Grubs and games

	The goats munched their way down the hall.  The swallow and I waited.  Eventually the goats reached the junction, and turned down one of the branches.  I got to my feet and went to see what lay down the other two arms of the passage.  
	
	The direction the goats turned was just kudzu and more kudzu, stretching out until I lost sight of it in the dark.  And how was kudzu growing in the dark underground anyway?  I shrugged that thought off.  This place was weird enough that plants growing in darkness was hardly remarkable at all.
	
	The other arm was only choked with green for a few yards, after that it was clear.  "Good," I muttered to myself, and set off to wade through the kudzu towards whatever might lie ahead.  Thankfully getting cut off from the distant roots by the goats' munching seemed to have killed it, as it no longer actively grabbed at my ankles as I tromped through it, and soon I was on the other side of the patch.
	
	The corridor here was no longer stone, but concrete.  It was mostly rather bland and rather depressing. The only variation in the stark gray flatness were occasional streaks of what might be rust or soot, grungy reddish-brown and smudged black.  As I went along it became more and more stained and moldering, and here and there the walls bore cracks.  There were roots coming through some of those cracks, and I thought to wonder what stood above us.  Was it part of the upper maze, or something else entirely?
	
	An alcove in the concrete drew my attention.  It was just a niche, too shallow for a person to shelter in.  It held a narrow pedestal, on which stood an origami crane and a handful of small brass gears.  I regarded this for a moment, then shrugged and moved on.  There were several other niches, and each held some small object and a few more gears.  But eventually the walls went back to being plain concrete again.  Then they changed to rough stone, as though we were in a natural, or at least mostly natural cave.  The floor was still smooth, so I simply continued on.  I was becoming a bit numb to wonders.  
	
	The next cavern definitely caught my full attention.  The first thing I noticed as a faint whiff of scent in the air, something slightly sulfurous and vaguely animalistic.  The passageway widened out a bit, and became warmer.  And then with a sudden shock I realized that the wall to one side of me was covered in scales, and moving very slightly, as if it was breathing.
	
	For one crazed moment I thought that's exactly what it was, a breathing, scaly wall.  Then I looked up and realized that it was an immense dragon.  We had emerged from the tunnel into a huge chamber, but the dragon was so near the entrance that I had thought its scaled side was just more wall.
	
	I froze in place, staring at the huge bulk of the thing.  The swallow made a little sound of irritation, and I started moving again.  It was asleep.  And it must not be that dangerous or the swallow would have warned me away.  So slowly, and with care to walk quietly, I started moving again.  
	
	Then the dragon stirred.  I froze.
	
	The dragon's eyes opened. They were cat-like, catching the light I carried and throwing it back at me.  They rose up over me and white teeth appeared beneath them as the dragon opened its mouth.  I was sure I was going to be eaten, but I was completely paralyzed, I couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't do anything.
	
	The swallow bit me on the ear.
	
	"Yipe!"  I said.  And then, "I'm a gardener!"  It came out almost as one word, but apparently the dragon understood, for the gaping jaws closed again.  The dragon peered down at me for a long moment.  I looked up at it and tried to decide if I should move or not.
	
	"So.  You are seeking the center then, gardener?" said the dragon. Its voice was booming, incredibly deep and resonant.
	
	"Yes," I squeaked.
	
	"You have come farther than most," it said.  "But there is some distance to go still."
	
	"Can you tell me which way?" I managed to ask.
	
	The dragon shook its head.  "No.  We creatures of the Labyrinth cannot.  But I can say that you are going the right way for now, at least."
	
	"That's always good to know," I said.  
	
	"Good luck," said the dragon.
	
	"Thanks," I said, and managed to start walking again.  It took a while to cross the dragon's cavern, and those lambent cat-eyes watched me the whole way.  I was quite glad when I finally stepped into the smaller passageway on the far side of the cave.  Though as I did so I took a moment to wonder how in the world the dragon got in and out.  Both entrance and exit were far too small for its huge bulk.  Did it go out by means of magic?  Could it teleport, or shape-shift into some smaller form?  Or was it trapped there, living forever in a cave that grew ever smaller in comparison as it grew bigger?  Given what I'd seen thus far, the real answer was probably something even stranger.
	
	Up ahead I saw a faint glow, and for a moment my heart sank. What now?  I was starting to feel tired, and a bit numb. So many oddities and dangers crammed so close together were wearing me out.  But the swallow perked up on my shoulder.  "Oh yeah!  I know this room!  This room is good!"
	
	"It is?"
	
	"Hell yeah.  Come on, get moving, greenbutt!"
	
	I chuckled at his enthusiasm, and managed to pick up my pace a little bit.  Up ahead the glow proved to come from a modest side chamber.  It was crammed with small, moving, glowing things.  There were so many of them that they coated the walls, floor, and ceiling, and the light spilled out into the hallway.  Though the things themselves never crawled past the threshold creating a sharp line between the glowing interior and the plain stone hallway.  The swallow launched himself off my shoulder with an enthusiastic chirp, and he was soon standing in the middle of a crawling floor of glowing specks, snatching them up in his beak and eating them.
	
	Which was when I realized exactly what they were. They were grubs.  
	
	I watched in bemused amazement as the swallow stuffed down dozens of them.  Finally he flew back to my shoulder, though I noticed he had some trouble getting into the air.  Settled once again on his familiar perch, he said "That was delicious.  You ought to try 'em!"
	
	"Uh.  No thanks."
	
	"Your loss."
	
	Past the grub room the tunnel branched.  I contemplated the two forks.  "Anything you can tell me about which way to go?" I asked the swallow.
	
	"You're on your own here, greenbutt," he said.
	
	I sighed and went right.  I hadn't gone more than a dozen strides before there was another branch.  "Great," I muttered.  For the next several hours I randomly picked right or left time and time again.  None of the passages seemed to dead end, though they did frequently join up again.  I started to suspect that my choices didn't really matter, and that as they'd all branched from one corridor at the beginning, they were all going to join up into one corridor at the end.  
	
	I couldn't tell you for certain if I was right, but eventually the corridor I picked stopped branching and joining, and just went straight ahead.
	
	By now my feet were sore, and I was ready to sit down and have a rest and perhaps some food.  Just as I was about to halt in the bare hallway, I saw a door ahead.  It appeared to be made from brass, with a simple decorative motif of rectangular panels bordered with strips of what looked like gold braid.  It also had a plain knob, and a knocker.
	
	I tried to knob first, but it proved to be locked.  I pondered the knocker.  I had a bad feeling about what might answer the door if I knocked.  But I wasn't going to back-track through the tunnel maze, that would only get me lost.  So I shrugged and lifted the knocker.  It made a satisfying thudding sound.
	
	I heard something moving on the other side of the door, and then suddenly one of the rectangular panels lifted up and a head poked out just above knee level.  It was a dog.  I couldn't tell you what kind, though it was one of those big, masculine sorts owned by manor lords and working hunters.
	
	"What do you want?" said the dog.
	
	At this point a talking dog was pretty much normal, so I just replied.  "I'm a gardener.  I'm trying to get to the center of the maze."
	
	"Ah, right!  One moment then."
	
	The dog's head withdrew, and the panel swung shut.  Then the knob turned and the door swung open.  "Come on in," said the dog, who was standing on his hind legs, with one paw on the door's latch. I stepped inside.  There was a finished square chamber, with white plaster over the stone walls, inside.  At a table sat a half-dozen more dogs, and they appeared to be in the middle of a card game.  An empty chair showed where the one who had let me in had left the game.
	
	"Want to play a hand?" asked one of the dogs.
	
	"I don't really play cards," I said.  
	
	The swallow harumphed on my shoulder. "Heathen" he muttered.
	
	"What, you play cards?" I looked over at him.
	
	"I would if I could, but you can't really handle cards with wings," he groused.
	
	I chuckled.  "Well, I'd stay and help you play a hand, but I've nothing to bet, and really I need to find somewhere to sleep, I get the feeling it's pretty late."
	
	"We've got beds in the dorms," said one of the dogs.  "There's an empty room where the bitches stay when we've got one on duty."  I blinked at that, before realizing he'd meant the term literally, not as an insult.  "You're welcome to stop and sleep here."
	
	"Thanks," I said with a yawn.
	
	"Get us a chair then, mutts," said the swallow.  
	
	I rolled my eyes.  "We still don't have anything to bet, birdbrain."
	
	"I can spot you a sausage," said one of the other dogs."
	
	I blinked at them.  "You're betting food?"
	
	"What else would we bet?"
	
	I chuckled.  Of course they were betting food.  They were dogs.  "I don't want to bet all my supplies, but I've got a slightly stale wedge of cheese.  Will that get me in?"
	
	"Cheese?  Oh yeah.  Oh yeah, that'll do."  I looked at the suddenly intent expressions and got the impression that they liked cheese an awful lot, even slightly stale cheese.  
	
	I got out my remaining wedge and put it on the table.  "All right," I said to the swallow.  "I'll hold the cards, you tell me how to play."