“Not that he’d likely know me anyway,” she said to herself, walking around the ship’s cabin, trying to get used to the long skirts, which kept tripping her until she learned to take small steps. “We’ve each passed through too many gates since that time.”
She sighed as she said it, and the sigh alarmed her. Pausing, she stopped to consider her feelings, examine them for any weakness, much as she would examine her weapons before going into battle. That time. The time they’d been together...
The day had been long and arduous. Marit had spent it battling—not a monster of the Labyrinth, but a piece of the Labyrinth itself. It had seemed as if the very ground were possessed by the same evil magic that ruled the prison-world on which the Patryns had been cast. Her destination—the next gate—lay on the other side of a razor-back ridge. She had seen the gate from the top of the tree where she’d spent the night, but she couldn’t reach it. The ridge was smooth rock on the side she needed to climb, ice-smooth rock that was nearly impossible to scale. Nearly impossible, but not absolutely. Nothing in the Labyrinth was ever absolutely impossible. Everything in the Labyrinth offered hope—teasing hope, mocking hope. One more day and you will reach your goal. One more battle and you can rest in safety. Fight on. Climb on. Walk on. Keep running. And this ridge was like that. Smooth rock, yet broken by tiny fissures that provided a way up, if raw and bleeding fingers could be forced inside. And just when she was about to pull herself over the top, her foot would slip—or had the crack in which she’d dug her toe deliberately closed? When did the hard surface beneath her foot change suddenly to gravel? Was it sweat that caused her hand to slip or did that strange wetness bleed from the rock itself?
Down she slithered, cursing and grasping at plants to try to stop her fall, plants that jabbed hidden thorns into her palms or that came uprooted easily in her grasp and fell down with her.
She spent a full day in attempting to negotiate the ridge, ranging up and down it in an effort to find a pass. Her search proved futile. Night was nearing and she was no closer to her goal than she had been that morning. Her body ached; the skin of her palms and feet (she had removed her boots to try to scale the rock) was cut and bleeding. She was hungry and had no food, for she had spent the day climbing, not hunting.
A stream ran at the base of the ridge. Marit bathed her feet and hands in the cool water, watched for fish to catch for dinner. She saw several, but suddenly the effort needed to catch them eluded her. She was tired, far more tired than she should have been, and she knew it was the weariness of despair—a weariness that could be deadly in the Labyrinth.
It meant you didn’t care anymore. It meant you found a quiet place and lay down and died.
Dabbling her hand in the water, unable to feel the pain anymore, unable to feel anything now, she wondered why she should bother. What use? If I cross this ridge, there will only be another. Higher, more difficult. She watched the blood trail out of the cuts on her hands, watched it flow into the clear water, swirl down the stream. In her dazed mind, she saw her blood sparkle on the water’s surface, form a trail that led to a jog in the stream bank. Lifting her gaze, she saw the cave.
It was small, set into the embankment. She could crawl in there and nothing could find her. She could crawl into its darkness and sleep. Sleep as long as she wanted. Forever, maybe.
Marit plunged into the water, waded the stream. Reaching the other side, she crept into the shallows near the bank, advanced slowly, keeping to the cover of trees that lined the stream. Caves in the Labyrinth were rarely unoccupied. But a glance at her rune-tattooed skin showed her that if there was anything inside, it wasn’t particularly large or threatening. Likely she could make short work of it, especially if she surprised it. Or maybe, just once in her life, she would be lucky. Maybe the cave would be empty. Nearing it, not seeing or hearing anything, her sigla giving no indication of danger, Marit sprang out of the water and hurriedly covered the short distance to the entrance. She did draw her knife—her one concession to danger—but that was more out of instinct than because she feared attack. She had convinced herself that this cave was empty, that it was hers.
And so she was extremely startled to find a man sitting comfortably inside. At first Marit didn’t see him. Her eyes were dazzled by the setting sun slanting off the water. The cave’s interior was dark and the man sat very quietly. But she knew he was there by his scent and, in the next moment, his voice. “Just hold right there, in the light,” he said, and his voice was quiet and calm.
Of course he was calm. He’d watched her coming. He’d had time to prepare. She cursed herself, but she cursed him more.
“The hell with the light!” She bounded inside, heading for the sound of his voice, blinking rapidly to try to see him. “Get out! Get out of my cave!” She was inviting death at his hands and she knew it. Perhaps she wanted it. He had warned her to stay in the light for a reason. The Labyrinth occasionally sent its own deadly copies of Patryns against them—boggleboes, as they were known. They were exactly like Patryns in all respects, except that the sigla on their skin were all backward, as if one were looking at one’s reflection in a lake. He was on his feet in an instant. She could see him now and was impressed, in spite of herself, with the ease and quickness of his movement. He could have killed her—she was armed and had sprung right at him—but he didn’t.
“Get out!” She stamped her foot and gestured with her knife.
“No,” he said and sat back down.
She had apparently interrupted him in a project of some sort, for he took hold of something in his hands—she couldn’t see what because of the shadows and the sudden tears stinging her eyes—and began working at it.
“But I want to die,” she told him, “and you’re in the way.” He glanced up, coolly nodded. “What you need is food. You probably haven’t eaten all day, have you? Take what you want. There’s fresh fish, berries.” She shook her head. She was still standing, the knife in her hand.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugged. “You’ve been trying to scale the ridge?” He must have seen the cuts on her hand. “Me, too,” he continued on his own. She gave him no encouragement. “For a week. I was just sitting here thinking, when I heard you coming, that two people might be able to do it together. If they had a rope.”
He held up the thing in his hands. That was what he was doing, braiding a rope.
Marit flung herself down on the floor. Reaching for the fish, she grabbed a hunk and began to eat hungrily.
“How many gates?” he asked, deftly twisting the vines together.
“Eighteen,” she said, watching his hands.
He glanced up, frowning.
“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s true,” she said defensively.
“I’m just surprised you’ve lived that long,” he said. “Considering how careless you are. I heard you coming all the way up the stream.”
“I was tired,” she said crossly. “And I didn’t really care. You can’t be much older. So don’t talk like a headman.”[17]
“That’s dangerous,” he said quietly. Everything he did was quiet. His voice was quiet; his movements were quiet.
“What is?”
“Not caring.”
He looked up at her. Her blood tingled.
“Caring’s more dangerous,” she said. “It makes you do stupid things. Like not killing me. You couldn’t have known I wasn’t a boggleboe, not with just that single quick glimpse.”
“You ever fought a boggleboe?” he asked.