Labyrinth

 

Chapter 12: A Room Without Shadow, A Picture Without Paint

 

            He was gone.  Completely, utterly gone, and she was alone in a huge and cold room with only a wide stone throne and a crystal ball on a pedestal to keep her company.

            “Now what am I supposed to do?” she grumbled.  She stared at the crystal ball, wondering for a moment if it took requests before she shrugged the thought off as childish and turned to examine the room.  She was surprised by the calm that had come over her.  Usually she would have worked herself into a frenzy by now.  And why not?  She had no idea where her brother was, or where Inuyasha had gone.  She had no way to find either of them.  So unless Inuyasha generously decided to come back and enlighten her she was pretty much stuck here.

            Still, panic rarely accomplished anything other than a short and painful death, so Kagome was rather grateful for her new found calm.

            “So what do I do now?” as if in answer to the question a faint light sprang into existence at the farthest end of the room.  Kagome eyed it suspiciously before shrugging and deciding that it didn’t really matter if this was a trap because she couldn’t just sit here, and she couldn’t very well wander the castle for the rest of her life. 

            “Alright light, you’d better not be anything dangerous.” She warned as she approached the beckoning signal.  She decided that it would be prudent to take this slowly; there might be traps in the room or something.  So she carefully tested each step, all the while feeling a complete fool, but knowing she would feel worse than the fool if she sprung a trap and died before she saved Souta.

            “Too bad they never teach this in school.” She muttered under her breath, her eyes trained on the floor, but occasionally darting to the wall on either side of her.  “They could work it into ancient Egyptian history or something.  I mean, I’ll never need to know how to embalm a human corpse, but evading booby traps just jumped to the top of my priority list.”

            Great.  Now she was having Indiana Jones flashbacks.  Too bad she wasn’t Harrison Ford.  Of course, if she were Harrison Ford she probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to get into these situations.  

Plus, she’d have a stunt double.

Kagome’s sigh blew out her bangs and when they came to rest against her forehead again one long strand dangled just above her left eye.  It itched and she pushed it back in irritation.

At least she wasn’t sweating.  Talking to herself was bad enough, but smelling like gym socks at the same time would have been utterly unbearable.

Come to think of it, this castle was really rather cool, and she didn’t mean in the trendy sense.  She was beginning to think that she might need a sweater.  Definitely a change from the heat of the city streets.

Kagome’s rambling thoughts came to a rough stop as she reached the wall and found the light was gone.  She frowned, but she had managed to learn a few things in the Labyrinth.  Slowly Kagome stretched out her hand and brushed it against the cool stone wall until she found what she was looking for – a section of wall that had no substance.  With a self-satisfied nod she drew in a breath and stepped through the wall.

The room on the other side was dark and immense and then light seemed to kindle from everywhere and nowhere at the same time and she saw the room was ornately decorated in rich colors and shades of gold.  There were tapestries on the walls and draping curtains, and flowers on pedestals.  It was all so completely out of place in the otherwise spartan castle.  Kagome stepped forward, letting her fingers run along the nearest tapestry, lifting it lightly from the wall without really pulling it.  As she walked it slid from her hands and came to rest gently against the wall once again.  Kagome then reached to brush the nearest flowers, but her eyes did not follow her hands.  Her gaze had been drawn to the lone figure in the room.

Silver hair stirred slightly as he looked at her and his golden eyes shone in the light.  It was Inuyasha, but his typical feudal style clothing had been replaced with clothing reminiscent of sixteenth century European formal wear.  Kagome reached toward him, a question on her lips and he smiled.

            There was a moment of confusion and she thought that she was dancing with him, pressed up against him, and he was warm and solid and secure.  And then she was twirling alone and he was standing far off, distant and arrogant.  And for some reason she felt hurt and betrayed.  She slowly spun to a stop, lowering her arms to rest at her sides and staring at him.  He met her eyes coldly and her lips moved, forming his name without sound.  He turned away and she tried to run to him, but now the room was filled with men in suits and women in elegant gowns and they were pressing around her, keeping her from reaching him.  She could hardly see him now.  Her own long skirts kept tripping her, and as she reached down to gather them in one hand it occurred to her that she wasn’t wearing long skirts – or, rather, she shouldn’t have been.  But it wasn’t important because she had to reach him.

            “Inuyasha!” she cried; she had lost sight of him completely and a familiar panic rose in her breast.  “Where are you?”

            “I’m right here.” The voice was calm and quiet and surprisingly near.  And then the room was empty except for him standing behind her.  She turned to find him no longer in his sophisticated suit, but in his own red hakama and gi.  The space around them was thrown into darkness save a faint candle-like glow that extended no more than a foot or two beyond where they stood before the void enveloped the light.  The air around her shimmered softly as huge bubbles sunk toward the ground, shrinking in mid air before bursting in showers of glittering sparks.  And then the air became still as the last one faded and she realized that it had all been an illusion.

            She looked to him in confusion, searching his warm golden eyes for answers she wasn’t certain he could give.

            He was gazing at her so tenderly, and she was so lost.

 “Why are you doing this?” her voice was small, her head hung.  His eyes flickered with what might have been hurt, but she couldn’t see.

Inuyasha wanted to shake her, wanted to make her understand. “Because I love you.” He stated simply, and her gaze shot to his in disbelief.  He could understand that look, he supposed.  So why couldn’t she understand his?

Her brain seemed to have stalled.  They stared at one another for interminable seconds before she opened her mouth to ask him to repeat what he had just said, because it couldn’t have been what she thought he had said.  And then he was fading away again and she didn’t even have the presence of mind to stop him.  But that was alright because experience had shown her there was little point in that.

For a moment she was shrouded in darkness and then, slowly, the room became illuminated just as before.  Once again there seemed to be no source for the infusing light.  But that was the only similarity.  This time the light was bright as daylight and Kagome had to shut her eyes against it.  When she opened her eyes she was greeted by a dramatically altered room.

Before her, all around her, on every wall, were stairways and doorways.  They faced every conceivable direction and now Kagome saw the purpose of the light. All things were at once shadowed and without shadow and she fought a wave of vertigo as she was suddenly overwhelmed with the sensation that she was standing on the ceiling rather than the floor.  It was impossible to tell just from looking which way was up and which was down, or even side to side.  She remembered seeing a picture like that once in a textbook.  Only this wasn’t a painting; it was as though someone had decided to make a three dimensional model of the artist’s vision.  She remembered how difficult it was to tell which way the picture was supposed to hang and her teacher telling her that it would be impossible to imitate in reality.  It should only work in two dimensions.

Kagome wished her teacher could see this room.  Her only relief was that there was probably no way to make the room do what it seemed to.  All she had to do was tell herself that she was not upside down.  After all, walking on the ceiling would be defying the laws of physics.

A moment later this comforting conclusion was shattered by the appearance of a goblin like creature in a doorway far from her.  He was standing normally, but from where she stood he looked as though he were growing sideways out of the wall.

It was then that she remembered that she was in the Labyrinth, and its laws were all its own.

The goblin ducked back into the doorway and then came back out, prodding another figure before it.

It was Souta.

Kagome nearly screamed.  It was a perfectly natural reaction considering that the goblin had pushed him right off the edge of the narrow platform.  But instead of falling Souta merely ended up on the other side of the room.  And now he was upside down.

Kagome clasped a hand over her mouth and forced her heart to steady its pace.  She stepped forward and then realized that she had no way to reach Souta, he was about half way up the tall wall. Looking around her she located the nearest door and darted into it.

There was a strange sensation, as though her whole body had blinked, and then she was emerging through another doorway and out into the room once more.  Now she was standing parallel to Souta and the Goblin was perpendicular to them.  She was closer to Souta than the goblin was, which was a relief.

She reached her hand toward him calling to him. “I’m coming Souta!”  He looked at her and gave an odd smile, and then he began to walk away from her.

“No, Souta!” she was moving again, desperate, running down the stairs and into another door.

“Wait!” she shouted as she came into the room once more, now far from him.  He ignored her and continued walking.

“I don’t see why he should.” A smug voice spoke from the floor beneath her and she hurried to the edge so that she could look over.  There she saw Inuyasha, his arms crossed insolently, his fangs gleaming as he grinned.  She gasped and stumbled back against the wall.  He was standing directly beneath her, feet to feet.  How was this possible?

Maybe she really was going crazy.

“You’d better go get him.”

Kagome hurried back to the edge, dropping to her knees and peering over the edge, but Inuyasha was gone.

Kagome wanted to cry and she wasn’t even sure why.  Not that she didn’t have abundant reason to cry, it was only that she had withheld from tears so long that she was surprised something had finally pushed her over the edge.  She wasn’t even sure if the tears would be of anger, sadness, or just frustration.  What struck her as the most strange was that she missed Inuyasha.  That was certainly the most stupid and unwelcome feeling she had had in a long time.

She hardly knew him, and what she did know of him wasn’t particularly pleasant.  In fact he’d pretty much made her life miserable from the moment she had met him.  But she couldn’t help feeling that he was just a victim.  She hurt for him.

And then there was that softness in his eyes whenever he looked at her, and that strange illusion.  She had felt so safe in his arms.  And he had said that he loved her.

But how could he love her?  He didn’t even know her.

And none of it mattered at all because she was here to find Souta not worry about some not-quite-human guy who might or might not have actual feelings for her.

And that wasn’t fair.

 But, Kagome thought as she willed back the tears and forced herself to her feet determinedly, when had life ever been fair?  No one had ever said it would be, in fact they all said that it wouldn’t be.  So why did every child in existence persist in the vain desire for the world to be fair?

She thought of Shippo who had lost his parents and been forced to live alone so young.  She thought of Miroku and Sango who had lived such hard lives and found happiness in each other only to have in senselessly snatched from them. She even thought of Inuyasha, imprisoned here by a cold and uncaring brother who seemed to have some sort of god complex.  Life hadn’t treated them any better than it had treated her. 

And then there was Souta, who had been thrust into this situation because his sister was mad at his mom.

Really, out of them all, Kagome had had the most control over her own fate.

Maybe she was just stupid and horribly selfish.

She was running now, trying to find the right door, the door that would lead to Souta or even Inuyasha, but there seemed to be no logic dictating where the doors led.  She was beginning to despair of ever finding Souta.  Maybe they would all be trapped her for eternity and their poor mother would be left to wonder if someone had carried off her children in the night.  A few days ago Kagome might have thought this served her right, but that would only have been a result of her anger.  Now she saw that no one deserved such fear.

Kagome was tired of running.  She could see Souta close before her now.  She was following in his path, but he never seemed to get any closer.  He was always just outside her reach, and she didn’t think she could take much more of this.  She jerked to a halt, falling to her knees.

“I’m sorry, okay!” she shouted and the sound echoed off stair after stair. She buried her face in her hands, not noticing that the room’s three other occupants had stopped moving to stare at her.

“I’m sorry.  It’s all my fault and I was stupid and selfish.  And I’m sorry!” her shoulders were shaking with sobs. “Please, I just want this to be over.” There was a pleading note in her voice, but even she didn’t know whom she was begging.  Was she praying?  She didn’t know.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

There was a rustle of movement behind her, and strong arms wrapped around her.  She saw a flash of red and knew who it was even before he spoke.

Inuyasha knelt behind her, resting his cheek gently on the back of her head, his eyes closed, his hold gentle.  His silver hair fell forward, encasing her and she felt so safe.  Which didn’t make sense at all, because he was supposed to be the enemy, right?

His breath stirred her hair as he spoke softly into it, “All you had to do was stop running.”

 

***

 

And then they were standing in the center of the room, Inuyasha, Souta, and Kagome.  The goblin was gone and the stairs were fading, but Inuyasha was still behind her, and he did not seem inclined to let her go.  She found herself wanting to lean back into him, but she couldn’t.  Her sobs eased and she hiccupped lightly a few times before gulping in a breath and finally ceasing her shaking.

For some time she just stood there, wrapped in Inuyasha’s arms, not moving, not feeling anything at all.  And then she slowly raised her head, though she kept her eyes closed.

“Why?” she whispered.

And Inuyasha knew what she meant without asking.  But he didn’t know what to answer.  The question was too heavy, too full, and the answer too complicated.  So he took the easy way out.

“You know why.”

And she did.  She had been through the why a thousand times and she knew it all too well, but that didn’t mean that she wanted it to be true.  What she wanted, though she knew it was hopelessly, childishly romantic and impossible, was for Inuyasha to turn her in his arms, cradle her to his chest, and whisper in her ear that everything would be alright.  That all that had happened was only a dream.  She wanted to close her eyes tightly, tap her heels together three times, whisper enchanted words and open her eyes to find herself at home.

But that was the wrong movie again.

Not that the movie seemed to matter anymore.  Her own story had diverged so far from it that she knew even if she were able to remember the ending it wouldn’t matter.

Kagome shuddered and forced herself to move from Inuyasha’s embrace.  He seemed reluctant, but he let her go, his arms falling to his sides once more.  He watched as she collected herself, turned, and opened her eyes.  She was staring at Souta, but he didn’t seem to see her.  She lifted a hand in a helpless gesture, but Inuyasha knew it made no difference.  He was a prisoner of the Labyrinth, his mind was ensnared.

“It won’t do any good.” He told her and he could see in her posture that she already knew this.

That didn’t make it right though.  He clenched his fists and grit his teeth, silently cursing Sesshoumaru and his stupid rules.

He cursed himself as well.

He had been such a fool.

Hadn’t he always hated his brother for interfering in his life?  Hadn’t he thought his brother the lowest and most selfish, arrogant, jerk?  Then why had he interfered with someone else’s life?  With her life?  His intentions had been, well they hadn’t exactly been good, but he had only been trying to please her.  But he had known.  He had known that any interaction would only drag her into the mess he’d made of his life.  Now he felt selfish and stupid and cruel.  He loved her.  So why had he done something that was bound to hurt her no matter what?

He gave a bitter, self deprecating laugh.

What had made him think he could ever make anyone happy?

“Inuyasha?” her voice was low and tense, and his ears flattened at the sound.  She was in pain and it was his fault.

“Kagome.” He wanted to reach out and draw her to him once more, to erase the grief, to heal her wounds.  But that would only make it worse.  He destroyed everything he touched.

She looked up at him, fists balled at her sides.  “Let us go now.  Please.”

He cringed and then slowly shook his head.

Kagome stared at him, mouth agape and he wished he could sink into the floor.  She took an uneven step closer to him.

“Please, Inuyasha.” She whispered.

He looked away.  He couldn’t bear to watch her as he answered.  “I’m sorry.”

And then Kagome was in front of him, grasping him firmly by the front of his gi and there was fire in her eyes, that same fire he had seen when she had first demanded her brother back.

“What do you mean, ‘I’m sorry’?”  She gave him a light shake, “You brought us here. Send us back.”

He could only shake his head once more and she dropped her hands staring at him in disbelief.  Slowly her anger drained to be replaced by something deeper.  She just stared at him, and he could not look away.  It hurt to look at her.

He felt as though his soul was being ripped in two.

She stepped back, still holding his gaze.  “You won’t let us go.  After all of this, you won’t send us home.” She shook her head in disbelief.  “How – how can you?” she seemed at a loss.  He reached to touch her arm and she pulled away, shaking her head violently.

“Kagome-” he was the one pleading now.  He just wanted her to understand, but it was so obvious that she did not.  She didn’t know, she couldn’t know.

She looked up at him once more, and what he saw in her eyes nearly broke him.  Her eyes were brimming with tears again, but she wouldn’t allow them to fall.  She was stronger than that.  She was hurting, but she was also determined.

“You say you love me?” her voice rose with every word and she gestured with her arm as she spoke, leaning toward him.  “If you love me then do what’s best for me!  Let us go Inuyasha!”

His head dropped even as his own voice rose in anguish and frustration, “I can’t!” why couldn’t she see?  Why didn’t she understand?  “Don’t you get it?  It’s not my choice to make!”