Fire Sea

39

“Damn it, Sartan! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

A hand caught hold of him, shook him roughly.

Alfred raised his head, gazed confusedly about. He was lying on the floor, and expected to see the bloodstained hems of white robes, the trampling feet of the mob. Instead, he saw a dog, standing over him, and Haplo. He could hear voices, shouts, and the tramping of feet. The mob. The mob was coming. But, no, the mob had come—

“Must. . . guard the table .. .” Alfred struggled to stand.

“There’s no time for any more of your tricks!” Haplo fumed. “Do you hear that? The soldiers are coming!”

“Yes, the mob ... attacking. . .”

Haplo grabbed him, shook him as if to shake up his scattered wits. “Give your magic up as a bad try and concentrate on how you’re going to get us out of here!”

“I don’t understand ... please! Tell me what’s going on! I... I truly don’t understand!”

The Patryn kept his watchful gaze on the door, dropped his hands from Alfred’s robes in exasperation. “Why should that surprise me? All right, Sartan. Apparently during the ‘performance’ you put on for our benefit—”

“I didn’t—”

“Shut up and listen! Our duchess managed somehow to douse the sacred lights and activate the runes that open that door. And you’re going to do the same to the runes on that door”—Haplo pointed to another door located at a forty-five-degree angle from the first—“when I give the word. Do you think you can walk now?”

“Yes,” Alfred said, somewhat hesitantly. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, clung to the table for support. He was confused, felt as if he were in two different places at the same time, and he had a strong reluctance to leave the last place, despite the danger. The overwhelming sense of peace and . . . and of having found something long sought.. . now gone again ...

“I don’t know why I asked.” Haplo glared at him. “You couldn’t walk all that well in the first place. Keep low, damn it! You’re of no use to me with an arrow stuck in your craw! And if you faint, I’ll leave you here!”

“I’m not going to faint,” Alfred said, with dignity. “And my own magic is now strong enough to protect me from . . . from attack,” he added, faltering.

Brethren, do no violence. Harm no one. These are our people. Raise no magical defenses.

I did her bidding. I had no magical defenses. Haplo knew that. He knew it because he was there with me! He was beside me! He saw what I saw.. . . What did we see?

A deep voice could be heard outside the door. It sounded distant, but the clamoring of the dead soldiers hushed.

“Kleitus,” said Haplo grimly. “We’ll have to run for it!” He propelled the Sartan forward, guiding him over and around the tangle of bones on the floor, dragging him to his feet when he stumbled.

“Jonathan!” Alfred attempted to twist around to see the duke.

“I have care of him,” came a voice.

Prince Edmund’s cadaver was following behind them, leading a bewildered, seemingly stupefied young duke.

“Your spell worked on him.” Haplo sneered. “Blasted fool has no idea where he is!”

“It wasn’t my spell!” Alfred protested. “I didn’t do—”

“Shut up and keep moving. Save your breath to activate the nines on the door.”

“What do we do about Jera?—”

The lazar stood near the open door. The cadaver’s eyes stared straight ahead, the spirit twined about the body, sometimes looking at them from its own vantage point, sometimes peering out of the dead eyes. The dead lips formed words, and Alfred could hear them, realized that he’d been hearing them ever since he’d awakened from the vision.

“The living hold us in bondage. We are slaves to the living. When the living are no more, we will be free.”

“... we will be free . . .” whispered the echo.

“Blessed Sartan!” Alfred shuddered.

“Yeah,” Haplo said briefly. “She’s out to recruit more for her side. Maybe Kleitus cast a spell of some sort on her—”

“No,” said Prince Edmund. “It is no spell. She has seen, as I have seen. But she does not understand.”

You’ve seen it! And I’ve seen it, too! Only I haven’t seen it! Alfred looked back longingly at the table. Outside the chamber, he could hear shouted commands, the shuffling of feet. He had only to activate the runes to open the door. The sacred light had disappeared, the door would work. But the words stuck in his throat, the magic twisted around in his head. If I stay, if I spend a little more time, I will remember. . . .

“Do it, Sartan!” Haplo hissed through clenched teeth. “If Kleitus takes me alive, we ... our people, our worlds are finished!”

Two forces, pulling him apart. The people’s hope, the people’s doom, both in this chamber! If I leave, I will lose one forever. If I don’t leave. . .

“Look what we have found, Pons.” Kleitus’s black-robed bulk filled the entryway, the smaller figure of his minister scuttled in beside him. “You see before you the Chamber of the Damned. It would be interesting to know how these wretches found it and also how they managed to break the warding runes. Unfortunately, we can’t allow them to live long enough to tell us.”

“The Chamber of the Damned!” Pons’s words were faint, he seemed barely able to speak. The minister stared around the room, stared at the corpses littering the floor, stared at the white wood table. “It is real! Not legend!”

“Of course it’s real. And so is its curse. Guards.” Kleitus’s motion brought forward dead soldiers, as many as could crowd through the door. “Slay them.”

Brethren, do no violence. Harm no one. These are our people. Raise no magical defenses.

Alfred fumbled for the runes to open the door, the old woman’s voice rang in his ears, obliterating the construction. He was dimly aware of Haplo standing beside him, the exhausted Patryn braced to fight, if not for his life, then to make certain that his body proved useless.

But the soldiers weren’t fighting.

“Did you hear my command?” Kleitus demanded angrily. “Kill them!”

The dead guards stood with weapons raised, arrows notched, swords drawn, but they did not attack. Their phantasms, barely visible, stirred as if shaken by a hot wind, Alfred could almost feel their agitated whisperings breathe against his cheek.

“They will not obey you,” said the lazar. “This chamber is sacred. Violence will turn on the one who uses it.”

“... the one who uses it.. .” spoke the echo.

Kleitus turned. His eyes narrowed, black brows came together at the sight of the woman’s horrifying visage. Pons gasped, and shrank away from her, attempted to hide himself among the troops of the dead.

“How do you know what the dead think?” the dynast demanded, studying the lazar intently.

The runes! Alfred said to himself frantically, and began to trace them in his mind. Yes, yes. The sigla on the door caught fire, began to glow a soft blue.

“I can communicate with them, I understand their thoughts, their needs, their desires.”

“Bah! The dead think nothing! Need nothing! Desire nothing!”

“You are wrong,” the lazar said in the hollow voice that brought out a sheen of sweat on Pons’s face. “The dead want one thing: their freedom. We will have our freedom when our tyrants are dead!”

“ . . tyrants are dead .. .”

“You see this, Pons,” said Kleitus with a ghastly smile, affecting to speak in nonchalant tones, although he was working hard to control the tremor in his voice. “She has become a lazar. This is what happens when the dead are raised too soon. Now you understand the wisdom of our ancestors, who teach that the body must be left at rest until the phantasm has completely abandoned it. We will have to experiment with her cadaver. The books suggest that, in this instance, the body should be ‘killed’ again. Although we’re not quite certain . . .” The dynast paused, then shrugged. “But we will have time to study it further. Guards, take her.”

The slight, terrible smile played on the chill blue lips. The lazar began to chant. The wispy phantasms hovering about their cadavers suddenly vanished. Dead eyes came to life. Dead arms reached out. Dead hands lifted weapons but not against the lazar. The dead eyes turned on Kleitus and the Lord High Chancellor, dead eyes turned on the living.

Pons clasped hold of the dynast’s black robes. “Your Majesty! It is this accursed chamber! Leave it! Seal it up! Leave them all trapped inside! Please, Majesty!”

The lights of Alfred’s runes flared brilliantly. The door started to grind open. At last! He’d done something right! “Haplo—”

A flash of movement. Alfred turned.

Kleitus had grabbed a bow from a guard.

A man raised it, arrow aimed straight at Alfred. The man’s face was twisted with fear and the anger fear breeds. Alfred couldn’t move. He couldn’t have cast a magical defense if he had wanted to....

“Do no violence!”

The man drew back the bowstring, prepared to let fly. Alfred stood waiting for death. Not courageously, he realized sadly, but rather foolishly.

A strong hand, coming from behind Alfred, shoved him to one side, and he was falling. . . .

Red light filled the room, blinding, stabbing the eyes, searing the brain with fire. Alfred was on the floor, groping about on his hands and knees, aware of legs stumbling into him and over him and the warm body of the dog crowding beside him. A hand grasped hold of the collar of his robes, jerked him to his feet. A harsh voice shouted in his ear, “Now, we’re even, Sartan!” The same hand shoved him toward the door that, by the grinding sound, was sliding closed again.

“Run, damn you!”

Alfred staggered forward. He was running through flame, smoke. Everything around him had caught fire, was burning: Prince Edmund, Jonathan, Haplo, the dog, the rock walls, the stone floor, the door. Burning, burning. . .

Haplo jumped through the opening, pulled Alfred after him. The Sartan could feel the heavy stone weight of the door press against him, sliding shut. But, even at this moment, his heart wrenched. He was leaving behind something wonderful, something of immense value, something . . .

“. . . only when the living are dead!” cried out the lazar’s voice.

Alfred peered through the fiery light. Steel flashed red in the duchess’s dead hand. The knife plunged hilt-deep into Kleitus’s chest.

His bellow of anger degenerated into a scream of pain.

The lazar wrenched the bloody knife free, stabbed again.

Kleitus howled in agony, clutched at her, trying to wrest the blade from her hand. She stabbed him again, and the dead guards joined her in the attack. The dynast fell, disappeared beneath flailing hands and stabbing swords and slashing spears.

Alfred’s arm was nearly yanked out of the socket. He tumbled headfirst into Haplo’s grasp. Alfred heard a pleading scream cut off in an agonized gurgle—the Lord High Chancellor.

The door ground shut. But everyone standing in the dark tunnel could hear the lazar, either through the walls or in their hearts.

“Now, dynast, I will show you true power. The world of Abarrach will belong to us, to the dead.”

And her echo, “... to the dead ...”

The lazar’s voice raised, chanting the runes of resurrection.