Alfred stretched forth his hands. “Haplo, I beg—”
The serpent’s huge tail slashed around, struck the Sartan a blow across his back that doubled him over the white table.
Sang-drax reared up. The serpent’s head hung poised over Alfred. The red eyes focused on Haplo. “The next blow will break his spine. And the one after that will crush his body. Fight, Haplo, or the Sartan dies.”
Alfred managed to lift his head. His nose was broken, his lip split. Blood smeared his face. “Don’t listen, Haplo! If you fight, you are doomed!”
The serpent waited, smug, knowing it had won.
Burning with anger and the strong need to kill this loathsome being, Haplo cast a bitter, frustrated glance at Alfred. “Do you expect me to stand here and die?”
“Trust me, Haplo!” Alfred pleaded. “It’s all I’ve ever asked of you! Trust me!”
“Trust a Sartan!” Sang-drax laughed horribly. “Trust your mortal enemy! Trust those who sent you to the Labyrinth, who are responsible for the deaths of how many thousands of your people? Your parents, Haplo. Do you remember how they died? Your mother’s screams. She screamed a long, long time, didn’t she, before they finally left her to die of her wounds. And you saw it. You saw what they did to her. This man—responsible. And he begs you to trust him . . .”
Haplo closed his eyes. His head had begun to hurt; he felt blood sticky on his hands. He was that child again, cowering in the bushes, stunned and dazed from the blow inflicted by his father. The blow had been intended to knock him out, to keep him silent and safe while his parents drew their attackers away from their child. But his parents had not been able to run far. Haplo had regained consciousness.
His own wail of fear and terror was choked off by his horror. And hate. Hate for those who had done this, who were responsible . . .
Haplo gripped the sword tightly, waited for the blood-red tinge to fade from his eyes so that he could see his prey . . . and nearly dropped the weapon when he felt the quick swipe of a wet tongue.
There came a reassuring whine, a paw on his knee.
Haplo reached down his hand, stroked the silky ears. The dog’s head pressed against his knee. He felt the hard bone, the warmth, the soft fur. And yet he wasn’t surprised to find, when he opened his eyes, that no dog stood beside him.
Haplo threw down his sword.
Sang-drax laughed in derision. The serpent reared up. It would smash the helpless Patryn, crush him. But in its eager rage, the serpent miscalculated. It grew too big, soared upward too far. The gigantic head crashed through the marble ceiling of the Chamber of the Damned.
The runes traced on the ceiling crackled and flared; arcs of blue and red flame surged through the serpent’s body. Sang-drax shrieked in agony, writhed and twisted, attempting to escape the jolting flashes. But the serpent couldn’t pull itself out from the wreckage of the ceiling. It was trapped. It flailed wildly, furiously to free itself. Cracks in the ceiling started to expand, splitting the walls.
The Chamber of the Damned—the Seventh Gate—was crumbling. And there was only one way out—Death’s Gate.
Haplo took a step. The serpent’s tail thrashed out. Even in its agony, it was intent on killing him.
Haplo twisted to one side, but could not avoid the blow. It caught him on his left shoulder, already aching from the reopening of the wound over the heart-rune. He gasped with the pain, fought the blackness of unconsciousness stealing over him.
Slowly, he raised himself to his feet. His hand had, inexplicably, closed over the hilt of his sword.
“Fight me!” the serpent urged. “Fight me . . .”
Haplo lifted the sword, sent it crashing down upon the white stone table. The blade broke in two. Haplo raised the hilt for the serpent to see, then tossed it away.
The serpent tried desperately to free itself, but the magic of the Seventh Gate held it enthralled. Arcs of blue flame danced over the slime-covered body. It lashed out once again.
Haplo made a dive for Alfred, who lay bleeding and dazed on top of the white table. The serpent’s tail smacked into the table, cracked it. But the serpent was in its death throes. Blind, in terrible pain, it could no longer see its prey. In a last desperate attempt to free itself, the serpent lunged against the forces of magic that bound it in place. The ceiling began to break apart under the strain. A large chunk of marble fell down, missing Alfred by only inches. Another block landed on the serpent’s now feebly twitching tail. A wooden beam crashed down, smashing the white table into two complete and separate halves.
Stumbling through the raining debris, choking on the dust, Haplo managed to reach Alfred. He grabbed hold of the first part of the Sartan that came to hand—the back of Alfred’s velvet coat—and pulled him up on his feet.
Alfred flopped and staggered, limp as a maltreated doll. Haplo peered through the dust and ruin. “Jonathon!” he shouted.
He thought he could see the lazar, still sitting calmly at one half of the broken table, oblivious to the destruction that was soon going to encompass it.
“Jonathon!” Hap to called. No answer. And then he couldn’t see the lazar at all. An enormous slab of marble smashed down between them.
Alfred slumped to the floor.
Haplo hooked his hand firmly in the Sartan’s coat collar, began dragging him through the tumult. The runes tattooed on the Patryn’s skin burned red and blue, protecting him from the falling debris. He expanded the aura of his magic to include Alfred. A glowing shell of runes encompassed them. Blocks of stone hit and bounced off. But each time something struck the shell, a sigil weakened. Soon one would give. And the unraveling would begin.
Haplo counted fifteen, maybe twenty steps to reach Death’s Gate.
He didn’t say to himself to reach the safety of Death’s Gate, because for all he knew, once inside, they faced worse odds. But death was a possibility there, here a certainty. Already, he could see one sigil in the shell start to go dark . . .
He hauled Alfred across the floor, heading for the doorway, when suddenly the floor that had been in front of him wasn’t anymore.
A gaping hole opened into endless nothing. Chunks of marble and splintered white wood slid into the crack and disappeared. Death’s Gate glimmered on the other side.
The crack wasn’t wide. Haplo could have jumped across it easily. But he couldn’t jump across it and carry Alfred with him. He dragged Alfred to his feet. The Sartan’s knees turned inward; his body sagged.
“Damn it!” Haplo shook the Sartan, hauled him to his feet again.
Alfred was conscious, but he was staring around him with the befuddled expression of one whose wits are wandering.
“So what else is new,” Haplo muttered. “Alfred!” He smacked the Sartan across the face.
Alfred gasped, gargled. His eyes focused. He stared around him in horror. “What—”
Haplo didn’t let him finish. He didn’t dare give Alfred time to think about what he was going to have to do.
“When I say ‘jump,’ you jump.”
Haplo spun Alfred around, positioned the muddled Sartan on the very edge of the gaping crack in the floor. “Jump!”
Not fully cognizant of what was happening, numb with terror and astonishment, Alfred did as he was told. He gave a convulsive leap, legs jerking like a galvanized spider, and flung himself across the crack.
His toes hooked the opposite edge. He landed flat on his stomach, the breath knocked from his body. Haplo cast a swift glance down into the abysmal darkness beneath him; then he jumped.
Landing easily on the other side, Haplo caught hold of Alfred. Together, the two stumbled out of the Chamber of the Damned and into the opening of Death’s Gate.
Haplo, looking back, saw the Seventh Gate collapse in on itself.
And with the sickening sensation of sliding down a chute, Haplo felt himself falling into the chaos.
34