Into the Labyrinth

1

Abarrach: world of stone, world of darkness lit by the fires of molten sea, world of stalagmites and stalactites, world of fire dragons, world of poisonous air and sulfurous fumes, world of magic.

Abarrach: world of the dead.

Xar, Lord of the Nexus, and now Lord of Abarrach, sat back in his chair, rubbed his eyes. The rune-constructs he was studying were starting to blur together. He’d almost made a mistake—and that was inexcusable. But he had caught himself in time, corrected it. Closing his aching eyes, he went over the construct again in his mind.

Begin with the heart-rune. Connect this sigil’s stem to an adjoining rune’s base. Inscribe the sigla on the breast, working upward to the head. Yes, that was where he’d gone wrong the first few times. The head was important—vital. Then draw the sigla on the trunk, finally the arms, the legs. It was perfect. He could find no flaw. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the dead body on which he’d been working rising up and living again. A corrupt form of life, admittedly, but a beneficial one. The corpse was far more useful now than it would have been moldering in the ground.

Xar smiled in triumph, but it was a triumph whose life span was shorter than that of his imaginary defunct. His thoughts went something like this: I can raise the dead.

At least I am fairly certain I can raise the dead.

I can’t be sure.

That was the pall over his elation. There were no dead for him to raise. Or rather, there were too many dead. Just not dead enough.

In bitter frustration, Xar slammed his hands down on the elaborately conceived rune-construct. The rune-bones[1] went flying, skittering and sliding off the table onto the floor.

Xar paid no attention to them. He could always put the construct together again. Again and again. He knew it as well as he knew the rune-magic to conjure up water. For all the good it would do him.

Xar needed a corpse. One not more than three days dead. One that hadn’t been seized by these wretched lazars.[2] Irritably he swept the last few remaining rune-bones to the floor.

He left the room he used as his study, headed for his private chambers. On his way, he passed by the library. And there was Kleitus, the Dynast, former ruler (until his death) of Necropolis, the largest city on Abarrach. At his death, Kleitus had become a lazar—one of the living dead. Now the Dynast’s gruesome form, which was neither dead nor alive, wandered the halls and corridors of the palace that had once been his. The lazar thought it was still his. Xar knew better, but he saw no reason to disabuse Kleitus of the notion. The Lord of the Nexus steeled himself to speak to the Lord of the Living Dead. Xar had fought many terrible foes during his struggles to free his people from the Labyrinth. Dragons, wolfen, snogs, chaodyn—every monster the Labyrinth could create. Xar feared nothing. Nothing living. The lord couldn’t help feeling a qualm deep in his bowels when he looked into the hideous, ever-shifting death-mask face of the lazar. Xar saw the hatred in the eyes—the hatred that the dead bore the living of Abarrach.

An encounter with Kleitus was never pleasant. Xar generally avoided the lazar. The lord found it uncomfortable talking to a being who had one thought on his mind: death. Your death.

The sigla on Xar’s body glowed blue, defending him from attack. The blue light was reflected in the Dynast’s dead eyes, which glittered with disappointment. The lazar had tried once, on Xar’s arrival, to kill the Patryn. The battle between the two had been brief, spectacular. Kleitus had never tried it again. But the lazar dreamed of it during the endless hours of his tormented existence. He never failed to mention it when they came together.

“Someday, Xar,” said Kleitus, the corpse talking, “I will catch you unawares. And then you will join us.”

“...join us,” came the unhappy echo of the lazar’s soul. The two parts of the dead always spoke together, the soul being just a bit slower than the body.

“It must be nice for you to have a goal still,” Xar said somewhat testily. He couldn’t help it. The lazar made him nervous. But the lord needed help, information, and Kleitus was the only one—so far as Xar could determine—who might have it. “I have a goal myself. One I would like to discuss with you. If you have the time?” Nervousness made Xar sarcastic.

Try as he might, Xar could not look for long at the lazar’s face. It was the face of a corpse—a murdered corpse, for Kleitus had himself been slain by another lazar, had then been brought back to hideous life. The face would sometimes be the face of one long dead, and then suddenly it would be the face of Kleitus as he had been when he was alive. The transformation occurred when the soul moved into the body, struggled to renew life, regain what it had once possessed. Thwarted, the soul flew out of the body, tried vainly to free itself from its prison. The soul’s continual rage and frustration gave an unnatural warmth to the chill, dead flesh.

Xar looked at Kleitus, looked away hastily.

“Will you accompany me to the library?” Xar asked with a polite gesture, his gaze anywhere but on the corpse.

The lazar followed willingly. Kleitus had no particular desire to be of assistance to the Lord of the Nexus, as Xar well knew. The lazar came because there was always the possibility that Xar might weaken, inadvertently lower his defenses. Kleitus came because he hoped to murder Xar.

Alone in the room with the lazar, Xar considered briefly summoning another Patryn to stand guard. He immediately abandoned the idea, was aghast at himself for even thinking such a thing. Not only would such a summons make him appear weak in the eyes of his people—who worshipped him—but he wanted no one else to know the subject of his discussions.

Consequently, though he did so with misgivings, Xar shut the door made of braided kairn grass, marked it with Patryn runes of warding so that it could not be opened. He drew these runes over faded Sartan runes, Sartan magic that had long ago ceased to function.

Kleitus’s lifeless eyes sprang suddenly to life, focused on Xar’s throat. The dead fingers twitched in anticipation.

“No, no, my friend,” Xar said pleasantly. “Another day, perhaps. Or would you like to come again within the circle of my power? Would you like to feel again my magic starting to unravel your existence?”

Kleitus stared at him with unblinking hatred. “What do you want, Lord of the Nexus?”

“...Nexus,” came the sad echo.

“I want to sit down,” Xar said. “I’ve had a wearing time of it. Two days and nights on the rune-construct. But I have solved it. I now know the secret to the art of necromancy. I can now raise the dead.”

“Congratulations,” said Kleitus, and the dead lips curled in a sneer. “You can now destroy your people as we destroyed ours.”

Xar let that pass. The lazar tended to have a dark outlook on things. He supposed he couldn’t blame them.

The lord took his seat at a large stone table whose top was covered with dusty volumes: a treasure-trove of Sartan lore. Xar had spent as much time studying these works as possible, considering the myriad duties of a lord about to lead his people to war. But this time spent among the Sartan books was minute compared to the years Kleitus had spent. And Xar was at a disadvantage: he was forced to read the material in a foreign language—the Sartan language. Although he had mastered that language while in the Nexus, the task of breaking down the Sartan rune-structure, then rebuilding it into Patryn thought, was exhausting and time-consuming.

Xar could never, under any circumstances, think like a Sartan. Kleitus had the information Xar needed. Kleitus had delved deep into these books. Kleitus was—or had been—a Sartan himself. He knew. He understood. But how to worm it out of the corpse? That was the tricky part. Xar wasn’t fooled by the lazar’s shambling walk and bloodthirsty demeanor. Kleitus was playing a far more subtle game. An army of living, warm-blooded beings had recently arrived on Abarrach—Patryns, brought here by Xar, brought here to train for war. The lazar hungered after these living beings, longed to destroy the life that the dead coveted and at the same time found so abhorrent. The lazar could not fight the Patryns. The Patryns were too powerful.

But it required an immense outlay of the Patryns’ magic to sustain life in the darksome caverns of Abarrach. The Patryns were beginning to weaken—ever so slightly. So had the Sartan weakened before them; so had many of the Sartan died.

Time. The dead had time. Not soon, but inevitably, the Patryn magic would start to crumble. And then the lazar would strike. Xar didn’t plan to be here that long. He had found what he’d come to Abarrach to find. Now he just needed to determine whether or not he’d really found it.

Kleitus did not sit down. The lazar can never rest in one place long, but are constantly moving, wandering, searching for something they have lost all hope of discovering.

Xar did not look at the animated corpse, shuffling back and forth in front of him. He looked instead at the dusty volumes lying on the table.

“I want to be able to test my knowledge of necromancy,” Xar said. “I want to know if I can actually raise the dead.”

“What is stopping you?” Kleitus demanded.

“... stopping you?”

Xar frowned. The annoying echo was like a buzzing in his ears, and it always came just when he was about to speak, interrupting him, breaking the chain of his thought.

“I need a corpse. And don’t tell me to use my own people. That is out of the question. I personally saved the life of every Patryn I brought with me from the Nexus.”

“You gave life,” said Kleitus. “You have the right to take it.”

“...take it.”

“Perhaps,” Xar said loudly over the echo. “Perhaps that is true. And if there were more of my people—far more—I might consider it. But our numbers are few and I dare not waste even one.”

“What do you want of me, Lord of the Nexus?”

“...Nexus?”

“I was talking to one of the other lazar, a woman named Jera. She mentioned that there were Sartan—living Sartan—still on Abarrach. A man named ... um ...” Xar hesitated, appeared at a loss.

“Balthazar!” Kleitus hissed.

“Balthazar...” mourned the echo.

“Yes, that was the name,” Xar said hastily. “Balthazar. He leads them. An early report I received from a man called Haplo—a Patryn who once visited Abarrach—led me to believe that this Sartan Balthazar and his people all perished at your hands. But Jera tells me that this is not true.”

“Haplo, yes, I recall him.” Kleitus did not seem to find the memory a pleasant one. He brooded for a long moment, the soul flying in, struggling, flying out of the body. He came to a halt in front of Xar, stared at the lord with shifting eyes. “Did Jera tell you what happened?” Xar found the corpse’s gaze disconcerting. “No,” he lied, forcing himself to remain seated when it was his instinct to get up and flee to a far corner.

“No, Jera did not. I thought perhaps you—”

“The living ran before us.” Kleitus resumed his restless walk. “We followed. They could not hope to escape us. We never tire. We need no rest. We need no food. We need no water. At last we had them trapped. They made a pitiable stand before us, planning to fight to save their miserable lives. We had among us their own prince. He was dead. I had brought him back to life myself. He knew what the living had done to the dead. He understood. Only when the living are all dead can the dead be free. He swore he would lead us against his own people.

“We readied for the kill. But then one of our number stepped forward—the husband of this very Jera. He is a lazar. His wife murdered him, raised him up, gave him the power we command. But he betrayed us. Somehow, somewhere, he had found a power of his own. He has the gift of death, as did one other Sartan who came to this world, came through Death’s Gate—”

“Who was that?” Xar asked. His interest, which had been lagging through the lazar’s long-winded discourse, was suddenly caught.

“I don’t know. He was a Sartan, but he had a mensch name,” said Kleitus, irritated at the interruption.

“Alfred?”

“Perhaps. What difference does it make?” Kleitus seemed obsessed with telling his tale. “Jera’s husband broke the spell that held the prince’s corpse captive. The prince’s body died. The prison walls of his flesh crumbled. The soul floated free.” Kleitus sounded angry, bitter.

“...floated free.” The echo was wistful, longing. Xar was impatient. Gift of death. Sartan nonsense.

“What happened to Balthazar and his people?” he demanded.

“They escaped us,” Kleitus hissed. His waxen hands clenched in fury. “We tried to go after them, but Jera’s husband was too powerful. He stopped us.”

“So there are Sartan still living on Abarrach,” Xar said, fingers drumming the table. “Sartan who can provide the corpses I need for my experiments. Corpses who will be troops in my army. Do you have any idea where they are?”

“If we did, they would not still be living,” Kleitus said, regarding Xar with hatred. “Would they, Lord of the Nexus?”

“I suppose not,” Xar muttered. “This husband of Jera’s. Where is he? Undoubtedly he knows how to find the Sartan?”

“I do not know where he has gone. He was in Necropolis until you and your people arrived. He kept us out of our city. Kept me out of my palace. But you appeared, and he left.”

“Afraid of me, no doubt,” Xar said offhandedly. “He fears nothing, Lord of the Nexus!” Kleitus laughed unpleasantly. “He is the one of whom the prophecy speaks.”

“I heard about a prophecy.” Xar waved a negligent hand. “Haplo said something about it. He viewed prophecies much as I view them, however. Wishes, nothing more. I give them little credence.”

“You should give this one credence, Patryn. So the prophecy is spoken: ‘He wilt bring life to the dead, hope to the living, and for him the Gate wilt open.’ That is the prophecy. And it has come to pass.”

“...come to pass.”

“Yes, it has come to pass,” Xar echoed the echo. “I am the one who has brought the prophecy to fulfillment. It speaks of me, not some perambulating corpse.”

“I think not...”

“...think not.”

“Of course it has!” Xar said irritably. “ ‘The Gate will open...’ The Gate has opened.”

“Death’s Gate has opened.”

“What other gate is there?” Xar demanded, annoyed and only half-listening, hoping to steer the conversation back to where it had started.

“The Seventh Gate,” Kleitus replied.

And this time the echo was silent. Xar glanced up, wondering what was the matter with it.

“Your talk of armies, of conquest, of traveling from world to world... What a waste of time and effort.” Kleitus gave a rictus smile, “When all you need to do is step inside the Seventh Gate.”

“Indeed?” Xar frowned. “I have been through many gates in my lifetime. What is so special about this one?”

“It was inside this chamber—the Seventh Gate—that the Council of Seven sundered the world.”

“...sundered the world.”

Xar sat silent. He was stunned. The implications, the possibilities... if Kleitus was right. If he was telling the truth. If this place still existed...

“It exists,” said Kleitus.

“Where is this... chamber?” Xar asked, testing, still not entirely believing the lazar.

Kleitus appeared to ignore the question. The lazar turned to face the bookcases that lined the library. His dead eyes—occasionally alight with the flitting soul—searched for something. At last his withered hand, still stained with the blood of those it had murdered, reached out and lifted a small, thin volume. He tossed the book on the desk in front of Xar.

“Read,” Kleitus said.

“...read,” came the sad refrain.

“It looks like a children’s primer,” Xar said, examining it with some disdain. He had himself used books like these, found in the Nexus, to teach the Sartan runes to the mensch child Bane.

“It is,” said Kleitus. “It comes from the days when our own children were alive and laughing. Read.”

Xar studied the book suspiciously. It appeared to be genuine. It was old, extremely old—to judge by the musty smell and brittle, yellowed parchment. Carefully, fearful that the pages might crumble to dust at a touch, he opened the leather cover, read silently to himself.

The Earth was destroyed.

Four worlds were created out of the ruin. Worlds for ourselves and the mensch: Air, Fire, Stone, Water.

Four Gates connect each world to the other: Arianus to Pryan to Abarrach to Chelestra.

A house of correction was built for our enemies: the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is connected to the other worlds through the Fifth Gate: the Nexus.

The Sixth Gate is the center, permitting entry: the Vortex. And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.

The end was the beginning.

That was the printed text. Beneath, in a crude scrawl, were the words - The beginning was our end.

“You wrote this,” Xar guessed.

“In my own blood,” Kleitus said.

“...blood.”

Xar’s hands shook with excitement. He forgot about the Sartan, about the prophecy, about the necromancy. This—this was worth it all!

“You know where the gate is? You will take me there?” Xar rose eagerly to his feet.

“I know. The dead know. And I would be only too happy to take you, Lord of the Nexus...” Kleitus’s face writhed, the soul flitting restlessly in and out of the corpse, the hands flexed. “If you met that requirement. Your death could be arranged...”

Xar was in no mood for humor. “Don’t be ridiculous. Take me there now. Or, if that is not possible”—the thought came to the lord that perhaps this Seventh Gate was on another world—“tell me where to find it.” Kleitus appeared to consider the matter, then shook his head. “I don’t believe I will.”

“...I will.”

“Why not?” Xar was angry. “Call it... loyalty.”

“This—from a man who slaughtered his own people!” Xar sneered. “Then why tell me about the Seventh Gate, if you refuse to take me to it?” He had a sudden thought. “You want something in exchange. What?”

“To kill. And keep on killing. To be rid of the smell of warm blood that torments me every moment that I live... and I will live forever! Death is what I want. As to the Seventh Gate, you don’t need me to show you. Your minion has been there already. I should think he would have told you.”

“...death... you...”

“What minion? Who?” Xar was confounded a moment, then asked, “Haplo?”

“That could be the name.” Kleitus was losing interest.

“...name.”

“Haplo knows the location of the Seventh Gate!” Xar scoffed. “Impossible. He never mentioned it...”

“He doesn’t know,” Kleitus responded. “No one living knows. But his corpse would know. It would want to return to that place. Raise up this Haplo’s corpse, Lord of the Nexus, and he will lead you to the Seventh Gate.”

“I wish I knew your game,” Xar said to himself, pretending once more to peruse the child’s book, covertly observing the lazar. “I wish I knew what you were after! What is the Seventh Gate to you! And why do you want Haplo? Yes, I see where you’re leading me. But so long as it’s the same direction I’m traveling...”

Xar shrugged and lifted the book, read aloud.

“ ‘And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.’ How? What does that mean, Dynast? Or does it mean anything? It is hard to tell; you Sartan derive so much pleasure out of playing with words.”

“I would guess it means a great deal, Lord of the Nexus.” A flicker of dark amusement brought real life to the dead eyes. “What that meaning is, I neither know nor care.”

Reaching out his hand, its flesh bluish white and dappled with blood, its nails black, Kleitus spoke a Sartan rune, struck the door.

The Patryn sigla protecting the door shattered. Kleitus walked through it and left.

Xar could have held the runes against the Dynast’s magic, but the lord didn’t want to waste his energy. Why bother? Let the lazar leave. He would obviously be of no further use.

The Seventh Gate. The chamber where the Sartan sundered the world. Who knows what powerful magic exists inside there still? thought Xar. If, as he claims, Kleitus knows the location of the Seventh Gate, then he doesn’t need Haplo to show him. He obviously wants Haplo for his own purposes. Why? True, Haplo eluded the Dynast’s clutches, escaped the lazar’s murderous rampage, but it seems unlikely that Kleitus would hold a grudge. The lazar loathes all living beings. He wouldn’t single out just one unless he had a special reason.

Haplo has something or knows something Kleitus wants. I wonder what? I must keep Haplo to myself, at least until I find out...

Xar picked up the book again, stared at the Sartan runes until he had them memorized. A commotion in the hallway, voices calling his name, disturbed him. Leaving the desk, Xar crossed the room, opened the door. Several Patryns were roaming up and down the corridor.

“What do you want?”

“My Lord! We’ve been searching all over!” The woman who had answered paused to catch her breath.

“Yes?” Xar caught her excitement. Patryns were disciplined; they did not ordinarily let their feelings show. “What is it, Daughter?”

“We have captured two prisoners, My Lord. We caught them coming through Death’s Gate.”

“Indeed! This is welcome news. What—”

“My Lord, hear me!” Under normal circumstances, no Patryn would have dared interrupt Xar. But the young woman was too excited to contain herself. “They are both Sartan. And one of them is—”

“Alfred!” Xar guessed.

“The man is Samah, My Lord.”

Samah! Head of the Sartan Council of Seven.

Samah. Who had been held in suspended animation long centuries on Chelestra. Samah. The very Samah who had brought about the destruction of the worlds. Samah. Who had cast the Patryns into the Labyrinth.

At that moment, Xar could almost have believed in this higher power Haplo kept yammering about. And Xar could almost have thanked it for giving Samah into his hands.