Every time he looked out a window onto his homeland, he recalled that moment. Every time he recalled that moment, he blessed and honored his master, the Lord of the Nexus, who had saved him. Every time he blessed his lord, Haplo cursed the Sartan, the demigods who had locked his people into that cruel world. Every time he cursed them, he vowed revenge.
The dog, seeing that they weren’t going to leave instantly, slipped down on the deck and lay—nose on paws—patiently waiting. Haplo shook himself out of his reverie, stirred briskly to action, and nearly stepped on the animal. The dog jumped up with a startled yelp.
“There, old boy. Sorry. Keep out from under my feet next time.” Haplo turned to descend into the hold, stopped in midstride as he felt the world around him rippled.
Ripple. That was the only way to describe it. He had never experienced anything like the strange sensation. The movement far beneath him, perhaps at the very core of the world, and upward in sinuous waves that did not travel horizontally, in a tremor, but vertically, rippling up from the ground through his his feet, his knees, body, head.
Everything around him was distorted by the same effect. For a instant, Haplo lost all shape, form, dimension. He was flat, against a flat sky, a flat ground. The ripple passed through and >k them all simultaneously. All except the dog. The dog vanished. The effect ended as swiftly as it had begun. Haplo fell to his hands and knees. Dizzy, disoriented, he fought off a sickening of nausea. He gasped for breath, the ripple effect had compressed the air from his body. When he could breathe, he searched to see if he could discover what had caused the terrifying phenomenon.
The dog returned, standing in front of him, gazing at him reproachfully
“It wasn’t my fault, fellow,” Haplo said, darting wary, suspicious glances in all directions.
The Nexus glimmered in its peaceful twilight, leaves on the trees whispered softly. Haplo examined them closely. The stalwart trunks had stood straight and tall and unbent for a hundred generations. But just moments before, he’d seen them ripple like wheat in a windstorm. Nothing moved, he heard no sound—and that in itself was odd. Previous to the ripple, he’d been obliquely aware of animal noises that were now hushed in ... what? Fear? Awe?
Haplo felt a strange reluctance to move, as if the very act of taking a step would cause the frightening sensation to reoccur. He had to force himself to walk back along the deck, expected every moment to find himself pasted on the landscape once again. He peered over the side of the ship’s hull, down onto the lawn.
Nothing.
His gaze scanned the mansion, the windows of his lord’s magnificent dwelling. His lord lived alone in the mansion, except for Haplo, and he was only there on occasion. This day, the mansion was empty. The lord was away, fighting his endless battle against the Labyrinth.
Nothing. No one.
“Maybe I imagined it,” Haplo muttered.
He wiped sweat from his upper lip, noted his hand was trembling. He stared at the runes tattooed on his skin, saw, for the first time, that they were glowing a very faint blue. Hastily, he shoved up his sleeve, saw the blue glow fading from his arms. A glance at his chest, beneath the V-slit collar of his tunic, revealed the same.
“So, I didn’t imagine it,” he said, comforted. His body had reacted to the phenomenon, reacted instinctively to protect him—protect him from what? A bitter iron taste, as of blood, coated his mouth. He coughed, spit. Turning, he stomped back across the deck. His fear faded with the blue glow, leaving him angry, frustrated.
The ripple had not come from inside the ship. Haplo had watched it pass through the ship, watched it pass through his body, the trunks of the trees, the ground, the mansion, the sky. He hastened below to the bridge. The steering stone, the rune-covered orb he used to guide his vessel, stood on its pedestal. The stone was dark and cold, no light emanating from it.
Haplo glared at the stone in irrational ire, having half-hoped that it might have been responsible. He was irritated to discover it wasn’t. His mind cataloged everything else on board: neat coils of rope in the hold; barrels of wine, water, and food; a change of clothes; his journal. The stone was the only magical object.
He’d cleaned away all remnants of the mensch[5]—the elves, humans, dwarf, and insane old wizard who had lately been his passengers on that ill-fated journey to the Elven Star. The tytans had undoubtedly slaughtered them all by now. They couldn’t be the cause.
The Patryn stood on the bridge, staring unseeing at the stone, his brain running around like a mouse caught in a maze, darting down this passage and that, sniffing and scrabbling and hoping to find a way out. Memories of the mensch on Pryan wandered to memories of mensch on Arianus and that made him think of the Sartan Haplo’d encountered on Arianus, a Sartan whose mind moved as clumsily as his oversize feet.
None of these memories led him anywhere useful. Nothing like this had happened to him before. He brought to mind all he knew of magic, the sigla that ruled the probabilities, made all things possible. But by all laws of magic known to him, that ripple could not have been. Haplo found himself back where he started.
“I should consult with My Lord,” he said to the dog, who was regarding its master with concern. “Ask his advice.”
But that would mean postponing his journey through Death’s Gate for an indefinite period of time. When the Lord of the Nexus reentered the deadly confines of the Labyrinth, no one could say when—or if—he would return. Upon that return, he would not be pleased to discover that Haplo had been wasting precious time in his absence.
Haplo pictured the interview with the formidable old man—the only living being the Patryn respected, admired, and feared. He imagined himself attempting to put the strange sensation into words. He imagined his lord’s answer.
“A fainting spell. I didn’t know you were subject to those, Haplo, My Son. Perhaps you shouldn’t go on a journey of such importance.”
No, better solve this on his own. He considered searching the rest of his ship, but—again—that would waste time. ‘And how can I search it when I don’t know what I’m looking for?” he demanded, exasperated. I’m like a kid who sees ghosts in the night, making my mother come in with the candle to prove to me that there’s nothing there. Bah! Let’s get out of here!”
He strode resolutely over to the steering stone, placed his hands on it. The dog took its accustomed position next to the glass portholes located in the dragon’s breast. Apparently its master had come to the end of whatever strange game he’d been playing. Tail wagging, the dog barked excitedly. The ship rose up on the currents of wind and magic and sailed into the purple-streaked sky.
The entry into Death’s Gate was an awesome, terrifying experience. A tiny black dot in the twilight sky, the Gate was like a perverse star that shone dark instead of light. The dot did not grow in size, the nearer the ship sailed. Rather, it seemed that the ship itself shrank down to fit inside. Dwindling, diminishing—a frightening sensation and one that Haplo knew was all in his mind, an optical illusion, like seeing pools of water in a burning desert.
This was his third time entering Death’s Gate from the Nexus side, and he knew he should be accustomed to the effect. He shouldn’t let it frighten him. But now, just as every time before, he stared at that small hole and felt his stomach clench, his breath come short. The closer he flew, the faster the ship sailed. He couldn’t stop his forward motion, even if he’d wanted to. Death’s Gate was sucking him inside.
The hole began to distort the sky. Streaks of purple and pink, flares of soft red began twisting around it. Either the sky was spinning and he was stationary, or he was spinning and the sky was stationary, he could never tell which. And all the while he was being drawn inside at an everincreasing rate of speed.
5
A word used by both Sartan and Ratryns to refer to the “lesser” races: humans, elves, dwarves.