Fire Sea

45

Haplo’s ship swung at anchor, unharmed, safe, intact. Within moments, they could be aboard, the Patryn’s runes keeping them safe from assault. Alfred was in a quandary. What Haplo said was undoubtedly true. The duke would not survive long on Abarrach. None of those still living on Abarrach could survive the fury of the dead, driven to vengeance and destruction by the lazar.

At least I would be able to save one person, one Sartan. Mercy, compassion, pity.. . . Surely I could devise some means of keeping a necromancer out of the hands of the so-called Lord of the Nexus! But what if I failed? What terrible tragedies would follow if a necromancer entered the other worlds? Wouldn’t it be better for him to die here?

The troops of Kairn Telest raced along the docks, intent on saving their prince. Archers covered their advance, flights of arrows vaulted through the air to land, clattering, against the sides of the iron dragonships. The dead plucked the arrows from their chill flesh and tossed them into the magma, where they vanished with snake-like hisses. Kleitus tore out an arrow that had lodged in his breast and brandished it aloft.

“We are not your enemy!” he shouted, his voice ringing over the magma sea, silencing the army of the dead of Kairn Telest on the docks below. “They, the living”—he pointed to the black-robed figure of Baltazar—“are the true enemy! They have enslaved you, robbed you of your dignity!”

“Only when the living are dead, will the dead be free!” Jera cried.

“... dead be free ...” echoed her tormented spirit.

The army of Kairn Telest hesitated, wavered. The air was filled with the moaning wails of its phantasms.

“Now’s our chance!” said Haplo. “Jump for it!”

He leapt from the dragon’s back to the stone dock. Alfred followed, landed in a confused jumble of hands and knees that took him some moments to sort out. When he was erect and more or less walking, he saw Haplo grip the duke firmly by the arm.

“Come along, Your Grace. You’re going with me.”

“Where? What do you mean?” Jonathan pulled back.

“Through Death’s Gate, Your Grace. Back to my world.” Haplo gestured toward his ship.

The duke glanced at it, saw safety. He hesitated, wavering, much as the dead around him. The dragon swam a short distance from shore, stopped, its slit eyes watching, waiting.

Jonathan shook his head. “No,” he said softly.

Haplo’s grip tightened. “Damn it, I’m saving your life! If you stay here, you’ll die!”

“Don’t you understand?” Jonathan said, looking at the Patryn with a strange, detached calm. “That is what I am meant to do.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Haplo lost control. “I know you think you communicated with some sort of higher power, but it was a trick! His trick!” He jabbed a finger at Alfred. “What you and I saw was a lie! We are the highest power in the universe! My Lord is the highest power. Come back with me and you will understand—”

A higher power! The revelation was devastating. Alfred staggered where he stood, his legs sinking beneath him. Now he understood, understood what had happened to him in the chamber! He remembered the feeling of peace and contentment that had filled him, understood the reason why he felt such sorrow when he’d awakened from that vision to discover the feeling was gone. But it had taken the Patryn to show him!

Deep within, I knew the truth, but I couldn’t admit it to myself, Alfred realized. Why? Why did I refuse to listen to my heart?

Because, if there is a higher power, then we Sartan have made a dreadful, an appalling, an unforgivable mistake!

The idea was too awful to comprehend. His brain was barely capable of handling the flood of emotions that rolled over him, waves of concepts and new ideas slammed into him one after the other. The solid ground on which he stood was suddenly washed out from beneath him, casting him adrift on a perilous sea with no ship, no compass, no anchor.

A shaft whistled past Alfred, jolted him to conscious awareness of their surroundings, of their danger. The dead of Kairn Telest were raising their weapons, turning those weapons on their own.

A thrown spear had struck Haplo on the arm. Blood flowed from the wound that wasn’t serious; but it was a mark of the Patryn’s weakening magic that the point had penetrated the sigla tattooed on his skin.

“Can’t you stop them?” Alfred cried at Prince Edmund, trusting him to do something, prevent what must be the massacre of the last living beings on Abarrach. “They’re your people!”

The cadaver stood silent, more silent than death in this world. The phantasm’s gleaming eyes were fixed on Jonathan.

“Leave us, Patryn,” said the duke. “You have no part in what happens on Abarrach. We brought this on ourselves. We must do what we can to make amends. Return to your world and share with your people the knowledge you have gained in this one.”

“Pah!” Haplo spit on the ground. “C’mon, dog!” The Patryn ran toward his ship. The dog, after one backward glance at Alfred, dashed after its master.

Kleitus’s ship docked. The ramps were lowered, the dead swarmed out to join their brethren on land. The duke would soon be surrounded by an army. On board ship, Kleitus and Jera stood together. The duchess’s hand was outstretched, she was shrieking at the dead to slay her husband.

Jonathan stood unmoved by the chaos. He stared up at his wife, his face pale with grief and sorrow. A brief, bitter struggle shadowed the eyes.

He knows what he must do, thought Alfred, but he is afraid. Is there any way for me to help? Frustrated, the Sartan wrung his hands. How can I help? I don’t understand what’s happening.

Another flight of arrows flew past Alfred like hordes of wasps. One stuck in his robes, another landed point first on the toe of his shoe. An arrow thudded into Haplo’s thigh. He clutched at his leg, Wed to keep running. Blood welled from between his fingers. His leg gave out, he collapsed onto the dock.

The dead cheered, several broke from their ranks and ran toward him. The dog whirled to face them, teeth bared, hackles raised. Haplo stood up, tried to limp on, but he knew he couldn’t move fast enough to outpace the dead. He drew the sword, turned, and prepared to fight.

The arrows that showered down around Jonathan might have been drops of rain. He paid no attention to them, and they didn’t touch him. He was calm, resolute. He raised his hand for quiet and such was the commanding presence of the young man with the grief-ravaged face that the dead fell silent, the lazar hushed their calls for revenge. Even the faint plaintive moaning of the phantasms sunk into stillness.

Jonathan raised his voice. “In ancient days, when we Sartan first came to this world we had created, we worked to build lives for ourselves and the mensch and the creatures that were a sacred trust to us. In the beginning, all went well with one exception: we did not hear from our brethren in the other worlds.

“Their silence was, at first, disquieting. Then it became alarming, for our world was failing us. Or, perhaps it is more correct to say that we were failing our world. Instead of studying how to conserve our resources, we wantonly exploited them, always believing that, in time, we would be connected with those other worlds. They would provide us with what we lacked.

“The mensch were the first to succumb to the poisons of this world that was growing chill and barren around us. The creatures were next. And then our own population began to dwindle. At that critical juncture, our people took two steps—one forward into light, one backward into darkness.

“One group of Sartan sought to fight death, to end dying. They turned to necromancy. Instead of conquering death, however, they became enslaved by it. At the same time, another group of Sartan pooled their magical talents and resources in an effort to establish contact with the other three worlds. They built a chamber, devoted to this purpose, and brought into it a table that was one of the last surviving relics of another place and time. They established contact.. .”

Jonathan’s voice softened. “But not with our brethren in other worlds. They established contact with a higher order. They spoke to One who had been long, long forgotten.”

“Heresy!” cried Kleitus and “Heresy!” came the sibilant echo rising from the dead.

“Yes, heresy.” Jonathan shouted above the clamor. “That was the charge leveled at those Sartan long years ago. After all, we are the gods, are we not? We sundered worlds! Created new ones! We had defeated death itself! Look around you.”

The duke spread his arms, turned to the left, to the right, gestured forward and behind. “Who has won?”

The dead were silent. Alfred, glancing up at Kleitus, standing on the prow of the dragonship, saw by the twisted, sneering smile on the lazar’s crawling visage that the dynast was playing out the rope, allowing his victim to wrap the noose around his own neck. The lazar would cinch it tight and watch with pleasure as his victim’s body twitched and writhed.

Jonathan was making matters worse, not better, but Alfred had no idea how to stop him ... or even if he should. Never before had the Sartan felt so completely, utterly helpless.

A cold touch on the back of his leg nearly sent Alfred leaping into the sea. He thought it was one of the hands of the cadavers, and he shuddered, waited for death, until he heard a soft, pathetic whine.

Alfred opened his eyes, sighed in relief. The dog stood at his side. Certain it had the Sartan’s full attention, the animal darted sideways several steps, then darted back, and looked at Alfred expectantly.

The dog wanted him to go to its master, of course. Haplo stood on the pier, propped up against a bale of kairn grass. The Patryn’s shoulders sagged. His face was deathly pale. Only his indomitable will and strong sense of survival kept him conscious.

Mercy, compassion, pity...

Alfred drew a deep breath. Expecting to be halted, challenged, cut down by arrow, spear, or sword, he gripped his courage in both hands and began to edge his way through the dead toward Haplo.

Jonathan continued his speech, a speech now pitiable in Alfred’s estimation. He knew how it must end and so, he realized suddenly, did the young duke.

“Our ancestors feared these people who now came forward, crying out against the necromancers, warning that we must change or we would end up destroying not only ourselves, but the fragile balance that exists in the universe. The answer of our ancestors to murder the ‘heretics’, seal their bodies up in the chamber that became known as Damned’ and surround it with runes of warding.”

The dead eyes of the cadavers followed Alfred’s movements, but they made no attempt to stop him. He reached Haplo’s side, knelt down near the wounded man. “What. . . what can I do?” he asked in a low voice.

“Nothing,” Haplo answered, teeth clenched against his pain, “unless you can shut that fool up.”

“At least, while he’s talking, we have time—”

“For what?” Haplo demanded bitterly. “Write a last letter home, maybe?”

“They didn’t do anything to me.”

“Why should they bother? They know we’re not going anywhere.”

“But your ship—”

“Make one move toward it, and that move will be your last.” Haplo drew a shuddering breath, bit off a groan. “Look on board the dragonship. The lady isn’t paying attention to her husband’s speech.”

Alfred looked up, saw Jera looking directly at him. “She knows about the ship, about Death’s Gate. Remember?” Haplo pushed himself into a more upright position, gasping at the agony the move caused him. The dog, standing over him, whimpered in sympathy “My guess is ... they want to take it for themselves, try to enter . . .”

“Enter worlds of the living! Enter to kill! That’s .. . that’s awful! We’ve got to do something!”

“I’m open to suggestion,” Haplo said dryly. He had managed—at what terrible cost in pain Alfred couldn’t begin to imagine—to hack off much of the shaft of the arrow in his thigh. But the arrow’s head remained lodged in his flesh, his pant leg was soaked with blood. His shirt had stuck to the wound on his arm, forming a crude bandage. The deep slash would break open and begin to bleed the moment he moved.

“We might have one chance,” he said softly, his gaze intent on the young duke. “You can see, of course, where this tale of his is leading?”

Alfred didn’t answer.

“When they move in for the kill, we make a run for the ship. Once we’re on board, the runes will protect us. I hope.”

Alfred looked back at Jonathan, standing, alone.

“You mean .. . abandon him?”

Haplo’s bloody hand snaked out, grabbed Alfred’s collar, dragged the Sartan’s face to within an inch of his.

“Listen to me, damn you! You know what will happen if these lazar come through Death’s Gate! How many innocents will die? How many on Arianus? How many on Pryan? Balance that against one man’s life on this world. You made him believe in this ‘higher power.’ You’re the one who sent him to his death! You want to be responsible for bringing death itself through Death’s Gate?”

Alfred’s tongue felt swollen. He couldn’t talk, could only stare at Haplo in wordless confusion.

Jonathan’s voice, firm, strong, powerful, caught their attention. He drew even Jera’s dead eyes.

“Your warding runes couldn’t keep out those who went searching for the truth! I saw. I heard. I touched. I don’t understand yet. But I have faith. And I will prove to you what I have discovered.”

Jonathan took a step forward, raised his arms in appeal. “Beloved wife, I wronged you deeply. I would make amends. Slay me where I stand. I will die by your hands. Then raise me up. I will join your ranks, the ranks of the eternally damned.”

The lazar that had once been Jera left Kleitus’s side. It walked down the ramp that stretched from the ship to the pier. Her phantasm, trapped in its dead shell, surged as far ahead as it could, ephemeral hands outstretched in eager anticipation.

Tears slid down Jonathan’s cheeks. “So you came to me as my bride, Jera . . .”

He waited for her. The dead gathered around them, waited. The corpse of Prince Edmund and its shadowy phantasm, floating free beside it, waited. Out in the magma sea, the dragon drifted on the burning lava, waited. The lazar of Kleitus, standing on board ship, laughed, and waited.

The cadaver’s hands reached out as if to clasp her husband to her breast. The cruel fingers, strong in death, closed instead around Jonathan’s throat.

“Now!” cried Haplo.