Chapter Twenty-nine

A Mirrored Maze


We descended another set of stairs that curved to the left. These stairs were worn in the middle, they all had been. The ends were rounded, probably from the nagas using them.

We came to another room, this one with curved walls. A brazier stood in the middle of it, and three frames hung on the far wall. The wooden frames encased what looked like sheets of metal.

There was a rune carved above each frame. It looked to me like they might be different alphabets, but I couldn't read any of them. Melima walked to the frame on the left. "It's the letter 'A,' in Sylvan."

Ari'yasa indicated the one in the middle. "This one is 'B,' in Primordial."

Naidaroe pointed at the one to the right. "That one isn't 'C,' it's 'Z,' in Abyssal."

Sindus was examining the brazier. "There's letters in here!"

I had been hanging in the back of the room, taking it all in. My head was still really hurting. I went to look at the brazier, but didn't recognize the language. No one else did either.

Naidaroe cast a spell, with a rather sing-song ring to it. She touched the brazier and looked into it again. "It says, 'Those who are wise, and those who are careful know that they must follow in order.' So, 'A'?"

"I think it's the order we came through the pillars," Melima said. We tried to remember how we came through, confident that we were remembering correctly.

Sindus suggested that we light the brazier. We poured some lamp oil into it, and Sindus created the sparks we needed to light it. There were now reflections of light on the walls from where we came, and when I turned, the frames now contained mirrors.

Ari'yasa touched the mirror on the left. She disappeared, but her reflection didn't. Sindus immediately ran to the middle mirror and touched that one, with the same effect. They each let go of the mirrors, and their reflections faded away. Naidaroe went to the one on the right.

"Can you hear me?" Keothi shouted. There was no response. He ran to the middle mirror and motioned for them to come back.

I looked at Melima. "Do you think we couldn't get through because we're the only sane ones?"

"Probably," Melima said. Naidaroe appeared back where she had touched the mirror. Keothi went to the left mirror to try to motion Ari'yasa back.

Naidaroe explained what she had seen on the other side. "I was in a room with six walls, each of them had a mirror on them. Each mirror had a letter above them, some I could read, some I could not."

We decided to try to go through the mirrors in alphabetical order. Everyone remaining went through the left mirror, with the Sylvan A. I slowly went up and touched it as well. I was no longer looking at my reflection, but back into the room with the brazier. There was an "X" above this mirror. I turned around and saw Ari'yasa, she was by herself.

The room we were in was triangular. The others had gone through the right mirror, but the one to the left said "B" in Elvish. I couldn't read what was above the right door. "Wait, if this one says 'B,' why did they go through the other one?" I asked Ari'yasa.

"I have no idea," she said, bewildered. She wanted to follow the others, but I wanted to follow the alphabet in order. I touched the mirror with the Elvish B.

I found myself in a room with four sides. When I turned into the room the mirror to my right showed the brazier, and also had an X above it. Besides the carved letters above the doors, there were letters marked with white to the side. It looked like soap. Naidaroe must have marked each wall since she could read the letters with her magic.

Sindus appeared through another mirror. "How many letters have you gone through?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he counted, "six!"

"So, you're on F?" He didn't know what letters he had gone through, but he had also been in rooms with five sides and six sides. He had to have been going in a totally random pattern.

Melima appeared back in the room with the brazier. She went back to the mirror with A. Sindus touched the mirror with X, and was back in the room with the brazier, looking back at us. He checked the brazier and poured some more oil into it.

I touched the mirror with C marked next to it, and found myself in a room with five sides. The mirror immediately to my left had an Elvish A, and one had C marked next to it. I couldn't read any of the other letters. The mirror I came through did not have a letter above it, and none of the mirrors had the brazier on the other side. There was a mirror in between the A and C mirrors, so I figured that the one to the right of C must be D, and touched that one.

The brazier was now in front of me, I was back in the square, four-sided room. Keothi and Naidaroe came back down the stairs and motioned for Sindus to follow them through A. He instead came towards me, in the B mirror. I moved out of the way, and after he came in I touched the mirror and was back in the room with the brazier.

Keothi and Naidaroe were still in the room. We discussed what had happened, and where we had gone. Evidently, the mirror I had touched in the five-sided room was Z, not D. The other mirror in the triangular room was also B, but in Dwarvish. We decided to try going through as much of an order as we could using the Dwarvish letters.

I followed the other two, and Melima appeared and followed us. Sindus was in the square room as we got there, but again refused to follow us. Melima moved to follow him, but we convinced her that staying with us was a better idea. He could fend for himself, he already was.

When we got to the five-sided room, we all touched the same mirror, but I was alone when I arrived in the next room, a six-sided room. I marked the Elvish B I saw in this room with a piece of charcoal from a torch. Melima appeared in this room, and we both touched the mirror at the same time, hoping to end up in the same place.

Everyone was now back in the room with the brazier. We agreed to touch the mirrors at the same time, starting with Z this time and marking the letters on every wall. We decided to always touch the mirror directly in front of us.

We all touched Z at the same time, and Sindus immediately touched it again. So much for staying together as a group. We were in the six-sided room, and Naidaroe marked all of the mirrors. We had seen all of the letters before, except for an E. "E for exit!" someone shouted.

We all touched the mirror with the brazier, and appeared in the brazier room, but facing the A mirror. Sindus had just come down from the stairs, and we deliberated on our plan of action. We agreed the letters probably didn't have much to do with the order, but the number of walls probably did. We wanted to go from the room with the least amount of walls to most. We figured that the direction we faced also had something to do with it.

We also decided that we should go in the order that we got through the first barrier at the top of the stairs, so Ari'yasa went first, with the soap to mark which order she went through.

After a couple of minutes we decided that we should send the next person, since we wouldn't know if the first person got through. We sent Sindus through next.

Naidaroe went next, then Melima. Just after Melima had touched the mirror we heard footsteps from up the stairs. "Guys, I'm upstairs!" Sindus shouted.

We waited for him before Keothi touched the mirror. "Did Ari'yasa come back?" Sindus asked.

"Ari'yasa has not returned," Keothi said. Sindus told us how he went through, and I started to diagram in the dirt on the floor. It seemed as though he had missed the five-sided room. Naidaroe came down the stairs a moment later.

We figured that Ari'yasa must have made it through. It was decided to go through one person at a time, and as people didn't return we'd send the next person.

Sindus tried again, and didn't make it through a couple times, but let us know the path he took each time and what he planned on doing. Finally, he didn't return, and Naidaroe started on her way through.

She also didn't make it through a couple of times, and we collaborated on what way she should go. It definitely seemed to matter which way we turned to touch the next mirror, and which mirror we started in the room at. Even potentially the order of rooms before starting over again.

Naidaroe tried again, and didn't return. Melima began, and returned multiple times. I diagramed each time she returned. It was puzzling, but I thought that I was starting to see some semblance of a pattern. My headache from attempting to get through the barrier was making it hard to think clearly though. I was pretty positive I knew the mirrors we needed to go through, but I couldn't figure out which way we needed to turn to go through the whole way.

The brazier was starting to fade, and I stoked it with some of the sticks I had collected to make arrows with. I could easily find more whenever I was in the forest. Melima finally got too frustrated to continue, she had several more failed attempts than any of our other friends.

Keothi went through, and didn't return. It was just the two of us elves left. I was really starting to wonder if this temple had something against elves. "Since Keothi made it through, obviously the order we go in doesn't really matter, so we can try going through together," I told Melima.

Melima nodded and grabbed my arm. The life seemed to have gone out of her. Before going through, I glanced at the fire. It had five, maybe ten minutes before it went out. I did not want it to go out with us still in the maze, if those mirrors turned to steel while we were in there, who knew how long we'd be trapped? Thinking about it, I did recall seeing bones in at least one of the rooms.

I put another three sticks on the fire. That should be enough to get us through. We went together and touched the A mirror. I then took us to the Dwarvish B mirror, which took us to the square room. We were facing a mirror that said B, and I turned to the right and we touched C.

We appeared at the top of the stairs. I was excited because I had a feeling that meant we were close. This was the first time I had ended up on the stairs. I took us downstairs and we touched A again, then the Dwarvish B. This time the C mirror was in front of us in the square room. Touching it took us back to the room with the brazier.

Again. A, Dwarvish B, this time we turned left to C. We were in the five-sided room. We touched D. The six-sided room. We touched E.

This time we saw the brazier through the mirror, then it faded and the mirror turned to steel. My heart skipped a beat, until I remembered the brazier still looked nicely lit when it faded, we had finally made it through.