TREETOPS, EQUILAN

“And how many people do you think your ship will carry?” inquired Zifnab.

“Carry where?” asked Haplo, cautiously.

“Come fly with me. Up, up, and away in my beautiful baboon. Gone with the wind. Somewhere over the rainbow. I get no kick from champagne. ... No, wrong verse.”

“Look, sir, my ship isn’t going anywhere—”

“Well, of course it is, dear boy. You’re the savior. Now, let’s see.” Zifnab began to count on his fingers, muttering to himself. “The Tribus elves had a flight crew of mpfpt and you add the galley slaves and that’s mrrk and any passengers would be mpfpt plus mrrk, carry the one—”

“What do you know about Tribus elves?” demanded Haplo.

“—and the answer is ...” The old wizard blinked. “Tribus elves? Never heard of ’em.”

“You brought them up—”

“No, no, dear boy. Your hearing’s gone. Such a young man, too. Pity. Perhaps it was the flight. You must have neglected to pressurize the cabin properly. Happens to me all the time. Deaf as a doorknob for days. I distinctly heard myself say ‘tribe of elves’. Pass the brandywine, please.”

“No more for you, sir,” intoned a voice, rumbling through the floor. The dog, lying at Haplo’s feet, lifted its head, hackles raised, fur bristling, growling in its throat.

The old man hastily dropped the decanter. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said, somewhat shamefacedly. “That’s just my dragon. He thinks he’s Ronald Coleman.”

“Dragon,” repeated Haplo, looking around the parlor, glancing out the windows. The runes on his skin itched and tingled with danger. Surreptitiously, keeping his hands hidden beneath the white linen tablecloth, he slid aside the bandages, prepared to use his magic to defend himself.

“Yes, dragon,” snapped an elven woman peevishly. “The dragon lives beneath the house. Half the time he thinks he’s the butler and the other half he’s terrorizing the city. Then there’s my father. You’ve met him. Lenthan Quindiniar. He’s planning to take us all to the stars to see my mother, who’s been dead for years. That’s where you come in, you and your winged contraption of evil out there.”

Haplo glanced at his hostess. Tall and thin, she was straight up and down, all angles, no curves, and stood and sat and walked stiff as a Volkaran knight in full armor.

“Don’t talk like that about Papa, Callie,” murmured another elven woman, who was admiring her reflection in a window. “It isn’t respectful.”

“Respectful!” Calandra rose from her seat. The dog, nervous already, sat up and growled again. Haplo laid a soothing hand on the animal’s head. The woman was so furious she never noticed. “When you are ‘Lady Durndrun’ miss, you can tell me how to talk, but not before!”

Calandra’s flashing-eyed gaze flared around the room, visibly scorching her father and the old man. “It is bad enough that I must put up with entertaining lunatics, but this is the house of my father and you are his ‘guests’! Therefore, I will feed you and shelter you but I’ll be damned if I have to listen to you or look at you! From now on, Papa, I will take my meals in my room!”

Calandra whirled, skirts and petticoats rustled like the leaves in a wind-tossed tree. She stormed from the parlor and into the dining room, her passing creating a ripple of destruction—overturning a chair, sweeping small fragile objects off a table. She slammed the door to the hall shut with such force the wood nearly splintered. When the whirlwind had blown over, quiet descended.

“I don’t believe I have ever been treated to such a scene in my eleven thousand years,” intoned the voice beneath the floor in shocked tones. “If you want my advice—”

“We don’t,” said Zifnab hastily.

“—that young woman should be soundly spanked,” stated the dragon.

Haplo unobtrusively replaced the bandages.

“It’s my fault.” Lenthan hunched miserably into his chair. “She’s right. I am crazy. Dreaming about going to the stars, finding my beloved again.”

“No, sir, no!” Zifnab slammed his hand on the table for emphasis. “We have the ship.” He gestured at Haplo. “And the man who knows how to operate it. Our savior! Didn’t I tell you he’d come? And isn’t he here?”

Lenthan lifted his head, his mild, vague-looking eyes staring at Haplo. “Yes. The man with the bandaged hands. You said that, but—”

“Well, then!” said Zifnab, beard bristling in triumph. “I said I’d be here and I came. I said he’d be here and he came. I say we’re going to the stars and we’ll go. We haven’t much time,” he added, his voice lowering. His expression saddened. “Doom is coming. Even as we sit here, it’s getting closer.”

Aleatha sighed. Turning from the window, she walked over to her father, put her hands gently on his shoulders, and kissed him. “Don’t worry about Callie, Papa. She’s working too hard, that’s all. You know she doesn’t mean half what she says.”

“Yes, yes, my dear,” said Lenthan, patting his daughter’s hand absently. He was gazing with renewed eagerness at the old wizard. “So you really, honestly believe we can take this ship and sail to the stars?”

“Not a doubt. Not a doubt.” Zifnab glanced nervously about me room. Leaning over to Lenthan, the wizard whispered loudly, “You wouldn’t happen to have a pipe and a bit of tobacco about, would—”

“I heard that!” rumbled the dragon.

The old man cringed. “Gandalf enjoyed a good pipe!”

“Why do you think he was called Gandalf the Grey? It wasn’t for the color of his robes,” the dragon added ominously.

Aleatha walked from the room.

Haplo rose to follow, making a quick gesture to the dog, who rarely took its eyes off his master. The dog obediently stood up, trotted over to Zifnab, and settled down at the wizard’s feet. Haplo found Aleatha in the dining room, picking up broken knickknacks.

“Those edges are sharp. You’ll cut yourself. I’ll do it.”

“Ordinarily the servants would clean up the mess,” Aleatha said, with a rueful smile. “But we don’t have any left. Just the cook, and I think she stays because she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she didn’t have us. She’s been with us since Mother died.”

Haplo studied the smashed figurine he held in his hand. The figure of a woman, it appeared to be a religious icon of some sort, because she was holding her hands up, palm outward, in a ritual expression of blessing. The head had been broken from the body in the fall. Fitting it back into place, Haplo saw the hair was long and white, except for where it turned dark brown at the tips.

“That’s the Mother, goddess of the elves. Mother Peytin. Or perhaps you already know that,” said Aleatha, sitting back on her heels. Her filmy dress was like a rose cloud around her, her blue-purple eyes, gazing into Haplo’s, were alluring, enchanting.

He smiled back, a quiet smile, unassuming. “No, I didn’t. I don’t know anything about your people.”

“Aren’t there elves where you come from? Where do you come from, by the way. You’ve been here several cycles now, and I don’t recall hearing you say.”

Now was the time for the speech. Now was the time for Haplo to tell her the story he’d arranged during his voyage. Behind, in the parlor, the old man’s voice was going on and on.

Aleatha, making a pretty grimace, rose and shut the door between the two rooms. Haplo could still hear the wizard’s words quite distinctly, coming to his ears through those of his dog.

“... the heat-resistant tiles kept falling off. Big problem in reentry. Now this ship that’s docked out here is made of a material that is more reliable than tiles. Dragon scales,” he said in a piercing whisper. “But I wouldn’t let word of that get around. Might upset ... you know who.”

“Do you want to try to fix this?” Haplo held up the two pieces of the broken icon.

“So you intend to remain a mystery,” said Aleatha. Reaching out her hands, she took the pieces from Haplo, letting her fingers brush against his ever so lightly. “It doesn’t matter, you know. Papa would believe you if you told him you fell from heaven. Callie wouldn’t believe you if you said you walked over from next door. Whatever story you do come up with, try to make it entertaining.”

Idly, she fit the pieces of the statue together and held it up to the light. “How do they know what she looked like? I mean, her hair, for example. No one has hair like this—white on top and brown at the tips.” The purple eyes gathered Haplo inside, held him fast. “I take that back. It’s almost like your hair, except that it’s reversed. Yours is brown with white on the edges. Odd, isn’t it?”

“Not where I come from. Everyone has hair like mine.”

That, at least, was a truthful statement. The Patryns are born with brown hair. When they attain puberty, the tips of the hair begin to turn white. What Haplo did not add was that with the Sartan, it is different. They are born with white hair, the tips eventually turning brown. He looked at the goddess the elven woman held in her hand. Here was proof that the Sartan had been to this world. Were they here now?

His thoughts went to the old man. Zifnab hadn’t fooled Haplo. The Patryn’s hearing was excellent. The old man had said “Tribus” elves—the elves who lived in Arianus, the elves who lived in another world, far and apart from this one.

“... solid fuel rocket booster. Blew up on the launch pad. Horrible. Horrible. But they wouldn’t believe me, you see. I told them magic was much safer. It was the bat guano they couldn’t handle. Need tons of it, you know, to achieve lift-off. ...”

Not that what the old man was saying now made much sense. Still, there was undoubtedly method in his madness. The Sartan, Alfred, had seemed nothing but a bumbling servant.

Aleatha deposited the two halves of the goddess in a drawer. The remains of a broken cup and saucer ended up in the wastebasket.

“Would you like a drink? The brandy is quite fine.”

“No, thank you,” said Haplo.

“I thought maybe you might need one, after Callie’s little scene. Perhaps we should rejoin the others—”

“I’d rather talk to you alone, if it’s allowed.”

“You mean can we be alone together without a chaperone? Of course.” Aleatha laughed, light, rippling. “My family knows me. You won’t damage my reputation with them! I’d invite you out to sit on the front porch, but the crowd’s still there, staring at your ‘evil contraption.’ We can go into the drawing room. It’s cool in there.”

Aleatha led the way, her body rippling like her laughter. Haplo was protected against feminine charms—not by magic, for not even the most powerful runes ever traced upon a body could guard against love’s insidious poison. He was protected by experience. It is dangerous to love, in the Labyrinth. But the Patryn could admire female beauty, as he had often admired the kaleidoscopic sky in the Nexus.

“Please, go in,” Aleatha said, extending her hand.

Haplo entered the drawing room. Aleatha came behind him, shut the door, and leaned up against it, studying him.

Located in the center of the house, away from the windows, the room was secluded and private. The fan on the ceiling above rotated with a soft whirring noise—the only sound. Haplo turned to his hostess, who was regarding him with a playful smile.

“If you were an elf, it would be dangerous for you to be alone with me.”

“Pardon me, but you don’t look dangerous.”

“Ah, but I am. I’m bored. I’m engaged. The two are synonymous. You’re extremely well built, for a human. Most of the human males I’ve seen are so big, with hulking bodies. You’re slender.” Aleatha reached out, laid her hand on his arm, caressing. “Your muscles are firm, like a tree branch. That doesn’t hurt you when I touch you, does it?”

“No,” said Haplo with his quiet smile. “Why? Should it?”

“The skin disease, you know.”

The Patryn remembered his lie. “Oh, that. No, it’s only on my hands.”

He held them out. Aleatha gave the bandages a look of faint disgust.

“A pity. I am frightfully bored.” She leaned up against the door again, studying him languidly. “The man with the bandaged hands. Just like that old looney predicted. I wonder if the rest of what he said will come true.” A slight frown marred the smooth, white forehead.

“He really said that?” Haplo asked.

“Said what?”

“About my hands? Predicted ... my coming?”

Aleatha shrugged. “Yes, he said it. Along with a lot of other nonsense, about my not being married. Doom and destruction coming. Flying a ship to the stars. I’m going to be married.” Her lips tightened. “I’ve worked too hard, gone through too much. And I won’t stay in this house any longer than I have to.”

“Why would your father want to go to the stars?” Haplo recalled the object he’d seen from his ship, the twinkling light, sparkling brightly in the sun-drenched sky. He’d only seen one. There were more, apparently. “What does he know about them?”

“... lunar rover! Looked like a bug.” The old man’s voice rose shrill and querulous. “Crawled around and picked up rocks.”

“Know about them!” Aleatha laughed again. Her eyes were warm and soft, dark and mysterious. “He doesn’t know anything about them! No one does. Do you want to kiss me?”

Not particularly. Haplo wanted her to keep talking.

“But you must have some legends about the stars. My people do.”

“Well, of course.” Aleatha moved nearer. “It depends on who is doing the telling. You humans, for example, have the silly notion that they’re cities. That’s why the old man—”

“Cities!”

“Goodness! Don’t bite me! How fierce you look!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. My people don’t believe that.”

“Don’t they?”

“No. I mean, it’s silly,” he said, testing. “Cities couldn’t rotate around the sky like stars.”

“Rotate! Your people must be the ones rotating. Our stars never change position. They come and go, but always in the same place.”

“Come and go?”

“I’ve changed my mind.” Aleatha leaned closer. “Go ahead. Bite me.”

“Maybe later,” said Haplo politely. “What do you mean, the stars come and go?”

Aleatha sighed, fell back against the door, and gazed at him from beneath black eyelashes. “You and the old man. You’re in this together, aren’t you? You’re going to swindle my father out of his fortune. I’ll tell Callie—”

Haplo stepped forward, reached out his hands.

“No, don’t touch me,” Aleatha ordered—“Just kiss me.”

Smiling, Haplo held his bandaged hands up and out to the side, leaned down, and kissed the soft lips. He took a step back. Aleatha was eyeing him speculatively.

“You weren’t much different than an elf.”

“Sorry. I’m better when I can use my hands.”

“Maybe it’s just men in general. Or maybe it’s poets, yammering about burning blood, melting heart, skin on fire. Did you ever feel like that when you were with a woman?”

“No,” Haplo lied. He could remember a time when the flame had been all he lived for.

“Well, never mind.” Aleatha sighed. Turning to go, she placed her hand on the wooden doorknob. “I’m growing rather fatigued. If you’ll excuse me—”

“About the stars?” Haplo put his hand on the door, keeping it shut.

Pressed between the door and Haplo’s body, Aleatha looked up into the man’s face. He smiled into the purple eyes, edged his body nearer, hinting that he was prolonging the conversation for one reason only. Aleatha lowered her eyelashes, but kept close watch from beneath.

“Perhaps I underrated you. Very well, if you want to discuss stars ...”

Haplo wound a strand of the ashen hair around his finger. “Tell me about the ones that ‘come and go.’ ”

“Just that.” Aleatha caught hold of the strand of hair, pulled it, drawing him closer to her, reeling him in like a fish. “They shine for so many years, then they go dark and stay dark for so many years.”

“All of them at once?”

“No, silly. Some wink on and others wink off. I really don’t know much about it. That lecherous old astrologer friend of father’s could tell you more if you’re truly interested.” Aleatha glanced up at him. “Isn’t it odd how your hair grows like that, just the opposite of the goddess. Perhaps you are a savior—one of Mother Peytin’s sons come to rescue me from my sins. I’ll give your kiss another try, if you like.”

“No, you wounded me deeply. I’ll never be the same.”

Haplo gave a silent whistle. The woman’s aimless throws were hitting their target too near center. He needed to get rid of her, needed to think. There came a scratching sound at the door.

“My dog,” said Haplo, removing his hand.

Aleatha made a face. “Ignore it.”

“That wouldn’t be wise. He probably has to go out.”

The scratching sound grew louder, more insistent. The dog began to whine.

“You wouldn’t want him to ... uh ... well, you know ... in the house.”

“Callie would stew your ears for breakfast. Take the mutt out, then.” Aleatha opened the door, and the dog bounded inside. Jumping up on Haplo, it planted its paws on his chest.

“Hi, boy! Did you miss me?” Haplo ruffled the dog’s ears, patted its flanks. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

The dog leapt down, yelping gleefully, darting off, then dashing back to make certain Haplo was serious about his offer.

“I enjoyed our conversation,” he said to Aleatha.

She had moved aside, standing against the open door, her hands behind her back. “I was less bored than usual.”

“Perhaps we could discuss stars again?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve reached a conclusion. Poets are liars. You better get that beast out of here. Callie won’t put up with that howling.”

Haplo walked past her, turned to add something about poets. She slammed the door shut in his face.

He led the dog outside, sauntered around to the open area where his ship was moored, and stood staring up into the sunlit sky. He could see the stars clearly. They burned bright and steadily, not “twinkling” as the poets were wont to say.

He tried to concentrate, tried to consider the confusing tangle in which he’d found himself—a savior who had come to destroy. But his mind refused to cooperate.

Poets. He had been going to reply to Aleatha’s final comment. She was wrong. Poets told the truth.

It was the heart that lied ...

 

... Haplo was in his nineteenth year in the Labyrinth when he met the woman. Like him, she was a runner, almost his age. Her goal was the same as his—to escape. They traveled together, finding pleasure in each other’s company. Love, if not unknown in the Labyrinth, is not admitted. Lust is acceptable—the need to procreate, to perpetuate the species, to bring children into the world to fight the Labyrinth. By day the two traveled, seeking the next Gate. By night, their rune-tattooed bodies twined together.

And then one day, the two came upon a group of squatters—those in the Labyrinth who travel in packs, who move slowly and represent civilization as far as anything can in that hellish prison. As was customary, Haplo and his companion brought a gift of meat and, as was customary, the squatters invited them to accept the use of their crude lodgings and find a measure of peace and security for a few nights.

Haplo, sitting at ease by the fire, watched the woman play with the children. The woman was lithe and lovely. Her thick chestnut hair fell over firm, round breasts, tattooed with the magical runes that were both shield and weapon. The baby she held in her arms was likewise tattooed—every child was from the day it was born. She looked up at Haplo and something special and secret was shared between them—his pulse quickened.

“Come on,” he whispered, kneeling beside her. “Let’s go back to the hut.”

“No,” she said, smiling and looking at him from a veil of thick hair. “It’s too early. It would offend our hosts.”

“The hell with our hosts!” Haplo wanted her in his arms, wanted to lose himself in the warmth and the sweet darkness.

She ignored him, singing to the baby, teasing him throughout the remainder of the evening until his blood was on fire. When they eventually sought the privacy of their hut, there was no sleep for either of them that night.

“Would you like a baby?” she asked, in one of their quiet moments after the transports of pleasure.

“What does that mean?” He looked at her with a fierce, hungry eagerness.

“Nothing. Just ... would you want one? You’d have to become a squatter, you know.”

“Not necessarily. My parents were runners and they had me.”

Haplo saw his parents dead, bodies hacked to pieces. They’d clouted him on the head, knocked him out so that he wouldn’t see, so that he wouldn’t scream. He said nothing more about babies that night.

The next morning, the squatters had news—a Gate up ahead had supposedly fallen. The way was still dangerous, but if they could get through, it would mean another step nearer to escape, another step nearer reaching the rumored safe haven of the Nexus. Haplo and the woman left the squatters’ village.

They made their cautious, wary way through the thick forest. Both were expert fighters—the only reason they had lived this long—and they recognized the signs, the smell, and the prickling of the runes upon their flesh. They were, therefore, almost prepared.

A huge, furry shape, man size, leapt from the leafy darkness. It caught Haplo around the shoulders, trying to sink its teeth in his neck for a quick kill. Haplo grabbed the shaggy arms and jerked it over his head, letting the beast’s own momentum carry it forward. The wolfen crashed to the ground, but twisted around and was on its feet before Haplo could drive his spear into its body. Wild yellow eyes fixed on his throat. It jumped again and hauled him to the ground. Grappling for his dagger, he saw—as he fell—the woman’s runes on her skin glow bright blue. He saw one of the creatures dive for her, heard the crackle of magic, and then his vision was blocked by a hairy body trying to tear out his life.

The wolfen’s fangs slashed at his neck. The runes protected him and he heard the creature snarl in frustration. Lifting his dagger, he stabbed the body on top of his and heard it grunt in pain, saw its yellow eyes blaze in anger. Wolfen have thick hides and are tough to kill. Haplo had done little more than infuriate it. It was after his face, now—the one place on his body not protected by runes.

He blocked it with his right arm, struggling to push it away, and kept stabbing at it with his left. The wolfen’s claw-fingered hands grasped his head. One twist, and it would break his neck.

Claw-fingers dug into his face. Then the creature’s body stiffened, it gave a gurgling scream, and slumped over his. Haplo heaved the corpse off of his body, found the woman standing over him. The blue glow was fading from her runes. Her spear was in the wolfen’s back. She gave Haplo a hand, helped him to stand. He didn’t thank her for saving his life. She didn’t expect it. Today, maybe the next, he’d return the favor. It was that way ... in the Labyrinth.

“Two of them,” he said, looking down at the corpses.

The woman yanked out her spear, inspected it to make certain it was still in good condition. The other had died from the electricity she’d had time to generate with the runes. Its body still smoldered.

“Scouts,” she said. “A hunting party.” She shook her chestnut hair out of her face. “They’ll be going for the squatters.”

“Yeah.” Haplo glanced back they way they’d come.

Wolfen hunted in packs of thirty, forty creatures. There were fifteen squatters, five of them children.

“They don’t stand a chance.” It was an off-hand remark, accompanied by a shrug. Haplo wiped the blood and gore from his dagger.

“We could go back, help fight them,” the woman said.

“Two of us wouldn’t do that much good. We’d die with them. You know that.”

In the distance, they could hear hoarse shouts—the squatters calling each other to the defense. Above that, the higher pitched voices of the women, singing the runes. And above that, higher still, the scream of a child.

The woman’s face darkened, she glanced in that direction, irresolute.

“C’mon,” urged Haplo, sheathing his dagger. “There may be more of them around here.”

“No. They’re all in on the kill.”

The child’s scream rose to a shrill shriek of terror.

“It’s the Sartan,” said Haplo, his voice harsh. “They put us in this hell. They’re the ones responsible for this evil.”

The woman looked at him, her brown eyes flecked with gold. “I wonder. Maybe it’s the evil inside us.”

Hefting her weapon, she started to walk. Haplo remained standing, looking after her. She was moving down a different path than the one they’d been walking. He could hear, behind them, the sounds of battle lessening. The child’s scream abruptly ended, mercifully cut short.

“Are you carrying my baby?” Haplo called after her.

If the woman heard him, she didn’t answer, but kept walking. The dappled shadows of the leaves closed over her. She was lost to his sight. He strained to listen, to hear her moving through the brush. But she was a runner, she was good. She was silent.

Haplo glanced at the bodies lying at his feet. The wolfen would be occupied with the squatters for a long time, but eventually they’d smell fresh blood and come looking for it.

After all, what did it matter? A kid would only slow him down. He left, heading alone down the path he’d chosen, the path that led to the Gate, to escape.