The ship touched ground and, to Haplo’s alarm, kept going! It was sinking! He saw then, that he wasn’t on firm ground but had landed on a bed of moss that was giving way beneath the ship’s weight. He was just about to act to halt the ship’s descent when it settled itself with an almost cradling motion, burrowing into the moss like the dog into a thick blanket. At last, after perhaps eons of traveling, Haplo had arrived.
He glanced out the windows, but they were buried beneath the moss. He could see nothing but a gray-green leafy mass pressed up against the glass. He would have to leave by the top deck.
Faint voices were coming from up above, but Haplo figured they would be so awed by his ship that they wouldn’t come near. If they did, they would get a shock. Literally. He had activated a magical shield around the ship. Anyone touching it would think, for a split instant, that they’d been struck by lightning.
Now that he had reached his destination, Haplo was himself again. His brain was thinking, guiding, directing. He dressed himself so that every part of his rune-tattooed body was covered by cloth. Soft, supple boots fit over leather trousers. A long-sleeved shirt, gathered tightly at the wrists and at the neck, was covered by a leather doublet. He tied a scarf around his neck, tucking the ends into the shirt.
The sigla did not extend up over the head or onto the face—their magic might interfere with the thought process. Starting from a point on the breast above the heart, the nines traced over the body, running down the trunk to the loins, the thighs, the legs, the tops of the feet but not the soles. Whirls and whorls and intricate designs done in red and blue wrapped around the neck, spread across the shoulder blades, entwined the arms and traveled over the tops and palms of the hands, but left bare the fingers. The brain was left free of magic so that it could guide the magic, the eyes and ears and mouth were left free to sense the world around, the fingers and soles of the feet were left free to touch. Haplo’s last precaution, once his ship was landed and he no longer needed the runes to guide it, was to wrap thick bandages around his hands. He wound the linen around the wrist, covering the palm, lacing it through the bottoms of the fingers; the fingers and thumb he left bare.
A skin disease, he’d told the mensch on Arianus. It is not painful, but the red, puss-filled pustules the disease forms are a sickening sight. Everyone on Arianus, after hearing that story, had taken care to avoid Haplo’s bandaged hands.
Well, almost everyone.
One man had guessed he was lying, one man—after casting a spell on Haplo—had looked beneath the bandages and seen the truth. But that man had been Alfred, a Sartan, who had suspected in advance what he might find. Haplo had noticed Alfred paying an unusual amount of attention to his hands, but he’d ignored it—a mistake almost fatal to his plans. Now he knew what to watch for, now he was prepared.
Haplo conjured up an image of himself and inspected himself carefully, walking completely around the illusionary Haplo. At length, he was satisfied. No trace of a rune showed. He banished the illusion. Tugging the bandages over his hands into place, he ascended to the top deck, threw open the hatch, and emerged, blinking, into the bright sun.
The sound of voices hushed at the sight of him. He pulled himself up on the deck and glanced around, pausing a moment to draw a deep breath of fresh, if extremely humid, air. Below, he saw faces, upturned, mouths open, eyes wide. Elves, he noted, with one exception. The figure in the mouse-colored robes was human—an old man, with long white hair and long white beard. Unlike the others, the old man wasn’t gazing at Haplo in awe and wonder. Beaming, stroking his beard, the old man turned this way and that.
“I told you,” he was shouting. “Didn’t I tell you? By cracky, I guess now you believe me!”
“Here, dog!” Haplo whistled and the animal appeared on deck, trotting along at his heels, to the added astonishment of all observers.
Haplo didn’t bother with the ladder; the ship had settled so deeply into the moss—its wings resting on top—that he could jump lightly from the top deck to the ground. The elves gathered around Dragon Wing backed up hurriedly, regarding the ship’s pilot with suspicious incredulity. Haplo drew in a breath, and was about to launch into his story, his mind working rapidly to provide him with the elven language.
He never got a chance to speak.
The old man rushed up to him, grabbed him by the bandaged hand.
“Our savior! Right on time!” he cried, pumping Haplo’s arm vigorously. “Did you have a nice flight?”
19
Roland squirmed, trying to ease his cramped muscles by moving into another position. The maneuver worked for a few moments, then his arms and buttocks began aching again, only in different places. Grimacing, he tried surreptitiously to twist his wrists out of the vines that bound him. Pain forced him to quit. The vines were tough as leather; he’d rubbed his skin raw.
“Don’t waste your strength,” came a voice.
Roland looked around, twisting his head to see.
“Where are you?”
“The other side of this tree. They’re using pythavine. You can’t break it. The more you try, the tighter the pytha’ll squeeze you.” Keeping one eye on his captors, Roland managed to worm his way around the large tree trunk. He discovered, on the other side, a dark-skinned human male clad in bright-colored robes. A gold ring dangled from his left ear lobe. He was securely tied, vines wrapped around his chest, arms, and wrists.
“Andor,” he said, grinning. One side of his mouth was swollen, dried blood caked half his face.
“Roland Redleaf. You a SeaKing?” he added, with a glance at the earring.
, “Yeah. And you’re from Thillia. What are you people doing in Thurn territory?”
“Thurn? We’re nowhere near Thurn. We’re on our way to the Fartherness.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Thillian. You know where you are. So you’re trading with the dwarves …” Andor paused, and licked his lips. “I could sure use a drink about now.”
“I’m an explorer,” said Roland, casting a wary glance at their captors to see if they were being observed.
“We can talk. They don’t give a damn. There’s no need to lie, you know. We’re not going to live long enough for it to matter.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“They kill everyone and everything they come across … twenty people in my caravan. All dead, the animals, too. Why the animals? They hadn’t done anything. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
Dead? Twenty people dead? Roland stared hard at the man, thinking perhaps he was lying, trying to scare the Thillian away from SeaKing trade routes. Andor leaned back against the tree trunk, his eyes closed. Roland saw sweat trickle down the man’s forehead, the dark circles beneath the sunken eyes, the ashen lips. No, he wasn’t lying. Fear constricted Roland’s heart. He remembered hearing Rega’s frantic scream, crying his name. He swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth.
“And … you?” he managed.
Andor stirred, opened his eyes, and grinned again. It was lopsided, because of his damaged mouth, and seemed ghastly to Roland.
“I was away from camp, answering nature’s call. I heard the fighting … I heard the screams. That darktime … God of the Waters, I’m thirsty!” He moistened his lips with his tongue again. “I stayed put. Hell, what could I do? That darktime, I circled back. I found them—my business partners, my uncle …” He shook his head. “I ran. Kept going. But they caught me, brought me here right before they brought you in. Ifs weird, the way they can see you without eyes.”
“Who … what the hell are they?” Roland demanded.
“You don’t know? They’re tytans.”
Roland snorted. “Kids’ stories—”
“Yeah! Kids.” Andor began to laugh. “My little nephew was seven. I found his body. His head had been split wide open, like someone had stomped on it.” His laughter shrilled and broke; he coughed painfully.