His puzzlement increased. The idea that a foe of any sort should exist in the Nexus was untenable. His first thought was Samah. Had the head of the Sartan Council entered Death’s Gate, found his way here? It was possible, though not very likely. This would be the last place Samah would come! Yet Haplo could think of no other possibility. The stranger drew nearer and Haplo saw, to his astonishment, that his fears had been groundless. The man was a Patryn. Haplo didn’t recognize him, but this was not unusual. Haplo had been gone a long while. His lord would have rescued many Patryns from the Labyrinth during the interim.
The stranger kept his gaze lowered, glancing at Haplo from beneath hooded eyelids. He nodded a stern, austere greeting—customary among Patryns, who are a solitary and undemonstrative people—and appeared likely to continue on his way without speaking. He was traveling the opposite direction from Haplo, heading away from the lord’s dwelling.
Ordinarily Haplo would have responded with a curt nod of his own and forgotten the stranger. But the sigla on his skin itched and crawled, nearly driving him frantic. The blue glow illuminated the shadows. The other Patryn’s tattoos had not altered in appearance, remained dark. Haplo stared at the stranger’s hands. There was something odd about those tattoos.
The stranger had drawn level with him. Haplo had hold of the dog, forced to drag the excited animal back or it would have gone for the man’s throat. Another oddity.
“Wait!” Haplo called out. “Wait, sir. I don’t know you, do I? How are you called? What is your Gate?”[14]
Haplo meant nothing by the question, was hardly aware of what he asked. He wanted only to get a closer look at the man’s hands and arms, the sigla tattooed on them.
“You are wrong. We have met,” said the stranger, in a hissing voice that was familiar.
Haplo couldn’t recall where he’d heard it and was now too preoccupied to think about it. The sigla on the man’s hands and arms were false; meaningless scrawls that not even a Patryn child would have drawn. Each individual sigil was correctly formed, but it did not match up properly to any other. The tattoos on the man’s arms should have been runes of power, of defense, of healing. Instead, they were mindless, a jumble. Haplo was suddenly reminded of the rune-bone game played by the Sartan on Abarrach, of the runes tossed at random on a table. This stranger’s runes had been tossed at random on his skin.
Haplo jumped forward, hands reaching, planning to seize the false Patryn, find out who or what was attempting to spy on diem.
His hands closed over air.
Overbalanced, Haplo stumbled, fell onto his hands and knees. He was up instantly, looking in all directions.
The false Patryn was nowhere in sight. He had vanished without a trace. Haplo glanced at the dog. The animal whimpered, shivered all over. Haplo felt like doing the same. He poked halfheartedly among the trees and brush lining the path, knowing he wouldn’t find anything, not certain he wanted to find anything.
Whatever it was, it was gone. The sigla on his arms were starting to fade, the burning sensation of warning cooled.
Haplo continued on his way, not wasting further time. The mysterious encounter gave him all the more reason to hurry. Obviously, the stranger’s appearance and the opening of Death’s Gate were not coincidence. Haplo knew now where he’d heard that voice, wondered how he could have ever forgotten. Perhaps he had wanted to forget.
At least now he could give the stranger a name.
5
“Serpents, Lord,” said Haplo. “But not serpents as we know them. The most deadly snake in the Labyrinth is a worm compared to these! They are old, old as man himself, I think. They have the cunning and the knowledge of their years. And they have a power, Lord, a power that is vast and... and...” Haplo paused, hesitated.
“And what, my son?” encouraged Xar gently.
“Almighty,” answered Haplo.
“An omnipotent force?” Xar mused. “You know what you are saying, my son?” Haplo heard the warning in the voice.
Be very careful of your thoughts, your surmises, your deductions, my son, the tone cautioned. Be careful of your facts, your judgment. For by acknowledging this power almighty, you place it above me.
Haplo was careful. He sat long without answering, staring into the fire that wanned the lord’s hearth, watched its light play over the blue sigla tattooed on his hands and arms. He saw again the runes on the arms of the false Patryn: chaotic, unintelligible, without meaning, without order. The sight brought back the wrenching, debilitating fear he’d experienced in the serpents’ lair on Draknor.
“I’ve never felt fear like that,” he said suddenly, speaking aloud the thoughts in his mind.
Though he came in on the middle of Haplo’s mental conversation, Xar understood. The lord always understood.
“The fear made me want to crawl into some dark hole, Lord. I wanted to curl up and lie there cowering. I was afraid... of my fear. I couldn’t understand it, couldn’t overcome it.”
Haplo shook his head. “And I was born in fear, raised with fear, in the Labyrinth. What was the difference, Lord? I don’t understand.” Xar did not respond, sat unmoving in his chair. He was a quiet, attentive listener. He never betrayed any emotion, his attention never wandered, his interest was always completely focused on the speaker. People talk to such a rare type of listener; they talk eagerly, oftimes incautiously. Their thoughts are focused on what they are saying, not on the person listening. And so Xar, with his magical power, was often able to hear the unspoken, as well as the spoken. People poured their minds into the lord’s empty well. Haplo clenched his fist, watched the sigla stretch smoothly, protectively over the skin of his hand. He answered his own question.
“I knew the Labyrinth could be defeated,” he said softly. “That’s the difference, isn’t it, Lord. Even when I thought I would die in that place, I knew in my hour of dying a bitter triumph. I had come close to defeating it. And though I had failed, others would come after me and succeed. The Labyrinth, for all its power, is vulnerable.”
Haplo raised his head, looked at Xar. “You proved that, Lord. You defeated it. You have defeated it, time and again. I defeated it, finally. With help.” He reached down his hand, scratched the dog’s head.
The animal lay snoozing at his feet, basking in the warm glow of the fire. Occasionally, it opened its eyes a glittering slit, fixed their gaze on Xar. Just checking, the dog seemed to say.
Haplo did not notice, from where he was sitting, his dog’s wary, watchful observation. Xar, seated opposite, did.
Haplo fell silent again, stared into the fire, his expression grim and dark. He had no need to continue, Xar understood completely.
“You are saying that this power cannot be defeated. Is that it, my son?” Haplo stirred restlessly, uncomfortably. He cast the lord a troubled glance, shifted his gaze swiftly back to the fire. His face flushed, his hand unclenched, clenched again on the arm of the chair.
“Yes, Lord. That is what I am saying.” He spoke slowly, heavily. “I think this evil power may be checked, halted, driven back, controlled. But never beaten, never ultimately destroyed.”
“Not by us, your people, as strong and powerful as we are?” Xar put the question mildly, not arguing, merely requiring additional information.
“Not by us, Lord. As strong and powerful as we are.” Haplo smiled at some inner thought, a sardonic smile.
The Lord of the Nexus was angered by this, although, to the casual observer, his expression appeared as placid and calm as before. Haplo did not notice, he was lost in a tangle of dark thoughts. But one other person was watching their conversation, eavesdropping on it. And this person was not a casual observer. He knew well what the lord was thinking.
14
Reference to the number of Gates in the Labyrinth through which a Patryn has passed. The number of Gates gives a fair indication of what type of life the person led. A Squatter, for example, would have passed through relatively few Gates compared to a Runner. The Lord of the Nexus standardized the classification process in terms of age, using the runes tattooed on a person’s body combined with cycles discovered in the Labyrinth to judge a Patryn’s true age.
The question Haplo has asked would be the equivalent of one mensch asking another about his occupation.