Fire Sea (42 page)

Alfred had no clear idea in his mind of what to do, where to go. He made it to his feet and peered around in terrified confusion. Grief-choked, ragged sobs drew him forward, into the darkness.

Jonathan knelt on the floor. He held Jera in his arms.

The two had almost reached the prince's cell. The light of the gas lamp above it streamed over them, shone off the shaft of an arrow, buried deep, lodged in Jera's right breast. Her eyes were fixed on her husband's face and, just as Alfred reached them, her lips parted in a sigh that took the last breath from her body.

“She jumped in front of me,” Jonathan cried dazedly. “The arrow was meant for me and… she jumped in front of me. Jera!” He shook the corpse, as if he were trying to waken a deep sleeper. Her lifeless hand slid to the floor. Her head lolled to one side. The beautiful hair fell over her face, covering it like a shroud.

“Jera!” Jonathan clasped her to his breast.

Alfred could still hear the voice of the preserver, attempting to raise the dead guard.

“But he'll soon realize that's futile and summon other guards. Maybe that's where Tomas, the traitor, went.” Alfred was talking to himself, knew he was talking to himself, but he couldn't seem to help it. “We have to get away, but where do we go? And where's Haplo?”

A soft groaning came to him as if in response to the sound of the name, cutting beneath Jonathan's cries and the preserver's chants. Alfred looked around hurriedly, saw Haplo lying on the floor near his cell door.

Swift-spoken runes and a graceful weaving of the hands, all done without conscious thought on Alfred's part, reduced the iron bars of the cell to small piles of rust lined up in a neat row.

Alfred touched Haplo's neck. He could not find the heartbeat, the life's pulse had sunk low, and he feared he was too late. Reaching out a gentle, trembling hand, he turned the man's head to the light. He saw the eyelids flutter. He could feel a soft stirring of warm breath on the skin of the hand that he held near the Patryn's cracked and parched lips. He was alive, but just barely.

“Haplo!” Alfred leaned near, whispering urgently. “Haplo! Can you hear me!” Watching anxiously, he saw the man's head nod with a feeble motion. Relief flooded through him. “Haplo! Tell me what happened to you? Is it sickness? A wound? Tell me! I”—Alfred drew a deep breath, but there had really never been any doubt over his decision—“I can heal you—”

“No!” The crusted lips could barely move, but Haplo managed to form the word, managed to summon enough breath to speak it aloud. “I won't … owe my life … Sartan.” He ceased talking, shut his eyes. A spasm convulsed his body and he cried out in agony.

Alfred hadn't foreseen this, couldn't think how to handle it. “You wouldn't owe your life to me! I owe you!” He was babbling, but it was the only thing he could think to do under the circumstance. “You saved my life from the dragon. On Arian—”

Haplo sucked in a breath. He opened his eyes, reached out and gripped Alfred's robes. “Shut up and … listen. You can do … one thing for me … Sartan. Promise! Swear!”

“I—I swear,” Alfred said, not knowing what else to say. The Patryn was very near death.

Haplo was forced to pause, summon his waning strength. He ran his swollen tongue over lips coated with a strange, black substance. “Don't let them … resurrect me. Burn … my body. Destroy it. Understand.” The eyes opened, gazed intently into Alfred's. “Understand?”

Slowly, Alfred shook his head. “I can't let you die.”

“Damn you!” Haplo gasped, his weak hand losing its grasp.

Alfred traced the runes in the air, began his chant. His only question now, the only dread left in his heart was: would his magic work on a Patryn?

Behind him, he heard, like an echo of his own words, the soft phrase, “I won't let you die!” And he heard the chanting of runes. Alfred, concentrating on his work, paid no attention.

“Damn you!” Haplo cursed him.

CHAPTER
33
THE CATACOMBS,
ABARRACH

F
OLLOWING
A
LFRED'S FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HAPLO ON
Arianus, the Sartan took pains to study the Patryns, the ancient enemy. The early Sartan were meticulous record keepers, and Alfred delved into the mass of histories and treatises kept in the record vaults in the mausoleum beneath Drevlin. He searched particularly for information on the Patryns themselves and their concepts of magic. He found little, the Patryns having been wary of revealing their secrets to their enemies. But one text struck him particularly, and it came now to his mind.

It had been written, not by a Sartan, but by an elven wizardess, who had formed a romantic liaison (brief and volatile) with a Patryn.

The mensch wizardess had not had much use for either Patryns or Sartan. Alfred, on originally reading the text, was somewhat indignant at the woman's tone, feeling sure his people were being unfairly maligned. Now, he wasn't so certain.

Mercy and compassion … to an enemy who would show you none himself. He had read the words lightly, glibly, without thinking about them. Now he didn't have time to think about the question, but it occurred to him that somewhere in that sentence was the answer.

The circle of Haplo's being was broken, shattered. Poison, Alfred guessed, noting the black substance on the lips, the swollen tongue, the evidence around him that the man had suffered terrible sickness.

“I must mend the circle, then I can mend the man.”

Alfred took hold of Haplo's rune-tattooed hands—the Patryn's left hand held in the Sartan's right, the Sartan's right hand holding the Patryn's left. The circle was formed. Alfred
closed his eyes, shutting out every sound around him, banishing the knowledge that more guards were coming, that they were still in deadly peril. Softly, he began to sing the runes.

Warmth surged through him, blood pulsed strongly in his body, life welled up inside him. The runes carried the life from his heart and head to his left arm and his left hand and he sensed it passing through his hand to Haplo's hand. The chill skin of the dying man grew warm to the touch. He heard, or thought he heard, the man's breathing grow stronger.

Patryns have the ability to block Sartan spells, to obviate their power. Alfred was truly afraid, at first, that Haplo might do just that. But he was either too weak to tear apart the weaving of the runes Alfred spun around him, or the urge to survive was too strong.

Haplo was growing better, but, suddenly, Alfred himself was gripped with pain. The poison entered his system, flowing from the Patryn to the Sartan, stabbing at his insides with knives of flame. Alfred gasped and moaned and doubled over, nausea twisting bowels and stomach, seeming likely to tear him apart.

An enemy who would turn around and slaughter him without compunction.

A horrifying suspicion came over Alfred. Haplo was killing him! The Patryn cared nothing about his own life, he would die and use this opportunity to take his enemy with him.

The suspicion vanished in an instant. Haplo's hands, growing warmer and stronger, clasped the Sartan's more tightly, giving what life and strength he had to give back to Alfred. The circle between the two was truly forged, truly complete.

And Alfred knew, with a feeling of overwhelming sadness, that Haplo would never forgive him.

“Stop! No! What are you doing?” Someone was yelling in panic.

Alfred came back to his surroundings, to their peril, with
a jolt. Haplo sat upright and, although he was pale and shivering, he was breathing normally, his eyes were clear, their gaze fixed on Alfred with grim enmity.

Haplo broke the circle, jerking his hands from Alfred's grip “Are … are you all right?” Alfred asked, peering at Haplo anxiously.

“Leave me alone!” Haplo snarled. He attempted to stand, fell back.

Alfred stretched forth a solicitous hand. Haplo shoved him away roughly.

“I said leave me alone!”

Gritting his teeth, he leaned against the stone bed and pulled himself up off the floor. He was about to attempt to stand, when he glanced out the cell, over Alfred's shoulder. The Patryn's eyes narrowed, his body tensed.

Becoming aware of the panicked shouting behind him, Alfred swung around hastily. The preserver was yelling, but he was yelling at the duke, not at Alfred.

“You're insane! You can't do such a thing! It is against all the laws! Stop it, you fool!”

Jonathan was singing the runes, working the magic on the body of his dead wife.

“You don't know what you are doing!”

The preserver lunged at Jonathan, attempted to drag him away from the corpse. Alfred heard the preserver add something about a “lazar,” but the Sartan didn't understand the incoherent shout.

Jonathan flung the preserver off him with a strength born of grief, despair, and madness. The man slammed into a wall, struck his head, and crumpled to the floor. The duke paid no attention to him, paid no attention to the sounds of pounding footsteps, far away, but drawing closer. Holding the still-warm body of his wife to his breast, Jonathan continued to sing the runes, tears running down his face.

“The guards are coming,” said Haplo, his voice sharp-edged, cutting. “You've probably saved my life just to get me killed again. I don't suppose you gave any thought as to how we get out of here?”

Alfred looked involuntarily back down the way they'd come, realized the sound of the pounding boots emanated from precisely the same direction. “I … I—” he stammered.

Haplo snorted in derision, glanced grimly at the duke. “He's too far gone to be of any help to us.” The Patryn stood up, somewhat shakily, nearly falling back on the stone bed. A furious look warned Alfred to keep his distance. Haplo regained his balance, staggered out of the cell, peered down the hallway that continued on into impenetrable darkness.

“Does it lead out of here? Or does it dead-end? If it comes to a dead end, then so do we. Or we could wander around in a maze forever. Still, it's our—Well, hullo, boy! Where did you come from?”

The dog, seeming to materialize out of the darkness, leapt on its master with a joyous bark. Haplo bent down to fondle it. The dog wriggled and danced and nipped at his master's ankles in a frenzy of affection.

The footsteps were nearer, but they had slowed and now Alfred could hear voices, indistinct but audible. From the fragments of conversation, it appeared that they were wary about entering the catacombs, facing the dread magic of the mysterious stranger.

Haplo patted the dog's flanks, looked inquiringly at Alfred.

“I know what you're going to ask me!” Alfred cried distractedly. The Sartan rose hastily, avoiding the Patryn's gaze, and crossed the hall to where the preserver lay in a heap on the floor. He knelt beside the body of the comatose man. “And, no! I can't remember the spell that I used to kill the dead. I'm trying but it's impossible. It's like my fainting. It's something I can't control!”