Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

Now she had no doubt that Robbie had run away, not been murdered. It still didn’t mean that she would ever see him again. Now that she knew from the newspapers about the game he had been playing with his friends she realized Robbie had run away long before he actually disappeared physically. She wondered who the other players had been. What kind of families did they have? Was it their parents’ fault, or life’s fault that they had to escape into a fantasy world of invented terrors?

She and Hall subscribed to the New York, the Greenwich, and the Pequod and Philadelphia papers. Except for a few locally written articles expressing new opinions about motivation, most of the news was from the wire services and concerned the police investigation. It was fairly scanty now. Most of the leads led to nothing. The only thing of significance was that a truck driver named William Hansen saw Robbie’s picture in the newspaper and told the police he was sure that was the kid he had given a lift to on the highway outside of Pequod, near the university. The kid had been going east, so since Hansen was on his way to New York he had dropped him off after the Holland Tunnel. So now the New York police were in on the case, and there was hope that Robbie hadn’t gone into the caverns after all.

Reporters still phoned and came to the house to badger them. Cat and Hall always told them the same thing. “He was under pressure because of his grades. It was near final exam time. He had his extra-curricular activities — the swimming team and that game he liked to play with his friends — and he probably just wanted to get away for a while, somewhere quiet, to reevaluate his priorities.”

Weren’t they worried, the reporters asked. “Of course. What parents wouldn’t be? We wish he would call us. We wish he would come home. We tried not to put pressure on him to get good marks. There is so much pressure today for young people anyway. We always thought he liked Grant.”

That girl, Robbie’s friend who had telephoned, never called again. Cat had forgotten her name. When the girl had called, Cat had been a bit drunk. If she could remember her name, she would call her … but what good would it do? The girl apparently hadn’t even been able to tell much to the police.

The police said that if Robbie had gone into the caverns he most certainly would be dead by now. Cat had to believe he was somewhere in New York. Robbie knew New York, and liked it. He could get a menial job, dye his hair, and disappear. Cat refused to believe Robbie would take drugs or live on the street, any more than she could believe he had gone into the caverns to commit suicide. Self-destructiveness was not in Robbie’s nature. Hall junior had been self-destructive. But not Robbie.

Robbie was normal. Cat had to believe that. Robbie was just upset.

Every day Pardieu walked the streets of the great city, searching, making his way back at night to the underground maze where he slept. His companions there had told him of a place where he could bathe, so he had no need of an inn. Other travelers refreshed themselves at that communal bathing place too, and it did not seem to frighten them when the dragon roared nearby. Sometimes they even rushed out to be eaten, as if they were under a spell. He remembered an adventure from long ago, when he had traveled to the kingdom of the evil Voracians, where Ak-Oga had eaten the flesh of his slaves, as this dragon-god did. Pardieu feared that in spite of his magic powers he too might fall under the same spell, and was relieved to learn from his new friends in the maze that there were other places where he could bathe where there were no dragons. After he had been walking the streets of the city for a while he even found some of these places himself. He was glad there were so many of them, for he disliked being dirty and unkempt. His beard and hair had grown longer now, and his face looked very thin. The people he passed on the street never gave him food, and hardly ever gave him coins, so he was often hungry. But he had enough food to live, and that was all that mattered. Fasting was beneficial for the spirit. Soon he would find The Great Hall.

This was a city of strange contrasts. Pardieu passed many places of sin, where voluptuous women danced naked and men shrieked with lecherous glee to see them. There was garbage tossed in the street, and beggars rummaged through it for scraps of food. He saw people in rags, and people in fine clothing. There were many mutated Half-humans with vacant eyes, singing in strange tongues or screaming in anger at things only they could see. You could turn a corner and find a street filled with horrors, and then turn again and find quiet and peace, especially in the evening. Pardieu was often lonely, for no one he spoke to seemed able to understand him, and often they appeared afraid of him, as if he would not forgive them for their sins. At night he still dreamed of The Great Hall, and that sustained him through his days of isolation in the midst of dense, unfriendly crowds. All this suffering was still part of his quest.

He had found a street where young boys and girls waited until older men came to speak to them, and then the older man and the young person would go off together. It was the Street of Messages. Pardieu took to waiting on that street at night, until his own messenger would come. Sometimes a man would stop to speak to him, but whenever Pardieu asked him if he was his messenger at last the man would look at him oddly and go away. Pardieu realized finally that these exchanges took place in some kind of code, and that he would have to learn it.

There was a lovely young Sprite who came to the Street of Messages every night and who was the only one who did not seem to fear him. She would look at him and laugh. Her laughter was like the sound of bells, her hair was long, blond, and silky, and she often wore trousers of velvet and shirts of gauze. She looked like a Princess of the Sprites. She was about thirteen years old in appearance, which meant she could be over a hundred in the Sprite world. That was not old for a Sprite. One night he approached her, praying she would not run away.

“I am Pardieu the Holy Man,” he said.

She laughed. “I’ve been watching you,” she said. “You’re never going to get a john when you’re stoned like that.”

“I cannot speak your tongue,” Pardieu said, confused and apologetic.

“Hey, man, don’t shit me. You’re ripped out of your head.”

“What are these terrors you warn me of?”

She laughed again. “You’re cute, and I have a weak spot for losers. Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

She took him into a brightly lit eating place where she bought him coffee and small cakes, and some for herself. She was beautiful and kind; the first who had befriended him in the city.

“Now listen,” she said, leaning forward over the table that separated them. “There are leather queens and piss freaks and S and M’s, but unless you get a real masochist weirdo nobody’s going to want you like this. They think you’ve been smoking angel dust.”

“Angel dust …” Pardieu said. “How beautiful that sounds.”

“Yeah, well, smoke it after, not before. I’m not afraid of you, but I’ve got friends on this street and I’m not going anywhere alone with you. Besides, I think you’re harmless.”

“I am harmless,” Pardieu said, grateful to understand at least a small amount of what she was saying. “I am the highest level of Holy Man, and I would harm no one who is not evil.”

“This is what you do,” she said. “The john comes up and he says something like how much and you tell him, and keep your mouth shut from then on. If he asks your name or tries to make conversation, make up some name. Don’t give him that Holy Man shit. How much do you get?”