Bound (29 page)

She crawled along the ground, sobbing in relief as the voice fell silent and only the awful laughter remained to torment her. Another voice rose and faded, in and out of the storm, a voice she knew, Marcius. He was calling her name over and over, but his voice wasn't like before. it burbled and laughed and sounded utterly mad. Even as the promise she had made to him pulled her toward his voice, she recoiled from the sound, refusing to believe it was the man who had offered her everything. She shook her head in denial as she continued to crawl forward. Other voices threaded the storm around her, but she hid from them all. They all hurt, they all scared her. She pushed onward, with no idea where to go, only knowing that they would find her if she remained still.

The dark, inhuman voice rose again and her sobs increased as it spoke.
You can never escape us, Faylanna, you belong to us. You can never get away. We will have you. Come quickly, of your own accord and you will not be broken to your task. Resist and we will bend you to our purposes.
The voice rose again into that angry rage, louder this time, and she was sure it was blood, not tears that flowed down her face now from the force of its bellow.
You will always belong with us. We made you what you are and we can unmake you, child. You are one of us, now and always!

She dragged herself into a corner where two paths met and huddled there. The tether of the promise tried to pull her onward and then it shattered like her thoughts in the storm. Nowhere to go, she thought in broken tones, no one to find. Lost, I lost them all. She cried, and laughed and felt something important start to drift away into the darkness when she was snared by a new voice, but not a new voice. She knew this voice, the warmth of it, the way it wrapped around her battered mind and heart like a shelter, the way it tied the broken pieces of her back together. She listened and soft words emerged miraculously from the sound.

Faylanna, you're here, I know you are, I can feel you even if I can't find you. Hear me. I know you can hear me.
The faint voice cooled the burning heat in her body that threatened to light her on fire, sliding smoothly through her like cold water on a hot day. She held the quiet words in her mind to hear them better over the storm, and a name filled her. Tavis.
Please, Faylanna, I can't find you here. I've tried, but I don't know how. Hear me and follow my voice. Come back to me, my love, my Faylanna, come to me.

The words were familiar. She knew another had said something like them, but in this voice she heard their truth. On the heels of this, she realized that the storm in her mind had become distant. It no longer tore at her reason and she could think again, a little. She was aware of the mind storm, but felt sheltered from its fury. Tavis, she thought again and smiled. His words were there, only the same words repeated, but she still cherished them, held them in her mind. Pushing herself up out of the corner, she followed the words down the passage as the wind of the storm in the air tore at her hair and clothes.

Every step she took toward him, every word he gave her brought more calm to her mind and heart, and healed the damage from the voices of the mind storm. The storm itself grew more distant still, unable to touch her even when it snarled and screamed at her. When she saw him at last, leaning against a hedge at an intersection of passages, his tanned, lean arms folded across his chest and his eyes on her, she almost cried with relief. He was real, he was there, and she began to run toward him. His broad smile spread across his face as she approached, his green eyes brilliantly sparkling even in the gloom, and he shrugged away from the wall. Everything was right for a moment.

Movement drew her attention down one of the paths of the junction Tavis stood in and she saw the darkness rising up to crash over him from his right. She took the last few steps to place herself between Tavis and the roiling cloud before he could do more than begin to turn. She felt his hands grasp the tops of her shoulders, his grip tightening to pull her away. Before either of them could move, it was nearly on top of her but flinched back as if burned. She felt Tavis' hands loosen but remain where they were as the dark cloud retreated a little then slid to the right. Fay side-stepped to keep Tavis safe.

She could feel the frustration of her tormentors rise in the mind storm as the darkness shifted again and she mirrored it. Tendrils unfurled and drifted forward. She cast a shield around them, and relief flooded through her as the tendrils backed away from even touching it. In the distant storm, she heard the evil inhuman voice begin to snarl in a language she didn't recognize but that made her soul hurt, and the laughter died, replaced by a very human sounding voice cursing fluently. Again, she realized that she knew the voice. Marcius screamed,
Step aside, Faylanna, come to me, leave him behind. You were meant to be with me, always with me. We need each other, we belong together. You promised!

She ignored this too, though she felt her vow trying to tug at her. She held her shield firm until finally the darkness let out a piercing shriek and fled back down the passage at great speed. In a second, it was around a corner and out of her sight. She held the shield for a little while longer, making sure, before letting it drop. She turned and threw her arms around Tavis' neck. His arms slid around her, holding her close and his head dropped to her shoulder. The pull to go to Marcius broke up again as Tavis held her and she sighed, burying her face in his chest. They stayed that way for several moments.

"I thought I'd lost you," he murmured, and the relief in his voice made her heart sing.

She pulled back a little and he lifted his head just enough for her to see his serious, worried expression. The realization of how close she had come frightened her. Her voice kept giving out as she tried to explain. "You saved me. I- The storm, it was- I was almost gone when I heard you."

His smile resurfaced. "Then I guess we're even, because without you, that thing would have gotten me. That was what you saw in Voleno, wasn't it?"

She nodded and hugged him close again. This time his head stayed up, and he said, "It's not over. I want to take you away from here to a safe place but Ki and Lydia are out there, somewhere in this damned maze. We all ran in after you but somehow I got separated from them. They may have even been separated from each other, I don't know. And whatever is going on here isn't over yet."

She released him, though he caught her hands in his. Looking up at him, she said, "I know. I have to go, to finish this. I- I did something stupid. I promised I would go, and it's not possible to ignore this promise. I don't feel it right now, but I don't think the promise is undone, and Marcius won't forget that I made it. And I would have to go, even without that. I have to go for my father. Whatever he was part of is still in motion. He's in here somewhere too, and I'm sure he's in danger. I heard him screaming before, but I haven't for a while. I- I'm worried. I don't know if I can save him, but I have to try, Tavis." He nodded. "Follow me. I can take us to the center of the maze easily."

He looked dubious. "Really?"

Fay looked around, compared the layout to her memory and led him into the right side passage. "Of course. I used to run around this maze all the time as a child. We can find the others after. Ki and Lydia will have to take care of themselves for now. Even if they have been separated, they'll be able to find each other easily, Tavis. I don't think any of that will matter if we don't finish this."

Tavis followed her through the twists and turns of the maze, never letting go of her hand. The mind storm was barely audible to her now and she was grateful for that, as the mounting roar of the winds over the top of the maze was bad enough. But it was too easy and Marcius wasn't trying to pull her to him anymore, which worried her more than anything. When they found the brick wall that curved around the center, they followed along it to the first wide entrance they found. Though Fay knew she should have expected something after what she had seen at the house, her heart still ached when she looked around the gardens that had been her mother and father's special place.

Smoke drifted around the entire circle in wisps and patches with no origin she could see. The smell was awful, like sulfur and burning rocks, though she thought she had smelled it before. A third of the trellis had been blown away, splinters stirring in the eddies of wind that reached down into this open space. The rest of it was groaning and swaying slightly in the gale. One of the three curved marble benches lay blasted to the side, shattered pieces littering the beds full of dead flowers. One of the other two was overturned and both were covered with dirt and slime of some sort.

The Mirror stood where the destroyed bench had been, facing the entrance where they stood. She shivered at the implication. Its golden frame was at least the width of her hand all the way around and picked up the low light that the sun was managing to push through the dense clouds above, giving off a dull gleam. The frame was ornate, sculpted swirls all around it. The glass in that frame caused her to clutch at Tavis' hand and he squeezed hers gently. It was like the blackness that had attacked them was trapped behind it, dark clouds that constantly roiled and changed direction and speed but never stopped. Something about it seemed evil to her, yet she felt it trying to hypnotize her at the same time, to draw her to it. Forcing her eyes away from it, she saw a mound of cloth beside the Mirror, and wondered what it was doing there, until she saw it move feebly and recognized her father's clothes.

She tried to lunge forward to him, but Tavis had seen him first and already had an arm around her waist, pinning her to him. His other hand still held hers. "They want you to rush in. That's why they put him there. Don't give them what they want."

The logic of his words pierced her desperation and she stopped struggling. He let his arm drop, but she stayed where she was, feeling her hip brush against his. It disturbed her how easily they were manipulating her. She kept close to Tavis, realizing she'd have to rely on him to stop her from responding because she didn't dare trust herself to do so. She forced herself to finish looking around the circle, feeling in the distant mind storm the frustration of the once-laughing person as this gambit with her father failed too. She saw the darkness swirling, tucked back among the swaying trees that lined one side of the garden. She flinched back from it and felt Tavis turn to follow her gaze. She knew he had seen it when his hand tightened on hers, but she couldn't look away from the inky cloud. What she was seeing stunned her. The black mist swirled around someone, a man, standing in the center. The tendrils that flowed in and out of the cloud reached up to caress him as she watched, before dropping back into the moving darkness. She tried to see who it was, but her eyes kept sliding away from him. She shifted her sight and nothing about the man or the cloud changed, surprising her. She could feel something diverting her, keeping her from peering too close, from even remembering what details she might pick out, but there was no spellwork around him. Before she could shift back, she saw something that made her shudder. Sickly yellow traces moving in every direction around the space and into the maze beyond. She realized that she could feel it out there, the vygazza, that same feeling that had alerted her to its presence in the forest around Eliar's cottage. She tugged Tavis a step inward and to the side until the wall was at their back and breathed a small sigh of relief that the creature couldn't sneak up on them at least.

Tavis let out his own sigh then as movement across the circle caught her eye. Keari and Lydia were there. His robe was shredded down one side, but Fay could see no sign of blood or injury and his shoulders sagged visibly at the sight of them. She wondered if they had encountered the vygazza. Lydia's eyes were wide but relieved as she saw her son and she leaned a little against Keari. Tavis made no move to join them, though Fay suspected he wanted to.

The winds rose further still and the smoke swirled faster and thicker on the ground, as if the stones themselves were baking. Fay looked back to the Mirror and shock radiated through her. The sigils, which she had barely noticed before, were changing, their golden color dissolving into shining silver. Her father, who had only been moaning to this point, suddenly let out a howling shriek that pierced the storm. He flopped onto his back beside the Mirror as a shaft of darkness lanced out from his chest, connecting him with center of the roiling glass. Then he fell still and it was the most terrible stillness she could remember.

Fay screamed. She forgot everything. Dropping Tavis' hand, she tried to run forward as the mind storm howled at her louder than ever. A loud gong reverberated through the maze and all of its inhabitants, freezing her after only a single step, her eyes flashing back to the Mirror. A man walked out of the storm-filled glass, and turned to look at Fay, his ice blue eyes piercing her. The mind storm subsided and she stared at Marcius, seeing him for the first time in the flesh. He smiled at her.

Chapter 19

The first thing Fay noticed as she stared at Marcius standing in front of the Mirror was that he wasn't quite the same as he'd been in her dreams. His eyes didn't smile when his lips did and instead gleamed with some emotion that she couldn't quite name. This made her think uneasily of the way he had sounded in the mind storm. As he turned his gaze to Tavis, his smile twisted into a sneer, and she saw that his hands, the hands that had run across her skin in her dreams, were clenched into fists. They relaxed as he returned his eyes to Fay.

"It's time, Faylanna," Marcius said, sounding so normal and sane that she began to doubt that the mad laughter in the mind storm had been him. "Time for us to be together as I have told you we should. You were meant to be with me. You were chosen for me, but you have to decide. I don't want to force you to be with me, but I know you'll make the right choice, my love."