by David Drake
"Right," he said. "The horses are back with my guards, your highness."
* * *
It wouldn't have been quite right to say that seeing the boxwoods up close took Ilna's breath away, but the mass of dark green let her know how much she'd been worn by a day of hiking on gritty soil through sere vegetation. She'd taken grass and trees for granted in Barca's Hamlet.
She smiled, wryly but without the bitterness she might have felt in the recent past. If her life had followed the course she'd expected, she'd never have known how many places there were that she liked less than she did Barca's Hamlet.
This country seemed to have a general slope from the southern cliffs northward, but no terrain is perfectly flat—not even the surface of the sea. The vegetation they'd seen at dawn had been out of sight for most of the past several hours. Now it appeared directly before them, an interwoven wall of branches reaching from the ground to several times a man's height.
"It's been planted!" said Chalcus. "There's never a chance that those trees grew together naturally."
"It's a maze," said Ilna. The entrance wasn't on this side, but she knew it existed as surely as she knew which warp threads to raise when she ran her shuttle through. "It's a maze of more than bushes."
"This is a barrier too," Davus said, indicating a fist-sized chunk of porphyry with the big toe of his right foot. It was lying on the crest of the rise they'd just walked up. "Of sorts. See there—"
He pointed, still using his foot. "And there?"
Now that he'd pointed them out, Ilna saw other rocks, some basalt and some porphyry, scattered in a wide arc to either side of the first. There was a distance of several paces between rocks, and they were of course—Ilna smiled as the words formed in her mind—just rocks.
"They circle the grove," Davus said. "They're to keep trolls out."
Chalcus stepped forward and paused, frowning angrily. He touched his sword hilt.
"Just a moment," said Davus, bending to lift away the stone he'd first indicated. "Now go through."
Chalcus stepped past him and nodded thankfully. Ilna followed, standing to the side as Davus backed after them and set the stone precisely where it'd been before.
"It was like stepping into warm blood," Chalcus said quietly. "A pool of warm blood. I could've gone on, but—I thank you, Master Davus."
"This way, I think," Ilna said, taking the lead without thinking about it. Seeing patterns was her work, her life; that was the skill they needed at present. She crunched over the ground, keeping just beyond arm's length of the hedge so that she didn't brush the boxwoods by accident. It probably wouldn't matter, but she didn't care to take the chance.
The weather appeared to follow the ridge they'd just crossed. The country Ilna saw to the north must be better watered, as it was grassy instead of being sparsely sprinkled with vegetation.
"Dear one?" said Chalcus, a few steps behind her with Davus. "What would happen if we were to cut a path through the branches here?"
"Nothing good," said Ilna. She usually plaited patterns in yarn as she walked along, a way to occupy her hands while her mind was elsewhere. Now she put the hank of yarn away because she needed that part of her to deal with the maze. "It isn't only brush, as I say. In fact, I suspect the trees were planted to conceal the real barrier."
The entrance was on the east side of the circle. It was a simple gap, wide enough that two could walk down it abreast if they didn't mind their shoulders touching the dense green branches.
Without looking at the men behind her Ilna said, "Follow me in line. Don't touch the branches, and on your lives don't go down any path except the one I lead you on."
She didn't bother to add, "Do you understand?" because they did understand. And if they'd been the sort of people who didn't, a few more words from her weren't going to prevent them from killing themselves.
Ilna stepped into the maze. The air was noticeably more humid, and she no longer felt the wind that'd been so constant since they'd arrived. The path was shaded even more than the tall boxwoods explained, and the light had a bluish cast. The changes from the arid waste outside weren't unpleasant in themselves, but they made Ilna think of bait in a trap.
She smiled. If the person who'd built the maze trapped her, then she deserved to die. It was a perfectly fair wager so far as she was concerned. She'd regret what happened to her companions, of course; if she had any time for regrets.
At the first turning Ilna took the left branch, but as she stepped past the fork she felt a surge of hopeful warmth, of longing even, to turn the other way. She looked down the narrow corridor. When she held her head just so, the green walls to either side vanished and she was instead peering into a deep well. At the bottom something waited, holding its raised tentacles close against the stone walls where they were ready to enwrap anyone who fell into its lair. Waiting, wanting more desperately than any young lover....
Ilna walked on, grimacing. She wanted to go faster, but though she trusted her instincts she was too careful a craftsman to increase the risks even marginally. There was always the chance that one of her companions, hurrying to follow, would make a mistake that his instincts wouldn't warn him against.
She turned left again at the next fork. If space within the maze were the same as that outside it, she and her companions would've been back on the windswept waste... but it wasn't, of course, and they continued down another boxwood aisle.
There was nothing down the other fork: gray, palpable nothing, stretching on forever; a Hell of emptiness, without hope or end.
Ilna's face was set. She wouldn't show fear, even to herself; but she knew that some day she would die, and she wondered/suspected/feared that the same endless gray waited for her when she did.
She couldn't control that, nor was it her present concern. Her task, her duty, was to bring her companions through the maze to where they could expect to find food and water better than the brackish trickle they'd sucked from the underside of a limestone outcrop not long after noon.
The next branching puzzled her: neither path was the right one. Then something shifted and she stepped through on the right, calling over her shoulder, "Quickly, now. It'll change back shortly."
She didn't take the time to glance down the left-hand branching, but there were scattered bones along the portion of the path she was walking. Some were human, but another cleaned skull lying against the boxwoods showed horn cores over the eyesockets.
When Ilna reached the next branching, she looked back. The men were with her, Chalcus leading Davus, both of them still-faced and precisely in the center of the path. Chalcus threw her a smile, real enough she supposed, but the fact his right hand hovered over the hilt of his incurved sword showed that he was more tense than when she'd seen him in bloody combat.
But of course in combat, Chalcus had a task which he knew perfectly how to accomplish. Here his duty was to follow and keep out of the way. He'd do that as he'd do whatever his duty was, but for some people it's harder to watch than to act.
Ilna grinned. As she herself knew well.
"We're getting close," she said as she continued on. Her companions had remained silent ever since they entered the maze, but they must be wondering even though they had the wit and courage not to chance distracting her with questions.
Ilna was judging their location by the pattern instead of any fancied judgment of how far they must have come along the path's windings. Distance had its own laws among these boxwoods, different from those it followed in the world outside; but patterns were fixed in the fabric of the cosmos.
The path kinked to the right. Instead of following it, Ilna paused, frowning because she knew that couldn't be correct; and as she hesitated, she saw the gap between boxwoods straight ahead where she'd have sworn their branches interwove.
She stepped forward but looked to the right, toward the path she hadn't taken. That was a mistake, almost a fatal one: she shouted and stumbled to her knees.
"Dear heart?" Chalcus said, his lef
t arm about her shoulders and his right flicking his swordpoint in tight arcs before her.
"Don't look to the side!" Ilna said. Her eyes were closed. She set her knuckles against the ground, grinding them hard enough that pain blurred the memory of what she'd seen. After some moments, she opened her eyes again and rose. Chalcus hovered behind her like a protective spirit.
Neither of the men spoke. Looking ahead rather than back at them, Ilna said, "There's what I suppose is a mirror down that aisle. It shows you the mistakes you've made in life, all of them; and it shows you what might have been if you hadn't made the mistakes. I think it would disturb a saint, and I haven't lived a saint's life."
She took a deep breath and added, "I've woven patterns to do that same thing. The people I've shown them to haven't recovered. I must not have gotten a clear look, or...."
"Are you able to go on, dear one?" Chalcus said softly.
Ilna gave a harsh laugh. "Of course," she said. "Until I die."
She strode forward. A very clever man, Chalcus; and a very understanding one. He knew that the last thing she needed was to stand, thinking about what might have been.
There were no more branchings. Ilna walked between the boxwoods, feeling the path spring comfortably beneath her feet. The aisles were too shaded to support grass, but moss carpeted the moist soil.
The path ended in a small clearing. In it stood a low stone house with a slate roof and a walled garden in back. In front was a door of reddish wood framed by casement windows with panes of frosty isinglass. At the left side, a thin trail of smoke rose from the chimney of flint nodules set in brilliantly white lime mortar.
Chalcus stepped in front of Ilna. "My turn to lead," he said, walking forward with an easy roll to his step. He slanted his sword across his chest where it was instantly ready to slash or parry but less obviously threatening than if he'd pointed it out in front of him.
Ilna glanced back at Davus; he smiled tightly and nodded her on ahead of him. He held a rock in either hand. These were larger chunks, each the size of a clenched fist, rather than the pebbles he'd used to bring down small game.
Ilna nodded back and followed Chalcus at a safe distance, just farther than his arm and curved sword would reach in a wide sweep. Her fingers were plaiting a pattern, keeping it doubled over between her palms so there was no danger if Chalcus looked over his shoulder at her.
She couldn't see movement through the windowpanes, and the only sound was the whisper of her feet and the sailor's against flagstones; Davus didn't make even that much noise. The latch-chain of bronze links hanging from the notch at the top of the door was verdigrised except for the flat plate on the end where use had worn the metal to a natural golden sheen.
Chalcus gripped the chain in his left hand, then glanced back to be sure his companions were ready. Davus gripped the vertical pull, also bronze, with two fingers of his left hand. He still held a stone with his thumb and the other two fingers. He and Chalcus moved in perfect sequence, one lifting the latch and the other hauling the massive door open.
Chalcus was inside as soon as the door swung enough to pass his body by a finger's breadth. Ilna followed, the pattern cupped in her hands against need.
The interior of the house was a single room, lighted by windows on three sides. Several layers of carpets covered the floor, their patterns subtly pleasing through the soles of Ilna's feet. A small cauldron hissed on a hearth crane over a charcoal fire.
A man with a goatee sat on a chalcedony throne in the center of the room, facing the front door. Curving designs were worked in silver thread on his purple velvet robe. Ilna sniffed to note that the embroiderer had been much more skillful than whoever'd woven the fabric to begin with. In the back wall was another door, less ornate, to serve the back garden.
The man's right hand rested on the arm of the throne, holding a gold-mounted goblet of etched glass. It was empty except for russet dregs. His eyes were unfocused and his mouth lay slackly open.
Davus stepped in behind Ilna and pulled the door closed to cover their backs. When the heavy panel thudded against the jamb the man woke up, staring in fury at the three of them.
"Your pardon, good sir—" Chalcus began.
The man dropped his goblet and jumped to his feet. Standing, he was no taller than Ilna and noticeably pudgy despite his loose robe. He drew an athame of dense black rootwood from beneath his sash. He probably meant to point it at the intruders, but Chalcus moved more quickly and flicked the athame out of the wizard's hand with the back of his sword.
The blade wavered back like a curving beam of light. Its point paused a hand's-breadth from the wizard's nose. He made a strangled sound and jerked away, only to trip over the goblet and fall beside the throne.
"As I was saying, good sir," Chalcus said. This time his voice was the deep, rasping purr of a big cat. "We're visitors in need of food and shelter, and though we beg your pardon—you will provide what we need."
He smiled down the length of his extended arm. The swordpoint was still centered on the wizard's nose.
* * *
Ronn sloped to the east in steps like those of a giant staircase. The exercise field was on the lowest level. Cashel looked over the parapet. The nearest ground was forest, covered with trees tall enough to overhang the edge of the field.
Cashel hadn't ever looked at the top of trees so big; or the tops of any trees, really, except after he'd cut them down. Seeing them this way was a pretty sight, no mistake.
Kinked and knotted vines grew everywhere, between the trees and from the crowns to the dirt. The branches were narrow meadows covered with mosses, plants that looked like cups or whose leaves were turned up to catch the rain, and bright, dangling flowers. Birds of even more colors than the flowers hopped and fluttered among the foliage, and equally gorgeous butterflies caught the sun like drifting jewels.
"We're on good terms with the jungle here in Ronn," Mab said. She smiled at him, but not in the coolly amused fashion he'd seen most often on her face. This was a warmer expression, like a mother gives a sleeping baby. "It creeps into the palace here on the east side. Some of the lianas stretch a hundred feet down the corridors, and when they bloom their flowers perfume the rooms even farther in."
She turned, drawing Cashel's eyes with her, and added, "But I see the Sons have arrived. Come, I'll introduce you."
The exercise field was an enormous thing; everything in Ronn was on a grand scale. There was an oval track around the whole terrace, and inside it straight tracks of a furlong and two furlongs. Ball courts stood at one end, and arrangements of poles for climbing and swinging were at the other. Down the middle ran long rows of dressing rooms, which men and women both came in and out of with the irregular busyness you see at the mouth of a beehive.
Ronn towered to the west, but because of the way it was stepped back, it didn't feel oppressive the way a wall straight up and down would've done. Cashel had seen mountains since he'd left the borough, real ones that hadn't been hollowed out into cities, and he'd learned that they never looked as big as they really were except when you were at a distance from them. Close up, the nearby bits got in the way of you feeling the size of the whole thing.
Six young men wearing helmets and breastplates walked from the dressing rooms toward the stretch of sod in a corner where Mab and Cashel waited. They carried shields with designs on the facings but they didn't have spears. Instead of real swords they held awkward-looking wooden affairs. Herron was in the middle.
They looked uncomfortable. Cashel gave them a friendly smile. Duzi knew he'd spent much of his life feeling uncomfortable around other people.
"Mistress?" Herron said to Mab. "You told us to meet you here?"
"Yes, to give Cashel a demonstration of your abilities," Mab said briskly. "And to introduce him to the rest of you."
She gestured toward the youths with her palm turned upward and continued, "Cashel, these are the Sons of the Heroes. They take the name of their group from the six Heroes who in past cen
turies defended Ronn from the Made Men. The real Heroes now live in the Shrine of the Heroes, a cave beneath the city's foundations. Only their semblances walk the walls of Ronn at night."
"That's all a myth," said a dark, studious-looking youth, dropping his eyes as he spoke. "Nobody lives for centuries in a cave. The Heroes died and maybe their bones are buried there, that's all."
"That's Master Orly, Cashel," Mab said coolly. "Herron you've met, and their four companions are Manza, Athan, Enfero and—"
"I'm Stasslin, Master Cashel," said the sixth man, red-haired and the shortest of the group but built very solidly. He transferred his wooden sword to the hand gripping his shield, a little buckler with a wolf's head device, and stepped forward to clasp arms with Cashel.
Stasslin squeezed a trifle harder than he needed to. Cashel didn't squeeze back, but he tensed his biceps to convince the shorter man that he was all muscle under the tanned skin. Stasslin backed away, pursing his lips.
"Glad to meet you," Cashel said. "Ah, all of you, masters."
"And as for you, Orly," Mab said in a voice that cut like the winter wind. "You've been down to the Shrine of the Heroes, have you?"
The dark young man flushed. "I haven't been there, of course not," he said. "I'm just not a fool. I've read books, I've studied all the legends."
"And the people who wrote the books?" Mab continued in the same tone. "Had they been to the Shrine?"
"Mistress," said Herron, edging forward a little to partly shield his embarrassed friend from the woman's glare. "Nobody's been to the shrine in, well, a hundred years. It's not safe, not now with the way things are, with the King threatening."
"So, Master Orly...," Mab said. "You believe things you've never seen because you've been told them by other people who've never seen them. Isn't that how you'd define 'superstition', Master Orly? Or would you prefer to call it childish prattling?"
Cashel wouldn't have treated a beaten enemy that way—and Orly surely was beaten, for all he was too young to admit it out loud—but he knew Ilna would do just the same to the boy as Mab was doing. He'd seen Ilna flay people with her tongue more than once, but only once per victim.
