Black Night

“Do you agree or not?” I said impatiently. “You seem to think I’m going to lose anyway so why not consent? If Antares comes back first, you get to be as mad at Lucifer as you want to be.”

He looked thoughtful. “But what if you come back first, as unlikely a possibility as that may be?”

“Then you go back to your court, apologize to Lucifer and hope like hell he doesn’t smite you off the face of the earth.”

“That is not a very appealing option,” Focalor said.

“Just stop dithering and be a man about it,” I said, impatient to get into the Maze. I wanted to get this over with. “Yes or no?”

Focalor took a moment longer, seeming to weigh all the options. I could see him calculating the long odds that I would actually survive the Maze.

“Very well,” he said.

“You have witnessed it, Queen Amarantha,” I said formally. “If I defeat his representative in the Maze, then Focalor will drop his grievance against Lucifer and return to the fold.”

Like Amarantha, Focalor would agree to anything because he didn’t think I actually had a chance. Then again, Beezle didn’t think I had a chance either. He was usually my biggest cheerleader, so maybe they were right and I was wrong.

Amarantha nodded. “And you agree to all terms as well?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then let us proceed,” she said, and signaled to Violet. “You may follow Lady Violet to the entrance, Ambassador. Antares ap Azazel, you may follow Narke.”

One of the forest warriors stepped forward to take Antares out a side entrance. Violet indicated that I should follow her out of the main doors.

I looked at Beezle and J.B., but they both looked away from me. All right, that hurt a lot. The least they could do was say good-bye if they thought I was going to die.

I turned my back on the throne, and followed Violet to my doom.

Violet led me through the courtyard and out into the forest without a word. She found a path among the thick and low-hanging branches that I couldn’t have seen with a microscope. She didn’t try to make conversation and I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate to act polite.

After about twenty minutes of hard walking, we suddenly emerged into a clearing, and in front of us was the Maze.

A massive wall of stone rose in front of us, blocking out the weak early-winter sun. I realized I’d forgotten a coat and that it was maybe forty degrees outside.

The wall was covered in strange grayish green vines with enormous leaves. As I looked, the vines shifted like snakes across the surface of the wall. J.B. was right. The Maze was a living thing, and a faint pulse of energy came off it as we stood there: the questing tentacle of a blind animal.

The pulse moved through me from the tips of my sneakers to the crown of my head, and I shivered uncomfortably. I felt exposed, like my chest had been peeled back to show my beating heart.

A moment later an opening appeared in the wall of the Maze. The interior was dark and shifting, and I could see nothing beyond the doorway.

I stepped forward. “Okay, I guess this is my stop.”

Violet didn’t answer. I looked around and saw that she had already disappeared back into the forest.

J.B. could do a lot better than her. Seriously.

“And I’m going to tell him so when I get back,” I said.

Then I took a deep breath, thought of Gabriel, and stepped into the Maze.

The door closed behind me, leaving me stranded in pitch-darkness. Even the top of the Maze was covered.

I summoned a small blue ball of nightfire to light my way with my left hand, and pulled the sword from its scabbard with my right. The snake beneath my palm nudged my skin, like the comfortable press of a dog’s nose. It felt almost as if I had a friend with me.

I held the nightfire out ahead of me and checked both directions. There was no obvious difference between the two, so I decided to use my medieval maze trick again and choose right whenever possible.

I started to move forward with the ball of light ahead of me. My breath came in harsh pants and it sounded unnaturally loud in this enclosed space. My light cast a pitiful circle. The dark seemed to press all around me, brushing over my shoulders, swiping fingertips over my neck.

“Don’t be afraid,” I told myself, and my voice echoed down the hall, wavery and very, very frightened.

I could have faced anything if only there had been a little more light. The total darkness was getting to me and I’d only been in the Maze a few moments. How long was this thing? How far would I have to go? It couldn’t be short or else there would be no challenge. The sword in my hand gave me a friendly little nudge again, and I deliberately tried to calm my breathing. There was no point in freaking out when I hadn’t even faced anything yet.

I tried not to think about Antares and how far he might have gotten already. Did demons even have nightmares? What could he possibly be afraid of that would impede his journey to the center of the Maze?

The tunnel ended in a T-junction and I turned right. I didn’t have a better plan. I wished Beezle was there to tell me I was acting like a dummy. I tried not to think about how much it hurt that he hadn’t even said good-bye to me. It had always been me and Beezle. I’d had Beezle with me longer than I’d had my mother.

After walking for several minutes I started to feel like the Maze was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I hadn’t had to deal with anything worse than the pressing darkness, and as long as I didn’t think about it too hard I was able to handle it. The companionable feeling of the sword helped.