“Like me trying to use your runes?” Haplo asked. The dog, pleased with the attention, sat patiently, submitting its paw to being poked and prodded.
“Yes, much the same. It would be difficult for you to touch them, just as you can’t easily speak them. Maybe it’s coincidence,” Alfred offered hopefully. “Meaningless scrawls that have the appearance of runes.”
Haplo grunted. “I don’t believe in coincidence, Sartan. There, you’re all right, boy! What did you mean, whining like that over nothing?”
Playfully, he rolled the dog over, scratched it on the belly. The dog wriggled on its back, indulging in a long luxurious scratch along its spine. Flipping over, it jumped up, shook itself, refreshed. Haplo rose to his feet, ignoring Alfred, who, in attempting to stand, lost his balance and sat down heavily. The duke hastened to assist him.
“Will you sail your ship across the Fire Sea or travel with us?” the duchess asked Haplo.
The Patryn had been pondering this question himself. If they were truly using Patryn runes in that city, there was the possibility, however remote, that someone might be able to break through his carefully planned defenses. The ship would be more difficult for him to reach, docked in this harbor on the opposite shore, but there would be fewer to see it and gape at it and perhaps attempt to meddle with it.
“I’ll sail with you, Your Grace,” Haplo replied. “And leave my ship here.”
“That is wise,” the lady said, nodding her head, and it seemed her thoughts had run the same course as the Patryn’s. He saw her glance stray to the cloud-covered city, perched on a cliff at the rear of the enormous cavern, and he saw her frown. All was not well there, apparently, but then Haplo had seen few places where living beings existed that were not subject to strife and turmoil. Those had, however, been run by humans, elves, dwarves. This city was run by Sartan, noted for their ability to dwell together in peace and in harmony. Interesting. Very interesting.
The small group walked down the length of the empty, deserted dock toward the duke’s ship. It was an iron monster designed—as were most ships in the realms Haplo had traveled—in the shape of a dragon. Far larger than Haplo’s elven ship, the black iron dragonship was fearsome in appearance, its huge, ugly, black head rearing up out of the magma sea. Red lights gleamed from its eyes, red fire burned in its gaping mouth, smoke issued in puffs from the iron nostrils.
The army of the dead straggled ahead of them, dropping bits of bone, armor, a hank of hair as they marched. One cadaver, almost completely reduced to a skeleton, suddenly keeled over, its legs crumbling beneath it. The dead soldier lay on the dock in a confused heap of bones and armor, its helm perched at an insane angle on its skull.
The duke and duchess paused, whispering together in hasty conference, considering the feasibility of attempting to raise the thing again. They decided to leave it. Time was pressing. The army continued on, clanking and rattling down the obsidian pier toward the ship. Haplo, glancing back at the skeleton, thought he could see its phantasm hovering over it, wailing like a mother over a dead child.
What was the unheard voice crying? To be brought back to this mockery of life again? Haplo again felt revulsion twist inside him. He turned away, shoving the thought from his mind. Hearing a snuffling sound, he glanced contemptuously at Alfred, saw tears sliding down the man’s cheeks.
Haplo sneered, but his own gaze lingered on the wretched army. A Sartan army. He felt unaccountably, uncomfortably disturbed, as if the neatly arranged world he had long envisioned had suddenly turned upside down and inside out.
*
“What type of magic powers has this ship?” Haplo asked, having walked the length and breadth of the top deck and seen no sign of magic emanations, no Sartan wizards chanting runes, no Sartan runes traced on hull or rudder. Yet the iron dragon sped swiftly across the magma sea, belching clouds of billowing smoke from its nostrils.
“Not magic. Water,” answered Jonathan. “Steam, actually.” He seemed slightly embarrassed by the fact, defensive at Haplo’s look of surprise. “The ships used to be powered by magic, back in the early days.”
“Before the magic was needed to raise and maintain the dead,” Alfred said, casting a look of pitying horror at the cadavers ranged in ragged lines on the deck.
“Yes, quite true,” Jonathan answered, more subdued than Haplo recalled having seen him since their first meeting. “And, to be perfectly honest, to maintain ourselves. You both are learning what magical strength it takes merely to survive down here. The tremendous heat, the noxious fumes take their toll. When we arrive at the city itself, you will be subjected, constantly, to a terrible type of rain that nourishes nothing but eats away at everything—stone, flesh—”
“And yet this land is habitable, compared to the rest of the world, Your Grace,” said Edmund, his gaze on the storm-ridden clouds shrouding the city. “Do you think we fled the moment life grew difficult for us? We fled only when it grew impossible! There comes a point when not even the most powerful rune-magic will sustain life in a realm where there is no warmth, where the water itself turns hard as rock, and perpetual darkness falls over the land.”
“And every cycle that passes,” Jera said softly, “the magma sea on which we sail shrinks a little more, the temperature in the city drops a fraction of a degree. And we are near its core! So my father has determined.”
“Is that true?” the prince asked, troubled.
“My dear, you shouldn’t be saying such things,” Jonathan whispered nervously.
“My husband’s right. According to the edicts, it’s treason to even think such thoughts. But, yes, Your Highness, I do speak the truth! Myself and others like me and my father will continue to speak the truth, although some don’t want to hear it!” Jera lifted her chin proudly. “My father studies scientific subjects, physical laws and properties, matters that are looked down on as being beneath our people’s notice. He could have become a necromancer, but he refused, saying that it was time the people of this world focused their attention on the living, not the dead.”
Edmund appeared to find this statement somewhat radical. “I agree with that view to a certain extent, but without our dead, how could we living survive? We would be forced to use our magic to perform menial tasks, instead of conserving it for our maintenance.”
“If we allowed the dead to die and if we built and used machines, such as the ones powering this ship, and if we worked and studied and learned more about the resources of our world, it is my father’s belief that we would not only survive but prosper. Perhaps we might even learn ways to bring life back to regions such as your own, Your Highness.”
“My dear, is this wise, talking like this in front of strangers?” Jonathan murmured, his cheeks pale.
“Far better to talk like this in front of strangers than those who call themselves our friends!” Jera answered bitterly. “The time is long past, says my father, when we should cease to wait for those from other worlds to come and ‘rescue’ us. It is time we rescued ourselves.”
Her gaze flicked, as if by accident, to the two strangers. Haplo kept his eyes firmly fixed on the woman, his expression impassive. He dared not risk a glance at the Sartan, but he knew without looking that Alfred would look as guilty as if the words Yes, I Come from Another World were written across his forehead.
“And, yet, you, Your Grace, became a necromancer,” Edmund observed, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“Yes, I did,” Jera said, sadly. “It was necessary. We are caught in a circle that is like a snake, who can maintain its life only by feeding off its own tail. A necromancer is essential to the running of any household. Most especially to ours, since we have been banished to the Old Provinces.”
“What are those?” Edmund asked, glad to change the subject, steer it away from talk he obviously considered dangerous, perhaps blasphemous.
“You will see. We must pass through them on our way to the city.”
“Perhaps you, Your Highness, and you, gentle
men, would be interested in observing how the ship operates?” Jonathan offered, anxious to end this conversation. “You’ll find it really quite amusing and entertaining.”
Haplo agreed readily, any type of knowledge about this world was essential to him. Edmund agreed, perhaps secretly thinking that ships like these would carry his people to Death’s Gate. Alfred went along simply, Haplo thought uncharitably, so that the inept Sartan might have the opportunity of falling headfirst down a flight of iron steps into the ship’s hot, dark belly.
The ship was operated by a crew of cadavers, better kept than the army, who had performed their tasks in life and so continued to perform them in death. Haplo explored the mysteries of something called a “boiler” and marveled politely at another essential piece of equipment known as a “paddle wheel,” its iron heated red-hot, that churned through the magma, pushing the dragonship along from behind.
The mechanics reminded the Patryn forcibly of the great Kicksey-winsey, the wondrous machine built by the Sartan and now run by the Gegs of Arianus; the wondrous machine whose purpose no one had understood until the child, Bane, figured it out.
The time is long past when we should cease to wait for those from other worlds to come and “rescue” us.
Haplo, ascending back on deck, thankful to leave the terrible heat and oppressive darkness below, recalled Jera’s words. The Patryn couldn’t help grinning. What sweet irony. The one who had come to “rescue” these Sartan was their ancient enemy. How his lord would laugh!
The iron ship sailed into a harbor, far larger and much busier than the one they had just left. Ships plied the magma sea both above and below where they docked. The thriving New Provinces, Jonathan pointed out, were located near the shores of the Fire Sea, close enough to benefit from the heat, yet far enough not to suffer from it.
Once off the ship, the duke and duchess turned the captaincy of their army over to another necromancer, who shook his head at the sight of the cadavers and marched them off to effect what repairs he could.
Thankful to be rid of their charges, Jera and her husband gave their guests a brief tour of the dockyard. Haplo had the impression that, for all Jera’s gloomy talk, Necropolis—to judge by the goods piled up on the docks or being loaded onto ships by teams of cadavers—was a thriving and wealthy community.
They left the pier, heading for the main highway into the city. But, before they reached it, Jera brought the party to a halt, pointed back at the shoreline of the fiery ocean.
“Look, there,” she said, her hand extended. “See those three rocks, standing one on top of the other. I placed them in that position before we left. And when I placed them there, the magma sea reached to their base.”
The ocedri was not at the base any longer. Haplo could have set his hand down in the breadth of empty shoreline left between rock and sea.
“Already, in this short span of time,” said Jera, “the magma has receded that far. What will happen to this world, to us, when it has cooled completely?”
CHAPTER 20
NEW PROVINCE HIGHWAY, ABARRACH
AN OPEN-AIR CARRIAGE awaited the duke, duchess, and their guests. The vehicle was constructed of the same grasslike substance, woven together and covered with a high-gloss finish painted in glowing colors, Haplo had noted in the village.
“A much different material from that used to build your ship,” said Jera, climbing into the carriage and seating herself beside Haplo.
The Patryn kept silent, but Alfred tumbled into the trap with his usual grace. “Wood, you mean? Yes, wood is quite common in ... er ... well ...” He realized his error, stammered, but it was too late.
Haplo saw, in the Sartan’s enthusiastic words, visions of the trees of Arianus, lifting their green and leafy bows to the sun-drenched blue skies of that distant world.
The Patryn’s first impulse was to grab Alfred by his frayed coat collar and shake him. By their expressions, Jera and Jonathan had seen the same visions and were staring at Alfred in undisguised wonder. Bad enough these Sartan knew or guessed they came from a world different from their own. Did Alfred have to show them how much different?
Alfred was climbing into the carriage, still talking, trying to cover his mistake by babbling, and succeeding in doing further damage. Haplo insinuated his booted foot between Alfred’s ankles, sent him sprawling headlong across Jera’s lap.
The dog, excited by the confusion, decided to add its own and began barking frantically at the beast drawing the carriage—a large fur-bearing creature as long as it was wide with two small beady black eyes and three horns on its massive head. For all its girth, the beast could move swiftly, it whipped out a clawed paw at the pesky dog. The dog leapt nimbly to one side, danced a few paces out of reach, darted forward to nip at the back legs.
“Whoa, pauka! Stop! Get back there!”
The carriage driver—a well-kept cadaver—slashed at the dog with a whip, at the same time struggling to maintain a grip on the reins. The pauka attempted to swing round its head to get a good view (and mouthful) of its antagonist. Those in the carriage were jounced and jostled, the carriage itself seemed likely to tip over, and all thoughts of another world fled in their concern over remaining in this one.
Haplo jumped out. Collaring the dog, he dragged the animal away from the fray. Jonathan and Edmund ran to the head of the pauka, as Haplo learned it was called from certain maledictory phrases being hurled at it by the dead coachman.
“Mind the snout horn!” Jonathan called anxiously to the prince.
“I’ve dealt with these before,” Edmund said coolly, and grabbing a handful of fur, he pulled himself up deftly onto the pauka’s broad back. Sitting astride the plunging, frantic beast, the prince caught hold of the curved part of the sharp horn located just behind the snout. Giving it a swift, strong tug, he jerked the pauka’s head back.
The pauka’s beady eyes opened wide. It gave its head a shake that nearly threw the prince. Edmund clung firmly to the horn, jerked it back a second time. Leaning down, he said a few soothing words and patted the beast on the neck. The pauka paused to consider the matter, cast a baleful glance back at the grinning dog. The prince said something else. The pauka appeared to agree and, with an air of offended dignity, settled stolidly back into the harness.
Jonathan sighed in relief and hastened to the carriage to see if any of the passengers had come to harm. The prince slid off the pauka’s back, patted it on the neck. The cadaver retrieved its dropped reins. Alfred was extracted from Jera’s lap, from which he emerged extremely red in the face and profuse in his apologies. A small crowd of dockside necromancers, who had gathered around to watch, drifted back to their work, which involved keeping the laboring cadavers at theirs. Everyone climbed aboard the carriage. It rolled off, on iron wheels, the dog trotting along behind, tongue lolling and eyes bright over the remembrance of the fun.
Not a word more was said about wood, but Haplo noted that, during the ride, Jera would glance at him, her lips curving in a smile.
“What lush and fertile land you have!” said Edmund, gazing about him with undisguised envy.
“These are the New Provinces, Your Highness,” said Jonathan.
“Land left behind with the falling of the Fire Sea,” added the duchess. “Oh, it is prosperous now. But its very prosperity spells our doom.”
“We grow mostly kairn grass here,” the duke continued with almost desperate cheerfulness. He was aware of the prince’s discomfort and cast a pleading glance at his wife, begging her to refrain from bringing up unpleasant subjects.
Jera, with another glance through lowered lids at Haplo, clasped her husband’s hand in her own in silent apology. From then on she went out of her way to be charming. Haplo, leaning back in the carriage, watched the change of expression on the mobile face, the flash of wit in the eyes, and thought that only once before in his life had he ever met a woman to equal this one. Intelligent, subtle, quick to think and to act, yet not one to act or speak rashly, she would have ma
de a man a good partner in the Labyrinth. It was extremely unfortunate that she was bonded to another.
What was he thinking? A Sartan woman! Once again, in his mind, he saw the motionless figures resting peacefully in the crystal tombs of the mausoleum. Alfred did this to me. It’s all the Sartan’s fault. Somehow, he’s playing tricks on my mind. The Patryn cast the Sartan a sharp glance. If I catch him at it, he’ll die. I don’t need him anymore.
But Alfred was hunched miserably in the corner of the carriage, unable to so much as look at the duchess without a wave of blushes sweeping over his bald head. The man appeared incapable of dressing himself without help, yet Haplo didn’t trust him. Looking up, feeling eyes on him, he caught Jera, looking back as if she were reading every thought in his mind. Haplo affected to be intensely interested in the conversation going on around him.
“You grow primarily kairn grass here?” Edmund was asking.
Haplo stared at the tall, golden stands of grass undulating in the hot vectors blowing from the magma sea. Cadavers, new dead by the looks of them, worked in the fields, busily cutting the grass with curved sickles, stacking it in bundles that other cadavers pitched onto trundling carts.
“The plant is extremely versatile,” Jera said. “It’s flame resistant, thrives on heat, drawing its nutrients from the soil. We use its fibers in almost everything, from this carriage to the clothes we wear to a kind of tea we brew.”
She was, Haplo realized, speaking to people from another world, a people who wouldn’t know kairn grass from paukas. Yet all the while she was talking directly to the prince, who—probably having grown up eating, sleeping, and breathing kairn grass—appeared slightly amazed at being thus edified, but was too polite to say anything.
Death Gate Cycle 3 - Fire Sea Page 17
