Labyrinth Gate by Kate Elliott
A chittering like the migration of hundreds of small beasts broke the hush, starting far away, swelling until it seemed to surround the camp, and fading as it passed beyond. The alien nature of its very sound, touched by unspeakable magics, set into relief the stark humanity of that first scream.
Chryse found that she was gripping Sanjay’s hand so tightly that her fingers ached when he shook free of her and strode forward into the close glare of the bonfire.
“Mr. Southern!” he called. That man, followed closely by Maretha, hurried up to him. “I suggest we make a quick accounting of who is missing.”
“The earl,” said Maretha instantly, but Thomas Southern was already calling out to his two group foremen to have all the laborers assemble in neat rows.
“The children.” Chryse came forward, too, but behind her Kate answered, “I’ve got them,” and Chryse turned to see Mog and Pin huddled against her legs.
“What’s that?” cried Charity, starting violently and grasping Julian’s arm.
“What? What?” asked Professor Farr, standing next to his niece with a look of befuddlement on his face.
The sound rose high on the breeze—the rush of water that one hears in the distance as one nears a stream, but accelerated, until the stream indeed seemed to be coming to them, nearing, like a wave, or a river diverted from its course. It rushed, growing in intensity, and with a roar poured over them. Some cowered, some clung to their neighbors, but all, regardless of fear or determination, hunched down, bracing for the onslaught.
Not a drop of water touched anyone, not a breath of high wind, just the thundering roar. The bonfire went out. Hissing, abrupt, as if it had been drenched and drowned.
Silence.
Steam and heavy smoke curled up from the remains of the fire. As people straightened, they felt at their clothing, tentatively at first and then with disbelief as they discovered that they were bone dry. A murmur combined of fright and speculation ran through the assembly.
A sharp, hard break, the snapping of split stone, shuddered the air. The crowd’s murmuring ceased abruptly. A low grating grinding followed, as if stone were being moved across stone, and then a gasp, like air, that exploded into a heavy shattering, some massive object fallen to earth, that reverberated in echoes and distant skitterings of tiny avalanches across the valley floor.
Silence again.
“Where is Lucias?” asked Julian. His voice sounded twice its normal volume, although the sibilance of his syllables betrayed that he spoke scarcely above a whisper. He pried himself free from Charity’s grasp and attached her to her uncle. Charity was too terrified to object as Julian left her and came forward to stand by Sanjay and Maretha. A few deep embers in the bonfire had found enough fuel to lend an eerie luminescence to the proceedings.
“Does anyone have any idea what’s going on?” Sanjay asked of his immediate companions. There was no reply. “I was afraid of that,” he muttered.
“If we’re going to search, we’ll need lanterns.” Maretha turned to Thomas Southern, but he was shouting order into the laborers, using the simple task of lining them up to his command to calm them down. They quickly counted off in the same order as they were paid, and Thomas ordered ten to get lanterns and turned back to Maretha and Sanjay.
“It appears we are missing four people,” he said. “We’ll check again in the tents, but I think all are here that are in camp. A local girl named Daisy, a couple of Heffield lads, Hawthorpe and Billy, and an older man, Tagmoss.”
“Teams of four,” suggested Sanjay, looking at Maretha for confirmation. “Two lanterns per group, ten groups. The rest stay here, in case we have to search in shifts.”
“Yes,” said Maretha. “That sounds best. Kate, can you take the children back to—”
“Ain’t going to the tent, ain’t going to the tent,” shrieked Mog, clutching Kate as if he would drown and burn all at once if she escaped him.
Kate shook her head. “They can come out with me. I don’t think they’ll stray, under the circumstances, and they know these ruins as well as any of us.”
“That’s true,” said Julian with the ghost of a grin.
“I’ll go with you, then.” Chryse went to stand beside Kate, taking a lantern when Southern’s people returned with them. Two of the laborers, a heavy-set young woman and an older man, joined them.
A number of the laborers were grumbling, unwilling to foray into the night. A few had begun to discuss the prospects of setting out that moment for home when Southern pushed in amongst them and, after a brief exchange, convinced them to return to their tents. Four he set to rebuilding the bonfire, a task which they could only accomplish by digging out the still-dry middle.
“Each group works as a pair,” Sanjay was saying. “Don’t get too far from the other group. And be back in one hour.” He hefted a lantern high in one hand. “Thomas, perhaps it would be best for you to stay here at camp—ah, keep order.” Southern looked up, meeting Sanjay’s eye, and nodded. “And Chryse, could you escort the professor and Miss Farr back to their tents before you go out?”
“No,” said Charity quickly. “I refuse to be alone. We’ll stay here. Please, Uncle,”
“Of course, my dear.” Professor Farr patted her absently on the hand. He moved forward to peer through his spectacles at the damp fire. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “Quite fascinating.”
“We’ll take that direction anyway,” said Chryse.
“And we’ll go that way as well.” Maretha had marshalled a group of three workers. “There’s nothing to fear,” she said in a softer voice to one of the men.
“That’s what Hawthorpe said,” he replied, clearly unconvinced. “He said it were a load of superstitious rot.”
“Well, then, he’s quite level-headed, I would say.” Maretha signalled to Chryse and Kate to lead the way.
“And mayhap dead, too,” mumbled the man to his fellows as they followed her. “My missus told me it were better to leave what’s sleeping lie, and damned if I don’t agree with her now.”
“Shut up,” growled one of the others, but his voice shook.
Ahead, Chryse and Kate forged into the night. Mog clutched Kate’s hand, Pin Chryse’s. Beside them, the two laborers now each held a lantern, high aloft.
“I recollect now,” said the heavy-set woman. “’Bout Daisy. She and Billy were courting these past weeks, but she complained near every night that there weren’t enough privacy. Some warned her it were an ill place for courting, but Daisy had no truck with them as took the old legends as truth. Which isn’t to say she won’t now.”
Chryse fell back to walk beside her, lifting each foot carefully as she picked her way along the tumbled ground. The lanterns shone a faint nimbus around their party; far to one side, two lights like will-o-wisps betrayed Maretha’s group. Otherwise, all was dark, but for the stars brilliant overhead.
“Surely,” began Chryse as they came up to the large tents that housed the earl’s party, “you don’t think they would have gone out alone just to—”
Mog yelped. It was a brief, horrified cry, cut off by Kate’s voice.
“Bloody burning hell. Turn the light away, man. The boy’s seen enough.”
“Kate?”
“You’d best see this, Chryse, but the girl doesn’t need to.”
Pin refused to be detached from Chryse, so the expedient of burying her face in Chryse’s skirts had to suffice.
“Good Lord,” said Chryse under her breath as she came up beside Kate and could see what the diffuse glow of the lantern revealed. She felt bile burning in her throat.
The two chicken coops sat before them, cage doors shut and latched. Inside lay carnage: some wave of destruction, some beast or beasts, had swarmed through, raking and biting and shredding and chewing until little was left of the several dozen chickens brought up two days before from the nearest village. Several were headless, a few ripped quite in half. Feathers lay strewn about, lifting in the breeze and drifting out through the coop mes
Chryse stumbled backwards, wrenching her gaze away. “I feel sick. Oh Lord. The goats. The horses!”
“Blessed Lady,” said Kate softly. “We’d better check the stables.”
Mog began to cry, and Pin, her little pointed face still thrust in amongst Chryse’s skirts, snuffled sympathetically with him.
The stables were a makeshift of heavy canvas roof and rough wooden fencing to contain and stall the horses and other livestock. As they neared, slow and hesitant in their approach, they began to hear the snuffling and shifting of restless animals, disturbed, but not frantic.
“Thank the Lady,” began Kate.
“Help! No, no—” A splintering, like wood cut through with an axe. A startled neighing, followed by the same cry. “Help me!”
“That’s Lucias!” said Chryse. “Lucias!” she shouted.
“Damn.” Kate wrenched Mog’s hand from hers and ran for the stables, Chryse and the workmen at her heels.
The noise from the horses increased, whinnying and stamping. A cow joined the chorus, deep and worried. Goats bleated. A cry from Lucias, a second, splintering crash.
“Lucias! This way!” yelled Kate, reaching one side of the fencing. The canvas roof flapped and rustled in the night wind. In the light of the single lantern, they could see nothing but shapes of darkness within, an occasional animal head illuminated as the workman moved forward.
The cry again, the sound of axe splitting wood.
“He’s moving off the wrong way,” hissed Kate. “Come on.” She charged down the center aisle. “Chryse! Quick! There!”
They came out at the other end of the stables. By some strange trick of the night, the moon had now begun to rise, faint, and faintly ominous. A single thin cloud streaked its curve.
Out on the flats beyond the stables, they saw the two figures: the slender, smaller form of Lucias, stumbling out across the ruins towards a man-high tumble of rocks; behind him a burlier figure, axe in hand.
Kate did not even swear, but ran. Chryse followed, feeling dread swell up in her, knowing that they were too far away.
Lucias stumbled hard, fell to his knees, groped to rise; his pursuer reached him and lifted, all in eerie, silent triumph, the axe for the kill.
The arrows came as silent, but sharply as a scream for their utter unexpectedness. Light streaked them, as if they had been dipped in moonglow. They pinioned the attacker even as his axe stroked down for the kill, hit him hand, shoulder, and throat. He crumpled. The axe fell harmless beside Lucias.
By the time Kate and Chryse reached the youth, he was gasping, half able to speak.
“What the bloody damned whoring hell happened?” Kate’s voice was husky with the suppressed emotion of the night’s strange events.
He let her and Chryse help him to his feet. “I don’t know. I thought—” His voice shook with the effort of articulating. “I just had a notion of checking on the horses, there being something in the air tonight, and then—” His hands trembled in theirs. “I thought I heard Lord Vole calling me, that he wanted to talk to me, so I went to see, and there was a man there, he began to ask me questions. Wanted me to go with him, but I refused. I got fuzzy-feeling, talking to him, and scared, and I ran, and he—” He shuddered, a deep tremor that convulsed his entire body. “He tried to kill me.”
“You’re sure it was a man?” asked Kate.
“Sure as I am one.”
“No one could have shot arrows in this direction without us seeing them,” said the heavyset woman with conviction. “Not on such ground.”
“Lucias.” Chryse tried to keep her voice calm. “Can you think of any reason someone would want to kill you? You were a prisoner—someone who followed us? Someone suspicious who has talked to you? What questions did this man ask you?”
“I don’t remember.” He shrugged. “But I’ve not done a thing, Madame. In the mornings I’ve lessons with Miss Farr, and Mog and Pin, and sure we talk at times, sometimes about that place,” a tremor, quickly stilled, “and about my memory, and Mr. Southern I usually help in the afternoons, or you, or Miss Cathcart, or her ladyship—” He paused. In the dim gleam of the moon, his face took on a wary look, quite at odds with the usual openness of his expression. “The earl. He’s suspicious of me, though I can’t say why.”
“You aren’t possibly suggesting that it was the earl—”
“Madame.” It was the workman. “Look.”
By lantern and moon the flat stretch of ground they stood on lay stark and unbroken by shadow or stone for some distance, The workman hefted an axe—it was one used by the cook’s helpers to chop wood. But it was not the axe that drew their attention.
All else around him was clear—grass and ground and ruins beyond—too far beyond for any, much less a mortally wounded man, to reach in such time as they had stood talking.
Of the three arrows and Lucias’ pursuer there was no sign at all.
“This is impossible,” said Julian to Sanjay as they paused in the lee of a high wall. Stones as broad as a man’s armspan had kept it at such a height despite centuries of nature’s depredations. “We don’t even know what direction that scream came from. Or even if it was a man’s scream, considering what else we’ve encountered tonight.”
“No, look.” Sanjay lifted one hand to sight at a far ridge. “We’ll have moonlight soon enough. I wonder if that will end these—these hauntings.”
“I sincerely hope so.” Julian ran a hand down the rough surface of the stones. “It’s an impressive structure. Nothing like it farther out. I wonder how they built it.”
“Your lordship!” The workman’s low shocked voice came from the other side of the wall. “Monsieur.”
The wall ended in what might have been a gateway some twenty feet from where Julian and Sanjay stood. They hurried around and were brought up short by the sight of the two workmen peering at a huge shivered stone lying in three great pieces at their feet.
“Look how this is fallen,” said one of the men. “See this flower here.” By lantern light he poked with one boot at a half-crushed stem, a few petals peeping out from beneath stone. “This stone weren’t here yesterday.”
“And I were working in this area last week,” said the other. “I didn’t see nothing as overbalanced as this must ha’ been to fall so—we would ha’ marked it, for safety’s sake.”
One of the workmen crossed himself: The other looked at Julian and Sanjay, as if they could explain it.
“Do you suppose—” began Sanjay, crouching to examine the shattered stone.
“Lady!” swore Julian abruptly. “That damned—”
Sanjay looked up. The moonlight was beginning to invest the air with the barest of contrasts, a lightening only perceivable by the appearance of shadows and dim forms. Julian was staring off at some sight to his left.
“There! Do you see—” he grabbed the lantern out of Sanjay’s hand and broke abruptly into a jog, heading for a low mound. “That damned child slipped her keeper. I could have told Kate—”
Sanjay was up and after him. “Julian! What—”
“There—” Julian pointed with his free hand. “What other goblin child have we with us? She went in there, where they’ve been excavating this past week—” He stopped talking as they came to a jumble of rubble, saving his breath to negotiate the scatter of rocks that led to the base of the tiny hill. It rose like a swelling in the midst of a tight group of walls and curving ruins.
“Wait.” Sanjay came to a halt by a heap of grass-grown stones. “Isn’t this—”
A scrape sounded from above, shoe on rock. Julian expelled his breath on a sigh of deep disgust, and climbed.
Sanjay, for a moment, could only stare about himself. “I’m sure this is the centralmost portion of—”
“Sanjay!” Julian’s shout startled him out of his reverie.
Julian stood at the summit of the little mound, lantern held high, peering down. As Sanjay began to climb up to him, he hea
“Hold tight where you are,” Julian was saying. “But how in Heaven’s name did you end up down there?”
Sanjay stopped just in time, finding his boots poised at the edge of a precipice. An abrupt slope, broken and still loose from recent collapse, gaped open before him. It was black as the earl’s eyes below, but for the barest oval paling that revealed itself in the lantern glow as a face staring up at them.
“We was just out for a stroll, my lord,” said a light woman’s voice, taut with concern and relief but not at all wild. “Come up here, an’ it was as if the ground opened up of its own and swallowed Billy. He screamed something awful, he was that surprised—hush, dear, don’t speak—and I climbed down after, careful as I could be, it were so very dark. An’ it looks to both of us as if his leg is broke, so I sat down here to bide with him ’til help might come, shouting out now an’ again, which must be what you heard.”
Sanjay and Julian exchanged glances. Behind, the two workers had reached the base of the mound and now began to clamber up it.
“But you must have a stout heart indeed,” said Julian.
“Whyever for?” she asked, matter-of-fact as only a country girl can be in such wilderness. “Sure, an’ it’s dark, an’ I fancy now an’ again there’s some o’ them pictures her ladyship does like down here, a-staring at me, but—” Her pause was as eloquent as any shrug might have been.
“But surely with all the—the sounds we’ve been hearing—”
“Sounds?” The dim suggestion of her face moved some thirty feet below them. “Just our breathing, my lord, an’ what little talk we had, Billy being in such pain. But we ha’ heard naught else.”
Chapter 17:
The Gate
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” SAID KATE, by this time annoyed with Julian’s insistence. “And I can’t imagine why you would think I would lie to you. They were both with us the whole time. In fact the only time we let go of them was to run after Lucias, and then they were with Mistress Workman—whatever the woman’s name is. They couldn’t have gone so far in so little time and gotten back to us in less.”