The Seventh Gate

13

“No, boy! Stay!”

Haplo’s voice was insistent, peremptory. His command was final, the law. Yet . . .

The dog squirmed, whimpered. Here were trusted friends. Here were people who could make things right. And, above all else, here were people who were desperately unhappy. Here were people who needed a dog.

The dog half rose.

“Dog, no!” Haplo’s voice, sharp, warning. “Don’t! It’s a trap . . .”

Well, there, you see? A trap! Here were trusted friends, walking into a trap. And, obviously, the master was only thinking of his faithful dog’s safety. Which, so far as the dog could determine, left the decision up to it.

With a glad and excited whuff, the dog leapt from its hiding place and bounded joyfully down the corridor.

“What was that?” Alfred glanced fearfully around. “I heard something . . .”

He looked out into the corridor and saw a dog. Alfred sat down on the floor, very hard and very unexpectedly.

“Oh, my!” he repeated over and over. “Oh, my!”

The animal bounded into the cell, jumped into Alfred’s lap, and licked his face.

Alfred flung his arms around the dog’s neck and wept.

Objecting to being slobbered on, the dog wriggled free of Alfred’s embrace and pattered over to Marit. Very gently, the dog lifted a paw, placed it on her arm.

She touched the offered paw, then buried her face in the dog’s neck and began to sob. The dog whined in sympathy, looked pleadingly at Alfred.

“Don’t cry, my dear! He’s alive!” Alfred wiped away his own tears. Kneeling down beside Marit, he put his hands on her shoulders, forced her to lift her face, to look at him. “The dog. Haplo’s not dead, not yet. Don’t you see?”

Marit stared at the Sartan as if he’d gone mad.

“I don’t know how!” Alfred was babbling. “I can’t understand it myself. Probably the necromancy spell. Or perhaps Jonathon had something to do with it. Or maybe all together. Or none at all. Anyhow, my dear, because the dog is alive, Haplo is alive!”

“I don’t . . .” Marit was bewildered.

“Let me see if I can explain.”

Completely forgetting where he was, Alfred settled himself on the floor, prepared to launch into explanations. The dog had other plans, however. Catching hold of the toe of Alfred’s over-large shoe in its mouth, the dog sank in its teeth and began to tug.

“When Haplo was a young man . . . Good dog,” Alfred interrupted himself, attempted to free his shoe from the dog’s mouth. “A young man in the Labyrinth, he—Haplo . . . Nice doggie. Let go. I ... Oh, dear.”

The dog had released the shoe, was now tugging at Alfred’s coat sleeve.

“The dog wants us to leave,” said Marit.

She stood up, somewhat unsteadily. The dog, giving up on Alfred, switched its attention to her. Pressing its large body against her legs, it tried to herd her toward the cell door.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, getting a firm grip on the loose skin around the dog’s neck and hanging on. “I’m not leaving Haplo until I understand what’s happened.”

“I’m trying to tell you,” Alfred said plaintively. “Only I keep getting interrupted. It all has to do with Haplo’s ‘good’ impulses—pity, compassion, mercy, love. Haplo was raised to believe that such feelings were weaknesses.”

The dog muttered in its throat, nearly knocked Marit down trying again to shove her toward the cell door.

“Stop it, dog!” she ordered and turned back to Alfred. “Go on.”

Alfred sighed. “Haplo found it increasingly difficult to reconcile his true feelings with what he believed he should be feeling. Did you know he searched for you? After you left him? He realized he loved you, but he couldn’t admit it—either to himself or to you.”

Marit’s gaze went to the body on the stone bier. Unable to speak, she shook her head.

“When Haplo believed he had lost you, he grew increasingly unhappy and confused,” Alfred went on. “His confusion angered him. He concentrated all his energy on beating the Labyrinth, on escaping it. And then his goal was in sight—the Final Gate. When he reached it, he knew he had won, but winning didn’t please him, as he had assumed it would. Rather, it terrified him. After he passed through that Gate, what would life hold for him? Nothing.

“When Haplo was attacked at the Gate, he fought desperately. His instinct for survival is strong. But when he was severely wounded by the chaodyn, he saw his chance. He could find death at the hands of the enemy. This death would be an honorable one. No one would say otherwise, and it would free him from the terrible feelings of guilt, self-doubt, and regret.

“Part of Haplo was determined to die, but another part—the best part of him—refused to give up. At that point, wounded and weak in body and spirit, angry with himself, Haplo solved his problem. He did so unconsciously. He created the dog.”

The animal in question had, by this time, given up on attempting to drag everyone out of the cell. Flopping down on its belly, it rested its head on the floor between its paws and regarded Alfred with a resigned, doleful expression. Whatever happened now was not its fault.

“He created the dog?” Marit was incredulous. “Then—it’s not real.”

“Oh, it’s real.” Alfred smiled, rather sadly. “As real as the souls of the elves, fluttering in their garden. As real as the phantasms, trapped by the lazar.”

“And now?” Marit stared doubtfully at the animal. “What is it now?”

Alfred shrugged, helpless. “I’m not sure. Haplo’s body appears to be in some sort of suspended state, like the stasis sleep of my people . . .”

The dog jumped up suddenly. Tense, hackles raised, it glared out into the dark corridor.

“There’s someone there,” Alfred said, stumbling to his feet.

Marit didn’t move. Her eyes shifted from Haplo to the dog.

“Perhaps you’re right. The runes on his skin are glowing.” She looked at Alfred. “There must be a way to bring him back. Perhaps if you used the necromancy—”

Alfred blanched, backed away. “No! Please don’t ask me!”

“What do you mean, no? No, it can’t be done? Or no, you won’t do it?” Marit demanded.

“It can’t . . .” Alfred began lamely.

“Yes, it can!” someone said, speaking from the corridor.

“. . . it can . . .” came a dismal echo.

The dog barked a sharp warning.

The lazar that had once been the Dynast, ruler of Abarrach, shambled into the cell.

Marit drew her sword. “Kleitus.” Her tone was cool, though her voice shook slightly. “What do you want here?”

The lazar paid no attention to her, or to the dog, or to the body on the stone bier.

“The Seventh Gate!” Kleitus said, the dead eyes horribly alive.

“. . . Gate . . .” sighed the echo.

“I ... I don’t know what you mean,” Alfred said faintly. He had gone extremely pale. Sweat beaded on his bald head.

“Yes, you do!” Kleitus returned. “You are a Sartan! Enter the Seventh Gate and you will find the way to release your friend.”

The blood-mottled hand of the lazar pointed at Haplo. “You will bring him back to life.”

“Is that true?” Marit asked, turning to Alfred.

All around him, the cell wails were starling to shrink and shrivel, to writhe and crawl. The darkness began to grow huge, swell and expand. It seemed about to jump on him, swallow him . . .

“Don’t faint, damn it!” said a voice.

A familiar voice. Haplo’s voice!

Alfred’s eyes flared open. The darkness retreated. He looked for the source of the voice, found the dog’s liquid eyes fixed intently on his face.

Alfred blinked, gulped. “Blessed Sartan!”

“Don’t listen to the lazar. It’s a trap,” Haplo’s voice continued, and it was coming from inside Alfred, from inside his head. Or perhaps from that elusive part of him that was his own soul.

“It’s a trap,” Alfred repeated aloud, without being truly conscious of what he was saying.

“Don’t go to the Seventh Gate. Don’t let the lazar talk you into it. Or anyone else, for that matter. Don’t go.”

“I won’t go.” Alfred had the confused impression of sounding very much like the lazar’s echo. He added to Marit, “I’m sorry . . .”

“Don’t apologize!” Haplo ordered irritably. “And don’t let Kleitus fool you. The lazar knows where the Seventh Gate is. He died in that room.”

“But he can’t get back inside!” Alfred said in sudden understanding. “The warding runes prevent him!”

“And he’s not worried about me,” Haplo added dryly. “He’s thinking of himself. Maybe hoping you’ll bring him back!”

“I won’t be the one to let you in,” Alfred said.

“A mistake, Sartan!” The lazar snarled.

“. . . mistake, Sartan . . .”

“I am on your side! We are brothers.” Kleitus advanced several shuffling steps into the cell. “If you bring me back, I will be strong, powerful. Far stronger than Xar! He knows this and he fears me. Come! Swiftly! This is your only chance to escape him!”

“I won’t!” Alfred shuddered.

The lazar moved toward him. Alfred fell back until he hit the wall and could go no farther. He pressed both hands against the stone, as if he would seep into it. “I won’t . . .”

“You’ve got to get out of here!” Haplo urged. “You and Marit! You’re in danger! If Xar finds you here . . .”

“What about you?” Alfred asked.

Marit was looking at him strangely, suspiciously. “What about me?”

“No, no!” Alfred was losing control. “I ... I was talking to Haplo.”

Her eyes widened. “Haplo?”

“Can’t you hear him?” Alfred asked and realized, in the instant of asking, that she could not. She and Haplo had been close, but they had not exchanged souls, as had Haplo and Alfred, that one time, crossing through Death’s Gate.

Alfred wavered.

“Never mind me! Just leave, damn it!” Haplo urged. “Use your magic!”

Alfred swallowed. Licking dry lips with a dry tongue, trying ineffectually to moisten a parched throat, he began to sing the runes in a cracked, almost inaudible voice.

Kleitus understood the forgotten rune-language enough to realize what Alfred was doing. Reaching out its wasted hand, the lazar caught hold of Marit.

She tried to break free, tried to stab the lazar with her sword. But the dead know no physical limitations. With inhuman strength, Kleitus wrested the sword from Marit’s grasp. The lazar wrapped its bloodstained hand around her throat.

The sigla on Marit’s skin flared, her magic acting to defend her. Another living being would have been paralyzed by the shock, but the corpse of the Dynast absorbed the punishment without apparent harm. The long blue nails of the skeletal hand dug into Marit’s flesh.

She flinched in pain, choked back a cry. Blood trickled down her skin.

“Sing one more rune,” Kleitus warned Alfred, “and I will turn her into the undead.”

Alfred’s tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth, froze there. Before he could cast the spell, Marit would be dead.

“Take me to the Seventh Gate!” Kleitus demanded. He stabbed his fingers deeper into Marit’s throat.

She cried out. Her hands tore frantically at the corpse’s.

The dog whined and whimpered.

Marit began to gulp, gasp for breath. Kleitus was slowly strangling her.

“Do something!” Haplo ordered furiously.

“What?” Alfred cried.

“This is what you do, Sartan.”

Lord Xar entered the cell. He lifted his hand, formed a sigil in the air, and sent it flashing toward Kleitus.