The Flame in the Maze (24 page)

The sky was blue-black and full of stars. He craned up at it for a moment, as he carried her away from the hut.
What will you say?
he thought.
Decide, because you have to say it soon, now, before she—

“I'm from Athens,” she said. He'd set her on a flat bit of ground, and she was sitting with her back to him, her head raised to the cool night wind. He wanted to walk up beside her, to look down at her face, but he couldn't. He wanted to ask her why she was here, in this mountain pasture so far from her home, but he couldn't. “People tell stories there, about Master Daedalus, who was exiled to Crete because he murdered someone. Daedalus and his son, part bird, who was born on Crete.”

She turned to him. The starlight made her skin white. He stared at it, and at her mouth, which looked like octopus ink brushed onto the white. “They died four years ago,” she went on. “Or so the stories say. Attacked by pirates. Yet here you are.”

He opened his mouth but no words came. He'd felt like this with Ariadne—but no: he felt no anger before Sotiria. He was silent, not lost.

“Your need is so clear to me. For healing, but not your own.” Her voice was weary, sad. “And because I feel it, I can't deny it. My god makes sure of this. But there's also this: you're Athenian. Your father is Athenian. So perhaps I wouldn't deny it, even if I could.”

The moment she stopped speaking, Icarus stammered, “I don't . . . will you . . . what are you going to do?”

Sotiria smiled a weary, sad smile as she gazed over his shoulder at the hut. “I'm going to go with you,” she said. “To help Master Daedalus.”

“They're old wounds,” Icarus said in a rush. “Old, broken bones—maybe you won't be able to heal them. And there's more: there's the labyrinth. The Athenians in the labyrinth—and my friends Asterion and Chara, who are in there too—”

Sotiria raised her hand up and laid it on his chest. Even though there was no silver bleeding from it, it felt warm and steadying. “Chara?” she said, and he nodded, not wondering why she'd repeated the name; knowing only that she'd said yes to him.

“Chara, and Asterion—the one the Athenians are being sacrificed to, except that he isn't killing them; he
can't
be.” He cleared his throat so that his voice would come out more steadily. “So there'll be a lot of pain, probably. Maybe you shouldn't; maybe you should just—”

“Icarus,” she said, very quietly, “I will come with you.”

Sotiria told Icarus nothing about herself. “I'd rather not,” she said after he asked her to, on the first day. She was bouncing against his back: though her ankle was healing remarkably quickly, he'd insisted on carrying her.
An Athenian girl with recently shorn hair, living in a hut with a shepherd and his son. The Athenian sacrifices had their heads shaved.
He shook these thoughts away.
She'll tell me soon. When she trusts me.

By the third day, she was walking as swiftly and smoothly as if she'd never been hurt.

“You're very lucky,” he said. “To have such a strong godmark—to heal and help, even if it causes you pain. You must be—”

Only when she moaned did he realize she wasn't beside him anymore. She was behind, kneeling, her hands pressed against her ears.

“What is it?” he said, crouching next to her. “Is your ankle hurting?”

“I hear him,” she murmured.

“Who?”

Her hands ground against her ears. “I hear Theseus.”

The air was abruptly hot and thick; Icarus struggled to draw a clean breath. “Theseus,” he managed to say. “Son of the King of Athens.”

She didn't answer. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

“Sotiria.” He put his hands lightly over hers and held them still, when they began to tremble. He was careful not to dig his talons into her skin. “Sotiria,” he said again, as she opened her eyes and raised them to his. “Please tell me what's going on.”

He watched her swallow hard. Her gaze swung from his face up to the sky, which was empty and blue. “I was one of the Athenians from the last group.” She sounded half-asleep. “So was Prince Theseus. He disguised himself as a commoner so that he could get into the labyrinth and kill the bull-beast.”

Asterion
, Icarus thought.
Chara
.

“His godmark,” Sotiria said, rubbing at her cheeks so that they went splotchy. She already sounded much more awake. “You might know of it. He can reach out and put his voice into people's heads. Even when he's not saying anything, it's there—like a hum. Another heartbeat. It went quiet, a few weeks ago. I could barely hear it. But just now I heard him again: words, not just hum. And I saw what he was seeing.”

Icarus felt himself nodding, as if this made sense; as if he weren't cold with dread and shock. “And what
did
he say? What did you see?”

She stood up as slowly as an old woman. He put out an arm and she gripped it. “I saw a dark place, and frightened people, and a monstrous . . . something.” He watched her look past him at the shape of the Goddess's mountain—its ragged sides and splintered peak, looming, though it was still so far away from them.

“I
had friends,” she said. “Tryphon and Phoibe and Alphaios and the rest—even Melaina, though she was mostly unbearable. My friends—those who are still alive, anyway—are under the mountain with Prince Theseus, and they're all in danger. I should be with them. I should be taking their pain away, as my god would command me to. I'm a coward. I must find a way in.”

Icarus squeezed her hand, which was still holding onto his arm. His feathers prickled up between her fingers. “You'll come with us. You already know that.”

“Yes,” she said, “but it'll be impossible: how will we find our way, once we're inside? If I'd only stayed with them, I'd be able to help.”

“You'd be in danger,” he said. “As they are. And as for finding our way: my father knows. I know. He built the labyrinth, Sotiria, because King Minos forced him to. He built it, and I was with him when he did.”

He watched her gaze slip somewhere very far away. Watched it return to him, clear and focused.

“Let's hurry, now,” he said. “We're nearly there.”

Icarus yelled himself hoarse and hammered on the rusty metal, but the door above the sea stayed closed.

“I don't understand this,” he said to Sotiria, who was pressing herself against the cliff wall, her fingers spread wide and white. “He's usually waiting. He usually hears me right away.”
But this time's different
, Icarus thought, and felt a sudden sickness rising from his belly.
This time he knows I'm going to make him go to the mountain. But he doesn't know about
her
.

“Please,” he said to Sotiria, “shout for me. Tell him your name, and what you're here to do.”

She knelt carefully beside him. “Master Daedalus!” she called. She glanced sidelong at Icarus, who nodded at her. “My name is Sotiria—I'm one of the Athenians who . . . I'm Athenian. I'm godmarked. I can heal wounds.”

Icarus put his ear to the door. He heard nothing but the waves; somehow they sounded louder. Nothing, nothing—and then a scrabbling, and the familiar screaming of metal.

If Sotiria was disgusted by the cave's smell or Daedalus's, she didn't show it. She stood by the dripping stalactite and looked around her with a calm, steady gaze. The pink light painted her hair and skin, and her teeth, when she smiled at him. He dipped his head as if he couldn't look at her, or was bowing; it could have been either or both, Icarus couldn't tell.

“Master Daedalus,” she said in a much quieter voice than the one she'd used outside. “Your son and I have travelled together. He has told me much of you. Please give me your hands.”

Daedalus raised his head and looked at Icarus. “I've seen her heal a broken bone, Father.” He could barely speak over the anticipation in his throat. “This will help us get to the mountain together. Not in the way we expected—but it'll be even better.”

Daedalus twitched. He dragged one of his false fingers through the bird's nest of his hair; some of the webbing snagged, and he growled. Icarus watched Sotiria's eyes follow the fingers. Her face was still composed and calm.
She must have seen some terrible things
, Icarus thought, as his father turned his palms up and extended them to her.

She sucked in her breath. She drew his hands toward her chest and blinked down at them; traced the lumps on his palms and then the knuckle-knobs of limestone, with their clinging, binding webs. He closed his eyes and didn't move. After a moment she closed her eyes too.
Come on
, Icarus thought.
Heal him. Heal him
now.

“The damage is very old,” she said at last. Her eyes opened and found Icarus's. “As you told me. I won't be able to heal both hands—not without crippling myself.”

So do that
, he nearly said.
Make him right; I don't care what happens to you.
Except that he did. He met her clear, steady, sad gaze and said, “So you'd fix one? Because that would be enough to help us get him out of here. Enough for him to open the mountain door. I think.”

She nodded. “Yes. I'll fix one—if he tells me to.”

Daedalus's throat constricted, beneath the chaotic growth of his beard. “Ech,” he said. Icarus was about to tell her that this meant “yes,” but then she smiled at his father and said, “Very well, then. Sit down with me, Master Daedalus.”

Icarus started to tremble as soon as the silver kindled in her fingers. When his father's fingers began to glow silver as well, Icarus wrapped his arms tightly around himself. Feathers thrust their way between his own fingers, just as they had when Sotiria had healed Manasses. This time, though, the godmarked light was so bright, the power so palpable, that Icarus's feathers pushed thicker and thicker through his skin, until he thought,
He could make another set of wings right now, with these.
He could see the wings, tilted against the cave wall: their sheen of feathers and the dull, solid lines of the branches that made the harness.
But there's no need for any wings, now that she's here.
Another, very faint voice said,
Oh really? And what do you intend to do
after
you've rescued everyone, and you're all huddled by the mountain?
He shook the voices away.

She'd healed Manasses silently and swiftly. Now she moaned. The tendons in her neck tightened; her brow shone with sweat; her silver hands shook and clutched at Daedalus's. He made no sound, but his own brow furrowed as he squeezed his eyes shut. Moments passed. Icarus took three paces away from them, then turned back. More moments. He wanted to shout, to fling himself off the cliff and fly, because surely he'd be able to: the godmarked power in the cave was tugging fiercely at him, promising him sky. He stayed where he was, as she moaned and struggled, until the silver flared and blinded him, and he fell to his knees with a cry.

Someone was weeping: a dry, wracked sound that seemed to come from everywhere. Daedalus, Icarus realized, and crawled toward him. Daedalus, hunched over his left hand, crying but also laughing, flexing fingers that were all flesh and nail. His false fingers lay between his knees and Sotiria's. He raised the hand and wiped at his wet eyes. When he'd done that, he leaned over and touched her cheek.

She was crying too, soundlessly. Her right hand was cradling her left, which was twisted and swollen, its palm as lumpy as Daedalus's had been. She was staring at him, hardly blinking, despite the tears.

“Ank oo,” he said. She nodded once and drew in a noisy, shaky breath.

“Yes,” Icarus said, “thank you.” He thought,
Don't ask her for more
.
This is enough. Have some pity.
But he went on anyway, his heart hammering, “What about his mouth?”

His father rounded on him, shaking his head so wildly that hair fell in front of his eyes. He pushed it away with his good hand. “Oh,” he said. “Oh ee.”

“No need—how can you think that? You'd be able to speak! You'd be closer to being as you were.” He swallowed and looked at Sotiria. He felt sick again; his voice was strained and thin. “I'm sorry. I don't want you to suffer, of course—I just . . . it's beyond wondrous, what you've already done. It makes me want more, for him.”

Sotiria spoke so softly that Icarus could barely make out her words. “Even if he wanted it, even if I could try now, it probably wouldn't work.” She smiled at him. He felt a surge of shame, and imagined all the skin beneath his feathers flushing scarlet. “The flesh of his tongue isn't just injured—it's gone. And my godmark isn't commanding me to try. Which means it probably can't be healed.”

Daedalus shook his head, slowly this time. He said words that meant, “No—this is enough.”

She rose, holding her left hand up and away from her body. She swayed, and Icarus leapt up and took her by her other arm, as gently as he could. She sagged against him.

“I wish we had wine to give you,” he said. “Like Alexios did.”

She pressed her head against his chest and made a snuffling noise that reminded him of the one Chara made, when she was trying not to laugh. “It's fine,” she whispered after a long, quiet moment. “I'm fine, as long as you don't ask me to carry anything. And give me just a little while, before I try to climb those cliff stairs with one hand.”

It was dark when the three of them finally emerged onto the ledge.

“We should wait,” Icarus said. “Do this in the morning.” But his feet shifted and his fingers twitched on the cloth that was full of food he'd carried out with him, and Sotiria said, “We've already lost too much time. Our friends need us. So let's try.”

They all stared down at the door, after Daedalus pulled it shut.
He could probably lock it from the outside too,
Icarus thought
. But there's no need. We're not hiding that we can do this, because we're
never coming back
.

Sotiria went first. Two feet, one hand, rasping, ragged breaths—Icarus called, “Careful!” then bit the inside of his lower lip so that he wouldn't say anything else.

“I'm up!” she called down at last. Her head was a darker shadow against the sky.

Icarus turned to Daedalus, who was still gazing at the door. When he looked away, Icarus saw that his eyes were full of tears, again. “Eye ings,” he said.

“Forget about your wings. You won't need them now: we'll find another way to get off this island, once we've rescued everyone. Come, now. If she can get up there, so can you.”

His father's climb was even slower than hers had been. When he was halfway up, one of his feet slid off a step in a shower of dust. He gave a garbled shout and lay flat against the rock for what seemed like forever. “Go on,” Icarus murmured, his own hands and feet already on their steps. “Hurry—
hurry
.”

“Now you!” Sotiria cried, and he climbed. He'd done this before, almost without thinking—but now it was the last time, and he panted with desperation, the food banging against his back. Hands came down to pull at him, but he shook them away and hauled himself onto the grass as he always had—though he didn't roll over onto his back and look up at the stars.