Ramu flushed in outrage. He was not accustomed to having his authority challenged. The other Council members, overhearing, looked uncomfortable, exchanged uneasy glances.
Balthazar remained polite, politic. Ramu had no choice but to acquiesce. He needed the help of the Abarrach Sartan and this was neither the time nor the place for the Councillor to challenge Balthazar’s authority.
“Very well,” Ramu said unpleasantly. “She may accompany you, but she is to be kept under strict watch. If anything happens—”
“I take full responsibility for her upon myself,” Balthazar said humbly.
Ramu, with a dark glance at Marit, turned on his heel and left.
Outright confrontation had been avoided. But every Sartan who witnessed the clash of these two strong wills knew that war had been declared. Two suns do not travel in the same orbit, as the saying goes.
“I want to thank you, Balthazar,” Marit began awkwardly.
“Do not thank me,” he said coldly, cutting her words off. Placing his thin, wasted hand on her arm, he drew her over to one of the portholes. “Look out here a moment. I want you to explain something to me.”
The bony fingers dug into Marit’s arm with such force that the sigla beneath them began to glow, defending her. She didn’t like his touch, started to pull away. His grip tightened.
“Watch for your chance,” he said softly, urgently, before she could speak. “When it comes, take it. I will do what I can for you.”
Escape! Marit knew instantly what he had meant. But why? She held back, suspicious.
He glanced over his shoulder. A few Sartan were watching them, but they were his people, whom he could trust. The other Sartan had either left with Ramu or were occupied with helping their brethren.
Balthazar turned back to Marit, spoke in a low voice. “Ramu does not know this, but I sent out my own scouts. They report that vast armies of terrible creatures—red dragons, wolves who walk like men, gigantic insects—are massed around the Final Gate. You might be interested to know that Ramu’s scouts captured one of your people, interrogated him, forced him to talk.”
“A Patryn?” Marit was bewildered. “But there are no Patryns left in the Nexus. I told you—the serpents drove all my people back through the Final Gate.”
“There was something odd about this Patryn,” Balthazar went on, studying her intently. “He had very strange eyes.”
“Let me guess. The eyes glowed red. That wasn’t one of my people! It was one of the serpents. They can take any form—”
“Yes. From what little you said, I gathered this might be something like that. The Patryn admitted that his people are in league with the serpents, fighting to open the Final Gate.”
“That part is true!” Marit cried, feeling helpless. “We have to! If the Final Gate closes, my people will be trapped inside forever . . .”
Fear and despair choked her. For a moment she could not go on. Desperately, she fought to maintain control, speak calmly. “But we are not in league with the serpents. We know them for what they are. We would remain locked inside the Labyrinth forever before we would side with them! How can that fool Ramu believe such a thing!”
“He believes what he wants to believe, Marit. What serves his purpose. Or perhaps he is blind to their evil.” The necromancer smiled, thin-lipped, rueful. “We are not. We have looked inside that dark mirror. We recognize the reflection.”
Balthazar sighed; his face had gone exceedingly pale. He was, as Ramu had pointed out, still weak. But he refused Marit’s suggestion that he return to his quarters, lie down.
“You need to get word to your people, Marit. Tell them we are here. We must ally together to fight these creatures, or all of us will be destroyed. If only there was some one of your people who could talk to Ramu, convince him—”
“But there is!” Marit gasped, clutched at Balthazar. “Headman Vasu! He is part Sartan himself! I will try to reach him. I can use my magic to go to him. But Ramu will see what I’m doing and try to stop me.”
“How long do you need?”
“Long enough to draw the runes. A count of thirty heartbeats, no more.”
Balthazar smiled. “Wait and watch.”
Marit stood huddled beside a wall surrounding the burned-cut shells of what had once been the beautiful buildings of the Nexus. The city that had shone like the first star of the evening, gleaming bright against the twi-lit sky, was a mass of blackened stone. Its windows were dark and empty as the eyes of its dead. Smoke from still smoldering beams of wood clouded the sky, brought a dirty and ugly night—lit by patches of orange—to the land.
Two Sartan were supposed to be keeping watch on her, but they only glanced at her occasionally, more interested in what was transpiring beyond the Gate than in one subdued and seemingly harmless Patryn prisoner.
What she saw beyond the Gate weakened Marit far more than any Sartan magic.
“The reports were correct,” Ramu was saying grimly. “Armies of darkness massing for an assault against the Final Gate. We have arrived here just in time, it seems.”
“You fool!” Marit told him bitterly. “Those armies are massing for an assault against us.”
“Don’t believe her, Sartan,” hissed a sibilant voice from behind the walls. “It is a trick. She lies. Their armies will break through the Final Gate and, from there, advance into the four worlds.”
A huge, snakelike head reared up from behind the wall, loomed over them, swaying slowly back and forth. Its eyes glinted red; its tongue flicked in and out of toothless jaws. Its skin was old and wrinkled and hung loose on its sinuous body. It stank of death and corruption and burned-out ruins.
Balthazar recoiled in horror. “What ghastly creature is this?”
“Don’t you know?” The red eyes glinted in what might have been laughter. “You created us . . .”
The two Sartan guards were pale and shaking. This was Marit’s chance to flee, but the serpent’s terrible gaze was on her, or so it seemed, and she could not move or think or do anything except watch in dread fascination.
Only Ramu was proof against its dire spell. “And so you are here, in league with your friends, the Patryns. One of their own people told me as much.”
The snake’s head sank. Its eyes were hooded, the red glint fading. “You wrong us, Councillor. We are here to help you. As you surmised, the Patryns are attempting to break out of their prison. They have summoned hordes of dragons to fight at their behest. Even now, their armies approach the Final Gate.”
The head slid over the wall, followed by part of the enormous, foul-smelling body. Ramu could not help himself. He fell back before it, but only a step or two. Then he held his ground.
“Your kind are with them.”
The snake’s head oscillated. “We serve our creators. Give the command, and we will destroy the Patryns and seal shut the Final Gate forever!”
The serpent rested its head on the ground in front of Ramu. Its red eyes closed in servile submission.
“And when they have destroyed us, they will turn against you, Ramu!” Marit warned. “You will find yourself inside the Labyrinth! Or worse!”
The serpent ignored her. And so did Ramu.
“Why should we trust you? You attacked us on Chelestra—”
The giant reptile lifted its head. Its red eyes flared in hurt indignation. “It was the wicked mensch who attacked you, Councillor. Not us. There is proof. When your city was flooded with the magic-nullifying seawater, when you were bereft of your power, weak and helpless, did we harm you? We could have.”
The red eyes glinted for an instant; then—again—the hooded lids shadowed them. “But we did not. Your esteemed father—honor to his memory—opened Death’s Gate for us. We were only too happy to flee our mensch persecutors. And a good thing we did. Otherwise, you would now face this threat from your most terrible enemies alone.”
“You do face it alone, Ramu. In the end, we will all face it alone,” Marit said softly.