The Battle

by Karuna Riazi

  “I think we’ve been down this alleyway before,” Winnie said, walking up to him. She frowned at the colorful neon archway looming over their heads. “Funny, I feel like I would have remembered this.”

  “You don’t because it wasn’t here before,” Ahmad hissed excitedly.

  This was their next challenge. He could feel it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AHMAD STARED PAST THE flashing neon doorway. He couldn’t see much in the shadowy passageway that it led into. It looked like a cross between one of the rides at Coney Island and maybe a Halloween haunted house.

  His heart pounded.

  “This wasn’t here before,” he insisted. “Not in my sketches at home, and not when we walked this way toward Madame Nasirah’s shop.”

  Winnie’s face was doubtful. “We did do a lot of walking, and everything here kind of looks the same after a while.”

  “This is Paheli, remember? And it’s a game. You said before: If it sticks out, it must mean something. Maybe this is the challenge!”

  “I don’t know, Ahmad.”

  There was a hiss in the sky, reminiscent of Fourth of July fireworks. Ahmad and Winnie started, gazing upward at the red holographic timer. It was slowly ticking backward from ten minutes. The countdown had begun.

  “Is that good enough for you?” Ahmad asked. “Remember that jungle level? We weren’t even awake when that one started.”

  Winnie peered down the dark corridor. When she looked back at Ahmad, her jaw was clenched and she nodded her head.

  “I guess we don’t have much choice now.”

  Ahmad bent down and rummaged through the knapsack. “I wish we had some form of light in here,” he grumbled. “Oh, wait!”

  His fingers closed on the handle of the lantern. It didn’t look quite like a lantern as Ahmad had seen them before in hardware stores. It was shaped more like the bulbous abdomen of a firefly, oval, with glass that had the transparency and separated segments of an insect’s wing. When he tapped tentatively against its side, it beamed to life, each segment giving off its own hue of bright yellow.

  “Wow,” Ahmad breathed. “It’s like a handful of sunlight.”

  He raised it up over his head.

  “Yikes!” Winnie covered her eyes. “Put that away from my face, please!”

  “Oh. Uh. Sorry.”

  Ahmad lowered the lantern and hoisted the knapsack back on his shoulder.

  “Okay. Let’s see where this takes us.”

  They tentatively stepped through the door, inching their way down another alleyway.

  “You know, as creepy as this is,” Winnie said, her voice a near-whisper as her hand trailed along the nearest wall, “it’s also beautiful.”

  “Yeah,” Ahmad agreed softly. Under their feet, the cobblestones glimmered as though they contained veins of precious gems, pulsing with electric reds and deep purples. It was some sort of futuristic version of the Yellow Brick Road.

  There was an odd, static hum in the air too.

  But what did it all mean, and where was it going?

  “Are we sure this is not just a glitch?” Winnie asked anxiously. “Doesn’t this remind you a bit of Lailat?”

  “There was nothing left of Lailat to compare it to,” Ahmad snarked back, but without much heat to his voice. For the first time since this whole game had started, the darkness felt reassuring rather than suffocating. It was as though they were venturing deeper into a cave, and sooner or later, they would stumble into the lit grotto where they would find a hidden jewel of a lake, or a special treasure, and everything would make sense.

  There was a sudden shift in the shadows in front of him, and Ahmad gasped.

  “What was that?”

  “What?” Winnie asked wildly. “What did you see?”

  Ahmad panted, his heart pounding. “I guess it was one of those . . . shadow things again.”

  “Does anything seem to be changed?”

  The kids peered anxiously into the dark. The last times the shadows had appeared, buildings had shifted from sleek paneled sides to old carved stone, and sellers’ awnings billowed out from slick nylon into threadbare silks. Now, though, Ahmad couldn’t tell if anything had actually changed.

  It made him even more nervous.

  What were those things? More ghouls?

  The wall nearest to them crackled and popped like rice cereal, and Winnie inched closer to him nervously. “I don’t trust it. It has to be a glitch. How long is this thing?”

  Ahmad was about to reply, but he stopped short.

  “Oh. Oh, wow.”

  They had indeed found their way to a cavern, and it was ablaze with light from one central source: a maze. It rose up as a multicolored cube, walls towering toward the dark Paheli sky, which still bore the silently scrolling timer numbers.

  “It looks like it belongs at the Met,” Winnie whispered, and stepped forward to lay a hand against one of its sides.

  “Winnie, don’t!” Ahmad interjected, but her palm was already flat against the obsidian-colored wall.

  “This doesn’t feel holographic,” she called over her shoulder. “You know, the way the other stuff feels like Pop Rocks against your fingers if you try to touch it? This is pretty solid.”

  Ahmad inched forward and gingerly laid his fingers next to Winnie’s. She was right. As a matter of fact, the wall felt like solid stone. It had the grooves and smoothed edges that came with age.

  Just the feel of it sent a shiver down Ahmad’s spine, the tingle telling him he knew this stone better than he’d thought. It felt strange, but familiar, the thrum of energy it released making the hair on his arms stand straight up. He backed off, and surreptitiously wiped his hand on his jeans.

  “All right, so . . . we made it. And this is here for us. Which means, this is the challenge, right?”

  Winnie hummed, still looking doubtful. “I mean, the forest was a maze. It feels a bit redundant. But then again, a maze is a type of puzzle. It seems a little easy to just send us off on our merry way to find the exit.”

  There was a low rumble in the distance, from the direction of the entrance.

  “Whoa, what was that?” Ahmad gasped.

  Winnie backed away from the maze entrance.

  “Whatever it was, it doesn’t sound good. At all.”

  They stood there, together, waiting and listening. There was no other sound. Ahmad shook his head and straightened up.

  “Okay, look. This definitely is here for a reason. We need to go in there.”

  He reached back into his knapsack, fishing until he grasped the shrunken handle of the sword Madame Nasirah had dropped in. He drew it out, and then paused as something occurred to him.

  “Uh, Winnie?”

  “What?”

  “If I pull it out, it’ll get larger. I need some backup.”

  Winnie rolled her eyes and reached out. “Okay, let’s do it together. We promised, right? But if there’s anything like a dinosaur in there—oof!”

  The supersized sword clattered to the floor and Ahmad lifted it up.

  “We’ve got protection. Come on, Winnie.”

  She pouted, then shuffled along behind him. “All right, all right. Fine.”

  The kids turned back toward the maze and tentatively stepped in. Just beyond the entrance, there was a wrought iron gate, the kind that looked like it belonged to a botanical garden or one of those old mansions you could find in Park Slope or farther down Fifth Avenue.

  Hanging off an intimidating, black-painted spike was a wooden plaque.

  Winnie read it aloud.

  “What you seek shall set you free. Don’t forget the lock as you hold the key.”

  “Lock, key. Got it.” Ahmad’s mind was all for what lay beyond the gate. Neon light glanced off his excited eyes. “Let’s do this.”

  Together, the kids pushed open the gate.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IT ONLY TOOK AHMAD two steps to realize that the terrain was different.

  It had
more slide and give to it than the confidently placed cobblestones and sleek pavement of the outer world. One more step forward, just to hear that telling crunch again, and Ahmad knew for sure.

  “Sand,” he said.

  Winnie reached down and let a handful slip through her fingers.

  “It is!” she agreed, and then turned to him with wide eyes. “That is really weird, isn’t it? Isn’t the MasterMind all about the thick wires and huge sound effects?”

  “Maybe this is another tug-of-war area,” Ahmad reasoned, though his mind wasn’t really concerned with this new development. They were now in the thick of the maze, and everything in his body felt that there was something important waiting here for them. Winnie’s words fell over him like an unwelcome rain shower pattering against a window.

  The maze’s interior didn’t really give anything away. Apart from the constant light show and the sand underfoot, it was just . . . a maze. There was no writing on the walls, but there were arrows: large and as luminous as etched hieroglyphics on the side of an Egyptian pyramid, pointing every which way. They definitely wouldn’t be of help.

  That persistent, low hum hung in the air too. Ahmad shook his head to clear it.

  “What’s the rule about mazes again?” Ahmad broke into Winnie’s nervous pattering, raising the lantern to try and see down the nearest corridor. “We stay to the left, right?”

  “I thought we discussed this back in that awful jungle challenge,” Winnie grumbled. “I’m no good with mazes. Hey, speaking of that, it’s weird. Why are we facing two mazes?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Ahmad decided on left and reached out to make sure Winnie was following behind him.

  “Doesn’t the Architect like to mix things up? And the MasterMind seems to pride herself on not being predictable.”

  “That is unpredictable, isn’t it? Another maze—unexpected. Look, Winnie, I’m trying to concentrate,” Ahmad started, and then stopped as the floor shifted under his feet. “Did you feel that?”

  “No, no backtracking. What were you about to say?” Winnie crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Winnie, I’m serious . . . Whoa!”

  A real tremor shifted through the ground this time, enough to nearly unbalance Ahmad. He lowered himself to the ground.

  “Do you think this is some sort of death trap?” Winnie asked anxiously. “Is it too late to mention that I’m not good with tight spaces?”

  Ahmad had been doing well with not . . . well, being Ahmad. Now, though, he frowned and began, “Winnie, if you don’t—”

  It took him a second to recognize that the rumbling had started up again, and now it wasn’t just under their feet. It was echoing down the corridors toward them.

  Something was coming. And it was coming fast.

  “Okay, gotta go, gotta go,” Winnie chanted, dragging him forward by the arm. They ducked into the corner formed by a wall and a dead end, and plastered themselves to the wall. Seconds later, the entire world bucked around them as, right where they had been standing, a large metal ball rocketed past.

  It was like the boulder scene from that old Indiana Jones movie. Except there was no way to outrun this thing.

  “Wow,” Ahmad gasped. “Where did that come from?”

  Winnie panted beside him. “I have no clue, but I’m just glad we didn’t spin away with it.”

  Ahmad couldn’t respond because something else had drawn his attention. Now that the ball was rolling off in the distance, that hum had broken through above everything else. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t really a hum anymore. There was a steady plop, plop, plop.

  It was like a running faucet.

  Or a broken dam.

  Ahmad rushed back into the corridor and stopped. Where the ball had rolled, it had shifted the sand spread underneath, revealing shimmering blue tiles. He held his shoe experimentally over the nearest one before lowering it down. As it settled, slight ripples moved backward from the heel.

  “It’s some sort of artificial river,” Winnie whispered in awe.

  “Yeah, but why?”

  There was a glimmer beneath Ahmad’s toes. He gasped and reared back. Where his shoe had been, a beautiful golden koi swam forward. As the kids watched in awe, it leapt up—right out of the tile, hovering in midair and catching purple light off its scales—before it landed in the next tile and vanished.

  “How did it do that?” Winnie asked, but Ahmad had focused on something else entirely.

  “Did you see that mark on its back? It looked like a key. The key! That’s what we need to get. Come on!”

  “Ahmad! Hey, Ahmad, wait!”

  But Ahmad was already bounding off in hot pursuit. He didn’t get too far, though. One wrong step, and his foot had landed on one of the water tiles.

  Well, it didn’t land. It went right through it.

  “Cold, cold, cold!” Ahmad yelped. He yanked his leg upward, eyeing it suspiciously. Transparent droplets beaded up against his jeans and vanished without leaving any dampness.

  “That is freaky!” Winnie said, catching her breath beside him. “Either way, now we know for sure we can’t walk on water. It’s the unbroken tiles for us.”

  “Okay, fine, but we need to keep up with that fish,” Ahmad insisted. After giving his leg one final shake, he raced forward again. Shaking her head, Winnie followed.

  “So just how are we going to catch that thing?” Winnie called as they hopped from tile to tile, pausing every so often as the ground trembled beneath their feet. “I don’t think using our hands will work.”

  Ahmad turned to look at her. “Maybe—” he started, and then added, “Oh no.” The earth was practically shivering beneath them, and this time, there was nowhere to move to.

  In the distance, the large metal sphere bore down on them.

  “Oh my gosh!” Winnie shrieked. “What do we do?”

  Before Ahmad could reply, the sphere ricocheted off one of the walls in its path. There was a slow creak, like a deadbolt lock sliding out of its socket, and then . . . all the walls shifted.

  “What is happening?” Winnie gasped, as the world collapsed around them, locking them into place.

  Ahmad’s eyes lit up as one of the last walls shuddered to a stop.

  “That’s it! You know those cheap little maze games they put in holiday goodie bags? There’s a game like that I like to play online, only if the marble touches a certain wall, the entire thing changes.”

  “Great. Just great,” Winnie huffed. “And now there’s a wall there.”

  There was nothing else for them to do but slap the walls, trying to find another spot that would shift it back. It didn’t help that just beyond the new wall blocking their path, they could see a small pool formed by newly crushed tiles—and the fish they sought happily bouncing up and down in the middle of it.

  “It’s laughing at us,” Ahmad said sourly.

  Winnie slapped her palm hard on one of the walls closest to her. It shifted, and she turned to Ahmad with wide eyes.

  “It worked!”

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only sound that met the kids’ ears. Ahmad turned to Winnie. There was a creaky roar growing ever closer.

  “That huge marble thing is coming back. Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

  “This is moving so slow!” Winnie glanced over her shoulder. “Wait, is the sound coming from behind us or in front of us?”

  Ahmad tried to put some of his weight on the wall. It still slid slowly, just parting so they could see the glorious blue of the pond waiting for them.

  “I can’t tell, but we need to move fast.”

  “If it can just move a little . . .”

  Winnie waited and then, as the wall slid back, squeezed through the small opening.

  “I’m in!” she called. “You next!” She grasped for his hands.

  “Don’t wait for me,” Ahmad insisted, waving his hand as he stuck his leg through. “Run for the fish! We don’t know when the maze is going to—”

  The kid
s’ eyes met with dread as a sound rolled down the corridor toward them: a low, dull rumbling.

  “Move, move, move!” Ahmad yelled.

  Winnie sprinted for the pond while he sucked in his cheeks and tried to slip through. The wall was still shifting frustratingly slowly. There was just enough space, though, if he could only . . .

  There was a heavy thud, and then the rumbling stopped.

  “Oh no,” Ahmad gasped as the wall he was leaning against started reversing. He tried to tug himself backward, but he was stuck. “Winnie! Help!”

  Winnie turned around and her eyes widened. “Ahmad!”

  She started toward him and then paused, looking around frantically. She ran to the nearest wall and slapped it urgently.

  “No, don’t do that!” Ahmad wheezed out as the wall pressed firmly into his chest. “Just come here and push me back out!”

  “Wait a moment, if I can just find the right—”

  Winnie’s hand connected with another wall. The walls stopped moving.

  But Ahmad was still stuck in between them.

  “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no,” Winnie chanted. Her eyes were wild as her hands fluttered over Ahmad’s face. “Ahmad, are you okay? Speak to me!”

  “I’m fine,” Ahmad managed, and then wheezed. “Just . . . really tight. Like a belt. Don’t worry.”

  He managed to raise a finger and point toward the pond. Winnie groaned with dismay.

  “It sank!”

  There was nothing there but the slightest glimmer of blue.

  “Go over . . . and . . . step on the tiles,” Ahmad gritted out. “Hurry.”

  “But you’re stuck here.” Winnie hesitated. “What if that ball comes back this way?”

  Ahmad widened his eyes at her, and she scurried off. She started to dance in the middle of the lowered tiles like a kid splashing in the middle of puddles.

  “Oomph! Oomph! Oomph! Do you see anything yet?”

  Ahmad made a grunt and hoped she could tell it was a no. He tried to focus on his own situation. He needed to get out of this jam before that huge marble came back. And fast. He wiggled his left foot, still protruding out the opposing end of the wall, experimentally.