Labyrinth Gate

by Kate Elliott

  He treated her with aloof courtesy. That flash of what he did not choose to call kindness which he had shown in solving the matter of Charity had come and gone. She doubted if he regretted his original intent to kill her, but there was a quality to his studious avoidance of her that made her believe he was ashamed of the act, having been shown to be so bitterly and incontrovertibly wrong. At those times when she was feeling hopeful, she thought there might be another emotion behind his avoidance. She had not dreamed that brief time of passion, back in the labyrinth, and because he had since then not attempted by the least word or action to remind her of it, she wondered if perhaps he felt he had no right to approach her. Or even if, she sometimes thought with a wild touch of fancy, after his lifetime of abstinence, he did not know how to.

  She stopped just inside his room. Her step was silent; he did not look up. Only a single dim candle lit the chamber. He sat brooding in a chair in the darkest corner, but as she watched, she realized that he could as well have been a statue. Not even his lips moved, or his eyes.

  He stared at his right hand, extended before him. His palpable effort was like a third presence in the room. As she watched, the barest nimbus of light, a tiny, tiny flame, appeared at his fingertips. He seemed almost to shudder with the exertion.

  She walked across the room to him. He did not look up or even seem to notice her. She stopped beside him, and on an impulse she could not resist she leaned down to kiss his cheek. He started just as she touched his face, turning his head, and their lips met.

  The shock was like a flash, a flare, of lightning. She grabbed hold of him to stop herself from falling, knelt, but that only prolonged the kiss. His hand settled, tightened, on her waist. She knew then that she would forgive him, if they could replace everything that had gone before with this.

  He broke away from her abruptly, stumbled up, and flung himself forward to the window, opening it with the fumbling desperation of a suffocating man.

  There were four lamps hung from the walls; all of them were lit, and the hearth fire burned fiercely, that had been cold ashes before.

  “We did that,” breathed Maretha, wondering. She followed him, halting three steps behind.

  “Leave me alone.” His voice was hoarse, his back to her as he leaned outside. “I never wanted this.”

  Torches from the stables illuminated his face, giving it a phantom’s gleam. His eyes were shut, so he did not see the gathering of men at the stable entrance, did not see Thomas Southern, and then Kate, speaking with them. Maretha saw it, saw first Kate, and after her Southern, break away from the group and hurry back to the inn, meeting Julian on the way. From the way they moved, she could tell it was urgent. She left the room quickly and soundlessly.

  A moment after, the earl relaxed his grip on the windowsill, seeming to come to some momentous decision. “Maretha,” he whispered, and he opened his eyes and turned, but she was gone.

  He followed her trail through her room and to the top of the stairs, stood watching what transpired below with an inner tumult that at last, by dint of sheer cold will, resolved itself into detachment.

  Below, the scene was not so composed.

  “What is it, Thomas?” Maretha asked as she came down the stairs. The door to the parlor opened to reveal a puzzled Chryse and Sanjay.

  “Riot in Heffield,” said Southern. “The Regent has issued a proclamation that Princess Georgiana is seriously ill and cannot be expected to live. The coronation has been postponed indefinitely.”

  “Why is there riot?” asked Chryse.

  “We have never trusted Princess Blessa,” he replied. “She would as soon we were serfs again, or slaves. They’re crying ‘murder’ in the streets, and demanding to see Princess Georgiana in person. The army has been called out. It will be bloody tomorrow.”

  “Well have to ride on tonight,” said Maretha. “If we wait until morning we won’t be there until afternoon, and that may be too late.”

  “You would be fools to go now,” said the earl from the top of the stairs. His coolness hit the group below like a blast of winter wind. “Whatever the Regent does, she will wait until St. Austin’s Day to begin it. Being a day out of time, as it were, it is particularly auspicious for sorcery. And she will necessarily have to spend the morning setting her bounds, if the spell is to be powerful—which it must be, given the trouble she has gone to. She will have the advantage of rest and stillness. We will have to ride nevertheless; if we ride half the night we will be exhausted on top of all else.” In the silence that followed, he turned and went back down the hall.

  Supper was a subdued occasion that evening. By a kind of mutual unspoken assent they afterwards filtered away to their rooms without further conversation. Maretha walked slowly upstairs to her chamber and sat on her bed.

  Then, as she had done every night for the last seven weeks, she tried the only way she knew to calm the wild forces that now permeated her entire being. Her father had taught her how to catalog and order things; she sat with as much stillness as she could find within herself and used all her concentration to channel the power into what she imagined as a library full of journals, each neatly numbered and labeled. Whether it worked to contain and to control she did not know, only that far fewer earth tremors and unnatural fires, hard rains and sudden winds had manifested along their road in recent days.

  When she grew tired, she rose, quiet, and pushed open the connecting door a crack. The earl sat in his chair, completely concentrated on his right hand. The barest nimbus of light shone around it. He seemed oblivious to her.

  She let the door shut, sighed, and went to bed.

  Chapter 28:

  The Angel Of War

  THE MORNING OF ST. Austin’s Day dawned clear and unseasonably warm. Outside Blackstone Palace, a mob ranged restlessly over the grounds, more gathering as each hour passed. A troop of horse soldiers stood at alert at every entrance. Inside it was far too quiet. The halls and rooms were empty. There might have been no one there at all, except for a hush of activity in the very depths of the palace, in the Regent’s most private suite.

  Colonel Whitmore had brought the treasure in about midnight. Now he stood in the outermost of the three chambers, burning the journals and notebooks and sketchbooks in the great hearth. He kept as far away from the fire as possible. What she was doing farther within, with only one ancient waiting woman in attendance, he did not know, but he was willing to be patient a little longer, since this was the day he was to receive his reward for services rendered.

  There was a rustling at the door and he looked up to see the Regent standing under the lintel. She watched not him, but the flames licking at the pages, and this annoyed him.

  “It is a shame,” she said, musing, “to burn so much knowledge, but I cannot afford to leave any evidence.” She came over to the fire, flipped through one of the sketchbooks. “A remarkably talented eye, this one has. A—a purity of vision.” She paused as if the words awoke some resonance in her. “A true pity to destroy it.” She laid it carefully, almost reverently, in the flames. It browned, blackened, and caught, reduced to thick ashes in minutes. “I sense the pattern turning in on itself,” she murmured. “And now I wonder if I read it right.”

  “Can’t even read this one.” The colonel eyed the scrawl of Professor Farr’s handwriting with distaste. He tossed it into the fire, turned to stare boldly at the Regent. “Your highness,” he added.

  She smiled, amused and a little scornful. “Are you impatient, colonel? I assure you, you will get more than enough of what you desire.”

  “Do not underestimate me, your highness.”

  She laughed. “So like a man. But I will have plain speaking here, Colonel. I dislike secrecy, though I often must resort to it to rule this country as it ought to be ruled.”

  “And the heiress?”

  “I am quite pleased with the treasure you brought me.” She lifted a hand to touch his cheek. “It is not quite what I expected—nothing of the power I thought they mus
t find—but it will suffice.”

  He lifted a hand as if to touch hers, thought better of the gesture. “I had thought you were very powerful.”

  “I am.” She lowered her hand. “But transubstantiation is beyond even my resources.” Picking up the last of the sketchbooks, she looked through it, musing, and finally put it on the fire. “I will change her into something that no one, not even her siblings, will ever suspect is her.”

  “If I may be so bold, what is that, your highness?”

  “You intend to be bold.” She perused the neat catalog of glyphs. “Into a climbing rose, of course, to ornament my balcony.” At his bewildered expression, she smiled, secretive and gloating. “You would not appreciate the subtlety of it unless you understood the Gates.”

  “But you must explain her disappearance somehow.”

  “Had you brought me the youth as you were supposed to, it would have been much easier. Cast an illusion on his body, let the physicians examine him thinking he is Georgiana, all agreeing that she had succumbed to the same illness that took her father, and then have him buried. He was excellent material for holding illusions. No one would have suspected.”

  She picked up the last journal and cast it into the fire with a force that sent ashes up in a cloud and the fire sputtering and, a moment later, bursting into flame like temper.

  “You were a fool, Colonel. I wanted circumspection in recovering the treasures. I had two agents, one of whom failed, one of whom evidently did not. Now there are any number of people who suspect my complicity, and getting rid of them will tax my ability to be circumspect to its limit. It is well, Colonel, that I have use for you now. Otherwise let me assure you that you would be dead.”

  His face changed from ruddy, to pale, to ruddy again in the course of her tirade. “You wouldn’t dare kill me,” he said with all the bluster of the terminally vain.

  “Doubly a fool if you believe that. In any case, once I am done with you today you may well be dead, or wish you were.”

  He whirled and strode to the door that led into the hall. It was locked. He turned back, cheeks flushed with anger and a growing fear. “Let me out, or you will regret it.”

  “Surely, Colonel,” she replied, still calm, “you realize that you are too far gone in my plans to be allowed to leave.”

  He took three stiff, menacing steps towards her.

  She laughed, mocking him. “My wards are far too strong. Or do you think I walk about unprotected?”

  “You cannot force me to—to your will.”

  From the bodice of her gown she removed three cards. “You brought me a remarkable set of Gates, colonel. Let me show you three of them. The Lover, to enflame desire. The Angel of War, to channel it down a furious path without hope of breaking free. And here, the Midwife, whom I choose in this case to represent myself, birthing a new order in this land.”

  He had fallen to his knees, caught between uncontrollable desire and the last ebbing of his will to break free of her power.

  “There is a place for you to recline,” she said, “in the farthest room. I will be in shortly.”

  He was breathing hard, fighting it, but he went.

  She watched the fire as it reduced the last written trace of the expedition to ash. It was a pity, she considered, that she had to use so much power to transform Georgiana before she would be able to deal with the expeditionary members. And more of a pity that Colonel Whitmore had proved less ruthless than he had claimed, with so much blustering bravado. Once he had shown his hand, he should have simply killed them all.

  The fire sank to a few red gleams in ash. Of course, the Earl of Elen had been there and, according to the colonel’s account, had routed the entire troop with ease. Although there was also the possibility that he was leaving some minor, but important, fact out of his report. She shrugged. It had always been her belief that there was no use worrying about something that had to be dealt with later. She went into her innermost chamber.

  The colonel was on his knees beside the backless couch he would soon be lying on. He was fumbling with the buttons of his jacket. On a high table next to the couch the objects from the ruins were arranged at the points of the compass, with the cup in the center. Princess Georgiana lay on a pallet at the far end of the room. The ancient waiting-woman sat on a chair at the foot of the pallet, loosening the soil in a large ceramic flowerpot.

  Georgiana stirred and moaned as the Regent halted beside her.

  “Has she been like this long?” asked the Regent.

  The waiting-woman nodded.

  “This healing trance was cast on her with a light touch, but a strong one for all that. We must be careful to channel it properly into the new spell. We will have to go slowly with this.” Georgiana moved her head and breathed a single, incomprehensible word. “All is ready?” asked the Regent. “Good. Let us waste no more time.”

  Lady Trent was sitting in her morning room leafing through a novel when her attention was drawn to the window by a rag-tag procession of two travel-stained carriages bearing the crest of the Earl of Elen and what appeared at first glance to be a mob of riders. She had barely enough time to set down the book and stand up before the door to the morning room burst open and her nephew strode in.

  “Good heavens, Julian,” she began, but by that time he had kissed her dutifully on the cheek, taken her arm, and escorted her to the door.

  “I beg pardon for being so abrupt, Aunt Laetitia.” He had not even removed his hat. “And for coming in in all my dirt, but we are in a bit of a hurry. We are on our way to Blackstone Palace.”

  “My coat,” said Aunt Laetitia to the nearest footman, and to Julian: “I see you received my letter. I had my doubts about the channels I sent it through.”

  “Quite efficient, let me assure you.” He led her out to one of the carriages. He handed her in and she settled onto the seat opposite Maretha, who was the only other occupant.

  “Good heavens,” Lady Trent exclaimed again. She passed a hand across her eyes, but the blinding swirl of power radiating off Maretha was not just a trick of the light.

  “I hope you are not feeling poorly, Lady Trent.” Maretha leaned forward solicitously.

  “No, no, dear girl. Just adjusting my sight.” She found a set of spectacles in her handbag and used the moments of fussing with them to moderate her perception of Maretha. When she finally sat back she regarded the young woman with keen interest. “You have had,” she said, “a quite—ah—singular experience in the north, I see.”

  “Is it so obvious?” Maretha’s voice was plaintive.

  “Only to those with some knowledge of these matters, I assure you.”

  “You have—” Maretha halted in some confusion. “I had no idea you were a mage, Lady Trent, but now it seems quite obvious to me. You have a certain—gleam.”

  Lady Trent chuckled. “That is a very pretty compliment to a woman of my years, countess. My years of serious study in the arts are long past. But I see we are to go to the palace.”

  “We have reason to believe that today is the day the Regent will act.”

  “St. Austin’s Day—yes, it would be an auspicious time to cast on a large scale, unbound as one is by the wheel of the year and its waxing and waning.”

  “You must know a great deal.”

  “I know a few things. None of us understands more than the tiniest fraction of these mysteries, my dear. Else they would engulf us.”

  Maretha shuddered. “I know that feeling,” she whispered.

  A sound like the rush of wind carried in to them. Three raps sounded on their shutters; when Maretha opened them, they heard clearly the mutter and growl of an angry mob in the distance. Julian rode alongside.

  “We’re coming in to the palace grounds.” He looked annoyed. “Brace yourselves. We’ve a mob out here, but we sent Southern on ahead—he has reason to believe that his sister, the orator, is out there. We’ll have to get through this crowd somehow to reach the palace entrance.”

  “And
through guards there, no doubt,” added Lady Trent.

  Julian inclined his head in agreement. “We’re sending Madame et Monsieur in with you. We can’t trust their riding through such a crowd.”

  He rode away as Maretha closed the shutters. A moment later the carriage halted and Chryse and Sanjay got in.

  “Aunt Laetitia!” Chryse gave the older woman a kiss on the cheek. Sanjay kissed her hand as gracefully as he could as the carriage lumbered forward. Both of them were chuckling with the nervous energy that precedes an anticipated conflict.

  “Oh, his face,” Chryse said, laughing. “Forgive us,” she said to the other two women. “Julian was trying to convince Kate to ride in the carriage as well, for her safety, and she answered with a string of swearing that shocked even me. I had no idea such concepts existed.”

  Lady Trent looked thoughtful. “Julian is not usually so protective.”

  “I think you will find Julian changed,” said Sanjay.

  Lady Trent examined all three of her companions with an astute and careful eye. “I have no doubt of it.”

  Like a peal of thunder, a volley of shots cracked above the loud voice of the crowd. Screaming shattered the air, followed by a roar of anger that seemed to come from all about them. The carriage lurched forward as if it was being pushed by many hands. A moment later they heard, above the clamor, a woman’s strong voice, and realized that the speaker must have climbed on top of the carriage.

  “—get me forward, lads!” Her words cut with effortless potency through the general ruckus. “I’ll give the Regent a piece of my mind!”

  The mob howled in approval. The carriage shuddered and shook and rolled on.

  “Are we not ten thousand here together? Will we suffer from tyranny as well as poverty?”

  The answering roar of the mob was deafening. Through it, they could barely discern a tapping on the closed shutters and a quiet voice.

  “That’s Thomas.” Before the others could react, Maretha leaned over and unlatched the shutters.