"A Solar Labyrinth"
by Gene Wolfe

Mazes may be more ancient than mankind. Certainly the cavemen 
constructed them by laying down football-sized stones, and perhaps by 
other means as well, now lost to us; the hill-forts of neolithic 
Europe were guarded by tangled dry ditches. Theseus followed a clew - 
a ball of thread - through the baffling palace of Minos, this 
becoming the first in what threatens to be an infinite series of 
fictional detectives. The Fayre Rosamund dropped her embroidery with 
her needle thrust through it, but forgot the yarn in her pocket, thus 
furnishing Queen Eleanor's knights with the clue they required to 
solve Hampton Court Maze.

Of late, few mazes have been built, and those that have been, have 
been walled, for the most part, with cheap and unimaginative hedges. 
Airplanes and helicopters permit rampant mar-sports to photograph new 
mazes from above, and the pictures let armchair adventurers solve 
them with a pencil. Gone, it might seem, are the great days of 
monsters, maidens, and amazement.

But not quite. I have heard that a certain wealthy citizen has not 
only designed and built a new maze, but has invented a new _kind_ of 
maze, perhaps the first since the end of the Age of Myth. To preserve 
his privacy I shall call this new Daedalus Mr. Smith. To frustrate 
the aerial photographers in their chartered Cessnas, I shall say only 
that his maze is in the Adirondacks.

On a manicured green lawn stand - well separated for the most part - 
a collection of charming if improbably objects. There are various 
obelisks; lamp posts from Vienna, Paris, and London, as well as New 
York; a pillar-house from London; fountains that splash for a time 
and then cease; a retired yawl, canted now upon the reef of grass but 
with masts still intact; the standing trunk of a dead tree overgrown 
with roses; many more. The shadows of these objects from the walls of 
an elaborate and sophisticated maze.

It is, obviously, a maze that changes from hour to hour, and indeed 
from minute to minute. Not so obviously, it is one that can be solved 
only at certain times and is insoluble at non, when the shadows are 
shorted. It is also, of course, a maze from which the explorer can 
walk free whenever he chooses.

And yet it is said that most of them - most adults, at least - do 
not. In the early morning, while the shadows of the hills still veil 
his lawn, Mr. Smith brings the honored guest to the point that will 
become the center of the maze. The grass is still fresh with dew, and 
there is no sound but the chirping of birds. For five minutes or so 
the two men (or as it may be, the man and the woman) stand and wait. 
Perhaps they smoke a cigarette. The sun's red disc appears above the 
mist-shrouded treetops, the fountains jet their crystal columns, the 
birds fall silent, and the shadowy suites spring into existence, a 
sketch in the faded black ink of God.

Mr. Smith begins to tread his maze, but he invites his guest to 
discover paths of hos own. The guest does so, amused at first, then 
more serious. Imperceptibly, the shadows move. New corridors appear; 
old ones close, sometimes with surprising speed. Soon Mr. Smith's 
path joins that of his guest (for Mr. Smith knows hos maze well), and 
the two proceed together, the guest leading the way. Mr. Smith speaks 
of his statue of Diana, a copy of one in the Louvre; the image of 
Tezcatlipaca, the Toltec sun-god, is authentic, having been excavated 
at Teotihuacan. As he talks, the shadows shift, seeming almost to 
writhe like feathered Quetzalcoatl with the slight rolling of the 
lawn. Mr. Smith steps away, but for a time his path nearly parallels 
his guest's.

"Do you see that one there?" says the guest. "In another minute or 
two, when it's shorter, I'll be able to get through there."

Mr. Smith nods and smiles.

The guest waits, confidently now surveying the wonderful pattern of 
dark green and bright. The shadow he has indicated - that of a 
Corinthian column, perhaps - indeed diminishes; but as it does 
another, wheeling with the wheeling sun, falls across the desired 
path. Most adult guests do not escape until they are rescued by a 
passing cloud. Some, indeed, refuse such rescue.

Often Mr. Smith invites groups of children to inspect his maze, their 
visit timed so they can be led to its center. There inlaid upon a 
section of crumbling wall that at least _appears_ ancient, he points 
out the frowning figure of the Minotaur, a monster that, as he 
explains, haunts the shadows. From far away - but not in the 
direction of the house - the deep bellowing of a bull interrupts him. 
(Perhaps a straying guest might discover stereo speakers hidden in 
the boughs of certain trees, perhaps not.) Mr. Smith says he can 
usually tell in advance which children will enjoy his maze. They are 
more often boys than girls, he says, but not much more often. The 
must be young, but not too young. Glasses help. He shows a picture of 
his latest Ariadne, a dark-haired girl of nine.

Yet he is fair to all the children, giving each the same 
instructions, the same encouragement. Some reject his maze out of 
hand, wandering off the examine the tilted crucifix, the blue-dyed 
water in the towering Torricelli barometer, to try (always without 
success) to draw Arthur's sword from the stone. Others persevere 
longer, threading their way between invisible walls for an hour or 
more.

But always, as the shadow of the great gnomon creeps toward to the 
sandstone XII set in the lawn, the too-old, too-young, insufficiently 
serious, and too-serious drift away, leaving only Mr. Smith and one 
solitary child still playing in the sunshine.