Fire Sea

44

They hurried forward, traveling as fast as they dared across the runeinscribed column. They had an advantage over the ships, in that the shrinking Fire Sea flowed at its narrowest point there. They were much closer to the shore than Kleitus and his army. The sight of the ships gave them impetus, renewed strength. The sigla may have lost their magic, but the runes carved into the stone provided traction, sure footing on a slippery surface.

And then they came to the end of the broken segment. A huge, V-shaped gap separated one part of the colossus from another. The magma sea churned in between, roiling among the sharp, jagged edges.

“We can’t cross that!” said Alfred, staring at the gap in dismay. “Not up here we can’t.” Haplo measured it with his eye. “But we might down below. Even you could make that jump, Sartan.”

“But I’ll slip! Fall in! I—I. . . I’ll try.” Alfred gulped, lowering his eyes before Haplo’s narrow-eyed, angry glare.

“No choice. No choice. No choice,” Alfred chanted, instead of the runes. What magical resources he had left, he had to conserve. And, somehow, the litany seemed to help.

“You’re a fool,” Haplo said, overhearing him. The Patryn stood at the bottom of the vee, legs akimbo, balanced easily, catlike, on uneven strata of rock. He gripped Alfred’s thin arm, steadied the shaking man. “Jump for it.”

Alfred stared fearfully across what looked to him to be an immense stretch of flowing lava. “No!” He shrank back. “I can’t! I’ll never make it! I—”

“Jump!” Haplo roared.

Alfred bent his knees, and suddenly he was flying through the air, propelled by a strong boost from behind. Arms flailing, as if he might flap his way across, he landed heavily on the edge of a lip of rock about twenty feet above the lava sea. He was slipping. His hands scrabbled for purchase. Pebbles slid beneath his fingers. He was falling, sliding into the magma beneath him.

“Hold on!” Jonathan shouted frantically.

Alfred made a wild grab at a jutting piece of rock. His fingers curled around it, and he managed to stop his fall. His hands were wet with sweat, he started to lose his grip, but his foot found a toehold, and he stopped himself. Arms and legs aching with the strain, he hauled himself up over the lip and hunched there, shivering in reaction, not daring to let himself believe he was safe.

He didn’t have time to relax. Before he knew what was happening, Jonathan leapt across the gap, assisted from behind by Haplo’s tireless arms. The young duke landed easily and gracefully. Alfred caught hold of him, balanced him.

“There isn’t room for both of us. Go on up.” Alfred told him. “I’ll wait here.”

Jonathan started to protest.

Alfred pointed. The top edge of the column protruded outward, forming another shelf, this one overhead. It would take strong arms to hoist oneself over that ledge.

Jonathan saw, understood, and began climbing up to the top. Alfred watched him anxiously, for a moment, and was intensely startled to find that the cadaver of Prince Edmund was standing on the shelf beside him. How the corpse managed to cross was beyond Alfred’s ability to explain. He could suppose only that the phantasm had assisted its body.

The gleaming white shape was the cadaver’s glistening shadow, barely distinguishable from the mists curling around them. The phantasm seemed so independent. Why does it bother to drag the shell along with it?

“Stand clear, Sartan!” Haplo shouted. “Go on up with the others!”

“I’ll wait! Help you!”

“I don’t want your”—the next words were unclear, lost in the churning sound of the magma—“help!”

Alfred pretended he didn’t hear any of it, waited stolidly, back braced against the rock.

Haplo fumed on the shore, but there wasn’t time to argue. He checked the sword that he had thrust into his belt, made sure it was secure. Leg muscles bunched. He launched himself outward, hurtled through the air above the magma, and landed like a fly against a wall on the smooth-sided rock beneath Alfred. He began to slip. The dog, across the way, barked loudly.

Alfred reached down, caught hold of the Patryn’s rune-covered wrists, and pulled. Pain shot up his back, muscles gave way, feet scraped over the surface of the ledge on which he stood. He was losing his hold. He must let go or risk sliding over the edge.

Alfred refused to give up. He searched inside himself, found physical resources he never knew he possessed. He held on tightly and, with a last, desperate burst of energy, lunged backward. His feet slid out from beneath him, but not before he had pulled Haplo up onto the ledge.

The Patryn grabbed hold of rocks and Alfred and hung on until he caught his breath, then dragged himself the rest of the way over. Without warning, the dog sailed across in a graceful bound. Landing beside them, nearly crowding both off the ledge, the animal gazed at each of them with bright eyes, obviously enjoying itself immensely.

“More ships are crossing!” Jonathan reported from up above. “We’ve got to hurry!”

Alfred’s body ached, muscles burned. A pain in his side was like someone jabbing him with a knife. He was cut and bruised and wondered if he’d have the strength to walk, let alone climb over that shelf. And how many segments of this colossus remained left to cross? How many gaps, perhaps wider than this? He shut his eyes, then, drawing a breath that brought his burning lungs no relief, he wearily prepared to go on.

“I suppose I should thank you—” Haplo began in his usual sneering tone.

“Forget it! I don’t want your thanks!” Alfred yelled at him. It felt good to yell. Felt good to be angry and let his anger loose. “And don’t feel like you have to pay me back for saving your damn life, because you don’t! I did what I had to do. That’s all!”

Haplo stared at Alfred in blank astonishment. Then the Patryn’s lips started to twitch. He tried to control himself, but he, too, was tired. He began to laugh. He laughed until he was forced to lean against the rock wall to support himself, laughed until tears crept from beneath his eyelids. Dabbing at blood seeping from a cut forehead, Haplo grinned, shook his head.

“That’s the first time I ever heard you swear, Sar—” He paused.

“Alfred,” he amended.

They had made it safely across one gap but it was only the first of many. The steam-driven dragonships of the dead churned through the magma sea, black against fiery red. Alfred trudged over the broken column, tried not to look at the ships, tried not to look at or think about jumping over the next crevice. One foot after the other, over and over and over and—

“We’ll never reach the shore in—”

“Hush! Freeze! Stop!” Haplo hissed, cutting Jonathan off in mid-sentence.

Alfred jerked around, the alarm in the Patryn’s tense call tore through the lethargy of aching body and despairing mind. The runes on Haplo’s skin glowed, the normally blue color tinged purple in the red glare of the magma. The dog stood near its master, growling, ruff bristling, legs stiff. Frantically Alfred glanced behind, expecting to see hordes of dead following them across the colossus.

Nothing. Nothing was chasing them. Nothing blocked their path ahead. But something was wrong. The sea was moving, gathering itself together, rising up around them. A tidal wave? Of magma? He stared harder at the sea, attempting to convince himself it was an optical illusion.

Eyes! Eyes watching him. Eyes in the sea. Eyes of the sea. A fiery red head poked up from the depths of the magma, slid toward them. The unblinking eyes kept them under constant surveillance. The eyes were enormous. Alfred could have walked into the black slit of the pupils without ducking his head.

“A fire dragon,” Jonathan gasped.

“So this is how it ends,” said Haplo softly.

Alfred was too tired to care. His first thought, in fact, was one of relief. I won’t have to jump over another damn crack.

Smooth and sharp as a spear point, the dragon’s head thrust upward. Its neck was long, narrow, and graceful, topped by a spiky mane that resembled stalagmites. Scales glowed bright red when the body lifted from the sea. Contact with air cooled them instantly, turning them black, with a lingering red glow, like coals in a banked fire. Only the eyes remained vivid, flame red.

“I don’t have the strength to fight it,” said Haplo.

Alfred shook his head. He lacked the strength to talk.

“We may not need to,” Jonathan said. “They attack only when they feel threatened.”

“But they have little love for us,” added the prince, “as I have good reason to know.”

“Whether it attacks us or not, the delay could prove fatal,” Haplo poirited out.

“I have an idea.” Jonathan walked slowly and deliberately across the colossus toward the approaching dragon. “Don’t make any threatening moves or gestures.”

The beast glanced at him, but the red eyes were far more intent on the phantasm of the prince.

“What are you?”

The dragon spoke to the prince, ignored Jonathan, ignored everyone else standing on the broken column. Haplo put his hand on the dog’s head, keeping it quiet. The animal trembled, but obeyed its master.

“I have never seen anything like you.”

The dragon’s words were perfectly intelligible, clearly understood, but they weren’t spoken aloud. The sound seemed to run through the body, like blood.

“I am what was always meant to be,” said the phantasm.

“Indeed.” The slit eyes flicked over the group. “And a Patryn, too. Stranded on a rock. What next? The fulfillment of the prophecy?”

“We are in desperate need, Lady,” said Jonathan, with a low bow. “Many of the people in the city of Necropolis now lie dead—”

“Many of my people now lie dead!” The dragon made a hissing sound, its black tongue flickered. “What is this to me?”

“Do you see those ships, crossing the Fire Sea?” Jonathan pointed. The dragon did not turn her head, she was obviously aware of what was passing in her ocean. “They carry lazar and armies of the dead—”

“Lazar!” The slit eyes of the dragon narrowed “Bad enough the dead walk. Who brought lazar into Abarrach?”

“I did, Lady,” said Jonathan. His hands clasped together, holding tight, keeping his pain within.

“You will get no help from me!” The dragon’s eyes flared in anger. “Let the evil you have brought into this world take you down with it!”

“He is innocent of that charge. Lady. He acted out of love,” stated the phantasm. “His wife died, sacrificed her life for his. He could not bear to let her go.”

“Folly, then. But criminal folly. I will have nothing further—”

“I want to make amends, Lady,” Jonathan said. “I have been given the wisdom to do so. Now, I am trying to find the courage. . . .” Words failed him. He swallowed, drew a deep breath. Hands clasped tighter. “My companions and I must reach the opposite shore, ahead of the lazar and the dead they command.”

“You want me to carry you,” said the dragon.

“No . . .” Alfred shook in his shoes.

“Shut up!” Haplo laid a silencing hand on the Sartan’s arm.

“If you would so honor us, Lady.” Jonathan bowed again.

“How can I be certain you will do what you say? Perhaps you will only make matters worse.”

“He is the one of whom the prophecy speaks,” said the prince.

Haplo’s hand, on Alfred’s arm, twitched. Alfred saw the man’s lips twist, the brows knot in frustration. The Patryn kept silent, however. His major concern now was to reach his ship in safety.

“And you are with him in this?” the dragon queried.

“I am.” Prince Edmund’s cadaver stood straight and tall, the phantasm was its shining shadow.

“The Patryn, as well?”

“Yes, Lady.” Haplo’s words were brief, bitten off at the end. What else could he say, with those fire red eyes intent on him?

“I will take you. Be quick.”

The dragon glided nearer the broken colossus, spike-maned neck and head towering over the puny figures who stood beneath. A sinuous, twisting body rose out of the sea, flat backed, spikes extending the full length of the spine. The tip end of a spiny tail could be seen slashing through the lava far, far behind it.

Jonathan descended swiftly, grabbing hold of one of the spikes and using it to steady his landing. The cadaver followed, its gleaming phantasm guided the corpse’s steps. Alfred came after, touching the mane gingerly, expecting it to be hot. The scales were quite cool however, hard and shining as black glass.

The Sartan had ridden dragonback on Arianus and, although this dragon was considerably different from those in the air world, he wasn’t nearly as frightened as he’d expected to be. Only Haplo and the dog remained standing on the column, the Patryn eyeing the dragon warily, his gaze shifting to the column ahead of him, as if measuring what his best decision might be. The dog whimpered and cringed and ducked behind its master, doing its best to avoid the dragon’s eye.

Alfred knew enough about the Labyrinth to understand the Patryn’s fear, his dilemma. Dragons in the Labyrinth are intelligent, malevolent, deadly; never to be trusted, always to be avoided. But the steam-powered ships of the dead were nearing the middle of the ocean. Haplo made his decision, jumped onto the dragon’s back.

“Here, dog!” he called.

The animal ran back and forth on the column, made a tentative try at a jump, gave it up at the last moment, ran up and down the column again, whining.

“Hurry!” the dragon warned.

“Dog!” Haplo commanded, snapping his fingers.

The animal gathered itself together and made a desperate jump right into Haplo’s arms, nearly bowling him over.

The dragon whipped around with a speed that caught Alfred unaware. He had let go of the mane and now almost slid off the back. Grabbing hold of a spike that stood taller than he did, he clung to it with both hands.

The fire dragon swam through the magma as easily as the dragons of Arianus flew through the air, using slithering motions and the push of its strong tail to propel the wingless, gigantic body forward. The hot wind of their passing blew Alfred’s wispy hair back from his head, fluttered his robes behind him. The dog howled in terror the entire way.

The dragon moved at an angle to cut off the ships, then raced ahead of them. At home in her element, her speed was formidable. The iron ships could not match it. But they were now more than halfway across. The dragon was forced to cut close, swinging across the bow of the lead ship. The dead saw them. A hail of arrows rained down around them, but the dragon was sailing too rapidly for the archers to find a good target.

“My people,” said the cadaver in its hollow voice.

The army of the dead of Kairn Telest was drawn up on the docks, prepared to meet the army of the dead of Necropolis and drive them back before they could establish a foothold.

Baltazar’s strategy was sound, but he didn’t know of the lazar, had no word of what had happened in Necropolis. He was prepared for war—a war between cities. He had no idea that now it was a war between the dead and the living. He had no suspicion that he and his people were among the last living beings on Abarrach and that, soon, they might be fighting for their lives against their own dead.

“We’re going to make it,” said Haplo, “but not by much.” His gaze flicked to Alfred. “If you’re coming back with me through Death’s Gate, run straight for the ship. The duke and I will join you.”

“Duke?” Alfred was puzzled. “But he won’t come. Not voluntarily.” And then he understood. “You don’t mean to give him a choice, do you?”

“I’m taking the necromancer back to the Nexus. If you’re coming along, head for the ship. You should thank me, Alfred,” Haplo added with a grim smile. “I’m saving his life. How long do you think he could survive here?”

They were within sight of those waiting on shore. The cadaver of Prince Edmund, prompted by its phantasm, raised its arms. A cheer greeted him; swarms of the dead soldiers began running along the wharf to assist them, protect them from attack as they disembarked.

The dragon surged in among the docks, her momentum sent waves of lava crashing onto the shoreline. The ships of the dead arrived so close behind that Alfred could see the dreadful writhing image of the lazar Kleitus standing on the prow of the lead vessel. At his side—Jera.