The Labyrinth of the Dead (5 page)

"Well, no."

Portia spread her hands. "Then what
more can I do?"

"All right. Sure thing. This way." Kanika struck
off toward a row of townhouses about to topple into a sinkhole. Portia
followed, heedless of the spectral figure watching them from the deep shadows
of the chapter house.

—4—

THE WILLOW’S shadow was long and gnarled,
stretching ominously across the broken cobblestones. She hefted the bundle
Kanika had handed her. Wrapped in a length of disintegrating linen, it was
heavy but well-balanced, a dangerous weapon. Portia was loath to remove the
wrappings. It had moaned when she touched it, making her shudder and Kanika
beam.

She tucked it awkwardly under her arm
as she hitched up her wide trousers. The temperature began to descend as she
stepped into the stagnant, shallow pool. Moving toward the twisted tree, Portia
felt the prickle of awareness that she was being watched. Ignoring it, she climbed
into the arcing root ball, steadying herself with one of the many drooping
branches that fanned down all around her. Putrid water oozed through the soaked
leather of her boots with every step.

After all her careful preparations, the
blessings and rituals she had performed upon herself, Portia was disappointed
that the willow remained still and silent. The branches did not reach out to
strangle her; there was no ominous moaning echoing behind the bark. The tree
did nothing. Were her ministrations that powerful and protecting, or was there
nothing to have feared in the first place? Her temple prickled, sending sparks
skittering from her fingertips and a glow emanating from the center of her
back. The flesh between her shoulder blades crawled.

Not yet,
she thought to herself, breathing deeply.
Control
.

It was a losing battle with the tide of
power rising too quickly for Portia to rein in. Sighing, she punched the trunk
in frustration, releasing the pent-up energy
that felt ready to rupture her flesh, punctuating each word with a blow.
"Why does everyone just assume I am going to know what to do?"

The tree creaked softly.

She hit it again, ignoring the sharp
bite of splinters as they dug through her flesh. The tree began to tremble
softly, and a tiny keening could be heard from the place where her blood had
touched it.

She smiled through her angry tears.
"Cagey old fool must have guessed I’d lose my temper with this sooner or later.
Damn Aldias, they never can just come out and tell you the truth."

Portia flexed her right hand, pressing
her fingers into a tight fist and releasing them until her knuckles ran with a
sticky mix of blood and splinters. When she struck the willow again, her hand
passed straight through and she toppled forward through a tangle of shadows and
screams.

She fell. For what seemed like an
eternity, Portia fell. She clutched her satchel to her body and tried to retain
a grip on her cumbersome parcel. The crumbling linen began to shear away as
Portia fumbled for a better hold on the thing, her knuckles growing brittle
with drying blood. Then her flesh touched the handle of the weapon, brushing
against leather that felt disturbingly familiar. It had a nearly magnetic
attraction to her palm, lodging itself nicely into the curve of her fingers as
if it had been made to fit her.

Portia felt the ground rushing up to
meet her from several yards away and brought her legs up, knees bent and hips
loose in preparation. She landed, reaching out with her feet and making brief
and careful contact before pulling her chin to her chest and dropping her right
shoulder, keeping the weapon’s business end clear of her torso. She rolled
easily, her body responding to years of hard training. Even as the momentum
carried her over again, leaving her disoriented, she came up onto her feet out
of instinct, steady and crouched, swinging her weapon into a defensive
position. Without its wrapping, she could see it clearly: a fat-handled battle
axe, the length of her arm and about half as broad with a thick, curved blade
on the leading edge, a broad hammer head opposite, and a wicked piercing point
jutting from the top. The etchings along the edge of the blade seemed to
undulate in the low light. A shadow-gold coin threaded on a thick braid of
sinew hung from the end of the shaft like some kind of good luck charm. It
swayed a moment, then fell unnaturally still. She studied the axe, marveling at
how light and balanced it felt in her hand, how right. It was unsettling.

Straightening, Portia gazed ahead
across a vista of low, livid clouds of purple, grey, and green with tall stone
spires piercing them. Behind her, a tangle of roots reached up into the milky
sky. Somewhere above was the Penemue of the shadow-side. And beyond her, this
was the under-side. Strangely, she could see the sky, or at least
a
sky.
It was as hazy and fog-cloaked as the shadow-side had been, seemingly both
endless and confining at once. Imogen was here. A thrilling flutter of magic
rippled outward from Portia’s breastbone, cascading through her body. Her eyes
drifted closed, and for an instant she could picture Imogen. What she saw was
not the rosy, familiar face of her beloved, but the image of a spectral lady,
drawn and pale and insubstantial, a figure out of a ghost story.

Imogen, I’m here!

Imogen seemed lured by the familiar
voice, turning fathomless, shadow-cloaked eyes toward Portia. Portia reached
for her, but the vision evaporated into nothing but whorls of silver mist. The
sigil that had been burned into her bones throbbed in time with her heartbeat,
pulling Portia with such force that she swayed on her feet. The coin hanging
from the axe began to swing wildly as well, urging her in the same direction as
the thrum inside her chest. Toward the distant peaks.

They started out small: tiny dark grey
shoots pushing through the ashen ground, quickly becoming tall, jagged
stalagmites flecked with glittering veins of black crystal-like spatters of
dried blood. The path they formed looked an awful lot like a set of teeth.
Around her, the plains rolled on and on in an unbroken and lifeless tundra. The
tug toward the stones was unmistakable, and Portia followed.

The trail was soon
enclosed by the peaks, creating an alley. Nestled
tightly one beside the other, the spires formed a passageway that curved into
an arc, widdershins. Above, the sky still churned. As Portia entered, she found
that she could no longer see out from between the stones save for the
occasional gap, no more than a finger’s breadth, that afforded her nothing more
than the view of a flat, grey expanse of land that seemed to stretch on forever
in all directions.

She walked onward in an ever-tightening
spiral. The path had no branches, no crossings, and no other way to possibly
go, only forward and always widdershins. Finally, Portia came around a series
of tight turns to find herself in a circular clearing a couple of yards in
diameter. Fuming and frustrated, she turned to go back, but could find no way
out. The stone spires formed a tight circle, with no gaps or breaks to even
peek through to what might lie beyond.

Incensed, Portia took a swing at the
nearest standing stone with the hammer side of her axe. It made a great deal of
noise and shook her very bones, but nothing happened, not to the stone nor to
the axe.

The angel-fire roared within her
fiercely and suddenly. The light radiated from her and she could only watch it,
detached from herself. Portia could not bank the power, so she rode it as the
aura surrounded her and lifted her from the pallid dirt. The glow morphed into
a pair of streaming wings made of light. She hovered several feet in the air,
eyes flashing with temper. The spire before her melted away, as if retreating.

She took a definitive step forward and
dropped back to the ground. The aura collapsed into a shimmering cape before
evaporating into nothing. The road still curved toward the left, forcing her to
walk counter-clockwise in a long, slow spiral outward. But rather abruptly, the
passage ended in a paved courtyard. The clouds formed a shimmering dome above
and a wide stone obelisk in the center read:
The Queen of Here-After
Welcomes You, Blessed One.

There were four directions from which
to choose: ahead, to either side, or back the way she came. From the inside
pocket of her short silk coat, Portia unfolded the vellum map Kanika had given
her. It was less than helpful, showing neither the spiral nor the courtyard,
only what looked like the floor plan of a castle. The beat of power in her
sternum was sporadic, echoing, giving Portia no clear guidance of which path to
take.

The writing on the obelisk vanished and
reappeared.
We would appreciate the pleasure of meeting you.

Portia shook her head and addressed the
pillar. "No, thank you. Perhaps when my errand here is finished."

That was not a request.

Around her, the paths seemed to vanish
save for the one that lead outward through a well-formed stone arch.

Scowling, Portia put the map away and
reached into her satchel. Her Saint Christopher’s medallion was there; she had
not worn it since handing it to Imogen that day not so long ago. She closed her
fingers around it, feeling the tingle of power that remained inside. She had
not needed to invoke the saints since her transformation, but the words came to
her lips as easily as they always had.

"Saint Christopher, Forsaken Saint, Aid
of Travelers, take my hand, stand beside me, guide me safely to my destination,
and deliver me once again home." She reached into the satchel again and removed
one of several small velvet bags. From within, she shook out two other silver
medallions. She held the first one aloft and prayed, "Saint Jude, Glorious
Martyr and Patron Saint of Lost Causes, look down upon me; my life is a life of
crosses, and my paths are strewn with thorns. My soul is enveloped in darkness.
I implore you to grant me your grace and come to my aid. Especially now at the
hour of my need, deign to strengthen me against the power of my enemies."
Portia slid the Saint Jude medallion beside the disk devoted to Saint
Christopher. Fixing the image of Imogen firmly in her mind, she closed her
fingers around the other icon. To Saint Anthony she whispered, "Tony, Tony come
around, there’s something lost that can’t be found."

A subtle blue glow emanated from her
fingers. She strung the last pendant onto the chain and clasped it around her
neck. When she had done so, she knew which way she must go. Portia turned
toward the right and took a small track, so choked with noxious black weeds as
to appear nearly impassible. Glancing back into the
courtyard, the message on the obelisk had once more changed.

Now it only said:
Very clever.
The message faded and was replaced with the words:
It will not all be that
easy.

"I am ready for whatever you have to
throw at me. Bring it on." She turned away and followed the trail that, to her
eyes, was illuminated with a vivid blue light.

Portia ran through a network of hedges
and walls following the azure path, never faltering in her decisions. She never
grew tired, but the stony path was rough under her feet and they continued to
ache. Turn after turn flew by, and Portia began to feel the thread of Imogen’s presence more strongly. Faster now, she pushed her
body to its limits as she barreled through a stand of trees and between two
more of the black-swirled stone spires. The blue light abruptly stopped and Portia
skidded back on her heels, landing ungracefully on her backside. A rattle of
loose stones tumbled over the edge of the steep drop-off, splashing into unseen
water below.

Beyond the swath of darkness, Portia
could see a scattering of lights and the shape of buildings on what looked like
an island floating above a vast, dark sea. The land hovered quite far above the
inky waters, and it hummed and clattered like the engine of an old but
well-tuned train. There were no pillars to support it, and Portia wondered what
kept it in the air.

She also realized it was too far to
jump. The remains of a bridge dangled over the cliff’s edge, thick cords tied
to the standing stones. The twining rope was not of any material Portia
recognized, and it had been recently cut.

"So, the Queen of the Here-After
resorts to cheating? What kind of a queen are you, then? And why are you afraid
of me?"

A subtle shift in the wind brought up
the scent of brine, of blood, and of pungent smoke. The smell of the city made
it seem so tantalizingly close. The breeze strengthened and eddied around her
legs, pushing her off balance. A breath of laughter echoed off of the water
below.

"Nice try. But you don’t know me, Your
Majesty."

The presence around her increased, pressing
on her from all sides, prodding and teasing. Portia shook it off and called
upon her soul.