Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“Yes.”

“Good,” Glacia said. She turned to the others. “Shall we advance or go the other way?”

“Wait,” Pardieu said. “Talking swords have been known to tell lies. How do we know this is a truthful sword? We must test it.”

He was right, of course. Glacia was disappointed; first because she had been so pleased to have the aid of the sword, and second because she had never thought to test its loyalty. She of all people should have known better. Nothing was to be trusted at first sight.

“Do you cut stone?” she asked the sword.

“No.”

“Can you kill people?”

“Yes.”

“Do you always tell the truth?”

“No,” the sword said.

She looked at Pardieu and Freelik in angry exasperation. “What do we do?”

“Wait,” Freelik said. “Sword, can you talk?”

“Yes,” the sword said.

“Do you always tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell the truth just now?”

“No.”

“It tells the truth every third time!” Freelik squeaked triumphantly. “Now we can control it.”

Glacia smiled. She raised the sword high, filled with the sense of her own new power. The third answer had been that the unknown room was neutral. “Let us advance,” she said to the others.

They passed through the neutral room in safety, moving ever nearer to their goal. Up a narrow, winding staircase they went, steps that kept moving down every time they climbed higher, forcing them to run just to stay in the same place, until finally — after considering the consequences of not having it later — Pardieu threw his one-use-only spell of paralyzation and made the stairs stand still. It would be a long time before he could earn another such spell, and he would most probably need it for a randomly encountered monster, but if he hadn’t used it for the stairs they might have been trapped there forever. He thought that a Holy Man had more responsibilities than anyone else. He had to make more complicated choices, and he could heal as well as hurt. That was good, for Pardieu did not like to cause destruction, even of evil beings. He could slash with his sword as well as any but Glacia, but it made him feel guilty to kill, even though he did it only in self-defense. If he could use his magic spells to charm wicked spirits into being good, it was better.

Once in every generation there was a Holy Man, who learned all his secrets from the Holy Man who had come before him. Pardieu’s mentor had been a legendary Holy Man who had vanished many years ago, but who some said would never die and had merely chosen to spend his last days in peaceful retirement. Pardieu was not so sure. Sometimes, as he made his way through this treacherous maze, he felt that his mentor had been there before, perhaps was there still, waiting for him. The great one had gone away alone. He had enough power to do that, without a band of companions. But even the most experienced of Holy Men sometimes found themselves in unanticipated trouble.

Pardieu’s hand tightened around the little pouch of spells and potions he wore attached to his belt. He had given away a very strong one, but he had kept the most important one. Let others sing their songs and tell their legends of the olden days. He was the one who by his heroism would rescue and bring back the greatest Holy Man of all — The Great Hall.

None of the others knew it, but tonight he was not Freelik — he was Jay Jay. He had already gotten bored with the game. Compared to the way he wanted to play it, in the real mazes of the caverns, this was child’s play. He went through the moves, pretending for the others, but he was waiting for his chance to die. Now that he intended to die, it wasn’t so easy. He couldn’t make an obvious blunder; the others were too smart for that, especially Daniel, who felt responsible for the flow of the game.

Now Daniel had called up a bunch of the undead, and there was a fierce battle. This was going to go on all night, Jay Jay just knew it, and he felt dismayed. Getting rid of the undead took ages if they were the ones who weren’t afraid of light, which these obviously were not. He prayed for an unlucky throw of the dice. If everybody got tired they would quit after they routed the undead, and then he’d never be able to convince them to start his new game in the caverns. What a rotten way to spend Christmas vacation — still in suspense!

Kate was rolling great numbers tonight; he wished they were in Las Vegas. She was sending the undead back where they came from at a fast rate. Come on, Daniel, undead are boring, kid stuff. Let’s get on with it.… Hurray, the last of the undead had fled, leaving their black rags behind them. Now their brave troupe was advancing into a room where there was a pit, and deep inside the pit was glitter. It could be precious gems, or perhaps it was a trap. Daniel wouldn’t let them have such a big treasure so soon, would he? Maybe it was just a thin layer of diamonds, and under it were lethal spikes. Jay Jay remembered the pit with spikes from an old game, and it didn’t take much imagination to add the camouflage. Jay Jay knew Daniel’s mind pretty well by now. He wondered if Daniel knew his.

A smart Sprite would use his sonar to test the pit before jumping into it to gather up the treasure. Tonight Jay Jay did not intend to be a smart Sprite.

“Freelik jumps into the pit!” he cried, feigning excitement. “He has his hands out to gather up the jewels. How much can he take?”

Clack, went the dice. “The pit is filled with sharp spikes,” Daniel said sadly. “The precious gems were a trap. The Sprite is impaled and dies.”

“No!” Kate cried. “Pardieu, save him! Use your spell to raise the dead.”

“Pardieu does not have enough points yet to raise the dead,” the Maze Controller said. “Freelik is dead.”

“Oh, shit,” Jay Jay said, pretending to be very disappointed. He moved back out of their circle, out of the game.

“It just won’t be the same without him,” Kate said.

You bet it won’t , Jay Jay thought, and waited.

At three in the morning they were rehashing the game. Lying on the floor of Daniel’s room, tired and bleary-eyed, finishing up the last of their party food which Jay Jay had brought in after he got killed, they went over what had gone wrong. They all agreed Freelik should have used his sonar; that was a fatal blunder. Now Jay Jay would start again as a beginner, with a new character, and they would complete the game until they won or everyone got killed. None of them were particularly enthusiastic about this.

“If Jay Jay has to start with no powers he’s not going to be any help,” Kate said. “Besides, it’s more fun when we’re all equal.”

“Well, I didn’t kill him,” Daniel said.

“You did so,” Jay Jay said.

“You weren’t paying attention,” Daniel said.

“Let’s not argue about it,” Robbie said peaceably.

“What do you want to do, Jay Jay?” Kate asked.

“Well …”

Seductively, Jay Jay laid out the pros and cons of stopping the game right here. Then he went on with his suggestion about playing in the caverns. As the Maze Controller, and having already thought about how to bring the game up to this higher, more vivid level, he would arrange everything. They would love it, he promised them. It would be something no one else had ever done. It wouldn’t be just a fantasy — it would truly be the game.

They were sleepy, disappointed by the loss of Freelik, and vulnerable. Jay Jay promised them wonders. He watched them begin to weaken, to come around to his side. Kate was afraid of the dark, so she would hate the dark caverns, and therefore, being Kate, she would force herself to go into them. Jay Jay knew he had won her. Robbie was always so agreeable that Jay Jay knew he would say yes as soon as Kate did. Robbie certainly couldn’t admit to being afraid of something that didn’t scare Kate. As for Daniel, his intellectual curiosity was greater than either his pride in his old game or his fear of danger. He needed a new frontier as much as any of them. Daniel smiled and nodded, and even looked excited now. Jay Jay felt a great glow of triumph.