He moved on, keeping his hand on the glass wall. He started forward and immediately smashed hard into glass. Keeping his hand on the glass, he turned more to the right. Again he smashed into glass.
How could that be? He stood still and let his left hand follow the glass around. Finally, he found the opening and moved cautiously forward. He managed only a few feet and came up against glass again. Frustrated, he started to turn sharply away and for a moment lifted his left hand.
Quickly, he put it back. In the same place? How could he know? And supposing some of these glass walls revolved? Suppose it was so arranged that the pressure of his step would make a sheet of plate glass swing around to cut him off?
Cautiously, he moved on, slowly feeling his way along. At times he closed his eyes, and it was easier that way, for whatever he saw was deceptive.
Was he going in a circle? There was nothing with which to mark his progress, as the chalk did not seem to work on the glass. Whether it was something to do with the chalk itself or the way the glass had been treated, the chalk would leave no mark.
He turned and turned again, his fingers following the wall, and suddenly it came to an edge. He felt around it. There was a mirror opposite him in which he could see himself and all the glass behind him, but on his left there was an opening back into the maze.
Pausing in the shadows of the door he consulted the old map. The blank wall before him should be the place of The Hand. To his right and some thirty feet away was another passage, and the doors to the six cells, if they were such, opened off that passage. There, too, was the guardroom.
He had until now been impossibly lucky. His quick study of the map and some slight knowledge of mazes had helped. The maze, after all, seemed quite simple. Yet what if he had not seen the map beforehand, and had not held to the left-hand rule?
He could easily have spent days wandering in the glass maze alone, to say nothing of what had gone before. There were, he recalled, several trapped rooms in this area, and although there had been no such indications on any one of the cells, a trap might exist there, also.
Suddenly, he tilted the old map, squinting his eyes to see. There, just around the corner and inside The Hand’s quarters, there was something. The drawing had grown almost illegible in places and he could not quite make out what was indicated. Some sort of passage or tunnel, or at least a door.
He folded the map, touched his tongue to dry lips, and stepped into the open.
Nothing …
He glanced both ways again, then turned to the right and walked to the corner.
He turned, and found himself facing a Varanel! The guard saw him at the same instant and opened his mouth to shout. Mike Raglan had no time to think, to plan, to consider. He lowered the boom.
He struck, straight from the shoulder with his weight behind it. The Varanel had automatically stepped toward him and caught the punch coming in. It landed right on the side of his chin, with his mouth open, and the jaw crumpled under Raglan’s fist.
The Varanel went down hard, dropping his wand or whatever it was. Raglan stepped over him, his foot coming down hard on the tube, for such it seemed to be. Something in it broke and crumpled under his foot, and then Raglan was crossing the space to the doors of the cells. He was running when he reached the door. He grasped the handle to open the door but nothing happened. He spoke Erik’s name, listening for a response.
There was none. He turned and jerked open the next door and was staring into the eyes of four Varanel grouped around a table. One of them, obviously an officer, reacted quickly. His command, whatever it meant, was directed at Raglan. He spoke quickly, sharply. It was obvious the idea that Raglan might not obey was completely beyond his comprehension.
Raglan realized this at the same instant that he saw, hanging on a hook just inside the guardroom door, a ring with several large keys. Reaching up, he took the keys, then stepped back and pulled the door shut.
There was a shout from within but he had already turned away.
There was a narrow passage alongside the guardroom and he stepped into it, running lightly until he faced two doors, one on either side. He moved quickly to the one on his left, thrust the key home, and turned it.
The door came open under his hand but he did not enter. He reached for his flashlight and shot the straight golden beam into the darkness.
On the floor, apparently unconscious, lay Erik Hokart.
At Raglan’s feet there was a small ramp. Behind him the door was swinging slowly shut.
XXXVIII
Raglan stepped back quickly, but in the moment the heavy door swung shut, Erik’s. eyes opened and looked straight into his. Then the door closed and Raglan stood alone in the passage.
There was a rush of feet behind him and Raglan turned swiftly, drawing his pistol as he turned.
The nearest man was not ten feet away. Lifting his left arm as if to ward off a blow, Raglan fired from under the elbow.
In the rock-walled passage the gun boomed like a cannon, and the bullet caught the charging Varanel in the chest. Whatever armor he might be wearing under that blue jerkin was no defense against the .357. Raglan fired again, and a second man clutched his stomach and plunged face downward on the floor.
Shocked, the others halted, then scrambled to run, horrified by this unexpected resistance. For so long they had believed themselves invincible and invulnerable, and now two men had been struck down in seconds. The first was dead, the other screaming. Brave though they might be, nothing in their life experience had prepared them for this, but Raglan knew that once the shock was over they would return.
Swiftly, Raglan stooped and caught the dead man by the collar. Again he opened the massive door, but this time he dragged the Varanel’s body into the opening to prevent the closing of the door. Stepping over the body, Raglan ran down to where Erik was struggling to rise.
Grasping his arm, Raglan wheeled toward the door, half-dragging Erik behind him. Somebody was outside, trying to pull the dead Varanel from the opening. Letting go of Erik, Raglan leaped over the body, and as the man outside dropped the dead man’s foot and reached for a weapon, Raglan drove the muzzle of the heavy gun into the man’s face.
The Varanel fell backward, rolled over, and lunged to escape. Raglan reached back, caught Erik’s hand, and pulled him through the door.
“Can you walk?”
Erik nodded, but his weakness was obvious. His face was ghastly, and there were bruises as from a beating. For an instant Mike glanced left to right. On the left lay the maze from which he had emerged, a death trap for a man in a hurry pursued by men who knew the maze. To the right the passage went straight for some fifty feet and then curved away out of sight. What lay beyond he had no idea.
Directly opposite was a door to what he believed was the quarters of The Hand. Gun in hand, he pressed the wooden block imbedded in the stone, and surprisingly, this door, too, swung open. Beyond was a lighted entrance and a screen before a door that looked to be carved from ivory. Raglan stepped through the door, Erik following. Behind them the door swung shut.
Almost instantly a voice boomed out, shouting harsh commands in a language neither understood.
Ducking around the screen they found themselves in a sort of foyer, facing a concave wall in which there were four tall, narrow doors, two on each side of a gigantic figure of a leaping jaguar carved from black basalt.
Frozen in its leap, jaws agape, revealing very real teeth and claws distended. Raglan was appalled and amazed by as frightening a piece of sculpture as he had ever seen. It was awesome, and splendid as well.
Again the voice boomed out, obviously commanding them to leave.
Raglan glanced at Erik. “Are you all right? Can you make it?”
“Go ahead. I’ll try.”
Four doors? He tried to remember his map but did not recall anything such as this. In fact, there had been no details of these apartments, if such they could be called. Were these doors traps as well? Obviously at least one of them was not, but which one?
Raglan dropped to his heels to examine the doors as well as the floor. One door had to be used more than the others—perhaps even two doors. If there was a trap here, that door would show the least use.