The maze was where we had left it, but the entrance was different. There was only one, for one thing, with mixed red and white roses all around. We walked for a while and came to a wide open spot. Three paths led out on the other side. The right-hand path bent deosil and slightly upwards, white roses blooming all around; to the left, widdershins and downward with red roses. The center path's roses were black.
    "I would much appreciate if this place would stay the same from one minute to the next," I growled.
    Conner began casting his track-finding spell; centuries of bloody footprints appeared to his vision, nothing to tell us which way to go, so he used the path-finding spell to see which direction would lead us to Wynn.
    "It's the black roses," he told us curtly. "He's right up there."
    "I wonder what's down the other ways," I mused.
    "Do you want to see what's down the other ways before we go right up the middle?" Meara asked.
    "Yes, actually. Just in case there are some additional threats, or information that we need to gather." I was not interested in a blind charge.
    "Deosil first?" she offered.
    "Actually I am thinking widdershins first, that way we can take a break from the grimness at some point. I suspect we're not going to find anything happy down there. We could flip a coin."
    No one had any objection, so we went left—carefully, cautiously, weapons at the ready, red roses all around us. The path spiraled down and rapidly left anything like normal topography behind, as we never passed under the place we had started. The path ended at a cave mouth. It was not the cave leading to the forge of Balor.
    Llweder looked for oghams. I stood ready to hit him, but he found only the same sort of background magic he had in the maze.
    Conner looked for traps and didn't find anything that was specifically a trap, although it was clearly a dangerous place.
    "I suggest that we do it without our weapons drawn," Meara said.
    I stared at her, incredulous.
    "She's probably right, we might want to be polite. Put it away," Conner advised Gannon, who sulkily sheathed his blade. "Can you give me ten minutes before we go in?"
    "What are you thinking about doing?" she asked.
    "Cloaking myself."
    "Sure, take your time," I sighed impatiently. After a while his image gusted away like smoke on the wind. "Okay, let's take a look inside."
    We stepped into the cave and heard the baying of hounds. Llweder, Gannon and I were the only ones who seemed affected by the sound, which struck despair into our hearts.
    "Maybe we don't need to know what's in here. You're not going to hear me say this ever again, but let's get out of here," I said.
    Conner and Gannon stared at me. Meara did some sort of spell; the despair was no less, but the edge was blunted somehow. We looked around; to no one's surprise, the inside was far larger than the outside. A large open field lay under the night sky full of the wrong stars, moving visibly. Before us was a wide sunken amphitheatre, empty—except for bones, lying about as if the audience at some dark play had been slaughtered in their seats. At the bottom of the amphitheatre, on the stage, stood several empty chairs. I checked to make sure the door behind us was still there, and saw a couple of grey marble pillars and a lintel in the right place. There was another set, white marble, on the opposite side of the amphitheatre. It was very dark.
    "I'm not really keen about going down past those bones to check out the thrones," Meara admitted.
    Conner looked at me. "Well, you said we should get out of here....."
    "I don't have any particular need to see more of this place, I just wanted to know what was down here."
    "I can create sunlight," Llweder offered.
    "I don't think it would be a good idea to pull out the sun in here. It might attract attention," I suggested.
    "Let's see what's on the white side," Meara said. "We can always come back to this when it's developed further."
    We backed out into the maze and retraced our steps to the opening, walked up the right-hand path. The despair went away.
    "I have this mental topography thing where he set this whole entire maze up so the widdershins path spirals to here," she held out a hand, "and the deosil path spirals to here," another, "and the straight path comes to here so he's in between the two courts that he destroyed."
    "Makes sense," Llweder shrugged.
    "Why do you think that? Because you know how he thinks. And he's a freak," Conner muttered.
    "Conner," I remonstrated.
    This path ended in an open doorway of wooden beams on the side of a hill covered with spring flowers. There were roses around the doorframe, but they didn't seem to go any further than that. This looked far more pleasant. We stepped through into bright sunshine to find a sunken amphitheatre, full of bones, with three chairs at the bottom. Across from us stood a set of black marble pillars with a lintel.
    In the better light here, we could see some small metal object on one of the chairs. We edged closer. It was also possible to tell that all of the long bones from the skeletons were missing, having been used for the forging of Hunger, the remainder somewhat scattered. Rags of clothing, weapons, armor, and personal items lay about.
    The object on the chair was a silver crown. We assumed the sword was in the "room" we had just visited.
    "Do we think we're gonna need these?" Conner asked.
    "I hope not," I muttered.
    "Do you think the lintel there leads back down to the other place?"
    "Yes."
    "Probably," Meara agreed, looking troubled. "We might need them." She flipped a coin.
    "All right, Gannon, go down and get it," Conner told him, still invisible. The spell was lasting much longer than he had thought it would, here in a place where his Fae blood was all but singing audibly.
    "Wait," I countermanded sharply.
    The coin landed heads for yes. Meara started down into the amphitheatre. She found a silver crown hung with crude iron chains and black roses. She set down her pack, rummaged for a moment, and came up with a smith's chisel.
    "My lady, I'm afraid this may hurt!" she yelled skywards.
    "Hurt.... who?" Conner wanted to know.
    "I'd ask her what she's doing but I have the funny feeling I don't want to know," I sighed. "I usually don't, when it comes to this sort of thing."
    She said a prayer and set about breaking the chain, being very careful not to harm the crown. I think we all expected to hear a scream, or something; instead the hammer blow echoed like thunder. Without touching the chain with bare hands, she pulled it free, put it in her sack, sprinkled some angelica around, and put one last tussie-mussie (how many of those things does she carry around? I wondered) in the center of the crown on the throne.
    "If he doesn't show up for this, he's a real big wuss," she announced, dusting off her hands.
         

| Top |