World of Mazes

They walked. And walked and walked. Lan made no effort to remember the turnings, the corridors, the slightly curving halls they traversed. The initial confusion he' d experienced entering the Twistings made it worthless trying. Still, he learned one thing quickly. Most of the monsters were real. Only a few- usually the wraith creatures- were illusory.

" How' d this maze ever come to be built?" he asked, more to hear his own voice than for a response.

" The Twistings is underground," said Krek. " I can sense the rock above my head, all around. From the ' feel' I get, the corridors were burned out of solid rock, possibly by fire elementals."

" The sorcerers just turned the elementals loose to honeycomb the planet' s crust? Why?"

" Who can say what a sorcerer thinks? From association with you and other humans, my best conjecture is that something even more vile lived underground. The elementals burned them out, leaving the tunnels as a by- product."

" And somewhere along the way," concluded Lan, " the Lord turned this into a mind- twisting maze- a prison- for those whom it wouldn' t do to execute."

" Possibly this obsession with mazes had a more benign origin."

" What do you mean?"

" Most cultures enjoy puzzles, mazes. I know my own hatchlings enjoy contriving new and more intricate web patterns. Perhaps the original Lord used this as an amusement park, allowing people to wander around until they were tired."

" It' s possible, I suppose. They have a park in the middle of Dicca devoted to illusion. Remember how Jonrod mentioned only the rich were allowed in Knokno' s park?"

They walked in silence again, not encountering any creatures. The presence, the presence, Krek lent to their small party kept most of the maze creatures at bay. Lan came to learn the only ones attacking were the illusions, but he still felt a thrill of fear when they advanced. His magical powers weren' t honed finely enough yet to detect image from reality.

After a few hours of hiking, Lan said, " I feel as if I don' t want to leave- ever."

" Another magical spell? A compulsion?"

" Maybe so. But another idea comes to mind. The Lord taunted Silvain."

" About something inside the Twistings. Yes, friend Lan Martak, that may be it. Whatever it is of Claybore' s that has been lost is within the confines of the Twistings."

" Silvain wouldn' t enter himself, not until he was sure he could escape with what Claybore sent him to find. He' s afraid we' ll find it and destroy it."

" If it is part of Claybore' s body, it is indestructible," pointed out Krek.

" For the most part, you' re right. But Abasi- Abi had worked for years on a spell designed to get around such protection. I found it in his grimoire. If we can find what Silvain and Claybore are so interested in, we might be able to come out of this ahead of them at last."

The only warning of attack he had was a small scraping sound. Then Lan felt the metal dart enter his shoulder, twist, and firmly embed itself on barbed hooks. He slumped forward, the corridor spinning. Whoever threw the missile wasn' t an illusion. Lan turned painfully and glanced back, his vision blurring.

A mechanical readied another dart. Lan' s finger pressed down on the death tube' s trigger. The mech' s legs sheared off just under the hip. It crashed to the floor, struggling to bring its dart into play. Lan fired again. The beam lightly brushed the mech' s arm. At last only harmless pieces of their antagonist remained.

" Pull it out quick, Krek," he told the spider. Mandibles clamped on the finned dart. He almost fainted when the spider did as he was told. Blood trickled, then gushed from the wound.

" Allow me to bandage it," said Krek.

Lan felt spider silk touching his skin, binding solidly. In less than five minutes Krek had woven a tight bandage over the wound. The pressure directly on the entry point staunched the blood flow until Lan could begin his own healing spells.

The man didn' t dare carry those spells too far. It presented him a case of lesser evils. If he completely healed the wound, he' d be too weak from the penalties the magics subtracted from his vitality to be very effective in another fight. On the other hand, the wound itself weakened him. He cleansed the wound magically, then began a healing. When he was finished, he needed Krek' s aid in walking. He felt drained, exhausted from the use of the spell.

They went to where the mechanical' s face glowered up at them. Lan picked it up and stared into the glassy eyes.

" Why' d you attack? Did you think we were maze creatures?"

" Knoton ordered all humans killed." While it hardly seemed possible, Lan had the feeling the mech looked from him to Krek, wondering if Krek counted as human.

" Knoton' s a mechanical?"

Lan got no answer to that. He hadn' t expected one.

" Friend Lan Martak, hostility inside the Twistings is more than we expected. I can cope with illusion. We can both defend ourselves against mere physical attacks."

Lan' s shoulder twinged in pain.

" You' re suggesting we should retrace our steps and get the hell out of here, is that it?"

" Regroup is a better way of phrasing it. We can reenter the Twistings equipped to do battle, knowing what to expect. That will assure us a much better chance of success."

" You' re afraid my wound will keep me from fighting."

" There are dozens more mechanicals coming down the corridor," said Krek. " You cannot fight them all."

" We signal one another," said the mech' s head. Lan threw it from him in disgust. The head seemed too much like Claybore' s fleshless skull for him to tolerate its insolence.

" The room through which we entered is not far distant," said the spider. " Let us retreat, heal, return then."

" Let' s go," said Lan. He disliked the idea of stopping, even for a moment, his hunt for Inyx, yet Krek' s advice made sense. Even now he heard the metallic feet tramping down the adjoining corridor. Whether or not the mech had lied about signalling them didn' t matter. An army advanced on their position, and he and Krek were in no position for holding off warring elements in the Twistings.

Sharpened steel cut off a lock of her black hair. Inyx dodged the mechanical' s next slash, lunged. Her knife failed to penetrate the mech' s vitals. She and the robotic creature grappled and fell to the floor.

" Die, human," grated the creature as it struggled to roll on top of her. The woman fought desperately now. She' d been surprised by its sudden appearance, seemingly out of thin air. The mechanical outweighed her by a three- to- one margin. Once she lost advantage, she' d be dead. Her fingers groped, and she discovered a wire running up the mech' s back that sent an electric tingle up her arm. Grip tightening, she savagely yanked. The wire came free and the mechanical sagged, lifeless.

Fredek Fynn came running up, metal bar in his hand. He saw that Inyx had triumphed.

" Amazing," he said, admiration in his voice. " Few men ever best one of them in single combat. But where' d it come from? It just appeared in the middle of the nest."

" I got lucky stopping it." From his awestruck look she knew that wasn' t a good- enough explanation. " Here, look," she told him. " It' s not all that mysterious. This wire is similar to our arteries. I dislodged it and the mech simply: died."

Fredek examined the ragged end of the copper strand. He hesitantly touched it to the junction where it had been attached. The mechanical jerked spastically but did not come back to life.

" You' ve killed it," he said finally. " I' ll tell the others about this. It might give us a better chance."

" Any report from the scouts?" she asked.

" None. Knoton doesn' t maintain a base. He moves constantly through the maze."