The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (different e readers txt) 📕

“I understand,” she said, answering the spoken and unspoken messages alike.

Seven Knots, Lower Bank: Cyprilun 20

If Vargo had half the brains he’d shown in his dealings with Renata, he would send somebody to follow Arenza after she left the nytsa parlour. So instead of turning her steps toward Westbridge and home, Ren wandered the streets aimlessly, trying to think of where a real Vraszenian patterner would go.

Someplace I could lie down. But that was out of the question.

Seven Knots. Not every Vraszenian in Nadežra lived there, but plenty did, and in its warrens she would have a better chance of losing a tail.

She kept an eye out as she walked, but her tired and twitchy mind insisted every fourth person was following her. Some of them stared when she flinched away, and that only made her flinch more. The narrow streets of Seven Knots seemed to tighten around her, reminding her of the clan animals hunting her through the darkness, the spider tangling her in his web. She’d thought of it as male—because of Vargo? Was that pattern instinct warning her, or just her own fears talking?

Tension hummed in the air as Ren roamed the lanes. Between the close-packed eaves she could see dreamweavers flocking, their feathers bright in the sun. The rising waters of the Dežera were bringing shoals of tiny moonfish; the dreamweavers fed on them, then wove grasses and river weed into the teardrop-shaped nests from which they got their name. Their presence was a sign that Veiled Waters was fast approaching. But the office of Iridet had closed the Great Amphitheatre so Tanaquis could investigate whether the wellspring had played some role in the Night of Hells. The city’s Vraszenians might not be allowed to hold their customary celebrations there.

What had Mettore intended? To somehow poison the Vraszenians, but not those who shared their cups? Or had it all been someone else’s plan?

In Ren’s dream, Ondrakja had taken credit. But Ondrakja was dead.

The tightly packed buildings gave way without warning to an open plaza, surprisingly large for Seven Knots. It was filled with people in grey and silver—Kiraly colors—many with an embroidered koszenie lineage shawl knotted around their shoulders or hips. The sharp pain she felt at the sight nearly buckled her knees: She had no koszenie of her own. That was proof that she wasn’t really Vraszenian. And her mother’s shawl had been stolen along with everything else when she died.

The hope of getting it back was what had led Ren into Ondrakja’s snare.

But of course the Kiraly were gathering. Their ziemic had died; every clan member in the city would come to mourn him on Tsapekny, the day named for their clan animal.

Beyond the crowd stood a columned building. Ren had never gone inside, but she recognized the place; it was the labyrinth of Seven Knots. All her own childhood devotions had been done in the labyrinth on the Old Island, a tiny, cramped place that seemed to huddle under a disapproving Liganti gaze. When she was a child, she hadn’t minded. But if she went there now, it would only dredge up memories she couldn’t endure.

Here, she might find comfort.

Ren threaded her way through the crowd before she could change her mind and passed through the labyrinth’s open gates. The building was a large, square colonnade, each column hung with two images: a Face and its matching Mask, the two aspects of a given deity. Their mouths were open, receiving the offerings of worshippers who begged the favor of the Face, the mercy of the Mask. Ren circled the colonnade, sidestepping other worshippers, trying to decide who best to make her prayers to. There were too many to choose from—too many curses weighing on her, the Traementis, the whole city.

In a sudden fit of desperation, she began emptying her purse. Ir Entrelke for good luck and Ir Nedje to avert bad, Hlai Oslit for revelations and Gria Dmivro to avert madness. An Lagrek to be not alone, Nem Idalič for justice, Šen Asarn to make her well, and Šen Kryzet to purge the taint of ash from her body. C el Tmekra to guide Leato’s soul, even though he wasn’t Vraszenian. She put coin after coin into mouth after mouth until she had no more to give, and some people in the colonnade were staring at her.

Ren ignored them and faced the labyrinth.

It filled the inner part of the building, a broad courtyard open to the sky, laid out with ankle-high stones set in a thick carpet of grass. The builders must have imbued the labyrinth to keep the grass green and lush, or the path would have been trodden to dirt by countless passing feet.

She found the opening of the path and drew a deep breath, closing her eyes. Dizziness washed briefly over her, but when it passed, she opened her eyes and began to walk.

It wasn’t a maze like the mirrors she’d chased the Rook through, designed to confuse. A labyrinth was a single path, winding back and forth, inward and then out again, bringing the worshipper close to the center only to swoop away again at the next turn. Walking it was meditative—not the sitting meditation of a Liganti temple, but the calming, steady movement of the road. Of the river.

When Ren was a child, her mother had hung a small thread labyrinth above her bed to trap bad dreams. Walking the path here was supposed to trap misfortune, giving one a chance to leave it behind. What misfortune it trapped depended on which deity one had made offerings to. Ren was trying to leave everything behind.

She walked with slow steps, timing her breathing to them. How long had it been since she’d done this? Years, but she wasn’t sure how many. There were no labyrinths in Ganllech, and Ondrakja had mocked any Finger who went to one. Not