Haplo nodded. “I’ll go up first,” he said as softly as he could and still make himself heard above the roar of the machine.
The guide Gegs protested. This was their adventure, they were leading, they should get to go up first.
“There might be guards of the high froman up there,” said Haplo. “Or this so-called god might be dangerous.”
The Gegs looked at each other, looked at Haplo, and backed away from the ladder. There was no further discussion.
“But I want to see them!” protested Limbeck, who was beginning to feel they’d come all this way for nothing.
“Shhh!” remonstrated Haplo. “You will. I’m just going up to … scout around. Reconnoiter. I’ll come back and get you when it is safe.”
“He’s right, Limbeck, so be quiet,” scolded Jarre. “You’ll have your chance soon enough. It would never do for the high froman to arrest us before tonight’s rally!”
Cautioning the need for quiet—at which all the Gegs stared at him as if he were absolutely insane—Haplo turned to the ladder.
“What should we do with the dog?” asked Jarre. “He can’t climb the ladder, and you can’t carry him.”
Haplo shrugged, unconcerned. “He’ll be all right, won’t you, dog?” Leaning down, he patted the animal on the head. “You stay, dog, all right? Stay.”
The dog, mouth open and tongue lolling, plopped itself down on the floor and, ears cocked, looked around with interest.
Haplo began his ascent, climbing the ladder slowly and carefully, allowing his eyes time to adjust to the increasing darkness as he moved out of the bright light of the glimmerglamps. The climb was not long. Soon he was able to see pinpoints of the glimmerglamp light below him, reflecting off a metal surface above.
Reaching the plate, he put his hand on it and cautiously and gently pushed. It gave way smoothly and easily and, he was thankful to note, quietly. Not that he was anticipating trouble. He wanted this chance to observe these “gods” without them observing him. Thinking regretfully that, in the old days, the threat—or the promise—of danger would have caused the dwarves to clamor up the ladders in droves, Haplo cursed the Sartan beneath his breath, silently lifted the plate, and peered out.
The glimmerglamps lit the Factree brighter than a Geg day.
Haplo could see clearly and he was pleased to note his guides had judged correctly. Directly in his line of vision stood a tall statue of a robed and hooded figure. Lounging around the statue were three people. They were human—two men and a child. That much Haplo could tell at a glance. But the Sartan were also of human derivation.
He inspected each one closely, though he was forced to admit to himself that he would not be able to tell, simply by looking, if these humans were Sartan or not. One man sat beneath the statue, in its shadow. Clad in plain clothing, he appeared to be of middle age, with thinning, receding hair that emphasized a domed, protruding forehead, and a lined, careworn face. This man shifted restlessly, his gaze going worriedly to the child, and when he did so, Haplo saw that his movements, particularly of his hands and feet, were ungainly and awkward.
By sharp contrast, the other adult human male present was one Haplo might have mistaken for a fellow survivor of the Labyrinth. Lithe, well-muscled, there was an alert watchfulness about the man that—though he was lying relaxed, stretched out on the floor, smoking a pipe—indicated he kept instinctive, watchful vigil. The face, with its dark, deep crevices and twisted black beard, reflected a soul of cold, hard iron.
The kid was a kid, nothing more, unless you counted a remarkable beauty. An odd trio. What brought them together? What brought them here?
Down below, one of the overly excited Gegs forgot the injunction to maintain silence and shouted in what he apparently thought was a whisper to ask if Haplo could see anything.
The man with the twisted beard reacted instantly, his body coiling swiftly to a standing position, his black eyes darting to the shadows, his hand closing over the hilt of a sword. Beneath him, Haplo heard a resounding smack and knew that Jarre had effectively punished the offender.
“What is it, Hugh?” asked the man sitting in the shadow of the statue. The voice spoke human and it quavered with nervousness.
The man addressed as Hugh put his fingers to his lips and crept several steps in the direction of Haplo. He did not look down or he must have seen the plate, but was staring into the shadows.
“I thought I heard something.”
“I don’t know how you can hear anything over that racket that damn machine’s making,” stated the child. The boy was eating bread and staring up at the statue.
“Do not use such language, Your Highness,” rebuked the nervous man. He had risen to his feet and seemed to have some idea of joining this Hugh in his search, but he tripped and only saved himself from a headlong fall by bracing himself against the statue. “Do you see anything, sir?”
The Gegs, undoubtedly under threat of bodily harm from Jarre, actually managed to keep quiet. Haplo froze, hardly daring to breathe, watching and listening intently.
“No,” said Hugh. “Sit down, Alfred, before you kill yourself.”
“It probably was the machine,” said Alfred, looking as though he wanted very much to convince himself.
The boy, bored, tossed his bread to the floor and walked over to stand directly in front of the statue of the Manger. He reached out to touch it.
“Don’t!” Alfred cried in alarm.
The child, jumping, snatched his hand back.
“You frightened me!” he said accusingly.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness. Just … move away from the statue”
“Why? Will it hurt me?”
“No, Your Highness. It’s just that the statue of the Manger is … well, sacred to the Gegs. They wouldn’t like you bothering it.”
“Pooh!” said the child, glancing around the Factree. “They’re all gone anyway. Besides, it seems like he wants to shake hands or something.” The boy giggled. “The way he has his hand stuck out like that. He wants me to take it—”
“No! Your Highness!” But the stumble-footed man was too late to prevent the boy reaching out and grasping hold of the Manger’s mechanical hand. To the child’s delight, the eyeball flickered with a bright light.
“Look!” Bane shoved aside Alfred’s frantic grasping hand. “Don’t stop it! It’s showing pictures! I want to see!”
“Your Highness, I must insist! I know I heard something! The Gegs—”
“I think we could handle the Gegs,” said Hugh, coming over to look at the pictures. “Don’t stop it, Alfred. I want to see what it’s showing.”
Taking advantage of the trio’s preoccupation and feeling an intense interest in this statue himself, Haplo crept up out of the hole.
“Look, it’s a map!” cried the child, much excited.
The three were intent on the eyeball. Haplo, coming up silently behind, recognized the images flitting across the eye’s surface as a map of the Realm of the Sky, a map remarkably like one his lord had discovered in the Halls of the Sartan in the Nexus. At the very top were the isles known as Lords of Night. Beneath them the firmament, and near them floated the isle of the High Realm. Then came the Mid Realm. Further down were the Maelstrom and the land of the Gegs.
Most remarkable, the map moved! The isles drifted around in their oblique orbits, the storm clouds swirled, the sun was periodically hidden by the Lords of Night.
Then, suddenly, the images changed. The isles and continents ceased to orbit at random and all lined up neatly in a row—each realm positioning itself directly beneath the one above. Then the segment flickered, faltered, and went out.
The man known as Hugh was not impressed.
“A magic lantern. I’ve seen them in the elven kingdom.”
“But what does it mean?” asked the boy, staring, fascinated. “Why does everything go around, then stop?”
Haplo was asking himself the same question. He had seen a magic lantern before. He ha
d something similar to it on his ship, projecting images of the Nexus, only it had been devised by his lord and was much more sophisticated. It seemed to Haplo that there might be more pictures than what they were seeing, for the images stopped with an abrupt jerk in what looked to be mid-frame.
There came a low whirring sound and, suddenly, the pictures started over again. Alfred, whom Haplo took to be some sort of servant, started to reach out and grab the statue’s hand, probably with the design of stopping the pictures.
“Please don’t do that,” said Haplo in his quiet voice.
Hugh whirled, sword drawn, and faced the intruder with an agility and skill that Haplo inwardly applauded. The nervous man crumpled to the floor, and the boy, turning, stared at the Patryn with blue eyes that were not frightened so much as shrewdly curious.
Haplo stood with his hands up, palms outward. “I’m not armed,” he said to Hugh. The Patryn wasn’t the least afraid of the man’s sword. There were no weapons in this world that could harm him, guarded as he was by the runes upon his body, but he must avoid the fight, for by that very act of protecting himself he would reveal to knowing eyes who and what he truly was. “I don’t mean anyone any harm.” He smiled and shrugged, keeping his hands in the air and plainly visible. “I’m like the boy, here. I only want to see the pictures.”
Of all of them, it was the child who intrigued Haplo. The cowardly servant, lying in a pathetic heap on the floor, did not merit his interest. The man he assumed to be a bodyguard he could dismiss now that he had noted his strength and agility. But when Haplo looked at the child, he felt a stinging sensation of the runes upon his chest and knew by that sensation that some sort of enchantment was being cast at him. His own magic was instinctively acting to repel it, but Haplo was amused to note that whatever spell the child was casting wouldn’t have worked anyway. His magic—whatever its source—had been disrupted.
“Where did you come from? Who are you?” demanded Hugh.
“My name is Haplo. My friends, the Gegs”—he gestured to the hole out of which he’d come. Hearing a commotion behind him, he assumed that the ever-curious Limbeck was following—“and I heard of your coming and decided that we should meet and talk to you in private, if that’s possible. Are the high froman’s guards around?”
Hugh lowered the sword slightly, though his dark eyes continued to follow Haplo’s every move. “No, they left. But we’re probably being watched,”
“No doubt. Then we haven’t much time before someone returns.”
Limbeck, puffing and panting from his scramble up the ladder, trotted up behind Haplo. The Geg glanced askance at Hugh’s sword, but his curiosity was stronger than his fear.
“Are you Mangers?” he asked, his gaze going from Haplo to the boy.
Haplo, watching Limbeck closely, saw an awed expression smooth out his face. The Geg’s myopic eyes, magnified behind the spectacles, grew wide. “You are a god, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” answered the child, speaking Geg. “I am a god.”
“Do these speak human?” asked Hugh, pointing to Limbeck, Jarre, and the other two Gegs, who were cautiously poking their heads up out of the hole.
Haplo shook his head.
“Then I can tell you the truth,” said Hugh. “The kid’s no more a god than you are.” To judge by the expression in Hugh’s dark eyes, he had apparently reached the same decision about Haplo that Haplo had reached about Hugh. He was wary, cautious, suspicious still, but crowded inns force people to sleep with odd bedfellows or spend the night out in the cold. “Our ship got caught in the Maelstrom and crashed on Drevlin, not far from here. The Gegs found us and thought we were gods, and we had to play along.”
“Like me,” said Haplo, nodding. He glanced down at the servant, who had opened his eyes and was staring around him with a bemused look. “Who’s that?”
“The kid’s chamberlain. I’m called Hugh the Hand. That’s Alfred, and the kid’s name is Bane, son of King Stephen of Volkaran and Uylandia.”
Haplo turned to Limbeck and Jarre—who was staring at the three with deep suspicion—and made introductions. Alfred staggered to his feet and gazed at Haplo with a curiosity that deepened when he saw the man’s wrapped hands.
Haplo, becoming aware of Alfred’s stare, self-consciously tugged at the cloth.
“Are you injured, sir?” questioned the servant in respectful tones. “Forgive me for asking, but I notice the bandages you wear. I am somewhat skilled in healing—”
“Thank you, no. I’m not wounded. It’s a skin disease, common to my people. It’s not contagious and it doesn’t cause me any pain, but the pustules it creates aren’t pleasant to look at.”
Disgust twisted Hugh’s features. Alfred’s face paled slightly, and it was a struggle for the servant to express the proper sympathy. Haplo watched with inward satisfaction and did not believe he would encounter any further questions about his hands.
Hugh sheathed his sword and drew near. “Your ship crashed?” he asked Haplo in low tones.
“Yes.”
“Destroyed?”
“Completely.”
“Where are you from?”
“Down below, on one of the lower isles. You’ve probably never heard of it. Not many have. I was fighting a battle in my own lands when my ship was hit and I lost control—”
Hugh walked toward the statue. Apparently deeply engrossed in the conversation, Haplo joined him, but managed to cast a casual glance back at the servant. Alfred’s skin was a deathly hue, his eyes still staring intently at the Patryn’s hands, as if the man wished desperately his look could pierce through the cloth.
“You’re stranded down here, then?” asked Hugh. Haplo nodded.
“And you want …” Hugh hesitated, certain, perhaps, that he knew the answer but wanting the other to say it.
“… to get out.” Haplo was emphatic.
Now it was Hugh who nodded. The two men understood each other completely. There was no trust between them, but that wasn’t necessary, not as long as each was able to use the other to achieve a common goal. Bedfellows, it seemed, who wouldn’t fight over the blankets. They continued to converse in low tones, considering their problem.
Alfred stood staring at the man’s hands. Bane, frowning, gazed after Haplo; the boy’s fingers stroked the feather amulet. His thoughts were interrupted by the Geg.
“You’re not a god, then?” Drawn by an irresistible force, Limbeck had moved nearer to talk to the child.
“No,” answered Bane, wrenching his gaze from Haplo. Turning to the Geg, the prince carefully and quickly smoothed his dour expression. “I’m not, but they told me to tell that man, your king, that I was so that he wouldn’t hurt us.”
“Hurt you?” Limbeck appeared amazed. The concept was beyond him.
“I’m really a prince of the High Realm,” continued the child. “My father is a powerful wizard. We were going to see him when our ship crashed.”
“I’d dearly love to see the High Realm!” exclaimed Limbeck. “What’s it like?”
“I’m not sure. You see, I’ve never been there before. I’ve lived all my life in the Mid Realm with my adopted father. It’s a long story.”
“I’ve never been to the Mid Realm either. But I’ve seen pictures of it in a book I found in a Welf ship. I’ll tell you how I found it.” Limbeck began to recite his favorite tale—that of stumbling across the elven vessel.
Bane, fidgeting, craned his head to look back at Haplo and Hugh, standing together before the statue of the Manger. Alfred was muttering to himself. None of them was paying any attention to Jarre.
She didn’t like this, any of it. She didn’t like the two tall, strong gods putting their heads together and talking in a language she couldn’t understand. She didn’t like the way Limbeck was looking at the child-god, she didn’t like the way the child-god was looking at anyone. She didn’t even like the way the tall, gawky god had tumbled down onto the floor. Jarre had the feeling that, like poor relatives coming t
o visit, these gods were going to devour all the food and, when that was gone, leave the Gegs with nothing but an empty cupboard.
Jarre slipped over to where the two Gegs were standing nervously beside the hole.
“Bring up everybody,” she said in as soft a voice as is possible for a Geg. “The high froman’s tried to fool us with sham gods. We’re going to capture them and take them before the people and prove that the high froman is a fraud!”
The Gegs looked at the so-called gods, then at each other. These gods didn’t appear very impressive. Tall, maybe, but skinny. One of them carried a formidable-looking weapon. If he were mobbed, he wouldn’t get a chance to use it. Haplo had mourned the extinction of Geg courage. It hadn’t completely died out. It had just been buried under centuries of submission and toil. Now the coals had been stirred up. Here and there, flames were flickering.
The excited Gegs backed down the ladder. Jarre leaned over and looked down after them. Her square face, dimly illuminated by the glimmerglamps, was awesome, almost ethereal, when viewed from below. More than one Geg had a sudden image of ancient days when the clan priestesses would have summoned them to war.
Noisily, but in the disciplined manner the Gegs had learned serving the great machine, they clambered up the ladder. What with the whumping and the thumping going on all around, no one heard them.
Forgotten in the confusion, Haplo’s dog lay at the foot of the ladder. Nose on paws, it watched and listened and seemed to ponder whether its master had really been serious about that word “stay.”
CHAPTER 35
WOMBE, DREVLIN,
LOW REALM
HAPLO HEARD A WHINE, FELT A PAWING AT HIS LEG. HE TURNED HIS attention from examining the Manger pictures to look down at his feet.
“What is it, boy? I thought I told you to … Oh.” The Patryn glanced over and saw the Gegs streaming up out of the hole. The Hand, hearing a sound at his back, looked in the opposite direction—toward the main entrance of the Factree.
“Company,” said Hugh. “The high froman and his guards.”
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