covered.
I summoned a small blue ball of nightfire to light my way with my left hand, and pulled the sword from its scabbard with my right. The snake beneath my palm nudged my skin, like the comfortable press of a dog’s nose. It felt almost as if I had a friend with me.
I held the nightfire out ahead of me and checked both directions. There was no obvious difference between the two, so I decided to use my medieval maze trick again and choose right whenever possible.
I started to move forward with the ball of light ahead of me. My breath came in harsh pants and it sounded unnaturally loud in this enclosed space. My light cast a pitiful circle. The dark seemed to press all around me, brushing over my shoulders, swiping fingertips over my neck.
“Don’t be afraid,” I told myself, and my voice echoed down the hall, wavery and very, very frightened.
I could have faced anything if only there had been a little more light. The total darkness was getting to me and I’d only been in the Maze a few moments. How long was this thing? How far would I have to go? It couldn’t be short or else there would be no challenge. The sword in my hand gave me a friendly little nudge again, and I deliberately tried to calm my breathing. There was no point in freaking out when I hadn’t even faced anything yet.
I tried not to think about Antares and how far he might have gotten already. Did demons even have nightmares? What could he possibly be afraid of that would impede his journey to the center of the Maze?
The tunnel ended in a T-junction and I turned right. I didn’t have a better plan. I wished Beezle was there to tell me I was acting like a dummy. I tried not to think about how much it hurt that he hadn’t even said good-bye to me. It had always been me and Beezle. I’d had Beezle with me longer than I’d had my mother.
After walking for several minutes I started to feel like the Maze was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I hadn’t had to deal with anything worse than the pressing darkness, and as long as I didn’t think about it too hard I was able to handle it. The companionable feeling of the sword helped.
Then the spider came looming out of the darkness.
There was no warning as there had been in the forest, no hiss and click of its pincers, no heavy thud on the ground. There was only a spark of red eyes and the silent scream of its open mouth as it descended on me. I saw a flash of its hairy legs a second before it landed on me and I fell to the floor, rolling away from its grasp. The nightfire in my hand winked out.
I came to my knees and slashed blindly into the darkness with the sword. The blade connected with something solid and I felt it slice cleanly through chitin and flesh. The spider screamed and the blast of its breath stank of blood and rotten meat.
I jumped to my feet and ran down the corridor away from the spider. I could hear it behind me now, stumbling and crashing against the narrow walls—thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Only seven thumps. I’d slashed off one of its legs.
If I lit another ball of nightfire, the spider would easily find me. I was sure its eyesight was better in the darkness than mine but I wasn’t about to give it an advantage by lighting myself up like a neon sign. I gripped the sword in one hand and waved my other hand in front of me so that I wouldn’t run into a wall.
My free hand scraped stone and vine. The spider was still several feet behind me, struggling in the tight confines of the Maze. I sincerely hoped it would get stuck.
I turned right, and as I did the sounds behind me went silent. Had the spider given up, or had the Maze taken it back? Should I dare the light?
After a moment of dithering I decided it was better to risk the light and know for sure what was going on. I conjured nightfire and cautiously peeked around the corner.
That was when the spider struck me from behind.
I had a moment to think, Oh, that’s not fair, and then the spider closed its pincers around my right leg. I screamed as its jaws pierced my flesh and it shook me around, slamming me against the sides of the corridor.
The sword warmed under my palm until it felt almost too hot to hold. I was abruptly aware that the corridor was lit up like the sun and the light was coming from the sword. The spider screeched and dropped me to the ground, scuttling backward.
I rolled over to see it receding down the hallway as quickly as its enormous body would allow. I wasn’t about to let it get away and sneak up on me again. I staggered to my feet, blood pouring from the wound on my right leg, and felt that leg buckle and give way underneath me.
The heat of the sword was searing my skin. I was parthuman; my body wasn’t made to wield the sun. But I held on to the grip as tight as I could and raised the sword high. The spider flinched away from the light, its seven legs flailing in agony.
I summoned my power and my will and pushed it through my heartstone. This was the magic that had destroyed Ramuell, and I let it flow through me.
The spell hit the spider full on in its ugly face, and I had the immense satisfaction of seeing it burn molecule by molecule until it was gone.
I leaned against the wall, panting and covered in sweat. Blood from my leg dripped onto the floor, making my sneakers slide around. I sank to the ground because it was easier than scrabbling for purchase in my own gore.
The sword was still lit up like Vegas at night. I looked at it. “You could have done this earlier, you know, when I was freaking out about the dark.”
A little pulse answered me, as if to say, “I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
I examined the wounds underneath the ragged remains of my right pant leg. The cuts were almost perfectly round but tattered at the edges, where the spider’s serrated pincers had cut the skin. Blood flowed sluggishly, which was good because it meant I wouldn’t bleed out anytime soon. But I wasn’t exactly carrying a first aid kit with me.
The sword winked at me, and somehow I knew what it was telling me. I pressed the blade to the wound on one side of my leg, and then I screamed, because it hurt like hell. But when I pulled the sword away the wound was cauterized. The other side was harder to do. It’s hard not to flinch when you know what’s coming.
“When Gabriel heals me, it’s a lot nicer than this,” I muttered. “There’s usually kissing involved.”
The sword would have shrugged its shoulders if it had any.
“Now I’m anthropomorphizing a weapon,” I said. “If I keep this up, I’ll be talking to my buttons before it’s all over.”
I pushed wearily to my feet and tested my leg. It hurt like hell, and the muscles were still torn even though the wound was closed. But I was sure the Maze had more surprises for me, and that I wasn’t even close to the end. I limped forward.
At least this time the sword provided light for me, so I was able to see the demons when they attacked.
They came crawling down the walls and the ceiling, a horde of seeking tentacles and flickering tongues and razortipped claws. Some of them were small, some large; some squished and some walked. They were covered in boils and lash marks and burn scars. Some of them hissed, some of them drooled, some of them gnashed blackened teeth. All of them had their slitted yellow eyes focused on me.
There were so many of them I didn’t have time to think about what I needed to do. I just started blasting away with my magic with one hand and hacking away with my sword with the other. Demon blood splattered my hands and demon saliva burned my arms. Heads rolled beneath my feet and clawed hands grasped at my ankles. I kicked out, slashed down, parried up, poured my magic out in a steady stream like a machine gun without the safety on. My sword hand worked without my knowledge or skill, led by the will of Lucifer long ago embedded in its crafting.
I don’t know how long I fought the demons, or how many I killed. I only know that after what seemed like hundreds of corpses were piled in the corridor behind me the attack abruptly petered out and I was alone again.
I limped away from the stench of dead demons, my right leg dragging behind me. I tried to call my wings but they wouldn’t come for me. So the Maze would let me have my magic, but only to a degree. I guessed my wings would make things too easy. I hoped the Maze gave Antares a similar disadvantage.
I managed to make it down a few corridors unmolested. Once I was sure I was well away from the site of
