Labyrinth Gate (28 page)

“It’s late enough that we can safely call off work for today.” Maretha pitched her voice to carry to everyone left in the hollow. “Be assured that there will be no digging for the time being below this floor level. You may go.”

The workers dispersed quickly.

“Do you know what strikes me,” said Sanjay into the lull.

Kate stood one step down into the stairwell, poking at the debris with a crowbar. “Hell. Give me a shovel and I’ll dig it out. I’d wager my fortune that our treasure is buried somewhere down here.”

“Good winnings for someone,” said Julian drily. “What strikes you, Sanjay?”

“I don’t know much about the science of digging,” he replied, “but
I’d
wager that there’s only one layer to this city—that it was never built up over an older city, and that over an older one yet again, as you’d find in, say—” he paused.

“Heffield?”

“How much would you wager?” asked Kate. “If we don’t find this treasure soon I won’t have a penny left to my name.”

Sanjay chuckled. “I’m hardly the one to wager with.”

“Father!” Maretha’s exclamation interrupted them. She stepped down from the platform to meet the professor, who was peering through his spectacles at the dim outline of frescos on one of the excavated walls.

“Arguments. Arguments,” he muttered as he stared at the wall. “Don’t understand ’em.”

“How is Charity, Father?”

“Incredible.” He moved closer to the pictures, until his nose practically touched the wall. “Just as I predicted.”

By now the others had come up beside them. The fresco was faded and worn; all that could be discerned was a kind of bed or flat couch on which a figure, probably female, lay reclined, a second figure leaning over the first, arms stretched over the female’s chest or shoulders, hands rubbed away until they were little more than a suggestion about her neck.

“Now where was that other fresco?” The professor wandered along the wall, Maretha hurrying after. “Bad day,” he mumbled as he walked and peered. “Bad day tomorrow.”

“I know what was so strange,” said Chryse abruptly to her audience of three, watching Maretha and the professor walk away from them. “He was
baiting
her.”

Kate nodded with swift understanding. “You’re right.”

“Am I simply obtuse,” asked Julian, “or—”

“Obtuse,” said Kate. “The earl. He baited Maretha, back there. He said that bit about the workers resisting him just to get a reaction from her. Interesting.”

“What do you suppose he means, ‘bad day,’” asked Sanjay.

Julian looked thoughtful, staring at the fresco. “Haven’t you noticed the weather? It should be the heat of the summer coming on. The last day of the month is—I can’t remember what the holiday was called anciently—”

“Hunter’s Run,” said Kate. “Remember your cards.”

“Of course. First day of the season—dove and such. Usually I take my dogs out, dry run for October, you know, when the really good hunting starts. Isn’t much of a holiday anymore. I suppose the church couldn’t find a holy day to merge with it.”

“And tomorrow is the last day of the month, isn’t it?” asked Chryse.

“Maybe he was referring to something else.” Sanjay reached out to touch a fresco farther down the wall. A few faint lines showed the forequarters of, perhaps, a stag—in any case, some antlered beast.

“I hope so,” said Kate. “At least it isn’t too hot for digging.”

T
HAT NIGHT THE WIND
rose. The noise of it filled the distant forest and scattered ruins until it drowned out the other senses, like the constant rushing of falls to a blind man. The canvas of the tents flapped and shuddered until Chryse, huddling against Sanjay in their bed, felt impelled to wake him so that he could reassure her. Half asleep, he managed to enfold her tightly enough in his arms that she could sleep.

When he woke completely, the wind had ceased and the bed was empty beside him. He slipped on a pair of trousers and a shirt and stepped outside. It was just dawn. The haze of light that heralds sunrise was brightening to day. He saw her figure silhouetted against a dark height, edged in silver by the rising sun. He climbed up to stand beside her. She had put on her kid boots, but only a robe over her nightshirt.

“Do you hear them?” she asked without looking at him, then lapsed into a silence so intent that he did not reply.

“There,” she said again. And listened. “There.”

Like a sound blown so far on the breeze that the current of wind itself had shredded it almost beyond substance, he heard the belling of hounds.

“Horns,” she said. “And that melody. How perfectly the harmony complements it.” She stood rapt. He could not break her quiet to tell her that he heard nothing now, certainly not music. “Lord, it’s beautiful,” she breathed. He took her hand. A tear slid down her cheek, and as he watched it, he saw out of the corner of his eye a movement far beyond, in the distant forest.

He snapped his head to look, but it was gone, no more than the suggestion of some antlered beast, perhaps, bounding away through the distant trees.

And then, sudden and clear, the voice of hounds, belling and barking. He shuddered at their tone, for it was a killing run, with death as its goal. Chryse started suddenly, her hand convulsing in his, and she took a step back.

“Someone is hunting over there. The music is gone.”

From below, a shout carried up to them.

“Oh Christ, I’m still in my robe,” said Chryse.

“Fire!” cried Sanjay. “Look!” A haze of smoke, like an echo of the lightening horizon, swelled up from the center of the ruins.

They ran down to the cluster of tents. Thomas Southern was talking to Maretha, who also had had time only to put on a robe over her nightshift. Julian emerged from his tent, bleary-eyed and, though fully dressed, a bit rumpled. He shook his head as Sanjay and Chryse came up beside him, and they hurried over to Southern and Maretha.

“—we don’t know how the fire got started,” Southern was saying, “but it’s spreading in this direction. I have every hand digging trenches to protect our camp. I’ll send a group down here as well, though it appears to me that you’ll be well out of it. And we’re missing that—” he paused on an aspirative, as if he had been about to swear and caught himself “—that fool Hawthorpe. Evidently he got drunk with some of his mates last night and boasted that he could swim across the lake to the north shore. Hasn’t been seen since.”

“Is anyone else missing?” asked Maretha.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had time to take a count, but—”

“Bloody hell.” Kate’s voice cut into their conversation. She ran up to them, fully dressed, from the direction of the stables. “He’s gone again.”

“Not—”

“Yes. Lucias. He’s early up to the stables in the mornings, so I’ve taken to trailing him, not trusting to luck like last time, in case that murder attempt wasn’t a fluke.” She lifted a hand to tug her cravat back into position. Dirt smeared her fingers, as if she had been digging. “And now he’s disappeared.”

“Again,” said Sanjay.

“We are not,” said Maretha decisively, “sending any search parties across the lake.”

“Lady bless us.” Charity had appeared at the entrance to her tent, looking bemused and quite lovely in her robe, which was belted so loosely about her that one could not make out even the barest outlines of her figure.

“Prim of her,” muttered Kate. She grinned as Chryse looked self-consciously down at the revealing fit of her own robe.

There was a rush of energy about Charity’s skirts, and Mog and Pin came charging out of the tent.

“Fire! Fire!” shrieked Pin, while Mog simply bellowed like an ogre.

“Back!” Julian lifted a hand. The children halted stock still. “Into the tent,” he ordered, “and stay there.” Meek as worshippers, they went.

“What about Lucias?” asked Kate.

“Send what men you can spare to dig trenches around this camp,” said Maretha to Southern, “the rest of us will have to look for the boy. But I—” She directed a challenging look at the men present. “—am going to change first.”

“Yes,” agreed Chryse.

They returned in short order. By this time Professor Farr had come out of his tent, pen in one hand, journal in the other. “Maretha? Are we starting so early today?” He did not seem to notice the pall of smoke that rose behind them.

“Nothing important, Father. Why don’t you finish what you’re writing and then Charity will bring you breakfast.” He nodded and retreated back to his tent. Southern had already left.

“I would suggest we investigate the fire first,” said Sanjay, “and then split into search groups. Is the earl—”

“No.” Maretha’s voice was shadowed by an emotion that her face disguised. “He’s gone, too.”

Without further comment they set out for the other camp. Soon enough the first drift of smoke began to permeate the air as they walked. It grew heavier, and by the time they reached the other camp the smoke had gathered so thickly that it had begun to obscure the sun. A line of workers labored on a deep trench; like ghosts, they flickered in and out of view as the breeze shifted. All wore shirts tied about their noses and mouths.

Thomas Southern approached them, lowering a dirty white cloth from his face. His skin was red, mottled by heat, and soot dappled the hollows of his eyes. “If you’re going out there, I’d advise covering your face with wet cloth. The worst of it is northwards, but there’s a front burning down this way, and another headed straight for the center.”

“Any sign of Lucias?” asked Kate.

He shook his head, called a worker over, and sent him off to get handkerchiefs for Maretha and the others. Julian, with an expressive grimace, retrieved his own monogrammed handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and refused the one offered him by Southern.

“Let’s walk towards the center,” suggested Maretha.

“You had best be careful, my lady,” said Southern. “It’s a fierce blaze, though it’s mostly burning east and north now.”

“I have to find my husband,” Maretha murmured. She set off so quickly that the others had no choice but to follow. The smoke lightened as they headed west from the laborer’s camp, but as the path wound north, heading for the central excavation, a trick of the breeze brought the sound of fire to them.

“I don’t like this,” said Sanjay. “I suggest we head back.”

“We can go up,” said Maretha. “At the Evening Palace we’ll have a clear view.”

They agreed, but by the time they negotiated the switchback trail that led up to the western ridge and its half-excavated edifice, they were all as hot and sweaty as if they had been fighting the fire. The panorama was spectacular: fire raced and burned below, blanketing half the valley, licking and racing and smoldering across stone and grass alike. Smoke hid the reaches of the forest beyond the northern river and lake; to the south a thin layer of ash hung lazily in the air. Even at this height, the light of the rising sun was dimmed.

“Look!” cried Maretha, pointing down.

At the closer camp, the earl’s, a single line of workers could be seen digging. Farther east, mostly obscured by smoke, three longer lines labored to save the larger camp.

There were five of them on the height: each saw something different, as clear across the distance as if their sight was telescoped.

The earl stood on the central platform in the shadow of the central pillar in the very heart of the dig. As Maretha watched, a wave of flame circled the excavated area and flowed along the bare dirt towards him. Perhaps she cried out—she was not sure later—but the fire arced and leaped as if it were alive, and washed forward to engulf her husband. And he laughed, truly laughed, as if its presence brought him joy rather than destruction. A sudden faintness as strong as any wind-whipped blaze drained her until she could barely stand, had to catch at a waist-high wall, as her knees buckled and she fell forward onto them. Far below, the earl blazed like a star might, thrown to earth, as beautiful and as deadly.

Julian had turned to look west at Maretha’s comment, and he saw, running away into the height above the Evening Palace, a snout-faced, whiskered child, a little cap askew on its head. “Pin! Damn it.” He split away from the others and climbed after the retreating figure.

The first moment Chryse thought they were instruments; the second she realized that she was seeing figures in or of the flames themselves, and that they were indeed using musical instruments, playing music atonal and wild. As the fire roared and spread, more liquid figures joined the flickering orchestra until, with a spitting crescendo, the entire vision vanished and she saw only flame again.

Smoke shivered Sanjay’s view of the forest, like mist sunk in trees. He saw the hounds first, in a pack as they ran along the river and disappeared into the forest again. Mounted riders followed on brilliantly arrayed horses; their faces were unclear in the smoke, their clothing unlike any he had ever seen, supple and golden. Of their quarry he saw no sign: only, solitary and small at the tail end of the hunt, a single man who seemed to be naked, running at a tireless pace, spear hefted and ready in one hand.

Kate saw Lucias. Hands bound, he was being driven by a man she did not recognize at this distance toward the eastern end of the valley, into the very center of the maelstrom. Their trail led into such thick billowing clouds of smoke that she was amazed she could see him at all. Then he and his captor vanished into the gloom.

“Come on,” she cried, grabbing the nearest person, who happened to be Chryse. “We’ve got to save Lucias.”

“Lucias?” Chryse hesitated, still bemused.

“Where?” asked Sanjay, quicker to register the comment.

“In trouble. If we run—” She faltered. “Lady,” she swore, paling. “How could I have seen him? He must be over two miles away. We’ll never reach him in time.”

“Point me where,” said Chryse with a sudden burst of decision. “Sanjay, your cards. Which one—”

“I know,” said Sanjay. “Kate, you’ll have to help us. Maretha. Where’s Julian?”

Maretha had recovered enough to hide her weakness, and in any case the faintness was ebbing now. She could no longer make out anything but flame and smoke where she had seen her husband. “I don’t know. What do we do?”