The Maze [antikvár]

Prologue In the peace of the dawn the tolling of the bells ought to have sounded all the more strange and out of place. Instead, the dull rhythmic knocks of their gigantic clappers - their ropes pulled by a feeble yet stubborn hand - accompanied the calmness of the morning like the beating of an elderly heart. The sound travelled over the tiled roofs and across the abandoned town, where dismembered artillery guns lay among iron bedsteads, oak tables and broken wardrobes. A rush of wind sent a cloud of red dust towards a window where the shreds of its velvet curtains were flapping. The dust entered the vast salon, carrying with it sand from the desert, shrivelled rosebuds and brittle pieces of parched paper, all of which added to the unbelievable squalor of the once majestic room. Of the aforementioned glory there still remained enough evidence: a gutted crimson sofa, the fringed corner of a torn carpet, a chessboard table whose mahogany top had been scraped spitefully by a knife. Against a wall was set a hacked-about armchair, its carved gold legs now nowhere to be seen. On the wooden parquet, next to a heap of compost and desiccated flowers, lay the skin of a snow leopard with no head, tail or paws. At the other end of the room, what seemed like the prow of a small boat was in fact the 5