anything like the previous times that Hilda and William had visited.
Lamador started running away from them, down the corridor that was straight ahead.
Hilda took William's hand and they walked to the left, which was the only alternative. They kept their eye on the sky as far as that was visible. The red flash would tell them the challenge was on. Hilda popped up her wand. William followed her example.
"Sweetwitch, I love you."
"I love you too, William."
Then there was a bright flash that set the entire labyrinth aflame for a moment. The challenge had started.
67. Challenge (2)
Lamador did not waste time. That was something that became clear to Hilda and William very quickly. Big rainclouds formed over the labyrinth and a solid wall of water was streaming down. They quickly cast protection around themselves so they did not get soaked, but the water around them was rising at an alarming rate.
William waved his wand and a small rubber boat came into existence. He lifted Hilda into it. "Sit and don't do funny things unless you want to fall out." He got into the boat himself.
Hilda stared at the dinghy and touched it. "This is shiny! This is something from your crazy world, isn't it?"
"It is. There's something good everywhere," he grinned. "Now, what will we do next? We'll have to find Lamador before he finds us."
Hilda nodded. "Let's first see if we can play a bit here." She looked at the flood of water that was lifting them higher and higher. "Right..."
William had no clue what was right in their situation, but he trusted Hilda.
The wicked witch had located the side of their boat where the water was rising slower. She was convinced that was the side where Lamador would be to keep dry. "How do you move this thing? That way."
William used his wand to make the boat move, as Hilda gave him directions. Unfortunately their path was suddenly blocked by a wall that had moved itself.
"Crappedy crap," Hilda muttered. "That is not good." She threw magic around and all the water disappeared, making their boat flop down to the ground.
"Holy Bejeebus," William said as they got up. "You can do that?!" He was seriously shocked at the amount of water that had vanished. This cast an entirely new light on the powers of the witch.
From somewhere an explosion sounded, and that somewhere wasn't even very far away.
"Looks like we are not far away from Lamador," William remarked.
"True," Hilda nodded, "but with this everywhere" -she patted the wall- "it makes little difference."
A wall started moving. The couple turned to see what was revealing itself in the new corridor. To their surprise they saw Lamador standing there, his back towards them. He was obviously oblivious of the wall moving. Through the bond, Hilda managed to orchestrate a mutual action. Raising their wands, a ball of vicious energy and fire emerged and shot at Lamador.
Tremendous blasts and fireworks flew as the ball hit the shielding that the sorcerer erected around himself at the last moment. The impact of the ball was so huge though, that it threw him to the ground and made him roll over a few times. As the sparkles of the ball dissipated, Lamador got up and looked at the two who still had their wands aimed at him. For a moment he looked as if he did not understand what his eyes told his brain. Then it dawned on the great sorcerer. "You..."
Lightning fast he drew his wand and started weaving a giant spiderweb between himself and the magical couple, his piece de resistance being a nine foot spider that crawled from the web and started its run towards Hilda and William.
William tried to destroy the web, but Lamador had the advantage of experience, he was just too fast in spouting his magic.
Hilda fired at the spider. She slowed it down but was unable to stop the approach of the beast. It had long extra arms protruding from its ugly skull-like head. At the end of the arms were big, sharp hooks that moved independently from each other. A slash of either one of them would leave very uncomfortable marks. It would also make for cut off limbs.
William joined Hilda in firing at the animal, which then at least stopped it. "Make a pit!", he yelled at Hilda, who reacted immediately. She aimed her wand at the rocky floor in front of them and magicked a pit twenty feet deep and twenty feet wide. William then stopped blocking the spider's approach. The beast shot forward as there was no more resisting force and skidded into the pit. As it was still falling, William aimed his wand and made large steel spears stick up from the bottom. The spider was impaled on at least a dozen of them.
By the time Hilda had slashed through the spider's web, Lamador had disappeared from the corridor already. The end of the corridor had sealed itself off by that time, so there was no other option for the couple than to turn back.
"I think this is the moment where we should try to bring our brooms in, Hilda."
She nodded. "Would give us the advantage of speed, indeed. Let's try it, but not for too long. We have to keep moving, before Lamador plays another trick on us."
They summoned their brooms, holding up their hands. The two brooms shot up from the tent where they had been waiting. Once they reached the walls, their speed dropped to a mere crawl as the magic around the labyrinth was more forceful and thick during the challenge.
The floor under their feet started shaking.
"Crappedy crap, William, they're not coming through. We have to do something." Hilda pointed her wand at the floor and blasted magic into it, diverting the tremors so they were not hindered by them. "Come, the mess is coming from there."
William followed Hilda as she ran towards the place where the artificial earthquake seemed to originate from. The closer they came, the more the floor behaved as a rollercoaster. It made it almost impossible for them to walk on; it looked as if someone was shaking the ground like a carpet.
William grabbed Hilda's arm and pulled her into a side corridor where the ground was unaffected by the violent shaking, even when the walls were tilting dangerously because of the strange movement of the surface. "Brooms," he said, and they summoned their brooms once more.
The brooms inched their way through the almost slime-like magical layers.
"Stop!", Hilda exclaimed. The floor they were on had started to shake also, so it was time to evacuate that temporary shelter as well. Jumping from one spot to the other, they left the corridor. The large area they reached was not moving. Neither were they. Lamador had cast a spell to solidify the air there, and the magical couple was caught inside it.
"Can you hear me?", William asked.
"I can. I wish I could move though," Hilda replied.
"Yes. This is bad stuff." William pained his brains, trying to remember anything from the physics books he had read about air. "The only way I know to make air this compact is to put it under a lot of pressure. That means he must be using a lot of power to keep this thing in place. Which in turn means he is quite occupied with this. I guess there are two things we can try."
"William. What are you talking about?"
"Physics and action versus reaction."
"I would suggest that you think of a fast reaction, because on the far end of this thing I see fire." Hilda struggled to get her wand in position. It wore her out but she managed it somehow. With a tremendous show of force the witch created water that was forming a shield between William and herself, and the blue and red flames that slowly were approaching as they slowly ate their way through the heavily compressed air.
"Hilda, you're brilliant!"
"I know, but you have lousy timing finding that out now! Do something!"
"Get that waterscreen as thick as you can."
"Oh, great, thank you for the vote of confidence. Do you have any idea how hard this is in this situation?"
William started to help her generate the waterscreen, which made quite a difference. When the screen was half a yard thick, he said: "Now let's fight fire with fire."
"What?"
"I'm starting a fire on the other side of the waterscreen and will push that away f
rom us. If you can spare a push or a spark, please help me," said William as he ignited the air beyond the waterscreen.
"Be careful, William, please, don't boil my screen unless you want to cook us!"
William fought the pressure of the air as the witch joined forces with him. The fire caught and they convinced it to head towards the fire that was coming their way. The waterscreen started shimmering as the layer that was closest to their fire began to heat up.
"Crappedy crap, William, I love you but I am not sure why at this moment!" Hilda sensed, through the bond, that he was struggling.
William pushed and fed the fire, as he also tried to generate a layer of ice on the waterscreen.
"You do the fire, I'll freeze! Great plan!", Hilda tried to scream as she pumped magic into the waterscreen to make it as cold as possible. It came out a loud mutter but that was fine.
Their actions worked. The counter-fire approached Lamador's flames that suddenly stopped burning as there was nothing more to burn for it.
With a simple push, Hilda made the iced-over waterscreen fall away. It hit the ground and shattered in one thousand and seventy-three pieces.
The thin layer of compressed air was not a big problem now as that was already dissolving because of the magic they had been slamming through it, so less than a minute later they stepped out of the also dissolving block of air.
"Hey, Lamador!", Hilda yelled out. "Nice try!"
A few hundred yards away sat a sorcerer, panting. He felt betrayed. The man William was not a mere ordinary. This