Hippolyta had been an avid gardener. She was fascinated by plants and trees and collected both during her many travels. Li Cheung, who shared this pa.s.sion, designed and built the maze because he wanted Hippolyta to remember her homeland. She spoke of it once, remembering her childhood and her parents who took her to a t.i.tled gentleman's house where she got lost in the maze in his garden. She found it fascinating and wasn't even worried when it took her father an hour to find her. He then told her a simple rule when getting out of mazes: extend your right hand to the wall then follow that wall until you find the exit.

Li Cheung had been entranced by her expression when she had told him the story. Her face had glowed with an unbearable loveliness that nearly broke his heart. He designed the maze for three years then built it for another three. The trees and plants and flowers he used all spoke of Hippolyta's pa.s.sion for gardening. The maze also served to keep intruders out so he incorporated vines and poison ivy in his design, including flowers that may look lovely but were actually harmful to humans.

The maze had been a work of art and he and Hippolyta had been happy, spending a lot of time in the lookout tower he built near the entrance.

The pristine structure of the maze, however, underwent a drastic change when Hippolyta and Li Cheung disappeared. In barely a year, the jungle took over and literally swallowed up the plants, trees and flowers Li Cheung meticulously planted to please his wife. The vines, in turn, strangled the encroaching jungle, overtaking it in growth and ma.s.sive reach.

The vines were thick and served as an almost impenetrable wall against intruders. But Enxuo, who had spent an immortal's lifespan guarding and protecting the land of the Amazons, knew his way around the vines and bushes and reached Hippolyta's house in but an instant.

The door was unlatched so he went inside. An Ning was sitting on a window ledge looking out at the peaceful waterfall some distance away. She turned when she heard him enter.

Enxuo was stunned to see her. He stood at the door, hesitating, obviously not knowing what to do.

An Ning was calm. Enxuo had suddenly become the weak link in this elaborate revenge game of theirs and she needed him aware and glued together for another day, another week, another twenty years. He was looking at her nervously, his eyes darting restlessly, as if he expected her to pounce at him and take him somewhere, locked up and gagged if possible.

An Ning jumped off the ledge and walked towards him.

"What are you planning to do?" she asked quietly, stopping a few feet away.

Enxuo's eyes nervously darted left and right then back again as if he was expecting somebody to come out of their hiding place and arrest him or something.

"I came alone,"An Ning said. "There's no one here besides the two of us."

"How did you get here?" Enxuo said angrily. "There's no other entrance to the maze except the one I took."

"I sent an army here to get water from the pool. They hacked thru this jungle before finding what they were looking for. I just followed the path they made."

Enxuo frowned.

"You allowed strangers here in Saravia? And they found the pool. Aren't you afraid they'll come back and steal some more? It's worth millions in the outside world."

An Ning laughed.

"They've already forgotten they were ever here in the first place. Give me some credit, will you? I'm not wet behind the ears, Enxuo."

Enxuo just stood there watching her.

"Again, what are you planning to do?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I will hurt you if you don't," An Ning said calmly.

"Immortal, remember? You can't hurt me," Enxuo said mockingly.

"I remember what Hippolyta once said. I can give you life or I can take it. Shall we put that to the test?"

"Fancy yourself the leader now, don't you?," he sneered. "Well, you're not her. You're just a little wanna..."

He didn't finish the word. In one swing of the sword, An Ning thrust its length on his thigh, creating a large gash that immediately spewed out blood. Enxuo stared at the sword, the blood, and at An Ning with incredulous eyes. Then he collapsed groaning on the floor, clutching at his bleeding thigh with his hands.

"You stabbed me," he spat out angrily. "You actually dared to attack me."

"Just be thankful it wasn't your neck," An Ning said coolly. "Don't think for a minute that I won't kill you, Enxuo. You lose your head over this water thing and you'll die. I won't warn you again."

"You don't understand," Enxuo said after a long silence.

"I don't care about your issues. Everyone here has lost something because of Yu Yan. My mother. My father. Me. You don't see any of us breaking down, do you? That girl Nyra I told you about? Two men were raping her and others were lining up to do the same when we found her. I offered her food but she wouldn't have any because she was worried about the women and children. There was time for that now that we're free, she told me."

An Ning's voice was very calm, as if she was talking about the weather.

"This...this whatever breakdown you're having? That can wait until Yu Yan is dead. When she is, you can drown yourself in boiling lava for all I care. But not just yet."

Enxuo sat on the floor bathed in his own blood. His handsome face was pale, his eyes looking inward as if he had already forgotten An Ning's presence. For a brief moment, when An Ning stabbed him with the sword, he wished she had done it on his gut instead of his thigh. For a brief moment, he wanted to give up and die. He wondered how much more he could endure and the answer suddenly became clear.

"When are you planning to attack Yu Yan?" he asked, looking up at An Ning.

"In three or four's month time," An Ning answered. "I need everything working like clockwork so there are preparations that have to be made. So, I suggest that if you want to take part in destroying Yu Yan, then be here in the present instead of clinging to some memory which can't help you in any way."

When An Ning went out after helping Enxuo bind his leg and telling him to stay put, she went out carrying a ceramic bowl, intending to fill it with water from the pool and bathe his injured thigh with it.

The huge one-storey house stood some distance away from the waterfall. It was actually erroneous to call it a waterfall because the water that fell into the basin was not a gust but a trickle. The pool, however, was deep and clear and the vegetation surrounding it were the greenest An Ning had ever seen.

She stood looking down at the pool and thought it didn't really look unusual or mystical at all. It looked like any other pool found inside a travel brochure touting the magnificence of this and that far-away location. And yet it was different in a way that An Ning couldn't explain. She couldn't explain the smooth and silk-like silence that soothes rather than terrify the senses. There were no birds or any other animals she could see or hear. There was only this unthreatening golden silence that filled her with peace and tranquility.

She put the bowl on a rock and decided to explore a little further down the river. She pa.s.sed a barn-like house which she guessed was Hippolyta's workshop. She hesitated whether to go in or not when she caught sight of something yellow moving towards a thick copse of trees. An Ning frowned and hurried forward.

The yellow something turned out to be a raincoat disappearing between two trees into the mouth of a cave. She hurriedly followed and went inside, stopping at the entrance when she saw who it was.

Richard unhurriedly turned towards her after giving the cave a once over.

"What are you doing here?" An Ning asked.

He didn't answer, merely walking towards a shelf filled with books and flipping through the pages. After waiting for some minutes without a response from him, An Ning decided to ignore him and walked towards a large object covered with tarp. She stood before it frowning before pulling down the tarp and exposing what was underneath it.

It was a door, a large circular door attached to a generator the size of a small car. The metal of the door felt cool to the touch and there was a film of dust surrounding it as if it had been forgotten and left to rot where it stood.

"You lied to me."

It took An Ning several seconds to realize that Richard had finally opened his mouth and was actually speaking to her.

"I lied to you?" she asked, surprised. "About what?"

"I asked you to take me with you whenever there's danger and you said yes. I asked you to fight along with me and you agreed. You've been lying to me all this time. You lied to me about all this, starting with the kidnapping. How do you think I should feel?"

An Ning didn't answer. It was really a pity. She didn't want to burst the bubble just yet because she had too much on her plate already but sometimes the best way really was to just untie the knot and let the chips fall as they like.

"How did you find me?"

"How did you know Taey?"

"That day in the library, I clearly heard you say his name. He looked very surprised but never said anything, so how did you know who he was? When did you two meet?"

"Last question. Who are you really?"

The unanswered questions hang in the air dark as rain-filled clouds. Richard's face was very pale, his body rigid with shock. He looked at An Ning like a man drowning but afraid to ask for help. He swallowed once or twice, his adam's apple bobbing with increasing nervousness. An Ning watched him without curiosity, without emotion.

She moved to walk past him but he suddenly reached out and tried to enfold her in his arms. An Ning, for the first time since she laid eyes on him, fought his embrace like a wild cat. She kicked and bit him, clawed blindly at him with released anger, slugged his face with a raised fist. The two of them tackled each other silently yet furiously, An Ning in anger, Richard in growing desperation.

Their movements were so wild and hasty that they started b.u.mping into things, the bookshelf, the lamp on the table, the generator standing against the wall. An Ning's hand clawed at something to hit Richard with and found the lever. She pulled. The generator came to life, the door emitted a crackling sound then it started spinning faster and faster until they couldn't even see the other side of the cave wall.

Richard and An Ning watched the spinning door utterly confused. The circular door continued spinning then suddenly stopped as abruptly as it started. Richard and An Ning walked forward then halted in front of it, their eyes mesmerized by the change they saw inside the large opening. There was some kind of thick blue greyish mist sticking to it like glue. It moved like liquid, like gathering waves in a gentle motion.

Then from out of nowhere the liquid wave became transparent like a mirror and two figures, a man and a woman, suddenly appeared like ghostly apparitions out of a mist. An Ning and Richard stared at the two people standing inside the mirror. The two people inside the mirror stared at An Ning and Richard. The four of them gaped at each other in varying degrees of surprise, awe, perplexity then sudden comprehension.

An Ning reached out an arm at the same time that the woman in the mirror reach out an arm to meet hers. Before their fingers could touch, the door again started spinning faster and faster. When it slowed down and the mist again took the shape of a mirror, the woman and the man on the other side were gone.

"Hippolyta. It was my grandmother. It was Hippolyta." An Ning spoke in a whisper, her stunned eyes still focused on the mirror-like door in front of her.