THE CATACOMBS, ABARRACH

ALFRED’S EYES gradually adjusted to the darkness inside the tunnel. The darkness wasn’t absolute, as he’d first feared when he emerged from the bright light of the chamber, but was red tinged, dimly lit by reflected light shining down a slick-walled corridor. From the light and from the heat, a magma pool was not far distant. Alfred turned to ask Haplo if he should activate the guide-runes, saw the Patryn slump to the floor.

Concerned, he hastened to Haplo’s side.

The dog stood over its master, teeth bared, a warning growl in its throat.

Alfred tried to reason with the animal. “I want to see if he’s injured. I can help—” He took another step, his hand outstretched.

The dog’s growl deepened, the eyes narrowed, ears flattened. We’ve shared some good times, the dog appeared to be advising Alfred. And I think you’re a fine fellow and I’d be sorry to see you come to harm. But that hand comes any closer and you’ll find my teeth in it.

Alfred withdrew the hand hastily, retreated a step.

The dog watched him warily.

Peering over the dog’s shoulder at Haplo, Alfred studied the man and decided that, after all, he wasn’t injured. He had fallen sound asleep—either the height of bravery or the height of folly, Alfred couldn’t decide which.

Perhaps, however, it was really only common sense. He seemed to recall something to the effect that Patryns had the ability to heal themselves in their sleep. Now that he thought of it, Alfred himself bone weary. He could have kept moving, the sheer horror of he’d witnessed in that chamber would have propelled him on until he dropped. As it was, it was probably better that he rest, conserve his strength for whatever lay ahead. He glanced nervously and fearfully at the sealed door.

“Do ... do you suppose we’re safe here?” he asked aloud, not quite certain to whom he was addressing the question.

“Safer here than anywhere else in this doomed city,” answered Prince Edmund.

The cadaver seemed more alive than the living. The phantasm had once more departed from the body, but the two appeared to act in conjunction. This time, however, it was as if the corpse were the shadow.

“What’s wrong with him?” Alfred’s pitying gaze encompassed Jonathan. The duke, lost in a rapt vision, had been led like a child from the chamber by the prince, the cadaver’s cold hand grasping the duke’s that was not much warmer. “Is he ... insane?”

“He saw what you saw. Unlike you, he continues to see.”

Witness to that tragic, ancient slaughter, Jonathan was apparently oblivious to the current terror surrounding him. At the cadaver’s gentle urging, he sat down on the stone floor. His eyes stared back into the past. Occasionally he cried out or made motions with his hands as though endeavoring to help someone he could not see.

Prince Edmund’s phantasm was clearly visible in the darkness, a reverse shadow, a shining white-blue outline of a corpse shrouded in darkness. “We will be safe,” he repeated. “The dead have more urgent business to do than chase after us.”

Alfred shuddered at the grim, solemn tone. “Business? What do you mean?”

The phantasm turned glittering eyes back toward the door. “You heard her. ‘We will have our freedom only when the tyrants are dead.’ She means the living. All the living.”

“They’re going to kill—” Alfred was appalled. His mind recoiled from the supposition. He shook his head. “No, it’s impossible!” But he recalled the lazar’s words, recalled the expression on the face that was sometimes dead, sometimes horribly alive.

“We should warn the people,” he mumbled, although the thought of forcing his weak and weary body to continue on was enough to make him weep. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was.

“Too late,” said the phantasm. “The slaughter has begun and will continue, now that Kleitus has joined the ranks of the lazar. As Jera told him, he will discover true power—power that can be his eternally. The living are his only threat, and he will take care to see to it that such a threat does not long survive.”

“But what can the living do against him?” Alfred demanded, shuddering at the horrible memory. “He’s ... he’s dead!”

“Yet you cast a spell that caused the dead to die,” said Prince Edmund. “And if you could do it, then so could another. Kleitus cannot take the chance. And even if it were not so, the lazar would kill out of hatred. Kleitus and Jera both understand now what the living have done to the dead.”

“But not you,” said Alfred, staring at the phantasm, puzzled. “You said you understand. And yet I sense in you only deep regret, not hatred.”

“You were there. You saw.”

“I saw, but I don’t understand! Will you explain it to me?”

The phantasm’s eyes were suddenly hooded, invisible lids closing. “My words are for the dead, not the living. Only those who seek shall find.”

“But I’m seeking!” Alfred protested. “I truly want to know, to understand!”

“If you did, you would,” said the prince.

Jonathan gave a fearful cry, clutched his chest and pitched forward, writhing in pain. Alfred hastened to the man’s side.

“What happened to him?” he gasped, looking over his shoulder. “Are we being attacked?”

“It is not a weapon of our time that has hit him,” said the phantasm, “but a weapon of the past. He is still in the vision of what has been. You had better wake him, if you can.”

Alfred turned Jonathan over, saw the pinched, blue lips, the bulging eyes, felt the clammy skin, the thudding heartbeat. The duke was so completely wrapped in the spell that he might very well die of shock. Yet to waken him might be worse. Alfred glanced at the slumbering Haplo, saw the wan face peaceful, lines of sickness and suffering smoothed out.

Sleep. Or, as the ancients had termed it, “little death.”

Alfred held the duke in his arms, soothed the young man, murmured comforting words and interspersed them with a singsong chant. Jonathan’s stiffened limbs relaxed, the pain-twisted features eased. He drew a deep, shivering breath. His eyes closed. Alfred held Jonathan a moment longer, to make certain he was truly asleep, then eased him down onto the stone floor.

“Poor man,” said Alfred softly. “He will have to live with the knowledge that he brought this terrible evil on his people.”

Prince Edmund shook his head. “What he did, he did for love. Evil has come out of it, but—if he is strong—good will prevail.”

Such a sentiment might read well in a child’s bedtime story, but in this fire-lighted tunnel, with unspeakable horrors raging in the city above ...

Alfred slumped back against the wall, sank down to the floor.

“What about your people?” he asked, suddenly remembering the Kairn Telest. “Aren’t they in danger? Shouldn’t you be doing something to warn them, help them?”

The prince’s expression altered, grew sad. Or perhaps Alfred only sensed the sadness, and his mind willed the cadaver’s expression to change accordingly.

“I grieve for my people and their suffering. But they are the living and no longer my responsibility. I have left them and gone beyond. My words are for the dead.”

“But what will you do?” Alfred asked helplessly. “What can you do for them?”

“I don’t know yet,” said the phantasm. “But I will be told. Your living body needs sleep. I will keep watch while you rest. Fear nothing. No one will find us. For the time being, you are safe.”

Alfred had little choice except to trust the prince and give way to weariness. Magic, even Sartan magic, had its physical limitations, as had been proven on this terrible world. He could draw on it only so long before his strength needed replenishing. He made himself as comfortable as possible on the hard rock floor.

The dog, who had been keeping a wary eye on Alfred, was satisfied that it, too, could relax. Curling up beside its master, the animal rested its head on Haplo’s chest, but kept its eyes open.

*

Haplo awoke from a long sleep that had healed his body, but had not brought peace or ease to his mind. He was unaccountably restless, vague anger gnawed at him. Lying on the floor in the darkness, he stroked the dog’s head, and attempted to figure out what was the matter with him.

He had something of extreme importance to do or say or tell someone. Something urgent, something of value and ... he couldn’t remember what it was.

“Arrant nonsense,” he told the dog. “Impossible. If it were that important, I’d remember it.” But, try as he might, he couldn’t, and the lost knowledge burned within him, another kind of poison.

Added to his disquiet were hunger and a raging thirst. He’d had nothing to eat or drink since the supper that had nearly been his last. He sat up, glanced about, searching for water—perhaps a tiny rivulet streaming through a crack in the wall, a drop falling from the ceiling. He could use a drop to create more with his rune-magic, but he couldn’t conjure water out of solid rock.

No water. Nothing. Everything was going wrong, had gone wrong ever since he’d arrived on this blasted world. At least he knew where to lay the blame.

Alfred lay hunched up on his side, his mouth wide open, snoring softly.

I should have let the bastard die back there. Especially after he cast that spell on me, made me see those people around that table, made me say—Haplo shook free of the unpleasant memory. But at least now we’re even. I saved his life in return for him saving mine. I don’t owe him a damn thing.

Haplo stood up suddenly, startling the dog, who jumped to its feet and stared at him with an air of faint reproach.

“You are setting off on your own.” Prince Edmund’s cadaver stood motionless at the end of the corridor, near the sealed door, near where Jonathan lay in spellbound sleep on the floor.

“I travel faster that way.” Haplo stretched his arms, rubbed a stiff neck. He didn’t like looking at the phantasm. The sight made him think again of whatever it was he’d forgotten.

“You’re going to leave without the guiding runes.” The phantasm wasn’t attempting to persuade him, apparently. It didn’t seem to care, was merely pointing out the obvious. It was probably lonely, liked hearing itself talk.

“I figure we’re at the bottom of the catacombs,” said Haplo. "I'll find a corridor that leads back up, follow it until I get to the top. I can’t end up much worse than I’ve ended up following him!”

He gestured at Alfred, who had rolled over on his stomach, his backside hunched up in a most undignified position.

“Besides,” Haplo grunted, “I’ve been in worse places. I was born in one. C’mon, dog.”

The dog yawned and stretched, front paws extended, rocked forward, back legs extended, then shook itself all over.

“Do you know what is going on up there?” The phantasm’s gleaming-eyed gaze lifted.

“I can guess,” Haplo muttered, not liking to discuss it.

“You will never reach your ship alive. You will become like Kleitus and Jera—souls trapped in dead bodies, hating the mockery of life that binds them to this realm, fearing the death that would free them.”

“That’s my risk,” retorted Haplo, but the palms of his hands grew clammy. Sweat broke out on his body, chilling him, although the air in the tunnel was warm and oppressive.

All right, I’m afraid! We respect fear, we’re not ashamed of it—so the elders taught us in the Labyrinth. The rabbit feels no shame fleeing the fox, the fox feels no shame fleeing the lion. Listen to your fear, confront it, understand it, deal with it.

Haplo walked over, faced the phantasm of the prince. He could see through it, see the wall in back of it, and he knew from the cool, intent stare of the eyes that, in much the same way, it could see through him.

“Tell me the prophecy.”

“My words,” said the prince, “are for the dead.”

Haplo turned abruptly, moving swiftly, and fell over the dog, who had been trotting along behind. He stepped on the animal’s fore paw. The dog yelped in pain, sprang backward, cringing, wondering what it had done wrong.

Alfred woke with a start. “What—? Where—?” he gabbled.

Haplo cursed fluently, held out his hand to the dog. “I’m sorry, boy. Come here. I didn’t mean it.”

The animal accepted the apology, came forward graciously to be scratched behind the ears, indicated that there were no hard feelings.

Seeing only Haplo, Alfred gulped in relief, mopped his brow. “Are you feeling better?” he asked anxiously.

The question annoyed Haplo almost beyond endurance. A Sartan, concerned for my health! He gave a brief, bitter laugh and turned away, continued his search for water.

Alfred sighed, shook his bald head. He was obviously in misery, his stiff body twisted like an old gnarled tree. He watched Haplo a moment, guessed what he must be doing.

“Water, that’s a good idea. My throat is raw. I can barely talk—”

“Then don’t!” Haplo made a fourth fruitless circuit of the runnel, the dog trotting along at his heels. “Nothing here. There’s bound to be water near the surface. We better get started.” He walked over to the duke, nudged him with his foot. “Wake up, Your Grace.”

“Oh, dear! I forgot.” Alfred flushed. “He’s under a spell. He was dying. Well, he wasn’t, but he thought he was and the power of suggestion ...”

“Yeah. I know all about the power of suggestion! You and your spells! Wake him up and let’s get out of here. And no more guide-runes, either, Sartan!” Haplo held up a warning finger. “The Labyrinth only knows where they’d lead us next! This time, you follow me. And be quick about it or I’ll leave without you.”

But he didn’t. He waited. He waited for Alfred to wake the duke, waited for the wretched Jonathan to come to his senses.

Haplo waited, fretting with impatience, tormented by his thirst, but he waited.

When he asked himself why he had changed his mind about going off alone, he answered himself that traveling in numbers made sense.