Eye of the Labyrinth

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Will you cook the mushrooms?”

  “I’ll cook the mushrooms,” he agreed. “But they’re all yours. I have an aversion to eating unidentified and possibly deadly fungi.”

  “Your loss,” she shrugged.

  “And don’t think I’m going to hold your head for you while you puke when they turn out to be poisonous,” he called after her.

  She smiled suddenly and looked back at him. “You know, Dirk Provin, sometimes you’re a bigger girl than I am.”

  Chapter 48

  It took Alenor’s servants the best part of an hour to free her from the crystal-beaded wedding gown and prepare her to greet her new husband on her wedding night. The wedding had been a spectacular affair, as was the coronation that followed. Although it was an open secret that Rainan would abdicate on Alenor’s sixteenth birthday, there were more than a few unhappy mutterings during the ceremony. Mostly, however, the Dhevynian nobles present at the coronation kept their opinions to themselves. The fact that the hall was lined with Senetian soldiers, who outnumbered the Queen’s Guard three to one, aided them considerably in their efforts.

  Kirsh paced the anteroom, bored senseless by the wait, wishing protocol had allowed him to stay at the reception for a while longer. Then again, he thought, maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t there. Kirsh had a duty to perform and he was determined to do it well. He would not come to Alenor drunk or reeking of wine. In fact, he had quite deliberately remained sober, drinking only watered wine at the reception, careful how much he consumed. This was Alenor’s first time, and he was going to make it as easy and as pleasurable for her as he possibly could.

  Kirsh consciously put Marqel out of his thoughts. He was married now, and while he fully intended to keep Marqel as his mistress, he would do it discreetly, so as not to offend his wife. He was confident that she was unaware of his relationship with the Shadowdancer. Alenor was not the type to remain silent when she had something to say, and Kirsh knew that if Alenor had any idea about Marqel, she would most definitely have something to say about it.

  He had thought it a little odd that Alenor had invited Marqel to Kalarada, but decided it was merely a stroke of good fortune. Marqel had been responsible for his rescue in Nova, and Alenor was obviously very grateful. She must have forgotten that night of the ball in Avacas, when she and Dirk caught them in the woods in a position that could only be described as compromising. Anyway, he told himself, if Alenor thought he and Marqel were lovers, there was no way she would have allowed the Shadowdancer within a hundred miles of her island.

  Kirsh was confident he could manage the responsibilities of a regent, a wife and a mistress. His father was the Lion of Senet after all, and had kept the High Priestess as his mistress all of Kirsh’s life, as well as a string of other beauties that had come and gone through Avacas, their tenure so brief, their faces so uniformly beautiful and vague, that they had barely impacted on Kirsh at all.

  “Your highness?”

  Kirsh turned from his pacing to find Dorra standing at the door to the bedchamber, while an army of servants filed from the room carrying Alenor’s dress.

  “The queen is ready for you now.”

  It took Kirsh a moment to realize Dorra spoke of Alenor. The coronation had only been a few hours before. He was not used to the idea that she was a queen. He hurried to the door that Dorra held open for him.

  “Good night, your highness,” she said with a curtsy and a knowing smile, before closing it behind him.

  Alenor was standing by the window, bathed in the red light of the first sun. She was dressed in a beautifully embroidered, almost transparent dressing gown and matching nightdress, probably unaware that the red sunlight outlined her slender frame through the sheer fabric in a rather enticing fashion.

  She turned when she heard the door close, her expression pensive.

  “Hello, Kirsh.”

  Kirsh discovered himself suddenly lost for words. He had known this girl for most of his life; known he would one day marry her for almost as long. Yet now that it was done—now he was here with Alenor as his bride—he discovered he had no idea what to say to her.

  “You ... you looked beautiful today,” he stammered.

  She smiled faintly. “I’m glad you thought it worth the effort. That dress weighed more than I do.”

  He walked over to the window and stood beside her. “How does it feel to be queen?”

  “I don’t know, Kirsh. How does it feel to be regent?”

  He smiled. “Ask me in a few days when I have writer’s cramp from signing proclamations all day.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Is that all you think being regent requires of you?”

  “Don’t start,” he begged. “I’ve had enough lectures recently from my father about the responsibility of being Regent of Dhevyn.”

  “Did you listen to any of them?”

  “Alenor, let’s worry about ruling Dhevyn tomorrow. Tonight is for us.”

  “You mean to do your duty then?” she asked in an odd tone.

  He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “It’s the most agreeable duty I’ve had in a long time, Alenor.”

  She let him pull her close, let him kiss her, but she remained still in his arms. She did not kiss him back. He lifted his mouth from hers and looked at her curiously for a moment. “What’s the matter?”

  When she didn’t answer him, he smiled. “Are you frightened?” he asked gently. “I won’t hurt you, Allie.”

  “Won’t you, Kirsh?” she said, searching his eyes for something.

  “Of course not, silly,” he promised, lowering his head to kiss her again.

  She put her hands on his chest and gently pushed him away. “It’s a pity you didn’t decide that before you took Marqel as your mistress.”

  Kirsh stared at her, aghast. “Allie, I don’t—”

  “Don’t bother lying to me, Kirsh. This is my palace. You’ve been serving in my guard. You honestly think I’m not aware of every single move you make? Goddess, you really are a fool.”

  She walked away from him, to the small table where her servants had laid out refreshments. She poured a cup of wine and sipped it before turning to look at him.

  “Alenor, whatever you’ve heard ... I know where my duty lies.”

  “Your duty?” she repeated bitterly. “How do you think that makes me feel, Kirsh? Knowing that you think of me as your duty?”

  He threw his hands up in exasperation. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I worshipped you,” she told him, her pain making him cringe with guilt. “I adored you. You were the only thing that made it bearable when your father took me away from my home. You were the only reason I could stand living under your father’s roof. You were all I ever wanted.”

  “I know, but—”

  He ducked hurriedly as she hurled the goblet at him. It shattered on the wall behind him, leaving a red stain on the delicately hand-painted wallpaper.

  “That’s what makes it so intolerable!” she cried. “I never hid my feelings. You knew how I felt! Yet you took up with that thief anyway!”

  Kirsh thought he might die from the accusation in her eyes. “I never meant to hurt you, Alenor.”

  “And you won’t hurt me, Kirsh,” she announced with quiet determination, her sudden burst of fury now under control. “Never again.”

  He nodded, resigned to his fate. “I’ll end it,” he promised.

  Alenor shrugged. “I don’t really care whether you end it or not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have your whore, Kirshov Latanya. But don’t think you can have me, too. I am not a duty. And I won’t settle for the leftovers from some other woman’s table.”

  He crossed the room to her, tried to take her in his arms.

  “Don’t touch me!” she ordered coldly.

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” she informed him. “I am Queen of Dhevyn n
ow, and I will put up with you as regent, because I have no choice. But don’t think for one minute that you will ever spend a night in my bed. I will not lie there with my eyes closed thinking of Dhevyn while you do your duty thinking of Marqel.”

  “Your duty is to produce an heir!” he reminded her angrily.

  “There will be no heir, Kirsh. Certainly not one of Latanya blood. How you explain that to your father is entirely up to you.”

  “You have no idea what you’re doing!” he accused. “My father won’t tolerate you defying him like this!”

  “I dare you to go to him! I dare you to tell him that I won’t let you into my bed because I’m jealous of your mistress.” She laughed harshly, genuinely amused by the suggestion. “What do you think he’s going to do, Kirsh? He won’t be angry with me. He likes me. In fact, I spent most of my growing years doing my utmost to make the Lion of Senet like me. He’ll be annoyed at you, certainly, but he’s not going to hurt you. You know what he’ll do, don’t you? He’ll remove the problem. Your precious Shadowdancer will simply disappear off the face of Ranadon. She’ll probably wash up on the shore somewhere between here and Avacas, a nameless, faceless, bloated corpse ...”

  “All right!” he yelled. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Don’t take that tone with me,” she said with icy dignity. “I am your queen.”

  “You’re a spoiled, jealous, spiteful child!” he retorted. “And you’re going to ruin everything to get even with me because I committed the crime of falling in love with someone who loves me because of me, not because my father happens to be the Lion of Senet and I’m their only hope of holding on to their pathetic little kingdom!”

  If his words hurt Alenor, he could not tell. Nor, at that moment, did he particularly care.

  She shook her head sadly. “Do you really believe she’d love you if you weren’t a prince, Kirsh? Are you so gullible that you think Marqel the Magnificent isn’t in love with what you are, not who you are?”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Perhaps not,” she conceded. “And if you want to keep telling yourself that she loves you for any other reason than the wealth and power she thinks she’ll acquire as your mistress, then you go right on believing it. My only concern is that I have made my position clear.”

  “As crystal,” he agreed bitterly.

  “Then get out,” she ordered calmly. “Go spend the night with your whore.”

  Kirsh stared at her and realized he was looking at a stranger. He turned on his heel angrily and strode across the room, jerking the door open.

  “Kirsh?”

  He stopped and looked back at her.

  “Do you remember that night in Avacas? That night of the ball?”

  “What about it?”

  “You’d have had her that night, if Dirk and I hadn’t found you when we did.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is, you should remember that Marqel went straight from your arms to Dirk’s.”

  “That’s not how it was! He raped her.”

  Alenor shook her head with a knowing smile. “You know that’s a lie. That’s why you got so mad at him, wasn’t it? Because you knew, deep down, that the only way Dirk would lay a finger on Marqel was if she wanted it.”

  Kirsh found himself unable deny her.

  “She used the Milk of the Goddess on him, Kirsh,” Alenor continued brutally. “She deliberately sought out Dirk Provin, drugged him and willingly gave herself to him within an hour of being with you. Some night, when you’re lying in her arms imagining that she loves you, you might like to ask her why she did that.”

  Chapter 49

  After they had eaten dinner, Dirk took his parchment and his stick of charcoal and clambered back up the slope to continue sketching out his map of the ruins in the red light of the second sun. Tia was in an odd mood: cheerful one moment, biting the next, so he thought it prudent to stay out of her way while she got over it. He had cooked her mushrooms for her, but had declined to try them himself. Something about the smell of them made him wary. Tia seemed to think they were delicious, though, and had even licked her plate clean.

  Omaxin stretched out before him, a ghostly remnant of a once-great city hiding in the shadow of the magnificent, deadly mountain that had rained death on all those unfortunate enough to live within its reach. The volcano responsible for the city’s destruction, Mount Probeus, its crater still smoking occasionally, stood some distance away, part of the range known as the Nurals. Dirk doubted it was planning to erupt anytime soon. He had lived near the unstable Tresna Sea on Elcast for long enough to know that an eruption was usually preceded by a series of tremors, and there had been no sign of anything like that since they had been in the north.

  There was little to give any indication of how tall the ruined buildings of Omaxin had been before the eruption. The excavations of the Shadowdancers had been haphazard at best, and they were not here to study history, but to discover a secret. Most of their work seemed to center on an area off to the right, some half a mile from where Dirk lay, making his map. The lava flow that destroyed Omaxin must have been massive there. The molten rock had washed over that part of the city, leaving nothing but a featureless, windswept landscape in its wake. He could just make out a darker shadow in the rock face that indicated where the entrance to the Labyrinth lay.

  “Dirk?”

  He turned and glanced over his shoulder. Tia stood at the bottom of the slope looking up at him.

  “Hmm?”

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “I told you. Making a map of the city.”

  “Did you want to see the dance Risilka taught me?”

  “No,” he retorted absently, turning back to his mapping. Then he spun round and stared down at her in astonishment. “What did you say?”

  Tia smiled up at him seductively, her hands on her hips. Her shirt was unbuttoned to the waist, her bosom thrust forward. The tiny silver bow and arrow he had won in Bollow sat snuggled between her breasts “Ruins are boring ... wouldn’t you rather make a map of me?”

  Dirk shoved his half-completed sketch aside and looked down on her with concern. “Are you all right, Tia?”

  She began to climb up the slope toward him with a predatory gleam in her eye. “I’ve never felt better. Do you want to kiss me?” she asked.

  “Now I know there’s something wrong with you.” Dirk scrambled backward as she neared him. “You look ... unwell.”

  She did, too. Her pupils were dilated, her skin sheened with sweat and she was breathing hard, much harder than the short climb up the slope warranted.

  “I feel wonderful,” she sighed dreamily as she reached the top. She leaned into him and grabbed him on the backside. “Let’s see how you feel.”

  “You’re drunk!” he accused, jerking away from her. Where had she got the alcohol? Had she smuggled a bottle of vod’kun into her pack back in Bollow?

  “I’m not drunk,” she objected, rather drunkenly. With all the subtlety of an Avacas whore, she slid her arms around him and began to nuzzle his neck, just below his ear. “Kiss me, Dirk. Touch me. Let me feel you inside me. Let me—”

  “Tia!” he cried in alarm, tearing her arms from his neck. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing that can’t be cured by this,” she giggled, reaching for his groin.

  Dirk slapped her hand away. “Hey!”

  “Are you shy, Dirk?” she teased. “Is that what it is?” She began to loosen her belt. “You don’t have to be shy with me, you know ...”

  “Tia, do you even know what you’re suggesting?”

  After a fumbled attempt, she finally got her belt undone and pulled it free. Tia looked at it for a moment and then smiled mischievously. “Maybe Dirk’s been a naughty boy? Maybe he needs a good spanking? Maybe he’d even like it?”

  Panic stricken, Dirk backed away from her, trying to fathom her bizarre behavior. It was almost as if she had
taken the Milk of the Goddess, but where she might have gotten hold of a dose of that vile substance out here in the middle of nowhere ...

  With a sudden rush of understanding, Dirk reached out, grabbed her by the arms and shook her, hard. “Tia, listen to me. This is not you talking. It’s those damn mushrooms.”

  She shook him off and ran her tongue over her lips in a blatant invitation. “Don’t be silly, mushrooms can’t talk.”

  “They’re not just any mushrooms,” he tried to explain, pushing her away, and then stumbling backward as she began to pursue him with the relentless hunger of an animal in heat.

  “You can’t escape me, Dirk,” she purred. “Now be a good boy and stop running away. Or am I going to have to tie you down?”

  “Those mushrooms must have been Jaquison’s Blight!” he yelled, scrambling out of reach. “That’s what they make the Milk of the Goddess from!”

  She had not heard a word he had said. Dirk guessed the effect of the mushrooms would not be as severe as the distilled and concentrated syrup that the Shadowdancers used at Landfall, but it was obviously bad enough. And Tia would have no control over what she was feeling. He knew that from experience. Nothing other than the need to sate her desire would be allowed to take root in her mind.

  He glanced over his shoulder and realized that the only place he had to go was down the other side of the small hill toward the lake. Tia took advantage of his momentary distraction. The next thing he knew she was on him again, kissing him, rubbing her hips against him ... and for one, foolish moment he let her. For one dangerous, insane instant, he actually contemplated giving her what she wanted ...

  Then common sense prevailed and he shoved her away. “Tia, if you do this, the only person you’re going to hate more than me in the morning is yourself.”

  “I don’t hate you, Dirk,” she whispered, sliding her arms around him again, as her tongue flickered over his earlobe. “I could never hate you ...”

  “Oh, yes you could,” he muttered feelingly, even though he realized by now that he might as well be talking to himself. He spared another glance over his shoulder at the lake.