Chapter 14 #3
“It does exist,” Daire said, chiming in.
“Conversing with the dead is not so uncommon, in your world or ours. People of all different magics can do it, with the right focus and environment. True necromancers, like Jesstin, are rare, but there are presently four others in the White Kingdom whom Ryquin is aware of.”
“Why is Ryquin tracking these... necromancers in the kingdom?”
Sesto hid a proud grin. She was asking the right questions, just at the wrong time. “Perhaps you can set her mind at ease by explaining what you explained to me, Daire?”
“Yes,” Elloven said forcefully. “Quickly.”
“The labyrinth is a place where the barrier between life and death is thin. It’s warded from the inside and the outside, to protect the dead and the living.
Jesstin’s objective is to find the exit, but to do so, he must use his wits to persuade the dead to help him rather than driving him further into the maze, to madness or death.
The dead are tricksters, at least the ones who rise up to taunt our challengers.
Some of them challenged the labyrinth themselves and died doing so.
Most necromancers cannot use their ability to their advantage in there, because they require focus, but the dead can appeal to Jesstin any time they want to. Isn’t that right, Sesto?”
Sesto nodded, though that last part had been a new revelation for both him and Jesstin.
“What’s the point?” Elloven’s fisted hands punched downward as she spoke. “Why do this at all? What do the dead want? How have the past winners gotten past their tricks?”
“We don’t know how they won. The challengers are bound to secrecy.
Most don’t live to tell even if they could,” Daire answered.
“All we know is there has never been a necromancer like him to enter the maze, and if he fails, if he falls...” The man frowned to himself. “Then Ryquin was wrong about him.”
“What? What did Ryquin say about Jesstin?” Her question was swallowed by the pronouncement echoing through the valley.
The challenge had begun.
Jesstin’s sister had always liked to throw around the word “regret.” If Jesstin didn’t eat his greens, he’d regret it later when he got sick.
If he didn’t spend time with the people he loved, he’d regret it when they were gone.
If he didn’t apply at the universities, he’d regret never knowing whether he could have gotten in.
Regret, regret, regret. He’d respond, Well, if I’m just going to regret everything anyway, might as well do nothing at all, eh?
Jesstin could see it now, clear as if Rhiain were standing in front of him. The furrow between her eyes, initially flush with hope—maybe he’ll hear me this time—gradually dulling with resignation. Not quite disappointment. She loved him too much for that, more than he deserved probably.
He’d regretted none of those things, but he was close to regretting his impulsiveness in volunteering for a death sentence.
The backs of his thighs stung from the rigid harness they’d strapped him into before lifting him above the labyrinth using a pulley. They’d dangled him high above the crowd and lowered him into an open area at the center of the elaborate maze.
There was nothing but a bench in the neutral space, which is what they’d called it when explaining things, though it hadn’t been an explanation at all.
You will have a few minutes to gather your wits before the ward thins and the dead are free to enter.
There’s no time limit to the challenge. You go until you die or escape, which may be minutes, hours, or days.
A man can only go without water for three days, four if he manages his faculties.
As for what he was supposed to do: convince the dead you’re better for them alive than dead.
Oh, is that all? He massaged his sore muscles.
Pain didn’t distract him though, never had.
He was stalling. Contemplating. Regretting.
Ryquin had winked and grinned at Jesstin as he’d walked past the tent before disappearing into one of the garden arches.
If anyone had the power to stop Jesstin, it was a member of the pretor’s family, and Ryquin hadn’t even looked concerned.
Jesstin had miscalculated somewhere along the way, because Ryquin either expected him to survive or all the rough wooing had been a ploy to get him to neuter his defenses and end up exactly where he was.
Jesstin could dwell on it, or he could do something about it.
He wished he’d slowed long enough to share his learnings and warnings with Sesto.
“If not, he’ll just hunt me down like you did, Gen. Right?”
But Gennady couldn’t enter where Jesstin was. No one had told him that, but hearing the dead who were in the Infinitum was different from talking to Gennady, and in the maze, he was as close to the supposed netherworld as a person could get until it was their time to join them.
Red-and-blue light exploded in the sky. Jesstin hopped to his feet. He rolled his neck with a satisfying crackle. They’d said when the fire show started, he could count no higher than sixty before the dead broke the barrier, but he didn’t intend to wait even that long.
Tall hedges he couldn’t climb even if they weren’t warded surrounded him on all sides. They were sheared even and straight, thick and tight. The attendants had said something about malicious vines, but those were probably deeper in, somewhere between the disappearing paths and the quicksand.
His only exit from the center was an archway carved into the greenery. Once through, he’d be battered by the demands of the deceased, just as he had been before Ryquin helped him shut it off. But that trick wouldn’t work in the maze; no one had to tell him that either.
Jesstin started forward, but the air in front of him folded in a ripple of waves. He stepped back, but the distortion evened out and became a moving image. He saw a row of gardens, the same gardens he’d walked past when he’d signed up for the challenge, outside of the maze.
He took a step closer for a better view.
There were tons of people scattered on blankets between thickets of vibrant florals.
It was Sesto’s bald head he spotted first, but Elloven was impossible to miss.
She was wedged between Sesto and Ryquin’s consort, her head bowed.
Sesto ran a hand across her back, sharing a hopeless glance over the top of her with Daire.
Jesstin snorted. Oh, she’d finally met a foe she couldn’t save him from? “Hey, you unimaginative shit heaps, if you’re trying to get into my head, you’re already losing.”
The vision winked away. In the entrance stood a man as clear and corporeal as himself, with long golden hair and broad shoulders.
The second set of explosions lit the sky.
But the specter only watched.
“They’ve really left you without even a shirt on your back, haven’t they,” the man said with a soft, sad sigh. “And now you’re here, thinking we’re your enemies, when the only tricks have come from them.”
He wanted Jesstin to let his guard down? Speak kindly and pretend they were friends?
What would happen if he just rushed the spirit? Would he barrel through or crash into him like a wall? Gennady had never been solid, but he wasn’t the same kind of spirit.
“We have form in the Infinitum,” the man said. “Almost as real as yours.”
So the ghost was reading his mind.
“Something is missing though.” The ethereal man’s head tilted. “Something is missing for certain. What could it be?”
“Good sense?”
The specter tapped his head. His jaw opened in an unnaturally protracted scream that sent Jesstin’s hands to his ears out of pure instinct. But there was no sound, and in the absence of it, he understood.
He should be in the midst of an all-out assault, but his mind was quiet and free.
The specter smiled. “We need you clearheaded, Jesstin. We’ve waited a very long time for someone like you.”
Jesstin laughed. “You’re a bit late. Someone else already used that line on me.”
“We know,” the man said. “They’re the reason you’re here.”
“You’re working with them. Of course you are.” He shook his head. He’d walked into a trap, all right, and was about to find out what kind.
“No,” the man said. “They want dominion. We seek freedom. We know it won’t come free, so we have something for you as well.”
While you should never trust a gift from an adversary, Asterin had said, but you accept it and let them believe in your gratitude.
There was nothing in the maze Jesstin could trust. Nothing in Rivenholde. Maybe not even himself.
But there was only one way out, and that was through.
“We have so much to tell you, and if you listen, we may show you the exit. If you don’t, then the crowd will enjoy themselves.
Come, come, Jesstin.” The specter beckoned him like a treasured houseguest. His smile didn’t droop a bit when he said, “You’ll enjoy this so much more if you do so of your own volition. ”