The Maze - the Lost Labyrinth (8 page)

I thought about what Barabbas represented. He was the one who had gotten away with his crimes while someone else paid the price. He was the one who walked free so Christ could be crucified in his place. Was I just like Barabbas?

Amy and Peter were paying for my sins. Their lives were in turmoil right now because of my crimes. I remembered the bullet that had struck my skull. Quite possibly, this was all a dream and I was clinging to life in a hospital somewhere. My wife and son faced the prospect of losing me. Had I not gone to Karen’s, I never would have ended up in this shape, and they wouldn‘t have suffered. Amy’s heart wouldn’t be broken, and Peter wouldn‘t be facing a childhood that involved living in a broken home.

I didn’t need one of those amber pills in my pocket to feel guilty now. On the outside, I was vastly different than Barabbas. But in the heart where it really counted, he and I were the same.

I didn’t know what to do with this newly personalized connection with one of the most notorious criminals in the annals of history. I felt a sense of sorrow and a heaviness of heart that was unfamiliar, but I knew that simply being remorseful wasn’t good enough. Sometimes saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t fix everything. For his part, Midnight didn’t seem to care about the psychological ramifications of my mirror image. He was more concerned with taking his pound of flesh out of the Roman thug’s hide--and mine. In his eyes, he saw two sides of the same coin, yet he didn’t get the chance to attack either of us.

Without warning, long curved scythes descended from the ceiling behind me, suspended from lengths of rusty chain. The blades sawed through the air like razor-sharp pendulums eager to cleave flesh from bone. It was like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.

As if getting cut into pieces by swinging razors wasn’t problem enough to deal with, Barabbas chose that moment to step out of the mirror. Although horrified and frightened, I recognized the chance for what it was. This was my opportunity to confront my own shortcomings and face those flaws in me that had made others suffer. Barabbas represented those weaknesses in myself. He was the version of me I saw when I looked in the mirror. In so many ways, he was the real me; and I hated that more than words could express.

The criminal bared his blackened teeth at me and laughed. The sound that ripped its way out of his throat was like sandpaper on an open wound.. He held the spiked club in one hand and tested its weight, deciding whether or not it would be suitable for bashing in my brains. I had no such weapon with which to defend myself. The only thing I had going for me was Midnight. Once Barabbas stepped out of the mirror, Midnight was able to distinguish between the two of us. The dog was on my side now.

“Hello, sinner.” Barabbas carefully eyed the swinging blades. “One way or another, you are going to get hurt down here. You‘ll either be cut down where you stand or you‘ll feel the wrath of my mace.”

“I don’t like either of those options.” I moved forward to avoid the blades that sliced through thin air all around me.

Midnight howled and hunkered down, standing before me like a protector. I knew he was looking out for me, but it didn’t matter. The scythes weren’t swinging low enough to hurt him, but they would have no trouble cutting me in half if I didn’t move forward.

Inch by inch, the blades advanced toward me, cutting through the air with a loud swoosh. They drove me toward the end of the hall where Barabbas stood, and I had no choice but to go where I was led. This particular part of the maze had clearly been engineered with one purpose in mind. I was going to have to confront the ugly truth inside of me in the form of Barabbas in order to move forward. Failure to confront that ugly truth would mean death by swinging razor blade. Given that choice, facing off with Barabbas seemed logical and necessary.

I had done a lot of bad things in my time, and a lot of people had paid for my mistakes while I had gotten off scot free. I was just as much to blame for Christ’s crucifixion as Barabbas. Christ had died for all of the world’s sins. I remembered all of those empty glass jars waiting to be filled with the evil parts of me and realized I had done my fair share to contribute to that iniquitous burden. It was time I owned up to my mistakes. It was time to start setting things right.

Midnight was just an ordinary dog by all outward appearances, but somehow I knew he was much more than that. He understood things in a way I wasn’t capable of explaining. He was a creature of the maze and knew the rules here. That made him valuable to me.

I had no doubt Midnight would jump in the fray to help me when the fighting got started, but I knew in my heart that I would have to take the first step. I had to prove that I wanted to atone. I had to prove that I was strong enough to face Barabbas.

He sneered at me. “What are you waiting for, boy?” I answered him with a running charge and a shout.

The Roman thug seemed genuinely surprised by my courage. He wasn’t any more shocked by it than I was. My nature was to avoid trouble at all costs, but once I started running toward the battle, I knew I couldn’t stop. I was in this until the death.

Barabbas headed toward me with his club held high. I had no weapon, other than my frustration at being caught in this kind of life-threatening predicament. He swung at me, and I raised my hand in front of my face to protect myself. The club glanced off my forearm, sending a shockwave of pain all the way up to my shoulder. I used my other arm to try and wrestle the club away, but Barabbas was too strong and experienced in hand-to-hand combat. He swept my feet out front under me and was on top of me before I knew it.

Midnight charged, distracting Barabbas long enough for me to gouge him in the eye, but I didn’t hurt him much. He shrugged the assault off quickly, swung his club and knocked Midnight across the room. I heard the dog whimper, but I couldn’t see how badly he was hurt.

Barabbas pushed the club against my throat, using both knees for leverage. I gasped for air, choking and coughing and flailing my arms wildly.

“You’re weak!” Barabbas spat the insult at me like something offensive to the tongue. My flaws, it seemed, were going to be the death of me after all. It wasn’t the outcome I’d wanted or expected.

I stretched both arms and tried to push Barabbas off of me, but he weighed too much and was far too strong. I wasn’t going to win this fight by brute force.

Dark shapes danced before my eyes, and the world around me swam in and out of focus. As my grip on reality loosened, I had one last-ditch idea. I knew that Barabbas was a physical embodiment of the sin nature that was present in every human. I also knew that one of the first steps to conquering the sinful streak which runs rampant in each of us was to be truly repentant. That meant feeling guilt and realizing that we’d done wrong.

While Barabbas was busy choking the life out of me, I fumbled one of the little amber guilt pills out of my pocket and shoved it in his mouth. The result was instantaneous. Barabbas recoiled as if he’d been slapped. His face was a twisted mask of horrid self-loathing.

“No,” he said softly. “No.”

I scrambled to my feet, clutching at my abraded throat, gasping for air. Barabbas was just as frantic and disturbed, pacing the floor in circles, weeping, beating at his breast.

“Make it stop!” The guilt washed over him in waves. “Please, make it stop!”

He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, and gritted his teeth to fight against the memories of his past. But the past also had teeth and wouldn’t let him go.

“Make it stop!”

I knew exactly how to make it stop. Before Barabbas could defend himself, I grabbed him by the tunic and used all my weight to hurl him backward. The swinging razors rocked back and forth behind me, making loud swooshing sounds as they sliced through the air. Barabbas didn’t even have time to scream before they cut him down like wheat.

Once I was sure he was dead, I turned my back to him, unwilling to look at the mess I’d made. Midnight limped toward me, favoring his left front leg slightly over the right. His movements were a little stiff; but otherwise, he seemed okay. We were both bruised and banged up, but alive.

For the moment, that was enough.

Chapter 13

The latter half of the Hall of Barabbas was dark. It looked like some of the illuminated characters on the walls had burned out or dimmed. There was a portion of the corridor that looked almost completely unlit, and I resolved to move through that patch of darkness as quickly as possible. I was just about to enter the shadows when Midnight jumped in front of me, growling and snarling. The dog wore a certain, lop-eared goofy expression when he wasn’t mad. That changed in the blink of an eye. Saliva dripped from Midnight’s muzzle, and his eyes burned with an internal fire.

What now?

I glanced back once to make sure that Barabbas was truly dead. His body was right where I left it.

I heard the flies buzzing nearby and smelled something that reeked of rot and sulfur and malice. I knew that smell.

The minotaur stepped out of the shadows and made a deep lowing sound that caused the hair on my arms to stand at attention. Although the creature was fearsome, I couldn’t help noticing the deep gashes in its upper thigh and the scratches across its face. Midnight had held his own with the minotaur and jumped in front of me, preparing to do so again.

The two creatures squared off against each other, baring teeth and snorting ferociously. The minotaur scraped its horns against one wall, delighting in the sparks it made. It repeated the ritual on the opposite wall to show how mighty it was. Midnight didn’t seem deterred or intimidated by the creature‘s show of bravado. Instead, he seemed ready to fight.

“Be careful.”

The dog turned and gave me a dubious expression that would have seemed almost comical under different circumstances. When he turned to face his opponent, he was all business again. The deep, menacing growls coming from the back of his throat were enough to scare me. The minotaur, however, didn’t react as I expected. Instead, he did something that surprised me.

He spoke.

“I have no quarrel with your dog. You are the one I’ve been sent here to deal with.”

The creature struggled to form human words with a bovine tongue, but I understood it.

“You speak?”

“Among other things.” The minotaur’s voice was a low rumble. “I’m not sure how that dog found its way in here. It doesn‘t belong. It‘s not in the blueprint.”

I didn’t know where the dog was from either, but I wasn’t going to tell the minotaur that. “Where am I?”

“You are trapped inside of a maze that I preside over. Think of this as a set of trials and tribulations tailored specifically for you.”

“But why me?”

The bull snorted, briefly disturbing the halo of flies that circled its head. “You ask me that as if you don’t know.”

“Karen.” The minotaur nodded.

“Sin isn’t free. There is a price for everything.”

“I thought that was for God to judge.”

“Who’s to say that God didn’t commission the building of this place?”

“You say that as if you don’t know.”

The minotaur snarled. “My knowledge of this place isn’t all-encompassing. I only know what I’m meant to know, and those are the rules.”

“Rules?”

“The rules of your maze. You would do well to remember them. Number one: You have the power to save or to condemn. Number two: Entire worlds will be built or destroyed based on the choices you make. Number three: One way or another, you will die here.”

“I’m going to die.” I spoke softly as the implications of that statement set in.

“The rules say so, but there are reasons to persevere.”

“What kind of reasons?”

“You will be subjected to a series of tasks. Your family will suffer or not depending on how well you do here inside the labyrinth.”

“Not my family,” I whispered. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You are the head of your family. They pay the price for the decisions you make.”

“What kind of tasks do I have to complete?” I feared the answer.

“Have you ever heard of the Roman Emperor Trajan?”

I shook my head.

“Are you familiar with the kind of fighting that took place in the Roman Coliseum?”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Gladiators battled to the death,” I said. “But I don’t know much about them.”

“You’ll know more when we’re through.”

“I’m not a fighter,” I protested.

“You must learn to become one and quickly.”

“You said yourself that I’m going to die in here anyway. What’s the point?”

“You may interpret what I said in any way you want,” the minotaur said. “But the fight is one you will want to win. There is much at stake here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember anything leading up to your arrival in this place? Did anything strange happen to you?”

I thought about that for a moment. “Someone started sending my wife communications accusing me of adultery. I‘m pretty sure that same person shot me at point blank range right outside her apartment.”

The minotaur smiled. “And wouldn’t you like to know why someone would do such a thing?”

“Of course, I would. They’re indirectly responsible for my being here.”

The minotaur laughed. It was a sonorous, throaty sound that reverberated off of the walls of the labyrinth. “I’m not a bit surprised that you want to blame your shortcomings on someone else.”

“Tell me about the person who’s been sabotaging my life, and tell me how winning this battle will help my family.”

I was getting to the point that I thought nothing would surprise me. But the minotaur did something next that set me back. With a quick flick of its wrist and a few subtle manipulations, it extracted one of its eyeballs. The ocular tissue was red and striated with burst capillaries. An image was frozen in the pupil.

“See for yourself.” The minotaur held the eyeball out to me.

It was a little like watching television after I got past the fact that I was holding an eye in my hand (and one that was still attached to its stalk, no less).