“How could anyone live in such a terrible environ?” Alfred, talking rhetorically to himself, seemed considerably surprised that Haplo responded.
“Mensch certainly couldn’t survive, although our kind could. I don’t think our trip into this world will be a long one. If there ever was life here, it must be dead by now.”
“Perhaps Abarrach was never meant to be habitable. Perhaps it was meant to be only an energy source for the other—” Alfred’s tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth, he fell abruptly silent.
Haplo grunted, glanced at the man. “Yeah? Go on.”
“Nothing.” The Sartan’s eyes were on his oversize feet. “I was merely speculating.”
“You’ll have the opportunity to ‘speculate’ all you want when we return to the Nexus. You’ll wish you knew the secrets of the universe and could reveal them, every one, to My Lord before he’s finished with you, Sartan.”
Alfred kept silent, stared out the glass porthole. Haplo darted glances up and down the black and barren shoreline. Small tributaries of the magma river meandered off among the rock shoals and disappeared into fire-lighted shadow. These might lead somewhere, might lead out. There was nothing above them except rock.
“If we’re in the center of the world, in the core, ifs possible that there could be life above, on the surface,” Alfred remarked, echoing Haplo’s thought. He found that extremely irritating.
He considered beaching his ship, proceeding forward on foot, but immediately abandoned the idea. Walking among the slick-sided, sharp, black stalagmites that gleamed with an eerie, lurid brilliance in the magma’s reflected glow would be difficult, treacherous. He would stay with the river, at least for the time being. . .
A dull roaring sound came to his ears. A glance at Alfred’s face told him the Sartan heard it, too.
“We’re moving faster,” Alfred said, licking his lips that must be rimed with salt to judge by the sweat trickling down the man’s cheeks.
The ship’s speed increased, the magma hurtling along as if eager to arrive at some unknown destination. The roaring sound grew louder. Haplo kept his hands on the steering stone, peered ahead anxiously. He saw nothing except vast blackness.
“Rapids! A fall!” Alfred shouted, and the ship plunged over the edge of a gigantic lava cascade.
Haplo clung to the steering stone, the ship fell downward into a vast sea of molten lava. Rocks thrust up out of the swirling fiery mass, black nails grasping for the puny ship that was hurtling down on them.
Shaking himself free of the fascinated horror that gripped him, Haplo elevated his hands on the steering stone and, as his hands lifted, the runes on the stone glowed fiercely, brightly. The ship itself lifted, the magic flowing through the wings, activating them. Dragon Wing, as he had named it, wrenched itself free of the magma’s clutching grasp and soared out over the molten sea.
Haplo heard behind him a groan and a slithering sound. The dog was on its feet, barking. Alfred lay huddled on the deck, the Sartan’s face white as death.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he said faintly.
“Don’t do it here!” Haplo barked, noting his own hands shaking, experiencing himself a lurching in his stomach and a bitter taste of bile in his mouth. He concentrated on flying his ship.
Alfred apparently managed to control himself, for the Patryn heard nothing more from him. Haplo sailed his ship upward, hoping to discover that they had flown out of the cavern. As he flew up and up into the darkness, he was disappointed to observe stalactite formations. These were incredibly large—some as much as a mile in diameter. Far, far below gleamed the magma sea, flowing to a horizon that was red on black.
He took the ship back down, near the shoreline. He had caught a glimpse to his right of an object that appeared man-made jutting out into the water. Its lines were too straight and even to have been formed by nature’s hand, no matter how magically guided. Moving closer, he saw what looked like a pier, extending from the shore out into the lava ocean.
Haplo brought the ship down. He stared at the formation intently, trying to get a clear view.
“Look!” Alfred cried, sitting up and pointing, startling the dog, who growled. “There, to your left!”
Haplo jerked his head around, thinking they must be about to crash into a stalactite. Nothing loomed ahead of them and it took some moments to determine what Alfred had sighted.
Banks of clouds, created by the extreme heat of the magma sea meeting the cool air of the cavern far above, could be seen in the distance. The clouds drifted and parted, and then myriad tiny lights were visible, blinking out from beneath the clouds like stars.
Except that there could be no stars visible in this underground world.
The mist flew apart in tattered rags, and Haplo could see clearly. Perched on terraced steppes far from the magma sea stood the buildings and towers of an enormous city.
10
“Where are you taking the ship?” Alfred asked.
“I’m going to dock at that pier or whatever it is over there,” Haplo answered, with a glance and a nod out the window.
“But the city’s located on the opposite bank!”
“Precisely.”
“Then, why not—”
“It beats the hell out of me, Sartan, how you managed to survive so long. I suppose it’s due to that famous fainting routine of yours. What do you plan to do? Waltz up to the walls of a strange city, not knowing who lives there, and ask them nicely to let you in? What do you say when they ask you where you’re from? What you’re doing here? Why you want inside their city?”
“I would say—that is, I’d tell them—I guess you have a point,” Alfred conceded lamely. “But what do we gain by landing over there?” He gestured vaguely. “Whoever lives in this dreadful place”—the Sartan couldn’t resist a shudder—“will ask the same questions.”
“Maybe.” Haplo cast a sharp, scrutinizing gaze at their landing site. “Maybe not. Take a good look at it.”
Alfred started to walk to the window. The dog growled, ears pricked, teeth bared. The Sartan froze.
“It’s all right. Let him go. Just watch him,” Haplo told the dog, who settled back down onto the deck, keeping its intelligent eyes on the Sartan.
Alfred, with a backward glance at the animal, awkwardly crossed the deck; its slight rocking motion sent the Sartan staggering. Haplo shook his head and wondered what the devil he was going to do with Alfred while exploring. Alfred arrived at the window without major mishap and, leaning against the glass, peered through it.
The ship spiraled down out of the air, landed gently on the magma, floated on sluggish, molten waves.
A pier had been shaped out of what had once been a natural grain of obsidian, extending out into the magma sea. Several other man-made structures, built out of the same black rock, faced the pier across a crude street.
“You see any signs of life?” Haplo asked.
“I don’t see anyone moving around,” Alfred said, staring hard. “Either in the town or on the docks. We’re the only ship in sight. The place is deserted.”
“Yeah, maybe. You can never tell. This might be their version of night, and everyone’s asleep. But at least it’s not guarded. If I’m lucky, I can be the one asking the questions.”
Haplo steered the dragonship into the harbor, his gaze scrutinizing the small town. Probably not so much a town, he decided, as a dockside loading area. The buildings looked, for the most part, like warehouses, although here and there he thought he saw what might be a shop or a tavern.
Who would sail this deadly ocean, deadly to all but those protected by powerful magic—such as Alfred and himself? Haplo was intensely curious about this strange and forbidding world, more curious than he’d been about those worlds whose composition closely resembled his own. But he still didn’t know what to do about Alfred.