Into the Labyrinth (31 page)

“I was trying to study it, Paithan,” she said with a sob. “I’ve been looking at those damn books you’re always reading and I came … came in here”—she hiccuped— “this winetime to … to look around. You … you
were so … interested in it … I thought it would make you happy if I was—”

“And it does, dear, it does,” said Paithan, stroking her hair. “You came in here and you looked around. Did you … touch anything, my dear?”

Her eyes flared open. She went stiff in his arms. “You think I did this, don’t you?”

“No, Rega. Well, maybe not on purpose, but—”

“Well, I didn’t! I wouldn’t! I hate it! Hate it!”

She stamped her foot. The clock gave a lurch. The arm that held the diamond above the well creaked and started to turn. Rega flung herself into Paithan’s arms. He held her, watching, fascinated, as a red light started to beam out of the well, pulsing up from its fathomless depths.

“Paithan!” Rega whimpered.

“Yes, yes, dear,” he said. “We’ll leave.” But he made no move to go.

The books provided a complete diagram of the way the Star Chamber worked and explained exactly what it did.
²
Paithan could understand the part that dealt with the machinery, but he didn’t understand the part that dealt with the magic. Now if it had been elven magic, he could have comprehended what was going on, for though not magically inclined himself, he had worked with the elven wizards in his family’s weapons business long enough to have learned the fundamentals.

The Sartan magic—dealing as it did with such concepts as “probabilities” and making use of the pictures known as “sigla”—was beyond him. He felt as awed and baffled in its presence as he knew Rega must feel in the presence of elven magic.
³

Slowly, gracefully, silently, the lotus-blossom ceiling started to reopen.

“This … this is how it all began, Paithan,” Rega whimpered. “I didn’t touch anything! I swear it. It’s … doing this all by itself.”

“I believe you, dear. I truly do,” he answered. “It’s all … so wonderful!”

“No, it isn’t! It’s horrible. We’d better leave. Quickly, before the light comes back on.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right.” Paithan started for the door, moving slowly, reluctantly.

Rega went with him, clutching him so close that their feet tangled.

“Why are you stopping?”

“Rega, darling, I can’t walk like this …”

“Don’t let go of me! Just hurry, please!”

“It’s hard to hurry, dearest, with you standing on my foot …”

They edged their way across the polished marble floor, circling the well—capped with its gigantic multifaceted jewel—and the seven enormous chairs that faced outward from the hole.

“The tytans sat here,” Paithan explained, placing his hand on the leg of one of the chairs, a leg that extended far over his head. “I can see now why the creatures are blind.”

“And why they’re insane,” Rega muttered, tugging him along.

The red light beaming up from the depths of the well was growing brighter. The clockwork hand that held the diamond turned it this way and that. The light glinted and danced off the jewel’s sheer planes. The sunlight, shining in through the ever widening panels, was sliced into colors by the prisms.

Suddenly the diamond seemed to catch fire. Light blazed. The clockwork mechanism ticked more rapidly. The machine came to life. The light in the room grew brighter and brighter and even Paithan admitted that it was time to get out. He and Rega ran the rest of the way,
sliding across the polished floor, and dashed out the door just as the strange humming sound started again.

Paithan slammed the door shut. The brilliant multicolored rainbow light shone out from the cracks, illuminated the hallway.

The two stood leaning against a wall, catching their breath. Paithan stared at the closed door longingly.

“I wish I could see what was going on! If I could, perhaps I could figure out how it works!”

“At least you got to see it start,” said Rega, feeling much better. Now that her rival had, in essence, spurned the devotion of a smitten follower, Rega could afford to be generous. “The humming is quite nice, isn’t it?”

“I hear words in it,” said Paithan, frowning. “As if it’s calling …”

“As long as it’s not calling you,” Rega said softly, her hand twining around his. “Sit down here with me a moment. Let’s talk.”

Paithan, sighing, slid down the wall. Rega curled up on the floor, nestled beside him. He looked at her fondly, put his arm around her.

They made an unusual couple, as unlike in appearance as they were in almost everything else. He was elven. She was human. He was tall and willowy, white-skinned, with a long, foxish face. She was short and full-figured, brown-skinned, with brown hair that hung straight down her back. He was a hundred years old—in his youth. She was in her twenties—in her youth. He was a wanderer and a philanderer; she was a cheat and a smuggler and casual in her relationships with men. The only thing they had in common was their love for each other—a love that had survived tytans and saviors, dragons, dogs, and daft old wizards.

“I’ve been neglecting you lately, Rega,” Paithan said, resting his cheek on her head. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said crisply.

“Not you in particular. I’ve been avoiding everyone.”

She waited for him to offer some explanation. When he didn’t, she moved her head out from beneath his chin, looked at him.

“Any reason? I know you’ve been involved with the machine—”

“Oh, Orn take the machine,” Paithan growled. “I’m interested in it, certainly. I thought maybe I could get it to work, even though I’m not really certain what it’s meant to do. I guess I hoped it might help us. But I don’t think it will. No matter how much it hums, no one will hear it.”

Rega didn’t understand. “Look, Paithan, I know Roland can be a bastard sometimes—”

“It’s not Roland,” he said impatiently. “If it comes to that, what’s mostly wrong with Roland is Aleatha. It’s just … well …” He hesitated, then blurted it out. “I found some more stores of food.”

“You did!” Rega clapped her hands together. “Oh, Paithan, that’s wonderful!”

“Isn’t it,” he muttered.

“Well, of course it is! Now we won’t starve! There … there
is
enough, isn’t there?”

“Oh, more than enough,” he said gloomily. “Enough to last a human lifetime, even an elven lifetime. Maybe even a dwarven lifetime. Especially if there aren’t any more mouths to feed. Which there won’t be.”

“I’m sorry, Paithan, but I think this is wonderful news and I don’t see what you’re so upset about—”

“Don’t you?” He glared at her, spoke almost savagely. “No more mouths to feed. We’re it, Rega! The end. What does it matter whether we live two more tomorrows or two million more tomorrows? We can’t have children.
⁴
When we die, maybe the last humans and elves and dwarves on Pryan die. And then there will be no more. Ever.”

Rega stared at him, stricken. “Surely … surely you can’t be right. This world is so big. There must be more of us … somewhere.”

Paithan only shook his head.

Rega tried again. “You told me that each one of those lights we see shining in the heavens is a city, like this one. There must be people like us in them.”

“We would have heard from them by now.”

“What?” Rega was amazed. “How?”

“I’m not sure,” Paithan was forced to admit. “But it
says in the book that in the old days, the people living in the cities could communicate with each other. We haven’t been communicated with, have we?”

“But maybe we just don’t know how … That humming sound.” Rega brightened. “Maybe that’s what it’s doing. It’s calling the other cities.”

“It’s calling someone, I think,” Paithan conceded thoughtfully, listening intently. The next sound, however, he heard all too well. A human voice, booming loudly.

“Paithan! Where are you?”

“It’s Roland.” Paithan sighed. “Now what?”

“We’re up here!” Rega shouted. Standing up, she leaned over the rail of the staircase. “With the machine.”

They heard booted feet clattering up the stairs. Roland arrived, gasping for breath. He glanced at the closed door, the light welling from underneath.

“Is that where … this strange sound’s … coming from?” he demanded, sucking in air.

“What of it?” Paithan returned defensively. He was on his feet, eyeing the human warily. Roland was no fonder of the machine than was his sister.

“You’d better turn the damn thing off, that’s what,” Roland said, his face grim.

“We can’t—” Rega began, but stopped when Paithan stepped on her foot.

“Why should I?” he asked, sharp chin jutting outward in defiance.

“Take a look out the window, elf.”

Paithan bristled. “Talk to me that way and I’ll never look out another window as long as I live!”

But Rega knew her half-brother, guessed that his belligerent facade was covering up fear. She ran to the window, stared out a moment, not seeing anything. Then she gave a low cry.

“Oh, Paithan! You’d better come see this.”

Reluctantly the elf moved to her side, peered out. “What? I don’t see …”

And then he did see.

It looked as if the entire jungle were moving; it appeared to be advancing on the citadel. Large masses of
green were surging slowly up the mountain. Only it wasn’t the jungle, it was an army.

“Blessed Mother!” Paithan breathed.

“You said the machine was calling something!” Rega moaned.

It was. It was calling the tytans.

OUTSIDE THE CITADEL
PRYAN

“M
ARIT! WIFE! HEAR ME! ANSWER ME!” XAR SENT OUT HIS command
in silence and it returned to him in silence.

No response.

Frustrated, he repeated her name several times, then ceased. She must be unconscious … or dead—the only two circumstances in which a Patryn would refuse to answer such a summons.

Xar pondered what to do. His ship was already in Pryan; he’d been attempting to guide Marit to the landing site when she had vanished. He considered changing course—Marit’s last frantic message to him had been from Chelestra. But at length he decided to continue to the citadel. Chelestra was a world made up of magic-nullifying water, water that would weaken his power. It was not a world Xar had much interest in visiting. He would go to Chelestra after he had discovered the Seventh Gate.

The Seventh Gate.

It had become an obsession with Xar. From the Seventh Gate, the Sartan had cast the Patryns into prison. From the Seventh Gate—Xar determined—he would free them.

In the Seventh Gate, Samah had sundered the world, created new worlds out of the old. In the Seventh Gate, Xar would forge his own new world—and it would be all his.

This was the true reason for his journey to Pryan.

The ostensible reason—the reason he gave his people (and Sang-drax)—was to gain ascendancy over the tytans and incorporate them into his army. The real goal was to discover the location of the Seventh Gate.

Xar was certain it must be in the citadel. He made the deduction based on two facts: (one) Haplo had been to the citadel on Pryan and, according to both Kleitus and Samah, Haplo knew the location of the Seventh Gate; (two) as Sang-drax had said, if the Sartan had something they wanted to protect, what better guards than the tytans?

Following Haplo’s coordinates, which would lead to the citadel, the Lord of the Nexus, accompanied by Sang-drax and a small force of about twenty Patryns, eventually reached Pryan. The citadel itself was easy to find. An intensely bright light, made up of bands of brilliant color, beamed from it, acting as a guiding beacon.