Labyrinth Room

By Mareth Griffith

Deserting his regiment in the aftermath of an injury, Torrent is just trying to get home to his fiancée without being robbed or arrested. Reporting the illegal saltpeter mine he finds on his return might be valuable enough for the army to overlook his truancy, perhaps even grant him a pension. If he's willing to betray Molly to make that report.

 

For Molly, chemistry has always been more useful than magic, especially now that supplying the opposing side with gunpowder is the only thing keeping her from being ousted from her own farm. After two years apart, Molly knows it's foolish to trust Torrent with either the mine or her heart. Unfortunately, Torrent's not the only one interested in Coriander Hollow.

 

 Between Torrent's desertion and her own illegal mine, Molly has to decide whose secrets she's willing to protect and how far she's willing to go to protect them. And Molly hadn't counted on Coriander Hollow having secrets of its own...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wizard Cabin Books
• Release date: Oct 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735650531

Book preview

Chapter 1

He should have taken a tent, never mind compounding desertion with theft. The hemlock’s shadows were lengthening like fingers across the road, and each additional inch made it more likely that Torrent would be spending the night huddled under a tree.

Torrent dipped his head, peering through the branches. The path leading off the road was little more than a faint indentation in the moss, identical to two previous spurs that had petered into game trails or disappeared into impenetrable catawbas. Against the autumn yellows of the bracken ferns, a light flickered, muted as if by glass and framed by the edges of a window. Finally. If a fire was burning, it probably meant Danny was still there, even though Torrent was late.

Torrent stepped off the road, glancing hurriedly at his right sleeve to ensure the pleats were still bending naturally at the elbow. They weren’t. Biting his lip, he ran his hand over the sleeve, trying to smooth the padding back into place as he ducked under the lowest boughs of the hemlocks.

A low building unfurled itself from the surrounding trees, dilapidated and overlooked. Firelight shone from a broken stained-glass window glowing dimly under a patina of dirt and enclosing branches, the glass depicting a white-clad man holding a toothsome serpent. Torrent tried to ignore the way the reptilian eyes stared at him. In the Commonwealth proper, baldwinns like that serpent were usually depicted being ground into the dirt beneath someone’s boots.

The tailor stepped closer to the window, but the glass was dim enough to block any view inside. If this was the right place, Torrent was expected. As a customer, not a potential mark, though this close to the Annex the two were possibly more interchangeable than he might like.

Torrent hesitated at the door, his hand raised to knock, and startled as the door swung open with a muffled shriek. He went for his service rifle before remembering he didn’t have one, and probably couldn’t manage to fire it even if he did.

A man slouched against the door frame, staring at Torrent with a gap-toothed grimace that might have been a smile.

I was told to ask for Danny, Torrent announced, projecting a borrowed confidence. Back at the military hospital, Torrent had heard plenty of rumors of what sort of folk roamed the borderland between the Commonwealth proper and the Annex—deserters, murderers, robbers, spies—criminals of every stripe. The fact that Torrent could count himself in at least one of those categories didn’t make him any more eager to run afoul of any of the others.

The man nodded, crossing his arms over his waistcoat. A journeyman-like repair was sewn in at the elbow and another at the collar, which Torrent approved of, and the linen was covered with a greasy patina of smoke and dirt, which the tailor found considerably less appealing.

You’re late, Danny said, sounding annoyed but not unfriendly. His accent was pure Commonwealth, not so different from Torrent’s, his voice lingering over the vowels rather than the growling and staccato yer that was common in the Annex.

I came as quickly as I could, Torrent replied, trying to make it sound like a statement rather than an apology.

The fellow only nodded curtly and stood back from the door, motioning Torrent inside. Ducking his head under the lintel, Torrent walked into a dim room, the colored glass letting in a dreary, halfhearted sort of light.

Before him was a flagstone entryway, with a small fire and a cook pot tucked into a corner beneath a small hole in the ceiling. The remnants of an old labyrinth covered most of the remaining space in the room. The undulating loops and channels in the stone floor were pitted and worn, but it was impossible to mistake the design for anything else. It explained the baldwinn’s place of pride in the glasswork if the Evangelist chapel had been built overtop an earlier Coriander structure.

Fresh gouges marred the design opposite the campfire, as though someone had been chipping away at the pattern. An unruly regiment, was Torrent’s first uneasy thought, the road being close enough to the border to have seen skirmishes. Only the most undisciplined of companies tolerated vandalism. Torrent had learned to avoid fraternizing with such outfits; their violence did not always stop at destruction of property.

You a Terror Man? Danny asked abruptly, squatting next to the fire as he picked up a wilted handful of miner’s lettuce.

Torrent stiffened, smoothing out a tiny wrinkle on his right coat sleeve. No, if it matters. And if it doesn’t matter, the answer’s still no.

Danny shrugged, picked up a cleaver, and began swatting at a handful of wrinkled potatoes splayed out on a makeshift cutting board.

Not wearing the Crimson, he said, gesturing at Torrent with the cleaver before taking another swipe at the potatoes. Deserter?

The heat from the fire became stifling all at once.

Perhaps I’m on furlough, Torrent said carefully, schooling his face into a look of mild annoyance. The barkeep in Buria would hardly have recommended Danny as a guide if the smuggler made a habit of turning in his own clients. Besides, bolting out of the chapel now wouldn’t bring him any closer to getting back home to Snow River. Or avoiding the surveillance zeppelins both sides sent drifting over the border at whatever altitudes would keep them out of range of the other side’s long guns.

Perhaps, said Danny, punctuating the gesture with another solid thwack at the cutting board.

To hell with it. He’d have to take his coat off at some point, if he was going to be traveling any distance with the fellow. Torrent quickly undid the buttons at his throat, shrugged his right shoulder out of the sleeve, and let the whole damp bulk slide limply down his left arm.

The coat was thick enough he’d been able to pad the right arm and sew the right-hand sleeve into its respective pocket. It wasn’t as easy to conceal in a lighter-weight shirt, and Torrent hadn’t tried, merely pinning the sleeve some few inches down from the shoulder. Lacking warrant papers, the empty sleeve was the best excuse he had for why he wasn’t serving with the Crimsons.

I can make do with a needle, but I can’t manage a gun, Torrent said, looking steadily at the fire. He was already more familiar than he wanted to be with the faces people made when they realized what they were looking at. If the Commonwealth wishes to call me up to mend their stockings, I’d certainly oblige.

For a moment, there was only the rhythmic thwacks of Danny’s cleaver against the cutting board.

Hard luck, mate, Danny said after a moment. When Torrent risked a glance, Danny didn’t seem to be much troubled. In fact, as he chucked the bits of potato into the pot, the man appeared to be grinning—if that was what the smuggler’s odd grimace really was—and Torrent wondered if he’d just outed himself as an easy mark. Not that there was much he could do about it now, except hope Danny considered one-armed former soldiers poor prospects for lucrative robbery attempts.

Worse things’ve happened to better people, Torrent said, the best platitude he’d come up with in four months of variations of the same conversation. He folded the coat and set it in one of the drier-looking channels that made up the labyrinth design, far enough from the fire there wouldn’t be any danger of sparks. Now that Danny had seen the sleeve, Torrent hoped he’d leave off with the questions. How he lost it or how he managed without it, or how it felt when it came off. Even after four months, Torrent hadn’t nearly enough platitudes for any sort of extended conversation on the topic.

The smuggler only shrugged and pointed at an upturned bucket on the far side of the fire. Torrent gingerly sat down on the makeshift stool. A laundry-looking liquid burbled in the billy pot, and Torrent’s mouth began to water despite the unappetizing look of the stew.

Commonwealth looking for you? Danny asked, rummaging behind the billy and producing two shallow wooden bowls.

The Commonwealth’s looking for a lot of people, Torrent said blandly. The entire Territory Congress, for one. It was a continuing embarrassment to the Commonwealth that of the eight senators who’d publicly defected to the Alexandrian Independent Territory—what the residents of the Annex who objected to the Annexation had taken to calling the place—the Commonwealth hadn’t been able to find or execute even one.

Across the fire pit, Danny held out a spoon and a bowl, a gristle-filled hunk of meat floating among bits of miner’s lettuce and wrinkled potatoes. Torrent took it, settling the bowl carefully on his knees, and sipped hesitantly. He hadn’t been expecting very much from it, and the soup met his expectations exactly. At least the overtures of hospitality probably meant the smuggler wasn’t planning on robbing or murdering him. Probably. Unless the soup was drugged. Unless he was waiting until Torrent went to sleep. Unless he was working with the barkeep in Buria and split the take from every mark she managed to send up to this isolated shack far from the main road and perfect for a robbery . . .

All of which was absurd. Just because his guide was also a smuggler didn’t mean his criminal inclinations extended any further than black-market trafficking and the avoidance of tariffs. Even honest people could still occasionally find themselves on the wrong side of the law, as Torrent himself had reason to know.

So, Danny said, reaching for his own bowl, his voice taking on a more businesslike tone. Alexandria or the Anan?

Only to Snow River, Torrent corrected hurriedly. Not nearly so far.

Danny lifted his own bowl of soup and blew across the top before taking a noisy slurp from the side of the bowl. Belatedly, Torrent realized his guide must have given him the only spoon the fellow had, and he immediately had to squash the urge to feel guilty about it.

Kin out that way? the smuggler inquired, punctuating the question with another sip.

Torrent began to answer, then reached into his satchel and pulled out a small tintype print from the bottom. It was badly creased and stained in several places by a number of substances that didn’t bear thinking about. He passed it over without looking at it.

Danny cocked his head, hair flopping over his eyes as he peered shortsightedly at the picture. Torrent was suddenly conscious of the stains and torn corners, feeling as though he was failing in his introduction of Moll. Then again, the portrait had always been a poor stand-in for the real thing.

She in the Annex, then? Danny asked without any real interest, and he handed the picture back. Bad luck, that.

Torrent slipped it back in his pack as Danny resumed slurping at the stew.

Your girl, Danny said around the soup. She know you’re coming?

Yes, Torrent said firmly, and Danny’s bowl stopped halfway to his mouth, his face suggesting that wasn’t the answer he’d supposed. Well, mostly, Torrent prevaricated. Been a while between posts.

It had been over four months between posts, but Danny didn’t need to know that. Besides which, Torrent had asked for Molly’s hand before he left and she hadn’t said no. She hadn’t actually said yes, either. Still, the tailor fervently hoped the fact of his asking was enough of a mark in his favor that he could expect an amicable welcome, never mind the time between posts. Molly hated that he’d signed up with the regiment rather than allow her to pay off his conscription, but this time, he wouldn’t be leaving her to go back to the army—not voluntarily, anyway. Torrent wondered how many rounds of I told you so they’d be volleying back and forth once he finally got back to the Blighs’ farm.

The smuggler swallowed the last of the broth, then set the bowl onto the uneven floor. It wobbled for a moment before dropping with a clatter into one of the carved channels in the floor. Danny stood and crossed to a rain barrel hunkered under the eaves, hauling out a large, riveted bucket. Assuming the fellow meant to douse the fire, Torrent hurriedly spooned up the last of his portion.

Danny walked a few feet over the labyrinth’s uneven floor, dropped the pail, and pulled out a small knife. As Torrent watched, the man rolled up his sleeve and slashed at the back of his forearm. Then, with a grunt, he slipped the penknife back in his pocket, holding his arm over the bucket. A dark runnel of blood spread from forearm to elbow.

Torrent stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth, unabashedly staring. Even though relic labyrinths were common enough around most towns of any appreciable age, no one other than historians or crackpots paid them much attention, and Torrent had never heard of anyone attempting to perform a Coriander ritual on one. At least, not in the Commonwealth. There were rumors of practicing Coriander somewhere in the Anan. Though what exactly they practiced, since the baldwinns they supposedly worshiped were ousted by the Evangelist centuries ago, Torrent wasn’t sure.

Three large beads of blood slid off the smuggler’s elbow and into the bucket. Pulling a length of cloth from his pocket, Danny wrapped it twice around his forearm, picked up the bucket, and upended it over the floor.

Water splattered everywhere, gleaming red in the firelight as it settled into the low points in the rock floor. Danny let the bucket drop to his side. With the fire at his back, Torrent could read nothing of his expression.

Snow River, was it? the smuggler murmured, setting the bucket next to the fire pit.

Torrent nodded, putting the bowl aside as he grabbed his pack and coat. It seemed an odd time to be leaving, given it was nearly sunset, but Torrent was happy to leave the chapel if it meant he was excused from any part in Danny’s odd ritual.

Yet the smuggler still hadn’t brought up one of the most pressing aspects of their incipient transaction.

The fee, Torrent said awkwardly. The barkeep in Buria mentioned twelve scrip? In fact, she’d said fifteen, but Torrent was not inclined to pass up an opportunity to modify that rate.

Yes, alright, said Danny absently as he set the bucket next to the fire pit. You got it on you?

Yes. The word came out strangled because the scent of gunpowder was all over the room. Or the memory of it, and his arm—the one he didn’t have—twinged like a struck chord. Torrent was back in position at the Model Four Vipertongue long gun, and someone was trying to kill him.

Or anywhere, really, Torrent corrected hastily. Anywhere out that way. Wherever’s convenient . . .

If he bolted now, he had a clear run at the door. But running because his nerves were telling him he was back on the lines wouldn’t solve the problem of getting back to Snow River, or anywhere else that wasn’t straight into the hands of the Commonwealth.

Torrent took a long breath through his teeth, willing the smell of gunpowder to fade. He had no reason to run. The last time he’d done so, it had served him nothing but a bullet and a warrant from the military court.

He deliberately turned away from the fire pit, looking instead at the curves and traceries of the broken labyrinth, its channels intertwined like the thread in a convoluted weaving. In the shadows and rippling water, something dark leapt across the design, and Torrent lunged for his absent service rifle. He immediately dropped his arm as the wispy shape collapsed into his own reflection.

Jumping at shadows. Again.

He wasn’t in the hospital anymore; he had to start acting sensibly. He couldn’t run off because of something as insubstantial as a bad feeling and an out-of-place smell. That sort of fear was entirely imaginary.

Imaginary, except Danny hadn’t brought up payment until Torrent mentioned it. And he wanted to know if Torrent was carrying money. Or whether anyone in Snow River was expecting him. And while Danny had indicated they were going, his preparations hadn’t involved getting his own coat, or even putting out the fire.

In the water’s reflection, a second dark outline joined Torrent’s. The smuggler’s face gleamed pale like a ghost. Something glinted in the light, triangular and metallic, held loosely in the man’s right hand.

Torrent stiffened, keeping himself from glancing neither at Danny nor the cutting board. He already knew the carving knife would be gone. Torrent stepped backward, turning ever so casually, trying to put his good arm between himself and the smuggler.

Danny moved the moment Torrent did, and far faster. The knife came underhanded, a strike meant for the belly, and Torrent leapt out of the way, feeling the blade catch at his padded shirtsleeve. The knife pulled free with a snick of ripping cloth and Torrent stumbled, kicking before the man could swing again, feeling his boot glance ineffectually off the smuggler’s thigh. It was enough to knock both men off-balance. The smuggler staggered backward toward the fire pit, sending the billy pot over with a clatter of metal and a hiss of steam. Torrent nearly fell, pinwheeling wildly as he stumbled over the labyrinth channels. The floor was uneven, the rock slick with water. He slipped and went down hard, tried to take a breath and choked; the water in the labyrinth channels was deeper than seemed possible. He pushed himself up, knowing his life depended on whether he made it to the door before Danny made it to him, but his head seemed barely above the water, and there was a stab of cold in his fingers.

Danny was still crouched by the overturned billy pot, his face a mask of pain, cradling his hand to his chest as if it were burned.

You tell the devil who it was sent you, the man shouted, a note of triumph cutting through the pain in his voice.

Torrent tried to get to his feet, but there was nothing below him that would support the weight. Turning, he had one moment to see his left arm sunk into the rock up to the elbow. Torrent flinched, pulling as hard as he could, even as he felt his mouth slipping under the water, as though the rock below him had suddenly turned to jelly.

He closed his eyes at the very last moment, just before everything went dark.

Chapter 2

Torrent realized he was facedown in the water in just enough time to shut his mouth, which helped to limit, though not entirely prevent, swallowing a quantity of foul-tasting water. It stung at his nose and he gasped into the darkness, sucking in air that tasted overpoweringly of damp stone. He pushed himself upright, water streaming from his face as his fingers scrabbled against wet rock. He gasped into the darkness, sucking in air that tasted overpoweringly of damp stone.

There was a gleam from above him, and the tailor turned, catching a jagged glimpse of the chapel wall from some impossible angle. The edges of the image seemed to ripple; a moment later the vision came apart entirely. Nothing replaced it. There was only the dark, laced with pinprick swirls and sparks jumping and dancing before his eyes; the feeling of cold; a lingering impression of water and rock.

The floor below him felt uneven, inlaid with carved channels filled with chill water that soaked through his trousers and shirt. It was still the labyrinth—or a labyrinth, because if it was the same place, Torrent couldn’t understand where the light had gone. Or where the water had come from. Or why it had gone so cold. Torrent licked his lips. The water tasted harshly of clay. Cautiously, the tailor raised his hand and waved it experimentally in front of his face. Nothing—not even the faintest hint of light or movement.

Wherever he was, Danny apparently hadn’t followed him and no one else was presently trying to kill him, both of which had to be counted as successes. Less heartening, the place he found himself was cold, wet, and utterly lightless. He had no idea where he was, and only the vaguest, impossible memory of getting here by falling through a stone floor.

Not a murder. At least, not a successful one. Wherever he was, the carved rock beneath him certainly felt like a labyrinth design. Not trusting his footing on the slick surface, Torrent started to crawl, an awkward, teetering business when attempted on three limbs. His trousers, already damp, were drenched in moments; it was impossible to keep clear of the standing water in the channels. The air smelled like mud and old stone, and he could see nothing but the errant sparks that jumped in and out of his vision, his eyes protesting the complete absence of light.

Reaching forward, his fingers brushed against something twig-like and scaly; Torrent yanked his hand back, stifling a yell. The thing he’d touched leapt away as well, an insect-like rustle of wings and a bounding patter disappearing into the dark. The noise fell silent; beyond it came a faint murmur of water. The stream sounded low-voiced and close.

Torrent remembered no stream, of any size, anywhere near the chapel.

Cautiously, the tailor reached forward, and when nothing unexpected brushed against his hand, he continued crawling. He crossed over another jumble of channels, trying and failing to keep his trousers out of the water, then reached a flatter section with no channels at all. His fingers smacked against rock where there ought to have been air.

A wall, and it wasn’t the battered wooden slats of the chapel. The rock felt rough and pitted as he ran his fingers over it, devoid of any seams or traces of mortar. No stonemason had carved this; the rock seemed to have been fashioned by the earth directly, or else placed by the crudest means possible. Slowly, Torrent drew his hand back.

He wasn’t in the chapel. He was in a labyrinth carved all in stone, half-filled with water and lacking any sort of light. And he hadn’t so much as a single match or candle.

For several minutes, the tailor sat motionless, listening, waiting for anything to appear that might alter his initial assessment of the situation. For several minutes, nothing new presented itself, only the darkness, the distant murmur of a stream, the occasional tap of water dripping from his coat.

Very reluctantly, Torrent began to entertain the notion that nothing was ever going to present itself, no matter how many minutes he was prepared to wait.

Slowly, Torrent patted at his pockets. The needle case was where it should be; his thimble was missing, as was his hat. He had a handkerchief, reduced to a sodden mess in his pocket. Inside his pack, he could feel the crumbly outlines of two lumpy biscuits, a handful of dried fruit, and the battered cover of the book he’d pilfered from the sanitary hospital’s lending library. Torrent still had his much-abused coat, along with two shirts, trousers, boots, and socks. So much for the outward essentials.

Again, the tailor waved his hand in front of his face, shaking it furiously enough to set his unbuttoned shirt cuffs flapping against his wrist. Again, he failed to detect even the slightest change in the impenetrable dark.

Abruptly, the tailor changed tactics. Leaning back against the chill stone, Torrent unbuttoned his collar and gingerly slipped his left hand across his opposite shoulder. Nothing was amiss save the usual calamity: the sausage-like twist of skin, still unfamiliar, five-and-a-quarter inches down from the collarbone. It didn’t feel painful, the limb’s absence being far more troubling than the injury itself. Nothing felt unusually warm; there was no whiff of infection that had so often hung about the air of the hospital. The tailor hardly felt feverish; on the contrary, the air here was unpleasantly chill. In other words, there was nothing the tailor could find that might lead him to distrust the evidence of his senses—despite the current unreliability of his eyes.

Apart from being damp and cold, nothing seemed physically amiss—putting aside the fact that he couldn’t see anything and had no idea where he was or how he had gotten there. Those were substantial enough problems to be getting along with. No need to invent ailments where none existed.

Cautiously, the tailor patted at the floor, scrabbling about until he gathered a handful of pea-sized rocks. Placing the pile on his knee, the tailor selected one and tossed it as hard as he could back the way he’d come. It didn’t strike for several seconds. When it did, its clattering impact was followed by a scuttling noise that made the tailor think uncomfortably of more insects.

A sizable room, then, and Torrent not the only thing within it. He picked up another rock, turned himself slightly more to the right, and threw it.

Nothing.

He waited, motionless and listening, for several seconds. Still nothing. The unbroken silence made him think uneasily of cliffs, unseen drop-offs, some infinitely descending stair or passage—

Something loud struck the wall with a crack inches from Torrent’s face. Torrent’s body reacted to the shrapnel somewhat in advance of Torrent himself; he dropped to the floor, the remnant of his arm straining against the sewn coat sleeve as he tried to cover his head with both hands.

But it wasn’t shrapnel, and the pebble hadn’t ricocheted. Something had thrown it back. Every hair on Torrent’s scalp was upright and tingling at the thought.

Something else was down here, and given how close the rock had come to his head, it hadn’t taken well to being disturbed.

Hello? croaked Torrent, forcing the word past a lump in his throat. The word repeated itself in echoes long past the time it should have died away, as though the darkness had caught it and didn’t intend to let it go. Torrent squeezed his eyes shut, listening hard as the echo finally died away. Was it a whisper chamber? Some acoustic quality of the room?

Rational answers paled before the certainty that something deeply irrational had lurched into motion the moment Danny had come after him with a knife. The aim was murder then. No reason to think any differently now.

Torrent scrambled to his feet as quietly as he could. Feeling along the wall behind him, the rock continued straight and unbroken for as high as he could touch. Not climbable, even if he had the requisite limbs to attempt it. He turned left, keeping his hand on the wall, sliding his feet forward over the rough stone. The murmur of water was a wordless babble somewhere ahead of him and farther down. Not that farther down was the direction he wanted to go, but it was a landmark of sorts, and one that appeared to be getting closer.

Two more rocks slammed against the wall behind him. Torrent flinched and sped up, stumbling along as fast as he could, bashing his fingers against the wall, ignoring the panicked voice in his head telling him the next volley might be leaded shot.

Torrent’s next step ended in air. His whole vision went white as he fell, hand catching on a jutting bit of rock, enough of a handhold to claw himself back from the edge. The hem of his trousers snagged on something, pulling apart with a snick as he dragged himself back over the ledge. The air was filling with the faint but unmistakable smell of gunpowder. He gasped, trying to breathe through his mouth, frighteningly aware he had no idea if he’d just saved himself from a fall of three feet or thirty.

One deep breath, then another. It was too dangerous to be rushing about like this. A fall was more likely to kill him than a blindly thrown rock. Whatever else was going on, he wouldn’t allow himself to be driven off a cliff like a panicking deer.

Torrent pulled himself to his feet, feeling his way back along the wall in the direction he had come. Braced for another shower of rocks, or worse, he forced himself to move slower, one sliding step at a time. There had to be a way out, and he’d be more likely to find it by following the walls. Assuming this strange place had such things as doors, and that Torrent wasn’t presently sealed in a crypt, or a vault . . .

The rock changed under his fingers, turning at a sharp angle. Torrent turned with the wall,