James sighed.
Walking over to the stone table, he traced his finger through the dust. Despite the recent flood, the dust continued to drift down from the ceiling, coating every object in the Chalice with a thin, fine, white powder.
“But I was gone when you arrived, Ramu. I chose to stay behind. I couldn’t stop the Sundering, and so I tried to protect those you left behind. But I couldn’t do anything to help them. There were too many dying. I wasn’t of much use to anyone then.
“But I am now.”
The Sartan’s aspect changed, altered. The handsome middle-aged man evolved, transformed in an instant into an old man with a long, scraggly beard, wearing mouse-colored robes and a battered, shapeless hat. The old man stroked his beard, looked extremely proud of himself.
“Pig’s breakfast, indeed! Just wait till you hear what I’ve done now! I handled that just exactly right. Did exactly what you told me, you elongated toad of a dragon . . .
“That is”—Zifnab thoughtfully tugged at his beard—“I believe I did what you said. ‘At all costs, get Ramu to the Labyrinth.’ Yes, those were your exact words . . .
“I think those were the exact words. Urn, now that I recall . . .” The old man began to twist his beard into knots. “Perhaps it was ‘At all costs, keep Ramu away from the Labyrinth’? . . .
“I’ve got the ‘at all costs’ bit down pat.” Zifnab appeared to take some comfort from this fact. “It’s the part that comes after I’m a bit muddled on. Maybe . . . Maybe I just better pop back and check the script.”
Mumbling to himself, the old man walked into a wall and vanished.
A Sartan, happening to enter the Council Chamber at that moment, was startled to hear a grim voice saying gloomily, “What have you done now, sir?”
7
The blue-green dragon of Pryan rose high above the treetops. Alfred glanced down at the ground once, shuddered, and resolved to look anywhere except that direction. Somehow, flying had been different when he’d been the one with the wings. He gripped the dragon’s scales more tightly. Trying to take his mind off the fact that he was perched precariously and unsteadily on the back of a dragon, soaring far, far above solid ground, Alfred searched for the source of the wondrous sunlight. He knew it shone from the citadels, but those were located on Pryan. How was the light shining into the Labyrinth? Turning slowly and carefully, he risked peering back tentatively over his shoulder.
“The light shines from the Vortex,” Vasu shouted. The headman was flying on another dragon. “Look, look toward the ruined mountain.”
Sitting up as tall as he dared, clinging nervously to the dragon, Alfred stared in the direction indicated. He gasped in awe.
It was as if a sun burned deep within the mountain’s heart. Shafts of brilliant light beamed from every crack, every crevice, illuminated the sky, poured over the land. The light touched Abri’s gray walls, causing them to glisten silver. The trees that had lived so long in the gray day of the Labyrinth seemed to lift their twisted limbs to this new dawn, as an aged man reaches aching fingers to a warm fire.
But, Alfred saw sadly, the light did not penetrate far into the Labyrinth. It was a tiny candle flame in the vast darkness; nothing more. And soon the darkness consumed it.
Alfred watched for as long as he could, until the light was blotted out by mountains, rising jagged and sharp, like bony hands thrust into his face to prohibit hope. He sighed, turned away, and saw the fiery red glow on the horizon ahead.
“What is that?” he called. “Do you know?”
Vasu shook his head. “It began the night after the attack on Abri. In that direction lies the Final Gate.”
“I saw the elves burn a walled city on the Volkaran Islands,” Hugh the Hand said, dark eyes squinting to see. “Flames leapt from house to house. The heat was so intense, some buildings exploded before the fire even reached them. At night, the blaze fit up the sky. It looked very much like that.”
“It is undoubtedly magical fire, created by my lord to drive off the dragon-snakes,” Marit said coolly.
Alfred sighed. How could she continue to have faith in Lord Xar? Her hair was gummed together with her own blood, drawn by Xar when he obliterated the sigil which had joined them together. Perhaps that was the reason. She and Xar had been in communication. She was the one who had betrayed them to Xar, had told him their location. Perhaps, somehow, Xar continued to exert his influence over her.
“I should have stopped her at the very beginning,” he said to himself. “I saw that sigil when I brought her into the Vortex. I knew what it meant. I should have warned Haplo she would betray him.”
And then, as usual, Alfred began to argue with himself. “But Marit saved Haplo’s life in Chelestra. It was obvious she loved him. And he loved her. They brought love into a prison house of hate. How could I slam shut the door against it? Yet maybe if I had told him, he could have protected himself ... I don’t know.” Alfred sighed bleakly. “I don’t know ... I did what I thought was best . . . And who can say? Perhaps her faith in her lord will be justified.”
The blue-green dragons of Pryan flew on through the Labyrinth, circling around the tall mountains, diving through the passes. As they drew nearer the Final Gate, they dipped low, barely skimming the treetops, hiding as best they could from watchful eyes. The darkness grew deeper, an unnatural darkness, for nightfall was some hours distant. This darkness affected not only the eyes, but the heart and the mind as well. An evil, magical darkness, cast by the dragon-snakes, it brought with it the ages-old fear of night we first know as children. It spoke of unknown, hideous things lurking just beyond sight, ready to leap out and drag us off.
Marit’s face, bathed in the light of her own warning rune-glow, was pale and strained. The blood on her forehead looked black by contrast. Hugh the Hand constantly turned to stare around.
“We’re being watched,” he warned.
Alfred cringed at the words, which seemed to bounce back from the darkness in laughing, mocking echoes. Crouching, trying to hide behind the dragon’s neck, Alfred grew faint—his preferred form of defense. He knew the signs, and he fought against them: lightheaded, his stomach crawling, his forehead beaded with sweat. He pressed his face against the dragon’s cool scales and closed his eyes.
But being blind was worse than seeing, because suddenly Alfred had the vivid memory of falling from the air, spiraling downward, too weak and wounded to stop his descent. The ground spun crazily, soared up to meet him . . .
A hand shook him.
Alfred gasped, jerked upright.
“You damn near fell off,” Hugh the Hand told him. “You aren’t planning to faint, are you?”
“No-no,” Alfred murmured.
“Good thing,” the Hand said. “Take a look ahead.”
Alfred sat up, wiped the chill sweat from his face. It took a moment for the fog of dizziness to clear from his eyes, and at first he had no idea what it was he was seeing. The darkness was so intense, and now it was mingled with a choking smoke . . .
Smoke. Alfred stared, ail things coming into terrible focus.
The city of the Nexus, the beautiful city built by the Sartan for their enemies, was ablaze.
The dragons of Pryan were not affected by the dragon-snakes’ magical darkness. They flew through it unerringly, keeping to their destination, whatever that might be. Alfred had no idea where he was being taken, nor did he much care. It would be horrible, wherever it was. Sick at heart, terrified, he longed to turn around, flee back to the bright light shining from the mountain.
“It is a good thing I am riding on the back of this dragon,” Vasu said somberly, his voice coming out of the darkness. The runes on his skin glimmered brightly, red and blue. “Otherwise, I would not have had the courage to come this far.”