This is a small portion of my book Maze Travelers.
Pepin made the maze. It was for those who craved adventure but lacked the wealth to afford it. Adventure was something for kings and nobility. Most men in those days had very little; a home, usually on another man’s land, some animals to work the land and provide food, and a family.
Pepin was a man of some substance. He had a large home with a great hall. This is where he put the first maze. He gathered special ingredients and mixed them into a paint and used it to draw strange designs on his ceiling.
It took him many weeks of painting to complete the task. Pepin worked deep into the night with a large fire for light. He was feverish in his work. He made designs within designs that were only apparent when you looked very closely, and from the correct angle. He finished several times. Each time he was more satisfied with the results.
Finally, when he could paint no more, his work was complete. But, what was it? There were many different things drawn into his ceiling. There were faces, strange animal-like creatures, dragons, stars, and other shapes. Some of the things he drew with his brush were very subtle. Other things were very grand figures.
There was not anything he could really call it. It was by some definition a mural. But it lacked any theme or continuity. Nothing was relevant to anything else. And yet they were connected in some way.
Pepin was happy with what he had done. He brought in some of his friends to get their opinions. They had never seen anything like it.
“Is it a maze?” one of them asked.
“I don’t see a beginning or an end,” said another. “Is it complete?” he continued.
Pepin responded, “It is a maze but not as you would expect. You have heard of mazes made with hedging or in fields. These are mazes through which you travel. You have also seen mazes drawn in the dirt where you trace your way through with a stick. But this is a drawn maze that I will this day go inside. I have concocted a potion that will transport me into the very paint on the ceiling. I will enter this maze and return again to stand before you.”
When Pepin finished talking his friends were astonished. They knew him to be a wizard but this was shocking. They had seen him do many unexplainable things. Sometimes his works would leave him or someone else hurt or maimed in some way. This could be the most incredible thing yet. The men looked at each other. They looked at Pepin. No one spoke a word. Could a man go into a painting?
Pepin walked to a small table on which was a cup with something in it. He took the cup and spoke.
“I will see you very soon my friends.” With those words he swallowed the entire contents of the cup, sat it down in its place on the table, and stood there for a moment.
His eyes began to glaze just before he fell to the floor. As he looked up to the ceiling it began to look like waves of heat floating above him. He felt himself begin to float upwards and into the unknown.
Pepin emerged on an overgrown path that was hard for him to see. He stretched his arms out to his sides feeling very odd and somehow very free. The bright blue sky up above appeared very deep; almost as if you could see the depth of it. He started to walk and have a look around. Soon he was running faster than he thought possible and he could see himself as he ran. After a moment he realized he was above himself watching. He tripped on something and fell to the ground and rolled to a stop looking up at himself. As he closed his eyes the vision was gone.
Pepin opened his eyes to see he was standing on the face of a sheer cliff looking far into the distance. He clung to the rock for safety but began to lose his footing and struggled not to fall. But, loose gravel beneath his feet caused just that. He was falling down the cliff bouncing off of rocks extending from the cliff face. Before he hit the ground there was a flash of light and he was back at home on the floor.
He was alone. The men left after failing to revive him. They were afraid to stay. Pepin sat up feeling very strange and amazed. He went outside to find his friends so he could tell them about what had happened to him.
When he couldn’t find anyone he went back inside, took out a parchment, and wrote down the entire experience still astonished at what he had discovered. He was also very tired. The experience in the maze had drained him. With a candle burning beside him on the table he fell asleep.
When Pepin woke the next morning he found his friend Eadric sitting outside of his house. He invited him in and told him his story of the previous day. Eadric was a regular man with average intelligence. He was astounded at what Pepin was saying. He didn’t really understand what he was hearing. It certainly was bizarre; but also intriguing.
Pepin was able to convince him to give it a go. After mixing a batch of the potion he and Eadric laid down on the floor below Pepin’s creation. Eadric was apprehensive as he looked into the cup but he knew that Pepin was fine after his excursion. So, he took a deep breath and swallowed the mixture along with Pepin.
Pepin and Eadric melted slowly into the maze above them. They settled in a meadow filled with wild flowers. Eadric was stunned. He looked around in awe.
“Where, what is this place?” he asked.
They started to walk, leaving the meadow. There was a path running alongside it which lead to a large rock. They walked over to it to take a look. It was very large, taller than either of them. They could see veins of gold running through it. But, they had no way to retrieve it. Disappointed, they kept walking and talked about the place.
“What do you think of this place?” asked Pepin.
“I don’t really know what to think. I do wish I could have brought my big hammer to crush that rock and take back an armload of that gold. I’d be set for life,” replied Eadric.
Pepin stopped in his tracks, “We could swap pieces of gold for visits to this place. People will line up to get in here. We can invite some of the nobles to give it a try.”
“They’ll pay handsomely to see this,” added Eadric.
The two men continued walking and discussing their plans to strike it rich.
“We’ll start off by bringing in a few friends at a time. Soon word of it will be on every tongue for miles around.” Pepin suggested.
As the two men walked they didn’t realize they were walking down an incline. The land started to change into a more rocky location. Pepin turned to Eadric to say something but before he could speak Eadric disappeared.
“Eadric!” he hollered. But Eadric was gone. There was nothing he could do.
Eadric knew very quickly that he was falling and spinning out of control. A large body of water engulfed him. When he touched the bottom he lunged back to the surface. Coming up powerfully he rose completely out of the water. He looked down to see that the water was gone. Looking out ahead he realized that he was floating in a strange expanse with no ground below him. He could stand or sit as he pleased. With no gravity to hold him down this was beyond his scope of knowledge. The poor man was frightened, amazed, and excited all at the same time.
Pepin continued to walk down the path until he came to a small lake. He circled it and surveyed the area and found another path leading away from the water and decided to follow it. This path led up the other side of the rocks. As he crested the hill he saw something beautiful.
There was a huge valley filled with trees and dotted with large clear places. It almost looked like there had once been a large town where the clearings now remained. There were spots for houses as well as pastures. He chose to explore the area to see if there were any artifacts lying around.
“Did I create this place or was it here all along?” Pepin wondered to himself. That question would remain in the back of his mind for the rest of his days.
Eadric tried to walk in the foggy expanse but he couldn’t really tell if he was getting anywhere. The darkness began to thin a bit as he walked, so he tried to quicken his pace. It was difficult to walk in that thickness. When he reached the end of it, he had to step down to the ground as though he had been in an elevated room. This place was familiar to him. He was in Pepin’s house. Pepin was standing there waiting for him.
“What manner of sorcery was that?” asked Eadric.
“Indeed,” responded Pepin. “We can have a pile of gold in no time at all,” he added.
Eadric told Pepin what happened to him after they parted. Pepin wrote it down. He wanted to keep a record of their visits. They decided to tell a few close friends; those who would only think them slightly crazy.
Pepin gathered enough of the ingredients for five people to go in together. Eadric went home to tell his wife about his experience.
“It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen or done,” he told her.
“You have gone mad. You need to stay away from that crazy old wizard,” she told her husband.
“You should try it before you condemn it. You will see things you never knew existed. Your eyes will be opened to strange new things,” he said, trying to convince her.
“I will try it once, but then I don’t wish to hear of it again,” she agreed somewhat reluctantly in an effort to get him to leave her alone about it.
Pepin went to the home of his good friend Henry. Henry was one of the men who were with him before he entered the maze. He was glad to see Pepin alive and well.
“What happened to you my friend? We thought you were dead. Your body was cold,” Henry explained.
Pepin told Henry of his journey as well as the one he and Eadric had been on.
“Eadric and I would like to bring in a group of people. Would you and your sons like to come along with us?” he asked.
Henry had two sons. The three of them lived on the land of a nobleman named Lord Harlan. Henry and his sons were farmers. They grew wheat and barley. Lord Harlan had a distillery. He made whiskey from the barley that Henry grew. He sold the whiskey to merchants who came from foreign countries with long caravans. The Harlan’s were friends of the king, although not as highly esteemed as they would have liked. Lord Harland’s brother was the sheriff. He collected taxes and kept everything in order.
Henry and his family worked very hard. It was a life of peasantry. Henry agreed to bring his sons to Pepin’s house the next night.
To get a copy of the complete story please follow the link below.
