Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

Beginning players used rule books, and as their skills grew more advanced they progressed to ever more complicated and imaginative books of adventures, departing from them when they wished. Daniel used a combination of advanced books and things he had invented. He had to, because Jay Jay with his photographic memory had memorized nearly every book that could be bought. Daniel didn’t even want to think how much money Jay Jay had spent. But Jay Jay was rich, and those things didn’t mean much to him.

Holding the dice in his hand, Daniel began to talk. The other three looked at him with rapt attention. He knew they were visualizing everything he told them, and he was aware how real it was, for he had been a player once himself.

“A half day’s walk from a small town there is a wasteland of gnarled hills, covered with withered trees and dried grass. Beneath these hills is the entrance to the forbidden caves of the Jinnorak. As long as anyone can remember, no one has entered these caves, and it is rumored that within them lives a mutated people, once human, now changed from generations in the foul depths to creatures unrecognizable and vicious. But perhaps that is just a rumor, and perhaps the last of them have died. Still, there are other dangers, but it is also known that there are wondrous things within, for those brave and clever enough to take them. Shall you enter?”

“Yes,” Kate said, and the other two nodded.

“The entrance is only five feet high,” Daniel went on. “As you enter, you find you are in a small room, pitch-dark, with the sound of running water.”

“Give the dimensions of the room,” Jay Jay said, writing.

“Six paces wide, twelve feet long. On the right there are two doors.”

“Whose pace?” Jay Jay demanded.

“A human’s.”

“Okay, eight feet. I can see in the dark. I see the doors.”

“Is there writing on them?” Kate asked.

“Yes,” Daniel said. “But it is in an unknown tongue.” He threw the dice. An eight. “Pardieu can understand the message, but it will be garbled.”

“It says Ladies’ Room and Men’s Room,” Jay Jay said, and rolled on the floor laughing.

“Come on, Jay Jay,” Daniel said sternly. “Stop fooling around.”

“Sorry.”

“What do I see?” asked Robbie.

“ Journey here forever, unless … and the rest is unknown to you.”

“I think we should feel the doors,” Kate said. “If the running water is behind one of them it might be magic water and we don’t want to let it out.” She threw the dice. A twelve. “What can I do?”

“You can open one of them,” Daniel said.

She felt herself entering the landscape of the game now, and her heart began to pound. She had brought some armor, a short sword, food, a lantern, and a few coins in case there was anyone to be bribed. Pardieu had his magic spells, and Freelik had his own powers as well as the ability to deceive. It was dangerous to light her lantern in case there was a monster in the room who would then be able to see them and attack them. But darkness frightened her more. Darkness was one of the most terrible things she knew, with the sound of breathing; the thing that had happened that night … but she wouldn’t think about it now. Now there was only the game, where she would take revenge on creeping, soft-breathing things, where she would flash her sword and kill, and conquer. She lit her lantern. The small room was empty. She could see the writing on the doors and she couldn’t read it at all. It was in the ancient Jinnorak tongue.

Jay Jay knew why he had been fooling around. The game always frightened him a little at the beginning — having to make that commitment. It was, he knew, something deep and invasive once he got involved in it. It was a fantasy he ate, slept, and dreamed. More than the excitement of the perils, he liked the satisfaction of winning. Freelik really didn’t need the treasure; Sprites could always do for themselves; but treasure was pretty and satisfying to own, and you could give parties with it, have feasts, sing, and tell stories and dance all through the enchanted nights in the moonlight under the trees. It was for this later pleasure he would go into the terrible mazes. And besides, in a way, he liked tempting the unexpected. The human world seemed far away now, pathetic and boring.

Robbie, safe in the cloak of Pardieu the Holy Man, walked with sure steps over the damp crumbling floor of the maze. Glacia’s lantern swayed in her hand and cast its glow into the dark shadows ahead. A terrible shriek rent the air. Six gigantic Gorvils leaped up from a hidden pit, snarling their rage at having their terrain invaded. Dimly in the distance he could hear the reassuring clack of the dice. His small dagger firmly in his hand, he sprang at the nearest Gorvil, striking it in its center eye. It screamed shrilly and ran away, waving its little webbed arms. Glacia was whacking everywhere, the strongest of the strong. “I will enchant one!” Freelik cried. “It will tell me where the treasure is!”

How happy Pardieu was to be here on his sacred search, warm in the company of his trusted friends, guiltless and good. It was a fine thing to have a mission.

Daniel smiled. They were in it now, they really liked his game. Kate’s shoulders were tense, her eyes squinted as if she could actually see into the unknown. Jay Jay was giving forth little squeaks of excitement, telling everyone what to do, as usual. If they had really been in the maze the Sprite would be hopping around. And best of all, Robbie was working out well, taking it all very seriously, planning his moves. He played intelligently and thoughtfully, but not without daring. Daniel didn’t like a safe game. It was hard to be the Maze Controller: you had to be sure the game wasn’t too easy, but you couldn’t let everyone get killed either. He watched carefully as Jay Jay mapped out the maze to scale on his graph paper, making notes, remembering everything. Jay Jay was by far the smartest of any of them, himself included, and it pleased Daniel the most when he could get Jay Jay totally baffled, which unfortunately was never for long. This world he had created, here in his room, with his close friends participating so eagerly, was the best of all possible worlds. It was worth all the trouble he had gone to this summer to create the new adventure. Michelangelo couldn’t have felt any better when he finished painting the Sistine Chapel. A work of art was a work of art, no matter on what level.

They had worked out a routine now where they played the game two or three nights a week and both afternoons on weekends. That left weekend nights free for going out, and the other weeknights for studying. Kate was taking two easy English literature courses, a poetry-writing course, and psychology. She had already read most of the required novels before she’d come to college, and the poetry class was a joke because she could dash off a poem in an hour.

Eng Lit I was held in a huge amphitheater with rows of seats rising so high that the professor looked like a tiny doll standing in front of his lectern, speaking through a microphone. “I am sure many of you have read Huckleberry Finn before,” he said. “I have read it twenty-two times.” The class groaned, a wave of sound. “Every time I read it I see something different,” he went on. “As we grow and mature we understand new meanings in a great novel.”

Bor-ring, Kate wrote in her notebook, and passed it to Robbie, who was sitting next to her. It had turned out they were both in the same gut course, so now they sat together all the time and saved seats for each other. It was one of the most popular courses in the school, mostly because it was not hard.

Zzzzzz, Robbie wrote, and passed her notebook back. They tried to keep from laughing. There was something about being with Robbie that made Kate feel very silly and relaxed and young. It wasn’t because he was a Freshman and she was a Sophomore, because they were the same age — and she wouldn’t have cared if she were older. Those things didn’t matter to her. It was more that Robbie was terribly sweet and totally unthreatening. They had fun together. He was also very handsome. She loved his gentle face and perfectly proportioned swimmer’s body. She found herself looking at him more lately than she had intended to. She knew she was starting to care about him in a way that was more than just a good pal, and she didn’t like that at all.