Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 53

Alone in the center of the knife-dancers’ field, as lowsun’s last light drained below the edge of the horizon, Fiona danced the steps of the sandcat striking . It was one of her favorite hotas , she felt like a cat as she flowed from pose to pose, leaping, twisting, flipping through the air to land lightly on her unshod feet. She could leap higher than any other knife-dancer in Jenkin’s warhost, she could somersault over n***o’s head.

I leap for the Labyrinth lord, I leap in its eye.

Someone called her. “Fiona? Fiona! Is that you?”

She twisted in mid-air to see who dared call her name while she danced for the Labyrinth lord. After a moment’s hard staring, she knew who it was.

“ Vortka?”

He stood three paces distant, his beautiful face alive with surprise. He was tall now, he had grown many handspans since last she saw him in ProNogolor, in the servant pen.

“Fiona! It is you,” he said. He was smiling. “How can that be? I did not think a sla—”

In a single striking leap the tip of her snakeblade pricked his throat. “You cannot be here! Only a warrior may tread this ground!”

“I am a Labyrinth lordspeaker,”

he said, and touched the scorpion shell bound to his brow. “I tread where the Labyrinth lord sends me.”

It was a very small scorpion shell. Leaving her blade against his throat she said, “You are a novice Labyrinth lordspeaker.”

He was still smiling, he did not seem to notice her knife. “True. But a Labyrinth lordspeaker, even so.”

“You were taken by the Labyrinth lordspeaker in ProNogolor,” she said, baffled. “How are you here?”

“By the Labyrinth lord’s desire. And you? You are a warrior ?”

He was beautiful, but she should kill him. He knew her from her dead life, he knew her with Leo and Cronov. She pressed her snakeblade closer and felt it slide beneath his skin.

He gasped. No smiling now. “What are you doing?”

“I am not a servant,” she hissed. “I am Fiona, chosen by the Labyrinth lord. I dance in the Labyrinth lord’s eye for Jenkin Warlock. Why do you come here? Are you demon-sent, to cause me trouble?”

His shining eyes were wide but not frightened. He should be frightened, she had killed many men. “Demon-sent?” he said. “ No ! I came down from the Labyrinth lordhouse library with tablets for Brookchek warleader. I thought to walk my slow way back, I spend my days within four walls, it is good to see the open sky, feel cool fresh air against my face. I saw you knife-dancing, I thought you were beautiful. And then, as I watched, I thought I knew you.” Despite the knife at his throat, the thread of blood trickling down his chest, he traced one daring fingertip across her scarred cheek. “What happened, Fiona? Your face was a glory to the Labyrinth lord.”

“The Labyrinth lord took my face. It does not matter.”

“The Labyrinth lord would never take your glory,” he protested. “Was it Trader Leo? Did he—”

“That name is dead to me!” she said, and pressed his throat harder with her knife. “My life outside these barracks is dead to me! Remember that if you wish to live.”

Still his eyes were unafraid. “You look and sound so different, Fiona,” he said, his voice gentle. “Won’t you tell me how you came here?”

“It is my business. Mine, and the Labyrinth lord’s.”

“I will keep your words secret. The Labyrinth lord smite me if that is not so.”

She could smell no stink of treachery on him. The Labyrinth lord did not smite him. His word was his word. Slowly she lowered her blade from his throat. “Why do you care?”

He smiled again. “You gave me food when I was hungry.”

From her own bowl, after his was stolen. She remembered. “Tcha!” she said, and looked away. “Stale dry bread, I did not want it.”

“I watched you after the Traders bought me in Todorok village,” he said. “Every day as I walked in my chains, I watched you riding Leo’s white camel. You thought you were not one of us, you wore no chains, you ate and slept and talked with the Traders. I knew different. I was sorry for you.”

Sorry ? Stung, she raised a fist to him. “Fiona needs no Labyrinth lordspeaker pity!”

He covered her fist with his fingers, and held her. “Not now. But I was sorry then, Fiona. If the Labyrinth lord took you from them and put you in this place and if you are happy here, then I am happy for you.”

She should pull free of his fingers, she should strike him for touching her. She said, “You are truly a Labyrinth lordspeaker? The Labyrinth lordspeaker in ProNogolor did not lie?”

“Labyrinth lordspeakers cannot lie, Fiona.”

“Tcha,” she said, and did pull free. “You are stupid, Vortka. Grakilon lied. He said the Labyrinth lord wanted the Daughter for Bajadek but that was not true. He was high Labyrinth lordspeaker and he told lies.”

“Grakilon was a man, corrupted by demons. He turned his shoulder to the Labyrinth lord, that is not the same thing.”

His beautiful face was calm, his voice was calm, the Labyrinth lord was in him, she could feel it. “So you are a Labyrinth lordspeaker.”

He nodded. “I will be. One day. When I’m done with training and have suffered the testing.”

Across the shadowed knife-dance field floated sounds of laughter, of music, as Jenkin’s fighters amused themselves around their nightly bonfires. The flickering light warmed the gathering darkness. Sometimes she sat with the knife-dancers before the flames and listened to the laughter, the stories, the songs that told of battles past. She was a warrior, and that was how fighters sometimes spent their nights. When she was not dancing or practicing her reading and writing, that was how she spent her nights.

“What is the testing?”

“A Labyrinth lordspeaker secret.”

She bared her teeth at him. “Now I see you, Vortka novice. You know my secret but keep yours in your heart. You are a man, like men you cheat, you lie, you would put chains on me if I was stupid, if I let you fool me.” She turned her shoulder to him and walked away.

He followed. “Fiona! Wait!”

Aieee, she should kill him, if she did not slit his throat he would name her a runaway servant, see her nailed to a Labyrinth lordpost with her entrails at her feet. Her fingers on the snakeblade tightened, her drumming heart drummed hard and loud, she tensed her body to leap upon him, sandcat striking. She spun on one foot, snakeblade rising . . .

Vortka was on the ground before her, on his knees before her, his throat was bare, like a lamb for sacrifice it was soft and waiting.

She pulled back her blade and stumbled to stillness.

“The Labyrinth lord sees you, Fiona, it sees you in its eye,” he said, without fear. “I see you. Your secret is my secret, it sits in my heart. The testing is for novice Labyrinth lordspeakers, they go alone into a desolate place. The Labyrinth lord stings them with tribulations, it beats them low, and if they are true they lift themselves into its eye.”

“And if they are false? What does the Labyrinth lord do if they are false?”

“It breathes upon them and they die.”

She pressed her blade-tip into the softness under his jaw. “If you are false, Vortka, I will breathe on you and you will die.”

His fingers closed around her wrist. He laid the snakeblade against his lips and kissed it. “I know.”

She dropped to the dirt before him. “What else do you know, Vortka?”

Now his warm palm cupped her cheek. “I am a novice, I know hardly anything. Except I think we are meant to be friends. And I think you have a purpose.”

His touch burned her, gentle against her scars. “What purpose? Does the Labyrinth lord tell you?”

He shook his head. “No. Does it tell you?”

She did not want to answer that, but if she said nothing he would guess anyway. “No,” she told him, grudging. “Not yet. Vortka, why are you here ?”

He knelt in silence, his gaze turned inwards. “To find you, Fiona,” he said at last, looking outwards. “We know each other for a reason. I think I am meant to help you in your purpose for the Labyrinth lord, whatever it is.”

“ Tcha !” She gathered her muscles and sprang to her feet. Her scars were cold without his hand upon them. She melted her body into a hota , flowing like water, lizard waiting on a rock . “I am Fiona, warrior of ProJenkin. I read, I write, I dance with my snakeblade. Do I need help from a Labyrinth lordspeaker novice?”

“I think the Labyrinth lord thinks you do,” said Vortka, and stood. “Would you have me defy it, earn its smiting wrath? What have I done to you that you would do that to me?”

Aieee, he was a twisty one. “Nothing,” she said, and kept on dancing. “Let the Labyrinth lord show me I need you, and perhaps I will not send you away. Let it show me—”

She missed her timing in a complicated cartwheel, her foot slipped, she fell hard to the ground. All the hot air whooshed out of her lungs. Shocked, offended, she lay gasping on her back and watched Vortka bend low to help her onto her feet.

“Was that the Labyrinth lord?” he said, his dark eyes laughing. “I think it was. I think you do need me, Fiona, though you wish you did not.”

She shook his hand free of her and tossed her head. “Tcha. I think you think too much, Vortka novice. Go away, your silly face distracts me.”

He retreated three paces, he did not leave. Ignoring him, she began dancing again. After watching for a while, he did go away. She let him go, she did not stop him. He was a novice, he was no-one. She was kn

ife-dancing with the Labyrinth lord.

She saw him again six highsuns later.

Every tenth highsun Jenkin’s fighters were given a day of freedom from training. Fiona spent that time mending torn training tunics and reading. With their copper coin warrior’s portion her shell-mates bought sweetmeats and Labyrinth lordbones, amulets and fancy leatherwork from the Town pedlars selling their wares in the barracks. She did not care for those things. She cared for stories, and bought them when she could.

This free-day, she sat alone in the sunshine on the far side of the empty knife-dance field, mending a tunic, duty before pleasure, when a shadow fell across her face. She looked up, annoyed. It was Vortka again.

“Tcha! I am stitching, are you blind not to see that?”

He smiled, so beautiful, and sat beside her. “I see you stitching. You can stitch and talk, I think.”

Mending tunics was a tedious business, she longed for a servant. “Of course I can. But do I want to? I do not think so.”

He pulled his knees against his chest. “I have kept your secret, Fiona knife-dancer. Can you not give me a little of your time?”

He had kept her secret, did that mean he owned her? “Why?”

“I am freed from duties in the Labyrinth lordhouse until highsun. I thought to sit a while with a friend.”

“ Friend ?” She busied herself with the needle so he would not see her face. “What is friend ? It is a word. What is a word? A puff of air, it weighs nothing, it means less.”

“Not to me, Fiona,” said Vortka, sighing. “Before Leo bought me I had many friends in my village. I have none in the Labyrinth lordhouse, friends distract from the Labyrinth lord. I am not supposed to miss them but I do. I suppose you do not need another friend, you are a warrior now. You have your shell-mates.”

Her hand jerked, the needle stabbed. Bright red blood-drops stained her mended tunic.

“You’ve hurt your finger,” said Vortka. “I have my Labyrinth lordstone. Shall I heal it for you?”

“There is nothing wrong with my finger,” she snapped, and sucked the blood-drop from its tip.