Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

Kate sighed. It was so difficult to explain. And now that Daniel put it in this light it seemed so normal. How could she tell him it wasn’t one thing or the other but little bits and pieces that added up to a new and different Robbie? “Maybe it’s my writer’s imagination,” she said. “It’s like … don’t laugh … it’s like Robbie is taking being a Holy Man out of the game and putting it into his life.”

He did laugh.

“You’re laughing,” she said.

“Kate, you’re so creative. You’re wonderful. I really don’t think Robbie is turning into Pardieu, nor are you turning into Glacia, nor am I turning into Nimble. I haven’t stolen a thing lately, or even written a bad check. If anything, the game is an outlet for our fantasies. We work out all our problems in the caverns and then we leave them there.”

“What problems do you work out?”

“I think I just play the game,” Daniel said. “Liking the game more than studying is my problem.”

“Mine too,” she said. “I guess you’re right about Robbie. I’ll try not to worry anymore.”

When they drove back to the dorm Kate felt happier than she had in a long time. She had always thought of Daniel as her friend, but now he was really her friend. For the first time since Robbie had become impotent she didn’t feel like there was something wrong with her. She felt just fine.

In the dorm, coming in, she and Daniel passed Robbie in the hall. He smiled at them beatifically, with absolutely no curiosity in his eyes, and they smiled back and said hi. Jay Jay would have asked them where they’d been, afraid he was missing something. Robbie apparently didn’t care.

Jay Jay was happy. Now that Kate and Robbie had broken up he was no longer jealous of Robbie, and had decided good old Robbie was one of the nicest people he’d ever known. Robbie even lent him his car so he could take an extra large prop to the caverns, and didn’t try to sneak around to find out what it was. It was a coffin Jay Jay had borrowed from the drama department. He had discovered a veritable treasure trove of props there, and no one seemed to mind that he took things as long as they weren’t needed and he brought them back. He’d had to tell two of the drama students about the game in the caverns, but they didn’t seem to care and they promised not to tell anyone else. They had all the fantasy they wanted from their plays, and he knew they would never encroach on his game.

Jay Jay had also decided what the treasure would be: an excellent copy of the dull-black steel Porsche watch, which he’d seen during his Christmas shopping in New York. He’d collected money from the others, and when he went home for Spring Vacation he’d pick it up. It was a man’s-size watch, but he thought it would look good on Kate if she won it. He was so fond of the watch he thought he might just buy one for himself while he was at it, since he couldn’t win it.

He wondered how far into the caverns they would be by the end of the school year when the treasure was finally found. It occurred to him that they were doing an extraordinary thing mapping the caverns this way. It was even a sort of public service. Maybe after they were through, other students could use the caverns for a geological study of some kind. It never occurred to him that this was an inflated and unreal idea. After what he had conceived and done, nothing else could ever be too unreal.

Lately he was hardly ever in the dorm. Besides having to show up at classes, he was either playing the game, getting things he needed for it, or in the caverns setting his scenes. He was always precise and careful about leaving a trail so he wouldn’t get lost. They were now far beyond the place where rice would help them get back; by now a trail of rice could take you in circles and you’d never get out. This was just as well, since he had been buying so much rice that the checkout clerks at the supermarket thought he was some kind of health freak. Now Jay Jay spray-painted arrows, codes, and direction symbols on the walls of rooms they had used, and kept his maps with him at all times. He was so busy, as his chores as M.C. became more complicated, that he didn’t even have time to go to the movies anymore. That was the one thing he regretted. But one had to have priorities, and since he had to make the choice, Jay Jay chose the game. Watching movies, much as he loved them, was passive.

His fear of the caverns had turned instead into a kind of respect. It was as if he and the maze understood each other. He wondered if that was the way someone felt who trained a huge, dangerous animal. You could never become the master of that animal, but you both agreed to work together. Some nights, after he had finished what he had to do in the caverns, Jay Jay would stay there for a while, surveying this domain that would never be his but would never be anyone else’s either. He knew if he ever got lost there was a strong probability no one would be able to find him. He was the only one who understood his direction codes. But somehow that didn’t scare him. There was a lure to this dark and deadly place; it drew him, called to him. He knew what that attraction was. It was not death, it was not danger, it was not the excitement of fear and the relief of fear overcome. It was none of these.

It was power.

Robbie thought about the game all the time now. Even when he was doing other things, it was with him. Whenever the Grant swimming team competed against another college and won, the others were jubilant but he only pretended to care. How trivial it seemed, compared to his other world! When the Grant team lost and the others were depressed he pretended to be unhappy too, but losing was just as unimportant as winning. There were no risks, no real excitement, no genuine fellowship. The coach yelled at those swimmers who had not done their best, goaded them to try harder. Robbie could not imagine a Maze Controller behaving in such an irrational way. He thought perhaps next year he would switch to another sport; one that would let him be alone and in peace.

Being Pardieu gave him that peace. He moved through the game in the caverns as if it were a magical dream, and at night his dreams took on the quality of real life. It was hard sometimes to tell what was real and what was not, but this didn’t bother him — he rather liked it. At times he felt he had real powers; that his mind could extend far beyond his physical self and create miracles. His new monastic regime of giving up meat, alcohol, and sex made him feel cleansed. He had also given up all sweet and artificial desserts, eating only an occasional piece of fruit. He had lost weight, but that was natural. He felt closer to the purity of his spirit.

The Great Hall came to him almost every night in his dreams now, with such a look of saintly beauty on his face that it made Robbie want to weep with gratitude. In his dreams he was always Pardieu, and he was better, stronger, more worthy than ever before. At last he was ready to receive messages about his mission.

He dreamed about the City of The Two Towers. They rose up out of mist in the pink and blue sky of dawn, gleaming white and tall. Pardieu was walking along in this mist as though he were in heaven, and The Great Hall was walking beside him.

“That is where you must go,” The Great Hall said.

“Where is it?”

“Underground.”

What did that mean? A secret city under the earth? “Where?” he asked.

“When you are ready it will be so easy.”

“How will I know?”

“You will.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

The graven Eye of Timor was always with him now, and often Pardieu patted the pouch where he kept it, or sometimes took it out to look at it for reassurance. He kept his possession of it a secret. Someone might try to steal it — perhaps Nimble the Charlatan, for Charlatans were never to be trusted.