“They’re attacking—wrapping themselves around the soldiers, taking their weapons—and they’re forming webs or barricades at all the exits and entrances, cutting off all the passageways.”
Will could now see a latticework of vines spreading out across the entrance to the maze, under the first archway, forming an impenetrable barrier. A couple of snake soldiers threw themselves against it, hacking at it with weapons, trying desperately to cut their way out.
Then the shouts of alarm inside turned to screams and they began to issue from every corner of the maze.
“Oh, good gravy,” said Ajay. “This is almost sad. Those repellent reptiles don’t stand a chance—”
“What’s happening?” asked Nick eagerly.
“I’d rather not go into much detail, if you don’t mind,” said Ajay, grimacing. “But the vines appear to be able to…grow rows of very large, disagreeable thorns, if that makes it any plainer for you.”
“Righteous,” said Nick.
“OMG indeed,” said Elise, looking at Will solemnly.
Will was staring deeper into the maze, where he saw the snake king flailing around wildly, swinging his trident at things Will couldn’t see.
“What’s going on with the Big Kahuna?” asked Will.
The bear turned slightly, and Ajay shifted his gaze toward the snake king.
“Oh, he’s in a serious fix now. He’s just dropped his trident. The vines are rooting him to the ground and crawling all over his body, and I mean hundreds of them. He’s strong enough to pull some of them off, but he doesn’t have enough hands to stop them all. Yes, sure enough, they’ve got him around the arms now. Pinned them to his sides. Only a matter of time before they—yes, there he goes now. Timber.”
The snake king toppled over out of sight, landing with a thud they heard from a quarter mile away.
“The bigger they are,” said Nick, “the bigger they fall.”
“Or something like that,” said Elise.
The screams throughout the maze had all subsided now. But they heard a few last angry bellows from the leader of the monsters before it, too, fell silent.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” Ajay whispered.
“So that’s it, then,” said Elise. “We’re in the clear.”
“Time to go,” said Will.
“Hold on, they’re not quite finished,” said Ajay. “The vines are still moving all around the walls and rocks, everywhere you can see. I’m not exactly sure what they’re trying to—Oh, wait, I get it.”
“GET WHAT?” asked the bear.
“You’ll see,” said Ajay. “I don’t believe this will take very long.”
Moments later, they heard a low rumbling start to build from deep within the maze, but it built quickly into something that sounded alarmingly like a landslide.
“Maybe we oughta move our behinds out of here,” said Nick, taking a step back.
“No, it’s all right,” said Ajay. “Keep watching.”
Then they realized that the sound building inside was the crack of breaking stones, thousands of them, all at once, building and building, as if the entire complex before them were being struck with an immense hammer, one blow after another.
The central tower imploded, the remaining walls in every direction collapsing like rows of dominos. Clouds of dust and stone fragments rose everywhere, and when the dust cleared and the echoes of the devastation faded away, all that was left in front of them was an enormous debris field of broken rocks.
The vines had strangled the entire stone temple, and all its carnivorous denizens, to death.
WILL’S RULES FOR LIVING #11:
IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW YOU DO IT. IT ONLY MATTERS THAT YOU DO IT.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that’ll leave a scar on my brain,” said Nick, staring at the still-settling pile of rubble.
“You asked the vines to do that?” asked Ajay in amazement from on top of the bear.
“Not in so many words,” said Will.
“You think that got them all?” asked Elise, looking around the swamp. “Maybe we shouldn’t press our luck and get out of here.”
“I don’t think we have anything else to fear from them,” said Ajay as the bear set him back down on the ground. “Might I suggest we restore ourselves with a bite to eat first and try to get properly hydrated?”
“Yeah, perfect, why not?” said Nick. “There’s obviously nothing to worry about here. Let’s have a picnic in a frickin’ swamp.”
“Is it safe, Will?” asked Elise, moving closer to him.
Will blinked on his Grid and surveyed the vast, smoking heap of destruction in front of them. Nothing moved; no heat signatures appeared anywhere in the ruins.
“Right now I’d say this is about the safest place we could find,” he said.
“A picnic it is, then,” said Ajay, reaching into his pack. “Although we can do without the ants, please, thank you very much,” he said, without trying to imagine what kind of jumbo-sized nightmares those might be.
“WAIT HERE FOR ME,” said the bear as he stalked off toward a large cluster of mangrove trees.
“Are you going to change back now, Coach?” asked Ajay, taking a few steps after him.
“YES,” said the bear without glancing back.
“May I watch?” said Ajay.
The bear turned back, annoyed. “NO, YOU CAN’T WATCH.”
“Why not?”
“BECAUSE IT’S SECRET. AND IT’S PRIVATE. AND DID I MENTION THAT IT’S SECRET?”
“You also failed to elaborate on whether there’s a time limit for how long you can stay in your different forms.”
“AND DID I MENTION THAT IT’S SECRET?”
Ajay stood his ground, undeterred. “Does changing back hurt as much as changing the other way?”
“WORSE. WHY ARE YOU SO DAMN INTERESTED?”
“With all due respect, Coach, how else do you expect me to react? Do you honestly believe I would voluntarily pass up an opportunity to watch a genuine, authentic shaman exercise his ability to shape-shift? Or do you think I’ve gone quite mad?”
“GO EAT A SANDWICH,” growled the bear. “AND MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
The bear stalked off the path, splashed through the water, and disappeared behind the mangrove trees. Ajay watched him go and then reluctantly walked back to join the others, who were laying out their lunch with their backs toward the trees and sitting on the edge of the wall. He sat down to join them, but Will saw Ajay turn and peek back toward the trees a couple of times.
“Ajay,” said Will. “Eyes this way.”
“Dude, got a rock-solid piece of advice for you,” said Nick, chewing a huge bite of his turkey sandwich. “Respect the Bear.”
“I do, I assure you. I respect him enormously,” said Ajay, taking a sealed plastic container from his pack. “I’m just curious, that’s all. Insatiably. About everything. It seems to be another strange side effect of”—he waved his hand all around his head—“all this.”
“I hear that,” said Elise.
“By the way, I could not believe my eyes when I first saw you sitting up on the bear’s shoulder,” said Nick, and then burst into boisterous song: “On top of Old Smokey, all covered with—”
“Hair,” said Ajay, anticipating the joke.
“Of course I’m referring to Smokey the Bear.” Nick finished the tune, and held out his hand for a fist bump. “Come on, gimme some.”
Ajay gave him a halfhearted bump but couldn’t hide a smile. He peeled the lid off a plastic container and peered inside. “Well, at least it appears that my quinoa salad survived the trip.”
“Whatever ‘keen-wa’ is,” said Nick, “I don’t want to know about it.”
“What do you think those things were doing here?” asked Elise, looking back at the ruins.
“You mean aside from giving carnivores a bad name?” asked Ajay between bites.
“Why them? Why snake-men?” asked Elise. “What’s the point of all this
crazy stuff?”
“Don’t know yet,” said Will.
A sharp cry of pain reached them from behind the mangroves, then a series of agonized groans that Coach Jericho tried to stifle.
“He wasn’t kidding,” said Elise.
“Man, he didn’t sound like that when he turned into the otter,” said Nick, wincing.
“It must be harder to expand than to shrink,” said Ajay, chewing away.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Nick.
“It kind of does, if you think about it,” said Elise.
Nick thought about it, then shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. He’s shrinking right now!”
“What difference does it make?” asked Will, annoyed. “He can do it, whatever it is. He told us it hurts, and he said it’s secret, so let’s just leave it at that for now, okay?”
“Hey, I wasn’t the one harassing Coach about it,” said Nick.
“I was hardly harassing him,” said Ajay defensively.
“Knock it off, both of you,” said Elise sternly, pointing a plastic fork at them. “Right now!”
Both Nick and Ajay hung their heads and ate in silence for a while. A few moments later, they heard splashing and looked around to see Coach Jericho, dressed in his black sweats, wading back to them through the ankle-deep water. Will thought about pulling out the silver healing disc from his bag and offering it to Jericho, but he didn’t look like he was in pain anymore. He just looked haggard and kind of depressed.
No one said anything when Jericho first sat down to join them, although Ajay was obviously biting his tongue to keep from asking him a thousand questions.
“You hungry, Coach?” asked Will, offering Jericho a sandwich.
“Starving,” he said.
“Dude, want me to catch you a salmon?” asked Nick.
Jericho glared at him. Elise punched Nick on the shoulder, hard.
“Ow,” said Nick. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“And don’t call me ‘dude,’ ” said Jericho, biting into the sandwich. “Dude.”
“I highly recommend you try the quinoa salad,” said Ajay, offering his container to Jericho. “It’s an excellent source of protein and carbohydrates. Both of which I suspect you could use in massive quantities about now.”
“Thank you,” said Jericho, taking it from him.
“To bring you completely up to date, Coach,” said Will, taking another big bite of sandwich. “We know where Dave is now.”
“Is that right? How’d you find that out?” asked Jericho.
“Same way we found you,” said Will.
“He says the plants told him,” said Nick, leaning in as if it was a secret. “He says he can talk to ’em now.”
Jericho looked up from his lunch, keenly interested. “Is that true, Will?”
“Well, yeah. Sort of,” said Will. “I did communicate with them, but I can’t explain how exactly.”
“Plant spirit medicine,” said Jericho.
“What’s that?” asked Elise.
“That’s how you talk to plants,” said Jericho.
“You mean talking to plants is actually a thing?” asked Nick, his mouth hanging open.
“Native people have been practicing it for ten thousand years,” said Jericho as he ate. “They say plants have spirits just like the rest of us. Along the way, we forgot that we all speak the same language, once we got ‘civilized’ and decided we were ‘smart.’ ”
“Smarter than what? Plants?” asked Nick.
“Some of us anyway,” said Ajay, glancing at Nick. “And how exactly does one go about doing such a thing?”
“Don’t have the slightest idea. I can’t keep a house plant alive for a week.” Jericho pointed his fork at Will. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“I’d be happy to fill you in about that down the road, Ajay,” said Will, finishing his sandwich and packing up. “But we have a job to do. Let’s move. We can talk as we walk.”
“Where are we heading?” asked Ajay.
“Out of this swamp,” said Will. “We’ll figure the rest out as we go. I don’t see any way forward from here, do you?”
Ajay looked around and shook his head.
“So we head back,” said Will.
They packed up all their gear, took a last look at what they’d done to the snake-men’s civilization, and walked single file out of the swamp along the path they’d followed on the way in.
Ajay and Nick took the lead, then Elise. Will hung at the back to talk to Jericho, who limped slightly and still looked a little worse for wear.
“The thing is, I don’t really know how I did what I did back there,” said Will quietly. “I talked to a few of them once before we found you. I just decided I wanted to talk to them again, and it happened.”
“Good.”
Will made sure the others weren’t listening; he felt embarrassed to even ask the question but he really wanted to know. “But how did I do it?”
“You got out of your own way,” said Jericho. “Like I’ve been telling you for months. It doesn’t matter how. Getting hung up on ‘how’ is just the stupid part of your brain throwing a tantrum because it feels left out.”
Will thought that over for a moment. The last of the pavers had already disappeared underfoot, and they were back walking on dirt again. The swamp seemed to close in around them, the air oppressive and damp. As he looked around at the abundant undergrowth, Will realized he’d never think of plants the same way again.
“Those vines must’ve really hated the snake-men, too,” said Will.
“I don’t doubt it. They had their reasons. You just gave them permission.”
“Why do you say that?”
“There were big chunks of vines floating around in that soup they had me in. Probably used ’em for seasoning, not to mention firewood, torches, all that stuff.”
“So you’re saying all this backs up what I got from them, that plants have feelings.”
Jericho gazed around at the swamp. “I’m saying I’d go out of my way to make sure we don’t do anything that’s going to piss ’em off right now. Half the stuff in here looks like it could eat us.”
“That’s truer than you know,” said Will. “Coach, I’ve had this word popping up in my head a lot lately.”
“What word is that?”
Will looked at him closely. “Intuition.”
Jericho looked back at him and smiled slightly. “About time.”
“Why do you say that? Tell me. What is it—what does it mean to you?”
“It means you’re getting it,” said Jericho.
“Getting what? What is it?”
Jericho spread his arms out, indicating everything around them. He pointed at the ground, at the trees, at the water, at what they could see of the sky above through the canopy.
“You’re saying it’s everything,” said Will. “And it’s everywhere. Like the Great Spirit.”
“Wak’an Tanka. The threads of the fabric that connects everything. What we share in common with everything we see and can’t see.”
“But what does intuition have to do with that?”
“That’s your higher mind kicking in. Once you activate your intuition, you’re tuning into the fabric. You have your fingers on all the threads. When something pulls over there, you feel it right here.”
“But how does it—” Will caught himself before Jericho could even scowl at him. “Hold on, sorry, strike that. What you’re saying is that intuition means I’m…waking something up. Inside me. Higher mind.”
“Yes.”
“And that means a different way of thinking. Or knowing. That isn’t hung up on ‘how.’ ”
Jericho stopped, put a gentle hand on Will’s shoulder, and regarded him thoughtfully. He could count on one hand the number of times the man had touched him before.
“Will, it makes me proud to say that you might just be on the verge of not being a complete idiot.”
“Gee, thanks.”
r /> “Let’s just hope it happens fast enough now to keep the rest of us alive.”
Will could see that he was dead serious, underneath the hard time he liked to give him. He could also see that Coach was genuinely concerned; they just might not make it through this, unless Will stepped up in some way he didn’t even know how to do—
How again. Damn it. The habit was so ingrained. He’d really have to work at this.
“One other word occurred to me recently,” said Will as they started walking again, trying to keep pace with the others. “I’m not even sure I completely know what this one means.”
“Okay.”
“Omniscience.”
“At least you pronounced it correctly,” said Jericho.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with what you said about being aware, except in this case you’re aware of everything.”
Jericho nodded.
“That must be the end point of this progression, right? So what does it mean if you advance that far? Is that like having all your fingers on the fabric?”
Jericho looked up, squinting, considering his answer. No, that wasn’t quite it.
“When you reach that point,” said Jericho, choosing his words with care, “you and the fabric become…indistinguishable.”
Will studied him for a second. “Is that where you are, Coach?”
Jericho looked at him like he’d just grown a second head; then he laughed. “Kid, I’m just the messenger. Don’t mistake me for the message.”
Will’s attention was pulled ahead of them; Nick and Ajay had stopped about twenty paces ahead, and they were going at each other again. They were on the outer edges of the swamp, working their way back into the forest they’d left earlier.
“I am telling you, one hundred percent, that this is not the path we came in on,” said Ajay. “We came directly out of the heart of that forest, but now it’s well off to the right.”
“You’re cracked,” said Nick. “This has to be it. Look around, there’s no other way to go.”
“Look, I don’t know how to explain it, but I promise you the path has changed. It is simply not the same—”
“I wouldn’t argue with him about anything he remembers, Nick,” said Elise.