Curiosity Killed the Cat–Part 7

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Standing before another puzzle with the standard three answers, Jhi Bo decided she was becoming heartily sick of doors. Gerda muttered behind her, and Jhi Bo added that to the list of things making her want to pull her braids out—the incoherent mutterings of her companion. Though she doubted being able to understand would have been better. The girl was probably not thrilled with the competence on display by the heroes she must have thought would save the day with a quick bit of magic and perhaps a small swordfight.

At least after their trek outside the maze, they had a lantern for their second attempt, though the girl still tended to let it droop by her side so that at every door Jhi Bo opened, the interior had a woman-holding-a-sword shaped shadow. And they had food, so when they caught up—Jhi Bo shook her head.

When they caught up to that fool Srivasi, she would let Gerda feed her brother, but she would not offer food to that blasted mage. Why hadn’t he just waited for her? Because of the questions, she was sure. Srivasi needed to know and surely no maze could tempt him like one so clearly made by one like him—someone with that quest for any and all knowledge, no matter how useless or obscure.

Jhi Bo opened a door, her sword at the ready since she couldn’t read the question, let alone guess the correct answer. She sniffed, and only scented more rock, also wet rock, and dirt and unmoving air. Nothing slithered or scuttled or stomped towards her, though she did hear the ploink of a drop of water into more water. The dim light that made it around her body hinted at a wall across from her. That would at least be different from any other set of doors.

Very well. Her eyes still warily on the darkness before her, Jhi Bo marked the door frame on both sides with the chalk she’d gathered from her horse, then stepped through. Now Gerda lifted the lantern high, peering around Jhi Bo to make her own inspection before she followed.

Before Jhi Bo was the glimpsed wall. The corridor ran perhaps twenty feet to either side of the door, and at each end was a set of doors. The plink of water sounded again. A rock with a depression in the middle was catching drops seeping from a stone in the wall. Jhi Bo frowned at it as another drop formed. Unless she was completely turned around, the river was—

“Dasid!” the girl yelped, and dove at the rock. She snatched something from the floor beside it and held out her hand to Jhi Bo. On her palm lay a carved bit of horn—maybe a button. It was a common object, but the girl should know if it belonged to her brother.

Jhi Bo looked for sign of Srivasi, then shook her head. Had she not just wondered why water seeped from the wall? The mage excelled at such useful magics, not the flashy ones he thought superior.

She wondered if he had found a way to make food as well. She wondered if he would even think of it, with his books right there in his bag that he had carried everywhere since the time Cabbage had run off with all his things.

Trust Srivasi to carry books and not food. Foolish mage. If he was hungry, Jhi Bo had no sympathy. She looked around for a more useful trace. If, for instance, he’d had the sense to mark the next door…well, that would require more sense than Srivasi had shown in the short time Jhi Bo had known him, and if he had been born with that much sense, she probably wouldn’t have become saddled with the protection of him. Jhi Bo checked anyway, hoping maybe for a dropped bookmark or a smear made by wet boots in dust, but saw nothing.

Shaking her head at her foolish hope, Jhi Bo reached for the door marked with a winged horse and opened it enough that she could sniff. Squeaks of outrage and a musk of anger and fear rose, and she closed the door again. She ignored the girl’s eyeroll, and reached for the door with a many-headed snake. She cracked that door and the smell of musk grew strong again. She had a hunch that the corridor went on just a few feet before joining the one with the squeaks. Jhi Bo closed that door and reached for the one marked with a nude woman with a fur over her shoulder.

This passageway seemed empty. Jhi Bo marked the door frame on both sides and went through, the girl Gerda following with a disapproving sniff.

The corridor curved to the right for some fifty feet before it ended in another set of three doors. This time the girl Gerda actually took a turn, pointing at a door. She still let Jhi Bo go first.

In that next hallway, the doors were not hinged on the closer side, so they would open away from the wanderers, a first in this ridiculous place. But the question was a traditional child’s riddle in Fwenye, easy for Jhi Bo, but few others on this side of the world could have read it. Jhi Bo wondered again who would be so foolish as to waste such widely-based learning to make a place to kill strangers. Then she wondered if foolishness was a hazard of wide-ranging learning, since Srivasi was so stricken with it as well. Perhaps only the truly wise learned much and remained wise?

The corridor made several sharp turns, back and forth, then ended in a single door. Another first in this beyond-ridiculous place. This one also opened away. Jhi Bo pushed it carefully open to the ploink of a drop of water.

“Ishka chadoy!” Gerda exclaimed as Jhi Bo muttered her own curse. She looked at the back of the door they’d just come through, and saw the picture of the nude woman with the fur. They’d gone in a circle.

And the mark she had left on the door frame was gone.

Jhi Bo stalked to the other set of doors and scanned them carefully.

One had a suspiciously smooth spot just below the script she could not read—as if it had been marked, but the mark had been scrubbed off. Jhi Bo jerked the door open.

Stairs. Going down. Jhi Bo leaned to mark the wall next to the door, about three inches from the floor, with a many-pointed star. She waved Gerda through, followed, and shut the door. And then she waited.

The girl shifted and opened her mouth. Jhi Bo covered it, held her finger to her lips. She moved the girl’s hand holding the lantern, so her skirts blocked the light from the door. Then Jhi Bo took her armor gloves from her belt and tugged them on.

In silence and shadows, they waited.

From the other side of the door came a soft scratching, down near the floor. Jhi Bo turned the door’s handle very slowly.

The scratching continued. Jhi Bo yanked the door open and grabbed, one hand low and the other waist-high.

Her lower hand closed on something. It grabbed back. She felt pressure through her glove, quick pinches seeking a weak point the sneak didn’t find. Behind her the girl swore again, and brought the lantern high.

A crab. Jhi Bo held a crab, as large as a plate, that glinted in the light and struggled against her grip wrapped around two of its legs.

On the floor, a smaller one glinted, scurrying away. Gerda darted around Jhi Bo, but the second crab turned sideways and slipped into a crack in the wall.

“This is our maze-maker?” Jhi Bo said.

Gerda pointed to the crab, pointed to the crack the other had vanished through, and made crabs of her hands, bouncing them around. “Yes,” Jhi Bo said, scowling at her hostage. “More will be coming. Soon.”