Into the Labyrinth

31

Aleatha flounced through the gate leading into the maze. Her skirt caught on a bramble. Swearing, she tore it loose, taking a certain grim satisfaction in hearing the fabric rip. So what if her clothes were in shreds? What did it matter? She would never get to go anywhere, never get to do anything with anybody of interest ever again....

Angry and miserable, she curled up on the marble bench, giving herself up to the luxury of self-pity. Outside the maze, through the hedgerows, she could hear the other three continuing to bicker. Roland asked if they shouldn’t go in after Aleatha. Paithan said no, leave her alone, she wouldn’t go far and what could happen to her anyway?

“Nothing,” said Aleatha drearily. “Nothing will happen. Ever again.” Eventually their voices faded away; their footsteps trailed off. She was alone.

“I might as well be in prison,” she said, looking at her surroundings, the green walls of the hedges with their unnaturally sharp angles and lines, strict and confining. “Except prison would be better than this. Every prisoner has some chance of escape, and I have none. Nowhere to go but this same place. No one to see except these same people. On and on and on ... through the years. Wearing away at each other until we’re all stark, raving mad.” She flung herself down on the bench and began to cry bitterly. What did it matter if her eyes turned red, her nose dripped? What did it matter who saw her like that? No one cared for her. No one loved her. They all hated her. She hated them. And she hated that horrid Lord Xar. There was something frightening about him...

“Don’t do that, now,” came a gruff voice. “You will make yourself sick.” Aleatha sat up swiftly, blinking back her tears and fumbling for what remained of her handkerchief, which—from being put to various uses—was now little more than a ragged scrap of lace. Not finding it, she wiped her eyes with the hem of her shawl.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

Drugar stood over her, gazing down at her with his black-browed frown. But his voice was kind and almost shyly tender. Aleatha recognized admiration when she saw it, and though it came from the dwarf, she felt comforted.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said hurriedly, realizing her previous words hadn’t been exactly gracious. “In fact, I’m glad it’s you. And not any of the others. You’re the only one with any sense. The rest are fools! Here, sit down.”

She made room for the dwarf on the bench.

Drugar hesitated. He rarely sat in the presence of the taller humans and the elves. When he sat on furniture made for them, his legs were too short to permit his feet to touch the ground; he was left with his limbs dangling in what was to him an undignified and childlike manner. He could see in their eyes—or at least he presumed he could see—that they tended to think less of him as a result.

But he never felt that way around Aleatha. She smiled at him—when she was in a good humor, of course—and listened to him with respectful attention, appeared to admire what he did and said.

Truth to tell, Aleatha reacted to Drugar as she reacted to any man—she flirted with him. The flirtation was innocent, even unconscious. Making men love her was the only way she knew to relate to them. And she had no way at all to relate to other women. She knew Rega wanted to be friends, and deep inside, Aleatha thought it might be nice to have another woman to talk to, laugh with, share hopes and fears with. But early on in her life, Aleatha had understood that her older sister, Gallie, unlovely and undesirable, had hated Aleatha for her beauty, at the same time loving her all the more fiercely. Aleatha had come to assume that other women felt the same as Gallie—and admittedly most did. Aleatha flaunted her beauty, threw it into Rega’s face like a glove, made of it a challenge. Secretly believing herself inferior to Rega, knowing she wasn’t as intelligent, as winning, as likable as Rega, Aleatha used her beauty as a foil to force the other woman to keep her distance.

As for men, Aleatha knew that once they discovered she was ugly inside, they’d leave her. And so she made a practice of leaving them first, except that now there was nowhere to go. Which meant that sooner or later, Roland would find out, and instead of loving her, he’d hate her. If he didn’t hate her already. Not that she cared what he thought of her.

Her eyes filled with tears again. She was alone, so desperately alone... Drugar cleared his throat. He had perched on the edge of the bench, his toes just touching the ground. His heart ached for her sorrow; he understood her unhappiness and her fear. In a strange way, the two of them were alike—physical differences keeping them apart from the others. In their eyes, he was short and ugly. In their eyes, she was beautiful. He reached out, awkwardly patted her on the shoulder. To his amazement, she nestled against him, resting her head on his broad chest, sobbing into his thick black beard. Drugar’s aching heart almost burst with love. He understood, though, that she was a child inside, a lost and frightened child, turning to him for comfort—nothing more. He gazed down at the blond, silken tresses, mingling with his own coarse black hair, and he had to close his own eyes to fight back the burn of tears. He held her gently until her sobs quieted; then, to spare them both embarrassment, he spoke swiftly.

“Would you like to see what I have discovered? In the center of the maze.” Aleatha raised her head, her face flushed. “Yes. I’d like that. Anything is better than doing nothing at all.” She stood up, smoothing her dress and wiping her tears from her cheeks.

“You won’t tell the others?” Drugar asked.

“No, of course not. Why should I?” Aleatha said haughtily. “They have secrets from me—Paithan and Rega. I know they do. This will be our secret—yours and mine.” She extended her hand.

By the One Dwarf, he loved her! Drugar took her hand. Small as his was, hers fit well inside it. He led her by the hand down the maze path until it grew too narrow for them to walk together. Releasing her, he admonished her to stay close behind him, lest she get lost in the myriad turns and twists of the maze.

His injunction was needless. The hedges were tall and overgrown, often forming a green roof that blotted out all sight of the sky or anything around them. Inside it was greenly dark and cool and very, very quiet.

At the beginning of their journey into the maze, Aleatha tried to keep track of where she was going—two right turns, a left, another right, another left, then two more lefts, a complete circle around a statue of a fish. But after that she was confused and hopelessly lost. She kept so near the dwarf she nearly tripped him up, her long skirts constantly getting under his heels, her hand plucking at his sleeve.

“How do you know where you’re going?” she asked nervously. He shrugged. “My people have lived all their lives in tunnels. Unlike you, we are not easily confused once we cannot see the sun or the sky. Besides, there is a pattern. It is based on mathematics. I can explain it,” he offered.

“Don’t bother. If I didn’t have ten fingers I couldn’t count that high. Is the center much farther?” Aleatha had never been strongly attracted to physical exertion.

“Not far,” Drugar growled. “And there is a place to rest when we get there.” Aleatha sighed. This had all started out to be exciting. It was eerie inside the hedges and fun to pretend that she might be lost, all the time enjoying the comforting knowledge that she wasn’t. But now she was growing bored. Her feet were beginning to hurt.

And they still had to go all the way back.

Tired and ill-tempered, she now eyed Drugar suspiciously. He had, after all, tried to kill them all once. What if he was bringing her down here for some nefarious purpose? Far away from the others. No one would hear her scream. She paused, glanced behind, half-toying with the idea of turning around and going back.

Her heart sank. She had no idea which way to turn. Had it been to the right?

Or maybe they hadn’t turned at all, but taken the path in the middle... Drugar came to a halt so suddenly that Aleatha, still looking behind, stumbled into him.

“I’m... I’m sorry,” she said, steadying herself with her hands on his shoulders and then snatching her hands away hurriedly.

He looked up at her, his face darkening. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, hearing the strain in her voice. “We are here.” He waved his hand. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

Aleatha looked around. The maze had ended. Rows of marble benches, set in a circle, surrounded a mosaic of variously colored stones arranged in a starburst. In the center were more of those strange symbols like those on the pendant the dwarf wore around his neck. Above them was open sky, and from where she stood Aleatha could see the top of the citadel’s center spire. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least now she had some idea of where she was—the amphitheater. Though her knowledge wasn’t likely to help her much in getting out of this place.

“Very pretty,” she said, looking back at the starburst in the multicolored tile, thinking she should say something to keep the dwarf happy. She would have liked to rest; there was a calm, pleasant feeling to this place that urged her to linger. But the silence made her nervous—that and the dwarf staring at her with his shadowed, dark eyes.

“Well, this has been fun. Thank you for—”

“Sit down,” said Drugar, gesturing to a bench. “Wait. You have not yet seen what I wanted you to see.”

“I’d love to, really, but I think we should be getting back. Paithan will be worried—”

“Sit down, please,” Drugar repeated and his brows came together in a frown. He glanced up at the citadel’s spire. “You will not have to wait long.” Aleatha tapped her foot. As usual when her will was thwarted, she was starting to get angry. She fixed the dwarf with a stern and imperious gaze that never failed to cut any man down to size, only this time it lost some of its effectiveness as it slanted down her nose instead of flashing upward from chilling eyes. And it was completely lost on Drugar anyway. The dwarf had turned his back on her and walked over to a bench, Aleatha gave a final hopeless glance down the path and, sighing again, followed Drugar. Plopping herself down near him, she fidgeted, looked back at the spire, sighed loudly, shuffled her feet, and gave every indication that she was not amused, hoping he’d take the hint.

He didn’t. He sat, stolid and silent, staring into the center of the empty starburst.

Aleatha was about ready to try her luck in the maze. Getting lost in there wouldn’t be nearly as bad as being bored to death out here. Suddenly the light from the Star Chamber, on the top of the citadel, began to glow. The strange humming sound began.

A shaft of strong white light slanted down from the citadel’s tower, struck the starburst mosaic.

Aleatha gasped, rose from the bench, would have backed up except that the bench was behind her. As it was, she nearly fell. The dwarf reached out a hand, caught hold of her.

“Don’t be afraid.”

“People!” Aleatha cried, staring. “There are... people there!” The stage of the amphitheater, which had been empty, was now suddenly crowded with people. Or rather, with wisps of people. They weren’t whole, flesh and blood as she and Drugar were. They were transparent shadows. She could see through them—to the other seats in the theater, to the hedgerow of the maze beyond.

Her knees weakening, she sat back down on the bench and watched the people. They stood in groups, talking earnestly, walking slowly, moving from group to group, coming into her view and then passing out of it as they stepped into and then out of the shaft of light.

People. Other people. Humans, elves, dwarves—standing together, talking together, apparently companionably, with the exception of one or two groups who seemed—by their gestures and posture—to be disagreeing about something. Groups of people gathered for only one purpose, so far as Aleatha was concerned.

“It’s a party!” she cried joyfully and leapt up from her seat to join them.

“No! Wait! Stop! Don’t go near the light!” Drugar had been viewing the scene with reverent awe. Shocked, he attempted to catch Aleatha as she darted past. He missed his hold, and she was suddenly in the center of the crowd. She might as well have been standing in a thick fog.

The people flowed around her, flowed through her. She could see them talking, but couldn’t hear them. She was standing near them, but couldn’t touch them. Their eyes bright, they looked at each other, never at her.

“Please! I’m here!” she pleaded in frustration, reaching out eager hands.

“What are you doing? Come out of there!” Drugar commanded. “It is a holy place!”

“Yes!” she cried, ignoring the dwarf, talking to the shadows. “I hear you! Can’t you hear me? I’m right in front of you!”

No one answered.

“Why can’t they see me? Why won’t they talk to me?” Aleatha demanded, facing the dwarf.

“They are not real, that is why,” Drugar said dourly. Aleatha looked back. The fog-people slid past her, over her, around her. And suddenly the light went out, and they were gone.

“Oh!” Aleatha gasped, disappointed. “Where are they? Where did they go?”

“When the light goes, they go.”

“Will they come back when the light comes back?”

Drugar shrugged. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But generally, this time in the afternoon, I find them here.”

Aleatha sighed. She felt more alone than ever now.

“You said they aren’t real. What do you think they are?”

“Shadows of the past, maybe. Of those who used to live here.” Drugar stared into the starburst. He stroked his beard, his expression sad. “A trick of the magic of this place.”

“You saw your people there,” said Aleatha, guessing what he was thinking.

“Shadows,” he said again, his voice gruff. “My people are gone. Destroyed by the tytans. I am all that is left. And when I die, the dwarves will be no more.”

Aleatha looked back around the floor of the amphitheater, now empty, so very empty.

“No, Drugar,” she said suddenly. “You’re wrong.”

“What do you mean, I am wrong?” Drugar glowered. “What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” Aleatha admitted. “But I think one of them heard me when I spoke.” Drugar snorted. “You imagined it. Don’t you think I have tried?” he demanded grimly. His face was haggard and ravaged by sorrow. “To see my people! To see them talking and laughing. I can almost understand what they say. I can almost hear the language of my homeland once again.”

His eyes squeezed shut. He turned away from her abruptly, stalked back among the seats of the amphitheater.

Aleatha watched him go. “What a selfish beast I’ve been,” she said to herself.

“At least I have Paithan. And Roland, though he doesn’t count for much. And Rega’s not a bad sort. The dwarf has no one. Not even us. We’ve done our best to freeze him out. He’s come here—to shadows—for comfort.

“Drugar,” she said aloud. “Listen to me. When I was standing in the starburst, I said, ‘I’m right in front of you!’ And then, I saw one of the elves turn and look in my direction. His mouth moved and I swear he was saying, ‘What?’ I spoke again and he looked confused and glanced all around, as if he could hear me but couldn’t see me. I know it, Drugar!”

He cocked his head, looking back at her dubiously but obviously wanting to believe. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” she lied. She laughed gaily, excited. “How could I stand in a group of men and not be noticed?”

“I don’t believe it.” The dwarf was glum again. He eyed her suspiciously, mistrusting her laughter.

“Don’t be mad, Drugar. I was only teasing. You looked ... so sad.” Aleatha walked over to him. Reaching out, she touched the dwarf’s hand with her own.

“Thank you for bringing me. I think it’s wonderful. I... I want to come back with you again. Tomorrow. When the light shines.”

“You do?” He was pleased. “Very well. We will come. But you will say nothing to the others.”

“No, not a word,” Aleatha promised.

“Now we should be getting back,” Drugar said. “The others will be worried about you.”

Aleatha heard the bitter emphasis on the last word. “Drugar, what would it mean if those people are real? Would it mean that we aren’t alone, as we think?”

The dwarf stared back at the empty starburst. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I do not know.”