Bailey couldn’t even tell there was additional cover on her—whatever was making her cold, it wasn’t just atmospheric. Something was sapping the heat from her directly. Still, she was grateful, and tried to think warm thoughts.
They followed the yarn for some time, ducking under it when they needed to as it crisscrossed along passages that all seemed identical. They were unable to affect the stones directly, but Avery discovered that the yarn was susceptible to spells that didn’t need to be sustained over time—he gave the yarn a very slight singeing periodically to mark where they’d already passed. It worked—twice they picked a direction based on the marred surface of the yarn, working their way along the network until, finally, Bailey saw something that simply made no sense.
There was a passage they had missed. Somehow, impossibly, given the thoroughness of their exploration, they had clearly walked past it not just once, but three times. One of those times had been from above the entrance to the passage. There were three lines of yarn intersecting in front of it; and yet the passage they’d missed marked a fourth direction that was painful to look at.
“That has to be it,” Gideon said. He took a step toward it.
From within the passage came a thunderous wail, rough edge and animal, but booming with something decidedly human.
All four of them recoiled from the passage; especially Avery, who swore and then glared at Bailey. “You had to bring up the freakin’ minotaur!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gideon said, though he swallowed loudly. “There are no minotaurs… not in the mortal world, at any rate. And no one would wrap a mobius trap through Faerie… surely.”
Bailey couldn’t feel her fingers, and was certain that her lips had already turned blue. “W-we… have to try it. C-can’t… stay here… m-much longer.” Her teeth chattered loudly between words until she clamped her jaw shut to quiet them. It was difficult to think straight, but she tried. “W-we… haven’t h-heard this… thing unt-til… n-now…”
Aiden grunted. “You think it may not be real?” He asked.
“No point,” Bailey muttered.
“If it is, though,” Avery said, “we can’t fight it with our magic dampened in here.”
Bailey sighed, and nearly slumped out of Aiden’s arms; but he caught her and got her back on her feet.
She shrugged out of his grasp, though. Maybe it wasn’t the rational thing to do—certainly, that wasn’t something she was in a position to judge just now—but she ducked around the crisscrossed lines of pale yarn and drove against the instinct that told her the passage shouldn’t exist.
Behind her, Aiden and Avery’s voices called out. Then there was a hand on her back—but it wasn’t either of them. It was Gideon. She glanced up at him, and he nodded once, grim-faced.
“Lead the way,” he told her.
She couldn’t respond; her jaw felt locked from having to clench it tight to keep her teeth quiet. So instead she looked past him to see the other two wizards distorted but moving toward her. They seemed flat and bent in some odd direction, some funhouse mirror trick. As they began to take regular shape, she turned back toward the passage and pressed on, oddly comforted by having Gideon with her to lead the charge.
There were more roars and snuffling sounds as they walked the narrow path, and the darkness grew to be absolute—until some of the sounds seemed to be coming from just inches to the right or left, or just ahead. Bailey didn’t stop, though. If she did, she knew, she wouldn’t be able to get up again. Her legs complained, and her nose was running and sore. Her ears had stopped burning, and now ached.
The last leg of the path gave Bailey the sense that she was being squeezed gradually into a flat plane, making it difficult to breathe. Gideon took his hand from her back, and all sound vanished as she shuffled along the corridor until, at last, she stepped into warm air.
She fell immediately to her hands and knees, heaving and gasping for breath. Warmth gradually poured into her; first her nose, and ears, and fingers. Then down her throat into her chest. She barely thought about the need for more warmth before she reached for her magic and found it rushing up to greet her. There was an acrid scent from smoke drifting up to her, and a moment later the orange glow of embers lit the darkness near her hands.
Grass around the embers turned dark, and then sizzled, and finally burst briefly into flames.
It wasn’t much light, and it wasn’t much warmth—but it was better. She held one hand in front of the glow to keep from being light blinded, and looked around her.
She was somewhere different. The scent of salt was on the air, and broken columns stood around her in what she thought was a vaguely temple-like structure, ancient and long defunct. She looked around for the wizards, and didn’t find them.
What she did find, were several black robed figures, watching her from where they stood around her in a ring, maybe a dozen or so.
Bailey lowered her hand, and moved very slowly as she pushed herself to her feet.
“Are you,” she asked, and paused to lick her dry, still cold lips when her voice was dry, “the Centurions, or…?”
One of the figures stepped forward and spoke, though he kept his face hooded and hidden from her. “We are,” he said, his voice accented, possibly with something mediterranean. “Welcome to Crete, daughter of Itaja. We have been expecting you.”
Chapter 20
There were no signs of her companions that she could see. Bailey held her magic ready, though what exactly she meant to do with it she couldn’t figure. Not against this many wizards; especially not if what Aiden and Gideon believed about them was true. Still, it gave her the little bit of comfort and confidence she needed to speak. “Where are my friends?”
“As yet unharmed,” the centurion that had spoken before assured her. “Even the thief is merely held… elsewhere.”
“Then what do you want from me?” She demanded.
The centurion took a few steps toward her, casual and unconcerned with anything she might have threatened him with. As he did, he pushed back his hood, revealing a middle aged man with a scar on his chin, shaved bald. There were tattoos on his scalp, and they ran down the sides of his neck to disappear under his black clothes. He regarded her with calm eyes, his expression unreadable. “What do you imagine we want from you, Daughter of Itaja?”
Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you call me that?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It is the only thing that we know about you. You have been called this before, have you not?”
So, they knew about her encounter with Medea. Had they been watching? Or had something about the magic of the Path alerted them that she’d activated it? She didn’t relax, exactly, but she did consider that the only thing she knew about the Centurions was what Gideon had told her and Aiden had speculated about. “My name is Bailey.”
“And I am Suraj,” the bald wizard said. He inclined his head slightly as he gave his name. “First Centurion of the five hundredth legion.”
She opened her mouth with shock, and then snapped it shut. If each legion was this large, there would be more than five thousand of them, at least. “How…?”
Suraj’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “Forgive my English. Generation is a better word.”
All that meant was that they’d been around for a very, very long time and that was almost as worrying. If she wanted to get away from them, she was out of luck. “Alright,” she said slowly, “so… Suraj; I imagine that you… want to keep me from getting to the Throne?”
“And why would we wish this, do you think?” Suraj asked. Any amusement was gone, so Bailey considered her answer carefully.
“Because,” she said after a few moments, “it would make witches too powerful?”
Some of the figures around the circle shifted on their feet, creating an almost imperceptible rustle that came from all around her and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She kept her eyes firmly on Suraj; somehow she felt that unless he made a move, no one
else would.
“Why should we care about that?” Suraj waved a hand. “We have no stake. We were before, we will be after.”
“Then,” Bailey admitted, “I don’t know.”
He held up a gloved finger. “This is so. But, you assume, do you not?”
Bailey blinked, and tried to figure out if this was some kind of test. It had all the earmarks of one; or an interview, or something. Her assumptions at least were suspect, at least; but that made her even more nervous because it meant that she had nothing to go on. Just Suraj’s actions and words in the moment, which could be anything.
“Okay,” she said, “I do assume. You tell me, then.”
“Not until you ask the correct question,” Suraj said. Then he clasped his hands in front of him, and waited.
There were dozens of questions already floating around Bailey’s thoughts. Which one of them was the ‘correct’ one, she couldn’t possibly have known. What did he mean by it? Was it a challenge? What happened if she asked the wrong one?
He didn’t press her to hurry, but without being able to see Gideon, Aiden, and Avery there was no way for her to know if there was a clock ticking that she couldn’t see. Before she could focus enough to figure out what the centurion wanted, she had to know about her friends.
“I have to know first,” she told Suraj, “whether or not my friends are safe.”
“That depends entirely upon you,” Suraj said quietly. “And what questions you ask.”
That didn’t help her narrow her choices, but it did at least confirm that it was important. There was something final about all of this; she could sense it in the air, a kind of tension like a bow drawn with a knocked arrow in it. Either she would get through this and be given access to whatever they were protecting; or she wouldn’t, and…
Panic threatened to make it impossible to think rationally, so she turned her attention away from that pointless worrying and toward the task in front of her. What did she most need to know that they might be able to tell her?
“You protect the Throne,” she said cautiously.
Suraj’s lip quirked up at the corner in response to her workaround. He nodded once.
“If that’s the case… then it must need protecting,” she went on. Again, Suraj nodded. “According to the lore I’ve heard, only a descendent of Medea—or possibly this Itaja person—can actually use the Throne.”
This time, he gave no indication of agreement. Bailey paused. So, then, how much of the story was she wrong about?
“No,” she said, considering the possible flaws in what she knew, “it only requires… the blood of a descendent.”
Suraj’s face darkened, and he watched her more intently.
“And in that case… someone could misuse it…” she ventured, “…so, you want to be sure that I won’t. That’s not a question.”
The centurion didn’t move, but he did blink once, slowly, as he regarded her.
A terrible thought occurred to her. One that made her stomach twist into a knot. “The thief,” she said quietly, “you meant Gideon. He stole the spell. You think he wants to use me to take the Throne for himself, don’t you?”
“He is not the first,” Suraj said. “You, are not the first.”
“It’s different with him,” Bailey said, though now that she had considered it she couldn’t truly abandon the thought. She closed her eyes, and shook her head slowly. “He… I believe he’s my father.”
Suraj didn’t register any shock. He didn’t blink. He only raised an eyebrow. “Do you believe that no parent has sought to use a child for gain?”
“Of course not,” Bailey said. “I just can’t believe that of him. Don’t misunderstand me—I don’t really know what I feel about Gideon, or Leander, or whoever he is. Maybe he’s not the person I want him to be. But he doesn’t control me.”
Suraj took a step toward her, and leaned forward a few degrees. “Why do you want the Throne, Bailey, Daughter of Itaja?”
That, at least, was easy. “To protect us. My home town is where the last living Caves are. Coven Grove. But they’re failing. Already we’ve had Faerie incursions—during one of them a Faerie actually came through, physically, into our world. The Throne of Medea may be the only way to bring the Caves back; or, at least, come up with some other defense. Some way to seal Faerie away for good.”
At that, Suraj raised one eyebrow, and when he did, Bailey understood the question she was supposed to ask. The one she hadn’t asked in all this time, since the beginning; since she learned about the threat of Faerie and stepped onto this path. Why had she never thought to ask it?
“Except,” she said, “I’m not sure I understand why Faerie was sealed away in the first place. Or if it ever wasn’t. Was the Throne really used to create the partition between us? And if so… why?”
The centurion straightened, and nodded his head once. “That is the correct question; for now. Walk with me, and I will tell you.”
Chapter 21
Suraj led Bailey away from the temple ruins and down a steep slope toward the ocean. The sky was cloudless, and lit with the moon and stars, illuminating the sea just enough that the shifting waves reflected light to give the impression of a darkly glittering sea of diamonds. It was beautiful, but would have been more so if Bailey hadn’t been worried about the lives and safety of her friends.
“Can I at least see them,” Bailey asked, “to know that they’re okay?”
“I have no reason to deceive you,” Suraj said dismissively.
She didn’t know if there was a cultural or philosophical communication barrier between them, but didn’t imagine how she might force him to agree, either.
“Does your coven carry on a tradition of history?” Suraj asked as he stopped near the cliffside—easily close enough to hurl Bailey off of it, she noted, and stood some feet away from him; though he probably didn’t need to use his hands to do it if that was his plan.
“Some,” she said.
He regarded her briefly, and looked back out at the sea. “Yet you do not know the name of Itaja, the first sorceress.”
“Out history mostly goes back to the founding of Coven Grove,” she said. “And I haven’t been the best student. I’ve been busy.”
“Just so,” Suraj grunted. He lowered himself slowly to a large rock to sit, and the way he moved gave her the impression he might be older than he looked. She took a seat as well, and waited as the centurion adjusted his robes and cloak against the cool air.
“In the days of Itaja,” Suraj began, in a tone of rote recitation, “there were no wizards, no witches, or any of the others that have come along since. There was only magic, and those that wielded it were called maga. The maga of that day were all men; born to their power and to status, and wealth. The built great cities, and moved the earth and sea and sky. Itaja was born to slavery, and slave she was to stay, until she learned her art from her master’s son.
“Itaja had a talent not seen before. A talent for walking across the divide between worlds. It is said that she dined with gods, and learned their art, and became the most powerful maga in all the world.” He glanced at Bailey, and continued. “She won her freedom, but was… not accepted. So, she searched for others like herself, as the outcast often do, and she found other girls and women, whom she called her daughters. She taught them, and they taught their daughters, and so it went for the ages since. But always she feared that the other maga, the men who believed their magic to be more powerful, would one day route out her daughters and destroy forever the future she envisioned. And so, Itaja looked for a place for her daughters to live where they would be safe.”
He sighed. “She did not find it on this world. But she did find another. The Dream Place, which you have called Faerie.” He shook his head slowly. “Those that dwell in the Dream Place offered sanctuary, and showed Itaja the way to open a door, so that all of her daughters could go there.”
“They deceived her,” Bailey guessed.
“Just so,�
� Suraj said sadly. “Some they took to their secret places, others they made insensible. Itaja saw what she had done, and she saved whom she could—but she could not close the door on her own. The deceivers spread into our world, whispered in the ears of those that craved for power and wealth, and bent them around their own vices.”
“Some of the maga believed that the Dream Place was a path to other worlds. They hoped to tear down the wall between ours and theirs, so that they might approach the gods.” Suraj paused for a moment, and chucked a stone out over the cliffside and into the sea below. “Foolish. They invited chaos. Itaja and her daughters—among them her true daughter, who would be called Medea—sought to correct this wrong. The maga came to them, and together they were stronger. Medea saw this, as did her lover, also a maga, and they devised a way to gather together all of the magic of the world. With it, they would rebuild the wall between the worlds.”
“But they didn’t,” Bailey pointed out. “They made the Caves. Right?”
“Medea was betrayed,” Suraj said gravely. “Her lover sought to corrupt the wall between worlds, so that we could pass into the Dream Place, but the deceivers could not pass into our world. When Medea took on the mantle of power, she bore it with him, so that their wills both worked upon the world.”
“He wanted to hold onto some of the power,” Bailey realized. “He wanted to be able to use Faerie, but with more controls in place.”
Suraj nodded, “Such power as the Throne offers, is a great temptation. It is not merely what you believe it to be, daughter of Itaja. Who wears the mantle that comes with the Throne… a great deal of harm may be wrought. Creation. Destruction. These are forever bound, one to the other, both calling to all who wield the gifts.” He turned to her, his eyes sharp even in the near darkness. “Medea stripped her lover of the mantle of power, and he never forgave her. But forever, his line was tainted by the touch of it. His blood flowed through the generations, as did Medea’s. For a thousand years the Throne passed from mother to daughter. In time, the betrayer’s blood broke the Throne from jealousy and greed.”
Witching You Wouldn't Go (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 6) Page 13