“Do it, Sartan!” Haplo hissed through clenched teeth. “If Kleitus takes me alive, we ... our people, our worlds are finished!”
Two forces, pulling him apart. The people’s hope, the people’s doom, both in this chamber! If I leave, I will lose one forever. If I don’t leave. . .
“Look what we have found, Pons.” Kleitus’s black-robed bulk filled the entryway, the smaller figure of his minister scuttled in beside him. “You see before you the Chamber of the Damned. It would be interesting to know how these wretches found it and also how they managed to break the warding runes. Unfortunately, we can’t allow them to live long enough to tell us.”
“The Chamber of the Damned!” Pons’s words were faint, he seemed barely able to speak. The minister stared around the room, stared at the corpses littering the floor, stared at the white wood table. “It is real! Not legend!”
“Of course it’s real. And so is its curse. Guards.” Kleitus’s motion brought forward dead soldiers, as many as could crowd through the door. “Slay them.”
Brethren, do no violence. Harm no one. These are our people. Raise no magical defenses.
Alfred fumbled for the runes to open the door, the old woman’s voice rang in his ears, obliterating the construction. He was dimly aware of Haplo standing beside him, the exhausted Patryn braced to fight, if not for his life, then to make certain that his body proved useless.
But the soldiers weren’t fighting.
“Did you hear my command?” Kleitus demanded angrily. “Kill them!”
The dead guards stood with weapons raised, arrows notched, swords drawn, but they did not attack. Their phantasms, barely visible, stirred as if shaken by a hot wind, Alfred could almost feel their agitated whisperings breathe against his cheek.
“They will not obey you,” said the lazar. “This chamber is sacred. Violence will turn on the one who uses it.”
“... the one who uses it.. .” spoke the echo.
Kleitus turned. His eyes narrowed, black brows came together at the sight of the woman’s horrifying visage. Pons gasped, and shrank away from her, attempted to hide himself among the troops of the dead.
“How do you know what the dead think?” the dynast demanded, studying the lazar intently.
The runes! Alfred said to himself frantically, and began to trace them in his mind. Yes, yes. The sigla on the door caught fire, began to glow a soft blue.
“I can communicate with them, I understand their thoughts, their needs, their desires.”
“Bah! The dead think nothing! Need nothing! Desire nothing!”
“You are wrong,” the lazar said in the hollow voice that brought out a sheen of sweat on Pons’s face. “The dead want one thing: their freedom. We will have our freedom when our tyrants are dead!”
“ . . tyrants are dead .. .”
“You see this, Pons,” said Kleitus with a ghastly smile, affecting to speak in nonchalant tones, although he was working hard to control the tremor in his voice. “She has become a lazar. This is what happens when the dead are raised too soon. Now you understand the wisdom of our ancestors, who teach that the body must be left at rest until the phantasm has completely abandoned it. We will have to experiment with her cadaver. The books suggest that, in this instance, the body should be ‘killed’ again. Although we’re not quite certain . . .” The dynast paused, then shrugged. “But we will have time to study it further. Guards, take her.”
The slight, terrible smile played on the chill blue lips. The lazar began to chant. The wispy phantasms hovering about their cadavers suddenly vanished. Dead eyes came to life. Dead arms reached out. Dead hands lifted weapons but not against the lazar. The dead eyes turned on Kleitus and the Lord High Chancellor, dead eyes turned on the living.
Pons clasped hold of the dynast’s black robes. “Your Majesty! It is this accursed chamber! Leave it! Seal it up! Leave them all trapped inside! Please, Majesty!”
The lights of Alfred’s runes flared brilliantly. The door started to grind open. At last! He’d done something right! “Haplo—”
A flash of movement. Alfred turned.
Kleitus had grabbed a bow from a guard.
A man raised it, arrow aimed straight at Alfred. The man’s face was twisted with fear and the anger fear breeds. Alfred couldn’t move. He couldn’t have cast a magical defense if he had wanted to....
“Do no violence!”
The man drew back the bowstring, prepared to let fly. Alfred stood waiting for death. Not courageously, he realized sadly, but rather foolishly.
A strong hand, coming from behind Alfred, shoved him to one side, and he was falling. . . .
Red light filled the room, blinding, stabbing the eyes, searing the brain with fire. Alfred was on the floor, groping about on his hands and knees, aware of legs stumbling into him and over him and the warm body of the dog crowding beside him. A hand grasped hold of the collar of his robes, jerked him to his feet. A harsh voice shouted in his ear, “Now, we’re even, Sartan!” The same hand shoved him toward the door that, by the grinding sound, was sliding closed again.
“Run, damn you!”
Alfred staggered forward. He was running through flame, smoke. Everything around him had caught fire, was burning: Prince Edmund, Jonathan, Haplo, the dog, the rock walls, the stone floor, the door. Burning, burning. . .
Haplo jumped through the opening, pulled Alfred after him. The Sartan could feel the heavy stone weight of the door press against him, sliding shut. But, even at this moment, his heart wrenched. He was leaving behind something wonderful, something of immense value, something . . .
“. . . only when the living are dead!” cried out the lazar’s voice.
Alfred peered through the fiery light. Steel flashed red in the duchess’s dead hand. The knife plunged hilt-deep into Kleitus’s chest.
His bellow of anger degenerated into a scream of pain.
The lazar wrenched the bloody knife free, stabbed again.
Kleitus howled in agony, clutched at her, trying to wrest the blade from her hand. She stabbed him again, and the dead guards joined her in the attack. The dynast fell, disappeared beneath flailing hands and stabbing swords and slashing spears.
Alfred’s arm was nearly yanked out of the socket. He tumbled headfirst into Haplo’s grasp. Alfred heard a pleading scream cut off in an agonized gurgle—the Lord High Chancellor.
The door ground shut. But everyone standing in the dark tunnel could hear the lazar, either through the walls or in their hearts.
“Now, dynast, I will show you true power. The world of Abarrach will belong to us, to the dead.”
And her echo, “... to the dead ...”
The lazar’s voice raised, chanting the runes of resurrection.
40
Alfred’s eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness inside the tunnel. The darkness wasn’t absolute, as he’d first feared when he emerged from the bright light of the chamber, but was red tinged, dimly lit by reflected light shining down a slick-walled corridor. From the light and from the heat, a magma pool was not far distant. Alfred turned to ask Haplo if he should activate the guide-runes, saw the Patryn slump to the floor.
Concerned, he hastened to Haplo’s side.
The dog stood over its master, teeth bared, a warning growl in its throat.
Alfred tried to reason with the animal. “I want to see if he’s injured. I can help—” He took another step, his hand outstretched.
The dog’s growl deepened, the eyes narrowed, ears flattened. We’ve shared some good times, the dog appeared to be advising Alfred. And I think you’re a fine fellow and I’d be sorry to see you come to harm. But that hand comes any closer and you’ll find my teeth in it.