The Tangle Box by Terry Brooks

He turned as the Lady came at him with the knife she had somehow kept hidden, the blade black and slick with poison. She shrieked as he seized her wrist and forced the knife away, then twisted it from her grasp. She beat at him and kicked wildly, trying to break free, but he was far stronger and immune to her fury, and he subdued her easily. She collapsed to the ground, breathing hard, on the verge of tears perhaps but refusing to cry. He picked up the blade and cast it far out into the gloom.

“Be careful what you throw about, Knight,” a new voice warned, deep and guttural.

He saw the Gargoyle then, resting on its haunches close by, come from the woods as silent as a shadow at midnight.

The creature’s eyes were yellow and hooded as they studied him, and there was nothing in their reptilian depths to offer even the slightest hint of what the mind behind them might be thinking.

“You’ve chosen to stay,” the Knight said quietly.

The Gargoyle laughed. “Chosen? A strange word in these circumstances, don’t you think? I am here because there is nowhere else to go.”

The Gargoyle was loathsome to look upon. Its body was gnarled and misshapen, with its arms and legs bandy and crooked, its body all sinew and corded muscle, and its head sunk down between its powerful shoulders. Its hands and feet were webbed and clawed, and the whole of it was covered in bristly dark hair. Its face was wrinkled like a piece of dried fruit, and its features were jammed together like a child’s clay model of something only vaguely human. Fangs peeked out from beneath its thick lips, and its nose was wet and dirty.

From atop its hunched shoulders, wings fluttered weakly, leathery flaps too tiny to be of any use, appendages that seemed strangely out of place. It was as if its forebearers might have flown once but had long ago forgotten how.

The Knight was repulsed, but he did not look away. Ugliness was a part of his life as well. “Where are we?” he asked the Gargoyle. “Have you looked about?”

“We are in the Labyrinth,” it replied, as if that answered everything.

The Gargoyle glanced at the Lady, who had looked up again on hearing him speak. “Don’t look at me!” she hissed at once, and turned away.

“In what part of our country is the Labyrinth?” the Knight persisted, confused.

The Gargoyle laughed anew. “In every part.” He showed his yellowed teeth and black tongue. “In all parts of every part of everything. It lies north and south and east and west and even in the center. It is where we are and where we would go and where we will always be.”

“He is mad,” the Lady whispered quickly. “Make him keep still.”

The Knight shifted the heavy broadsword on his back and glanced around. “There is a way out of every maze,” he declared. “We will find the way out of this one.”

The Gargoyle rubbed his hands as if seeking warmth. “How will you do that, Sir Knight?” His voice was disdainful.

“Not by staying here,” the Knight said. “Do you come with us or not?”

“Leave him!” the Lady hissed, rising suddenly to her feet and drawing her dark robes close. “He does not belong with us! He was never meant to be with us!”

“Us?” the Gargoyle repeated slyly. “Are you bound together now, Lady? Are you joined to this Knight as mate and companion? How unexpected.”

The Lady curled her lip at the creature and turned away. “I am joined to neither of you. I would rather be killed now and have it done.”

“I would rather you were killed as well,” the Gargoyle

The Lady whirled back upon him once again. “You are an ugly beast, Gargoyle. If I had a mirror, I would hold it up to your face so that you could see how ugly!”

The Gargoyle flinched at the words, and then hissed back at her, “And you would need a mirror inside yourself to see file ugliness that possesses you!”

“Do not fight!” the Knight thundered, and stepped between them. He looked changed suddenly, the man in dark doming and chain mail suddenly gone even darker. It was as if the light about him had been sucked away. It was as if he had been plated in shadows.