The Labyrinth of Flame

by Courtney Schafer

  “Oh, enough!” Raishal thumped the table with a fist. “I’ve no desire to be left to fend off angry black-daggers, especially when Veddis’s kin warned us of bad omens. I want my child safe, not dependent on Gavila’s whim. What if she decides to take hostages against you, Zadi? I say we all go. Then there’ll be no one here to tempt her, and Teo can help me and Kiran both.”

  “Gavila has more sense than to anger Teo by harming you,” Zadikah said.

  “From what I’ve heard you say of her, I wouldn’t count on her having any sense.” Raishal’s jaw hardened. “It’s your decisions that have set this course. Did you think your choices wouldn’t affect us? I’ve no desire to become a token in your enemies’ games. If Bayyan offers protection, I want it. For my child, and for us all.”

  Clear enough she was referring to more than Zadikah’s decision to bring me and Kiran here. Teo looked between the women, his brows drawn in a frown.

  Zadikah said, “But…the child, Raishal. This is no short evening stroll. What if you start bleeding again?”

  Raishal said, “Four miles is nothing. I made twice that distance with Veddis before I started cramping. This time, Teo will be right at my side, and we’ll hardly be moving fast. It’ll be a miracle of Suliyya if Kiran can manage the distance before dawn.”

  I thought she was right about Kiran, which had me itching to get moving. “Look, if this Bayyan’s willing to give us sanctuary, all we need is to reach somewhere safe on his land and set up camp. Then Teo and Veddis can stay with Raishal and Kiran while Zadikah takes me to the city. I’ll bring back the herbs Teo needs to cure Kiran. Soon as that happens, we’ll leave you for good, and you’ll have no need to hide from the black-daggers.” Not that I much liked the idea of leaving Kiran behind while I went to Prosul Akheba, but I needed to keep Zadikah happy.

  Teo cut in. “Raishal is right. Safest if we all go. Anjali was to come in the morning for a new set of poultices. I’ll leave her a note saying we’re taking Raishal to have the baby in Veddis’s birthlands. Anjali will feed the animals in our absence and spread the word. Maybe Gavila will believe we’re seeking protection from Veddis’s kin.”

  I didn’t think it at all likely Gavila would be so easily fooled, but I held my tongue, my eyes on Zadikah.

  She heaved a resigned sigh and levered herself to her feet. “I’ll signal Bayyan to meet us.”

  Teo stared at her. “You carry a signaling charm for him? What exactly have you done that ensures the warleader of the snake-eaters will jump to your summons?”

  “Do I pry into what favor you did the Seranthine matria to make her send messages every year begging you to return to the city?”

  She sure knew how to shut him up. Teo bent his head. “Forgive me, Zadi. Your past is your own, to share or not as you choose.”

  “Though you should share it.” Raishal muttered, just loud enough for us all to hear.

  Me, I wondered if the collegium’s matria knew Teo was a mage. But I said, “How about we save any more talk for when we’re safe on Bayyan’s land? I don’t know about you, but I want to get the fuck out of here before a horde of black-daggers shows up.”

  Zadikah’s glance at me could almost have been called grateful. “Now there’s good sense.” She limped to the door, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll tell Veddis our plan. Pack fast; we leave the moment we can. Veddis and I can take turns carrying Kiran.”

  “You’re not carrying anyone on that leg,” Teo called after her, but she’d already disappeared into the night. He muttered something exasperated to Raishal. She only shook her head and started ransacking the kitchen shelves for provisions.

  I offered my help, and Raishal put me to work loading food, water, and herbs into packs. I kept an eye on Kiran the whole while. His eyes had shut; I thought maybe he was sleeping, though at times he twitched or whimpered. I almost envied him. My body was screaming that it wanted about a thousand hours of rest before I marched off anywhere.

  When Raishal caught me fumbling with one pack’s laces—the cursed things wouldn’t knot right—she pulled the pack from my hands and offered me a wadded little ball of something that looked like dried mud and smelled about as appetizing.

  “Chew this. It’ll help you stay alert.”

  Obediently, I chewed—and spluttered, snatching for a waterskin. “Khalmet’s bloodsoaked hand, my mouth’s on fire!”

  “But you’re awake, aren’t you?” Raishal gave me a fleeting grin.

  Sure enough, a rush of jittery energy swept through me. Between coughs, I said, “Thanks. For this, and for not kicking us out to take our chances. I’m sorry we brought danger on you.” Zadikah had her own reasons for protecting us, and Teo was under coercion, but Raishal…I couldn’t figure why she wasn’t tossing us to the black-daggers.

  Raishal said, “I won’t say I’m not sorry, too. But I know what it is to be in dire need with no kin to call upon for help. When I first met Veddis, he helped me even when his clan elders threatened to exile him for it. I vowed to the gods I’d follow his example and never turn my back on someone in need.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “If I’d ask anything in return, it’s that you talk Zadi out of this insane plan she’s so set on.”

  Much as I agreed with the “insane” part, I wasn’t about to try and convince Zadikah she didn’t need me. I fell back on another truth. “Even if I refused to help her, it wouldn’t stop her. You want my honest opinion, it’d take a miracle of the gods for that.”

  “I know it. Zadi’s always been stubborn. I just…ah, havashanti, I want her safe.” Raishal turned away to head for the door. “I’ll tell Veddis and Teo the packs are ready. Get Kiran up if you can.”

  I spat the last tingling scraps of herbs from my mouth and knelt beside Kiran. When I shook his shoulder, he groaned and blinked up at me. His pupils were mere specks, but when he spoke, I could understand the words.

  “Dev? What…?”

  “Can you stand? We’ve got to walk to someplace safe.”

  He tried, but he was hopelessly uncoordinated. I hauled him upright, thankful he was too skinny to weigh much.

  Zadikah ducked through the archway, her arms loaded with waterskins. She shot a swift glance around the empty kitchen, then fixed me with one of her burning stares.

  “I’ve risked everything for you.”

  “You mean for Teo—but I’m grateful, believe me. I’ll get you into the Khalat and never breathe a word to anyone.”

  Kiran listed sideways and nearly pulled us both over. I cursed and got his arm over my shoulders while he mumbled slurred apologies.

  Zadikah said, “Kiran claimed the black-daggers seek you on behalf of an enemy of Lord Sechaveh. If you want Bayyan’s protection, I want to know more of this enemy who hunts you.”

  I certainly wasn’t going to start blabbing about demons, and Ruslan wasn’t a much safer topic. “What, other than him being a ruthless, manipulative asshole who’s lying to your kin?”

  “Give me his name,” Zadikah said. “If Gavila has made a deal with him, I want to know the man she’s serving. You owe me that.”

  She was right, I owed her. Yet my gut screamed against giving her Ruslan’s name, no matter how unlikely it was that Zadikah would recognize it. Easy enough to lie. She’d never know the difference.

  Kiran raised his head to blink owlishly at Zadikah. “Ruslan. His name is Ruslan.”

  So much for caution, and damn it, I was too slow to cover my reaction. Watching me, Zadikah nodded in satisfaction. She said to Kiran, “Recovered enough you can follow a conversation, have you? Let’s see you try walking.”

  I helped Kiran stagger toward the door, cursing both his drug-loosened tongue and myself for not thinking faster. As if we didn’t have enough to worry over already.

  One step at a time, I reminded myself. Hell with Ruslan and demons. Right now, I just had to get Kiran over four measly miles of desert. That, I could do. The rest…well, I’d worry about it if we reached Bayyan before the black-daggers fo
und us.

  * * *

  I trudged over crusted sand, trying to lift my aching feet high enough to avoid half-buried balls of cactus. The sky above was the pale, pure blue of early morning, though the contorted spires looming all around us were high enough that we still walked in shadow. In better times, I’d have been itching to climb those weirdly tapered towers. Hell, even now my gaze kept drifting up to pick out potential routes. I’d never seen stone take on such fantastical forms. Some spires had the teasing suggestion of familiar shapes—I could imagine them as giant snakes or owls or even people, turned by the gods into stone. Others looked like ribbons frozen mid-flutter, their fluid sweeps of sandstone closing to vanishingly slender summits.

  The sight left me all the more pissed off at the godspeaker and Ruslan and the whole damn mess. Maddening to travel through such a climber’s paradise without the least chance of enjoying it. My muscles throbbed in sullen, continuous protest, and the pack on my back felt like a block of granite. Kiran slogged along beside me with his head down. He still stumbled on occasion, but I thought that was from exhaustion, not any lingering effect of the hennanwort.

  Ahead, Zadikah looked nearly as tired, limping along beside Bayyan—a thick-muscled clansman possessed of a ready, wolfish grin and a casual confidence that bordered on a mage’s arrogance. He and a crew of his snake-eater kin had slipped out of the rocks not long after dawn, hemming us in before I even had time to blink. They took their clan name seriously. Half of the silent, keen-eyed men and women wore necklaces strung with viper fangs, and almost all had serpent tattoos spiraling up their necks and over the shaved sides of their heads.

  Zadikah had pulled Bayyan aside for a private discussion—or argument, rather, if I was any judge of the tension in their postures—but in the end he’d returned to announce that he was honored to give us sanctuary. If the black-daggers think to come for you, we’ll gladly show them how the children of the snake greet fools who dare our lands without permission, he’d said, grinning around at his warriors, who’d laughed and brandished charms and knives in agreement before dispersing to scout.

  I had to admit, Bayyan’s crew were good. I never saw so much as a hint of them slinking about the rocks, yet every time we rounded another spire, a scout would pop out of nowhere to give Bayyan a report.

  Kiran tripped and nearly fell face-first into a swordplant. I caught his arm to steady him. “Shouldn’t be much longer before we camp.” Or so Bayyan had promised, though it already felt like we’d been walking for years. Part of that was our glacial pace. Raishal kept insisting she could go faster, but Teo forbade it. He and Veddis were at her side even now, plodding along fifty yards behind us.

  I peered at Kiran, whose face looked gray in the dim light. “Are you feeling sick at all?” Teo had dosed him with a new mixture of herbs not long ago.

  “No,” Kiran said. “I think what Teo gave me is keeping my ikilhia in check. Although it’s a little hard to tell. Trying to sense anything is still…difficult. At least I can see properly now. You’re not all distorted and glowing.”

  “You said I was covered in indigo. And babbled about scorpions.” I spoke teasingly, intending to distract us both from our neverending trudge, but he looked all the more unhappy.

  “I think I was seeing the binding Vidai left in you. Dev, we need to break it.”

  His solemn intensity had me rubbing uneasily at my chest again. Nothing more disturbing than knowing some kind of freakish demon magic lurked within me. I lowered my voice to match his. “No argument here, but I don’t see how. You can’t cast, Teo won’t, and it’s not like we have any other helpful mages around.”

  “Maybe you can find a mage in Prosul Akheba.”

  “I think I’ll be a little busy,” I said, my eyes on Zadikah. She and Bayyan had stopped at a deep alcove beneath a humped fin of rock. Behind the fin, two wickedly curved spires like the horns of some immense beast framed the rising sun.

  Zadikah called to us, “We camp here!”

  All else forgotten, I staggered to the alcove, ditched my pack, and threw myself down in the sand. For a long, blessed moment I thought of nothing but the utter relief of not moving.

  Kiran flopped face-down next to me, breathing heavily. Not long after, shuffling footsteps announced the arrival of Teo, Raishal, and Veddis. Raishal settled beside us with a groan.

  “Suliyya’s grace, that feels good,” she said. “I thought we’d never stop walking.”

  I cracked an eye open. Teo had taken off Raishal’s boots and was massaging her swollen feet. Behind her, Veddis fidgeted, his attention on Zadikah and Bayyan, who stood talking in low voices at the far end of the alcove.

  “Rai, are you sure this was the right choice? No telling how long we’ll have to stay, and it’ll only get more difficult for you to travel. What if you can’t get home for the birth? It’s no good fortune for a child to be born on strangers’ ground.”

  Kiran’s back tensed, though he didn’t raise his head from his arms. Doubtless he was busy blaming himself for everything. I scowled at Veddis, wishing he’d had the tact to express his regrets out of our hearing.

  Raishal heaved a sigh. She tugged Veddis down to the sand and leaned back against his chest. “My mother had me in the middle of fighting a clan war. I don’t care where I have the baby so long as you’re with me.” She raised a hand to trace his scarred cheek. “I want your face to be the first our child sees.”

  “I’ll make sure of it,” Teo assured them.

  Veddis’s unhappy expression eased. “I know you will.” His smile at Teo was unexpectedly sweet. “This child can be yours too.”

  Yearning blazed so stark on Teo’s face it startled me. Casting made mages permanently sterile; Kiran had never even hinted he regretted that, but obviously Teo felt differently.

  I looked aside, not willing to move but wanting to give them some semblance of privacy—and saw Zadikah standing mere feet away, her eyes locked on the trio. Her throat moved in a hard swallow. Abruptly, she spoke to me.

  “A short rest, and then you and I push on toward Prosul Akheba.”

  A short rest? Oh, gods. But I nodded, determined not to show any weakness. Beside me, Kiran sat up, his brow furrowed in worry, but he stayed silent.

  Teo was looking at Zadikah like he had about a thousand things he wanted to say and couldn’t get any of them out of his mouth. “Zadi…”

  “I’ll tell Bayyan we need more water.” She turned her back and limped off again.

  Watching her go, Teo’s shoulders slumped. He looked at Veddis, stricken and rueful, and opened his mouth.

  Raishal held up a hand and said, “We know. She’s not sure a simple desert life’s enough for her, and so neither are you. It’s all right, Teo. Our hearts are open to you both, if you should ever feel ready for more than bedplay with us.” She glanced at me and smirked. “Ah, but we’re embarrassing the poor sivayyah. I’ve heard Arkennlanders treat matters of love like merchant house secrets, to be spoken of only behind closed doors rather than celebrated before the world.”

  It was more that in Ninavel, we knew love was a risk as dangerous as any business venture. I didn’t argue the point. Instead, I matched Raishal’s teasing tone.

  “Whereas southerners never shut up about who shares their beds, until everyone else is bored to tears.” In truth, I envied Raishal’s innocence. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to love without fear that love would be used against you.

  “Here.” Raishal passed over a handful of cinnamon-dusted seedcakes. “Before Zadi drags you off, you need to eat something. Kiran, you too. Both of you look terrible.”

  That was certainly true of Kiran. He was a study in misery, his blue eyes dark and his body hunched, and I didn’t think it was only out of exhaustion. I’d caught the look of bitter, helpless longing he’d worn while Raishal spoke to Teo.

  I knew what it was to think you’d lost everything. To believe that you’d never again have the comfort and joy of a family’s lo
ve. Time dulled the pain, but it never really went away. Yet sometimes, words could ease the sting.

  I handed Kiran a seedcake and leaned close to whisper, “You know, when this is all over, you can stick with me and Cara as long as you want. If you want.”

  “What would I do without your optimism?” He ducked his head, but not before I saw how his eyes glistened. “It’s hard to imagine anything past this, but—thank you. I would want that. So when you go to the city…I know it’s pointless to ask you to be careful when I know the risks you must take, and why. But whatever you do, make sure you come back from it.”

  He spoke of wanting to stay with me and Cara like the idea was an impossible dream. I stared at him, realizing: he wanted me to survive, but he didn’t believe he would. He thought if we succeeded in killing Ruslan, he would die too, thanks to his mark-bond. I wanted to argue, to shake him, to force him into hope.

  Instead, I resolved that once I came back from Prosul Akheba, I’d show him he was wrong. There was a way to protect him, and I’d find it. Then he’d learn the lesson Melly’s father Sethan had once taught me: so long as life endures, no dream is impossible.

  Chapter Eight

  (Dev)

  I edged up crumbling clay tiles, ducking through a spiderweb of rope and prayer flags that stretched upward to a single statue at the roof’s summit. Though wind and sand had long since eroded away the statue’s finer details, the outline was still recognizable: a sexless human figure with eight wings sprouting from its back. The Akheban temple I stood on honored Jagandiz, god of the creatures that flew, one of Noshet’s thousand children. Not a god who would rate a full temple in Ninavel; most worship there was reserved for the elders of the southern pantheon.

  Prosul Akheba’s residents weren’t so choosy in their adoration, and they seemed to believe only gods and rulers required permanent walls. Jagandiz’s temple was a stone island in a sea of brilliantly colored tents. The tents in the city’s wealthier areas were expansive constructions as large as any highsider dwelling in Ninavel. Some were dyed in desert hues of rust-red and smoky orange and sun-yellow. Others were vivid greens, pinks and purples, and still more were an array of blues that outdid the cloudless sky above. The rainbow of colors faded with distance, the tents growing shabbier and smaller until the city ended in the snaking line of the outer ward wall. Poking up through the tents was a sprinkling of other stone buildings, each a temple honoring one or another of the myriad gods and goddesses favored by Varkevians. At the city’s center, the vermilion and ochre butte of the Khalat loomed over all.