To The Labyrinth

“I was… lying in bed.”

“Ah. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No.”

“And what were you doing, lying there?”

“Waiting for sleep to come.”

“Just lying still?”

“Yes…”

“How passive of you.”

“Is there an active way of waiting for sleep?”

“Well — counting sheep, say. Or trying to read some monstrously dull book?”

It struck him all at once that romance was exactly this. Words with no purpose, conversation with no efficiency in it whatsoever. Letting finite time run mercilessly away. That kind of romance was the very heart of being lovers, of any relationship where affection is shared.

Eyes still closed, he spoke, barely more than a mumble.

“And?”

“You could always think about a lover who’s far away.”

“That last one doesn’t seem a very good method.”

“Why not?”

“Because dwelling on a lover would only drive the sleep off.”

“Oh… Because you’d get excited?”

“…”

A rustle from the other side sent his imagination off in a strange direction. Was she shifting position? Was she in bed too? Lying on her side? And her clothes? That thin nightgown he had seen once, the one her skin showed through? Skin that would surely be soft under the hand… His lower belly drew tight.

I’ve lost my mind.

He straightened out of his slump. Then a whisper with laughter caught in it tickled the curve of his ear.

“Getting feverish, imagining me tying you up? You said you liked it, didn’t you. Being bound.”

“…”

“Why? Is talk like this too indecent?”

Her mischievous giggle was as light as a frog springing up at the end of a long winter, and that liveliness scattered the thick, clinging heat pooled low in his belly. The tension went out of him like spring snow melting, and a warm breeze stole quietly through Keith’s chest.

“Well, now. Not in the least.”

“What?”

The woman had overlooked one thing. He was a man too. He had spent half his life on cold streets, besides, and though he might have kept his chastity, he was hardly ignorant of sex.

If anything, quite the opposite.

Listening closely is an excellent way to learn. Mercenaries talked filth the moment they opened their mouths, and though he never joined in, he kept his ears open.

“I think it is the sort of thing that can perfectly well pass between lovers.”

“…”

“What are you doing right now?”

“…”

“…Are you in bed as well, Miss Pai?”

— Crash-bang! At the sound of something heavy toppling or falling over, Keith’s eyes flew wide.

“Are you all right?”

“…”

“Miss Pai?”

Through the flurry of noise came a short, breathy sound. Then Pai spoke again, panting.

“Sorry. I was, uh… in my room. I knocked a chair over.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine. More to the point — about Kalada.”

“Ah… Yes.”

The sudden change of subject left him needlessly reluctant to let it go. He gave no sign of that, though, and asked how the business had gone.

“We talked it out and settled it nicely.”

Pai reported it concisely. Kalada had granted Keith his retirement; that was the gist of it. Knowing his master’s temper as well as he did, he was too dazed to find anything to say. In the end all he managed was to tell her she had done well, the way one commends a subordinate.

“…”

“…”

A brief silence passed. He was still gripping the dove carving, and only now did he notice that his hand had gone numb.

“Well then, now…”

“Ah. Yes.”

“If all goes quickly we can set out the day after tomorrow. That should leave time enough to see the investiture. Woo-hoo!”

“Understood. We’ll meet then, in that case.”

“Mm. We’ll meet then.”

“…”

“…”

“To switch off the communication device—”

“You cut it off, Lord Keith.”

“Me.”

“Yes. Somehow I feel reluctant — I don’t think I could be the one to cut it off first.”

“…Understood.”

He did so. When they had exchanged their goodnights he rubbed his thumb slowly over the yellow pigment set into the dove’s beak until it was gone, and the connection broke.

“Haah…”

A hot sigh burst out of him, as though it had been waiting its turn. He set the dove carving on the side table and wiped his palm dry against his thigh; sweat had soaked into every line of it.

Pai’s last words went on ringing in his ears like an echo.

Reluctant.

I feel reluctant.

He covered his face with both hands and scrubbed at it hard, then stayed that way a long while, like a man weeping.

“I’m… reluctant too.”

The feeling had slipped out between his teeth without his meaning it, and it echoed mournfully, shut inside his two hands.

Early that morning in Wellerden the sky was high and no snow was falling. Even so, the wind blew hard enough that Pai fitted Ardine with a fur cap that wrapped her head completely.

The grey cap went well with the child’s favorite purple coat. Ardine fiddled with the ribbon tied under her chin and asked.

“How long’s it take? Minutes? Hours? When that’s over, do we go back?”

A single night, no more than that, and yet the child’s cheeks looked fairer and plumper than the day before. Salt was a mighty thing, and there had been no end to the meat going into her mouth.

In a good mood, apparently, Ardine hummed to herself and fussed with the braid hanging down like an antenna. The braided side-locks were Pai’s work. Not knowing how to get a brush through a child’s hair without hurting her, she had raked the curly bob out with her fingers, gathered up a little from the sides, and plaited it.

Braiding was an extension of knot-work, after all…

Pai swept the child up, set her on the saddle, and answered.

“It won’t take long. Are you in a hurry to get home?”

“Mmm…”

The young lady screwed the space between her brows tight, as though she had been handed a three-digit addition problem. Whenever she fell to pondering, her lips pursed into a small round shape. Ardine opened her mouth carefully.

“Ari doesn’t want to go back yet. Ari’s got to make a snowman with that mister, too.”

At that, the escort knight, in the middle of patting the horse, gave a start.

“B-but, my lady. Everyone will be waiting for you.”

“Ari never said she wasn’t going back. What a fuss.”

She gave a prim little snort and stroked Riu’s deep chestnut mane slowly. Riu blew out a burbling breath, the sound it made when it was pleased.

“It’s the first time Ari’s ever come out this far…”

Elrod Paragon had tended to overprotect his only daughter. The North’s climate was harsh, true, and the risk of accidents high to match, but keeping a lively child inside the inner walls and nowhere else for all seven of her years was a cruel measure. Pai felt for the girl in that.

When I was seven I already knew how to pick pockets.

An improper means, to be sure, but it was how she had kept herself alive. That did not mean Ardine Paragon ought to learn pickpocketing. Only that, as things stood, the young lady leaned on books for a great deal of what she knew.

The young lady will be lord of the North in the end.

To become not merely someone who knew a great deal but a wise leader, she must not stay shut up inside a well. Pai wanted to guarantee her safety and, in the same breath, let her see a wider world.

And meeting Hamel will be the first button through the hole.

Hamel, the eccentric mage.

Among people who dig a single well deep and see it through to the end, it would be harder to find one who was not an eccentric; but even in that company, Hamel was a particularly peculiar breed. He was mad for demonology, a field of study the Empire had banned. No searing story lay behind it, nor that commonest of reasons, money. Sheer intellectual vanity, nothing more.

She had settled on so odd a breed for a comrade on the road ahead because Hamel had been one of the last three who stood and fought against the Archdemon Simon.

I wonder if he’s been keeping well.

Pai sniffed once and swung up into the saddle.

“You can play nicely while I’m gone, can’t you?”

“Mm-hm.”

Going by the information Kalada had got hold of, Hamel had passed through Wellerden only four days earlier.

Judging by the mountain of preserved food he bought, it’ll be labyrinth-delving, no question.

The First Demon War, centuries ago, destroyed humanity’s homes and its inheritance, and in their place left behind the ‘labyrinths’ that connect to the demon realm. The labyrinths were spread all across the Empire, and clustered most thickly in the North. That was why Hamel drifted about the North like a wraith.

Pai checked the stirrups and the reins and gave Ardine and the escort knight a brief goodbye.

“I’ll be back before you know it, then!”

The round little crown of the child’s head filled her view; she left it behind and spurred the horse.

“Hyah…!”

Well then, let’s be off.

To the labyrinth.