“This from one who helped murder your father!” the serpent hissed. “She listened to his screams and she laughed!”
Ramu went deathly pale. He turned to look at Marit.
“I didn’t laugh,” she said through trembling lips. She remembered Samah’s screams. Burning tears stung her eyelids. “I didn’t laugh.”
Ramu’s fist clenched.
“Kill her . . .” whispered the dragon-snake. “Kill her now . . . Take your just revenge.”
Ramu reached into his robes, drew forth the Sartan knife, the Cursed Blade. He stared at it, looked back at her.
Marit came forward, apparently eager, ready to fight.
Balthazar stepped in between the two.
“Are you mad, Ramu? Look what this foul snake has driven you to do! Don’t trust it! I know it. I recognize it! I’ve seen it before.”
Ramu seemed ready to shove Balthazar aside. “Get out of my way. Or by my father’s memory, I will kill you, too!”
The serpent watched, grew fatter, sleeker.
The two Sartan guards looked on in horror, not certain what to do.
The Cursed Blade in Ramu’s hand was wriggling, starting to come to life. Marit drew a magical circle of blue and red sigla. Its fire shone brightly. Speaking the name “Vasu,” she stepped through the rune-circle and was gone.
Ramu thrust the Cursed Blade back into its sheath. Cold with anger, he turned on the necromancer.
“You helped her escape. An act of treason! When this is ended, you will be brought up on charges before the Council!”
“Don’t be a fool, Ramu!” Balthazar returned.
“Marit was right. Look at that foul serpent! Don’t you know it? Haven’t you seen it before? Take a good look—inside yourself!”
Ramu regarded Balthazar grimly, then turned back to face the serpent. The creature was bloated, surfeited. The red eyes smiled and winked.
“I will ally myself with you. Attack the Patryns,” Ramu ordered. “Kill them. Kill them all.”
“Yes, Master!” The serpent bowed low.
28
“You see what is happening?” said Haplo.
Alfred shook his head. “It is hopeless. We will never learn. Our people will destroy each other . . .” His shoulders slumped in despair.
Haplo rested a hand on his arm. “It may not be that bad, my friend. If your people and mine can find a way to meet in peace, they will see the evil of the serpents. The dragon-snakes can’t keep playing one side off the other if both sides stand together. We have people like Marit and Balthazar and Vasu . . . They are our hope. But the Gate must be closed!”
“Yes.” Alfred lifted his head, a tinge of color in his gray cheeks. He stared at the door, the door marked Death’s Gate. “Yes, you’re right. The Gate must be shut and sealed. At least we can contain the evil, keep it from spreading.”
“Can you do it?”
Alfred flushed. “Yes, I believe I can. The spell is not all that difficult. It involves, you see, the possibility that—”
“No need to explain,” Haplo interrupted. “No time.”
“Oh, urn, yes.” Alfred blinked. Approaching the door, he eyed it wistfully, sadly. “If only this had never come to be. I’m not sure, you know, what will happen when the Gate is shut.” He waved his hand. “To this chamber, I mean. There exists the possibility that . . . that it could be destroyed.”
“And us with it,” Haplo said quietly.
Alfred nodded.
“Then I guess that’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
Alfred looked back into the door leading to the Labyrinth. The serpents twined about the ruins of the Nexus, their huge bodies roiling over the blackened stones and broken, charred beams. Red eyes glinted. He could hear their laughter.
“Yes,” Alfred said softly, exhaling an indrawn breath. “And now—”
“Wait a minute!” Hugh the Hand was standing near the door through which they’d entered. “I’ve got a question. This involves me as well,” he added harshly.
“Of course, Sir Hugh,” Alfred said, flustered, apologizing. “Please forgive . . . I’m sorry ... I wasn’t thinking—”
Hugh the Hand made an impatient gesture, cut off Alfred’s rambling.
“Once you shut the Gate, what will happen to the four mensch worlds?”
“I’ve been considering that,” Alfred pondered. “From my earlier studies, I think it highly possible that the conduits which connect each world to the other will continue working, even though the Gate is shut. Thus the Kicksey-winsey on Arianus will still send energy to the citadels on Pryan, which will beam energy to the conduits on Abarrach, which will in turn send—”
“So all the worlds would continue to function.”
“I’m not certain, of course, but the probability is such that—”
“But no one could travel between them.”
“No. Of that, I am certain,” Alfred said gravely. “Once Death’s Gate is shut, the only way to go from world to world would be to fly through space. Which is—given the mensch’s present state of magical development—the only way they could have traveled from one world to another anyway. So far as we know, the child Bane was the only mensch ever to enter Death’s Gate, and he did so only—”
A sharp nudge from an elbow caught Alfred in the ribs.
“I want to talk to you for a moment.” Haplo motioned Alfred over to stand near the table.
“Certainly,” Alfred replied, “just after I finish explaining to Hugh—”
“Now,” Haplo said. “Don’t you find that an odd question?” he asked beneath his breath.
“Why, no,” Alfred said, defending a brilliant pupil. “In fact, I thought it quite a good one. If you remember, you and I discussed this on Arianus.”
“Exactly,” said Haplo beneath his breath, looking at Hugh the Hand through narrowed eyes. “We discussed it. What’s it to an assassin from Arianus whether or not the mensch on Pryan can go visit their cousins on Chelestra? Why should he care?”
“I don’t understand.” Alfred was puzzled.
Haplo was silent, eyeing Hugh the Hand. He had shoved open one of the doors, was peering through it. Haplo saw, in the distance, the floating continent of Drevlin. Once shrouded in storm clouds, Drevlin now basked in sunshine. Light glinted and flashed off the gold and silver and brass parts of the fabulous Kicksey-winsey.
“I’m not sure I understand, either,” Haplo said at last. “But I think you’d better cut short the academics, get on with your magic.”
“Very well,” Alfred replied, troubled. “But I’ll have to go back in time.”
“Back? Back where?”
“Back to the Sundering.” Alfred looked down at the white table, shivered. “I don’t want to, but it’s the only way. I must know how Samah cast the spell.”
“Do it, then,” Haplo said. “But don’t forget to return. And don’t get yourself sundered in the process.”
Alfred smiled wanly. “No,” he said, blushing. “No, I’ll be careful . . .”
Slowly, reluctantly, fingers trembling, he placed his hands on the white table . . .
. . . Chaos swirled around him. Alfred stood, terrified, in the center of a storm of magic. Howling winds buffeted him, slammed him back against the wall, breaking his bones. Crashing waves washed over him. He was drowning, suffocating. Lightning flared, crackled, blinded; thunder rumbled in his head. Flames roared, burned, consumed his flesh. He was sobbing in fear and in pain; he was dying.
“A single drop, though it falls into an ocean, will yet cause a ripple. I need all of you! Don’t give up. The magic!” Samah was shouting to be heard over the tumult. “Use the magic or none of us will survive!”
The magic drifted toward Alfred like a bit of flotsam on a storm-tossed sea. He saw hands reaching out for it, saw some grasp it, saw others miss and disappear. He made a desperate grab.
His fingers closed over something solid. The noise and terror subsided for an instant, and he saw the world—whole, beautiful, shining blue-green in the blackness of space. He must break the world, or the power of the chaotic magic would break him.