She shoved the cloth aside and started running. She could only see a short distance ahead into the empty maze of halls.
She looked down as she ran, fumbling with the lantern door, trying to get it open so that she could see better. It finally sprang open, casting a bit of useful light into the passageway.
She realized that, lost in the maze as she was, she would soon be the next victim of the thing that had killed Isidore. It was coming for her. If she was wandering around aimlessly it would likely be able to catch her in short order.
Magda thrust a hand into her pocket, frantically searching for the map that Tilly had given her. She dug around with trembling fingers but couldn’t find the map. She didn’t know if she’d dropped it as she was running, or if she’d lost it in the fight. All she knew for sure was that the map wasn’t in her pocket.
She turned back the way she had come, holding the lantern up, trying to see if she had dropped the map when she had fought her way out of the embrace of the hanging cloth. She didn’t see it on the ground anywhere.
She heard a sound. She thought she saw a dark shape move back in the direction she’d come from.
Then she saw the glow of his eyes off in the darkness, like some goblin from her childhood nightmares come to life.
Magda abandoned the search for the map and started running. She knew that it was foolish to run in a maze without knowing where she was going, but she was too panicked to stop herself.
Besides, what choice did she have?
She ran with wild abandon, taking random passageways at intersections. From time to time she could hear the dead man in the distance behind her. He let out a growl of rage as he came, his feet sometimes dragging on the floor. Magda ran all the faster, imagining the goblin from her nightmares hot on her heels. She knew that she didn’t stand a chance fighting against him. She had to get away.
She was suddenly brought up short in a dead end. She spun around and saw the man step into the passageway from a side hall, blocking her way back. Magda stood panting, knife clenched tightly in her fist, trying to decide what to do.
His glowing eyes watched her, and then he started toward her. As he got closer, the cat sprang out of the darkness onto the man’s head, clawing at his gleaming eyes with wild fury. He twisted to the side, his arms thrashing, trying to swipe the cat off his head.
Magda knew that it was her only chance. She didn’t hesitate. She ran toward the man and the only way out. As she reached him, she bent low and slammed her shoulder into his ribs, knocking him to the side. He lost his balance and fell against the wall.
Pain shot through her shoulder from the solid impact with his rocklike torso. Magda was already past him and running at full speed as the cat sprang off the man and raced after her.
Magda took intersection after intersection, ducking around heavy panels of hanging cloth whenever they appeared unexpectedly out of the darkness. She didn’t know where she was or how to escape the maze. She was simply trying to lose the man close on her heels. The man who had killed Isidore.
Charging down a long hallway, she suddenly came upon another hanging cloth that loomed up out of the darkness. Magda pushed it to the side with an arm as she went around it. When she did so, she realized that it was different from the others she had encountered. Unlike the others, this one was light and airy.
Almost immediately, before she could wonder at the silken nature of the cloth, she saw in the weak lantern light that it was a dead end. She couldn’t go any farther.
Magda spun around. The man had already reached the other side of the cloth wall blocking the passageway. It was too late to go back the way she had come.
The man slowed. He had her trapped in a dead end.
Magda stood frozen in panic, gulping air. She could see the reddish glow of his eyes through the gauzy cloth.
She had nowhere to run.
Chapter 39
Magda could see his boots just on the other side of the hanging cloth. Her back was to the wall at the dead end of the corridor. The delicate cloth hung perfectly still, not three paces away from her.
She tried to think what to do, how she could get away. She thought that maybe, if he came around one side, she could dash out the other side at the same time and run.
But where? She didn’t have the map. She realized, then, that even if she had the map it likely wouldn’t do her much good. There was really no way to run and read the map at the same time. It had been hard enough to decipher when she had been able to stand still, study it, and count intersections.
The truth was she was lost in the maze. A maze designed to attract the spirits of the dead. Magda didn’t think that this man, or creature, or whatever it was, had been what Isidore had been trying to attract, but in dealing with dark forces perhaps she had inadvertently gotten the attention of things she hadn’t intended to attract.
An arm thrust around the cloth, clawing at the air, as if trying to feel around to find her, hoping to snag flesh.
Magda pressed her back against the wall behind, trying to stay as far away from the sweep of the clawed hand as possible. The cloth was sheer enough that had there been light beyond in the tunnel she would probably have been able to see the man through it. With her lantern, she thought that he could probably see her. She turned the lantern window aside, hoping not to illuminate herself for him.
She leaned to the side away from the arm reaching blindly for her and carefully peered through the small gap between the wall and the other end of the cloth. The hall wasn’t as wide as some. She could see that if she went for the gap opposite the man he would likely be able to reach over and grab her.
Again he swung the arm, groping into the dead end, trying to catch her up. She was far enough away from where he was standing, though, that he couldn’t reach her.
But as soon as he came around the flimsy, hanging cloth, he would be able to snatch her unless she could somehow get past him as he came for her. She was fast, but from what she had seen back in Isidore’s place, he was faster. Making it worse, the hall wasn’t very wide. There was no maneuvering room.
Magda wondered how long it would be until he came around and had her. She kept imagining being ripped open the way he had ripped open Isidore. She knew that the end was going to come at any moment.
But instead, he moved to the other side of the cloth, reaching around with his other hand, clawing the air on that side. He didn’t even lean over and look around, probably because his glowing eyes could see her on the other side of the cloth. She could see those eyes clearly enough, and they only added to her terror.
Even as she gasped for air, trying to get her breath as she struggled to figure out what to do, Magda frowned. Why didn’t he simply come around the cloth to get her? It was obvious that he knew she was back there.
He roared in frustration, slashing wildly, blindly, around the side of the cloth. He raced over to the other side, trying again to reach back and snag her. But he wasn’t leaning in far enough to get to her. She couldn’t imagine why not.
It seemed like the silky cloth was somehow keeping him back.
Magda wondered . . . could it be?
She remembered Isidore saying that some of the spells on the hanging fabric were her own creation. Isidore knew more about the underworld and the dead than most people.
Magda held the lantern up. She could see then, through the diaphanous cloth, besides his glowing eyes, that there were symbols all over the other side. They were drawn rather crudely with what looked to be a thin wash of paint that wrinkled the fabric. Magda could see that they were definitely spell-forms. She tried to picture in her mind what they would look like if she were on the other side and wasn’t looking at them backward.