Everything in the maze is

“Listen – Llosh?”

“What?” Llosh snapped.

“I was just thinking.”

“Good for you.”

“No, listen!” Teodru whined.

Llosh stopped abruptly, blocking the narrow tunnel with his body.

“I was just thinking,” Teodru said. “Did you notice how these torches are already lit–before we got here?”

Teodru heard the sharp intake of breath and the slow sigh. “You are just now figuring that out?” Llosh growled. “How do you think I decide where to turn?”

“Say…” Teodru smiled. “That’s clever.”

Though these fatty torches could burn a long while, Teodru did not think they could have been burning unattended for an entire day. He was beginning to feel optimistic.

“They must still be alive down here,” he said, “if they lit them.”

“Either that, or whoever killed them is still down here.”

“Oh,” he frowned. “I didn’t think of that.”

Teodru could not hear the sound of rolling eyes.

They walked on, and though they heard nothing and saw nothing, after a time Teodru began to smell something.

“Listen – Llosh?”

Llosh stopped. “What now?”

“It smells like something died.”

Llosh was silent for a long while. Finally he snapped, “Do you think I don’t have a nose?”

“No…”

Teodru waited.

Llosh said nothing, but neither did he continue walking.

“It can’t be them,” Llosh said at last. “They were alive yesterday morning. They can’t stink like that if they’ve only been dead one day.”

“I know,” Teodru mumbled, but he waited for Llosh to specify who it could be.

Llosh merely continued walking.

They had not gone far when Llosh stopped again and lifted the first two fingers of his free hand. Teodru stood still and held his breath, as commanded.

For a moment there was nothing to hear but the slow rising and falling of the wind through the tunnels, as if the entire complex were a vast lung.

The fat in the torches burned silently. Their bodies were still. So long as neither of them breathed, it was as if everything in the maze was dead.

Then Llosh nodded. There was nothing to hear, therefore there was nothing. They both breathed, and they both walked on.