Chapter 11
"So what do we do?" Adam asked Angelique, as he had finished telling his woeful tale.
"We can keep on going. The wizard is very likely tracking you down. Maybe we can escape him, but if he finds us, it should be away from Collinsport."
"Some of the other doors..." Adam suggested.
It would be risky, Angelique knew. They could go into the wrong door and never emerge again. Yet, apart from sitting there, waiting, or just going back to Collinsport, what else could they do?
And there was always the risk of getting lost..
"Not this door." she said. "it leads to dinosaurs. We could end up chewed by a hungry Pterodon, or stomped on by a Brontosaurus."
Adam gulped at that.
"It did not realize it could be so dangerous."
"No, you did not realize. That is your problem. Well, Quentin says that you will grow up eventually, if you only live long enough.
Adam accepted this in as much good grace as possible. He could do little else.
"So what can we do now? We are stuck, is that what you are saying?"
"Not necessarily. There are doors that lead to relatively safe places. I believe that I can recognize them. In the meantime we walk around. No, not in that direction." she stopped Adam who had stated walking already "We don't want to lead anyone to Collinsport."
So they went back, retracing Adam's steps into the maze.
Angelique knew that she was afraid. It was not as easy as she had made it sound to Adam. Maybe all she could accomplish was to get both of them killed.
But if it was so, the wizard would believe that she was the enemy who had sent Adam to him, and be content with her death, so Collinsport would be spared a tragedy.
If she died thus, maybe it would help make up for the damage he had caused to so many... collateral damage of her pursuit of Barnabas...
But she would not die easily. She would fight hard to the end.
It was then that they saw the ants.
First there were only a few of them, and they were small and easy to miss. But they were there, and one of them got close enough to nip Angelique's foot.
What were ants doing in a place like this? They could not survive...
"You said that you found scorpions."
"Yes. They gave me little trouble. But still they seemed determined to fight me."
"When he sent the scorpions, he believed that you were still the size he had reduced you to. The scorpions would have done the job. When he didn't, he got the ants."
"But these ants, they are so small..."
"But enough of them...Adam, you remember that door, the one that led to the dinosaurs?"
"Yes."
"Run for it! "
There were a lot more ants by now. And Adam could see a thick dark mass at the end of the corridor, coming at them. He had to run!
There was just no end of it.
Luckily he could run faster than the ants, and Angelique showed the way.
"Yes." this is the door. " Angelique said. "help me open it."
The door refused to budge and Adam began to sweat. Not that it was that urgent... still... he did not want the ants to come and find them... he thought of the dark mass coming at them, nothing but ants, hundreds, thousands... millions of ants... all of them with sharp mandibles, which could pick his flesh bit by bit till only the bones remained..
And indeed one ant turned the corner and moved its antennae, picking up the scent.
Then the door opened.
Bright light came through it. The sun was shining there, and under the sun laid the greenest, most luxuriant vegetation that Adam had ever seen... And the scent of it reached him..
The ants were closer now, and they moved in their direction... and through the door Adam could see the shapes...
Could they really be dinosaurs?
If one of them came through the door...
The ants came even closer.
"Be prepared to run more." Angelique said "with luck we won't have to."
She wove the scent of the world the door into the trail of scent the ants followed. It was the same scent now, but richer, more tantalizing, promising a real feast...
The ants did not hesitate. They followed the new, richer scent, and entered the dinosaur world.
Angelique let out a sight of relief.
"It will take a time for them to go through, but they will all go."
She had some misgivings about introducing the ants into what was the Earth's past, but not much. It was not a pristine, helpless paradise to which she had sent the ants. It was full of life forms which could fight the newcomers quite well. It was unlikely that great ecological damage would result. There were plenty of insect eaters to take care of the ants if they were too numerous. And if she recalled her biology, there was no breeding female among them.
One thing she knew. She had to go back and confront the wizard. He would not be content with the disappearance of the ants any more than he had been content with the fate of the scorpions.
Eventually all the ants had gone through. Angelique closed the door.
"Whew!" said Adam "that was close."
"Yes, that was close."
"Now we can go home?'
"No. We cannot go back to Collinsport."
"So where to?"
"To the wizard. We will follow the track of the ants backward."
"There? Are you crazy?"
"Sooner or later he is going to worry as to what happened to his ants. He will send something else to track us down. We can sit and wait for what that can be. or we can try taking him by surprise."
"But... that is crazy... it is suicide."
"Yes, it is. But it gives better odds. Come."
"But..."
"You picked then wrong time to learn caution, Adam. We have no choice."
The ants were all gone now. And it would take a while before they found their prey and devoured it. And a bit longer until they returned, their mission accomplished.
The wizard laid back, his eyes closed, wondering who this mysterious enemy was, and what kind of attack he might expect.
Adam shivered. The walls of the corridor suddenly felt cold.
"This is not the same corridor I came through" he said.
"No, it is a shortcut. Take care where you step. It is dangerous here."
"More than the rest of the maze?"
"A lot more. This is where lost things end up."
Adam looked down at the floor. It was indeed covered with objects of all kinds and descriptions. Some he half-recognized, but others...
"Is it the place for lost people, too?"
"Sometimes."
Laughter reached them.
"He found us!" Adam said :"the wizard!"
"No, he cannot find us here. Once here, he's lost us... that's the property of this place. While we are here, no one can trace us."
The laughter continued.
"Then who?"
"As I said, sometimes people or... well, things attached to people get lost here. Pay no attention to it. They will not attack us. They want us to become discouraged, give ourselves as lost and remain with them. So you just keep going straight ahead and pay no attention. We will got out of here, same as we came in."
The laughter continued, increasing as they moved forward. And then they saw who was laughing.
"Petofi!" Angelique said, staring at the head, which stood on top of a pole.
"Petofi?" Adam stared at the severed head, with its glassy eyes which seemed to follow him malevolently "is that him?"
"Yes."
"What happened to him?"
"The gypsies got him fifty miles from Collinsport, as you know."
'Yes, but..."
"They cut off his hand and his head. They took his hand, but his head... he had learned of the I Ch'ing from Barnabas. He had explored it before, and he thought to escape into it. The gypsies caught him before he could finish the trip, but the power of the spell was great enough so that when the head was cut off, it ended up here."
"Where all lost things end up?"
"Yes."
Adam looked at the head. "Is he alive?"
"Somewhat."
Adam stared at it, as if trying to form a thought.
"Come on," Angelique urged. "We can't stay here. We have to go on."
The wizard reclined in his seat, his eyes closed. with his head bent forward like this, his neck made a good target, the disciple thought.
Yet the wizard may not be asleep at all, but laying a trap for him. He delighted in setting such traps, which allowed him to devise cruel punishments for such transgressions...
He wondered if the wizard really expected to be killed by him... Wizards were slain by their disciples all the time, that was how it had been explained to him. It was the way it was. He accepted it, but he thought that his disciple was too dumb...
And him, what did he want? Yes, he wanted the wizard to die, he wanted to be free. But freedom by itself was not enough... Enough free men lived in dire poverty and he did not care for that. He wanted riches. He wanted power...
He wanted to be a wizard.
Would he in time take a disciple and expect to be killed by that disciple in time?
There were no other choices. Remain a slave or become the next wizard..
He did not wish to remain a slave any longer.