Deltora Quest #6: The Maze of the Beast

This ghastly beast is called the Glus. Its lair is the Maze of the Beast, a series of caverns beneath the sea floor on the west coast, near to where the River Tor joins the sea.

No one who has faced the Glus has lived to tell the tale. But it was my good fortune to meet one who saw it from a distance and survived. For a time after I left the inn, I lived in one of the city’s drain-tunnels. Other homeless people had taken shelter there. One of these was Ranesh, a rascally young thief. On my first night I heard him crying out in his sleep, moaning of “the Beast” and “the Glus.” In the morning, in return for a crust of bread and a wizened apple, he told me his story.

An orphan from a village called Where Waters Meet, he worked on a boat that carried passengers along the River Tor.

The boat was captured by pirates, which are a growing menace on the Tor, it seems. The pirates robbed and killed the passengers, but took Ranesh and his captain to a cave on the coast. There the captain was thrown into a hole that led down to the Maze of the Beast. As his screams of terror drifted upward, the pirates laughed. Then Ranesh was also thrown into the hole — at the end of a rope tied around his waist. The pirates wanted him to work for them, for he was lively and strong. They were showing him what he would suffer if he gave trouble.

Ranesh told me what he saw as he dangled, helpless, in the Beast’s lair. It was the picture that still haunted his dreams.

Great spears of stone hung, dripping, from the cavern roof. Everything shone blue and white. The captain lay struggling, his legs wound about with white threads that gripped him hard as stone. A monstrous, white, slug-like creature loomed over him. The stripes on its back were glowing as another mass of white threads sprayed from its gaping red mouth. The captain was covered. The struggles ceased. The Glus settled over him … and then Ranesh was pulled to the surface again, and saw no more.

A year after that, he escaped from the pirates during a battle with a rival crew, and travelled east. He knew he would face the Glus should he ever be re-captured. He far preferred roaming the streets of Del to taking that risk.

I understand his feelings.

The Maze of the Beast has been known since ancient days. It is part of Toran folklore, and is referred to in The Deltora Annals several times. But nothing has been written concerning the Glus’s origin. I believe the answer lies in a Toran folk song called “Little Enna.” The song is at least a hundred years older than the first Maze of the Beast tale. Compared to other Toran songs, it has no great beauty.