Silence
They caught up to Master Wadera as he was herding his charges to one of the postern gates. Math and Tanxi intercepted, warning the old man that the path might be compromised. The antechamber, they said, was safer.
Master Wadera didn’t argue. Perhaps the idea of navigating steep, rain-slicked stairs in the dark while carrying toddlers was reason enough.
He passed Jura and Shavru to Math and Tanxi, while he kept Hamu on his hip, muttering reassurances to the blind boy.
Jaiik and Taris were shepherding Ayiad and Khariik, while Iduan held hands with the twins, Yasib and Mudiya, and Satu and Fahura had death grips on Master Wadera’s cloak.
The children were barely constrained chaos on a good day. Tonight? A storm screamed outside, punctuated with flashes of lightning. Thunder shook the very stones. In the distance, metal clashed against metal … or wood. The children were upset, verging on tears. Math could hardly blame them.
They rushed into the hallway outside the antechamber. The knight posted earlier was gone.
Math, Tanxi, Master Wadera, and even some of the children all circled Sun spells for light. No one spoke, but the awkwardness wasn’t silent: the raindrops hitting the stone outside the window echoed with disturbing volume, breaking up the low whimpers of crying children.
Tanxi’s voice cut through the sound. “Math.” She glanced up at the small window. “Will this room be secure?”
Math followed her gaze. There were only two ways into the room from outside: the doorway they’d just used and that tiny window. It overlooked the river, impossible to access from the outside … for a human.
Not impossible for something made from roots, branches, and vines.
“No.” Math grabbed her arm and yanked her aside, aware that everyone else was staring.
“Hey!” Tanxi made a half-hearted attempt to free herself.
“Did you tell Commander Talu about my plants?”
She flinched. “Math—”
“Tri-Mother. You did.”
“I was trying to help.”
“By handing him the vines to hang me with?”
“I thought it would prove you weren’t part of—”
“He’s accused me of being a traitor, Tanxi.” He hadn’t meant it to sound so raw, but the words tore out of him, bloody and wounded.
She wrenched free. “This isn’t the time—”
“I never thought it would be you,” Math whispered. “Not you.”
He could’ve taken it from Alik. Might have even expected it.
But Tanxi? She’d been the one lecturing him, the one who knew exactly what it would cost Math if the Order decided that his lack of control pushed him out of the category of “knight” or even “monk” and into something best described as “grimmock.” She knew how much he hated waking up after losing control.
After all her scolding, she’d been the one to go to Talu.
Tanxi knew what they might call him if he lost control again. And still, she’d gone to Talu. Did she really think he couldn’t hold the line?
“Sir Tanxi? Math?” Wadera’s voice cut in, calm but wary. “Everything all right?”
Math stepped away from his sister, face hot. “We were just—”
“Talking strategy.” Tanxi’s voice was clipped, professional. She’d pulled herself into an Idallik Knight’s iron-straight posture.
Wadera didn’t look convinced, but was too busy corralling the children to press further.
“Are we going to die?” Satu’s eyes were the size of coins. Two of the children began crying.
Wadera kneeled and wrapped an arm around the boy. “What was that? No, no, no. This is a safe place. Now everyone gather around. I’m going to tell you a story.”
No one cheered, but the children stopped crying.
Math turned back to Tanxi. “This isn’t over.”
“No, but it has to wait.” She tilted her head. “What now?”
As if Math hadn’t been improvising the whole time.
Math’s eyes caught on the yawning black doorway leading into the physical maze. He turned his head to study the maze map on the wall.
There were only two ways into the antechamber, but there was a third way out.
Except, even if Math had figured out how to open the maze, would that be safer? If he was right about the grim lord Kaiataris, who knew what monsters she might have left waiting in the center of her maze?
But he already knew what monsters advanced on their position. He thought about people trapped inside trees, torn apart, turned into living bombs.
If they stayed in the antechamber, they’d die. Slowly. Horribly.
The maze? At least they stood a chance in the maze.
Math pointed to the wrought-iron gate locking the entrance to the maze. “Tanxi, cut that open, please? We’re hiding inside the maze.”
“We’re going into the maze?” Jaiik half asked, half shouted with wide eyes.
A dozen kids stared like Math had just announced dessert for breakfast. He really should have remembered that nothing motivated a child like the opportunity to do something forbidden.
“Yes,” Math said. “We are.”
Wadera gave him a thundercloud glare. “Mathaiik Kaven, that maze isn’t safe—”
“I can find the safe path.” Math gestured to the surrounding room. “We can’t stay here. It’s not secure.”
Tanxi didn’t hesitate: she summoned her sword and carved through the gate as if it was made of ice. The bars melted and fell.
Master Wadera grabbed Iduan before she could dart inside. “No,” he told the girl sternly.
“But he said—”
“I need to solve the maze first,” Math told her. “If you go now, you’ll get lost and starve to death in hideous agony. Why don’t you help Master Wadera keep an eye on everyone? You know how Jaiik gets.”
Iduan crossed her arms and glared at him like a tiny little displeased queen. “I see what you’re doing.”
Math grinned. “I’m counting on you.”
“Fine!” She rolled her eyes even as Master Wadera let her go. She stomped back over to the others, flicked Jaiik and Taris on the head, and declared, “I’m Captain of Safety and you’re my lieutenants and we’re going to make sure no one goes into the maze before Math is ready.”
Jaiik gave her an unimpressed stare. “You’re eight.”
“And still Captain of Safety!” she screamed.
Ayiad pulled on her sleeve. “I’ll be your lieutenant,” the slightly younger girl suggested.
“Nope,” Jaiik said. “That’s already taken. I’m Lieutenant of Safety.”
More haggling, arguing, and accusations broke out immediately.
“Hurry,” Master Wadera mouthed.
“I’m working on it,” Math said. “Watch my back.”
Tanxi started to say something, but glanced at the children and closed her mouth. She tried again, saying: “I’ll wake you if … you know.”
If they were about to die.
He nodded as he sat, crossed his legs. The children’s bickering faded into a background hum.
He would’ve liked more time, would’ve liked to be more certain about his theories, but he had no choice. He didn’t know how long it would take for the trees to find them, if the captains retained enough of their faculties to remember the maze antechamber under the library sections.
There was no time.
The map loomed in front of him. He focused and circled the scrying spell that Commander Talu seemed to think was beyond his abilities.
First intersection: a chaotic, hectic battle scene contrasted with a flowering meadow.
He chose the meadow. Next was a silent graveyard versus a group of children, playing under a tree.
He picked the graveyard. A rushing river, loud and vibrant as it flowed over rocks. A lake frozen over in winter. The lake.
Each vision offered a choice that looked like a test of character—grief or joy, life or death, justice or mercy. But none of it mattered. The only truth was volume. Pick the quiet path, and the maze let you move forward. Pick the clamor, and you were kicked back to the maze’s beginning.
In silence, wisdom.
At last: a peaceful beach with crashing surf and screaming gulls, or blackness. Not an empty void, but a space filled with stars and spheres, jewel-like and beautiful, dancing around him in absolute silence.
Math chose silence.
The map immediately ejected him.
Math opened his eyes to see light, the antechamber, his sister’s anxious brown eyes.
“It kicked me out. I don’t…”
“No. Look.” She pointed to the map carved into the wall. “You solved it.”
The map now hardly qualified as depicting a maze. The correct path ran from the start directly to the map’s center. To solve the maze would require no turns at all.
Just walk a straight line.
Math rushed to the entrance to the physical maze, that yawning black doorway. He tossed out a light spell. The spell pierced all the way through, the way it never had before, illuminating a straight corridor that ran straight to the center.
“It’s open,” Math breathed. “Let’s go.”
“But what about—” Wadera began.
“It’s not trapped,” Math reassured him. It never had been before. The only trap had been the maze itself. “Anyway, we don’t have time. We need to get inside, right now.”
“Mathaiik!” Tanxi made his name a whole lecture.
“We can argue about it in the center,” Math snapped. “Go!” He shooed everyone forward.
The children needed herding, but the maze held no more illusions. They followed the corridor to another door—one that hadn’t existed before.
Everyone hesitated.
Math walked forward, light spell in hand.
He felt something as he did, a strange bubbling energy that pulsed through him, pushed at his mind. He couldn’t identify it, except that it felt like a last barrier—one last defense to keep out interlopers.
He pushed back, harder. The barrier broke, melted into something warm, even pleasant.
Math paused, but felt no other strange sensations.
Then he saw the room.
It looked like what the Idallik Order had always thought lay in the center of the maze: a library. Wall-to-wall shelves of metal-bound books, the last unopened archive in the entire world.
A treasure trove of unimaginable proportions left behind by the Illuminated for those who valued knowledge—or power.
In one way, though—in one particular, specific way—it was nothing like the Order’s legends, and everything like what Math had feared.
In the room’s center, on a marble slab, lay a girl.