Path-Weavers

Overview

Path-Weavers are among the Architects of the Flux Maze: entities that open or close its corridors at will. A traveller who has watched a wall roll aside onto a straight path out has likely met one, and so has a traveller who turned to find the way back gone.

Appearance

A Path-Weaver is seldom seen whole. It shows as a long, thin shape moving inside the stone, a ripple along a wall like something swimming under ice, and when it surfaces, a narrow figure of grey stone threads with a dull orange glow, long-fingered, faceless. Its fingers trace lines on the rock, and the rock follows them. The sound of its working is the Maze's sound made small and close: clicking, like locks turning, and a soft grinding.

Habitat and Range

They live within the walls themselves, moving through them, and are found throughout the Maze, though rarely.

Behaviour and Temperament

They are restless and curious, and they weave paths for the pleasure of it. They seem to follow travellers for a while before deciding what to do with them. Calm travellers who go with the Maze's shifting often find a Path-Weaver opening the way ahead; frightened ones find the corridors narrowing, as the Maze itself does to fear, and a Path-Weaver pressing the change along.

Abilities

They open and close corridors, link one passage to another, and can shut a chamber completely or open a door where there was only rock.

Uses and Dangers

A favoured traveller gets the shortest way out of the Maze. The danger is a closed corridor with someone still in it.

Lore and Belief

Those who have come out of a Maze tell newcomers to thank the walls when a way opens, in case a Path-Weaver is listening. It may be.

Where It Appears

• The Flux Maze