The urgency of their mission dulled the aches of travel — though Narro still felt every muscle, and Reralt’s detailed updates on the color and smell of each one did not help. The little Bard coped better.

  By evening, they had left Arc Hymn behind. With no clue where the dungeon lay, they simply followed the Void’s chosen path. West.

  “We have to stop for the night,” Narro said, watching Reralt doggedly follow the road.

  “Agree to disagree,” Reralt replied.

  “I want to stop for the night,” Narro corrected. “We won’t see a dungeon entrance in the dark. Not even with your mythical eyesight.”

  Reralt nodded gravely. “True. I can spot a fly in the dark with my eyes closed.”

  “Of course you can.” Narro smiled. “Blindfolded.”

  Reralt opened his mouth halfway, then scribbled something in his notebook. “Good one,” he muttered. “I missed traveling with you.”

  Narro pointed at a clearing. “Let’s set up before there’s no light to hunt.” He quickly gestured toward the cat. “The Void needs light.”

  The Void stretched with theatrical disdain. Hunt? Yes. Explanation? No.

  ***

  An hour later, they sat by a small campfire, chewing on the remains of a pheasant. Reralt, gloriously pantsless as always, had “hunted” it — which mostly meant loosing an arrow that grazed Narro’s cheek while he was crouched behind a tree, praying to any god that still answered calls.

  Narro broke the silence. “Reralt… what’s wrong with the gods? Devin kept talking about them — about destiny. I need to know what we’re walking into.”

  Reralt stopped picking his teeth, looked his way, and smiled.

  “Gods want all the attention. Giving everyone a destiny. A reason to live.” He spat in the fire. “People should decide whatever destiny they choose.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Narro asked carefully. He knew he wouldn’t win an argument, but he wanted insight into who had taken his child. “They’re gods. Omnipotent and wise and all that.”

  “They are a lot of things. Wise? I don’t think so.” Reralt took a swig of wine — Narro didn’t want to know where he’d found it. “I think they just call themselves gods. Really they’re just like you or me. Just… older. With powers.”

  “Gods aren’t omnipotent?” Narro pressed.

  “Omni-what-now?” Reralt frowned.

  “All-knowing. All-seeing,” Narro explained.

  “They wouldn’t be in this situation if they were,” Reralt said, laughing.

  Narro went quiet. Then: “That… that’s actually a very wise thing to say, Reralt.”

  “Yes, well. I am one-sixteenth god, you know.”

  “What?”

  “My great-grandfather was Herculysses.” He flexed his eyebrows like it proved something.

  “One-eighth,” Narro corrected after a moment’s thought.

  Reralt stood and stretched. “I like the sound of one-sixteenth better. Sounds greater.”

  Narro considered it. Then nodded. “It does.”

  “That’s why,” Narro said slowly, piecing it together, “you didn’t lose your arms completely in the Well. Enough of a god not to die. Not enough that it didn’t hurt.”

  “You know I would have jumped after her,” Reralt replied. “Mary was faster. And apparently she has godblood.”

  Narro nodded again.

  “Now off to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll go dungeoneering.” Reralt’s voice was pregnant with joy. “The Maze of Many. It sounds cool.”

  “I hope it’s just a cave with a hat,” Narro muttered, lying back and closing his eyes.

  ***

  That morning, they made themselves ready. It was going to be a full day — and neither knew if tomorrow they would still be alive.

  Reralt fastened their packs and lifted the Void onto his shoulder.

  “Narro,” he called.

  He pointed at the horizon: a sky blessed with purple clouds, streaked with red that burned to orange as the sun climbed. Yellow wisps of low clouds chimed in, the whole canvas shifting as if painted for them alone. A light wind carried the warm promise of a bright day.

  “Always remember to look at a beautiful sunrise,” Reralt said softly. “My father always said that.”

  Narro stood quietly, breathing it in. Then he clapped Reralt on the shoulder.

  “Well. To our doom, then.”

  “To glory!” Reralt whispered to the Void. She agreed, meowingly.

  ***

  Within the hour the air grew dry and heavy. Trees thinned, replaced by grasslands where wildebeests grazed and stared at the travelers as if weighing the odds. The grass gave way to sand, patchy at first, then endless: dunes as tall as ten Reralts, scattered with thin cacti, tumbleweeds, and the wary eyes of creatures that saw them as walking meals.

  “Well this is fun,” Narro muttered. “Shouldn’t we have stocked up on, I don’t know, water? Or food? Or anything useful?”

  Reralt lifted his wineskin, sloshed it, and nodded. “Half full. That’s lunch sorted.” Without hesitation, he rode into the dunes.

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  Narro stroked his horse’s neck. “Well, Twilight, looks like we’re eating Reralt before we eat you.”

  The horse whinnied, disturbingly in agreement.

  Somewhere under the sand, the ground gave the faintest shiver. The Void raised her head, ears twitching.

  Narro rode up alongside Reralt. “Did you feel that?”

  “Of course,” Reralt said, in a tone that made Narro doubt he’d heard anything at all.

  The sand shivered again. A dune ahead of them rippled, as if breathing.

  “Reralt…” Narro pointed. The dune was definitely moving.

  “What? It’s just the wind.” Reralt’s bravado was unconvincing, especially as he angled his horse to keep Narro between him and the dune.

  “Some hero,” Narro muttered.

  “You act like a diversion. Worked with the dragon, didn’t it?” Reralt’s hand brushed his sword strap. “But probably just the wind.” He tried to sound consoling. “I sense monsters from—”

  The dune convulsed. Sand exploded upward.

  A cavernous mouth yawned open, ringed with grinding teeth like a living saw. Stones, boulders, even cacti vanished between the spiraling rows, crunched into dust before Narro’s eyes.

  Narro strummed a fatal chord on his lute. “So this is how we die.”

  ***

  The wurm was getting closer with staggering speed. The teeth were as big as Narro himself.

  The horses were getting very restless. Barely controllable. Reralt and Narro dismounted quickly.

  “Any ideas?” Narro was looking how to ideally run away from the monster in front of them. “If you go left I go right. At least one of us gets a chance?”

  Reralt just smiled. “Run if you need, Reralt does not run.” He said while doing some stretches.

  “It is the pants isn’t it?” Narro pointed at the tight leather pants Reralt was wearing. “Impossible to run very far in those things.”

  Reralt looked at Narro, confused, then doubled over with laughter. Narro ran as fast as he could. Away from the wurm and his clearly ex-Arc hymn patient friend.

  “Good” Reralt yelled at him, “bring back some fresh wine!”

  “What wine?” Narro yelled back, half of him immediately moody as Reralt drank all the wine before lunch, the other half, still panicked.

  “FRESH!” Reralt yelled.

  The wurm stopped. like a truck hitting a mountain. The front went up, as if searching. first scouted left than scouted right.

  when the front was aiming directly at Narro. with a Roar the wurm dived in the sand directly to Narro.

  Narro stopped. The speed of the wurm was simply too great. He fell on his knees, cried and wished Mary was there.

  The wurm got under him, it emerged devouring Narro completely.

  “Narro!” Reralt yelled. He put his sword in the sand as a cane to keep him from collapsing.

  The wurm doubled back, straight to Reralt. Reralt gained his bearing. He screamed a warrior cry.

  The wurm emerged Reralt swung as hard as he could.

  He missed the wurm completely, a feat seemed impossible.

  ***

  “Ffftfff!” With a wet cough the wurm spat out a very limp, very sandy Narro.

  Reralt stood before the creature, sword still planted in the ground like a walking stick. The wurm loomed but did not attack — it just… waited.

  Narro stirred, opened his eyes, saw a mouthful of teeth inches away, and bolted again with a scream.

  Reralt looked from Narro to the wurm, then back. A thought dawned on him.

  “Fetch,” he said.

  The wurm let out a delighted roar and bounded after Narro, tail slapping the sand like an overexcited puppy.

  Reralt grinned, arms crossed. “Good boy.”

  Somewhere in the distance, Narro’s wailing could still be heard.

  ***

  “Impossible that that worked,” Narro muttered, trying to scrub wurm-slime from his hair, clothes, and dignity.

  Yet here they were: sitting astride the wurm as if it were a horse, the Void perched proudly on Reralt’s shoulder, nose to the wind like a queen in her element.

  “As I said,” Reralt smirked, “you be the diversion, I figure out how to defeat the foe. That spells team, don’t you think?”

  Narro nodded — not in agreement, but in the desperate hope the discussion would end. They were still alive. Riding a giant wurm. That was enough.

  “So… where are we going?” He changed the subject. That usually helped.

  “I let Sally sniff Matt’s hat. She went this way.” Reralt shrugged. “The Void didn’t object, so it’s probably good.”

  “There will be a day,” Narro said sternly, “when these shenanigans don’t work. When you’ll need to actually think like an adult. When there will be consequences to your actions.”

  He trailed off. Ahead, stone walls rose out of the desert — impossibly tall, impossibly wide. A gate loomed, framed by two massive wooden doors, as if great lizards passed through them on a daily basis.

  Something was carved above. Too far for Narro to read — just two enormous letters.

  M.

  M.

  “That’s the entrance to the Maze, isn’t it?” Narro crossed his arms and sat back with a scowl.

  “Are you pouting?” Reralt teased. “Is Reralt’s greatness too much for little Narro?” He handed over the wineskin. “I saved the last sip for you.”

  Narro muttered something unintelligible and drank.

  “What was that?” Reralt laughed.

  “Wasn’t your sword already broken by the griffin?” Narro asked, a note of vindictive sweetness in his voice.

  Snap.

  The blade fell apart in Reralt’s hands.

  “Ahh!” He threw his arms wide at the sky. “Now we have to go into the Maze without a sword!”

  ***

  (To the tune of “Spice Up Your Life” — by the Spice Girls)

  Sand dunes of the world — spice up your life!

  Every desert girl — spice up your life!

  When you're wriggling down and your day’s been dry,

  Sally’s coming up for a wormy hi.

  Slither to the rhythm of the quake and crunch,

  She eats adventurers for brunch!

  Wurm up your life! (Wurm it up, wurm it up!)

  Every body of sand and spice!

  People of the dunes! (Dune it up, dune it up!)

  Shake it to the sound of your own demise!

  She don’t need no potion, don’t need no plan,

  She’s a thirty-meter feminist made of sand.

  Tails up, jaws wide, bite of delight,

  Swallowing heroes left and right!

  Wiggle to the left — if you’re still alive,

  Wiggle to the right — if you might survive,

  Shimmy up and down — if you lost a leg,

  Spin it all around — if you’re still an egg!

  Wurm up your life!

  Yes, she’s sassy, classy, dusty and thrashy —

  Sandworms of the world, wurm up your life!