Unhonored by Tracy Hickman

Alicia’s voice quivered as she spoke. “Merrick sent me into the maze after you. He said for me to follow you and find out what direction you were going in the Ruins. But I got lost … I don’t know what happened. I got tangled up somehow trying to push through a trellis choked with vines. They grabbed me, wound around me … it was … it was…”
    â€œIt was the garden,” Jonas said. “It was just trying to protect you, Ellis.”
    â€œProtect me?” Ellis scoffed.
    â€œIt was your garden.” Jonas shrugged.
    â€œWell, I don’t much care for how it protects me!” Ellis snapped. A chill ran through her as she turned back to look across the lawn. She saw a set of stairs up to a small patio. The interior beyond the door was dark, their glass apparently broken. She could see the faint flutter of shredded curtains beyond the rusting panes. “Go back, Alicia. Be a good lapdog and tell your master that you found me and where we are—for all the good it will do him.”
    â€œNo, Ellis,” Alicia begged. “Please, don’t make me go back. You left here once before … you can show us the way out again. I helped you … remember? Remember what I did for you?”
    Ellis looked again at Alicia Van der Meer. She looked ridiculous in her Egyptian costume. The rain had smeared her makeup. She had lost her ornate headpiece and now her golden hair lay wet and heavy about her shoulders. Ellis remembered her in her stained, torn party dress running away from her on that street in Gamin a seeming eternity ago, giving Ellis time to flee while the hellish beast stalking them fell on Alicia with terrible fury.
    Ellis turned to Jonas. “You know the way out of here?”
    â€œI know someone who knows the way out.” Jonas nodded. “But we have to find Jenny first. Without her, it’s pointless.”
    â€œAnd Jenny is in the Ruins?” Ellis urged.
    â€œYes, I have no doubt,” Jonas affirmed.
    â€œWhy don’t you doubt?” Ellis asked, her eyes fixed on Jonas. “Merrick hates the Ruins. Why would he hide her here?”
    â€œI’m not convinced it was Merrick who hid her,” Jonas answered. “I think he wants to find her as much as we do.”
    â€œThen the sooner we find her, the sooner this nightmare will end,” Ellis said. She glanced at her ugly traveling suit and determined it could not become wetter than it was now. The sky was turning somewhat lighter under a rainy dawn. She stepped quickly into the rain, rushing toward the jagged, dark panes of the broken patio doors beyond the lawn.
    Jonas glanced at Alicia and then followed quickly in Ellis’s footsteps.
    Alicia stood shivering at the edge of the folly.
    â€œIf you’re coming, Alicia,” Ellis called over her shoulder, “then come.”
    Alicia ran to follow after them.
    *   *   *
    Only the sound of glass crunching beneath the hard soles of her shoes greeted Ellis as she stepped cautiously through the open, rusting frame of one of the patio doors. Shards from the doors and the arched frames above it were everywhere on the floor, glinting in the gray light of the morning outside.
    The rain had lightened up considerably and the dull light penetrating the clouds illuminated the long room. There were only the vestiges of curtains remaining in long, tattered rags on either side of the patio doors. The doors exiting the far side of the room were missing, the remaining hinges either twisted or missing altogether.
    â€œWhat happened here?” Alicia asked from the patio doors, her eyes wide.
    â€œTake care, Alicia,” Jonas called quietly back to the young woman. “There is glass everywhere and I suspect those slippers you’re wearing aren’t terribly practical in this case.”
    â€œWell, could you please help me?” Alicia asked. “Just across the floor, I