Page 31 of Ruins of Magic
“And leave you to be the hero of this story? I don’t think so,” Arion said.
“Tick tock, tick tock,” the strange voice reminded them.
“Come on, we have to hurry,” Arion said.
“Let’s try this way,” Valaria said as they ran to their right as far as the maze would allow them to go before turning left, then another right, and two more lefts.
“I feel like we’re running in circles,” Valaria said.
Ahead was a small cut off, but they could easily scale it. Quickly climbing over the obstable they continued running and running. Hearts pounding, sweat pouring off them, and the fear of running out of time.
They all skidded to a halt as the maze opened up.
“We did it!” Garron cheered.
“No,” Valaria said. “We have a hedge maze outside the castle. This is similar and we’re only in the middle. The fastest way through ours is on the opposite side, meaning we entered from the right, we need to leave on the left opposite it and follow a similar trail. Does anyone remember how many turns we took to get here?”
“I didn’t know we were going to be tested on it,” Garron argued.
There were a few more obstacles blocking the path to the other side. They had to shimmy under a low arch, then crawl across a log, and finally jump down a good six feet to reach their destination.
“Two rights, a left, then another right, then left. Over the obstacle first, if there’s one there,” Arion said.
“You remembered it all?” Valaria asked sounding impressed.
“Yeah, of course, in case we had to backtrack.”
“Two minutes remaining. Hurry, hurry,” the voice said.
As fear pricked at their heels, they took off running again. Two rights, a left, then another right. At the final left they saw the exit up ahead.
“Twenty seconds. You’re not going to make it,” the voice ridiculed.
They ran faster. Arion tripped causing them to lose some time.
“Go on,” he urged his friends.
“We aren’t leaving you,” Garron said. “You’re the hero of this story, remember?”
He picked his friend up and practically dragged him. Arion had a hard time finding his footing to keep up, but eventually did.
The voice started laughing a menacing sort of laugh that echoed through the maze. The walls around them started closing in but still they pressed forward.
Valaria was the first to make it through. She was bent over with her hands on her knees panting hard. Turning to congratulation the boys she realized they were still inside, and the walls were closing fast.
“Come on. Faster!” she urged.
The exit was nearly covered as Garron and Arion pushed through cutting themselves on the thorns adorning the vines. They laid on the ground trying to catch their breath. They could no longer hear the voice laughing at them and the maze was closed up into what appeared to be a solid block of thorny vines.
“You’re bleeding,” Valaria said, trying to tend to their wounds.
“We’re okay,” Arion assured her. “We’re both okay, thanks to Garron.”
“I wasn’t about to leave my best mate trapped in there.”
“That was awful. Was your first trial that bad?” Valaria asked.
Arion shrugged. “In some ways it was worse.”
