Deltora Quest #6: The Maze of the Beast (8 page)

W
ildly, Lief swung to look at the figure now collapsed on the ground. His stomach heaved as he saw the face dissolving, the body collapsing into a writhing mass. The long, crooked hands of the pink-haired lady’s dancing partner pushed out of the whiteness, to be quickly followed by the head of a white water bird and many other eyes and mouths that Lief did not recognize.

“Ol!” he hissed.

“Of course!” Barda’s voice rumbled behind him. “How could you have been deceived?”

Hearing that gloriously familiar, irritable growl, Lief dropped the dagger with a cry of joy and flung his arms around Barda’s shoulders.

“Steady,” said the big man uncomfortably. But he did not pull away.

“When I saw you at the cave entrance, I could not believe it!” Jasmine had bounced over to Barda and was embracing him in her turn. “How did this happen?”

Barda shrugged. “The Ol thought I was dead. But I am not killed so easily. I crawled ashore and took much time to regain strength enough to follow your tracks.”

He shook his head. “One set of tracks puzzled me. But when I reached here, I understood.” He grimaced with distaste at the remains of the Ol, now just a bubbling pool on the cave floor.

“I should have known!” said Lief. “You — I mean,
it
— spoke of how we had escaped from pirates and an Ol! Yet you had gone over the side, Barda, before the Ol that was the pink-haired woman revealed itself. How could you have known about it?”

“And no wonder it was so quiet and gentle!” Jasmine exclaimed. “It could copy your appearance and voice, and learn about us from what we said. But it did not know how to behave. It had not had time to learn what you were really like!”

Barda raised an eyebrow and Jasmine realized, too late, that her words had not been very flattering. She busied herself picking up the second dagger and tucking it into her boot.

“I may not be particularly quiet and gentle by nature, Jasmine,” said Barda dryly. “But on the other hand, I would not have been persuaded to give up our quest because of one small problem.”

“One small problem?!” Lief exclaimed. “The pirates have the sixth gem, and the Belt! And they are far away!”

“How do you know they are far away?” Barda demanded. “Because an Ol told you so? The pirates could be sheltering in a bay just around the headland at this very moment, for all you know.”

He waved a hand at the hole in the sand. “And if they have found the gem, so much the better. I would prefer to get it from them than face the Beast.”

The sickening vision the opal had given him rose in Lief’s mind. Suddenly he longed for fresh air. He turned and blundered out of the cave …

Straight into the arms of a grinning man whose hooked nose nearly met his chin, whose yellowed teeth were filed to sharp points, and whose savage eyes gleamed with triumph.

There were only two pirates in all, but with a sword pressed against Lief’s throat, Barda and Jasmine had no choice but to surrender. Bound cruelly together, the three were hauled back across the rocks and into a rowing boat, with Kree swooping helplessly above them.

“Did I not tell you I saw movement in the cave, Nak?” chattered the man with the filed teeth. “Was it not worth making a landing?”

“They will make fine sport,” agreed his companion, the huge red-haired woman who had seized Jasmine on the
River Queen
.

She twisted her fingers in Jasmine’s hair and spitefully wrenched the girl’s head back, so that she could stare down into her face. “You will learn not to kick your betters, fine lady!” she snarled. “We have a special fate reserved for trespassers on our shore. A little pet we want you to meet. Is that not so, Finn?”

The man sniggered agreement. As he took his place in the boat, he unbuttoned his coat. He was wearing the embroidered belt. He noticed Lief’s eyes upon it, and grinned evilly. “Do you miss it?” he jeered. “I am not surprised. It is heavier than it looks — fine quality indeed! But you will not need it where you are going.”

And, still laughing, he bent to the oars.

Once the boat had reached the calmer water beyond the waves, it turned and began to go back the way the companions had come. It reached the place where the Tor joined the sea and moved on, Kree battling the wind overhead, Finn and Nak straining against the current.

At last they drew opposite the blowhole, skirting the sheet of rock with care. And there was the pirate boat, rocking in shallow water, sheltering in an enormous cavern in the headland.

“Do not follow us, Kree!” shrieked Jasmine to the sky. “Wait!”

“If he does, he will wait forever,” sneered Nak.

As the rowing boat slid into the cavern, Lief saw the rest of the pirate crew eating and drinking
on a huge ledge above the water. The polypan ran to and fro, carrying dishes, ordered about by everyone. There was something different about it, Lief thought. It looked harried and unhappy, but that was not all. He thought about it for a moment, then noticed something else.

Dain lay in a corner, firmly bound. Another prisoner lay with him — a man in a tight blue coat.

Nak and Finn were greeted with cheers. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine were pushed and jeered at for a time, then thrown down with Dain and the other man.

“Their screams will be music to my ears!” screeched Nak, as she swaggered back to the crowd. “But it will be all the sweeter on a full stomach!”

As soon as she had gone, Lief saw Filli slip from Jasmine’s jacket and scurry to her boot. With all his might the little creature tried to pull the hidden dagger free, but the task was far beyond his strength.

Dain’s exhausted eyes were dark with misery. “I knew that if you were alive, you would come for me,” he breathed. “At first I prayed you would — then I prayed you would not. Now what I feared has come to pass. They have you.”

“What is to be done with us?” whispered Lief.

Dain licked his lips. “I do not know,” he answered. “But they speak of something called the Glus.”

The man in the blue coat moaned in terror.

Dain glanced at him. “This is Milne. They call him
a traitor. He tried to kill Nak, when she said he was a fool for bringing me with them.”

Milne, thought Lief. Milne. Nak. Finn. Well, I hoped to meet the owners of those names, and so I have. If we have to die, at least we will be taking one of them with us.

The polypan had been sniffing around them. Now it pushed its face into Lief’s chest and whimpered. Lief tried to push it away. Its smell was horrible. It reminded him of something, but he could not think what.

“Are they still going to give you to the Grey Guards, Dain?” hissed Jasmine.

Dain nodded. “Yes, though there was bitter argument. Milne and the others liked the plan. But Nak and Finn were afraid.”

“Afraid?” Lief looked at Nak and Finn laughing around the fire. “They seem to fear nothing.”

A strange, baffled expression crossed Dain’s face. “They fear Doom,” he whispered. “Finn said that if Doom ever finds out that they have knowingly betrayed the Resistance, their lives will not be worth a handful of ash. Doom will hunt them down one by one, and they will never escape him.”

Cheat me, and you will wish you had died in the Maze.

So that is why the pirates are still here, thought Lief. They are too afraid to run from Doom.

“We leave tonight,” Dain was saying. “Nak and Finn refuse to go. They will stay here with the booty.
The rest will sail with me up the river to meet the Guards near Dread Mountain.”

The polypan was pawing at Lief again. “What ails you?” he said angrily, trying to squirm away from it. “What do you want from me?”

Then, suddenly, he knew.

L
ief whispered urgently. The polypan listened. At first it shook its head, then, finally, it nodded and darted away.

Barda and Jasmine took no notice of it. They were concentrating on Dain.

He was biting his lip, plainly still confused and shaken by what he had heard the pirates say. “I thought I knew Doom,” he muttered. “Now it seems I knew but little. Finn spoke of him — as though he had powers beyond those of an ordinary man.”

“Then Finn is a fool!” Jasmine said decidedly. She raised her chin as they all glanced at her. “I fought Doom in Rithmere, remember,” she went on. “I felt his danger then, and understood it. Doom does not care if he lives or dies. Whatever he has suffered has scarred his heart as well as his face. Inside him now there is only anger, bitterness, and cold.”

“So he has nothing left to lose,” Barda murmured.

Jasmine shivered. “That is what makes him a deadly enemy. That is the source of his power. But it is a power I should not care to have.” She put up her hand to fondle Filli’s soft fur.

Chett came chattering up and pulled Lief’s sleeve impatiently.

“Put it on me, under my shirt,” Lief hissed. “Only then …”

This time, Jasmine and Barda, and Dain, too, were watching. Lief saw his friends’ eyes widen as the polypan, grumbling, fastened the embroidered belt around his waist. He saw them glance wildly at Finn, who was eating and drinking with his companions, quite unaware that he had been robbed.

“You are a fine thief indeed, Chett,” said Lief. He rolled on his side and let the polypan take what it wanted from his pocket — the little packet he had bought from Steven. The creature unwrapped the glossy brown stuff, stuck it into its mouth, and began chewing blissfully.

“This gum is a great polypan favorite, it seems,” Lief said. “Chett went with the pirates not knowing that they do not keep supplies of it for rewards, as the
River Queen
captain does. Was it not fortunate that I happened to have some?”

Barda wet his lips. “Jasmine has a second dagger in her boot. Would Chett get it out, in return for another piece for later?” he asked.

The polypan shook its head violently.

“I have already tried that,” Lief answered smoothly. “But Chett was afraid to go so far. I said that Nak and Finn would never find out who had done it —”

“Indeed!” Barda and Jasmine agreed together.

But still the polypan shook its head, casting envious eyes at Lief’s pockets.

“So then I asked for my belt,” said Lief, carefully looking anywhere but at Dain. “It has value for me, Barda, because you gave it to me.”

“Of course.” Barda nodded. “And the other little treasure? The pretty jewel found only a day or two ago? In a small pearl-shell box?”

“Chett seems never to have heard of it,” said Lief. “Finn is keeping it to himself, I think.”

“Treasure?” Suddenly interested, Milne rolled over and glared at them with bloodshot eyes. Dain, too, raised himself on one elbow and stared.

Not sure of the wisdom of what he was doing, Lief ploughed on recklessly. “We had a map, but we arrived at the spot too late. Finn had already been there. Wait! I will show you.”

He whispered to the polypan. Chewing madly and grinning with delight, it dug its hand into another of his pockets and drew out the map Lief had found on the cave floor. It trotted over and put the map in front of Milne. Then it darted back to Lief. He rolled again so that it could claim its second reward.

Milne squinted at the paper. His lips moved as he made out the words, especially the note on the side — the note signed “Doom.” For a brief moment he was silent. Then, with a sneer, he rolled over on his back again and turned his head away.

Before Lief had time to wonder about this, he was pulled roughly to his feet.

“Time to dispose of our garbage!” grinned Finn, shaking him by the collar. The other pirates, flushed with eating and drinking, swarmed over their victims and began dragging them out of the cavern and onto the great expanse of smooth rock that stretched out to sea. Dain, left behind, moaned helplessly, struggling against the ropes that bound him.

“Listen to me!” Lief shouted at the top of his voice. “Finn has cheated you! He has treasure that he has not shared! He found a great gem!”

There was sudden stillness. “Oh?” asked Nak in a hard voice, glancing at Finn. “A great gem? Where did he find it.”

“In the Maze of the Beast!” shouted Lief.

To his amazement, the men and women around him, including Nak and Finn, began shrieking with laughter.

“Aha! Then you and your friends can perhaps find another one!” jeered Nak. “No doubt the Glus will be happy to help you look. We will cut your ropes, so you can enjoy yourselves for longer.”

There was the sound of stone grating on stone as a huge boulder was pushed away from a round black hole in the rock.

“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.