World of Mazes

She gasped until her lungs had enough air, then looked around for a weapon. She' d learned her lesson; Knoton was far too strong for her. Nothing useful lay about.

Her eyes widened when she glanced over Knoton' s shoulder. A wraith glided forward, tiny hands reaching out. Inyx didn' t know if it was illusion or reality. One way meant advantage for her; the other meant lost concentration.

The wraith glided: through: Knoton. The mech took no notice. The Lord sent her illusion. However she responded, Inyx had betrayed herself to Knoton. He launched an attack, low and at her legs. He lifted her up and dropped her heavily to the floor. She looked up and saw metallic death descending toward her head.

Inyx jerked hard to the mech' s left side. What little damage she' d caused saved her. Knoton tried to follow her motion, failed. The woman evaded his clumsy lunge and again faced him, this time with her sword again in hand.

Or was it?

Inyx tightened her grip. The pommel felt substantial, but she hadn' t picked up the sword. It was illusion, but one Knoton saw.

" Knoton, let' s talk. I know that Kolommo wanted a truce. We can come to an agreement."

" After you' ve destroyed my friend?"

" You killed mine, also." She didn' t make the novice' s mistake of looking toward the dead Fredek Fynn. Such an opening for Knoton would spell her death.

Knoton slowed, stopped. He took in all the sounds of battle. The illusion mixed with reality cost lives.

" We have a mutual enemy," she said. " The man who put us both into the Twistings. Let' s fight the Lord, not each other."

" You fight well- for a human."

" You show compassion- for a mech."

They stood facing each other. Slowly the tension went out of the air. They abandoned their fighting stances.

" The only victor in this will be the Lord," said Knoton. " How do we end it?"

" We stop fighting. We join forces."

" No!"

" Then we just stop fighting."

Knoton and Inyx backed away from each other and slowly regained control of their forces. Knoton had the easier time of it, but Inyx soon persuaded her side to desist. The engagement broke off gradually, and each side assembled at a different part of the room. Bodies, both bone and metal, littered the floor. All over, illusion ended and a myriad corpses vanished into nothingness.

" Back to the nest," ordered Inyx.

Knoton stared at her from across the room. The civil war in the Twistings had ended- for the moment.

Lan Martak had to stop and use his healing spells once more on the shoulder wound. The mechanical' s dart had become infected in spite of his earlier treatment. Lan sat and chanted the spell, feeling the magics soothe and begin the healing process anew. But as he relaxed after the pain finally began to recede, he also grew increasingly lethargic. Even at the best of times when he was uninjured, the use of magic sapped his strength quickly.

" Can we stay here for a while, Krek?"

" It is not a good place. I detect many of the mechanicals nearby." The spider bobbed up and down, talons grating against the walls and floor of the Twistings.

" Can' t go on. So tired. Must sleep. Wish I had a bed. Wish I could just:" Lan drifted off to fitful sleep.

And awoke screaming.

Krek towered over him, peering down, concern in his soft chocolate- colored eyes.

" What is it?"

" M- my dreams. They turned all around like I was in a dark, rotating barrel. I felt as if I' d been impaled, but it was more than physical torture. The dreams were: rotted."

" The Lord of the Twistings sends those to you as his present," said the spider. " He wants to keep you from using your full powers. Distrust yourself and the spells you know will not work."

" I do need to keep my confidence," admitted Lan. He wiped some of the sweat from his forehead. His clothing had become thoroughly drenched while he slept and dreamed. " But if I can' t sleep without experiencing more of that:" He shook his head.

The dreams- nightmares- had been horrific. What was worse, he found it difficult to separate the fantasy from the reality. It mattered little whether his eyes were open or shut. This hallway stretching forever in front of him played such an important part in his dream. Did that mean he had seen what would happen? Had the dream been a foreshadowing? Did his powers now include prophecy?

" I don' t want to walk along this corridor, Krek," he said, voice shaking. " Awful things will happen. The floors will grow teeth and swallow us. The walls will crush in. Everything will turn black and start to spin. The-"

" Lan Martak," snapped the arachnid. " Those were dreams. We face some illusion, yes. The Lord sends those to taunt you. But our own fear is the greatest obstacle. I know the location of the door leading out of the Twistings. Shall we go there and escape, or do you wish to cower here on the floor for the rest of your miserable existence?"

Such words from Krek took Lan by surprise. The man usually was on the giving end of lectures like that.

" The maze, Krek. I' ve seen."

" You have seen nothing. The Lord of the Twistings puts it all into your thick skull. Once there, it can never escape. That much is obvious. I grow tired of this place. There are no juicy grubs to eat, no fit places to hang a web, no peaks to scale. It is not a proper place for a Webmaster. Not at all."

" Which way is out?" Lan asked. As he stood, vertigo assailed him. He felt as if he were being turned inside out. But he straggled to keep moving, in spite of the feeling of falling, turning, going in all the wrong directions. He had to rely on Krek' s inbred sense rather than on his own distorted ones.

The spider trooped off, talons clicking merrily on the floor. Lan followed more slowly. The wound, his tiredness, the feeling of something about to happen made him uneasy.

Every step produced more giddiness and disorientation.

" Stop, Krek, wait. Are you sure you know where we' re going?"

" Yes."

Illusions flittered just at the periphery of Lan' s vision. He concentrated on them and noted how they vanished when he uttered certain ward spells. But this constant magic use drained his vitality further. When the Lord of the Twistings appeared behind him, he had nothing left to draw on.

" So good, yes, you' re much better than I thought," crowed the Lord.

" Friend Lan Martak, he is here," said Krek. The spider turned in the narrow corridor and faced the Lord. " This is no illusion."

" Can you be so sure, fuzz- legs?" taunted the Lord. " I control this maze perfectly. The Twistings are mine, all mine! I love them, I do!"

" He is here, Lan Martak. Kill him. Or get out of my way and allow me to do so!"

Lan wobbled. What was real, what wasn' t? Krek seemed sure the Lord had actually come into the treacherous maze personally. Lan guessed differently. This was illusion.

" He only mocks us, Krek. He can cast his images wherever he wants."

" No image, this. I smell, I sense, I see. The vibrations are those of a living man. The Lord of the Twistings can die here and now." The spider lurched over Lan, mandibles clacking. They slashed through the air just inches in front of the Lord. He never flinched.

The man- the image?- danced back, saying, " Can you be so sure? Lan is the mage. He knows about such things. You know about grubs. Like these."

Wrist- thick grubs poked their blunt, blind heads out of newly formed tunnels drilled through the walls. Lan blinked twice. He sensed their ghostly, insubstantial nature, yet still felt the presence of another human. Krek might be right about this actually being the Lord of the Twistings, in the flesh.

" Kill him, Krek. You' re right. It is the Lord."

" Yes, Krek, kill me," taunted the man in the fool' s outfit. He rolled and somersaulted backward down the hall. " Who knows, you might be the next Lord of the Twistings. What a sight. A giant spider ruling over the Twistings."