SALFAG CAVERNS, ABARRACH

“NECROMANCY!” Haplo whispered in disbelief, conflicting emotions, wild thoughts overwhelming him with confusion, “My Lord was right! The Sartan do possess the secret of bringing back the dead!”

“Yes!” Alfred gasped, wringing his hands. “We did, we do! But it should not be used! Never be used!”

The man in black had begun to dance, weaving gracefully among the corpses, twining in and out between them, hands floating above them, continuing to make the same, singular signs that Haplo recognized now were powerful runes. And then Haplo knew suddenly what had struck him as familiar about the corpses. Looking into the crowd, he noted that many among the living, particularly those huddled near the back of the cavern, were not living at all. They had the same look as the cadavers, the same white flesh, same sunken cheeks and shadowed eyes. Far more of these people were dead than alive!

The necromancer was nearing the end of the ceremony, seemingly. White insubstantial forms rose from the corpses. Possessed of shape and substance, the forms lingered near the bodies from which they sprang. At a commanding gesture from the necromancer, the misty forms drew back, yet each kept near its corpse, like shadows in a sunless world.

These shadows retained the form of the being each had left. Some stood straight and tall over the bodies of straight, tall men. Others stooped over the bodies of the aged. One little one stood near the corpse of the child. Each appeared reluctant to be separated from the bodies, some made a feeble attempt to return, but the necromancer, with a stern and shouted command, drove them away.

“You phantasms have nothing to do with these bodies now. Abandon them! They are no longer dead! Life returns! Get away from them or I will cast you and the body into oblivion!”

From his tone, the wizard would have liked to banish these ethereal shapes altogether, but perhaps that was impossible. Meekly, sorrowfully, the phantasms did as they were commanded, each moving away from its corpse, each standing as near as it dared without risking the ire of the necromancer.

“What have my people done? What have they done?” Alfred moaned.

The dog, leaping up suddenly, gave a sharp, warning bark. Alfred lost his magic, tumbled to the ground. Haplo ripped the bandages from his hands, turned to face the threat. His only hope was to fight and try to escape. The sigla on his skin glowed blue and red, the magic throbbed in his body, but, at the sight of what he faced, he was helpless.

How did one fight something already dead?

Haplo stared, confounded, unable to think through the magic, unable to sort out the possibilities that governed it to find any that might help him. His split-second delay proved costly. A hand reached out, closed over his arm, grasping him with a chill grip that came near freezing his heart. It seemed to him that the runes on his skin actually shriveled up beneath that deadly touch. He cried out in bitter pain, slumped to his knees. The dog, cringing, fell on its belly and howled.

“Alfred!” Haplo cried, through teeth clenched against the agony. “Do something!”

But Alfred took one look at their captors and fainted.

*

Dead warriors led Haplo and carried the comatose Alfred into the cavern. The dog trotted quietly behind, although it took great care to avoid the touch of the dead, who seemed not to know what to do with the animal. The cadavers laid Alfred down on the floor in front of the necromancer. They brought Haplo, sullen and defiant, to stand before the prince.

Had Edmund’s life been measured in gates, as was Haplo’s, the prince must have been near the Patryn’s age, around twenty-eight.

And it seemed to Haplo, as he looked into the serious, intelligent, shadowed eyes of the prince, that here was a man who had suffered much in those twenty-eight years, perhaps as much as Haplo himself.

“We caught them spying,” one of the dead warriors said. The cadaver’s voice was almost as chilling as the lifeless touch. Haplo strove to remain motionless, although the pain of the dead fingers biting into his flesh was excruciating.

“Is this one armed?” Edmund asked.

The cadavers—three of them—shook their grisly heads.

“And that one?” The prince glanced at Alfred with a half-smile. “Not that it would matter if he were.”

The dead indicated he wasn’t. The cadavers had eyes, but the eyes never looked at anything, never shifted or moved, never brightened or dimmed, never closed. Their phantasms, drifting restlessly behind the cadavers, had eyes that retained the wisdom and knowledge of the living. But the phantasms, it seemed, had no voice. They could not speak.

“Restore him to consciousness and treat him gently. Release the other one,” the prince ordered the cadavers, who removed their fingers from Haplo’s arm. “Return to your watch.”

The dead shambled off, the tattered remnants of their clothing fluttering behind them.

The prince gazed curiously at Haplo, particularly Haplo’s rune-covered hands. The Patryn waited stolidly to be denounced, to be judged the ancient enemy and turned into a cadaver himself. Edmund reached out to touch.

“Don’t worry,” the prince said, speaking slowly and loudly as one does to a person who doesn’t speak the language. “I won’t hurt you.”

A flash of searing blue light streaked from the runes, crackled around the prince’s fingers. He cried out in shock, more than pain. The jolt was a mild one.

“Damn right,” Haplo said, in his own language, testing. “Try that again, and you’ll be dead.”

The prince drew back, staring. The necromancer, who had been chafing Alfred’s temples in a vain attempt to rouse the man, ceased his work and looked up in astonishment.

“What language is that?” The prince spoke in his own, in the corrupt Sartan that Haplo understood, was beginning to understand more clearly all the time, but could not speak. “It’s strange. I know what you said, although I swear I’ve never heard such speech before. And you understand me, although you do not speak my words. And that was rune-magic you used. I recognize the construct. Where do you come from? Necropolis? Did they send you? Were you spying on us?”

Haplo cast a mistrustful glance at the necromancer. The wizard appeared powerful and shrewd and might prove his greatest danger. But there was no recognition in the necromancer’s piercing, black eyes, and Haplo began to relax. These people had been through so much in the present, perhaps they had lost all knowledge of their past.

The Patryn considered his answer. He had learned enough, from overhearing the conversation earlier, to know that it wouldn’t help his cause if he told them he was from what he guessed must be the city they’d seen. This time, the truth seemed far safer than a lie. Besides, he knew that Alfred, once called on to explain himself, would never manage otherwise.

“No, I’m not from the city. I’m a stranger to this part of the world. I sailed here in a ship down the magma sea. You can see my ship.” Haplo nodded toward the shoreside town. “I’m—we’re”—he included Alfred grudgingly—“not spies.”

“Then what were you doing when the dead caught you? They said you had been watching us for a long time. They had been watching you for a long time.”

Haplo lifted his chin, gazed steadily at the prince. “We’ve traveled a vast distance. We entered the town, discovered signs that there’d been a battle, the people all fled. We heard your voices, echoing down the tunnel. In my place, would you have rushed in and proclaimed yourself to me? Or would you have waited, watched, listened, learned what you could?”

The prince smiled slightly, but the eyes remained serious. “In your place, I might have returned to my ship and sailed away from something that did not appear to be any of my concern. And how is that you came by such a companion? One so different from yourself.”

Alfred was slowly coming around. The dog stood over him, licking his cheeks. Haplo raised his voice, hoping to jolt Alfred to attention, knowing he would be called to corroborate the Patryn’s story.

“My companion’s name is Alfred. And you’re right. He is different. We come from different worl—er ... cities. He joined up with me because he had no one else. He is the last survivor of his race.”

A sympathetic murmur arose from the crowd. Alfred sat up weakly, cast a swift, frightened glance around him. The dead guards were out of sight. He breathed somewhat easier and, with the help of the necromancer, struggled awkwardly to stand up. Brushing off his clothes, he made a bobbing bow to the prince.

“Is this true?” Edmund said, pity and compassion softening his tone. “Are you the last of your people?”

“I thought I was,” said Alfred, speaking Sartan, “until I found you.”

“But you are not one of us,” Edmund said, growing more and more perplexed. “I understand your speech, as I understand his”—he waved a hand at Haplo—“but it, too, is different. Tell me more.”

Alfred appeared highly confused. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

“Tell us how you came to be here in this cave,” suggested the necromancer.

Alfred cast the Patryn a wild look. His hands fluttered vaguely. “I—we sailed ... in a ship. It’s docked over there. Somewhere.” He gestured vaguely, having lost all sense of direction. “We heard voices and came looking to see who was down here.”

“Yet you thought we might be a hostile army,” the prince said. “Why didn’t you run away?”

Alfred smiled wanly, gently. “Because we didn’t find a hostile army. We found you and your people, honoring your dead.”

A nice way to put it, Haplo thought. The prince was impressed with the answer.

“You are one of us. Your words are my words, even though they are different. Far different. In your words”—the prince hesitated, trying to articulate his thoughts—“I see radiant light and a vast expanse of endless blue. I hear rushing wind and I breathe fresh, pure air that needs no magic to filter out its poison. In your words I hear ... life. And that makes my words sound dark and cold, like this rock on which we stand.”

Edmund turned to Haplo. “And you, too, are one of us, but you’re not. In your words I hear anger, hatred. I see a darkness that is not cold and lifeless but is alive and moving, like a living entity. I feel trapped, caged, a yearning for escape.”

Haplo was impressed, although he endeavored not to show it.

He would have to be careful around this perceptive young man. “I am not like Alfred,” the Patryn said, choosing his words carefully, “in that my people still survive. But they are being held prisoner in a place far more terrible than you can ever imagine. The hatred and anger are for those who imprisoned us. I am one of the fortunate who managed to survive and escape. I am looking now for new lands where my people can find homes—”

“You won’t find them here,” said the necromancer coldly, abruptly.

“No,” Edmund agreed. “No, you won’t find homes here. This world is dying. Already our dead outnumber the living. If nothing changes, I foresee a time, and it is coming on us very soon, when the dead alone will rule Abarrach.”