The Flame in the Maze (6 page)

He was still shaking—all of him—and despite the mountain and the fire that was coming, Phaidra wanted to laugh.
He doesn't love her,
she thought;
he hates her.

Sotiria was smiling at her—a lovely, sad, knowing smile.

“Let's go, then,” Phaidra said.

Polymnia remembered, as she fell. She didn't want to, but she remembered, in images so quick that she could barely see them, and so bright that she saw nothing else behind her squeezed-shut eyes.

The voyage from Athens: the storm that tossed the ship around on the first night; the Cretans lined up along the cliff, all of them cheering their triumph and our death; the boat their priestesses used to take us from our ship to the shore, its prow a living, snorting sea monster's head on a scaly neck; the tiny flowers growing beside the cliff path I tried to throw myself off; Princess Ariadne making cow eyes at Kosmas; the procession to the Goddess's mountain only yesterday: dust in my mouth, and the brown leather mask that stank of death and home; the girl Chara, who spoke to me; no clouds, when they opened the mountain's door and pushed us in; that prince of theirs, shouting, on fire, turning into a bull; blue sky in the doorway as I fell, wind and screaming in my ears—

She landed. She had no breath; then she did, and she wheezed, arching her back, twisting and bucking like a fish on a line. Her fingers clutched at something that felt like springy moss; her nails chipped on the stone beneath.

The screams trailed off slowly. She heard someone sobbing, someone else gibbering about a broken ankle. She heard water dripping, and metal whining against metal.

She whimpered and opened her eyes.

A wall rose above her. It was studded with small golden lights that didn't flicker, and lines of carving: blue waves and purple tentacles and tall, scarlet, winding flame.
The wall rose into the darkness high above, where the mountain door must be.

Move!
she told herself.
There are still some more up there!
—but before she could summon the strength to roll over again, one of them fell. Theodosia. She fell silently, her body spread wide and still; Zenais, who came after her, shrieked and flailed. They landed together, their limbs tangled, cracking, popping. Polymnia raised herself up on her elbow, still whimpering, not sure if she were steeling herself to crawl the short distance to the other girls, or preparing to throw herself over the lip of the ledge she now realized they were all lying on. It didn't matter—because just then, there was a screeching of metal so shrill that she cried out. The portion of the ledge where Theodosia and Zenais lay shuddered. The wall began to move—except that it wasn't the stone itself: it was cables, strung taut among all the carvings. Three rows of them, shining like bronze as they slunk downward. A portion of the ledge detached from the rest and plunged. Polymnia scrambled to her hands and knees and leaned over; she saw the girls' faces—pale, open-mouthed, plummeting away from her and into a bank of thick, firelit steam.

She wanted to scream, but her throat was too tight and dry. Her muscles and bones, though, had turned to water; she flopped back onto the ledge, panting. Her eyes leapt again to the wall. The three cables continued to move; somewhere very deep, gears kept grinding. The cables strung by
her
piece of ledge were motionless.
Good
, she thought,
good, good yes—stay here; stay quiet—
but then another figure came hurtling down toward her. This one didn't scream; it roared. Its misshapen limbs trailed fire, and the horns on its great furred head shone so brightly that she almost had to look away. But she didn't—she didn't move at all.
Too late. This is how my god has decided that I'll end.

She hadn't been truly afraid of the bull-boy when they'd been outside the mountain's door, because she'd been halfway inside already, and she was sure he'd stay behind, under the sky. But now he was here, a writhing, bellowing mess of blistered flesh and spreading fur, and his huge, round eyes were on her, and she could hardly breathe.
Sing
, she thought.
Quickly. Your godmarked voice will calm him as it's calmed so many other beasts; maybe this
won't
be the end.

“Asterion.” She'd heard the Cretan queen call out this name; Polymnia remembered this, and was surprised that she remembered, even as she sang it. “Asterion, be still, be safe, be calm.”

Usually, after these many words, the slaughterhouse beasts would be sagging to the ground, their gazes fixed and far away. This one shook his head and roared again, and her voice faltered. Silver puffed from her lips and vanished.
His godmark's too strong;
so much stronger than mine.

“Back!” someone shouted, and she watched the beast's eyes and body swivel toward the sound. She turned too, and saw Kosmas clinging to one of the cables, well up the wall. Blue-eyed, unmarked Kosmas, whom the Cretan princess had fed with her own fingers. Now he let himself slowly down—because he hadn't fallen as the rest had. Somehow he hadn't fallen.

“Get away from her!” he yelled, in his deep, ringing voice—and the creature backed up a step. It snorted, and a gout of bloody mucus sprayed Polymnia's face and robe. She retched at the feel of it, and its iron stench. She would have whirled and run, if there'd been anywhere to go—but as she stood in place, throbbing with fear and the shame of her failure, Kosmas cried out more words, and the beast's fur smoothed back into flesh, and its hooves into fingers. Asterion dropped to his knees, panting, just as Kosmas landed on the ledge.

“I'm . . .” Asterion said, thickly, as if his tongue were reshaping itself, too. “I'm sorry.” He raised his head slowly—the horns hadn't changed—and gazed at her and at Kosmas. The bubbling had subsided, but the skin on Asterion's arms and chest was livid. She didn't want to look, but couldn't help it: she saw how the fresh marks were laid over older ones. Wounds over scars. Pity tugged at her, beneath the shame and fear.

She turned to Kosmas as Asterion's breathing slowed. “Thank you,” she whispered. Kosmas shrugged. His blue eyes looked even clearer and lighter, in the glow of the lamps that lined the wall. Blood was dripping from his palms; when he saw her gazing at it, he closed his hands and grimaced.

“Anything for a lady,” he said, and she had sudden, choking desire to laugh.
That princess was a lady,
she thought of saying
. That Ariadne who fed you honeycomb. But even when I was in the merchant's big house, I've only ever been nothing.

“Princeling,” he said to Asterion. “I'd push you off this ledge right now, except that I need to know: why did your own people do this to you?”

Asterion eased himself down until he was sitting with his raw legs straight. He shook his golden-haired head; his horns made faint silver arcs in the air. “I don't know.” His words were ragged, and leapt from low to high.

He's just a boy
, Polymnia thought.
That's what he is, really.

“So you didn't expect this.”

Asterion sniffled and rubbed the back of his hand under his nose. “They told me . . . the priestesses. They told me I'd be taken to see the first Athenian sacrifices. Maybe they didn't know, either. Maybe it was just the king who knew I was to be a hunter. Though if the king knew, so did Ariadne.” He sniffled more violently than he had the first time, though this time Polymnia thought the noise might be laughter. “Godsblood—what am I saying? It was probably her idea in the first place.”

“A hunter,” Kosmas said, his voice gone very quiet. Somewhere close, gears bit; the cables directly above them moved and the ledge shuddered down. Asterion scrabbled at it with his fingers, and Kosmas and Polymnia sat so they wouldn't fall—but after a moment that couldn't have been longer than a few breaths, the movement stopped.

“As I was saying,” Kosmas continued, between clenched teeth, “a hunter?”

Asterion tilted his pale, gaunt face up to look at Kosmas. “It's what my father said, up there. I'm here to hunt you down—the ones who survived this part, anyway. I'm here to kill you for the Goddess.”

Polymnia thought,
And now he changes back into the bull and gores us with those horns, and it doesn't even matter, because we're just going to die falling, otherwise.
Only he didn't change. He sat and stared, his scarred palms turned up on the stone.

Kosmas crouched. “So,” he said, his face not far from Asterion's, “I suppose I should push you over, after all.”

“You should,” Asterion said. “Or I should jump.” He licked his lips, and Polymnia saw that the lower one was oozing blood. “Except that I don't want to die. And I don't want anyone else to, either.”

Kosmas glanced at her. “What do you think, my Lady? Should we be merciful?”

She couldn't speak, and didn't know what she'd have said, if she could. All her bones were juddering; everything beneath them was slipping. Shock, some part of her knew.

“Very well,” Kosmas said, as if she'd replied. “We all live. For now, anyway.”

Asterion smiled a strange, sad smile. “We'll probably all regret this.”

“Probably,” Kosmas said. “Now let's see if we can't let ourselves off of here.” He turned and wrapped his hands around one of the cables that ran up from the ledge. Polymnia's vision was suddenly awash in red and speckled with black dots that leapt and wriggled; Kosmas's body warped into an impossible shape. She squeezed her eyes shut and listened to the uneven hammering of her heart for one long moment, then another.

“It won't work,” Asterion said. “Daedalus built this place.”

She opened her eyes. The red haze was gone. Kosmas was clutching the cable, one foot braced on the ledge, the other on the wall. He grunted and hauled himself up. Beneath them, metal whined. The cable moved and he let go of it with a grunt. He pulled himself up on it again, and this time when it moved, so did the ledge; it juddered upward and then it dipped, ending up farther down than it had been before. Polymnia cried out.

“Even if you
could
get up there,” Asterion said, “what would you do? Wait for two years until the next sacrifice, then run out as they're coming in? And what then?”

Kosmas nodded. “You're right. That's not the way out.”

“There won't
be
a way out.”

How can they be this calm?
—but as soon as she thought this, Polymnia saw that Kosmas's hands were wrapped so tightly around the cable that she could see the bones in them, and that Asterion's eyes were rolling as they had when he was the bull.

“At least,” Asterion said, “there'll be food. Somewhere. They didn't put me in here to die. The priestesses wouldn't let that happen.”

“Good,” Kosmas said. “We look for it. At least we know how to get
down
, now. I'll take this cable; you take that one. We'll pull on them at the same time and let go—let's see if it moves up and then down again.”

“I can't,” Asterion said, holding up his hands. His fingers were still fused into a shape between hand and hoof.

Polymnia said, so softly she could hardly hear herself, “I will.”

“You?” Kosmas eyed her appraisingly, a little frown between his brows.

“Yes,” she said, more loudly now that she knew what to tell him. “I spent years in a slaughterhouse, butchering and hauling. I'll be able to do this.”
I spent years after that in a big house, singing for rich people, eating well and sleeping on a soft bed
:
this, she didn't say.

“All right, then,” he said. “With me, then. Ready and
pull
.”

The cable cut into her palms but she pulled on it, biting her lip to stop herself from whimpering. The grinding gears sounded very far away because her blood was roaring. “Now let go!” she heard Kosmas call. She did, and the ledge dropped. She squeezed her eyes shut as hot air gusted against her skin. Sweat snaked down from her forehead; she felt it on her eyelids and nose and cheeks—everywhere on her head, front and back, because she had no hair to soak it up. None of them did, except Asterion. “Pull . . . let go!” Kosmas called. “Again! Again!” And, finally, “Stop!”

As soon as Polymnia unclenched her hands, they began to burn.

The platform that had carried Zenais and Theodosia down was now level with theirs. Kosmas leapt to it. He landed with a grunt and dropped to his knees between the girls.

“She's dead,” Zenais said. Her teeth were chattering so hard that it took a moment for the words to make sense to Polymnia. “Dead. I heard her neck snap.” Zenais was sitting with her legs extended. The right one was bent strangely at the bottom, and covered in blood; when Polymnia stared at it, she saw that the skin above her ankle was jutting, as if the bones beneath had shifted.

“Put your arms around my neck,” Kosmas said. “Quickly, now. Good. Hold on.”

Zenais's skull was streaked with scarlet. Her lips were smudged with it. She lifted her eyes to Polymnia's; they were all white and black. Kosmas crouched, his arms wrapped tightly around Zenais. Her shattered leg stuck out in a way that reminded Polymnia of the slaughterhouse, and the animals who'd fallen, broken their bones, screamed and bellowed until she sang them to silver sleep.

“Ready?” Kosmas didn't wait for an answer. He leapt and landed on the other platform. Zenais screamed as she fell from his arms and sprawled in front of Polymnia. Blood spattered.
Just like home
, Polymnia thought again. When Zenais lifted her head and saw Asterion she went very still.

“Polymnia.” Kosmas's voice was both deep and sharp. “Pull again, when I say so.”

She did, because he spoke with a voice that wasn't her father's; because he spoke with strength, not impatience or anger. She wound her torn-up palms around the metal and tugged, when he told her to. Their stone platform dipped again. It thrust its way down into the heat-bent, light-speckled darkness; when it finally hit something solid, its cables screamed. It shuddered and stilled.

Polymnia turned to Asterion. Wreaths of smoke hid his face, but his horns swept back and forth, making clear trails that filled in as she blinked. “I can't,” she thought she heard him whisper, and then he stumbled off the ledge. She followed, sucking in her breath as her bare feet touched the ground. It was hot stone, a straight path carved with tiny spirals. The path was painted bright blue; she could see this, in the light of the lamps that lined it, flickering moonlit-silver through the smoke. The tiny spirals were gold. She coughed; the air here felt thick and smelled of fire.