Pacing was just one of the dynast’s many little eccentricities, the most notable of these being a love of tournament combat and an addiction to the game of rune-bone. Any of the new dead who had been at all proficient in either game during their lives were brought to the palace, where they performed no other service except to offer His Majesty sparring partners during the waking half of the cycle or play at rune-bone with His Majesty far into the sleeping half. Such peculiarities led many to misjudge the dynast, considering him nothing but a shallow-minded gamester. Pons, having seen those many fall, was not among them. His respect for and his fear of His Dynastic Majesty were both deep and well founded.
Pons waited, therefore, in respectful silence for His Majesty to deign to notice him. The matter was obviously serious. The dynast devoted five complete revolutions around the dais to it, his head bowed, hands clasped behind his back.
In his mid-fifties, Kleitus XIV was a well-formed, muscular man of striking appearance whose beauty, when young, had been highly praised in poetry and song. He had aged well and would, as the saying went, make a handsome corpse. A powerful necromancer himself, he had many long years left to stave off that fate.
At last His Majesty ceased his heavy tread. His black fur robes, treated with purple dye to imbue them with the royal hue, rustled softly as he once again settled himself into his throne.
“Death’s Gate,” he muttered, tapping a ring on the arm of the throne. Gold against gold, it gave out a musical, metallic note.
“That’s the reason.”
“Perhaps Your Majesty worries needlessly. As the duke writes, they could have come here by chance—”
“Chance! Next you will be talking of ‘luck’ Pons. You sound like an inept rune-bone player. Strategy, tactics—that’s what wins the game. No, you mark our words. They have come here in search of Death’s Gate, like so many others before them.”
“Let them go, then, Majesty. We have dealt with such madmen before. Good riddance to bad rubbish—”
Kleitus frowned, shook his head. “Not this time. Not these people. We dare not.”
The Lord High Chancellor hesitated to ask the next question, not truly certain he wanted to know the answer. But he knew what was expected of him, the echo chamber for his ruler’s thoughts. “Why not, Sire?”
“Because these people are not insane. Because ... Death’s Gate has opened, Pons. It has opened and we have seen beyond!”
The Lord High Chancellor had never heard his dynast speak like this, had never heard that crisp and confident voice lowered, awed, even ... fearful. Pons shivered, as if he felt the first flush of a virulent fever.
Kleitus was staring far off, staring through the thick granite walls of the palace, gazing at a place the Lord High Chancellor could neither see nor even imagine.
“It happened early in the waking hour, Pons. You know that we are a light sleeper. We woke suddenly, startled by a sound that, when we were truly awake, we couldn’t place. It was like a door opening ... or shutting. We sat up and drew aside the bed curtains, thinking there might be some emergency. But we were alone. No one had entered the room.
“The impression that we had heard a door was so powerful, that we lighted the lamp beside the bed and started to call for the guard. We remember. We had one hand on the bed curtain and we were just drawing the other back from lighting the lamp when everything around us ... rippled.”
“Rippled, Your Majesty?” Pons frowned.
“We know, we know. It sounds incredible.” Kleitus glanced at his chancellor, smiled ruefully. “We know of no other way to describe it. Everything around us lost shape and substance, dimension. It was as if ourselves and the bed and the curtains and the lamp and the table were suddenly nothing but oil spread over still water. The ripple bent us, bent the floor, the bed, the table. And in an instant, it was gone.”
“A dream, Your Majesty. You were not yet awake ...”
“So we might have supposed. But in that instant, Pons, this is what we saw.”
The dynast was a powerful wizard among the Sartan. When he spoke, his words brought sudden images to the mind of his minister. The images flashed past so swiftly that Pons was confused, dazzled. He saw none clearly, but had a dizzying impression of objects whirling about him, similar to an experience in childhood when his mother had been wont to take him by the hands and twirl him around and around in a playful dance.
Pons saw a gigantic machine, whose metal parts were fashioned after the parts of a human body and which was working with frantic intensity at nothing. He saw a human woman with black skin and an elven prince waging war against the prince’s own kind. He saw a race of dwarves, led by one in spectacles, rising up against tyranny. He saw a sun-drenched green world and a beautiful shining city, empty, devoid of life. He saw huge creatures, horrible, eyeless, rampaging through a countryside, murdering all who came in their path and he heard them cry, “Where are the citadels?” He saw a race of people, grim, frightening in their hatred and anger, a race with runes traced on their skin. He saw dragons ...
*
“There, Pons. You understand?” Kleitus sighed again, half in awe, half in frustration.
“No, Your Majesty!” the chancellor gasped, stammered. “I do not understand! What—where—how long—”
“We know nothing more about these visions than you do. They came to us too fast and when we tried to lay hold of one, it slipped away, like the laze through our fingers. But what we are seeing, Pons, are other worlds! Worlds beyond Death’s Gate, as the ancient texts write. We are certain of it! The people must not come to know this, Pons. Not until we are ready.”
“No, of course not, Sire.”
The dynast’s face was grave, his expression hard, resolute. This realm is dying. We have leeched off other realms to maintain it—”
We have decimated other realms to maintain it, Pons corrected, but only in his own thoughts.
“We’ve kept the truth from the people for their own good, of course. Otherwise there would be panic, chaos, anarchy. And now comes this prince and his people—”
“—and the truth,” said Pons.
“Yes,” agreed the dynast. “And the truth.”
“Your Majesty, if I may speak freely—”
“Since when, Pons, do you do anything else?”
“Yes, Sire,” The Lord High Chancellor smiled faintly. “What if we were to allow these wretched people admittance, establish them—say—in the Old Provinces. The land is almost completely worthless to us now that the Fire Sea has retreated.”
“And have these people spread their tales of a dying world? Those who think the earl a doddering old fool would suddenly begin to take him seriously.”
“The earl could be handled—” The Lord High Chancellor emitted a delicate cough.
“Yes, but there are more like him. Add to their numbers a prince of Kairn Telest, talking of his cold and barren realm, and his search for a way out, and you will destroy us all. Anarchy, riots! Is that what you want, Pons?”
“By the ash, no!” The Lord High Chancellor shuddered.
“Then quit prattling nonsense. We will portray these invaders as a threat and declare war against them. Wars always unite the people. We need time, Pons! Time! Time to find Death’s Gate ourselves, as the prophecy foretold.”
“Majesty!” Pons gasped. “You! The prophecy. You?—”
“Of course, Chancellor,” Kleitus snapped, appearing slightly put out. “Was there ever any doubt in your mind?”
“No, certainly not, Your Majesty.” Pons bowed, thankful for the chance to conceal his face until he could rearrange his features, banish astonishment and replace it with abiding faith. “I am overwhelmed by the suddenness of ... of everything, too much happening at once.” This, at least, was true enough.
“When the time is right, we will lead the people forth from this world of darkness to one of light. We have fulfilled the first part of the prophecy—”
Yes, and so has every necromancer in Aba
rrach, thought Pons.
“It remains now for us to fulfill the rest,” Kleitus continued.
“And can you, Your Majesty?” asked his chancellor, obediently taking his cue from the dynast’s slightly raised eyebrow.
“Yes,” answered Kleitus.
This astonished even Pons. “Sire! You know the location of Death’s Gate?”
“Yes, Pons. At long last, my studies have provided me with the answer. Now you understand why this prince and his ragtag followers, arriving at precisely this moment, are such a nuisance.”
A threat, Pons translated. For if you could discover the secret of Death’s Gate from the ancient writings, then so could others. The “ripple” you experienced did not enlighten you so much as terrify you. Someone may have beat you to it. That is the real reason this prince and his people must be destroyed.
“I stand humbled before your genius, Majesty.” The chancellor bowed low.
Pons was, for the most part, sincere. If he had doubts, it was only because he had never quite taken the prophecy seriously. He hadn’t even truly believed in it. Obviously, Kleitus did. Not only believed in it, but had gone about fulfilling it! Had he actually discovered Death’s Gate? Pons might have been dubious, except for the sight of those fantastic images. The visions had sent a thrill through the chancellor’s mind and body as nothing else had done these past forty years. Recalling what he’d seen, he felt, for a moment, quite wild with excitement and was forced to discipline himself severely, wrench himself back from bright and hopeful worlds to the dark and dreary business at hand.
“Your Majesty, how are we to start this war? It is obvious the Kairn Telest do not want to fight—”
“They will fight, Pons,” said the dynast, “when they find out that we have executed their prince.”
CHAPTER 19
FIRE SEA, ABARRACH
PRINCE EDMUND told his people where he was going and why. They listened in unhappy silence, afraid of losing their prince, yet knowing that there was no other way.
“Baltazar will be your leader in my absence,” Edmund announced simply, at the end. “Follow him, obey him as you would me.”
He left amid silence. Not one found words to call out a blessing to him. Although in their hearts they feared for him, they feared a terrible, bitter death even more and so they let him go in silence, choked by their own guilt.
Baltazar accompanied the prince back to the end of the cavern, arguing all the way that Edmund should at least take bodyguards—the most stalwart of the new dead—into Necropolis. The prince refused.
“We come to our brethren in peace. Bodyguards imply mistrust.”
“Call it a guard of honor then,” Baltazar urged. “It is not right that Your Highness goes unattended. You will look like ... like ...”
“Like what I am,” Edmund said in grim tones. “A pauper. A prince of the starving, the destitute. If the price we must pay to find help for our people is bending our pride to this dynast then I will kneel gladly at his feet.”
“A prince of Kairn Telest, kneeling!” The necromancer’s black brows formed a tight-knit knot above shadowed eyes.
Edmund halted, rounded on the man. “We could have remained standing upright in Kairn Telest, Baltazar. We’d be frozen stiff in that posture, of course—”
“Your Highness is correct. I beg your pardon.” Baltazar sighed heavily. “Still, I don’t trust them. Admit it to yourself, Edmund, if you refuse to admit it to me or anyone else. These people destroyed our world deliberately. We come on them as a reproach.”
“So much the better, Baltazar. Guilt softens the heart—”
“Or hardens it. Be wary, Edmund. Be cautious.”
“I will, my dear friend. I will. And, at least, I don’t travel quite alone.” The prince’s gaze glanced off Haplo, lounging idly against the cave wall, and Alfred, endeavoring to pull his foot out of a crack in the floor. The dog sat at the prince’s feet and wagged its tail.
“No.” Baltazar agreed dryly. “And I like that least of all, somehow. I don’t trust these two any more than I trust this so-called dynast. There, there. I’ll say nothing more except farewell, Your Highness! Farewell!”
The necromancer clasped the prince close. Edmund returned the embrace fondly and both men separated, the one heading out the cavern, the other remaining behind, watching the red of the Fire Sea bathe the prince in its lurid light. Haplo whistled, and the dog dashed up to trot along at its master’s side.
*
They reached Safe Harbor without incident, if one didn’t count stopping to haul the nervous Alfred out of whatever predicament he managed to blunder into along the way. Haplo came close to impatiently ordering the Sartan to utilize his magic, float as he had done when they entered the cavern, let magic lift those clumsy feet up over rocks and crevices.
But Haplo kept quiet. He guessed that both he and Alfred were far stronger in magic than any of these people. He didn’t want them to know how strong. Conjuring up fish had them awestruck, and that was a spell a child could perform. Never reveal a weakness to an enemy, never reveal a strength. Now all he had to worry about was Alfred. Haplo decided, after reflection, that Alfred wouldn’t be tempted to give away his true powers. The man had spent years trying to conceal his magic. He wasn’t about to use it now.
Arriving in Safe Harbor, they met the young duke and duchess standing on the obsidian pier. Both necromancers were admiring—or perhaps inspecting—Haplo’s ship.
“Do you know, sir?” The young lord, catching sight of them, turned from his examination of the ship and hastened toward Haplo. “I’ve thought of where I’ve seen runes like this before! The game—rune-bone!” He waited for Haplo’s response, obviously expected Haplo to know what he was talking about.
Haplo didn’t.
“My dear,” said the observant Jera, “the man has no idea what you mean. Why don’t we—”
“Oh, really?” Jonathan appeared quite astonished. “I thought everyone—It’s played with bones, you know. Runes like those on your ship are inscribed on the bones. Why, say, come to think of it, the same runes are on your hands and arms, too! Why, you might be a walking game wall!” The duke laughed.
“What a dreadful thing to say, Jonathan! You’re embarrassing the poor man,” remonstrated his wife, although she gazed at Haplo with an intensity the Patryn found disconcerting.
Haplo scratched at the backs of his hands, saw the woman’s green eyes focus on the runes tattooed on the skin. He coolly thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather trousers, forced himself to smile pleasantly.
“I’m not embarrassed. I’m interested. I never, heard of a game such as you describe. I’d like to see it, learn how it’s played.”
“Nothing easier! I’ve a set of rune-bones at home. Perhaps, when we land, we could go back to our house—”
“My dearest,” said Jera, amused, “when we land we are going to the palace! With His Highness.” She gave her husband a nudge, recalling him to the fact that he had, in his enthusiasm, impolitely ignored the prince.
“I beg Your Highness’s pardon.” Jonathan flushed red. “It’s just that I really never saw anything quite like this ship. ...”
“No, please don’t apologize.” Edmund, too, was staring at the ship and at Haplo with new-kindled interest. “It is remarkable. Quite remarkable.”
“The dynast will be fascinated!” Jonathan stated. “He adores the game, never misses an evening’s play. Wait until he sees you and hears about your ship. He won’t let you go,” he assured Haplo earnestly.
Haplo didn’t find that idea at all encouraging. Alfred cast him an alarmed glance. But the Patryn had an unexpected ally in the duchess.
“Jonathan, I don’t believe we should mention the ship to the dynast. After all, Prince Edmund’s business is far more serious. And I”—the green eyes turned on Haplo—“would like to have my father’s counsel on this matter before we discuss it with anyone else.”
The young duke and duchess exchange
d glances. Jonathan’s face sobered immediately. “A wise suggestion, my dear. My wife has the brains in the family.”
“No, no, Jonathan,” Jera protested, faintly blushing. “After all, you were the one who noticed the connection between the runes on the ship and the game.”
“Common sense, then,” Jonathan suggested, smiling at her and patting her hand. “We make a good team. I’m subject to whim, to impulse. I tend to act before I think. Jera keeps me in line. But she, on the other hand, would never do anything exciting or out of the ordinary if I wasn’t around to make her life interesting.” Leaning down, he kissed her soundly on her cheek.
“Jonathan! Please!” Her face was mantled with blushes. “What will His Highness think of us!”
“His Highness thinks he has rarely seen two people more deeply in love,” said Edmund, smiling.
“We have not been married very long, Your Highness,” Jera added, still blushing, but with a fond glance at her husband. Her hand twined around his.
Haplo was thankful that the conversation had turned from him. He knelt down beside the dog, made a show of examining the animal.
“Sar—Alfred,” he called. “Come here, will you? I think the dog’s picked up a rock in his paw. You hold him, will you, while I take a look?”
Alfred looked panicked. “Me, hold ... hold the—”
“Shut up and do as I say!” Haplo shot him a vicious glance. “He won’t hurt you. Not unless I tell him to.”
Bending down, the Patryn lifted the animal’s left front paw and pretended to examine it. Alfred did as he was told, his hands gingerly and ineffectively grasping the dog’s middle.
“What do you make of all this?” Haplo demanded in a low voice.
“I’m not certain. I can’t see well,” Alfred answered, peering at the paw. “If you could turn it to the light—”
“I don’t mean the dog!” Haplo almost shouted in exasperation, fought down his frustration, lowered his voice. “I mean the runes; you ever hear anything of this game they’re talking about?”
“No, never.” Alfred shook his head. “Your people were not a subject to be treated lightly among us. To think of making a game—” He looked at the runes on Haplo’s hand, shining blue and red as they worked their magic against the heat of the magma sea. Alfred shivered. “No, it would be impossible!”
Death Gate Cycle 3 - Fire Sea Page 16
