The glimmerglamps lit the Factree brighter than a Geg day. Haplo could see clearly and he was pleased to note his guides had judged correctly. Directly in his line of vision stood a tall statue of a robed and hooded figure. Lounging around the statue were three people. They were human—two men and a child. That much Haplo could tell at a glance. But the Sartan were also of human derivation.
He inspected each one closely, though he was forced to admit to himself that he would not be able to tell, simply by looking, if these humans were Sartan or not. One man sat beneath the statue, in its shadow. Clad in plain clothing, he appeared to be of middle age, with thinning, receding hair that emphasized a domed, protruding forehead, and a lined, careworn face. This man shifted restlessly, his gaze going worriedly to the child, and when he did so, Haplo saw that his movements, particularly of his hands and feet, were ungainly and awkward.
By sharp contrast, the other adult human male present was one Haplo might have mistaken for a fellow survivor of the Labyrinth. Lithe, well-muscled, there was an alert watchfulness about the man that—though he was lying relaxed, stretched out on the floor, smoking a pipe—indicated he kept instinctive, watchful vigil. The face, with its dark, deep crevices and twisted black beard, reflected a soul of cold, hard iron.
The kid was a kid, nothing more, unless you counted a remarkable beauty. An odd trio. What brought them together? What brought them here?
Down below, one of the overly excited Gegs forgot the injunction to maintain silence and shouted in what he apparently thought was a whisper to ask if Haplo could see anything.
The man with the twisted beard reacted instantly, his body coiling swiftly to a standing position, his black eyes darting to the shadows, his hand closing over the hilt of a sword. Beneath him, Haplo heard a resounding smack and knew that Jarre had effectively punished the offender.
“What is it, Hugh?” asked the man sitting in the shadow of the statue. The voice spoke human and it quavered with nervousness.
The man addressed as Hugh put his fingers to his lips and crept several steps in the direction of Haplo. He did not look down or he must have seen the plate, but was staring into the shadows.
“I thought I heard something.”
“I don’t know how you can hear anything over that racket that damn machine’s making,” stated the child. The boy was eating bread and staring up at the statue.
“Do not use such language, Your Highness,” rebuked the nervous man. He had risen to his feet and seemed to have some idea of joining this Hugh in his search, but he tripped and only saved himself from a headlong fall by bracing himself against the statue. “Do you see anything, sir?” The Gegs, undoubtedly under threat of bodily harm from Jarre, actually managed to keep quiet. Haplo froze, hardly daring to breathe, watching and listening intently.
“No,” said Hugh. “Sit down, Alfred, before you kill yourself.”
“It probably was the machine,” said Alfred, looking as though he wanted very much to convince himself.
The boy, bored, tossed his bread to the floor and walked over to stand directly in front of the statue of the Manger. He reached out to touch it.
“Don’t!” Alfred cried in alarm.
The child, jumping, snatched his hand back.
“You frightened me!” he said accusingly.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. Just . . . move away from the statue.”
“Why? Will it hurt me?”
“No, Your Highness. It’s just that the statue of the Manager is ... well, sacred to the Gegs. They wouldn’t like you bothering it.”
“Pooh!” said the child, glancing around the Factree. “They’re all gone anyway. Besides, it seems like he wants to shake hands or something.” The boy giggled.
“The way he has his hand stuck out like that. He wants me to take it—”
“No! Your Highness!” But the stumble-footed man was too late to prevent the boy reaching out and grasping hold of the Manger’s mechanical hand. To the child’s delight, the eyeball flickered with a bright light.
“Look!” Bane shoved aside Alfred’s frantic grasping hand. “Don’t stop it! It’s showing pictures! I want to see!”
“Your Highness, I must insist! I know I heard something! The Gegs—”
“I think we could handle the Gegs,” said Hugh, coming over to look at the pictures. “Don’t stop it, Alfred. I want to see what it’s showing.” Taking advantage of the trio’s preoccupation and feeling an intense interest in this statue himself, Haplo crept up out of the hole.
“Look, it’s a map!” cried the child, much excited. The three were intent on the eyeball. Haplo, coming up silently behind, recognized the images flitting across the eye’s surface as a map of the Realm of the Sky, a map remarkably like one his lord had discovered in the Halls of the Sartan in the Nexus. At the very top were the isles known as Lords of Night. Beneath them the firmament, and near them floated the isle of the High Realm. Then came the Mid Realm. Further down were the Maelstrom and the land of the Gegs.
Most remarkable, the map moved! The isles drifted around in their oblique orbits, the storm clouds swirled, the sun was periodically hidden by the Lords of Night.
Then, suddenly, the images changed. The isles and continents ceased to orbit at random and all lined up neatly in a row—each realm positioning itself directly beneath the one above. Then the segment flickered, faltered, and went out.
The man known as Hugh was not impressed.
“A magic lantern. I’ve seen them in the elven kingdom.”
“But what does it mean?” asked the boy, staring, fascinated. “Why does everything go around, then stop?”
Haplo was asking himself the same question. He had seen a magic lantern before. He had something similar to it on his ship, projecting images of the Nexus, only it had been devised by his lord and was much more sophisticated. It seemed to Haplo that there might be more pictures than what they were seeing, for the images stopped with an abrupt jerk in what looked to be mid-frame.
There came a low whirring sound and, suddenly, the pictures started over again. Alfred, whom Haplo took to be some sort of servant, started to reach out and grab the statue’s hand, probably with the design of stopping the pictures.
“Please don’t do that,” said Haplo in his quiet voice. Hugh whirled, sword drawn, and faced the intruder with an agility and skill that Haplo inwardly applauded. The nervous man crumpled to the floor, and the boy, turning, stared at the Patryn with blue eyes that were not frightened so much as shrewdly curious.
Haplo stood with his hands up, palms outward. “I’m not armed,” he said to Hugh. The Patryn wasn’t the least afraid of the man’s sword. There were no weapons in this world that could harm him, guarded as he was by the runes upon his body, but he must avoid the fight, for by that very act of protecting himself he would reveal to knowing eyes who and what he truly was. “I don’t mean anyone any harm.” He smiled and shrugged, keeping his hands in the air and plainly visible. “I’m like the boy, here. I only want to see the pictures.”
Of all of them, it was the child who intrigued Haplo. The cowardly servant, lying in a pathetic heap on the floor, did not merit his interest. The man he assumed to be a bodyguard he could dismiss now that he had noted his strength and agility. But when Haplo looked at the child, he felt a stinging sensation of the runes upon his chest and knew by that sensation that some sort of enchantment was being cast at him. His own magic was instinctively acting to repel it, but Haplo was amused to note that whatever spell the child was casting wouldn’t have worked anyway. His magic—whatever its source—had been disrupted.
“Where did you come from? Who are you?” demanded Hugh.