With the rush gone, the fever came back with a vengeance. It rolled through him in heavy waves, leaving his body hollow and trembling. He moved without aim now, boots scraping stone, will reduced to the simple act of putting one foot before the other. Right, left…a straight corridor then another turn, it all looked the same. The passages curved and forked with cruel sameness, each arch and shadowed recess a twin to the last. He tried to mark the path in his mind, but the effort slipped away almost at once. He knew he would not remember it.
At a narrow junction where three corridors met in a crooked embrace, Brann stopped. The walls sweated with moss and age, the stones swollen with centuries of damp neglect. He drew his blade with a slow rasp of steel. If his mind would not hold the maze, then stone would.
He stepped to the nearest wall and brushed his palm across it, scraping moss away with rough fingers until cold stone bared itself beneath the green film. He intended to carve a number, to mark each turn and count his path like a soldier charting distance on a battlefield.
His hand froze.
Beneath the moss, faint yet deliberate, lay a carving.
He had no torch, no crystal to cast steady light, yet the world did not drown entirely in darkness. The power within him stirred, sharpening his sight just enough to tease form from shadow, lines emerged, shallow but precise, etched with a craftsman’s patience.
A rune…
Not one of the complex lattices used for channeling or amplification. Not a sigil, nor warding. This was simpler…an anchor.
He knew it at once.
An anchor rune was the most humble of glyphs, a foundation stone in any working. Alone it did little. Combined, it bound power to vessel, spirit to flesh, force to form. It held energy in place, fastened it so it would not bleed away into air and soil.
Yet he felt nothing.
No thrum beneath his boots. No whisper in the stone. The maze lay inert, heavy with silence. If power had once flowed here, it had long since guttered out.
His gaze drifted down the corridor, into blackness that seemed to swallow even the memory of light. Perhaps once the halls had burned with runic fire, corridors alive with warded constructs and bound spirits. Perhaps this had been no mere maze but a vessel, a vast container for something terrible and precise.
Now it felt like a carcass.
Brann swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Fever pulsed behind his eyes.
He set the edge of his blade beneath the rune and carved a single numeral.
The steel shrieked softly against stone, the sound thin and lonely. He etched the number just below the anchor, careful not to mar the glyph itself. If this place still held secrets, he would not be the fool who shattered them through ignorance.
He turned down the left corridor.
At the next junction he repeated the ritual. Moss scraped away. Cold stone revealed. The same anchor rune waited beneath, patient and identical, as if the maze itself breathed in a single measured rhythm.
Again he sensed no power.
So he carved.
2.
And onward he went, each turn another number, each number another quiet confession that someone, long ago, had prepared these walls to hold something vast. The repetition gnawed at him. The sameness felt deliberate, ritualistic. Anchor upon anchor, junction upon junction, like beads upon a string.
By the time he carved 3, then 4, his hand trembled not only from fever but from unease.
The true purpose of a maze was to keep something hidden, or to keep something inside, and this was looking more and more like a prison.
At the next junction, his nose caught a trace of smoke.
He frowned, was it real or only the fever playing its tricks again. It did not matter at this point, he had no destination anyway and he needed a miracle to get out of this alive, not to mention reach Westmere in time.
If there was actual fire, there might be warmth and food, or extreme danger. All were preferable to collapsing alone in the dark.
He followed the scent.
After several more turns, a glow appeared ahead, faint at first, then steady…Firelight. Brann slowed at once, every instinct sharpening despite the fog in his head. He moved carefully now, placing each step so the stone would not betray him. When he reached the place where shadow and light wrestled for dominance, he stopped and peered inside.
The room beyond was circular, old and deliberate. Multiple passages opened into it from every side, a hub at the heart of the maze he thought. Above, the roof had broken away in a neat circle, moonlight spilling down to mingle with the fire burning at the center. Stone benches ringed the chamber, worn smooth by age.
A man stood on one.
Blond curly hair caught the firelight. His gaze was fixed on the flames, distant and unreadable. He wore only brown leather trousers and a sleeveless white shirt. His arms were bare, thick with muscle, burned so thoroughly that it was hard to find unmarked skin.
There was something else about him too.
Danger radiated from him, quiet and absolute. Not the wild menace of beasts, but the controlled certainty of someone who knew exactly how to kill and had done so many times.
Brann watched, unmoving, careful not to let even his breath give him away.
Slowly, without shifting his gaze from the man, he crouched and reached for the stones near the entrance to the circular chamber. His fingers scraped away the slick moss that clung to the wall. Damp greenery peeled back beneath his nails.
No surprise greeted him.
The Anchor rune lay there, etched into the stone, and on the next block beside it, and the next. Every visible stone bore the same simple glyph, repeated with ritual precision, forming a silent lattice around the chamber.
An anchoring array…
His pulse slowed despite the fever.
His eyes returned to the blond man standing in the firelight, framed by walls stitched with binding sigils. This man was not wandering these halls like he, he was what had been kept within them. Brann was almost certain of that now, what chances were there that someone else accessed the ancient stone dials and came here just before he did.
While Brann was deep in thought the man suddenly reached down to a bag near the stone foot of the bench and drew something out.
From what Brann could make out it was…a fish.
He skewered it on a stick and held it over the fire. Fat hissed softly as it began to cook. The smell drifted across the chamber, rich and irresistible.
Brann’s stomach growled as his nostrils caught the sent.
In the stillness of the labyrinth, the sound seemed thunderous.
Panic flared. His breath caught, his grip tightening on his sword as if that alone could undo the mistake.
The stranger laughed.
“Come and join me stranger,” he said, voice calm, amused. “I will share my food with you. You have been staring at me long enough.”
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Brann went cold despite the fever. Shock cut through him, sharp and sudden. Had the man sensed him all along? Had he known even before the hunger betrayed him? And if so, how? Brann had been careful, he was sure of it.
Yet the man did not turn, did not reach for a weapon, in fact Brann could see no weapon anywhere. The man simply tended the fire, as if Brann’s presence had been a certainty from the start.
He remained in the shadows disregarding the invitation, heart pounding, caught between the promise of warmth and food and the unmistakable truth pressing down on him.
Whatever this man was, he was not someone to underestimate. That was why he hesitated at the edge of the light, the shadows clinging to him as if reluctant to let him go. Every instinct screamed that stepping forward was a mistake, yet the alternatives were written plainly behind him in empty twisted stone halls.
The man spoke again, voice calm, almost welcoming.
“I am Caedran, keeper of this enchanting place. Come, tell me your name and warm yourself by the fire.”
Brann weighed the moment. He could turn back, if he still remembered the path, and test his strength against the mountain and the night. Or he could gamble on this stranger, this keeper, whose presence pressed against his senses like a blade held just out of sight. The label on the stone dial did say “Truth”, he needed to search for the truth then.
There was no real choice…
He stepped into the round room, the fire’s warmth brushing his skin at once, cruel in how good it felt. As soon as he did he felt like a decision was made, like his own life had branched somehow.
“I am Brann,” he said, keeping his voice steady, and a safe distance.
Caedran turned his head then, just enough for the firelight to catch his features. His eyes lingered on Brann for a heartbeat too long, as if tasting the name.
“Brann,” he repeated. “A strong name, sit by the fire, Brann” and gestured to a stone bench.
Brann moved slowly and lowered himself onto the bench opposite to the man. The heat seeped into his bones, fighting the fever for a moment, and he had to clench his jaw to keep from sagging with relief. His sword remained close, his hand never far from the hilt.
“You said you are the keeper of this place,” Brann said after a moment.
“Yes,” Caedran replied easily. He turned the fish over the flames, watching it with idle care. “This place was once a marvel to gaze upon, in some ways it could still be…”
His gaze lifted to the dark passages beyond the firelight, but he didn’t continue.
The words settled heavily in the chamber. The maze seemed to listen, stone holding its breath. Brann noticed it then, a subtle pressure at the edge of his thoughts, not an intrusion, but an invitation.
He felt the question rise in him, sharp and insistent.
“You are not a keeper, are you? You are trapped here.”
Caedran made no gesture. He did not stiffen, nor did he smile. He let the silence stretch, long enough that the crackle of fire and the faint drip of distant water began to sound like deliberate interruptions. Brann was beginning to wonder whether the man had chosen not to answer at all when the reply finally came.
“In a way, I am,” Caedran said at last. “But that is ancient history, and it is not the reason you came here.”
Brann studied the flames, careful not to meet the other man’s eyes too quickly. The pressure in the chamber had not lessened. It coiled at the edges of his senses, subtle and immense.
“The reason I came here,” Brann said, choosing each word with care, “might disappoint you.”
Caedran reached for the stick, lifted the fish from the fire, and extended it across the flames. The gesture was unhurried, almost domestic.
“Take it.”
Brann accepted the offering, though he did not eat. The heat soaked into his palm. The scent of roasted flesh filled his lungs. His body wanted it. His stomach tightened. Yet the fever throbbed behind his eyes, dull and insistent, stealing appetite as surely as strength.
Caedran withdrew another fish from his bag, skewered it with practiced ease, and set it above the coals.
“Please,” he said, almost lightly. “Eat. You will feel better, I am certain.” He turned the fish, watching the skin blister. “As for your reason being here, you cannot possibly think it was the wolves.”
The words struck like a blade laid flat against Brann’s spine.
The chamber seemed to shrink. The fire dimmed, though the flames still burned. The warmth thinned into something distant and brittle.
“How do you know about that?” Brann asked.
Caedran did not look at him. “How does one know anything?”
Brann’s jaw tightened. His patience had been frayed thin by fever, by blood, by the long flight through stone corridors that seemed to mock his every step. This man answered with riddles and silences, with suggestions that pressed against his thoughts like fingers testing the edge of a wound.
“Tell me what this place is,” Brann said, his voice sharpening despite his effort to control it, “or I will take my chances climbing down the mountain.”
Even as he spoke, he knew the threat was hollow. He might not find the exit again. He might collapse before he reached the outer halls.
Caedran’s reply was flat.
“It is a test of sorts.”
Brann let the word settle, heavy and ill defined.
“What kind of test?”
Caedran adjusted the fish, studying it as if it held the answer. “Like any maze, it has a treasure hidden within it. The difficulty lies in the fact that the treasure reveals itself only to one who knows himself.”
Brann’s gaze drifted upward, past the rising smoke, to the circle of sky. The stars burned with cold indifference.
“Then I am out of luck,” he said quietly. “My past was taken from me. I cannot say who I was, even if I wished to.”
Caedran turned his fish again.
“Are you not going to eat yours?” he asked. “It will grow cold.”
Brann looked down at the fish in his hand. Steam no longer rose from it in thick curls. The skin had begun to dull.
“I have little hunger for riddles and even less time to waste” Brann said.
Caedran’s eyes lifted steady and clear. There was no mockery in them, no visible malice, only an unsettling calm.
“You believe that memory and self are the same,” he continued. “They are not.”
Brann’s fingers tightened around the stick. “Without memory, what remains?”
“Choice”
The word fell into the chamber like a stone dropped into deep water.
“You chose to survive the wolves,” Caedran said. “You chose to explore the forest when your destination was another. You chose to descend into this place rather than freeze above. None of that required memory.”
Brann’s breath slowed, though his pulse remained uneven.
“You speak as though you watched me the entire time.”
“In a sense, I did.”
The walls seemed closer now, the runes etched into them faintly visible in the wavering light. Anchors, carved with relentless repetition, binding stone to purpose, power to place.
Brann studied the scars on the man’s arms, the old burns and blade cuts layered across muscle and skin. Marks of battle, of survival, of something endured. There was a pattern for the answers that this man decided to give, he just had to find the boundaries.
“If this is a test,” Brann said, “what happens to those who fail?”
Caedran regarded the fire.
“They leave.”
Relief flickered in Brann before he could stop it.
“Or,” Caedran added softly, “they remain.”
The fire snapped sharply.
“Remain how?” Brann asked.
“They fail to find their path, they get stuck, not all but some”
The fever surged again, a hot tide behind Brann’s eyes. He forced himself to take a bite of the fish, more from defiance than hunger. The flesh was warm and clean. Strength seeped into him in small, stubborn increments.
“You said the wolves were not the reason I came,” Brann said after swallowing. “Then what is?”
Caedran’s gaze shifted to the ring of carved anchors lining the chamber.
“The maze stirs when something within a person resonates with it,” he said. “It does not call to the lost. It calls to the divided, it called for you”
Brann felt the words settle somewhere deeper than thought.
“Divided,” he repeated.
“You walk with a fracture in you,” Caedran continued. “A space where something cracked, the labyrinth recognizes that.”
Brann’s mind flashed to the camp, to Kassyn, to the corruption.
“You are wrong” Brann said slowly “I only came here out of necessity, seeking safe haven, nothing more.”
“I think,” Caedran replied, “that you came seeking truth.”
Silence gathered again, thick and expectant. Brann found himself thinking about “Truth” what was truth at its base, information or something more, something deeper.
“What if I do not like what I find?” Brann asked.
Caedran’s expression did not change.
“The maze does not concern itself with what you like.”
Somewhere beyond the ring of firelight, deep within the corridors Brann had marked with trembling numerals, a faint sound echoed. Not the drip of water. Not the whisper of wind, but a distant, mournful howl.
It was not the cry of any beast he had ever known.
Brann’s grip tightened on the hilt.
“What is that?” he asked.
Caedran did not look toward the sound.
“That is for you to find out” he said.