“Good hunting!” snarled Finn. Lief felt his ropes being cut through. The next instant there was a shove in the small of his back. Then he was pitching headfirst into the hole, and down, down, into darkness.
There were many sounds. The sound of Milne sobbing in helpless terror. Faint laughter from above as the stone was shoved back into place. The sound of dripping water echoing, echoing through endless, winding spaces. And something worse. The sticky, stealthy sliding of something huge, stirring.
Lief opened his eyes. He knew what he would see.
Eerie, bluish light. Great dripping spears of stone hanging from the roof. Thick, lumpy pillars rising from the floor. Twisted columns, rippled and grooved, like water made solid. Gleaming, ridged walls, running with milky liquid.
The Maze of the Beast. How could he have thought they would escape it? It had always been their fate.
Lief turned, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. Jasmine and Barda were crawling upright, looking around in dazed confusion. Milne thrashed and wallowed in the water at their feet.
The sliding sound grew louder.
“It is coming,” Milne sobbed. “The Glus …”
Jasmine snatched her dagger from her boot and swung around, facing first one way, then another. “I cannot tell where it is coming from!” she cried. “It seems all around us. Which way —?”
The sound of monstrous, sliding flesh was everywhere.
Then they saw it — a gigantic, sluglike beast, sickly pale, oozing towards them. It filled the vast passage through which it crawled, its swollen body rippling horribly, its tiny eyes waving on the ends of stalks at the top of its terrible head.
Gabbling with terror, Milne staggered to his feet.
The Glus lunged forward, rearing its head. Its spine-tipped tail thrashed. Its bloodred mouth yawned wide. Mottled stripes lit up along its back.
A thick, gurgling, sucking sound began, deep in its chest. Then, with terrifying suddenness, a tangle of fine white threads sprayed out of its throat, aimed directly at Milne.
Screaming, Milne dodged, flailing with his arms. Most of the threads fell short of their mark, but a few drifted onto one hand and a shoulder, drawing them together and binding them like ropes of steel. He stumbled and fell, struggling to pull his hand free, rolling and kicking in the water.
“Get up!” screamed Jasmine, plunging towards him, holding out her hand. The Beast thrashed, rearing, the stripes on its back glowing like evil lights, the stalks on its head moving, dipping, as its cold, vacant eyes fixed themselves upon her. Jasmine slashed at it in a useless attempt to keep it back.
The bloodred jaws opened. The thick, gurgling sound began again. Still Jasmine reached out for Milne. Still he screamed and writhed in helpless panic.
“Jasmine, no! You cannot help him!” Barda caught Jasmine around the waist, swinging her back and aside, just as the Beast struck again. White threads cascaded from its throat, covering Milne’s head and neck with a stiffening helmet of white.
Half-blinded, mad with terror, Milne floundered to his feet and splashed blindly away, one arm crooked helplessly as he blundered into the depths of the blue-lit maze.
The Glus paused, its eyestalks waving. Then, as the companions stood frozen, staring in fascinated horror, it effortlessly turned its vast body, oozed through a narrow gap between two columns as easily as though it was made of oil, and followed him.
“Now is our chance,” said Jasmine urgently. “Quickly! There is fresh air down here. I can smell it. And where there is air, there is a way out!”
“Give me the dagger!” hissed Lief, pulling off the embroidered belt. Wordlessly Jasmine thrust the weapon into his hands. Lief stuck the sharp point into the fabric of the belt and ripped the embroidery apart. The Belt of Deltora slid out into his hands.
For a split second he gazed at it. It was so beautiful. So precious. But the ruby was pale. The emerald was dull.
Danger. Evil. Fear.
“Lief!” shouted Barda.
Lief clasped the Belt around his waist. He gripped it with his hands, drawing strength from its familiar weight and warmth. Perhaps, now, it would never be complete. But even as it was, it had power. The topaz gleamed through his fingers, bright, rich gold.
† The Topaz is a powerful gem, and its strength increases as the moon grows full … It strengthens and clears the mind …
The moon was high above them, blocked by churning sea and a mountain of rock, but still its power reached the stone. Lief felt his mind clear and sharpen, as the mists of confusion and fear lifted.
“This way!” he shouted, pointing to a passage that led away from where Milne had gone. “But slowly, carefully. I think the Beast’s eyes and hearing are weak, but it is attracted by movement. It feels movement in the Maze, as a spider feels insects struggling in its web. That is why it chased Milne, instead of staying and attacking us.”
It was agony to move slowly, when every instinct was telling them to run, run blindly as Milne had done. They crept along, through passage after passage, twisting and turning. They wet their hands and their faces, the better to feel that breath of coolness that would warn them of a crack, a gap, a way out.
At last they could walk no farther. They squeezed into a narrow space between two lumpy, dripping walls. There they rested, panting and shivering, one wall pressed hard against their backs, the other a hand’s breadth from their faces. The sound of Milne’s screams and splashes floated, echoing, in the air. He was still running, lost somewhere in the Maze.
And the terrible sound of the Glus never stopped.
“It is moving so slowly,” whispered Jasmine, listening. “How can it hope to catch him?”
“It has only to follow, and wait,” said Barda. “Even if he does not make a mistake, and meets it face to face around some corner, he will have to rest sooner or later.”
His voice sounded odd. Lief glanced at him quickly. Barda was looking at the wall in front of him. Carefully he raised his hand and slowly traced shapes in the gleaming stone.
A bony arm. Five fingers. A skull, its mouth gaping in a silent scream.
“Here is one who stopped to rest, and stopped too long,” Barda said. He twisted his neck and looked over his shoulder. Milky drops ran slowly, ceaselessly down the wall at his back. Already they were pooling on his shoulders, setting into a fine crust of stone.
With a cry of horror, Lief and Jasmine pulled themselves forward. Drying stone cracked and slid from their backs and shoulders, splashing into the water at their feet. They edged out of their hiding place and, looking back, saw their own shapes imprinted in the wall.
“How long would it have taken before we were stuck fast?” asked Barda grimly. “An hour, perhaps? Even less? If we had slept …”
They began to move again. And now they saw the twisted shapes, the lumps and ridges on walls, columns, and pillars, for what they were. Everywhere they looked were the bones of the dead — clawing hands, sprawled legs, skulls that seemed to shriek of terror.
Lief felt himself shivering all over. He imagined the horror of waking and finding himself trapped by the stone of the wall. He imagined struggling, struggling … while the Glus moved slowly towards him.
“We must not rest,” he muttered. “We must not sleep.”
They crept on, and on, trying to make as little movement as possible, their faces turned to the wall, their hands held out in front of them. After a while, Lief’s thoughts became a wandering haze — a haze of water, white walls, endless movement, words. There is a way out. We must find it. We must not rest. We must not sleep.
Lief’s head fell forward, jolting him awake. He blinked, confused, and realized that he had been walking in a dream. He had no idea of how much time had passed.