Into the Labyrinth Read online

“It is,” said Kleitus. “It comes from the days when our own children were alive and laughing. Read.”

  Xar studied the book suspiciously. It appeared to be genuine. It was old, extremely old—to judge by the musty smell and brittle, yellowed parchment. Carefully, fearful that the pages might crumble to dust at a touch, he opened the leather cover, read silently to himself.

  The Earth was destroyed.

  Four worlds were created out of the ruin. Worlds for ourselves and the mensch: Air, Fire, Stone, Water.

  Four Gates connect each world to the other: Arianus to Pryan to Abarrach to Chelestra.

  A house of correction was built for our enemies: the Labyrinth.

  The Labyrinth is connected to the other worlds through the Fifth Gate: the Nexus.

  The Sixth Gate is the center, permitting entry: the Vortex. And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate. The end was the beginning.

  That was the printed text. Beneath, in a crude scrawl, were the words The beginning was our end. “You wrote this,” Xar guessed. “In my own blood,” Kleitus said. “… blood.”

  Xar's hands shook with excitement. He forgot about the Sartan, about the prophecy, about the necromancy. This—this was worth it all!

  “You know where the gate is? You will take me there?” Xar rose eagerly to his feet.

  “I know. The dead know. And I would be only too happy to take you, Lord of the Nexus …” Kleitus's face writhed, the soul flitting restlessly in and out of the corpse. The hands flexed. “If you met that requirement. Your death could be arranged …”

  Xar was in no mood for humor. “Don't be ridiculous. Take me there now. Or, if that is not possible”—the thought came to the lord that perhaps this Seventh Gate was on another world— “tell me where to find it.”

  Kleitus appeared to consider the matter, then shook his head. “I don't believe I will.”

  “… I will.”

  “Why not?” Xar was angry. “Call it … loyalty.”

  “This—from a man who slaughtered his own people!” Xar sneered. “Then why tell me about the Seventh Gate, if you refuse to take me to it?” He had a sudden thought. “You want something in exchange. What?”

  “To kill. And keep on killing. To be rid of the smell of warm blood that torments me every moment that I live … and I will live forever! Death is what I want. As to the Seventh Gate, you don't need me to show you. Your minion has been there already. I should think he would have told you.”

  “… death … you …”

  “What minion? Who?” Xar was confounded a moment, then asked, “Haplo?”

  “That could be the name.” Kleitus was losing interest. “… name.”

  “Haplo knows the location of the Seventh Gate!” Xar scoffed. “Impossible. He never mentioned it …”

  “He doesn't know,” Kleitus responded. “No one living knows. But his corpse would know. It would want to return to that place. Raise up this Haplo's corpse, Lord of the Nexus, and he will lead you to the Seventh Gate.”

  “I wish I knew your game,” Xar said to himself, pretending once more to peruse the child's book, covertly observing the lazar. “I wish I knew what you were after! What is the Seventh Gate to you? And why do you want Haplo? Yes, I see where you're leading me. But so long as it's the same direction I'm traveling …”

  Xar shrugged and lifted the book, read aloud.

  “ ‘And all was accomplished through the Seventh Gate.’ How? What does that mean, Dynast? Or does it mean anything? It is hard to tell; you Sartan derive so much pleasure out of playing with words.”

  “I would guess it means a great deal, Lord of the Nexus.” A flicker of dark amusement brought real life to the dead eyes. “What that meaning is, I neither know nor care.”

  Reaching out his hand, its flesh bluish white and dappled with blood, its nails black, Kleitus spoke a Sartan rune, struck the door.

  The Patiyn sigla protecting the door shattered. Kleitus walked through it and left.

  Xar could have held the runes against the Dynast's magic, but the lord didn't want to waste his energy. Why bother? Let the lazar leave. He would obviously be of no further use.

  The Seventh Gate. The chamber where the Sartan sundered the world. Who knows what powerful magic exists inside there still? thought Xar.

  If, as he claims, Kleitus knows the location of the Seventh Gate, then he doesn't need Haplo to show him. He obviously wants Haplo for his own purposes. Why? True, Haplo eluded the Dynast's clutches, escaped the lazar's murderous rampage, but it seems unlikely that Kleitus would hold a grudge. The lazar loathes all living beings. He wouldn't single out just one unless he had a special reason.

  Haplo has something or knows something Kleitus wants. I wonder what? I must keep Haplo to myself, at least until I find out …

  Xar picked up the book again, stared at the Sartan runes until he had them memorized. A commotion in the hallway, voices calling his name, disturbed him.

  Leaving the desk, Xar crossed the room, opened the door. Several Patryns were roaming up and down the corridor.

  “What do you want?”

  “My Lord! We've been searching all over!” The woman who had answered paused to catch her breath.

  “Yes?” Xar caught her excitement. Patryns were disciplined; they did not ordinarily let their feelings show. “What is it, Daughter?”

  “We have captured two prisoners, My Lord. We caught them coming through Death's Gate.”

  “Indeed! This is welcome news. What—”

  “My Lord, hear me!” Under normal circumstances, no Patryn would have dared interrupt Xar. But the young woman was too excited to contain herself. “They are both Sartan. And one of them is—”

  “Alfred!” Xar guessed.

  “The man is Samah, My Lord.”

  Samah! Head of the Sartan Council of Seven.

  Samah. Who had been held in suspended animation long centuries on Chelestra.

  Samah. The very Samah who had brought about the destruction of the worlds.

  Samah. Who had cast the Patryns into the Labyrinth.

  At that moment, Xar could almost have believed in this higher power Haplo kept yammering about. And Xar could almost have thanked it for giving Samah into his hands.

  1A game played on Abarrach, similar to an ancient game known on Earth as mah-jongg. The playing pieces are inscribed with the sigla used by both Patryns and Sartan to work their magic. Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle.

  2The Sartan inhabiting Abarrach learned to practice the forbidden art of necromancy, began giving a dreadful type of life to the corpses of their dead. The dead became slaves, working for the living. If the dead are brought back too soon after death, the soul does not leave the body, but remains tied to it. These Sartan become lazar—- fearful beings who inhabit simultaneously both the plane of the living and the realm of the dead. A lazar can find no peace, no rest. Its “life” is constant torment. Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle.

  CHAPTER 2

  ABARRACH

  S AMAH. OF ALL THE WONDERFUL PRIZES. SAMAH. THE SARTAN who had thought up the plot to sunder the world. The Sartan who had sold the idea to his people. The Sartan who had taken their blood and the blood of countless thousands of innocents in payment. The Sartan who had locked the Patryns in the prison hell of the Labyrinth.

  “And,” Xar said to himself suddenly, his gaze going back to the book, “the Sartan who undoubtedly knows the location of the Seventh Gate! Not only that, but he will probably refuse to tell me where it is or anything about it.” Xar rubbed his hands. “I will have the inordinate pleasure of forcing Samah to talk!”

  There are dungeons in the palace of stone on Abarrach. Haplo had reported their existence to Xar. Haplo had very nearly died in the dungeons of Abarrach.

  Xar hastened through the rat's warren of corridors that led downward to the dungeons—the “catacombs,” as they had been euphemistically known during the reign of the Sartan.

  What had those early Sartan used the catacombs for? Prisons for the malcontents among the mensch? Or perhaps the Sartan had even tried housing the mensch down here, away from the corrupt atmosphere of the caverns above, the atmosphere that was slowly poisoning every living thing the Sartan had brought with them. According to Haplo's report, there were rooms down here, other rooms besides prison cells. Large rooms, big enough to hold a fair number of people. Sartan runes, traced along the floor, led the way, for those who knew the secrets of their magic.

  Torches burned in sconces on the wall. By their light, Xar caught an occasional glimpse of these Sartan runes. Xar spoke a word—a Sartan word—and watched the sigla flicker feebly to life, glow a moment, then die, their magic broken and spent.

  Xar chuckled. This was a game he played around the palace, a game of which he never tired. The sigla were symbolic. Like their magic, the power of the Sartan had shone briefly, then died. Broken, spent.

  As Samah would die. Xar rubbed his hands together again in anticipation.

  The catacombs were empty now. In the days before the accidental creation of the dread lazar, the catacombs had been used to house the dead, both types of dead: those who had been reanimated and those awaiting reanimation. Here they stored the corpses for the three days requisite to being brought back to life. Here, too, were the occasional dead who had already been brought back to life but who had proved a nuisance to the living. Kleitus's own mother had been one of these.

  But now the cells were empty. The dead had all been freed. Some had been turned into lazar. Others, dead too long to be of use to the lazar—like the queen mother— were left to wander vaguely around the hails. When the Patryns arrived, such dead had been rounded up, formed into armies. Now they awaited the call to battle.

  The catacombs were a depressing
place in a world of depressing places. Xar had never liked coming down here, and had not done so after his first brief tour of inspection. The atmosphere was heavy, dank and chill. The smell of decay was rank, lingering on the air. It was even palpable to the taste. The torches sputtered and smoked dismally.

  But Xar didn't notice the taste of death today. Or if he did, it left a sweet flavor in his mouth. Emerging from the tunnels into the cellblock, he saw two figures in the shadows, both keeping watch for him. One was the young woman who had summoned him. Marit was her name. He'd sent her on ahead to prepare for his arrival. Although he could not see her clearly in the murky dimness, he recognized her by the sigla glowing faintly blue in the darkness; her magic acting to keep her alive in this world of the living dead. The other figure Xar recognized by the fact that the sigla on this man's skin did not glow. That and the fact that one of his red eyes did.

  “My Lord.” Marit bowed with deep reverence.

  “My Lord.” The dragon-snake in man's form bowed, too, but never once did the one red eye (the other eye was missing) lose sight of Xar.

  Xar didn't like that. He didn't like the way the red eye was always staring at him, as if waiting for the moment the lord would lower his guard, when the red eye could slide swordlike inside. And Xar did not like the lurking laughter he was positive he could see in that one red eye. Oh, its gaze was always deferential, subservient. The laughter was never there when Xar looked into the eye directly. But he always had the feeling that the eye gleamed mockingly the moment he glanced away.

  Xar would never let the red eye know it bothered him, made him uneasy. The lord had even gone so far as to make Sang-drax (the dragon-snake's mensch name) his personal assistant. Thus Xar kept his eye on Sang-drax.

  “All is in readiness for your visit, Lord Xar.” Sang-drax spoke with the utmost respect. “The prisoners are in separate cells, as you commanded.”

  Xar peered down the row of cells. It was difficult to see by the feeble light from the torches—they too seemed to be coughing in the ruinous air. Patryn magic could have lit this foul place as bright as day on the sunny world of Pryan, but the Patryns had learned from bitter experience that one didn't waste one's magic on such luxuries. Besides, having come from the dangerous realm of the Labyrinth, most Patryns felt more at ease under the protection of darkness.

  Xar was displeased. “Where are the guards I ordered?” He looked at Marit. “These Sartan are tricky. They might well be able to break free of our spells.”

  She glanced at Sang-drax. Her glance wasn't friendly; she obviously disliked and distrusted the dragon-snake. “I was going to post them, My Lord. But this one prevented me.

  Xar turned a baleful gaze on Sang-drax. The dragon-snake in Patryn form gave a deprecating smile, spread his hands. Patryn runes adorned the backs of those hands, similar in appearance to the runes tattooed on Xar's hands and on Mark's. But the sigla on Sang-drax's hands didn't glow. If another Patryn attempted to read them, the runes wouldn't make any sense. They were strictly for show; they had no meaning. Sang-drax was not a Patryn.

  Just what he was Xar wasn't certain. Sang-drax called himself a “dragon,” claimed he came from the world of Chelestra, claimed he and others of his kind were loyal to Xar, living only to serve Xar and further his cause. Haplo referred to these creatures as dragon-snakes, insisting that they were treacherous, not to be trusted.

  Xar saw no reason to doubt the dragon or dragon-snake or whatever it was. In serving Xar, Sang-drax was only showing good sense. Still, the lord didn't like that unblinking red eye, or the laughter that wasn't in it now but almost certainly would be when Xar's back was turned.

  “Why did you countermand my orders?” Xar demanded.

  “How many Patryns would you require to guard the great Samah, Lord Xar?” Sang-drax asked. “Four? Eight? Would even that number be sufficient? This is the Sartan who sundered a world!”

  “And so we have no guards to guard him. That makes sense!” Xar snorted.

  Sang-drax smiled in appreciation of the humor, was immediately serious again. “He is under constraint now. A mensch child could guard him, in his state.”

  Xar was worried. “He is injured?”

  “No, My Lord. He is wet.”

  “Wet!”

  “The sea water of Chelestra, My Lord. It nullifies the magic of your kind. “ The voice lingered over the last two words.

  “How did Samah come to soak himself in sea water before entering Death's Gate?”

  “I cannot imagine, Lord of the Nexus. But it proved most fortuitous.”

  “Humpf! Well, he will dry out. And then he will need guards—”

  “A waste of manpower, My Lord Xar. Your people are few in number and have so many matters of urgent importance to deal with. Preparing for your journey to Piyan—”

  “Ah, so I am going to Pryan, am I?”

  Sang-drax appeared somewhat confused. “I thought that was my lord's intent. When we discussed the matter, you said—”

  “I said I would consider going to Pryan.” Xar eyed the dragon-snake narrowly. “You seem to be unusually interested in getting me to that particular world. Is there any special reason, I wonder?”

  “My lord has said himself that the tytans of Pryan would make formidable additions to his army. And, in addition, I think it quite likely that you might find the Seventh Gate on—”

  “The Seventh Gate? How did you come to find out about the Seventh Gate?”

  Sang-drax was now definitely confused.

  “Why … Kleitus told me you were searching for it, Lord.”

  “He did, did he?”

  “Yes, Lord. Just now.”

  “And what do you know of the Seventh Gate?”

  “Nothing, Lord, I assure you—”

  “Then why are you discussing it?”

  “The lazar brought it up. I was only—”

  “Enough!” Xar had rarely been so angry. Was he the only person around here who didn't know about the Seventh Gate? Well, that would soon end.

  “Enough,” Xar repeated, casting a sidelong glance at Marit. “We will speak of this matter later, Sang-drax. After we have dealt with Samah. I trust I will receive many of the answers to my questions from him. Now, as to guards—”

  “Allow me to serve you, Lord. I will use my own magic to guard the prisoners. That will be all you need.”

  “Are you saying that your magic is more powerful than ours? Than Patryn magic?” Xar asked the question in a mild tone. A dangerous tone, to those who knew him.

  Marit knew him. She drew a step or two away from Sang-drax.

  “It is not a question of whose magic is more powerful, My Lord,” Sang-drax replied humbly. “But let us face facts. The Sartan have learned to defend against Patryn magic, just as you, My Lord, can defend against theirs. The Sartan have not learned to fight our magic. We defeated them on Chelestra, as you will remember, Lord—”

  “Just barely.”

  “But that was before Death's Gate had been opened, My Lord. Our magic is much more powerful now.” Again the threatening softness. “I was the one who captured these two.”

  Xar looked at Marit, who confirmed this fact with a nod. “Yes,” she conceded. “He brought them to us, where we stood guard, at the gates of Necropolis.”

  The Lord of the Nexus pondered. Despite Sang-drax's protestations, Xar didn't like the implied conceit of the dragon-snake's statement. The lord also didn't like admitting that the creature had a point. Samah. The great Samah. Who among the Patryns could guard him effectively? Only Xar himself.

  Sang-drax appeared ready to argue further, but Xar cut the dragon-snake's words short with an impatient wave of his hand. “There is only one sure way to prevent Samah's escape, and that is to kill him.”

  Sang-drax demurred. “But surely you require information from him, My Lord …”

  “Indeed,” Xar said with smooth satisfaction. “And I will have it—from his corpse!”

  “Ah!” Sang-drax bowed. “You have acquired the art of necromancy. My admiration is boundless, Lord of the Nexus.”

  The dragon-snake sidled closer; the red eye gleamed in the torchlight. “Samah will die, as you command, My Lord. But—there is no need for haste. Surely he should suffer as your people have suffered. Surely he should be made to endure at least a portion of the torment your people have been made to endure.”