I am posting daily for the launch of The Book of Dragons. This is the fourth of five posts for launch week. Starting next week, The Book of Dragons will update on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Aaron shut the door to his apartment, locking the door behind him as he always did, and leaned his head against the cool door. No matter the situation, whether he was injured or just upset, he always felt better once he was back in his own space. It was like a sanctuary, a bulwark against the outside world where it was easier to pretend his problems were shut away by the walls and doors.
His place had the same four and a half rooms most one bedroom apartments did — bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen with attached dinette. A tiny room connected the living room, bedroom, and bathroom and doubled as a coat closet and storage space. Each room had its own door, creating a kind of airlock between them if the doors were closed.
Having grown up in one bedroom apartments, Aaron appreciated the sense of space and privacy this would have created when he was sleeping on futons and foldouts in the living rooms of his childhood. It also gave him the option to put more closed doors between him and the outside world while he slept, a possibility he liked even if he didn’t make use of it.
Sometimes he thought of his apartment as the stupidest dungeon ever built. He smiled at the idea of little tribes of goblins and kobolds defending each of the doors, protecting the treasures in the chambers beyond, like the toilet or the janky old television in the bedroom. His smile didn’t last long as his thoughts turned back to the stupid softball game and the familiar stranger.
Aaron walked across the living room to the wide credenza under the windows. He dropped his messenger bag on the floor, tossed his keys down, and plugged in his phone. He was still feeling out of sorts and not sure what to do about it. His thoughts drifted to the small, dusty suitcase on the shelf in the bedroom closet. There was comfort to be found there — there always was — but he pushed the idea away.
It was a weird day, he thought, but you don’t need to go there. Be strong.
He rolled his shoulders, expecting to find them sore and tender, and was surprised to find neither. There wasn’t even pain where the bat hat hit him and broke. That was good, but he still needed something to distract himself.
His computer sat catty-corner to the front door, acting as his media and entertainment center in the living room. He sat down and powered it up. A video from his subscription feed would probably be a good way to unwind; he might even laugh a bit. He started a video, draped his company jersey over the back of the desk chair, kicked off his shoes, and flopped down on the couch.
He dozed off within minutes.
Walls made of large, heavy stones rose up. And up. And up. So high their tops were lost to sight in the darkness above. The stones had been laid with the same kind of ashlar masonry seen in many old European castles. They were strong walls, capable of containing or repelling all but the most determined threats. The walls were meant to keep something hidden and safe. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he was sure of it.
The passage was wide — fifteen or even twenty feet — and the floor was a massive slab of gray stone, worn so smooth it nearly shone. There were no seams or joins in the stone as far as Aaron could see.
He continued walking down the hallway. He was lost — which was sort of the point of a maze — and couldn’t remember if he was supposed to be making his way toward the center or finding some exit along the edges. Perhaps the labyrinth was meditative, or maybe there were galleries filled with statues and topiaries to be discovered. Whatever the purpose of the great stone maze was, there was no sign of it here. He stopped to check if he had any chalk, coal, or some other implement he could use to mark his path but found none.
Well shit, he thought.
If the design was fairly simple, he could use the wall-follower strategy to find his way. As long as he stuck to one wall, right or left, and followed it, he should make progress of some sort. Not having anything to mark intersections was a real kick in the pants, though. If the maze were complex, following a wall wouldn’t work and he’d be left guessing at random. Without more information, there was nothing for it but to pick a wall and start moving. But which one?
Aaron placed a hand flat against the left wall, then crossed the hall and did the same on the right. There was no logical reason for this, quite the opposite; he just wanted to see if one wall felt better. Neither wall, being walls, was particularly inspiring. He repeated the process, closing his eyes this time, in hope he might “hear” his intuition more clearly. In this case, the message from his subconscious was loud and clear: you have no fucking clue which wall is the better choice.
With a sigh, Aaron picked the right wall and continued walking. After a number of twists and turns, he found himself at a large, complicated intersection. Seven other paths diverged from the hub, all largely indistinguishable from the others. Each was made of the same kind of stone using the same kind of masonry with the same solid floor and each was about ten feet wide, just like the hallway he’d emerged from. The intersection was a decent enough place to mull things over for a moment.
It feels better stopping here than at some random spot in a hallway, at least, Aaron thought. So… do I stick with the rule of rights, or pick a path at random?
The only real benefit of picking a path at random was that, if he turned out to be right, it would be The Most Amazing Thing Ever and he could pat himself on the back. At the same time, he knew trusting in luck over planning was a fool’s game.
People always said that fortune favored the bold, but Aaron thought fortune probably didn’t give a shit about your pluck or can-do attitude. Fortune was fickle and malicious; it favored long odds and let you keep betting until you busted. Fortune favored those who planned around it, whether cautious or bold. A more accurate saying might be: fortune fucks the foolish.
All of that meant abandoning the rule of rights without more information was a terrible idea, no matter how cool a lucky guess might be. But maybe Aaron could get more information? He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and listened. Intuition had failed him, but maybe he could pick up the feel of a breeze, the scent of vegetation, or even the sound of water.
After several seconds, he did hear something. It was faint; very faint. Aaron’s head tilted slightly, angled up slightly and toward the sound. It was… like a whisper, punctuated by a single, heavy beat.
Ssssssswih-thump.
He didn’t want to find out what was making that sound; it was something that didn’t belong here. Worse, it was getting closer with each dragging thump.
Ssssssswih-thump.
As quietly as he could, Aaron followed the right wall into the closest hallway. At just five feet wide, he worried the passage might be too narrow to maneuver in if he had to run.
Ssssssswih-thump.
He crept along, trying to keep a hand near the wall without touching it so he wouldn’t make any noise. It was hard because he kept checking out his shoulder for any sign of whatever was in the maze with him.
The sound had a deceptively sedate tempo. It seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace, but it must have covered a lot of ground because Aaron was sure it was getting louder.
Ssssssswih-thump.
For several minutes, Aaron crept along the hallway. It made several twists and turns and he was thoroughly lost. He’d been lost to start with, but the intersection had been a landmark he could use to orient himself. Now, he’d completely lost track of it.
Aaron’s luck took a turn for the worse when his hand passed over the opening to a new passage and he didn’t register the open space in time. He jammed his fingers into the opposite wall. The impact didn’t make much sound, but he gasped sharply in surprise. Sound tended to carry in long, narrow stone corridors like these.
He stopped completely, standing still in place. He tried not to breathe. He tried not to even blink in case the thing in the maze could hear the faint rustle of flesh. Even though Aaron was counting seconds in his head, the seconds stretched into an excruciating expanse of timeless fear.
Eventually, the moment seemed to fade — whatever intangible barrier in time separated concealment from discovery passed and it felt like Aaron was in the clear. But as soon as he started to relax, the drag-thump began again, at a much quicker pace.
Ssswih-thump. Ssswih-thump.
Not a good sign.
Aaron turned down the hallway he’d almost missed, still following the rule of rights. The passage was so narrow he had to turn his body slightly so his shoulders weren’t brushing the walls. Speed and silence were his best bet to evade whatever else was moving through the maze and he wasn’t especially practiced at either. Every step felt like a thunderous stomp, each breath a whistling gale.
The more ground he lost to the whisper-clomp, the stronger his sense became that whatever was making that noise didn’t belong in the maze with him. He was supposed to be alone. That had a kind of horror all its own, but it was a familiar one.
He also came to believe the sound was caused by something being dragged along the floor. His imagination birthed grotesque creatures and twisted monsters, perhaps the limping of some beast with iron shod hooves and a dead leg or a half-snake monster with stone hands.
Ssswih-thump. Ssswih-thump. Ssswih-thump.
The scraping, shuffling sound drew closer still and Aaron abandoned stealth altogether. The corridors were so narrow he had to move sideways, which is why he’d tried to balance speed with stealth instead of booking it in hopes he could lose the thing back at the tiny intersection. There wasn’t even enough room to do a proper grapevine step without banging his knees into the walls.
Since he was going for speed, Aaron could use the claustrophobic walls for leverage. Holding his hands flat to either side, he kept himself up and set a decent pace with a kind of skipping side-straddle hop.
There’s some kind of name for this motion; we used to do it in football practice, he thought. What a stupid thing to spring to mind when you’re trying to outrun a mystery monster in a masonry maze.
Though he was moving much quicker with his awkward hops, the sound of pursuit was getting closer. The acoustics might have been impacting Aaron’s ability to judge the distance, but the volume provided a good indicator that the gap between them was closing. He was more sure than ever that whatever was in the maze was pursuing him and that he really didn’t want it to find him.
Sswih-thump. Sswih-thump. Sswih-thump. Sswih-thump.
Aaron pulled himself through the hallway, his body scraping against the smooth stone walls. The passage was so tight he could barely move. If he weren’t covered in a layer of sweat, he’d likely keep getting stuck.
Fear blossomed into panic. A boiling heat rested just below his sternum, churning and seething. He wasn’t making enough headway; each second his pursuer was louder, closer. There was a serious threat he would be sick to his stomach, slowing him further.
SWIH-THUMP! SWIH-THUMP! SWIH-THUMP! SWIH-THUMP! SWIH-THUMP!
The minutes crawled by with the slow agony of a racing heart. Aaron scraped his way through several more turns. Finally, he hit a deadend. He wanted to kick the wall in frustration — not that he had room for it — but that would reveal his position for sure. He had no choice but to double back. The shuffling sound was too close, now. So close he could almost feel it ringing in the stone around him.
He’d gone no more than a couple dozen feet back towards the last intersection when a shadow fell across the mouth of the passage. The shuffling stopped with a final thump.
The silhouette ahead was humanoid in shape. Somehow, Aaron understood that if the thing around the corner caught even the slightest glimpse of him he was as good as dead. The bile in his stomach was pressing against the back of his throat, threatening to erupt.
It might be a lost cause, he thought, but if worse comes to worst, I won’t go without a fight.
Aaron reversed course again. Maybe the thing would pass by the turn-off to the deadend. That seemed unlikely, so Aaron wanted to get around a corner. He could use it to try to get the drop on the pursuer, at least.
As he backpedaled, he slipped on the smooth stone floor trying to edge around a corner. He lost his footing and fell to the hard ground with a thump.
It was all over; the chase ended without so much as a fight. Aaron swallowed the awful heat in his throat, unwilling to add another kind of terror to his fate. All that was left was to die.
