Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 5: The Maze of Echoes
The staircase seemed to go on forever.
At first Alliyanna tried to count the steps. She gave up somewhere after four hundred. Kahlan lasted longer, mostly because he claimed somebody should know how far beneath the surface they were going.
Eventually even he stopped.
Talak never bothered.
They continued downward beneath the temple in the narrow beams of their suit lights. The walls remained the same black stone they had seen at the entrance. There were no markings, no doors, no side passages and no indication the stairs would ever end.
The temperature changed gradually as they descended.
Outside, Erimos was falling toward its bitter nighttime cold. Inside the temple, their readings steadily moved in the opposite direction until the temperature stabilized.
Talak reached the bottom first and stopped.
Alliyanna nearly walked into him.
“What?”
He moved aside.
The staircase opened into a large level chamber.
Their lights could not reach the far wall.
Kahlan checked his environmental display.
“Seventy-two degrees.”
Alliyanna looked at him.
“In here?”
“That’s what it says.”
Talak brought up his own readings.
“Atmosphere?”
Kahlan started the scan.
They waited.
“Breathable. Normal pressure. Oxygen level well within tolerance. Nothing immediately toxic.”
Talak looked around.
“Again.”
Kahlan glanced at him.
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“Then you saved yourself the surprise.”
The second scan was identical.
Talak looked at him.
Kahlan sighed and ran a third.
No dangerous contaminants. No unexpected radiation. No harmful biological material.
Talak released his helmet first.
He lifted it slowly, waited, then took a careful breath.
Alliyanna watched him.
“Well?”
“Still alive.”
“That’s useful.”
Kahlan removed his helmet.
Alliyanna followed.
The air was cool and dry.
For the first time in days she could feel ordinary air on her face without worrying about heat, cold or blowing sand.
Kahlan checked the temperature again.
“It isn’t drifting.”
“What does that mean?” Alliyanna asked.
“Something is maintaining it.”
Talak stared into the chamber.
“So the temple isn’t dead.”
Nobody answered.
They moved forward.
Their boots sounded too loud against the floor. The chamber was large enough that the sound returned slowly.
Talak took point. Alliyanna followed. Kahlan brought up the rear.
They crossed perhaps twenty meters when Talak stopped.
A vibration moved through the floor.
Then a rectangular section directly in front of him began to rise.
“Back.”
They moved quickly.
The section climbed past Talak’s waist, then shoulders, and continued until the top disappeared into darkness above them.
It struck the ceiling with a deep mechanical impact.
Another section rose beside it.
Then another.
Alliyanna turned as the grinding spread throughout the room.
Dozens of panels were rising.
Then hundreds.
They came up in rows, each narrow and perfectly rectangular. Some formed straight lines. Others stood at angles. Open corridors appeared only to be divided again when another panel rose.
Within less than a minute the open chamber was gone.
A maze surrounded them.
The face of the nearest panel was polished like a mirror.
Alliyanna saw herself clearly. Dust covered her environmental suit. Her hair was tangled from days beneath a helmet. Talak stood reflected behind her and Kahlan beyond him.
Her reflection moved.
Only slightly.
Alliyanna turned immediately.
The reflected Alliyanna stood exactly where she should have been.
“What?” Talak asked.
“I thought the reflection moved.”
Kahlan studied the surface.
“Did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s reassuring.”
A faint voice drifted through the maze.
All three went still.
It was too far away to understand.
Then it came again.
Alliyanna recognized it.
Her own voice.
Another whisper came from somewhere else.
Talak.
Then Kahlan.
None of the words were clear.
Alliyanna opened the ancient book.
She found the illustration she remembered.
Repeated standing shapes surrounded three small figures.
“The Maze of Echoes.”
Talak looked at the panels.
“This is it?”
“I think so.”
Kahlan leaned toward the page.
“The path changes with the traveler.”
Alliyanna nodded.
“False sight. False voice.”
Talak checked his weapon.
“Anything explaining what happens if we fail?”
“No.”
“Helpful.”
Kahlan looked into the maze.
“Maybe failure means wandering around down here until we die.”
Talak looked at him.
“Also helpful.”
Talak stepped into the first corridor.
The maze reacted immediately.
Three panels shot upward.
One came between Alliyanna and Talak.
Another rose between her and Kahlan.
A third closed behind them.
The movement took less than two seconds.
Then everything stopped.
Alliyanna stood alone in a corridor barely wide enough for two people.
“Kahlan?”
“I’m here.”
His voice came through the wall to her right.
Talak answered from the other side.
“So am I.”
Alliyanna placed her hand against the panel.
Kahlan struck the opposite side with his palm.
The sound came through faintly.
“You’re right there.”
“I know.”
Talak sounded farther away than he should have.
“Don’t try climbing it.”
Alliyanna looked upward.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“That’s getting annoying.”
Kahlan laughed.
“At least that still sounds like you.”
They moved forward together as long as they could.
Then the corridors separated.
Alliyanna entered a small circular space.
A black panel clouded in front of her.
A courtyard appeared.
Her brother stood in the center holding a practice foil.
Alliyanna knew the day immediately.
She saw herself younger, furious and determined.
The duel began exactly as she remembered.
Her brother underestimated her.
She drove him backward.
She saw the opening and lunged.
The foil touched him cleanly.
A scored point.
The winning point.
“That didn’t count,” her brother said.
“Yes, it did.”
“You stepped outside the line.”
“I hit you.”
“You were out.”
“I won.”
“You didn’t.”
Alliyanna remembered what came next.
She dropped the foil.
Walked directly to him.
And punched him in the eye.
“How’s that for a scored point?”
His friend had stood there in shock.
Her brother had been too stunned to answer.
That was what happened.
Except the panel changed it.
The younger Alliyanna did not drop the foil.
The blade thickened.
The guard widened.
The practice weapon became a cutlass.
Alliyanna stepped toward the panel.
“No.”
The duel continued.
The movements were almost exactly the same.
The same opening.
The same winning point.
Only this time the cutlass drove through her brother’s chest.
Alliyanna recoiled.
“No!”
Her brother fell.
The courtyard vanished.
Gristov’s office replaced it.
Alliyanna remembered the real reprimand.
“One does not blacken the eye of the heir to House Kar’Jan.”
She had answered immediately.
“I am the heir rightfully.”
The maze changed it.
Her brother’s chair was empty.
Gristov looked at her with grief.
“You killed the heir to House Kar’Jan.”
“No.”
“You wanted his place.”
“No.”
“You said you were the rightful heir.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
The scene changed again.
Her brother lay in bed.
Older.
Sick.
The plague.
This part was real.
The maze placed the cutlass wound across his chest.
Her brother opened his eyes.
“You killed me.”
“No.”
“You wanted to be the heir.”
“No.”
“You won.”
Alliyanna closed her eyes.
Gristov’s voice came from somewhere else.
“You were always too angry.”
Her brother.
“You wanted what I had.”
Alliyanna opened her eyes.
The false body remained.
“I did win.”
The image flickered.
“I beat you.”
Another flicker.
“You argued about the point.”
“I got angry.”
The cutlass remained.
“And I punched you.”
The image shivered.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Her brother’s voice came from behind her.
“You wanted to hurt me.”
“For about five seconds, yes.”
The panel flickered again.
“But I did not kill you.”
The bed disappeared.
The courtyard returned.
Her brother stood there with a bruised eye.
Alive.
Angry.
Annoying.
Exactly as she remembered him.
“You died from the plague.”
The image vanished.
The corridor beyond opened.
Alliyanna moved forward.
Her brother’s voice followed.
“That point didn’t count.”
Real.
“You always hated me because I was heir.”
False.
Gristov joined him.
“One does not blacken the eye of the heir.”
Real.
“I knew then what kind of woman you would become.”
False.
The floor began to slope beneath her even though the corridor remained visually level.
The lighting changed from white to blue.
Then amber.
Then red.
Another panel waited.
Her mother’s bedroom appeared.
Alliyanna’s stomach tightened.
Her mother had been ill for a long time.
There were nurses and physicians, but her mother wanted her eldest daughter nearby.
So Alliyanna brought meals.
Helped her wash.
Brushed her hair.
Read to her.
Fetched water.
Kept her company.
Alliyanna had been thirteen.
Her tutors came to the house. She received excellent instruction.
She hated it anyway.
Not the lessons.
The isolation.
The panel showed an afternoon she remembered.
Alliyanna sat beside a window with a book in her lap.
The nurse entered.
“Your mother is asking for you.”
Young Alliyanna closed her eyes.
“Tell her I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
That was real.
The image repeated.
“Your mother is asking for you.”
This time the younger Alliyanna looked irritated.
“She can wait.”
“No.”
Again.
“She always needs something.”
“I never said that.”
Again.
“I have a life too.”
Alliyanna froze.
She had thought something like that.
Maybe not those exact words.
Her mother’s voice came from behind the wall.
“You did think it.”
The image continued.
Young Alliyanna stared through the window.
“I wish this would just end.”
That one hurt because she had thought it too.
Her mother’s voice came softly.
“So did I.”
The bedroom replaced the window.
Her mother lay in bed.
Alliyanna entered carrying a tray.
This memory was real again.
She sat beside her mother and brushed her hair.
Her mother smiled.
“There you are.”
The image changed.
Her mother looked at her differently.
“You took your time.”
“No.”
“You knew I needed you.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
“You were tired of me.”
Alliyanna stopped.
“Weren’t you?”
The physician’s voice came from somewhere else.
“If she had received more fluids earlier.”
“That never happened.”
“If someone had called me sooner.”
“He never said that.”
Her mother.
“You could have done more.”
“I was thirteen.”
“You wanted school.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted friends.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted me not to need you.”
Alliyanna opened her eyes fully.
Her mother stood in the panel healthy again.
“You wanted me not to need you.”
Alliyanna felt tears running down her face.
“Yes.”
“And then I died.”
The funeral appeared.
Gristov becoming Regent because Alliyanna was too young to assume the Barony.
The Royal Academy plans.
The arranged marriage years later.
“If I had lived, things would have been different,” her mother said.
That might be true.
The maze kept pushing.
“You wanted it to end.”
“Yes!”
The word rang through the corridor.
“Yes. I wanted it to end.”
Alliyanna stared at her mother.
“I wanted someone else to bring your food. I wanted someone else to help you bathe. I wanted somebody else to brush your hair. I wanted to go to school. I wanted friends. I wanted to be thirteen.”
Her mother watched her.
“Sometimes I resented you.”
The words were painful.
“I loved you and I resented you.”
The panel remained silent.
“I wanted the illness to end. I wanted you to stop needing me that way.”
“And then I died.”
“No.”
This time there was certainty.
“I wanted you well.”
The image flickered.
“I wanted my mother back.”
Another flicker.
“I did not want you dead.”
The real bedroom returned.
Her mother smiled.
“There you are.”
Alliyanna covered her mouth.
She remembered the warmth of her mother’s hair beneath the brush.
The food trays.
The irritation.
The love.
All of those things were true.
None caused her death.
“I couldn’t make you well.”
The panel went dark.
Alliyanna stood there for a long time.
The grief remained.
The blame did not have to.
Elsewhere, Talak stood in a marketplace.
He knew exactly what day it was.
He was a boy.
Hungry.
A tray of pastries sat near the edge of a counter.
Young Talak looked at the vendor.
Then took one.
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