by Terry Madden
Glaw and another undead soldier carried Nechtan down more spiral stairs that followed the northern canal as it cascaded into an underground river.
The labyrinth existed in the realm of the sacred rivers, far below the canals. No one would find them down here. Even if Pyrs succeeded in taking Caer Sidi, he would never venture into this maze. Their only hope was that Merryn might lead them out.
The stairs ended at a door of hammered copper, just like the other Lyleth had seen. Not rectangular, but instead, narrower at the top. The door opened as if it knew they were coming.
Inside, a corridor of the same shape branched as they walked onward, then branched again, and again. It smelled of burning pitch and stagnant water. Here and there, goblin fire moss grew in the damp places, glowing with its own fire. Every passage looked the same. Polished stone walls reflected the fire from an endless string of torches. The low ceiling had blackened from smoke that almost entirely hid the runes. Carved like a ribbon near the top of the wall, Lyleth wondered if the symbols recorded a poem, or a history, or a spell. Part of her yearned to learn the runes, as Connor had—to fashion beasts from greenflow. But it was a power none should have, least of all, one with such poor judgment as Lyleth.
When at last they stopped walking, they stood before another copper door. It was not the place they’d been kept the night before. They had come deeper into the maze this time, and Lyleth believed Tiernmas meant to leave them here.
The door opened, and their Sunless escorts stepped inside. As they did, torches ignited in sconces on all four sides.
A square chamber was decorated with manacles chained to each wall, two low pallets and a piss pot.
Glaw dragged Nechtan inside and left him face-down on the floor. Lyleth, they chained to the wall. The chains were not very long. Lyleth could neither sit, nor lie on the pallet; she could only hang her weight on her arms and anticipate losing feeling in them quickly.
When the Sunless left, the smell of rot left with them.
“We’ll smell no better if we don’t get out of here,” she told Nechtan.
He gave her an amused smile. They’d left him on the floor, unchained. Since he could not stand, his wrists would not reach the manacles. Rather than try an alternative to bind him, the Sunless had simply left. Were they that sure he could not escape?
No, they knew well enough that even if he could escape, he would never find his way out of the labyrinth.
Nechtan moved with surprising agility, crawling on his elbows to the door where he felt for a latch. Failing, he laid his head on the ground, trying to see under the door to the corridor beyond.
“Not even one of the sprites could fit between this door and the floor,” he said. He crawled over to one of the pallets, and pulled himself to a sitting position. His rhythmic dragging motion reminded Lyleth of a snake, coiling and pressing forward, and then repeating. His elbows must be bloody by now.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I try not to think in times like this. I’m just looking.”
“For what?”
“For something we can use. Anything.” He flung the straw mattress from the pallet and turned the frame on its side. His fingers probed the joints, and then he punched at one of the legs until it loosened and he could pull it free.
He held the stumpy piece of wood up to her. A small, bent nail protruded from it. “At least they still have to use nails in this accursed place.”
“What do you propose to do with that?” she asked.
After some minutes, he had the nail out of the splintered wood, had stacked the two pallets one atop the other, and pushed them along the wall until they rested under Lyleth. She found relief from the strain on her arms by sitting on top of them. Nechtan managed to pull himself up. Sitting with his back against the wall beside her, he adjusted his lifeless legs by lifting them by the pants. Then he took the nail and turned over her manacled wrist, first one way, then the other.
“There’s no keyhole,” he said. “Bloody hell.”
“Then there’s no key,” she added. “This cage was not made by humans, Nechtan.”
He shot her a sidelong glance. Had she never called him anything but Hugh Cavendish?
He gave a long sigh, tossed the nail to the floor, and pressed his head against the stone wall, his face glistening with sweat. Either she’d grown accustomed to his short-cropped hair, or she really had begun to see Nechtan in this man’s face; she wasn’t sure. Inside, they were both the same beings they had been a thousand years before, fighting the same fight for a land they both loved.
Lyleth took his hand and held it tightly. His grip was strong, his hands dirty, and his knuckles bloody. Having glimpsed the grand succession of her countless lives in the magic of her soothblade, she found the pattern was painfully clear. This was how it always ended. Bloody and beaten, and waiting to die. But usually together. She was thankful for that.
“We’re held by something stronger than steel, my lord.”
His eyes met hers. “Aye,” he said. “Much stronger.” He lifted her dirty hand to his lips and pressed a long kiss there, the chain of her shackles jangling.
“Do you think he can do it?” she asked. “Pyrs?”
Nechtan nodded resolutely, as if willing himself to believe it. “He can…if he can kill the dragon.”
“And Connor?” she said. “He was to follow us when he regained his strength.”
“I know him. He will follow. And he’ll join Pyrs.” His voice quavered slightly.
“And he will help them bring down the dragon,” she said firmly.
“Aye.” But his doubt was evident in his failure to meet her eyes.
“Now this is a bedtime tale, my lord,” she said, “and we both know it.”
He gave her a sad smile.
The air in these depths was humid, like a long exhalation. Or perhaps it was Nechtan’s nearness. For six years she had been speaking to him in her mind, scrying pools of rainwater to see his face, to send her love to him. And now that he sat beside her, she lacked the words.
Their talk always came back to Angharad.
“The old tales said the Child of Death was one to be feared,” Nechtan said. “The child I saw in my dreams, who came to me, surely…she was not to be feared.”
“People fear what they do not understand,” Lyleth said. “Arianrhod might have been a goddess of star and stone to the Old Blood, but to the Ildana, she was a terrible hag, a bloodthirsty manipulator of humanity. She built her fortress from the greenflow of an invading army.” She glanced at the walls about them. “Terrible, indeed. And strong.”
“Perhaps she is bloodthirsty,” Nechtan said. Lyleth had seen that look in his eye too many times to react as he wanted. His provocations always ended in lengthy arguments.
“What makes you think so?” Lyleth asked evenly.
“Because you said yourself our daughter and Arianrhod are two beings in one. The way Talan was both Talan and the ‘little man’ who controlled him. What if Angharad is inside somewhere?”
She’d never considered it. It frightened her to the core.
“Perhaps she wants to drive the Ildana from the land and return it to the Old Blood,” Nechtan said. “Maybe it’s not our unified victory she hopes for, but the Old Blood’s.”
“You can’t mean that,” she argued. “She led Connor and Elowen to us, and Cyr—”
“Who only joined us because I had a gun that scared them all into a peace treaty,” Nechtan said. “In the land of the dead, many a war has been fought between armies both claiming that God has blessed them—their victory was assured because they were chosen or blessed.”
“This is not the land of the dead—”
“Tiernmas seemed to imply that he has…encountered Angharad.” Nechtan’s brow furrowed as it always did during an argument, one eyebrow hoisted in exclamation.
“She would never aid him.” Lyleth declared.
He shrugged. “We have to consider it.”
“The seeds,” Lyleth said, fumbling with the laces of her vest to reach inside. The cuff of the manacle held her wrist fast and made it difficult.
“Here,” she told Nechtan. “Take out the pouch there.”
He unlaced her vest, pausing to meet her eyes and draw a deep breath. His fingers pressed gently against her ribs. He caressed her as he searched for the little leather pouch and finally drew it out.
Lyleth swallowed hard, and her face grew hot.
“She dropped it,” Lyleth said, indicating the pouch. “When she vanished, when the bees took her, she dropped this. I saw her feed her salamander these seeds.”
Nechtan pulled the strings to open the pouch, then shook them out onto his hand. Little round globes of blood red fruits bore black seeds inside.
“A fruit?” he said.
“I’ve carried them all this time and they’ve never dried like a fruit would. Never gotten moldy.”
“You didn’t show them to Connor?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t trust Connor. No more than I trusted Merryn. I know,” she admonished, “don’t say it. I was a fool.” She took one of the seeds from his palm and held it up to the torchlight. “Angharad placed a seed in Elowen’s mouth before Talan tried to kill her. She became stone. And Connor found her in your world.”
“So, the seed prevents death?”
“I’m not sure,” Lyleth said. “But it might help us.”
“It might turn us into stone,” Nechtan warned. “What if we were to plant the seed, instead of eating it? You and Merryn planted seeds to cross over.”
“But we don’t want to cross over,” she argued. “Do we?”
“I want to get out of this bloody labyrinth,” he said. “When Angharad fed it to her salamander, what happened to it?”
“It just snapped it up, like a toad would a fly. But that was a salamander, a conjuring.”
“If I ate this now…” Nechtan began, but the idea trailed off into the possible consequences.
“No, we can’t risk it,” Lyleth said, closing her hand over his. “Not yet. But what if we were to get one of these into Tiernmas?”
“Perhaps…it would turn him to stone,” Nechtan said with a grin. “Or cast him into the land of the dead?”
They were still talking when sleep took Nechtan. He was in mid-sentence, talking about Merryn and her farm, about finding his own skeleton in the burial mound there. It was wearing his crown.
Lyleth listened to him breathe as he slept, the steady rise and fall of his chest gave her comfort in a way she’d never imagined. At least they had this time before being separated again by death. They’d been making an accounting of their lives apart, coloring in the scenes so they might see how the two images fit together over a millennium. Always stronger together, she thought, and ran her fingers over his lips.
When the torches were ignited again, they woke. A tray of food sat before them. Bread and cheese and a flagon of good ale. If someone had crept in and left it, they were exceedingly quiet.
“Why are they feeding us if they’ve left us to die?” Lyleth asked.
Nechtan laughed. “Pyrs. He might be gaining ground. Tiernmas can’t kill us yet. He thinks he can barter with us.”
It took some patience for Nechtan to crawl down from their perch, retrieve the food, and bring it to her.
It might have been a day, or possibly two because they were fed twice before someone finally came. Lyleth was struck silent by the face who opened the door. Nesta. The druí with eyes of two colors, the one whom Talan had sacrificed to finally open the well. But she was dead. She hadn’t the look of the other risen, but looked like herself.
“Come,” she said, and the manacles fell from Lyleth’s wrists.
Nechtan glanced at Lyleth and gave a subtle nod. It was time for the bargaining.
If Connor was with Pyrs, he’d stop Pyrs from agreeing to anything. At least, Lyleth hoped he would.
Two guards, like Nesta, were not Sunless, but human men. They took hold of Nechtan and dragged him after Nesta. Two more took Lyleth by the arms and forced her along behind. By the blaze of the corridor torches, Lyleth almost failed to see the sprite that hovered close above Nechtan’s head. The tiny being turned its glowing insectoid eyes to Lyleth repeatedly. It had to be her. It had to be Merryn.
“Where are we going?” Lyleth demanded.
She was met by a grin and a flash of Nesta’s bicolored eyes. “You are worth much to my lord king,” she said. “You will seal our victory.”
The first turn of a dozen led them into a corridor that seemed to disappear in the distance.
As the second turn followed, one of Lyleth’s guards fell with a gurgling sound, his throat slit. Lyleth turned to see Ragnhast, one eye swollen shut and bloody. He grinned and thrust his sword into the second guard. Saeth appeared behind him. Casually, she stepped past Lyleth and dispatched the other two guards before they could draw their weapons.
Chapter 25
In just the few days since Connor and Elowen had crossed the well, the architecture of the natural caverns had already changed as the well lifted from the Void. What had once been a staircase hewn from stone was no more than a few steps down into the caverns. They took a few wrong turns before arriving at the copper door that marked the labyrinth.
The runes Connor had left upon it a thousand years earlier burning brightly under his palm. The doors swung noiselessly inward to reveal a corridor of polished stone and burning torches.
“You can take off your shrouds,” Connor told them.
“I’m not taking anything off,” Iris said.
“Suit yourself. The sprites won’t attack you here. They can’t. They’re bound by commands given to them a thousand years ago.”
“By who?” Dylan asked.
“Me.” Connor reached up to the ribbon of sooty runes running along the wall and wiped them clean with his finger. “I added my own spells to these walls before Merryn and I left.”
“What about the undead men?” Fiach asked.
“The shrouds won’t help you there,” Connor said. “They’ll attack, just like they did outside the walls. Only your axe can stop them.”
“What the hell?” Iris said, finally pushing her hood back. She took in the funhouse-like appearance of the endless, connecting corridors.
Runes scrolled along the tops of every wall. They provided the story of how the labyrinth had been built, the genealogy of the kings and queens of the green gods, as well as the battles they’d fought. But to one trained to read the runes, it also provided a map. By following the story, Connor was able to navigate the many turns needed to find the way to the central staircase.
“But where’s the well?” Iris asked.
Connor couldn’t help but notice, as had Elowen, that Iris had taken hold of Dylan’s hand.
Iris added, “When we were here last, the well was out there, in the caves. We never came through here.”
“The well is rising with the fortress,” Connor explained. “It lies near the center of the entire structure, and the labyrinth lies beneath it now. As the well is carried upward, the water flows from it through channels that find their way to the void between worlds.”
“Then what?” Iris asked.
“What, what?” Connor replied, leading them down a fourth corridor.
“When it’s done rising up, what happens then?”
“Then the well will find openings in places above ground, in both worlds. More Old Blood will cross—those who didn’t come with you and Dish.” Connor took three turns, breathing in the smell of this place that brought too many memories to mind. All the prisoners Tiernma
s had left to find their way out as a judgment of the gods, some pursued by Tiernmas for sport…or found by the wolves that were turned loose here.
“Where did you leave Celeste?” Elowen asked him.
“Far from here.”
It had been three days since he’d left Celeste in the outer ward. If Tiernmas had found her, Connor would have felt it. But the more pressing thing was that Celeste’d had no food or drink for those three days. Connor had to find a safe place to store his own body in order to wake her. And he’d have to do it fast. He had done uncountable wrongs that had stained his soul, but starving people to death was never on that list, and he had no intention of adding it.
He found the place he was looking for—dead end in one of the northern arms of the maze. Three left turns ended in a pile of bones and dust. Here, with Dylan and Fiach keeping watch, he would be safe for long enough to find Celeste and fetch the labrys. He dropped his pack and removed the tinctures needed for his flight.
She was just where he’d left her. He awoke beside the mouth of the drainage channel that ran beneath the outer curtain wall. Celeste’s mind still slept as it had since Connor placed the salamander inside, which now coiled around her will and squeezed. She would sleep until Connor removed it.
As he opened her eyes with his mind, her stomach protested. He stood on her weakened legs. He dared not drink the water here, but it was all he could do to stop the body from scooping it out of the drainage channel as he reached in for the labrys.
The outer ward looked less like a mortuary, and more like a zombie training ground.
He could hear the concussion of boulders against the battlements. Pyrs had finally come. But the screech of the dragon indicated the assault on the walls would be no easy task. Connor smelled the stench of burning flesh and timber. Pyrs might blast a hole in the wall, but getting through would be another thing altogether.
Once again, Connor’s creation had been twisted into an advantage for Tiernmas. A dragon that breathes fire. Great idea. Connor was right the first time. He should never have come; he should have stayed in the hobbit cottage in Snowdonia and waited for Tiernmas to find him.
