Malice Maze

Sadly, I must admit here that Ilona's Grecian chitan and toga are inspired by the Ancient Greece Barbie Doll. Yeah... okay, otherwise, typical Ilona here.

Chapter 9
Ilona’s Caravan

Hope, Ilona, and Nanaia had decided they would rather stick together for as long as they could. The girls were silent, but comforted by the feel of another human being pressed to them, their hands constantly reaching out to brush against one another, just to know that the three of them were there.

“So,” Hope broke the quietness of the three traveling companions, tired of listening to the sounds of sandaled feet flopping onto the floor, the sound of sandals never an attractive sound. Only Ilona and Roxy had been smart and wore the types of sandals that tied up a woman’s leg, giving no room for that flopping feel. “Ilona, who was the guy you were supposed to… you know, be with tonight?”

Ilona flushed a bright red and continued ahead of the other two girls. “He’s just a guy in my caravan,” she responded, though some guy would undoubtedly not receive the response of an instant red blush from the gypsy.

“You really are a gypsy,” Nanaia said breathlessly. “I thought they were all whores and sinners, no offense.”

“Oh, they are,” Ilona laughed happily. “I just had a big brother who always kept me safe until recently when a few of the other gypsies teased him about saving me for him, so he stopped his hold and a few of the men advanced on me.”

“Oh no, dear no,” Nanaia whispered. “You were not in love with the man you were going to lose your virginity to!”

Ilona shook her head, slowing slightly so she could walk with the other women again. “It was not like that, I love him, I just do not know about being ‘in love’ with him,” she explained. “He is the person I am closest too and he would take care of me. And you have no idea what it is like to be with people who all night have orgies, who all day talk of sex, who every waking moment are in some sexual limbo. Even I, when I dance on stages and in the streets, am a sexual object, even if no one takes advantage of my body. It is very hard and my body needs to feel what I am selling, even if it is just once, to know the touch of a man.”

Hope looked to Nanaia to see if the other girl had caught the innuendo that Ilona had thrown their way. Hope may have been innocent but when it came to who one was going to have sex with she usually considered herself an expert.

“I have been taught to love no one but God,” Nanaia said quietly, “and so my body is reserved strictly for God. It means sex is pretty much not an option for priestesses.”

“But, if you are truly the chosen, as I know Tiffani has always said you are,” Ilona asked, “would God not come to you and know your body? Would you refuse God?”3

“How do you know about that?” Nanaia asked in shock.

“I’m a gypsy,” Ilona pointed out, “I have traveled everywhere and seen everything, even the great Queen Andais’s castle. I was young at those times and not a dancer yet, but I remember you, Nanaia. I remember you being dragged to the shrine kicking and screaming because you were not ready to give your life to God.”

“You know, out of all of us, Roxy is the only one who seems to have chosen her lifestyle,” Hope pointed out, changing the subject from God and religion and forcibly being chosen. Hope had never believed in a God, Andais was Goddess enough, and taught all fairies that nothing existed but Earth and Hell, Andais’s castle was somewhere in-between.

“No one chooses to be an assassin,” Ilona pointed out snidely. “Roxy is an assassin due to circumstance. No, all of us are victims of circumstance, though Roxy…”

“What do you have against the assassin?” Hope asked, crossing her arms against her chest and feeling again very small compared to the two twins of generosity in perfectly proportioned yet large curves.

“Assassins killed my parents,” Ilona pointed out, “right in front of me.”

That brought all three women silent. Hope had never known her family and Nanaia’s family had willingly given her to the shrine so they would be assured better crops and a better state of life for their sons. Nanaia would be in the hands of God, what more could they ask for?

The dead end came fast upon them and soon all three of them were staring at a door.

“I thought they said…” Ilona turned behind her to realize she was all alone, boxed into a small area with only walls and a door to greet her. Ilona looked to the door and realized that all that King Dralnu had said was true. If the girls went together they would be faced with a door to themselves, they would not be allowed through a door together. No wonder it was called Malice Maze, it would do all it could to run them ragged during their time here.

Ilona reached for the door, her hands trembling as she reached out, and grabbed the old brass knob. It was nothing significant, the door could have been any door in the world, and still Ilona shook when reaching for it. She pulled the door open and looked into the opening. She saw nothing but blackness before her. She reached her hand through, to toy with the blackness before her, but could not pull her arm from the blackness, no matter how hard she tried. The more of her that went into the blackness beyond the more she was being sucked through into this other world, other realm. She finally conceded to the blackness and went through.

Ilona tripped over a tree stump and went sprawling onto the ground. She let out an audible sound of pain before pushing herself upwards and looking at the caravan before her. Her caravan. Her wagon, her brother’s wagon, the wagons of all of the gypsies, the home away from home, though they had no home, that was why they were wandering gypsies. Those wagons held their food, their beds, everything. Those horses were their friends. She would recognize them all from nowhere.

“Ilona!” Ilona looked up to see her brother coming towards her, no, storming towards her, looking furious with her. “Ilona, you are going to ruin your costume!”

“Lel!” Ilona cried happily, pushing herself from the ground and jumping into his arms. She wrapped herself tightly around him and ignored when he tried to push her away.

“Not here, Ilona,” he hissed.

“Lel, you would not believe what happened to me!” she cried out. She pulled away from him, ignoring his protests and looked behind her. “I went through this door, but before that I…” The door. Where was it? It was gone? Vanished? She searched back and forth, looking everywhere. The door was no longer there.

“Lel… Was I kidnapped yesterday?” she asked of her older brother, turning to him with a question in his eyes.

He smirked ever so slightly. “Do you not think if you had been kidnapped that I would have been searching a bit harder for you instead of cooking at the fire? Though you have grass stains now on your Grecian costume.”

Ilona looked down at herself, surprised to see she no longer wore the simple shift the king Joseph had given her to wear, instead she wore the white robe and gold chitan of the outfit she was meant to perform in on stage that night, along with the perfect gold crown in her hair. She looked to the grass stains and began laughing hysterically. “I can get those out, no problem,” she laughed heartily, then allowed her voice to drop a few decibels and looked to her big brother. “Is tonight still…?”

“Shhh,” he warned her, looking about to make sure no one from the caravan could hear her. “That is later, I will come and get you, I promise.”

“I’m going to go clean this,” Ilona said brightly. “I will see you at the performance, and then again… after…” Ilona flushed slightly, as did Lel, but she did not allow it to linger. No matter what she somehow seemed to have escaped the horrid nightmare of Dralnu’s Malice Maze, and she was going to take full advantage of it.