The wraith hovered at the juncture of two corridors, facing away from her. On silent feet, Inyx advanced. Her hands reached out. With a movement more like a striking jungle cat, she caught the wraith around the spot where its throat ought to be. Inyx felt substance; the creature only looked ghostlike. She leaped, her legs circling the beast' s body. Her weight and ferocity forced it down. The darkhaired woman found what passed for a throat, and cut off wind.
It took over three minutes to strangle the wraith. It took even less for her to discover it wasn' t edible.
The corridor stretched as far as the eye could see, strewn with the yellow fruits. Weak and shaking from lack of food, Inyx still took the precaution of checking the cross- corridors for any sight of either wraith or blue eating monster. Nothing.
Hungrily, she picked up the nearest globe and bit through tough skin. The warm pulp inside dribbled down her chin, over her tongue, and into her throat. She spat out heavy pink seeds without taking her mouth away from the succulence of the fruit. Inyx ignored all conventions of politeness and decency. When the fruit had been messily consumed, she went on to another and another. Eating so much fruit might eventually give her the runs- it also saved her life.
The sugars triggered energy sites in her body. She felt her head clearing. No longer dizzy and faint, she rose, wiped away the pulp from her mouth and tunic, then picked up one of the cannonball- sized fruits. It proved semiportable.
" No!" she cried. Inyx sighted another of the blue monsters. It entered the hallway and began devouring all the fruit leading to her. She had learned that they never passed up a meal. This gave her time to escape, clutching a single fruit for some future meal.
She found another juncture and ducked into it to avoid several wraiths drifting toward her. The same sensations she' d experienced entering the Twistings caught her up again. She spun and whirled and finally dropped to her knees- in a different part of the Twistings.
Never had Inyx felt more helpless.
Voices. Humans' voices. She debated about seeking them out or fleeing. Then the hard thought came to her; she couldn' t run for the rest of her life. Alone, unable to sleep, she' d soon fall prey to the beasts scouring the Twistings for food.
She squared her shoulders and walked forward. For a moment, she thought she' d been transported to still another world. In a large room- the first she' d seen in the Twistings- sat or lounged at least fifty men and woman.
All were filthy and wore tattered clothes, and not a few were quite insane. Some sat staring into infinity and gently humming to themselves. Others carried on detailed conversations with no one.
": vegetables deserve their freedom," one man was saying. He spun, his voice lifted and he answered himself, " Scallions are vegetables, too. What about them?"
Inyx sidled past this human remnant while he continued the debate with himself. She knew who the loser in that discussion would be. Others rocked to and fro like zoo creatures in a cage, while still others fought with a ferocity that belied their humanity.
" A new one, eh?" came a sober voice from her right. Inyx glanced in that direction. A blonde woman, with arms around drawn- up scratched and bruised knees, peered at her. The blue eyes were a bit wild, but the inflection in her words came out saner than anyone else Inyx saw in the room.
" I was just put into the Twistings today." She stopped, frowned. " I think it was today. I seem to have lost track of time. I got hungry, found this, then I: I spent a lot of time running away."
" The fruits are about all that' s good for eating. With one exception," said the woman. She inclined her head to indicate the far side of the dimly lit room. A fire blazed in the distant corner and two men roasted a haunch of meat. The odor wafting in her direction made Inyx' s mouth water.
" I suppose they want more than to be friends to share," she said.
" You can be their friend- or more- if you like. Not too many want to share their meal."
Suspicion flared. Inyx inhaled more deeply of the odors. For a moment, she didn' t recognize the meat the two men cooked. Then she blanched. Once, when women and children had been trapped in a burning building, the stench of tar and wood had been intermixed with burning human flesh.
This odor was similar. The only difference was in intensity. These men roasted, not burned.
" Don' t want to share their meal anymore?" asked the blonde.
" I think I' m going to lose what little I have eaten."
" Share the fruit?"
The blue eyes fastened hungrily on the fruit Inyx held cradled in her arms like a small babe. Inyx wanted to say no, to keep her hardwon food for herself.
" Fifty- fifty," she said. " If you' ve got a knife to cut through this leather."
" No one' s got a knife, ' cept the mechs. And they cannibalize their own parts for them. Teeth' ll be as good as anything else. Go on, you do the divvying." The blonde watched as Inyx carefully bit through the tough skin. Juices spurted. With great care, she divided the fruit and passed over the larger section to the blonde.
" Thanks," the woman said even as she thrust the savory pulp into her mouth.
All too soon, they' d finished their meal. The blonde sat licking fingers and blouse for the last of the juice.
" How long have you been in the Twistings?" asked Inyx.
" Can' t say. No one knows. We just wander aimlessly."
" Is there a way out? Does the Lord have the entrance blocked with anything other than the vault door?" She tried to remember the door itself. Most vault doors protecting vast caches of money tended to be difficult to open from the outside but relatively simple to burgle from the inside. Inyx hoped this might be the case with the Lord' s door into the Twistings.
" Some have found the room again."
" How' d they get out?"
" Out? They came back. Over there. See that one, the one with the red hair? She sits and cowers if anyone approaches her. She told me that she found the door open. All she had to do was walk out- and she couldn' t do it."
" Why not? I' d be through that door in a flash."
" No, you wouldn' t. I heard that same story million times or more." The blonde played with one of the pink seeds. She stroked it as if doing so gave her some magical power. It was only a nervous gesture.
" I would!" said Inyx with heat. " I want out of here. And when I escape the Twistings, I' m going to kill the son of a bitch who put me in here."
" You won' t care, not after a while. No one does. Only the newcomers try to escape."
" Giving up hope isn' t the answer. If she found the way out, so can we."
" Why bother?" The blonde leaned back, relaxing only slightly. She kept her arms around her knees. The blue eyes looked at Inyx again, hungry once more but this time with a different form of hunger. " We can do other things, you an' me. You' re not wonky yet. Neither am I. We can: do: things together, we can."
" I want to talk with the redhead," Inyx said, uncomfortable now with her nearness to the blonde. " What' s her name?"
" Don' t know. Can' t even remember my own. What' s the difference?"
Inyx rose and walked away from the blonde. The woman called out, " Thanks for the food."
Inyx waved in response and hurried to the redhead.
" You almost escaped," she said without preamble. " How' d you do it?"
The woman gazed up at Inyx, then smiled. Inyx shivered at the insanity she saw in that look.
" Easy. Just followed my nose. But I couldn' t: couldn' t leave. Couldn' t."
" Why not? What kept you in the Twistings?"
" Don' t know. Couldn' t walk out the door. Tried." She began laughing, high- pitched and hysterical. This brought unwanted attention from the two cannibals at the far side of the room. Inyx backed off, wanting to run. She managed to find herself a quiet spot along one wall where no one seemed willing to stay. Hunkering down, she tried to think her dilemma through. Somehow, the more she worked on the immediate problems of getting out of this crazy maze, the more difficult it became for her.