the stationary tower, or simply deceived visitors of the steps' actual location. Cadderly thought the last possibility, deception, the most likely, since Belisarius used his magic primarily for elaborate illusions.
The tower's iron-bound door swung open as Cadderly approached (or had it been open all along, only appearing to be closed? Cadderly mused). Cadderly paused as he started over the threshold, for there came the sound of grating stone and an entire section of the stone wall in the foyer shifted and swung out, blocking the inner entry door and revealing a cobwebbed stairway winding down into the blackness.
Cadderly scratched the stubble on his chin, his gray eyes flashing inquisitively at the unexpected invitation. He re--membered the days when he had come to the tower with Headmaster Avery. Every time, the skilled wizard presented the duo with a new test of cunning. Cadderly was glad for the diversion, glad that Belisarius had apparently come up with something new, something that might take the young man's mind from the disturbing questions the beggar man had raised.
"This is a new path, and a new trick," Cadderly said aloud, congratulating the wizard, who was no doubt listening. Always curious, the young scholar promptly pulled a torch from its sconce on the foyer wall and started down. Twenty spiraling steps later, he came to a low corridor ending at a thick wooden door. Cadderly carefully studied the portal for a long moment, then slowly placed his hand against it, feeling the solidity of its grain. Satisfied that it was real, he pushed it open and continued on, finding another descending stairway behind it.
The next level proved a bit more confusing. The stairway ended in a three-way intersection of similar, unremarkable stone passageways. Cadderly took a step straight ahead, then changed his mind and went to the left, passing through another door (after repeating his pause-and-study test), then another after that. Again he had entered an intersection, this one much more confusing, since each of the ways revealed many side passages, both left and right. Cadderly nearly laughed aloud and he silently congratulated the clever wizard. With a helpless shrug, he let his walking stick fall to the floor, then followed the path determined by the unseeing gaze of the carved ram's head. Any way seemed as good as another as the young priest moved along, left, and then right, right again, and then straight ahead. Three more doors were left open behind him; one passage sloped down at a noticeable angle.
"Excellent!" Cadderly exclaimed when he passed a sharp corner, and found himself back where he had started, at the bottom of the second stairway. His torch was beginning to burn low, but the curious young priest pressed ahead once more, consciously selecting different avenues than on his first time through.
The torch burned away, leaving Cadderly in utter blackness. Calmly he closed his eyes and recalled a page in the Tome of Universal Harmony. He heard a few notes of De-neir's endless song and muttered the appropriate chant, pointing to the tip of his burned-out torch. He blinked many times and squinted against the glare as the magical light came on, much brighter than the flickering torch flame had been. When his eyes at last adjusted, he went on, turning corner after corner.
A scuffling, scraping sound made him pause. It was no rat, Cadderly knew; the animal, if 'A was an animal, that had made the sound was much larger.
An image of a bull came into Cadderly's thoughts. He recalled a day as a youngster, out with Headmaster Avery, when he had passed a pasture full of cows. At least, Avery had thought they were cows. Cadderiy couldn't help but smile when he remembered the image of portly Avery huffing and puffing in full flight from an angry bull. The scuffling came again.
Cadderly considered extinguishing his magical light, but reconsidered immediately, realizing the predicament that act would leave him in. He crept up to the next corner, took off his wide-brimmed hat, and slowly peeked around.
The scuffler was humanoid, but certainly not human. It towered seven feet tall, shoulders and chest wide and impossibly strong, and its head - no mask, Cadderly knew - resembled the bull in that long-ago field. Wearing only a wolf pelt loincloth, the creature carried no weapon, though that hardly brought a sense of relief to the minimally armed young scholar.
A minotaur! Cadderly's heart nearly failed him. Suddenly he wasn't so sure that this whole trek through the tower's catacombs