The Lost Labyrinth

TWENTY
I

Iain and Gaille drove out of Anapoli on a narrow, winding lane, deserted save for a flock of sheep that parted only reluctantly to their tooting. They crossed a deep gorge on a narrow wooden bridge, the planks rattling beneath them. There were olive groves either side of the road, black nets crowded into the claws of their branches, irrigation pipes coiled like mythic snakes around their trunks. They wended on between fields and woods and meadows to a tiny hillside hamlet called Agia Georgio where their further progress was barred by a metal gate. 'I guess this is what they mean by the end of the road,' said Iain. 'You want to open it?'

'Is it allowed?'

'Sure,' he said. 'It's only to keep their goats in.'

A Doberman was dozing on the far side of the gate, leashed to a metal spike. It woke at once and flew into a barking frenzy that set off a dog's chorus in the village. She closed the gate hurriedly behind Iain, climbed gratefully back in. The Doberman threw itself up against her window as they drove past and raged impotently at her, leaving brown smears upon the glass.

'Christ, but I hate those beasts,' muttered Iain, looking more than a little pale. He drove through a village square to an unsealed track that deteriorated into lurching deep potholes. A tethered mule looked up briefly, then returned to munching grass. They reached an impassable row of heavy rocks placed as makeshift bollards across the track ahead, so Iain bumped off it to park in the cover of some trees, their whitewashed trunks reaching out of the ground like zombie arms. 'We'll have to walk from here,' he said, getting out.

'So how does Petitier get his supplies in?' asked Gaille, as they went around back. 'You think that was his mule back there?'

'Could be.' He popped the boot, crammed with camping gear.

'Wow. You came prepared.'

'Once a boy-scout…' he smiled. Then he added: 'I never know when I'm going to get the chance to go hiking.' He transferred the provisions he'd just bought to his pack, then pulled on hiking boots.

'What about me?' asked Gaille, gesturing at her flimsy plimsolls. 'I'm hardly equipped for this.'

'Let's see how it goes,' he said. 'Chances are we'll be back in a few hours. Certainly before dark.'

'And if not?'

He patted his bulging pack. 'I've got a tent, sleeping bags, food, everything we could need.' He reached into his boot for a spare day-pack. 'But you might want to take a change of clothes, just in case.'

The hillside rose with daunting steepness to a rocky ridge high above Gaille. But she was here on Augustin's behalf, and this was no time for faint hearts, so she transferred some clothes and her wash-bag into his pack, then slung it on.

'Ready?' asked Iain, heaving on his own pack.

'As I'll ever be,' she agreed.