I stand in front of the central staircase. I’m assuming that the way to the top can be found through all of them, and maybe starting in the middle is the sensible option, but as I go to move, Kyor’s voice echoes in my mind.
Aim to the left.
That was what he told me to do, that first night I spoke to him out inthe battle yard, when I assumed he wanted to kill me and part of him probably did. He told me to aim for the left of the heart, the side that pumps blood around the body.
For fuck’s sake,Rose, I chastise myself. This is not the time for emotion to get in the way, and if I make the wrong decision and have to come straight back down, I might find myself running directly into Zara.
Screw it, I say to myself, taking a single step towards the central staircase before changing my mind and taking the left-hand option instead.
‘Here’s hoping you’re right, my love,’ I whisper aloud.
As soon as I reach the first fork, there are once again three flat paths sprawling before me. Well, I was definitely right to assume this is a maze. Again, I go left, then left the next time, too. But then I reach my first dead end. As I prepare to turn back, I notice a faint shaft of light radiating down on me.
Surely I’ve got to go up, too? I’ve got to get to the top of a mountain, and other than the staircase at the beginning of the maze, everything has been flat.
With a deep breath in, I reach up, grabbing the slight edge protruding from the wall at the bottom of the shaft of light, and work my way up using my elbows and knees for leverage. Six feet later, I’m standing on the second floor of Gods know how many.
The vertical choices are even more frustrating than the left-right-centre decisions, mainly because there are a lot more of them. It feels like every few steps I take, I have to decide whether I should go up or keep going on the flat.
One shaft emits a particularly strong glow of light from its opening, so I start my ascent, confident that such intensity must be because it’s coming from the next floor. But after ten feet of scrambling up, I discover the glow comes from a lamp fixed to the side of the stone wall.
With a groan of frustration, I shimmy myself back down and try again. I have to climb three different shafts before I finally find the right one to lead me to the next level, whereas the third takes only two, but on the fourth floor, I must try close to a dozen before one finally grants me access upwards.
How many floors are in a mountain? That’s a piece-of-string question if ever I’ve heard one. And from the varying heights I’ve had to climb between each one, I have no idea of the exact distance between them. Twenty feet, fifty feet, a hundred?
My arms are already feeling heavy, but it’s not as though I’ve gotanother choice besides moving forward, other than to stay here until someone else wins this thing and the priestesses portate me out.
The thought of Zara winning is more than enough to propel me forward. There has never been anyone less deserving of a gift from the Goddess of Life than that cold-hearted psychopath.
At some point during my climbs, my stomach began to growl. Quietly at first, then louder, and more and more frequently. I must have been in here for hours, but gauging time without a hint of sunlight is impossible. The light within the maze has clearly been designed to test us, alternating between near darkness and lamps with such intensity I’m forced to squint and cover my eyes.
I don’t know what number shaft I’m going up or what floor I’m hoping it will take me to when I hear a scream rattling through the darkness. My muscles clench as my body turns rigid. Was it Zara? It sounded more female than male, but who knows? There’s nothing to say it was even human. I remain there for a minute, catching my breath as my arms and legs burn from the brace position I’m holding myself in. But no other sound comes.
I have been climbing up this one passage for over twenty minutes and I’m starting to think I made the wrong choice because there’s nothing but pure darkness above me. But as I raise my hand to adjust my hold, my fingers find the lip of an opening.
As I haul myself up, the darkness remains. My stomach somersaults. So now, not only do I have to find the right route in the dark, but I’ve also got to make sure I don’t slip down the shaft I just climbed. Fucking perfect.
I wonder if my magic can somehow make light, and I raise my hand, willing the buzzing to my fingertips and visualising a light forming in front of me.
But there’s nothing. Not a hint.
‘It was worth a try,’ I mutter to myself, disheartened.
Other than that single scream, the only other sounds I hear are quiet scratches and scrapings, like rats in the gutters of the slums, and I assume it’s one of the remaining Rettlings moving up and down the shafts, like me. I’d far prefer to bump into a horde of rats than Zara, or even Jonas at this point.
The growls of my stomach have become sharp pangs, while my throat is so dry from thirst that even swallowing causes pain to throb up and around my skull. I can’t believe there’s any skin left on my palms or shinsfrom all the shimmying, and I’m trying not to think about the stabbing pain knifing in my knees that gets worse and worse with every jump. I’ve had to launch myself up to reach almost every shaft, and the pain of landing smack down again each time I’ve taken a wrong route is starting to take its toll. But the physicality of this challenge is only part of it. It’s the mental torment, too.
Etta is testing us. Our resolve. In the darkness, we have a total inability to know if we’re getting any closer to our goal or where our fellow competitors are. With each wrong turn, the urge to break down, to scream or at least rest, gets stronger and stronger, yet each time I fight it.
Neither Jonas’s nor Zara’s powers will be of any good to them here, and I’m willing to bet that I’m better at climbing, meaning at least any mistakes I make in the tunnels should be quicker to recover from than theirs.
Luck. Luck is the only thing that would mean one of them would get there before me. Luck and the Gods’ favour, that is.
As I weave my way back and forth around twists and turns, I contemplate which magics would actually help in this situation. I can’t imagine that my original green-weaving would have been beneficial at all. Unless there are seeds hidden in the rocks that could grow into trellises for me to climb. That would have been something. Maybe Llin could’ve used her wind weaving to work out which of the shafts opened up into another level, but I’m not even sure if that’s something she could’ve done. I doubt Benny’s powers would’ve been of any use either, unless he can somehowseethe correct path, even in all of this darkness.
I guess being a light weaver could have saved a lot of time, but other than that I can’t think of whose magic I’d want in this situation. Not Grenda’s, not Jai’s. Even Kyor’s powers would be of little help.
Could Del be breaking down the walls wherever he is in the maze? The obscene strength his magic gives him certainly makes him strong enough. It wouldn’t be the brightest thing to do – lest he bring the whole cave system down on his head – but desperation can make people do strange things. Isn’t that why I’m here?
