World of Mazes

" Death!" Alberto Silvain lithely jumped onto the stage, drawing forth his death tube. " Allow me to carry out your wise sentence immediately, Lord."

" Silence!" The command froze Silvain in his tracks. " Death is richly deserved for what these two have done. But the Lord of the Twistings is not merciful, will not allow simple death to end it all for them. I protect the people of Dicca, of the entire world! Their punishment must fit the crime."

Lan closed his eyes and swallowed hard. In his mind he heard the crowds cheering and chanting, " The Twistings! The Twistings!"

Only deathly silence filled the audience chamber.

" I sentence them to the: Twistings!" The last word hissed as the Lord said it.

" I protest, Lord," bellowed Silvain. " Death. Let me mete out your just punishment of death!"

" Touch that tube of yours and you shall join them, Commandant. You' d like that, wouldn' t you? Yes, you would. You could obey your master' s orders so much more easily that way."

Lan and Krek exchanged glances. Whatever Claybore wanted on this planet- whatever Silvain had been entrusted to recover- lay inside the Twistings.

" Looks the same as it did on the screen, doesn' t it?" Lan commented. The vault door leading into the Twistings had been depicted accurately when Inyx had been cast forth.

" We shall be able to rejoin Inyx," said Krek. " If we are allowed to live that long."

Lan walked down the corridor toward the huge vault door. His mind lovingly shaped the spell he needed to turn aside the death blast from Silvain' s weapon. The commandant had been fingering the device all the way down from the audience chamber. While he had outwardly agreed to the Lord' s exiling them into the Twistings, Lan knew better. Claybore had ordered their deaths; Alberto Silvain would obey.

" Cast the criminals into the Twistings," came the ringing order. Lan turned and saw the Lord standing on a rolling platform pulled by a pair of the juror mechanicals. He' d simply fastened the black ribbons around their necks to the platform. They pulled him the way horses pull carts.

The silver door swung open silently. Beyond lay the simple unadorned room. Sulfurous smells boiled forth. Lan felt the tensions mounting. Silvain had to act soon.

He and Krek were nudged forward by the Lord' s mechanical guards. None of Silvain' s human troops had been allowed this far.

" Now!" barked Silvain.

Lan' s mind reached out, used the spell, strove to deflect the beam from the death tube. Instead of finding the death beam, a heavy metal fist struck him squarely in the stomach. The air gusted from his lungs. He doubled over and fought to keep from blacking out. He looked up to see the mechanicals locked in fierce combat- with each other.

" Rebellion," Lan muttered to Krek.

" Which side do we favor?" asked the spider. Lan had no easy answer for that. To fight on the side of the Lord' s loyalist mechs meant they' d be thrust into the Twistings. To fight against them gave Silvain a free hand to murder them on the spot. Lan straightened, kicked a mechanical leg out from under one robotic guard, and backed toward the entrance to the Twistings.

" You said it. Inyx is on the other side. Let' s go join her. But first:"

He ducked and dodged his way to Silvain' s side. The man, for whatever reason, didn' t use his death tube. Still, the knife he wielded proved deadly enough to give Lan second thoughts about this impetuous course of action. Then he had no choice. The Lord' s side gradually pushed back the mechs opposing them. Lan had to act now.

He grabbed Silvain' s wrist and forced the knife up and safely away. At the same time, his other hand groped for the tiny leatherbound grimoire that had been taken from him.

" No, Martak, you won' t get it." Silvain gritted his teeth and tensed all his muscles. The man outweighed Lan by a considerable margin- and none of it was fat. At the last possible instant, Lan stopped opposing Silvain' s strength and spun about. The action sent Silvain tumbling over and down. Lan grabbed and sprinted for the vault door.

Just as he entered, he heard the Lord laughing.

Then the world twisted crazily and he spun, shrieking, into infinity.

" This is a peculiar place," observed Krek.

" What a wonderful job you' re doing if you' ve just figured that out," Lan said acidly. The disorientation he' d experienced entering the Twistings hadn' t been shared by Krek. The spider remained aloof and impervious to it.

" I, at least, did not go hooting and howling off like you. It took considerable effort to maintain your pace, I might add. Never have I seen you travel so fast."

" But the colors, the shapes, the sounds!"

" Nothing," said the spider. " I followed you, remembering every turning, every corridor that you traversed."

" You can get us out again?"

" Certainly." For once Lan didn' t care that the arachnid was smug and self- satisfied.

" Let' s go exploring, then. I' ve got enough to get us through just about anything." In the last seconds before entering the Twistings, he' d recovered his grimoire, in addition to stealing Silvain' s death tube and knife. With these items he felt confident enough to take on anything the Lord threw his way.

" Something comes," said Krek, his talons pressed against walls and floor. " Something large and slow."

" No problem," said Lan. He pulled out the cylinder, checked to make sure his thumb rested lightly on the trigger, then asked, " Where' s it coming from? Left or right junction?"

" Left."

And then the waddling blue monster was on them.

Lan fired point- blank, to no effect. He fired again and again, and still the creature waddled on, filling the hallway so completely that there wasn' t any way of dodging. The man didn' t have time for even the simplest of magical spells; he' d relied too much on Silvain' s death tube. Hacking and slashing with the knife produced little more reaction than had the tube.

Furry legs engulfed him as Krek lunged forward. Blue globe and giant spider slashed and gouged one another. With a quickness that Lan hardly believed, the blue monster spun in the hall and went waddling off in the direction it had come.

" Thanks, old spider. You saved me that time." Lan felt an uneasiness mounting. He turned and saw another creature coming at him from the other way. Still far enough away, it gave him time to formulate his fire spell. He had learned a rudimentary fire spell when very young; it had aided him in the wilds. On his own he' d developed it to something more offensive in the way of weapon. With hints in the grimoire, he thought he might turn it into a formidable force.

Wrist- thick lances of flame blasted forth from his fingertips. Heat boiled back and seared his eyebrows and made his eyes water. Nothing mortal could withstand that wall of fire he cast forth.

Nothing except the blue glob. Its huge jaws opened and shut as if it hadn' t even noticed his devastating spell. Lan started to cast the spell again, in spite of the enormous drain it made on his vitality, when Krek stopped him.

" What are you doing?" the spider asked softly.

" The monster. Another one. It: it' s:" Lan looked back. No monster. He gusted a sigh and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. " An illusion. I should have known the Twistings would be filled with them."

" Allow me to ascertain the reality of what we find," said Krek. " My superior arachnid brain is not befuddled like your decidedly inferior human one."

" There' s that," Lan said in disgust, " plus you can fight off the real monsters we run across."

" Yes, you are quite right."

" Let' s walk. And keep track of where we are. I want to get back out of here as soon as we find Inyx."

" Friend Lan Martak, you worry too much."