Dreams of Imahken

An intertwining wall of leaves, vines, thorns, and roses loomed before the group seeking passage. Anilee, now clean and calm, approached. She gently touched the soft petals of the roses as blue as the ocean, speckled by indigo pollen. She noticed that the vines behind the roses seemed to be shifting and slithering across each other like a wall of snakes.

She stepped away. “No, I have never seen any roses like this before. I was unaware that roses could grow so beautifully blue. However, I am worried because the bush-” Anilee stared up at the towering greenery before her, “-the hedge, seems to be shifting.”

“Perhaps this is what the poem refers to as labyrinthine?” Illus paused beside Anilee. “Now to find an entrance…”

He noticed the vines shifted more quickly since he had approached, little tendrils seemed to reach out toward him.

Illus quickly backed away. “You’re right, it would appear these roses are alive.”

“Duh-huh! The plant is alive?!” Tyza mocked Illus with a clown voice.

Illus glared at her, failing to notice as Sator drew his machete and hacked at the bush.

“Wait-!” A vine slapped Anilee.

The wall of roses and thorny vines erupted like a ravenous maw, surrounding them, catching Sator and Tyza. The vines coiled around them, dragging them in and closing over. Illus and Anilee were both knocked backward by the burst of vines.

Illus tugged Anilee to her feet and away from the bush. “Tyza! Sator! Are you-”

A thorny vine whirled out at Illus’s face. He barely ducked it, but lost balance and tumbled over. Anilee rushed to his side, too terrified to step closer to the wall.

“Ty-” Sator yelled out but was quickly silenced.

Illus and Anilee froze, waiting for a sound, but they heard nothing else from the other side of the wall.

“Sator, Tyza!” Illus called back, noticing that the wall trembled when he did.

No response.

He grabbed Anilee by the hand and held a finger to his lips to quiet her. Together, they tiptoed closer to the wall, then stood in place. The wall continued its gentle shifting, no care for the two standing before it.

Illus took off in a speedy walk, a cold sweat breaking. He pulled Anilee around the perimeter of the roses desperate to find the others. Almost a quarter of a mile down river was an opening marked by two mossy granite fox statues on either side. Illus pulled at the moss on the base of the left statue where a flat face seemed to have writing. The words, eroded by time and moss, were illegible. Illus glanced to Anilee, who worriedly met his eyes. With a firm grip on her hand, he led her forward into the maze.

The strange serenity of the silent spectacle calmed Anilee, so much that she walked beside Illus instead of behind him. She marveled at the carefully manicured hedges, the overgrown granite tiles beneath their feet, wetted by rain and slick with moss, parted from one another by grass. Specks of indigo pollen drifted in the air around them, glittering in the sunlight.

Illus half wished he had been alone with Anilee, not chasing after Tyza and Sator. The scene was private, intimate, and peaceful. A setting he wanted to take advantage of to learn Anilee’s mind better, if only he could speak, if only Tyza and Sator were not in danger.

They rushed through alley after alley, forward and backward as the sun continued its descent toward evening without any sign of having made it any deeper. Anilee’s initial wonder became a building anxiety for every second longer they remained, her demeanor slowly becoming more panicked and startled.

A shifting noise crept up behind them. Anilee froze in fear, barely holding whimpers back. Illus turned around to see the maze covering the direction they came from. He whirled back and pulled Anilee away from where the maze closed off. They darted around a bend and down a long corridor thick with roses and thin with space. Like the walls too were slowly closing in around them.

Anilee trembled, hardly keeping up as her knees buckled with every step, stamping on every stone. Illus stopped and pulled her close into a comforting embrace, holding her head into his shoulder while he surveyed the shifting maze. Sure enough, the walls ceased closing in once Anilee stopped stamping her boots into the stones.

Panic would be the death of them, that Illus knew. The other two could manage such a situation, but Anilee would fall apart under pressure.

Her persistent shaking eased in his arms and he released her head, showing her the receded walls. He then pointed to his boots and proceeded by stepping only on the grass and moss, which she followed in turn.

A shimmer of blue and black darted across the path ahead, from left to right. Had Illus not kept his eyes trained ahead, it could have been discarded as a trick of the eyes, a shadow amidst the shifting walls. Illus pulled Anilee along with more expedience, keeping his eyes on the exact place the fox crossed.

Low to the ground, obscured by a small outcropping of vines, was a path through the walls on either side.

But which side was the correct one? Illus wondered. The fox might have been moving toward an exit, toward Tyza and Sator. Or perhaps it wanted him to think one of those things. A fox cunning and powerful enough to create the false image of a cliff would surely seek to mislead them in a labyrinth. The opposite direction from where the fox went was more likely to be safe, especially if it had its own network of fox holes and passages.

Illus knelt down and slowly stuck his hand into the cramped fox trail through the wall. No mirage for his hand to pass through, nor a response from the roses. He stood and cupped his hand close to Anilee’s ear, whispering almost silently.

“Trust me.”

He dropped the bags, tied a rope to them, and stuck the leeway in his pocket. Then he ducked down to crawl through the fox hole. The vines brushed against him, thorns catching on his clothes, his frame too large for the route. Vines curled gently around his legs, like they were ready to clutch and seize him the instant a sound was made. He glanced backward to Anilee, who was on her hands and knees mustering the confidence to follow Illus. In the instant he turned his head forward, a thorny vine curled up in front of him, pointing directly into his right eye.

Illus froze, a gasp of air escaping his mouth. The vines tightened around his legs, cut into his arms, and whirled toward his face. They stretched and strained his skin, shallow slices searing his limbs. He held his breath until finally the vines calmed, receding back into place, releasing his legs. The light on the other side neared, and then with a desperate crawl for freedom, he burst onto mossy stones. A gentle sound of running water caught his ear, but his mind was still focused on getting Anilee through the wall.

He glanced into the fox trail and Anilee was about head deep, eyes closed, face scrunched in like a scared puggle. Her hand trembled, creeping forward an inch a second. From this side, Illus realized the wall was only several feet across, so he could help Anilee through from his end.

Creeping forward, Anilee’s hand met Illus’s and a yelp burst from her lips. The vines surged around her hand and head, knocked her hat over her face and constricted her ankles. Illus knew she would only get louder, so he strengthened his grip, thorns pricking into the soft flesh on the back of his hand.

He held her hand firm, but calmly. The thick cloth of her dress kept the thorns from hurting Anilee, giving her just enough confidence to open her eyes and be pulled forward by Illus. He tugged and she crawled, finally emerging from the wall of roses. As Illus pulled the bags through, Anilee rose and tugged on his shirt.

Illus peered over his shoulder where Anilee was looking. A gray granite fountain caught his eye. The stones beneath his feet were neither mossy nor worn, but polished and clean as though crawling through the wall had transported them backward through time to an era when Imahken, Ciun, whatever name the ruins held, were not ruins. A three layered fountain with classical carvings on each level. The top level depicted a fox and a masked man raising their hands to the sky, blowing away raging thunderclouds. At the second level, men sowed the earth, seeding the ground while the fox and the masked man held back tidal waves. These waves were released gently into the third level. This bottom level of the fountain was etched with images of women collecting water from the gently flowing river and pouring them into fields which abounded with elegant roses.

But Anilee’s eyes were not on the fountain, nor the gentle flow of water from it. She stared across the scene at the fox, seated atop a short pedestal, whimsically watching the two humans. Illus did not know how to proceed. Something was not right to him, curious about the bubbling water that disturbed the silent serenity of the garden.

“Is it…?” He quietly spoke while monitoring the walls. His hypothesis was correct. In this spot, the vines did not desire the same silence as the rest of the maze.

The fox locked its eyes on Illus, and Illus locked eyes with the fox. He identified no fear nor skittishness as the fox’s eyes casually checked Illus up and down.

“You…” Illus began jovially, “the poem spoke of a groundskeeper. Would that be you?”

The fox did not respond, but its blue eyes stared on with a strange sentience, recognition that Illus had never seen in a fox.

“Can you understand me?” Illus took a step closer to the fox.

It raised its head, peering down its nose at Illus. He was unsure what to say next. Should he pry in an attempt to find Tyza and Sator, or exercise more caution?

Suddenly, Anilee spoke up. “Your garden is rather lovely, Mister Fox.”

Illus almost laughed, taking on a cynical tone of reverence. “Aha- ah, yes, kind regards to our tormentor for a lovely fate. I could not help but marvel at the pristine roses as they strangled my sister and her husband.” He politely nodded to the fox.

The fox’s eyes widened at Illus’s comment, and its lips curled upward, a grotesque smile, like a creature pretending to be a fox lived beneath the fox’s pelt. Little chuckles broke free, high-pitched fox chuckles which could almost certainly be heard throughout the rest of the maze. Illus took close care to not be much louder than the running water.

“What fertilizer do you use? I must know, unless trapped humans and animals are to thank for our lovely little walk.”

The fox tilted its head at Illus, its chuckles fading. No, no, no. Illus needed it to keep laughing.

“Apologies,” Illus put his hand on his heart, “we did not intend to disturb your meditation, or what have you. Would it be preferable if we crawled back in and died? I would be happy to obli-”

Anilee slapped Illus on the arm, fear welling in her eyes which darted between Illus and the fox. Illus had noticed earlier that the fox was so amused by Anilee’s torment. Luckily for Illus, Anilee was terrible at parsing jokes from true intentions.

Illus gently grabbed her arm. “No, no, Anilee, we must respect this kind fox and his domain. You go through first.” He tugged on her, pulling her toward the fox path again, but Anilee was not amused in the slightest. She frantically slapped Illus's arm, holding back shrieks and breaking down into tears as they neared the roses.

The fox’s low cackle turned into a howl at witnessing Anilee’s hopeless struggle against Illus. Of course, Illus was not actually going to push Anilee in, but the fox did not know that, nor did Anilee. In fact, she thought Illus had gone insane, her heart breaking with betrayal at the malevolent magic the fox must have been casting on Illus’s mind.

“Illus!” She breathlessly whispered, nearly hyperventilating. “Please! Please! The fox has done something! To you! It’s done-!”

Illus covered her mouth and stopped pulling her. Anilee’s horrified eyes met his, and he quietly shushed her. The vines crawled out from the walls around them, reaching toward the howling fox, rolling around on its back in ecstatic laughter, eyes closed as it kicked its legs in the air. From the vines, Illus caught a glimpse of Sator and Tyza, beckoning them toward him with his hand. They were cut up and bruised, but limped through the thinning walls to Illus and Anilee.

A vine prodded at the fox and in a shock it rolled over in a defensive hunch. The fox watched Illus, Anilee, Tyza, and Sator the whole time the vines returned to their places in the walls. Then it jumped from the pedestal, darting the opposite direction from the four, through doric columns holding a grand archway aloft.

Anilee pulled away from Illus, tears in her eyes. She walked off through the archway by herself.

Tyza whistled. “What happened to-” a vine flicked her ear, startling her away.

Illus and Sator simply exchanged tired glances and followed them in turn.