Mazes and Monsters (16 page)

He would need all the time he could get to prepare the game he had in mind. While the others were studying for stupid Winter Finals he could be working out the game, because he never needed to study. But it was really going to be complicated to get all that stuff, like a kind of scavenger hunt. The more Jay Jay thought about his plans for his new game the more excited he got. He knew that tonight he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all. It was pointless to hang around New York anymore now that the important holidays were over. He could split tomorrow, go back to school early. His mother wouldn’t care.

That would give him ten days, all by himself, to get started.

PART THREE:

RAISING THE DEAD

CHAPTER 1

Back in the dismal winter landscape of the deserted university, Jay Jay made it vibrant with the colorful creatures of his imagination. The school authorities had turned down the heat to save energy, but Merlin’s heater kept their room nice and warm. Once, he ran into the security guard, who asked for identification—not because Jay Jay looked like a local vandal, but because he seemed too young to be there at all—and for some reason, after he had ascertained that Jay Jay was in the dorm legally, the security guard seemed sorry for him. Jay Jay couldn’t understand why, since he was having the time of his life.

He went methodically down his list of necessary props, checking off each one as he found or bought it. He hadn’t yet decided what the treasure should be, but there was plenty of time for that. Smaller treasures, to keep the adventurers going, were easier. But he had the feeling that the monsters in the caverns would be the real treasure.

By the time the rest of the students had come back to the dorm, Jay Jay had everything he needed, neatly hidden away in one of the rooms of his caverns. He had now begun to think of them as
his
caverns, not
the
caverns, just as this production now was his game. Good-bye to Freelik the Frenetic of Glossamir, who had only been a player. Now he was the Maze Controller: the director, the scriptwriter, the set decorater, even the producer. He had begun to map his maze from the labyrinth of his caverns, and he kept the map hidden in his room where no one could find it. This was the most creative project he had ever done in his life, and it fulfilled him almost completely. The only thing he still needed were his actors, and they were sequestered with their noses in their books, cramming for Winter Finals.

He also needed human bones; his special scary present for Kate. For these he went to his friend Perry, who was in pre-med.

Perry was a simian-looking person with a gnomelike mind. “What do you need human bones for?”

“I just need them,” Jay Jay said. “I’ll trade you the use of my motorbike for two weeks in return for two days use of the bones.”

“
If
I let you have them, it would have to be on a weekend. I’d have to steal them out of the anatomy lab and that’s the only time no one will know.”

“A weekend is just when I want them. Friday night till late Sunday night.”

Perry squinted his eyes like the mad scientist. “I have to know why you need them, though.”

“You don’t have to know,” Jay Jay said. “You want to know.”

“Same thing. I can get them and you can’t.”

“Okay, but don’t tell anybody. I don’t want anybody else to get the idea of invading my territory. I thought of it first and it’s
my
thing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“A couple of us are going to play Mazes and Monsters in the caverns,” Jay Jay whispered triumphantly.

“Oh, boy, you are really nuts!” Perry said.

“Do I get the bones?”

“Why don’t you use animal bones? All you have to do is boil the carcass—”

“You’re going to make me throw up,” Jay Jay said.

“You’re really going to play in the caverns?” Perry said. Like most of the people at Grant, he had heard of the game and knew that it was popular on the campus, even though he didn’t play it himself. “You know, you could get lost in there and die.”

“We know,” Jay Jay said.

“You’re not going to lose my bones?”

“If we get lost and die in the caverns with your bones, they’ll come to look for us, and then you’ll get even more bones. That ought to make you happy.”

“And I get free gas for the motorbike,” Perry said.

They shook hands on their deal. Jay Jay said he’d let him know the date. He knew Perry would probably tell a few people, but it didn’t matter. They would never tell the school authorities, and none of Perry’s friends played the game. The chance of another group trying to play in the caverns was extremely rare. It was much more likely that they would come to Jay Jay and ask to be included. Even so, Jay Jay didn’t want strangers.

“Remember,” he said, “secrecy is of the essence.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Perry said. “It’s my ass too, you know.”

Oh joy, oh bliss, oh gleeful wonder! Everything was falling into place so well.

Reading Period, when everyone studied for exams, was a time of hushed terror in the dorms. There were no parties. People went to the library. Even the constant blare of music from all the individual stereo sets was muted; background for memorizing. The people who had neglected their work up till now were frantic. There was much trading of notes, and all-night sessions to catch up. Normally pale anyway at this time of year, now most of the students looked sick—with worry, sleeplessness, and the effect of a vast consumption of coffee, junk food, nicotine, and pills to stay awake. Jay Jay looked and felt very chipper. Daniel and Kate, although they studied, seemed normal. Poor Robbie was haggard and drawn. All romances were put on hold during this period of fear. After all, if you flunked out, you’d probably never see the person you were in love with again … not to mention never getting a decent job; suffering the wrath of your parents, the disdain of the world, and the loss of your own self-respect.

One night around eleven thirty, when he had returned from his secret nightly trip to the caverns, Jay Jay came tapping on Kate’s door, carrying a Thermos of hot coffee.

“Coffee break, madam.”

She looked pleased to see him, and put her book down immediately. “How sweet. Thank you.”

He sat down on her bed and poured coffee for both of them. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s okay. I just sometimes wonder how the professors
know
what the authors had in mind. We have to spit back whatever they tell us in class. And I think: If I’m a famous writer some day, will people make up what they think I meant and then make other people agree with them?”

“Probably,” Jay Jay said. “Unless you write the textbook yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said, suddenly looking depressed. “I’m never going to be a famous writer—or any kind at all.”

“How can you say that? We’re all going to be famous. That’s the plan.”

“Whose plan?”

“Mine,” Jay Jay said.

“Then you’ll have to get rid of my writer’s block. I can’t be a writer if I don’t write anything.”

“You’ll think of things. Right now you’re at school; there’s too much input from other sources.”

“Maybe.” She sipped her coffee. “How are your plans for the new game going?”

“Fantastic. Just wait.”

“I worry about you at night, Jay Jay. I know you’re in the caverns all alone.”

He was touched. She, his love, his friend, worried about him! He wished he had brought her something better than coffee, but it was what he’d had left from his evening in the caverns and it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea to share it with her. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I’m careful, and I know my way around pretty well by now.”

“You couldn’t. They’re too big.”

“The Pyramids were not built in a day.”

“May I quote you?” They laughed. It was a matter of pride with both of them never to say anything banal unless it was on purpose. “You know what I was thinking, Jay Jay? You’re almost halfway through college and you want to be an actor, but you’ve never taken an acting class.”

“I know,” he said calmly.

“But why not?”

He thought about it. It wasn’t to spite his father, because his father didn’t care. It wasn’t because he was afraid of competition. He knew he was good. Why, then? “I guess,” Jay Jay said finally, “it’s because I have the game. I don’t need anything else.”

“It’s not the same,” Kate said.

“Yes it is.” He told her then about his feelings in the caverns; how he was the producer, scriptwriter, set designer, and everyone else. “Most of us actors end up wanting to do everything else too,” he said. “We like the power.”

“Maybe then you won’t be an actor after all—maybe you’ll be a director or a producer,” she said. She sounded rather pleased. “You really have the soul of an entrepreneur.”

“I could star in my own movies,” he said. “I’d write in a part for myself. Maybe just a cameo, but effective. Or a lead. It would depend on how I felt.”

“Sometimes I dread life after college,” Kate said. “I absolutely refuse to settle for a boring job. Don’t let me, Jay Jay. If you see me copping out, you remind me how when we were at Grant we knew we could do anything.”

“Okay,” he said. “But you have to do the same for me.”

“I have to study now,” she said. “Not everybody’s a genius like you.” She smiled at him. “Thanks for the coffee break.”

“Anytime.” He went back to his room humming a little tune. She wanted him to be her friend after college; it wasn’t just a part of his fantasy of all of them doing great things together. It was real. Neither of them would ever let the other one betray their potential.

Life after college seemed so far away he almost couldn’t imagine it. Kate telling him he was halfway through college was like telling someone he was middle-aged. He was entering the second half of his Sophomore year; he wasn’t “halfway through college.” Exams were coming soon, and of course he would get his usual A’s, and then they would start the game—his game. That was the only thing that seemed real at all.

CHAPTER 2

It was the first night of the new game in the caverns. The four of them went there in Kate’s car. Since people were always rushing in and out of the dorms, no one paid any attention to them and their duffel bags of equipment, which they put into the trunk. They had thrown the dice in Jay Jay’s room to see what they could take with them, and whatever they needed Jay Jay seemed to have ready. They each had a real sword—which was actually a hunting knife in a sheath—and they had lanterns, coins, amulets, food, and costumes. Kate, as Glacia, had her chain-mail armor, to be put on when they got to the deserted area near the caverns. Robbie, as Pardieu, had his rough brown cloak. Daniel, who was to be Nimble the Charlatan, was already dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and slacks; he looked like a cat burglar. It was not in the spirit of a medieval game, but he refused to have anything to do with the black leotard Jay Jay had bought for him. Jay Jay told him he’d change his mind as soon as he found out how the rough, damp passages they might have to crawl through would mess up his clothes, and took the leotard along.

They hid the red Rabbit in a small clump of trees near the entrance to the caverns. Kate and Robbie dressed, and then the four of them tramped together over the hard, bare ground to the chained opening. They paused. “This is the secret kingdom of the evil Voracians,” Jay Jay said. “Somewhere within dwells Ak-Oga, the most fiendish monster of them all. He has lived in the depths of this lair for more ages than Humans or Sprites or Dwarfs can know. As great and awesome as is his wickedness, so is the greatness and awesomeness of his treasure. Shall you enter?”

“Yes,” they said.

They took a last look at the black sky overhead, filled with bright stars, and then they ducked under the chain, entered the caverns, and lit their kerosine lamps.

Kate’s heart turned over. This place was such a blend of all the fantasies she had invented, and reality, that for a moment she almost felt she was losing her grip on what was real and what was not. Except for the lights of their lanterns, the blackness was so vast and absolute that she was not sure she would have the courage to go another step. It was worse than the darkness of the laundry room when that man was trying to kill her, because in the laundry room she had some idea of where things were. But here all was new. The lamplight touched the shiny, black walls with the glitter of gold. Ancient stalactites and stalagmites like stone icicles … the faraway drip of unseen water … the musty smell of evil … but worst of all, that darkness. In that darkness you could lose your sense of direction and wander in circles until you lost consciousness. She was terrified. She drew a deep breath and said nothing.

Now Jay Jay moved lightly to a corner of the small vaulted room and lit a large battery-powered lantern, the kind used at campsites, which he had put there before they came. It gave the room a reassuring glow, but equally important it made it possible for him to read his Challenge Module, see the throw of the dice, and for all of them to be able to chart the maze with their pencils and graph paper, and mark wherever they were at any given time.

They were looking around in awe. Kate glanced at Daniel and Robbie. She couldn’t tell if they were afraid or not. Daniel looked fascinated and Robbie transfixed. She didn’t want to be the only one who was scared to death, and if she was, she certainly didn’t want them to know it. She tightened her hand on her sword as if it could give her some protection.

There was no need to sit in their customary circle to ask the Maze Controller where they were—
they were there.
“Which way shall we go?” Daniel asked the group.

“Right,” Kate said. “To the water.” She tried to will herself deeper into the game, to become Glacia, no longer Kate. Glacia wouldn’t be afraid. A part of her was thinking that the sound of water perhaps led to a hidden pool, and that Jay Jay would want them to see this, and so he would have put inducements in that other chamber; perhaps some charm or treasure. The other part was trying to block out Jay Jay, and to make this game, which
was
real, as real as the imaginary one they had played in the dorm. She felt that separating the real from the fantasy was a way of keeping her sanity, but if she didn’t let herself get into the game it wouldn’t be any fun.