Mazes and Monsters (27 page)

Reporters still phoned and came to the house to badger them. Cat and Hall always told them the same thing. “He was under pressure because of his grades. It was near final exam time. He had his extra-curricular activities—the swimming team and that game he liked to play with his friends—and he probably just wanted to get away for a while, somewhere quiet, to reevaluate his priorities.”

Weren’t they worried, the reporters asked. “Of course. What parents wouldn’t be? We wish he would call us. We wish he would come home. We tried not to put pressure on him to get good marks. There is so much pressure today for young people anyway. We always thought he liked Grant.”

That girl, Robbie’s friend who had telephoned, never called again. Cat had forgotten her name. When the girl had called, Cat had been a bit drunk. If she could remember her name, she would call her … but what good would it do? The girl apparently hadn’t even been able to tell much to the police.

The police said that if Robbie had gone into the caverns he most certainly would be dead by now. Cat had to believe he was somewhere in New York. Robbie knew New York, and liked it. He could get a menial job, dye his hair, and disappear. Cat refused to believe Robbie would take drugs or live on the street, any more than she could believe he had gone into the caverns to commit suicide. Self-destructiveness was not in Robbie’s nature. Hall junior had been self-destructive. But not Robbie.

Robbie was normal. Cat had to believe that. Robbie was just upset.

CHAPTER 8

Every day Pardieu walked the streets of the great city, searching, making his way back at night to the underground maze where he slept. His companions there had told him of a place where he could bathe, so he had no need of an inn. Other travelers refreshed themselves at that communal bathing place too, and it did not seem to frighten them when the dragon roared nearby. Sometimes they even rushed out to be eaten, as if they were under a spell. He remembered an adventure from long ago, when he had traveled to the kingdom of the evil Voracians, where Ak-Oga had eaten the flesh of his slaves, as this dragon-god did. Pardieu feared that in spite of his magic powers he too might fall under the same spell, and was relieved to learn from his new friends in the maze that there were other places where he could bathe where there were no dragons. After he had been walking the streets of the city for a while he even found some of these places himself. He was glad there were so many of them, for he disliked being dirty and unkempt. His beard and hair had grown longer now, and his face looked very thin. The people he passed on the street never gave him food, and hardly ever gave him coins, so he was often hungry. But he had enough food to live, and that was all that mattered. Fasting was beneficial for the spirit. Soon he would find The Great Hall.

This was a city of strange contrasts. Pardieu passed many places of sin, where voluptuous women danced naked and men shrieked with lecherous glee to see them. There was garbage tossed in the street, and beggars rummaged through it for scraps of food. He saw people in rags, and people in fine clothing. There were many mutated Half-humans with vacant eyes, singing in strange tongues or screaming in anger at things only they could see. You could turn a corner and find a street filled with horrors, and then turn again and find quiet and peace, especially in the evening. Pardieu was often lonely, for no one he spoke to seemed able to understand him, and often they appeared afraid of him, as if he would not forgive them for their sins. At night he still dreamed of The Great Hall, and that sustained him through his days of isolation in the midst of dense, unfriendly crowds. All this suffering was still part of his quest.

He had found a street where young boys and girls waited until older men came to speak to them, and then the older man and the young person would go off together. It was the Street of Messages. Pardieu took to waiting on that street at night, until his own messenger would come. Sometimes a man would stop to speak to him, but whenever Pardieu asked him if he was his messenger at last the man would look at him oddly and go away. Pardieu realized finally that these exchanges took place in some kind of code, and that he would have to learn it.

There was a lovely young Sprite who came to the Street of Messages every night and who was the only one who did not seem to fear him. She would look at him and laugh. Her laughter was like the sound of bells, her hair was long, blond, and silky, and she often wore trousers of velvet and shirts of gauze. She looked like a Princess of the Sprites. She was about thirteen years old in appearance, which meant she could be over a hundred in the Sprite world. That was not old for a Sprite. One night he approached her, praying she would not run away.

“I am Pardieu the Holy Man,” he said.

She laughed. “I’ve been watching you,” she said. “You’re never going to get a john when you’re stoned like that.”

“I cannot speak your tongue,” Pardieu said, confused and apologetic.

“Hey, man, don’t shit me. You’re ripped out of your head.”

“What are these terrors you warn me of?”

She laughed again. “You’re cute, and I have a weak spot for losers. Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

She took him into a brightly lit eating place where she bought him coffee and small cakes, and some for herself. She was beautiful and kind; the first who had befriended him in the city.

“Now listen,” she said, leaning forward over the table that separated them. “There are leather queens and piss freaks and S and M’s, but unless you get a real masochist weirdo nobody’s going to want you like this. They think you’ve been smoking angel dust.”

“Angel dust …” Pardieu said. “How beautiful that sounds.”

“Yeah, well, smoke it after, not before. I’m not afraid of you, but I’ve got friends on this street and I’m not going anywhere alone with you. Besides, I think you’re harmless.”

“I am harmless,” Pardieu said, grateful to understand at least a small amount of what she was saying. “I am the highest level of Holy Man, and I would harm no one who is not evil.”

“This is what you do,” she said. “The john comes up and he says something like how much and you tell him, and keep your mouth shut from then on. If he asks your name or tries to make conversation, make up some name. Don’t give him that Holy Man shit. How much do you get?”

“How much what?”

“How much money?”

“Very little,” Pardieu said sadly.

“I noticed.” She surveyed him carefully. “You’re kind of old for these chicken hawks, but you
are
cute. Ask him for twenty.”

“Twenty coins?”

“Twenty bucks, Par-doo. And don’t tell him your name is Par-doo. Say you’re Paul.”

“Paul,” Pardieu said. He nodded. “My name is Paul. Do I ask first or does he offer first?”

“Usually he asks.” She laughed. “The small talk is not terrific on this street. Hey, did you ever read
Catcher in the Rye?
”

“No,” Pardieu said.

“That was the last book I read before I left home. I loved it. This guy wants to stand in a field full of rye and catch little kids before they fall off a cliff. His only friend is a little girl. At the end he goes crazy and they put him away, but it’s really kind of the world that’s crazy. I don’t know why being with you reminded me of that book just now. Oh, well.”

“That was a fine tale,” Pardieu said politely. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

They went back to the Street of Messages and waited, several feet apart from each other, as was everyone, and soon her messenger came and she went away with him. As she walked away she tossed Pardieu an encouraging glance. He smiled back at her, filled with fellowship and pure love. He knew tonight was the night he would find his answer.

His messenger was an ordinary-looking, respectably dressed man. Pardieu was relieved to see that the look in his dark eyes was not of fear but only of discomfort and a kind of desperate nervousness. It was not Pardieu the messenger was afraid of.

“How much?” the messenger asked.

“Twenty bucks,” Pardieu said.

The man nodded and began to walk. Pardieu walked along beside him. His heart was pounding with excitement and he longed to ask many questions, but he remembered he was to say nothing. Are we going to The Great Hall, he thought; at last? Are we?

“What’s your name?” the messenger said, finally.

“Paul.”

The messenger nodded again and did not reply. They walked to an old and very unpleasant-looking inn, dimly lit and grimy, where the man led the way up a flight of stairs and unlocked the door to a small room. In this room was a bed, a wooden chest, and a chair. It was lit from the outside by the brightly colored lamps that glittered in the street.

“I like it dark,” the man said.

Pardieu waited.

The man began to disrobe then, removing his respectable clothing, and Pardieu wondered if underneath this disguise there would be armor or perhaps the raiment of some superior being. “Hurry up,” the man said.

“Hurry up what?”

“Take your clothes off.”

Why? Pardieu did not understand why he suddenly felt afraid. Where were they going with no clothing? He would not give up his pouch of magic spells, nor his sword, for without them he was helpless. He stood there, thinking perhaps he should obey, for he had waited so long for this messenger, and yet …

The messenger was almost naked now, and he only looked like a mortal man. In two swift steps he was across the room facing Pardieu, and he took hold of his robe. “Come on!” he said in a rough voice. Then, with no warning, he placed frantic hands on Pardieu’s most private place, and when Pardieu looked at him in panic he saw that the man was fully aroused.

He had been tricked! This was no man, but a succubus, intent on rape. Pardieu knew of such things, and once a succubus entered your body you were in its power. He flung the spell of paralyzation, heart beating wildly now with fear.
The spell did not work
! How could this be possible? This was a most powerful demon indeed, but Pardieu had other charms, other spells. He gulped down the remainder of his potion of invisibility. The dragon had not seen him—nor would this succubus now. The succubus was holding him tightly, trying to place its mouth on him, determined to rape what it could feel but could not see. Pardieu was terrified. He twisted to get away from the demon’s grasp, but the strength of his adversary was greater than his own. Fasting and privation had made him weak, and a succubus was a hundred times stronger than even a healthy mortal.

Pardieu unsheathed his sword, and with a last mighty rush of strength he pushed the sword into the monster’s chest.

He was let loose. The succubus’s face distorted with slack-mouthed fear, then pain, and then finally it sank silently to the floor. It was dead. Pardieu turned and ran away, out of that room, out of that vile inn, out to the street, and as far as his shaking legs could carry him.

Robbie found himself on the street—a strange street, in a strange city, at night—and he did not remember how he had gotten there. He caught a glimpse of himself in a store window as he passed, and he gasped. He had a little beard and mustache, his hair was longer than usual, and his face was emaciated. His eyes looked enormous. His jeans and Windbreaker were filthy, and he could see that he had tightened his belt to the tightest hole to keep his jeans up. How long had he been out of it? Weeks? Months? Where was he?

He looked at his watch. It was midnight. This was the underbelly of some city: porno flicks, hookers, junkies, everything garish and dirty. Then he recognized it. He was in. New York. All the taxis had New York license plates. He was on West Forty-second Street, and he had had amnesia, and he was so frightened he could not bear it.

He looked wildly for a phone. There was a pay phone a few blocks on, and he looked through his pockets for change. God, he didn’t even have any money, just a dime and a quarter. There was nothing in his wallet but his identification. He wondered if he had been robbed. There was blood all over his sleeve and the front of his jacket, as if it had spurted there, and it was still wet. Robbie touched himself gingerly, but nothing hurt, and he realized it was not his blood but someone else’s. He had not thought the fear he felt could grow worse, but it did.

His fingers closed on the Boy Scout knife his father had given him years ago, which he always carried out of habit, and he drew it out of his pocket. He opened it. He didn’t even have to open it to know. The handle as well as the blade was covered with blood.

Robbie closed his eyes and leaned against the side of the pay phone, feeling faint. He was starving; his stomach hurt. And he had stabbed somebody. Maybe he had even killed someone—he was out of breath as if he had been running. He knew he was crazy, and he began to cry.

In the booth he called Kate collect at college, unable to stop his convulsive sobs. Crazy, crazy, and maybe a murderer too …

She never answered. He looked up Daniel’s number in his pocket address book and called him collect. He remembered now that Kate and Daniel were living together in Daniel’s room. Why couldn’t he remember what had happened to him since he left Grant? The last thing he remembered was Jay Jay’s party.

“Hello?” Kate said. Her voice was soft with sleep.

“It’s Robbie,” Robbie said, still crying. The sound of her familiar voice wrenched his heart. He held on to the side of the pay phone so he wouldn’t fall. “I’m in New York, and I think I killed somebody.”

CHAPTER 9

“Oh, Robbie!” Kate cried, holding the phone receiver tightly. “Are you all right?” She was completely awake immediately, but the joy of knowing he was alive blotted out—for an instant—the rest of what he had just said.

“Robbie?” Daniel asked excitedly.

She nodded. “Robbie, Robbie, speak to me! How are you? What happened?”

“I don’t know how I am,” Robbie said. “I don’t remember anything. How long was I gone?”

“Almost …” She was going to say “almost six weeks,” but then she realized it would scare him too much. “Almost a month,” she said.

“I don’t know why I can’t remember,” Robbie said. “There’s blood all over my knife.”