David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

She didn't take the time to glance down the left-hand branching, but there were scattered bones along the portion of the path she was walking. Some were human, but another cleaned skull lying against the boxwoods showed horn cores over the eyesockets.

When Ilna reached the next branching, she looked back. The men were with her, Chalcus leading Davus, both of them still-faced and precisely in the center of the path. Chalcus threw her a smile, real enough she supposed, but the fact his right hand hovered over the hilt of his incurved sword showed that he was more tense than when she'd seen him in bloody combat.

But of course in combat, Chalcus had a task which he knew perfectly how to accomplish. Here his duty was to follow and keep out of the way. He'd do that as he'd do whatever his duty was, but for some people it's harder to watch than to act.

Ilna grinned. As she herself knew well.

"We're getting close," she said as she continued on. Her companions had remained silent ever since they entered the maze, but they must be wondering even though they had the wit and courage not to chance distracting her with questions.

Ilna was judging their location by the pattern instead of any fancied judgment of how far they must have come along the path's windings. Distance had its own laws among these boxwoods, different from those it followed in the world outside; but patterns were fixed in the fabric of the cosmos.

The path kinked to the right. Instead of following it, Ilna paused, frowning because she knew that couldn't be correct; and as she hesitated, she saw the gap between boxwoods straight ahead where she'd have sworn their branches interwove.

She stepped forward but looked to the right, toward the path she hadn't taken. That was a mistake, almost a fatal one: she shouted and stumbled to her knees.

"Dear heart?" Chalcus said, his left arm about her shoulders and his right flicking his swordpoint in tight arcs before her.

"Don't look to the side!" Ilna said. Her eyes were closed. She set her knuckles against the ground, grinding them hard enough that pain blurred the memory of what she'd seen. After some moments, she opened her eyes again and rose. Chalcus hovered behind her like a protective spirit.

Neither of the men spoke. Looking ahead rather than back at them, Ilna said, "There's what I suppose is a mirror down that aisle. It shows you the mistakes you've made in life, all of them; and it shows you what might have been if you hadn't made the mistakes. I think it would disturb a saint, and I haven't lived a saint's life."

She took a deep breath and added, "I've woven patterns to do that same thing. The people I've shown them to haven't recovered. I must not have gotten a clear look, or…"

"Are you able to go on, dear one?" Chalcus said softly.

Ilna gave a harsh laugh. "Of course," she said. "Until I die."

She strode forward. A very clever man, Chalcus; and a very understanding one. He knew that the last thing she needed was to stand, thinking about what might have been.

There were no more branchings. Ilna walked between the boxwoods, feeling the path spring comfortably beneath her feet. The aisles were too shaded to support grass, but moss carpeted the moist soil.

The path ended in a small clearing. In it stood a low stone house with a slate roof and a walled garden in back. In front was a door of reddish wood framed by casement windows with panes of frosty isinglass. At the left side, a thin trail of smoke rose from the chimney of flint nodules set in brilliantly white lime mortar.

Chalcus stepped in front of Ilna. "My turn to lead," he said, walking forward with an easy roll to his step. He slanted his sword across his chest where it was instantly ready to slash or parry but less obviously threatening than if he'd pointed it out in front of him.

Ilna glanced back at Davus; he smiled tightly and nodded her on ahead of him. He held a rock in either hand. These were larger chunks, each the size of a clenched fist, rather than the pebbles he'd used to bring down small game.

Ilna nodded back and followed Chalcus at a safe distance, just farther than his arm and curved sword would reach in a wide sweep. Her fingers were plaiting a pattern, keeping it doubled over between her palms so there was no danger if Chalcus looked over his shoulder at her.

She couldn't see movement through the windowpanes, and the only sound was the whisper of her feet and the sailor's against flagstones; Davus didn't make even that much noise. The latch-chain of bronze links hanging from the notch at the top of the door was verdigrised except for the flat plate on the end where use had worn the metal to a natural golden sheen.

Chalcus gripped the chain in his left hand, then glanced back to be sure his companions were ready. Davus gripped the vertical pull, also bronze, with two fingers of his left hand. He still held a stone with his thumb and the other two fingers. He and Chalcus moved in perfect sequence, one lifting the latch and the other hauling the massive door open.

Chalcus was inside as soon as the door swung enough to pass his body by a finger's breadth. Ilna followed, the pattern cupped in her hands against need.

The interior of the house was a single room, lighted by windows on three sides. Several layers of carpets covered the floor, their patterns subtly pleasing through the soles of Ilna's feet. A small cauldron hissed on a hearth crane over a charcoal fire.

A man with a goatee sat on a chalcedony throne in the center of the room, facing the front door. Curving designs were worked in silver thread on his purple velvet robe. Ilna sniffed to note that the embroiderer had been much more skillful than whoever'd woven the fabric to begin with. In the back wall was another door, less ornate, to serve the back garden.

The man's right hand rested on the arm of the throne, holding a gold-mounted goblet of etched glass. It was empty except for russet dregs. His eyes were unfocused and his mouth lay slackly open.

Davus stepped in behind Ilna and pulled the door closed to cover their backs. When the heavy panel thudded against the jamb the man woke up, staring in fury at the three of them.

"Your pardon, good sir-" Chalcus began.

The man dropped his goblet and jumped to his feet. Standing, he was no taller than Ilna and noticeably pudgy despite his loose robe. He drew an athame of dense black rootwood from beneath his sash. He probably meant to point it at the intruders, but Chalcus moved more quickly and flicked the athame out of the wizard's hand with the back of his sword.

The blade wavered back like a curving beam of light. Its point paused a hand's-breadth from the wizard's nose. He made a strangled sound and jerked away, only to trip over the goblet and fall beside the throne.

"As I was saying, good sir," Chalcus said. This time his voice was the deep, rasping purr of a big cat. "We're visitors in need of food and shelter, and though we beg your pardon-youwill provide what we need."

He smiled down the length of his extended arm. The swordpoint was still centered on the wizard's nose.

Ronn sloped to the east in steps like those of a giant staircase. The exercise field was on the lowest level. Cashel looked over the parapet. The nearest ground was forest, covered with trees tall enough to overhang the edge of the field.

Cashel hadn't ever looked at the top of trees so big; or the tops of any trees, really, except after he'd cut them down. Seeing them this way was a pretty sight, no mistake.

Kinked and knotted vines grew everywhere, between the trees and from the crowns to the dirt. The branches were narrow meadows covered with mosses, plants that looked like cups or whose leaves were turned up to catch the rain, and bright, dangling flowers. Birds of even more colors than the flowers hopped and fluttered among the foliage, and equally gorgeous butterflies caught the sun like drifting jewels.