“What I find interesting is that through all the magical upheaval and turmoil, those we derisively refer to as ‘the mensch’ prevailed. The humans and elves and dwarves have had their problems, but they have—by and large—managed to thrive and prosper. What you call the Wave has kept them afloat.”
“Let’s hope they continue,” Haplo said. “This next Wave—should it crash down on top of them—might be the end.”
They continued traversing the corridors, traveling always downward. Alfred sang the runes softly, beneath his breath. The sigla on the wall burned brightly, led them on.
The tunnel narrowed. They were forced to walk in single file, Alfred leading the way, followed by Jonathon. The dog and Hugh the Hand brought up the rear.
Either the air was thinner down here—something Alfred didn’t remember from last time—or his nervousness was robbing him of breath. The rune-song seemed to cling to his raw throat; he had difficulty forcing it out. He was afraid and at the same time excited, quivering, filled with a nervous anticipation.
Not that the sigla seemed to need his song now anyway. They flashed into light almost joyfully, moving far more rapidly than he and the others could keep up.
Alfred eventually ceased singing, saved his breath for what was coming.
Perhaps you’re worrying about nothing. It could all be so easy, so simple, he told himself. A touch of magic and the Seventh Gate is destroyed, Death’s Gate is shut forever . . . The dog barked, suddenly, loudly.
The unexpected sound, echoing in the tunnel, nearly caused Alfred’s heart to stop. As it was, it gave a great lurch, ending up in his throat, momentarily blocking his windpipe.
“What?” Alfred choked, coughed.
“Hsst! Quiet! Stop a moment,” ordered Hugh the Hand.
All of them halted. The blue of the sigla reflected in their eyes—the living and the dead.
“The dog heard something. And so did I,” Hugh the Hand continued grimly. “Someone’s following along behind us.”
Alfred’s heart slid from his throat right out of his body.
Lord Xar.
“Go on,” said Haplo. “We’ve come too far to stop now. Go on.”
“No need,” said Alfred faintly, almost without a voice.
The sigla left the base of the wall, traveled upward to form an arch of glowing blue light. Blue light that changed to glaring, ominous red at his approach.
“We are here. The Seventh Gate.”
24
The runes outlined an arched entryway, which led—Alfred remembered—to a wide and airy tunnel. And Alfred remembered suddenly, too, the feeling of peace and tranquillity that had enveloped him when he had stepped into that tunnel. He longed for that sensation again, longed for it as a grown man sometimes longs to rest his head on a comforting breast; to feel gentle arms around him; to hear a voice, softly singing, lulling him to sleep with songs of his childhood.
Alfred stood before the archway, watching the sigla flicker and glimmer. To anyone else looking at the runes inscribed on the wall, the sigla would have appeared similar to those running along the base of the wall. Harmless runes, meant to serve as guides. But Alfred could read the subtle differences: a dot placed over a line instead of beneath; a cross instead of a star; a square drawn around a circle. Such differences changed these nines of guiding into runes of warding—the strongest a Sartan could forge. Anyone approaching this arch—
“What the devil are you waiting for?” Hugh the Hand demanded. He glared at Alfred dubiously. “You’re not feeling faint, are you?”
“No, Sir Hugh, but—Wait! Don’t!”
Hugh the Hand brushed past Alfred, headed straight for the arch.
The blue runes changed color, flaring from blue to red. The Hand, somewhat startled, halted, eyed the runes suspiciously.
Nothing happened. Alfred kept silent. The mensch probably wouldn’t have believed him anyway. He was the type who had to find out for himself.
Hugh took a step forward. The sigla smoldered, burst into flame. The archway was surrounded by an arc of fire.
The dog cringed away.
“Damn!” Hugh the Hand muttered, impressed. He backed off precipitously.
The moment he stepped away from the arch, the fire died. The sigla once again gleamed a sullen red, did not change back to blue. The heat of the flames lingered in the hallway.
“We are not meant to pass,” said Alfred quietly.
“I gathered that,” Hugh the Hand growled, rubbing his arms where the flames had singed the thick, dark hair. “How in the name of the ancestors do we get inside?”
“I can break the runes,” Alfred said, but he made no move to do so.
“Dithering?” said Haplo.
“No,” Alfred replied, defensive. “It’s just . . .” He glanced back down the corridor, down the way they’d come.
The blue runes on the wall’s base had faded by now, but at his look, his thought, they began to glow again. They would lead back to the cell, to Haplo.
Alfred looked down at the dog. “I have to know what will happen to you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But—”
“Damn it, I don’t know what will happen!” Haplo returned, losing patience. “But I do know what will happen if we fail here. And so do you.”
Alfred said nothing more. He began to dance.
His movements were graceful, slow, solemn. He accompanied himself with a song, his hands weaving the sigla to the melody, his feet marking out the same intricate pattern on the stone floor. The dance, the magic entered him, like intoxicating bubbles in his blood. His body, which oftentimes felt so awkward and clumsy, as if it belonged to someone else and was only on loan to him, was sloughed off, shed like a snake’s skin. The magic was his flesh, his bone, his blood. He was light and air and water. He was happy, content, and unafraid.
The red light of the warding runes flared once, brightly, then faded and died altogether.
Darkness floated down into the corridor. Darkness extinguished Alfred.
The bubbles burst and grew flat, stale. The magic seeped out of him. His old heavy body hung before him, like a massive coat on a hook. He had to struggle into it again, feel its weight drag on his shoulders, try to walk around again in the flesh, which was too cumbersome, which didn’t fit.
Alfred’s feet shuffled to a halt. He sighed once, then said quietly, “We can pass now. The runes will light again once we are through the arch. Perhaps that will stop Lord Xar.”
Haplo grunted, didn’t even bother to respond.
Alfred led the way. Hugh the Hand followed, keeping a wary eye on the runes, obviously expecting them to burst into flame at any moment. The dog, looking bored, trotted along at Hugh’s heels. Jonathon entered last, the lazar’s shuffling steps leaving a path in the dust. Alfred glanced down, was intrigued and somewhat disquieted to see his own footprints, left in the dust from the last time they had passed through the arch. He knew them by their erratic pattern, that wandered aimlessly all over the place.
And Haplo’s footprints—walking in a straight line, with fixed purpose and determination. On leaving that room, his walk had been less certain. His path altered drastically, the course of his life forever changed.
And Jonathon. He had been a living man, the last time they’d come here. Now his corpse—neither living nor dead—walked through the dust, obscuring the path he’d left in life. But the dog’s tracks from that last time were not visible. Even now, it left no trace of its passing. Alfred stared, marveling that he’d never noticed this before.
Or maybe I saw tracks, he thought, smiling wistfully, because I wanted to see them.
He reached down, patted the animal’s smooth head. The dog looked up at him with its liquid, bright eyes. Its mouth opened, parted in what might have been a grin.
“I am real,” it seemed to say. “In fact, maybe I’m the only reality.”
Alfred turned. His feet no longer stumbled. He walked upright and steadily toward the Seventh Gate, known to those who once lived on Abarrach as the Chamber of the Damned.