Heart Journey (45 page)

The last sarcastic bite to his tone brought her dull mind back to the present. Good thing she was riding and had a Fam, though the gliderway was well tended. No more damn gliders for her. Good.

“To the Great Labyrinth,” she croaked. Maybe she should stick with telepathy, her throat hurt, and her voice was bad.

Why?
Shunuk asked.

It was a few septhours ride for a summer’s night. With each step of her stridebeast, Del seemed to sink into herself, find herself. Her new self.

She’d have to return to Druida, if only to settle her house and accounts so she could be gone a long time away, finish the holo painting with Doolee.

Straif had been right. Good to have a painting of them at this time in their lives, when they’d found each other, before Doolee became more Blackthorn than Elecampane and Del became . . . whatever. Not fossilized and a caricature of a frontier woman. She’d escaped that fate.

Occasionally a glider passed her. Every time she flinched. Not good.

Shunuk coursed along the trail or rode on his pad. He had reverted more to the wild, feral fox on the trail than the sleek, city-dwelling Fam. He didn’t intrude on her thoughts.

At dawn, Del rode to the rim of the huge crater of the Great Labyrinth before going on to the inn. Good thing about stridebeasts, they could take small trails between uneven brush and ground instead of needing wide packed earth. And they could whiffle with concern for their rider, turn their heads back and stare at her with big, loving eyes.

Del slid down from the stridebeast’s back, set her face in her mount’s side. He wasn’t as intelligent as a horse, but not as delicate, either. Stridebeasts might never become Fams as she’d heard horses might become, but Del was glad to have the simple warmth and limited caring of the beast in her life.

Shunuk yipped.
What are we doing here? The inn is around the rim another kilometer or so.

Swallowing and clearing her throat, Del took a softleaf from her pocket and rubbed her face. No tears. She thought tears would be a relief, but all the wild hurt was dammed up inside her, couldn’t get out. Not safe to let it out on the trail.

Shunuk tilted his head.
You hurt, should let water come from your eyes.

“Sometime soon.” She inhaled the warm and city-odor-free air, let it settle in her lungs like a blessing and release, set her mind in the now.

Another good, deep breath and she focused only on the huge bowl beneath her. It was three kilometers in diameter, with a wide floor and walls angling up six hundred and fifty meters. A quarter of the rim had collapsed. Inside the bowl was lush and mostly trained vegetation. The path of the labyrinth was clear and well defined, as many feet had made it over the centuries.

Between the labyrinth loops were shrines that more and more noble Families were establishing. The FirstFamilies had started the tradition centuries ago. T’Ash had the huge World Tree in the center, T’Vine an arbor and bottles of wine, T’Hawthorn hedgerows around a small glade, sweet smelling in the spring. Mapping this place would be easy, the wending path was already ingrained in her mind. Noting the Family spaces would be interesting—the benches and altars, the mosaics and fountains . . .

Making a model would be challenging.

When her throat tightened she put that thought aside, too. Let someone else make a model. She’d map the place, leave papyrus and three-dimensional holo at the inn, take one to the Guildhall in Druida City, maybe give one to Mitchella D’Blackthorn for the FirstFamilies, then leave Druida for a long time.

Even before all the talk of the lost starship of
Lugh’s Spear
, Del had been interested in crossing the Bluegrass Plains, checking out Fish Story Lake again, refining those maps. Now she had the Flair for it, she could make topographical holos.

Shunuk sniffed.
Walking back and forth on that path is boring.

No doubt the meditation of the Great Labyrinth would work on her and she’d be ready for the next stage of her life. “For you, maybe. But you don’t have to walk the path. I’d like you to do something different. You know that Families are making spaces to show off their characteristics and their work, shrines for whoever comes or if no one comes, for the Lady and Lord.” She slanted a look at her Fam. “There’s food sometimes. I don’t think anyone knows exactly how many shrines there are or which Families are represented. The Great Labyrinth just came back in fashion a few years ago. So you should help me double-check.”

He hummed in his throat, slid a glance toward her. “Have the Cherrys made a spot?”

Yeah, there came the stabbing pain. “Maybe.”

Shunuk turned his pointy nose toward a dark green shadow halfway up the crater.
I will find it.
He looked back at her with glittering eyes.
We should not have left Druida City.

The very thought of staying there, living there, made her gorge rise. She widened her stance, gritted her teeth, stared down at her Fam and said more words that might rip another loved one from her life. “I can’t live in Druida City, any city. There are too many people, too many shields, too many expectations. I can do many things, but that’s not one of them. I have spent too much time in the wild. I would be like a caged bird, dull and unhappy. I would fade away, not be the person I am.” She lifted her chin. “At least I know this weakness. If you want to live in the city, go. I’m sure our Fam bonds will thin and then vanish.” Pain engulfed her; she hung on to her stridebeast’s mane.

Shunuk fell to his belly, put his paws over his muzzle.
I am sorry I made you hurt more. I would have liked the city, but that is not for us. I will stay with you.

She couldn’t speak aloud.
Thank you.
She stroked her stridebeast’s soft lips; for a moment she’d thought she’d be ripped into more pieces. Too many pieces lost and she wouldn’t ever get herself back.

Lifting his paws from over his nose Shunuk stood and shook himself, glanced at her, and said,
HeartMates are forever.
Then he stared at the Great Labyrinth and trotted along the trail around the rim.

HeartMates were forever, but she would never ask Raz to bond with her again.

 

 

T
he couple who ran the inn made her welcome. It wasn’t a big place,
only five or six rooms and two suites. Del took the most expensive suite. It was fussy and feminine and that was so different than the places she’d been staying that it was good.

She’d become accustomed to spending a lot of money lately, refurbishing the resort spa and house and planning a theater in Verde Valley. Before that, attending expensive city amusements, buying city clothes. At least that part was over. Her leathers had never felt so comfortable.

She wasn’t the only guest, but she took a tray in her suite instead of joining the rest for meals that day. The owners of the inn were cheerful and comforting, nearly pampering, and she thought they understood she’d had a bad shock.

She didn’t sleep much the first night, just lay in the bed and existed, drifting in and out of sleep, still empty, still dry, still burning inside.

Shunuk spent the night exploring.

The next day she dressed and rode to the labyrinth, left her stridebeast in a nearby meadow to graze while she walked to the rim of the huge crater. The crater had been made by the impact of a satellite sent by
Nuada’s Sword
to examine Celta to see if it was a good planet to colonize. Even that bit of history hurt, since it was something she’d been reminded of by the play
Heart and Sword
. She thought of Rosemary’s delight, of holding hands with Raz, of the wonder of the production that had taken her from her theater seat into space and centuries past. Her throat closed, but tears didn’t come.

She didn’t go to the center and the great ash tree, but stepped off the path to visit various noble offerings. Several yards off one of the wider rings, she wound through trellises to see a deep pond. The plaque showed one of the FirstFamily’s names, the Seas, mind healers. Del studied the water and knew it would be full of soothing herbs. Good.

 

 

D
el was gone from Druida. He only needed to step outside to sense
her absence. There was only one D’Elecampane that smelled of wild herbs brought on the summer breeze, that left a trace of unique mapmaking Flair in the atmosphere.

He wondered if that’s how Straif T’Blackthorn tracked, and misplaced jealousy bit him hard. No, not jealousy, the damn panic-fear that she was gone and Raz was a fool. Fear and foolishness that he couldn’t prevent.

It shamed him to think that he had chosen his life and career over his HeartMate, but when he was on stage and that applause came at him, when he
acted
, he was giving the best of himself.

Good riddance.
With a smug smile, Rosemary curled up on his dressing room sofa. The wall above it was empty, he hadn’t been able to bear looking at the tapestry, had translocated it to storage in T’Cherry Residence.

Raz had Family and theater people and friends and Fam, and was deeply and disturbingly lonely like he’d never been in all his life. If he kept still he thought the edge of a dark doom would overtake him. So he wasn’t ever alone, slept at one of the rooms at the Thespian Club. He concentrated only on his work and the diaries and his Fam.

Lonely. He had never known the true feeling of the word before, though he had acted it.

Loneliness was awful.

 

 

F
or a couple of days Del wandered the labyrinth, noting the Family
shrines, recording them on a sphere.

Shouldn’t some artist instead of a mapmaker be doing this? Like T’Apple? Then she thought of the man, knew he’d change the composition of the shrines to what he believed would be more visually pleasing. He probably wouldn’t get the measurements right, either. Wouldn’t care about that.

She did. It was the main focus of her days. She still waited for her emotions to break loose, for the relief of tears that didn’t come. Knew she couldn’t go on with her life until that happened. Stupid female thing. But she was a woman, one who had
grown
. Better to have too many emotions than none.

She didn’t feel good enough to walk the meditation path. Once she did that, she’d be facing her deepest aches—the loss of her HeartMate—and she’d have to give up the past and set her feet on the trail of her future. She figured the tears would come then, and if she was walking the labyrinth, everyone she met would know her pain, see her vulnerability. Maybe pity her.

Her pride wasn’t ready for that, either.

She was civil to the people she met in the inn, most of whom had only come in for a day and stayed overnight. Now and then, from excited comments they’d made during meals, she understood that in her rambles she’d missed a FirstFamily lord or lady.

Then she realized that rumor of her project had reached Druida and some of the Families were sprucing up their shrines for her. Which meant another circuit around to make sure she had new holos, the correct dimensions—and some of them had extended their space, dammit.

One day she saw a teenaged boy uncrating bottles of wine with great care and putting them in a rack and a no-time in the T’Vine arbor. Restocking his offering.

She stopped. Vinni T’Vine, the great prophet of Celta. One who was known to lay out your future to you . . . or reveal a glimpse or two . . . or make cryptic comments.

But it was the middle of the morning and she recognized the wrapper around some cheese and the label on the bottle of blackberry wine and got the first hunger pangs in days. Ignoring her rumbling stomach, she walked up to his shrine and bowed to him. “Merry meet, T’Vine.”

M
errily met, D’Elecampane.” Approval beamed from the teen’s eyes.
He set the cheese on a sturdy marble-topped no-time and sliced the cheddar, put it on crackers and those on plates, poured a glass of wine for himself and a quarter of one for her.

He glanced at the spheres in her hand, the roll of papyrus under her arm. “May I see your work?”

“Since you’re feeding me, sure.” As soon as he cleaned off a glass-topped table she unrolled the papyrus, tapped it with a finger to lay flat, and with a sweep of her hand, let the thing form into three dimensions.

The young man stood looking into the large bowl of the crater and the Great Labyrinth and Del took one of the floral-patterned white wicker chairs. Didn’t seem at all like T’Vine.

“The women of my Family insisted,” the youth said absently and Del’s mouth went dry as she recognized he’d heard her thoughts. A very powerful GreatLord indeed.

T’Vine laughed and turned to her. “You think I’m mind reading.” He gestured to a mirrorlike sculpture of the sun hanging from one of the arbor lattices, twisting gently in the breeze. “Your expression at the furniture gave you away.”