by Chris Miller
“I’ve brought you something,” Hope said coyly, averting my attention from the empty cup.
“What is it?”
“A gift…from Aviad,” she said, handing me a small package wrapped in simple brown paper. I tore open the wrap to find a small vial with a cork seal. It looked empty. I shook the jar and heard a light tink inside. Upon closer inspection, I saw the glass vial wasn’t empty…there was a small speck inside it. The speck was so small I practically had to cross my eyes to focus on it. Hope looked amused.
“Not what you expected?” she asked.
“You could say that. What’s it for?”
“It’s a seed, the start of something new. It will help you repair what has been broken. It will bring life where once there was death.”
“But, it’s just a seed….”
“Not an ordinary seed; it has the power to change this world forever, Hunter. You just have to believe it.”
“This seed?” I asked, looking at the tiny speck in disbelief. It was smaller than any seed I had ever seen. “So, what am I supposed to do with it—put it in a Styrofoam cup of dirt in my kitchen window and water it once a day?”
Hope laughed.
“You’ll know, if you’re listening to the Author.”
“Right,” I said, tucking the vial in my pocket. “Did he say anything else? Did you ask if the vision in the Eye of Ends was true?”
“I...I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it isn’t meant for you to know.”
Of course, it wasn’t. Aviad rarely let me see the whole truth. It wasn’t his way. The truth was always wrapped in riddles or secret messages. Here, have a seed Hunter. You don’t know what it does but use it. Stuff like that was starting to annoy me. I mean, why couldn’t he just tell me what his plan was for once?
“What’s wrong?” Hope asked, spotting the frustration on my face.
“I’m just tired of all the secrets the Author keeps. Sometimes I just wish I could see a glimpse of what the future holds.”
“No, you don’t…trust me.”
“Why, is it that bad?”
Hope chuckled. “There you go again, assuming the worst of everything.”
“Well, it’s kinda hard not to when you’re surrounded by a forest of dead men,” I said, pointing to the surroundings.
“I see your point,” Hope answered, “but it still doesn’t mean everything ends in tragedy.”
“So, it’s good then?” I asked.
Hope sighed. “You really want me to tell you, don’t you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Can you?” I asked.
She thought about it for a moment, and seemed to be genuinely considering the idea. After a short silence, she nodded her head and looked both ways before beckoning me to lean in closer.
“Come here,” she said quietly. My heart beat a little faster in anticipation of what she was about to say next. I leaned toward her and she put her lips right up to the edge of my ear and held there for a moment or two before whispering her secret in a slow, hushed tone.
“Everything will be exactly as it should be,” she said. As she finished, she started to giggle. She had played me perfectly.
“I should have seen that coming,” I said dryly, shaking my head and trying to suppress a smile of my own.
“Oh, but that wouldn’t be any fun,” she replied. “You have to admit some things are better as a surprise.”
“Maybe the little things,” I said in agreement, “but it’s the bigger things that worry me more.”
“Listen,” Hope said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I know you’re scared and concerned about what the future might hold. But you don’t have to be.”
“I don’t want to be,” I answered. “But the visions my father saw in the Eye…they….”
“Aren’t important,” Hope replied. “If you trust the Writ and what the Author has said about the story to come, you won’t have to worry. Remember the words of the Writ, the ones that Gabby sang?”
“You mean the song about finding joy that’s hid behind?”
Hope nodded and began to sing the tune. Her voice was sweet and heavenly as it rang through the air.
A greater story is being told,
Beyond the things you see and hold.
The pages turn in perfect time,
Leaving what we know behind.
Death is not the end, dear one.
Another chapter has begun.
So be not sad, oh heart of mine,
Find the joy that’s hid behind.
Through darkness light will find its way,
While we await the dawn of day.
As she sang, my chest felt as if a giant, crushing rock had been lifted off. I was at peace. Just hearing her sing reminded me that the Author knew what he was doing. After all, he had sent her to me, hadn’t he? She belonged to the Codebearers…. She was a gift from the Author to all of us.
“Every page has its purpose, Hunter,” Hope said after finishing her song, “even the difficult ones. We just have to believe that things are going to work out the way the Author has planned.”
“But it’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“No, it’s not at first. But like that seed, your faith will grow until it’s as strong and unshakeable as a mighty oak.”
I held the vial up once more and looked at the seed inside it.
“Hunter!” my father’s voice yelled through the blackened woods. “Hunter, where are you, son?”
“Dad, I’m over here!” I yelled back. I started to run toward the sound of his voice but turned back when I realized Hope wasn’t following.
“Go on,” she said. “Your father needs you.”
“But aren’t you coming?” I asked.
“Not right now; there’s something else I must do first,” Hope said. “But I’ll be back soon. Just remember, no matter what happens in the Eye of Ends, the future belongs to the Author. We’re never alone.”
I nodded in agreement at the familiar phrase the Codebearers shared. Hope’s eyes shifted from mine to a movement in the woods behind me. My father had found me.
“Hunter! I’m so glad you made it!” Dad said as he bounded onto the scene. “That was quite the fall, eh? Are you okay?”
I turned to greet him. “Yeah, Dad, I’m…fine,” I said, but when I turned back to where Hope had once stood, she was gone.
“Good! From the looks of things we lucked out. We could have easily ended up like one of those poor souls,” he said, pointing to the tree full of bones. “That would have been a nasty ending, wouldn’t you say?”
“Never alone,” I whispered to myself. Clearly, the Author had been watching out for us. But for what purpose?
“And that’s not all,” Dad continued excitedly, “you’ll never guess what I found!”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Come here; I’ll show you.”
He led me through the grove of blackened trees to a clearing, not far from where Hope had found me. The ground darkened as we approached, and it was dry and cracked in places. In the center of the clearing, a massive tree stump remained. Despite all the differences in the landscape, I recognized it at once.
“The Living Tree,” he said in a theatrical voice.
“Or what’s left of it,” I added, noting how dead it was. There was nothing left but the stump and even that seemed to be rotting away.
“Ah, but its rings are still intact, see?” Dad pointed out. “That’s the important part.”
I glanced over the intricate pattern of the circular grain of the tree. I had never noticed it before, but it actually looked quite a bit like a maze, complete with dead ends and backtracking paths that led toward the middle of the tree and the eye-shaped center.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We sleep, of course!”
“Sleep?”
“Yes, you have to be asleep in order to enter the Maze of Rings.”
I vaguely recalled Simon saying something to that effect in his explanation about the Eye of Ends. It only made sense that the tree stump would require the same thing.
“Wait a minute, don’t we need a Watcher to enter the Maze?”
“Not if Tonomis is already in the Eye himself. Remember, the Eye is a cross section of this tree. The rings will be the same as these. If my suspicions are correct both will lead to the Maze of Rings. The only way to know for sure is to get some sleep.”
“Sleep? But I’m not really tired,” I said. The potion Hope had given me made me think I might never sleep again. I felt more awake than any time in my life.
“Oh, you will be,” Dad replied with a mischievous look in his eye. He knew something I didn’t. He set to work, gathering a collection of small sticks that were lying on the ground here and there. I didn’t question him, I just watched. He had obviously done this before and knew what he was doing. When at last he had a decent handful, he motioned toward the tree stump. “Go ahead. Touch the rings.”
I reached out toward the tree and paused for a moment before my fingers touched the surface. Dad nodded his encouragement and reached out with me toward the rings. The moment my fingers connected with the tree, I felt like every ounce of energy in my body drained through my fingertips and was pulled into the tree itself. My knees gave out and I fell forward onto the stump like a limp ragdoll.
Before I knew what was happening, I opened my eyes and found I was standing on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a vast crater that stretched out for what seemed like miles. Several hundred feet below, a winding labyrinth of stone walls circled inward…and in the center of it all, a pillar of fire streamed upward like a bright column of light. There was no doubt about it; this was the Maze of Rings.
Chapter 26
The Maze of Rings
The view from above was breathtaking, but I couldn’t enjoy it. The ledge was far too narrow for my liking and the drop was…dizzying. A tunnel led down the side of the hill, giving access to the floor below. I started to edge my way toward it, but Dad held me back.
“I wouldn’t go down that way if I were you,” Dad said.
“Why not? How else will we get down?” I asked, backing away from the ledge.
“Not easily,” Dad replied, peering over the edge. “But getting there is half the fun.”
“Fun?”
“Hey, nobody promised you it would be a cakewalk. The Maze of Rings is a dangerous place without a Watcher to guide you. We aren’t exactly here as guests. Only the smartest and toughest make it to the middle, which is why nobody has done it but me,” Dad bragged. He pointed back at the tunnel and continued, “If you want to go that way, by all means be my guest, maybe say ‘hi’ to a Crag Spider or two along the way. But as for me, I prefer to limit my risk…. I’m climbing down.”
He peered over the edge at the canyon floor, which was hidden in the darkness far below. He tried calculating the distance in his head and pulled the rope we had collected in the tower ruins from my backpack. Next, he began bundling together the pile of twigs he had gathered on the Lost Shard and wound the rope around it.
“Let me get this straight. You’d rather climb down that cliff than face a few ugly, little spiders? I didn’t know you were arachnophobic.”
“I’m not,” Dad said, taking offense at my ribbing. “They’re Crag Spiders. You wouldn’t be able to squash any of those big daddies with your shoe,” Dad explained.
“Come on…how big can they possibly be?” I challenged.
Dad held his arms out in a hoop shape, roughly the circumference of a manhole cover.
“For real?” I asked, stunned at his gesture.
“And those are the little ones,” Dad said, nodding. “They hunt in packs; trust me, you don’t want to meet one. It’s not a fun way to die.”
I rarely admitted to it, but avoiding any eight-legged thing, especially one you could look in the eyes, had always been a good idea in my book. I wasn’t about to break that rule.
Under Dad’s direction, I used my Veritas Sword to help him carve out a section of the rocky ledge to fit the bundled “log” of sticks.
“This here is what we call a ‘dead man’s anchor,’ Hunter,” Dad explained as we finished digging.
“Because we’re dead men?”
“No. The sticks are the ‘dead man.’ This hole I made is like their ‘grave.’ So I just loop our rope around the ‘dearly departed’ like so and….” Dad handed the doubled rope to me and said, “Go ahead, give it a tug; low to the ground like this.”
I pulled. The bundle of sticks held the rope in place.
“Hey, cool,” I said, surprised at the resourceful simplicity of it all. It felt good to have someone as experienced as Dad leading the mission—someone who had scouted this out before me, who could point out the pitfalls. In other words, it felt good to have a father in my life again.
“You ready, kid?” Dad asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Then watch how I use the rope to lower myself down the cliffside to the next ledge down there. I’ll wait for you to follow after me. That way I can coach you on your technique and be there to stop you if you slip…or join you in falling.”
“Nice,” I said, swallowing hard at the thought of it.
Scooping up the rope in two coils, he heaved them out over the side. The separate lengths snaked their way down until gravity stretched them taut. Dad straddled the doubled lines, looping them up and over his shoulder so they crossed over his chest. Then, gripping the paired ropes with one hand in front and one stretched behind him, he slowly leaned back into the cavern and began walking down the steep bank toward the next ledge. Once he secured his footing at the base, he waved for me to follow. It all looked easy enough.
Doing my best to imitate his technique, I managed to loop myself into the makeshift harness as he had done and rappelled down to join him. Despite my best effort though, I lost my footing once or twice along the way, triggering miniature avalanches of loose pebbles to tumble into the gaping void below me. Thanks to the rope and Dad’s coaching, I didn’t join their fate.
Once I was standing safely beside him, Dad winked at me and said, “And now for the fun part.” With a quick flick of his wrist, he released the anchor above us, letting the rope slither its way down to our feet.
“Hey! How are we going to climb back out?” I asked, upset at having lost our lifeline.
“If our mission is successful, we won’t need to climb out,” Dad said, as he set about reanchoring the rope. Satisfied with his work, Dad motioned for me to join him in straddling the newly tethered rope. He pulled me close up against him and started feeding the rope across my chest, looping around his back and over his shoulder. I noticed this time the rope wasn’t doubled up like before. Instead, Dad had tied it off in one massive knot at the anchor; we would be leaving the rope behind.
“We’ll need every inch of it to reach the ground,” Dad explained. “Should be long enough.”
Should? I gulped. Looking back up the steep slope we’d just rappelled, I quickly calculated it had to be around one hundred fifty feet from the top anchor to this point. Doubled-up, the rope had barely covered a third of the distance. That meant at its full length the rope would be somewhere around three hundred feet. I shuddered to imagine we’d be descending further than that in one drop!
“It’s going to get dark down there. The walls of the Maze are over a hundred feet tall. We’ll need your Veritas Sword for light. Keep the rope snug, and so long as you stay leaned into me you should be able to manage a free hand for the sword.”
I nodded and shifted my sword so I could access it more easily.
Dad slowly edged us backward over the second ledge and leaned back. I felt the rope slide across my body. For a moment, my feet couldn’t touch the ground and I was left helpless, looking straight up at the top of the cliff. My back faced the suffocating darkness of the deep unknown.
What on earth am I doing? I couldn’t help asking myself.
It took a minute or two to get the hang of coordinating our footsteps, but soon we were well on our way into the darkness of the labyrinth below.
“By the light of truth all things are revealed,” I recited aloud, holding my Veritas Sword out to the side. The comforting glow of the blue blade shone brightly, providing a ten-foot radius of light to plan at least a few steps ahead.
We reached the end of the rope before we reached the ground. Dad kept his cool, but I could tell he was more than a little concerned. I cut a few rocks from the side of the cliff and tossed them down. The sound of the stones hitting the rock floor seemed to be just beyond the light of my sword.
“We’re going to have to free-climb the rest of the way,” Dad said. “It can’t be more than fifteen or twenty feet.”
I slipped carefully out of my backpack and dropped it ahead of us. It landed with a thud. Before I could take hold of the wall and release the rope, there was a crumbling sound where I had just cut the stones free. The side of the wall had repaired itself just like the Tempering Stones did when we practiced sword fighting in Sanctuary.
“Dad, look!” I said excitedly. “The stone is healing itself.”
“So it is….”
“Hang on, that gives me an idea!” I said.
I plunged my Veritas Sword into the stone, all the way to its hilt, and held on tight.
“Grab on,” I told Dad. He wrapped his arms around me and we let our weight pull the sword down the side of the cliff, leaving a sizzling trail in the rock wall as we went. The wall healed itself almost as quickly as we cut it and in no time we were at ground level.
“Nicely done,” Dad said as he let go and stepped onto the cold stone floor. “Ingenious, just like your old man.”