The Maze - Tor's Quest Book 2

Chapter 4

Liselle looked up from the book she was reading. It had been three days since they had returned to Vada and she had spent the majority of her time in the library with Bellak. "Well, I have managed to confirm the rumours that Modo told us about, but that is about all," she informed the wizard. He grunted in reply. She was becoming increasingly concerned about him. Since Sam's near-death experience, he had not slept for more than a couple of hours at a time and was barely eating. Sam was recovering well and was able to receive visitors, but the old man had refused to see her, claiming he was too busy looking for references to Ukland maze.

She sighed and returned to the book she was browsing. They had found numerous mentions of the maze and a number of authors claimed to have personal knowledge of friends or relatives entering it, but never returning. But the single most important piece of information was missing from every account; where was the maze located? Liselle found it very disturbing that some of the volumes she had been reading were written a few hundred years ago while others were a lot more recent. 'How long has this maze existed?' she wondered.

She stretched and rubbed her back, which was aching more each day. Torrick was giving her massages each night, but their soothing effects were soon diminished when she recommenced her studying the next morning. She was no longer able to find a comfortable position and she had developed a headache that not even Ellen had managed to cure.

Others had volunteered to help, but Bellak had insisted that they would just get in the way and that he and Liselle would find the answers quicker if they were left alone. She no longer shared his optimism. Her eyes were drifting over the open page in front of her, not really seeing the words, when they were drawn to a paragraph at the bottom. She sat up and reread it, this time taking in what she was reading.

Uk, last Duke of Heyjun, was murdered in his bed by his only daughter so she could marry her lover. Duke Uk had built a maze, into which all prospective spouses were thrown, with instructions to retrieve the wedding ring from the centre. Only a man truly worthy of his daughter's hand in marriage would succeed. None ever returned.

Excitement surged through Liselle. She opened her mouth to tell Bellak about her discovery, then changed her mind, deciding to do more research first. Step one was to look for any reference to a place called Heyjun. Allias owned a collection of books which claimed to list every city, town, village, region or country, both current and historic, along with their locations.

She soon found the correct volume and discovered three references to Heyjun; a village in northern Mercia, a town which was located in southern Remeny before it was destroyed by raiders over four hundred years ago, and a small country, conquered long ago to become part of Auxland. Next she found some large maps of Auxland and spread them out on the table. One was from a period before Heyjun was conquered and she compared significant features on the map with those referenced in the description of Heyjun's location. Finally she compared the old map to a more recent one. If her calculations were correct, Heyjun used to exist in the middle of Annan forest, or, to be more precise, where the forest would later take root, somewhere near the Auxland/Emvale border.

She sat back and sighed loudly. It was getting late. Should she let Bellak know what she had discovered? She decided to take the rest of the evening off and discuss it with her husband. If he thought she was adding two and two together and making five, she would start from scratch again in the morning. If not, she would tackle Bellak after they had both had a good night's sleep and he was more likely to be receptive to her somewhat shaky logic; if he managed to get any sleep that was.

Meanwhile, Sam was enjoying her first bath in what felt like months. Ellen had finally declared that she was fit enough to be allowed out of her room, but would not permit her to walk far. Worried that he would disturb her patient's rest too much, Ellen had banned Brin from Sam's room, allowing only short supervised visits during the day, and a guard kept all visitors away at night.