The Hearts of Goblins

Chapter IV

Gwen's thoughts were muddled with the shock and the terror she had just endured. She felt as though the darkness she had witnessed was still somehow closing in around her, even as she lay in the sunlight, wrapped in her friend's arms. Lee rubbed Gwen's back as she was beginning to calm down.
¨Lee?¨ Gwen whimpered.
¨Yeah?¨ Lee asked, trying to keep his voice low and calm but it came out sounding high and feminine. Gwen shook lightly as she pulled away from Lee and started to stand. Lee stood quickly, getting dizzy for a second. He kept his hands out to keep either Gwen or himself from falling.
She held her ribs and winced, they were likely bruised from slamming into the tile corner.
¨We have to keep going,¨ she said, ¨We have to get out of this place. ¨ She wasn't thinking about the pain, she was thinking of the darkness of the empty hole. She looked back at the fourteenth tile and saw that it was back to normal, the illusion glaring her in the face with its perfectness. It looked so real.
Gwen turned back to Lee.
"Why didn't fourteen work?" Lee asked, not expecting Gwen to know the answer. Gwen looked around and thought for a long time.
Lee watched curiously as Gwen started to pat her pockets. She pulled out a gum wrapper and thirty-seven cents.
She picked out the wadded up gum wrapper and dropped in onto tile fourteen. The tile vanished and the silver little piece of paper fell down into the nothing.
"So it's anything that touches the tiles. Not just people." Lee said. He turned and looked at where the fallen clock hand had landed on the stone tiles.
Squinting he tried to read numerals.
"Well, that's a two," Gwen said. Lee's brow furrowed and he bit his lip.
"So does it go backwards maybe?"
Lee's brain went to work as several mathematic functions came to mind. Finding square roots and dividing and finding ratios and differences between the tiles and the numerals on them, he chewed his lip and muttered to himself.
"Lee," Gwen said in a hushed tone. Lee didn't answer and continued thinking. He needed to focus if they wanted to make it through this.
"Lee," Gwen said again, louder this time.
Lee figured the area of the courtyard using tiles as units of measurement.
"LEE!" Gwen hissed. The volume of her voice in his ear sending in a small headache.
"What?" He asked in irritation.
"It's one. One is the next step." She said.
"How could it be one?"
Gwen rolled her eyes and pointed up at the large clock in the stone archway. It had stopped at thirteen O' five.
Lee did a mental double-take. The clock went to thirteen instead of twelve.
"It's one." Lee laughed. Feeling stupid and embarrassed for his attempt to figure out a mathematical solution.
"C'mon. Let's get out of here." Gwen said. She took Lee's hand and went on to another I tile and then to another II tile.
They continued on.
The numerals cycled three times before they got to the two that held the fallen hour hand. Gwen knelt down and picked it up. It was a light metal painted black. Gwen held it before her. It stood like a spear in her hands.
"First weapon achievement unlocked," Gwen said. Lee grimaced at Gwen's sad attempt at a joke but had to agree that a weapon would be a good thing to have even if it was just a clock hand.
They reached the end of the courtyard and both of them sighed audibly with immense relief. The pins and needles feeling of anxiety and fear still clung to them like static to wool.
Gwen nearly didn't notice how pale Lee had become. His normally healthy brown skin was now ashen and looked almost gray. His neck and face shone with sweat.
"Are you okay?" Gwen asked him.
Lee said nothing and held himself up by the wall of the Labyrinth. He was breathing heavily and he gripped his stomach. He vomited suddenly and groaned.
"Shit." He said.
"Lee, are you alright?"
"Fine. Just nauseous." Lee responded, seeming to recover quickly.
" I want out of here," Lee said.
The roman numeral puzzle had made Gwen so nervous, she assumed she probably looked about the same as Lee did. Considering the puzzle had nearly taken her life, she probably looked worse.

They moved on. Lee seemed drowsy and uncoordinated, Gwen tried her best not to worry. She tried to think that his current state was caused by the shock and the stress of this strange place.
They wandered around the Labyrinth for a couple of hours, finding several dead ends and turnarounds.
They both grew frustrated and anxious, neither said a thing about it.
"It should be dark by now, shouldn't it? What time do you think it is?" Lee asked after a while. Gwen looked up, seeing nothing but a clear blue sky. She couldn't catch a glimpse of where the sun was.
She bit the inside of her cheek and smirked.
"I guess we could find out." She said. Lee gave Gwen a look to show his disapproval, which she ignored entirely. Gwen handed her clock hand over to Lee. She placed her hands against the wall of the Labyrinth and searched for a decent handhold. It didn't take long for her to get a grip and scale the wall.
"Probably not a good idea," Lee said from below. Gwen rolled her eyes and continued climbing. She was good at climbing with her strong legs, balance, and clever footing.
"See anything?" Lee asked.
Gwen had made it nearly to the top of the wall. She could see the sun but still, she could not see the horizon.
She pusher herself up to the very top of the wall looked out at the sky. Holding out her thumb she was able to see the distance from the horizon to where the sun hung in the sky. Gwen nearly fell as a voice behind her said calmly and with amusement.
"Cheating, are we?"