In the center of the table hung, suspended—its magic continuing to support it—a small, round, crystal globe, lit from within by four tiny balls of fire. Haplo drew near. His hand traced a rune, disrupting the magical field. The globe crashed to the table and rolled toward the Patryn. Haplo caught it, lifted it in his hands. The globe was a three dimensional representation of the world, similar to the one he’d seen in the home of Lenthan Quindiniar, similar to the drawing in the Nexus. But now, holding it, having traveled it, Haplo understood.
His lord had been mistaken. The mensch didn’t live on the outside of the planet, as they’d lived on the old world. They lived on the inside. The globe was smooth on the outside—solid crystal, solid stone. It was hollow within. In the center, gleamed four suns. Within the center of the suns stood Death’s Gate.
No other planets, no other stars could be visible because one didn’t look up in the heavens at night. One looked up at the ground. Which meant that the other stars couldn’t be stars but … cities. Cities like this one. Cities meant to house refugees from a shattered world.
Unfortunately their new world was a world that would have been frightening to the mensch. It was a world that was, perhaps, no less frightening to the Sartan. Life-giving light produced too much life. Trees grew to enormous heights, oceans of vegetation covered the surface. The Sartan had never figured on this. They were appalled at what they had created. Troy lied to the mensch, lied to themselves. Instead of submitting, trying to adapt to the new world they had created, they fought it, tried to force it to submit to them.
Carefully, Haplo replaced the globe, hanging it above the table’s center. He removed his magical spell, allowing the globe’s ancient support to catch hold of it again. Once more, Pryan hung suspended over the table of its vanished creators.
It was an entertaining spectacle. The Lord of the Nexus would appreciate the irony.
Haplo glanced around, there was nothing else in the chamber. He looked up, over the table. A curved ceiling vaulted high above him, sealing the chamber shut, blotting out any sight of the crystal spire that soared directly above it. While holding the globe, he’d become aware of a strange sound. He put his hands upon the table.
He had been right. The wood thrummed and vibrated. He was reminded, oddly, of the great machine on Arianus—the Kicksey-winsey. But he had seen no signs of such a machine anywhere outside.
“Come to think of it,” he said to the dog, “I didn’t hear this sound outside either. It must be coming from in here. Maybe someone will tell us where.” Haplo raised his hands over the table, began tracing runes in the air. The dog sighed, laid down. Placing its head between its paws, the animal kept a solemn and unhappy watch.
Vaguely seen images floated to life around the table, dimly heard voices spoke. Of necessity, since he was eavesdropping on not one meeting, but on many, the conversation that Haplo could distinguish was confused, fragmented.
“This constant warring among the races is too much for us to handle. It’s sapping our strength, when we should be concentrating our magic on achieving our goal… .”
“We’ve degenerated into parents, forced to waste our time separating quarrelsome children. Our grand vision suffers for lack of attention… .”
“And we are not alone. Our brothers and sisters in the other citadels in Pryan face the same difficulties! I wonder, sometimes, if we did the right thing in bringing them here… .”
The sadness, the sense of helpless frustration was palpable. Haplo saw it etched in the dimly seen faces, saw it take shape in the gestures of hands seeking desperately to grab hold of events that were slipping through their fingers. The Patryn was put in mind of Alfred, the Sartan he had encountered on Arianus. He’d seen in Alfred the same sense of sadness, of regret, of helplessness. Haplo fed his hatred on the suffering he saw, and enjoyed the warming glow.
The images ebbed and flowed, time passed. The Sartan shrank, aged before his eyes. An odd phenomenon—for demigods.
“The council has devised a solution to our problems. As you said, we have become parents when we were meant to be mentors. We must turn the care of these ‘children’ over to others. It is essential that the citadels be put into operation! Arianus suffers from lack of water. They need our power to assist in the functioning of their machine. Abarrach exists in eternal darkness—something far worse than eternal light. The World of Stone needs our energy. The citadels must be made operational and soon, or we face tragic consequences!
“Therefore, the council has given us permission to take the tytans from the citadel core where they have been tending the starlight. The tytans will watch over the mensch and protect them from themselves. We endowed these giants with incredible strength, in order that they could assist us in our physical labors. We gave them the rune-magic for the same reason. They will be able to deal with the people.”
“Is that wise? I protest! We gave them the magic on the understanding that they would never leave the citadel!”
“Brethren, please calm yourselves. The council has given considerable thought to the matter. The tytans will be under our constant control and supervision. They are blind—a necessity so that they could work in the starlight. And, after all, what could possibly happen to us? …”
Time drifted on. The Sartan seated around the table disappeared, replaced by others, young, strong, but fewer in number.
“The citadels are working, their lights fill the heavens—”
“Not heavens, quit lying to yourself.”
“It was merely a figure of speech. Don’t be so touchy.”
“I hate waiting. Why don’t we hear from Arianus? Or Abarrach? What do you suppose has happened?”
“Perhaps the same thing that is happening to us. So much to do, too few to do it. A tiny crack opens in the roof and the rain seeps through. We put a bucket beneath it and start to go out to mend the crack but then another opens. We put a bucket beneath that one. Now we have two cracks to mend and we are about to do so when a third opens up. We have now run out of buckets. We find another bucket, but by this time, the leaks have grown larger. The buckets will not hold the water. We run after larger buckets to give us time to contain the water so that we can go up to the roof to fix the leak.
“But by now,” the speaker’s voice softened, “the roof is on the verge of collapse.”
Time swirled and eddied around the Sartan seated at the table, aging them rapidly, as it had aged their parents. Their numbers grew fewer still.
“The tytans! The tytans were the mistake!”
“It worked well in the beginning. How could anyone have foreseen?”
“It’s the dragons. We should have done something about them from the start.”
“The dragons did not bother us, until the tytans began to escape our control.”
“We could use the tytans still, if we were stronger—”
“If there were more of us, you mean. Perhaps. I’m not certain.”
“Of course, we could. Their magic is crude; no more than—we teach a child—”
“But we made the mistake of endowing the child with the strength of mountains.”
“I say that maybe it’s the work of our ancient enemies. How do any of us know that the Patryns are still imprisoned in the Labyrinth? We’ve lost all contact with their jailers.”