Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 44

She saw four more Labyrinth lordspeakers roaming the Traders district in the quiet time, but they did not see her. The Labyrinth lord kept her hidden. They were the only other waking people she saw. The rest of ShellTown’s people obeyed the Labyrinth lord, they slept beneath their quiet roofs and did not tempt its fury. They were wise. They were not Fiona, hidden in the Labyrinth lord’s great eye.

When she reached the edge of the Traders district she paused in a shadow, to get her bearings. While learning from the stupid tutor she had coaxed him to tell her of the Warlock’s Town. He had shown her with words and pictures how each district was laid out around the Pinnacle’s base. To reach the barracks of Jenkin Warlock’s fighters she must walk through six more districts, to the start of the Pinn

acle Road. She must pass between the guarding Labyrinth lordposts at its mouth, and make her way up the side of the mount, past the fighters’ training grounds to the main gates in the barracks wall.

After that she must get inside.

The Labyrinth lord will show me what I must know. I am its servant, I am Fiona, its chosen. When it wants to, it will tell me what to do.

She looked at the night sky, where the Labyrinth lordmoon walked with his obedient wife. Four fingers until newsun. That was time enough to reach the warrior barracks. Chilly in the quiet time, under the Labyrinth lord’s severe protection, she headed for the Pinnacle.

One wide street led from ShellTown’s gatekeep, through the Town and its districts, around Jenkin’s Pinnacle to the Pinnacle Road. The street guided Fiona but, being cautious, she did not walk it. Instead she darted along the smaller side-streets, twisting and turning through the Town’s alleyways. With every swift soft footfall she left the Traders district behind her, left Leo and Cronov and the stupid monkey Hooli behind her. She traveled through districts she knew only by name, Artisan, Musician, Leatherworker, Seamstress, Jeweler, Potsmith , past darkened villas that did not want her, past roaming Labyrinth lordspeakers who did not see her, always keeping her fierce gaze pinned upon the Pinnacle, and the barracks, where the Labyrinth lord told her she would find a home.

She passed a fountain, bubbling water from one of the rivers running beneath the land of Tragote. She took the leather flask from her food-sack and filled it, then drank a little from her hand, alert for Labyrinth lordspeakers. None approached.

The Town districts ended at last. At the place where the wide Pinnacle Road began its winding way up to ProJenkin’s Labyrinth lordhouse, the two tall Labyrinth lordposts the tutor had spoken of stood their grim watch. They looked like the Labyrinth lordpost in Cronov’s garden, sinuous snakes of Shellwith a stinging scorpion upon each hooded head. The Labyrinth lordbowls at their bases were the largest she had ever seen, their scorpion bellies half-filled with offerings.

She knelt before each one and buried a Labyrinth lordbraid beneath the gold, the silver, the bronze, the amulets and the figurines.

This is for the Labyrinth lord , she told each Labyrinth lordpost. This is for Fiona in the Labyrinth lord’s eye, for her protection, so she might serve the Labyrinth lord.

The Labyrinth lordsnake of Shellsmiled at her, twice.

The Labyrinth lordmoon and his wife had walked almost to the far horizon. When newsun came she must be at the barracks, away from the road and eyes that had no business seeing her. She picked up her food-sack and kept on walking. The barracks of ProJenkin’s fighters were some distance ahead, they hid themselves behind a high stone wall. Torches burned along its top, throwing long dancing shadows onto the ground.

At first the Pinnacle Road remained flat, cutting through the fighters’ training fields, but then she left them behind and the road tilted upwards. Her breathing deepened, her legs began to burn. Ignoring the discomfort she kept on walking, she did not take her eyes from the barracks wall.

When she got closer she saw a Labyrinth lordpost standing at each end, and set in the middle of its red and black stone blocks two impossibly tall wide wooden gates.

There was no way to enter the barracks Town. The gates were closed, the walls without footholds, and no trees grew close for her to climb. Where could she hide? Her searching gaze fell upon a tangled stand of stunted scrubby saplings that looked to form a kind of living, leafy cavern. They grew further up the hillside, a distance from the barracks wall. Close enough that she could see the barracks doings, far enough that those she watched would not notice her watching.

Those trees are the Labyrinth lord’s doing. Thank you, Labyrinth lord. Your chosen servant gives you thanks.

The stunted saplings resisted her. Their spindly trunks and branches were thorny, they scratched her arms, her face, they tore her clothes and poked sharp points in her ribs and throat. She bit her lip to swallow the pain and kept on pushing. She was Fiona from the savage north, she could not be defeated by trees.

She wasn’t. She found the small clear space at their thorny tangled heart and curled up in it like a lizard, like a snake, resting her head on the lumpy food-sack. The ragged thorn scratches in her flesh smarted, they burned. As her spilled blood lost its wetness she listened to her breathing, harsh and dry like the land she came from. She listened to her heart, beating like a drum inside her ribs. She listened for the Labyrinth lord, but could not hear it. The Labyrinth lord was not speaking now. The Labyrinth lord was busy elsewhere. When she needed it, the Labyrinth lord would speak.

She slept.

.. NINE

When Fiona woke it was three fingers past newsun. She could hear sounds coming from the barracks behind its red and black walls; men shouting, hammers striking metal, striking rock. Horses neighing. Goats bleating. Chickens cackling. The lowing of oxen. Many feet, striking the ground. The barracks Town was awake. She smelled smoke, it was laced with the scent of roasting animal flesh. Beneath the smoke were other smells, the stink of many men living together with animals inside closed walls.

She uncoiled herself like a snake and crawled to the edge of the tangled trees. Peering through the spaces between their vicious thorny branches she saw the barracks Town gates stood open. servants pulling carts went in, came out, leaving and joining the stream of travelers toiling up and down the Pinnacle Road.

A group of fighters, their Labyrinth lord braids heavy with solid gold beads, their bodies protected with leather vests blazed bright and bold with the Labyrinth lordsnake of ProJenkin, long spears in one hand, rode their lean striped and spotted horses onto the road, then swung them onto a smaller track that looked to lead around the hillside. The fighters were laughing, there was no scent of danger about them. Perhaps they were just exercising those horses, or exercising themselves.

The smoke from the roast-fires smelled so good. Her belly rumbled, demanding food. She crawled back into her secret space and emptied her food-sack. Five small loaves, five small bricks of cheese. One flask of water. Since leaving the village her body had been spoilt, it had grown used to lots of food and drink. In the village she had survived on less meat in two days than Leo gave her in one highsun meal. She could make her bread and cheese last many, many meals if she became again, for a little time, that starving she-brat from the village.

She took the cook’s knife and one loaf of bread and sliced it into six pieces. She did the same with a brick of cheese. One piece of bread, one piece of cheese at newsun, one piece of bread, one piece of cheese at lowsun. This food would last her fourteen highsuns, and one newsun. She had flesh on her bones now. It would be enough. Between now and when her food was gone the Labyrinth lord would guide her into the barracks. She did not doubt that. She would never doubt the Labyrinth lord.

Her supply of water would not last as long as the food. Men died fast without water, she had seen it in the savage north. She would not die like that. She would leave her safe place sometime between lowsun and newsun, she would find water and refill her leather flask. It would be safe to do that, the Labyrinth lord would keep her hidden.

Fiona ate her piece of bread and her piece of cheese, and stored the rest safely in her food-sack. She sipped some water from her leather flask and carefully replaced its stopper. Then she crawled back to the edge of her secret space, to watch the gates into the barracks Town.

By now, Retoth would know she was gone from Leo’s villa. Leo would know, and stupid Cronov. Would they look for her? She didn’t know. But if they did they would never find her. They would never look here, on Jenkin’s Pinnacle. She was dead to them. They were dead to her. Leo, who had called her precious, he was dead to her forever.

He’d called her precious, he’d called her beautiful. She was beautiful. The mirror had shown her that. It was the only time Leo hadn’t lied. She was beautiful in her face, she was beautiful in her body. There was nothing she could do about her body . . . but her face?

Frowning, Fiona thought of her treacherous face. Its beauty had sold her to Leo. In time that beauty would have given him gold, when he in turn sold her to someone else. She did not want a beautiful face. Not if that meant she was precious to Leo, and Cronov, to all the men who sold beautiful girls for gold. In the barracks Town, among the fighters, her beautiful face would be a curse. No warrior would let her stay there, a she-brat with a beautiful face. Some man would claim her, he would sell her for gold. To be safe in the barracks she must not be beautiful. To get into the barracks at all, she must not be beautiful.

She took her scorpion amulet from around her neck and held it on her palm.

Help me, Labyrinth lord. Show me how to take away my beautiful face. Tell me how to get into the barracks. The village Labyrinth lordspeaker said no mortal could talk direct with the Labyrinth lord. Only a Labyrinth lordspeaker could hear it, only a Labyrinth lordspeaker knew its will. Once she had believed him. Now she thought he spoke a lie, as all men spoke lies to ignorant she-brats. She heard the Labyrinth lord. She knew its will. It had blinded its Labyrinth lordspeaker to her in the street. She had offered herself to it, and it had accepted.

Quietly she sat with her legs crossed and her spine straight, the carved black scorpion crouching on her skin.

Tell me . . . tell me . . . tell me . . .

From the depths of her waiting mind, the Labyrinth lord plucked free a memory. She remembered the beautiful servant-boy Vortka, gone with the Labyrinth lordspeaker of ProNogolor. “ I was sold because the Labyrinth lord took my father and gave my mother to another man. He had his own sons. He did not want my mother’s son .”

This was a story that could serve her now. She wasn’t born a servant, the man had sold her and made her a servant but he was free and she was born free too, in Tragote’s savage north. She could twist that servant-boy Vortka’s story. Make it a story about her instead. The fighters would believe it.

But Vortka’s story could not make her ugly.