Annabel opens her eyes and stares up at the huge, blue ball that is the sun. She rolls to her side, and there is something green all around her. It is soft and lush, and it tickles her face as the breezes dance through it. She blinks, for she knows her eyes to be a similar shade of green, flecked with brown, like this ground. She forces herself to sit up, and she looks around.
Amid the purple-red sky of World's noon, there is nothing. There is no pollution, no smog clouding the area over her. Directly above her, there is an archway of bramble. She stares up at it, shielding her eyes from the glaring sunlight. There, amid the bleak, dull branches, there is a glimmer of green. She watches it, and a bronze-yellow blossom pushes itself out through the constricting bramble.
Annabel stares up at the bloom, and then something miraculous, something beautiful, something wonderful happens. The bloom bursts open. It is the harbinger of things to come, and a smile plays on Annabel's lips.
Tirival Hend is reading a progress report on the attempts to neutralize the poisonous toxins in the atmosphere, when a bright light starts flashing beside him on his desk. He glares at it for a moment, as if daring it to continue flashing. When it does not stop, he punches the button, and something odd comes up on the main Pholiograph's monitor.
There, amid a swarm of the far-too-obnoxious minotaurs and gorgons who are supposed to be roaming the maze, is Annabel. He had guessed, when he and Mel could not find her in the infirmary, that they had freed her. It was only logical, since he soon found the real drug that was meant to kill her in a drawer with its label removed. Carmelotto had paid dearly for that mistake.
However, it was not Annabel's appearance that had triggered the light. Nor was it the mass of Gehenians. It was what was above them all that had triggered it.
There, above them all, was the trellis that marked the First Sacred Gate. Annabel's simple act of passing through the Gate had opened it, and there, to confirm it, on the ground, was grass. Hend rages with jealousy.
How long had he appealed to his mother, World, to let him return the grassy fields to her form? How long had he stared at the desloate, charred, ugly, barren ground that was the planet? How long had he suffered, only to be shown up by his human daughter? Certainly, she shares some of his genes, but only enough to give her some of his traits. Nothing this dramatic should be at all possible!
Hend's anger grows when a single, beautiful rose bursts forth above the gathering. Bronzish, the color of what Hend recalls as autumnal leaves, the blossom explodes into life, probably flooding the area with a sickeningly sweet aroma. Hend glares at the screen. He will have to dispose of her sooner than he had thought. If she opens the Third Gate and retrieves the egg, things will be so much more difficult for him.
Annabel's smile wavers when the bramble, with a seeming mind of its own, tightens on the blossom, and the bloom withers and dies, its satin petals floating down in a bronze shower over Annabel. She glares up at the bramble, and more and more roses burst out, destorying the imprisoning weed. Green leaves pop out all over the trellis, and a shower of old, brown sticks drifts to the grassy floor.
Pop. Pop. Pop. The blooms burst open, revealing all manner of colors. Then, in the dead center of the trellis archway, a single, glossless black rose bursts into life. The greenery continues to creep, destroying the remaining bramble, but the blooms are finished opening. Annabel knows she has won this round, and the smile returns. She flops back onto her back, laughing as the grasses tickle her in the breeze.
Hend staggers and braces his arms on his desk, glaring at the Pholiograph. How dare she open the First Gate? How dare the Gate open for her? How dare she oppose him? Him! Her father! Her creator! Her reason for life! How dare she?
He forces himself to calm down. There are seven more Gates. Plenty of time to kill her. No sense in rushing things. At least now, after that confrontation, he has a general idea that he will be having some sort of difficulty in competing with her. She does not give up easilly. That could be a problem. However, it will be a problem that Mel will have to solve.
Hend presses a button, and a door slides open, a being with a clanking limp enters the room, and the being bows. "You called for me, Master?" Carmelotto asks. He has been greatly changed since his punishment, and now, most of his body is cybornetic.
A smile twitches on Hend's face. "Annabel. Make sure she never opens the Third Gate."
Mel nods and rises, turning towards the door out.
Hend, however, adds as an afterthought, "And Mel? Don't mess up again. You'll regret it more than you did last time."
Mel shudders visibly before nodding and leaving the room, clanking away.
A cheer of shrill voices swims up to Annabel from the ground. She stares down at the tiny minotaurs and gorgons, all of whom could sit on her shoulder quite comfortably, and some with room to spare. She smiles down on them, and the cheering becomes louder.
"Make way!" the shrill voice of Charleton shouts above the din.
"Make way!" Lucifer's amazingly higher squeaks scream.
The cheering subsides, and a pathway begins to appear among the mass. "Make your own ways, you nutso minotaurs," an aged, sarcastic voice commands, and a small snake-woman pushes passed Lucifer and Charleton and the rest of the crowd. She stands before Annabel, doing what appears to be an inspection of her.
However, Annabel doubts that is the case. The woman's eyes are milky-white, stained with cataracts. Her hair is very much alive, streaming with blue-green serpentine creatures. Her skin is stony gray, and her legs have been replaced by a metallic green snake's tail. Leathery blue wings are folded behind her back, and she rests a dry, calloused hand on Annabel's ankle.
"We've been waiting a long time for you, child," she relates, her tone softer.
"I take it you're Corliss?" Annabel inquires.
"I am."
Annabel nods slowly, looking away. "Then you can tell me what I'm doing here?"
"You are here, child, because destiny called and there was but one to answer the Pholio."
Annabel sighs. Leave it to her to be stuck with a cryptic, blind, batty old gorgon. "Can you try to be a bit more detailed, please?" she asks, looking down at the small woman.
Corliss sighs and rolls her sightless eyes. "If I must." She pauses for affect before continuing. "You are here because it is your destiny to free us from the evil grip of Tirival Hend. You are he-"
"Wait a moment. What do you mean 'the evil grip of Tirival Hend'? He's my father! I've known him all my life! He can't possibly be evil!"
Mutters surface from the crowd, and Corliss scoffs. "My dear child!" she exclaims, trying to exert some authority over the crowd and Annabel. "I've known him all my life, which is longer than that of any present here! I think I've a bit more authority on this matter than you."
Annabel blinks. "Older than all of us, are you?"
"I am," Corliss says, pausing and evidently trying to remember, "nine thousand, six hundrend, seventy-four years old come next Thursday."
"Are you all that old?"
"Comparatively. Charleton is only three hundred years my junior, and Lucifer is an even millenia my junior. Their services are invaluable, as obnoxious as they may be. Despite their relative youth, all the gorgons and minotaurs of the Hendish Maze have known his evil. He, after all, was the one who had stolen our beautiful forms and given us these wretched ones to wear." She pauses for a long time before turning back to Annabel, her milky, sightless eyes searching the young woman's face. "Destiny has called, and you have answered, child. Nonetheless, answering is not enough. You have a task."
"I still don't understand, really. I'm sorry. I know you're trying, and it's probably really easy to see, but he is my father. How can I abandon that for a mass of ornery, bizarre creatures?" Annabel's tone is sympathetic for the creatures, but still skeptical, too.
Corliss flaps her wings and lands on Annabel's shoulder with amazing proficiency for a blind woman. "Listen, child, and we will explain."
"All right. Go ahead."
"Long, long, long ago, World was created by the Beings. They created her pure and good, and then they left, letting what happened happen. World, however, haad grown lonely, and so she created plants, beautiful green lifeforms like the grass on which you sit and the roses above you. She created tiny, mindless creatures along with larger, equally brainless creatures. That, however, was not enough for good Mother World. No. She needed life forms that could think. So, she created us, the Gehenians."
"Being nine thousand something, would you be the first of your kind?" Annabel ventures.
"Heavens! No, child! We are the second generation of Gehenians." Corliss nods aside Annabel's head. "Our parents were the first, and none died until he did something significant and worthwhile. Then, upon the deceased's death, his soul is stretched and split into at least two other souls. The souls do not surface all at once. My mother's soul was split into Charleton and Lucifer as well, and we are not the same ages at all."
"I think I understand. You can continue, unless you're leading to something really important, of course."
"All lore is important, child, but I see your point. It would be most prudent to continue." She flits off Annabel's shoulder and returns to her previous position in the grass. "In any event, World decided that she wanted a child. She created a noncorporeal being, and he roamed World's surface for a long time. Then, the humans came. World's son saw what they were capable of doing, and so he took to trying to rule over them. Needless to say, it didn't work. So he forced them away, waiting for their return."
"My father is really that old?" Annabel asks, wide-eyed.
"He is. Nonetheless, he was evil and seeking power even then." Corliss continues to relate the now-redundant tale of Hend's conquest over the colonists, his maneuvering into power. She spoke of the egg, of its abandonment in a stasis chamber in the center of the maze, and then she finally spoke of the Gates.
"Being the oldest race of the creation of World, we Gehenians have a very deep tie with her inner workings. In order to maintain an efficient feeling for our mother planet, we constructed the Eight Sacred Gates. The First Gate is the arch under which we are seated. Hend's power has destroyed them, and with them, his mother's soul, for she once flowed with her energy through each of them. It is your task, good Annabel, to return each Gate to its previous condition. Evidently, it will not take too long, for World has lain far too long in dormancy, and I think me that she will prefer to help you, to return to her previous state of life. And afterwards, all will be good, for humans, Gehenians, dragons, and planets alike."
Annabel nods slowly before rising and dusting off her clothes. "I'm sorry," she says. "I feel for you, but I've more pressing responsibilities. I have to find Franqiel and Elrondäv. I have to make sure they're okay. I have to kill Mel. I have to return to the Arena. I have to d-"
Corliss holds up an imperial hand, silencing Annabel's string of misgivings. "Franq and Däv are dead, by Carmelotto's hand at the decree of Tirival Hend. Their corpses are rotting between the Fourth and Fifth Gates. Until you open them, there will be no closure for you. The Arena, naturally, is functioning fine without you. Lucifer has taken the liberty of requesitioning your ensamble, for your trials will not be merely spiritual."
"How kind of him," Annabel replies dryly.
"Yes, how kind," Corliss replies, turning her blind gaze to where Lucifer stands in the crowd. "However, he neglected to be so prudent as to bring it here, and it seems he no longer can reach it, so you will have to make due with what you have."
Lucifer's ox-head face burns brightly with a blush as he focuses on a nearby blade of grass.
Annabel laughs and shakes her head. "Okay. I yield. I'll restore the Gates," she admits. "Where do I begin?"
Corliss flits up to Annabel's shoulder and points ahead of them, at the gaping orifice before them, a hole hacked into an otherwise beautiful stone cliff. "The Second Gate lays within the maze. First, you must navigate the hedges and enter. Then, all shall become clear." She smiles, and with a pop, disappears from sight. The other Gehenians leave, too, with other pops and whisps of supher.
"Gee, thanks. I appreciate your concern for how I'll fare," Annabel sighs, and extends her right arm. She knows she will find the way into the cavern one way or another this way, and she will not go absolutely insane trying. As she walks, she keeps her right hand touching the hedges, and she begins her way through the preliminary maze towards the caverns.
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