“My goodness, elves are strong,” Limbeck remarked to himself. “Far stronger than I’d imagined.” He noted down this fact to be taken into account should full-scale war ever be mounted against the enemy.
They took many twists and turns down winding corridors. Then the elf came to a halt. Easing the injured Haplo back against the wall, the elf glanced casually up and down the corridor.
Limbeck shrank back into a convenient passageway located directly across from where the elf was standing and flattened himself against the wall. Now Limbeck knew the source of the eerie red glow—it emanated from the elf’s eyes. The strange eyes with their fiery gaze flared in Limbeck’s direction. The horrible, unnatural light almost blinded him. He knew he’d been discovered and he crouched, cowering, waiting to be apprehended. But the eyes’ flaming gaze passed right over him, flitted on down the corridor, and back again. Limbeck went limp in relief. He was reminded of the time one of the ’lectric zingers on the Kicksey-winsey had gone amok, spit out great bolts of lightning, before the dwarves managed to get it under control. One of those bolts had whizzed right past Limbeck’s ear. Had he been standing six inches to his left, he would have been sizzled. Had the dwarf been standing six inches in front of himself, the elf would have spotted him.
As it was, the elf was satisfied that he was unobserved. But then he hadn’t seemed all that worried about it to begin with. Nodding to himself in satisfaction, the elf turned and knocked on a door.
It opened. Light streamed out. Limbeck blinked, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brilliance.
“Give me a hand here,” said the elf.[28]
A dwarf!
Fortunately for Limbeck, his shock at seeing a dwarf assisting an elf to carry the reviving Haplo into this secret, subterranean room was so great that it paralyzed his tongue and all his other faculties into the bargain. Otherwise, he might have cried out “Hey!”
“Hullo!” or “What in the name of Great-aunt Sally’s side whiskers do you think you’re doing?” and given himself away. As it was, by the time Limbeck’s brain had reestablished communication with the rest of Limbeck, the elf and the dwarf had dragged a groggy Haplo into the room. They closed the door behind them, and Limbeck’s heart traveled down to where his boots had once been. Then he noticed a crack of light, and his heart jumped, though it didn’t quite manage to make it back up to its proper place, for it still seemed to be beating somewhere around the level of his knees. The door had been left slightly ajar.
It wasn’t courage that urged Limbeck forward. It was: What? Why? How?
Curiosity, the driving force in his life, drew him toward that room as the ’lectrical iron-tuggers on the Kicksey-winsey tugged iron. Limbeck was standing at the door, one bespectacled eye to the crack, before he realized what he was doing or gave a thought to his peril.
Dwarves in collusion with the enemy! How could such a thing be? He’d find out who the traitors were and he’d... well, he’d ... or maybe he’d... Limbeck stared, blinked. He drew back, then brought two eyes to the crack, thinking that one had been playing tricks on him. It hadn’t. He took off his spectacles, rubbed his eyes, looked again.
Humans were in the room! Humans and elves and dwarves. All standing around as peaceful as can be. All getting along together. All, apparently, united in brotherhood.
With the exception that their eyes glowed red and that they filled Limbeck with a cold, nameless terror, he couldn’t remember having seen a more wonderful sight.
Humans, elves, dwarves—one.
Haplo stood in the room, staring around him. The horrible sensation of alternately freezing and burning had ceased, but now he was weak, wrung out. He longed to sleep, recognized this as his body’s desire to heal itself, reestablish the circle of his being, his magic.
And I’ll be dead long before that can happen.
The room was large and dimly lit by a few flickering lanterns hanging from pegs on the walls. Haplo was at first confused by what he saw. But men, on second thought, it made sense. It was logical, brilliant. He sank into a chair that Sang-drax shoved beneath his limp legs.
Yes, it made perfect sense.
The room was filled with mensch: elves like Sang-drax, humans like Bane, dwarves like Limbeck and Jarre. An elven soldier was tapping the toe of his boot with the point of his sword. An elven nobleman smoothed the feathers of a hawk he held on his wrist. A human female, clad in a tattered skirt and a deliberately provocative blouse, lounged in a bored manner against a wall. Beside her, a human wizard was amusing himself by tossing a coin in the air, making it disappear. A male dwarf, in the dress of the Gegs, grinned through a thick tangle of beard. All mensch, all completely different in looks and appearance except for one thing. Each gazed at Haplo with gleaming red eyes. Sang-drax, posting himself beside Haplo, indicated a human male, clad as a common laborer, who came forward to stand in the center of the group. “The Royal One,” the serpent-elf said, speaking Patryn.
“I thought you were dead,” said Haplo, his words slurred and faltering, but coherent.
The serpent king looked confused for a moment, then laughed. “Ah, yes. Chelestra. No, I am not dead. We can never die.”
“You looked pretty dead to me, after Alfred was finished with you.”
“The Serpent Mage? I admit that he killed a part of me, but for every part of me that dies, two more parts are born. We live, you see, as long as you live. You keep us alive. We are indebted to you.” The serpent-human bowed. Haplo stared, confused. “Then what is your true form? Are you snakes or dragons or mensch or what?”
“We are whatever you want us to be,” said the serpent king. “You give us shape, as you give us life.”
“Meaning you adapt to the world you’re in, whatever suits your purpose,” Haplo spoke slowly, his thoughts struggling through a drugged haze. “In the Nexus, you were a Patryn. On Chelestra, it suited your purpose to appear in the guise of terrifying snakes...”
“Here, we can be more subtle,” said the serpent king, with a casual wave of his hand. “We have no need to appear as ferocious monsters to throw this world into the turmoil and chaos on which we thrive. We have only to be its citizens.”
The others in the room laughed appreciatively.
Shape-changers, Haplo realized. The evil can assume any form, any guise. On Chelestra—dragon-snakes; in this world—mensch; in the Nexus—his own people. No one will recognize them, no one will know they are here. They can go anywhere, do anything, foment wars, keep dwarf fighting elf, elf fighting human... Sartan fighting Patryn. Too eager to hate, never realizing our hatred makes us weak, we are open and vulnerable to the evil that will eventually devour us all!
“Why have you brought me here?” Haplo asked, almost too sick and despairing to care.
“To tell you our plans.”
Haplo sneered. “A waste of time, since you intend to kill me.”
“No, no, that would be the waste!”
Walking past rows of elves and dwarves and humans, the serpent king came to stand directly in front of Haplo. “You still haven’t grasped it, yet, have you, Patryn?”
The king reached out his hand, stabbed a finger at Haplo’s chest, tapped it.
“We live only so long as you live. Fear, hatred, vengeance, terror, pain, suffering—that is the foul and turgid quagmire in which we breed. You live in peace and each of us dies a little bit. You live in fear and your life gives us life.”
“I’ll fight you!” Haplo mumbled.
“Of course you will!” laughed the serpent-human.
Haplo rubbed his aching head, his bleary eyes. “I get it. That’s what you want”
28
Limbeck learned to speak the elven language from Captain Bothar’el. Expecting another elf to come to the aid of the first, Limbeck was astonished beyond measure to see a dwarf emerge from the doorway.