Labyrinth of Souls

by C. E. Dorsett

  Jodhaa touched the challenge coin, then her forehead, then her heart.

  The golden sun inset in the blue sky shimmered.

  The sennin touched the coin, his forehead, and his heart.

  The sun shimmered again.

  “My name is Gher Bul,” he palmed the coin and smiled at her.

  Jodhaa sighed, “Did my father send you?”

  Gher shook his head. “I had business here, and I happened to notice you at the table. I wanted to introduce myself.”

  That was a plausible excuse, even if she didn’t believe him. Coincidence happened, but this was more than pure accident.

  His name bothered her. It should have been Gheriel. That was the proper sennin name with the honorific at the end. For him to introduce himself without it meant he must have accepted he had dishonored his parents or his people. She wanted to ask him what happened, but knew the offense would be taboo.

  “So you have,” she smiled politely.

  Jodhaa looked over to Raih who was so consumed by the meal, she didn’t seem to pay attention to their visitor. Gher might have a charm or an amulet to obscure himself from her, but she should noticed the energy.

  “I am going to visit an artificer’s shop, if you care to join me?” Gher said.

  “I will have to ask my companion.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Feather's Eyes

  Raih hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she ate. The whole world fell away as she scooped the stir-fried chicken and vegetables into her mouth. She had never eaten food like this growing up in Sawyer. It was salty yet sweet, savory yet bright. It delighted all of her senses in a way she didn’t know food could do. Was it because a spirit cat man made it? What did he call himself? Toby? Since she grew up eating whatever she scrounged up, seasoned food like this was a delicacy.

  When she moved in with Ema, she encountered flavorful food for the first time. Nothing like this though. Ema made many stews and roasted dishes. She often sang to the food, saying it made it taste better. If true, Toby must have the greatest singing voice in the world.

  Something about the meal made her feel at home for the first time since she arrived at the school. It wasn't the free food. The normalcy of sitting and eating with a friend that gave her more of a sense of home here than she expected.

  She resisted looking up at Jodhaa. Something strange marked her mannerisms and the way she spoke. Every word she said fit close to the next one. They guarded her from revealing some secret deep in her heart while saying what needed to be said. That wasn't a surprise. Raih held many secrets tight. Still, She trusted Jodhaa. Any stranger who risked their life for you was worth trusting. She could have run away and left me to fend off that lion alone.

  Her eyes caught on her from the moment they arrived, and then she happened to run into her in the labyrinth. Someone or something fated them to be together. Why her?

  When she finished her plate, she stared at it for a moment. She wanted to ask for more, but didn’t want to take advantage of Toby’s hospitality.

  She turned and smiled at him while he prepared something for a strange figure in a black cloak whose face looked like a porcelain mask.

  Turning her attention to Jodhaa, she saw the black and white person sitting next to her. She had seen no one so monochromatic. His opalescent skin mesmerized her.

  “Raih,” Jodhaa said.

  Her voice startled Raih. Her cheeks warmed. She realized she had been staring and looked down.

  “This is Gher. He is a friend of my father’s.” Jodhaa gestured to the snowy man beside her.

  Raih nodded at him as Jodhaa finished her introductions. Another act of fate meeting a friend of her family here. The magic of the labyrinth guided them together. She made it sound like her family had always attended the academy, so the place must be riddled with people that at least knew them.

  “He is going to visit an artificer’s shop and wondered if we wanted to join him.”

  Raih only visited one artificer before with Ema to repair something she called an aether scope, Raih wanted to say yes. She had no money with her. Her money purse was in her luggage, not that it had a lot in it. There was no harm in going. The more she acquainted herself with magical instruments the better off she would be, right? It didn’t matter. She wanted to go, and she would not let her lack of funds hold her back.

  “I can’t wait.” She said. "I don't know how to say this right, so my apologies, but why is your skin so white?"

  Gher laughed. It was a good natured belly laugh without the slightest note of insult or mockery. "O, I must look a fright to you." He said widening his eyes and rocking forward. "I am a sennin from the Ashkelon wastes. My people are breach born. We have no memory from before our arrival."

  Raih leaned away from him. Only monsters came from the breaches.

  "By Runel," Gher reached toward her, "It was ages ago, and I am not dangerous. I am here to play the game, same as you."

  Raih turned to Jodhaa for reassurance. She nodded agreement, but something in her eyes held back.

  So, his story is reliable to a point. Raih nodded back and forced a polite smile. In that moment, she almost read Jodhaa's thoughts. They should trust him to learn what he wanted.

  Toby walked over to the table. “The Academy will pay for your food, so come back as much as you like.” He loosed a roaring laugh, and returned to his cart. He must have been listening to their conversation.

  Jodhaa and Gher stood up.

  Raih followed them down the street and through a couple turns into narrower and narrower streets. A group of tiny marbled creatures that resembled beaded dolls scurried around their ankles heading in the opposite direction.

  Raih looked in one shop window as they passed. Something resembling a giant snail was reading cards on a table for a black cloaked person with a white mask covering its face. Something about the scene made her laugh. Maybe it was the absurdity of it. She welcomed the laughter though.

  She wanted to explore every corner of this little village. Every creature surprised and delighted her. The shop windows offered mysteries far beyond her ken. She fought off the urge to follow every new creature she encountered. When they passed a crossing street, she stole as many glances as she could while keeping pace with their guide.

  When they stopped outside of a small shop whose windows were so cluttered with strange brass mechanisms built around rough or blown crystal bits of every shape and color imaginable, she leaned in and touched the glass.

  Bells chimed over the door, and she turned to see Gher and Jodhaa walking in. Rushing to catch up with them, she entered the shop.

  Gher and Jodhaa walked over to the counter where a stooped blue skinned elephantine person sat on the other side with a wide, welcoming grin parting his enormous mouth. A small black bird, no wait, it had hands, legs and wings on its back. The raven man wore a nice green shirt and gray pants.

  A chorus of whistles to her left attracted her attention.

  Several glass or crystal tops filled with a clear liquid and another thicker fluid that was a different color in each top rose and fell in them as they spun so fast they rang out. One of the smaller ones reminded her of Ema’s aether scope, so she figured they were all aether scopes.

  Behind them was a series of shelves with many carved bone tools for use in some eldritch rites. On the top shelf was a pair of polished, curved ebony ribs lined with feathers. Those feathers pulled her in. They were colored like peacock feathers, but the blue eye was on the base near the wooden rips instead of down at the end where they belonged. Something about them called to her. She couldn’t take her eyes off them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Sweet Seductive Song

  Jodhaa tuned Gher out. He haggled with the shopkeeper a crow-like Vares and elephantine Zaan over the price of fire crystals he brought from Ashkelon. There was nothing worse than having to listen to other people's business.

  Raih stood at one of the shelves looking at a pair of wing
s. They were beautiful, but they weren’t that special. They were just a collection of feathers and sticks.

  Browsing through the items on display, Jodhaa lingered for a while at a collection of rings, each set with a different elemental crystal. They didn't speak to her, not like the shraddha crystal she found in the spirit grove. They sparkled in the light, especially the water and air crystals that bubbled and swirled with inner light, but she didn’t want one. Rings were a status symbol worn by people insecure about their place in the world. Such ostentation fell beneath her dignity.

  In a corner case, a set of silver, gold, bronze, jade, and brass bracelets caught her eye. Not for their beauty... Something elusive lured her in like the artificer enchanted them to ensnare her. Her eyes locked on them. She didn’t want them as much as she felt like she owned them already. The Vares held them for her.

  That wasn’t right. She’d owned no jewelry before and claimed no right of ownership over them. The rings turned her off. These bobbles differed little from the others. She shouldn’t want them either, but she did. Insecure people wore shiny bracelets to highlight their wrists and draw attention to themselves. She shunned attention. So why couldn’t she take her eyes off them?

  She never asked her father for jewelry. In fact, on several occasions she refused to accept rings and bracelets offered to her. These ten bracelets belonged to her. Her arm ached from their absence. She wanted the whole set.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Gher said behind her.

  The words floated around for a moment before she realized who talked to her.

  “They are fine,” she replied, not wanting to look weak in front of a friend of the family.

  “It is a fine weapon, little sister, you have a good eye.”

  Jodhaa froze. Why did he call her little sister? That was overly familiar unless one of her forefathers adopted him into her family. If her father had adopted a sennin into the family, he would have told her...

  Wait, he called those bracelets a weapon.

  “Weapon?” She said the word, muting as much curiosity as her voice allowed.

  “Yes, little sister. It is an Armil, a weapon of the Sword Saints.”

  Jodhaa’s breath hung in her chest.

  She struggled to breathe, in or out.

  Her fingers turned to ice.

  Sister Moon, why did you guide me here? I am no Sword Saint. They were legendary warriors, sworn to the paragon’s code. I can’t do that. The sages called Saint Dyrnwyn the sword of truth in the stories her father used to tell her. Saint Heather of Vaaris, the defender of freedom, died in the riots at the cenotaph of Proditor Gramina fighting for the rights of the people the Sawyer conquered. Even though they weren’t Sain Khumuus, they had a shrine in their house to them. She had lit candles and prayed for their guidance. A few prayers shouldn't be enough to make her a sword saint. That was her only connection to the Kindly Mother. I am no saint.

  “I can buy you that armil if you want,” Gher said.

  The words hooked her like a fish. She needed that armil more than breath or life. It was like fire ants stinging in her veins. She didn’t want the responsibility that came with it. Since Jalal died, she had all the duty she could take. She never imagined herself in any of the stories of Dyrnwyn.

  Her talents focused on the managerial, not on the divine. She willed herself to look away from the armil, but her body stood like a statue. She demanded her feet to move or her waist to turn, but she stood there, staring at the set of bracelets that should mean nothing to her.

  Her right front pocket warmed.

  That damned crystal sang its sweet, seductive song to her again.

  Her heart raced.

  Her knuckles ached.

  She hadn’t realized she had been standing there with her fists clenched, but she had. They sent her down here to find the magical path she should follow. She thought she knew what that was. Her ability to evoke the elements had always impressed her father, and she was a fair sword fighter. She always presumed she would be an elementalist or a sword fighter.

  Sword Saints could run through the air like it was a garden lane, and fight entire armies by themselves. They swore themselves to the golden path. Their power arose from their virtue. I am anything but virtuous. The calling weighed on her. Her intentions and life polluted her. That alone should bar this path from her.

  She had to live up to it. Her father relied on her now. She had to take over eventually, and when her time came, the challenges would try to swallow her whole. With all she had on her shoulder, this calling would force her to act better than she would have otherwise.

  “Yes, elder brother,” the words hurt to say, “I would be grateful.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Echoes Within

  Raih flew out of the shop, away from the cave, beyond the mountain, the rivers, the land. Shrouded in a cloak of stars, she turned back to look at the world, a fragile bead of turquoise veined with pale green and brown land. It shown with a cloudy sheen. Smooth like a stone at the bottom of a river, every rough edge eaten away by the strange current flowing around and through her.

  No, it wasn’t a single current. The proud opal moon stood arrogantly behind her. Its eyes judged and condemned her. Its scorn burned her skin hotter than the sun ever had. She wanted to turn and return its malice, but something deep within her warned her not to lock eyes with the vengeful moon. The voiceless, emotionless ache pulled her face down. Deep within, she knew once she attracted the moons attention, it would seek her out every night until it had avenged itself. What a petty thing the moon is.

  Another current rushed through her from the sun. If the moon’s force felt like a river, the sun’s was a wind. She hung between the gale and the flood, neither affecting the other.

  The river flowed. The wind blew. The bead of Talamh hung precariously between them. It neither shivered, nor did it hold its place.

  Talamh twirled through the starry black like a mystic locked into the dance round the pillar in search of God. It had its own energy, different from the other two.

  Raih twirled to the pulse of the world, like a dancer caught in the rhythm of the unheard music. She lifted her arms out to either side as she spun through the aether. The river of the moonlight catching her hand, propelling her outstretched left arm toward the world. The solar wind took her right hand and twirled her away from the world. Her feet moved to the beat of Talamh’s heart.

  She closed her eyes...

  ...or were they closed?

  Her entire life came into focus. Words refused to conform to the profound nature opening before her. The dance guided her, but never told her where to step. She followed the rhythm. Her muscles relaxed. She stepped forward.

  She held it in her hand. Her future, her path, everything she ever wanted.

  “They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

  Raih started.

  She opened her eyes.

  The music faded, but the beat remained.

  Her whole body vibrated with energy.

  She held the ribs of the set of wings with the strange peacock-like feathers.

  The small raven man stood to her right atop an empty shelf.

  “Those are genuine azrael feathers,” the raven man said.

  Raih lost her words.

  “How rude of me,” the raven man continued, “I am Jiaoshi, the proprietor of this establishment. Are you interested in those Azrael Wings?”

  Raih turned to Jodhaa, who was putting on a set of various bracelets.

  “The azrael is the harbinger of death,” Jodhaa’s friend Gher said.

  “Superstition,” Jiaoshi retorted. “They are masterful hunters and powerful magical creatures. They can see through the eyes on their feathers. I am sure their prey see them as harbingers of death, but they rarely attack people. I think hunters exaggerated their powers to excuse their inability to catch or kill them. They are impossible to sneak up on. You will only see them if they want you to.”

  Gher raised an
icy eyebrow. “I do not doubt their magic, only why they make themselves known.”

  Raih wondered if she looked through the eyes on the wings when she flew above their fragile world. Could they peer through the fabric of reality from under a mountain, or had a spirit blessed her with a vision? Was the whole experience an illusion? The cosmos opened to her as she expected, but it left her with more questions than answers. For a brief moment, she thought she understood everything, and now the confusion crashed on her. Maybe clarity didn't come from moments of exultant bliss. Where could she find answers then?

  She rubbed her thumbs on the wings' boning. They were as much a part of her as her arms, but what did they mean for her future? Was she meant to become a hunter or an angel of death? Raih tried to list every type and school of magic she had ever heard of in her life, but her mind refused to grant her anything but the echoes of her vision.

  All she wanted was a sublime mystical experience to bring order to the chaos of her life. She never considered the effect it would have on her. In the old stories, the hero received a vision, and understood everything they needed to set out on their adventure. None of those stories were written by the heroes they chronicled. After Jodhaa's experience, she held a crystal in her hand with no idea what it was for. Raih held a pair of wings and the wordless intuition that came with them. Where were the answers?

  “If you want them, sister’s friend, I will gladly buy them for you.” Gher said.

  Raih heard the words. They sounded like they rolled over a hill from a valley beyond. They stood in line, waiting for their turn to enter her consciousness.

  Why would this stranger offer to buy her an expensive pair of wings she couldn't explain why she wanted? From what little of the conversation she had overheard, she knew Gher was a friend of Jodhaa’s family. Why did that connection include her? She hadn’t known Jodhaa long, certainly not long enough for a friend of her family to do her a favor.