Eye of the Labyrinth (19 page)

Chapter 34

They came for her just before first sunrise. Morna was composed and ready to die, and determined not to humiliate herself.

Ateway opened her cell door and stood back. He had a full escort waiting to take her to the common. Every man was Senetian, and not one familiar face among them.

“I have letters that I’d like distributed after I’m gone,” she informed the captain.

“I’ll see to it, my lady.”

She smiled at him. “You’ve been very considerate, Captain Ateway. I do appreciate it.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Lifting her chin proudly, she stepped out of the cell and was immediately surrounded by the waiting guards. She felt so small, yet oddly, so important.

Ironically, the next hour might prove to be the most memorable of her life. Until she passed from this world, every eye on Elcast, and many other places in Dhevyn and Senet, would be fixed on her. Antonov was taking a huge risk in executing her. There had not been a member of a Dhevynian ruling family executed for treason since the end of the War of Shadows. To do it at the Landfall Festival, to associate her death so closely with the High Priestess, was doubly dangerous. Hopefully, her death would stir up resentments long thought buried; fears that had been dormant for years. The thought gave a small measure of comfort.

I achieved so little in my life—it would be nice to think that at
least my death might prove useful.

The guard escorted her on foot to the common, the wall of leather and steel keeping her hidden from the view of her people.
My people? They were Wallin’s people, not mine. They tolerated me for his sake.
Her death might stir up political turmoil, but except for a few, like Welma and Helgin, she realized she had no friends who would genuinely grieve her passing.

Is this what they mean when they say your life flashes before
your eyes when you’re about to die?
She didn’t like the feeling at all. Morna did not wish to be reminded of the mistakes she had made.

It took the best part of an hour before they reached the common. The second sun was almost completely set by then and the drums had started pounding. Morna had always hated that sound but now, when the drums did nothing but herald her impending death, she found she welcomed them. It meant that it would be over soon.

Morna had a plan. She knew that if she could inhale sufficient smoke, she would pass out quickly and avoid the worst of the pain. All she had to do was breathe, as deeply and as fully as possible. She steadfastly refused to think of the flames.

And she would not scream. She was determined about that. Antonov and Belagren might enjoy watching her burn, but they were not going to have the satisfaction of seeing her reduced to a screaming, sobbing wretch, begging for mercy.

She would breathe deeply, look them in the eye, and let the smoke take her.

The people were masked by the time she was led to the post on top of the pyre representing the second sun. The decorative masks of the celebrants were not a very effective disguise, and she could make out Rees’s curly dark hair as he stood there uncomplainingly as they tied his mother to the stake. The mask he wore covered only his eyes, and formed the head of a bird. The beak protruded out over his nose and the feathers over the eye-holes glinted red in the ruby light of the evening sun. The mask had been a gift from Antonov the first year he came to Elcast.

Rees shouldn’t even be here,
Morna thought.
He’s married
now. Does he hate me so much that he wants to watch me burn?

The young Duke of Elcast stood a few paces from Tovin and Lanon Rill. The governor’s son looked away uneasily when she caught his eye.
How strange that my own son is so keen to see
me die, but the son of a Senetian nobleman has the decency to feel
guilty about it.

She looked around for Antonov. His mask was made of gold-tipped white feathers. With his customary vanity, it perfectly matched the gold embroidery on his white jacket. He met her gaze without flinching, and then looked away, scanning the crowds, looking for someone.

He’s looking for Dirk,
she realized.
Oh, please, if there really is
a Goddess, keep my son away from here tonight.

The drums grew more insistent and the crowd separated into two circles, men in the inner circle, women forming the outer, encircling the wicker suns. By the altar, where a large bowl filled with dark liquid sat ready and waiting, Belagren stood, her expression smug, as she gave the signal for Ella, Madalan and a male Shadowdancer Morna did not recognize to pass out the small silver cups. Morna noticed there were many more men in the crowd than normal. They were masked as if they were part of the Festival, but they were armed, and few of them let the silver cups do more than touch their lips before passing it on.

Please, Dirk, be far from here tonight. Don’t try to save me.

On her left, another man with a pockmarked face and the dull eyes of heavy sedation was being tied to the post on the pyre of the first sun. He was Stanislav Denov, a fisherman from Yerl who had murdered his pregnant young wife in a fit of jealous rage not long before Wallin died. She glanced at Rees in the crowd again. Had he condemned the man to death? She watched as her son took a sip from the little silver cup then handed it on to the next man. He was swaying on his feet.

In fact, everyone was swaying now in time to the primal beat of the drums. She saw Ella walk to the center of the inner circle. She could see her lips move as she chanted a prayer to the Goddess, calling down her blessing on those present.

Everyone but me, that is.

Morna caught sight of Belagren as she moved away from the altar, clutching a flaming torch in her hand. The spectators cried out their encouragement.

“Please, let it be over quickly,” she whispered to nobody in particular.

Belagren danced toward the wicker sun, where the drugged Yerl fisherman slumped against the post. The crowd fell to their knees as the High Priestess cried out something Morna could not quite make out, then she touched the flaming torch to the dry kindling piled at the base of the sun. The wicker caught with a whoosh, the flames leaping upward. The smoke was heavy in Morna’s nostrils. She drank it in greedily. Perhaps the fumes from the first pyre would make her unconscious even before the flames of her own pyre reached her.

Once Belagren was satisfied that the first sun was well and truly alight, she danced back to the second sun and hesitated for a moment, staring up at Morna.

“There’ll be a reckoning for this,” Morna warned, meeting Belagren’s eye defiantly.

“Not in your lifetime,” the High Priestess responded in a voice meant only for her.

Then she smiled triumphantly and touched the torch to the pyre.

Morna managed to keep her composure. She stared silently down at Belagren as the flames caught, breathing through her mouth, hoping the smoke would take her soon. She could hear the flames crackling beneath her; feel the heat on her bare feet as it built up momentum.

Then the flavor of the smoke changed, and she realized her shift was smoldering. She fought down her panic, forcing herself to take great heaving gasps of the choking smoke. She coughed as her lungs rejected the poison she was trying to inhale; her eyes watered as the smoke billowed around her. Belagren stood watching her, waiting for her to crack.

I won’t give you the satisfaction, you black-hearted bitch.

The flames licked higher and Morna felt the first real pain as they reached the soles of her feet. She bit down on her bottom lip to stifle her screams as the smell of her own burning flesh mingled with the wood smoke. Then her dress stopped smoldering and burst into flame. The fire raced toward her face, her loose hair crackling around her with a sickening stench as it burned.

She took another gasping breath of smoke but unconsciousness refused to save her. Her eyes were blurred with tears and pain. She glanced at Rees one last time. He had not moved, transfixed by the sight of his mother consumed by flames.

Then for some reason, a movement on the slope toward the Keep caught her eye. There were two figures running toward the common. A couple of latecomers no doubt, hurrying to watch the Duchess of Elcast burn . . .

Her feet were on fire, the flesh blackened, the smoke billowing as the moist flesh simmered and burned. She could taste blood in her mouth. She had bitten right through her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming.

Morna closed her eyes, willing herself to bear the agony, willing herself to ignore it. But the flames had hold of her now and would not let her go. The heat seared her flesh even in places it had yet to touch.

“I’m sorry, Johan!” she cried out silently, no longer able to contain her suffering, no longer caring that she wasn’t going to die well. “I tried to be strong . . .”

And then she began to scream.

Chapter 35

Dirk and Tia were halfway down the slope when they heard the screams. Dirk began to run faster, streaking ahead of Tia.

“Dirk! No!”

She slipped her bow over her shoulder and put on an extra burst of speed, forcing her stiff, aching muscles to move. When she was within a few steps of him she threw herself at Dirk and tackled him to the ground. They rolled the rest of the way down the slope and came to a stop with Tia sitting astride him. Dirk struggled to get free of her, but she held him down, through sheer force of will as much as physical strength.

“It’s too late!” she cried, as she tossed the bow aside, relieved to see that she hadn’t broken it in her desperate lunge to stop Dirk from throwing his own life away.

But the screams and the drums were all he could hear. There was a wild, feral look in his eyes. She doubted he heard a word she had said.

“It’s too late,” she yelled at him again, slapping his face to reinforce her point. “You can’t save her!”

The slap brought some semblance of sanity back into his eyes. “Let me up, Tia.”

He sounded calm, but she wasn’t fooled.

“You can’t do anything, Dirk.”

The screams kept on relentlessly.
Dear Goddess, why doesn’t
she stop?
Dirk tried to push Tia off him, but she had his arms pinned with her knees. She snatched up the bow and pushed it down across his throat until he was gasping for air.

“It’s too late. There is nothing you can do,” she repeated slowly. “When I let you up we’re going to turn around and run like hell. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” he agreed, far too meekly.

“Let me put it another way, Dirk. You take one step in the direction of that pyre and I’ll put an arrow in your back.”

He looked as if he believed her, but she wasn’t sure. The drums and his mother’s tormented screams as she was roasted alive were likely to have much more impact on him than Tia’s rational argument about the futility of a rescue attempt. But she had no choice. As they rode double toward Elcast Town, in a low voice that Dirk would not hear, Reithan had given her very specific instructions about what she must do if Dirk looked like he was going to be captured. If she was certain of anything at all, it was that the Lion of Senet and his henchmen were waiting for him down there on the common.

She eased the bow a little and when he made no attempt to struggle, she warily climbed off him. He sat up, his face streaked with tears as Morna Provin’s screams tore through his soul. Tia stood up, nocked an arrow, drew the string back against her cheek and pointed it straight at him.

“Get up.”

Dirk did as she ordered, but moved no further. He could clearly see the pyre from where they were standing. There was perhaps a hundred yards of open space between where they had fallen and the edge of the crowd. The wicker suns were well alight, both figures tied to them swathed in flames.

“End it, Tia,” he said in a dull voice.

“What?”

The screams intensified, as if the flames had tightened their grip on the duchess.

“End it. Don’t let her suffer. If we can’t save her, let’s do that much at least.”

Dirk was looking not at her, but at her bow and the arrow she had drawn. Tia realized what he was asking of her as the unremitting screams tore through the red night.

Horrified by what he wanted, she relaxed the string and offered him the bow. “You do it.”

He shook his head. “You’re the better shot. And the moment that arrow hits they’ll know we’re here. We’ve one chance at this, that’s all.”

She hesitated, appalled by what he had suggested. Morna’s screams were drowning out all reason.

Why hadn’t they drugged her, like they did the other victims of
Landfall?

“For pity’s sake, Tia!” he cried urgently. “That’s my mother down there! You said it yourself! Nobody deserves to die like that! End it!
Please
.”

The screams were unbearable. Dirk’s eyes were haunted. Tia took a deep breath and drew the arrow back again, pointing it at Dirk. Then without allowing herself time to question what she was about to do, she swung the bow around and took aim on the burning pyre. She let out the breath slowly, unconsciously judging the distance, then, between one breath and the next, she released the string. The arrow arched over the common and hit the pyre.

It struck Morna Provin in the eye, instantly cutting off the dreadful sound.

The silence was a relief, but the other things Tia felt were too confused, too difficult to confront. To kill in cold blood ... to quite deliberately take a life, even for a humane purpose ...

Tia shook herself and glanced down at the crowd. All hell was breaking loose as the soldiers hidden in the crowd realized what the arrow meant. They had already been spotted, and several guards were running across the open ground toward them.

“That’s torn it,” she remarked. It was odd, but she felt nothing. The doubt, the recrimination, the guilt—they would come later, she guessed, when she let herself think about it.

Dirk muttered something that sounded like a curse and grabbed her hand. He dragged her up the slope back toward the Keep. The postern gate seemed to be a lifetime away. They would never make it. As they neared the looming bulk of the Keep, Tia could hear the labored breathing of the soldiers who pursued them. They scrambled up the steps cut into the last part of the slope, when suddenly the gate opened for them and slammed shut as soon as they were through, the locking bar dropping into place behind them.

Panting heavily, her heart pounding, Tia turned to discover their benefactor was the old man they had met earlier in the Keep.

“Quickly,” he urged as the guards started pounding on the postern gate. It was only a matter of minutes before they would be at the front gate as well.

Dirk and Tia followed him across the courtyard, where there were two fresh horses saddled and waiting for them, held by two young grooms. Tia ran to the nearest mount and jumped into the saddle. She turned, expecting Dirk to follow, but he had stopped to talk to the old man.

“Come with us, Helgin.”

“My days of running and hiding are over, Dirk,” the man replied with a rueful shrug. “Save yourselves. Don’t worry about me.”

Dirk muttered a curse and turned to Tia. “Get down.”

She dismounted, wondering what he was up to now. Dirk turned to the grooms. “Mount up. Ride toward the Yerl turnoff and then cut across country. Let them get a good look at you. As soon they look like catching you, surrender to them. Tell them I threatened to kill you if you didn’t do as I bid.”

The boys followed Dirk’s orders without question. Tia watched their fresh horses galloping out of the Keep with despair. “Send our only means of escape off with the grooms! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Shut up, Tia,” he ordered, before turning back to the old man. “You’re coming with us, Helgin.”

“No, Dirk, I must—”

“What? Stay here and give Antonov someone to vent his wrath on? Don’t be an idiot.”

“I’d slow you down ...” the old man objected.

“No, you won’t. We haven’t got that far to go.”

In the distance, Tia heard a shout, as the guards closing in on the main gates caught sight of the two figures on horseback galloping away from the Keep.

“Which way?” Tia asked, deciding that maybe sending the grooms off as a decoy wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Dirk pushed the old man ahead of him toward the gate. “Follow me.”

A few paces from the main gates to the Keep, Dirk led them onto a faint track that wound down through the brush toward the beach. He led the way in silence, stopping occasionally as the sound of shouted commands and galloping horses on the cobbled road above them drifted down. Helgin kept up pretty well, and Tia started to wonder who he was. She did not object to his presence, though. The old man had aided them enough that she was satisfied he was on their side, but if they collected any more exiles from this damn island, they would have rename Mil New Elcast.

They hurried through the red night, past a small waterfall and a clear pool that steamed faintly with a whiff of sulfur, until they broke out of the woods and reached the beach. Not far from where they emerged, the longboat was waiting. Tia recognized Kurt and, with some relief, Reithan, standing on the beach, their swords drawn. Two archers stood either side of him. An arrow thunked into a tree near Tia’s head as the pirates caught sight of them.

“Hey! It’s us!” Dirk cried in a loud whisper.

The archers lowered their weapons. Kurt and Reithan hurried forward to meet them.

“Who’s that?” Kurt demanded suspiciously when he spied Helgin.

“A friend,” Dirk replied shortly, before turning to Reithan. “How did it go?”

“Fine. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He glanced at Tia then looked over her shoulder, as if he expected someone else. “You weren’t able to ...”

“No,” Tia told him flatly.

Reithan looked at her for a moment, and then decided not to pursue the matter. “Come on. I don’t know how long we’ve got before my diversion isn’t a diversion any longer.”

Tia helped Helgin into the boat and took a seat in the bow as the sailors stowed their weapons and picked up the oars. Dirk helped Reithan and Kurt run the boat into the water before jumping aboard. Reithan and Kurt took up the other pair of oars, and the longboat cut swiftly through the water toward the heads, leaving the small beach behind them. Dirk clambered forward and came to sit beside her.

“Are you all right?” he asked cautiously.

“Leave me alone.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re trembling.”

She shook him off impatiently. “I’m fine. Just leave me alone.”

“Tia ...”

“What?”
she snapped.

Dirk stared at her for a moment. “Thank you.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. The fear of capture, the adrenaline rush of their escape, had kept the full impact of what she had done at bay. Dirk was right. She was trembling. And she wanted to cry.

“Look,” he said gently.

“At what?” she muttered, hanging her head so that he wouldn’t see her tears.

“Reithan’s diversion.”

Tia looked up, wiping her eyes. He was pointing around the bay at the wharf where the
Calliope
was tied.

The Lion of Senet’s magnificent ship; his pride and joy, with its golden gunwale, proud masts and sleek lines, was furiously ablaze.

“Was that your idea?”

He nodded. “Seems like justice, don’t you think? Now Antonov and I have both lost something we loved tonight.”

A sob she could not stifle rocked her suddenly. Dirk put his arm around her and held her while she cried, as the longboat slipped silently though the heads toward the waiting
Makuan,
the night lit brightly by the red sun and the roaring flames of the
Calliope
as she burned.