Alfred turned to look at the young man seated beside him. The Sartan’s face was handsome, strong, resolute—fine steel emerging from a forging fire. No doubts marred its shining surface; its blade was honed to a sharp, cutting edge. The young man looked familiar to Alfred. He could almost put a name to him, but not quite.
Now he could. The man had been Haplo.
Alfred smiled. “I remember the feeling of elation, of knowing that I wasn’t alone in the universe, that a higher power was watching over me, caring for me and about me. I remember that, for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid.”
He paused, shook his head. “But that’s all I do remember.”
“Very well,” Haplo said, resigned. “You can’t take us to the Chamber. Where can you take us? How close can we come?”
“Your dungeon cell?” Alfred suggested in a low, subdued voice.
Haplo was silent. Then, “If that’s the best you can do, do it,” he muttered.
Alfred invoked the possibility that they were there and not here and, quite suddenly, they were there.
“Ancestors protect me,” Hugh the Hand murmured.
They stood in the cell. A sigil, formed by Alfred, glowed with a soft white radiance above Haplo’s body. The Patryn lay cold and seemingly lifeless on the stone bed.
“He’s dead!” Hugh cast a dark and suspicious glance at the dog. “Then whose voice am I hearing?”
Alfred was about to launch into an explanation—all about the dog and Haplo’s soul—when the dog sank its teeth into Alfred’s velvet breeches and began tugging him toward the cell door.
A thought occurred to Alfred. “Haplo. What . . . what will happen to you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Haplo said shortly. “Get moving. We don’t have much time. If Xar should find us—”
Alfred gasped. “But you said Lord Xar went to the Labyrinth!”
“I said maybe,” Haplo retorted grimly. “Stop wasting time.”
Alfred wavered. “The dog can’t enter Death’s Gate. Maybe it can’t enter the Seventh Gate, either. Not without you. Jonathon, do you know? What will happen?”
The lazar shrugged. “Haplo is not dead. He lives, though only barely. My care is for those who have passed beyond.”
“. . . beyond . . .”
“You don’t have any choice, Alfred,” Haplo said impatiently. “Get on with it!”
The dog growled.
Alfred sighed. He had a choice. There was always a choice. And he always seemed to make the wrong one. He peered down the hallway that traveled into impenetrable night. The white sigil he had lit above Haplo’s body faded; its light died. They stood blind in the darkness.
Alfred thought back a long, long time, to when he had first met Haplo on Arianus. He remembered the night he’d cast the magical sleep on Haplo, had lifted the bandages that hid his hands, had discovered the sigla tattooed on the flesh. Alfred recalled his despair, his stark terror, his bewilderment.
The ancient enemy has returned! What do I do?
And in the end, he’d done very little, it seemed. Nothing calamitous or catastrophic. He had followed the precepts of his heart, had acted for what he believed to be the best. Was there a higher power guiding his way?
Alfred looked down at the dog, crowding against his leg. At that moment, he thought he understood.
He began to sing the runes softly, in a nasal tone that echoed eerily in the tunnel.
Blue sigla flared to life on the base of the wall at his feet. The darkness was banished.
“What’s that?” Hugh the Hand had been standing near the wall. At the flare of magic, he jumped away from it.
“The runes,” said Alfred. “They will lead us to what is known on this world as the Chamber of the Damned.”
“Sounds appropriate,” Hugh the Hand said dryly.
The last time Alfred had made this journey, he’d been running in fear for his life. He thought he’d forgotten the way, but now that the runes were flickering—lighting the darkness—he began to recognize his surroundings.
The corridor sloped downward, as if it were leading them to the very core of the world. Obviously ancient, but in good repair, the tunnel—unlike most of the catacombs in this unstable world—was smooth and wide. It had been intended to accommodate vast numbers of people. Alfred had thought this odd the last time he’d walked this path. But then, he hadn’t known where the corridor led.
Now he knew and now he understood. The Seventh Gate. The place from which the Sartan had worked the magic that had sundered a world.
“Do you have any idea how the magic worked?” Haplo asked. He spoke in a hushed, subdued voice, though only inner ears could hear him.
“Orlah told me,” Alfred replied, pausing occasionally in his explanation to softly chant the runes. “After they made the decision to sunder the world, Samah and the Council members brought together all the Sartan population and those of the mensch they deemed worthy. They transported these fortunate few to a place which was probably similar to the time well we saw used in Abri—a well in which there exists the possibility that no possibilities exist. Here the people would be safe until the Sartan could transport them to the new worlds.
“The most talented of the Sartan came together with Samah inside a chamber he termed the Seventh Gate. Aware that the casting of such powerful magic, which would break apart one world and forge new ones, would drain the strongest magic-user, Samah and the Council endowed the chamber itself with a great deal of their power. It would operate rather like one of the Kicksey-winsey machines Limbeck calls a ‘gen’rator.’
“The Seventh Gate stored up the magical power left there in reserve. The Sartan called on it when their own magic waned and diminished. The danger was, of course, that once the power was transferred to the Seventh Gate, the magic would always remain inside. Only by destroying the Seventh Gate could Samah destroy the magic. He should have done so, of course, but he was afraid.”
“Of what?” Haplo demanded.
Alfred hesitated. “Upon first entering the Seventh Gate, after they had endowed it with power, the Council members encountered something they hadn’t expected.”
“A power greater than their own.”
“Yes. I’m not sure how or why; Orlah couldn’t tell me much. The experience was an awful one for the Sartan. Rather like what we experienced when we entered. But whereas ours was comforting and uplifting, theirs was terrible. Samah was made aware of the enormity of his actions, of the horrendous consequences of what he planned. He was given to know that he had—in essence—overstepped his bounds. But he was also made aware that he had the free will to continue, if he chose.
“Appalled by what they had seen and heard, the Council members began to doubt themselves. This led to violent arguments. But their fear of their enemy—the Patryns—was great. The memory of the experience in the Chamber faded. The Patryn threat was very real. Led by Samah, the Council voted to proceed with the Sundering. Those Sartan who opposed them were cast, along with the Patryns, into the Labyrinth.”
Alfred shook his head. “Fear—our downfall. Even after he had successfully sundered a world and built four new ones, after he had locked his enemies into prison, Samah was still afraid. He feared what he had discovered inside the Seventh Gate, but he also feared he might have need of the Seventh Gate again and so, instead of destroying it, he sent it away.”
“I was with Samah when he died,” Jonathon said. “He told Lord Xar he did not know where the Seventh Gate was.”
“Probably not,” Alfred conceded. “But Samah could have found it easily enough. He had my description to go on—I told him all about the Chamber of the Damned.”
“My people found it,” Jonathon said. “We recognized its power, but we had forgotten how to use it.”
“. . . use it . . .” repeated the echo.
“Something for which we should be grateful. Can you imagine what would have happened had Kleitus discovered how to use the true power of the Seventh Gate?” Alfred shuddered.