DeStNI

                My name is Ted, and I work at the Department of Statistics, Numbers and Information (DeStNI). I would say that I enjoy my job. Well, it’s 2 standard deviations above the mean enjoyment-of-employment rating for 93% of employees who have worked here for 6 months or longer in the 18-42 demographic, technically.  At DeStNI we control how the people see the world, and how the world should wish to be seen. We map out trends for everything you could imagine – shopping habits, pregnancy rates, pregnancies as a result of shopping too much or too little; you name it, we’ve got the stats for it. When we see something we don’t like we release some statistics to push things back the other way and keep everyone in check. Too much crowding on the tube? We publish stats that bus riders are, on average, 64% happier, and we leave out the fact that we only surveyed smiling children during the summer holidays. When that doesn’t work the department of vagueness, guesses and misinformation gets involved, but no-one likes to see that; that’s when things are serious. The ministry’s methods are… well, we’ll call them heavy handed.
                Of course, if anyone from the public could see the reality of life inside the department of statistics, numbers and information (DeStNI) the whole system would fall apart – they’d realise they were being manipulated. So, it’s one of the most secretive and closely guarded facets of the OverGov. ‘Knowledge is power and power needs a switch’ goes the departmental mantra. I’ve always found it oddly trite, and thought it fails to accurately summarise anything about what we really do here. It kind of implies we just cause blackouts when we fancy it, to be honest. I wouldn’t like to question the department heads though – they must know what they’re doing because all of the information reaches them.
                The flow of data into DeStNI is constant, and must be handled with the utmost caution and at the highest rate possible. Hundreds of supercomputers run perpetually to crunch the numbers, and thousands of processing algorithms take the crunched up bits and assemble them into something useful. Well, useful most of the time – one of the algorithms is in the habit of plotting the amount of time which has passed since that morning, versus the time of day. No-one has yet managed to isolate which one is doing it, but whenever we see that straight line I crack a little smile to myself. I say whenever, obviously I mean a statistically relevant proportion of the time.

                It was 09:37.67 on a warm (20% above yearly average) Wednesday when the new young lady started in my sub-division – transit patterns of non-sentient materials. I remember it over 3 times better than my average for a mid-week morning in the springtime, which squarely qualifies it for ‘memorable’ status. I was sitting at my terminal in the long, bright blue office, situated sub-optimally for access to the printer, water cooler and lavatories, when weighted by overall cycle time to reach all three. Individually, I was in the 90^th percentile for water cooler access and 32^nd percentile for the printer, but my lamentable 60 second journey time to the nearest lavatory placed me in the tawdry bottom 4%, ruining my desk’s overall rating. Of course, if I was recommending that statistic for report to the public it would be “In the bottom 90% for lavatory access but the top 5% for clean air”. I know how to interpret the data favourably.
                I had, as usual, been looking wistfully at the most desirable desk in the office – desk 37B. 37B had it all – watercooler and printer next to it for an immediate and incredible boost to amenity-circuit cycle time, and a lavatory on the wall opposite. The glorious minimised journey times, the convenience, the visibility of everyone using the office facilities – it was my ambition to claim desk 37B as my own. Since I’ve never vividly hallucinated about desk 37B in my sleep, it doesn’t warrant ‘dream’ status by any DeStNI-approved metric.
                For the first 2 years of my employment at DeStNI, my first act of procrastination or daydreaming in any period of inattentiveness in over 96% of recorded cases was to stare at desk 37B. That’s how serious I was about getting there. I would make it mine, or more accurately, the career goal to which I would commit over 85% of my efforts over the next 2 years would be to secure assignment to desk 37B.
                When the new young lady started, my gaze had been lingering specifically on the sunbeam which shone warmly on desk 37B from behind. It was as if the Sun itself conspired to make desk 37B the most desirable place in the office – the light never rose high enough to glare against the screens, but illuminated the desk with a bright, natural light and warmed the back of desk’s blessed resident. I was appreciating that very fact when she walked across my line of sight – a flash of burgundy panning left to right in front of me. It snapped me out of my sleepy daydreaming at approximately the 1 minute 30 second mark – around the median daydream length for that time of year.
                When I looked up, I saw that she was not alone – Alec Carter, my direct manager, had also walked in next to her, mid-conversation and smiling politely. He was dressed in a blue striped shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and a pair of black slacks. It was his third most often worn shirt, and his sleeves were rolled up in 98% of interactions with me. This was the first indicator that the young lady in burgundy was not an important visitor from higher in the OverGov, but probably the new recruit. The second and far more conclusive indicator was what Alec was saying.
                “…and this is where you’ll be working. Get yourself settled down and connected. You’ll have a task list for the first week which will automatically appear on your terminal. At the end of the week we’ll calculate your average calculation rate and use that to baseline your workload. Some of your tasks will be focused on outputs and interpretation of the calculations you’ve previously performed. Once we’ve looked over your work and you’ve been deemed necessary and sufficient, you’ll be given larger projects with more freedom of information. Any questions?” It was standard new start procedure.
                “No, I think that’s fine.” She replied with confidence, but she’d made a rookie mistake of speaking without quantifying. It’s not the end of the world, but 78% of non-quantifiers leave the department within 6 months of their start date. Alec picked up on this too, and raised an eyebrow.
                “My confidence that I understand is significant to the P < 0.05 level.” She corrected herself, after seeming to stifle a sigh. She’d get used to it.
                “89% better.” Alec told her with the look he wears when he tries to be reassuring. It tends to just come across as creepy. “Come to see me if you have any problems.”
                As Alec walked away, Lucy turned to her terminal and began switching everything on. She moved with the knowledge and assuredness of a professional, but the pace of a disinterested amateur, according to the detailed behavioural charts I’d populated and memorised. I waited patiently for her to finish, since I anticipated that she would be introducing herself once her terminal was powered. She’d have to be in the far reaches of the bell-curve’s tail not to say hello to her desk neighbour. The passage of a minute after the completion of her power-up sequence confirmed to me that she was so far away from the bell she wouldn’t even hear it ringing. I decided to take the matter into my own hands; after all, I’d be seen as at least a standard deviation ruder than average if I let us work all day without having said hello.
                “Hi I’m Ted, nice to meet you.” I said to the back of her head. “23^rd most common male name for children born within 2 years of me in either direction, and 3 miles of me in a northwesterly direction. Slight dependency on father’s occupation - 36% correlation with paternal steelworking.” It’s these details which help to break the ice, based on a survey of my own experiences in the office.
                Lucy turned around slowly, and I mean 10^th percentile slowly, before fixing me with a quizzical look.
                “Erm, hi.” She said, in the vocal equivalent of a slow chair turn. I thought that I had perhaps intimidated her with my strong display of quantitative analysis. “I’m Lucy. Nice to meet you too.”
                “Most common follow up statement after introducing yourself across all office-based professions, based on a survey of three-thousand people two years ago.” I added for her, to ease her into perpetually thinking about statistics.
                “You really love this don’t you?” She said. It was a perfectly accurate observation, but it somehow sounded like an insult.
                “I find it to be over 2 standard deviations more enjo-“ I started, but she rolled her eyes and looked back to her terminal. In over 78% of cases that is a sign of moderate to significant disinterest, so I ceased responding. She must have heard all those statistics before, I thought, and it made me feel strangely disappointed. Empirically she must have already experienced at least 95% of the joy those stats could give her, and that is clearly a positive outcome, but somehow it made me sad. Unaccountably, I wanted her to feel that joy because of me. It was curious, and I couldn’t quantify what it was that made me feel that way. Something between her expression, which challenged me to be impressive, her posture, which proved that I wasn’t intimidating, and the easy dismissal of my attempts to ingratiate myself to her, made me yearn to do better; and do better I would.

                Three hours and forty minutes passed without any events surpassing the significance level required for reporting. Lucy had proven to be resourceful, completing her quota of tasks at a rate just below the mean but not asking for any help in order to do so. That put her in the clear minority for high-independence. We worked away, back to back, in silence, save for the occasional thunder of keystrokes when the job called for it, until she finally had the need to seek advice.
                “Ted?” she called, as easily as if we’d worked together forever. There was no anxiety of feeling out our relationship, no bashfulness at seeking assistance.
                “Yes?” I replied, trying my best to sound willing to help.
                “My task requires a stat to reduce consumption rates of sweet potatoes, but I can’t find a good reason. None of the information points towards a better reason than anticipated shortages, but that would only lead to panic-buying. Would you please take a look?” She said please as if it was a request, but the cool manner with which she addressed me made it hard to take it as anything other than an instruction.
                “Hmm… right, so look here. You’re only cutting the numbers one way, looking ahead at consequences of average to maximal potato consumption. You need to take another angle and try again; that’s how you’ll find out something useful.”
                “I don’t think that reanalysing the same data will make sweet potatoes any more threatening to our society.” She said sceptically. The sound of her disappointment felt at least twice as heavy as Alec’s would have done. It didn’t make sense or follow any logical trend. Lucy had no power over me, so her approval should have been meaningless.
                “I’m not saying it would, but you have to take a different approach. Plot consumption rates by demographic - types of employment, age, where they live, that kind of thing.”
                “Yeah, I know what demographics are.”
                “OK, good, so use them. If over 50% of any ‘undesirable’ demographic has high consumption then you’re sorted. The public don’t understand the difference between “the majority of criminals eat sweet potato 4 times a week” and “eating sweet potato 4 times a week turns the majority of people into criminals.”
                “Alright,” she said after a thoughtful pause, “I’ll try it.” She faced her terminal and began attacking the information again. I lingered for a second, and then started to roll back to my own terminal, feeling not even half as fulfilled as I’d hoped. “Thanks.” She hastily added. My fulfilment level increased exponentially.

                A few minutes later Lucy spoke to me again, in much the same tone as before - roughly 85% of the key vocal characteristics were common.
                “That still hasn’t helped.”
                I wheeled my chair over to her terminal and took a look at what she’d done. Flickering away on her screen was a series of charts showing various pieces of information about the sweet potato consumption of various socio-economic demographics. It was the stuff that dreams were made of.
                “There’s nothing here to make it sound like a good idea to reduce consumption.” Lucy stated matter-of-factly. “The highest rates are dominated by ‘desirable’ demographics. This has only reinforced my original conclusion.”
                “Give me a minute.” I asked of her, not put off so easily. “Take these three – you can declare that 30% of the long-term unemployed, 42% of convicted thieves and 24% of murderers eat more than the average amount of sweet potato every month.”
                “Those are all less than 50%.” Lucy told me accurately, but without appreciable relevance.
                “So?” I replied “The public will assume that the connection we’ve made between these groups is somehow relevant. They don’t know that doctors, care workers and whoever else have even higher rates of consumption, so it won’t be thought about.”
                Lucy stuck me with a suspicious gaze, as if I was making this up or somehow attempting to subvert her. I could see the cogs of her mind turning, but I wasn’t sure I liked what those cogs were driving her thoughts towards – she was guarded, she knew that not everyone was out to support her like this, especially in the high-octane world of statistical analysis. I watched silently as she cogitated. I knew my logic was sound, I’d applied it hundreds of times, but under her scrutiny I bubbled with fear of her rejecting it, fear of her thinking that I was going to mislead her. It was appalling enough to make me doubt myself. The cogs finally settled down.
                “OK, that makes sense. I can believe it.” I was palpably relieved. “Thank you again.”
                “You’re welcome.” I told her, because she most certainly was, and I rolled back to my terminal to stare at my own project again. I was glad the demographic cut had worked for Lucy, because it was failing here for me. I was attempting to increase the levels of scrap steel being brought into London by 30% over the next year – a directive from Alec Carter to fit DeStNI’s year-long objectives, reportedly – but all my measures so far were showing no progress. It was still early on in the life-cycle of the objective so I had plenty of time to fix it, but my total lack of progress was worrying. Very worrying.

                Lucy’s sweet potato report was met with great praise by Alec when she finally submitted it – it turned out that she took my advice a step further and subdivided the murderer category. Specifically calling out especially violent murderers has the peak sweet potato consumers within the subset of criminals was a stroke of genius – she’d go far. All the way to desk 37B if I didn’t keep myself ahead of her.
                I found Lucy to be a difficult, but not unpleasant, desk-neighbour. She was self-assured and confident enough to speak to me without anxiety, but just chose not to unless it was strictly necessary. I tried to tell myself that it was just because she was focused on her work and trying to make a good impression, but there was an undertone to her words; whenever I did pry some non-work conversation from her it felt like she resented speaking to me. Asymmetric resentment is a pretty poor basis for friendship, but a poor friendship is still better than tremendous enmity – I wrote a whole report on that very subject a year ago which determined poor friendships to be over 65% better than having someone hate you.
                It took until the end of the following week before Lucy willingly engaged me in a conversation longer than ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’ or something regarding her work. I was in the midst of a minor gaze at desk 37B when she spoke.
                “What is it that you spend so much time staring at over there?” she asked me. The look in her eyes was one I’d not had the honour of seeing much – genuine interest. It made my stomach flutter pathetically.
                “37B.” I answered, unclearly. “Desk 37B, over there, the one with the sunlit chair.” I then added.
                “OK, and what’s so interesting about a desk that you need to watch it all day? I thought you found your job ‘2 standard deviations more enjoyable than average’ or something?” She remembered what I’d said. I smiled dumbly before I realised how much mockery her sentence had in its pockets.
                “I do, I do. Desk 37B is my short-term workplace ambition.” I started, before explaining my three-factor desk desirability matrix to Lucy in full. I covered everything, from round-trip cycle time to individual sprint distances, weighting each of the three facilities by mean usage over the course of a working month, even touching on seasonal variations in the attractiveness of various sitting places in the office. I intended to finish with an explanation of the toilet-proximity characteristic and its manifold subtleties, which I was most proud of for its analytical beauty. Unfortunately, Lucy interrupted me mid-flow.
                “I’m surprised you even need to use the toilet with the amount of shit that comes out of your mouth.”
                I was stunned – this was prime, unadulterated statistical analysis about desk suitability. It was rigorously calculated and triple checked. I had even included error bars! But here she was, belittling it and then smiling at me with mischief behind her eyes, barely trying to hide her laughter. I was sharing my ambitions, heartfelt ambitions at that, with her, this woman who had an odd effect on me, and I was being mocked. She didn’t even seem to recognise that it could hurt me.
                I span around to face my own terminal again, and Lucy did the same without a word. So much for the first voluntary social interaction she’d indulged in with me.
                After that sorry episode I retreated into my shell, reducing my conversation instigation factor by 89%, based on some rough calculations. I had determined that reducing contact to prevent further insults to be a necessary measure to take, and the obvious way to do that was just to stop trying to engage Lucy in conversation. There were, however, other dependencies in the system which I hadn’t accounted for. Once I’d stopped putting in the effort, something happened which bucked all the trends I’d established over the previous fortnight and threw my mental models right off. It turned out although the total number of conversations did fall, it wasn’t by much. Instead, Lucy just took it upon herself to fill the gap where my unrequited chatter would usually have been. All of a sudden she said hello to me; not because I said it to her first, but precisely because I didn’t. Her words still came out with the same casual indifference and lack of self-consciousness that they always had, but now it was apparently caused by her own statements. I failed to understand why she would have the same indifference to her own words; if they were that boring she could just not say them. It was as if, despite her own lack of interest, the system of myself and Lucy had detected a change and levelled itself out. It was perplexing.
                As Lucy’s newfound talkative side stuck around, I was forced to adopt a new conclusion in the face of the data in front of me –Lucy could not, in fact, have disliked me. There was another reason for her attitude, entirely separate to anything I was doing. This conclusion had the necessary corollary that I was not the most important factor in her life, nor were my actions the sole driver of her happiness. In hindsight, that should have been obvious. It led me to believe that my head should leave the vicinity of my posterior with great haste.

                Weeks passed, and while relations with Lucy improved, my progress on the steel import problem didn’t - I was still stumped. I had exhausted all of my most successful techniques for data analysis and statistical reporting, and had been forced to investigate other avenues of opportunity on the off-chance that they might make a difference. In the same time, Lucy had come on staggeringly far, making her voice heard among the cascades of data and constructing masterpieces of whatever DeStNI threw at her.
                Looking over the numbers, as I had done every day for what felt like an eternity, I found no clarity – no answers. Alec had been putting more pressure on me to make a change, but all the data streams seemed to work against me, delivering contradictory information to one another on a daily basis. Just when I thought I couldn’t sink any lower, I had a visitor appear at my terminal.
                The visitor stood to my side, wearing an ill-fitting suit of peculiar colouration – it was as if someone had taken a wild stab at what tartan might look like, based on the testimony of a colour-blind liar. He stared at me silently with a blank expression.
                “Hello.” I said tentatively. “Can I help you?”
                “Probably.” He answered. Immediately, it rang alarm bells.
                “Erm, OK. How? What can I do for you?”
                “I need some help.”
                “With what?”
                “Some work.”
                “I need more details than that. Does it involve statistical analysis of the movements of non-sentiment materials?”
                “Your guess is as good as mine.” He said, smirking. It dawned on me - he was from the ministry of vagueness, guesses and misinformation. I was fraternising with a dangerous and infuriating man.
                “You’re from the ministry.” I said, trying to remain professional despite the surge of disgust and fear which was welling up inside me.
                “Perhaps. Are you going to help me?”
                “Only if I get a direct order from my boss.”
                “He’ll be on his way, from… somewhere.” The man from the ministry told me, adding no information at all.
                “From where?”
                “Um, here?” he opened the lowermost drawer in my desk.
                “Ugh, stop that.” I snapped, slamming the drawer shut. “Just please wait quietly until Alec arrives.”
                “That’s not very nice, Ted.” Lucy chastised me. “What’s got into you?”
                “Bees?” the man from the ministry proposed.
                “I’m not full of bees!” I snapped at my unwanted guest. “And no it’s not nice by the majority of metrics, but it’s the only effective way I’ve found to stop the tide of this nonsense from ministry personnel.”
                “That’s not very nice either.” She told me. “How are you, sir?” Lucy asked the visitor,  in an attempt to befriend the devil himself.
                “Perfunctory.” The man from the ministry replied.
                Lucy shrugged and turned back to her terminal as Alec arrived.
                “Ted, I see you’ve met Harry here. He’s from-“
                “The ministry, yeah. We’ve established that.”
                “Right, well he’s here to investigate a breach of DeStNI codes of conduct – it seems that someone has been overstepping their bounds and disseminating misinformation outside of ministry control.”
                The blood drained from my body – this was the most serious act that a DeStNI employee could commit, short of going on a killing spree or urinating in the printer. We dealt in information and reliable facts – misinformation was too dangerous to be handled lightly. We might represent things in a certain light to get to the conclusion we desire, but it’s all factual. Without facts we’d all get lost in the lies.
                “That’s the most shocking thing I’ve heard in over 4 years by a margin of-“ I started but Alec interrupted me.
                “I understand, Ted. I need you to answer a few questions for Harry.”
                “What are you implying?” I said, shocked.
                “A number of questions between three and seven.” Alec replied. I relaxed a little – his lack of clear quantification had scared me.
                “OK, I’ll answer up to seven questions.”

                Harry’s questioning was equal parts tiresome and worthless. At least four of his questions were guesses at my name, which he had been told prior to the interview, leaving three questions at most to investigate the supposed dissemination of misinformation. By the end of the interview we had established that I was not called Martha, that I didn’t know ‘the answer’ to ‘some questions’, and that I didn’t know who had been corrupting the data streams flowing out of DeStNI. The last piece of information had been freely offered on my part to end the charade.
                When I returned to my desk, looking a surprising 68% more flustered than I had when I’d left, Lucy turned in her seat to face me.
                “Are they all like that?” Even Lucy sounded sickeningly vague after speaking to Harry, that’s how far I was withdrawing from the poorly-specified madness of the ministry’s representative.
                “At least half of them are worse.” I said, shuddering. “They don’t commit to anything – it’s all coulds, maybes and outright lies.”
                “OK, I know you like quantitative analysis, and I’ll admit that Harry was annoying to the point that I suspect him of being seriously mentally-ill,” Lucy’s words were reassuring, mostly because they were clear statements of fact “but why do you hate people being vague so much? It’s not the end of the world – you can get the gist of what people are saying without talking like a text book.”
                I slumped into my chair and sighed heavily.
                “My best friend was killed by a vague comment.”
                “By a- I’m sorry to hear that, but… how?”
                “He was at the dentist having a tooth out. The assistant was a trainee, barely qualified to look at a healthy incisor, let alone remove a molar. My friend told the dentist that he could still feel his gums, that it was painful, so the dentist told his assistant to give him some more anaesthetic. The assistant asked how much, and do you know what the dentist told her? ‘Enough.’ She gave him two whole bottles, directly into his jaw, one tiny syringe at a time. It must have taken at least ten minutes, and even then the dentist only noticed when he saw her unstoppering a third bottle. She had no idea how much enough was, Lucy! She didn’t have any idea where to stop because it hadn’t been made clear. The vagueness killed him.” I fell silent; the pain of the memory too much to bear.
                “Ted, I- I’m sorry, but your friend wasn’t killed by a vague comment, he was killed by malpractice!”
                “The malpractice of poor instructions, perhaps.” I countered.
                “Ugh.” She groaned, and then retreated back to her terminal. I felt like I might have said something wrong, and then shuddered at my own thought’s lack of specificity.

                The weeks passed by and questions about the steel problem came harder and faster by margins of 33% and 47%, respectively. Alec wanted solutions to the stagnant import rates, and Harry wanted a smack in the mouth, but neither one of them was giving me room to think. Alec especially had been keeping a closer eye on me – his office was set behind a glass wall which directly faced Lucy and me. Desk 37B’s relative shelter from Alec’s gaze was another feather in its hat.
                Working on the same problem for thirteen weeks was exhausting to the point of choking my soul; I felt a devastatingly low 4% of my average motivation to dedicate any more time to the task, knowing that the median day’s work would actually yield negative progress, as I found some new aspect of the data to fail to understand.
                While I had been failing to have an impact on anything, Lucy had managed to single-handedly increase the circulation of 50p pieces by over 80%, just by linking an increase in their use to reduced levels of ennui. She’d cleverly used data from a warehouse in Slough, where the vending machines only accepted 50ps; an absolute masterpiece of analysis. She’d even managed to encourage the purchase of tinned goods by tying a full recycling bin to greater cumulative household earnings, by summing the incomes of the tenants of a block of flats and comparing it to a vacant bedsit in Great Yarmouth. My failures and her successes gave Alec the idea of pairing us up to defeat the steel problem once and for all. Lucy had confided in me almost immediately that she was pessimistic about having any impact on the project, saying that she was only doing so well because of what I had taught her. The only problem was that refusing to help would involve saying no to Alec, and she wasn’t going to turn away from a challenge like that. At the very least, she said, we could fail this one together.
                It was the last in a string of late nights working together. Alec said that we needed to pull out all the stops to get this solved because questions were coming down from higher up in DeStNI that he was struggling to answer. Long into the night, around 22:34, I finally leaned back in my chair and flopped my hands down by my sides.
                “This is so, ridiculously, awfully, confusing. Nothing makes sense, and it hasn’t done for months. I’m out of ideas, Lucy, and I’m knackered.”
                “Wow! You actually talked like a human for once.” Lucy exclaimed, surprised. She smiled as she said it. It was clearly insulting, but somehow, from her, it came across as a compliment. I felt the blood surge around my stomach as I sat there, embarrassed at my own lack of quantification, but at the very least satisfied that Lucy’s reaction had been favourable. By my calculations, a favourable reaction to anything I said or did had a probability of less than 1%, so I had to take what I could get. But I wouldn’t tell her that, of course. That kind of thing seemed to spoil her mood.
                I stayed silent, caught in internal conflict between keeping Lucy happy and giving into my natural desire to back up my statements with data. My face must have been a dead giveaway.
                “You can do it, Ted. Talk like a real person again, don’t mention a percentage or a confidence level. I dare you.”
                Dares were 78% more dangerous to ignore than normal requests, since they invite the risk of being a labelled a pansy or leather-bound arse-trumpet, depending on which circles you mix with. Even so, I was tempted to stay within the rules, within my comfort zone – but what was so comfortable about it these days? Unsolvable problems and a junior member of staff being roped in to bail me out. The unknown was scary, but it held the promise of another of Lucy’s smiles. Apparently, that was worth the risk.
                “I don’t want to work on the steel problem anymore. I find that some of the time it is intolerable, and the rest of the time the data streams are just pouring crap all over my terminal.” I said bravely. Lucy beamed at me and her subversive joy was intoxicating. It made my heart beat faster and added to the rush of speaking without quantifying. I stood up exercised this new rebellious streak that Lucy had nurtured, running around the office in clear violation of the personal preservation guidelines, weaving between desks and darting among the chairs. Lucy began to laugh again – somehow, performing everything sub-optimally made her far happier than meticulous adherence to the most efficient path.
                “Do you know how many regulations I’ve just broken?” I shouted back to Lucy.
                “I don’t; is it more than three?” she laughed back.
                “It’s many! More than none but less than all!” I cried defiantly, clumsily wielding vagueness in my over-specified diction. I was high on the thrill of bending the rules – I’d not quantified anything for over… well, lots of seconds! Many seconds! And what’s more I was using vagueness outside of ministry approval. Everything about it was wrong, but it was a new flavour. I felt like I had to take more sub-optimal paths and make objectively poor decisions.
                Lucy was leaning on the desk directly in front of Alec’s office cackling to herself at my child-like joy. I felt like a new man, the kind of man who didn’t need to clarify exactly what kind of man he was.
                “Where’s the nearest bin?” Lucy managed, struggling to calm herself. “I want to throw everything we have on the steel problem into it.”
                “Here it is!” I said, pointing to a nearby rubbish receptacle. Lucy prepared to walk my way, but I raised a hand to stop her. “No, it’s alright. I’ll help”. I leaned down and picked up the knee-high bin, and then threw it to Lucy, leaving a trail of rubbish as it flew through the air. Adding to the inefficiency, Lucy moved out of the way rather than catching it. The vessel of unwanted items soared past her harmlessly before coming to rest within Alec’s office. Having a new bin in Alec’s office for a short time was probably a good thing overall, however the end had failed to even partially justify the means; the shattered remains of the office window stood as a testament to that.
                I stood perfectly still, in stunned silence at what I’d done. Even Lucy was looking on in dumb horror at the sparkling glass-scape which had, until a few seconds ago, been Alec’s distinctly shard-free office. My antics had taken a sharp turn from ‘cathartic blowout’ to ‘full-scale meltdown’ in a spray of shattered window – as shattered as my dreams of desk 37B would be once Alec found out what had happened.
                “Shit…” Lucy muttered, adequately summarising both of our feelings on the matter. I rushed over and stood in front of the carnage I had caused. I’d had cause to study glass shatter patterns on previous projects, since glass is one of the non-sentient materials which gets moved around an awful lot, often as suddenly as this. This glass had performed almost perfectly in line with the expectation value for distribution of fragments along the trajectory of the projectile. My natural urge to analyse the situation was returning, my own brain attempting to comfort me.
                “Alec is not going to be happy with his. I think, in fact, he will be the angriest he has ever been with me.” In and of itself, that was not a terribly imposing statement – I’d never given Alec any reason to be angry with me, since that would require me to perform an action with a 70% dissatisfaction value or more. At most, I had hit an estimated 32% dissatisfaction level when he had caught me during an upper quartile stare at desk 37B. Even then, he had only made a joke with me about average eye-resting-places and encouraged me to return to my work.
                “Gods, how am I going to explain this? This event is too anomalous to pass off as an innocent mistake. No-one has ever accidentally propelled a piece of office furniture through their manager’s office window, as far as my records go.” The closest example I could think of was when a sleep-deprived accountant had forgotten how to use the printer; rather than replacing the ink cartridge, he’d strapped the printer to his chair and bowled it down the corridor. The mobile-printer soared through the office window and down to the pavement some fourteen storeys below.
                “I’m going to tell Alec it was me.” Lucy said, almost emotionlessly.
                “What! You can’t do that; it’s a lie!”
                “I can and I will. If you take the hit for this one then you’ll never get 37B. You’ve worked so hard for it.”
                “It’s not your fault that I threw a bin through his window though – I won’t let you do this.” I was shaking with anxiety, but couldn’t let her take a bullet for me.
                “And how exactly do you intend to stop me?” Her forceful confidence had returned, once again working against me for my own good.
                I scrabbled for words. “I… I… I’ll stab you!”
                “You’ll stab me.” She said sarcastically. “Where will you stab me?” she then asked, calling my awful bluff.
                “In… the teeth. Right in the teeth.” I told her intimidatingly.
                It took over ten minutes for Lucy to stop laughing. I don’t know how much time exactly, because she caught me timing her, and slapped the stopwatch out of my hand whilst doubling over again. Laughing at a threat is an indicator that it has not had the desired effect in approximately 75% of cases. Laughing for over ten minutes is an indicator that the person issuing the threat may need to re-think their life.
                “OK, so I guess that didn’t work, but I still don’t want you to take the fall for me on this. Please Lucy, you’ll lose your job and that’d be even worse than losing the desk.”
                Lucy’s giggles subsided quickly. “I don’t know, I’m thinking that this may not be for me after all. If even someone like you can get into a rut like this then what chance do I stand?”
                I was taken aback by this sudden admission of insecurity – it went against every observation I’d made of Lucy since she’d arrived. “I-… my situation is an anomaly. You’re doing incredibly well, Lucy, you know that, right? Honestly, you’re the greatest threat to my acquisition of desk 37B by over 14%. I’ll show you the plots of threat vs. time if you’d like.”
                She smiled slightly and looked at the ground, to the sparkling glass-field it had become. If I didn’t know better I would have said that she was blushing.
                “I don’t think that’s necessary, but thank you, Ted. Anyway, let’s get this tidied up. If I can’t take the fall for you then I’ll at least help you hide as much of the evidence as possible.” She grinned the grin which was usually reserved for when she’d just made fun of me.
                The pair of us crossed through the threshold of the ruined window and examined the carnage. Alec’s otherwise pristine office glittered under the fluorescent strip-lighting, like the victim of a terrible diamante assault. I stooped over to start picking up the shards of my regret, when Lucy slapped me on the arm.
                “Stop! You’ll definitely cut your hands to pieces if you pick it up like that, you goon! We need to find a dustpan and brush, or a broom if possible.”
                “Then why did we walk in here without them?”
                “Because… well I wanted to take a look around before we cleared it up. Don’t you want to do a little snooping first? I mean, there’s not a huge rush here given that Alec won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
                I felt deeply uneasy about snooping, rummaging or nosing of any kind. In Alec’s office that feeling was only exaggerated. I mentioned this to Lucy and she rolled her eyes at me, and I was overwhelmed by the fear of losing her respect again.
                “Well, OK then. Let’s have a little look before we clear up. Even though it would make more sense to look around after removing the huge laceration hazard.”
                “It’ll encourage us to be careful.” She beamed at me.
                Lucy picked her way through the room, making quiet crunching sounds with every step she took. The throne-like leather chair was mercifully free of detritus, and she plonked herself down into it.
                “Lucy! You don’t sound enough like a robot from a bad sci-fi when you talk! Get 98% better or your job will be 56% more threatened!” she boomed in a mock-Alec voice before giggling to herself and looking at me for my reaction.
                “Classic Alec.” I confirmed with a stupid grin on my face as the butterfly sensation in my stomach returned. This childish side of Lucy was something I felt like I could get used to, if I only knew how to draw it out without vandalising the office.
                “What’s he got in his drawers, I wonder?” she said with exaggerated intrigue, staring at the desk in front of her. She wiggled her fingers in preparation, ensuring they were up to the task of pulling the handle – based on my experience, warming up for opening storage spaces in office furniture was only necessary in 1% of cases. The first drawer was predictably unremarkable – stationery, loose change and business cards clattered around and rattled against their own lack of importance. The second drawer was where things started getting interesting.
                “Whoa, Ted look at this.” Lucy said enticingly, pulling a stack of papers from the drawer. At first glance they seemed pretty standard – graphs, charts and statistical reports of the kind Lucy and I made every day. The reason Lucy had called my attention to them was that every piece of information included in the documentation was about me.
                “What the… why does Alec have so much data on me?” I said, shocked. “If he’d wanted information about me he could have asked me directly and I’d have created a report over twice as reliable at this one.”
                “That is so far from the point, Ted.” Lucy told me. She looked aghast. “Look at this – ‘Number of toilet uses vs day of the week’, ‘Analysis of printer trip times March – September’, ‘Time spent daydreaming’. This is all creep-level material.”
                I wasn’t sure what the criteria were for creep-level interest in something, but I felt intuitively like Lucy was right about this. If she didn’t find me creepy then this must have been incredibly serious.
                We spent over half an hour sifting through the piles of notes and analyses Alec had accumulated about me. Lucy even logged into his terminal to see what Ted-data he had been processing. I didn’t learn anything terribly surprising about myself, although I did feel highly uncomfortable with Lucy having access to this kind of in-depth information about me. I wasn’t self-conscious about the frequency of my lavatorial visits per se, but it’s not something I wanted Lucy to be actively thinking about, especially with her analytical mind. Any spikes in activity would warrant too many awkward questions.
                The report which really caught my eye was “Locations stared at whilst daydreaming”. For the first two years of my employment the leader was, by far and away, desk 37B. It confirmed that Alec was aware of my desires as well as the direction of my gaze. But there was a big red circle around the data for the last thirteen weeks – time spent staring at desk 37B had been gradually falling since I had started working on the steel problem. It turned out that my gaze had been resting more and more on Lucy instead.
                I stared at the graphs for an unspecified amount of time, since I couldn’t see a clock from where I was sitting. I mulled over the implications and the consequences of what I was seeing, and wondered if it related to why Alec had assigned Lucy to work with me on the steel problem. Was he trying to help me out, trying to contrive a reason for Lucy and I to spend even more time around one another? I couldn’t pull that mental string very far, because Lucy snapped me out of my contemplation once again.
                “I know why you can’t solve the steel problem.” She told me in distracted horror. “You’re right about it being confusing and not making sense, Ted. It’s misinformation!”
                Her shock was infectious and seemed to fill me before I’d had time to process the words. When the words finally did sink in they only made my shock worse – it was a real bummer.
                “Misinformation? How?”
                “Look at this; the incoming data stream is being altered before it gets redirected to you. Alec’s doctoring the information.” She showed me a series of calculations and processes being applied to data feed. Every piece of information to enter this loop was changed in some way, rendering it a work of utter fiction – the exact opposite of DeStNI’s remit.
                “But, why? This doesn’t make any sense at all. He’s been pressuring me into getting results from something he’s been fabricating. I don’t get it.”
                “He’s setting you up, Ted. Don’t ask me why, but Alec is trying to make you out as a misinformer.”
                I was lost for words. I couldn’t believe that anyone would want to do that to me, let alone Alec. He was never my best friend, but I was no threat to him, nor did I conduct myself poorly at work.
                “But that’s ridiculous! We were able to stumble into his office and find his manipulations without even trying. Surely he’d take at least some measures to protect himself if he was trying to spark an investigation to get me caught.”
                “Hey, I didn’t say he was setting you up well. Maybe he’s just an idiot or thinks that he’ll be above suspicion because he ratted you out. Either way the evidence is clear – he’s been monitoring you and forcing you to work on bad data. Ted, we need to take this to the ministry.”
                It was my turn to laugh. “Take it to the ministry? I’m not going to willingly walk into that nightmare.”
                “It’s either that or the nightmare will walk itself to you, Ted.” The prospect of a nightmare growing legs and ambulating my way was horrifying – 20% more horrifying than the prospect of a visit to the ministry. The numbers were clear – we had to go.

                The following morning, 1 hour and 13 minutes prior to the start of our shift, Lucy and I arrived at the Ministry of Vagueness, Guesses and Misinformation - a tangled web of OverGov-sanctioned lies and misdirection. We stood outside the entrance and surveyed the tall mis-matched brass doors, neither one of which fit the doorway in any manner. It seemed that the spirit of guesswork had been embraced as early as the construction phase.
                “I am over 99% certain that this place will make me physically ill.” I told her, reflexively quantifying again in the face of such horror.
                “Let’s just get it over with. It won’t be that bad, I’m sure.”
                The doors led us into a reception desk for the ministry, or at least, what passed for one. The sign above the receptionist read “Vampire: Do not tumble dry”. If this had been DeStNI I would simply have followed the signs to the correct location and ignored the reception desk altogether, however the signed directions in the ministry were less than exemplary. By a margin of 100%. A sign which read “This way maybe?” supposedly pointed to the department of guesses, directions to the department of vagueness consisted solely of “Over there” with no arrow at all, and two separate signs pointed in opposite directions, both marked “Nebraska”, for the department of misinformation.
                “Argh I hate this place already!” I grumbled at Lucy, in a tone I reserved for the top 10% of irritations.
                “Oh it’s not that bad. It’s confusing and I have no idea why anyone would design their building this way, but hatred may be a step too far here, Ted. Let’s just ask the vampire for directions.” she said with a wink. My stomach fluttered again.
                The sign-posted vampire was a woman whom I would place between 38 and 43, wearing a grey blazer over a white blouse. The accepted norms of the office would suggest that she was wearing either grey trousers or a grey skirt, but I had no direct data to confirm or deny alignment with expectation. The distinct lack of bloodstains or fear of sunlight indicated that her designation as a vampire may have been made in error.
                “Excuse me?” Lucy asked as we reached the vampire’s lair. “We’re trying to get to the department of misinformation to report an infraction. Could you please tell us which way to go?”
                “The right way.” The supposed-vampire answered, smiling.
                “Which would be?” Lucy persisted.
                “Not the wrong way.”
                “Fine. Will you please show me which way is the right way?”
                “Probably not.” The vampire replied earnestly. It was too painful to watch any longer, and I had to step in.
                “Hello. We’re from DeStNI and we’re on very important business, so would you please help us get to where we’re trying to go?”
                The vampire sighed and shook her head at me. “I don’t work for DeStNI, so I shouldn’t interfere with DeStNI business.” I hit her with a flat and unimpressed expression. “Sorry.” She added, sounding anything but.
                “Look, just bloody well help us or I swear I will tumble dry you!” I shouted. I’d lost control and resorted to laundry-based threats based on nearby signage.
                “Well, really!” the vampire exclaimed, shocked. Even Lucy seemed surprised, but there was an approving edge to her expression. The vampire picked up her phone and pressed one of the speed dial buttons.
                “Hello? Harry? Yes it’s the front desk…. Yes I have some DeStNI people here. They’re jabbering about misinformation... yes something about an infraction, but they’re being awfully aggressive. One of them threatened me… yes that’s right, tumble drying… I know, I know, I’m sure he can see the sign… OK… OK… bye.” She hung up again. “Please wait here, someone will be down to deal with you or something.”
                “Thank you.” Lucy said tersely. I said nothing, because after threatening a receptionist, vampire or not, there’s nowhere else for a conversation to go.

                We waited in the atrium for a few minutes, before Harry arrived through a trapdoor just behind us.
                “Hello Ted. Hello Lucy.” We both took a minor interlude to let out a surprised scream, and then responded.
                “Harry, we have some important information for you, with a confidence level of over 99%.” I told him urgently. This was the sole purpose of our visit, so it was of the utmost important that this information was imparted without delay.
                “Well that’s nice to know. Is that all? If so then I’ll be off.”
                “No! We need to tell you the information first! It’s about misinformation and it’s the most important news I’ve had to tell anyone in over 5 years.”
                “Regardless of how long it has been since you’ve had something interesting to say, misinformation is the business of the ministry, not of DeStNI. Please leave it to us, Ted.”
                “That’s what I’m trying to do. The misinformation you’ve heard about from DeStNI is wrong.”
                “Oh…well, that’s nice of you to say, Ted. By definition misinformation should be as wrong as possible. Did you come all this way just to tell me that?”
                “No! No, I mean that the leak was coming from Alec.”
                “Yes, you’re right. Alec Carter called in the misinformation leak.”
                “No- I- argh” was the best I could manage. Thankfully, Lucy stepped in with her grasp of complete sentences.
                “I think what my friend- no sorry, what my moron is trying to tell you, is that he has been set up. You have been misinformed regarding the misinformation from the start.”
                Harry physically stepped back. “Alec tried to misinform the ministry? That is a bold accusation, coming from the prime suspect. What makes you suspect Mr Carter?”
                “The evidence is all on Alec’s terminal in his office – proof of him modifying the data streams before they reached me.” I told him.
                “And how did you come to be sifting through Alec’s terminal?” Harry asked calmly. It seemed that he was able to ignore his natural urge to be vague and tiresome when it suited him.
                “We, erm, broke his window with a bin and then got curious when we tried to clean it up. Please, take a look for yourself. You’ll know which office it is because of all the broken glass.”
                Harry nodded and started to walk away, apparently seeing nothing suspicious about surprise evidence found at the scene of an obvious breaking and entering.
                “Where are you going?” I asked him, not feeling that our conversation was really finished yet.
                He paused for a second and looked around before answering me. “North.” The irritating side of Harry was apparently back.
                “Fine. Just make sure you go far enough North to find Alec’s office.”

                A ministry task-force arrived at Alec’s office within the hour, and he was almost immediately found guilty of manipulating DeStNI data. It seemed that leaving evidence on an unsecured terminal, which itself was unattended, was not the perfect cover for a crime after all. Regardless, the ministry gave him a discrediting worthy of the most hardened criminal. The Times detailed his exploits as a serial toilet-blocker, The Telegraph revealed that Alec had been caught spreading woodworm with menaces, and the Mail ran a daring article on his ‘secret past’, alongside a crudely doctored image of Alec high-fiving Joseph Stalin. Somehow, that story was questioned least of all.
                A follow-up search of Alec’s terminal revealed that he had also been creating a file on Lucy in the few weeks before we threw a bin through his window. As it turned out, she had been spending increasing amounts of her day-dreaming time looking towards me. Perhaps Alec had been pre-empting our refuse-heavy attack on his office-space and was trying to remove us before we could strike, or perhaps he just didn’t like overly ambitious and talented members of staff in his department. Whatever the reason, he was no longer our problem. The most senior member of our team, Lenny Blithe, was appointed as acting leader of our department, and DeStNI business carried on as normal – normal being defined as days in which over 85% of activities performed were present in over 85% of working days. It was a wordy but effective definition.
                Shortly after his appointment, Lenny approached me at my terminal.
                “Ted, I want to say thank you again for your 97^th percentile efforts in rooting out corruption within DeStNI.”
                “You’re welcome.” I told him. It was the appropriate response to a ‘thank you’ in over 99% of cases, although I would scarcely describe Lenny as ‘welcome’ to my efforts to prevent slander. Still, I’m not one to argue with the stats.
                “As you know, it’s against department policy to reward you monetarily,” I nodded to confirm that I knew. The lecture on why that was the case had been dreadful. “however, I would still like to give you something by way of recognition. How would you like to be relocated to desk 37B?”
                I didn’t know what to say, although the statistically significant answers were ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The chances were that Lenny had read the files that Alec had amassed and thus learned my desires, although it was still possible that he had worked it out on his own – after all, if I could objectively show desk 37B to be the prime office location in a number of ways then so could anyone else.
                I turned my gaze to Lucy, and she was giving me a forced smile. It wasn’t the smile she gave me when she was mocking me, nor was it the smile she wore when I made a fool of myself. It had less life to it than that, but somehow more meaning. Everything was so tragically unquantifiable that I couldn’t bear to look at it, or even to have it exist anymore.
                “Thank you for the offer, Lenny, I appreciate it over 75% more than I appreciated anything Alec ever offered me, but if Alec’s data has shown me anything it’s that this desk has something 37B could never contend with.”
                Lucy looked away, her expression an approximately 30/70 split of disgust and embarrassment. But then she shone her mocking grin at me, and I knew to a six sigma confidence level that 37B had nothing left to tempt me at all.

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The Labyrinth of Anguish

                ‘Hedges. More bloody hedges.’  He glanced at the leaves and clawing twigs as his boots thudded into the hard-packed stony mud. Outcropping wooden fingers grabbed and hooked at his clothing, like a non-committal floral mugging.
                ‘If they keep trying to steal my shirt like this I’ll have to come back with the militia to arrest them as cutpurses. I’ll be sure that we root out the crime.’ He smiled proudly at the princess behind him.
                ‘This. Is. Not. The. Time.’ She over-punctuated back at him.
                ‘Oh cheer up. We’ll be out of here soon.’ He lied to her again.
                ‘Well forgive me, Sir Knight, if I feel that it’s coming a little too late.’ She spat back, venomously enough to put most snakes out of a job.
                Sir Jim didn’t reply. He knew that the princess was only speaking out of anger and would calm down eventually, although he did feel partially responsible for their plight – after all, it was he who suggested that they take the path through the Labyrinth of Anguish to get back home. It had seemed like such a good idea to him at the time. The Princess hadn’t thought so, and after so many hours trudging through without sight of the exit she felt the need to remind him. Constantly.
                ‘We never should have come into this stupid labyrinth. I can’t believe I let you talk me into it. Never again! The next time I go along with one of your plans it’ll be over my dead body.’
                The words hung in the air, pressing silence over the pair of them.
                ‘Well, you don’t have much choi-‘
                ‘Not another word.’ She cut him off icily. The Princess’ ghost floated behind Sir Jim, wearing the same sour expression she’d sported for hours. Sir Jim got the distinct impression that she was still annoyed at him, as if it was his fault that she’d died.
                “My father will be furious when he sees what you’ve let happen to me.”
                Her eyes were locked on her corpse as it flopped limply over Sir Jim’s shoulder.
                “Please stop bringing that up, it isn’t helping anyone.” He answered. “You’ll only make yourself more upset.”
                “I’m dead! It’s pretty difficult to be anything but upset!”
                “Of course it is, with that attitude. Put a brave face on it and you’ll be right as rain in no time. Getting out of here won’t hurt, either.”
                If looks could kill, there would have been two ghosts wandering the labyrinth.

                                                                                *             *             *

                Sir Jim was undertaking a task, nay a quest, of the utmost importance to the crown.  He had been charged with escorting Princess Natalya, the King’s eldest daughter, back from Castle Dewlayne to the safety of the King’s Palace in Aridania. There was a war on, and the King would not rest until the Princess was safely back in his sights. Sir Jim had been one of many knights forming the escort – twenty good men and proven warriors had left Castle Dewlayne for Aridania, with the princess carried in her litter between them.
                The journey had been rough for the company from the outset. Between ambushes on the road and unsafe terrain off it, their numbers had dwindled to three knights and the Princess in only a couple of days. Over dinner one night, one of the remaining knights choked to death on a piece of rabbit bone whilst alone on watch, and another followed suit whilst trying to demonstrate what had happened. Then, it was just Sir Jim and Princess Natalya left.
                The two companions took the paths-less-travelled in order to evade any enemy forces, and soon enough all that was left between them and Aridania was the Labyrinth of Anguish. Granite walls ten feet high stretched away from a vast arched gateway, topped with hideous gargoyles on either side to ward off bold explorers and lost tourists. Sir Jim wasn’t sure why any sculptor would go out of their way to craft the ugliest being they could, but evidence of it happening was in front of them. Art was about beauty, he’d heard, so it must be a dubious honour to be charged by forces unknown to create a work of terrible hideousness.
                ‘I’ve heard naught but evil of this place.’ The Princess had warned him as they stood outside the foreboding entryway. ‘Few who enter have managed to escape, and fewer still made that escape at the edge they’d intended to.’
                ‘I’ll concede that a labyrinth isn’t usually the most direct path somewhere,’ Sir Jim replied. ‘but the road has proven itself to be unwelcoming. Nineteen men have been lost that way already. But I am still here, and I shall safeguard you through this maze, as the bravest and greatest of your father’s knights.’ He puffed his chest out underneath his chainmail. Puffing it over his chainmail would have caused him great injury, after all.
                ‘The bravest of twenty when nineteen are dead. A great honour indeed.’ Princess Natalya replied. ‘I don’t like it. We should stick to the roads and go around this forsaken place. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.’ The princess warned him tritely. Seeing as she didn’t know any devils personally, the advice was poorly given.
                ‘I can fell a devil as easily as any man, regardless of our acquaintance.’ The knight boasted flippantly.
                ‘You’re not listening to me.’ She said, annoyed. ‘There are evils greater than men in these walls.’
                ‘Like what?’
                ‘No-one has ever been very specific.’
                ‘Have you spoken to any of these ‘few’ who made it out, my lady?’ Sir Jim asked.
                ‘Well, no. But-‘
                ‘Tales grow taller than trees when watered by many mouths.’ The princess flinched at the imagery of the metaphor. ‘I’ve been to many houses of evil and found nothing to fear.’ Sir Jim told her confidently.
                ‘I fear that your braggadocio may be the greatest danger of all.’ The princess muttered.
                Sir Jim ignored her. ‘Every settlement we have passed by is burned to the ground. The roads are not safe, but no army marches through the labyrinth.’
                ‘For good reason! But even so, if we enter we will be lost for sure. How do you plan to navigate your way through, or find food and water? Our supplies already dwindle and there’s no way of telling how long it will take to get through.’
                Sir Jim looked at her with a sly grin “We’ll be fine, because I’m an a-maze-ing survivalist.”
                Princess Natalya stared at him disbelievingly. Taking her silence for acquiescence, Sir Jim pushed the gate open and entered. The princess chased after her escort as he disappeared between the cyclopean walls, and shuddered at her open defiance of the warnings engraved into the stone.
                ‘Turn away, those of weak heart.’
                ‘Begone those who fear death.’
                ‘Those who enter will be lost.’
                ‘Get the hell off my lawn.’
                ‘Labyrinth of Ill-Repute. Labyrinth of Well-Deserved Bad-Reputation. Labyrinth of Anguish.’
                ‘You’re making a mistake.’

                They had been in the labyrinth for only a few hours, but they had lost all bearings. The walls rose so high that the sun could give no indication of the direction in which they travelled, and whilst two wrongs did not make a right, the dozens of rights that they had taken could have made anything at all. By this stage, if someone had told Sir Jim they were heading directly upwards he would have believed it.
                ‘Are you still so sure of yourself, Sir Jim?’ the princess asked angrily. ‘I knew I should have never let you lead me in here.’
                ‘That’s not really true, is it? I mean, at best you guessed that.’ he fired back weakly.
                ‘A better guess than you’ve made at finding a way out of here.’
                ‘We are on the way out. It’s a large labyrinth, so of course it takes time. You can’t cross an empire in a day, your highness.’
                ‘Especially not if you’re doubling back on yourself every few minutes.’
                ‘We’re taking the exact right path to get out of here, mark my words. And you’ll notice how we’ve not met the enemy’s army at all since we entered.’
                ‘An attack would be welcome at this stage, at least then we’d know we were approaching an exit.’
                ‘We are not lost!’ the knight protested.
                ‘On your honour, Sir Jim?’
                ‘I… admit I don’t know how long it will be exactly until we get out,’ He answered evasively. ‘but I know where we are.’
                ‘Hmm.’ The princess gave him the kind of withering look that only member of royalty or librarian can truly muster. A royal librarian would be capable of withering a whole deciduous forest, given a sufficiently vapid comment.
                Around the next corner, they were surprised to see the walls give way to hedges for the first time. Sir Jim had taken this as a sign of progress; a change meant they were getting somewhere. The Princess’ view was rather different, namely that the stonemason must have underestimated his supplies.
                “Who trims these?” Sir Jim asked all of a sudden.
                “What?” the Princess replied, not really answering the question.
                “These hedges aren’t overgrown. The path is still clear. You say that this place is ancient and reviled but the hedges are clearly being tended to, which means that there is at least one incredibly brave gardener in this land. A gardener worthy of song and legend! Pray, tell me who this heroic groundsman is.”
                “You’re in imbecile.” The princess announced. “No gardeners enter here. No-one enters here.”
                “So enlighten me – how do the hedges stay out of the way?”
                “…because they’re magical.” The princess said timidly.
                “Enchanted hedges! Of course! I should have known.” He bellowed in raucous laughter.
                “Your ignorance of magic does not make me wrong!” the Princess chided, frustrated.
                “Of course, your majesty. Clearly, the architect of this cursed and evil place was a master of the black magic of topiary.” Sir Jim was struggling to breathe through his cackling. “Take care! Stay back! Lest he curse your gardens to remain pristine!” He doubled over, thrusting his hand into the hedge to steady himself. The princes balled her fists and stamped angrily.
                “Magic is not confined to hedges!” She shouted at him. Sadly, it wasn’t the first time in her life she’d had to say that.
                “No wonder magic is the talk of myths and legend – the art was forgotten long ago, after the invention of shears!” His thunderous laughter continued, until a long branch from the hedgerow swung out and whipped Sir Jim across the face.
                “Ow! Gods, what was-” Another branch came crashing onto the top of his head.
                Sir Jim snatched his arm out of the hedge and pushed himself to his feet. By the time he was up, the hedge had ceased to berate him for his disrespect.
                “This place is… evil.” He muttered fearfully, eying the surrounding vegetation with apprehension.
                “Are you OK, brave Sir Knight, after being bested by a hedge?”
                “It was enchanted!” he defended.
                “But I thought magic bushes were a trifling matter? A laughing stock? I thought that the magic was funny.”
                “Well it’s not! I was wrong, alright? Come on, we need to get out of here.”
                “Before you’re beset by daffodils?” She jabbed, secretly glad that he’d come to his senses. She was also rather glad that Sir Jim hadn’t noticed the leaves in his hair.

                After many more turns, dead-ends, and jibes about privet winning the next great tourney, the walls loomed ahead once more.
                “It will be good to have something solid around us again.”
                “Assuming we haven’t just doubled back on ourselves.” The Princess seemed to enjoy raining on Sir Jim’s parade.
                “We are not lost!” he told her through gritted teeth.
                “We are also not ‘on the way out’ like you told me.” She said with perfectly smooth teeth, lacquered to a fine finish with passive-aggression.
                “Mark my words, the exit will be just around this bend.” Sir Jim told Princess Natalya, perhaps exaggerating his grasp of their whereabouts.
                The pair of them rounded the corner and saw yet another identical, dark grey passageway.
                “That’s it!” the Princess shouted. “I refuse to go another step! We have been marching all day through this forsaken place and all we have managed to do is get lost! We will rest for the night and continue in the morning. I pray for both our sakes that your sense of direction improves with the rising Sun.” Natalya told him.
                Sir Jim felt no need to argue. He was exhausted from the journey, and seeing a large number of his peers die over the last few days hadn’t helped the situation. So, he acquiesced with the Princess’ demands set up a rudimentary camp for the night, nestled into the gargantuan walls. Within a few minutes they were both fast asleep. That was when the wolves came.
                An unseen and unheard pack had stalked them for hours, masked by the maze of hedgerows and stone corridors. When they noticed the travellers stopping to rest, they made their move.
                Sir Jim woke with a start to the sound of claws scrabbling across stone. In a heartbeat he was on his feet, sword in hand. The princess screamed as the beasts closed in on her, teeth and claws rushing lethally in her direction. Sir Jim dashed to her aid, swinging his sword in an upward arc with both hands. The first wolf fell in a spray of blood, but others had closed in.
                “Stay behind me!” he shouted to the princess, frantically swinging his blade to intercept snapping jaws. The wolves leapt from side to side in front of him, taunting him into attacking them, drawing his attention to allow others in the pack an opening. Sir Jim backed away, attempting to stay close to the princess, but every time a beast lunged at him he was forced to stop and defend himself.
                “HELP ME!” she screamed, eyes wide as she saw the beasts trying to encircle them. She pulled a short knife from her belt and clutched it close to her chest in both hands, as if simply holding the blade would protect her.
                “Just stay close!” Sir Jim shouted back. He was doing his best to shield her, but the wolves were too many. Especially when they looped around from the other side.
                Sir Jim pushed past the princess and stabbed forwards, taking a wolf in the forehead and causing the others to back away slightly. It wasn’t enough though; a pair of jaws locked around his calf from behind.
                “Argh!” the knight grunted, swiping backwards with his sword. Steel made contact with flesh and the grip around his leg slackened off. The princess was still screaming amongst the cacophony of howls and barks from the pack.
                “Use that knife and stay close!” he ordered her.

                The fanged assault felt as if it would never abate. Sir Jim was afforded no second of respite, fighting dozens of foes single-handed, in desperation to protect the Princess. Still, for every animal that Sir Jim cut down, another was already in place to take its meal. The more tired he got, the more bites he took, and the more claws made their way into his flesh. The Princess had even given up screaming, her throat no longer up to the task. After what felt like hours of battle, the remainder of the pack slunk away defeated, leaving a pair of blood-soaked travellers and a pile of carcasses behind.
                “I think that’s all of them.” Sir Jim panted, sweat running down his face in a watery monument to exertion, mingling with blood and dirt. The princess didn’t answer. “They must have tracked us in here – there’s no way a pack of that size would be able to live in here.” The Princess made no attempt to argue with Sir Jim’s logic, which piqued his suspicion. “Are you OK, your highness?” he asked.
                When Sir Jim turned around to check for himself, he saw that Princess Natalya was very far from OK, principally because her throat was missing; that tends to have exclusively negative effects on a person. The knight stood paralysed as he stared. The princess’ blood had stopped flowing, indicating that she’d been gone for a while. It seemed that Sir Jim had been so carried away with the festivities that he’d failed to notice her demise. Her dress, already muddied and stained from the hardship of their journey, was now saturated with her crimson blood as well, clashing horribly with the pale blue. Sir Jim wasn’t sure which of these circumstances she would have been more annoyed about. Slowly, he dropped to his knees and took her torso in his arms, supporting her limp, pale head in one hand. He examined her wound with petrified care, as if taking in the details could do anything to change what had happened.
                “I don’t think a closer look is all that necessary here, do you!?” He heard the princess say behind him, furiously.
                Sir Jim dropped her body back to the floor and sharply spun around to face the sound, but saw nothing. He turned to the body again, as he backed away. She had said there was magic here; the hedges were one thing, but hearing the voices of the dead was wholly another. The girl’s corpse lay still and quiet, quite like one would hope, but her voice rang out again.
                “Don’t just drop it like that! Show some respect!” she shrieked.
                “What are you!?” Sir Jim shouted, looking around again.
                “Apparently, not alive anymore, Sir Knight.” She spat back, as she appeared out the wall in front of him. The princess’ ghost floated a foot or so above the floor and looked highly displeased with her new arrangements.
                “Princess? You’re… a ghost?” Sir Jim stammered.
                “A scholar as well as a knight? I hadn’t realised what good company I was keeping in my last moments.” It seemed that her sarcasm had not died with her. “Of course I’m a ghost; I’m dead! You got me killed with your ridiculous plan to come in here you ox-brained cretin.”
                “What a stroke of luck! I’d thought you were lost for sure.” The knight answered, a smile returning to his face.
                “I’M DEAD! HOW IN THE HELLS IS THAT LUCKY?!” she wailed back at him, her voice a wind howling through a mausoleum.
                “Well you’re only a bit dead - it’s just your body isn’t it. You can still tell your father I did all I could to save you, and he can still spend time with his darling daughter. Sure, your betrothal to the Dewlaynes might be a little more difficult now, but they’ll come to terms with it in the end.”
                “Sir Jim, I don’t think you are grasping the full severity of this situation.”
                “Oh nonsense. You’re making a big deal out of nothing, Princess. Aridania is very progressive. The people will still love you!”
                The Princess gawped at him incredulously. “They’ll try to exorcise me!”
                “But they’ll fail! And then you’ll laugh, I’ll laugh, they’ll laugh – it’ll bring everyone closer together.”
                “Only last year the peasantry burned a woman suspected of witchcraft because some rocks near her door were slightly too round. Somehow, I don’t see them accepting a ghost princess.”
                “I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. If they try to burn you they won’t get very far, and they can’t very well drown you. Besides, I’ll be around to protect your body from even the angriest of mobs.”
                “But not wolves, apparently.” She said drily.
                “That hurts, Princess Natalya. Probably not as much as the wolves hurt you when they made off with your throat, granted, but I still did everything I could.”
                She floated silently, refusing to dignify his complaints with a response.
                Sir Jim looked around him, at the chaos of gore which had manifested itself from the attack.
                “I don’t much fancy resting here anymore. I think we should press on.”
                “To what end? I’ve already been killed, you oaf.”
                “You are still my charge, living or not, and I will see you home safely.”
                Princess Natalya remained silent for a moment. She was livid with him, but had to admit that if she was to be a ghost, she’d rather haunt her own palace than this dingy labyrinth.
                “What about... my body?” she asked quietly, her rage somehow damped by facing her own corpse.
                “Hmm. You deserve better than to be left here, Princess.” Sir Jim replied. With his muscles already burning from fatigue and the exertion of battle, he hoisted the Princess’ body over his shoulder. “I’ll get all of you to safety, in one piece or not.”
                “Such a beautiful dress...” the Princess said mournfully, looking her mutilated corpse flopping humiliatingly over Sir Jim. “It was a gorgeous blue.”
                “And now there’s two of it.” Sir Jim said, trying to bring the bright side to the Princess. “Although I suppose that means one of you is going to have to get changed.” He added, because every silver lining needs a cloud.

*             *             *

                Sir Jim eyed the hedges suspiciously as he limped pass them with the ghost of Natalya. He didn’t trust them any longer. Not that the walls were much better - the hedges at least let a little light through, where the walls cast a thick gloom over the pathway.
                “Who built this place?” he asked the Princess.
                “How should I know?” she answered.
                “Well you know more about it than I do. It must have been put here for a reason. It’s not like anyone would just decide they have too much time on their hands so they must construct a vast and impenetrable maze for people to die in.”
                “It’s the product of a great evil.”
                “But why? I can think of deeds which are far more evil than building a maze in the middle of nowhere.  If it was just to delay people getting from one side of this valley to the other than it’s more inconvenient than evil.”
                “It’s rumoured to be full of despicable beasts, who prey on weary travellers who get lost in here. That’s definitely evil.”
                “Hiding them away from people? So that travellers have to navigate a maze to reach them? Seems more like a good deed to me. The architect of the labyrinth seems to have made a prison for monsters.”
                “Wha- no. They’re not imprisoned here. They’re here to stop travellers from getting through.”
                “Why is that so important? Surely it would have been easier to build a wall in that case. Much easier and you don’t have to spend months trapping monsters to hide away. Or he could have locked the gate.”
                “I don’t know, alright? I’m just guessing from what I’ve been taught.”
                “Seems to me like there must be something hidden in here. Some treasure or something. You’d make a maze to guard things, not delay people. And filling it with monsters would make it all the more difficult to get through. It sort of backfired in your case, because I guess you can still get to the middle by floating through the walls. Then again, you probably couldn’t take what was there anyway.”
                The Princess surged forwards through him to express her distaste. Sir Jim shuddered as she passed through his body, forcing his breath out like the shock of plunging into icy waters.
                “Ugh!” he exclaimed, then laughed “That’s the spirit! Use what you’ve got!”
                His joviality only irritated the Princess more, so she swept back, this time lingering inside him for a few moments. Sir Jim bent over and leant his hands on his thighs when she finally exited.
                “Whoa. That was unpleasant.” He said, chuckling again. “Hey, why don’t you float through a few of these walls and try to find our way?” He added excitedly.
                “Oh, I’m glad you’re finding utility in my death.” She snapped sarcastically. “But that is a good idea, in fairness.”
                Sir Jim watched as the Princess drifted towards one of the dense hedges and then melted through it. A few moments later, she returned.
                “It’s another passage. Exactly like this one.” She didn’t sound terribly impressed with the results.
                “I don’t know how much that helps us, truth be told. I suppose you could drift all the way to the edge of the maze, but even then it wouldn’t really help me at all. At least you’re getting the hang of your new body though. Lack of one, I mean.”
                “Change the subject.” She told him darkly. Sir Jim laughed again.

                The pair continued on their journey past the break of dawn, taking turns through the maze at random, as the mood took them. Occasionally Sir Jim would get careless and allow Natalya’s body to bump against a wall, or get hooked on a stray branch from one of the hedges, and the Princess’ ghost would screech at him to be careful. For a while he’d pay more attention, but his mind was always allowed to drift again before long. His muscles burned with the exertion of carrying a body, having had next to no sleep. The bites and claw-wounds he had sustained forced him to walk with a limp, but he pressed on.
                They hit a few dead ends and a travelled in a lot of circles, but gradually the knight and the ghost progressed deeper into the labyrinth. They didn’t know it, of course – every corridor, every hedge-lined walkway, looked exactly the same as the previous one. There was no real distinction between the inner labyrinth and its outer reaches, nothing to aid the pair in getting their bearings or any sense of whereabouts. For hours upon hours, it was a sea of identical corridors and hedge-lined passageways. Such things are to be expected of a structure designed to get people lost and they both considered the possibility that they were genuinely walking around in circles. Then, like a beacon of hope, they came across a burned-out torch hanging in a sconce on the wall.
                Sir Jim rushed over, as much as his limp would allow, and touched the blackened end. This turned out to be a mistake, burning his hand and causing him to snatch it away.
                “Well what did you expect? You grabbed the bit which is usually on fire!” Natalya observed correctly. All those years of noticing which end of torches were aflame had finally paid off.
                “I was trying to tell if it had been lit recently. Turns out, yes. That means there’s someone else alive in here.” He stared anxiously along the path ahead of them, half-expecting to see someone heading along it, and half-hoping that he wouldn’t.
                “Or something. Remember what I said about there being evils greater than men in here.”
                “It might just be another lost traveller who needs our help.”
                “How could we possibly help anyone? Keeping them company whilst we’re all lost together? Are you going to help them get killed by wolves?”
                “We can all search for a way out together. Or maybe they know the way back to where they entered and can help us.”
                “I don’t think that’s very likely. If they knew how to get out, why would they bother lighting torches behind themselves? Besides which, if they are from outside the labyrinth then they’d need to have carried a lit torch all the way from the entrance in order to light this one. It doesn’t add up.”
                “Unless we’re close to the edge!” Sir Jim exclaimed, excitedly. A quick float through the nearby walls confirmed that they were not, in fact, near the edge.
                “Oh well. I still think this is a good sign.” Sir Jim said, resolutely looking on the bright side. “Did you see any other torches on the other side of the walls?”
                “No.”
                “Well let’s keep going this way, then.” Sir Jim suggested, as if they had much choice in the matter. A few hundred paces along the passageway was another burned out torch, then another and another. They followed the line of torches as best they could, turning back whenever the trail seemed to disappear. Further tentative testing of the ends confirmed that these had also been alight recently. Then came one which required no testing at all – a torch which still burned.
                “We’re catching up to them.” Sir Jim told Natalya.
                “Obviously.”
                There was silence.
                With the torches lit it was much easier to follow the trail. For nearly an hour they traced the flames through the labyrinth, winding a serpentine path through the dark granite. Then they saw movement.
                “There they are! The torch bearer!” In the distance, silhouetted by the torch in their hand, was a thin figure, walking purposefully away from Sir Jim and Natalya.
                “What should we do?” The Princess’ ghost asked, but Sir Jim was already running to catch up with the torch-bearer.
                “Hey! Hello! Back here!” He hollered down the passageway.
                The figure in the distance appeared to turn around, and then took off at a run.
                “Hey! Come back!” Sir Jim shouted, speeding up. Natalya’s body flapped harder against him as he ran, making it incredibly difficult going.
                “You’ve scared them!” he heard the ghost say, as she floated behind him. “And be careful with me! You might drop me or break something.”
                The figure in the distance moved with a peculiar gait, their clicking footsteps echoing down the passageway as if they were wearing decadent ivory-soled shoes; impractical, uncomfortable and ugly, but definitely decadent. The knight and the ghost maintained their chase through twists and turns, the torches on the walls no longer lit but the beacon in the mysterious stranger’s hand providing all the light they needed.
                Sir Jim and Natalya passed through a series of short corridors with many sharp corners, and emerged in a long passageway. Dozens of paths led from each side, and the torch-bearer was out of sight. The light from the torch, however, wasn’t. It sent an orange glow into the otherwise dusky passage and seemed to be shaking.
                Sir Jim started to run forwards, but Princess Natalya floated into him until he stopped. Drifting in front of him, she put one finger to her lips. Silently, she floated through the walls and headed towards the stranger’s hiding place.
                Natalya’s head poked through the wall, and was presented with a very shaky torch and a sound which was very approximately like ragged breathing. It could only have been an approximation, because there was no breath to go with it. Natalya provided her own breathless sound to join the chorus, by screaming when she saw that the torch was being clutched by a terrified looking skeleton, crouching in the shadow of the wall.
                Having a disembodied head scream next to the place where its ear should have been did not allay the skeleton’s fears, so much as cause it to scream back.
                The two undead stared at one another, screaming openly, then paused for what would have been breath had either of them been alive and screamed some more. After a short while, they both stopped.
                “You’re a skeleton!” Natalya stated accurately, her voice an echo in a crypt.
                “You’re a ghost!” the skeleton replied, with a voice like a xylophone.
                They both paused again, and then relaxed a little. If they were both afraid then neither had anything to fear. That is, until Sir Jim emerged around the corner with sword in hand. The skeleton resumed its screaming with great aplomb.
                “Princess! Be careful!” Sir Jim shouted, raising his sword towards the shrieking skeleton. If he was trying to silence it, then he was doing a terrible job.
                “Stop! Stop!” Natalya shouted at him. “It doesn’t mean any harm!” The skeleton nodded frantically.
                Sir Jim eyed the skeleton and kept his sword up. The skeleton eye-socketed Sir Jim back, which was the best he could do.
                “Sir Jim, you’re scaring him! Er, her? Him?” Natalya looked to the skeleton for guidance.
                “Him.” It answered quietly.
                “You’re scaring him!”
                “But I heard you screaming, so I came to help.”
                “Well, he was scaring me. And I scared him too. But it’s fine; no-one actually has anything to worry about.”
                “I do, I’m still scared of him.” The skeleton corrected, pointing at Sir Jim with a bony finger.
                “Why am I scarier than her?” Sir Jim asked, sounding a little offended. “She’s a ghost! I’m just a man.”
                “A man waving a sword around and carrying a bloodstained corpse over his shoulder.” Natalya pointed out. The skeleton nodded.
                “Well, yes I suppose so. But it’s her corpse, I’m only looking after it because the Princess can’t carry it herself.” He lowered his sword, and the skeleton seemed to relax.
                “Don’t you usually wear a body, rather than carrying it?” the skeleton asked.
                “Given the choice, I still would be.”
                “Hmm. So, what’s a Princess doing in the Labyrinth of Anguish?”
                “Dying, mostly.” Natalya answered humourlessly.
                “Oh come on, you spent a tiny amount of time actually dying. You’ve spent most of it dead.” Sir Jim complained. “When are you going to let go of it?”
                “And otherwise, getting lost.” Natalya said, ignoring Sir Jim and addressing the skeleton.
                 “Lost? Well, I’ll take you to where I live, to the centre, if you’d like.” The skeleton offered, excitedly.
                “Why? So you can lure us into a trap and eat us?” Sir Jim accused, on guard again.
                “No! No, I- I’m just trying to help.”
                “Leave him alone Sir Jim.”
                “He’s a skeleton! When have you ever heard of a reanimated skeleton helping people? They’re summoned by necromancers to kill people.” He raised his sword once more and pointed it towards the skeleton’s head.
                “I’m nice! I don’t want to kill anyone! Please don’t hurt me!” he fell backwards onto his pelvis, then scurried backwards on his hands.
                “Jim! I said stop! That’s an order!” Princess Natalya shouted, her voice a deathly wail.
                The knight stood still, maintaining a frown but lowering the sword again.
                “Put it away before someone gets hurt.” The Princess told him. Reluctantly, he sheathed his weapon.
                “Thank you! Thank you, you are kind and wonderful!” the skeleton told Princess Natalya, his jaw clattering with desperation and relief. “I promise, I’ve never killed anyone. And I don’t really eat at all anymore, especially not people. But… but you can. Eat, I mean. There’s food and drink where I live, and a bed so you can get some rest. And then you can continue on your way, if that’s what you want. I can guide you to the exit as well, if that’s where you’re trying to get to.”
                “Where else would we be trying to get to?” the knight asked with narrowed eyes.
                “I don’t know – somewhere else? There are lots of places other than the exit. Maybe you’re trying to see all the walls of the maze, or visit the enchanted hedges. Maybe you seek monsters to slay. Maybe you just like long walks but hate long views, or wanted to take your corpse exploring. It takes all sorts.”
                “Why would we be taking a corpse to explore a maze?”
                “So that it doesn’t get lonely without its ghost.”
                Sir Jim shrugged, unable to fault the skeleton’s logic. “Well, regardless, the devil can take those enchanted hedges and keep them. I don’t trust anyone who thinks they’re a good place to be.”
                The skeleton began to shake, fearing another threat of violence from the bloody knight.
                “Well I do.” Natalya told him firmly. She turned to the skeleton. “Please lead the way.”
               
                They continued through the maze as a company of three; the skeleton clicking and clattering along, the ghost floating gracefully, and the knight trudging with a corpse over his shoulder. Sir Jim’s quest had certainly taken a turn for the unorthodox.             
                “So, erm, what are your names?” the skeleton asked timidly, trying to make conversation.
                “I’m Princess Natalya, and this is my escort, Sir Jim. What may we call you?”
                “Oh, erm, you can call me anything you like, honestly. Whatever pleases you.”
                “But what is your name?”
                “Oh, my name? I haven’t used that in years. It’s, erm, it’s Peter.”
                “Very nice to make your acquaintance, Peter.” Said Princess Natalya, remembering her regal manners.
                As they passed unlit sconces on the wall, Peter would raise his torch to them, setting them ablaze and casting an orange glow over the hallway. Princess Natalya found it comforting not to be in the dark any longer. Sir Jim though it was nice to have a way of definitively tracking where they had already been, confident that he could follow the trial of torches if Peter should betray them.
                Peter led the ghost and the knight purposefully through the labyrinth. Occasionally he would stop at a cross-roads and tap one bony foot against the floor, remembering which path led towards home, and then set off again with vigour. Every few seconds he would check behind himself to make sure that his new companions were following. Although he had no way of showing it, whenever he saw that he wasn’t alone, Peter smiled.
                As they walked through the seemingly never-ending succession of turns and crossroads, Peter did what he could to keep his new companions talking to him, enjoying the sounds of conversation after so many years. He could feel that Sir Jim was still harbouring distrust, and whenever Peter asked about the knight he received a tale of outstanding bravery, intended to make Peter fear him. It was fairly redundant, because Peter was already feared him, but the skeleton didn’t say anything about it.
                Princess Natalya was kinder to him, but also seemed angry at Sir Jim. To Peter’s mind (or to the space where his mind used to be) she wasn’t that badly off. She still looked like herself and could think like herself – it was just that she didn’t have all the flesh she used to. Flesh was overrated anyway. He hoped that she would take to being a ghost soon – in his opinion, it rather suited her. Much more than that throat-less, bloody-dressed thing hanging over Sir Jim’s shoulder.
                Regardless of how much they might bicker, or how often Sir Jim held his hand threateningly close to his sword, Peter was happy to have the company. It didn’t matter that they weren’t perfect. It didn’t even matter that they might be gone soon. The fact was that then and there, he didn’t have to be lonely.

                In just over an hour the company of three reached a set of gates. Where the outer gates were imposing, these were welcoming. Where the outer gates warded travellers away, these gates ushered them in. Where the outer gates were outside, these gates were not. They were somewhere else. That’s why they were different gates.
                Peter didn’t hesitate in front of them. He comfortably pushed them open with his skeletal hands, revealing a large, beautifully tended square garden. Rows of hedges and bushes laden with berries stretched away from them, on the other side of crystal clear, flowing river. Beds of flowers overflowed with bright pinks, yellows, reds, even appealing shades of what can only be described as ‘woodsman’s elbow’. Here and there, large and clearly ancient trees bent and bowed, fully laden with ripe fruits. A small wooden bridge stood in front of the party, allowing them to cross over the water and catch a view of the fish swimming around in it. Facing towards the bridge on the far side was a small but pretty house.
                “Welcome to my home.” Peter said, warmly and proudly.

                Peter’s house was everything the labyrinth wasn’t – warm, light, spacious and comfortable. There was even a small map of the house by the door, so that visitors wouldn’t get lost. It was a nice but somewhat insulting touch, especially when any visitors must have been hopelessly lost in the labyrinth for days beforehand.
                “Please, make yourselves at home.” The skeleton told his companions, gesturing towards a selection of softly upholstered seats, all pointed towards a fireplace. The fire was already burning. Sir Jim was only getting more confused regarding the logistics of being a skeleton as time went by – his host seemed to appreciate comfort and warmth despite his lack of flesh, and by the smell of it he enjoyed fine cuisine. The aroma of spiced soup wafted through the small building from another room, making Sir Jim’s mouth water.
                “Thank you, Peter.” Natalya said, floating into the middle of the room and looking around.
                “Do you have a place where I can put, erm…” Sir Jim started, trailing off quietly.
                “Your boots? They can stay just inside the door.” Peter told him pleasantly.
                “No, I meant-“
                “Your cloak? You can hang on that hook on the wall, over there.”
                “No, not my cloak either. I mean the Princess’ body.”
                Peter gave a xylophonic gasp. “I am so sorry! Yes, er, please, you can put her down the guests’ room.” He hurried over to a doorway and held it open for the knight. Thanking Peter, Sir Jim entered the room and laid Princess Natalya’s body down on the bed.
                The Princess was attempting to sit on one of the chairs without a great degree of success when Sir Jim re-entered the room. He tried to look away politely, but couldn’t help watching the ghost’s struggle out of the corner of his eye. He too wanted to sit down, but now felt that he’d be rubbing it in her face if he plonked himself into a cushion. It wasn’t often that he felt self-conscious about his over-achievement in the field of sitting down, but his present company was somewhat of a special case.
                Natalya grew frustrated with her failure to rest. She didn’t necessarily feel tired from their journey – moving was now just a formality rather than something which required exertion, but it was habitual, and another reminder of what was denied to her. It didn’t help having Sir Jim standing around awkwardly either – was this what she would have to deal with forever now? Pitifully averted gazes as she drifted through the furnishings? She grumbled under breath as she finally gave up and floated herself just on top of the seat. Sir Jim was squandering his precious ability to sit in chairs, taking his corporeal form for granted just like always.
                Sir Jim unlaced his boots and left them by the door, then sat down opposite the Princess. It felt wonderful to rest on something softer than the ground – they’d been on the road from Castle Dewlayne for a week, and had slept on nothing more comfortable than the forest floor in all that time. The knight allowed himself to relax into the seat, but kept his sword nearby. There was no telling what else might come to visit Peter’s house.

                                                                                *             *             *

                Eventually, Peter reappeared from the kitchen carrying a bowl of steaming soup, and handed it to Sir Jim. The knight graciously accepted and started shovelling it into his mouth; it was the best meal he’d ever been given by a reanimated body. Peter sat in another of the seats and watched Sir Jim eating, happily.
                “Is no-one else having any?” Sir Jim asked, realising too late what he was saying.
                “I’ve rather lost my appetite. And my capability - it would all fall out of my throat hole.” Princess Natalya sneered back.
                If Peter had still had cheeks, he would have been blushing. “Please don’t feel bad about it Princess, the same would happen to me.”
                That wasn’t much of a comfort to Princess Natalya, truth be told, but she smiled politely at Peter all the same.
                “So, who are you Peter? How did you come to live here?” she asked, with her best royal manners.
                “Oh, well, it’s a long story. I wouldn’t like to bore you.”
                “Nonsense, if we are to rest here then we have all night. I don’t think I’ll need much sleep anymore.” She spared a scowl for Sir Jim.
                “Please, Princess, do forgive him. He must be so tired from carrying your body around and he has stuck with you, even in death. He is dedicated to you, and if you will forgive me for saying so, you wouldn’t want to drive him away. It gets very lonely when you drive people away.”
                “I-… I will try my best to hold my tongue, for you, Peter. Now, I believe you were going to tell me about yourself.”
                Sir Jim nodded with a mouthful of soup.
                “Well, I wasn’t always a skeleton.” He started with a weak laugh. “I used to be a man. I always had a skeleton,” he rubbed the back of his head with one hand nervously “but, I mean, it was inside me at the time.” He looked from one to the other of Sir Jim and Princess Natalya. The Princess indicated that he should continue.
                “My name was Peter Heartsbane, an awfully long time ago. I suppose it still must be now, unless someone has renamed me. Can people do that, these days?”
                “Not unless you get married.” The Princess replied.
                “Hm, well, I think my name must still be Peter Heartsbane, then. I was a young man until I got old, and an old man until I died, so I think that means I must been fairly consistent in how I conducted myself.”
                “And you’ve been a skeleton since then?” Sir Jim asked between mouthfuls.
                “Erm, well, mostly. There was a messy transitional period which I didn’t much enjoy. There were a few things I didn’t enjoy about that time of my life, truth be told.”
                Princess Natalya gave him a sympathetic look.
                “Oh, there’s no reason to feel maudlin on my account. I’ve learned to look on the bright side and not let these things bother me so much. Death was a big wakeup call like that – you can’t dwell on it.” The firelight cast dancing shadows inside Peter’s head as he spoke. “It opened my eyes to a lot of pettiness that I could do without, I think.”
                “Like what?”
                “Like holding it against people that they aren’t perfect, mostly. I, er, I never had much of a way with people back when I was alive. When you have power, or when people never challenge what you say, you can become very judgemental and very unforgiving. A slight injustice can be enough to write people off indefinitely, you know? Not much cause for going to the effort of forgiving someone if you can do well enough without them. As it turned out, burning bridges too readily didn’t make my life any easier. People still talked to me because they needed my talents, but I was very much alone in every other sense.”
                “Needed what talents?” Sir Jim asked, his curiosity piqued.
                “Erm, well, magic. I was a wizard in life, so I held a position of great power among the townsfolk. They’d come to me to solve their problems, some far more valid than others, suffice it to say. Oh, but I was so intolerant of them – I’d turn them away if I didn’t think they were showing me the proper amount of respect or obeisance, or if there problems didn’t seem worthy of my time. It didn’t stop them, of course, it just meant they’d come back a second time and curse me under their breath out of earshot. It was the same with the nobles; they all wanted favours and could promise gold, servants, political favours, the lot. But I was just as arrogant with them, and their promises gave me no reason to get excited.” Peter’s jaw clicked and tapped sadly as he spoke.
                “The worst was how I treated my peers, though. It’s easy to have high standards of people, but no-one ever meets them, really. You have to learn to accept that, but I never really managed it. If I thought someone had done me wrong somehow, that was it – I gave up on them completely and cleaved them out of my life. It happened more and more frequently as I gained more power. As soon as I felt wronged by someone I would dwell on it to the point that it was all that relationship meant to me anymore. I left myself a wake of people who didn’t make the cut, because I told myself that if they were ‘willing to hurt me once they’d be willing to do it again, and friends shouldn’t do that’. Like I said, I couldn’t look past the fact that no-one is perfect and just forgive them. Eventually, I got so weary of the burden of other people that I cut all ties with the world, and came here to my little home by the water.”
                “You came to live in the labyrinth instead!?” The Princess gasped.
                “I built the labyrinth.” Peter replied.
                “You… you’re the architect? You are the great evil who created the Labyrinth of Anguish?” She was floating upwards out of her in shock – levitation was something she needed to get used to.
                “I’m not evil.” Peter said hurriedly, holding his hands up as if to prove he wasn’t up to mischief. “And I’m certainly not great any longer.”
                “But, if you built this place then you must be impossibly old.”
                “You’re a ghost. Talking to a skeleton who just made me some soup. Let’s not go throwing the term ‘impossible’ around lightly.” Sir Jim reminded the Princess.
                “Oh, so you get beaten up by one enchanted hedge and suddenly you’re an expert in the other-worldly powers.”
                “You were beaten by one of my hedges?” Peter asked, shocked. “I’m very sorry, I hope it didn’t hurt you too badly. Please don’t let it put you off me.”
                Sir Jim waved a hand as if to say it was nothing. “It won’t put me off anything except hedges.”
                “But they never get overgrown, and they pick their own fruit when it’s ripe! They’re my masterpiece!”
                “I prefer your soup.” Sir Jim said flatly.
                “Regardless of Sir Jim’s floral entanglements, why did you build the labyrinth?”
                “It was the best way I could think of to keep people away from me. I could have some peace and quiet in here. Few came looking for me, and none who did made it through to my home. My river gets me water, my bushes and hedges get me food – there’s no reason to leave. At least, I thought there was no reason to leave. I, erm, I found that being alone comes hand in hand with being lonely. I finally had my isolation, but it didn’t taste as sweet as I’d expected.”
                “Why didn’t you just leave then?”
                “I tried, but I was reviled when I finally emerged. I was accused of building my labyrinth to lure people in and watch them die, and the townspeople had coped with me saying ‘no’ for so long that my absence made no difference to them anyway. They had turned against me, just like I had turned myself against them before.
                “My former peers had all moved on or died by this stage. They went away either hating me or thinking they weren’t welcome in my life anymore. So I just retreated back into here. Eventually my body died, as these things tend to do, and my powers went with it. I suppose there was enough magic left over to keep me animated, but that’s all; I’m just the bones of a lonely old man, now. But after all this time I think… I think you come to learn that forgiveness isn’t always for the person who is being forgiven. Sometimes it’s about letting go of what makes you angry and moving on. It’s about accepting that no-one, not even you, meets your standards - and that’s OK. Forgiveness is there to tell yourself that you’re not going to let that thing, whatever it is, hurt you anymore. And maybe the person you’re forgiving doesn’t always deserve it, but you deserve to let go. It was an overdue lesson, hard learned. But I’m grateful now for all the company I get. Please, stay as long as you would like to. You’re no burden to me at all.”

                                                                                *             *             *

                Princess Natalya and Sir Jim spent the next day with Peter in his home, but after a second night they informed him that they could spare no more time. The war was on, and Sir Jim had to deliver the Princess back unharmed. Or, at least, without any additional harm coming to her. Plus, if they stayed for much longer, Natalya’s body would ruin the bedspread. Peter packed fresh supplies for his guests, and the three of them set off again from Peter’s home towards the exit of the labyrinth.
                Peter insisted on lighting the sconces as they went, which slowed them a little, but the Princess and the knight were glad enough to have a guide that they didn’t complain. Plus, according to Peter, the fire would help to keep the wolves and other creatures away.
                The journey took the better part of a day, but as dusk closed in on the travellers, they reached the gates towards Aridania – they were free. As they stepped into the dusty valley, Peter paused at the gate. He looked at his thin, pale feet and saw the dust blowing between his bones. The Princess turned back to him.
                “Come with us, Peter. I could use a man of learning at my side if I am to rule one day.”
                “I’m not sure the world will accept an undead advisor in the court, Princess.” Peter said timidly.
                “They’ll have to accept an undead ruler first.”
                “I’ll make sure they do so.” Said Sir Jim, his confident bravado returning now that they were well away from any enchanted hedges. “Oh, and, your highness?”
                “Yes, Sir Jim?”
                “I’m sorry. That I got you killed. For failing you.” He too looked down at Peter’s feet.
                Princess Natalya stayed silent for a moment. She realised that it was the first time she’d heard Sir Jim apologise for her death. It was the first time he’d actually accepted any fault for what had happened. Somehow it was worse, it made her angrier than if he’d never apologised at all – he knew he’d been wrong the whole time and said nothing. She wanted to scream at him for taking so long.
                “I forgive you. And I shall encourage my father to do the same.” She said instead. “I take it on good advisement that it’s a wise thing to do.” She spared a look for Peter.
                “Thank you, ghost highness.” Sir Jim said, looking up at her again.
                “Coming Peter?” Natalya asked again, ignoring the inane grin on Sir Jim’s face.
                The dead wizard took a look back into the labyrinth, and then turned to the Princess’ ghost. “I… if you’ll have me, I think I’d like that.” He answered.
                Natalya smiled, and although Peter had no way of showing it, she could tell that he was smiling too.

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