Maze by Tara Maya

Author:Tara Maya
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tara Maya

MONSTER

For a long time, I didn’t exist. Only the Monster existed.

I had nothing to do with him. I had no control over him, not even awareness of him, only awareness of the death he left in his wake. The Monster was never awake to his own deeds—that’s what made him a monster. Only I awakened to them, only I had to live with them. I woke up each morning, never knowing if there would be a corpse beside me, eyes bugged wide, face frozen in a rictus of terror.

He killed. He killed by staring into the eyes of those who stared back. He killed by losing men in a maze of their own fears.

At some point, the humans captured the Monster—and captured me as well—and I had to acknowledge the link between us—that the Monster was myself when I lost myself.

For even before the humans locked me in the Maze, I was already lost. Lost in time. Lost in dreams. Lost in ambition. I wandered in a prism of counterfactuals, of futures that could never be and pasts that never were, of reveries and delusions, of false choices and hidden traps.

At first, they sent the Monster Aelfae. Those women fought him from the start, with no mercy asked or granted. He hated Aelfae, and they were as lethal as he, in their magic and their skill, so he did not even consider killing them murder. It was war. And he knew war.

As generations passed, though, they started sending him human women. I can’t remember their names, or maybe I don’t want to. I still remember the face of that first one, though.

She had competed to become Vaedi and failed. Her punishment was marriage to the Monster.

I warned the girl about the Monster. I warned the girl not to remove her blindfold. She expected him to rape her, but I never touched her. I asked only for her obedience in one thing: Never, never remove the blindfold.

I didn’t expect her to obey. They never did. Women are fools, his street-clan leader used to say when he beat his whores, and they pay the price for it.

I fed my frail human bride and cared for her, but she tried to escape. That by itself I didn’t mind, nor did I try to stop her, but… like a fool, in her efforts, she tore off the blindfold. And when the hour arrived, the Monster came and the beast hunted her down.

Killed her.

I still remember the face of that first one. I still remember all their faces.

A few stood out. The best to remember were the worst to remember.

Another generation. Another bride. She seduced. I tried to resist…but she was beautiful and I had been lonely a long, long time. By then I knew how to walk in dreams, and I made the mistake of walking in hers. In her dreams, I saw her laugh at the Monster, and boast about how she didn’t love the Monster, she was only manipulating the Monster. At

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