CHAPTER 34

THE SEVENTH GATE

“WHAT THE DEVIL’S HAPPENING?” HAPLO CRIED, SCRABBLING to hang on. His hands could find no purchase on the slick, listing floor. “What’s going on?” , Alfred, too, was slowly sliding downward. The corridor that was Death’s Gate had become a cyclone, whirling and spiraling, a vortex whose heart was the Chamber of the Damned—the Seventh Gate.

“Merciful Sartan!” Alfred gasped in shock. “The Seventh Gate is collapsing and taking the rest of creation with it!”

They were sliding right back into the Chamber of the Damned; Death’s Gate was sliding back into the Chamber, and after that, everything else. Frantically, the Sartan tried to stop his fall, but there was nothing to hang on to; the floor was too slick.

“What do we do?” Haplo shouted.

“I can think of only one thing! And it might be the right thing and it might be the wrong. You see—”

“Just do it!” Haplo bellowed. He was very near the door.

“We’ve got … to shut Death’s Gate!”

They were falling into the ruined Chamber with a rapidity that made Alfred sick to watch. He had the horrible impression that he was sliding into the serpent’s gaping maw. He could swear that he saw two red eyes, burning with hunger …

“The spell, damn it!” Haplo yelled, trying vainly to halt his fall.

This is the moment in my life I’ve been dreading! Alfred thought. The one I’ve tried all my life to avoid. Everything depends on me.

He shut his eyes, tried to concentrate, reached forth into the possibilities. He was close, so very close. He began singing the runes in a trembling voice. His hand touched the door. He pushed on it …

Pushed hard, harder …

The door wouldn’t budge.

Fearfully, Alfred opened his eyes. Whatever he had done had at least slowed their descent. But Death’s Gate remained open; the universe was still tumbling down into it.

“Haplo! I need your help!” Alfred quavered.

“Are you mad? Patryn magic and Sartan magic can’t work together!”

“How do we know?” Alfred returned desperately. “Just because it’s never been done, at least that we’re aware of. Who knows but that somewhere, sometime in the past—”

“All right! All right! Shutting Death’s Gate. That’s it? That’s what we’ve got to do?”

“Concentrate on that!” Alfred cried. Their rate of descent was increasing once again.

Haplo spoke the runes. Alfred sang them. Sigla flared in the middle of the slanting corridor. The rune-structures were similar, but the differences were clearly obvious—appallingly obvious. The two magicks hung far apart, glowing with a weak and sullen flame that would soon flicker and die. Alfred stared at them, despaired.

“Well, we tried …”

Haplo swore in frustration. “It won’t end like this! Try harder. Sing, damn you! Sing!”

Alfred sucked in a deep breath, began to sing.

To his astonishment, Haplo joined him. The Patryn’s baritone slid in under, lifted, and supported Alfred’s high-pitched tenor.

A warmth flooded through Alfred. His voice grew stronger; he sang louder and with more assurance. Uncertain of the melody, Haplo scrambled around the notes, hitting them as near he could, depending on volume rather than accuracy.

The sigla began to burn brighter. The runes moved closer together, and soon it was apparent to Alfred that the differences in the structures were designed to complement each other, just as the incisions on a latchkey adapt to the wards of a lock.

A flare of radiance, brighter than the white-glowing heart of Pryan’s four suns, seared Alfred’s eyeballs. He shut his eyes, but the light burned through them, dazzling, explosive, bursting inside his head.

He heard a muffled thud, as of, somewhere in the distance, a door slammed shut.

And then everything was dark. He was floating, not in a sickening spiral, but gently, as if his body were made of thistledown and he were riding on a rolling wave.

“I think it worked,” he said to himself.

And the thought came to him that he could die now, without apology.