The Flame in the Maze (30 page)

He was on his back, panting, his arms flung out. The dark thing sat beside him, casting a strange, reaching shadow in the torchlight. Asterion let go of Chara and walked past her. He hunkered down beside Alphaios and touched him on the shoulder. Then he lifted the thing so that everyone could see it.

It was the head of a bull. It looked nothing like he did, when he changed, but still: it had horns, and fur, and wide, motionless nostrils. He walked over to Theseus and set it in his hands. “Here,” Asterion said. “I hope your father and all of Athens enjoys me.”

He walked back to Chara and took her face in his hands, which were shaking. “I like your face much better,” she said.

“Thank all the gods and fishes,” he said, and kissed her.

On the evening of day fifteen, when Alphaios returned to the wall, he was carrying something. Chara, Asterion and Daedalus were sitting on top of it, facing in; across from them, Ariadne was leaning on it. Phaidra was sitting close to the fire. Chara had been singing: priestesses' chants with every “god” changed to “fish”; children's songs with no words at all. Behind and above them, the sky was washed in Zenobia's white, mark-mad pictures.

Chara's voice trailed off as Alphaios approached. He was walking unusually slowly, as if the thing he was carrying was very heavy. He didn't even glance at his line of stones as he passed it.

“Master Daedalus,” he said, also slowly. As he spoke, Chara recognized what was trailing from his hand. She slipped off the wall. Daedalus didn't—but she saw, in the dark of his eyes, that he'd recognized it, too.

“Things from the wreck have been washing up on shore, since the water started to clear. These were there today.”

Alphaios held Daedalus's wings up to him. The light from the hearth fire flickered along rows of feathers, and the latticework of branches where other feathers used to be. Phaidra rose and went to stand by Daedalus. She looked up at him, then back at the wings. She touched one of the feathers. He made a sound between a hiss and a sob, and slid down beside her.

“All the feathers are so clean,” Phaidra said softly. “Not ashy at all. They look like they're still part of him.”

Daedalus ran his hands haltingly along the branches. Godlight flickered in the seams of his palms and up along his fingers—the ones Sotiria had healed, and the ones he'd made.
He could fix the wings
, Chara thought.
His godmark
wants
him to fix them.

Daedalus pulled the wings from Alphaios's hands and spread them wide. The gaping holes and bald patches were easier to see, this way. He lifted them high above his head and looked sidelong at Phaidra. She stretched up on her toes and laid both her hands where the feathers were thickest. When she eased herself back down again, she smiled at him.

“We'll get new branches for you,” Alphaios said. “Tomorrow, when it's light. If you want.”

Daedalus lowered the wings and walked past him, to the fire. He sat down very close to it, one wing splayed in his lap. He tugged a feather free of the frame and held its tip to the flames. It sizzled and blackened, and he leaned even closer and dropped it.

“No!” Ariadne cried as it curled to nothing. Everyone except Daedalus turned to her; everyone except him watched her wheel and limp into the darkness. Alphaios left a few moments later; Phaidra a few moments after him.

“Come,” Asterion said to Chara, “let's leave him be.”

She couldn't stop thinking of him, as she and Asterion lay watching Zenobia's white pictures bloom and fade. An eagle, a chair, a moth, a goblet—but all she could see was Daedalus, feeding Icarus's feathers into the flames, one by one, until they were gone.

The stone for day sixteen was almost perfectly round and entirely black, except for a tiny patch of crystal that winked in the light.

“It will be tomorrow,” said Theseus. Behind him, the Athenian sailors cheered and clapped each other on the back.

“Tomorrow,” Alphaios said, and grinned. “Asterion, Chara: can you imagine?”

They looked at one another. “No,” Chara said. “I don't think we can.” She glanced up at the wall where Daedalus was huddled, as he had been when they'd first arrived; she willed him to rise and come down to them, but he didn't.

She and Asterion slept through the hottest part of the afternoon, while the others were on the beach. Phaidra's cry woke them.

“Daedalus! Master Daedalus: wait!”

He was nearly at the lemon grove, walking steadily. He didn't turn when Phaidra called again, nor when Chara did.

“I couldn't sleep,” Phaidra said. “I saw him leave the hill and I called to him, but he wouldn't even look at me. His face was very strange—I don't know what he's doing. . . .”

Ariadne narrowed her eyes. “Stupid child,” she said, “he's leaving.” And she set off after him, moving surprisingly quickly with her crutch.

Asterion, Chara and Phaidra followed more slowly. By the time they reached Daedalus and Ariadne, they were standing facing each where the lemon trees dwindled into pasture. Some of the sheep grazing there lifted their heads at the sound of voices; others didn't.

“How dare you?” Ariadne was saying. “How dare you try to leave us all, the day before the ship is set to sail?”

Daedalus arched his tangled brows at her, and turned and took three swift paces away.

“Wait!” Chara called, and she drew close to him as he hesitated. “Master Daedalus,” she said, and he made a strangled sound. He shook his head so violently that his long hair brushed her cheek. He made another sound, and another.

“He's saying ‘Not master,'” Phaidra said. He nodded and raised his hands, waggling them in front of Ariadne's face.

“Yes, yes,” she said, “but you still have a godmark—we all saw evidence of it last night. Even now you have one, though my father tried to take it from you.” He cackled, but she kept talking. “Why are you wandering off into the hills when you should be preparing to return with us to Athens? You
come
from there! Theseus has already said he'll see to it that you're pardoned. So, Master Daedalus: tell me why—if you can get the words out.”

“
Ariadne
,” said Asterion, but Daedalus waved his good hand at her and smiled. He opened his mouth very wide and waggled his stump of a tongue at her. And then he put his false right middle finger between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand, and ripped it off with a crack.

“No!” Chara cried. She lunged toward him but Asterion held her back. Beside them, Phaidra fell to her knees. Ariadne stood very still, her knuckles white on the knobby end of the crutch.

Daedalus ripped the rest of the fingers from his right hand. Silver flared briefly within them as they separated from his flesh, but the light was gone by the time they landed in the grass. He stamped on them until they lay in pieces—little bits of cave stone, dull in the sunlight.

He straightened and brushed at his matted hair. He gazed at his twisted fingers, and plucked at the strange tendrils that clung to them.

“Such drama,” Ariadne said, “when you don't even need that one.”

He slapped her hard across the face with his good hand. She stumbled back and her crutch fell and so did she, with a
thud
and a cry.

Chara stepped past her and touched both of Daedalus's hands. She said, much more quietly than before, “Mas—Daedalus. You don't have to go.”

Daedalus tugged his hands free. He smiled at her—at all of them, even Ariadne—and turned away for the last time. They watched him cross the pasture, weaving among the sheep. They watched him disappear into the shadows between two hills.

Asterion dried Chara's tears with his thumbs. “There's somewhere I have to show you,” she said.

It was almost evening by the time they reached the top of the hill. The island sloped away as it had before, except that this time it was burnished, half-dark, half-bright.

“You can still see the ship,” Chara said.

“Yes.”

She heard the hopelessness in the word. She waited.

“The other day, when I changed . . .” His breath shuddered. “There are things I want, when I change. Things I remember. Now you'll say you know,” he went on, quickly, savagely, as she opened her mouth to say exactly that, “but you don't. You can't—and I'm glad of this, even though it terrifies me to be so alone. But Chara: I so badly want to be as certain as Daedalus was. I so badly want some sort of peace. ”

She waited a bit longer. She watched the darkening sea. At last she saw his shoulders sag, from the corner of her eye, and said, “The other day you asked where you could go.” She paused and licked her lips, which had gone as dry as the rest of her mouth. “Why do you—why do
we
need to go anywhere?”

He looked at her. She bent and drew her lips lightly along his newest scars. “Yes,” he said, when she straightened. “If they'll have us, Freckles—yes.”

“You're
staying
?”

Not even in the labyrinth had Chara heard Theseus sound so alarmed.

“Yes,” she said. “We asked Pelagia and Diokles, late last night, and they spoke to the others, and—”

“And you waited until now to tell me?” Theseus demanded. He began to pace up and down in front of the ship, which was half in the waves now—quick, glittering waves, without a trace of ash.

Asterion cleared his throat. “We weren't sure when to tell you—we wanted to right away, this morning, but everyone was so busy and so excited. So we waited. Until now.” He cleared his throat again.

“And you accept them?” Theseus said, stopping in front of Pelagia. “You accept
him
, despite the power of his godmark?”

She nodded. “We believe that Chara will soothe him, if he changes. And we've never turned anyone away, whether godmarked or not, if they wished to stay.”

Theseus pursed his lips and cast his eyes to the sky, which was an empty, endless blue. “Very well,” he said. “But do any of the rest of you wish to tell me you'll stay, now that we're here and the tide is turning?”

“They'd have to be mad,” Ariadne said. “Now let's
go
.”

“We should, my Prince,” a sailor said, one hand spread on the ship's stern. “We don't have long.”

Theseus nodded and turned to Phaidra. “What of you, Princess? You will not stay too, will you, and tell me only now?”

Phaidra looked at the ship, and what was beyond it. “Will there be many locks to open, in Athens?” she asked.

He gazed at her—speaking, Chara knew, in his other voice. Aloud, he said, “There will be, Princess. I am sure of it.”

Phaidra walked to Asterion and he put his arms around her, and they stood, swaying a little, until she pulled away. Chara took her hand, which felt small and dry. “Be well, Phaidra,” she said. “Please be well, and happy.”

“How?” Phaidra said—but before Chara could try to answer, Phaidra was moving back to the ship and scaling the rope ladder that lay against its side.

Alphaios laughed as he gripped Chara's hands and swung her up off the sand. “May the gods not lose sight of you, on this strange little rock,” he said, after he'd let her go. She squeezed him until she had no breath, herself.

“And may they grant you fame or peace, in Athens,” she said as she drew away. “Whichever you want more.”

Once Alphaios had joined Phaidra on the deck, Theseus climbed. Two sailors followed him, the second panting beneath the weight of Alphaios's bull's head.

“At last it is the Princess of Crete's turn,” Ariadne said. She smiled a wide, satisfied smile at Chara and Asterion. “Expect no farewell words from
me.
”

Chara reached for Asterion's hand. It was shaking—or maybe hers was, too.

Ariadne limped toward the ladder, her head held high, her cane spraying sand. “Yes,” she said, her free arm reaching for the ladder, “at last I—”

The rope bounced against the ship's side as Theseus drew it up. Its lowest rung dangled above her head, which she tipped to stare at him.

“My Prince.” Her voice was louder than the waves. “No games—not now. Let me up.”

When he didn't move, she dropped her cane and reached with both hands—and the ladder bounced farther away from her.

Chara felt cold wash from her belly to her toes. Asterion's nails dug sharply into the back of her hand.

“Theseus.
Let me up
.”

For a moment he gazed down at her, and she up at him. If he spoke, it was with his mind-voice; his other was silent.

“No.” This time Chara could hardly hear Ariadne. She jumped, or tried to: her injured leg gave way and she fell backward, hard.

Phaidra bent her head. Alphaios laughed.

Theseus shouted, “Push!” The sailors who were left on the beach braced their arms on the wood and their feet in the sand. They grunted and yelled, and the ship eased deeper into the waves. They scrambled up the ladder that was dangling low, again, and onto the deck. “Row!” Theseus shouted, and oars dipped, pulled, rose, and dipped once more.

Ariadne crawled in the boat's wake, until the water hid everything but her head and shoulders. Her hair swished like seaweed, in front of her and then behind, as the waves grasped it.

Chara let go of Asterion's hand and waded in after her. When she reached her, the sea came up only to Chara's thighs—but the current hauled and tugged, and she fought to keep her footing.

“The gods will punish him,” Ariadne said, before Chara could speak. The princess's eyes were wide and nearly unblinking, despite the surging water.

Maybe they just want to punish
you, Chara wanted to say. There was so much she wanted to say—years' worth of words clogging her throat—but the only ones that came were, “Princess. Come away.”

Ariadne didn't look at her. “Another ship will come,” she said. A wave crested and broke over her, and she choked and coughed but didn't rise.

“Ariadne,” Diokles said from behind Chara. He passed her, glancing at her with one raised, hopeful brow before he looked again at the princess. “Let me help you up.”

Ariadne shook her head. Tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and neck.

“Fine, then,” he said. “You get up yourself—but I'll walk beside you, at least. Back to the beach.”

She blinked, over and over, and dragged a hand across her face. She rose, dripping, more beautiful than she'd ever been, and turned away from the sea and the ship. Another wave plucked her up and thrust her toward the beach. Diokles grasped her arm, when she righted herself, and she didn't shake it off.

Chara reached the shore before they did. She stood beside Asterion and watched Diokles and Ariadne step out of the water; everyone watched, as they made their way slowly along the sand. Her limp seemed worse, but she didn't take her cane, when he picked it up and held it out to her—and she didn't take his arm, either. She lurched past them all, toward the scattered trees beyond the beach.

Xenon took one long stride after her. “No—don't, Xenon,” Diokles said, and the giant stood still.

“Ariadne!” Diokles called. She limped on. He made a wordless sound and followed her.

“Pelagia,” Asterion said, and she looked at him with one brow raised, just as Diokles had looked at Chara. “It was wrong of Theseus not to tell you of his plan—wrong that he didn't ask for your permission.”

She smiled, just a little. “Ah, but he did.”

“So you . . .” Chara began, and stopped. She took a deep breath. “So you don't mind her?”