With a Tangled Skein

  She watched the threads in her pocket, but there was no puff of smoke-vapor. She had made it down without sacrificing another thread! She had not “killed” herself this time.

  But it was a minor victory, for she had now expended three threads and discovered only one illusion. She would have to do better than that.

  She checked the golden floor panel again. The ledge continued around the other side—and there was another open panel. Had she skirted it the other way, she would have found it, and saved herself the dead end.

  Well, the bad break had taught her a lesson or two; not to assume a given route was the only one, and not to expend a thread on a route just because the route was there.

  She got into the new chamber. This one had two other exits; which should she take? Both went far enough so that she could not tell which was a dead end.

  She shrugged and took the one to the left. It looped around to the right, over and under crystalline formations of differing sizes—it seemed there was nothing sacred— sacred, here in Hell?—about the full-size ones. In due course it debouched back into the chamber she had left.

  She went around again, verifying every surface. No way out. She had walked into another dead end, in effect.

  She went back to the golden tile, and the rest of the way around it. Now she was back to her starting point, three threads gone—and she had made no progress through the maze!

  Then she had a bright thought. She returned to the golden tile, got down on her belly, and put her right arm through it. She felt for the surfaces below.

  All in reach were solid. She got up, walked to the far side, and lay down again. She reached—and discovered that there was an open panel directly beneath her.

  She braced her feet as well as she could against the edge-surfaces and hunched her body forward over the golden panel until she could put her head through the illusion. She peered under.

  Sure enough: there was an opening. There was her true exit! The illusion covered a dead-end hole—and the way through. She had fallen right by it, and passed it again on the way back up. Satan was certainly a cunning devil!

  She crawled around, letting her body down. Here she was able to get a better grip on the edge of the panel— but she didn’t trust it. She was no muscular man, she was a weak-fleshed woman.

  She sighed a third time. Then she brought out another thread and flung it toward the hole.

  Her body followed. Now she was perched at the edge of a hexagonal tunnel. It sloped sharply down—and she could not hold her position. She felt herself sliding. She tried to spread her legs and brace her feet against the sides, but this was ineffective. She was bound for the end of this tunnel—wherever it might lead—unless she expended yet another thread. She decided to risk the slide.

  She slid into a new aspect of the maze. She landed in a chamber with transparent walls, and behind those walls were demons in horrendous shapes. There were five exits from the chamber—but each was guarded by a monster. How could she get through?

  Obviously at least one of the monsters was illusion, so she could pass through it without getting “killed.” Because there had to be a route through, and she couldn’t pass a real monster.

  She approached the tiger-headed man at the nearest exit and flung a thread at him. He disappeared. Victory—she had found the route on the first try!

  She walked into the passage. It turned at right angles, then turned again, in the manner of the kind of maze that was printed on paper. She moved along it cautiously, so as not to fall through an illusion-section of floor, but the floor was opaque and solid.

  She came to a division. Which should she take, the left or the right? It didn’t seem to matter, as neither would cost her a thread. She took the left.

  That led to a small chamber containing a man-headed tiger—the reverse of the prior monster. She tossed a thread at it.

  The thread shriveled and puffed into vapor—but the monster remained. This one was real!

  “Come here, morsel!” the tigerman cried. “You look good enough to chomp!”

  She backed away and retreated to the other part of the fork. That one led her to a man-headed wolf. It paced restlessly, watching her.

  She flung a thread—and the monster evaporated with the thread. Another illusion. The way was clear.

  But she paused. She had just expended two threads to uncover one illusion. At that rate, she would use up all her threads before the illusions gave out. Satan was winning!

  But she knew that if she walked blithely into a monster and it was real, it would chomp her. That should not hurt her physically, as she was here only in spirit, but by the laws of the maze it would cost her double: two threads. Being “killed” by a monster was like taking a fall, then having to thread out of the hole. So it paid her to verify a monster before stepping within its range.

  Or did it? If she had an even chance that a given monster was real, then she could assume that half of them would tag her. Double the threads—and she lost the same number as if she had checked all the monsters. No loss—but no gain. She might as well use the threads.

  This bothered her. There seemed to be no way other than sheer chance to beat Satan, and the chances were against her. She had—she checked the count—used up four threads and exposed one illusion in the crystal section of the maze; she had used three more threads and exposed two more illusions here. That was a cumulative score of seven threads and three illusions. Yet her chances of getting through the maze were supposed to be even. She was definitely falling behind.

  Well, she had been checking every monster. The problem was that there could be ten times as many real ones as illusory ones. She could use up all her threads without getting anywhere, that way! There had to be a better way—but what was it?

  She set her jaw. Obviously, checking every monster was a losing strategy. So she would check none of them. Had she followed that course so far, she would have been chomped by the tigerman, and lost two threads—but that was less than the three she had used checking every monster.

  She proceeded on down the passage. She came to a huge human head from which five human legs sprouted. No torso. A monster indeed! She walked right into it.

  The thing rolled at her, each foot touching the floor in turn—and kicking her when it arrived. “Ooo!” she howled as she got kicked in the knee. Then the next foot caught her in the face. Her nose exploded in pain, and she fell down. Then the monster was all over, tromping her to death.

  It wasn’t death, of course. But it felt like it. In due course, satisfied, the foot-face withdrew, and she dragged herself back to her feet. The pain abated, and she discovered that neither her nose nor her limbs were broken. She was uninjured, physically. The blows had hurt terribly, but caused no lasting damage. She had been wrong about the discomfort of getting chomped!

  Two more threads were gone. Score: nine to three, in favor of Satan.

  And she couldn’t pass this alcove. In fact, this whole passage had been a mistake. It was a dead end, blocked by monsters.

  So much for her new strategy. She could have saved herself one thread and some pain by testing the monster for illusion.

  She made her way back to the original chamber of this section. There were the four other exits with their guardians.

  She eyed the monsters. One was a bird with the head of a fox; another was a woman-headed snake; another was a man’s head with two muscular arms growing where the ears should be; the last was a pig-headed dog. This was Hell, all right! The demons hewed to no normal Earthly shapes.

  Four chances. She could either use four more of her precious threads to verify them, or chance walking through them—with the odds even that it would cost her four threads anyway to find the true passage. If it was the true passage; the first had not been.

  This just wouldn’t do! She needed a strategy of approach, not only to make her way through, but to do it economically enough to get ahead on threads. She needed to expunge two illusions for every thread, instead of the other
way around. Blundering through by blind chance simply wasn’t going to accomplish that.

  Well, she did have time. There was no time limit on the maze; she was to continue until she either won through to her son or lost her soul. If she hesitated forever, she would never escape Hell—or save Luna’s position. Her timing was her own.

  There had to be some key she had overlooked. How she wished she had Cedric’s ready intelligence, or her son’s! Obviously sheer chance was not going to get her through; only an appropriate strategy would do that. But what strategy?

  She played her mind over it, knowing there had to be something. Satan might have deceived her about the odds, but Mars would not have. She had at least an even chance—if she could only figure it out.

  Slowly it came to her. She had to ration her threads— but Satan had to do the same for his illusions. Each was limited to one hundred. If she didn’t want to throw away threads, he didn’t want to throw away illusions. Each of them had to calculate a strategy to make the assets count most. But while she could change a nonproductive course, Satan could not; he had set up the maze at the outset, and could not change it. It stood to reason that wherever Satan didn’t need an illusion, he wouldn’t use it. He had to use some in key places, because otherwise she would be able to thread the maze simply by avoiding visible monsters. An illusion-monster could seem to block off the one route through, shunting her into real monsters and trouble.

  Here were five exits. It would make no sense to have several illusions down one passage—if the start of it was blocked by a real monster. She couldn’t pass the monster, so would never have a chance to be fooled by the illusions. The illusions had to come early—or along the real path.

  All five of the monsters at this junction had to be illusions. That was the only pattern that made sense. No wonder she had verified the first illusion she had challenged, here! She could have saved the thread.

  Furthermore, since Satan’s illusions were limited, there were only so many he could spare for any one segment of the maze. She had discovered only one in the crystal section, strategically situated; that might be all there was there. Perhaps nine of ten monsters would be real, because here in Hell monsters were relatively cheap. In the mortal world, illusions were cheaper than demons, but here in Hell it was the other way around. So the chances were that after the beginning of any passage, most of the monsters would be real. If a passage divided into ten alternate routes, nine of them would be blocked by real monsters, with only the one that actually led somewhere having an illusion. That would give her nine chances to lose threads, regardless whether she gambled or tested. That was why she had been falling behind; she had not perceived the strategy of Satan.

  That being the case, what she needed to do was figure out the pattern of the overall maze, and select the route that was most likely to have illusions. The wrong routes would be blocked mostly by real monsters.

  But how could she analyze the maze when she couldn’t see it as a whole? The walls might be of glass, but that gave her no notion of the overall layout. She could see many monsters, but could not make out the convoluted channels of the maze.

  She looked up, and saw that one tower rose above the rest. Most of the maze seemed to be open, and the tops of the walls, in addition to being too high for her to reach, looked knife-sharp; she could not climb them. The tower sported a short diving board. Into what was she expected to dive, from there? The illusion of a lake? She knew she couldn’t risk that; it would cost her at least two threads.

  But the tower was high. From it, she might be able to see the layout of the puzzle as a whole. If so, that would be a useful spot to reach, even if it was not the correct route.

  She selected the passage she deemed most likely to lead to the tower and walked through the monster that guarded it, the woman-headed snake. The monster hissed at her, but could not touch her; it was, as she had surmised, illusion. She had saved herself a thread; in fact, she had saved four, for all these monsters had to be illusion. Just by pausing for thought, she had brought the running score up to nine to seven, for once she had identified an illusion she didn’t have to waste a thread on it. These illusions were fixed in place; they could not follow her about. She could check off any she was sure of, and the more she could discover by deduction, the better off she was. She found herself shivering with release of tension; by bracing the monster “blind” she had not only saved her threads but also had confirmed her analysis. Had she been wrong...

  Now there was a snake-headed woman, the inverse of the prior monster, blocking the passage. Since there was no alternate route, she knew this was illusion. Satan wanted her to be able to navigate this route, after wasting a thread, perhaps hoping she would indeed dive off the tower. She braced herself again and marched through the monster: illusion number eight.

  She came to a coiled staircase. That fitted in with the serpentine theme. She had to admit that Satan had a certain artistic sense. But of course all art could be considered a form of lie, because it differed from reality; that was certainly in the bailiwick of the Father of Lies.

  She mounted the stair, testing each step for illusion so as not to fall through; that required no threads. Soon she emerged at the top of the tower. It was enclosed by glass that distorted the view of the surroundings; she had to go out onto the diving board to see clearly.

  She went out—and was attacked by a siege of aerophobia. The board was about fifteen feet above the top of the walls of the maze, and twenty-five feet above the ground. It gave slightly under her weight and she shivered. She had never been a confident diver and was less so now. She remembered that she had been bolder when crossing the seeming chasm in the Hall of the Mountain King, so maybe her courage had eroded with age. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled to the end and peered over.

  There was a clearing below. Five giant cushions sat in it, each one so fluffy that it was obvious that she could jump down on it, even from this height, and not get hurt. But some might be illusion, so she couldn’t risk it without using at least one thread.

  Also, she realized, it could be a trap; she might locate a good cushion, land safely on it, and go on—only to discover this was a dead-end path. Then how could she return to the starting point? She could see that there was no access to the base of the tower from that yard. The jump was one-way.

  She could use a thread to rise back to the diving board, of course—but that would put her further behind. Every thread she used that didn’t dispel an illusion was a loss for her.

  However, she had not come to jump, only to look. She had expended no threads on this path, so was gaining. She decided to assume that two of the five cushions were illusions, the two closest; if she had used her threads to verify her landing, it would have cost her several more to explore this dead end. She was learning to figure the odds.

  Now she concentrated on the rest of the maze. It was not as large as it had seemed from below; the convolutions made the distance seem greater. She traced the path of the first passage she had tried, to make sure she knew what she was doing; then she traced the route to the tower. Good enough; she was able to see them clearly from here.

  She traced the other three routes very carefully. All of them had several splits, but most of the splits dead-ended immediately after passing monsters. Obviously they were intended to seem to go on, so she would challenge the monster—and waste either one or two threads. One route looped back into the other, so that she might win through it—and find herself back at the starting point, perhaps several threads poorer. But one route wound its tortuous way all around the maze, with three separate splits and rejoinings, and finally exited to a hole in an opaque wall. That was evidently the one. There were a total of thirteen monsters along it. She concluded that all but three were illusions, the three being used to block one arm of each split. There was no way to tell which of each pair of monsters was real—but it didn’t matter. The ratio now favored her. She needed to test only in the splits, using three threads, a
nd she would pass ten illusions. Assuming she had correctly analyzed the two cushion illusions, that would put her running score at twelve to twenty. Twelve threads for twenty illusions—and perhaps other illusions bypassed in the other passages. That was the kind of ratio she liked!

  She memorized the route, then backed off the board. She got to her feet in the tower and descended, pleased with herself. If she had calculated correctly, she was now winning the game.

  The passage she wanted was guarded by the head with the muscular arms. Was that symbolic? A muscular head, meaning good thinking. Symbols were a form of art, and Satan had an insidious sense of humor; it was possible.

  She walked through the illusion and into the passage. The next monster was a cat with chicken’s legs; she walked through it too. She reached the first split, took the left fork, and threw a thread at the hawk-headed dog that guarded it. The creature screeched and charged her; it was real. She retreated, took the other fork, and marched through the headless man whose face was on his belly.

  On the next split she caught the illusion the first time. It really didn’t matter; one thread got her through regardless, now that she knew how to play it. She completed the course without difficulty and came at last to the opaque wall. She had done it! Her mind had enabled her to prevail.

  She walked through the doorway in the wall. In a moment she came to a blank barrier—but it was an illusion. She stepped through it—

  First one foot, then the other landed on something that rose up to fasten about her ankle. Startled, she looked down and discovered she was on skis. They started to move. She had skied as a child, so knew how to keep her balance and guide herself down a snowy slope—but that had been seventy-five years ago. The last thing she had expected to encounter in Hell was skiing! Still, she had known it was possible.

  She was picking up speed. She saw two ski poles standing upright on either side of the track. She reached out and grabbed them. Evidently Mars had ensured fair play for this aspect of the challenge; she had the necessary equipment.