Trials of Death. Darren Shan

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE AQUATIC Maze was man-made, built with a low ceiling and watertight walls. There were four doors in and out of it, one in each of its four external walls. From the centre, where I would be left, it normally took five or six minutes to find your way out, assuming you didn’t get lost.

      But in the Trial, you had to drag around a heavy rock – half your weight – which slowed you down. With the rock, eight or nine minutes was good going.

      But as well as the rock, there was the water to contend with. As soon as the Trial commenced, the maze started to fill with water, which was pumped in via hoses from underground streams. The water slowed you down even more, and navigating the maze usually took about a quarter of an hour. If it took longer, you were in serious trouble — because the maze filled to the top in seventeen minutes exactly.

      “It’s vital not to panic,” Vanez said. We were down in one of the practice mazes, a smaller replica of the Aquatic Maze. The route wasn’t the same – the walls of the Aquatic Maze could be moved around, so the maze was different each time – but it served as a good learning experience. “Most who fail in the Maze do so because they panic,” he went on. “It can be frightening when the water rises and the going gets slower and tougher. You have to fight that fear and concentrate on the route. If you let the water distract you, you’ll lose your bearings — and then you’re finished.”

      We spent the early part of the night walking through the maze, over and over, Vanez teaching me how to make a map inside my head. “Each wall of the maze looks the same,” he said, “but they aren’t. There are identifying marks — a discoloured stone, a jagged bit of floor, a crack. You must note these small differences and build your map from them. That way, if you find yourself in a passage where you’ve already been, you’ll recognize it and can immediately start looking for a new way out, wasting no time in the process.”

      I spent hours learning how to make mental maps of the maze. It was a lot harder than it sounds. The first few passages were easy to remember – a chipped stone in the top left corner of one, a moss-covered stone in the floor of the next, a knobbly stone in the ceiling of the one after that – but the further on I got, the more I had to remember, and the more confusing it became. I had to find something new in every corridor, because if I used a mark which was similar to one I’d committed to memory already, I’d get the two confused and would wind up chasing my tail around.

      “You’re not concentrating!” Vanez snapped when I came to a standstill for the seventh or eighth time in quick succession.

      “I’m trying,” I grumbled, “but it’s hard.”

      “Trying isn’t good enough,” he barked. “You have to tune out all other thoughts. Forget the Trials and the water and what will happen if you fail. Forget about dinner and breakfast and whatever else is distracting you. Think only about the maze. It must fill your thoughts completely, or you’re doomed.”

      It wasn’t easy, but I gave it my best shot, and within an hour had improved considerably. Vanez was right — cutting off all other trains of thought was the solution. It was boring, wandering through a maze for hours on end, but that boredom was what I had to learn to appreciate. In the Aquatic Maze, excitement could confuse and kill me.

      Once my map-making skills were up to scratch, Vanez wrapped a long rope round my waist and attached a rock to the other end. “This rock is only a quarter of your weight,” he said. “We’ll try you with a heavier rock later, but I don’t want to tire you out too much ahead of the Trial. We’ll get you accustomed to this one first, move up to a rock that’s a third your weight, then try you on the real thing for a short spell, to give you a taste of how it feels.”

      The rock wasn’t especially heavy – as a half-vampire, I was much stronger than a human – but it was a nuisance. Apart from slowing me down, it also had a nasty habit of catching on corners or in cracks, which meant I had to stop and free it. “It’s important to stop the instant you feel it snagging,” Vanez said. “Your natural instinct will be to tug on the rope and free it quickly, but more often than not that worsens the situation, and you wind up taking even longer to sort it out. Seconds are vital in the maze. It’s better to act methodically and lose four or five seconds freeing yourself, than act hastily and lose ten or twenty.”

      There were ways to stop the rock and rope from snagging so much. When I came to corners or bends, I had to seize the rope and pull the rock in close to me — that way it was less likely to get stuck. And it was helpful to give the rope a shake every few seconds — that kept it loose. “But you have to do these things automatically,” Vanez said. “You must do them without pausing to think. Your brain should be fully occupied with mapping the maze. Everything else must be done by instinct.”

      “It’s useless,” I groaned, sinking to the floor. “It’d take months to get ready for this. I haven’t a hope in hell.”

      “Of course you have!” Vanez roared. Squatting beside me, he poked me in the ribs. “Feel that?” he asked, jabbing a sharp finger into the soft flesh of my belly.

      “Ow!” I slapped his hand away. “Quit it!”

      “It’s sharp?” he asked, jabbing me again. “It hurts?”

      “Yes!”

      He grunted, jabbed me one more time, then stood. “Imagine how much sharper the stakes in the Hall of Death are,” he said.

      Sighing miserably, I hauled myself to my feet and wiped sweat from my brow. Picking up the rope, I gave it a shake, then started back through the maze, dragging the rock and mapping out the walls, as Vanez had taught me.

      Finally we broke for a meal and met up with Mr Crepsley and Harkat in the Hall of Khledon Lurt. I wasn’t hungry – I felt too nervous to eat – but Vanez insisted I wolf my food down — he said I’d need every last bit of energy when it came to the Trial.

      “How is he progressing?” Mr Crepsley asked. He’d wanted to watch me train, but Vanez had told him he’d be in the way.

      “Remarkably well,” Vanez said, chewing on the bones of a skewered rat. “To be honest, though I slapped on a brave face when the Trial was picked, I thought he’d be – excuse the pun – out of his depth. The Aquatic Maze isn’t one of the more brutal Trials, but it’s one you need a lot of time to prepare for. But he’s a quick learner. We’ve still got a lot to cram in – we haven’t tried him in water yet – but I’m a lot more hopeful now than I was a handful of hours ago.”

      Harkat had brought Madam Octa – Mr Crepsley’s spider – to the Hall with him and was feeding her breadcrumbs soaked in bat broth. He’d agreed to take care of her while I was concentrating on my