It occurs to me that I have forgotten to mention that Haplo had been asking those very questions of us that day.
“Grundle, you are mean-spirited and ungrateful!” Alake cried, and burst into tears.
I hadn't meant to make her cry. I felt about as low as a dragon-snake's belly. Going over to her, I patted her hand.
“I'm sorry,” I said awkwardly.
“I asked him why he wanted to know such things,” Alake continued, between sobs, “and he said that we should always be prepared for the worst and though this new homeland might look like a perfect place, it might be dangerous …” She stopped to wipe her nose.
I said I understood, which I did. What Haplo said made sense. What he said always made sense. And that made this nagging, rotten feeling of distrust and suspicion inside me all the harder to bear. I apologized again, and teased Alake until she cheered up and dried her eyes.
But dwarves are always truthful, and I couldn't help but tell her, “The only reason I said those things is that… well… it's just that… Haplo doesn't love you, Alake.”
I cringed, waiting for another storm. To my surprise, however, Alake was quite calm. She even smiled, sadly, but it was a smile.
“Oh, I know that, Grundle. How could I expect him to love me? He must have thousands of women longing for him.”
I thought I should encourage this line of thinking.
“Yes, and maybe he's got a wife somewhere—”
“He doesn't,” Alake said quickly, too quickly. She looked down at her hands. “I asked him. He said he'd never found the right one, yet. I'd love to be the right one for him, Grundle. But I know I'm not worthy now. Perhaps someday I will be, if I keep trying.”
She looked up at me, her eyes shining with her tears, and she was so lovely and seemed older and more mature than I'd ever known her and she glowed with a kind of inner light.
I said, then and there, that if love could do that for her then it must not be bad, no matter what happened. Besides, maybe when we reach home, Haplo will leave, go back to wherever it is he came from. After all, what could he possibly want with us? But I kept this thought to myself.
We hugged each other and had a good cry and I didn't say anything else awful about Haplo. Devon heard us and came in and Alake broke down and told him and he said he thought love was the most wonderful, beautiful thing in the whole world and we talked about Sabia and then they both made me confess that I wasn't a stranger to love myself and I broke down and told them about Hartmut and we all laughed and all cried and couldn't wait to get home.
Which made what happened when we got there all the more terrible.
I've been putting off writing this. I wasn't certain I could do it, for one thing. It makes me so terribly sad. But I've told everything and I can't very well go on with this story and leave out the most important part.
Being saved from the dragons and returning safely to our homelands would constitute a happy ending in most tavern tales I've heard. But the ending wasn't happy. And I have a feeling it isn't the end, yet, either.
The moment our submersible left the dragon-snakes' lair, we were besieged by—what else—a bunch of pesky dolphins. They wanted to know everything, all about what had happened, how we'd escaped. We'd barely told them before they swam off, eager to be the first to spread the news. There never was a more gossip-loving fish.
At least our parents would hear the good news and have time to recover from their initial shock at learning we were still alive and well. We started arguing among ourselves, trying to decide which of us got to go home first, but that was soon settled. The dolphins returned with a message saying that we were to meet our parents together on Elmas, the elven seamoon.
This suited us fine. To be honest, we were a bit nervous, now, as to our parents' reaction. We knew they'd be happy to have us back again, but after the kisses and tears we figured we could expect a severe scolding, if not worse. We had, after all, disobeyed their orders and run off without thinking of the suffering and misery we'd cause.
We even went so far as to mention this to Haplo, hinting that he would do us another great service if he would stay with us and smooth things over with our mothers and fathers.
He only grinned and said he'd protected us from the dragon-snakes, but when it came to parental wrath, we were on our own.
But we weren't thinking about stern lectures and punishment when the submersible landed and the hatch opened and we saw our parents standing there, waiting for us. My father took me in his arms and held me close and I saw, for the first time in my life, tears in his eyes. I would have listened to the sternest lecture, then and there, and loved every word.
We introduced them to Haplo. (The dolphins had, of course, already told our parents how he had saved us.) Our parents were grateful, but it was obvious that all of them were a little overawed by the man and his blue-marked skin and his air of quiet self-assurance. They managed to get out only a few, broken words of gratitude, which he accepted with a smile and a shrug, saying that we'd rescued him from the sea and that he'd been happy to return the favor. He said nothing more, and our parents were glad to turn back to us.
For a while, it was all embraces and words of affection. Devon's parents were there, waiting for their son. They were as glad to have him back as any of the other parents, but I saw, when I was in shape to see anything, that they still seemed sad, when they should have been overjoyed. The elven king was there, too, to welcome Devon, but Sabia wasn't.
Then I noticed, for the first time, that her father was dressed in white—the elven color of mourning. I saw ail the elves around us—and there were many, waiting to welcome us—were clad in white, something that happened only when one of the royal family has died.
A chill constricted my heart. I looked at my father with what must have been a wild and terror-stricken expression, because he only shook his head and put his finger to my lips, to silence my questions.
Alake had been asking for Sabia. Her eyes met mine, and they were wide with fear. We both looked at Devon. Blind with joy, his vision clouded by rainbows, he hadn't seen a thing. He broke free of his parents' embrace (was it my imagination or were they trying to hold him back?) and went to the elven king.
“Where is Sabia, Sire?” Devon asked. “Is she mad at me for striking her? I'll make it up to her, I promise! Tell her to come out…”
The One lifted the clouds from his eyes. He saw the white clothing, saw the elven king's face scarred and ravaged by grief, saw the petals of white flowers that had been scattered over the Goodsea.
“Sabia!” Devon shouted, and he started to run toward the coral castle that stood shimmering behind us.
Eliason caught hold of him.
Devon struggled violently, then he collapsed in the man's arms. “No!” he cried, sobbing. “No! I never meant… I wanted to save her …”
“I know, my son, I know,” Eliason said, stroking Devon's hair, soothing him as he might have soothed a child of his own. “It wasn't your fault. Your intentions were the best, the noblest. Sabia”—he could not speak her name without a catch in his throat, but he mastered himself—“Sabia is with the One. She is at peace. We must take comfort in that. And now, I think it is time for the families to be alone together.”
Eliason took charge of Haplo with the gracious dignity and politeness that is characteristic of the elves, no matter what personal sorrows afflict them. Unhappy king. How he must have longed to be alone with his child!
Once we were inside, in a new part of the castle that had grown during our absence, my mother explained to me what had happened.
“The moment she woke up, Sabia knew what Devon had done. She knew he had sacrificed his own life for her and that his death would be a terrible one. From then on,” my mother said, wiping her eyes on the hem of her sleeve, “the poor girl lost all interest in living. She refused to eat, refused to leave her bed. She drank water only when her father sat beside her and held the glass to her lips. She wouldn't talk to anyone
, but lay for hours, staring out her window. When she slept at all, her sleep was broken by horrible dreams. They said her cries could be heard throughout the castle.
“And then one day, she seemed to be better. She got up out of bed, dressed herself in the dress she'd been wearing when you three were last together, and went about the castle singing. Her songs were sad and strange and no one liked to hear them, but they hoped this meant she was well again. Alas, it meant quite the opposite.
“That night, she asked her duenna to fetch her something to eat. The woman, thrilled that Sabia was hungry, hurried off, unsuspecting. When she returned, Sabia was gone. Frightened, the duenna woke the king. They searched.”
My mother shook her head, unable to continue for her tears. Finally, she had recourse to the sleeve again, and went on.
“They found her body on the terrace where we met that day, the terrace where you overheard us talking. She'd thrown herself out a window. She was lying on almost the very same place where the elf messenger died.”
Fm going to have to end this for now. I can't go on without crying.
The One guards your sleep now, Sabia. Your terrible dreams are at an end.
1Living space is a problem for dwarves on the seamoons. Since dwarves prefer to dwell below ground level, they build their homes in tunnels beneath the seamoon's landmass. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the inner core of the moon is, in reality, a living being, the dwarves found themselves unable to go beyond a certain point. The dwarves don't know the moon is alive; they struck a protective mass through which they could not penetrate.
2A reference to the elven practice of hiding bad-tasting medicine in sugared rose petals.
THE LIBRARY OF THE SARTAN HAUNTED ALFRED, PURSUED him like the specter in some old wives' tale. It reached out its cold hand to touch him and wake him in the night, crooking a beckoning finger, tried to draw him to his doom.
“Nonsense!” he would say to himself and, turning over, would attempt to banish the ghost by burying it in slumber.
This worked for the night, but the shade did not disappear with morning's light. Alfred sat at breakfast, pretending to eat, when in reality all he could think about was Ramu examining that one compartment. What was in it that was so closely guarded?
“Curiosity. Nothing more than curiosity.” Alfred scolded himself. “Samah is right. I've lived around the mensch far too long. I'm like that girl in the ghost stories Bane's nurse used to tell him. may go into any room in the castle except the locked room at the top of the stairs.' And is the fool girl satisfied with all the other one hundred and twenty-four rooms in the castle? No, she can't eat or sleep or have any peace at all until she's broken into the room at the top of the stairs.
“That's all I'm doing to myself. The room at the top of the stairs. I'll stay away from it. I won't think about it. I'll be satisfied with the other rooms, rooms that are filled with so much wealth. And I will be happy. I will be happy.”
But he wasn't. He grew more unhappy with each day that passed.
He attempted to keep his restlessness hidden from his host and hostess and succeeded, or so Alfred fondly imagined. Samah watched him with the attentiveness of a Geg watching a leaky steam valve on the Kicksey-winsey, wondering when it's going to erupt. Intimidated by Samah's awe-inspiring and daunting presence, humbled by the fact that he knew he'd been in the wrong, Alfred was cringing and subdued in the Councillor's presence, barely able to lift his eyes to Samah's stern and implacable face.
When Samah was gone from home, however—and he was gone a great deal of the time on Council business— Alfred relaxed. Orla was generally on hand to keep him company, and the haunting spirit was not nearly as bothersome when he was with Orla as it was during the infrequent times when he was on his own. It never occurred to Alfred to wonder that he was rarely left alone anymore or to think it odd that Orla herself wasn't involved in Council business. He knew only that she was sweet to devote so much time to him—a thought that made him feel all the more wretched on the occasions when the ghost of the library reappeared.
Alfred and Orla were seated on her terrace, Orla busying herself by softly singing protective runes on the fabric of one of Samah's robes. Chanting the words, she traced the patterns with her deft fingers on the cloth, putting her love and concern for her husband into each sigil that sprang up at her command.
Alfred watched sadly. Never in his life had a woman sung the protective runes for him. One never would now. Or, at least, not the one he wanted. He was suddenly wildly and insanely jealous of Samah. Alfred didn't like the way the Councillor treated his wife—so cold and unresponsive. He knew Orla was hurt by it, he'd witnessed her silent suffering. No, Samah wasn't good enough for her.
And I am? he asked dolefully.
Orla glanced up at him, smiling, prepared to continue their conversation on the healthy state of her rosebushes.
Alfred, caught, was unable to hide the images of the ugly, tangled, thorny vines that were twisting around inside him— and it was painfully obvious he hadn't been meditating on the roses.
Orla's smile faded. Sighing, she laid aside her work.
“I wish you wouldn't do this to me … or to yourself.”
“I'm sorry,” said Alfred, looking and feeling wretched.
His hand went to pet the dog, who, seeing his friend's unhappiness, offered sympathy by laying its head on his knee.
“I must be an extraordinarily wicked person. I'm well aware that no Sartan should have such improper thoughts. As your husband says, I've been corrupted by being around mensch too long.”
“Perhaps it wasn't the mensch,” suggested Orla softly, with a glance at the dog.
“You mean Haplo.” Alfred stroked back the dog's ears. “Actually Patryns are very loving, almost fiercely loving. Did you know that?”
His sad gaze was on the dog and he missed Orla's look of astonishment.
“They don't think of it as such. They call love by other names: loyalty, a protective instinct to ensure the survival of their race. But it is love, a dark sort of love, but love nevertheless, and even the worst of them feels it strongly. This Lord of the Nexus—a cruel, powerful, and ambitious man—risks his own life daily to go back into the Labyrinth to aid his suffering people.”
Alfred, caught up in his emotion, forgot where he was. He stared into the dog's eyes. Liquid, brown, they drew him in, held him until nothing else seemed real to him.
“My own parents sacrificed their lives to save me, when the snogs were chasing us. They might have escaped, you see. but I was only a child and I couldn't keep up with them. And so they hid me and lured the snogs away from me. I saw my parents die. The snogs tortured them. And later, strangers took me in, raised me as their own.”
The dog's eyes grew soft, sad. “And I have loved,” Alfred heard himself saying. “She was a Runner, like myself, like my parents. She was beautiful, strong, and lean. The blue runes twined around her body that pulsed with youth and life beneath my fingers when I held her in my arms at night. We fought together, loved, laughed. Yes, there is sometimes laughter, even in the Labyrinth. Often it is bitter laughter, the jests dark and grim, but to lose laughter is to lose the will to live.
“She left me, eventually. A village of Squatters, who had offered us shelter for the night, was attacked, and she wanted to help them. It was a stupid, foolish notion. The Squatters were outnumbered. We would have only died ourselves, most likely. I told her so. She knew I was right. But she was frustrated, angry. She'd come to love those people, you see. And she was afraid of her love, because it made her feel weak and powerless and hurting inside. She was afraid of her love for me. And so she left me. She was carrying my child. I know she was, though she refused to admit it. And I never saw her again. I don't even know if she is dead, or if my child lives—”
“Stop it!”
Orla's cry startled Alfred, shocked him out of his reverie. She had risen from her seat, was backing away, staring at him in horror.
“Do
n't do this to me anymore!” She was deathly pale, struggled for breath. “I can't bear it! I keep seeing those images of yours, the wretched child, watching his parents raped, murdered, their bodies torn apart. And he can't scream, he's so afraid. I see that woman you talk about. I feel her pain, her helplessness. I know the pain of bearing a child and I think of her alone, in that terrible place. She can't scream, either, afraid that her cries will bring death to her and her baby. I can't sleep nights for thinking of them, for knowing that we … I… I am responsible!”
Orla covered her face with her hands, to blot out any more images, and began to sob. Alfred was appalled at himself, uncertain how those images—that were really Haplo's memories—got into his head.
“Sit… Good dog,” he said, shoving the animal's head (was it grinning at him?) off his knee.
Hurriedly, he approached Orla. He had some vague notion of offering her his handkerchief. But his arms appeared to have other ideas. He watched in amazement to see them steal around the woman's body, pull her close. She rested her head on his breast.
A tingling thrill shot through him. He held her, loved her with every fiber of his being. He stroked her shining hair with an awkward hand and, because he was Alfred, said something stupid.
“Orla, what knowledge is in the library of the Sartan that Samah doesn't want anyone to know about?”
She struck him, shoved him back so violently that he tripped over the dog and fell into the rosebushes. Her anger blazed in her eyes and burned in her cheeks—anger and … was it Alfred's imagination or did he see the same fear in her eyes that he'd seen in Samah's?
Without a word, Orla turned and left him, walking from her garden in hurt, offended dignity.
Alfred struggled to disentangle himself from the thorns that were pricking him painfully. The dog offered assistance. Alfred glared at it.
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