Though he had to admit that Bane’s innocent-seeming question about obedience to the Lord of the Nexus had disturbed him. There had been a time—and Haplo knew it well—when he would have answered such a question immediately, without reservation, with a clear conscience.
Not now. Not anymore.
It was useless to tell himself that he’d never actually gone so far as to disobey his lord. True obedience is in the heart, as well as the mind. And in his heart, Haplo had rebelled. Evasions and half-truths were not as bad as outright refusals and lies, but they were not as good as open honesty, either. For a long time now, ever since Abarrach, Haplo had not been honest with his lord. The knowledge had once made him feel guilty, uncomfortable.
“But now,” Haplo said to himself, staring out the window into the rapidly intensifying storm, “I begin to wonder. Has my lord been honest with me?” The storm broke over the ship. The vessel rocked on its moorings in the violent wind, but otherwise held fast, secure. The constantly flashing lightning lit the landscape brighter during the height of the storm than the sun did during the calm. Haplo put his questions about his lord out of his mind. That was not his problem, at least not now. The Kicksey-winsey was. He walked from window to window, studying what he could see of the great machine. Bane and the dog wandered onto the bridge. The dog smelled strongly of sausage. Bane was obviously bored and out of sorts.
Haplo ignored them both. He was certain now that his memory was not playing him false. Something was definitely wrong....
“What are you looking at?” Bane demanded, yawning, plunking himself down on a bench. “There’s nothing out there except—”
A jagged bolt of lightning struck the ground near the ship, sending rock fragments exploding into the air. Heart-stopping thunder crashed around them. The dog cowered down against the floor. Haplo instinctively fell back from the window, though he was in his place again an instant later, staring out intently.
Bane ducked his head, covered it with his arms. “I hate this place!” he yelled. “I—What was that? Did you see that?”
The child jumped to his feet, pointing. “The rocks! The rocks moved!”
“Yeah, I saw it,” Haplo said, glad to have confirmation. He’d been wondering if the lightning had affected his vision.
Another near strike. The dog began to whimper. Haplo and Bane pressed their faces close to the glass, stared out into the storm.
Several coralite boulders were behaving in a most extraordinary manner. They had detached themselves from the ground, seemingly, and were trundling across it at a great rate, heading straight—there could be no mistaking that now—for Haplo’s ship.
“They’re coming to us!” Bane said in awe.
“Dwarves,” Haplo guessed, but why dwarves should risk coming Outside, particularly Outside during a storm, was difficult to fathom. The boulders were beginning to circle the ship, searching for a way to enter. Haplo ran back to the hatch, Bane and the dog at his heels. He hesitated a moment, reluctant to break the rune-magic’s protective seal. But if the mobile rocks were really dwarves, they were in danger of being struck by lightning every second they were out in the storm.
Desperation drove them to this, Haplo decided. Something, he guessed, to do with the change in the Kicksey-winsey. He placed his hand on a sigil drawn in the center of the hatch, began tracing it backward. Immediately, its glowing blue fire started to fade and darken. Other sigla touching it began to darken as well. Haplo waited until those runes on the hatch had dwindled to almost nothing, then he threw the bolt and flung the door wide.
A blast of wind nearly knocked him down. Rain drenched him instantly.
“Get back!” he shouted, flinging an arm up to protect his face from slashing hailstones.
Bane had already scrambled backward, out of the way, nearly falling over the dog in the process. The two huddled a safe distance from the open door. Haplo braced himself, peered out into the storm. “Hurry!” he cried, though he doubted if anyone could hear him above the boom of the thunder. He waved his arm to attract attention.
The blue glow that illuminated the inside of the vessel was still shining brightly, but Haplo could see it starting to grow dim. The circle of protection was broken. Before long, the sigla guarding the entire ship would weaken.
“Hurry!” he shouted again, this time remembering to speak dwarven. The lead boulder, coming around the ship a second time, saw the blue light shining from the open hatchway and headed straight for it. The other two boulders, catching sight of their leader, scurried after. The lead boulder slammed against the side of the hull, went through a few moments’ wild gyrating, then the rock was suddenly flung upward and over and the bespectacled face of Limbeck, panting and flushed, emerged.
The ship had been built to sail in water, not through the air, and the hatch, therefore, was located some distance off the ground. Haplo had added a rope ladder for his own convenience, and he tossed this out to Limbeck. The dwarf, nearly flattened against the hull by the wind, began to clamber up, glancing down worriedly at two other boulders, which had crashed into the ship’s side. One dwarf managed to extricate himself from his protective shell, but the other was apparently having difficulty. A piteous wail rose above the roar of the wind and the crashing thunder.
Limbeck, looking extremely irritated, checked an impatient exclamation and started back down, moving slowly and ponderously, to rescue his fellow warrior.
Haplo glanced around swiftly; the blue glow was growing dimmer every moment.
“Get up here!” he called to Limbeck. “I’ll take care of it!” Limbeck couldn’t hear the words, but he caught the meaning. He began to climb again. Haplo jumped lightly to the ground. The sigla on his body flared blue and red, protecting him from the cutting hailstones and—he hoped fervently—from the lightning.
Half blinded by the rain in his face, he studied the contraption in which the dwarf was trapped. Another dwarf had his hands under the bottom of the thing and was obviously, from the puffing and grunting, attempting to raise it. Haplo added his strength—enhanced by his magic—to the dwarfs. He heaved the boulder up into the air with such force that the dwarf lost his grip and fell flat on his face in a puddle.
Haplo jerked the Geg to his feet, to keep him from drowning, and caught hold of the trapped dwarf, who was staring about dazedly, awestruck by his sudden deliverance. Haplo hustled the two up the ladder, cursing the slowness of the thick-legged dwarves. Fortunately, an extremely close lightning strike impelled all of them to faster action. Thunder rumbling around them, they scaled the ladder in record time, tumbled headfirst inside the ship. Haplo brought up the rear, shut the hatch, and sealed it, swiftly redrawing the sigla. The blue glow began to brighten. He breathed easier. Bane, with more thoughtfulness than Haplo would have credited the boy with, arrived with blankets, which he distributed to the dripping dwarves. Out of breath from exertion and fright and amazement at seeing Haplo’s skin shining blue, none was able to talk. They wrung water from their beards, sucked in deep breaths, and stared at the Patryn in considerable astonishment. Haplo wiped water from his face, shook his head when Bane offered a blanket to him.
“Limbeck, good to see you again,” Haplo said, with a quiet, friendly smile. The warmth of the sigla was rapidly causing the rain water on his body to evaporate.
“Haplo...” said Limbeck, somewhat dubiously. His spectacles were covered with water. Taking them off, he started to dry them on his white handkerchief, only to pull a sodden mass out of his pocket. He stared at the sopping wet handkerchief in dismay.
“Here,” said Bane helpfully, offering his shirttail, which he tugged out of leather breeches.