The Moving Rooms

Vegon disliked mysteries that pretended to be architecture.

A locked door was architecture.

A hidden passage was architecture.

A corridor designed to confuse an intruder was irritating architecture, but architecture nonetheless.

This was something else.

He stood just inside the Temple of Orozon and looked back toward the entrance.

The swamp remained visible behind them.

That was reassuring.

For the moment.

Gray daylight reached perhaps thirty feet into the temple before surrendering to darkness. Beyond that, Xil's light caught stone walls, a high ceiling and a broad passage stretching deeper into the structure.

Vegon studied the masonry.

The blocks were enormous.

He had noticed that outside, but standing beneath them made the scale difficult to ignore. Some were taller than Zook. There was almost no mortar between them, yet the joints were so precise he could barely fit the edge of a fingernail into the seams.

Four centuries.

At least.

Perhaps more.

And the ceiling had not sagged.

The walls had not shifted.

Water had not stained the stone.

Vegon ran two fingers across the nearest block.

Dry.

Behind him, Jandar said, “Please tell me you aren't licking it.”

Vegon looked over his shoulder.

“Why would I lick it?”

“You were touching it strangely.”

“I was examining it.”

“With your fingers.”

“That is generally how touching works.”

Jandar nodded.

“Good. As long as we agree.”

Deacon passed between them.

“Can we keep moving?”

Vegon returned his attention to the wall.

“No.”

Deacon stopped.

“No?”

“I would like to understand where we are before we proceed farther.”

“We're inside the temple.”

“Thank you, Deacon.”

“You asked.”

“I did not.”

“You sounded like you did.”

Zook was already farther ahead, crouched near the floor.

“Tracks.”

That ended the discussion.

Deacon moved toward him.

Vegon followed.

The floor was stone rather than earth, but a thin layer of dirt had accumulated in the joints. Zook pointed toward several disturbances.

“Something comes through here.”

“How recently?” Deacon asked.

Zook shrugged.

“Hard to tell. Not today.”

Mills remained near Xil.

The minstrel looked better than he had in the cave, but the temple had made him quiet again.

Vegon could not blame him.

There was a quality to the place that had nothing to do with darkness.

It felt complete.

Not abandoned.

Not ruined.

Complete.

As though its builders had finished their work, walked away and expected everything to remain exactly as they had left it.

Vegon disliked that thought.

“Anything pulling at you?” Xil asked Mills.

Mills shook his head.

“No.”

“Anything singing?”

“No.”

“Anything telling you to walk somewhere alone?”

“No.”

Jandar looked back.

“If something tells you to walk somewhere alone, perhaps mention it before doing so this time.”

“I've learned that lesson.”

“Good.”

Mills paused.

“I think.”

Jandar sighed.

They moved deeper.

Vegon counted his steps.

He always counted in unfamiliar structures.

Not consciously at first. It was simply something he did. Distance mattered. Angles mattered. If you knew how far you had walked and how often you had turned, a building eventually explained itself.

The first corridor ran straight for seventy-three of Vegon's strides before widening.

There were carvings along the walls.

Most were geometric.

Interlocking lines.

Circles inside squares.

Patterns repeated in groups of three and five.

Vegon stopped at one.

Jandar nearly walked into him.

Again.

“Could you perhaps announce these moments?”

Vegon traced the pattern without touching it.

“This symbol repeats.”

“Is that bad?”

“I don't know.”

“Is it good?”

“I don't know.”

Jandar looked toward Deacon.

“I'm beginning to understand how he feels about Zook and mud.”

Vegon ignored him.

The design appeared decorative at first glance, but the repetitions were too exact.

Five lines.

Three circles.

Five lines.

A broken square.

Then the sequence began again.

Not writing.

Not any writing Vegon knew.

Possibly notation.

Possibly—

“Vegon.”

He looked up.

The others were waiting.

“Coming.”

The corridor narrowed.

Zook led.

Deacon followed him.

Jandar had insisted that Vegon walk nearer the center of the group after Vegon's third stop.

Vegon had informed him that scholarship could not be rushed.

Jandar had informed him that scholars could be left behind.

Mills had written that down.

Vegon had seen him.

Then Deacon stepped on the stone.

The sound was tiny.

A click.

Vegon saw Deacon's expression change.

Three things happened almost together.

A stone slab dropped behind them with a thunderous crash.

Something opened in the ceiling.

And from somewhere ahead came the grinding roar of stone against stone.

“Move!” Deacon shouted.

Vegon turned.

The passage behind them was gone.

The slab had sealed it.

Then he heard the impact.

Once.

Deep.

Heavy.

The floor trembled.

Zook's eyes widened.

“What was that?”

Another impact.

Closer.

Jandar stared past Vegon.

“Oh.”

Vegon followed his gaze.

A boulder filled the corridor.

Not mostly.

Completely.

A round mass of stone nearly as wide as the passage itself came rolling toward them, grinding against the walls and floor.

For one absurd instant Vegon found himself wondering how the builders had raised it into position.

Then Deacon grabbed his shoulder.

“Vegon!”

“Yes.”

“Do something!”

The boulder struck a slight irregularity in the floor and bounced.

Stone cracked.

Dust burst from beneath it.

Distance—

Thirty yards.

Less.

They could run.

No.

The corridor ahead narrowed.

If the boulder maintained its diameter—

“Run!” Jandar shouted.

Everyone moved.

Vegon did not.

“Vegon!”

He reached into the Weave.

Magic was not thought.

Not exactly.

Thought gave it shape.

Will gave it direction.

Knowledge kept it from killing you.

Vegon felt the familiar structure form around his intention.

Mass.

Volume.

Proportion.

The spell had been designed for living bodies, but that was convention rather than limitation.

He hoped.

The boulder thundered toward him.

Twenty yards.

He extended one hand.

“Vegon!” Xil shouted.

“I am busy.”

The spell struck the stone.

Nothing happened.

For half a heartbeat, Vegon considered the possibility that he had misunderstood the magic.

Then the boulder shrank.

Not gradually.

The world seemed to fold around it.

A mass large enough to crush all six of them compressed inward until it was scarcely half its former width.

Jandar stopped running.

“Ha!”

“Keep moving!” Deacon shouted.

The smaller boulder was still coming.

And it was still enormous.

But now there was space.

Barely.

“Walls!” Vegon yelled.

They split.

Zook flattened himself against one side.

Xil pulled Mills with him.

Deacon went opposite.

Jandar pressed his back to the wall beside Vegon.

The boulder struck the floor hard enough to shake Vegon's teeth.

It rushed between them.

Close.

Much too close.

Vegon felt wind from its passage.

Then it continued down the corridor, smaller but no less enthusiastic about destroying whatever stood in its path.

They watched it go.

A distant crash followed.

Then another.

Then silence.

Dust drifted through Xil's light.

Jandar slowly turned toward Vegon.

Vegon lowered his hand.

“What?”

Jandar stared at him.

“You made the boulder smaller.”

“Yes.”

“It was going to kill us.”

“That was why I made it smaller.”

Jandar pointed down the corridor.

“You made. The boulder. Smaller.”

Vegon brushed dust from his sleeve.

“I understand what I did.”

Zook began laughing.

Not loudly.

That made it worse.

Mills leaned against the wall, grinning despite himself.

Even Xil smiled.

Deacon looked from the corridor to Vegon.

“Can you do that to anything?”

“No.”

Jandar's expression changed.

Vegon immediately regretted answering.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“That is clearly untrue.”

“I was considering possibilities.”

“Stop.”

“I haven't said anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I feel unfairly judged.”

“You should.”

Mills opened his book.

Vegon pointed at him.

“Do not.”

Mills looked innocent.

“I wasn't doing anything.”

“You were going to write that down.”

“I write most things down.”

“You will not write whatever he was thinking.”

“I don't know what he was thinking.”

Jandar leaned toward him.

“I'll tell you later.”

“No.”

Mills laughed.

The sound became another cough.

Xil's smile vanished.

Mills waved him away.

“Still fine.”

Deacon walked back toward the sealed slab.

“No way through.”

Vegon joined him.

The slab fit into the corridor with the same impossible precision as the outer walls.

“No mechanism visible.”

“Can you move it?”

“Perhaps.”

Deacon looked at him.

Vegon reconsidered.

“No.”

“Good.”

“There may be a counterweight.”

“Do you see one?”

“No.”

“Then forward.”

Vegon hated when Deacon was correct.

They continued.

The corridor opened into a chamber.

Vegon stopped at the threshold.

This room was different.

The ceiling rose perhaps twenty feet. Five doorways opened from the chamber, each leading into darkness.

At the center stood a statue.

Or what remained of one.

The figure was humanoid but stylized, its features worn nearly smooth. One arm extended forward. The other had broken off at the elbow.

Jandar walked around it.

“Does it move?”

“No,” Vegon said.

“You didn't even check.”

“I can see the base.”

“You said that about the boulder.”

“I said nothing about the boulder.”

“You were thinking it.”

Vegon examined the floor.

Five doors.

Five possible paths.

No markings differentiated them.

Zook pointed to the leftmost doorway.

“That one.”

“Why?” Deacon asked.

“Because we're standing here.”

Jandar nodded.

“Compelling.”

Zook looked at him.

“You pick one.”

Jandar studied the five openings.

“Left is evil.”

Vegon stared at him.

“What?”

“Left. Always evil.”

“That is not remotely true.”

“You sound confident for someone standing inside an ancient temple built by a dead wizard.”

“Orozon was not—”

“Left.”

Jandar stepped toward the doorway.

Vegon saw him cross the threshold.

Then Jandar disappeared.

No flash.

No sound.

No distortion.

One moment he was there.

The next he was not.

Zook froze.

Deacon drew his crossbow.

Mills said, “Was that supposed to happen?”

“No,” Vegon said.

From beyond the doorway came Jandar's voice.

“Interesting.”

Zook moved toward it.

Vegon caught him.

“Wait.”

Jandar called again.

“I am not dead.”

Deacon said, “That's useful.”

“I am somewhere else.”

“Less useful.”

Vegon approached the threshold.

The corridor beyond looked perfectly ordinary.

Ten feet of stone floor.

Walls.

Darkness.

No Jandar.

“Can you hear us?” Vegon called.

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“In a room.”

“That is insufficient.”

“There is armor.”

“What kind?”

“The standing kind.”

“A suit of armor?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“Cracked floor. Doors.”

Vegon frowned.

Sound passed through.

Light passed through.

But Jandar had not.

“Come back.”

A pause.

Then—

“I can't see you.”

Vegon's frown deepened.

“You're looking through the doorway?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“Another room.”

Deacon muttered something.

Zook leaned around Vegon.

“Jandar?”

“Yes?”

“Stay there.”

“I had planned to.”

Zook stepped through.

He vanished.

Mills made a small noise.

Vegon closed his eyes.

“Why did he do that?”

“Because he's Zook,” Deacon said.

From beyond the doorway:

“Oh.”

Vegon opened his eyes.

“Zook?”

“I'm with Jandar.”

“Good.”

Jandar said, “He appears disappointed.”

“I am.”

Xil moved toward the doorway.

Vegon blocked him.

“No.”

Xil looked down at his arm.

“Move.”

“We should determine what it does before sending everyone through.”

“You have two people on the other side.”

“Precisely.”

Deacon stepped past both of them and disappeared.

Vegon stared at the empty threshold.

Mills said, “I don't think they agree with your methodology.”

“No.”

Xil stepped through.

Gone.

Vegon looked at Mills.

Mills looked at Vegon.

“I suppose we're going.”

Vegon sighed.

“Yes.”

Mills crossed first.

Vegon followed.

There was no sensation of movement.

That bothered him most.

Teleportation should feel like something.

Heat.

Cold.

Pressure.

Disorientation.

A momentary tearing as location ceased to matter.

This felt like taking a step.

His foot crossed the threshold in one chamber.

It landed in another.

Vegon stopped.

The room behind him was gone.

Jandar leaned against a wall.

“Welcome.”

Vegon turned.

The doorway remained.

Beyond it was not the chamber with the five doors.

Instead, another unfamiliar room waited.

His pulse quickened.

Not fear.

Interest.

Mostly.

“This is impossible,” Mills said.

Vegon glanced at him.

“No.”

“You say that very confidently.”

“Impossible things do not happen. If something happens, then our understanding of what is possible is incomplete.”

Jandar smiled.

“That sounds like a complicated way of saying you don't know.”

Vegon ignored him.

The room contained the suit of armor Jandar had described.

It stood on a raised platform.

Old.

Empty.

Ceremonial, perhaps.

Cracks crossed the floor.

Vegon crouched near the doorway.

No runes.

No visible enchantment.

He extended a hand toward the threshold.

Magic prickled against his senses.

There.

Faint.

Deep.

Not on the doorway.

Everywhere.

He stood.

“The room isn't teleporting us.”

Deacon frowned.

“What is?”

“I don't know.”

Jandar smiled.

Vegon hated that smile.

“Don't.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was merely enjoying the moment.”

“What moment?”

“The one where you don't know.”

Vegon turned away.

There were four doors from this chamber.

He chose one.

“Why that one?” Zook asked.

“Because I want to test something.”

Vegon walked through.

A different room.

He stopped.

Behind him, the doorway showed another chamber.

Not the armor room.

He immediately stepped backward.

Another room.

Not either of them.

Vegon stood very still.

“Ah.”

Jandar's voice came from somewhere nearby.

“That did not sound like a good ah.”

Vegon turned.

Jandar stood in the new chamber with Deacon.

“How did you get here?”

“Door.”

“Which door?”

Jandar pointed.

Vegon looked.

“That does not answer the question.”

“It is the only answer I have.”

The others emerged one by one from different openings.

Xil appeared last, pulling Mills behind him.

Zook looked around.

“Where's the armor?”

“Elsewhere,” Vegon said.

“Which way?”

“I don't know.”

Jandar brightened.

Vegon pointed at him.

“Do not.”

Jandar closed his mouth.

For several minutes, they experimented.

It went badly.

A doorway that carried Deacon into a chamber with a broken statue delivered Jandar somewhere with three stone pillars.

The same doorway, seconds later, returned Zook to the room they had just left.

Vegon tried marking a threshold with chalk.

The mark remained.

The destination did not.

He tried leaving a coin in one chamber.

They found it again after three transitions, but through a door that should have led in the opposite direction.

He counted steps.

Meaningless.

He tracked orientation.

Meaningless.

He watched the magic.

That was worse.

The enchantment did not activate when someone crossed.

It was always active.

The entire structure was saturated with it.

Not individual spells.

A system.

Vegon stood in the center of yet another chamber and stared at the walls.

He hated it.

Not because he was frightened.

He was frightened.

But that was not the problem.

He hated that he could see intelligence in the design without understanding the intelligence.

Someone had built this deliberately.

Someone had established rules.

And Vegon could not find them.

Mills sat on a low piece of fallen stone.

“May I ask a question?”

“You usually do.”

“Are we lost?”

Jandar answered immediately.

“Yes.”

Vegon said, “No.”

Everyone looked at him.

Jandar gestured around the unfamiliar chamber.

“Vegon.”

“We are not lost.”

“Where is the entrance?”

Vegon did not answer.

“Where is the armor room?”

Silence.

“The room with five doors?”

Vegon folded his arms.

Jandar smiled.

“We are lost.”

“We are navigating an unfamiliar magical structure.”

“That is a scholarly definition of lost.”

Zook walked to one doorway.

“Then stop trying to map it.”

Vegon looked at him.

“What?”

“Stop trying to map it.”

“That is how one navigates structures.”

“Not this one.”

Vegon almost dismissed the statement.

Then he stopped.

Zook continued.

“In the swamp, I kept trying to understand why the animals were doing the wrong things.”

Vegon remembered.

“They weren't.”

“No.”

Zook pointed toward the doors.

“Maybe you're doing the same thing.”

Vegon looked at the doorway.

Architecture.

Distance.

Direction.

Those were his assumptions.

Not the temple's.

“What if the rooms are not moving?” he said.

Jandar looked around.

“They appear fairly stationary.”

“What if the doors are not passages?”

Deacon frowned.

“They're doors.”

“No. They look like doors.”

Vegon moved toward one.

“A passage connects two locations. This does not.”

“It connects two rooms,” Mills said.

“Yes. But not consistently.”

Vegon felt the thought taking shape.

“The mistake is assuming location determines destination.”

Xil leaned against the wall.

“What does?”

“I don't know.”

Jandar groaned.

Vegon ignored him.

“Perhaps sequence. Perhaps which door was previously used. Perhaps the number of people crossing. Perhaps something within the rooms themselves.”

Deacon said, “Can we figure that out without spending the rest of our lives here?”

“Possibly.”

“Good.”

“Possibly not.”

“Less good.”

They changed tactics.

No one went alone.

That was Deacon's rule.

Jandar objected that he had survived alone perfectly well.

Deacon reminded him that survival was not the same as good judgment.

Jandar said that sounded suspiciously like something Jandar himself had once said.

Nobody believed him.

They moved as a group.

They stopped trying to understand east and west.

Instead, they identified rooms.

Armor.

Broken statue.

Pillars.

Cracked floor.

Empty chamber.

Five doors.

Carved wall.

They began recognizing repetition.

Not geography.

Sequence.

Sometimes.

The five-door room returned twice.

The armor room once.

The chamber with the pillars appeared from three different thresholds.

Mills began keeping a list.

“Armor to pillars,” he said.

“No,” Vegon said.

“That's what happened.”

“Once.”

“Twice.”

Vegon looked at him.

Mills showed the book.

It had happened twice.

Vegon frowned.

“Interesting.”

Jandar said, “Careful. That's the word you use before something tries to kill us.”

Vegon looked at the sequence.

Armor to pillars.

Pillars to five doors.

Five doors to cracked floor.

Except when—

He took the book.

Mills surrendered it reluctantly.

“What?”

“This.”

Vegon pointed.

“Here. We went from the five-door chamber to the cracked floor.”

“Yes.”

“And here we went from the same chamber to the armor room.”

“Yes.”

“What changed?”

Mills looked at the notes.

“Jandar chose the door the first time.”

Everyone looked at Jandar.

He spread his hands.

“I choose excellent doors.”

“Zook chose it the second time,” Mills continued.

Vegon looked at Zook.

Zook shrugged.

“Same door.”

“Perhaps not.”

Zook stared at him.

“It was in the same place.”

“Yes.”

Vegon handed the book back.

“But perhaps position isn't the distinction.”

He returned to the doorway.

Symbols were carved along the frame.

He had seen them before.

He had assumed decoration.

Five lines.

Three circles.

Broken square.

He looked at the corresponding doorway across the room.

Different pattern.

Subtle.

But different.

“Oh.”

Jandar sighed.

“Another ah.”

Vegon ignored him.

“The doors are marked.”

“You said the writing wasn't writing,” Deacon said.

“It may not be.”

“Then what?”

Vegon moved to the next threshold.

“Instructions.”

He could not read them.

That remained infuriating.

But he could compare them.

Patterns repeated.

Not perfectly.

Families of patterns.

He began choosing doors by symbol rather than direction.

Their progress improved.

Not enough to call it mastery.

But enough.

They stopped returning to the same chambers as often.

The architecture began to feel less random.

Vegon felt something loosen in his chest.

There were rules.

He had known there would be.

He simply did not know all of them.

Yet.

They entered a long chamber lined with statues.

Zook immediately stopped.

“Something's ahead.”

Deacon raised his crossbow.

Everyone quieted.

Vegon listened.

At first, nothing.

Then—

Scratching.

Stone against claw.

Faint.

Somewhere beyond the far wall.

Mills closed his book.

Jandar drew his rapier.

Vegon studied the chamber.

More statues.

Another doorway at the far end.

And something large lay near one wall.

He took a step.

Zook caught his sleeve.

“Wait.”

Vegon looked down at the gnome's hand.

Zook released him.

“Something's coming.”

The scratching stopped.

Silence.

Then a low sound rolled through the chamber.

A growl.

Not human.

Not close.

But approaching.

Deacon moved in front of Mills.

Xil's hand closed around his holy symbol.

Jandar smiled in exactly the way Vegon had learned meant someone was about to get stabbed.

Zook nocked an arrow.

Vegon raised one hand and felt magic gather around his fingers.

The growl came again.

Closer.

Something moved beyond the doorway.

A heavy shape.

Low to the ground.

Scaled.

Vegon caught a glimpse of blue.

And suddenly he remembered where he had seen such a creature before.

“Guard drake.”

Deacon glanced at him.

“You're sure?”

The creature stepped into the doorway.

Blue scales caught Xil's light.

Its claws scraped across ancient stone.

Its head lowered.

Vegon stared at it.

“Yes.”

The drake charged.