by Robin Owens
The couple who ran the inn made her welcome. It wasn’t a big place, only five or six rooms and two suites. Del took the most expensive suite. It was fussy and feminine and that was so different than the places she’d been staying that it was good.
She’d become accustomed to spending a lot of money lately, refurbishing the resort spa and house and planning a theater in Verde Valley. Before that, attending expensive city amusements, buying city clothes. At least that part was over. Her leathers had never felt so comfortable.
She wasn’t the only guest, but she took a tray in her suite instead of joining the rest for meals that day. The owners of the inn were cheerful and comforting, nearly pampering, and she thought they understood she’d had a bad shock.
She didn’t sleep much the first night, just lay in the bed and existed, drifting in and out of sleep, still empty, still dry, still burning inside.
Shunuk spent the night exploring.
The next day she dressed and rode to the labyrinth, left her stridebeast in a nearby meadow to graze while she walked to the rim of the huge crater. The crater had been made by the impact of a satellite sent by Nuada’s Sword to examine Celta to see if it was a good planet to colonize. Even that bit of history hurt, since it was something she’d been reminded of by the play Heart and Sword. She thought of Rosemary’s delight, of holding hands with Raz, of the wonder of the production that had taken her from her theater seat into space and centuries past. Her throat closed, but tears didn’t come.
She didn’t go to the center and the great ash tree, but stepped off the path to visit various noble offerings. Several yards off one of the wider rings, she wound through trellises to see a deep pond. The plaque showed one of the FirstFamily’s names, the Seas, mind healers. Del studied the water and knew it would be full of soothing herbs. Good.
Del was gone from Druida. He only needed to step outside to sense her absence. There was only one D’Elecampane that smelled of wild herbs brought on the summer breeze, that left a trace of unique mapmaking Flair in the atmosphere.
He wondered if that’s how Straif T’Blackthorn tracked, and misplaced jealousy bit him hard. No, not jealousy, the damn panic-fear that she was gone and Raz was a fool. Fear and foolishness that he couldn’t prevent.
It shamed him to think that he had chosen his life and career over his HeartMate, but when he was on stage and that applause came at him, when he acted, he was giving the best of himself.
Good riddance. With a smug smile, Rosemary curled up on his dressing room sofa. The wall above it was empty, he hadn’t been able to bear looking at the tapestry, had translocated it to storage in T’Cherry Residence.
No more fox. No more woman. Now I have you all to Myself.
Raz had Family and theater people and friends and Fam, and was deeply and disturbingly lonely like he’d never been in all his life. If he kept still he thought the edge of a dark doom would overtake him. So he wasn’t ever alone, slept at one of the rooms at the Thespian Club. He concentrated only on his work and the diaries and his Fam.
Lonely. He had never known the true feeling of the word before, though he had acted it.
Loneliness was awful.
For a couple of days Del wandered the labyrinth, noting the Family shrines, recording them on a sphere.
Shouldn’t some artist instead of a mapmaker be doing this? Like T’Apple? Then she thought of the man, knew he’d change the composition of the shrines to what he believed would be more visually pleasing. He probably wouldn’t get the measurements right, either. Wouldn’t care about that.
She did. It was the main focus of her days. She still waited for her emotions to break loose, for the relief of tears that didn’t come. Knew she couldn’t go on with her life until that happened. Stupid female thing. But she was a woman, one who had grown. Better to have too many emotions than none.
She didn’t feel good enough to walk the meditation path. Once she did that, she’d be facing her deepest aches—the loss of her HeartMate—and she’d have to give up the past and set her feet on the trail of her future. She figured the tears would come then, and if she was walking the labyrinth, everyone she met would know her pain, see her vulnerability. Maybe pity her.
Her pride wasn’t ready for that, either.
She was civil to the people she met in the inn, most of whom had only come in for a day and stayed overnight. Now and then, from excited comments they’d made during meals, she understood that in her rambles she’d missed a FirstFamily lord or lady.
Then she realized that rumor of her project had reached Druida and some of the Families were sprucing up their shrines for her. Which meant another circuit around to make sure she had new holos, the correct dimensions—and some of them had extended their space, dammit.
One day she saw a teenaged boy uncrating bottles of wine with great care and putting them in a rack and a no-time in the T’Vine arbor. Restocking his offering.
She stopped. Vinni T’Vine, the great prophet of Celta. One who was known to lay out your future to you . . . or reveal a glimpse or two . . . or make cryptic comments.
But it was the middle of the morning and she recognized the wrapper around some cheese and the label on the bottle of blackberry wine and got the first hunger pangs in days. Ignoring her rumbling stomach, she walked up to his shrine and bowed to him. “Merry meet, T’Vine.”
Thirty-five
Merrily met, D’Elecampane.” Approval beamed from the teen’s eyes. He set the cheese on a sturdy marble-topped no-time and sliced the cheddar, put it on crackers and those on plates, poured a glass of wine for himself and a quarter of one for her.
He glanced at the spheres in her hand, the roll of papyrus under her arm. “May I see your work?”
“Since you’re feeding me, sure.” As soon as he cleaned off a glass-topped table she unrolled the papyrus, tapped it with a finger to lay flat, and with a sweep of her hand, let the thing form into three dimensions.
The young man stood looking into the large bowl of the crater and the Great Labyrinth and Del took one of the floral-patterned white wicker chairs. Didn’t seem at all like T’Vine.
“The women of my Family insisted,” the youth said absently and Del’s mouth went dry as she recognized he’d heard her thoughts. A very powerful GreatLord indeed.
T’Vine laughed and turned to her. “You think I’m mind reading.” He gestured to a mirrorlike sculpture of the sun hanging from one of the arbor lattices, twisting gently in the breeze. “Your expression at the furniture gave you away.”
Del sipped her wine. “Thanks.”
A resigned look came to his eyes. “People are wary of me because of my prophetic gift; I don’t need to be considered a receiving telepath, too.”
“Guess not,” Del said, munching another cracker.
He glanced at the wine racks and no-time. “Though being cautious of me doesn’t seem to prevent folks from drinking my wine and eating my offerings. I have to restock every couple of weeks now.”
“Really good cheese. Thank you.”
His smile lightened his face, making it more boylike, though she didn’t think he’d been a boy for a while. “You’re welcome. You do excellent work. I think this map needs to be several places in the labyrinth, at the center with T’Ash’s World Tree, and at the rim where the path ends, near the Elder’s new pavilion.”
Del shrugged. “I’ll send the original and holos to the Guildhall—they can distribute as needed—leave one here with the inn people.”
Vinni sat next to her, swallowed cheese and a cracker or two, sipped his wine. They ate in silence as the shade deepened in the arbor and the scent of ripening grapes gently infused the air. She sighed, relaxed, even let her eyes close. “Wonderful cheese.” Cheese didn’t travel well, and she loved it.
“You can always get the best in Druida City.”
Pain. She opened her eyes. “I have Family there, I’ll be back more often.”
“Good.”
“Or did you know that? So
mething you want to say to me, GreatLord T’Vine?”
He smiled. “Call me Vinni.”
Which made her wonder how close they would become, but she shrugged. “You gonna tell me something, Vinni?”
His eyes had changed color, a slight tinge of red came to his cheeks. “Walk the labyrinth, GrandLady D’Elecampane.”
“Del,” she corrected. “That’s all?”
His gaze was direct. “You don’t want to know your future, do you? And hearing me wouldn’t affect your decisions, would it?”
“Maybe.”
He shook his head. “No. You will do what is right for you and yours. That means a place outside of Druida, but visiting Druida more than you have. Just as you’ve already decided.” He hesitated. “Knowing the future would only distract you. Be careful.”
Del stared at him, but he said nothing more. So she nodded, glanced at her work, thought about finishing touches, double-checking with Shunuk.
As if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, the fox slid into the arbor, sat before Vinni, and smiled ingratiatingly. Greetyou, Vinni.
“Hello, Shunuk. Thank you again for taking care of that celtaroon nest on my estate.”
Del raised her brows. Shunuk had been ranging farther outside of Druida City proper than she’d known.
Shunuk panted. You are welcome. He sniffed. I love cheese.
Vinni laughed, went to the no-time, and broke off a hunk of cheese, threw it, and laughed again when Shunuk leapt to catch it in his mouth. The fox rumbled happily around the treat. Vinni dipped his hands in a basin Del hadn’t noticed, said a Word to wash and dry them, then looked at the labyrinth path with a pained expression.
People could teleport into the labyrinth, but never out of it.
The boy set his shoulders, looked at Del. “This will be good for me.”
She nodded.
He stepped onto the path and when he looked back at her, his eyes weren’t the usual hazel. “Be careful,” he said again, then began the walk out.
The rest of the day she and Shunuk consulted on the shrines, verified the spaces and each of the objects with the most recently recorded holos and vizes. They used small animal tracks to ascend the crater. Del was careful to keep those dirt paths as tiny and hidden as possible. The Great Labyrinth was a very special place, both historically and for Celtan culture, the meditation path helpful for all.
In the morning she’d walk the path, from the rim down to the center and back. At a slow meditative pace, without stopping, that would take her about three septhours. She decided to allocate a full day, with as many stops as she wanted. She’d use the time on the labyrinth to make her decisions about her life. Then she’d head back to Druida and take care of business.
She was haunted by dreams that night, yearning for Raz, his touch, the loving she’d gotten used to. But she wasn’t going to participate in erotic dream sex if he couldn’t give his whole self. As she would have given her whole self.
She woke up sweaty and unsatisfied, with the edging light of dawn filtering over the horizon. The first hint of autumn to come had kissed the morning with cool breath. Time was passing and it was past time she made decisions for a new life.
After a waterfall she dressed in her favorite, shabbiest leathers, saddled her stridebeast. Shunuk joined her without comment and kept pace.
The Sallow Family, who specialized in animal training, kept a small meadow next to a stream for horses and stridebeasts along with a salt lick and squares of feed. Her mount blew his lips in pleasure when he realized where they were going.
Soon they were at the rim of the crater where the path to and from the Great Labyrinth began and ended, due east.
The sun had risen and Bel’s rays slanted obliquely over the land, touching the green and verdant earth with the gold of summer, barely outlining the lip of the crater opposite her. Del was surprised and a little disappointed to see that she wasn’t the only one here at dawn. An older couple, surely in their eighteenth decade or so, were already treading the path down, the woman in the lead. Small and white-headed, they were still making good time. As Del watched, the woman passed her mate something to eat, a fruit or a bar, and Del understood they’d come well prepared.
Del had decided to leave her sustenance up to the Lady and Lord, which actually meant taking advantage of all the Family offerings. She’d have milk and honeycakes in half a septhour.
A faint crackle came and Del glanced toward the pilgrims who had stopped at a shrine that offered specialty caff no-times. The woman had a piece of papyrus and Del noted it was an old plan of the labyrinth. Del’s smile widened, and a bit of serenity eased her. Soon everyone would be using Del’s three-dimensional holo papyrus map. That was something she could be proud of: her work.
So she stepped onto the path of the Great Labyrinth, most of it still in shadow, the branches of the huge ash tree barely visible in the darkness at the center of the crater.
As she walked and regulated her breathing, she thought of her work. Slowly comprehension seeped into her that her great work of traveling Celta and mapping it was over . . . she didn’t want to be away from Doolee that long. There would be no more yearlong trips with no stop in Druida. Even the trip to the Bluegrass Plains that had seemed appealing in the first rush of grief over losing Raz didn’t feel right anymore.
She had finished the detailed survey of the area that had once been the Downwind slums, had recommended changing a few streets and parks to make the neighborhood more like the rest of Druida City.
There had been an interesting energy there, obviously the result of FirstFamily rituals in rehabilitating the land where despair and loneliness and other negative emotions had seeped into the ground for centuries.
That was done, as was the labyrinth chart.
She’d left a legacy of maps that would help later generations and was very proud of that. She had nothing and no one to prove herself to anymore, was considered the premiere cartographer of Celta. That was enough of a contribution.
So what did she want to do?
Find a home base.
She stopped at the Hickorys’ shrine that was blessedly equipped to disperse negative energy with chimes that corresponded to different bodily fields. She breathed and sounded the chimes to lower her grief and frustration, then, as the sounds echoed back to her, she took care in placing the notes for the best echo, and that exercise increased her serenity.
As she walked again, Vinni T’Vine’s words came back: a place out of Druida. More layers to that phrase than she’d first heard, as if a place outside of Druida would be good for everyone, almost a warning.
When she’d first started on this quest to find her HeartMate, she hadn’t considered his feelings; he’d been a dream lover, not a real man with wants and needs.
She wouldn’t move to Verde Valley until she could share it with him, have him put his mark on it as much as she. She’d stop the renovation of the theater until he was with her.
Sometime within the next few decades he would be with her. Her laugh was choked and garbled. That should have been a balm, that HeartMates were forever, long-range planning was good. But she wanted him now, had no patience to wait. Too greedy for that part of her life to begin, for loving.
She hadn’t comprehended how lonely she’d been, wasn’t as self-sufficient as she’d thought.
A good thing.
The meditation path worked on her. Occasionally she’d stop for snacks, watch others move ahead of her, kept an eye out for the older couple who progressed to the center. They’d be the first to T’Ash’s tree, not that the labyrinth was a race.
Del let her mind rest, having faith that when she finished the walk to the center and back to the rim, she’d have answers.
When she crossed from the darkness where the morning sun hadn’t touched, into the area that had been warmed by it, her chest finally loosened and the tears of grief rose and washed her cheeks.
She wept silently until her body began to shake and groans
came. As she wiped the tears away she saw the path to D’Sea’s hidden arbor and the spring. Not coincidence. The labyrinth working on her, her knowledge of every shrine.
Stumbling along the blue flagstones to the pool, she stripped and fell into warm, scented water. There was a slight rushing of an intake spout and she moved to it, used the noise to hide the sobs that ripped out of her.
This was good, this weeping. It meant she cared. She loved. She’d lost her HeartMate.
She didn’t let herself howl or wail, but gave in to the tears, under the downspout, letting herself go, then taking wrenching breaths and dipping her face, her head, her whole self into the water.
Better.
She was not a careless, emotionless stick of a woman. Not the woman she would have become if she’d had no HeartMate and no Doolee and no Shunuk and continued mapping Celta.
She was a woman who had a glory of emotions. A better woman, a wholer woman, a woman who could experience great grief . . . and someday when Raz came to her, great joy.
She wept until she was empty and the horrible tearing pain inside her was gone and she was filled with soft sadness. Other sensations sifted back into her. The gentle lap of the water, the footsteps and cheerful voices of people passing the hidden spring. People she actually felt connected to.
They, too, walked the labyrinth today and that was enough commonality for her to appreciate them.
She was not alone and a loner. She was a woman who was valued by Doolee, and Straif and Mitchella, and others. Her skill was appreciated. It was enough. She’d never be completely without emotional ties again. She liked the emotional connections she had.
Birds chirped and rustled, a woman with a trained voice sang as she walked the labyrinth.
Enough indeed. She washed her face one more time in the water, then rose, her toes and fingers wrinkled from long submersion.
But Del was calm and had a future to plan. She dressed and the fine linen of her underwear felt good and her soft leathers slid across her body. She was alive and life was an interesting trail before her.