Labyrinth Gate by Kate Elliott
There was a second pause. This time Chryse broke it with a laugh. “Oh dear. I’m afraid I’ve shocked you.”
Julian’s eyes had gone quite wide, giving him that appealing look that small children have. “How very—” He coughed discreetly behind his hand, controlling himself. “How very reckless of you,” he managed.
She laughed. “I daresay it was,” she replied, releasing his sleeve. “I didn’t know it was so very unheard of. This isn’t to say that under other circumstances—” She shrugged. He smiled. “But there it is.”
“You are most gracious, Madame.” With a flourish of a bow, he took her hand and kissed it. “I am defeated, but not utterly cast down.” He straightened, releasing her hand. “Who knows when circumstances may change.”
“Who indeed,” said Chryse, turning now as the door opened behind them and Charity appeared in the doorway, looking somewhat lost. “Charity, are you all right?”
Julian moved to stand by the window, back to them, as Chryse walked across the parlor to the door.
“I was looking for Maretha,” said Charity.
“You seem a little pale,” said Chryse. “I believe she’s up in your uncle’s room, copying out some notes of his on that old map.”
“Old map?”
“The one the vicar here unearthed from some old chest.”
“Oh.” Charity considered. “That’s why they both—” She broke off. “We must be very close now,” she said instead. “Less than a week, Thomas—Mr. Southern says. And that only because there are no roads to speak of up there.” She shuddered. “Do you suppose the old stories are true?”
“I don’t know,” said Chryse.
Charity looked past her to Julian. “I’d better go find Maretha,” she murmured, and left.
“There.” Chryse turned to Julian. “A pity she isn’t married.”
“Why is that?”
“I would have thought she’d make a fine mistress. She’s quite beautiful.”
“Ah, Chryse.” Julian approached her and took her hand. “Beauty by itself is no qualification in a woman. I have only to remember my wife.”
“Your—I didn’t know you were married.”
“To quite the most insipid creature you can imagine. We were both much too young. It was arranged by our parents.”
“What happened to her?” she asked.
“Died in childbed within the year.”
“And the child?” she asked softly.
“And the child,” he echoed. “Don’t be sorry for me, Chryse. It was a long time ago, and I never loved her.”
“I’m still sorry,” she said. “For the child’s sake, at least. And yours, whether you want it or not.”
He released her hand, a smile on his face that was both gentle and perhaps self-mocking. “I seem doomed,” he said softly, “to have only friendship from the women I love best.”
“Why, Julian—” she began, a sudden light of speculation in her eye, but something in his expression made her leave the rest of the thought unspoken. “I think it must be time for supper,” she finished. “Shall we go find the others?”
“Julian was right,” said Chryse to her husband.
“About what?” He turned in the saddle to look at her. They rode up a narrow track, beaten down more by the passage of the wagons of their party rather than by any of the folk who lived near this area. Behind them lumbered the remainder of their wagons and the mass of trudging laborers.
“About hunger being a greater spur than fear. Something like that.” She glanced back at the hundred or so workers plodding along in the wake of the supply wagons—about half of them had come the long road from Heffield under Thomas Southern’s keen eye. The earl’s fine carriages had been left some three days previous, when roads had disintegrated to little more than parallel ruts in hard ground, in the care of a provincial gentleman too frightened to refuse their keep. “I’m amazed the ones from Heffield stayed so long.”
“How were they to get home?” Sanjay asked.
“Well, that’s true,” she conceded, “since their pay is contingent on work. But I’m more amazed that any of the local folk hired on. More than one of the innkeepers told me scraps of story that would stop braver folk than I from coming up here. Ghosts in the night. Unseasonable storms that swept strange spells in their wake. Girls lost and crying for their lovers who were never seen again. And of course,” she grinned, her blonde hair bright and loose in the sun, “bloody sacrifice.”
Sanjay smiled, watching his wife. These lands were moors, mostly, but here trees had begun to appear, growing in clumps like seeds of a forest that could not quite come together. Though it was spring, it was still a little cool, and though the sun shone bright and steady above, there was a chill to the air that seemed to him unnatural. “That’s all?” he asked.
“Of the stories? No. But the ones that intrigue me most are the briefest ones—of what lies beyond the labyrinth gate—a haunted forest and wild magic, whatever that is. And them, of course. That’s mostly what they’re called, the people who live past the gate and the great lakes that separate the two lands. Them. Not human, they say.”
“Chryse, my love, how can you sound so skeptical after everything we’ve seen?”
She grinned again. “I’m not skeptical. But it’s such a fine spring day that I find it impossible to be apprehensive. And after seeing that site yesterday—it was plainly the remains of some placid old castle with not a bit of haunting in it.”
“That was only the first of the proposed sights—based on the professor’s research and the old map we obtained, and the suggestions of the guide.”
“Will we reach the second site—”
“Today? I think so. This will be the site the guide reckons as the old city. He says it’s the place known for generations as the Labyrinth Gate itself, because of the way it lies between two of the long rift lakes. It’s the only bridge to the northern lands in these parts.”
“What do you think?”
“I think,” he said, “that I’ll have to see it first.” He turned further in his saddle to examine the ragged collection of laborers walking doggedly alongside the wagons. Thomas Southern, at their fore, was engaged in a heated discussion with one of the locals, hired at the last village. “But I’m rather surprised at Julian, for having such insight into a condition so very far from his own.”
“Oh, Julian is full of surprises.” Chryse laughed suddenly.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Sanjay eyed her with the suspicion brought about by long intimacy.
“Well.” Now she hesitated. “I’ve been trying to decide how to tell you—it’s no great thing, really—but I would hate to see you—oh, this is ridiculous.” She grimaced.
Sanjay laughed. “Next thing, you’re going to tell me that he propositioned you.”
“Sanjay.”
His expression changed. There was a brief silence, shot through with the sound of horses and the creak of wagons and the singing of the workers, a rousing tune about sowing the fields and planting a tree. Then they both began to laugh.
“Well,” she said finally. “I was quite tempted, I must say.”
“Then let’s hope he left the offer open,” he replied. “When you get tired of me, you can divorce me and marry him.”
“But he doesn’t want to marry me. That’s not how it’s done here.”
“All right. Then if he can come up with a substantial sum perhaps I’ll allow him to bribe me to remain wed to you, in name only, of course, while he—”
“I see.” Chryse considered this with mock seriousness. “That is a possibility. How much would you accept?”
“There would be one stipulation,” he added.
“Which is?”
He grinned. “You’d have to cheat on him.”
She laughed and leaned across to kiss him. “What would I do without you?” she asked as she settled back firmly into her saddle.
But the comment brought an unwontedly solemn look to
“Sanjay, if I hadn’t been with you, I would have been terrified the moment I set foot in this place, and every moment since.”
His lips quirked up into a little smile. “So would I,” he said softly. “But don’t tell anyone else.”
Chryse laughed. “I hope,” she added slowly after an interval of silence, “that this won’t affect what you think of Julian. I wondered if I should tell you that he propositioned me.”
“My sweet buttercup.” He smiled. “How can I dislike a man who has the same good taste I do?”
“How you flatter me. But not often enough.”
“I wouldn’t want you to become vain,” he retorted.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I’m in terrible danger of that. Now look there—” She lifted her chin in the direction of the wagons in front of them. “Here comes young Master Lucias. He looks in a bit of a rush. Lord, Sanjay, how could I become vain with a face like that hovering about?” She waved one hand. “Lucias!”
The youth reined his horse over to walk beside them. He had taken to riding one of the most spirited animals when it was found that no one besides the earl and Kate could handle it. That he had a long acquaintance with horses was apparent by his seat; he rode with an ease and mastery that was surprising for a person of his age.
“Madame. Monsieur.” He nodded at them in turn, but his eyes, as he looked at them, bore a troubled expression.
“Is something wrong, Lucias?” asked Sanjay. He frowned, examining the boy with a perplexed expression.
“No,” said Lucias quickly. His hair shone like gilding in the noonday sun. “It’s just that I keep thinking you and Madame look familiar somehow.”
“You still don’t remember anything?” Chryse asked gently. “Except the factory?”
“No, Madame.”
“Not even why you were being held there? Locked away like that?”
He shook his head. His face, even in distress, had an unearthly quality about it, as though he had been touched by some divine hand to bear the blessing of heaven to the mortal world below. “But it wasn’t for what the other children were locked there for, I know that.”
“And that’s all.” Chryse shook her head in turn.
“You know horses,” said Sanjay. “That in itself is some kind of clue, however small.”
“Oh yes.” Lucias nodded enthusiastically. “I love horses. I know that I knew them before—but in a different way than—” He broke off. His complexion paled, and he abruptly reined his horse back and away. “I must go speak to—begging your—” He cantered off, down the line of wagons.
Chryse and Sanjay had barely time to exchange a glance before a second horseman pulled up beside them.
“Madame. Monsieur.” The earl’s tone held the same slight chill as the air of these highlands. His glance strayed past them towards the retreating figure of Lucias. “Interesting lad,” he murmured. His cool gaze came to rest on Sanjay. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“He has a certain—” Sanjay paused, “—a certain cast to him.”
“I thought you might see it, too,” said the earl smoothly. “A generous touch of magic, wouldn’t you say? Some spell imposed by another.”
“I can’t see so much as that. I haven’t your skills.”
“No,” agreed the earl, without a trace of self pride. “But I haven’t your sight. Tell me, do you recognize it at all?”
“Recognize it? The magic? No. I didn’t know it could be recognized.”
The earl cast him a strange glance. “Any mage leaves a trace of his self in his castings, but the more adept a mage, the more difficult it is to read.”
“As each deck of Gates is individual,” said Chryse.
His eyes slid to scrutinize her, an unreadable expression on his impossibly controlled face. “Indeed,” he said. “Although the cards are only needed by those who manipulate the lower levels of power.”
Chryse thought abruptly of Madame Sosostris and, as if the idea had leapt to her from Sanjay’s mind, she turned to look at her husband. In his eyes and expression she saw immediately that he was thinking the same thing as she was.
“Which is not to say,” continued the earl as if he had followed their glances like conversation, “that the more powerful do not use them as well. But the Gates are limited as a single source of power.” His glance flicked over them both, penetrating and alert. “Even such a deck as yours.”
“Indeed,” echoed Chryse.
He inclined his head: an uncomfortable salute, to her mind. Straightening, he addressed Sanjay. “Monsieur. If you and Madame would ride with me—there is a sight I would have your opinion of.”
Sanjay nodded, and they rode forward along the line of wagons, overtaking the lead wagon and following the track up along a narrow ridge. Ahead, they saw a line of people—the professor, Maretha and Charity, Julian, Kate—staring out at some vista or sight beyond.
Each stood with a posture so indicative of emotion that it was as if they spoke aloud: the professor enthused and excited, Maretha subdued and intent, Kate and Julian curious, Charity detached, turning even as they approached to stare back beyond them at the first wagon lumbering into view behind.
They dismounted and walked to the edge of the bluff. Beside them the earl seemed to be holding some deep emotion in check, like fire confined in a small space.
“Lord,” breathed Chryse as the valley opened out before her.
“The labyrinth gate,” said Maretha in a low voice. “That’s what the locals call it. No one comes here anymore, they say.”
A valley nestled between the tips of two lakes that arced away into the highlands, lost in the distance. Like the lakes, the valley was narrow, pierced by a few high, small ridges, and lifting at the farther end into a high bluff that rose behind into mountain.
“There’s another name for it,” said Chryse slowly, trying to remember. “I heard someone use it.”
“The belly of stones,” said Sanjay in a soft voice.
Scraps of water and the tumble of great stones lying amongst grass in a pattern that seem achingly familiar, something not quite nameable, rested below them in the deep, long hollow. Beyond, far beyond, lay the suggestion of forest, a great, dark wood.
“Their lands,” said the earl in a voice so quiet that only Chryse and Sanjay could hear it.
“Is it really a forest?” she asked. “I hadn’t thought—” She shrugged. “Not in these lands.”
“Oh yes, it’s a forest.” The earl smiled, an uncanny and disquieting expression on his face. “My grandmother, when she was a girl, went riding in that forest on a dare. She was a wild young woman, you understand. She was gone for two months, given up for dead and the new heir invested in his duties. Then she turned up, pregnant, a little fey, as they said in those times. Her parents found a respectable older gentleman who agreed to marry her and raise the child as his own, and in time my father was born. All were relieved that he had escaped any taint of the alien blood.” His eyes, examining the ruins below, bore the cold glitter of a steel blade.
“But they were not so lucky in the next generation,” said Chryse, unable not to.
His gaze, shifting to her, seemed more amused than angered. “I have a younger sister,” he said, a confidence that surprised her far more than the previous one. “She is as quiet and unfey a woman as I have ever met.”
Chryse only smiled. The earl turned his attention to Sanjay.
“Monsieur.” His voice was as soft as the touch of the cool breeze on their faces. “What do you make of it?”
Sanjay shuddered and put out a hand to touch Chryse’s arm as he stared down. In a scatter of stones he thought he saw a movement, shadow moving in the ruins, animate, watching and aware. Sound seemed drowned here, smothered in some enveloping hush that surrounded this place.
“Thi
Sun illuminated hollows and rises and a greater pattern in the ruins and the lay of the land around them, hiding the rest of the city, that radiated out from a center discernible only by Sanjay’s instinct.
“Then we have arrived.” The earl’s glance strayed for an instant to Maretha before returning to the stones below.
“It has rested alone and untouched for a very long time,” said Sanjay. “I’m not sure I want to see what happens when we disturb it.”
The earl smiled.
Chapter 14:
The Tutor
“THE BOY!” THE REGENT threw her hand out in a gesture so abrupt that it knocked over one of the three lanterns that sat at the points of a triangle on the table. Her great billow of skirts rustled as she rocked wildly. A silent woman came forward and set the lantern back on the table. By its light, the wavering image of Nastagmas came more sharply into focus. It hovered a finger’s breadth above the table, and one could see faint shapes through it: a chair, the far wall. “You told me that he was safely disposed! How could he have escaped?”
The tiny image of the old man, dissolving into nothing at its edges, seemed to shrink back a little. “But he was safe—he was. It is impossible that he could have escaped, highness, and more so that he would be found by the earl’s party, but it has happened.” The image was too insubstantial to show his facial expression, but his posture now straightened, as if with confidence. “But I will wager, yes, highness, that none here suspects him at all. The spell still holds. I have spoken with him and he remembers nothing, only his name.”
“You spoke with him?” Her rocking was still agitated. “That was foolish—like recognizes like. Well, it is done. Do not fail me again, Nastagmas.”
“No, highness!” Almost indistinct, this murmur.
“Then your report. What progress? Any sign of treasure?”
“None.”
“None? In more than five weeks? Nothing?”