“...read,” came the sad refrain.
“It looks like a children’s primer,” Xar said, examining it with some disdain. He had himself used books like these, found in the Nexus, to teach the Sartan runes to the mensch child Bane.
“It is,” said Kleitus. “It comes from the days when our own children were alive and laughing. Read.”
Xar studied the book suspiciously. It appeared to be genuine. It was old, extremely old—to judge by the musty smell and brittle, yellowed parchment. Carefully, fearful that the pages might crumble to dust at a touch, he opened the leather cover, read silently to himself.
The Earth was destroyed.
Four worlds were created out of the ruin. Worlds for ourselves and the mensch: Air, Fire, Stone, Water.
Four Gates connect each world to the other: Arianus to Pryan to Abarrach to Chelestra.
A house of correction was built for our enemies: the Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is connected to the other worlds through the Fifth Gate: the Nexus.
The Sixth Gate is the center, permitting entry: the Vortex. And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.
The end was the beginning.
That was the printed text. Beneath, in a crude scrawl, were the words - The beginning was our end.
“You wrote this,” Xar guessed.
“In my own blood,” Kleitus said.
“...blood.”
Xar’s hands shook with excitement. He forgot about the Sartan, about the prophecy, about the necromancy. This—this was worth it all!
“You know where the gate is? You will take me there?” Xar rose eagerly to his feet.
“I know. The dead know. And I would be only too happy to take you, Lord of the Nexus...” Kleitus’s face writhed, the soul flitting restlessly in and out of the corpse, the hands flexed. “If you met that requirement. Your death could be arranged...”
Xar was in no mood for humor. “Don’t be ridiculous. Take me there now. Or, if that is not possible”—the thought came to the lord that perhaps this Seventh Gate was on another world—“tell me where to find it.” Kleitus appeared to consider the matter, then shook his head. “I don’t believe I will.”
“...I will.”
“Why not?” Xar was angry. “Call it... loyalty.”
“This—from a man who slaughtered his own people!” Xar sneered. “Then why tell me about the Seventh Gate, if you refuse to take me to it?” He had a sudden thought. “You want something in exchange. What?”
“To kill. And keep on killing. To be rid of the smell of warm blood that torments me every moment that I live... and I will live forever! Death is what I want. As to the Seventh Gate, you don’t need me to show you. Your minion has been there already. I should think he would have told you.”
“...death... you...”
“What minion? Who?” Xar was confounded a moment, then asked, “Haplo?”
“That could be the name.” Kleitus was losing interest.
“...name.”
“Haplo knows the location of the Seventh Gate!” Xar scoffed. “Impossible. He never mentioned it...”
“He doesn’t know,” Kleitus responded. “No one living knows. But his corpse would know. It would want to return to that place. Raise up this Haplo’s corpse, Lord of the Nexus, and he will lead you to the Seventh Gate.”
“I wish I knew your game,” Xar said to himself, pretending once more to peruse the child’s book, covertly observing the lazar. “I wish I knew what you were after! What is the Seventh Gate to you! And why do you want Haplo? Yes, I see where you’re leading me. But so long as it’s the same direction I’m traveling...”
Xar shrugged and lifted the book, read aloud.
“ ‘And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.’ How? What does that mean, Dynast? Or does it mean anything? It is hard to tell; you Sartan derive so much pleasure out of playing with words.”
“I would guess it means a great deal, Lord of the Nexus.” A flicker of dark amusement brought real life to the dead eyes. “What that meaning is, I neither know nor care.”
Reaching out his hand, its flesh bluish white and dappled with blood, its nails black, Kleitus spoke a Sartan rune, struck the door.
The Patryn sigla protecting the door shattered. Kleitus walked through it and left.
Xar could have held the runes against the Dynast’s magic, but the lord didn’t want to waste his energy. Why bother? Let the lazar leave. He would obviously be of no further use.
The Seventh Gate. The chamber where the Sartan sundered the world. Who knows what powerful magic exists inside there still? thought Xar. If, as he claims, Kleitus knows the location of the Seventh Gate, then he doesn’t need Haplo to show him. He obviously wants Haplo for his own purposes. Why? True, Haplo eluded the Dynast’s clutches, escaped the lazar’s murderous rampage, but it seems unlikely that Kleitus would hold a grudge. The lazar loathes all living beings. He wouldn’t single out just one unless he had a special reason.
Haplo has something or knows something Kleitus wants. I wonder what? I must keep Haplo to myself, at least until I find out...
Xar picked up the book again, stared at the Sartan runes until he had them memorized. A commotion in the hallway, voices calling his name, disturbed him. Leaving the desk, Xar crossed the room, opened the door. Several Patryns were roaming up and down the corridor.
“What do you want?”
“My Lord! We’ve been searching all over!” The woman who had answered paused to catch her breath.
“Yes?” Xar caught her excitement. Patryns were disciplined; they did not ordinarily let their feelings show. “What is it, Daughter?”
“We have captured two prisoners, My Lord. We caught them coming through Death’s Gate.”
“Indeed! This is welcome news. What—”
“My Lord, hear me!” Under normal circumstances, no Patryn would have dared interrupt Xar. But the young woman was too excited to contain herself. “They are both Sartan. And one of them is—”
“Alfred!” Xar guessed.
“The man is Samah, My Lord.”
Samah! Head of the Sartan Council of Seven.
Samah. Who had been held in suspended animation long centuries on Chelestra. Samah. The very Samah who had brought about the destruction of the worlds. Samah. Who had cast the Patryns into the Labyrinth.
At that moment, Xar could almost have believed in this higher power Haplo kept yammering about. And Xar could almost have thanked it for giving Samah into his hands.
2
Samah. Of all the wonderful prizes. Samah. The Sartan who had thought up the plot to sunder the world. The Sartan who had sold the idea to his people. The Sartan who had taken their blood and the blood of countless thousands of innocents in payment. The Sartan who had locked the Patryns in the prison hell of the Labyrinth.
“And,” Xar said to himself suddenly, his gaze going back to the book, “the Sartan who undoubtedly knows the location of the Seventh Gate! Not only that, but he will probably refuse to tell me where it is or anything about it.” Xar rubbed his hands. “I will have the inordinate pleasure of forcing Samah to talk!”
There are dungeons in the palace of stone on Abarrach. Haplo had reported their existence to Xar. Haplo had very nearly died in the dungeons of Abarrach.
Xar hastened through the rat’s warren of corridors that led downward to the dungeons—the “catacombs,” as they had been euphemistically known during the reign of the Sartan.
What had those early Sartan used the catacombs for? Prisons for the malcontents among the mensch? Or perhaps the Sartan had even tried housing the mensch down here, away from the corrupt atmosphere of the caverns above, the atmosphere that was slowly poisoning every living thing the Sartan had brought with them. According to Haplo’s report, there were rooms down here, other rooms besides prison cells. Large rooms, big enough to hold a fair number of people. Sartan runes, traced along the floor, led the way, for those who knew the secrets of their magic.
Torches burned in sconces on the wall. By their light, Xar caught an occasional glimpse of these Sartan runes. Xar spoke a word—a Sartan word—and watched the sigla flicker feebly to life, glow a moment, then die, their magic broken and spent.