Serpent Mage

18

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. ‘You 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.

“Don’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.

“It’s all your fault!” he said crossly.

The animal cocked its head, looked innocent, denied the charge.

“It is, too. Putting such ideas into my head! Why don’t you go off and find that blasted master of yours and leave me alone! I can get myself into quite enough trouble without your help.”

Cocking its head in the other direction, the dog appeared to agree that this was true. It seemed to think the conversation had reached its logical conclusion, however, for it stretched luxuriously, bending forward over its forepaws, back over its hind end, and finally shook itself all over. Then, it trotted over to the garden gate, looked at Alfred expectantly. Alfred felt himself go hot and cold, both at the same time—a most uncomfortable sensation.

“You’re telling me that we’re alone now, aren’t you? No one’s with us. No one’s watching us.”

The dog wagged its tail.

“We can . . .” Alfred swallowed. “We can go to the library.” The dog wagged its tail again, its expression long-suffering and patient. It obviously considered Alfred slow and thickheaded, but was magnanimously willing to overlook these minor faults.

“But I can’t get inside. And if I could, I can’t get back out. Samah would catch me . . .”

The dog was afflicted by a sudden itch. Plopping down, it scratched vigorously, fixed Alfred with a stern gaze that seemed to say, Come, come. It’s me, remember?

“Oh, very well.”

Alfred cast a furtive glance around the garden, half-expecting Samah to leap out of the rosebushes and lay violent hands upon his person. When no one came, Alfred began to sing and dance the runes.

He stood outside the library. The dog dashed up to the door, sniffed at it with interest. Alfred slowly followed, gazed at the door sadly. The warding runes had, as Samah had promised, been strengthened.

“ ‘Due to the current crisis situation and the fact that we cannot spare the staff needed to assist our patrons, the library is closed until further notice.’” Alfred read the sign aloud.

“It makes sense,” he insisted. “Who’s interested in doing any research anyway. They’re spending all their time trying to rebuild and establish their city, trying to decide what to do about the Patryns, and wondering where the rest of our people are and how to get in touch with them. They have to deal with the necromancers on Abarrach and these dragon-snakes ...”

The dog didn’t agree.

“You’re right,” Alfred heard himself arguing, his own inner being as rebellious as his limbs and appendages. “If I had all those problems to solve, where would I turn? To the wisdom of our people. Wisdom recorded in there.” Well, the dog demanded, bored with sniffing at the door, what are we waiting for?

“I can’t get inside,” Alfred said, but the words came out a whisper—a halfhearted, faint, and ineffectual lie.

He knew how to get in without being detected. The idea had come to him, suddenly, last night.

He hadn’t wanted it to come. And when it did, he’d told it in no uncertain terms to go away. But it wouldn’t. His stubborn brain had gone right ahead making plans, examining the risks and deciding (with a cold-bloodedness that shocked Alfred) that the risks were minimal and worth running. The idea had come to him because of that stupid story told by Bane’s nurse. Alfred caught himself hoping irritably that she’d come to a bad end. She had no business telling such nightmare tales to a susceptible child. (Never mind the fact that Bane himself was a nightmare personified.)

Thinking about that tale, Alfred had found himself remembering Arianus and the time he’d lived at the court of King Stephen. One memory led to another memory, and that led to another, until his mind had carried him, without him being aware of where he was headed, to the time the thief broke into the treasure vault.

Money is water, on Arianus, where the life-sustaining liquid is in short supply and is, therefore, considerably valuable. The royal palace had stockpiles of the precious commodity, kept for use in times of emergency (such as when the elves succeeded in cutting off the water shipments). The vault where the barrels were stored was located in a building behind the palace walls, a building of thick walls and heavy bolted doors, a building guarded day and night.

Guarded—except on the roof.

Late one night, a thief, using a most ingenious system of ropes and pulleys, managed to make his way from a neighboring roof to the top of the water vault. He was drilling through the hargast-wood timbers when one gave way with a shattering crash, literally dropping the unlucky thief into the arms of the guards below.

How the thief had proposed to get away with enough water to make this dangerous feat worth his while was never learned. It was assumed he had accomplices, but, if so, they escaped and he never revealed them, not even under torture. He met his death alone, accomplishing nothing except to ensure that guards now patrolled the roof.

That and he’d provided Alfred with a plan for breaking and entering the library.

Of course, it was always possible that Samah had enveloped the entire building in a magical shell, but, knowing the Sartan as he did, Alfred considered it unlikely. They had considered runes politely advising people to keep out sufficient protection and they would have been, had not Alfred’s wayward feet flung him inside. The Councillor had strengthened the magic, but the thought that anyone (much less Alfred) would have the temerity to deliberately enter a place he’d been commanded to avoid would be unthinkable.

It is unthinkable, Alfred thought miserably. I am corrupt. This is insanity!

“I ... I must get away from here . . .” he said faintly, mopping his forehead with his lace cuff.

He was firm, resolved. He was going to leave. He didn’t care what was in the library.

“If there is anything—which there probably isn’t—then surely Samah has an excellent reason for not wanting stray scholars to poke at it—although what that reason could be is beyond me—not that it’s any of my business.” This monologue continued for some time, during which Alfred made up his mind to leave and actually turned around and started down the path, only to find himself walking up it again almost immediately. He turned back, started home, found himself walking to the library.

The dog trotted after him, back and forth, until it grew tired, flopped down about halfway either direction, and watched Alfred’s vacillation with considerable interest.

Finally, the Sartan made up his mind. “I’m not going inside,” he said decisively, did a little dance, and began to sing the runes. The sigla wove their magic around him, lifted him up into the air. The dog jumped excitedly to its feet, and began to bark loudly, much to Alfred’s consternation. The library was located far from the center of the Sartan city, far from the homes of the inhabitants, but it seemed to the nervous Alfred that the animal’s yelps must be audible in Arianus.

“Shush! Nice dog! No, don’t bark. I—”

Attempting to hush the dog, Alfred forgot where he was going. Or at least that was the only explanation he could give for finding himself hovering over the roof of the library.

“Oh, dear,” he said weakly, and dropped like a rock. For long moments, he cowered on top of the roof, terrified that someone had heard the dog and that crowds of Sartan would be flocking around, wondering and accusing.

All was quiet. No one came.

The dog licked his hand and whined, urged him to once more take to the air, a feat the animal found highly entertaining.

Alfred, who had forgotten the dog’s unique ability to show up where least expected, nearly crawled out of his skin at the unexpected slobber of a wet tongue.

Sitting back weakly against the parapet, he petted the animal with a shaking hand and looked around. He had been right. The only sigla visible were the perfectly ordinary runes of strength and support and protection from the elements that could be found on the roofs of any Sartan building. Yes, he’d been right, and he hated himself for being right.

The roof was constructed of massive beams of some tree Alfred didn’t recognize, but they gave off a faint, woodsy, pleasing aroma. Probably a tree that the Sartan had brought with them from the ancient world, through Death’s Gate.[31] These large beams were placed at intervals along the roof; smaller planks crisscrossed beneath, filling in the gaps. Intricate sigla, traced on the planks and the beams, would keep out rain and rodents and wind and sun, would keep out everything . . .

“Except me,” Alfred said, gazing at the sigla unhappily. He sat for long moments, unwilling to move, until the larcenous part of his nature reminded him that the Council meeting could not last much longer. Samah would return home and expect to find Alfred there, become suspicious if Alfred was not.

“Suspicious,” said Alfred faintly. “When did one Sartan ever use that word about another? What is happening to us? And why?”

Slowly, he leaned over and began to draw a sigil on the wooden beam. His voice accompanied his work, his chant sad and heavy. The runes sank down through the wooden beams of a tree never known in this world, and they carried Alfred down into the library with them.

Orla paced about her house, restless, ill at ease. She wished Samah were at home, was perversely glad he wasn’t. She knew she should go back out into the garden, should go back out to Alfred, apologize for behaving like such a fool, smooth the incident over. She should have never let it affect her like that, should have never let him affect her like that!

“Why did you come?” she demanded of his absent figure sadly. “All the turmoil and unhappiness was over. I could once more hope for peace. Why did you come? And when will you go?”

Orla took another turn about the room. Sartan dwellings are large and spacious. The rooms are made of cool, straight lines, bent, here and there, into perfect arches supported by upright columns. The furniture is elegant and simple, providing only what is necessary for comfort, nothing for show or display-One could walk among the few furnishings with ease. That is, a normal person could walk among them with ease, she amended, straightening a table that Alfred had knocked askew.

She put the table to rights, knowing Samah would be extremely irritated to find it out of its proper order. But her hand lingered on it; she smiled to herself, seeing, once again, Alfred blundering into it. The table stood next to a couch, was well out of the flow of traffic. Alfred had been far away from it, with no intention of being anywhere near it. Orla recalled watching in wonder those too-large feet of his veering off in the direction of the table, stumbling over each other in their haste to reach it and knock it over. And Alfred, watching in bemused bewilderment, like a nursemaid with a flock of unruly children. And he had looked at Orla in helpless, pleading apology. I know I’m responsible, his eyes said, but what can I do? My feet simply won’t behave!

Why did that wistful expression of his tug at her heart? Why did she long to hold those clumsy hands, long to try to ease the burden that rested on those stooped shoulders?

“I am another man’s wife,” she reminded herself. “Samah’s wife.” They had loved each other, she supposed. She’d borne him children, they must have . . . once.

But she remembered the image Alfred had conjured for her, an image of two people loving each other fiercely, passionately, because this night was all they had, because all they had was each other. No, she realized sadly. She’d never truly loved.

She felt no pain inside her, no ache, nothing. Only spacious, large emptiness, defined by cool, straight lines, supported by upright columns. What furniture existed was neat, orderly, occasionally shifting position, but never actually rearranged. Until those too-large feet and those wistful, searching eyes and those clumsy hands blundered into her and threw everything into wild disarray.

“Samah would say that it is a mothering instinct, that since I am past my childbearing years, I have the need to mother something. Odd, but I can’t remember mothering my own child. I suppose I did. I suppose I must have. All I seem to remember is wandering about this empty house, dusting the furniture.”

Her feelings for Alfred weren’t motherly, however. Orla remembered his awkward hands, his timid caresses, and blushed hotly. No, not motherly at all.

“What is there about him?” she wondered aloud.

Certainly nothing visible on the surface: balding head, stooped shoulders, feet that seemed intent on carrying their owner to disaster, mild blue eyes, shabby mensch clothes that he refused to change. Orla thought of Samah: strong, self-possessed, powerful. Yet Samah had never made her feel compassion, never made her cry for someone else’s sorrow, never made her love someone for the sake of loving.

“There is a power in Alfred,” Orla told the straight and uncaring furniture.

“A power that is all the more powerful because he is not aware of it. If you accused him of it, in fact”—she smiled fondly—“he would get that bewildered, astonished look on his face and stammer and stutter and . . . I’m falling in love with him. This is impossible. I’m falling in love with him.” And he’s falling in love with you.

“No,” she protested, but her protest was soft and her smile did not fade. Sartan did not fall in love with other people’s spouses. Sartan remained faithful to their marriage vows. This love was hopeless and could come only to grief. Orla knew this. She knew she would have to remove the smiles and tears from her being, straighten it up, return it to its straight lines and empty dustiness. But for a short time, for this one moment, she could recall the warmth of his hand gently stroking her skin, she could cry in his arms for another woman’s baby, she could feel.

It occurred to her that she’d been away from him an interminable length of time.

“He’ll think I’m angry at him,” she realized, remorseful, remembering how she’d stalked off the terrace. “I must have hurt him. I’ll go explain and . . . and then I’ll tell him that he has to leave this house. It won’t be wise for us to see each other anymore, except on Council business. I can manage that. Yes, I can definitely manage that.”

But her heart was beating far too rapidly for comfort, and she was forced to repeat a calming mantra before she was relaxed enough to look firm and resolved. She smoothed her hair and wiped away any lingering traces of tears, tried a cool, calm smile on her face, studied herself anxiously in a mirror to see if the smile looked as strained and borrowed as it felt. Then she had to pause to try to think how to bring the subject into conversation.

“Alfred, I know you love me . . .”

No, that sounded conceited.

“Alfred, I love you . . .”

No, that would certainly never do! After another moment’s reflection, she decided that it would be best to be swift and merciless, like one of those horrid mensch surgeons, chopping off a diseased limb.

“Alfred, you and the dog must leave my house this night.” Yes, that would be best. Sighing, not holding out much hope that this would work, she returned to the terrace.

Alfred wasn’t there.

“He’s gone to the library.”

Orla knew it as well as if she could look across the miles and peer through the walls and see him inside. He’d found a way to enter that wouldn’t alert anyone to his presence. And she knew that he would find what he sought.

“He won’t understand. He wasn’t there. I must try to make him see my images!” Orla whispered the runes, traced the magic with her hands, and departed on its wings.

The dog growled, warningly, and jumped to its feet. Alfred looked up from his reading. A figure clad in white was approaching, coming from the back of the library. He couldn’t see who it was: Samah, Ramu? . . .

Alfred didn’t particularly care. He wasn’t nervous, wasn’t assailed by guilt, wasn’t afraid. He was appalled and shocked and sickened and he was, he was startled to discover, glad to be able to confront someone.

He rose to his feet, his body trembling, not with fear, but with his anger. The figure stepped into the light he had magically created to read by. The two stared at each other. Quick indrawn breaths slipped to sighs, eyes silently exchanged words of the heart that could never be spoken.

“You know,” said Orla.

“Yes,” answered Alfred, lowering his gaze, flustered. He’d been expecting Samah. He could be angry with Samah. He felt a need to be angry, to release his anger that bubbled inside him like Abarrach’s hot lava sea. But how could he vent his anger on her, when what he truly wanted to do was take her in his arms? . . .

“I’m sorry,” Orla said. “It makes things very difficult.”

“Difficult!” Fury and indignation struck Alfred a blow that left him reeling, addled his brain. “Difficult! That’s all you can say?” He gestured wildly to the scroll[32] lying open on the table before him. “What you did . . . When you knew . . . This records everything, the arguments in the Council. The fact that certain Sartan were beginning to believe in a higher power. How could you . . . Lies, all lies! The horror, the destruction, the deaths . . . Unnecessary! And you knew—”

“No, we didn’t!” Orla cried.

She strode forward, came to stand before him, her hand on the table, the scroll, that separated them. The dog sat back on its haunches, looking at each with its intelligent eyes.

“We didn’t know! Not for certain! And the Patryns were growing in strength, in power. And against their might, what did we have? Vague feelings, nothing that could ever be defined.”

“Vague feelings!” repeated Alfred. “Vague feelings! I’ve known those feelings. They were ... it was . . . the most wonderful experience! The Chamber of the Damned, they called it. But I knew it as the Chamber of the Blessed. I understood the reason for my being. I was given to know I could change things for the better. I was told that if I had faith, all would be well. I didn’t want to leave that wonderful place—”

“But you did leave!” Orla reminded him. “You couldn’t stay, could you? And what happened in Abarrach when you left?”

Alfred, troubled, drew back from her. He looked down at the scroll, though he wasn’t seeing it; his hand toyed with its edges.

“You doubted,” she told him. “You didn’t believe what you’d seen. You questioned your own feelings. You came back to a world that was dark and frightening, and if you had caught a glimpse of a greater good, a power vaster and more wondrous than your own, then where was it? You even wondered if it was a trick. . . .”

Alfred saw Jonathon, the young nobleman he’d met on Abarrach, murdered, torn apart by the hands of a once-loving wife. Jonathon had believed, he’d had faith, and he’d died horribly because of it. Now, he was probably one of those tormented living dead, the lazar.

Alfred sat down heavily in the chair. The dog, grieving for the man’s unhappiness, padded silently over and nuzzled him with its nose. Alfred rested his aching head in his arms.

Gentle, cool hands slid around his shoulders. Orla knelt beside him. “I know how you feel. I truly do. We all felt the same. Samah, the rest of the Council. It was as if ... How did Samah put this? We were like humans drunk on strong wine. When they’re intoxicated, everything looks wonderful to them and they can do anything, solve any problem. But, when the effects of the spirits wear off, they’re left sick and hurting and feeling worse than they did before.”

Alfred raised his head, looked at her bleakly. “What if the fault is ours? What if I had stayed on Abarrach? Did a miracle happen there? I’ll never know. I left. I left because I was afraid.”

“And we were afraid, too.” Orla’s fingers tightened over his arm in her earnestness. “The darkness of the Patryns was very real and this vague light that some of us had experienced was nothing but the tiny flicker of a candle flame, likely to be blown out with a breath. How can we put our faith in this? In something we don’t understand?”

“What is faith?” Alfred asked gently, not talking to her but to himself.

“Believing in something you do not understand. And how can we poor mortals understand that vast and terrible and wonderful mind?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered brokenly. “I don’t know.” Alfred grasped her hand. “This was what you fought over. You and the other Council members! You and . . . and”—it was difficult for him to say the word—“your husband.”

“Samah didn’t believe in any of it. He said it was a trick, a trick of our enemy’s.”

Alfred heard Haplo speaking, the Patryn’s words were almost an echo. A trick, Sartan! You tricked me . . .

“. . . opposed the Sundering,” Orla was continuing. “We wanted to wait before taking such drastic action. But Samah and the others were afraid—”

“And with good cause, so it appears,” came a grim voice. “When I returned home and discovered you both gone, I had an idea where you might be found.” Alfred quailed at the sound, shivered. Orla, very pale, rose slowly to her feet. She remained standing near him, however, her hand resting on his shoulder in protective support. The dog, having been negligent in its duties, was apparently attempting to make up for it by barking at Samah with all its energy.

“Shut the beast up,” said Samah, “or I will kill it.”

“You can’t kill it,” Alfred replied, shaking his head. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t kill this animal or what it represents.” But he rested his hand on the animal’s head. The dog suffered itself to be gentled into silence.

“At least now we know who and what you are,” stated the Councillor, eyeing Alfred grimly. “A Patryn spy, sent to learn our secrets.” His gaze shifted to his wife. “And corrupt the trusting.”

Resolutely, with dignity, Alfred rose to his feet. “You are wrong. I am a Sartan, to my sorrow. And as for learning secrets”—he gestured to the scroll—“it seems the secrets I have discovered were meant to be kept from our own people, not from the so-called enemy.”

Samah was livid with rage, unable to speak.

“No,” Orla whispered, looking earnestly at Alfred, her hand biting into his arm. “No, you’re wrong. The time wasn’t right—”

“Our reasons for doing what we did are not his concern, Wife!” Samah interrupted. He paused, waiting to speak until he had mastered his anger.

“Alfred Montbank, you will remain a prisoner here until the Council meets and we decide what measures to take.”

“A prisoner? Is that necessary?” Orla protested.

“I deem it so. I was coming to tell you the news we have just received from the dolphins. This man’s Patryn ally has been discovered. He is here in Chelestra and, as we feared, he is in league with the dragon-snakes. He has met with them, he and representatives from the mensch royal families.”

“Alfred,” said Orla, “can this be true?”

“I don’t know,” Alfred replied wretchedly. “Haplo might do something like this, I’m afraid, but you must understand that he—”

“Listen to him, Wife. Even now, he seeks to defend this Patryn.”

“How can you?” Orla demanded, drawing away from Alfred, regarding him with mingled sorrow, pain. “You would see your own people destroyed!”

“No, he would see his own people victorious,” said Samah coldly. “You forget, my dear, he is more Patryn than Sartan.”

Alfred made no reply, but stood clasping and unclasping his hands over the back of the chair.

“Why do you stand there and say nothing?” Orla cried. “Tell my husband he’s wrong! Tell me I’m wrong!”

Alfred lifted mild blue eyes. “What can I say that you would believe?” Orla stared at him, started to reply, then shook her head in frustration. Turning her back on him, she walked out of the room.

Samah regarded Alfred grimly.

“This time, I will post a guard. You will be called.” He stalked off, accompanied by the dog’s defiant growl.

Ramu appeared in his father’s place. Coming to the table, the son cast Alfred a baleful glance and laid firm hands upon the scroll. Deliberately and with great care, he rolled it up tightly, slid it into the scrollcase, and returned it to its proper place. He then took up a position at the back of the room, as far from Alfred as a Sartan could get and still keep an eye on him. There was no need to guard him, however. Alfred would not have attempted to escape had the door been left standing wide open. He sat despondent, hunched in misery—a prisoner of his own people, the people he had hoped so long to find. He was in the wrong. He’d done a terrible thing and he couldn’t, for the life of him, imagine what had prompted him to do it.

His actions had angered Samah. Worse, Alfred had hurt Orla. And all for what?

To meddle in affairs that were not any of his business, affairs that were beyond his understanding.

“Samah is far wiser than I am,” he said to himself. “He knows what is best. He is right. I am not Sartan. I am part Patryn, part mensch. Even”—he added, with a sad smile for the faithful animal, lying at his feet—“a little bit of dog. Most of all, though, I’m a fool. Samah wouldn’t attempt to suppress such knowledge. As Orla said, he was waiting for a more appropriate time. That’s all.

“I will apologize to the Council,” he continued, sighing, “and I will gladly do whatever they ask of me. And then I will leave. I can’t stay here any longer. Why is it?” He looked at his own hands, shook them in frustration.

“Why do I break everything I touch? Why do I bring ruin on those I care about? I’ll leave this world and never return. I’ll go back to my crypt in Arianus and I’ll sleep. Sleep a long, long time. Perhaps, if I’m lucky, I’ll never wake up.

“And you,” said Alfred, glaring bitterly at the dog. “You’re on your own. Haplo didn’t lose you, did he? He sent you away deliberately. He doesn’t want you back! Well, good riddance, I say. I’ll leave you here, too. Both of you!” The animal cringed at his angry tone and baleful stare. Ears and tail drooping, the dog sank down at Alfred’s feet and lay there, watching him with sad, sorrowful eyes.