“I see.” Alfred was uncomfortable. “I suppose there was training involved, years of study—”
“Of course. With that much power comes responsibility.”
“The one thing I’ve never been very good at.”
“You could be of immense help to my people, Alfred.”
“If I don’t pass out,” Alfred said bitterly. “But then again, you might be happier if I did. I could bring more danger to you than I’m worth. The Labyrinth seems to be able to turn my magic against me—”
“Because you’re not in control of your magic. Or of yourself. Take control, Alfred. Be the hero of your own life. Don’t let someone else play that role.”
“Be the hero of my own life,” Alfred repeated softly. He almost laughed. It was so very ludicrous.
The two men sat together in companionable silence. Outside, the black began to soften to gray. Dawn—and battle—approached.
“You are two people, Alfred,” said Vasu at length. “An inner person and an outer. A chasm exists between the two. Somehow you must bridge it. The two of you must meet.”
Alfred Montbank—middle-aged, balding, clumsy, a coward.
Coren—life-giver; a creature of power, strength, courage, the chosen. These two could never come together. They had been apart far too long. Alfred sat dejected. “I think I would only fall off the bridge,” he said miserably.
A horn sounded, a call of warning. Vasu was on his feet. “Will you come with me?”
Alfred attempted to look brave. Squaring his shoulders, he stood up... and tripped over the corner of the rug.
“One of us will come,” he said, and picked himself up with a sigh.
46
By the gray light of dawn, it seemed to the Patryns that every enemy in the Labyrinth was ranged against them.
Until that moment, when they looked out over the walls and stared in horrified awe, some had doubted, not believed the warnings. They thought the headman’s fears exaggerated. There had been intruders in the city, but they had done no harm. A few packs of wolfen might attack. Or perhaps even a legion of the hard-to-kill[39] chaodyn. How could such vast forces as the headman spoke of gather unobserved? The forest and the surrounding lands had been no more dangerous than normal.
Now the land crawled with death.
Wolfen, chaodyn, tiger-men, snogs, and hosts of other monsters, born and bred by the evil magic of the Labyrinth, were massed along the riverbank, their ranks rippling with activity, until it seemed that they formed another River of Anger.
The forest concealed the numbers hidden within, but the Patryns could see the tops of the trees swaying, stirred by the movement of armies below. Dust rose from where giant trees were being felled to serve as bridges and battering rams, were being made into ladders to scale the walls.
And beyond the forest, the grass plains that lay fallow, ready for the planting, sprouted a hideous crop. Springing up in the night like weeds that thrive on darkness, the ranks of the foe stretched to the horizon. Leading the armies were creatures never before seen in the Labyrinth: huge serpents, without wings or feet, gray-scaled, their wrinkled bodies dragging over the ground. They oozed slime that poisoned the land, the water, the air—anything they touched. Their foul smell, of rot and decay, was like a film of oil on the wind. The Patryns could taste it on their tongues and in their throats, feel it coating their arms and hands, obscuring their vision. The red eyes of the serpents burned hot with bloodlust. Their toothless mouths gaped wide, sucking in the terror and the fear the sight of them inspired, gorging on it, growing fat and strong and powerful.
One of the serpents, however, had only one eye. And it scanned the top of the city walls with evil intent, as if searching for someone in particular. The dawn came, gray light shining from a source never seen, serving only to illuminate, doing little to warm or cheer. But this day the gray was brightened by a halo of blue, an aura of red. The Patryns’ rune-magic had never before gleamed so brilliantly, reacting to the powerful forces arrayed against it with power of its own.
The sigla flared on the protecting wall, its light so dazzling that many standing on the riverbank, awaiting the signal to attack, were forced to shade their eyes against it. The bodies of the Patryns themselves gleamed as if each individual burned with his or her own vibrant flame.
Only one person stood in darkness, forlorn, almost suffocating with terror.
“This is hopeless!” Alfred peered over the edge of the battlements. His hands, gripping the wall, shook so that fragments of rock dislodged, came down in a rain of gritty dust that covered his shoes.
“Yes, it is hopeless,” answered Haplo beside him. “I’m sorry I got you into this, my friend.”
The dog pattered back and forth nervously along the wall, whining because it couldn’t see, occasionally alert and growling at the sound of a wolfen’s challenging howl or a dragon-snake’s taunting hiss. Marit stood next to Haplo; her hand was twined fast in his. They looked at each other every so often, smiling, finding comfort and courage in each other’s eyes.
Alfred, watching them, felt that comfort include him. For the first time since he had met Haplo, Alfred saw the Patryn almost whole, almost at peace. He was not fully whole, not completely—the dog was with him still. Whatever had led Haplo to come back to the Labyrinth had led him home. And he was content to stay here, to die here.
My friend, he had said.
Alfred heard the words dimly above the shrieks of the invading foe. The words kindled a small fire inside him.
“Am I?” he asked Haplo timidly.
“Are you what?”
The conversation had moved on, at least between Haplo and Marit and Hugh the Hand. Alfred hadn’t been listening to them. He’d been listening to the voice across the chasm.
“Your... what you said. Friend,” Alfred said shyly.
“Did I say that?” Hapto shrugged. “I must have been talking to the dog.” But he was smiling.
“You weren’t, were you?” Alfred said, red with pleasure. Haplo was silent. The armies below them hooted and howled, gibbered and cursed. Haplo’s silence wrapped around Alfred like a comforting blanket. He couldn’t hear the screams of death. Only Haplo, when he spoke.
“Yes, Alfred, you are my friend.” Haplo held out his hand—the hand that was powerful, tattooed on the back with blue runes.
Alfred extended his hand—white, shriveled, with knobby wrists and thin bones, its flesh cold and clammy with fear.
The two hands met, clasped, gripped each other firmly.
Two people, reaching across a chasm of hate. At that moment, Alfred looked inward and met himself.
And he was no longer afraid.
Another shrill blast of the trumpet and the battle began.
The Patryns had either destroyed the bridges across the river or set magical traps on them. These obstructions halted the enemy only momentarily, were no more than a minor inconvenience. The narrow rock bridge that had cost Alfred some painful moments exploded in a flash of magic, taking out a host of the enemy who had foolishly ventured onto it.
But before the last fragments had fallen down into the raging water, six logs were hauled by tusked behemoths to the river’s bank. Dragons—true dragons of the Labyrinth[40]—lifted the logs with claw and with magic and dropped them down. Legions of the dread host swarmed across. If any of their number slipped and fell into the torrent—which many did—they were abandoned to their fate.
Higher up among the cliffs stood permanent bridges of stone. These the Patryns left standing, but used the magic of their engraved sigla to confound the enemy, arousing an intense fear in those trying to cross, causing the ones in front to turn and flee in panic, disorganizing and stampeding those in the rear.
39
Insect-like creatures, the chaodyn have a hard outer shell that is extremely difficult to penetrate even with magical weapons. A chaodyn must be struck directly, die instantly, or else an attacker will find himself facing two where one stood before.
40
As opposed to the evil serpents (dragon-snakes) or the good dragons of Pryan. The Labyrinth dragons are descendants of those of ancient Earth, pre-Sundering. They are hideous reptiles, large, with vast wingspan, powerful in magic and abominably evil. They do not kill a victim outright, but enjoy taking prisoners and will torment their victims for days, allowing them to die slowly. Haplo mentions elsewhere that the dragons of the Labyrinth are the one creature he never fought. He ran for his life whenever he feared one was near. So far as Haplo records, Xar, Lord of the Nexus, was the only Patryn ever to fight a Labyrinth dragon and