Game Enjambment is a reoccurring poetry series on games and gaming.
Thornwood has a problem. And the problem branches off into many discrete lines. Except they are all connected, and the root of all of them is the doorway into the Labyrinth Proper. And I think you know it.
A proper labyrinth has one meditative path. Ours is a maze. You see the difference?
A kingdom may lie over the bones of ravaged knights, but it cannot rest over them.
Remember that day, long ago, when we sprinted up the sloping steps to the labyrinth door? How firm and heavy its handle? How resistant the hinges? Like we don’t know a warning when it groans at us in a voice of metal and stone.
The kingdom of Thornwood has a disadvantage. There’s so little for an urchin to do other than dream of knighthood or incantations.
Remember the echoing inside the corridor? The torches? The quivering puddles? The promise of glory, if only we could pass the four trials named for virtues we had no patience to possess? Strength, courage, wisdom, and truth. I know I swapped the order of those last two, but I like the finality of it. Truth.
The kingdom of Thornwood, our Thornwood, needs a truth: We have mislabeled the Labyrinth Proper, on all counts.
Remember bolting back outside, breath hitching? Aged up from the experience but still so young? How life’s options branched off before us, invisible and unbeknownst to our disheveled, sweaty selves? Thornwood promised us more. Thornwood and us, we failed each other.
A kingdom that lies over the bones of ravaged knights should never, ever rest.
Katherine Quevedo was born and raised just outside of Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Rhysling Award, and her debut mini-chapbook, The Inca Weaver’s Tales, is forthcoming from Sword & Kettle Press. Her speculative fiction appears in various anthologies and magazines. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys playing old-school video games, watching movies, singing, belly dancing, and making spreadsheets. Find her at www.katherinequevedo.com.
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