The Dragonstone (45 page)

Arin nodded. “These canyons, this labyrinth, how extensive are they?”

“Your measure is the mile?”

“That or the league, three miles to each.”

The sage consulted a scale on the map, then took the measure of the blank area within the irregular bound. “I make it some hundred or so miles east and west, and”—he took another measure—“nearly half again as much north and south—one hundred fifty miles in all.”

“And this temple, where does it lie?”

The sage shrugged. “It is hidden.”

Arin blew out her breath and then, judging by the width across the faded bounds and then measuring how far to the east of Aban the blank area lay, Arin said, “Some thirty-five leagues to the marge. Is the route to the labyrinth direct?”

The sage nodded. “Yes. But I would not advise—”

Ferret blurted, “But Dara, that’s a vast area to search. A hundred and fifty miles by a hundred. That makes it, um, let me see…um—”

“Fifteen thousand square miles,” supplied the sage, “or thereabout.”

“Elwydd’s grace!” declared Ferret, which brought a start from the scholar, and he glanced at her and then away. But she did not notice the effect her oath had had upon the sage, and she turned to Arin and said, “I cannot even imagine what fifteen thousand square miles is, much less how long it would take to search it out, given that it
is
a maze. We’ll be a lifetime at it!”

Aiko shook her head. “Dara Arin has a way with mazes.”

“Mayhap,” murmured Arin. “Mayhap not.”

“As I started to say,” interjected the sage, “I would advise against going to the maze. It is a horrid place. Nothing but fractured stone. And barren. No plants. No water. No wildlife.”

Aiko stared impassively at the scholar, then asked, “If that is true, then how do these priestesses of Ilsitt survive?”

The sage looked toward the beaded curtain, then leaned forward and whispered, “It is said that Ilsitt yet has believers within Sarain. Perhaps they bear supplies to the maze, perhaps to the temple itself.”

“Then there may be a trail, Dara,” said Aiko.

“You are bound to do this thing?” asked the sage.

“Aye,” replied Arin.

The ‘
âlim
sat long moments in silence, looking at the map and then at the sketch before Ferret. Finally he said, “Then here is an entry.” He tapped at a place on the map along the faded boundary. “The Island in the Sky. It is the point of a plateau projecting into the maze.”

“But that’s somewhat north; aren’t there any places closer where we may enter?” asked Ferret.

“Indeed there are,” said the sage, “but I would think this a better place.”

Arin looked steadily at the scholar, but he would not meet her gaze. The Dylvana then glanced at Aiko, and the Ryodoan canted her head and shrugged.

Arin sighed, then said, “Well and good, sage. Is there aught else thou wouldst advise?”

“Three things.” He turned and addressed Ferai. “Call not upon Ilsitt by any of her names, be they Elwydd, Shailene, Megami, or aught else, for unfriendly ears may overhear. In fact, I would not call upon
any
gods if I were you, any of you.” He paused and glanced at each of them, and added, “Too, veil your faces ere you leave this city, else someone inland less liberal than I may haul you before an
imâm
and demand that you be stoned as harlots.”

Aiko growled and narrowed her eyes, but Arin nodded. “And the third thing…?”

For only the second time the scholar looked directly at her, and in this instance held her gaze as he said, “Not all paths are what they seem. Search well; choose wisely.” Then he looked away.

Arin waited, but he said nothing more, and finally she turned to Ferret. “Wouldst thou, Ferai, trace the significant part of the map onto our own vellum? Show Aban and this ‘Island in the Sky’ and the route ‘tween, as well as direction and scale. Sketch, too, the bounds of the labyrinth so that we may know where they lie.”

Ferret glanced at the scholar, and he passed her an inkpot and quill.

*   *   *

“Inland?” moaned Alos. “Not by boat? Not by the
Brise
?”

Arin nodded.

“But we just got her restocked and all,” whined the oldster, appealing to Egil.

The younger man shrugged and studied the map. “The
Brise
’ll wait for us at the docks, Alos.”

“But how are we going to get there?” whined the oldster. Then he straightened up and stuck out his jaw. “I’m not walking, I’ll have you know.”

Aiko fixed Alos with an exasperated stare, but Arin said, “Given what we heard about the bleakness of the land, I deem we need camels for the journey.”

“Camels!” moaned Alos. “Great, tall camels? I was thinking more along the lines of a low ass.”

“Indeed,” said Aiko, dryly, and Ferret broke out in loud guffaws.

*   *   *

Three days later in the dawn they set forth upon camels, the beasts eructing belligerent
hronks,
complaining and grumbling as the riders prodded them forward across the sunbaked land and away from the river greenery. Alos, too, moaned and whined and fussed, almost as loudly as the beast he rode. Arm, Aiko, and Ferai wore silken scarves across their faces, heeding the sage’s advice, although Aiko was furious at having to do so because of the reason stated—that she might be taken as a harlot by stupid hidebound men. But Delon told her to think of it as a disguise, and she remembered former days ere she fell from grace, days when she had ridden into combat with her face masked. These thoughts mollified her somewhat…though not entirely.

Riding six camels and towing six—animals protesting, Alos complaining, and Aiko grinding her teeth, and Delon singing a gay song of the road—out away from Aban they fared, heading easterly into the sunrise, aiming for a place the sage had named “the Island in the Sky.”

*   *   *

“My god,” hissed Delon, “but it looks like a vision of Hèl!”

In the setting sun, they stood upon an outjutting point of a high plateau, its face falling sheer a thousand feet or more down into an endless tangle of high-walled canyons, fissures beyond count twisting and turning this way and that through bloodred stone for as far as the eye could see. Whether cut by ancient rivers, or torn asunder by wrenching land, or cracked apart by rocks falling from beyond the sky, none could say, yet it was a riven land, a fractured land, a land ripped, split, ruptured, with huge, deep, tortuous, jagged chasms zigzagging, crisscrossing, dead-ending, curling, twisting back on themselves, the great entanglement shattering out to the horizon and beyond—fifteen thousand square miles in all.

Aiko stared long down into the fractured land, her left hand pressed tightly against her chest, there where a
hidden tiger glared, and at last she said, “In there lies death.”

And from far dark shadows of the canyonland maze, faintly echoing and slapping across the bloodred stone, there sounded a distant ghastly howl, as if some dreadful and deadly
thing
prowled deep in the labyrinth afar.

G
arlon!” Alos flinched back, preparing to flee.

And Ferret clutched at Delon’s arm as the distant echoes of the far-off wraul faded to silence. “The ‘
âlim,
” she breathed, “he said the maze was demon haunted.”

“Let’s go,” whined Alos, “back to Aban.”

“Nay, Alos,” said Arm. “Our way lies yon.” She pointed into the maze.

“But you heard Ferret,” cried Alos. “It’s demon haunted.”

“That could be but a falsehood planted by the Fists of Rakka,” said Arin. “Even so, something within the maze howls. Aiko, what says thy tiger?”

“She growls of death, Dara,” replied the Ryodoan. “Whatever is in there, it is fatal.”

One arm now around Ferret, Delon nodded. “I for one believe it. And as to what it might be, a Hèl-spawned demon is as good a guess as any.” With his free hand he gestured at the ruptured land, crimson in the setting sun. “What else could that be but a demon-laden, blood-drenched Hèl?”

“Your vision of Hèl is different from mine,” said Egil. “But, Hèl or not, demon or not, something is down there tonight.”

“See!” declared Alos. “We’re all agreed. Let’s turn back.”

Arin merely shook her head.

Egil glanced at the oncoming twilight. “Well, whatever it might be, I’d rather not meet it in the dark. I say we camp here on the plateau for now and follow the way down into the maze in the morning, seek the temple in the light of day.”

Alos groaned. “What makes you think this is the way to the temple?”

“If it were not,” said Egil, “the ‘
âlim
would not have sent us here.”

His hands flapping all ’round as if searching for a drink, Alos quavered, “Maybe he was lying. Maybe this isn’t the way at all.”

“Nay, Alos. We must have faith in what he said.”

“Ha! And just why do you think we can trust him?”

Egil canted his head toward Aiko. “A tiger told us so.” The Fjordlander then turned away from the brink and started back toward the kneeling camels.

“But that same tiger told us that death waits down there,” Alos called out to the others as they followed Egil back. Then the old man glanced at the crimson labyrinth behind—“Eep!”—and hastily scuttled after them.

*   *   *

They made a tiny charcoal fire on the barren stone and heated water for tea. And as they waited for it to come to a boil, Delon turned to Egil and said, “So your vision of Hèl is different from mine.”

Egil nodded. “Yes. My Hèl is frigid, bleak, ice-laden. It is dark and freezing cold, with no protection from the bitter winds, no shelter of any kind. There is no heat to be had; no comfort of a fire. Souls abandoned there are doomed to endless wandering across the frozen ’scape, with bottomless crevasses and mountains of ice barring the way.”

Alos held his trembling hands out toward the tiny charcoal glow. “No heat to be had, eh? Rather like this camp, I would say.”

Egil smiled. “Much worse, Alos. Much worse.” The Fjordlander then shrugged. “If there is a Hèl, that is.” Egil turned to Delon. “I take it your Hèl looks somewhat like the labyrinth.”

Delon nodded. “As you say, if there is a Hèl. I’ve always believed Hèl is rocks, schist, boulders, endless canyons shattered through stone. No water. No plants. No animals. Just hard, hard rock…nothing soft…no place to lie down and sleep. And like your Hèl, it is dark, and souls are fated to wander forever looking for a place to rest, a place of comfort, but not finding any.”

Ferret shook her head. “Hèl is a place of endless howling winds, the dark air filled with hurtling, slashing sand. The land is covered everywhere with stabbing thorns dealing piercing wounds that never heal.”

Ferret turned to Alos. The old man seemed to shrink within himself. “To my way of thinking, Hèl is black, no light whatsoever, and filled with pits, chasms, and things hunting.” Alos shuddered, then added, “Maybe things like whatever howled.”

All eyes turned to Aiko. “I do not believe there is a Hèl, nor a Paradise for that matter.” She gestured about. “There is only this and nothing more. Dead is dead, with nothing after.”

Alos glanced up at her. “Then how do you explain ghosts?”

Aiko turned her impassive gaze toward the oldster. “I do not believe in spirits.”

Alos stabbed a quivering finger in the direction of the labyrinth. “Then how do you explain whatever it is we heard howl?”

“If it is an
akuma
—a demon—then it is no ghost, but something very much alive.” Aiko touched the hilts of her swords. “And things alive can be killed.”

Silence fell among them awhile. Finally Delon turned to Arin. “And what do you believe, Dara? About Hèl, that is.”

Arin looked over at the bard. “If there is a Hèl, then I would think it a great emptiness, a void, an abyss, with absolutely nothing therein, no light, no dark, no substance, no force, absolutely nothing whatsoever. And there is no one in this emptiness, this void, but thine own self. Canst thou think of a punishment worse?” She looked ’round the circle, but no one had a response.

And then the water began to boil above the charcoal fire, and soon talk turned to other matters as they drank hot tea and ate a cold meal on the edge of an endless maze.

*   *   *

As they had done all along on the trail, each took a turn at ward. And in the dead of night during Delon’s watch there echoed from the bowels of the labyrinth afar another
ghastly howl, one which startled all the sleepers awake, and they were long in regaining slumber.

*   *   *

Arin stood the final watch, and she soothed Egil when he was visited by his nightly ill dream, this one of Lutor being slowly pulled apart.

*   *   *

Dawn lay on the horizon when the Dylvana lit another charcoal fire and set a kettle for tea; when the water came to a boil, she wakened the sleepers. As the others relieved themselves and readied for the day, the Dylvana walked to the perimeter of the precipice and looked at the pathway down. She stood a moment on the lip and sipped tea and chewed on a bit of waybread. And then she attempted to in her special way. To her right something faintly glowed among a cluster of jagged boulders. Keeping an eye on the nebulous tracery, she stepped along the rim to the pile, and there between two of the huge rocks, hidden in a manner she could not fathom, she found another path leading to the verge and downward.

Her thoughts echoed the ‘
âlim
’s warning in the archive:
“Not all paths are what they seem. Search well; choose wisely.”
Arin took a sip of her tea and looked back at the other path and then again at this new one.
Which, I wonder, is the true way to follow?

Arin extended her exploration a goodly distance in both directions along the perimeter, but no other paths did she find.

*   *   *

“Two paths?” Egil looked at her in consternation. “Where is the second?”

“Beyond those jagged boulders,” replied Arin.

Ferret gazed toward the cluster then leftward to the way they had seen last night. “Which one should we follow?”

“The one at the rocks, I should think,” said Arin.