Chapter 6

Adam stared at the matchsticks And out of them a door rose. it opened and Adam went inside. He bolted the door behind him. He would not have anyone interrupting him.

Then it was the corridors... not the same corridor as the last time... Of course, it had been a different hexagram... he wondered what that hexagram meant. He hoped that it was not an unfavorable one...

If it was...

Maybe he should have listened to Angelique and Quentin... but it was too late for that. He just had to plunge ahead.

She hoped that she could talk sense into him, before they had to go on to more drastic measures...

Adam laid slumped over the table., not moving...

Hadn't Quentin tied him up?

Angelique went to poke him.

He was back in the maze. Corridors and doors. Just as they had been before A sense of being caught in a single, eternal, circular corridor, with no escape...

And yet these were not the same corridors that he had gone thorough the last time.

He hoped that they led to the same point. And that when he got there, he would still be invisible to the wizard.

Some of the doors at the sides were slightly open. And while many seemed to lead to another corridors, there were others... Bright colors emanated from one of them, bright colors with a metallic cast. And then another door gave an impression of foliage. He felt almost tempted to go in and find what was at the other side. He did not.

He had a destination, and could not take side trips.

And then he found the last door and went through it.

"No! " Angelique screamed as she saw the hexagram made of matchsticks. 'He's done it, this time."

The hexagram was Courting Disaster. It had other meanings, something to do with the price of rashness..

She saw it clearly. Adam being caught by the wizard. The wizard learning where Adam came from. The wizard attacking Collinsport to protect his secrets.

She put her hands on the matchsticks, dispersing them. Destroying the hexagram might help.

Adam slumped.

She had to do it, she said to herself. It was his life or theirs. All of them, Everyone in town. Adam could not be saved, not since he had stepped into the maze...

And then Adam vanished...

Just as Barnabas had in 1897...But then it had been the Leviathans who had captured the body... Adam's body was probably lost in the maze, reunited with his ethereal body...

He might die here of hunger and thirst. Or step out into an unwelcoming endpoint and be killed...

Or his physical body and his astral bodies were kept apart, both lost in the maze...

In any case she had doomed him.

No, he had doomed himself. That he wanted to help Joe and Maggie was no excuse.

He was again invisible. He was at the side of the wizard's dwelling (he would not call it a castle, for it was too rough and primitive for that, but it was to impressive to call it a hut).

He saw a young man nearby. He seemed familiar... Of course, it was the king's son, now grown older.

The king's son looked around, making sure that the was not observed. What he was going to try, he did not want the wizard to know (he did not want to think of the wizard as his master, though all who knew him called him that... even if the wizard exercised full master's rights over him). There was a chance that the a few careless words that the wizard had let slip last night was the answer.

He caught a goat and dragged it to the beach, where the statues, both of the king and the slave, stood guard. He could not avoid seeing them every day. He suspected that the wizard wanted it that way, to impress even more his helplessness on him... that his only hope from mildness from the wicked old man was in his obedience, diligence, and skill in the Art.

But now it would be different.

He killed the goat, tearing out its heart, then sprinkled the blood on the statue of the king.

"Live!" he told the statue. "Come back to me, father and avenge me both of us! Live!"

The blood fell on the statue, the droplets boiling on the surface.

But the statue remained a statue.

"So, you had to try it!" the wizard said behind him. "Just as I thought!"

The young man turned around. "You murdered him!"

"Yes. For a price. And he killed his slave who now sits by his side. I notice that you did not try to bring him back."

"He's only a slave."

"And so are you. Or have I not taught that enough to you? You may need a fresh lesson.

"Kill me now and end it! I will not submit to you again! I am a king's son!"

The wizard's fist send him sprawling.

"Don't you dare tell me what to do with you! I and only I will decide whether or not to drown you in a sack. You are my slave, king's son." he glowered at him. "Only a slave can become a wizard. Only when you have tasted the dregs of powerlessness will you have the hunger that will allow to conquer what I have conquered. Depend on no one, even on me! Trust no one. Regard no one except those whose power is greater than yours. Pity no one, for pity will be your undoing. Power shall be your only god, and He will reward you richly." he took a thong and used it to bind the young man's wrists behind him, then forced him to stand. "Look at it." he said lifting him by the hair and making look at the statue. "He is weak, helpless. Why should you care for him any more than you care for the one next to him? He lost. He is nothing now. What can he give you? He can't be of help. Even if you restored him, and you might if you used the right blood, he could not help you against me. He would fall again to a more painful death. And you would watch while it was being done. He is nothing but a weakness of yours, and I do not enjoy weakness. I shall punish you for it now."