Atrus, sensing some kind of awkwardness concerning the matter, let it drop. “Tell me, Governor,” he said, “how long will it take us to reach the capital?”
“Three days,” Ro’Jadre answered, reaching across to pluck a small black, oval fruit from one of the bowls. “But tonight you will stay here, as my guests. Before then, however, let me show you my house.”
He stood. “You asked me about history, Atrus. Well, this house has stood here, much as it is now, for close on four thousand years. And before then there was another house, and before that…” Ro’Jadre shrugged.
Four thousand years…Catherine looked about her at the effortless elegance of the room. Unlike D’ni, which felt ancient, the very stones worn down beneath one’s tread, this place seemed newly built. Not a speck of dust met the eye, not a single sign of aging.
Frozen in time, she thought, as she swung round and put her feet down onto the floor. Yet looking at these people, they seemed unaffected by that. There was nothing jaded about them; nothing to suggest that they lived their lives unchangingly. And as Atrus himself had commented, they were as agile of mind as the most learned Guildsman.
“Come,” Ro’Jadre said, leading them between the dark blue pillars and out into a high-ceilinged atrium, “let me show you where I work.”
§
Esel and Oma stood together at the center of the great workroom and slowly shook their heads in amazement. They had never seen a room like this—never guessed that such a room could even possibly exist, but here it was. Ro’Jadre called it his “laboratory,” yet, with its various balconies and levels, its side-chambers and raised sections, accessible by narrow stairways, it was more like a whole Guild House in itself. Great racks of chemicals filled one wall, while another had endless cupboards of equipment. And there were books, endless books, everywhere one looked, not to talk of the workbenches and the scientific apparatus, much of which the two D’ni did not recognize.
And everything gleamed, as if newly polished. Even the air seemed clean.
“Astonishing,” Esel said quietly, while beside him Oma simply stared.
“You are welcome to use it whenever you wish,” Ro’Jadre said, with that same open hospitality they had come to believe was universal in Terahnee. “What is mine is yours.”
Atrus gave a little bow. Then curious, he asked, “What are your own interests, Governor Ro’Jadre?”
“My interests?”
“Scientifically speaking…”
“Ah…” Ro’Jadre walked across and, reaching over one of the benches, took down a massive-looking ledger and opened it, turning it so that Atrus, who had followed him across, could see.
“I’m afraid…” Atrus began, but Ro’Jadre understood at once.
“The script…of course. It differs from your own, I understand. Well, what you see are my experiment notes.” He flicked back a few pages and indicated several diagrams, beside which were columns of figures and, on the page facing it, three beautifully drawn graphs. “I have been experimenting on inks. Following up an idea I had.”
Atrus stared at the pages, clearly fascinated, despite the difficulty of reading the Terahnee script. It was not so different when one concentrated.
“But enough of that,” Ro’Jadre said, leaving the book where it lay. “Come, let me show you the long gallery. There are things there from the Ages—grotesque and beautiful things—you will not have seen before.”
Oma and Esel stood there a moment, reluctant to move on, a look that was almost longing in their eyes. Then, glancing about them as they went, they followed Ro’Jadre out through the marble doorway.
§
It was another hour before one of the stewards showed them to their suite of rooms, high up on the east side of the great house. As Atrus stepped into the spacious apartment, it was to be met by the sight of four beautiful old books, their covers a deep, burnished yellow trimmed with black, laid out on the massive desk that filled one corner of the main room.
Atrus walked across and opened the first of the volumes. As yet he could not read the strange variant script, but he knew, without having to ask, that these were the books of Terahnee history Ro’Jadre had promised him.
The evening had been wonderful. There had been music and dancing, and games—associative and rhyming—and any number of other clever things; things that they had never imagined. His mind reeled when he thought of all the things they had witnessed. The sounds, the tastes, the sights…
“Do you still think these people are not D’ni?” Catherine asked, coming alongside him. “After all you’ve seen? They speak a dialect very close to D’ni. And they write Ages, exactly like the D’ni.”
Atrus smiled. “I concede that the likelihood of them being related to the D’ni is great. But I am certain that the truth is here, in these pages. I shall have Oma and Esel begin work on them at once.”
Catherine was quiet a moment, then she asked, “Does it not make you wonder, Atrus?”
“Wonder?”
“Oh, it’s just that I keep thinking about what Master Tergahn said. About the reason why this Age was linked to D’ni. For all this to exist and for the D’ni to know nothing of it…that seems…”
“Incredible?”
“Yes. And yet the Books were left there to be a link between the Ages. Why should that be?”
“Different paths,” Atrus mused.
“Yes, but why?”
Atrus smiled and gently tapped the open page. “The answer’s here, I warrant.” Then, closing the book, he went over to the door and threw it open. “Oma! Esel! Come! I have a task for you!”
§
Eedrah called for them before the entertainment that evening.
“We can call for the others on our way,” he began, as he stepped into the room, then stopped dead, seeing Oma and Esel seated at the great desk in the corner, Marrim and Irras talking with them animatedly.
“The histories,” Atrus explained. “We have been busy learning something of your world.”
“Something and nothing,” Eedrah said, then, smiling, went on, “As the prophecies say, ‘Through such tiny cracks the past seeps through to the present.’ “
Catherine stared at Eedrah, surprised. “You’ve heard of the prophecies here in Terahnee?”
“Rumors and old wives’ tales, mainly. But there are those in the city who have spent a lifetime studying such things. Great scholars who fill their lives searching through ancient books to find some snippet here, some snippet there.”
Catherine looked to Atrus, but Atrus seemed uninterested. He had wandered over to the desk again, where Oma was quietly but insistently making a point about a line of text he had translated. For a moment she hesitated, then asked, “Would it be possible to arrange a meeting with one of these…scholars?”
Eedrah shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t see the harm in asking. And it’s said these scholars love to talk of what they know.”
Catherine smiled. “You seem a race of scholars, Eedrah.”
“And so we are. But come…the governor awaits us. I understand he has arranged a very special entertainment in your honor.”
Atrus turned back at this news. “Then we shall leave the books for now. Come, Oma, Esel. There will be time for that on our journey. Our host awaits us.”
§
The governor stood before the door, a faintly amused smile on his face. It was, even by normal standards, a small door, barely large enough for a young child to pass through.
“Who will be first?” Ro’Jadre asked, looking from one to another of his guests. “You, Atrus? Or maybe you, young Marrim?”
Marrim glanced at Atrus, then nodded. “You say that once inside I must choose within thirty seconds or all of the doors close?”
“That is correct,” Ro’Jadre answered. “Sometimes there are two choices, sometimes three. Sometimes you will have to climb, sometimes you will need to descend, but always…always you have only thirty seconds to do so.”
“And at the
end of it?” Catherine asked.
“You will see. So, Marrim, are you ready?”
“I am.”
“Then go through. We shall see you again…sooner or later.”
Marrim did not quite like the sound of that, but she was committed now. Putting her hand against the door, she pushed, then stepped inside, into a room that was no bigger than a cell. As the door closed behind her, she noted the doors to her left and right, but she had already decided. She would go straight as far as she could go. Two paces took her to the second door. She pushed it open and stepped through.
This room was longer, thinner, the ceiling higher. There was a door in the ceiling but no doorway to her right. Yet even as she took a step toward the facing door, the floor beneath her seemed to move—to turn, though how it could turn she did not know. There were faint noises in the walls. Feeling slightly dizzy, she made her way across to the door facing her. Or was it the left hand door now? She double-checked, the counting in her head warning her that fifteen seconds had already passed.
Straight ahead, she told herself, pushing the door open. But what if the room had turned? Was she still heading in a straight line?
This room—the third room—was circular. Not two but five different doors led off. And there, in the center of the floor, was an opening. A chute of some kind? She went across and stared straight down. Dare she go down there?
An entertainment, she told herself, reminding herself of what Horen Ro’Jadre had said. It’s only an entertainment.
Marrim eased herself over the lip and slid, down, down into darkness, then felt the chute turn and straighten.
How far had she descended? Twenty feet? More? She got to her feet and walked forward, her hand outstretched before her.
Her hand met the flat, smooth surface of a door. She pushed.
And stepped out into daylight.
No, she thought, impossible. For now she seemed to be at the top of the building, the sunlight coming down through a clear glass roof.
Two doors and thirty seconds to choose. Left or right? For there was no door facing her in this room.
Besides, that plan had been abandoned. So what now? What alternate strategy did she use to get herself through this maze of rooms?
Guesswork…
She went left, into what seemed to be a corridor, a single door at the end of it, another exit—a square hole without a covering hatch—in the center of the ceiling. Yet even as she walked toward the door at the far end, the room seemed to turn yet again beneath her.
And this time, she knew she was not imagining it. The rooms were moving all the while. Or maybe not all the while, but sometimes—perhaps when she made a certain choice.
But there was no more time to think. Reaching up with both hands, Marrim pulled herself up into the dark.
Or almost darkness, for there was light—a big square patch of light—some way ahead of her, yes, and another just behind.
Another choice.
She turned 180 degrees, and as she did she began to mentally retrace her steps, for in that instant she had understood. It was not necessarily the choice you made, it was the remembering. Her first instinct had been correct—she was certain of it now. The quickest way was to go straight ahead.
For a time there was nothing but rooms—fifty, maybe eighty rooms on who knew how many levels—and then, stepping through a door, Marrim came out into a huge, sunlit dome, beneath the transparent roof of which was a massive water garden, with streams and islands and bridges and, at the very center of all, a huge pagodalike structure in what looked like pearl, beneath the sloping roofs of which was a circle of chairs, most of which were filled by guests.
Seeing her, Ro’Jadre stood and came to the rail, looking across to where she stood. “Well done, young Marrim,” he called. “That was quick indeed. Why, I have known guests lost in there for days on end.”
Marrim blinked, wondering if she was being ribbed, then asked, “And what would happen to them?”
“Oh, we would send someone in to bring them out. Eventually. But do not fear, Marrim, we would not have let you languish in there too long. Nor any of your party.” He smiled, gesturing for her to come across the bridge. “But tell me, how did you manage to work it out?”
§
Atrus, who had been last to enter the maze, was the second to emerge, less than five minutes after Marrim.
Stepping into the first room, he had had no real expectations of the experience. A maze was, after all, only a maze. Yet as the rooms had begun to turn and he had got deeper in, he had begun to enjoy it, until, at the last, he had found a real delight in working out the puzzle.
It had been like tunneling through the rock, and after a moment all manner of memories had come flooding back and he had seen his father’s face clearly for the first time in many years.
A maze of moving rooms. Ingenious…
He had said the word aloud, unaware that he had done so.
“I am glad you think so,” Ro’Jadre said, coming across the bridge toward him. “I was telling Marrim. It is never the same twice. For each traveler, the maze is entirely different.”
Atrus frowned. “How, then, is it done?”
“Oh, the rules of manipulation were set centuries ago. We but perfect an ancient art. But, sad to say, the days of the great maze-makers are long past. There has not been an original new maze for many years. At least, none I have heard of.”
“And those rules…they determine which rooms move and which do not?”
“That is so. Though not all the rooms can move. Like any building, the maze must have structural integrity. But within that rigid framework there is a great deal of flexibility. More than you can possibly imagine. If it were not so, then the maze would soon lose its power to fascinate.”
“Do you ever play the maze yourself, Ro’Jadre?”
Ro’Jadre smiled. “Very seldom these days. I am not as sprightly as I was. But the young people are very fond of it, particularly when the choosing time is shortened.”
“Shortened?”
“To ten, sometimes even five seconds.”
Atrus nodded, imagining it. To have to negotiate the maze under such circumstances—to have to run and clamber and slide like a hunted animal, afraid of being trapped—that would be a game of considerable skill, especially when one also had to attempt to keep the ever-changing map of the maze in one’s mind at all times.
It was ten minutes before Catherine emerged. Another fifteen and Esel stumbled from the door, looking flustered, his dark eyebrows formed into a heavy frown. Last to appear, almost two hours after Marrim had first emerged, was Oma, who had a dazed and slightly startled look about him.
“Everything was fine until the rooms started moving,” he said as he took the last vacant chair. “After that…” He shook his head.
“And yet none of you were trapped, and none took more than two and a half hours,” Ro’Jadre said. “That is impressive, particularly when none of you had ever played the game before.”
Marrim leaned across, whispering something to Atrus. Atrus considered a moment, then nodded.
“Ro’Jadre,” he said. “My young companion would like to run the maze again.”
“Again?”
“Yes, but this time with a ten-second choosing time.”
Ro’Jadre laughed. “Why, certainly. But why not add some spice to the entertainment? Why not make the game a race this time? Young Marrim against one of our young people.”
The governor turned, looking about him, his eyes falling on the lounging figure of Eedrah.
“Eedrah Ro’Jethhe…will you not take up the challenge?”
Eedrah, who had until that moment been picking at a bowl of fruit in a desultory fashion, now looked up, startled by Ro’Jadre’s words. He looked about him, as if trying to figure out some way of escaping the invitation, then, somewhat reluctantly, he nodded.
“Good,” Ro’Jadre said, a satisfied smile lighting his lips. “If the two young people would pr
epare themselves.”
As Eedrah and Marrim stood, Eedrah glanced across at her—a strangely awkward look. “Governor Ro’Jadre,” he said, “can we not make it fifteen seconds? I fear our guest might find it…overstrenuous.”
Ro’Jadre looked to Marrim and raised an eyebrow, but Marrim said nothing.
“Twelve seconds,” Ro’Jadre said decisively. He clapped his hands and at once two stewards appeared at his side. “Tuure,” he said, addressing one of them, “escort the young people to the maze.”
Then, turning back, he looked to Atrus and smiled. “And afterward I shall talk to you of the king, and of what you might expect when you reach the capital.”
§
Twice she stepped into a room to find Eedrah there already. Twice he stared back at her, startled, then moved on.
Relentlessly, Marrim moved from room to room, as floors turned and the great maze fitted itself into new configurations. And all the while, in her head, she counted. Counted the seconds. Counted how many forward or back, up or down she was. For the secret, she understood now, was mathematical—was pluses and minuses. It was no good thinking in terms of direction. One had to strip that away and think pure numbers, otherwise you were lost.
What she hadn’t expected, however, were the pure physical demands of that twelve-second limit. It gave you barely enough time to look about a room and choose, let alone climb up—if climbing up was what you wished to do. But suddenly, almost before she expected it, she was outside again, standing there in the great dome, the water gardens all about her.
“Well done…”
She turned, to find Eedrah there behind her. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t see you.”
“That’s because I wasn’t there. Until now.”
“Then I won?”
Eedrah nodded, but there was a strange sorrow in his face that she did not understand.
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