by Kate Elliott
Southern’s face and shoulders filled most of the opening. Beyond him they saw the seething disorder of the crowd. He was pale, and his voice was ragged. “You had best prepare yourselves. They’re for blood today—nothing we can do but stem the flow enough for you to get inside. You’re our hope, my lady.”
Maretha laid a hand on his, a brief touch. “Take care, Thomas.”
He heaved himself away and she slammed shut the shutters.
“How long will you suffer yourselves to be beaten and strangled? How long will you suffer the bloody soldiers and their bloodier mistress while your children cry for bread? Rise against the oppressor! Restore our beloved Princess Georgiana!”
A round of musket fire peppered the air at the same moment that the carriage jerked to an abrupt halt, almost throwing Maretha and Chryse from their seats. Frantic pounding sounded on the door. As Maretha unlocked it, it was flung open and Thomas Southern reached inside and grabbed Maretha’s arm.
“It’s hell out here,” he gasped, barely audible over the rage of the mob. “You’ve got to get inside the palace. There’s—”
Screams and shots mingled. Chryse followed Maretha out, Lady Trent and Sanjay behind her, to see Julian, Kate, and the Earl, still mounted, urging their horses up the steps towards one of the huge entrances to the palace. They were surrounded by a swarm of rioters, who surged forward toward the contingent of soldiers guarding the entrance. A few gripped at the riders’ legs. The earl was beating them off with his whip, but before those around him could turn their anger on him, the first rush of the crowd reached the soldiers.
The troops were set in formation, but their firing made little difference. For each person shot down, three more flooded forward. A few of the mob had firearms. More had various implements: pitchforks, boathooks from the docks, old, rusted swords, long knives, heavy staves. When the mob hit, the soldiers scrambled for the great doors, still ajar.
Some did not make it, and the work with pitchforks and staves was enthusiastic and bloody. The other soldiers began to close the portal, but through sheer determination a few foolhardy or berserked souls wedged themselves into the gap until their comrades could pry the doors back and trample over the bodies into the entranceway inside.
But here the troops had formed to better advantage. They shot with scathing accuracy, and bodies, most alive and moving weakly, littered the beautiful tiling of the entry floor. Blood leaked in thin streams to the walls. The press at the doorway did not cease. The soldiers, giving up their position, began to retreat up the wide hallway that led to the ceremonial chambers.
On the steps, squeezed in among the advancing crowd, Lady Trent had calmly picked two muskets off of two dead soldiers and handed one to Chryse and the other to Sanjay. They pushed their way to the edge against the doors, clinging to each other. As they were forced on into the entryway by the pressure of the crowd, they could see clearly the three horses and their riders, and hear the inconstant volleying of shots receding up the widest hallway. The crowd streamed after the sound.
Kate had Southern’s sister on the back of her horse and Julian rode directly beside her, whether for her protection or his own it was impossible to tell. The earl fought his way back through the crowd, and, coming up to the five huddled against one wall, leaned down and grasped Maretha around the waist. She was too surprised to resist as he pulled her up behind him on the horse.
A moment later she had her bearings.
“To the left,” she cried, her voice scarcely carrying over the shouts and screams and distant firing, and there was indeed a small branch hallway leading to the left down which poured a thin stream of people from the crowd.
Behind, on the other side of the entry, Kate and Julian saw them and sent their horses into the mob. As if they were forcing a torrential river, they drove their animals across the flood of bodies, losing ground bit by bit but at last coming to rest against the opposite wall some meters up from the left hallway. When they reached Maretha, and the other four trailing behind on foot, Kate dismounted.
“Take the horse,” she said to Southern’s sister, and went to stand beside Chryse. She had two pistols strapped at her side.
Thomas Southern moved to take the horse’s halter. “I’ve got to stay here with her,” he said to Maretha. When she nodded, he pulled the horse aside.
Maretha did not look back as she led them down the hall. It quickly emptied into a large courtyard where a few groups of rioters were dancing wildly on the cobblestones. Julian offered to let his aunt ride; she refused. Maretha paused only a moment before she pointed to a small door set under an arch.
Lady Trent nodded to herself as they hurried in that direction. “It’s spreading, the force of her spell,” she said to Chryse.
“Whose spell? Maretha’s?”
“No. The Regent’s. It is that which Maretha is following. We must hurry.”
Sanjay had to break the lock with a blast from the musket he carried. The shot splintered wood, but the door opened. This hallway, decorated with fine hand-painted gold leaf in a scalloped pattern, seemed hushed after the tumult of the mob. They walked alone down it until, reaching a branching, they turned directly into a group of about a dozen soldiers.
Julian shot two before the others had time to react. The earl spurred his horse forward and drove it into them, scattering them, while Kate handed her two pistols to Julian and reloaded his spent ones. He shot again at the same time Chryse raised her musket and fired. The recoil sent her stumbling backwards and she caught her balance only to find herself looking down the barrel of a musket held by a fierce-faced soldier. She gasped.
Several shots fired all at once behind her. Someone spoke beside her, and she felt a sudden disorientation at the same time as the soldier whirled sideways and fired harmlessly into the ceiling. A calming hand settled on her arm.
“Dear me,” said Lady Trent softly. “This sort of conflict is always so messy.”
Chryse reversed her gun and clubbed the soldier on the back of the head. He went down hard. She stepped past him to see Sanjay clubbing one soldier and two others escaping at a run back the way they had come.
Lady Trent was matter-of-factly looting the bodies of their guns as she picked a delicate path across the carnage. Ahead, the earl reined in his horse impatiently. Kate and Julian traded pistols again.
“How can you do that?” asked Chryse as Lady Trent handed her a musket gleaned from the body of a man whose chest had been shattered by musket shot. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Necessity, my dear, is an unforgiving mistress,” said Lady Trent as she steered Chryse firmly past the bodies. One fellow moaned and writhed on the floor. “I have seen worse violence than this in my time.”
Just in front, Sanjay was looking decidedly queasy as he exchanged his musket for an unfired one still in the grip of a soldier shot through the head. They were the last in line. Julian turned to speak to them, but his expression flooded with alarm.
Chryse stood confused a moment. Sanjay was still unbending. But Lady Trent spun and, raising the musket she held to sight with remarkable precision, shot a soldier rising to his knees behind them before Julian could even aim his pistol.
“Bloody hell,” breathed Kate with awe. “Where did you learn to shoot?”
“We must hurry,” cried Maretha from the front, and they all turned and hastened after her.
She led them along a maze of corridors higher up and further into the palace. On one staircase a swarm of soldiers lined up and aimed their guns, but Maretha and Sanjay shouted at the same time, “They’re not real,” and they passed through them as through a cold draft of fog, which dissolved into nothingness about them.
Higher up the air got heavier and difficult to breathe. Julian had to dismount first and let his horse go. Soon after, the earl did as well. Both animals fled back the way they had come as if driven by unseen sticks. Maretha and Lady Trent began to gleam. It was just a dull tinge at first, but as the hallways grew darker, desp
ite the occasional window revealing sun outside, the glow emanating from them waxed in strength until it alone illuminated their way.
Chryse was, by this time, holding tightly to Sanjay’s free hand, and Kate and Julian, differences forgotten for the time, walked close as lovers, side by side.
“Here,” said Maretha at last, like a portent. As the earl reached for the door handle, she quickly jerked his hand back. “Don’t touch it!”
He pulled his hand free of her grasp with icy disdain. “I may have been stripped of my powers,” he said coldly, “but that does not mean I am entirely bereft of gifts.” He made two passes above the door handle with his open palm, speaking five incomprehensible words. When he put his hand on the handle, light sparked and raced like lightning up his arm. If it hurt, he did not show it. “Clever,” he said under his breath, “but too hastily prepared.” He opened the door.
A blast of wind took him off his feet and hurled him back against the opposite wall. The others were flung back as well. Only Lady Trent remained upright, both arms lifted, crossed across each other. Maretha struggled to rise beside her, but could not gain her feet.
The wind lessened slowly. Lady Trent’s face grew pale with the strain of controlling it.
“One chance,” she gasped. “To go through. When I say.”
Wind keened and tore at their clothing. Sanjay felt as if he was pinned to the wall by a huge hand. Beside him, Chryse’s hair was blown free of its tight bun and swirled madly about her face. Kate shielded herself with her hands and arms. Next to her, Julian tried hopelessly to pull himself up along the wall.
Like a window closed on it, the gale abruptly lessened.
“Now,” whispered Lady Trent, unable to muster anything louder.
They scrambled up like one being and hurried through the doorway. Chryse and Julian had to hoist the earl up between them and help him through. Just as Lady Trent stepped past the opening, the door slammed shut as if thrown.
Lady Trent sank down onto a nearby chair. She looked exhausted, and very old.
“Aunt Laetitia!” Julian exclaimed, letting go of the earl and moving towards her.
“Hurry on!” she said, urgent. “I just need a moment.”
Maretha had already passed into the next room, and as the other five came up behind her, she opened the final door and stepped through.
The room was dark, more shadow than light, and dim shapes moved in a slow rhythm, murmuring words in a monotone chant. Only the far end of the chamber had any illumination. In the glow of three candles Princess Georgiana could be seen, propped up in a ghoulish fashion by stakes attached to a latticework that stood against the wall. She was entirely limp, head lolling, and, quite incongruously, her feet were set into a large ceramic pot.
The sight was incongruous only for a moment. As the seven crowded into the room, they all froze in amazement for one long moment.
The princess changed. Her skin took on a sickly hue. Her fingers and toes budded with new spring leaves, her limbs and trunk shaded with the suggestion of stalks and reaching vines. The scent of roses pervaded the chamber, subtle and sweet.
In the center of the room a figure sat surrounded by huge, rustling skirts, her hands poised over a high table on which the five objects from the labyrinth had been carefully laid out. The golden cup, in the center, gleamed with an unnatural light that lent the barest cast of light to the Regent’s features as she turned her head to regard these intruders. Her expression was a remarkable blend of ecstatic calm and resolute intelligence that in that instant shifted purpose quickly and without hesitation to meet this new threat.
The earl laid a hand on Maretha’s arm and began to speak, but the Regent struck too swiftly.
The first blow hit like a shock wave, hammering all but Maretha to their knees, filling them with chaotic visions of violence and desire and fear, weighing on them like a massive burden. Following hard upon it came absolute cold so deep and abrupt that it froze the ability of the lungs to expand and contract.
Julian attempted to support his aunt and breathe at the same time. Lady Trent looked half dead, pale, skin tight against bone, but her lips moved.
“Move out,” she whispered. “Directions. Counter her boundaries.”
Flashes of intense burning heat began to alternate with the cold in time to the Regent’s back-and-forth swaying on the couch. Her face had a peculiar out-of-breath cast to it, but her eyes were direct and murderous. Maretha reflected the changes like a chameleon: with the cold she grew pallid, with the heat a luster shone from her. Her lips were tight with concentration, but her only action was to remain upright.
At the far end of the room, Georgiana slowly reverted to her flesh color as the force of the spell slanted off her onto the others.
Julian at last comprehended his aunt’s words and crawled forward, whispering as loudly as he could her words. Chryse tried to reach Kate’s hand, as if the simple act of touching another person would free her from the weight that gripped her. Her hand inched forward in infinitesimal pushes along the wood floor, but her feet felt rooted, as if she, like the princess, were transforming into some arboreal being. She heard Julian’s hissed words and with every gathered iota of will she possessed, she changed direction and crept for the wall opposite Georgiana.
Sanjay attempted to follow her, but his vision was distorted and his body caught in a paralysis the more horrifying for the alertness of his mind. Nothing responded but his panting gasps for breath. Then a hand brushed him in passing and he started as if awakened and could crawl, however slowly. Waves of heat and cold and paralysis beat down over him, unceasing in their succession one to the next, but he kept moving. Each motion was painful, but with each motion the pain grew more bearable.
Kate crept away from him towards Georgiana. Lady Trent lay beside the door unmoving. Julian and Chryse were ahead.
Beside Maretha the earl still knelt, but his face was drawn in agony with the effort of remaining on his knees. He seemed unable to move at all, even to turn his head, but he was nevertheless aware of the motion of the others. Sanjay saw his lips move with anguished concentration, though he could not hear his words, and Maretha lifted her hands in front of her face.
As if she were pushing through snow, she began to clear a way forward for herself toward the Regent, the earl following in her wake. As she neared the Regent, the heat and cold and pressure on the others slackened. Fire sparked and guttered in her hair. Her dress whipped and snapped in some unfelt wind, once flicking the earl in the throat as he inched forward behind her, leaving a welt.
As Sanjay reached the top of the couch on which the Regent sat, he felt suddenly the lifting of the spells on him, as if he had reached a tiny cocoon of safety. He looked around. Maretha’s radiance lent more light to the chamber, and he saw the seven members of their party spread around the room in a pattern that abruptly and eerily reminded him of Madame Sosostris and her daughters: Lady Trent at the door, Julian opposite her at the other wall; Kate by Georgiana, and Chryse at the far wall from her; himself between Chryse and the couch; Maretha almost at the couch, and the earl three feet behind her in the direction of Kate.
Somehow he could also see the Regent’s face: handsome in a feminine way, pervaded now by a concentration so intense that her features seemed obliterated by the potent force of her will. Sanjay knew instinctively that if he moved he would once again be subject to her spells, so he knelt quietly in the envelopment of still air.
In that same light he began to perceive the lines of the Regent’s magic. Like a thin rope of luminescence they trailed out to Georgiana, to all the corners of the room. But now, building, massing, her power coalesced into a single strand that arced and lanced at Maretha.
Everyone else was strangely silent, as if they saw nothing unusual. Sanjay tried to cry out, but the force of the Regent’s heightened power slammed into Maretha like a bolt of lightning.
Maretha knew the moment she entered the room that the Regent’s attention was inexorably
drawn to her. She felt herself the palpable attraction she radiated, focus of so much unleashed and uncontrolled power, like the golden cup or any of the treasures of the ancient city. She felt, too, the shift in the tide of the spell, and saw Georgiana transform fully to her human state at the same moment the full strength of all the Regent’s stored power, channeled through her years of experience in wielding it, struck her.
Like the obliteration of all the senses, the attack left her blind and deaf, mute and staggering. She did not even know she fell until hands touched her, grasped her, pulled her tight against warm flesh. That was the entire scope of her universe: a body against hers, whispered words she could not discern, and pain. She sank, struggling against her collapse but unable to do more than wish it onto her opponent. A void consumed her, and she acceded to the grip of her captor.
Felt, instead of annihilation, a new force gathering in the hands that held her, skill unlocking the neat mental shelves of books that were her only means of controlling the power of the labyrinth. Recognized his touch, somehow, clean and cold.
And unleashed it, sending the force of the Regent’s attack back on her, twice over.
The shock of its impact was as much explosion as earthquake, as much hurricane as inferno, and it was followed hard upon by utter silence as absolute as death.
She knew that her body still existed, felt a second presence embracing her, a face pressed against the back of her neck. Emboldened by this knowledge, she opened her eyes.
At first she could see no more than her companions surrounding her: Chryse to her north, Sanjay above, Julian to the east and Lady Trent to the west, Kate to the south—
The sight of Kate clasping the ceramic pot that held Princess Georgiana restored her perspective. The princess was slumped over like one dead, but her chest rose and fell in the slow regularity of sleep. For an instant, panicking, she thought she had lost her husband, until she realized that he was the person holding on to her.
She took a deep breath. Gently disengaging the earl, she stood up. The others, all but the princess, followed suit.
