The Mouth of The Maze

Lucy stopped so quickly that Tom almost walked into her.

“Careful, Tom. Look at the crack beside the platform.”

Long grass moved around their knees. Ahead, a silver cup stood on a low stone platform. Rain had worn the edges of the stone, and moss filled a broken corner. There was nothing new about the platform. The cracks in the ground around it were another matter. One ran against the slope, cutting through a thick grass root as neatly as a knife.

Tom glanced at his watch. It was ten o’clock. He tucked it beneath his sleeve and looked at the cup.

“The Trophy of Madros,” he said. “After all this time.”

Lucy took the folded copy of the old field map from her bag. The original’s backing was oddly thick, but too fragile for the keeper to lift. Her copy had grown soft at the edges over three years. The hill behind them matched the drawing. So did the shallow stream they had crossed. In one corner was a crooked compass with seven points, but the name of the person who had drawn it was missing from the copy. A survey line ended beside this slope without showing why. That gap was why she had planned to search here weeks earlier. There was no platform on the map. There was no cup.

“Something this famous should not be this easy to find,” she said.

Tom lifted a muddy boot beside hers.

“Three years of wrong turns. I would not call that easy.”

She almost smiled. He had a rope over his shoulder and a knife at his belt, the same things he brought on every search. When a fence blocked their way, he found a way across. When a strap broke, he fixed it. He had never asked her to stop looking.

At the village museum, Tom repaired the cases while Lucy worked through the records. Three years earlier, she had found letters from the seven lost Madros explorers. One had asked for news of a sick father. Another had promised to be home before winter. The museum called them treasure hunters who had paid for their greed. The letters had made her wonder what that simple story left out.

She wanted to bring back their names and the truth about what had happened to them. Tom wanted to bring back something people could see.

“They could put it in the main hall,” he said. “With both our names beside it. For once I could make a case for something I found.”

“Let me check the ground first.”

He stepped towards the platform. A crack widened beneath his boot.

Lucy put the map away and reached for him.

“Tom, stop.”

“I am only going to lift it.”

His fingers closed around the silver stem. The cup came free without a sound.

Then something struck the earth from below.

The platform tipped. Tom stumbled back, but the ground opened under his heel. Lucy caught his arm. For a moment she felt his weight pull against her feet, and she tried to lean back towards the grass.

The soil beneath her broke apart.

They fell together. Lucy struck a steep bank and slid through loose earth. She covered her head as stones hit her back and shoulders. Tom crashed into her, and they rolled onto a cold floor.

Above them, a narrow strip of morning sky shrank between the closing edges of the hole.

“Wait,” Lucy shouted.

The last light vanished. Tom lay beside her, breathing hard, with the trophy still held against his chest.

For a while Lucy heard only falling dirt and their breathing. Then Tom moved beside her.

“Lucy. Are you hurt?”

“I can move. Give me a moment.”

She felt for her bag. It was still across her shoulder. The water bottle inside had pressed painfully against her ribs, but it had not broken. A pale green light came from small plants growing between the stones. As her eyes grew used to it, she saw walls rising on either side of them.

Tom stood and helped her up. He tucked the trophy under one arm and examined the shaft where they had fallen.

Loose soil covered a steep wall. He pressed his boot into it, but the earth slid away. There was nothing firm enough to hold a rope. Far above, the roof was solid.

“We need another way,” Lucy said.

“There has to be one.”

They followed the wall until it turned into a passage. Thick white roots ran through the stone on their left. On the right, a smaller wall shifted with a grinding sound. Lucy caught Tom’s sleeve before he passed beneath it.

A stone fell where his foot would have landed. The rooted wall stayed firm.

Tom checked the way behind them.

“Tell me this is not the maze.”

Lucy could not. The old accounts described green plants below ground and walls that moved. She had hoped those details were stories added long after the explorers vanished.

A scratching sound came from the bend ahead.

Three grey creatures came around it. Their bodies were low, their legs long and thin. When the first opened its mouth, Lucy saw rows of sharp teeth.

“Spundoks.”

Tom drew his knife with his free hand. The first creature leapt before he could lift the blade. It struck his side and tore through his shirt.

Lucy snatched up a stone and hit its head. Grey dust shook from its back as it dropped away, but a second creature caught her sleeve. Pain cut across her arm.

“Tom, help me.”

He drove his knife towards its face. It let go. Lucy kept hold of his sleeve and pulled him into a narrow gap between the rooted wall and a fallen block.

The creatures pushed after them. Tom struck at the nearest snout while Lucy forced her way through. Once he was clear, they ran. She heard claws scrape the gap behind them, then a wall moved with a deep crash.

They reached a bend before Tom’s legs failed. He sat down, keeping the trophy in his lap. Dark lines were spreading from the cut at his side.

Lucy looked at her own arm. The same lines ran towards her elbow.

An old man appeared beneath hanging roots. He held a wooden staff in his right hand. Fresh soil clung to his boots, and he looked back along the passage as if he had followed a trail.

“Stay back,” Tom said, raising his knife.

“You need help.”

A Spundok slipped out behind him. Pale light ran along his staff as he tapped the floor. The creature backed away, turning its head as though it could not keep the man in sight. The light faded, and he leaned on the wood.

Lucy tried to stand. “Who are you?”

“Orin Vale.”

She knew that name. She wanted to ask how that could be his name, but the roots blurred, and she felt herself falling.

Lucy woke with a bitter taste in her mouth. A small fire burned nearby. Beyond it, thick white roots curved over a patch of low trees. Their leaves gave off enough green light for her to see Tom lying beside her.

She reached for him. He was warm, and his breathing was steady.

“He woke while you slept,” Orin said. “I gave him water.”

He sat beside a stone bowl, crushing blue leaves with the back of a spoon. His grey coat was patched at both elbows. Up close, he looked much older than his voice had sounded in the passage.

Lucy pushed herself upright. Her arm was wrapped in clean cloth. The dark lines were still there, but they no longer reached beyond her elbow.

“You cured us.”

“I slowed the poison. That is all these leaves can do.”

He held out her water bottle. She took it and drank a little before passing it back.

“What happens when they stop working?”

“You grow weak again. Another dose may help, but each one holds it back for less time. The poison belongs to the maze. There is a way to make the maze take it back.”

Lucy studied the small grove. A narrow stream ran between the roots. Most of the blue plants beside it had been stripped of leaves. Pale round fruit hung from one tree. Orin had stacked dry fallen wood beside his fire. A folded coat lay under Tom’s head.

“Is this where you live?”

“Mostly. The roots hold this place still. There is water, and enough here to eat if I take care. I have had a long time to learn.”

She studied his face. She had read the list of missing explorers so often that she knew it without looking.

“Orin Vale was the expedition mapmaker.”

“I was.”

“They disappeared a hundred years ago.”

He set the spoon down. “I know it has been a long time outside. I stopped trying to count the years here. Some days seemed endless. On others, my fire burned low before I had finished resting. I learnt that no clock here could tell me what was happening outside.”

Lucy could not make the old man fit the young explorer in her records. She wanted a date, a place, something she could test.

“We will talk when your friend can listen too,” he said. “He should hear what I tell you.”