Dreams of Shreds and Tatters (24 page)

The auras were stronger, too, but only a faint nimbus of color hung around Liz. Except for her bandaged hand—that pulsed a dark and ugly red. Rae brushed her fingers over the girl’s cold cheek and chapped lips. She might have been touching wax. The smell of mania clung to Liz’s skin, mouth-watering sweetness. Rae swallowed hard against the craving.

“How did you do it?” She’d tried so hard to reach the stars and always failed, but this pale little mouse had opened the door and stepped through, easy as pie. “What do you see?”

You can let her dream forever,
a familiar voice crooned, nearly lost amid the starsong.
You can set her free
.

Rae’s hand twitched toward her pocket and the knife there. Just a little pocketknife, Lailah’s like everything else in the house, but the blade was sharp. She clenched her fists and took a clumsy step away from the bed. All the drapes and blinds were pulled to keep warmth in, and she stifled without the kiss of starlight.

No, she reminded herself, digging her nails into her palms. Glass and curtains kept the monsters out, kept them safe. No matter how badly her blood itched.

A shudder wracked her, strong enough to bring her to her knees, doubled over on the cold floorboards. Darkness spread through her veins, blue-black worms squirming under the skin of her wrists. Her teeth tingled and her mouth tasted of copper. Her jaw ached with the effort of holding back a wild bacchanal cry.

“What am I turning into?” she whispered, pressing her forehead to the floor. But she knew the answer, didn’t she? She remembered the women in her visions, wild and fanged and bloody. She remembered Gemma’s painting, the maenads tearing Orpheus to shreds.

He should have sung for them,
the cruel voice whispered.

Her hand hurt, white-knuckled on the knife. Lamplight slid like golden water along the blade as she unfolded it. She pressed the tip against the inside of her arm, watch the soft flesh dimple. Skin dented, then popped. She prayed for red, but her blood, when it came, was black and sluggish.

Hissing, Rae tugged the blade, opening a line across her arm. Flesh parted, baring red tissue marbled with white. The sickly smell of mania wafted from the wound. A single dark drop of blood rolled down her wrist.

“All I wanted was to see,” she murmured.

You will. You’ll see and you’ll touch and you’ll taste
.

A rustle of cloth drew her head up. On the bed, Liz convulsed once, chest hitching beneath the sheets. Rae stood, and her breath caught.

The girl’s face was the color of sour milk, cheeks and temples shot through with black. She twitched again and the air smelled of blood and rot and honey.

End her suffering.

Mercy. The kind Lailah had refused to give her.

The woman in white’s words echoed softly in her head.
There is another way. Another road, if you’re willing to walk it.

Shaking so badly she nearly sliced her fingers, Rae snapped the knife shut and tugged her sleeve over the gash in her arm. Yarn rasped against torn skin. Whatever road she walked, it wouldn’t start like this. She yanked the bedroom door open and shouted for help.

Alex arrived first, a scarecrow shadow in the doorway. “What’s happened?” His face was mottled with feverish color, eyes glassy, voice hoarse.

Would any of them make it out of this house alive?

“I don’t know,” Rae said, shaking off morbid speculation. “She’s getting worse.”

He sucked in a breath as he leaned over the bed. Liz’s eyes twitched and her breath came short and sharp. Sweat plastered her hair to her black-veined cheeks, and her bandaged hand glistened with fresh moisture. Blood and pus dripped down her fingers as Alex peeled the wrapping back; he and Rae both turned their heads at the stench.

At least Liz still bled. Rae doubted Alex would take much comfort in that.

“I need bandages,” he said. “A first-aid kit. Now!”

She stumbled back, colliding with Lailah. Rae ducked out of the way before anyone could notice how bad she looked. She huddled in the warm darkness of the living room, listening to Alex and Lailah argue, and trying not to think about the stars.

L
IZ KNELT IN
the darkness inside the palace, trembling on the cold stone floor. Her left arm throbbed to the shoulder: the door had bitten her, reopening the maenad’s bite. Blood soaked the torn bandage, pooling in her palm and dripping off her fingers.

She wasn’t sure how long she crouched there, watching that warm crimson trickle. Was time passing her by in the waking world? Would she wake to find Alex grown old and grey, find that he’d forgotten her? Would the world have changed? Would she wake at all?

Eventually Seker’s warning roused her: she didn’t have time to waste on fear. Neither did she have time to wait for him. And if the doors opened again and he wasn’t the one who came through— She forced herself to stand and face the shadows ahead.

The entryway soared above her, arches and emptiness. The air was still and heavy, sweet without the alkaline breath of the sea. Lights glimmered high above her like green and violet fireflies, enough to give her some idea of the vast space, but not to illuminate it. The walls were orange where the light kissed them, veined and flecked with black, with the cool plasticky slickness of resin. Carven vines covered the floor in swirls and spirals, their leaves pricking her tender feet. Her blood seeped into the grooves, black as it ran into the shadows.

She wiped her hand on her shirt, trying not to stain Seker’s mantle. She might not have thread or breadcrumbs, but at least she could leave a trail.

The dancing firefly lights led her down the corridor. Her soft footsteps carried through the still air. The quiet played tricks on her, until her own feet and harsh breath sounded like some panting beast pursuing her. She fought the urge to run; who knew what waited for her in the darkness ahead? After every dozen steps she touched her bloody fingers to the wall. Her feet bled too, but the vines drank it, hiding her footprints.

Liz tried to stay alert, but the endless walking left her drained and aching. She had begun to think the corridor would stretch forever when the light finally changed. A glass globe hung from the ceiling—or floated in midair; she wasn’t sure which—illuminating a fork in the path. The hall split left and right, both branches black and featureless and identical.

She leaned against the wall, but the strange texture made her pull away again. Her sigh echoed through the sepulchral silence.

Another sigh answered from behind her, a dozen times louder. Hot breath blew across her neck, filming her skin with damp. The smell of beast filled the air, rank and pungent. It was a living smell, though, the stink of a barn—she took some comfort in that as she stood taut and trembling.

“You won’t get far standing there,” the beast said. Its voice vibrated behind her sternum, deep and rumbling. The floor shivered with its footsteps, the heavy
tok
of hooves on stone. “Which way do you choose?” His breath—she guessed male from the musk and the voice—wafted over her head, stirring her hair.

“Which way would you suggest?”

“That depends on what you’re looking for. Are you here to kill monsters? To stop the black ships?”

“I only want to find my friend.”

“Ah.” His breath clouded in the cool air. “You’re here to play Orpheus, then, and rescue fair Eurydike.”

“That’s right. Only with better results, I hope.” Her bravado sounded forced, but it was better than hysteria.

The beast’s laugh made her ears ring. “Orpheus was a fool. Perhaps you’re wiser. Do you know who I am?”

Liz didn’t need to see the breadth of his horns to know the answer, the flashing eyes or cloven hooves wide as dinner plates. “You’re the Minotaur.”

She felt his weight shift behind her, felt his head tilt. His heat and pungent stink enveloped her. “That is what I am, one of many things. But that isn’t what I asked. Who am I?”

A name. Did the Minotaur have a name? Of course he did— she must know it. The Bull of Minos, son of Pasiphae and the Cretan bull, imprisoned in the labyrinth until Theseus killed him... Follow the thread, follow it back.

“Asterion!” The name took all her breath to speak, left her chest aching where the word had been. “You’re Asterion.”

“Clever child.” A great, thick-nailed hand closed on hers. “But this place has eaten so many clever children. Is your friend worth your life? Worth a thousand lives without the mercy of death?”

The cords in her neck stood taut as she lifted her chin. “Yes.”

“Then go. Follow the right hand path. Follow your clew.” He lifted her right hand, and Blake’s ring pulsed with light. “The labyrinth won’t harm you, but nowhere else in the palace will be so kind.”

“Thank you.” It might be a trick, a lie, but the little spark of hope lent her new strength.

“Hurry,” the Minotaur said. “Your friend is safe while the music plays. As safe as anything can be, in this place. Hurry, and don’t look back.”

Liz ran.

S
HE HEARD THE
music as she ran, the distant strains of an orchestra. The sound grew louder every time she stopped for breath, and the ember of hope burned brighter in her chest.

The labyrinth wound and twisted, and in the dim and fitful light the walls changed. Black amber became rough grey stone, which gave way in turn to low ossuary arches lined with polished skulls. Gold-veined marble became a shivering hedge maze, and her bleeding feet left dark prints on snow.

When the walls turned to mirrors, her concentration faltered. Her reflections ran past her in the glass, some brutally clear, others distorted as a carnival funhouse. Some didn’t run at all, only watched her, a dozen unfamiliar variations of her own face.

Keep going,
she told herself, but her lungs and legs and breasts ached from running, and it was too easy to slow her pace, to catch her breath while she studied this gallery of Lizes.

She saw a chubby little girl in pigtails, clutching a ragdoll cat to her chest. A teenager in a school uniform, a veil of blonde hair trailing over her face. Those she knew, but others she had never seen before. A middle-aged woman, her face creased with smiling lines as well as sad ones; a wedding band gleamed on one inkstained finger.

It’s a trick, a distraction.
The music played in the distance and she had to keep running, but some of the faces were too fantastic to ignore. She saw herself robed in white linen, her hair draping her shoulders in tiny beaded plaits. Liz raised her hand to Seker’s scarab brooch, and her reflection touched an identical jewel.

Opposite the white figure was a dark one. Older, maybe— certainly colder. Her face was grim and steady, no trace of shyness or fear. Black leather armor enclosed her, hard and slick as chitin. All her softness hidden away.

Here at last Liz halted. This. This was who she needed to be. She met her reflection’s cool, wary eyes, raised her hand to the glass and touched her twin’s fingertips.

The reflection didn’t answer, but the glass rippled. Black bled like ink from the mirror, enveloping her fingers and spilling down her arm.

Liz made a soft wondering sound as darkness washed over her, gaining substance as it flowed. Armor weighed her limbs, cinched her waist and flattened her breasts. Boots hugged her aching feet, fitting snug around her calves. Only the mantle remained the same, the scarab glittering on her shoulder. Her reflection was only a reflection again, but she remembered those unflinching eyes.

My eyes.

She turned away from the mirror and her breath caught. Silence. The music had stopped. She ran again.

T
HE LIGHT OF
a thousand candles lit the ballroom, a thousand stars reflected in the green amber vault of the ceiling. Blake stared at the wide sea-green dome, searching for any hint of the sky beyond. All he found was the mirrored image of the room below, distorted as if through deep water, a chaos of color and music.

Dancers moved across the polished floor, dressed for an elaborate masquerade. Hooved figures and horned, winged and tailed. Shaggy pelts and sleek, glittering scales. They moved in threes and fours, following the rhythm of an odd, syncopated waltz. Many had asked Blake to join them, but even watching the steps dizzied him.

He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, but that only made the dizziness worse. He felt drunk, though he hadn’t touched anything he’d been offered. The air was heady with wine and beeswax and perfume. Colors blurred across his vision. Crystal chandeliers and jeweled costumes threw back shards of fire, and the faces of the dancers swam and slipped whenever he tried to study them.

On the far side of the room, beyond the dancers, stood the throne dais, enclosed in black velvet draperies. The curtains wouldn’t be drawn until the King arrived.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood here, watching the dancers. He couldn’t judge the passage of time at all since he’d woken in the amber room. He and Alain had spent hours there, or days; the sheets stank of sex and sweat and honey by the time silent attendants had arrived to see them bathed and clothed. The ballroom had windows, the first he’d seen anywhere in the palace, but the thick stained glass panes offered no glimpse of the world outside.

Maybe there was no world beyond, only the abyss.

Dancers swung past him, their laughter carrying above the music. A slender creature with grey-green skin turned his way, its tentacled face framed by a tall upturned collar. One tentacle rose, swaying as if in greeting. Blake nodded in response and the dancer’s partner—naked save for a crown of leaves—giggled.

He turned away from the spectacle, leaning his head against the cold glass of a window. He almost missed the endless black depths of his nightmares; he had trusted those.

An unexpected touch fell feather-light and teasing across the back of his neck. Blake spun, hands clenching as a surge of angry panic scalded him. Only Alain, slim and sleek in plum-dark brocade. His hair was dyed to match, woven through with ivy.

Was it,
an ugly little voice whispered—
was it only Alain?
Everything was the same, down to the pattern of his calluses and the scar on his navel from an old piercing. But that cool little smile, the laughter in his dark eyes... If this wasn’t Alain, who was the stranger wearing his lover’s face?

Doubt couldn’t stop the desire that tightened Blake’s skin as Alain pressed him against the wall for a kiss. The heat left him breathless and reeling, and the questioning voice was lost beneath the sharp pulse of want.

“Soon,” Alain whispered as Blake’s hands tightened in his hair. “It’s almost over.” He trailed his fingers down Blake’s chest, the sharpness of his nails a muffled promise. “Are you nervous?”

“Yes.”

Alain’s mouth twisted in sympathy, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t worry. Soon everything will be as it should be.” Another kiss silenced Blake’s questions, left him braced against the wall for support.

A woman all in white cut through the crowd, the dancers peeling away from her like skin from a blade. A cowl and blindfold hid the upper half of her face. Her chin and throat were nearly as pale as the cloth, rinsed with blue ultramarine tones. He felt her regard despite her blinded eyes, but when she spoke it was to Alain.

“It’s time.”

The music died as if at her cue, leaving the dancers faltering through their last steps. The candles dimmed, and golden flames cooled to violet. The rattle of chains carried through the wide room, and the curtains surrounding the dais parted. A murmur swept the crowd, nearly lost beneath the heavy rustle of velvet.

The King sat in a twisted throne, his face lost in the shadows of his gilt-edged cowl. His robes were the color of old ivory, heavy with golden thread. Blake could see nothing of the man beneath, save for one long, pale hand on the armrest of the black chair. Ghastly gargoyle creatures crouched before the throne, skeletal things wrought of leather and bone. Avian and insectile, neither and both. They knelt motionless, except for the rattle of their barbed tails. The crowd knelt as one with the sound of a wave. Blake would have fallen, too, but Alain held him up.

The pale hand rose, beckoning. The guards stepped aside, creaking as they moved. Blake’s pulse closed his throat, deafened him with its roar. Alain led him forward, one hand on the small of his back.

The King’s presence grew heavier as they crossed the room, pressing down on Blake’s shoulders. By the time he reached the foot of the steps, he couldn’t bear it. His legs buckled and he fell, bruising his knees on stone. Alain bowed deeply, and the woman in white curtsied amid a puddle of skirts.

That hand lifted again, and the woman rose and climbed the steps. She knelt beside the throne, facing the audience, and the King grasped her shoulder. She shuddered. In the cold purple light her lips looked blue and drowned.

“Welcome, Chosen.”
That voice was never meant to come from her slender throat. It echoed through the room, through Blake’s skull.

He stood, though his legs shook, fighting the urge to look for a face beneath the hood. The hand on the woman’s shoulder was grey, desiccated.

“You have come to complete the oath.”