Rega’s smile widened. Paithan could see sharp teeth, white against lips that appeared to have been stained red with some kind of berry juice. Whoever kissed those lips would taste the sweetness …
“I wish you would come with us. Ifs not that far. We know the best route, it cuts through SeaKing lands but on the wilderness side. No border guards the way we go. The path’s occasionally treacherous, but you don’t look like the type to be bothered by a little danger.” She leaned closer, and he was aware of a faint, musky odor that clung to her sweat-sheened skin. Her hand crept over Paithan’s. “My husband and I get so bored with each other’s company.”
Paithan recognized deliberate seduction. He should have; his sister Aleatha could have taught it on a university level and this crude young human could certainly benefit from a few courses. The elf found it all highly amusing and certainly entertaining after long days on the road. He did wonder, though, why Rega was going to all this trouble and he also wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, if she might be prepared to deliver what she was offering. I’ve never been to the dwarven kingdom, Paithan reflected. No elf has. It would be worthwhile going.
A vision of Calandra—mouth pursed, nose bone white, eyes flaring—rose up before Paithan. She’d be furious-He’d lose a season, at least, in getting back home.
But Cal, look, he heard himself saying. I’ve established trade with the dwarves. Direct trade. No middle men to take a cut…
“Say you’ll come with us.” Rega squeezed his hand. The elf noted that the woman possessed an unladylike strength, the skin of her palm was rough and hardened.
“The three of us couldn’t handle all these tyros—” he hedged.
“We don’t need all of them.” The woman was practical, businesslike. She let her hand linger in the elf’s grasp. “You’ve packed toys for cover, I assume?
Get rid of them. Sell them. We’ll repack the … er … more valuable merchandise on three tyros.”
Well, it would work. Paithan had to admit it. Plus, the sale of the toys would more than pay for the trip back for his foreman Quintin. The profits might moderate Calandra’s fury.
“How can I refuse you anything?” Paithan answered, holding the warm hand a little tighter.
A door from the rear of the tavern slammed. Rega, flushing, snatched her hand away.
“My husband,” she murmured. “He’s frightfully jealous!” Roland came strolling back into the common room, lacing up the leather thong on the front of his trousers. Passing by the bar, he appropriated three mugs of ale that had been set out for other customers and carried them over to the table. He slammed them down, sloshing ale over everything and everyone, and grinned. “Well, Queesinard, my lovely wife talk you into coming with us?”
“Yes,” answered Paithan, thinking that Redleaf didn’t act like any jealous husband the elf ever’d known. “But I’ve got to send the overseer and my slaves back. They’ll be needed at home. And the name’s Quindiniar.”
“Good idea. The fewer who know about our route the better. Say, you mind if I call you Quin?”
“My given name’s Paithan.”
“Sure thing, Quin. A toast to the dwarves, then. To their beards and their money. They keep one and I’ll take the other!” Roland laughed. “Here, now, Rega. Quit drinking that grape juice. You know you can’t stand it.” Rega flushed again. With a deprecating glance at Paithan, she thrust aside the glass of wine. Lifting a mug of ale to her berry-stained lips, she quaffed it skillfully.
What the hell? thought Paithan, and downed his ale in a gulp.
13
The flick of a wet, rough tongue and an insistent whining nudged Haplo to wakefulness. He sat up immediately, reflexively, his senses attuned to the world around him—though his mind still fought off the effects of whatever it was that had knocked him out.
He was in his ship, he recognized, lying in the captain’s berth—a mattress spread over a wooden bed frame built into the ship’s hull. The dog crouched on the bed near him, eyes bright, tongue lolling. Apparently, the animal had become bored and had decided that its master had been out long enough. They had made it, seemingly. They had, once again, passed through Death’s Gate.
The Patryn didn’t move. He slowed his breathing, listening, feeling. He sensed nothing wrong, unlike the last rime he’d come through Death’s Gate. The ship was on an even keel. He had no sensation of movement, but assumed it was flying because he had not made the alterations in the magic needed to land the craft. Certain runes on the inside of the hull were glowing, meaning they had activated. He studied them, saw that they were sigla having to do with air, pressure, and maintaining gravity. Odd-He wondered why.
Haplo relaxed, fondled the dog’s ears. Brilliant sunshine poured through the hatch above his bed. Turning over lazily, the Patryn stared curiously out a porthole into this new world he had entered.
He saw nothing except sky and, far distant, a circle of bright flame burning through the haze, the sun. At least the world had a sun—it had four, in fact. He remembered his lord’s questioning that particular point and wondered, briefly, why the Sartan hadn’t thought to include the suns on their charts. Perhaps because, as he had discovered, the Death’s Gate was located in the center of the solar cluster.
Haplo climbed out of bed and made his way to the bridge. The runes on the hull and wings would prevent his ship from crashing into anything, but it would be wise to make certain he was not hovering in front of a gigantic granite cliff. He wasn’t. The view from the bridge provided another vast expanse of wide-open sky as far as he could see—up, down, sideways.
Haplo crouched down on his haunches, absently scratching the dog’s head to keep the animal quiet. He had not reckoned on this and wasn’t certain what to do. In its own way, this slightly green-tinted blue, hazy emptiness was as frightening as the ferocious, perpetually raging storm into which he’d flown entering Arianus. The silence around him now echoed loudly as the booming thunder had then. Admittedly his ship wasn’t being tossed about like a toy in the hands of an obstreperous child, rain wasn’t lashing the hull—already damaged by his passage through Death’s Gate. Here the sky was cloudless, serene … and not a single object, except the blazing sun, in sight. The cloudless sky had a sort of mesmerizing effect on Haplo. He tore his gaze from it, and moved over to the steering stone on the bridge. He placed his hands on it, one on either side, and the action completed the circle—his right hand on the stone, the stone between his hands, his left hand on the stone, his left hand attached to his arm, arm to body, body to arm, and back to his right hand again. Aloud, he spoke the runes. The stone began to gleam blue beneath his hands, light welled up from underneath his fingers; he could see the red veins of his own life. The light grew brighter so that he could barely stand to look at it, and he squinted his eyes. Brighter still and suddenly beams of radiant blue shot out from the stone, extending out in all directions.
Haplo was forced to avert his gaze, half-turning his head against the brilliance. He had to keep looking at the stone, keep watching. When one of the navigational beams encountered solid mass—hopefully land—it would bounce back, return to his ship, and light another rune on the stone, turning it red. Haplo could then steer in that direction.
Confidently, expectantly, he waited.
Nothing.
Patience was one virtue the Patryns had learned in the Labyrinth, learned by having it beaten and twisted and bashed into them. Lose your temper, act impulsively, irrationally and the Labyrinth would claim you. If you were lucky, you died. If not, if you survived, you carried with you a lesson that would haunt the rest of your days. But you learned. Yes, you learned. Hands on the steering stone, Haplo waited.