Goddess Rising

Aria almost went after him, but she hesitated for too long and then hesitated further while deciding if stopping him was worth causing a commotion in the hallway. Deciding against that, she examined the ring in her hand. It was simple gold with no ornamentation, something she could have bought at a jewelry store for a significant but relatively low price.

She searched for a trap or a different choice, but in the end, had little choice but to put it on.

As soon as it was secure on her finger, the room changed. Rather than dull stone walls, water surrounded her, falling slowly from a ceiling too high to see. There was no entrance to the room. At her back, was a wall of falling water more silent than it should have been, stretching left and right to form a room the size of a large feasting hall. In front of her, a few hundred feet ahead was a maze. She could see the first branch through the entrance, but nothing more than that.

She walked up to the opening tentatively, and pressed her hand to the wall of water. It felt wet but solid, and when she retrieved her hand, it came away dry.

She took off the ring and, in an instant, found herself back in the storeroom.

With a steadying breath, she put it back on and went into the maze. Once she was through the opening, the walls began to shift, making her breath catch. The movement was quick, however. Within seconds, she was staring at a replica of the storeroom, made of shimmering water and differing from the real room in only one other way: it had two doors. The explanation came to her mind in visions. One door led back into the hallway. If she chose it, she would stand in the line of servers again, waiting to return to the feast.

The other led out of the palace, to escape. There were no other exits: no path back to the entrance of the maze.

She pondered the choice for a long time. Achi had called this a pathfinder, but clearly, it did not list all her possible paths. In reality, she had more. She could refuse to leave the room. She could leave it and hide somewhere in the palace. She could remain in the palace, but rather than serve at the feast, tell every single person in line about their impending death. Together they could cause a ruckus, stage a rebellion… and probably get executed.

Still, it was a choice the maze had not presented.

Sighing, she chose the only present path that made sense: escape.

That brought her back into the maze, but the walls immediately began rearranging themselves.

This time, they seemed to disappear, leaving her outdoors. Above, she could see an impression of a far-off sky. On the ground, Garo’s palace gates stood in one direction, crafted by the shimmering fluid, while roads and empty space occupied much of the remaining space. Right in front of her, stood a carriage with a surly-looking driver leaning against it, his water-constructed features giving him a surreal look. She, too, had not been spared the maze’s magic. She was holding a small water-contructed bag filled, she sensed, with some of her belongings.

“Where to, miss?” The man asked.

Then, he fell silent, and Aria knew that her answer would lead to the next destination. She thought for a long time, keenly aware of how long she had been in the maze, but leaving without a resolution would do no good. Finally, she named a town she knew only by reputation. It was far from everything she knew and, hopefully, safe from Garo.

The moment she made her choice, the world re-arranged itself. This time, it formed an inn. Aria identified the place by its cramped quarters, tattered furnishings, and dull colors. She had scarcely taken in the scene when the door burst open, and a trio of water-constructed warriors grabbed and bound her. She resisted them, but it felt as if she was acting in a play. Her body moved, but not in the ways she directed it to. Finally, she ceased resisting the experience, recalling that it was merely a vision.

The world changed again.

She was kneeling in front of Garo in one of the palace’s larger dining halls. Two hands held her down while the god sat at a table loaded with food. He looked up from his meal briefly and nodded at the people holding her. They responded by driving a spear through her chest and leaving her to bleed out on the floor. Fortunately, the experience did not hurt, but it was disconcerting and terrifying to feel herself dying and see unperturbed faces around her.

She thought that the progression would end there, but the world reformed once more. She found herself in a cell. Stone walls surrounded her on all sides but one. On that side, there were iron bars with no door in them, as if they had been created with her inside them by someone with no plans to ever let her out. She was not the only prisoner. When she stepped up to the bars, she saw that there were similar cells to her left and right. A corridor stood right outside her cell, and on the other side of it was another row of cells, stretching left and right, far into the distance.

Without reason, she knew that there were more cells above and below them and more rows of cells. The number of prisoners was in the millions. Each one, like those she could see, sat on the hard floor of his cell and stared unthinking at nothing, a hopeless look on his face.

Time passed as she stood there. Hours, then days, then years, then centuries. Never-ending.

Then, when panic had set in, the scene faded, and she found herself standing in front of the maze’s entrance.