Labyrinth Gate (37 page)

The hunt pulled up, and at a piercing whistle from one of the riders the hounds retreated to form a circle about their hapless prisoner. They yapped and panted and wagged their tails as one by one the riders dismounted with preternatural grace from their white and golden steeds.

The hunted man lifted his head. His gaze still had force, even under such circumstances: arrogant and resigned, feverish, desperate, and, most shocking to Sanjay, familiar. Familiar, and human, in that most ordinary and yet deepest level of humanity that is the most binding of all connections. It was the earl, but reduced, trying at once to get to his knees and also to reach the spear, which one of the hunters lazily pulled out of his grasp with the point of his own. All around the fallen man, more spears lowered to surround him.

Sanjay swung down from his horse with more haste than skill and ran forward, wading through the hounds. They slavered at his legs but let him pass. He could feel the imminence of the kill like the press of a hand closing around a haft. From the ground he scooped up the loose spear and placed himself squarely between the earl and the nearest hunter.

“I won’t let you kill him,” he said.

Attention focussed swiftly and penetratingly on him. All the hounds sat, seemingly perplexed by this turn of events. The only sound was the rasp of the earl’s breathing, ragged and irregular.

Far in the distance a woman’s voice called out unintelligible words, ending on a question. Like a spell, it broke through the paralysis of action that had frozen the scene of the hunt.

“Do not interfere,” said the foremost hunter. His hair had the blaze of fire in it, shining like a beacon for benighted travellers in the darkness. “Once begun, this hunt must end in blood. This man called us back to the old ways that your kind have long forsworn, and ours used only in greatest need. Chosen of the chosen one, he has awakened the power of the heiress, and thus becomes the sacrifice to seal her power.”

“It is all true,” said the earl in a low voice that Sanjay could barely hear. “I knew there was treasure here for the taking. But I misread its agent.” His tone might have borne the faintest hint of irony. He was still breathing hard.

“Nevertheless,” said Sanjay, standing firm. “I cannot simply stand by and let it happen.”

“You do not understand.” The hunter lifted one hand and the hounds and his companions all moved back to form a still greater circle around the three in the center. “These are forces that once raised will run their course. You cannot
will
it to cease, any more than
will
can halt the wind or corrupt the purity of one of the Great Ones. Let us through.”

After the last words, Sanjay could hear clearly the resonance of the hunter’s voice, an uncanny echo that faded in on itself. The other hunters hefted spears. The hounds edged forward. Closer now, he heard a woman calling, and the faint thrash and rustle of disturbance in the undergrowth.

“Nevertheless.” He did not move.

“So be it,” said the hunter. “We will have blood.” He lowered his spear.

“Sanjay!”

Sanjay had time only to register Chryse’s voice, rising with surprise and confusion, before the hunter thrust with his spear. Sanjay dodged, felt the point sigh past his ear. He knocked the haft aside and switched his grip on his spear, dipping it and coming up underneath the other. But the hunter met and parried it, a hard snap, dipped and circled his own point and thrust for Sanjay’s belly.

Sanjay barely deflected the point, driving it down. It tore at the fabric of his coat, catching in a pocket. The hunter jerked it back just as Sanjay riposted; as the pocket ripped, the hunter stepped left and with ready instinct pushed the point of Sanjay’s spear past himself and on the same stroke drove his point down and into Sanjay’s left thigh.

Someone cried out; Sanjay knew only that it was not his own voice. The searing pain in his thigh enflamed his reason and narrowed the focus of his concentration.

He saw the undefended chest of his opponent and thrust for it. For an instant he had an hallucination that the hunter was dancing with him, turning sideways with a lift of one arm, until he realized that his leg was free and that the point of the hunter’s spear, yanked abruptly and desperately out of his thigh so that the haft could deflect Sanjay’s thrust, now lay on the ground.

The hunter was grasping the very end of his spearshaft with his right hand, and Sanjay, his spear point knocked wide of its target but still controlled, stepped right and forward to straddle the grounded point of his opponent’s weapon. As Sanjay advanced he felt the haft of the hunter’s spear, now trapped, pressing against the inside of his thigh.

With a sweeping motion, Sanjay struck for the hunter’s head with the haft. The hunter ducked, and the spear passed over his head. Sanjay began a backswing, but the hunter turned into him and, grappling at his waist, tried to throw him down. Sanjay braced, lifting his spear high, and brought the haft down square onto the hunter’s back.

The hunter collapsed flat on his chest. His spear lay tangled beneath him. Sanjay had followed him down and was now on one knee, the haft of his spear pressed hard along the hunter’s back.

With more instinct than thought he drew the hunter’s knife and laid the edge against the man’s throat. A thin line of blood welled up along the pale skin.

He felt a haze lift from him, and with its passing a steady throbbing in his left thigh. With a move like disgust he flung the knife away and stood up slowly, finding that his leg barely supported his weight. Blood trailed down the cloth of his trousers. The hunter lay still.

“Is that enough blood?” Sanjay asked. His voice was hoarse. He glanced about himself, at the golden-clad riders, the hounds. It seemed to him that three faint shades stood among them, but they were almost impossible to see.

The wind rose. Leaves fluttered and lifted, skittering across the earl’s hands as he lay, still half stunned, on the forest floor. The hounds whined and slunk into a close pack. The hunter raised his head and, when Sanjay offered him a hand, took it and with Sanjay’s help got to his feet.

“There are greater forces even than ours,” the hunter said. The rising wind tugged at his voice, giving it a soft reverberation. He lifted a hand and his companions mounted. “Ones you cannot fight.” His face was taking on that peculiar blur again, as if he were somehow retreating from Sanjay without actual physical motion. His horse stood beside him and he mounted. Sanjay could barely distinguish the line of blood at his throat. “But you may wear your scar with pride.” His voice was so resonant that it was almost impossible to understand. He reined his horse away from Sanjay and with an incomprehensible command led the riders into the forest, the hounds racing out in front.

Sanjay stared after them. Wind whipped at his back. Above, it tore through the branches until they slapped at each other, a sound that blended into a vibrant humming punctuated now and again by the snap of a breaking limb.

“Sanjay!” He turned to see Chryse running to him across the dim, starlit sward. Maretha was beside her; behind her, Professor Farr. And behind the professor—

It was nebulous at first. It was the power that stirred these branches, or the embodiment of it, and he understood the hunter’s words with such piercing clarity that for a moment he could not act.

A human figure, or at least human-like. Female, he thought, but neither clothed nor naked in any sense he knew. She held a bow, and with the fixed, unalterable expression of a justice sentencing death she drew and steadied her aim.

“Chryse!” Sanjay dived for his wife, tackling her, and they fell tangled onto the ground.

Maretha, hearing his shout, followed the line of his gaze. With a cry she flung herself on top of her husband, shielding him.

The arrow had already been loosed.

Professor Farr, looking a trifle confused, began to turn. The arrow impaled him through the chest.

A sudden, blanketing stillness dropped over the woods, permeating each leaf, each blade of grass, the air itself, even in a remote way the stars far above. Mist roiled in the distant gaps between trees, illuminated by the now-risen moon so that it seemed that an assembly of mute ghosts had gathered there. The hush was so complete that there might only have been the five of them in the entire land.

Out of the forest, appearing out of the mist with the eerie abruptness of an unnatural creature, came a stag, imperious in its silence. It paused on the edge of the glade, surveying them as if passing judgement. It lifted its head. In a nearby tree, a bird chirruped and broke into song. The stag turned and bounded away into the trees, soon lost to sight in the uncanny fog. An owl hooted.

“Father!” cried Maretha. She rose and ran to the professor, knelt beside him. “Father.”

He moaned a little. His eyes did not open, but his hand groped along the ground until he found hers. “I did love you, Maretha,” he breathed. It was his last breath.

She began to weep. “He did love me,” she said in a low voice, to anyone and to no one. “As much as he was capable of love.”

“It’s starting to rain.” Chryse rolled to one side to get off her husband. “Oh, Sanjay. You’re hurt!”

He sat up, winced. “It’s not bad. It will heal, love.”

“Here.” She ripped at her dress until she had torn off several strips. “Wrap this around it.” She kissed him. “You idiot. What were you doing? It was—it was like there was a curtain between you and us, all a blur.”

“I must be attracted to hopeless causes. I couldn’t just stand by and let them kill him.” He had to stop a moment. “Good thing it didn’t hurt like this when it happened,” he muttered in a voice made ragged by pain.

Chryse laid a hand on his arm, but her gaze lifted to the earl. He was sitting now, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He looked completely drained of emotion, energy, and resolve. “I would have,” she said in an undertone, and she looked away from him, from her husband, ashamed.

“What did you say, Chryse?” Sanjay asked.

She hugged him fiercely. “Nothing. Nothing. You
will
be all right?”

He smiled, a bit wanly, but with gentle obstinacy. Around them, the light rain misted down, a low hush through leaves, dissipating the fog. “Of course I will. I may be sweet, but I’m stubborn.”

M
ARETHA KNELT BY HER
father for a long while, weeping with quiet dignity as she prayed to Our Lady, Healer of Sorrows. Chryse knelt beside her for some time, rose finally and went back to help Sanjay bind his wound. The earl did not move.

Eventually the rain slowed and ceased. The moon had risen high above the trees, its light diffused through the last autumn leaves, giving the forest floor a grey sheen. Chryse pulled Sanjay to his feet and supported him as he hobbled over to Maretha. But she had already stood and was wiping the last tears from her cheeks with her fingers. Her father’s body had vanished.

For a moment Sanjay and Chryse just gaped. The place he had lain was apparent: crushed grass, a stain of blood.

“The forest took him,” said Maretha. Her voice was calm but there was a disturbing quality about her eyes as she turned to look at them. “We may as well go back.” Chryse handed her her dress and, wordlessly, she put it on, then looked past them toward her husband.

Sanjay, watching her, wondered at the intensity of her gaze—he could not read what emotion lay behind it. “You saw the figure, too.” It was more statement than question.

“Yes.” She walked away from them, over to her husband.

“Was that what it was?” asked Chryse. “I just remember hearing—” She shook her head. “I’m not sure it was even a sound, only that for an instant I knew something was behind me.”

“I wonder.” Sanjay shifted. His weight was heavy on Chryse’s shoulders. The two of them stared at Maretha as she stopped beside the earl but did not speak or touch him. “I wonder if she had an instant to decide whether to save her father or her husband—and now regrets the choice.”

“Pierced by an arrow.” Chryse shuddered. “Do you remember the bonfire at High Summer’s Eve? And the effigy they burned on it?” She examined the dark forest and the thin globe of moon above. “How are we going to get out of here? I’m completely lost.”

Maretha had still not spoken, but now the earl stood and followed her when she walked back to Chryse and Sanjay.

“I think we had better go back,” Maretha said. She appeared far too matter-of-fact. Her face had a tight, over-controlled tautness. “It will be dawn soon.”

“How will we find the entrance?” asked Chryse. “And how can we possibly find our way back through that labyrinth?”

“I know the way,” said Maretha.

The earl stood so meekly behind her that it seemed a charade until one saw the look of stunned despair on his face, panic suppressed only by the knowledge of the complete devastation this place had wreaked upon him and his powers.

They went slowly through the forest. Sanjay used the spear like a cane, but his progress was slow. The first filtering of light had just begun to penetrate the deep of night when they came to a low hillock where gaped a dark opening, blacker even than the night sky. Two lanterns sat on the turf outside it.

Maretha, picking up the lights, led them down the steps with complete confidence. Chryse had to support Sanjay. At the bottom, Maretha halted. She stood still in intense concentration, as if she was tasting the air.

“I’d like to sit down for a moment,” said Sanjay. Chryse helped him lower himself to the cold stone floor. She knelt beside him, resting her head against his right shoulder. The earl had moved away from them to stand in the darkest corner. He had not yet spoken a single word.

“There’s someone else down here,” said Maretha.

Chryse got up and went to stand beside her. “What do you mean? Who?”

Maretha did not answer immediately. She listened, and Chryse laid a hand on her arm and listened with her.

Sanjay sighed and put a hand on the floor to push himself up. His palm touched cloth, closed around a hand-sized object. He picked it up, found himself holding the velvet pouch in which they had first discovered their cards. He could feel the shape of cards inside.