Darkwitch Rising (52 page)

“
You
never suited
me
.”

He laughed. “You were blind.”

“What do you
want
from me?”

“Do what’s best, Jane. Do what’s best.”

Her mouth tightened into a thin line. She knew what that meant.
Hand over your powers of Mistress of the Labyrinth
. If only he knew how little she would be needed even for that.

“Jane, I talk of that time when you come to meet me by the scaffold. Then you must do what’s best.”

“Why, Coel? What could you possibly want of me?”

His hands moved to her face, turning it so that she faced him squarely, and then the Lord of the Faerie lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed her gently.

“I will watch for you by the scaffold, Jane.”

She pulled away from him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t…what?”

“Don’t toy with me, Coel. Don’t torment me.”

The skin about his eyes crinkled. “Do what’s best, Jane. Not for you, but for the land. And…” the fingers of one hand trailed down a cheek, then traced about her jawline, “and, do what’s best for me and for you. For the both of us.”

She was confused. She didn’t know what he meant. “Coel—”

He drew away from her, looking over her shoulder. “Ah. I must go.”

He brushed past Jane, his fingers very briefly touching her hand, and walked to where Eaving and Louis stood, where they had been watching the Lord of the Faerie and Jane.

Jane turned, hesitated, then followed him.

Louis, his arm about Eaving’s waist, was talking to him.

“What do I do?” he said. “Gods, Charles—oh, dear gods, that is not what I should call you, is it?—my mind is still so numbed. I can’t think…”

He broke off, and shook his head as if to express his bewilderment, but Jane could clearly see his happiness, and it made her feel worse.
Once, she had so wanted this man, wanted what she and he could achieve together. Now he loved—and was loved by—another woman, and planned his ambitions and his future about her
.

The Lord of the Faerie put his hand on Louis’ shoulder, and spoke in a low tone to him, and as he did so, Eaving pulled herself gently from Louis’ grasp and came to Jane’s side.

“We should go soon,” she said, her strange, enchanted eyes soft. “We have risked our luck this far. I would not have Weyland come down from his lair and find us gone.”

“
I
should go,” Jane said. “
You
appear to have found your haven.”

At that Eaving’s face turned aside very slightly. “None of us ever truly know what our haven is,” she said, very softly, “until we fall in through the door one bright day.”

“Well, I, for one,” said Jane, “am sick of—”

Before she could finish, she felt the unmistakeable power of Ariadne touch her. The Naked dissolved abruptly about them, all the throng vanished, and she and Eaving were standing once more in Tower Fields.

“
W
ell, well,” said Ariadne, “wasn’t that a pretty little scene, then?”

It was deep night, and cold, so Ariadne had set herself a little fire amid a cleared space in the grass. She stood directly behind it, allowing the light of the flames to wash over her. Jane thought it made Ariadne look particularly malevolent, and realised this was a carefully staged scene.

So
, Jane thought,
Ariadne has used her powers of Mistress of the Labyrinth and pulled us back to her again. Myself
and
Noah
.

Jane glanced at Noah, and saw with a little shock that she had indeed returned into Noah—although she still held herself with the pride and honour and power that she commanded as Eaving.

“You saw?” said Noah, showing no confusion at Ariadne’s precipitous action in pulling Noah and Jane to this place.

Ariadne’s mouth quirked. “I see most things,” she said. “Come, sit with me—” Ariadne sat herself gracefully on the ground as she said this, patting her hands to either side “—and partake of the wine and fruit I have brought to share.”

Noah hesitated, then walked about the fire to sit on Ariadne’s right, Jane seating herself on the witch’s other side. Ariadne moved back slightly, so that Noah and Jane could the more easily see her face,
and she theirs. With her movement, Ariadne had changed the seating pattern so that the three women and the fire formed a rough circle.

“So,” said Ariadne, reaching out a hand and very briefly touching Noah’s face, “you’ve finally managed to tell your Brutus about his, um, how shall I say this, anticipated forestal divinity. He seemed shocked.” She shrugged. “I would consider it worrying that it has taken him all this time to realise.”

She cocked her head to one side, and smiled brilliantly. “But then, that isn’t my problem, is it? My problem is you, Noah. Or Eaving. Whomsoever you happen to be at present. Everyone appears to expect you to become Mistress of the Labyrinth, but Jane seems unwilling to teach you.”

Jane opened her mouth, but was forestalled from speaking when Ariadne held out a hand palm upwards commanding her to silence.

“Jane,” Ariadne continued, “is also concerned, Noah, about how I’ve managed to haul you here along with her. The power I use for this particular piece of magic is only supposed to touch trained, or women bred to be, Mistresses of the Labyrinth, after all. So Jane is anxious to know why you’re sharing this space with us. I’d like to hear your explanation for it as well. If you don’t mind.”

Again, that cocked eyebrow.

“I have no explanation,” said Noah.

The eyebrow went even higher. “Oh, come now, Noah. I really want to know why—”

“You are not surprised to see me here,” said Noah, her voice and manner calm. “If there is a reason for my presence, then you already know it.”

“Ah,” said Ariadne softly, “you are no fool, are you?”

Instead of answering Noah’s implied question, Ariadne turned her attention to Jane. “Everyone
seems to expect you to hand over your powers, Jane. Noah has wanted it for years. Brutus wants it. He’d like nothing better than to be able to complete the Troy Game with the great love of his life…ahem,
lives
. This strange enigmatic Lord of the Faerie also seems to expect it, if I read his words to you this evening rightly.”

“If you can interpret his words, then I’d be glad to hear it,” said Jane.

Ariadne ignored her. “I’m sure the Troy Game is falling over itself wanting Noah to learn her arts as Mistress of the Labyrinth.”

At that Jane looked away.
So
that
was why Catling came to Idol Lane! Of course…she should have realised it earlier
.

“So, Jane,” Ariadne continued, “the question is, shall you teach her?”

Jane now studied Ariadne, unable to read the witch’s face.
What did she want to hear
?

“No,” she said eventually.

“Good answer,” Ariadne said, very softly. Her eyes switched back to Noah. “Jane shall not teach you, Noah. I shall. Jane
could
teach you, surely, but if
I
teach you, then I can turn you into the most powerful Mistress of the Labyrinth that has ever been. More powerful even than myself, if you can believe it.” She laughed prettily. “After all, you shall combine both labyrinthine arts with those of Eaving and of the land, shan’t you?”

Noah’s face was such a confusing mix of emotions that Jane might have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry. Ariadne to teach Noah? Why?
Why
?

And why
was
it Ariadne could spirit Noah here?

Jane looked back at Ariadne, and was not surprised to find her foremother watching her with an amused look.

“What is it about Noah, Ariadne? Why is she
here? Why take such an interest in her?
What is in it for you
?”

Ariadne answered the last of Jane’s questions first. “Revenge,” she said. “Revenge is in it for me. I want to put Asterion away once and for all, and I want to see the Game flowering in all its glory and majesty. Noah is the one to do that.”

“But surely—” Jane broke off, wondering how to put her question so that it didn’t make her sound spiteful or vindictive.

“Why not one of my own blood, Jane? After all, it would take one of my own blood to be able to better my own skills, eh?”

Now Ariadne turned her eyes away from Jane and looked at Noah very, very carefully. “I have no intention of teaching anyone
but
my own blood, Jane,” she said.

For a moment there was a silence, Ariadne and Noah staring at each other, Jane looking between the two of them.

“No,” Noah whispered.

“Did you not realise, Jane,” Ariadne said, her eyes not moving from Noah, “that Noah is as much my daughter-heir as you?”

“
What
?” Jane said. She felt as if her heart had stopped.

No
, Noah said, whispering the word with her power.

She moved as if to rise, but Ariadne reached out and snapped her hand closed about one of Noah’s wrists.

“If you’re here with me tonight,” said Ariadne, “if you have been a part of the Game since you were the whining little Mesopotaman princess, if it was
you
that Mag chose to hide within, and to be reborn within…then why was that?
Why was that
? Because you just happened to be handy? Because you just
happened to be handy to the whims of gods?” Her head whipped around, and she stared at Jane. “And you, Jane. Why did you so instinctively hate her? Why work so assiduously to remove her? Why fear her so greatly?

“Why, why, why?” Ariadne said, her voice softening a fraction. “Why, why, why for all of this…if not for the fact that
you
, Cornelia-Caela-Noah, are as much my daughter as is Genvissa-Swanne-Jane?”

W
hy, why, why for all of this…if not for the fact that
you,
Cornelia-Caela-Noah, are as much my daughter as is Genvissa-Swanne-Jane
?

Oh, I loathed Ariadne then. I
reviled
her. Not so much for the import of those words, what they meant or would come to mean for my life, but because they had wiped out in one foul sentence all the joy of Louis’ realisation at the Faerie Court. All I had wanted to do was to return to my pallet in Weyland’s kitchen and revisit every wonderful faerie moment of that court.

But no. This witch had to ruin it with her one, single devastating sentence.

“Ah,” said Ariadne very softly, “you know it, don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “I know
nothing
of it!”

She let go my wrist and reached behind her, pulling forth a basket that I had not noticed. She took out a cloth, spreading it before her, then produced a small bowl of fruit and a flagon and several glasses. She poured full the glasses, handing one to me and one to Jane, took a healthy sip from her own, settled herself comfortably, then began a tale of love and betrayal that I found horrifying, not merely because of its
content, but also because I had so recently heard it from Weyland’s mouth.

“I became Asterion’s lover when I was, oh, perhaps thirteen or fourteen,” Ariadne began, taking another mouthful of her wine, “and just learning the skills of Mistress of the Labyrinth myself. He fascinated me, and I fancied myself in love with him.” She paused, looking at Jane over the rim of her glass as she took a sip. “
You
loved him in your last life. You should sympathise.”

“He bewitched me,” Jane said. “That was not true love.”

Ariadne shrugged, not put out by Jane’s answer. “Well, I found the feel and taste of that bull’s mouth running over my body quite stimulating—”

I shuddered.
He was her half-brother!

“—so…animalistic. Better than a man.”

“Until you met Theseus,” I said.

Ariadne looked at me sharply. “I am currently talking of Asterion, my dear, not Theseus. Pay attention. So, as I was saying, I found his attentions reasonably stimulating. And I was young, and perhaps a little foolish, and so when I was eighteen I allowed myself to fall pregnant to him.”

“You sent the baby away,” I whispered. “A month after she was born. You were ashamed of her.”

“Yes. How did you know of that? Goddess intuition, perhaps? Or some memory from your—”

“No,” I said. I put my hands over my ears. I did not want to listen.
I did not want to hear this!

Yet still her words penetrated inside my skull.

“Yes, well, I did send her away. After all, I’d fornicated with my own brother, and, frankly, the attraction of that bull mouth was starting to pall by then. I still needed the patronage of my father King Minos…he would not abide such an abomination in his place. So I sent the child to—”

No! No! No!

“—Mesopotama, a silly little place, but the king was prepared to take the girl in so she could be raised in his court and subsequently marry his son. He did not know of her fatherhood. All he knew was that she was the daughter of the Mistress of the Labyrinth of Knossos…and thus a powerful little minx to marry into his family.”

No!

“For the love of all the gods in heaven, Noah. You were Mesopotaman, but you wore the fashions of the Minoan court. Mesopotama escaped the wrath of my Catastrophe. You were plucked out of obscurity by the man destined to go on and establish the Troy Game. Did you never think back and put all these pieces together? Did you never ask Brutus why he chose you so precipitously? Did he never say to you, ‘I was godstruck, my dear, and simply had to have you?’ Did you never wonder
why
, when it was so apparent he hated you, he kept you close? Did you not even
once
stop to think why you, this tiny bellyaching spoiled little brat, were indeed so god-blessed? Why you became so tightly embroiled in the Troy Game with nary a thought about it in your witless,
addled
little mind? Did you
never once
wonder why it had picked
you
?”