Fire Sea

by Margaret Weis

  Kleitus's eyes narrowed and Haplo thought for a moment he had gone too far. He wasn't used to having his mind probed. That fool Alfred had always been far too absorbed with his own worries to try to worm into Haplo's. I'll have to watch myself, the Patryn counseled.

  “In the interim,” the dynast said slowly, “we hope you won't mind being our guest. We regret the accommodations aren't more comfortable. We would offer you a room in the palace, but that would occasion gossip and explanations. Far better if we keep you here, safe and quiet.”

  Kleitus started to leave, paused, turned back. “Oh, by the way, that friend of yours—”

  “I don't have any friends,” Haplo said shortly. He had started to sit down, but was now forced to remain standing.

  “Indeed? I'm referring to the Sartan who saved your life. The one who destroyed the dead guard about to execute you—”

  “That was self-preservation, Your Majesty. I'm the only way he gets back home.”

  “Then it wouldn't concern you to hear that this acquaintance of yours is in collusion with our enemies and has, therefore, placed his life in jeopardy?”

  Haplo grinned, sat down on the stone seat. If you're trying to use threats against Alfred to goad me into talking, Friend, you're sadly mistaken. “It wouldn't concern me to hear that Alfred fell into the Fire Sea.”

  Kleitus slammed shut the cell door, using his hands this time, not the rune-magic. He began to walk away.

  “Oh, by the way, Your Majesty—” Haplo called, scratching at the tattoos on his arm. Two could play at this game.

  Kleitus ignored him, continued to walk away.

  “I heard something mentioned about a prophecy …” Haplo paused, let his words hang in the chill, dank air of the catacombs.

  The dynast stopped. He had drawn the cowl up over his head. The hood, turning toward Haplo, shadowed Kleitus's face. His voice, though he attempted to keep it cold and uncaring, had an edge of sharpened steel to it.

  “Well, what about it?”

  “Just curious to know what it was. I thought perhaps Your Majesty could tell me.”

  The dynast emitted a dry chuckle. “We could spend the remainder of our waking hours relating prophecies to you, Patryn, and half the slumbering hours into the bargain.”

  “There've been that many, have there?” Haplo marveled.

  “That many. And most of them worth about what you might expect—the ravings of half-crazed old men or some dried-up old virgin in a trance. Why do you ask?” The voice probed.

  So many, huh? Haplo thought. The prophecy, Jera said, and everyone knew—or seemed to know—exactly what she meant. I wonder why you don't want to tell me, you crafty dragon-spawn. Perhaps it hits a little too close to home, eh?

  “I thought perhaps one of the prophecies might refer to My Lord,” Haplo said, taking a risk.

  He didn't know exactly what he hoped to accomplish with that shot, made completely in the dark. But if he'd intended it to draw blood, apparently he missed his mark. Kleitus didn't flinch or cringe. He made no comment, but turned as if completely bored with the conversation and walked off down the narrow hallway.

  Haplo, listening closely, heard the dynast greet Pons in the same bored, casual tones. The echo of their voices gradually faded in the distance, and the Patryn was left alone with the dead for company.

  At least the dead were a quiet group … with the exception of that incessant sighing or whining or whatever noise buzzed in his ears.

  Haplo threw himself down on the stone bed to consider his conversation with the dynast, going over every word spoken and every word that hadn't been. The Patryn decided that he'd come out ahead in this first contest of wills. Kleitus wanted off this hunk of rock badly, that much was obvious. He wanted to visit other worlds, wanted to rule other worlds—that, too, was obvious.

  “If there were such a thing as a soul, as the ancients believed, this man would sell his for the chance,” Haplo remarked to the dead. “But, in lieu of his soul, he'll sell me the necromancy. With the dead fighting for him, My Lord will forge his own prophecy!”

  He looked across at the still form lying in the cell opposite. “Don't worry, Your Highness,” Haplo said quietly. “You'll have your revenge.”

  “He's lying, of course, the cunning devil,” the dynast told Pons, when the two Sartan were again alone in the library.

  “Trying to make us believe the mensch are in control of the worlds beyond! As if mensch could control anything!” “But you saw—”

  “We saw what he wanted us to see! This Haplo and his partner are spies, sent to discover our weaknesses, betray our strengths. It is this lord of his who rules. We saw the man.” Kleitus fell silent, remembering. Slowly, he nodded his head. “A power to be reckoned with, Pons. An elder wizard of extraordinary skill and discipline and will.”

  “You could tell this by viewing him in a vision, Sire?”

  “Don't be an idiot, Pons! We saw him through the eyes of his minion. This Haplo is dangerous, intelligent, skilled in his magical art, barbaric though it may be. He honors and reveres this man he calls ‘his lord’! A man as strong as this Haplo would not give his body and mind to an inferior or even an equal. This lord will be a worthy foe.”

  “But if he has worlds at his command, Sire—”

  “We have the dead, chancellor. And the art of raising the dead. He doesn't. His spy admitted it to us. He is trying to induce us to make a bargain.”

  “A bargain, Your Majesty?”

  “He would lead us to Death's Gate and we would provide him with the knowledge of necromancy.” Kleitus smiled, thin-lipped, devoid of mirth. “We allowed him to think we were considering it. And he brought up the prophecy, Pons.”

  The chancellor gaped. “He did?”

  “Oh, he pretends he knows nothing about it. He even asked us to recite it to him! I am certain he knows the truth, Pons. And do you realize what that means?”

  “I'm not sure, Sire.” The chancellor was moving warily, not wanting to appear slow of thought. “He was unconscious when the Duchess Jera mentioned it—”

  “Unconscious!” Kleitus snorted. “He was no more unconscious than we are! He is a powerful wizard, Pons. He could stroll out of that cell at this moment, if he chose. Fortunately, he believes himself to be in control of the situation.

  “No, Pons, he was shamming that entire episode. We've been studying their magic, you see.” Kleitus lifted a rune bone, held it up to the light. “And we think we're beginning to understand how it works. If those fat, complacent ancestors of ours had taken the trouble to learn more about their enemy, we might have escaped disaster. But what do they do, in their smugness? They turn their paltry knowledge into a game! Bah!” The dynast, in a rare flash of anger, swept the rune-bone pieces from the table to the floor. Rising to his feet, he began to pace.

  “The prophecy, Your Majesty?”

  “Thank you, Pons. You remind us of what is truly important. And the fact that this Haplo knows of the prophecy is of monumental significance.”

  “Forgive me, Majesty, but I fail to see—”

  “Pons!” Kleitus came to stand in front of his minister. “Think! One comes through Death's Gate who knows the prophecy. This means that the prophecy is known beyond.”

  Light shown on the benighted chancellor. “Your Majesty!”

  “This Patryn lord fears us, Pons,” Kleitus said softly, eyes gazing far away, to worlds he had seen only in his mind. “With our necromancy, we have become the most powerful Sartan who have ever lived. That is why he has sent his spies to learn our secrets, to disrupt our world. I see him, waiting for his spies to return. And he will wait in vain!”

  “Spies plural. I assume that Your Majesty refers to the other man, the Sartan who destroyed the dead. May I respectfully remind you, Sire, that this man is a Sartan. He is one of us.”

  “Is he? Destroying our dead? No, if he is a Sartan, he is one of us turned to evil. It is likely that, over the centuries, the Patryns have corrupted our
people. But not us. They will not corrupt us. We must have that Sartan. We must learn how he performed his magic”

  “As I told you before, Sire, he did not use a rune structure that I recognized—”

  “Your skills are limited, Pons. You are not a necromancer.”

  “True, Sire.” The chancellor admitted this lack quite humbly. Pons knew of and was confident in his own particular area of expertise—how to make himself indispensable to his ruler.

  “This Sartan's magic could prove to be a significant threat. We must know what he did to the corpse that ended its ‘life.’ “

  “Undoubtedly, Sire, but if he is with the earl, capturing this Sartan may prove difficult—”

  “Precisely why we will not attempt it. Nor will ‘capture’ be necessary. The duke and duchess are coming to rescue the prince, are they not?”

  “According to Tomas, their plans are moving forward.”

  “Then, this Sartan we want will come with them.”

  “To rescue the prince? Why should he?”

  “No, Pons. He will come to rescue his Patryn friend— who, by that time, will be dying.”

  CHAPTER 29

  NECROPOLIS,

  ABARRACH

  THE NEXT CYCLE, THE CONSPIRATORS PLANNED THEIR MOVE to the city, to the house of Tomas. They would have no difficulty slipping into Necropolis under the cover of the slumber hours. Only one main gate led into the city and it was guarded by the dead. But, being a network of tunnels and caves, Necropolis had any number of other entrances and exits, too numerous for guards to be posted at each, particularly because there was usually no enemy to guard against.

  “But now there is an enemy,” said Jera. “Perhaps the dynast will order all the ‘rat holes’ stopped up.”

  But Tomas was confident that the dynast would not have issued such an order; the enemy was, after all, on the other side of the Fire Sea. Jera appeared dubious, but Jonathan reminded her that their friend Tomas stood high in the dynast's regard and was extremely knowledgeable concerning His Majesty's way of thinking. At length all agreed that they would sneak into the city through the rat holes. But what were they to do with the dog?

  “We could leave him here,” suggested Jera, eyeing the animal thoughtfully.

  “I'm afraid the animal wouldn't stay,” Alfred returned.

  “He's got a point,” Jonathan said in an undertone to his wife. “The dog wouldn't even stay dead!”

  “Well, we can't let it be seen. Few in Necropolis are likely to pay any attention to us, but some zealous citizen would report a beast inside the city walls in a moment!”

  Alfred could have told them they needn't have worried. The dog could be tossed into any number of boiling hot mud pits. It could be hauled off by any number of guards, locked into any number of cages, and, as long as Haplo lived, the dog would, sooner or later, turn up again. The Sartan didn't know quite how to put this into words, however. He let the discussion continue until it became obvious that their solution was to leave both him and the dog behind.

  The old earl was in favor of this plan. “I've seen corpses dead fifty years who got around with less likelihood of falling apart!” he said to his daughter testily.

  Moments before, Alfred had nearly broken his neck tumbling down a staircase.

  “You'd be much safer here, Alfred,” added Jera. “Not that smuggling the prince out of Necropolis will be all that dangerous, but still—”

  “I'm coming,” Alfred insisted stubbornly. To his surprise, he had an ardent supporter in Tomas.

  “I agree with you, sir,” the young man said heartily. “You should definitely be one of us.” He drew Jera to one side, whispered something to her. The woman's shrewd eyes gazed at Alfred intently, much to his discomfiture.

  “Yes, perhaps you're right.”

  She had a talk with her father. Alfred listened closely, picked out a few threads of conversation.

  “Shouldn't leave him here … chance dynast's troops … remember what I told you I saw … the dead dying.”

  “Very well!” stated the old man disagreeably. “But you're not planning to take him into the palace, are you? He'd go bumbling into something and that'd be the end of us!”

  “No, no,” soothed Jera. “But what,” she added with a sigh, “do we do about the dog?”

  In the end, they decided to simply take their chances. As Tomas pointed out, they were entering the city during the slumber hours and the odds of meeting any living citizens who were likely to protest against a beast inside the city walls were slim.

  They traveled the backroads of Old Provinces, and reached Necropolis during the deepest of the slumber hours. The main highway leading into the city was deserted. The city walls stood dark and silent. The gas lamps had been dimmed. The only light was a lambent glow shining redly from the distant Fire Sea. Dismounting from the carriage, they followed Tomas to what appeared to be a hole burrowing beneath the cavern wall. All the citizenry knew about the rat holes, as they were called, and used them because they were more convenient than entering by the main gate and trying to move through the congested tunnel streets.

  “How does the dynast plan to defend these entrances against an invading army?” Jera whispered, ducking her head to walk beneath a glistening wet cavern ceiling.

  “He must be wondering that himself,” said Tomas, with a slight smile. “Perhaps that's why he's shut up in his room with his maps and military advisers.”

  “On the other hand, he may not be worried at all,” pointed out Jonathan, assisting Alfred to his feet. “Necropolis has never fallen in battle.”

  “Wet pavement,” murmured Alfred in apology, cringing at the earl's look of irritation. “Have there truly been that many wars fought among you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jonathan answered, quite cheerfully. They might have been discussing rune-bone games. “I'll tell you about them later, if you're interested. Now, we should probably keep our voices low. Which way, Tomas? I get rather muddled down here.”

  Tomas indicated a direction, and the group entered a perfect maze of dark, intersecting tunnels that had Alfred completely lost and confused in a matter of moments. Glancing around, he saw the dog, trotting along behind.

  The first streets, those nearest the wall, were empty. Narrow and dark, they wound among a confused jumble of shabby houses and small shops, built of blocks of black rock or carved out of lava formations.

  The shops were shuttered for the sleep-half, the houses dark. Many of them appeared to be deserted, abandoned, left to fall to ruin. Doors hung crazily on hinges, rags and bits of bone littered the street. The odor of decay was unusually strong here. Curious, Alfred peeped through a broken window.

  A cadaverous face loomed white in the darkness. A pair of empty, dark eye sockets stared sightlessly into the street. Alarmed, Alfred stumbled backward, nearly knocking Jonathan off his feet.

  “Steady, there!” the duke remonstrated, catching his balance and helping Alfred reestablish his. “I admit it's a depressing sight. This part of the city used to be quite nice, or so the old records tell us. In the ancient time, this area housed the working class of Necropolis: soldiers, builders, storekeepers, and the lower echelon necromancers and preservers.

  “I suppose,” he added, lowering his voice after a warning glance from his wife, “that you could say they live here still, but they're mostly all dead.”

  So depressing were these empty streets with their tomblike houses that Alfred breathed a sigh of relief to actually emerge into a larger tunnel and see people moving about. Then he remembered the danger of the dog being observed. Despite Jera's whispered assurance that everything would be all right, Alfred crept nervously along, keeping near the wall, avoiding the pools of dim light cast by the sputtering lamps. The dog followed almost at his heels, as if the animal itself understood and was willing to cooperate.

  The people in the streets passed them without a glance, not seeming to notice or care about them at all. Alfred realized, gradually, that these peopl
e were not living. The dead walked the streets of Necropolis during the slumber hours.

  Most of the cadavers moved along purposefully, obviously intent on performing some task assigned to them by the living before the living took to their beds. But, here and there, they came on a cadaver roaming about aimlessly or performing some task it should have been performing during the waking time. Necromancers patrolled the streets of Necropolis, picking up any of these dead who had become confused, forgotten their tasks, or were making nuisances of themselves. Alfred's group took care to keep out of the way of these necromancers, slipping into the shadows of doorways until the black-robed wizards had passed.

  Necropolis was built in a series of half circles that radiated out from the fortress. Originally, a small population of mensch and Sartan had dwelt inside the fortress, but as more and more people began to settle in the area permanently, the population soon overflowed the fortress and began building homes in the shadow of its sheltering walls.

  In the days of Necropolis's prosperity, the then-current dynast, Kleitus III, took over the fortress as his castle. The nobility dwelt in magnificent homes located near the castle and the remainder of the population spread out around them, in order of rank and wealth.

  Tomas's house was located about halfway between the poor houses on the city's outer walls and homes of the wealthy, near the castle walls. Depressed and weary from his journey, Alfred was extremely glad to escape the dark and drizzling atmosphere and enter rooms that were warm and well lighted.

  Tomas apologized to the duke and duchess and the earl for the modesty of the dwelling, which was—as were many of the dwellings in the cavern—built straight up to conserve space.

  “My father was a minor noble. He left me the right to stand around in the court with the other courtiers, hoping for a smile from His Majesty, and not much else,” Tomas said, with a tinge of bitterness. “Now he stands around with the dead. I stand around with the living. Little difference between us.”

  The earl rubbed his hands. “Soon all that will change. Come the rebellion.”