Mazes and Monsters

by Rona Jaffe

  “Okay.”

  “A couple of us are going to play Mazes and Monsters in the caverns,” Jay Jay whispered triumphantly.

  “Oh, boy, you are really nuts!” Perry said.

  “Do I get the bones?”

  “Why don’t you use animal bones? All you have to do is boil the carcass—”

  “You’re going to make me throw up,” Jay Jay said.

  “You’re really going to play in the caverns?” Perry said. Like most of the people at Grant, he had heard of the game and knew that it was popular on the campus, even though he didn’t play it himself. “You know, you could get lost in there and die.”

  “We know,” Jay Jay said.

  “You’re not going to lose my bones?”

  “If we get lost and die in the caverns with your bones, they’ll come to look for us, and then you’ll get even more bones. That ought to make you happy.”

  “And I get free gas for the motorbike,” Perry said.

  They shook hands on their deal. Jay Jay said he’d let him know the date. He knew Perry would probably tell a few people, but it didn’t matter. They would never tell the school authorities, and none of Perry’s friends played the game. The chance of another group trying to play in the caverns was extremely rare. It was much more likely that they would come to Jay Jay and ask to be included. Even so, Jay Jay didn’t want strangers.

  “Remember,” he said, “secrecy is of the essence.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Perry said. “It’s my ass too, you know.”

  Oh joy, oh bliss, oh gleeful wonder! Everything was falling into place so well.

  Reading Period, when everyone studied for exams, was a time of hushed terror in the dorms. There were no parties. People went to the library. Even the constant blare of music from all the individual stereo sets was muted; background for memorizing. The people who had neglected their work up till now were frantic. There was much trading of notes, and all-night sessions to catch up. Normally pale anyway at this time of year, now most of the students looked sick—with worry, sleeplessness, and the effect of a vast consumption of coffee, junk food, nicotine, and pills to stay awake. Jay Jay looked and felt very chipper. Daniel and Kate, although they studied, seemed normal. Poor Robbie was haggard and drawn. All romances were put on hold during this period of fear. After all, if you flunked out, you’d probably never see the person you were in love with again … not to mention never getting a decent job; suffering the wrath of your parents, the disdain of the world, and the loss of your own self-respect.

  One night around eleven thirty, when he had returned from his secret nightly trip to the caverns, Jay Jay came tapping on Kate’s door, carrying a Thermos of hot coffee.

  “Coffee break, madam.”

  She looked pleased to see him, and put her book down immediately. “How sweet. Thank you.”

  He sat down on her bed and poured coffee for both of them. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, it’s okay. I just sometimes wonder how the professors know what the authors had in mind. We have to spit back whatever they tell us in class. And I think: If I’m a famous writer some day, will people make up what they think I meant and then make other people agree with them?”

  “Probably,” Jay Jay said. “Unless you write the textbook yourself.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kate said, suddenly looking depressed. “I’m never going to be a famous writer—or any kind at all.”

  “How can you say that? We’re all going to be famous. That’s the plan.”

  “Whose plan?”

  “Mine,” Jay Jay said.

  “Then you’ll have to get rid of my writer’s block. I can’t be a writer if I don’t write anything.”

  “You’ll think of things. Right now you’re at school; there’s too much input from other sources.”

  “Maybe.” She sipped her coffee. “How are your plans for the new game going?”

  “Fantastic. Just wait.”

  “I worry about you at night, Jay Jay. I know you’re in the caverns all alone.”

  He was touched. She, his love, his friend, worried about him! He wished he had brought her something better than coffee, but it was what he’d had left from his evening in the caverns and it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea to share it with her. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I’m careful, and I know my way around pretty well by now.”

  “You couldn’t. They’re too big.”

  “The Pyramids were not built in a day.”

  “May I quote you?” They laughed. It was a matter of pride with both of them never to say anything banal unless it was on purpose. “You know what I was thinking, Jay Jay? You’re almost halfway through college and you want to be an actor, but you’ve never taken an acting class.”

  “I know,” he said calmly.

  “But why not?”

  He thought about it. It wasn’t to spite his father, because his father didn’t care. It wasn’t because he was afraid of competition. He knew he was good. Why, then? “I guess,” Jay Jay said finally, “it’s because I have the game. I don’t need anything else.”

  “It’s not the same,” Kate said.

  “Yes it is.” He told her then about his feelings in the caverns; how he was the producer, scriptwriter, set designer, and everyone else. “Most of us actors end up wanting to do everything else too,” he said. “We like the power.”

  “Maybe then you won’t be an actor after all—maybe you’ll be a director or a producer,” she said. She sounded rather pleased. “You really have the soul of an entrepreneur.”

  “I could star in my own movies,” he said. “I’d write in a part for myself. Maybe just a cameo, but effective. Or a lead. It would depend on how I felt.”

  “Sometimes I dread life after college,” Kate said. “I absolutely refuse to settle for a boring job. Don’t let me, Jay Jay. If you see me copping out, you remind me how when we were at Grant we knew we could do anything.”

  “Okay,” he said. “But you have to do the same for me.”

  “I have to study now,” she said. “Not everybody’s a genius like you.” She smiled at him. “Thanks for the coffee break.”

  “Anytime.” He went back to his room humming a little tune. She wanted him to be her friend after college; it wasn’t just a part of his fantasy of all of them doing great things together. It was real. Neither of them would ever let the other one betray their potential.

  Life after college seemed so far away he almost couldn’t imagine it. Kate telling him he was halfway through college was like telling someone he was middle-aged. He was entering the second half of his Sophomore year; he wasn’t “halfway through college.” Exams were coming soon, and of course he would get his usual A’s, and then they would start the game—his game. That was the only thing that seemed real at all.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was the first night of the new game in the caverns. The four of them went there in Kate’s car. Since people were always rushing in and out of the dorms, no one paid any attention to them and their duffel bags of equipment, which they put into the trunk. They had thrown the dice in Jay Jay’s room to see what they could take with them, and whatever they needed Jay Jay seemed to have ready. They each had a real sword—which was actually a hunting knife in a sheath—and they had lanterns, coins, amulets, food, and costumes. Kate, as Glacia, had her chain-mail armor, to be put on when they got to the deserted area near the caverns. Robbie, as Pardieu, had his rough brown cloak. Daniel, who was to be Nimble the Charlatan, was already dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and slacks; he looked like a cat burglar. It was not in the spirit of a medieval game, but he refused to have anything to do with the black leotard Jay Jay had bought for him. Jay Jay told him he’d change his mind as soon as he found out how the rough, damp passages they might have to crawl through would mess up his clothes, and took the leotard along.

  They hid the red Rabbit in a small clump of trees near the entrance to the caverns. Kate and Robbie dressed, and then the four o
f them tramped together over the hard, bare ground to the chained opening. They paused. “This is the secret kingdom of the evil Voracians,” Jay Jay said. “Somewhere within dwells Ak-Oga, the most fiendish monster of them all. He has lived in the depths of this lair for more ages than Humans or Sprites or Dwarfs can know. As great and awesome as is his wickedness, so is the greatness and awesomeness of his treasure. Shall you enter?”

  “Yes,” they said.

  They took a last look at the black sky overhead, filled with bright stars, and then they ducked under the chain, entered the caverns, and lit their kerosine lamps.

  Kate’s heart turned over. This place was such a blend of all the fantasies she had invented, and reality, that for a moment she almost felt she was losing her grip on what was real and what was not. Except for the lights of their lanterns, the blackness was so vast and absolute that she was not sure she would have the courage to go another step. It was worse than the darkness of the laundry room when that man was trying to kill her, because in the laundry room she had some idea of where things were. But here all was new. The lamplight touched the shiny, black walls with the glitter of gold. Ancient stalactites and stalagmites like stone icicles … the faraway drip of unseen water … the musty smell of evil … but worst of all, that darkness. In that darkness you could lose your sense of direction and wander in circles until you lost consciousness. She was terrified. She drew a deep breath and said nothing.

  Now Jay Jay moved lightly to a corner of the small vaulted room and lit a large battery-powered lantern, the kind used at campsites, which he had put there before they came. It gave the room a reassuring glow, but equally important it made it possible for him to read his Challenge Module, see the throw of the dice, and for all of them to be able to chart the maze with their pencils and graph paper, and mark wherever they were at any given time.

  They were looking around in awe. Kate glanced at Daniel and Robbie. She couldn’t tell if they were afraid or not. Daniel looked fascinated and Robbie transfixed. She didn’t want to be the only one who was scared to death, and if she was, she certainly didn’t want them to know it. She tightened her hand on her sword as if it could give her some protection.

  There was no need to sit in their customary circle to ask the Maze Controller where they were—they were there. “Which way shall we go?” Daniel asked the group.

  “Right,” Kate said. “To the water.” She tried to will herself deeper into the game, to become Glacia, no longer Kate. Glacia wouldn’t be afraid. A part of her was thinking that the sound of water perhaps led to a hidden pool, and that Jay Jay would want them to see this, and so he would have put inducements in that other chamber; perhaps some charm or treasure. The other part was trying to block out Jay Jay, and to make this game, which was real, as real as the imaginary one they had played in the dorm. She felt that separating the real from the fantasy was a way of keeping her sanity, but if she didn’t let herself get into the game it wouldn’t be any fun.

  Glacia … I am Glacia … why do I always hold back? I’m always afraid, pretending I’m not, doing things to test myself. I am Glacia, and I have sworn to seek out the evil monster Ak-Oga, and seize the treasure. Glacia turned right with the others and walked with very gingerly steps toward the sound of the dripping water. They went through a narrow tunnel and then came out upon a large room with a black pool at one end. It was breathtaking. There was something eternal about this place. She felt she had dreamed that bottomless black pool a thousand times. She felt the danger singing through her blood, and the mystery, the fantasy, the sheer beauty of something that was at the same time so menacing. She shone her lantern around the corners of the room, and screamed.

  A human skeleton lay propped against the wall, lying in an attitude of exhausted despair. It wasn’t the remains of one of the students who had vanished so long ago; those bones had been found. It was someone else. Oh, God … it could be them!

  Glacia the Fighter never screamed in fear.

  “Alas,” Pardieu said sadly. “Who can that be? Some wanderer, perhaps, on a mission such as ours.”

  “Be careful,” Nimble the Charlatan warned. “It could be a trick. Sometimes these skeletons have powers.”

  Just as he spoke the empty eye sockets of the skull glittered with a mad light, all greenish and skittering. The dice clicked softly on the stones. “What do you choose to do?” the Maze Controller asked, his voice coming disembodied from the shadows of the black room.

  “Is it evil?” Nimble asked.

  “No.”

  “Is it helpful, then?” Pardieu asked.

  “Perhaps.”

  Glacia remembered another adventure from a long time ago. “We will have to touch it,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. “The glittering eyes may show us a clue if we turn the head.”

  “I am afraid to disturb the bones of those who rest in peace,” Pardieu said in his kind, reverent tones. “It is a sacrilege.”

  “I am not afraid,” Glacia said. She strode to the skeleton and touched the head with the tips of her fingers. Her stomach churned. Slowly, slowly, she moved the skull to either side, hoping there might be some magic to open a trap door or show up invisible writing. Nothing.

  Then suddenly, as if it were on wires, the entire skeleton rose swiftly in the air and flew away into the dark above her. “Ahhh …” The sound came from her own throat and from her companions: awe, terror, fascination, a gasp sharpening into a shriek.

  Behind where the skeleton had been lying there were tiny luminous letters written on the wall.

  “Who among us can read these?” Pardieu asked.

  Nimble the Charlatan walked closer and looked at the letters. Then he turned, his eyes shining with triumph. “I can,” he said. “They are the ancient runes of my people. I learned them as a child, and I still remember some of them. It says: ‘Eat of the bitter herb.’”

  “Is it a trick?” Glacia asked. “Where is the herb? Will it give us wisdom, or kill us?”

  “First we must find it,” Nimble said. “Let us search this room and then go on.”

  Glacia, proud and strong as she was, was glad Nimble had become the new member of their band. He was so calm and sure. She felt a great confidence by his side. Irresistibly drawn to the black waters of the pool, she knelt and dropped a small stone into its depths. The stone sank away and disappeared instantly. “But be careful of the water,” she said. “I think it has a hypnotic lure.”

  “If you feel it calling to you,” Nimble said, “take my hand.”

  That little bastard Jay Jay is a genius, Daniel thought, admiring and jealous. He was annoyed too, because Jay Jay’s fun-house tricks were so simple and yet they worked on everybody’s mind, even his own. He knew how Jay Jay had lit up the bulbs in the skull’s eye sockets, he had immediately figured out the wires and pulleys that made the skeleton fly away, and having the “ancient runes” in Hebrew was both ingenious and irritating—irritating because he had never thought of doing it. All Jay Jay had needed to get his hands on was a Passover Haggadah for kids; the one with the translation on the opposite page, and he obviously had. Bitter herbs! Here he was, hoping to make up games for a living after he graduated, and Jay Jay as a vacation sideline had created a minor Disneyland.

  Everything was perfectly thought out, even the way Jay Jay kept in the shadows whenever he consulted his rules, in order not to disturb the reality of what was happening to them. All the time they had been moving about, awestruck, Jay Jay had been scattering rice to make a trail so they wouldn’t lose their sense of direction and get lost. He also had a map and a compass. Daniel took his pad of graph paper and a pencil from his knapsack and began to chart the maze. He put a little mark where they were now, with some symbols denoting the pool and the skeleton and the Hebrew writing, so he would be able to look at the map later and know just which room was which. He wished he had been the one to think of this game.

  “There is nothing to eat in this room,” Kate said. She picke
d up a few grains of the rice Jay Jay had dropped and looked questioningly at him.

  “No,” Jay Jay said. “That’s so you won’t get lost. Leave it there.”

  “Let’s move on,” Daniel said.

  They went back through the narrow tunnel into the first room, and then they turned left, Daniel leading the way. Kate followed, and then Robbie. Their lanterns made wavering shadows and glistening light on the walls, where something sparkled in the blackness. Mica, I bet, Daniel thought. Jay Jay brought up the rear, dragging along his battery-powered lamp, but he had turned it off to make the journey more frightening.

  What a strange and wonderful place this is, Daniel thought. All this time it was right here and I never went in to investigate it.

  “A wandering monster!” Jay Jay cried. “Over there!” He switched on his lamp and tossed the dice. “A Gorvil … followed by three others!”

  Gorvils were stupid, soulless, and attacked anything even when they weren’t hungry. They were covered with scales, had short webbed arms, huge fangs, and a large eye in the center of their lizardlike foreheads. They were over seven feet tall, and vicious. Daniel took out his knife … no, his sword. He wanted to get into the game and stop analyzing everything. This was an imaginary Gorvil, part of the game he knew; not Jay Jay’s manufactured, theatrical prop. There was no point in being jealous; it was self-destructive. Now he could go into the fantasy on his own terms, not someone else’s, and enter the adventure of his own imagination.

  “Kill them!” Glacia cried, waving her sword.

  “Kill them!” Pardieu cried, rushing forward, his sword drawn too.

  “Kill them!” Nimble growled fiercely, and stabbed the nearest Gorvil again and again, while it bucked and lunged to kill him with its fangs and its black blood poured in torrents over the floor of the maze.

  “They are all dead,” the Maze Controller said.

  “Be careful,” Glacia warned. “There may be more.”

  “Indeed,” Pardieu said. “They will surely come to seek revenge. The noise they made as they died was frightful.”