the map about numbers?” he asked, gesturing to the numbers above the doors.
Gabriella shook her head and handed the map to him, wondering if they had forgotten to copy something from the original.
Mortimer examined the map briefly, then gave it back to her. He peered into the rooms ahead. “The other rooms appear to have only numbers above the doors as well, and it looks like this is the only room that has stone carvings.”
Why would this room be carved and not the others? Gabriella thought. “Unless it was somehow a clue,” she answered herself aloud. She stepped up close to the wall. Waves, vines, bird feathers, tree branches, flower blossoms whirled before her eyes like a spring festival. She searched for some map hidden in their lines.
“Look for a map within the designs,” she said, running her fingers over the carvings.
The others began to search as well. Sybil and Libys quickly swore they detected maps in the criss-crossing lines of grass at the feet of some of the nymphs, but they could not agree upon where it began or where it ended.
“No, it turns to the right!” Libys said.
“You are an idiot. It goes left, see,” her sister scolded.
“I am not an idiot,” Libys cried. “If I am an idiot, so are you.”
“Don’t you dare insult me! There is no you without me!”
Their voices rose as the threats mounted. Dameon began to rock, and his humming became a wail. Mortimer finally bellowed, “Would all of you just shut up!”
He may not have had a wand, but he was an adult, and that exercised some power over Sybil and Libys
. Dameon did not obey, but his wail decreased to a bearable hum. The sisters were now useless. They marched to opposite sides of the room, sat down with crossed arms, and did their best not to look at one another.
Gabriella sat down on the floor herself, frustrated that her search had been fruitless. She had examined waves and clouds, then all the animals, then the plants—ferns, sunflowers and pinecones. Nowhere in the lines or the details could she discern a map. She could not help a sardonic laugh at the frequency with which sunflowers, ferns, and pinecones had been popping up in her life recently.
She sat up with a start. She raced to the wall and looked again. She realized where she had seen the same plants before: on the side of the box that had held the sheet of symbols in Nicomedes’ hidden workshop. She studied the pinecones closely. Rendered in exquisite detail was the same sequence of numbers she had discovered in the workshop. The rhythm of the pattern played in her mind. One plus one is two. Two plus one is three. Three plus two is five. She looked back up at the numbers above the doors and cursed herself for having been so thick-headed. Why had she been looking for a visual map, when Nicomedes had yet to give her one? The clues, as always, were in the numbers and the maze itself.
“We go through door number one!” she shouted, grabbing Dameon by the hand.
Adamantus leaned against the wall, his breath labored. “How do you know?”
“It is in the numbers, the same sequence as in the leaves, and pinecones, and seed pods.”
“What on earth is she talking about?” Sybil was petulant.
“It is a sequence found in nature,” Mortimer said, looking at the pinecones, surprising Gabriella with his knowledge.
. “The same carvings were on the box that held this map,” she added. “This has to be the way.”
To demonstrate her confidence, Gabriella walked through the door with the number 1 above it. She reached the center of the room safely. Dameon came right behind her, the others trailing him. The next doors were numbered 1, 2, 3, 4.
“So we go through number two,” Libys volunteered.
“No,” Gabriella said, careful with her tone as she corrected the princess. “We go through one again. One plus zero, the number on the door from the bridge, is one.”
They followed her instructions into the next room. Nothing happened. The following room had the same numbers again. “Now we go through two. One plus one is two,” Gabriella said.
The following room had the numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 to choose from. They entered number 3 safely. The next room had the numbers 4, 5, 6, and 7. They entered door 5. Gabriella was relieved. This passage was made easier because Mortimer and Adamantus could contribute. There was less pressure on her now.
The difficulty began after the twelfth room. The numbers had grown larger, and the calculations were more difficult to manage in their heads. They now had to choose between 232, 233, and 234.
Mortimer tried scratching the arithmetic out with the end of his dagger on the stone floor, but when one of the tiles he was pressing on moved slightly, they all froze. There was no sound of whirring gears or clicking levers. No trapped doors opened.
“That was close,” Mortimer said, pinching the brow of his nose. “How do we do our arithmetic now?”
Sybil and Libys had been quiet the whole time. No one had made Sybil study in years, Gabriella realized. The princess was illiterate and could not count. The same was true for Libys, and Gabriella imagined neither enjoyed feeling inferior to slaves.
“Well, maybe you all are not as smart as you thought you were,” Sybil said.
“Yeah, you’re all as dumb as Dameon here,” Libys laughed. “Dameon, tell me, what is that number plus that one?” she pointed to 232 and 234 because she could not read them.
“466,” he answered.
The two sisters laughed, their voices echoing so that it sounded as if the whole chamber were filled with mocking children.
Mortimer dropped his dagger. “Demon’s feet, I think he’s right.”
Gabriella knelt beside Dameon. She knew he was good at math. He had been able to do her homework for years. He had often amused visitors by telling them exactly what day of the week they were born on after they told him their date of birth. He could count by primes for hours, she knew, but he didn’t have the common sense to come out of the rain.
“Dameon, are you sure?” Gabriella asked him. She was acutely aware of all the things her brother could not do—understand that others were making fun of him, dress himself, wash himself. Left on his own, he would be a dirty, slovenly mess, with untied shoes and his clothes on backwards.
“Yes,” he said.
“How about 5,613 plus 739?” Mortimer asked.
“6,352.”
“Is that right?” Gabriella asked.
“I don’t know, I just made those numbers up. Give me a moment.” Mortimer worked out the arithmetic using a small stone to scratch the tile he had been standing on. He did the problem twice to make certain. “He is right.”
“Dameon, which door is the sum of 144 plus 89?” Gabriella asked.
He pointed to 233. Gabriella had calculated the same answer.
Mortimer and the others refused to go first. Adamantus crossed the room and limped through the doorway. Gabriella’s heart nearly burst with love for the elk. He entered unscathed.
Gabriella hugged Dameon and told him she loved him. He wiggled out from her grip. She realized by the smell he had wet himself again.
“Does this mean we can go home soon?” he asked.
“Soon enough,” Gabriella replied.
Dameon added up the next numbers effortlessly. 144 plus 233 was 377. 233 plus 377 was 610. 377 plus 610 was 987. Sybil and Libys followed in complete silence now. Gabriella could not imagine what they would have done without Dameon as they entered the twenty-eighth room and were confronted with the sums of 121,393 and 196,418.
“317,811,” Dameon mumbled. He was right. After thirty-six rooms and reaching 14,930,352 in sums, the maze ended in a narrow hall with a high ceiling. There were no skylights here. Sybil and Libys had to use their wands so they could see.
The corridor was short. A stone’s throw ahead waited a stone table, and behind it, two gray iron doors. Mortimer tried to open the doors, but they did not move. Next, Libys tried, firing a spell that dissipated like flames hitting water. “That should not have happened,” she said.
“Unless the doors are enchanted,” Adamantus suggested. He sounded tired.
“I thought you said Nicomedes did not use magic,” Gabriella said.
“He did not have the gift to cast spells with his words or his hands,” said the elk. “He preferred technology and machinery. But that does not mean Nicomedes did not sometimes rely upon magic. He had powerful friends whom he would have trusted. He must have called upon them to aid him in protecting his treasures. The key to these doors lies with that table.”
They turned to the dust-covered table, the princesses illuminating it with their wands. The table was attached to the floor, looking like an altar to Gabriella, but then she remembered that Nicomedes did not believe in the gods.
The stone table top was incised with hundreds of chiseled holes in evenly spaced rows and columns. Along each side of the table were two ledges lined with white objects. Gabriella picked one up and examined it. It was a polished bone shaped like a large nail with a flat head. Teeth and grooves were carved into the length of each like a key, and numbers had been etched on its flat top.
“More arithmetic,” Gabriella groaned.
They all picked up the bones and examined them. The numbers were not sequential, although some of them were familiar from the sequence they had just used—13, 21, and 55.
Mortimer slipped one bone into a hole in the table top. It slid in with a clicking noise like a key engaging tumblers in a lock. A succession of clicks and turns followed beneath the table, then the floor.
“Well,” Mortimer said over the din, “it seems that we just need to put the pegs i
n the holes.”
“I can’t imagine it is that easy,” Gabriella said, listening to the ominous sounds of machinery moving around them. There was a snap while the sound of turning gears abruptly stopped.
“See, no prob—”
“Dameon, watch out,” Adamantus said as he sprang forward. He grabbed Dameon’s collar in his teeth and yanked him out of the way as an enormous hammer swung down out of the blackness above. It swept by them with a gust of air then disappeared upwards into the darkness. There was another snapping noise of machinery locking into place. The hammer did not return.
The elk put Dameon down. “Apparently there is a correct way to insert them and an incorrect way.”
Gabriella pulled Dameon close to her. “If we shine some light on it, maybe there will be clues.”
The light of the wands revealed writing along the table’s edges. More numbers ran all along the margins of the table and down its sides all the way to the floor. The numbers were arranged neatly in diagonals. Gabriella detected no order to them. A 5 was next to a 4 but also next to 46,362.
Gabriella slowly drew out the piece that Mortimer had dropped in. She looked at the number, then studied the holes on the table and a few other bone-keys. “I bet there is a pattern on the sides of the table. We have to continue it with the pieces we put in.”
She began picking up the bones and spreading them out on the table. There were ten holes running up one side of the table and ten running along the other side, one hundred in all. It roughly looked like a hundred bones as well. She turned to her brother. “Dameon, do you see anything?”
He was quiet a long time, his eyes darting over the surface of the stone, his arms weirdly immobile at his sides. He examined the numbers all the way to the floor where they stopped. He did this to all four sides of the table. Then he went to the tabletop, searched through the bones, chose one, and dropped it inside a hole along the edge.
They all waited. There was a series of clicks and rumblings around them followed by silence. The sisters directed the light from their wands towards the ceiling. No contraptions opened. No weapons swung downward.