Chapter 27: Tunnels

A single field ration assuaged my hunger and had me ready to forge on. Rising to my feet, I shrugged on my backpack—it was noticeably heavier now—and studied the darkness ahead.

Up ahead, in the far distance, I could make out a fork in the tunnel. I stifled a yawn. It felt like forever since I had entered this world, and I knew I would have to find somewhere safe to rest soon. But for now, the tunnel beckoned.

Dropping into a crouch, I concealed myself and advanced down the passage’s rocky surface. I reached the fork without incident. Standing at the center of the three-way intersection, I stared down the depths of the unexplored paths to my left and right.

Both tunnels were of the same size, and gave no hint of what they concealed. With a shrug, I entered the right corridor. After only another few minutes of walking, I came to another fork. This time, I didn’t hesitate, and ventured down the right fork without pause.

A few hundred yards later, the corridor branched again. Once more, I chose the tunnel to the right, realizing now that I had entered something of a maze. If I wasn’t careful, I could quickly become lost. Just keep taking the right fork and you will be fine, I told myself.

A hundred yards later, the tunnel ended in a dead-end. Aaargh. Filled only with large boulders, the cul-de-sac was barren of life.

Forced to backtrack, I decided to retreat all the way back to the tunnel network’s first fork, and chose the left passage from there. Unsurprisingly, I soon came to another branch. I went left again.

Three forks—and three left turns—later, I found myself in another dead end. With a sigh, I returned back to the starting tunnel and pondered my options.

It is a maze, I decided. Even in the darkness shrouding the tunnels, I could tell they were all of identical size and shape. I would not find my way through by trying to spot the difference between the tunnels. Assuming there is a way out to find, I thought morosely.

I dismissed that pessimistic thought. It was not as if I had a wealth of options at my fingertips. Either I found a way through the maze, or I turned back and faced the trolls or candidate gangs. And I didn’t want to do either of those things.

So how do I do this? I wondered.

I could choose tunnels at random, but if the maze was a large one, that was certain to get me irretrievably lost. Better to do this by a surer means, even if it is likely to take far longer than I like.

I placed the palm of my right hand on the wall on the right side of the tunnel. As long as I kept my fingers in contact with the wall, no matter how much the tunnels twisted and turned, I would find my way out of their depths.

Eventually.

Entering the maze again, I began walking.

~~~

Two hours later, I was still walking.

I had circled cul-de-sac after dead end, navigated fork after fork, and still there was no end to the maze in sight. My head had begun to droop, and the urge to rest was becoming more persistent.

Soon, I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist my body’s needs. Just a little while longer, I thought. This damnable maze must end soon.

The tunnel I was in hadn’t branched in a while and I was sure it would do so soon. I couldn’t afford to lose concentration now. Shaking off my stupor, I focused on my surroundings.

That was when I spotted the pit.

I stumbled to a halt. A black maw of darkness yawned open less than three feet in front of me. Six yards in length and extending the width of the passage, the pit was unavoidable. Edging nearer, I peered within and predictably found its bottom decorated with sharpened stakes.

The sudden appearance of the trap was not the most surprising thing however. What caused my eyebrows to shoot up and my forehead to crinkle in confusion was the thin wooden pole stretched across the pit. Someone had already crossed this way and left behind the means to do so again.

Unless it’s a trap too.

The pole was a sliver of wood, only a few inches thick. Kneeling down, I inspected the near end of the pole. Deep bolts had been driven into the ground, and pole had been wedged between them, presumably to secure it in place.

Placing a foot on the near end of the plank, I pressed down gently. The wood flexed beneath me as a sapling would, but did not creak. I pressed harder, and still the pole did not gave any indication it would crack. It seemed sturdy enough to bear my weight. Letting my eyes unfocus, I studied the surroundings again. I could spot nothing else that appeared out of place or that screamed of danger.

With no further reason to delay, I stepped fully onto the pole, and took a second to clear my mind for the task ahead. Very deliberately, I did not wonder if I was acrobatic enough to manage the feat. If I began questioning my ability, I knew I would fail.

Slowly, I stretched out my arms. It would help balance my weight. Expelling a careful breath, I raised my right leg and blocked out everything else but the simple motion of swinging it forward, and placing my foot with deliberate care in the precise center of the pole. Then, transferring my weight to that leg, I restarted the process with my left leg.

Step, by step, I made my way across the pit. The farther I ventured from the edge, the more the pole bowed beneath my weight. By the time, I reached the halfway mark, the pole sagged nearly three feet beneath ground level.

But it did not break. Nor did my concentration

My world had narrowed to my feet. Nothing else mattered but placing one foot in front of the other. No matter how much my muscles trembled, no matter the dripping sweat blurring my eyes, I let nothing impinge on my awareness and kept walking.

An eternity later, I touched down on the far end of the pit.

To my surprise, I had managed the crossing without incident. Despite the lack of discernable threats nearby, I had half-expected to be attacked at some point. Thoughtfully, I placed my right palm against the tunnel wall and resumed my journey through the maze.

Thirty minutes later, I came across another oddity. A few yards ahead of me, the tunnel broadened into a chamber. It was the first cavern I had encountered since entering the maze. And that was not the only startling thing.

Arrayed on the flat cavern floor in the shape of a square were sixteen granite flagstones. The flagstones were themselves squares, and carved on the surface of each was a luminous archaic symbol. Some of the symbols glowed golden, some shone red, and others were colored blue.

Standing on chamber’s threshold and not daring to enter, I studied its interior intently. To my suspicious mind, the chamber screamed of one thing only: a trapped room.

Except for the flagstones themselves, the chamber was empty. On the opposite end of the room, I spied another exit, but to get there I would have to cross over the flagstones, which I was leery of doing just yet. My eyes darted from one to the other of the chamber’s smooth stone walls, and found three of them to be bare. The fourth one though, the one to my right, contained strange markings, that on first glance seemed indecipherable text.

Ignoring the scrawled writing for now, I lifted my gaze upwards. My eyes narrowed. Covering the entirety of the roof arching overhead were small dark holes. My eyes flitted between the murder holes in the ceiling and the flagstones beneath. It was not hard to imagine how the trap worked: step on the wrong flagstone, and be skewered or boiled alive from whatever rained down from the roof.

I turned back to the text on the right wall. They seemed to have been haphazardly drawn in chalk by someone who was in a hurry. Though no matter how hard I stared at them, I couldn’t figure out what they meant.

“Gnat,” I whispered finally, “what are those markings?”

The undead bat peered where I pointed and studied the text in silence for a moment. “Goblin writing,” he pronounced at last.

My mouth dropped open. “Goblin? Are you sure?”

“Of course, I am,” Gnat snapped waspishly.

I scratched my head. It was a surprise to find out that goblins could write, much less to discover that they had a writing of their own. But beyond that, what troubled me further, was wondering what they had written here. “Can you read it?” I asked.

Instead of answering, the skeletal bat glided off my shoulder and towards the right wall. Hovering before the writing, he read out aloud, “Red is dead. Gold hurts. Blue is safe.”

I blinked. “Really?” I murmured, my eyes flying back to the flagstones. Assuming the stones bearing blue symbols were safe, there was a clear path across. The real question though was: can I trust what the goblins have written?

My thought drifted back to the two archers. Before this, it had not occurred to me to wonder how the two goblins had come to be where I had found them. There was no evidence that they had crossed the trapped trench, which ruled out them arriving from the dungeon’s third leg.

But what if the pair had originated from beyond the maze?

It would mean that the goblins, too, would have had to traverse the maze—only in the reverse direction from me. It would also explain the pole across the pit. I frowned. Still, why would the goblins leave behind a means for others to overcome the maze’s traps?

But then again, how many of my fellows would have spotted the pole, much less managed the crossing? And could the goblins have predicted that my familiar would have been able to read their writing?

I sighed. There was only one way to be certain. And that was to step onto the flagstones.