Eye of the Labyrinth (46 page)

Chapter 88

Marqel was waiting for the Lion of Senet as the second sun rose. He always started his day with a prayer to the Goddess, so she waited for him in his private temple in the palace gardens. She and Dirk had spent hours going over what she would say, and how she would say it, although she found herself quite annoyed by his assumption that she was too witless to figure out for herself how this should be handled.

Dirk did, however, know the Lion of Senet far better than she, and she had to admit that he seemed to have thought of everything, so, in the end, she let him instruct her, promising herself that she would do as he asked unless, of course, she came up with a better idea.

As soon as Marqel heard the footsteps on the gravel outside the small temple she fell to her knees in front of the altar and bowed her head in prayer. Her hair was disheveled, and she looked as if she had been up all night (which she had). She let her eyes fill with tears as she waited, kneeling in front of the two beaten gold suns of Ranadon, with her back to the entrance, quietly sobbing. She heard his boots on the polished schist floor. Heard him stop behind her when he realized somebody had invaded his sanctuary.

“This is my private temple,” Antonov said.

Marqel did not answer him, nor give any indication that she had heard him speak.

“Did you hear me?”

She looked up slowly, her face streaked with tears, as if she had only just become aware that she was no longer alone. Antonov’s face creased with concern when he saw her obvious distress.

“Is something wrong?”

She shook her head wordlessly, too distraught to speak.

“Are you unwell?”

“She...She...spoke to me,” Marqel whispered brokenly.

The Lion of Senet walked across the temple and squatted down beside her. “Who spoke to you?” He sounded impatient.

“
She
spoke to me!”

He looked at her for a moment, his irritation slowly replaced by awe. “The
Goddess
spoke to you?”

“She called...to me,” Marqel sobbed, with heartbreaking sincerity. “I was sleeping...and the Goddess called me in my dreams. She told me to come here...” With convincing desperation, Marqel clutched at Antonov’s arm. “I’m so frightened...”

“There’s nothing to be frightened of, child,” he said, patting her hand. “If this is true, then you’ve been greatly honored.”

“She...She told me things...”

“What did she tell you?”

“She said something about your son...”

“Kirshov?”

Marqel sniffed, mostly to cover up her smile. Dirk was right. Antonov Latanya could be so predictable at times. She shook her head. “Prince Misha. She said he’d been taken...”

“Did she say where?”

Marqel shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t really understand what she told me. It was something to do with sailing. Something about finding a river...She said it was spoken...”

“Spoken? You mean the Spakan River?” Antonov sat back on his heels and stared at her. “You expect me to believe that the Goddess told you how to find the entrance to the Spakan River through the delta?”

“I don’t know,” she sobbed desperately. “I only know that she wanted me to tell you things...that she said...” Marqel let her voice trail off, as if she could not bring herself to say the rest of it. This was the part of the plan she had modified to suit herself. She was not going to wait for Dirk’s scheme to come to fruition. She wanted to be High Priestess. And she wanted it now.

“She said that Belagren had let her down... that I was to take her place...”

Antonov was understandably suspicious. “Did she now?”

“Please help me, your highness,” she begged. “I’m not worthy to be chosen by the Goddess...”

“I wouldn’t have thought you were either,” he remarked, which was not a good sign. Antonov
had
to believe her, and it was patently obvious that he didn’t.

“Can we ask the High Priestess what to do?” she suggested, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “I’m sure she’ll know...”

Antonov nodded. “I think that would be a very good idea.”

He rose to his feet and walked to the entrance, issued an order to fetch the High Priestess to one of the guards outside, then returned to where Marqel was kneeling on the floor. He held his hand out to her, and when she accepted it, he helped her to her feet.

Marqel did not let go of his hand. She turned it over and kissed the sword calluses on his palm, then looked up at him through lashes glistening with crystal tears. “The Goddess said something else, too...”

“What else did she say?” He still sounded far too skeptical.

“She said... theHigh Priestess is her voice... andthat you are her sword arm.”

Antonov nodded. That fitted perfectly with what he believed, so she was on fairly safe ground.

“She said the two should always be as one...”

“The two are as one, Marqel,” he reminded her.

She shook her head. “She said that you had wandered from her embrace.”

“The Goddess thinks
I
have failed her?” he asked in surprise. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Marqel replied, deciding a fresh round of tears was in order. She didn’t want to cry too much or she would get all blotchy and look as ugly as sin. “I only know she told me your faith needed to be renewed, and that she would send you a sign, so that you’d know I speak the truth. And I
do
speak the truth, your highness,” she cried. “I swear I do... I don’t know why she chose me. I didn’t want her to... Do you think the High Priestess will be able to make things right?”

Antonov put a comforting arm around her shoulder, uncertain as to exactly how to deal with her. “I’m sure she will, Marqel.”

She turned into his embrace and threw her arms around him. “I’m so scared, your highness,” she sobbed into his shoulder.

Antonov hesitated for a moment before he put his arms around her. It didn’t matter that he was just trying to comfort her. Marqel was very good at this. She could easily turn the embrace into something far more intimate, anytime she wanted to. She just was not ready yet.

“What did she tell you about the delta?” Antonov asked, after holding her for a little longer than was appropriate for a man merely trying to comfort a distressed young woman.

Marqel stepped out of his embrace first, so that she would appear the innocent party. She closed her eyes and gave the impression she was concentrating, trying to remember the details.

“She said, ‘The way forward is hidden in the shallows. By the long shadows of the second sun, you must sail to the first marker... andhold to that course until the way is obscured by the banks of the broken island...’ ” She opened her eyes and looked up at him, uncertainly. “There’s more, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.”

“That’s all right, Marqel,” he assured her. “Just try to remember everything she told you.”

Marqel closed her eyes again. The instructions Dirk had made her memorize were couched in flowery language to make them seem obscure. It would have been much simpler if he had just made her learn “this many degrees to port, that many degrees to starboard,” but even Marqel understood how unlikely it was that the Goddess would be so precise.

“ ‘In the lee of the broken island,’ ” she continued, “ ‘you must turn your back on the second sun...’ ”

“Your highness?”

“What?” Antonov barked, annoyed by the interruption.

Marqel opened her eyes and looked at the guard who had disturbed them. The expression on his face told her everything she needed to know.

“The High Priestess...”

“Where is she?” Antonov demanded.

“I think you’d better return to the palace, sire,” the guard advised. The man looked as if he wanted to run like a frightened rabbit.

“I sent for the High Priestess. I don’t expect to be summoned to attend her.”

“I delivered your summons, sire,” the guard explained. “But there was some trouble rousing the High Priestess, so I asked one of the servants to wake her.”

“And the problem is?” Antonov prompted impatiently.

“She couldn’t be roused, your highness.”

The Lion of Senet looked stunned for a fraction of a second, before he reacted. “Watch
her
!” he ordered, pointing at Marqel, and then he strode from the temple without another word, heading back to the palace.

Marqel watched him leave, and then she turned to the man assigned to guard her. “Is she dead?” she asked him.

The guard nodded wordlessly.

Marqel smiled. “It must be a sign from the Goddess,” she said.

Chapter 89

Dirk waited for the second sunrise in his room, too tense to seek his bed. The thought that all his hopes and aspirations resided in the untrustworthy hands of Marqel the Magnificent made it impossible to sleep.

He was under no illusions about the risk he was taking by involving Marqel. The problem was, he had little choice in the matter. Of all the people he had access to, the most willing to follow him was the one person he was certain was driven solely by greed and ambition. Marqel had no morals that he could find, no qualms about doing anything required to secure her future, up to and including murder.

Her usefulness was the only reason she still lived. Marqel had no inkling of how close he had come to strangling her the other evening, when she so foolishly tried to seduce him again. He still could not quite believe she had done it. Each time he looked at the Shadowdancer, he remembered Alenor, perched on the brink of death because Marqel didn’t like the competition from a child that hadn’t even been born yet.

Setting her on to Antonov was more than just revenge,
Dirk mused,
it was poetic justice
.

Kirsh would be shattered when Marqel spurned him in favor of his father, but it was about time he faced the truth about his lover. He had been spoiled all his life, allowed to believe anything he wanted was there for the taking. Dirk did not mind a bit that the lesson Kirsh was about to learn was probably going to break his heart. He had broken Alenor’s heart without giving it a thought. It was time he got a taste of his own medicine.

Dirk glanced down at the gardens. He could just see the path to Antonov’s private temple from his room, but there was no sign of either Marqel or Antonov yet.

“Don’t you dare be late, Marqel,” he muttered under his breath.

He glanced up at the sky, but it was not quite time for the second sun to show itself. He wondered for a moment what Tia was doing. Was she sleeping soundly, safe in Mil? Or was she awake at this early hour, plotting his demise?

Had she really kidnapped Misha?

Dirk had been relieved beyond words to learn that she had escaped from Senet, but it was all he could do not to laugh out loud when Barin Welacin told him what she had done. The thought still brought a smile to his face. Only Tia would do something so unexpected, so impulsive. What had driven her to do such a thing? Revenge, perhaps? And how had she managed to spirit Misha out of the Hospice in Tolace without being noticed? Surely somebody saw something? Why didn’t Misha raise the alarm? Kirsh was furious with him, of course assuming that Dirk had somehow known in advance what she intended.

Dirk sighed heavily. Another friendship irreparably damaged; another casualty in his reckless plan. By the time he was done, he would be the loneliest conqueror in the universe.

Dirk made a conscious effort not to count the casualties of what he was doing. It had already cost him the trust and friendship of everyone he knew in Mil. If he was not careful, it might end up costing him his life.

Dirk had tried very hard not to think about the people in Mil these past few weeks. He could guess what they must be thinking, and knew that they probably wanted to kill him. Well, he had nobody but himself to blame for that. He could have told Tia what he was doing. For that matter, he probably should have. But he could not explain it—not to Tia, not to anybody. Even if his plan worked, he doubted anyone would think him a hero. Heroes did noble deeds against incredible odds. They did not manipulate, lie and use people to get their way. A hero’s stock in trade was his stout heart and noble cause, not his ability to prey on the fears and weaknesses of his foes.

On the bright side,
he told himself wryly,
if this doesn’t work,
then I’ll just go down in history as the worst traitor who ever lived,
and nobody will be any the wiser.

But so much was riding on Marqel, and Dirk didn’t trust her.
I’m as crazy as Neris,
he decided.
I was crazy to even
listen
to
Neris
.

He caught sight of a movement on the path to the temple, and was relieved to find Marqel slipping into the temple as he had instructed her to.
Will she get it right? Will she remember
what I told her? Will she do it properly?
His uncertainty ate away at his confidence. What had seemed foolproof a few weeks ago now seemed fraught with danger.

He thought about Tia again, deliberately punishing himself with the memory.
Perhaps I should I have told her.
Maybe, even now, it was not too late. Against his advice, Alexin was still here in Avacas. He could get a message to Mil through the captain, tell them what he was doing, and ask them to believe in him...

He smiled ruefully. It was far too late for anything so foolish. If he was going to take the Baenlanders into his confidence, he should have said something to them back on Grannon Rock. He could have mentioned it back in Mil...

He knew he had made a mistake sleeping with Tia. How big a mistake hadn’t really hit him, until that morning just before Belagren arrived when she asked: “Do you love me, Dirk?” It was at that moment that the full impact of his stupidity came crashing down on him. He didn’t love her; he
could not
love anyone until he finished what he had set out to do. It was a humbling moment for Dirk. Until then, he had been thinking himself smarter than everyone else. Tia had brought him plummeting down to the ground with the realization that, when it came to dealing with women, he was a nineteen-year-old boy with little practical experience and a great deal to learn before he could even begin to understand them.

He wondered what Neris would think about this. In the two years Dirk had stayed in Mil, they had debated countless issues over the chessboard, and none more vigorously than what it would take to bring down the Lion of Senet and the Church of the Suns. Sometimes Tia had interrupted them, but Neris had sent her away with a scowl, telling her that they were busy solving all the world’s problems. Tia would then wait outside Neris’s cave for him, demanding to know what they were talking about. She was always suspicious, always suspecting Dirk of keeping things from her.

What would you have done if I told you what I knew, Tia?
he asked her silently. He smiled, ruefully rubbing the shoulder that was still stiff and sore from her arrow. He knew the answer to that question. He had the scar to prove it.

But what about Neris? Would he understand what was happening? And if he did, would he give the game away? Dirk suspected he would not, simply because he had enjoyed the fact that he was the only one in Mil clever enough to work out what was going on.

Dirk needed the Baenlanders to believe he had betrayed them. The slightest hope that he had not and they would react differently. They might not evacuate Mil. Tia would certainly not have kidnapped Misha Latanya...

Dirk hadn’t planned on that happening, but Tia couldn’t have done anything to help his cause more if he had actually asked her to do it. It was always going to be a problem making Antonov believe that the Goddess had suddenly decided to show Marqel the way through the delta, but now that Misha had been kidnapped, it made perfect sense. The Goddess would be responding to a specific need, not just acting on a whim.

And now, if only Marqel can deliver the information convinc
ingly...

He looked down at the path again. Antonov, accompanied by a small escort, was striding toward the temple. Dirk’s stomach clenched with apprehension. He had no way of knowing if Marqel would do as he had instructed.

He waited, as Antonov disappeared into the temple, unconsciously holding his breath, Was Marqel convincing Antonov she was the Voice of the Goddess—or betraying Dirk as he stood here and waited?

He would not know, he guessed, until Belagren came roaring into his room, ready to murder him, when she realized what he had done.

A piece at a time,
Dirk reminded himself.
If you’re going to
dismantle something, you need to take it apart a piece at a time.

And the first step was to splinter the unholy alliance between Antonov and Belagren.

After a time, Dirk noticed a guard hurrying away from the temple, heading back toward the palace.
Antonov sending for the
High Priestess,
he guessed.
Or sending someone to arrest me.

He waited awhile longer, heard a ruckus in the hall outside his room, then a short time later watched the guard hurry back to the temple.

Belagren was not with him. Puzzled, he waited for a little longer, and then saw Antonov leave the temple, heading back to the palace at a run.
What have you done, Marqel?
Dirk doubted she had betrayed him. Antonov would dispatch a guard detail to arrest him, not run back to the palace to do it himself. Something else had happened, something Dirk had not anticipated.

And there was nothing he could do but wait...

So he waited. And wondered if he could really get away with it. Dirk’s only currency was information. He had no armies at his beck and call, no resources, other than his own intelligence and determination to destroy something he considered inherently evil. That he must become an integral part of that evil in order to destroy it was something he knew he could never make Tia understand. She would rather die than embrace the enemy’s cause.

Dirk preferred to live. And if he was going to live, then he wanted to live in a world of his own making.

It really was as simple as that.