“Thanks to the water,” Calixta said, grinning back. “Couldn’t have planned a better escape if we’d tried.”
The others smiled weakly. Minutes passed. Shadrack kept his eye on the wall and estimated the shortening distance to the pit’s edge. The water had risen halfway up the wall when Martin suddenly dropped his head. “I can’t kick any longer—this metal leg,” he gasped. “It’s like carrying an anchor.”
“All right then,” Burr said easily. “Shadrack and I have got you—take a rest. Bend your other knee and rest the metal leg on it.”
Martin did so and sighed with relief. “I’m sorry,” he managed.
Silently, the others went on treading water. “Won’t you sing us something, Calixta?” Burr asked. “It would help us pass the time.”
“If you’d done half as much shouting as I’d done,” Calixta retorted, “you wouldn’t have the breath to ask.”
As Shadrack felt his legs growing numb from the cold water and the repetitive kicking, he realized that they were only a few feet from the top of the pit. He raised his eyes. “They’re here,” he panted.
The three men were looking down into the pit with astonishment.
“Don’t just stand there,” Veressa said wearily. “Get us out.”
“I never thought I’d be so glad to see the Nochtland guard,” croaked Theo.
33
The Nighting Vine
1891, July 1: 3-Hour 12
The wails of pain and the gasping cries
Left me speechless, mindless, dumb.
After so many years of hearing her song
I grew hardened and strong and numb.
The sound I feared and the grief I fled
eclipsed my life’s whole meaning.
And now I want only to hear it again
To recall when I yet had feeling.
—“The Lachrima’s Lament,” Verse 2
WHEN THE GUARDS led Sophia back to the dungeon, she found to her surprise that the prisoners were no longer in the pit. They sat huddled around one of the clay-pot fires that dotted the floor. The men withdrew without a word, locking the heavy door. Only when Shadrack put his arms around her did Sophia realize that they were all soaking wet. Veressa and Martin sat shivering with cold. Theo stood near the fire trying to dry his cape. Calixta was wretchedly shaking out her hair.
“Are you all right?” Shadrack asked her anxiously.
“What happened?” she asked in reply.
“The pit we were in flooded. It was a long time before the guards heard us calling,” Shadrack said ruefully. “But that doesn’t matter. Are you all right? What did she want?”
Sophia seemed hardly to hear him. “So now they’ve left you here? We’re alone?”
“Did you see Blanca?” he pressed. “What did she ask of you?”
“She wanted me to persuade you,” she said, not looking at him but scanning the enormous chamber, “to change the carta mayor.”
“Sophia,” Shadrack said, taking her by the shoulders, “what is it? Your mind is elsewhere—what are you looking for?”
“The entryway. When we first came in earlier, I saw it—there was an opening on the other side of the room. If they left us here—”
“It is not an exit,” Veressa said wearily. “It leads to the labyrinth—a maze of ruined passages. They only left us here because they know we would never go in. Father and I have been in the entrance to take soil samples. No one has gone beyond that point since the last court cartologer”—and here she paused— “vanished attempting to map it.”
“I knew it!” Sophia cried, to everyone’s surprise. She ran to the nearest wall, where the pale vines that grew in the corridor and lined the dungeon were faintly luminous in the firelight. “It’s here, Shadrack!” she burst out, unable to contain her excitement. “I saw it through the glass map when Blanca held it up. Before—when she first took it from my pack.”
Shadrack shook his head uncomprehendingly. “What is here, Soph? What do you mean?”
“I saw them through the Tracing Glass,” she said impatiently. “These vines—they’re not just vines—they’re a map.”
At this, the wet prisoners still sitting by the fire rose and joined her at the wall. Shadrack examined the vines with amazement. “Are you sure?” he said slowly.
“I’m sure. Martin,” she asked, “do you know what kind of plant this is?”
He shook his head. “It has a popular name—Nighting Vine—but I have never been able to identify its origins. The vine is exceedingly rare and only grows underground.”
Veressa, standing beside Shadrack, examined the pale leaves critically. “It has no inscription, no legend of any kind. It may be the beginnings of a map, not yet full grown.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Shadrack said. “Or, if it is a map, then it is beyond my ability to read.” He let the vine drop and shook his head regretfully. “I would have no idea how to—”
“But it is not on the leaves,” Sophia cut in. “It is the whole plant. Look! Do you see how here there is one vine growing out of the floor, and against the far wall there is another? There, by the doorway, is a third. And all of them are identical!”
“Identical how?” Veressa asked, as she compared the three.
“The pattern of how they grow on the wall—the vines spread out in the exact same way, with the same twists and turns. Like a map,” Sophia triumphantly finished.
As she spoke, her listeners stood transfixed. The pale creeper, so delicate in appearance and yet so hardy in its growth against the dank stone, fanned out across the wall in hundreds of thin tendrils. The pattern was dense, making it hardly possible to determine whether they were truly similar, and yet if one followed a single route along the vine it became evident that the plants were, in fact, identical. “How on earth did you notice?” Veressa exclaimed, running her hand admiringly across the wall. “They are incredibly complex.”
Shadrack laughed with astonished delight. “It’s your artist’s eye, Soph,” he cried, taking her by the shoulders. “Your artist’s eye!” She smiled as he released her. And Theo, winking, caught Sophia’s eye and snapped his fingers into a little handgun of approval.
“And you think this is a map to the labyrinth?” Veressa asked, deferring to Sophia.
“Couldn’t it be? I don’t know how or why, but I think the maps to the labyrinth grow from the labyrinth itself.”
“Marvelous—just marvelous,” Martin whispered, lovingly tracing his finger along the winding vine.
“But where is the exit?” Veressa continued. “The vine leads to nothing but itself.”
“I can’t be sure,” Sophia admitted, “but look—look at these,” she said, pointing to three white flowers with fragile petals. “They grow away from the wall—upward. Don’t you think these might be three ways out of the labyrinth?”
The others regarded the nighting vine in silence. “It’s impossible to know for certain,” Shadrack said pensively, running a hand through his hair.
Sophia hurriedly retrieved her notebook. “If we can draw it,” she said, “then we’ll have a map to the labyrinth.”
“It will be a great risk.”
“Assuredly,” Veressa agreed, “but I see no better option. We have no other means of escape, and I doubt we have much time—perhaps a day.”
“It is far more satisfying an option than waiting here,” Burr put in, and Calixta nodded.