by Dorian Hart
Morningstar knew what Dranko would ask next. “Have any of these other people been to see Solomea recently? As in the past, say, fifty cycles? Specifically a woman with blue skin and maybe a silver ring in her nose?”
Mazzery became very still. He stared at Dranko, with only a slight tilt of his chin, all of his jittery nerves seemingly calmed. “Yes. Two people made inquiries as you did, wanting to find the Crosser’s Maze. A blue-skinned woman and her servant, a young bearded gentleman. But that was a thousand cycles ago or more. I took them to see Solomea, and after some discussion he decided that they were not…suitable. They left, and we have not seen them since.”
A thousand cycles! That would be three years, more or less. How was that possible?
If Dranko was similarly astounded, he didn’t show it. “Did Solomea say why he chose not to hand the maze over to that woman?”
“Not to me, no. Please understand, I do not speak with Solomea directly. I am…no longer allowed in his presence, though I still serve him as best I can. He is extremely eccentric and very particular about who he chooses to see. But if you truly wish to have the Crosser’s Maze from him, he will certainly wish to grant you an audience. And I can arrange it.”
“Great.” Dranko rubbed his hands together. “We need a little time to talk things over amongst ourselves, but I think we’d be honored to have a chance to speak to your employer. Why don’t you come back tomorrow morning? That will give us time to get ready, shave, wash our turbans, that sort of thing.”
Mazzery gave Dranko a wry smile. “Mel. Let me ask you something. Are you and your friends still fully committed citizens of Calabash?”
Dranko took an extra second to respond. “Would my answer make a difference in our relationship?”
“No. But let me say this. The very fact that you have knowledge of the Crosser’s Maze tells me something of your state of mind. Furthermore, it occurs to me that you may have reacquired certain personal possessions that had been, uh, temporarily mislaid. Solomea’s abode is half a cycle from here, and if you wish to bring those possessions with you, it might be best to provoke as little gossip as possible amongst the more grounded denizens of the city.”
“I see where you’re going,” said Dranko. “In that case, why don’t you come by after dinner instead? We don’t mind a long walk in the dark. Kell here quite enjoys that sort of thing.”
* * *
Once more they gathered in Morningstar’s bedroom.
“So,” Morningstar said to Dranko. “Do you believe him? Was Mazzery telling us the truth?”
“Let me tell you some things about Mazzery,” said Dranko. “First, that can’t be his real name. Mazzery? Too much of a coincidence. Doubt it matters, though. Second, all that nervous twitchy stuff was an act. He wanted to seem worried, not in control, so we wouldn’t see him as threatening. Third, he was telling us the truth about some things and lying about others. Mazzery has given this pitch before, and he’s a smooth operator. He knows how to mix a fine cocktail of truth, half-truth, and total bull-hockey.”
“But which parts were true and which were lies?” asked Grey Wolf.
Dranko wrinkled his nose. “Hard to say. I’m street-smart, but I’m not a mind reader. Best guesses? I’d say he honestly does work for this Solomea guy, and they have some kind of two-man con going on. When they find people looking for the Crosser’s Maze, they lure them in with vague promises of a meeting. Maybe they’ll try selling us a fancy metal disc they made themselves; after all, if magic doesn’t work here in Calabash, how would we know it’s a fake? Worst case, Mazzery and Solomea don’t have the maze, and this whole thing is about leading us into a physical ambush.”
“Or maybe they have the real maze,” said Tor. “Maybe the lies are because he’s protecting Solomea from something. Or that the two of them are desperate to sell the maze but don’t want us to know that.”
“Yeah, that’s all possible,” said Dranko. “I doubt it, but then my worldview is a tiny bit more cynical than yours, Lord Firemount.”
“Don’t call me that,” said Tor sullenly.
“What about Lapis?” asked Kibi. Poor Kibilhathur still looked sickly, his face pale and sweaty, his hands trembling slightly. He reminded Morningstar of how it felt that first day in the sun, on that walk from Tal Hae to Verdshane. She wished she could do something for him. “It ain’t possible she met this Mazzery fellah three years ago; we ain’t been here more than a month.”
“It’s very possible,” said Aravia. “And if it’s true, we should all be very relieved.”
“Oh?” asked Dranko. “How’s that?”
“It would mean that time in Calabash is passing much more quickly than it is back in Kivia. It would mean that in the day or two that separated our respective discoveries of the jungle hut, three years were passing here. If we’ve been here for a month, then only an hour or so will have passed back home.”
Morningstar felt a twinge of hope. “Then we still might get back in time to stop Naradawk.”
“Indeed,” said Aravia. “Of course, we still need to procure the maze, then figure out how to escape a city with no exit, then hope we can teleport back to Charagan, and finally we’ll need to figure out how to use the maze to keep Naradawk trapped in his prison world. Or, more likely, let the archmagi figure that out.”
“One thing at a time,” said Dranko. “If Lapis did make a play for the maze and was rebuffed, her backup plan might be to wait for us to get our hands on it, and then steal it.” He paused. “That’s what I’d do if I were her.”
And just like that, the weight of despair pressed down upon Morningstar. The chances of their success were small and fleeting.
“Would she still be waiting?” asked Ernie. “After three years, I mean?”
“Of course she would,” said Grey Wolf “What else does she have to do?”
Morningstar stood up; Ell’s shadow, but she was tired. “I don’t see what choice we have. Mazzery is our only lead. We’ll go with him tomorrow night, with our weapons and an abundance of caution, and see what comes of it. If it’s a trap, we avoid it or fight clear, and then Dranko will keep casting his nets. Anyone disagree?”
No one did.
“Then go to sleep. Prepare yourselves for whatever tomorrow might bring.”
The rest of the company filed out the door, but Dranko lingered in the doorway. After a second or two, he stepped back into the room and closed the door.
“Shouldn’t you be wiping down the bar?” she asked him.
“No.” He grinned at her. “Kell, I hereby formally hand in my resignation. I never liked this job anyway.”
Morningstar laughed. “I wonder if Calabash will realize we’ve gone and provide the place with a new staff.”
“Not our problem,” said Dranko.
“I suppose not. Is there anything you want to talk about?”
“Yeah. You. Something’s bothering you, I can tell, and it’s more than just this business with the Crosser’s Maze.”
“Ever the perceptive one.” Morningstar cast her gaze at the floor. “Yes, something is bothering me. It’s the Tapestry. For the first time since my first visit from Ell’s avatar, it’s not there for me. I felt similarly when I was knocked out of it by Scola, but this is much different. Much worse. It’s like waking up one night to find your most prized possession had been stolen during the day. Goddess, but I hope Aravia is right about how time is passing here and back home. Otherwise, Previa and the other sisters will think I’ve abandoned them—or, worse, they’ve had to battle against Aktallian without me. They could be dead. Naradawk could be free. Spira might not even exist, and we have no way of knowing—”
Dranko reached out and took her hand in both of his. The skin of his fingers was rough, like old leather.
“And the Crosser’s Maze,” she continued. “Maybe this Solomea person has it, but I doubt it. It’s more likely this is all a ruse, like you said. Or what if Lapis already has the maze, and this is simply another trap
she’s set for us?”
She looked up into Dranko’s serious eyes.
“This world-saving quest business isn’t easy,” he said. “It’s like having to grab the wrong end of a torch because there’s no other way to put the fire out.” His eyes flicked down to their hands, then back to her face. “We’ll get the Crosser’s Maze back to Abernathy. We’ll get through this. You have friends who will take care of you. I mean, it’s not like the gods are taking care of us, except maybe in the way that rat-catchers take care of rats. I’d say that in the contest to see who can burden us the most, Ell is pulling away from Delioch right now. But it’s early yet. I’ll bet we’re not even halfway through the game. You took care of me when I was shot by those crazy people in Culud. I’m sure you’ll need to do it again before we’re done with all this insanity. We’ll prop each other up. What choice do we have?”
“I suppose I could call you nasty names and slap you in the face again.”
“Why do you think I’m holding your hand? Just because I don’t take part doesn’t mean I’m not watching Grey Wolf teach you self-defense techniques.”
She had to laugh at that. When he wasn’t making jokes about bodily functions, or smoking foul cigars, or engaging in disquieting blasphemy, Dranko could be quite pleasant. And had she imagined that he blushed, just a little, as he spoke?
“Kibi has it worse,” she said. “I’m feeling severed from the Tapestry, but I think his innate connection to Spira is stronger, more an essential part of him.”
“Don’t worry,” said Dranko. “After I leave, I’ll go and hold his hand for a while.”
She laughed again, but only briefly, as she thought of something else. “And Grey Wolf…I still don’t know what to make of that.”
None of them had spoken about what Ernie had said regarding Grey Wolf’s parents. At least, not where she could hear. It would be better to wait and let Grey Wolf himself bring up the subject.
“That does explain a lot, doesn’t it?” Dranko shook his head. “No wonder he hates my guts. Every time he looks at me, I remind him of his parents getting killed. Gods, I’d hate me, too. I wonder how Ernie found out.”
“Grey Wolf must have confided in him,” she said. “And a good thing he did. I have to say, it’s nice to see Ernie toughening up. I don’t think the Ernest Roundhill we met in Abernathy’s tower would have had the courage to throw Grey Wolf’s tragedy in his face like that.”
“Maybe,” said Dranko. “At the same time, it’s a shame watching him lose that innocent charm.”
Morningstar clicked her tongue. “You are hardly an expert on either innocence or charm. I am surprised you recognize them.”
Dranko let go of her hand, took a step back, and nodded his head approvingly. “You should dish out snappy rejoinders more often. You’ve got a knack.”
“I have a good teacher.”
“Try to sleep, Morningstar. I have a feeling big things are going to happen tomorrow.”
* * *
Mazzery came to meet them the next evening, as promised. Authentic or not, his jittery tension showed in every hurried glance, every nervous tic.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked. “We need to leave now, or we won’t get there before the lights come back on. If you have anything valuable, I suggest you don’t leave it here; it’s entirely likely that the Autarch’s guards will scour this place before too long.”
“Wouldn’t they have done that already?” asked Tor. “We’ve been back to ourselves for a week!”
“I don’t know exactly how it works,” said Mazzery. “But seven cycles is typical for how long it takes the Autarch to notice people breaking free of Calabash’s spell.” He grimaced and added, “My own personal experience bears that out.”
They didn’t have time for this talk. Morningstar took a final look around the Sands of Time, finding to her surprise that her brief memories of it already were fond ones. “Mazzery, lead on.”
The little man led them down Ruby Avenue, then turned left onto Cord Street, which took them in the direction of the wall. The great glass barrier surrounding Calabash had moved back another several blocks in the past few days, and it took nearly half an hour to reach it. A few nighttime pedestrians gave them odd looks along the way, despite the fact that they wore their gowns and turbans, and that their weapons were hidden as well as possible.
“It’s not the most direct route,” said Mazzery, “but there’s much less foot traffic right up against the wall. Citizens of Calabash have an innate feeling that they ought to stay away from it. We’ll be walking about three hours around the edge before we have to cut back in toward the center.”
There had been streetlights illuminating the inward boulevards, but along the flat, gentle curve of the glass wall, all was pitch dark. Mazzery instructed them to keep one hand on the glass and not bring out any lights.
“Safer this way. We want to draw as little attention as possible.”
Not that Morningstar minded—she could see perfectly well with her darksight. She kept that fact from Mazzery; if he planned some kind of ambush, better he not know that one of their number could see it coming.
Here at the very perimeter of the city, the ground was glass as well. Along the base of its wall, Calabash hadn’t yet needed to cover itself with grass or water, sand or stone. It lent some credence to Tor’s theory that all of the city somehow sat inside an enormous glass bottle, though it didn’t explain how there could be cellars. She looked up the wall’s rise, the glass dark and filled with swirling impurities. If one were to follow it high enough, would it arc overhead, a curved circle of glass ceiling meeting at an open bottle mouth? Or did the largest cork in creation plug up their only way out? And if they escaped, where would they find themselves then? On some vast, unexplored plain in the wilds of Kivia, she presumed; Charagan was too small for a city-sized bottle to have gone decades or centuries unnoticed.
For two more hours they walked in silence and nearly complete darkness—and then the wall jumped away. The others halted, as startled as Morningstar, but only she (and Pewter) could have seen what happened. The wall had vanished and reappeared some fifteen feet to their left. The intervening space was a blank glass lot.
Mazzery whispered the group to a halt. “I should have guessed that might happen. The city has expanded to accommodate an influx of new citizens.”
“Shouldn’t there be new buildings and people, then?” asked Tor.
“I don’t know how Calabash works,” said Aravia, “but my guess is that while the city felt a need to grow, it wouldn’t necessarily need to fill in its entire new outermost strip all at once. As Calabash gets bigger and bigger, each new expansion would result in more and more dead space, the area of a circle being proportional to the square of its radius.”
“Very perceptive,” said Mazzery. “There’s a very small chance that a building will appear on top of us in the next hour. I don’t have any idea what would happen. Since citizens are naturally inclined to keep a distance from the wall, that circumstance may not be accounted for.”
They walked another hour without interruption. Morningstar wanted to un-focus her mind and find solace in prayer, but as the only one with darksight, she dared not relax her vigilance. Pewter slept on Aravia’s shoulder.
“We have to leave the wall.” A light flared up, revealing Mazzery’s face. He held something similar to Aravia’s light-rods—a ring around his middle finger that shed magical light. I didn’t even flinch. Goddess, how far have I gone?
“Where did you get that?” asked Tor. “Are you an enchanter?”
“No.” Mazzery gave a forced little laugh. “Solomea gave it to me, back when…back when he still spoke to me. Now, we still have several hours to walk, but this would be a good place to have a quick meal if you’re hungry.”
They had brought bread, apples, a hard cheese, two jars of nuts, and a cold roast chicken from the Sands of Time. Morningstar had some slight misgivings about eating food grown and prepared in Cal
abash, recalling children’s stories about enchanted lands in which eating the local food prevented one from leaving. But if Calabashian food had any nasty side effects, it was far too late to worry about them.
When had she become such a worrier? Morningstar couldn’t seem to stop her mind from concocting worst-case scenarios. She was like Ernie in those early days of Horn’s Company, when the boy fretted about every last thing. She chalked it up to the discomfort of being separated from her sisters in the Tapestry and ate her meal in silence.
Even with the wall left behind, few pedestrians walked the straight, flawlessly paved roads of Calabash. The quiet of the city’s night was unnatural. No dogs barked. No shouted arguments drifted from open windows. No drunken revelers staggered home laughing or muttering after a late night of overindulgence. Calabash kept its dark hours neat and orderly, its denizens sleeping dreamlessly, unaware that their true lives had been stolen.
The city’s sourceless off-yellow dawn was just starting to touch the streets and shops and houses, when Mazzery stopped them outside a large three-story warehouse. Its windows were dark.
“We made it,” he said, before breathing out a relieved sigh. “You should all be thankful; I expected that the Autarch’s guards might be after us. Quickly now, inside.”
The warehouse had a large sliding door out front, closed and secured with long loops of heavy iron chain. Mazzery led them around to the side of the building and unlocked a smaller door with a little bronze key.
A tiny room waited beyond the door, maybe an abandoned clerk’s office for whoever should be managing the warehouse. A second door, slightly ajar, led out the back of the office. Once they were all squeezed inside, Mazzery hastily closed the outer door.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “Solomea is very particular about how he receives visitors. Beyond this room is a flight of stairs going up, which brings you to a short, narrow hall. There is another door at the end of that hall; knock five times, no more, no less, and with your knocks evenly spaced. Then go through. Do not wait to be invited in; Solomea will be expecting you. He waits on the far side.”