Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

But then, inevitably, she did. She held him tenderly, rocking him like a baby. “It’s your brother, isn’t it,” she said.

He nodded. “I couldn’t get to him.”

“Was he in trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kate said. “It’s not your fault.”

But of course it was.

Now the brother who had never been close to him — who had, in the two years preceeding his disappearance, undergone a personality change, becoming inaccessible — became kind and close to Robbie in his dreams. This was the Hall he remembered when he was very young, the brother who had patiently played catch with him in the backyard, who had told Robbie grown-up jokes he was not to repeat to his parents but could to his friends, even though Robbie only pretended to understand them. Robbie waited for his dreams with fear and anticipation. Fear, because of that paralyzing feeling of frustration; anticipation, because each time he felt he was coming a little closer to finding out how he could help Hall. He was sure that no one could dream so vividly, and so often, unless the dreams were trying to say something to him.

And then one night in a dream the most extraordinary thing happened. He was following Hall, and suddenly he was not Robbie at all — he was Pardieu the Holy Man. Looking down he saw his brown robes, the sandals on his feet, and around his waist the rope holding the little leather bag of potions and miracles. Wait ! Pardieu cried, running. I am Pardieu! I will help you ! But Hall was gone.

Pardieu looked in his bag of magic spells. There was the coin of wishes, to undo what had been done. There was the incandescent liquid, which gave the ability to see into the mind of any being who was possessed of intelligence. His fingers closed around the last, most prized spell of all: The graven jade Eye of Timor. It was a mystery how it had gotten into his pouch, for he had never before been clever or worthy enough to win it. The Eye of Timor could be used by only the highest level of Holy Men, for it gave the user the greatest power of all — the power to raise the dead.

When he awoke from that dream in the morning, for the first time Robbie did not cry. He lay in his bed thinking, feeling at peace. It was as if he were surrounded by soft feathers. He did not understand why, but for the first time instead of dread and frustration he felt a gentle, blissful hope.

Christmas vacation was coming soon, and people were already planning their escape. Kate, Jay Jay, Daniel, and Robbie had decided to have a last great game session before they departed for home, the game to be preceded by a private party with an exchange of gifts. The life of the dorm and the people in it swirled around them as lightly and unheeded as winter snowflakes. Some students had put up a tree downstairs in the common room, and decorated it, and decorations and wishes for Happy Holidays appeared on the bulletin board, along with an address where you could send Christmas cards to the hostages in Iran. A serious editorial in The Grant Gazette warned that potential accidents to our nuclear power plants might make this one the last Christmas ever. The immediate concern in Hollis East, however, was finding a free ride home to save train or plane fare.

Although Jay Jay had no shortage of money, Robbie was going to take him and Merlin, since he could drive through New York on his way to Greenwich; Daniel planned to take the train to Cambridge; and Kate’s mother had sent her a round-trip plane ticket to San Francisco.

“Are you going to miss me?” Robbie asked Kate.

“Of course. Are you going to miss me?”

“Like crazy.”

Kate went with Jay Jay to buy food for their party, which they decided would be held in his room. Parties were always held in Jay Jay’s room. They went to the gourmet section of the supermarket in the shopping mall, and in five minutes Jay Jay had already exceeded their budget. He even insisted on buying champagne.

“You and I should do stuff like this more often,” he said.

“I know. We should.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“It’s mine,” Kate said. “Next time Robbie and I go to the movies, you come too.”

“Okay.”

They were filled with warm Christmas spirit, and sang carols all the way home to the dorm in her car, the backseat piled high with bags of extravagant delicacies: huge, out of season pears and grapes, imported cheeses, pâté, English biscuits, a fruitcake which Jay Jay planned to soak in brandy.

They began the party at five o’clock, toasting each other with champagne. Jay Jay had arranged the food very nicely on top of his desk, and had taught Merlin to sing the first line of “Jingle Bells,” which they all cheered wildly. They had locked the door so no one would crash their party. Then they handed out the presents. Kate and Robbie exchanged thin gold chains to wear around their necks, and she gave Daniel a pair of very sexy-looking sunglasses she knew he’d been thinking of buying for himself, and Jay Jay a real find from the thrift shop: a top hat just like the ones in the old Fred Astaire movies. He put it on immediately. She gave Merlin a swing for his cage, with red and green ribbons on it. She and Jay Jay were the only ones who remembered to give Merlin anything. Daniel gave everybody records, and Robbie, who had conferred with Daniel on this decision, did the same for him and Jay Jay. Jay Jay gave each of them a beautifully lacquered little box, in which he had placed four perfectly rolled joints.

Then they tore into the food as if they were ravenous. It was not really because they were so hungry, but because they wanted to get to the best part of the evening: the game.

They were only dimly aware of how much the game had taken over their lives already. All they knew was that nothing else, not even this special party with its atmosphere of affection and luxury and celebration, was as real to them as the game. And each of them felt, in some secret, guilty way, that they wanted to get the party over with so they could go into Daniel’s room and enter their world.

“You have found the talking sword of Lothia,” Daniel said. He held the dice in his hand and looked at the three eager faces of Glacia, Freelik, and Pardieu. The dice he held were both chance and power. As he surveyed the underground perils he had laid out so carefully, he wondered whether all of these adventurers would still be alive at the end of this night. He didn’t want them to die. He was as excited as they were as they fought their way deeper and deeper into the maze, winning battles with strength and wits, amassing plunder. He knew he had to be objective in order to be an effective M.C., but he wanted them to find the treasure. It didn’t belong to him — it belonged to the evil King of the Jinnorak, who was very much alive; horrible, smoke-breathing, covered with scales, feasting off human flesh when he could find it, and the flesh of his part-human slaves when he couldn’t. If Glacia, Freelik, and Pardieu could survive until they came to the throne room of the King, and could kill him, it would be as if they had conquered all the evil in the world.

Glacia grasped the talking sword of Lothia and gazed into its polished surface. The light of her lantern glanced off it, gold and silver, and her heart turned over with fear. But this was her sword, no one else’s, and it would obey her commands. It would kill her enemies and it would speak to her of secrets none of them yet knew. “What lies beyond that door?” she demanded.

“I can only answer yes or no,” the sword answered.

“Is it treasure?” Glacia said.

Soft click of the dice. “No.”

“Is it danger, then?”

“No.”

“Then it’s neutral?”