With that, he wedged the toe of his boot in the crack between two fieldstones, and he began to climb.
“Oh good Lord,” Porzia swore. “Be careful!”
“Fortune favors the bold!” he called down to her. Best to sound confident. The strain of clinging to the wall with only his fingertips was already making the muscles in his forearms burn, and a bead of sweat trickled down his spine.
“If you fall and split your skull open, I am not cleaning it up,” Porzia huffed.
Leo had to smile at that. It was just so … so Porzia. An oddly comforting familiarity.
Finally he got his hands over the top edge and—through a combination of pulling and scrabbling that probably did not look especially suave to the watchers below—heaved himself onto the top of the labyrinth wall.
He stood, surveying the domain that stretched away from him in all directions. He’d known the labyrinth must be large, but it was a different matter to see the expanse with his own two eyes. The air was also eerily still. In the real world, if he climbed up on top of a structure there would be a breeze, or at least the feel of warm air convecting off the sun-heated stones. Here, nothing. There wasn’t even a sun—the sky was the swirling bruise-purple of Edgemist, made luminous enough to cast a meager quantity of light down upon the labyrinth. No wonder it seemed like perpetual dusk down below.
Up here, with the world laid out at his feet, he could see that the group’s current position was close to one side—presumably the south side—though the walls blocked them from the gap he guessed had been their original entry point. From the curvature, he could be reasonably sure of where the center was, though both the distance and the shallow angle of his line of sight made it difficult to discern. As he looked out across the vast expanse of curving corridors, he once again felt that slight tremor through the soles of his shoes. And as he watched, a section of wall sank into the ground, disappearing from view.
“We have a problem,” he called down to his companions. “The labyrinth is changing.”
*
Elsa frowned as she, Faraz, and Porzia followed Leo’s directions. Leo walked along the top of the wall, keeping pace with them and occasionally instructing them on which turns to take. His apparent disregard for his own safety only served to irritate her more.
“I still don’t like it,” Elsa muttered to Porzia. “It’s too easy.”
“Perhaps Montaigne didn’t expect to be pursued by an acrobatic Venetian swashbuckler,” Porzia said. “The walls are plenty tall. I certainly wouldn’t have made it up there.” She gestured at her dress, which was admittedly not suitable for wall climbing.
Despite her suspicions, Elsa grudgingly had to admit to herself that Leo’s plan was expediting their progress. From atop the wall, he could pick the shortest route to the center and watch out for changes in the labyrinth. They still had to retrace their steps a few times when the labyrinth grew a new wall to thwart their passage. But Elsa could tell they were getting close by the tighter curvature of the corridors.
“There’s definitely a large space in the center, like a round courtyard,” Leo called from above. “Hold on a minute.”
He sat down on the top of the wall, rolled onto his stomach, then lowered himself off the edge, reaching for footholds in the stone. He scuttled down the wall deft as a mountain goat and rejoined them on the floor of the corridor.
“We’re close. I’ve got the last few turns memorized,” he said, as Faraz handed back the rapier.
They walked in silence for a minute or two, following Leo’s lead. There was something eerie about the absence of sound inside the labyrinth. Veldana was a scribed world, but it had birdsong and wind through the trees, waves rolling over rocks and small animals burrowing in leaf litter. Here, nothing. It was quiet as death.
“Skandar’s nervous,” Faraz observed.
Porzia said, “The tentacle monster isn’t the only one.”
Elsa was watching for the flicker of shadow that would give away another camouflaged pit in the floor. “Just keep your eyes open, everyone.” She half expected Leo to offer a snappy reply, but when she stole a glance at him, he seemed too focused on the path ahead.
They turned right into a corridor so sharply curved that Elsa could only see a few meters in front of them before the inner wall obstructed her view. Leo led them halfway around the circle to a place where the inner wall opened up onto a larger space beyond.
“Hah, this is it!” Leo crowed, but the mirth died on his lips as he stopped dead in his tracks.
Elsa peered around his shoulder, hoping to catch a glimpse of her mother’s book—she imagined it on a stone pedestal, like some sort of religious icon—but instead the round inner courtyard of the labyrinth hosted a sharp-toothed monster. It bore some resemblance to a wolf but was much too large, with a row of spines protruding from its grotesquely arched back, taloned eagle’s feet, and too many eyes, like a spider.
It peeled its lips back, and even the labyrinth’s dim light was enough to glint off those rows and rows of dagger-shaped teeth.
18
I KNOW NOW THAT SHE IS DESTINED TO SURPASS ME, IF SHE HAS NOT DONE SO ALREADY.
—personal notes of Jumi da Veldana, 1891
“Everyone keep quiet and hold still,” Faraz said under his breath. “It’s not sure where we are.”
Elsa wondered how that could be true, since the monster’s head had swung around to face them. But then she noticed its nostrils flaring and its head cocking from one side to the other hesitantly. Montaigne might have spent his time liberally when scribing its slavering maw, but some corners had been cut on the matter of keen senses.
Leo swallowed visibly and muttered, “Unless I’m horribly mistaken, that’s not a prize waiting for us in the center of the labyrinth.”
Very slowly, he began to ease his rapier out of its sheath. The wolf-monster twitched an ear at him halfway through the task, generating a collective gasp from the humans and forcing Leo to freeze in place, but as soon as its attention shifted again, the blade came free with a soft shnick.
Faraz gave a barely noticeable shake of his head. “Don’t. This is a scribed monster—you have a weapon of precision and no promise the vital targets will be in the right places.”
“You give Montaigne too much credit for creativity. It will have a heart and a throat, at least, which is good enough for me. What do you want to do, stand here forever?”
Faraz gave him a warning look, but Leo ignored it. Icy fear threaded through Elsa’s veins as Leo lunged forward, rapier at the ready.
He feinted left and right, testing the beast’s reflexes. It could move fast for its size, but Leo was smaller and more agile. He darted forward and sank the rapier deep into the wolf-monster’s throat. For a second, Elsa believed he’d done the beast in, but then it twisted to the side, wrenching the hilt from Leo’s hand.