Okay, here we go with chapter seven, and the boys are on their way to Amy, or are they?
Also i had some teouble with not sending email, because apparently theres a new(ish?) opt in thing, somim hoping everyine is getting notifications. Just incase you think i missed last weeks posting, maybe pop back amchalter and check just in case. xx
Dean glared as he stepped past silently and crossed the threshold. A slamming door had them turning back to see the cabin had disappeared and only their packs sitting on the grass. They picked them up and put them on their backs then turned to stare at the monstrous pale rock wall that stood before them. It seemed to extend unendingly in either direction with just a small opening in front of them. Sam set a timer on his watch then looked at Dean.
"Well, here we go." He said with a sigh.
They stepped through the opening and on instinct headed right.
"How did you know?" Sam asked after they'd been walking in silence for a while.
"How'd I know what?"
"That he wouldn't know your riddle."
"Because the only ones it stumbled on where the ones about family, and happiness and the one about the heart. He's lonely and miserable, wouldn't know the first thing about love or anything like that." Dean shrugged. "Figured it'd be worth a shot."
"And you hit the bullseye."
"Fat lot of good it did. We still don't have Amy back." Dean grumbled.
"We'll find her Dean. Don't worry." Sam clapped Dean on the shoulder then stopped to consider the junction they'd arrived at. "Left or right?"
Dean huffed out a breath as he looked down each pathway.
"Dunno, left." He said.
"Go with your gut dean. It worked for us back at the cabin." Sam suggested.
"Fine. Left." He pointed in that direction then took off walking.
Sam jogged to catchup and they continued twisting and turning further into the labyrinth. Eventually they came to a large square courtyard area with four sand stone benches in the center, and three pathways leading off each wall on the four sides. Dean sat on one of the benches and pulled out two bottles of water, tossing one to Sam.
"So Magellan, where to from here?" Dean asked as he unscrewed the cap from his bottle.
"Don't know." Sam said turning a full circle. "There's like twelve paths, eleven if you discount the one we just came from."
"And which one was that?" Dean asked.
"It was that one." Sam said turning to point at an opening. "Or was it that one?"
He frowned and turned a half circle again.
"They all look the same!"
"That's right they do, so how're we gonna keep track of where we've been and where we haven't?"
"Easy, I've got some chalk in here, we'll mark them as we go." Sam said sitting next to Dean and rummaging through his pack.
They took a few minutes then repacked their gear and moved to the first doorway. Sam made a single vertical mark about six inches long on the right hand side then they walked through. They continued to make left and right turns systematically and Sam marked each one as they went along. If they had to double back due to a dead end, Sam would cross the mark with a horizontal line showing the path to be useless. After about an hour it seemed as though they were making some progress when they saw the end of their current path opened up.
"What the hell?" Dean exclaimed as he stepped through the doorway.
Sam followed and almost crashed into his brother who was standing frozen just inside the courtyard.
"Hey this is where we started!" Sam said. "How did we get back here?"
They looked around the courtyard they had started from.
"By my calculations we should have been moving away from here." Sam said looking up at the sky, as if that was going to tell him anything.
"Well! I guess Der Einsame," Dean said with as much derision as possible, "has a sense of humor, or at least is one hell of a son of a bitch."
"Magical creature, magical maze, I suppose." Sam turned back with a huff and put a cross on the doorway they just exited. "So let's try that one."
He pointed to a wall to their right and took the middle opening, leaving his mark as they walked through. An hour and a half later they stepped back out of the same opening.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean cursed.
"It's okay Dean we'll figure it out." Sam scratched another mark on the door way then moved to the one on the left.
This one took them up several flights of stone steps ascending higher as they went along.
"I think we might be on the right track this time." Dean said hope climbing until he founded a corner just to end up right back where they started.
Dean let off a long stream of curse words, kicking at the air, until Sam managed to calm him.
"This is bullshit Sam! That bastard is messing with us!" Dean yelled.
"We can figure this out. We beat him back at the cabin and we'll beat him here." He grabbed Deans cuff and dragged him to another opening. "We haven't tried any along here. This will be the one."
Only it wasn't. Over and over they kept returning to the same starting point.
"Well, now what do we do." Dean asked collapsing on a bench.
"Give me a minute to figure this out." Sam said looking around. "There's got to be a combination or something. Just…just let me have a look."
Dean took his water bottle from his pack and watched Sam as he looked around at the openings.
"So we went through that one and came out there." He mumbled to himself pointing from one opening to another. "Then we went through there and came out…" Sam squinted at the markings looking from one to another and back again. "What the hell?"
"What? What's wrong." Dean asked.
"Someone's been messing with my marks." Sam said.
"How do you know?"
"Because I was doing them as plus signs and making extra marks if we came out or entered additional times and now they're all just…different."
Dean walked over to his brother to examine the marks himself. Sam showed him what he meant.
"So we could have just been running around and around in circles because someone's playing with us?" Dean asked.
"Seems like it." Sam nodded.
"How much time have we got left?"
Sam checked his watch.
"About five and a half hours."
"Fuck! We are never going to solve this maze!" Dean ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
"Labyrinth…no!" Sam threw his hand out and grabbed onto Dean jacket, turning to look at him. "Labyrinth Dean. It's not a maze, it's a labyrinth!"
"So?"
"A maze you have to get from one side to the other, but a labyrinth you only have to get to the middle!" Sam explained.
"And that helps us how?"
"There's a process to solving Labyrinths, we just keep going left." Sam shrugged then looked at the sky again. "Okay the sun was over there when we entered so we should go…that way." Sam pointed to a seemingly random opening then headed through it.