Into the Labyrinth

10

Marit had no difficulty navigating Death’s Gate. The journey was far easier, now that the gate was open, than the first terrifying journeys her compatriot, Haplo, had made. The choice of destination flashed before her eyes: the fiery lava cauldrons of the world she had just left, the sapphire and emerald jewel that was the water world of Chelestra, the lush jungles of the sunlit world of Pryan, the floating isles and grand machine of Arianus. And inserted into these, a world of wondrous beauty and peace that was unrecognizable, yet tugged at her heart strangely.

Marit ignored such weak and sentimental yearnings. They made little sense to her, for she had no idea what world this was and she refused to indulge in idle speculation. Her lord—her husband—had told her about the other worlds, and he had not mentioned this one. If Xar had thought it was important, he would have informed her.

Marit selected her destination—Arianus.

In the blinking of an eyelid, her rune-covered ship slid through the opening in Death’s Gate, and she was almost instantly plunged into the violent storms of the Maelstrom.

Lightning cracked around her, thunder boomed, wind buffeted and rain lashed her ship. Marit rode out the storm calmly, watched it with mild curiosity. She knew from having read Haplo’s reports on Arianus what to expect. Soon the storm’s fury would abate, and then she could safely land her ship. Until the storm passed by, she watched and waited. Gradually the lightning strikes grew less violent; the thunder sounded from a distance. The rain still pattered on the ship’s hull, but softly. Marit could begin to see, through the scudding clouds, several floating isles of coralite, arranged like stair-steps.

She knew where she was. Haplo’s description of Arianus, given to her by Xar, was precise in detail. She recognized the islands as the Steps of Terrel Fen. She guided her ship among them and came to the vast floating continent of Drevlin. She landed her ship at the first site available on the shoreline. For though the ship was guarded by rune-magic and would not therefore be visible to any mensch not specifically looking for it, Haplo would see it and know it at once.

According to Sang-drax’s information, Haplo was last known to be in the city that the dwarves on this world called Wombe, on the western side of Drevlin. Marit had no very clear idea where she was, but she assumed by the proximity of the Terrel Fen that she had landed near the continent’s edge, possibly near where Haplo himself had been brought to recover from the injuries sustained on that first visit, when his ship had crashed into the Terrel Fen.[14]

Looking out the ship’s porthole, Marit could see what she presumed was part of the wondrous machine known as the Kicksey-winsey. She found it amazing. Haplo’s description and her lord’s further explanation had not prepared her for anything like this.

Built by the Sartan to provide water to Arianus and energy to the other three worlds, the Kicksey-winsey was an unwieldy monstrosity that sprawled across a continent. Of fantastic shape and design, the immense machine was made of silver and gold, brass and steel. Its various parts were formed in the shape of either human or animal body parts. These metal arms and legs, talons and claws, ears and eyeballs might once, long ago, have formed recognizable wholes. But the machine—having run on its own for centuries—had completely distorted them in nightmarish fashion.

Steam escaped from screaming human mouths. Gigantic bird talons dug up the coralite; tigerish fangs chewed up hunks of ground and spit it out. At least that’s what would have been happening if the machine had been operating. As it was, the Kicksey-winsey had come to a complete and mysterious halt. The reason for the halt—the opening of Death’s Gate—had been discovered;[15] the dwarves now possessed the means to turn the great machine back on.

At any rate, that’s what Sang-drax had reported. It was up to Marit to find out the truth.

She scanned the horizon, which seemed littered with body parts. She was no longer interested in the machine, but watched to see if anyone had noticed her ship landing. The runes would invoke the possibility that anyone not specifically searching for a ship would not see it, thus rendering the ship practically invisible. But there was always the chance, minute though it might be, that some mensch staring at this one particular patch of ground could see her ship. They couldn’t damage it; the runes would see to that. But an army of mensch crawling around her ship would be a distinct nuisance, to say nothing of the fact that word might get back to Haplo.

But no army of dwarves came surging out over the rain-swept landscape. Another storm was darkening the horizon. Already much of the machine was lost in sullen, lightning-charged clouds. Marit knew from Haplo’s early experience that the dwarves would not venture out into the storm. Satisfied that she was safe, she changed her clothes, putting on the Sartan clothing she had brought with her from Abarrach.

“How do those women stand this?” Marit muttered.

It was the first time she’d worn a dress,[16] and she found the long skirts and tight bodice confining, clumsy, and bulky. She frowned down at it. The Sartan fabric was scratchy against her skin. Though she told herself it was all in her mind, she felt extremely uncomfortable, suddenly, wearing the clothes of an enemy. A dead enemy at that. She decided to take the dress off.

Marit stopped herself. She was being foolish, behaving illogically. Her lord—her husband—would not be pleased. Studying her reflection in the porthole glass, Marit was forced to admit that the dress was perfect camouflage. She looked exactly like one of the mensch, whose pictures she’d seen in her lord’s—her husband’s—books. Not even Haplo, should he chance to see her, would know her.

“Not that he’d likely know me anyway,” she said to herself, walking around the ship’s cabin, trying to get used to the long skirts, which kept tripping her until she learned to take small steps. “We’ve each passed through too many gates since that time.”

She sighed as she said it, and the sigh alarmed her. Pausing, she stopped to consider her feelings, examine them for any weakness, much as she would examine her weapons before going into battle. That time. The time they’d been together...

The day had been long and arduous. Marit had spent it battling—not a monster of the Labyrinth, but a piece of the Labyrinth itself. It had seemed as if the very ground were possessed by the same evil magic that ruled the prison-world on which the Patryns had been cast. Her destination—the next gate—lay on the other side of a razor-back ridge. She had seen the gate from the top of the tree where she’d spent the night, but she couldn’t reach it. The ridge was smooth rock on the side she needed to climb, ice-smooth rock that was nearly impossible to scale. Nearly impossible, but not absolutely. Nothing in the Labyrinth was ever absolutely impossible. Everything in the Labyrinth offered hope—teasing hope, mocking hope. One more day and you will reach your goal. One more battle and you can rest in safety. Fight on. Climb on. Walk on. Keep running. And this ridge was like that. Smooth rock, yet broken by tiny fissures that provided a way up, if raw and bleeding fingers could be forced inside. And just when she was about to pull herself over the top, her foot would slip—or had the crack in which she’d dug her toe deliberately closed? When did the hard surface beneath her foot change suddenly to gravel? Was it sweat that caused her hand to slip or did that strange wetness bleed from the rock itself?

Down she slithered, cursing and grasping at plants to try to stop her fall, plants that jabbed hidden thorns into her palms or that came uprooted easily in her grasp and fell down with her.

She spent a full day in attempting to negotiate the ridge, ranging up and down it in an effort to find a pass. Her search proved futile. Night was nearing and she was no closer to her goal than she had been that morning. Her body ached; the skin of her palms and feet (she had removed her boots to try to scale the rock) was cut and bleeding. She was hungry and had no food, for she had spent the day climbing, not hunting.

A stream ran at the base of the ridge. Marit bathed her feet and hands in the cool water, watched for fish to catch for dinner. She saw several, but suddenly the effort needed to catch them eluded her. She was tired, far more tired than she should have been, and she knew it was the weariness of despair—a weariness that could be deadly in the Labyrinth.

It meant you didn’t care anymore. It meant you found a quiet place and lay down and died.

Dabbling her hand in the water, unable to feel the pain anymore, unable to feel anything now, she wondered why she should bother. What use? If I cross this ridge, there will only be another. Higher, more difficult. She watched the blood trail out of the cuts on her hands, watched it flow into the clear water, swirl down the stream. In her dazed mind, she saw her blood sparkle on the water’s surface, form a trail that led to a jog in the stream bank. Lifting her gaze, she saw the cave.

It was small, set into the embankment. She could crawl in there and nothing could find her. She could crawl into its darkness and sleep. Sleep as long as she wanted. Forever, maybe.

Marit plunged into the water, waded the stream. Reaching the other side, she crept into the shallows near the bank, advanced slowly, keeping to the cover of trees that lined the stream. Caves in the Labyrinth were rarely unoccupied. But a glance at her rune-tattooed skin showed her that if there was anything inside, it wasn’t particularly large or threatening. Likely she could make short work of it, especially if she surprised it. Or maybe, just once in her life, she would be lucky. Maybe the cave would be empty. Nearing it, not seeing or hearing anything, her sigla giving no indication of danger, Marit sprang out of the water and hurriedly covered the short distance to the entrance. She did draw her knife—her one concession to danger—but that was more out of instinct than because she feared attack. She had convinced herself that this cave was empty, that it was hers.

And so she was extremely startled to find a man sitting comfortably inside. At first Marit didn’t see him. Her eyes were dazzled by the setting sun slanting off the water. The cave’s interior was dark and the man sat very quietly. But she knew he was there by his scent and, in the next moment, his voice. “Just hold right there, in the light,” he said, and his voice was quiet and calm.

Of course he was calm. He’d watched her coming. He’d had time to prepare. She cursed herself, but she cursed him more.

“The hell with the light!” She bounded inside, heading for the sound of his voice, blinking rapidly to try to see him. “Get out! Get out of my cave!” She was inviting death at his hands and she knew it. Perhaps she wanted it. He had warned her to stay in the light for a reason. The Labyrinth occasionally sent its own deadly copies of Patryns against them—boggleboes, as they were known. They were exactly like Patryns in all respects, except that the sigla on their skin were all backward, as if one were looking at one’s reflection in a lake. He was on his feet in an instant. She could see him now and was impressed, in spite of herself, with the ease and quickness of his movement. He could have killed her—she was armed and had sprung right at him—but he didn’t.

“Get out!” She stamped her foot and gestured with her knife.

“No,” he said and sat back down.

She had apparently interrupted him in a project of some sort, for he took hold of something in his hands—she couldn’t see what because of the shadows and the sudden tears stinging her eyes—and began working at it.

“But I want to die,” she told him, “and you’re in the way.” He glanced up, coolly nodded. “What you need is food. You probably haven’t eaten all day, have you? Take what you want. There’s fresh fish, berries.” She shook her head. She was still standing, the knife in her hand.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged. “You’ve been trying to scale the ridge?” He must have seen the cuts on her hand. “Me, too,” he continued on his own. She gave him no encouragement. “For a week. I was just sitting here thinking, when I heard you coming, that two people might be able to do it together. If they had a rope.”

He held up the thing in his hands. That was what he was doing, braiding a rope.

Marit flung herself down on the floor. Reaching for the fish, she grabbed a hunk and began to eat hungrily.

“How many gates?” he asked, deftly twisting the vines together.

“Eighteen,” she said, watching his hands.

He glanced up, frowning.

“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s true,” she said defensively.

“I’m just surprised you’ve lived that long,” he said. “Considering how careless you are. I heard you coming all the way up the stream.”

“I was tired,” she said crossly. “And I didn’t really care. You can’t be much older. So don’t talk like a headman.”[17]

“That’s dangerous,” he said quietly. Everything he did was quiet. His voice was quiet; his movements were quiet.

“What is?”

“Not caring.”

He looked up at her. Her blood tingled.

“Caring’s more dangerous,” she said. “It makes you do stupid things. Like not killing me. You couldn’t have known I wasn’t a boggleboe, not with just that single quick glimpse.”

“You ever fought a boggleboe?” he asked.

“No,” she admitted.

He smiled, a quiet smile. “A boggleboe doesn’t usually commence an attack by bounding in and demanding that I get out of its cave.” She couldn’t help herself. She laughed. She was beginning to feel better. It must have been the food.

“You’re a Runner,” he said.

“Yes. I left my camp when I was twelve. So I really do have more sense than I showed just now,” she said, flushing. “I wasn’t thinking right.” Her voice softened. “You know how it gets sometimes.”

He nodded, kept working. His hands were strong and deft. She edged nearer.

“Two people could make it across that ridge. I am called Marit.” She drew back her leather vest, revealed the heart-rune tattooed on her breast—a sign of trust.

He set down the rope. Drawing back his own leather vest, he showed his heart-rune. “I’m Haplo.”

“Let me help,” she offered.

Lifting a huge tangle of vines, she began sorting them out so that he could twine them into rope. As they worked, they talked. Their hands touched often. And soon, of course, it was necessary that she sit very close beside him so that he could teach her how to braid the rope correctly. And soon after that, they shoved the rope to the back end of the cave, to get it out of their way...

Marit forced herself to relive the night, was pleased to feel no unwelcome emotions, no warmed-over, leftover attraction. The only touch that could send fire through her now was her lord’s touch. She wasn’t surprised that this should be so. After all, there had been other caves, other nights, other men. None quite like Haplo, perhaps, but then even Xar had acknowledged that Haplo was different from other men.

It would be interesting to see Haplo again. Interesting to see how he had changed.

Marit deemed herself ready to proceed. She had learned how to maneuver in the long skirts, though she didn’t like them and wondered how a woman, even a mensch, could permit herself to be permanently encumbered in such a manner. Another storm broke over Drevlin. Marit paid little attention to the slashing rain, the tumbling thunder. She would not have to venture out in it. Magic would take her to her destination. Magic would take her to Haplo. She had only to be careful that the magic didn’t take her too near.[18] Marit pulled on a long cloak, covered her head with the hood. She cast one final glance at herself. She was satisfied. Haplo certainly wouldn’t recognize her. As for the mensch... Marit shrugged.

Having never before met a human—or any other mensch—she had, as do most Patryns, little respect for them. She looked like one of them, she planned on blending in with them, and figured that they would never notice the difference.

It did not occur to her to think that dwarves might question the sudden appearance of a human female in their midst. To her the mensch were all alike. What was one more rat in the pack?

Marit began to trace the sigla in the air, spoke them, watched them catch fire and burn. When the circle was complete, she walked through it and disappeared.