THE NEXUS

[HAPLO] inspected his ship, walked the length and breadth of the sleek, dragon-prowed vessel, studied masts and hull, wings and sails with a critical eye. The ship had survived three passages through Death’s Gate, sustaining only minor damage, mostly inflicted by the tytans, the terrifying giants of Pryan.

“What do you think, boy?” Haplo said, reaching down and fondling the ears of a black, nondescript dog, who padded silently along beside him. “Think it’s ready to go? Think we’re ready to go?” He tugged playfully at one of the silky ears. The dog’s plumy tail brushed from side to side, the intelligent eyes, that rarely left its master’s face, brightened.

“These runes”—Haplo strode forward, laid his hand on a series of burns and carvings inscribed on the ship’s hull—“will act to block out all energies, according to My Lord. Nothing, absolutely nothing should be able to penetrate. We’ll be shielded and protected as a babe in its mother’s womb. Safer,” Haplo added, his face darkening, “than any baby born in the Labyrinth.”

He ran his fingers over the spidery lines of the runes, reading in his mind their intricate language, searching for any flaw, any defect. His gaze shifted upward to the carved dragon’s head. The fierce eyes stared eagerly forward, as if they could already see the end of their goal in sight.

“The magic protects us,” Haplo continued his one-sided conversation, the dog not being disposed to talk. “The magic surrounds us. This time I will not succumb. This time I will witness the journey through Death’s Gate!”

The dog yawned, sat down, and scratched at an itch with such violence that he nearly tipped himself over. The Patryn glanced at the animal with some irritation. “A lot you care,” he muttered accusingly.

Hearing the note of rebuke in the loved voice, the dog cocked its head and appeared to try to enter into the spirit of the conversation. Unfortunately, the itch proved too great a distraction.

Snorting, Haplo clambered up the ship’s side, walked over the top deck, giving it one final inspection.

The ship had been built by the elves of the air world of Arianus. Made to resemble the dragons that the elves could admire but never tame, the ship’s prow was the dragon’s head, its breast the bridge, its body the hull, its tail the rudder. Wings fashioned of the skin and scales of real dragons guided the vessel through the air currents of that wondrous realm. Slaves (generally human) and elven wizardry combined to keep the great ships afloat.

The ship had been a gift from a grateful elven captain to Haplo. The Patryn modified it to suit his needs, his own ship having been destroyed during his first journey through Death’s Gate. The great dragonship no longer required a full crew to man it, or wizards to guide it, or slaves to operate it. Haplo was now captain and crew member. The dog was the ship’s only passenger.

The dog, conquering the elusive itch, trotted behind, hoping that the long and boring inspection was nearly at end. The animal adored flying. It spent most of the journey with its face pressed against the porthole, tongue lolling, tail wagging, leaving nose-prints on the glass. The dog was eager to be gone. So was its master. Haplo had discovered two fascinating realms in his journeys through Death’s Gate. He had no doubt he would be equally rewarded on this trip.

“Calm down, boy,” he said softly, patting the dog’s head. “We’ll leave in a moment.”

The Patryn stood on the top deck, beneath the folds of the dragon’s central sail, and looked out on the Nexus, his homeland.

He never left this city without a pang. Disciplined, hard, and unemotional as he considered himself to be, he was forced to blink back the tears whenever he left. The Nexus was beautiful, but he’d seen many lands just as beautiful and never unmanned himself by weeping over them. Perhaps it was the nature of the beauty of the a twilight world whose days were ever either dawn or dusk, nights were never dark but always softly brightened by […]. Nothing in the Nexus was harsh, nothing in the Nexus existed in extremes except for the people who lived there, people who had emerged from the Labyrinth—a prison world of unspeakable horror. Those who survived the Labyrinth and managed to escape came into the Nexus. Its beauty and peace enfolded them like the embracing arms of a parent comforting a child having a [nightmare].

Haplo stood on the deck of his flying ship and gazed out on the green, grassy lawn of his lord’s mansion. He remembered the first time he’d risen from the bed where they’d carried him—more dead than alive after his trials in the Labyrinth. He had gone to a window and looked out on this land. He had known, for the first time in his scarred life, peace, tranquility, rest.

Every time he looked out a window onto his homeland, he recalled that moment. Every time he recalled that moment, he blessed and honored his master, the Lord of the Nexus, who had saved him. Every time he blessed his lord, Haplo cursed the Sartan, the demigods who had locked his people into that cruel world. Every time he cursed them, he vowed revenge.

The dog, seeing that they weren’t going to leave instantly, [flopped] down on the deck and lay—nose on paws—patiently waiting. Haplo shook himself out of his reverie, stirred briskly to action, and nearly stepped on the animal. The dog jumped up with a startled yelp.

“There, old boy. Sorry. Keep out from under my feet next time.” Haplo turned to descend into the hold, stopped in midstride as he felt the world around him rippled.

Ripple. That was the only way to describe it. He had never experienced anything like the strange sensation. The movement far beneath him, perhaps at the very core of the world, and upward in sinuous waves that did not travel horizontally, in a tremor, but vertically, rippling up from the ground through his feet, his knees, body, head.

Everything around him was distorted by the same effect. For [an] instant, Haplo lost all shape, form, dimension. He was flat, against a flat sky, a flat ground. The ripple passed through and […] them all simultaneously. All except the dog. The dog vanished. The effect ended as swiftly as it had begun. Haplo fell to his hands and knees. Dizzy, disoriented, he fought off a sickening of nausea. He gasped for breath, the ripple effect had compressed the air from his body. When he could breathe, he searched to see if he could discover what had caused the terrifying phenomenon.

The dog returned, standing in front of him, gazing at him reproachfully.

“It wasn’t my fault, fellow,” Haplo said, darting wary, suspicious glances in all directions.

The Nexus glimmered in its peaceful twilight, leaves on the trees whispered softly. Haplo examined them closely. The stalwart trunks had stood straight and tall and unbent for a hundred generations. But just moments before, he’d seen them ripple like wheat in a windstorm. Nothing moved, he heard no sound—and that in itself was odd. Previous to the ripple, he’d been obliquely aware of animal noises that were now hushed in ... what? Fear? Awe?

Haplo felt a strange reluctance to move, as if the very act of taking a step would cause the frightening sensation to reoccur. He had to force himself to walk back along the deck, expected every moment to find himself pasted on the landscape once again. He peered over the side of the ship’s hull, down onto the lawn.

Nothing.

His gaze scanned the mansion, the windows of his lord’s magnificent dwelling. His lord lived alone in the mansion, except for Haplo, and he was only there on occasion. This day, the mansion was empty. The lord was away, fighting his endless battle against the Labyrinth.

Nothing. No one.

“Maybe I imagined it,” Haplo muttered.

He wiped sweat from his upper lip, noted his hand was trembling. He stared at the runes tattooed on his skin, saw, for the first time, that they were glowing a very faint blue. Hastily, he shoved up his sleeve, saw the blue glow fading from his arms. A glance at his chest, beneath the V-slit collar of his tunic, revealed the same.

“So, I didn’t imagine it,” he said, comforted. His body had reacted to the phenomenon, reacted instinctively to protect him—protect him from what? A bitter iron taste, as of blood, coated his mouth. He coughed, spit. Turning, he stomped back across the deck. His fear faded with the blue glow, leaving him angry, frustrated.

The ripple had not come from inside the ship. Haplo had watched it pass through the ship, watched it pass through his body, the trunks of the trees, the ground, the mansion, the sky. He hastened below to the bridge. The steering stone, the rune-covered orb he used to guide his vessel, stood on its pedestal. The stone was dark and cold, no light emanating from it.

Haplo glared at the stone in irrational ire, having half-hoped that it might have been responsible. He was irritated to discover it wasn’t. His mind cataloged everything else on board: neat coils of rope in the hold; barrels of wine, water, and food; a change of clothes; his journal. The stone was the only magical object.

He’d cleaned away all remnants of the mensch[4]—the elves, humans, dwarf, and insane old wizard who had lately been his passengers on that ill-fated journey to the Elven Star. The tytans had undoubtedly slaughtered them all by now. They couldn’t be the cause.

The Patryn stood on the bridge, staring unseeing at the stone, his brain running around like a mouse caught in a maze, darting down this passage and that, sniffing and scrabbling and hoping to find a way out. Memories of the mensch on Pryan wandered to memories of mensch on Arianus and that made him think of the Sartan Haplo’d encountered on Arianus, a Sartan whose mind moved as clumsily as his oversize feet.

None of these memories led him anywhere useful. Nothing like this had happened to him before. He brought to mind all he knew of magic, the sigla that ruled the probabilities, made all things possible. But by all laws of magic known to him, that ripple could not have been. Haplo found himself back where he started.

“I should consult with My Lord,” he said to the dog, who was regarding its master with concern. “Ask his advice.”

But that would mean postponing his journey through Death’s Gate for an indefinite period of time. When the Lord of the Nexus reentered the deadly confines of the Labyrinth, no one could say when—or if—he would return. Upon that return, he would not be pleased to discover that Haplo had been wasting precious time in his absence.

Haplo pictured the interview with the formidable old man—the only living being the Patryn respected, admired, and feared. He imagined himself attempting to put the strange sensation into words. He imagined his lord’s answer.

“A fainting spell. I didn’t know you were subject to those, Haplo, My Son. Perhaps you shouldn’t go on a journey of such importance.”

No, better solve this on his own. He considered searching the rest of his ship, but—again—that would waste time. “And how can I search it when I don’t know what I’m looking for?” he demanded, exasperated. I’m like a kid who sees ghosts in the night, making my mother come in with the candle to prove to me that there’s nothing there. Bah! Let’s get out of here!”

He strode resolutely over to the steering stone, placed his hands on it. The dog took its accustomed position next to the glass portholes located in the dragon’s breast. Apparently its master had come to the end of whatever strange game he’d been playing. Tail wagging, the dog barked excitedly. The ship rose up on the currents of wind and magic and sailed into the purple-streaked sky.

*

The entry into Death’s Gate was an awesome, terrifying experience. A tiny black dot in the twilight sky, the Gate was like a perverse star that shone dark instead of light. The dot did not grow in size, the nearer the ship sailed. Rather, it seemed that the ship itself shrank down to fit inside. Dwindling, diminishing—a frightening sensation and one that Haplo knew was all in his mind, an optical illusion, like seeing pools of water in a burning desert.

This was his third time entering Death’s Gate from the Nexus side, and he knew he should be accustomed to the effect. He shouldn’t let it frighten him. But now, just as every time before, he stared at that small hole and felt his stomach clench, his breath come short. The closer he flew, the faster the ship sailed. He couldn’t stop his forward motion, even if he’d wanted to. Death’s Gate was sucking him inside.

The hole began to distort the sky. Streaks of purple and pink, flares of soft red began twisting around it. Either the sky was spinning and he was stationary, or he was spinning and the sky was stationary, he could never tell which. And all the while he was being drawn inside at an ever-increasing rate of speed.

This time, he’d fight the fear. This time—A shattering crash and an inhuman wail brought Haplo’s heart to his mouth. The dog jumped to its feet and was off like an arrow, lacing into the ship’s interior.

Haplo wrenched his gaze away from the mesmerizing swirl of colors enticing him into the blackness beyond. In the distance, he could hear the dog’s bark echoing through the corridors. To judge by the dog’s reaction, someone or something was aboard his ship.

Haplo lurched forward. The ship rocked and heaved and bucked. He had difficulty keeping his feet, tottered and staggered into the bulkheads like some old drunk.

The dog’s barking grew in loudness and intensity but Haplo noted, oddly, a change in the note. The bark was no longer threatening, it was joyful—the animal greeting someone it knew and recognized.

Perhaps some kid had hidden himself aboard for a prank or a chance for adventure. Haplo couldn’t conceive of any Patryn child who would indulge in such mischief. Patryn children, growing up (if they managed to live that long) in the Labyrinth, had very little time for childhood.

After some difficulty, he made his way to the hold, heard a voice, faint and pathetic.

“Nice doggie. Hush, now, nice dog, and go away, and I’ll give you this bit of sausage ...”

Haplo paused in the shadows. The voice sounded familiar. It wasn’t a child’s, it was a man’s and he knew it, although he couldn’t quite place it. The Patryn activated the runes on his hands. Bright blue light welled from the sigla, illuminating the darkness of the hold. He stepped inside.

The dog stood spraddle-legged on the deck, barking with all its might at a man cowering in a corner. The man, too, was familiar, a balding head topped by a fringe of hair around the ears, a weary middle-aged face, mild eyes now wide with fear. His body was long and gangly and appeared to have been put together from leftover parts of other bodies. Hands that were too large, feet that were too large, neck too long, head too small. It was his feet that had betrayed the man, entangling him in a coil of rope, undoubtedly the cause of the crash.

“You,” Haplo said in disgust. “Sartan.”

The man looked up from the barking dog, which he had been attempting unsuccessfully to bribe with a sausage—part of Haplo’s food supply. Seeing the Patryn standing before him, the man gave a faint, self-deprecating smile, and fainted.

“Alfred!” Haplo drew in a seething breath and took a step forward. “How the hell did you—”

The ship slammed headlong into Death’s Gate.