Into the Labyrinth

16

The dog was bored. Not only bored, but hungry and bored.

The dog didn’t blame its master for this state of affairs. Haplo wasn’t well. The jagged wound across the heart-rune had healed, but it had left a scar, a white weal slashing across the sigil that was the center of Haplo’s being. Haplo had attempted to tattoo over it, to close the sigil, but for some reason unknown to both the dog and its master, the pigment wouldn’t take on the scar tissue; the magic wouldn’t work.

“Probably some sort of venom, left by the dragon-snake,” Haplo had reasoned when he’d calmed down enough to be reasonable.

The first few moments after he’d discovered that his wound wouldn’t completely heal had, in the dog’s estimation, rivaled the storm raging outside their ship. The dog had deemed it wise to retreat during the outburst to a place of safety under the bed.

The dog simply couldn’t understand all the fuss. Haplo’s magic was as strong as ever—or so it seemed to the dog, who, after all, should know, having been not only a witness to some of Haplo’s more spectacular feats, but a willing participant in them as well.

The knowledge that his magic was in good working order hadn’t pleased Haplo as the dog had hoped it would. Haplo grew silent, withdrawn, preoccupied. And if he forgot to feed his faithful dog, well, the dog couldn’t complain much because Haplo often forgot to feed himself.

But there came a time when the dog could no longer hear the glad cries of the mensch, celebrating the wondrous workings of the Kicksey-winsey, because the rumblings of its own empty stomach drowned out the noise. The animal decided enough was enough.

They were down in the tunnels. The metal thing that looked like a man and walked like a man but smelled like one of Limbeck’s tool boxes was clanking about, doing nothing interesting that the dog could see, yet receiving all sorts of lavish praise. Only Haplo wasn’t interested. He leaned against one of the walls of the tunnel, in the shadows, staring at nothing. The dog cocked an eye in Haplo’s direction and gave a bark that expressed the following thoughts: “Very well, Master. The man-thing without a smell has turned on the machine that hurts our ears. Our little and our big friends are happy. Let’s go and eat.”

“Hush, dog,” said Haplo and patted the animal absent-mindedly on the head. The dog sighed. Back on board the ship hung rows and rows of sausages—fragrant, stomach-filling sausages. The dog could see them in its mind, could smell them, could taste them. The animal was torn. Loyalty prompted it to stay with its master, who might get into serious trouble on his own.

“However,” reasoned the dog, “a dog who is faint with hunger is not a dog who would be much good in a fight.”

The animal whined, wriggled against Haplo’s leg, and cast a longing look back down the tunnel, the way they’d come.

“You have to go out?” Haplo demanded, eyeing the dog with irritation. The dog considered the matter. This hadn’t been what it intended. And, well, no, it didn’t have to go out. Not in the way Haplo meant. Not at the moment. But at least they both would be out—anywhere else besides this rune-lit tunnel.

The dog indicated, by pricking its ears straight up, that yes, indeed, it did have to go out. Once out, there was just a short jaunt to the ship and the sausages.

“Go on, then,” said Haplo impatiently. “You don’t need me. Don’t get lost in the storm.”

Lost in the storm! Look who’s talking about being lost! Still, the dog had received permission to go and that was the main thing, although permission had been received based on a fraudulent premise. The dog’s conscience jabbed it on this point, but hunger pangs hurt worse than conscience pangs and the dog trotted off without giving the matter further consideration. It was only when the dog was halfway up the stairs leading out of the tunnels, near another man that had no smell but looked like Alfred, that the dog realized it had a problem.

The animal could not get back onto the ship without assistance. The dog drooped. Its steps faltered. Its tail, which had been waving jauntily in the air, sagged. It would have flopped down on its belly in despair if it hadn’t been at that moment ascending a staircase, which made flopping uncomfortable. The dog dragged itself up the stairs. Near the man that had no smell but looked like Alfred, the dog sat down to scratch an itch and consider its current problem.

Haplo’s ship was completely guarded by Patryn rune-magic. Not a problem for the dog, who could slide inside the sigla as easily as if it were greased. But paws are not meant to open doors. And while doors and walls had not stopped the dog when it was going to rescue its master, such obstacles might well stop it from sneaking inside to steal sausages. Even the dog could admit that there was a distinct difference.

There was also the unfortunate fact that Haplo kept the sausages hanging up near the ceiling, well out of the reach of hungry dogs. Another point the animal had not considered.

“This simply is not my day,” the dog said, or words to that effect. It had just heaved another sigh and was considering biting something to ease its frustration when it caught a scent.

The dog sniffed. The scent was familiar, belonged to a person the dog knew well. The man’s scent was an odd variety, composed of a mixture of elf and human, combined with the flavor of stregno and held together by a sharp smell of danger, of nervous anticipation.

The dog bounded to its feet, searched the room for the source of the scent, and came upon it almost immediately.

His friend, his master’s friend—Hugh the Hand. The man had shaved off all his hair for some reason, which the dog didn’t bother to try to figure out. Not many of the things people did ever made sense.

The dog grinned, wagged its tail in friendly recognition.

Hugh didn’t respond. He seemed disconcerted by the dog’s presence. He growled at it, kicked at it with his foot. The dog understood that it was not welcome. This wouldn’t do. Sitting down, the dog lifted a paw to be shaken. For some reason which the animal could never fathom, people found this inane gesture charming.

It appeared to work. The dog couldn’t see the man’s face, which was hidden beneath a hood (people were so very strange), but the animal knew Hugh was now regarding it with interest. The man squatted down on his haunches, beckoned the dog to come closer.

The dog heard the man’s hand move inside the cloak, although the man was trying very hard to move it silently. Hugh the Hand drew something forth with a scraping sound. The dog smelled iron tinged with old blood, a scent the dog didn’t like much, but this was no time to be choosy.

Hugh accepted the dog’s paw, shook it gravely. “Where’s your master? Where’s Haplo?”

Well, the dog couldn’t see launching into a lengthy explanation at this point. The animal jumped to its feet, eager to go. Here was someone who could open doors, someone who could snag sausages off their hooks. And so the dog told a lie.

It barked once and looked out the Factree door, in the direction of Haplo’s ship.

One must note that the dog didn’t consider this a lie. This was a mere matter of taking the truth, gnawing at it a bit, and then burying it for later. His master wasn’t on the ship at this precise moment—as the dog was leading Hugh to believe—but he soon would be.

In the meanwhile, the dog and Hugh would have a nice visit and share a sausage or two. Time for explanations later.

But, of course, the man couldn’t react simply and logically. Hugh the Hand stared around distrustfully, as if expecting Haplo to leap out at him any moment. Not seeing Haplo, Hugh the Hand glared at the dog.

“How did he get past me?”

The dog felt a howl of frustration rising in its throat. Damn the man. There were all sorts of ways Haplo could have slipped past him. Magic, for one...

“I guess he must have used his magic,” Hugh the Hand muttered, standing up. There was the scraping sound again, and the smell of iron and old blood was considerably diminished, to the dog’s relief.

“So why did he sneak off?” Hugh the Hand was asking. “Maybe he suspects something’s up. That must be it. He’s not the type to take chances. But then what are you doing running around loose?” The man was staring at the dog again. “He didn’t send you out looking for me, did he?” Oh, for the love of all that was greasy! The dog could have cheerfully bitten the man. Why did everything have to be so complicated? Hadn’t this fellow ever been hungry before?

The dog assumed an innocent air, cocked its head to one side, gave the man a melting look with its dark eyes, and whined a bit to protest being falsely accused.

“I guess not,” Hugh the Hand said, studying the animal intently. “He couldn’t know it’s me who’s after him, for one thing. And you—you might be my ticket on board his ship. He’d let you in. And when he sees I’m with you, he’ll let me in as well. Come on, then, mutt. Lead the way.”

Once this man made up his mind, he moved quickly. The dog had to give him credit for that, and so it chose to overlook (for the moment) the use of the highly insulting “mutt.”

The dog danced off, dashed out the Factree door. The man followed along closely behind. He appeared slightly daunted at the sight of the tremendous storm raging over Drevlin, but after a moment’s hesitation in the entrance, he drew his hood up over his head and advanced grimly into the wind and rain. Barking back at the thunder, the dog splashed gleefully through puddles, heading for the ship—a hulking mass of rune-glimmering darkness, barely visible through the slanting rain.

Of course, there would come the moment when, once on the ship, Hugh the Hand would discover that Haplo wasn’t on board. Which moment might be rather ticklish to handle. The dog hoped, however, that the moment would come only after the man had been persuaded to hand over a few sausages. Once its stomach was full, the dog felt capable of anything.