“How will you be able to carry us?” Chara asked, into the silence. “The pipes are too narrow for you to fly inside them—and aren’t they terribly slippery?”
He shook his head. “They were, but the earthquake shattered a lot of the obsidian—the gods granted us this much good fortune, at least. I’ll carry each of you up to the pipes and we’ll crawl to the top, and then I’ll fly down with you.” He held up his hands; Chara saw blood dripping from beneath the feathers. “Wrap cloth around your hands and knees, though, if you can: it’ll be a rough climb.”
Melaina walked up to him and put her arms around his neck. “Take me first,” she said softly. “I would see this Princess Ariadne before anyone else does.”
Icarus glanced at Chara, who shrugged and turned to Theseus. His eyes were on Melaina, steady and dark. I don’t care what he’s saying to her, Chara thought, and felt fresh laughter pushing into her throat. Asterion and Icarus and maybe a ship that will take us away: that’s all that matters.
When Icarus dropped back down again, Theseus said, “Take me next. I do not wish her to be where I cannot see her.”
It took three tries for Icarus to bear Theseus up; just one to take Alphaios. In the quiet after he’d gone, Asterion began to make his way over to Polymnia, who was still slumped against a piece of rock.
“What are you doing?” Chara said. “Leave her!”
“I can’t.” Asterion picked up the same piece of obsidian that Melaina had used on the string. He knelt in front of Polymnia, who was humming around her gag: silver wound into the darker smoke above them. Blood beaded on her face, where bits of shattered obsidian and rock had grazed it. Her eyes were closed.
“Asterion.” Chara put her hand on his arm and squeezed. “Think of what she’s done to you—to so many people.”
He shook his head and she drew back as his horns swept by her. “No. Yes. I know. But I can’t bear this. We both suffered.” He cut the gag away.
More chunks of stone fell from the roof and exploded into splinters around them. Chara felt them cut her shoulders and arms; she heard Theseus bellow, from far above, “Chara! He is coming back now—hurry!”
“Asterion,” she said again, “you shouldn’t feel—”
“I don’t want to go.” Polymnia’s eyes were open and nearly black. She was gazing at Asterion, who’d gone very still.
“You must,” he said, so quietly that Chara could hardly hear him over the hissing steam and cracking stone.
Polymnia smiled. The smile was beautiful; she was beautiful, despite the dirt and blood on her skin.
His head dropped and swayed from side to side, as if it were as heavy as the bull’s. For a moment Chara was afraid he’d start to change again, but instead he looked slowly up at Polymnia. The shard of obsidian glinted. “At least let me cut your bonds.”
“What for?” That smile; Chara wanted to claw at it until it was shredded flesh and chipped teeth.
He opened his mouth but said nothing. He shrugged, helplessly.
Icarus fell toward them.
“Fly away, my dear one,” Polymnia sang, and Chara forgot her rage in the spiral of silver that wove around them all. “The sky is full of stars . . .”
The obsidian fell from Asterion’s fingers. He took a step backward. Something whistled by Chara’s ear and she stumbled back too, reaching for him. He took her hand and she held it tightly, even when a gout of flame leapt up from the earth between them and Polymnia.
“Gods grant you peace,” he said to her, and turned away.
She watched them go, through a shimmering haze of fire and smoke. Chara, who had spoken to her when no one else would, years ago, before the sacrifice. Chara, who had ruined her.
The bird-man carried Chara up and out of sight.
O gods of all—O Poseidon and Great Mother, let the bird-man not come back; let your bull-god stay with me.
But he was not a bull. He was standing on two scarred legs. He was tall—though his shoulders were rounded—and his horns had shrunk, and he spoke in a man’s voice, as if he’d never roared.
The bird-thing (too clumsy by far to be a god) dropped down once more, stirring smoke and sparks with his wings. He waited on what remained of the altar where her god had come to her, and run from her.
“My Lord!” she called—not to stop him, anymore; just to make him look at her. He didn’t. He put his arms around the bird-man’s neck. He’s bigger, she thought; they won’t be able to leave the ground.
They rose, very slowly. Arms slipped from neck to waist—Yes! Fall; I’ll tend you, if you’re hurt—but they kept rising.
Close to her, or far away, a wolf howled.
“Asterion!” she cried, just as they drew up to the pipes. At last she saw his eyes, through the haze. She saw the clean paths of tears on his cheeks. And then she saw nothing but fire.
Icarus didn’t so much set Chara down as let her go, when they were still above the ground. She tumbled and rolled; she pressed her cheek against dry grass and earth and started to cry. She was choking on tears and yet more laughter by the time she flipped onto her back. The tears made it nearly impossible for her to see the sky, so she rubbed at them until she could.
Darkness—but not the darkness of stone. Deep, soft darkness—some, but not all of it, filled with the mountain’s smoke, which was grey, out here. Out here. Stars were scattered across the black beyond the smoke, and clouds stretched thin between the stars.
She sat up only when Icarus and Asterion came down, like a strange, meandering patch of shadow. She heard voices behind her but didn’t look at anyone except Asterion, who huddled on his side where Icarus laid him, near the mountainside. She was afraid her legs wouldn’t hold her if she stood, so she crawled to him, across the crackling summer grass.
“Asterion.” She touched his quivering shoulder. “Look up.”
“I can’t.” His voice was muffled because his face was tucked into the crook of his elbow. “Can’t look . . . at anything.”
“Look at me,” she said. “To start with.”
He eased his face away from his arm and blinked up at her. She watched his pupils grow and shrink as they tried to adjust to this new light. He raised an arm and wiped at the tears on her cheek, and she smiled into his cupped palm. “Now,” she said, “look.”
He gripped her hands as he sat up, and then he let them go. His breath rasped and whistled and he flattened himself against the rock, scrabbling at it as if he were afraid of falling. “Gods and fishes,” he hissed between chattering teeth. “Fishes and gods and fishes and . . .” His gaze swung from the sky to the mountaintop that jutted above him and, at last, to the people who stood watching him.
They were gathered in a ragged half-circle, Chara saw as she, too, finally looked at them. Theseus and Alphaios and Melaina, of course—but also Phaidra, and Sotiria—Sotiria!—and—
“Sister.” Asterion pushed himself away from the rock and took three wobbly paces toward the group. “Ariadne.” The strength of the words seemed to give strength to his legs; he was striding by the time he reached her, in five more paces. Chara followed more slowly, watching the princess’s eyes dart from Theseus to Asterion. Is this what she looks like when she’s frightened? Chara thought.
“Asterion,” Ariadne said. “Godsblood, but you look remarkable—so—”
“Alive?” he said.
“And Chara!” Ariadne went on, craning past him as if she hadn’t heard him. “Look at you!”
“Also alive,” Chara said. “My Lady.” She was next to Asterion now, her arm resting against his. He was still shaking.
“I hope,” Ariadne stammered, “I hope you understand, both of you, that I—”
Asterion took one more step, which brought him so close to her that she had to crane up to see his face. Her eyes flitted from it to the scars that nearly brushed her own.
“I don’t care,” he said quietly. “Not about what you were going to say. Not about you.” He flung his head back and laughed, his arms up, his horns glinting in the starlight. “Isn’t that amazing?” he asked the sky, and spun so that he was facing Chara again, and fell to his knees.
Phaidra ran to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind. “Brother. Oh, Asterion—thank all the gods.”
“And fishes,” he added, and smiled at Chara.
Everything around her blurred then, for a time. Warm wind came and went across her skin. Clouds changed from sheets to ribbons. Stars flickered. Voices murmured.
“We mustn’t stay. He’s very close, now.”
“Wait a moment, at least. Look at them: they’re in no shape to run.”
“A ship? Well if that’s true—tell the captain there’s an island: just a small one, but he’ll see it, if he’s coming around that way.”
The lash of Ariadne’s familiar, angry voice brought Chara back. “Is there something I can do for you? Your gawking would suggest so.”
Chara discovered that she was sitting with her knees pressed against Asterion’s. She looked up at Ariadne, who was glaring at Melaina. Oh no, Chara thought muzzily.
Melaina shrugged. Between them, Alphaios swallowed hard.
“I’m merely taking in the beauteous Princess Ariadne—the one Theseus intends to rescue from this benighted island and marry, instead of me.”
Ariadne turned to frown at Theseus, who was standing beside her. “Who is this?” she demanded.
He waved a hand at Melaina. “She is of no account—just a girl whose godmark the king and I imagined would be useful, in the labyrinth.”
“I see,” Ariadne said. “Of no account. Good.” She was turning away from him when Melaina lunged toward her, suddenly and silently. Metal gleamed, in the instant before she brought her godmark down upon them all and turned the darkness even darker. Alphaios’s blade, Chara knew, and she wondered stupidly, in that first blind instant, where Melaina had been keeping it. Ariadne shrieked, and Alphaios shouted—but Theseus’s yell was loudest.
Melaina’s godmarked black lifted quickly, leaving a shimmering gauze of silver that faded in a blink. Chara struggled to her feet, leaning on Asterion, straining to see Ariadne and the dagger and the wounds it had made. But the princess was standing where she’d been before—beside Theseus, who was grasping at the dagger in his chest.
His eyes were wide, his lips pressed tightly together. His yell was done—but now Chara’s head and bones and veins echoed with the screaming of his mind-voice. She knew the others heard it too: they cried out together, in their different voices. Melaina leaned in against him, moaning. Chara could no longer see the blade—but she did see blood. It flowed over Melaina’s hand and down her arm, making gently curving lines in the dirt on her skin.
::No!:: Theseus’s left hand scrabbled and sought at his waist, and then it was holding Daedalus’s blade; it was slashing, slashing, opening Melaina’s dirty skin until she sagged away from him, to the ground.
Chara’s head was full of Theseus’s screaming, but she still heard Sotiria’s. Her godmark, Chara thought dimly. She’s feeling everything—how can she possibly take on all that pain?
She took on Theseus’s first: she fell to her hands and knees beside him. Chara heard her whimpering, but her hands were steady. She tore at the hole in his tunic until his chest was bare—smooth, golden-brown, stained dark. She set her left hand on his wound, and her right on top of her left. Silver flickered like tiny branches of lightning, which spread and spread, until his chest and arms glowed—until the air glowed, as if dawn were coming. She lifted her right hand slowly to her own chest. Her eyes closed; her lips parted. Chara heard her moan, as the silver flowed from his skin to hers. The moan went on and on, even after Theseus had slumped to the ground. Sotiria swayed, and then she cried out, and fell.
Icarus knelt and lifted her head into his lap. Ariadne knelt too, and pawed at Theseus’s shoulder. “No,” she said. “No, no, no—you were supposed to rescue me; you were supposed to take me back to Athens and make me queen.”
Sotiria raised herself up, very slowly. Her eyes were wide and unfocused—though just for a moment. They cleared, as they found Melaina. They burned, and swam with tears.
“Stop,” Chara said, “Sotiria: stop—you’re not strong enough.”
Sotiria threw herself toward Melaina, who didn’t seem to be breathing, who couldn’t possibly be saved—and yet Sotiria scrabbled at her wounds with hands that dribbled silver, at first, and then nothing.
“No,” Icarus said as she sagged, hands reaching, sticky with blood. “Please.”
She stopped. She went still, her limbs splayed and stiff.
Theseus gasped and sat up, clutching at the place on his chest where his wound had been.
Ariadne screamed a laugh.
Icarus pulled Sotiria up against him. She was limp now; she slipped over and through his arms, like a sheet of flowing water. Chara said one more useless, “No,” remembering the other words she’d said to Sotiria, three months before: words that promised safety and escape.
“Gods!” Theseus rasped, and lurched to his feet. He retched, doubled over but still standing. He lifted his hands and squinted at them, in the starlight.
Ariadne stumbled as she rose, crying out words Chara didn’t understand. Maybe they weren’t words—just noises that only seemed to have form. Theseus braced himself on Ariadne’s shoulders for a moment, before he took three unsteady steps back.
“I’m fine.” He smiled a shining, trembling smile as he pushed her away. “Fine! Praise the gods and goddesses: I live.”
“Look,” Phaidra said in a quiet, measured voice. “My father—the king—he’s getting closer.” The sky beneath them was filling with scarlet and orange and voices.
“We can’t just leave her,” Icarus said. His mouth was fully human again. One of his hands twitched on Sotiria’s hair. “I’ll fly; I’ll carry her back to where she was when I met her—there’s a shepherd there, and his child; they loved her—”
Phaidra put her hands on Icarus’s shoulders and her chin on the top of his head. Chara bent down beside him. “No,” Chara said. “If the king’s coming, we need to go. And she’s already gone.”
“A priest would say that her god is welcoming her.” Icarus’s lips twisted even more than usual as he bit the inside of his mouth.
“I don’t know anything about gods,” Chara said. She glanced up at Asterion, who shrugged and smiled, just a little. The helplessness in this smile made her stomach knot.
“I don’t either,” Asterion said, and put his own hands over Phaidra’s. “There’s nothing you could do for her, Icarus, even if you did carry her away from here. Let’s go get your father.”
Ariadne glared down at all of them, gesturing at Icarus. “Leave him, if he insists on grieving for her here. I, for one, intend to get off this accursed island.”
Chara stood, already turning to Theseus. “Will you be able to keep up?” she asked.
“I will,” he said. He looked down at Sotiria’s body. “I feel very strong. Thanks to the grace of those gods you claim not to understand. Thanks to her.”
“Yes,” Ariadne snapped, “beautiful—now let’s go”—and she began to pick her way over the stony ground.
Icarus let Phaidra draw him up. He ground his head against her shoulder; Chara saw the feathers on his neck rise and ripple.
“You’re tired,” Phaidra said. Chara thought, Gods and sea snails, when did she get so beautiful and tall and old?
“Yes,” Icarus said as he raised his head. “And so are they.”
Chara almost said, “I am not! I could run and run, because there’s nothing to stop me”—but then she saw that Alphaios was leaning over with his hands on his knees, and Asterion was stooped, as if he could hardly bear the wei
ght of his horns—and she knew that her own body was just as weak as it was eager.
“I wish I could carry each of you to the sea,” Icarus said. “But I imagine I’ll have to carry you once we get there—to the ship Prince Theseus says will be waiting. And flying’s new to me, so I’m not sure—”
“Icarus,” Chara said. “We’ll walk. Or run, if we can.”
“But you?” Phaidra asked him.
He shrugged a bristling shoulder, a little sheepishly. “I think I might fly again. A little.”
Phaidra’s smile was broad, and it made her look like a girl again, just for a moment.
“Of course,” she said, and kissed him.
“Head straight for the cliff above our old prison,” he said as his feet left the ground. He turned to look down at Ariadne, who’d stopped to wait for them. He smiled, which looked very strange; his mouth was caught somewhere between lips and beak. “I believe you know exactly where that is, Princess.”
She scowled at her own feet and said nothing. Phaidra called, “We do—now fly!”
King Minos stood before the mountain door. His hands sizzled as they traced the lines of it; the metal buckled, and gouts of it fell like incandescent tears and burned for a moment on the earth.
“Already open,” he said.
Pasiphae and Karpos glanced at each other. “Yes,” the queen said, “the earthquake, surely—or the gods making the way clear for you to enter—”
“Not clear enough,” the king said slowly. He laid his palms on the blocks of stone that barred the way inside, and a cloud of smoke rose and hid both blocks and hands from view. Fire slid up along his spine, beneath his skin. “But the door’s metal has not buckled. It is open because someone opened it.” He turned and swept his empty eyes over the people ranged behind him. “Where is Phaidra?”
Someone cried out, in the silence. A shadow lurched into Minos’s glow and folded in on itself—a girl, gasping, whimpering as she clutched at the long, ragged wounds that covered her.
The Flame in the Maze Page 26