Actually, being chased through a maze is really quite exhilarating, so long as the things you’re running from aren’t trying to kill you.
With the dart-tossing Black-Eyes hot on our trail, I did my best to guide Mom and Emily on a winding chase through the Maze of Rings. Mom did her best to keep up, but she was constantly falling behind. It wasn’t entirely her fault though. After all, she wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion. She was wearing a business skirt and blouse, and had been running barefoot the whole time.
“Slow…huff huff…down…huff huff,” Mom gasped. We doubled back through what must have been the twelfth passageway. The Black-Eyes moved quickly.
“Quick, let’s hide in there,” I said, dousing my Veritas Sword and ducking into a small cave-like room that was connected to the passageway. We sat in absolute darkness for what seemed like an eternity until a pair of hurried footsteps passed us.
We sat still for a few minutes longer, waiting out the second Black-Eye pursuer. In the meantime, I did my best to catch Emily and Mom up on where we were and what had happened. I explained about Solandria, the Shadow and the Resistance known as the Codebearers. I told them how Dad used to be a Codebearer and that he had found the Eye of Ends…how the visions he saw within it were predictions of the future and ultimately were the reason he left us for fear they would come true. I told them of Tonomis and his desire to become the Author.
“I can’t believe,” Mom said quietly, “that all this time your father’s stories were so real…and I didn’t believe him.”
“What do you think happened to Dad?” Emily asked. “Is he…you know….”
“Dead?” I asked.
“Yeah, that.” I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear a slight sniffle coming from where she sat. I had rarely heard Emily cry over something genuinely important. She usually cried only when she wanted something.
“I don’t know. Maybe a part of him is still in there. If we ever get out of this place alive, I hope to find out.”
Mom sighed. “Hunter, you know more about the Author than we do. Do you think he can help us, even here?”
I couldn’t believe my mom had asked the question.
“Yeah, I’m sure he can,” I said. “You know, the Codebearers have a saying about that….”
“What is it?” Emily asked, sounding genuinely interested.
“We are never alone,” I said. “The Author is always watching over us.”
There was a long silence in the dark.
“Well, I sure hope he knows what he’s doing,” Mom said.
Watching the Author’s plan unfolding, I was beginning to wonder just how things might end. I knew the Author was in control, but if Solandria was destroyed…what would happen next?
“He brought us back together, didn’t he? I don’t think that was an accident.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there had to be a purpose in all of this.
“Well, enough sitting around in the dark. Let’s go find a way out of here,” Mom said.
After lighting my Veritas Sword, I kind of wished I hadn’t. The room we were in was crawling with Crag Spiders—so many in fact, that Emily couldn’t find her voice to scream! She was petrified, as was Mom. Thankfully, the spider horde was both deaf and blind. Each one of them remained still, focused blindly on the task of managing their complex network of threads.
Remembering what Dad had told me about the smaller ones being more dangerous as pack hunters, I tried to settle both Mom and Emily down before we triggered a feeding frenzy.
“Don’t freak out,” I cautioned. “They won’t know we’re here as long as we keep clear of the lines.”
Mom seemed to appreciate the assurance and gave a frightened nod.
“On three,” I said, “I want us all to move slowly and carefully toward the cave entrance.”
“One…two…” but before I could say “three” Emily made a wild dash for the mouth of the cave and out into the passageway screaming. She narrowly missed triggering one of the lines that passed by the door. That was the good news.
The bad news was that our pursuers most certainly would have heard Emily’s screams. Sure enough, as soon as Mom and I exited the spider’s den, I heard a telltale shout come from somewhere further in the Maze. They were coming for us. We didn’t have much time. I had to think of a plan…and quick!
Fearfully, Mom ran toward where Emily had stopped, shuddering just at the edge of my sword’s light. I could hear the pounding footfall of our three pursuers growing louder. They would be on us before we could make any effective escape. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea!
“Wait here,” I told Mom and Emily. To their horror, I then ducked back into the Crag Spider’s den. They both nearly freaked when I came back out moments later, dragging the dead body of a spider, a thin trail of its purplish oil leaking out behind it.
“What are you doing?” Mom gasped.
“No time to explain,” I said hurriedly. “Grab a leg, Em!”
My sister looked at me with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” expression. Mom pushed her aside and took hold of a shiny leg, pulling along with me.
“Where to?” she asked.
I looked back at the den door and focused on the direction I’d seen the majority of the spider’s threads leading. “This way!”
We ran to the right, heading for the turn just up ahead. As soon as we reached it, I dropped the creature and told the girls to stand back. Using my Veritas Sword, I sliced open the area where I figured the spider’s oil gland was, letting the smelly liquid spill out freely, covering the floor.
As I did, I caught sight of a flashlight beam dancing across the other end of the passage.
“Go!” I told Emily and Mom, sending them on up ahead. If my plan was going to work, I’d have to let the Black-Eyes see me. A distant figure suddenly came racing into view, swinging the wide beam of the flashlight across my face. Immediately a fire dart flew at me, missing me by a few feet. They’d seen us, all right…perfect.
Climbing up and over the dead spider, I ran on as fast as I could to catch up to my family.
“Keep going!” I shouted. “Faster!”
Behind me, the Black-Eyes were shouting too, having fallen prey to my slippery trap. That should slow them down. I grinned, imagining the smell that would be covering their pretty little suits.
We raced through a few more turns in the Maze before Mom and Emily came to a screeching halt. They had recognized the nearly invisible threads weaving across the floor from our visit to the Crag Spiders’ den. From the sound of the shouting coming up behind us, the Black-Eyes were catching up. There was no going back…or forward.
“We’re trapped!” Emily shrieked, squeezing Mom’s arm tightly.
I looked down at the trip lines, and thought of the hungry horde waiting on the other end. It was time to finish my plan.
I sure hope Dad’s theory was right. Lowering my Veritas Sword to the ground, I aimed it at the first thread.
“Follow me,” I said boldly.
“Hunter, no!” Mom shouted.
It was too late; I’d already cut through the first one and wouldn’t stop until I’d sliced a clear path for us through the rest. If we could get through this without the deadly scent marking us, we’d be home free. I hadn’t counted on being outwitted.
“Stop right there!” the female Black-Eye demanded, having suddenly appeared to block the path in front of us. She brandished a fistful of fire darts and shined her blinding flashlight directly in our faces.
Part of me wanted to take this threat head-on. I was a trained Codebearer, after all. But a voice from behind convinced me otherwise.
“Put it down, Mr. Brown,” the man’s voice said. I glanced behind me to see the second Black-Eye advancing toward us from the other side, darts at the ready.
“That’s right…nice and slow,” he coaxed, watching as I squatted to lay my weapon down. As soon as I let go, the blade of light disappeared, leaving mostly darkness, except for the light from the two flashlights.
“Kick it to me,” the woman commanded, glowering. I caught a strong whiff of the spider oil soaked into her clothes. Smelling it made me want to gag because the scent was horrid, yes, but also because I feared what was coming. I’d set a deadly game in motion and now we had no way out of it.
“I said, kick it to me!” the woman yelled angrily. When I kicked it, the metal on the sword hilt scraped noisily across the ground. The unpleasant sound seemed to echo off the stone walls, bouncing up and down the corridor, but strangely never fading. Instead, it crescendoed into a loud chorus of hissing.
Emily looked up to where the noise was coming from and screamed. The Crag Spiders had come to dinner…every single one of them.
The Black-Eyes looked up at the army descending on us and immediately started firing their darts into the swarm, killing a good number of them…just not enough. For every one that fell, two more surged forward in their place.
“Stay close to me!” I shouted to Mom and Emily, hugging them tightly. Terrified, Mom and Emily buried their faces in my shoulder as the horde finally closed in around us. When I’d imagined this part of the plan working, I hadn’t expected being there to watch.
Drenched in the spider’s oil, the Black-Eyes didn’t stand a chance of survival. It was only a matter of time before the Crag Spiders got their prizes, claiming the man first, then dragging the woman under. The two fallen flashlights were kicked around, providing an eerie effect to the whole grizzly scene.
Amazingly, Dad’s theory about the Crag Spiders’ hunting by scent held up. More importantly, the scent I’d been marked with from the larger, elder spider acted like a repellent to this smaller horde, keeping them a safe distance away.
“They’re not going to harm us,” I said to Mom and Emily, once I’d realized this truth. “We’re free to go.”
Still shaking, Emily started to pull away, but I held her tighter. “Don’t let go yet,” I said, walking us together as a unit toward my Veritas Sword. “We’ve got to stay close. It’s my smell that is protecting us.”
How many times does a little brother get to say that? I wondered.
“Ew! You can be so gross,” Emily groaned, wiping away the tear streaks on her face.
Using the light from my Veritas Sword, we quickly navigated safely around the bend in the Maze, free from the threat.
“Where to now?” Mom asked the obvious question.
“We’ve got to find a way out,” I said. “We’re not safe in here.”
“Now, there’s an understatement,” Emily groaned.
Admittedly, it was kind of a silly thing for me to have said. And knowing what I knew now about the Maze, it was a pointless thing to say. There was no escape from the Eye of Ends unless…unless we found a vision! I’d found one before; we’d find one again. I quickly explained the plan to Mom and Em as we jogged through the twists and turns of the Maze.
“Just keep your eyes open for anything unusual,” I said, “especially any kind of light. The last vision I saw was hidden around the corner of a dead end. You might see these luminescent moths… those can be helpful too.”
“What about birds?” Emily asked.
“Birds? What birds?”
I looked in the direction my sister was pointing and suddenly stopped in my tracks. The silhouette of a raven could be seen set against the fiery cavern ceiling, gliding above the towering Maze walls.
“Caw! Caw!”
The solitary raven turned toward us and was soon joined by more of them on all sides.
“Those are no birds!” I shouted. “It’s Tonomis. We can’t let him find us. Go back! Go back!”
We started to run the other direction, making it back around our previous curve before something like a lightning bolt flashed across our path. We skidded to a stop. The orange light cracked loudly; then sizzling, it fell limp to the ground. A lone figure stepped into view—Desi!
“What’s this?” she taunted, twirling her weapons playfully in front of her. “Leaving so soon? But the night is young…and I’ve so enjoyed playing with you. How about we have a little fun first?”
She started marching straight at us, snapping one angry whip after the other, laughing at the fear she instilled. With nowhere else to turn, I prepared to do battle with the evil Vicess.
“Ahhh!” Mom called out fearfully. I felt a gust of wind as the passage behind me filled with a flurry of a hundred wings. I whirled around just as the angry flock took its imposing shape, a step behind me.
“Get down!” Vogler’s voice bellowed. He didn’t give me a choice, throwing me to the ground and firing his silver gun at Desi in a single motion.
Desi successfully deflected the round with her shield whip and scrambled down a side passage for cover.
“Looks like you could use a friend about now,” Vogler said stoically. “Let’s get you out of here!”
Mom and Emily looked wide-eyed at the intimidating black man they’d only seen as a detective on the news. Sensing this was no time for introductions, we hurried to follow our new-found bodyguard through the Maze. He kept a keen eye trained behind us, while directing us with mission-driven efficiency until we reached a dead end.
“This is it,” Vogler said, nodding toward the wall.
“It’s what?” Emily started to ask, but then became quiet when the milky light of the coming vision began to appear.
The transformation didn’t intrigue me as much as the man standing next to me. A man, or being, I had completely misjudged. As intimidating as he was, I felt compelled to speak to him.
“So…you’re a Watcher.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not Tonomis.”
He pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. “No.”
“And all this time you’ve been trying to protect me from him and Desi?”
He didn’t need to answer that. And he didn’t.
The last question was the hardest to ask. “My friend Trista….”
“Is waiting for you,” Vogler interrupted, pointing toward the vision that was coming into focus now.
Emily squealed with delight, recognizing her best friend, and started babbling to Mom about what it might mean that we were seeing Triss, flying on the back of a giant parakeet. It was a Thunderbird, but who cared? As quickly as the picture had come into focus, it blurred again, this time from my own tears.
He had saved her! I suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to hug the man, which I did.
Vogler took it like a man, a rather big man who didn’t have much practice with hugs. He cleared his throat. “You’ve still got a mission to complete…Mr. Brown,” Vogler reminded me in his cool manner.
Mom and Emily had already instinctively touched the vision, their bodies wavering between physical and light. The full vision now included an intense aerial battle between many Shadow and Codebearers, besides Trista. The sky was an ominous gray. It wasn’t exactly an inviting picture. It was a darker part of the Author’s plan, but one I knew I could face. I reached my hand out to touch it as well. As the vision exited me out of the Eye of Ends, I heard Vogler’s parting words:
“Even the dark things will become like light if you learn to see with the Author’s eyes.”