Bearing an Hourglass (38 page)

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Hold it!” Norton said. “Sning just gave warning!”

The Alicorn dipped his head to point with his horn. There was a line crossing the chamber about ten feet from the entrance.

“Trap door?” Dursten asked, peering at the line.

Squeeze, squeeze.

“No,” Norton said. “I think we’re not supposed to cross that line.”

“Hell with that noise!” Dursten said impatiently. “Nobody corrals
me
like that nohow!” And he stepped across the line.

From the far side of the chamber a dozen blobs of drainpipe garbage appeared. Each one floated a foot above the floor, trailing drools of hair and slime. They fired clogs of jellylike stuff across the chamber as they advanced.

“Ooo, ugh!” Excelsia exclaimed, dodging a missile. Evidently she had been braced for routine things like knives or empty boots, but not for this.

“I’ll get them gunks!” Dursten said gallantly. He drew his blaster and popped away with excellent aim. All spacemen, of course, were crack shots. As he scored on each gunk, it exploded, spraying coffee grounds and potato peels at the ceiling. In a moment the chamber was clear—and messy.

Dursten blew off his smoking muzzle and holstered his blaster. “Told you I’d upgrade my shooter,” he said. “I never liked gunks nohow.”

They continued on through the chamber, through the passage beyond, and into another blank wall with channels to the right and left. “Right again,” Norton said. They turned right, and around another right-angle turn, and came into a chamber similar to the first, with another line across it. Dursten drew his blaster and stepped over the line.

More gunks appeared. One gunk splatted just behind Norton as he dodged. He turned to look at its impact on the wall—and discovered that the stone was smoking. “That’s acid!”

“Sure, them gunks don’t mean us no good,” Dursten said philosophically, blasting away at them. His aim remained uncanny; in a moment all gunks were refuse.

They passed on through into another passage, met another T-intersection, and turned right again. A left elbow brought them to a third chamber.

“Are we getting anywhere?” Excelsia inquired, waving her candle impatiently.

“Shore, we’re blasting lots o’ gunks,” Dursten answered, stepping across the line and proceeding to blast away.

“Is that all there is to human life—blasting gunks?” the Bemme asked, forming a mouth for the speech.

“Ain’t that enough?” Dursten asked.

The Bemme shrugged gelatinously and followed. But the question nagged Norton. He didn’t want to continue
blasting gunks indefinitely; he wanted to locate the Eviler Sorceress and get the amulet from her. He would be happy to bypass the gunks entirely.

They blasted through two more chambers. “Are these all different?” Norton asked.

Squeeze, squeeze.

“You mean we’re repeating chambers?”

Squeeze.

“Let me check this.” Norton walked back to the beginning of the last chamber they had cleared of flying gunks and turned about. He stepped back across the line.

Twelve new gunks appeared. The other folk, caught by surprise, scurried to avoid them. Dursten got busy and blasted them all.

“Crossing the line does it,” Norton said. “Watch.” And, when they were out of the way, he crossed the line a third time—and twelve more gunks appeared.

Dursten mopped them up. The charge in his upgraded blaster seemed indefatigable.

“Just what are we accomplishing?” Norton asked, frustrated. “We’re repeating chambers and blasting things that are triggered into existence by a line!”

Dursten considered. “Never thought o’ that,” he admitted. “This here thing’s just a maze.”

A maze—of course! Their object was not to blast innumerable gunks, but to find their way through the maze to the Eviler Sorceress. “So we aren’t getting anywhere,” Norton concluded. “Is that why you had no answer before, Sning?”

Squeeze.

“Can you direct us through this maze?”

Sning hesitated, then slowly squeezed once.

Still those odd reactions! They had not yet fathomed the whole truth about this sinister place! “Very well. Should we turn left at the next T?”

Squeeze.

They moved through the maze, following Sning’s directions. Each new chamber brought a dozen new gunks for the spaceman to blast. Then, abruptly, they came to a
chamber that was different. It was small, only eight feet on a side, and had no exit. At Sning’s behest, they crowded inside.

The entrance door slid closed. Then the chamber descended. Excelsia screamed, thinking they were falling to their doom, and clutched Dursten desperately.

“Say, now,” the spaceman said, pleased. “I guess I reckon there
are
better things’n blasting gunks!”

“It’s only an elevator,” Norton said. “Sning wouldn’t send us into a trap.”

“Not doom?” Excelsia asked, wide-eyed.

“Not even discomfort,” Norton assured her.

“That’s okay, cutie,” Dursten said. “How ’bout a li’l kiss while we’re at it?”

The Damsel realized where she was. “Oaf!” she shrieked, slapping him smartly and stepping indignantly away.

The spaceman shook his head. “Femmes—who needs ’em?”

The elevator’s motion stopped. The door slid open. Beyond was a green passage.

“A new maze,” Norton said, stepping out. “Can you guide us through this one, too, Sning?”

Again the response was a slow squeeze.

“I wish I knew what’s bothering you!” Norton exclaimed. “Is there danger we can’t handle?”

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Then let’s move on through!”

They threaded the second maze. This one was curvy rather than angular, and the walls were green plaster. The chambers were ovals with bloated purple glitches attacking on cue. These were resistive to Dursten’s blaster, but popped like bubbles when pricked by Excelsia’s knife point or the Alicorn’s horn. “Just as well,” Dursten said gruffly. “My blaster’s charge ain’t forever.”

Sning guided them through the labyrinth to a second elevator. They entered and descended to a third level—which turned out to be a yellow maze. The creatures in it were icks, like soft bowling balls with eyes where the
holes should be. They rolled up, threatening to crush everything in their paths, but Dursten’s blaster caused them to go all to pieces.

Then the charge gave out. The last ick was only winged. It spun out of control and banged into a wall. “Oh, the poor thing!” Excelsia exclaimed. “It’s hurt!” She dashed to it and put her arms about it.

“Crazy dame! What about my blaster?” Dursten demanded.

“Oh, shove your—” But she was too ladylike to be able to complete a thought like that.

“Maybe I can stomp the ick,” he said.

“Leave it alone!” she flared, cuddling the bowling ball. “Can’t you see it’s suffering?”

The spaceman shot a baffled glance at Norton. “Femmes! Can
you
figger ’em?”

“Not me,” Norton said, though in truth he had some sympathy with the ick. It was perhaps a variety of wilderness creature, forced to serve as cannon fodder for the Sorceress. He bore no special ill will for the soldiers of the front, who tended to be victims of circumstances no matter which side they fought on.

But this delay gave him an opportunity to ponder the situation again. These multilayered mazes—were they any different from the endless mazes on any one level, if a person proceeded randomly? Was there any more point in threading endless mazes than there was in blasting endless gunks, glitches, and icks? Especially considering that Dursten’s blaster had pooped out? Well, he would find out. “Is there?” he asked Sning.

Squeeze, squeeze.

“Is that why you’ve been hesitant? You can guide us through the mazes, but there’s not much point?”

Squeeze.

“Do you know an alternative?”

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

He had been afraid of that. “So we’ve still got to muddle through ourselves?”

A reluctant squeeze. Sning was doing his best, and he
was very helpful, but his limit of information had been reached; this castle maze was too complex.

The Eviler Sorceress, Norton realized, didn’t have to kill them directly. She could simply let them wear themselves out in interminable mazes until they were too tired to bother her, or until they made some mistakes and got creamed by whatever monsters defended the level they were on. They were fools to play the Sorceress’ game—yet Sning lacked the power to penetrate that larger riddle.

“Hick says there’s a secret room,” Excelsia announced.

“Hick?” Norton asked.

“The icks are named by letters. This is Hick. He says if he’d known how nice we are, he wouldn’t have tried to roll us.”

Norton had an idea. “That room—does it have anything we can use—like maybe the amulet?”

“Hick doesn’t know,” the Damsel said.

“Sning, can you tell?”

Squeeze.

They were back in business! “It has the amulet?”

Squeeze, squeeze.

Sigh. Somehow things never turned out easy! “But it does have something that will help us shorten this rat race?”

Squeeze.

“Let’s find it, then!” He turned to Excelsia. “Will Hick show us that room?”

The Damsel talked to the ick by tapping on its surface with her delicate knuckle. The ick answered by making little off-center rolls. “He says he’ll try,” she repeated. “But the way is difficult.”

“It always is,” Norton said with resignation. “We’ll get through somehow. Lead the way.”

The ick rolled to the side of the chamber, somewhat awkwardly because of its—his?—injury, and stopped. “He says through there,” Excelsia said.

Norton contemplated the wall. It looked very solid. Well, Hick had warned that the way was difficult! “We have to break a hole?”

Squeeze.

Norton tapped the yellow wall with his knuckle. It was of the same substance as the ick, slightly resilient but quite solid, like padded plastic. He struck it with his fist, and made no impression. Just as he had suspected—soft but strong.

“A danged padded cell!” Dursten said, disgusted. “Bemme, shape up and try it.”

The Bemme formed into a robot with a sledgehammer fist. She pounded this at the wall. The fist bounced off harmlessly. She changed form to that of a small crane with a dangling wrecking ball. This, too, bounced off harmlessly.

Norton saw the problem. “A brittle surface would crack, but this padding absorbs most of the shock.”

“Hick says
he
could do it,” Excelsia reported. “If he weren’t injured.”

“It figgers,” Dursten said wryly.

The Alicorn poked at the wall with his horn. He succeeded in making a hole, but the horn got stuck and he had to wrench it out. He couldn’t break through either.

Norton pondered. “If the icks can do it—too bad we can’t get their cooperation. Or can we, Sning?”

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Well, he could understand the little snake’s problem. The creatures of the Sorceress answered to the Sorceress, so it was difficult for Sning to predict their reactions.

“Shux,” Dursten opined. “We don’t need them things to agree. We can trick ’em into helping.”

Squeeze.

“Sning says that’s it,” Norton reported.

“Shore it is,” the spaceman agreed complacently.

“But how—?”

“Aw, Bemme can do it. Bemme, trick ’em.”

The Bemme pondered a moment, then slid to the wall, formed a dripping-ink appendage, and painted a tunnel opening on it. The picture was very realistic; the Bemme was a fair artist. Then she slid to the center of the chamber and formed into a wooden barricade with an arrow pointing to the wall and a printed sign saying: DETOUR.

“Say, that’s neat!” Dursten said. “You’re doing okay, Bemme.” The wooden barricade purred.

The spaceman walked to the line, crossed it, and then stepped back toward the center of the chamber.

A dozen new icks rolled out of the opposite passage. They advanced on the barricade, hesitated, then made a right-angle turn and took off toward the wall. One by one, they plunged into the painted passage.

The first one struck the wall roundly and smithereened. Hot on its tail, the second struck the same spot, denting the wall and in the process fracturing itself. Rapidly the others followed, and with each impact the dent grew deeper, until the last ick crashed on through. There was a faint whistling sound, followed seconds later by a distant thunk.

The Alicorn trotted up to the hole in the wall and poked his head through. He neighed with surprise and withdrew.

Norton looked next. Only a little light came through from Excelsia’s candle; that showed beyond the wall a void—a crevasse whose height and depth were lost in darkness. There seemed to be no way around it; it paralleled the wall.

Excelsia brought her candle and joined him. The candlelight showed another wall about ten feet beyond—evidently the confinement for the next chamber.

“Where do we go from here?” Excelsia asked. “We don’t need to break into another ick chamber, do we? We could get into that by going through the tunnels.”

True. This was apparently the interstice between the chambers of the maze, and since the secret chamber they sought was outside the maze, this was where they wanted to be. But it seemed impossible to pass!

“Well, we must have to follow this, uh, space to the key chamber,” Norton said. “If the Alicorn can fly it—”

“He can fly it,” Excelsia said confidently. “He will carry anyone I ask him to. But he can bear only one person.”

“If he could ferry us across one at a time—”

“But he doesn’t know where to go,” she said.

“The ick knows,” Dursten said. “Take the ick first.”

The Damsel nodded. “And return for the rest of us once he knows the way. Spaceman, you aren’t quite as stupid as you seem.”

“Thank you, gal,” Dursten said, skuffling his feet.

“Nor as ugly as you look,” the Bemme added. The spaceman patted her on a bug eye affectionately.

They rigged a harness from Dursten’s shirt to fasten Hick to the Alicorn’s back. Then the Alicorn scrambled through the hole, fell into the void, spread his wings, righted himself, and flew upward. His wing tips brushed the walls on either side, despite a considerably shortened stroke; he was cramped but remained airborne. He disappeared to the right.