Labyrinth Gate (11 page)

“I must see the cards.”

When Chryse laid the deck on the table, the veiled form shifted forward. She placed her dark hands on either side of the deck and contemplated it for a long moment. Sanjay shifted in his chair.

“The deck is incomplete,” said Madame Sosostris abruptly into the silence.

“It wasn’t when we got it,” said Chryse. “There were fifty-two cards. But only fifty-one after we—” She faltered. “After we found ourselves here.”

The veiled head lifted as if to study them. “I am relieved to hear that it was complete when you received it.” There was a quality to her comment, a dry irony as if at a joke they had missed. She laid one hand on the deck and with a deft and practiced movement spread the cards out over the table. “I must cast you first. Please shut your eyes and pick three cards each.”

Sanjay looked at Chryse and shrugged, shutting his eyes and leaning forward. She did the same.

“Excellent,” said Madame Sosostris, though no noticeable change of expression sounded in her tone. She swept the remaining cards into three piles. “Now, Mr. Mukerji.” She extended a hand. “Your cards, please.”

Without a word, he handed them to her.

“I cast the Hinge—your basic nature, between the forces pulling you downwards and the forces pulling you up.”

With a deliberate, precise turn of her wrist, she laid the first card. “Ah, of course.” There was, for the first time, expression in her tone: pleased amusement. “The Paladin. You possess purity of soul. This quality gives you the privilege of pure sight and the burden of interpreting it correctly.”

She placed the second card. It showed a scene, a cluster of huts. “You are pulled back by the Village, by conservatism, by others urging you to traditional courses, from goals that have been followed for many generations by your family. This stifles you, and yet you find it difficult to break away from it.”

Chryse smiled slightly, but Sanjay’s face remained focussed and impassive.

“Last.” Madame Sosostris placed the third card. An armed woman advancing, sword out. “The Angel of War. The strongest of the fire elementals, the wheel of the magi. This card pulls you upwards. You desire not strife, but a goal that will consume you entirely, that burns from within.” She paused, and then as if with hesitation, turned the card over. A silver dragon, twined and in profile, wings open. “You desire dragons,” she said. “For just as they embody the purest of magic, they embody the purest of desire.”

There was silence again, disturbed only by the sound of their breathing, and a faint rustling from one of the corners.

“Madame Lissagaray.”

Chryse handed the woman the three cards that she held.

“First.” Madame Sosostris placed the card on top of the Paladin. “Ah. The Seeker. She searches for an answer, an understanding, a grasp of that calling to which she has dedicated herself. Although it has so for remained elusive, she feels that it is almost within her reach and will be if she continues the quest. Her nature is solitary, and she is burdened by a restlessness that can cause her to leave behind all that is familiar and loved.”

She placed the second card. A man lay, like a discarded toy, half-frozen and limp on a field of ice. “The Wanderer. A second card from the north. This reveals the danger of lost purpose, of wandering aimlessly, of stagnation and indecision in the pursuit of one’s goal. This fear pulls you down, endangers your ability to continue your search.”

Chryse had clasped her hands on her lap. Sanjay was frowning, but in concentration, not disapproval.

“Last.” Madame Sosostris placed the third card. “Yes. The Castle. Ringed by a moat. Impregnable, except by knowledge, in its seat on a high hill. Here one can find the synthesis of what is known and what has yet to be known. Here is the source.” She turned the card over. The reverse side showed a peaceful dell, at the center of which bubbled a spring. “You see,” she said. “The double-sided deck speaks both languages: the molded, the hand-formed, the controlled magic of humans, and the clarity of the natural forces, uncontrollable but purer. It is the melding of such a deck as this that produced the power to bring you here.”

“Then you can help us get back?” asked Chryse.

“Is that, at this moment, the greatest wish of your heart?”

Chryse frowned and met Sanjay’s eyes. She knew, with the instinct that comes from long intimacy, that he felt the same reluctance she did at having to leave this adventure—perhaps, now, as abruptly as they had come.

“But our families—” began Sanjay.

“The worries of your families, however deep and sincere, I can do nothing about,” said Madame Sosostris smoothly, “and neither, while you are here, can you. There is no profit in
that
sort of speculation. In any case, with an incomplete deck, I cannot help you.”

“Do you mean there’s nothing you can do?” Chryse reached out to grasp Sanjay’s hand.

Madame Sosostris lifted one hand imperatively. “I did not say there is nothing I can do. However, you must bring me a thing I cannot get for myself. With it, I can help you.”

“What is that?” Sanjay’s hand tightened on Chryse’s.

Madame Sosostris’s head lifted beneath the veil in such a way that one might imagine she was smiling. “Bring me the treasure of the Queen of the Underworld,” she said. “The treasure sealed beyond the labyrinth gate.”

“Impossible,” said Sanjay.

Chryse gasped.

“Impossible?” said Madame Sosostris. “Why is that?”

“For one thing, there isn’t a treasure.”

“How do you know?”

“Professor Farr says—”

“Does Professor Farr know everything?”

Sanjay did not reply.

“And what about the—” Chryse stopped abruptly. “Might there not be others,” she began again, “who also want and feel they are entitled to this treasure? If it exists.”

“Bring me the treasure, and I will be able to send you home.”

“How will we even know what it is?” asked Sanjay.

“You, at least, have the gift of sight. That should be enough. But I can also tell you that it will be the one thing in the city of the Queen that will be familiar to you.”

“Then you believe the Pariamne civilization, the lost city of Topo Rhuam, really existed?”

“I know they existed.”

“Then why,” asked Chryse, “don’t you get the treasure for yourself? I thought no one knew where the old city really was.”

“I have many reasons, which I do not choose to disclose,” replied Madame Sosostris. Her voice remained even, untouched by impatience or anger. “If you wish to call it the fee for my services, then do so. The treasure is my fee.”

“And if we do get it,” said Sanjay, “what guarantee do we have not just that you
will
help us, but that you
can?”

“Do you still doubt my power?” she asked, sounding more amused than offended. “That I
will,
you have only my word. But that I can—”

She lifted her hands, crossed them, palms facing towards her body, in front of her throat. For a long moment only the faint rustling in one corner disturbed them. The doors behind opened abruptly, soundless but for a light click, and her seven daughters filed in.

The lamps flared slightly, showing their faces: Ella interested and curious as she went to stand in one corner, Sara with a smile that seemed to say she was enjoying herself as she walked to a second corner; Nora serious and Willa somber as they took up places in the last two corners. The twins, heads bent so their faces remained shadowed, knelt on either side of the table, like twin saints, or sinners, praying. Chasta stood behind her mother: her face had the same rapt clarity of the paintings of the Queen of Heaven that adorned Aunt Laetitia’s sitting room and Chryse’s bedchamber—intent and wholly removed from mundane concerns.

“Chasta.” Madam Sosostris’s voice deepened in resonance. “The Feast of Somorhas.”

The girl reached around her mother, stacked the cards neatly by the center of the table, and laid on top a scene of a wedding feast, bride and groom at the head table, the groom in black, the bride in green.

Chryse tugged on Sanjay’s arm. He flashed her a look, nodded to show that he recognized the card.

“The Gate,” said Madame Sosostris.

From somewhere in the deck Chasta pulled out the Gate and laid it crosswise on the Feast of Somorhas.

“Now,” said Madame Sosostris as Chasta stepped back behind her. “From each of you, I need a symbol of your wedding.”

“Our rings?” asked Sanjay.

The veiled head inclined, approving.

They slipped them off, simple gold bands, and laid them on the table. The twins moved forward and lifted their arms so that their hands rested, palms down, a finger’s breadth above each ring.

The veiled head lowered until the top of the veil was almost touching the hands open at her throat.

No one spoke.

There was, not a humming, but a suggestion of a sustained, single note, like the aural equivalent of a beam of light.

Behind her mother, Chasta stood with eyes closed. Her sisters in the corners were too shadowed to make out more than the dark outlines of their figures. But the twins’ heads lifted slowly—their eyes were open, augmented by a smile on one, by a frown on the other. Their gazes were focussed, but not on anything in the room.

Sanjay’s grip tightened convulsively on Chryse’s hand. She glanced at him, followed his stare.

A blur of darkness shadowed the table, resting like an ominous cloud over the deck of cards.

Then, a picture snapping suddenly into focus, it solidified.

The humming stopped. The twins closed their eyes. Chasta opened hers. Sighs sounded from the corners. Madame Sosostris lifted her head to survey the table.

A plain black top hat sat in the center of the table, covering the cards.

“May I?” asked Sanjay quietly.

A nod.

He rose, retrieving first the two rings, giving Chryse hers, and bent forward to pick up the top hat. As he turned it over, Chryse picked up the cards and tucked them into their brown velvet pouch.

Sanjay smiled. “Best’s Rental Company,” he read from a tiny white label on the inside of the hat. “Albany, California.” Chryse made a slight noise and looked up at him. “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s mine. I wonder what the late charge is going to be.”

Because he remained standing, Chryse stood as well, smoothing out her gown as much to do something with her hands as because it was wrinkled.

“The treasure of the Queen of the Underworld,” said Madame Sosostris.

“For our passage home.” Sanjay extended his hand. The mage rose as well, a majestic figure a little taller than Chryse, and shook first his and then Chryse’s hand, bargain sealed.

Ella, with a smile, showed them out.

“T
HERE.” CHARITY FARR FINISHED
draping a shawl over the shoulders of her silent cousin. “That looks much better, much more fashionable. After all, when one calls on a gentlewoman as notable as Lady Trent, one must look one’s best.” She frowned, sitting back to survey her handiwork. The carriage they rode in, sent by Lord Vole, slowed to a halt at an intersection, lurched, and started forward again.

“I think it’s quite marvellous,” she continued, now tucking a stray wisp of Maretha’s hair back into the loose braided bun that Charity had insisted Maretha wear as befitting an engaged woman, “that Lady Trent should so honor us with her notice. This is the fourth time she has asked us to call. Do you know—” Here she paused. A tiny frown creased her delicate features. “Perhaps Lady Trent would condescend to advise us on your bride clothes. After all, the earl agreed that you might go to any dressmaker in town—surely you may as well go to the most fashionable.”

“And the most expensive?” said Maretha abruptly. “No. Thank you. My church dress will surely be good enough.”

“Maretha! You’ve had that dress for years. Why, this will be a great society wedding. I’m sure most of polite society will be there—”

“To stare,” muttered Maretha.

“And in my case,” added Charity, her expression changing, “much as I hate to—” Her pause spoke eloquently of a reluctance to say what she meant to say next. “The truth is,” she continued in a subdued voice, “that this may be one of the very few chances I have of being noticed, so that I might—” She broke off again. Even in a simple gown, old by several years and dressed up now with ribbons and lace purchased from an inexpensive emporium, she looked charming. “I haven’t your education, Maretha,” she said quietly. “And certainly no fortune at all. After you marry you know I will simply be a burden to your father. My only hope is that I can contract a respectable marriage. Don’t deny me this chance.”

Maretha stared down at her hands. She felt, first, a rush of guilt for not considering Charity’s predicament—Charity, who never complained, did work that gentlefolk hired servants to do, put up with the professor’s odd humors. But following on this as quickly was a swell of annoyance at herself.

Since that day she had accepted the earl’s offer, knowing that she really had no other choice, she had lapsed into a passivity that she could only despise in herself. Only on those handful of occasions when she had faced the earl—the final negotiations; the signing of the betrothal agreement; the awful gathering where the betrothal had been formally announced—had her spirit asserted itself: she refused to let
him
believe that she was so fainthearted. But at home she went about her tasks listlessly. Her own father, she thought bitterly, had not noticed the change—but then, he was so consumed by preparations for the expedition that he could hardly be counted on to notice anything so far outside his immediate concerns.

“Very well,” she said at last, with that rush of energy and confidence that a burst of resolve engenders, “we
will
ask Lady Trent to recommend the most fashionable, and expensive, dressmaker. You and I will get the finest dresses we can order.”

And, she added to herself, spend as much of
his
fortune as is humanly possible before—But farther than this thought she was not willing to go.

“Oh, Maretha!” Charity cried, her gratitude completely unfeigned. “Oh, just imagine. After all,” she nodded, trying now to appear judicious, “he is quite, quite rich. A few dresses won’t make a ripple in his income—not if he can fund Uncle’s expedition without blinking an eye. I helped Monsieur Mukerji copy out some of the lists of provisions—though I haven’t as good a hand as you—they’re even going to hire some of the laborers here in Heffield and take them all the way to the site. Imagine the expense!”