Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

army of marines and espers. The Maze swallowed them up without a murmur, and in a matter of moments they were lost to sight by those they'd left behind.
    Dram watched them enter, one after another, his face impassive, and he stood looking at the blank, enigmatic walls long after the last of the army had gone.
    Hidden under his long cloak, his hands had clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.
    At first, it wasn't too bad in the Maze. Each of the shimmering metal walls looked just like any other, and whatever surprises the Maze had, it kept them to itself. Graves took the point almost immediately, his head held erect as though sniffing out the way. He chose each turn with unwavering confidence and concentration, and Silence and Frost followed close behind him. The Investigator had her sword and gun drawn, ready for use. Silence kept his hand near his gun, but didn't touch it. He didn't want his people to get the idea he was nervous.
    Bad for morale, not to mention discipline. His people were stretched out behind him, marines and espers looking equally uncomfortable. They stuck close together for comfort, and the sergeants had to keep warning them not to bunch up. There was little talking in the ranks. The heavy unbroken silence of the Maze didn't encourage conversation. If there was something coming, and the marines were increasingly sure there was, they wanted to be able to hear it in plenty of time. The espers concentrated on their mental shield and tried not to think about the Maze at all.
    It didn't take Silence long to decide he didn't like the Maze. He found its
    atmosphere oppressive, and the narrow paths between the shimmering walls began to seem uncomfortably claustrophobic, pressing in on him like the sides of a coffin. That last thought made Silence frown a little more. Enclosed spaces weren't something that usually bothered him. Living in the cramped confines of a starship quickly cured you of claustrophobia, or you got out of the Service. But the Maze seemed somehow… overpowering, as though he was a rat scuttling though a scientist's maze he could never hope to understand or appreciate. It wasn't so much that the Maze seemed big, as that it made him feel so very small.
    There was a tension on the air, an approaching imminence of something about to happen. Something bad, very bad. The air rippled with heat waves though it was bitterly cold. It smelled of vinegar and burning leaves. Oiled metal and old lemon, sharp on his tongue. Colors seemed very bright, and his distorted reflection in the steel walls seemed somehow wrong. Monstrously wrong. He could hear the chattering of metal birds, and babies screaming, and a single iron bell tolling far, far away. Silence swallowed hard and tried to concentrate, but his thoughts were all over the place, and some of them didn't seem like his at all.
    Graves stopped abruptly, and Silence almost crashed into him. He stopped, too, and glared about him. Frost moved in close beside him, sword and gun at the ready. Silence could sense the rest of his people stumbling to a halt. No one said anything, but the tension was so thick it was almost smothering. Silence looked up, but there was only an impenetrable darkness, as before. He looked back at the steel walls, and his stomach lurched as he realized that there were no longer any reflections of him or his people in any of the shimmering walls.
    Frost was breathing harshly at his side, almost grunting, quivering with the need for an enemy to throw herself at. Graves stared straight ahead, his eyes
    bulging even more than usual, fixed on something only he could see or sense.
    "What is it?" Silence said harshly, forcing the words out "Booby trap?"
    "It knows we're here," said Graves, his entirely normal voice seeming almost painfully loud. "It doesn't want us. We're too… inflexible. We're not capable of the changes it wants to make. We wouldn't survive the process."
    "How far from the exit are we?" said Silence, making himself concentrate on what mattered. "Are we far behind the rebels?"
    "We have to go back, Captain." Graves' voice was flat and uncompromising. "It doesn't want us here. It's dangerous for us to be here."
    "What the hell are you talking about, esper?" snapped Frost. "What do you see?"
    Graves turned to look at her, and blood seeped suddenly out from under his eyelids, running thick and slow down his cheeks like crimson tears. And then his eyes exploded with soft, wet sounds, the blood and other fluids