Free Eye of the Labyrinth by Jennifer Fallon Page A

interrupting.”
    “Sorry.”
    “I was thirteen years old when I arrived. They put me to work in the kitchens. One day, I was taking a tray to some scholars working in the library. They had a mathematical problem written up on the wall that they couldn’t solve.”
    “And you solved it?”
    Neris looked incredibly smug. “After that, I didn’t work in the kitchens anymore.”
    “Is that when they sent you to Omaxin?”
    The madman shook his head. “No. But it wasn’t long after that Ella Geon arrived. She is a truly evil woman, Dirk, worse than Belagren, worse than Antonov ...” Neris’s voice trailed off, as if it was too difficult to continue.
    “What happened?” Dirk prompted gently.
    “I studied. I learned. I’ll spare you the boring details.” Neris’s eyes glazed over as he lost himself in the memory of it. Then he shrugged and looked down, as if ashamed. “Unfortunately, I also fell in love with Ella. Not that she ever noticed I was even alive in those days ... Anyway, it was seven or eight years later that Paige Halyn sent us to Omaxin to see if there was anything in the ruins that might help us. That’s when I discovered the hall with the Eye and told Ella and Belagren about it ...” Neris laughed, but it was full of bitterness and pain. “You want to know what’s really funny? I tried so damn hard! I thought that if I discovered something useful, something that Ella wanted, or needed, she’d love me. And I even deluded myself into believing that it worked. After I told Ella and Belagren what I’d discovered, Ella came to me the very next night, just like I had always dreamed ...”
    “It’s not your fault, Neris. You couldn’t have known what they’d do with the information.”
    “I should have known. Perhaps I did know and just pretended not to see. Anyway, Ella and Belagren had one more weapon in their arsenal that I didn’t know about until it was too late. That made all the difference.”
    “The Milk of the Goddess?”
    He shook his head. “Poppy-dust.”
    Neris closed his eyes for a moment. “Goddess, I can still remember the first time I tried it. It was like I’d discovered a new plane of existence. You’ve no idea what it felt like. Suddenly, I saw things differently. When I took the dust, I was a different man. It made me smarter. I would have giant leaps of intuition and reasoning. It made me more articulate, more confident, more ... more everything! I thought I was invincible!” He opened his eyes and stared at Dirk balefully. “Do you see the irony, Dirk? I was only capable of working out
exactly
when the second sun would return while I was lost in the drug.”
    “Why didn’t you stop taking it?”
    “I didn’t
want
to stop! I still don’t! How can I make you understand? Poppy-dust is a demanding mistress, Dirk. At first, you want her. Then you need her. Then you crave her. Before long, you can’t function without her. I reached that pathetic milestone in record time. Then Ella told me if I ever shared what I learned with anyone else, she’d take it away from me. That’s
why
it’s my fault. Because I’m weak. Antonov’s baby son, his wife who killed herself, all the people who died in the war, all the people who die each year at the Landfall Feast—their blood is on my hands! I made it happen. I gave Belagren and Ella the knowledge they wanted in order to ease my own suffering.”
    “And what about the Milk of the Goddess? Where does that fit in?”
    “You’ve seen the mushroom, Jaquison’s Blight?”
    Dirk shook his head. “I’ve heard about it. I can remember somebody finding a patch in Elcast when I was small. Mother had them burn half the damn forest down to be certain they were destroyed.”
    “Your mother is a wise woman, Dirk, if a little excessive. The Blight only thrives during the Age of Shadows. It can’t survive the light and heat of two suns. Distilled, the mushroom is a powerful aphrodisiac. But more important, it destroys reason. You