Labyrinth Gate

by Kate Elliott

  Chryse smiled slightly, but Sanjay’s face remained focussed and impassive.

  “Last.” Madame Sosostris placed the third card. An armed woman advancing, sword out. “The Angel of War. The strongest of the fire elementals, the wheel of the magi. This card pulls you upwards. You desire not strife, but a goal that will consume you entirely, that burns from within.” She paused, and then as if with hesitation, turned the card over. A silver dragon, twined and in profile, wings open. “You desire dragons,” she said. “For just as they embody the purest of magic, they embody the purest of desire.”

  There was silence again, disturbed only by the sound of their breathing, and a faint rustling from one of the corners.

  “Madame Lissagaray.”

  Chryse handed the woman the three cards that she held.

  “First.” Madame Sosostris placed the card on top of the Paladin. “Ah. The Seeker. She searches for an answer, an understanding, a grasp of that calling to which she has dedicated herself. Although it has so for remained elusive, she feels that it is almost within her reach and will be if she continues the quest. Her nature is solitary, and she is burdened by a restlessness that can cause her to leave behind all that is familiar and loved.”

  She placed the second card. A man lay, like a discarded toy, half-frozen and limp on a field of ice. “The Wanderer. A second card from the north. This reveals the danger of lost purpose, of wandering aimlessly, of stagnation and indecision in the pursuit of one’s goal. This fear pulls you down, endangers your ability to continue your search.”

  Chryse had clasped her hands on her lap. Sanjay was frowning, but in concentration, not disapproval.

  “Last.” Madame Sosostris placed the third card. “Yes. The Castle. Ringed by a moat. Impregnable, except by knowledge, in its seat on a high hill. Here one can find the synthesis of what is known and what has yet to be known. Here is the source.” She turned the card over. The reverse side showed a peaceful dell, at the center of which bubbled a spring. “You see,” she said. “The double-sided deck speaks both languages: the molded, the hand-formed, the controlled magic of humans, and the clarity of the natural forces, uncontrollable but purer. It is the melding of such a deck as this that produced the power to bring you here.”

  “Then you can help us get back?” asked Chryse.

  “Is that, at this moment, the greatest wish of your heart?”

  Chryse frowned and met Sanjay’s eyes. She knew, with the instinct that comes from long intimacy, that he felt the same reluctance she did at having to leave this adventure—perhaps, now, as abruptly as they had come.

  “But our families—” began Sanjay.

  “The worries of your families, however deep and sincere, I can do nothing about,” said Madame Sosostris smoothly, “and neither, while you are here, can you. There is no profit in that sort of speculation. In any case, with an incomplete deck, I cannot help you.”

  “Do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” Chryse reached out to grasp Sanjay’s hand.

  Madame Sosostris lifted one hand imperatively. “I did not say there is nothing I can do. However, you must bring me a thing I cannot get for myself. With it, I can help you.”

  “What is that?” Sanjay’s hand tightened on Chryse’s.

  Madame Sosostris’s head lifted beneath the veil in such a way that one might imagine she was smiling. “Bring me the treasure of the Queen of the Underworld,” she said. “The treasure sealed beyond the labyrinth gate.”

  “Impossible,” said Sanjay.

  Chryse gasped.

  “Impossible?” said Madame Sosostris. “Why is that?”

  “For one thing, there isn’t a treasure.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Professor Farr says—”

  “Does Professor Farr know everything?”

  Sanjay did not reply.

  “And what about the—” Chryse stopped abruptly. “Might there not be others,” she began again, “who also want and feel they are entitled to this treasure? If it exists.”

  “Bring me the treasure, and I will be able to send you home.”

  “How will we even know what it is?” asked Sanjay.

  “You, at least, have the gift of sight. That should be enough. But I can also tell you that it will be the one thing in the city of the Queen that will be familiar to you.”

  “Then you believe the Pariamne civilization, the lost city of Topo Rhuam, really existed?”

  “I know they existed.”

  “Then why,” asked Chryse, “don’t you get the treasure for yourself? I thought no one knew where the old city really was.”

  “I have many reasons, which I do not choose to disclose,” replied Madame Sosostris. Her voice remained even, untouched by impatience or anger. “If you wish to call it the fee for my services, then do so. The treasure is my fee.”

  “And if we do get it,” said Sanjay, “what guarantee do we have not just that you will help us, but that you can?”

  “Do you still doubt my power?” she asked, sounding more amused than offended. “That I will, you have only my word. But that I can—”

  She lifted her hands, crossed them, palms facing towards her body, in front of her throat. For a long moment only the faint rustling in one corner disturbed them. The doors behind opened abruptly, soundless but for a light click, and her seven daughters filed in.

  The lamps flared slightly, showing their faces: Ella interested and curious as she went to stand in one corner, Sara with a smile that seemed to say she was enjoying herself as she walked to a second corner; Nora serious and Willa somber as they took up places in the last two corners. The twins, heads bent so their faces remained shadowed, knelt on either side of the table, like twin saints, or sinners, praying. Chasta stood behind her mother: her face had the same rapt clarity of the paintings of the Queen of Heaven that adorned Aunt Laetitia’s sitting room and Chryse’s bedchamber—intent and wholly removed from mundane concerns.

  “Chasta.” Madam Sosostris’s voice deepened in resonance. “The Feast of Somorhas.”

  The girl reached around her mother, stacked the cards neatly by the center of the table, and laid on top a scene of a wedding feast, bride and groom at the head table, the groom in black, the bride in green.

  Chryse tugged on Sanjay’s arm. He flashed her a look, nodded to show that he recognized the card.

  “The Gate,” said Madame Sosostris.

  From somewhere in the deck Chasta pulled out the Gate and laid it crosswise on the Feast of Somorhas.

  “Now,” said Madame Sosostris as Chasta stepped back behind her. “From each of you, I need a symbol of your wedding.”

  “Our rings?” asked Sanjay.

  The veiled head inclined, approving.

  They slipped them off, simple gold bands, and laid them on the table. The twins moved forward and lifted their arms so that their hands rested, palms down, a finger’s breadth above each ring.

  The veiled head lowered until the top of the veil was almost touching the hands open at her throat.

  No one spoke.

  There was, not a humming, but a suggestion of a sustained, single note, like the aural equivalent of a beam of light.

  Behind her mother, Chasta stood with eyes closed. Her sisters in the corners were too shadowed to make out more than the dark outlines of their figures. But the twins’ heads lifted slowly—their eyes were open, augmented by a smile on one, by a frown on the other. Their gazes were focussed, but not on anything in the room.

  Sanjay’s grip tightened convulsively on Chryse’s hand. She glanced at him, followed his stare.

  A blur of darkness shadowed the table, resting like an ominous cloud over the deck of cards.

  Then, a picture snapping suddenly into focus, it solidified.

  The humming stopped. The twins closed their eyes. Chasta opened hers. Sighs sounded from the corners. Madame Sosostris lifted her head to survey the table.

  A plain black top hat sat in the center of the table, coveri
ng the cards.

  “May I?” asked Sanjay quietly.

  A nod.

  He rose, retrieving first the two rings, giving Chryse hers, and bent forward to pick up the top hat. As he turned it over, Chryse picked up the cards and tucked them into their brown velvet pouch.

  Sanjay smiled. “Best’s Rental Company,” he read from a tiny white label on the inside of the hat. “Albany, California.” Chryse made a slight noise and looked up at him. “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s mine. I wonder what the late charge is going to be.”

  Because he remained standing, Chryse stood as well, smoothing out her gown as much to do something with her hands as because it was wrinkled.

  “The treasure of the Queen of the Underworld,” said Madame Sosostris.

  “For our passage home.” Sanjay extended his hand. The mage rose as well, a majestic figure a little taller than Chryse, and shook first his and then Chryse’s hand, bargain sealed.

  Ella, with a smile, showed them out.

  Chapter 7:

  The Crusader

  “THERE.” CHARITY FARR FINISHED draping a shawl over the shoulders of her silent cousin. “That looks much better, much more fashionable. After all, when one calls on a gentlewoman as notable as Lady Trent, one must look one’s best.” She frowned, sitting back to survey her handiwork. The carriage they rode in, sent by Lord Vole, slowed to a halt at an intersection, lurched, and started forward again.

  “I think it’s quite marvellous,” she continued, now tucking a stray wisp of Maretha’s hair back into the loose braided bun that Charity had insisted Maretha wear as befitting an engaged woman, “that Lady Trent should so honor us with her notice. This is the fourth time she has asked us to call. Do you know—” Here she paused. A tiny frown creased her delicate features. “Perhaps Lady Trent would condescend to advise us on your bride clothes. After all, the earl agreed that you might go to any dressmaker in town—surely you may as well go to the most fashionable.”

  “And the most expensive?” said Maretha abruptly. “No. Thank you. My church dress will surely be good enough.”

  “Maretha! You’ve had that dress for years. Why, this will be a great society wedding. I’m sure most of polite society will be there—”

  “To stare,” muttered Maretha.

  “And in my case,” added Charity, her expression changing, “much as I hate to—” Her pause spoke eloquently of a reluctance to say what she meant to say next. “The truth is,” she continued in a subdued voice, “that this may be one of the very few chances I have of being noticed, so that I might—” She broke off again. Even in a simple gown, old by several years and dressed up now with ribbons and lace purchased from an inexpensive emporium, she looked charming. “I haven’t your education, Maretha,” she said quietly. “And certainly no fortune at all. After you marry you know I will simply be a burden to your father. My only hope is that I can contract a respectable marriage. Don’t deny me this chance.”

  Maretha stared down at her hands. She felt, first, a rush of guilt for not considering Charity’s predicament—Charity, who never complained, did work that gentlefolk hired servants to do, put up with the professor’s odd humors. But following on this as quickly was a swell of annoyance at herself.

  Since that day she had accepted the earl’s offer, knowing that she really had no other choice, she had lapsed into a passivity that she could only despise in herself. Only on those handful of occasions when she had faced the earl—the final negotiations; the signing of the betrothal agreement; the awful gathering where the betrothal had been formally announced—had her spirit asserted itself: she refused to let him believe that she was so fainthearted. But at home she went about her tasks listlessly. Her own father, she thought bitterly, had not noticed the change—but then, he was so consumed by preparations for the expedition that he could hardly be counted on to notice anything so far outside his immediate concerns.

  “Very well,” she said at last, with that rush of energy and confidence that a burst of resolve engenders, “we will ask Lady Trent to recommend the most fashionable, and expensive, dressmaker. You and I will get the finest dresses we can order.”

  And, she added to herself, spend as much of his fortune as is humanly possible before—But farther than this thought she was not willing to go.

  “Oh, Maretha!” Charity cried, her gratitude completely unfeigned. “Oh, just imagine. After all,” she nodded, trying now to appear judicious, “he is quite, quite rich. A few dresses won’t make a ripple in his income—not if he can fund Uncle’s expedition without blinking an eye. I helped Monsieur Mukerji copy out some of the lists of provisions—though I haven’t as good a hand as you—they’re even going to hire some of the laborers here in Heffield and take them all the way to the site. Imagine the expense!”

  “Laborers aren’t paid that much, Charity,” said Maretha. “But it is much cheaper to hire local labor—there are always poor folk about any place who are eager for a day wage.” She shrugged. “But the earl insisted. Undoubtedly he has his reasons. Keeping them beholden to him in a place far from their own homes, for instance.”

  “Surely not. You don’t think he would—”

  “Charity.” Maretha sighed. “You don’t suppose he’s doing this out of some whim of generosity, do you? Monsieur Mukerji and I are to go down to Hutment today to hire some foremen. After tea. Perhaps you would like to come as well?”

  “To Hutment?” Charity hesitated. The carriage, as if in echo of her feelings, slowed to a stop. “I’m not sure. Isn’t that a terribly poor district? With all sorts of unfortunate people? And criminals?”

  The carriage door opened. “Vole House, miss,” said the uniformed individual who had helped them in.

  “Of course it’s a poor district,” muttered Maretha as they descended. “That’s where you get labor cheapest.”

  Lady Trent and Chryse were waiting to receive them. After the usual pleasantries, Charity ventured the topic of the dressmaker, and soon she and Lady Trent were deep in a close discussion of the merits of various modistes in the city. Chryse moved to sit next to Maretha.

  “I understand,” said Maretha, “that it has been arranged that you and your husband will accompany the expedition.”

  “Yes.” Chryse smiled. “It should be quite an adventure.”

  Despite her own misgivings about the expedition, Maretha smiled back. She had liked this light-haired woman immediately, the first time they had met, and their further meetings over tea at Vole House and Farr House had only confirmed her first opinion. “I’m glad to have the company, too,” she added, diffident now.

  “Yes,” said Chryse thoughtfully. “I should rather imagine you are.”

  Their eyes met in understanding. Maretha flushed slightly.

  On the other side of the room, Lady Trent had unearthed her stack of current fashion plates, which she and Charity now perused with great concentration.

  “I’ve hesitated to mention this before,” began Chryse slowly, lowering her voice, “but Sanjay mentioned that your father had asked if I would—” She faltered. “That as a married woman, if you had any questions—if I would talk to you about—oh dear. Now I’m embarrassed.”

  But Maretha smiled, and Chryse managed a weak chuckle.

  “What my mother would have done,” said Maretha, “had she been alive. To instruct me in my marital duties.”

  “It seems rather foolish, doesn’t it?” said Chryse, but to this Maretha frowned.

  “No.” She lowered both her voice and her eyes. Her hands, clasped on her lap, tightened. “Of course I know the—the mechanics of—” Rather than flushing, her face had gone quite pale. “I don’t think Father was being progressive. I know it’s the fashion now to keep young people in ignorance of the procreative functions until they marry, but Father simply considered it another branch of natural science. But you see—” Now her eyes lifted, giving her pale face an expression of appeal. “—knowing the mechanics doesn’t make me know the—the process any be
tter.”

  “Oh dear,” murmured Chryse. Without thinking she reached out a hand to clasp Maretha’s. “Are you so very frightened?”

  Maretha could not reply.

  “I’m sorry,” said Chryse. “I’m sorry you have to face something so—” She made an impatient movement with her free hand. “I’m afraid that any word I use will be trite. It should be something to look forward to, not something to fear.”

  “With any other man,” said Maretha in a voice barely audible to her companion.

  “They are just rumors. Surely—” Chryse stopped herself, refusing now to say those trite words Sanjay had used: Surely he’s not as black as he’s painted.

  “What if he is?” asked Maretha as if Chryse had voiced the thought aloud. “He is a sorceror. Such power does not come free. It must be drawn from somewhere, from oneself, from natural forces, from other people. There is always a price. I don’t know much about magic, but I have heard that it is easiest to steal that power from others. But perhaps that isn’t true.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But I am a musician—have even done some composing, on and off, when I had the courage and the commitment to do it. And it is easiest to steal from others, when you’re composing, or creating any art. But it seems to me that the strongest art, the truest art, the most difficult to create, comes from oneself. Maybe that holds true for magic as well.”

  Maretha bowed her head.

  “Surely—” Chryse began, distressed by Maretha’s sudden passivity. “Surely as his wife, he would treat you with more respect than a—than some poor soul bought off the streets.”

  Maretha winced. “How different am I?” she asked bitterly. “Bought and sold? But it is true—it is true that he mentioned having an heir.”

  “Then he must know that he has to take care of you, if you are to bear a healthy child.”

  Maretha’s hands tightened in a convulsive grip around Chryse’s hand. “But then I have to lie with him,” she whispered.