attempting to convince himself. 'Maybe we'll make it.'
They rested a little while longer, Kendrick swilling water that tasted like the sweetest wine round his throat. It wasn't hard to imagine that he could get drunk on it, if only he were to drink enough.
Having crested the hills, the two men were on ground that now sloped downwards again. Before too long they heard a sound like static crackling. It came at them across a stream that rushed over boulders before falling several metres to form a wide pool below a nearby cliff. Vines and roots trailed in the clear water below them and they stopped, briefly spellbound by the sudden beauty of the place.
They were getting near. Very near.
Between twisting trunks they could see slivers of the distant horizon as the jungle dropped further towards a flat plain: a broad expanse of cleared land that looked as though it stretched on for ever. Kendrick squinted into the near distance, seeing a needle-thin road leading towards a huddle of breeze-block buildings. In an instant, his memory flashed back to that day when a transport plane had dropped out of the skies, spilling himself and countless others into a searing daylight that they would not experience again for several months.
Buddy consulted his wand. 'Somewhere around here,' he said.
Kendrick looked around him. 'I don't see anything.' He stepped up beside Buddy, studying the wand's readout over his shoulder. It definitely showed a clear match between their current location and the GPS read-out for the hidden entrance.
Kendrick felt his resolve waver. He'd brought them out here on the whim of a man who had been dead for years. It was insane, after all.
He stepped across to the cliff edge, peering down through the dense foliage. A shelf of rock, jutting out above the cascading water, cast deep shadows across the base of the cliff.
'Down there,' he said, stepping back.
Buddy stuck his head over the edge, peering down the sheer drop. 'You think?'
'Only one way to be sure.'
They picked their way carefully around the cliff top until they came to a less sheer descent, clinging for support to roots and rocks as they went. There were probably easier ways to get down but neither of them wanted to waste another hour trying to find one.
It came close a couple of times, as Kendrick's hand slipped on a slimy tree root and he tumbled before fetching up against another tree growing from the hillside.
This close to the Maze they would be extremely vulnerable if they were spotted. Defending themselves when trapped on a near-vertical gradient would be impossible. They moved patiently, quietly, carefully, picking their way over rocks and vines, making slow but steady progress.
Kendrick was the first to notice something strange. He was clambering over a scattering of loose boulders when he spotted a silvery glint in the nearby foliage, mistaking it at first for a spider's web.
Then he looked much more closely. 'Hey, Buddy. Check this out.'
They could discern the thread-like substance everywhere – a fine nacreous filigree, so thin and delicate that it was almost invisible, spreading across trees and rocks and bushes alike.
Buddy reached out to touch a thread and jerked his hand away almost immediately.
'What's up?' asked Kendrick.
Buddy looked afraid. 'Touch it and see.'
Kendrick fingered the strand. For a moment he was somewhere deep and dark as a sense of unutterable loneliness washed over him. He quickly wiped his hands on his jacket, aware that they were shaking.
'Remember following that kid Louie halfway across Venezuela?' he muttered. 'This is the same kind of thing we found then.' He suspected that the threads extended deep beneath their feet, all the way down into the Maze itself.
Buddy nodded. 'Like I could forget.'
Kendrick stepped away. 'We shouldn't be surprised by this. This stuff is what keeps Los Muertos so close to the Maze.'
Buddy shrugged. 'I know, but…'
Kendrick nodded in turn. Sometimes there just weren't the words, but he was shocked by the fear that he detected in Buddy's voice.
Buddy's eyes widened and he pointed over Kendrick's shoulder. 'Hey, I think I see the entrance!' He picked his way between two vast tree trunks, sliding down a muddy slope until he reached the base of the cliff. Kendrick followed, grabbing at roots or anything else he could use to stop himself falling too fast. The air was filled with the sound of exotic and primal wildlife, and those silver filaments were everywhere: it was like being on another world.
The threads had even woven themselves into the rough surfaces of tree trunks and were also visible in patches of mud, or stretching between blades of grass. As the sun sank towards the western horizon they reflected its light in an unearthly glow, giving the surrounding forest an hallucinatory dimension.
Sure enough, at the base of the cliff, hidden behind bushes and moss-covered rocks, lay the mouth of a cave, its interior dark and mysterious. Kendrick gazed long into its lightless depths before kneeling and brushing his fingertips against some of the thin fibres that extended ahead.
It was like someone finding, while standing in the middle of a vast crowd, that they possessed a hidden talent for telepathy. A rapid series of impressions flew through Kendrick's mind, faint enough for him to be uncertain whether or not they were the product of his own imagination.
Suddenly he had an image in his mind of a clearing in the jungle…
He lingered, feeling a powerful urge to look over his shoulder as if someone – or something – was standing there watching him. Something malevolent.
Buddy stepped past Kendrick and on into the cave. More threads glinted from deep within, making it appear that he was walking into the innards of some great metallic worm.
Kendrick gave in to the urge to glance over his shoulder. Nothing there – just the deep, darkening jungle behind them.
But it felt so strongly as if someone had been right there. He walked back towards the fading daylight. The clearing he'd seen in his mind's eye, like a scrap of someone else's memory…
'Where are you going?' Buddy demanded, staring after him with a bewildered expression.
Whatever it is I felt when I touched the thread, it knows we're here. Not Peter McCowan, but something else.
Kendrick crossed the banks of a stream that drained the pools beneath the cliff, his boots splashing noisily through the shallow water.
Over – there.
The jungle around him suddenly felt full of an overwhelming sense of presence.
Buddy shouted after him. 'Kendrick! Where are you going?'
'Two seconds.'
He pushed deeper into the jungle, past trees and bushes, almost slipping and twisting his ankle on wet rocks. He cursed and pulled himself upright, moving past more trees. Then he saw it.
He stared at it for a long time. After a little while, he heard Buddy come up next to him, breathing hard.
'Kendrick, what the fuck are you- Oh, hell.'
Threads had gathered together to form a vast woven bowl extending between the tree trunks, filling a wide glade beyond. Thick ropes, comprising thousands of filaments clumped together, extended downwards from the underside of this bowl, entangling themselves in the living soil below.
Kendrick had seen it earlier, when the threads had first brushed his skin.
'Do you know what it looks like?' Buddy breathed.
'I know what it looks like. Like a transmitter – or a receiver.'
As they looked up, through the thick matting of strands glistening in their millions, they could make out the dusk's sky and the sparkle of its stars.
A few dozen metres into the cave they came to a familiar shield door. The sight of it sent a riot of memories
