Chapter 8

The troll’s eyes widened as he saw his dinner pick up the sword, and he almost decided she was not worth the trouble, but his empty stomach won out. With a roar, he advanced on her, and she swung the rusty sword in an arc, slitting his arm open. The troll howled and leapt at her, rage and revenge now more important than anything else. Edana ducked the attack, and ran for the path as he picked himself up from the ground and pursued her. At the point where she had first met the horrid creature, she took the left branch, still clutching the sword and running as hard as she could.

The troll’s muddled brain somehow managed to anticipate her flight, and cut across the forest instead of following her down the paths. He emerged behind her and grabbed hold of her dress. Spinning her around, he raised a huge fist.

Edana had no doubt it could crush her skull with a single blow. She thrust the sword into the hideous creature’s belly at an upward angle with all her might, and stepped back as soon as he released his grip on her dress and roared. Blood splashed out, burning her skin painfully. It must be acid, she thought fleetingly, trying to wipe it off with the fabric of her skirt. Not caring whether or not she had killed the troll, only that he would no longer chase her, she ran on down the path and did not stop until she had emerged from the Forest, though her lungs and sides were in excruciating pain from the mad dash.

On the ground before her was a tiled and cobbled maze. Edana had seen pictures of similar ones at manor houses in England. The cobbled part was about two feet wide, and on either side were glazed tiled squares of many colors. She stepped onto the cobbled path, beginning to enjoy herself. The maze was huge, but not difficult to navigate because she was looking down on it from her full five-foot, eight-inch height. She even began to skip along it after a while, laughing and becoming careless. "Cake, right? As Sarah always says." She giggled, and at that moment accidentally stepped off the cobbled path and onto the tiles next to it.

There was a rumble beneath her feet, followed by the deafening sound of creaking and straining. "Uh-oh," she murmured. On either side of her, the tiles were slowly rising, inch by inch, making walls on both sides of her. They stopped just above eye level. "Damn," Edana groaned. "I guess I should know better than to use that phrase here." She could imagine Jareth immersed in laughter, if he was even bothering to watch her progress, that was. She vaguely remembered Sarah saying something about how she had gotten herself in trouble with those very words. And I thought she was making all of it up... Edana sighed, then had an idea. "I was just kidding!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. The walls stayed where they were. "Well, it was worth a try." She trudged on down the cobbled path, wishing she had brought some food.

Edana had worked her way through the maze until night had fallen and it was too dark to see. Discouraged and lonely, she huddled in a corner and fell into a fitful sleep. She slept late the next morning, when she awoke the sun was reasonably high in the sky. Her stomach rumbling, she pushed herself to her feet and pressed onward. She had been walking for only a few minutes when she turned a corner and could hear frenzied whinnying, not quite like that of a horse. It was somewhere ahead of her. She hurried on towards it, finally emerging in a huge manicured garden. There were fountains, statues and flowers everywhere. The neighing was louder. She followed it to a small gardener’s shed. From inside came scuffling sounds as well.

"Shut up in there, you thieving beast!" a gruff voice growled. It belonged to a dwarf, who was rapping soundly on the wall with his cane. He carried hedge clippers as large as he was under his arm.

"What do you have in there?" Edana asked.

The dwarf made a face at her. "A baby unicorn, not that it makes any difference to you," he grumbled.

"Let her out!" Edana exclaimed.

"Don’t give me orders in me own garden! I found ‘er eating me petunias, so in there she stays until I decide what to do with ‘er." He nodded once with finality, then turned away.

"But surely, with a garden this size, you have more important things to do than deal with an troublesome unicorn."

"Hrrumph," grunted the dwarf, as he trimmed a leafy bush into the shape of a mermaid.

"And she must be making a terrible mess of your tool shed," Edana added.

"The dwarf looked at her thoughtfully. "If ye can open th’ lock, take ‘er an’ be damned to ye," he said, returning to his work.

Edana looked at the lock. It was a heavy iron block, with sliding squares on all four sides. Each of the squares had a portion of a picture, but they were mixed around, and apparently not necessarily in the right direction. Edana sighed. It reminded her of a Rubik’s cube, only worse. She had never been able to do them. She set to work on the charms. She found that she could make ten movements of the blocks, and if the picture was not correct, they would magically rearrange themselves. They were always set up differently than before, so each time was starting anew.

It took Edana three hours of steadily trying to arrange the squares correctly before she did it. The cube dissolved into sparkling fairy dust. A pale grey unicorn filly bolted out and galloped around the garden, much to the chagrin of the gardener. Then she returned to Edana shyly. She blinked huge violet eyes at the young woman who had released the lock, and nuzzled her.

Edana turned triumphantly to the gardener. "See? It only takes persistence."

"Take that creature and go away," he grumbled, entering the tool shed to look for something.

The unicorn filly swished her short, fluffy tail and whinnied at him. Then she followed Edana down the gravel garden path.

"I hope you bring me good luck like unicorns are supposed to," Edana said to her new companion. The filly bobbed her head. "Do you have a name?" Again the filly bobbed her head. An image of rain and a filmy white amorphous shape popped into her mind. "Rain ghost?" she asked uncertainly. Lightning and thunder was added to the image. "Storm ghost!" This time she received a feeling of encouragement, but that it was not quite right. "Storm spirit," she said at last, and the unicorn at her side nickered happily. "How lovely," Edana said dreamily, and introduced herself. As they walked out of the gates of the garden, the path split to go through a forest to the left or a meadow to the right.

The unicorn looked questioningly at Edana, who returned the look. "Let’s go to the left," Edana said, eyeing the gathering clouds in the sky. If she was going to get caught in the rain, she preferred it to be under the added protection of the trees.

"Oh look, berries," Edana said excitedly as they entered the woods. She was beginning to feel faint form hunger. Edana bent to pick some of the plump blackberries, but Storm Spirit grabbed Edana’s skirt in her teeth and yanked her sharply away. A wave of trepidation went through the girl. The unicorn was trying to explain that they were poisonous. Edana thanked her as she followed the delicate creature off the path. Soon they had stopped before a wild apple tree. Storm Spirit bobbed her head at it. Edana picked some for herself and her friend, then they returned to the path.

Large raindrops began to fall, but since the day had been unbearably hot and humid Edana welcomed them. A stream rushed by across the path, and brightly colored fish – along with hybrid creatures like catfish, which combined aspects of each namesake, swam by. The rain grew heavier, and since the travelers were already drenched they sat down in the grass for a rest.

Soon Edana found herself getting cold, and she had no warm, dry clothes to look forward to. Storm Spirit huddled close to her, and they offered each other a little bit of warmth. By the time they awoke, it was dark and the rain had stopped. The clouds had gone, leaving them with a brightly starlit sky. They decided to keep going, if only to help Edana’s dress dry out and to warm themselves up from the exercise.

The woods thinned out after another hour or so. Edana found the noises far less disconcerting now that she was not alone. They reached the edge of the woods and the sight before Edana just about did her in. "I thought we were out of the Labyrinth," she groaned. Down a small hill, stretching as far as she could see in the dark, the path led directly into a new section of maze. The walls here were lower, maybe three feet high, and built of expertly stacked stones using no mortar. The top of each wall was lined with sharp, jagged rocks stood on edge, to prevent anyone from climbing over. It was intricately twisted back upon itself, many of the branches leading in a roundabout fashion to the very path they had started on. Edana had not even entered it yet, and she was terribly disoriented and confused by it. Her steps approached resignedly.

When Edana was certain she had passed the point she had just reached for the third time, she stopped. Everything looked the same and, apparently, she had been wandering in a multitude of loops. She had never felt so frustrated. "How about," she proposed to Storm Spirit, "if we only take turns to the right. And we could tilt one of the pointed stones, turn it on edge I mean, every time we make a turn so we’ll know if we’ve been somewhere before. That should help. The two of them set to work with renewed vigour, hoping desperately that they would be able to solve the maze by morning.