Chapter 56
The blincakes were delicious, and there were enough so that they were able to have the leftovers for breakfast the following morning. By the time the second sun had risen fully they had eaten their fill, and Dirk was drinking the last of his tea before disappearing back into the gloom of the Labyrinth again to puzzle out Neris’s gate.
“You know, you’re going to make someone a very good wife someday,” Tia told him, as she licked her fingers appreciatively. Dirk really was quite handy to have around at times, when it came down to it. “Reithan’s always trying to convince me I should learn to cook properly. He says I’ll never catch a husband otherwise.”
Dirk smiled. “I rather imagine if you ever decide to catch a husband, Tia, you’ll run the poor sod down, club him over the head and drag him back to your cave by the ankles.”
Her eyes flashed angrily for a moment, then she laughed as she realized he was joking. It had taken a long time, but she had finally reached the point where he could make such a comment and not get throttled for it.
“I’ll have you know there are any number of young men in Mil who would gladly allow me to ‘drag them back to my cave by their ankles,’ as you so poetically put it.”
“A few months at sea will do that to a man, I hear,” he remarked with a grin.
“I’m in too good a mood to let you irritate me today, Dirk Provin.” She sighed contentedly and settled back into a more comfortable position. “Since you did such a good job of making the blincakes, I’ve decided to be nice to you all day and ignore your infantile and pathetic attempts at humor.”
Dirk suddenly leaned forward and stared at her. “What did you say?”
“I said your jokes are infantile and pathetic.”
“No! Not that bit! The other bit!”
She shrugged, rather puzzled by his sudden excitement. “I said I’d decided to be nice to you today. Surely it’s not that rare an occurrence that you need to get so worked up about it.”
“For making the blincakes!” he finished for her excitedly. “Of
course
!”
Tia looked at him blankly.
“That’s it!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “ ‘But in the order of the making, patterns lurk there for the taking.’ That’s the sequence!”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “What are you
talking
about?”
“Come on!” he urged. “I’ll show you.”
He turned and ran for the entrance to the Labyrinth without waiting to see if she was following. He got three steps inside before he realized he had forgotten a torch in his haste and turned around, almost colliding with Tia, who’d had the presence of mind to light one first before attempting to enter the darkness. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her forward. He was too excited to wait for her to pick her way carefully through the gloom.
“Slow down!” she demanded as he pulled her along. “You’re going to trip us both up!”
“Don’t be such a girl,” he retorted impatiently.
She muttered a curse, but she kept up as he ran toward Neris’s gate. When they reached it, he dropped to his knees among the scattered notes he had made and pulled out a fresh sheet and a stick of charcoal. She stared at him, wondering if all the time he had spent in the darkness had finally sent him over the edge. There was a fine line between genius and madness. She knew that for a fact.
“What’s Neris’s recipe for blincakes?”
“Are you
serious
?”
“Very.” Dirk laughed suddenly. “No wonder Neris spent all day telling me I was stupid. He wasn’t talking about making blincakes. He was talking about the fact that he’d told me how to open the gate and I was too thick to realize it.”
“Dirk,” Tia said patiently, as if she was talking to Neris in one of his more eccentric moments. “Please don’t tell me that you think the secret to opening this gate is the recipe for blincakes.”
“Sort of.”
“That’s insane.”
“So is Neris.” He looked up at her and smiled. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds, trust me. I’ll show you. It’s two cups of flour, right? And a teaspoon of salt, three quarters of a cup of milk, an egg, an eighth of a cup of lard and a quarter of a cup of treacle. In that order. He’s adamant about it.”
“So?”
she prompted impatiently.
Dirk scratched out the series of numbers on the sheet he found and then held it up for her. “See!”
She stared at it uncomprehendingly.
“Look!” he explained impatiently, reading the figures to her. “Two, one-fiftieth, three-quarters, one, one-eighth, and one-quarter, assuming that one cup equals fifty teaspoons. Multiply them by two hundred and you get four hundred, four, one fifty, two hundred, twenty-five and fifty. It’s the ratio of the ingredients to each other! Four hundred to four to one fifty to two hundred to twenty-five to fifty.” He pointed at the wall where the same numbers were chiseled into the raised stones. “There’s no secret mathematical sequence there! It’s the recipe for blincakes!”
“I think you’ve spent way too much time down here alone in the dark, Dirk.”
He laughed as he climbed to his feet. “Do you remember I asked you once what you were hoping for? That I’d find a way through the Labyrinth or die trying? You said either one would do.”
“I remember,” she agreed, a little uncertain as to why he would bring that up now.
“Well, you’re about to get your wish.”
“Dirk!
No!
” she cried as he turned to face the wall. “If you’re wrong it will kill us!”
“Then stand back,” he suggested.
Before she had a chance to protest any further, Dirk depressed the first stone. It slipped into the wall smoothly and silently. He waited for a moment, and when death did not rain down on top of him, he depressed the stone marked with the number four.
“So far so good.”
“This is suicide!” Tia muttered behind him as he depressed the third stone, but she made no attempt to stop him.
“This is why we came,” he reminded her, reaching up for the two hundred. The fourth stone slid into place as smoothly as the others had.
There was still no indication that he had triggered any deadly traps, but neither had the gate made any sound, or done anything to indicate that his idea was working. He depressed the fifth block with a reasonable amount of confidence. Tia was fairly certain by now that if he was wrong, they would not find out about it until Dirk pressed the last number.
His hand hovering over the sixth stone, Dirk hesitated for a fraction of a second. Tia’s heart was racing as he pushed it, unconsciously cringing as he did. She was half expecting the wall to come crashing down on top of him, or the floor to open up and swallow them both.
“Nothing happened,” Tia said.
“I’m still alive,” he pointed out.
“But it didn’t open.”
“That’s because it’s a lock,” he told her. He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled. “What were you expecting? That the wall would magically swing open with a fanfare of trumpets as soon as I was done?”
“Actually, I was expecting to see you engulfed in a ball of flame, or something equally gruesome,” she admitted. “But trumpets would have been nice a touch. Do you think it’s unlocked now?”
“Let’s find out.”
Dirk turned to the wall and pushed on the left side with all his might—and almost landed on his face when the gate swung smoothly open.
Recovering his balance, Dirk glanced at her as Tia moved up beside him. He did not seem surprised when she slipped her hand into his and held it tightly. Dirk took the torch from her and held it high as they cautiously stepped into the absolute blackness beyond the gate.
Chapter 57
Although the darkness was complete, Tia knew they were no longer in a tunnel. The air felt different; it smelled slightly musty and there was an indefinable feeling of vast space around them. Dirk’s torch cast a circle of flickering light that did nothing to penetrate the gloom.
Beyond it there was nothing but blackness.
As Dirk led her into the darkness her heart began to race. Despite the fact that Tia knew they were in a large cavern, the feeling of claustrophobia was overwhelming. She gripped Dirk’s hand even tighter and could feel her palms sweating. The only sound was the
tap-tap-tap
of their sandals on the smooth floor, the hissing of the sputtering torch and the sound of her increasingly ragged breathing.
“This place must be huge,” Dirk breathed in awe. He didn’t sound frightened. He sounded full of wonder and delight.
“Let’s go get ... some more torches and find out ... later,” she suggested.
He glanced at her in concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she lied. She was trembling so hard she thought her teeth might start to rattle.
“Look at the floor,” Dirk said.
She glanced down. By their feet was a thick gold line that curved away into the blackness. Still holding her hand, Dirk followed the line until they came to the end, where it curved back in the opposite direction. In the center, where the two curved lines were at their widest, was a large golden circle.
“The Eye of the Labyrinth,” she whispered. Tia was not sure why she was whispering. It just seemed appropriate. “It’s set into the floor.”
Dirk held the torch higher. The stone was a creamy color, flecked with darker particles that glittered in the firelight. What they could see of the Eye was inlaid into the polished ignimbrite in gold with a precision that Tia had not thought possible.
“It must be a decoration of some sort,” Dirk speculated, raising the torch higher to make the most of the small amount of light. “Perhaps this cavern was part of a temple.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Maybe the Eye held some sort of religious significance for the ancient residents of Omaxin—in the same way that the suns hold significance in our time. Stay here,” he ordered, shaking Tia’s hand from his.
“Don’t you dare leave me!” she cried in panic.
“I’m not going far. I just want to pace this out ...”
“No! You can come back later and build a bonfire in here for all I care, but you’re not leaving me here standing in the dark while you go off exploring.”
He turned to her with a reassuring smile. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid!” she snapped. “I’m terrified. I feel like this whole damn building is about to come down on top of me.”
“It’s stood for thousands of years, Tia. Why would it choose now to collapse on us? That’s illogical.”
“Shove your logic, Dirk Provin!” she exclaimed. “I just don’t like it, all right? I don’t need a reason and you can’t talk me out of it. Now can we go? I’ll come back when you’ve got the place lit up like the second sun is shining in here.”
Dirk looked at her oddly for a moment, and then, with no warning, he tossed the torch back toward the door, plunging them into darkness.
“What are you
doing
?” she yelled, her heart beating so fast she was sure it would explode out of her chest. Panic welled up inside her as their only light sputtered and died on the floor out of reach.
Tia wanted to scream. She felt rather than saw Dirk in front of her. He took both her hands in his and held them tightly. He must have felt her trembling, must have known how terrified she was.
“Tia!” he said sharply. “Listen to me! Nothing can hurt you! Darkness is just the absence of light. There are no monsters lurking in the shadows and the building is
not
going to fall down and crush us.”
She was panting heavily, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “Get me ... out of here ... Dirk ... I can’t breathe ...”
“Yes, you can,” he commanded. “Now take a deep breath and close your eyes.”
She did as he ordered, unable to tell the difference between her eyes being open and closed.
“Breathe,” he commanded.
She took a few ragged breaths and then forced herself to breathe deeper. “Don’t let me go ...”
“I won’t let you go. Breathe.”
“We’ll never get out of here,” she sobbed as she recovered enough breath to speak coherently. “The torch has gone out and we don’t know where the door is ...”
“Open your eyes.”
She did as he asked, but she could not notice any discernable difference.
“Now look to your left.”
“I can’t see anything!” she cried in panic. “I swear if I ever get out of here I’m going to kill you for this ...”
“Of course you are,” he agreed soothingly. “Now do as I say.”
“But I don’t see anything!”
“You’re not looking. Give your eyes time to adjust. You can make out the door if you look closely. There’s enough light filtering in from the tunnel to see the outline. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Tia wiped her eyes, not realizing that she had been crying. She looked hard in the direction Dirk indicated, and after a few moments she began to make out a slightly lighter patch in the blackness.
“Can you see it?”
She nodded, then realized he would not see the movement. “Sort of.”
“So there’s no reason to panic, is there? You’re not trapped. You can find your way out of here anytime you want.”
His hands relaxed their hold. She instinctively gripped them tighter. “Don’t you even think of letting me go!”
“I won’t.” There was a smile in his voice.
“And don’t laugh at me, either.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I need your help, Tia. You’re no good to me in here if I can’t get you past the door.”
“You selfish bastard.”
“I know,” he sighed. “You can add it to the long list of reasons you already have to despise me.”
She wished she could see his face. There was something in his voice that sounded almost like ... regret.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“Dirk?” Tia reached out in the darkness to where she thought his face might be. She felt his cheek, rough and stub-bled under her hand. He hadn’t shaved for days, so engrossed had he been in the problem of the gate.
Then Dirk turned his face slightly and kissed her palm.
It did not surprise her as much as it should have. What did surprise her was that she didn’t pull away. She just stood there, surrounded by a darkness so complete and smothering that even as close as she was, she could not see his face.
She felt his breath on her cheek before she felt his lips. When he kissed her, her heart began pounding in terror, but she didn’t know if it was the oppressive blackness, or the fact that she was letting him, that caused her panic attack. Her senses seemed amplified in the absence of any other stimuli. The only thing she could hear was her own ragged breathing; the only thing she could feel was Dirk’s kiss. He was deceptively strong, and his embrace felt like an extension of the darkness. It somehow made the deprivation of her other senses bearable. Without thinking of the consequences, she slid her arms around his neck and he pulled her even closer. The darkness pressed in on her until there was nothing left for her to comprehened but the fact that she was kissing Dirk Provin as if there was nothing else in the world that mattered more.
“Don’t let me go,” she breathed softly after a time.
She could feel his smile against her lips. “It’d be nice to think you meant that because you actually
wanted
me to hold you, rather than because you’re terrified of the dark.”
She stayed in his arms, hiding from the darkness. “Why did you kiss me?”
“You’re not armed.”
“Are you actually capable of answering a question like a normal person?”
“Apparently not. Are you all right now?”
She shook her head. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I? This is a nightmare.”
“Do I often kiss you in your nightmares?” he asked curiously.
“All the time.”
“Did you want me to stop?” he breathed into her ear, sending a shiver down her spine.
She leaned back in his arms and searched the darkness, trying to see his face, hoping to read what was in those disconcerting metal-gray eyes. Her sight had adjusted to the gloom, but not enough to see him clearly.
“Is that why you brought me in here? To kiss me?”
“You mean, did I pretend to suddenly figure out Neris’s sequence so I could open the gate just to lure you into the darkness, scare the sunlight out of you then have you throw yourself at me out of gratitude? You vastly overestimate my powers of planning and organization, Tia.”
“Now you’re making fun of me.”
“Well, you do sort of invite it, you know ...”
“Will you get me the hell out of here if I kiss you again?”
“If you want me to.”
I must be crazy to let this happen,
she thought as she closed her eyes. Then Dirk kissed her again and right at that moment, she discovered she didn’t really care.
They stayed up late that night, gathering together every torch they could find to take back into the cavern tomorrow so that they could get a better look at the Eye. Dirk was more animated than she had ever seen him, which peeved Tia a little when she realized that he was just as excited about what they might discover in the cavern as he was about what had happened between them.
Exactly
what
had happened between them had her a little confused. Once they were back out in the red light of the first sun, it seemed almost surreal. Had Dirk really kissed her like that?
And more important, why didn’t I just knee him in the groin
and run like hell?
“Is there any more oil in the tent?” Dirk asked. He was kneeling by the mountain of equipment he was readying for tomorrow’s expedition into the cavern.
“I’ll check,” she offered absently, glad of the excuse to be doing something. Every time she looked at him she didn’t see the Dirk she knew and despised, she saw nothing but the darkness and ... Oh for the Goddess’s sake! Get a grip on yourself, girl!
“If there’s no oil left, look around and see if there’s anything else flammable we can use,” he called after her.
She raised her arm to acknowledge that she had heard him and made her way to the supply tent. Halfway there, Nellie appeared, trotting alongside her like a faithful dog.
“What do you think I should do, old girl?” she asked the goat.
Nellie stared up at her with her coin-slot eyes and said nothing. Tia fetched the last of the lamp oil from the tent and returned to Dirk. He took it from her and added it to the pile, then stood up and nodded with satisfaction.
“That’s just about everything we need.”
She looked at the pile doubtfully. “A packhorse wouldn’t go astray.”
“It’ll take a few trips to move it all inside,” he shrugged. “But that doesn’t really matter. I’m all done here now. I’m going to try to get some sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Good night, Dirk.”
He turned and headed for his tent without another word, patting Nellie absently on the head as he passed her. Tia watched him leave then turned for her own tent. She bent down to lift the flap, and then muttered a curse and dropped it back into place.
“Let’s get something straight,” she announced, marching into Dirk’s tent without warning.
He spun around in stunned surprise to find her barging in on him halfway through taking off his shirt.
“I’m not going to spend days, weeks, maybe even months playing games with you, Dirk Provin. Either there’s something going on between us or there isn’t. If there’s not, then tell me now, so I know. If there is, then let’s cut out the nonsense and do something about it.”
Dirk stared at her, speechless for the first time since she had met him.
“
Well?
”
“Just like that?” he managed, eventually. “Let’s
do
something about it? What exactly did you have in mind?”
“What do you
think
I have in mind, you idiot?” she snapped. “Goddess! You really are thick, aren’t you?”
“You haven’t been eating mushrooms again, have you?” he asked.
Suddenly, Tia’s bravado deserted her. She blushed a deep shade of crimson. “You promised you’d never mention that again.” Tia turned to leave, realizing that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. And an even bigger fool of herself.
“I might, if you ever stopped throwing yourself at me,” he said.
Tia’s first reaction was to turn around and slap him but he caught her wrist as she raised it to strike him and gently pulled her closer.
“Let’s agree on something,” he suggested as he put his arms around her. “You stop trying to cause me grievous bodily harm, and I won’t make any further references to your ferocious behavior while under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms.”
Filled with uncertainty, Tia thought about his offer for a moment and then nodded. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. His eyes gave away nothing.
“Sounds fair,” she agreed.
A lot more hesitantly than she had barged into his tent, she kissed him, a little cautiously at first, afraid she had imagined what it felt like in the darkness. She was not sure, but it felt like part desire, part hunger and part terror.
“You do realize, don’t you,” he remarked a few moments later, “that you’re probably the most unromantic female on the whole of Ranadon?”
Tia opened her eyes and smiled. “This from the man who tried to scare me to death before seducing me? That’s a bit rich.”
“Just so long as you remember whose idea this was in the morning. I’ve a feeling your second thoughts might be quite fatal.”
“Dirk, just shut up and get on with it, will you?” she said as she began to undo the remaining buttons on his shirt. “Goddess! Why couldn’t I have found somebody who doesn’t talk so much?”
He laughed softly as he slipped the shirt from his shoulders. “You used to complain that I didn’t talk enough.”
“There’s a time and place for everything, Dirk,” she told him, impatiently.