All he saw was a being in torment, like every other lazar on Abarrach. The ghouls had only one ambition, so far as Xar knew, and that was to turn other beings into horrid copies of themselves.
“Very well,” Xar said, his back to the lazar. “You may stay. But do not interfere unless you see me doing something wrong.”
And that would not happen. The Lord of the Nexus was confident. This time, his spell would succeed.
The lord went resolutely back to work. Swiftly now, ignoring the blood on his hands, he closed the heart-rune on Haplo’s body. Then, mindful of the spell, he began to trace over the other sigla, muttering the runes as he worked.
The lazar stood silent, unmoving, outside the cell door. Soon, concentrating solely on his spellcasting, Xar forgot all about the undead. He moved slowly, patiently, taking his time. Hours passed.
And suddenly, an eerie blue glow began to spread over the dead body. The glow started at the heart-rune, then spread slowly, one sigil catching fire from another. Xar’s spell was causing each individual sigil to burn with a mockery of life.
The lord drew in a shivering breath. He was shaking with eagerness, elation. The spell was working! Working! Soon the body would rise to its feet, soon it would lead him to the Seventh Gate.
He lost all feeling, all pity, all grief. The man he’d loved as a son was dead. The corpse was no longer known to Xar. It was an it. A means to an end. A tool. A key to unlock the door of Xar’s ambition. When the last sigil flared to life, Xar was so excited that, for a moment, he actually struggled to recall the corpse’s name—an essential in the concluding moments of the spell.
“Haplo,” said the lazar softly.
“. . . Haplo . . .” sighed the echo.
The name seemed whispered by the darkness. Xar never noticed who spoke it, nor did he notice the scrabbling, scuffling sound that came from behind the stone bier on which the corpse lay.
“Haplo!” Xar said. “Of course. I must be wearier than I thought. When this is done, I shall rest. I will need all my strength to work the magic of the Seventh Gate.”
The Lord of the Nexus paused, going over everything one last time in his mind. All was perfect. He had not made a single error, as was evidenced by the shimmering blue of the runes on the dead body.
Xar raised his hands. “You will serve me in death, Haplo, as you served me in life. Stand. Walk. Return to the land of the living.”
The corpse did not move.
Xar frowned, studied the runes intently. There was no change. None whatsoever. The sigla continued to glow; the corpse continued to lie on the bier.
Xar repeated his command, a hint of sternness in his voice. It seemed impossible that Haplo should, even now, continue to defy him.
“You will serve me!” Xar repeated.
No response. No change. Except that perhaps the blue glow was starting to fade.
Xar hurriedly repeated the most critical of the rune-structures and the blue glow strengthened.
But still the corpse did not move.
Frustrated, the Lord of the Nexus turned to the lazar, waiting patiently outside the cell.
“Well, what is wrong?” Xar demanded. “No, don’t go into long explanations,” he added irritably, when the lazar started to speak. “Just . . . whatever it is, fix it!” He waved his hand at the corpse.
“I cannot, Lord,” said the lazar.
“. . . cannot . . .” came the echo.
“What? Why?” Xar was aghast, then furious. “What trick is this? I’ll cast you into oblivion—”
“No trick, Lord Xar,” said Jonathon. “This corpse cannot be raised. It has no soul.”
Xar glared at the lazar, wanting to doubt, yet something in the back of his mind was nudging him painfully toward the truth.
No soul.
“The dog!” Xar gasped, outrage and frustration combining to nearly choke him.
The sound he’d heard, from behind the bier. Xar dashed behind it, arrived just in time to see the tip of a plumy tail disappear around the front.
The dog sped for the cell door, which had been left standing wide open. Rounding the corner, the animal skidded on the damp stone floor, went down on its hind legs. Xar called on his magic to halt it, but the necromancy had left him weak. The dog, with a wild scramble, managed to get its legs underneath it and sped off through the corridor of cells.
Xar reached the cell door, planning to vent his anger on the lazar. He had at last recalled where he’d seen this particular dead Sartan before. This “Jonathon” had been present at the death of Samah. Xar’s spell had also failed to resurrect that corpse. Was this lazar deliberately thwarting him? Why? And how?
But Xar’s questions went unanswered. The lazar was gone.
The dungeons of Necropolis are a maze of intersecting and bisecting corridors, burrowing far beneath the surface of the stone world. Xar stood in the doorway of Haplo’s cell and stared down first one corridor, then another, as far as he could see by the fitful, sputtering torchlight.
No sign, no sound of anything living—or dead.
Xar turned back, glared at the body on the stone bier. The runes glowed faintly, the spell preserving the flesh. He had only to catch that fool dog . . .
“The creature won’t go far,” Xar reasoned, when he was at last calm enough to reason. “It will stay in the dungeons, near its master’s body. I will set an army of Patryns to the task of searching for it.
“As for the lazar, I will put out search teams for it, too. Kleitus said something about this Jonathon,” Xar mused. “Something about a prophecy. ‘Life to the dead ... for him the gate will open ...’ All nonsense. A prophecy implies a higher power, a higher ruling power, and I am the ruler of this world and any other I care to take over.”
Xar started to leave, to order his Patryns to their various tasks. Pausing, he glanced back a final time at Haplo’s corpse.
Ruling power . . .
“Of course I am,” Xar repeated and left.
10
The dog was confused. It could hear its master’s voice clearly, but its master was not around. Haplo lay in a cell far from the dog’s current hiding place. The dog knew something was terribly wrong with Haplo, but every time the animal attempted to go back to help, a sharp and peremptory voice—Haplo’s voice, sounding very near, almost as if Haplo were right beside it—ordered the dog to lie still, stay put.
But Haplo wasn’t here. Was he?
People—other people—were passing back and forth outside the dark cell where the dog crouched hidden in a corner. These people were searching for the dog, whistling, calling, cajoling. The dog wasn’t particularly in the mood for people, but it did have the thought that perhaps they could help its master. They were, after all, the same kind of people. And, formerly, some of them had even been friends.
Not now, apparently.
The unhappy animal whimpered a little, to indicate that it was unhappy and lonely and forlorn. Haplo’s voice ordered the dog sharply to keep quiet. And with no conciliatory pat on the head to mitigate the severity of the command. A pat that would indicate “I know you don’t understand, but you must obey.”
The dog’s only comfort—a bleak one—was that it sensed from its master’s tone that Haplo was also unhappy, confused, and frightened. He himself didn’t seem to quite know what was going on. And if the master was frightened . . .
Nose on its paws, the dog lay shivering in the darkness, its body pressed against the damp stone floor of a cell, and wondered what to do.
Xar sat in his library, the Sartan book of necromancy on a table nearby, but unopened, unread. Why bother? He knew it by rote, could have recited it in his sleep.
The lord picked up one of the rectangular rune-bones lying on his desk. Idly, lost in thought, he tapped the rune-bone rhythmically against the kairn-grass desktop, tapping the bone on one corner, sliding the bone through his fingers, tapping it on the next corner of the rectangle, sliding it down, and so on. Tap, slide. Tap, slide. Tap, slide. He had been sitting thus for so long that he’d entered into a trancelike state. His body—except for the hand with the rune-bone—felt numb, heavy, unable to move, as if he were asleep. Yet he was aware of being awake.