The Seventh Gate

36

“What’s the matter with him?” asked a woman. She sounded familiar, but Alfred couldn’t place the voice. “Is he hurt?”

“No,” a man answered. “He’s likely just fainted.”

I have not! Alfred wanted to return indignantly. I’m dead! I—

He heard himself make a noise, a croak.

“There, what did I tell you? He’s coming round.”

Alfred cautiously opened his eyes. He looked up into the branches of a tree. He was lying on soft grass. A woman knelt beside him.

“Marit?” he said, staring at her in wonder. “Haplo?”

His friend stood near.

Marit smiled down at Alfred, placed her hand gently on his forehead. “How do you feel?”

“I’m . . . I’m not sure.” Alfred .gingerly examined his various body parts, was surprised not to experience any pain. But then, of course, he wouldn’t, would he? “Are you dead, too?”

“You’re not dead,” said Haplo grimly. “Not yet, at any rate.”

“Not yet . . .”

“You’re in the Labyrinth, my friend. And likely to be here for a good long time.”

“Then it worked!” Alfred breathed. He sat up. Tears filled his eyes. “Our magic worked! Death’s Gate is—”

“Closed,” said Haplo and he smiled his quiet smile. “The Seventh Gate destroyed. The magic dumped us here, apparently. And, like I said, we’re going to be here a while.”

Alfred sat up. “Is there fighting?”

Haplo’s face darkened. “About to begin, according to Vasu. He’s been trying to open negotiations with Ramu, but the Councillor refuses to even talk. Claims it’s only a trap.”

“The wolfen and the chaodyn are massing for an assault,” Marit added. “There’ve already been skirmishes along the edges of the forest. If the Sartan would join together with us, but—” She shrugged, shook her head. “We thought maybe you could talk to Ramu.”

Alfred staggered to his feet. He still couldn’t quite believe that he wasn’t dead. He gave himself a surreptitious pinch, winced in pain. Perhaps he was alive . . .

“I don’t think I’d be of much help,” he said ruefully. “Ramu thinks I’m every bit as bad as any Patryn who ever lived. Or maybe worse. And if he ever found out I combined my magic with yours . . .”

“And that they worked,” Haplo added, grinning.

Alfred nodded, smiled back. He knew he should be downhearted over this, but couldn’t help himself. Joy seemed to be bubbling up in his heart. He glanced around his surroundings, caught his breath.

Two bodies lay on a bower of leaves in the center of a glade. One was clad in black robes, gnarled hands rested across the chest. The other was the body of a mensch, a human.

“Hugh the Hand!” Alfred didn’t know whether to be glad or to weep. “Is he ... is he .. .”

“He is dead,” said Marit gently. “He gave his life fighting to defend my people. We found him alongside the bodies of several chaodyn. He was as you see him now. At rest, at peace. When I found him dead”—her voice broke, and Haplo moved near, put his arm around her—“I knew that something awful had happened in Death’s Gate. And I knew I should be afraid, but I wasn’t.”

Alfred could only nod, unable to speak. Next to Hugh lay Xar, Lord of the Nexus.

Haplo followed his gaze, guessed what he was thinking. “We found him here, like this.”

With subdued heart and a mixture of conflicting emotions, Alfred approached the dead.

Xar’s face, in death, looked far older than it had in life. Lines and wrinkles that had been drawn to a taut fierceness by the lord’s hatred and his indomitable will sagged now, revealing hidden pain and suffering, deep and abiding sorrow. He stared up at the sky with dark, unseeing eyes, stared up at the sky of the prison house he had escaped, only to find himself back again.

Alfred knelt down beside the body. Reaching out a gentle hand, he closed the staring eyes.

“He understood ... at the end,” came a voice, very near them. “Do not grieve for him.”

Jonathon stood behind them.

And it was Jonathon! It wasn’t the dreadful lazar, the walking corpse, covered with its own blood, the marks of its painful death visible upon it. It was Jonathon, the young man, as they had known him . . .

“Alive!” Alfred cried.

Jonathon shook his head. “I am no longer one of the tormented undead. But neither have I returned to life. Nor would I. As the prophecy foretold, the Gate has opened. I will soon go back to the worlds and lead forth those souls trapped within them. I remained only to free these two.”

He gestured to Lord Xar and to Hugh the Hand.

“They have both passed beyond. And this will be the last time I walk among the living. Farewell.”

Jonathon began to walk away. And, as he did so, his corporeal body started to fade, until he became as dust, glittering faintly in a shaft of bright sunlight.

“Wait!” Alfred cried desperately, running after, stumbling over rocks in his effort to catch up with the ephemeral being. “Wait! You must tell me what has happened. I don’t understand!”

Jonathon did not pause.

“Please!” Alfred begged, “I feel strangely at peace. The same way I felt the first time I was in the Chamber of the Damned. Does . . . does this mean I can contact the higher power?”

There came no answer. Jonathon had disappeared.

“You rang?”

The pointed end of a disreputable-looking hat appeared from around the bole of a tree. The rest of the hat followed along, bringing with it an old wizard in mouse-colored robes.

“Zifnab,” Haplo muttered. “Surely not—”

“Don’t call me Shirley!” the old man snapped. Entering the glade, he stared around in vague confusion. “My name’s . . . well . . . it’s . . . Oh, the hell with it! Call me Shirley if you want. Rather a pleasant name. Grows on you. Now, what was the question?”

Alfred was staring at Zifnab in sudden, dawning comprehension. “You! You’re the higher power. You are God!”

Zifnab stroked his beard, attempted to look modest. “Well, now that you mention it—”

“No, sir. Absolutely not.” An enormous dragon emerged from the forest.

“Why not?” Zifnab appeared nettled, drew himself up indignantly. “I was a god once, you know.”

“Was that before or after you joined Her Majesty’s Secret Service, sir?” responded the dragon in a sepulchral tone.

“You needn’t be insulting.” Zifnab sniffed. He sidled close to Alfred, kept his voice low. “I was so too a god. They find out in the last chapter. He’s just jealous, you know ...”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” said the dragon. “I couldn’t quite hear that.”

“Zealous,” Zifnab amended hastily. “Said you were zealous.”

“You are not a god, sir,” repeated the dragon. “You must come to understand that.”

“Sounds like my therapist,” Zifnab said, but he didn’t say it very loudly. Heaving a sigh, he twiddled his hat in his hand. “Oh, have it your way. Around here, I’m pretty much the same as all the rest of you. But I don’t mind saying I’m extremely miffed about it.” He cast a baleful glare at the dragon.

“But,” Alfred argued, “then where is the higher power? I know there is one. Samah encountered it. The Abarrach Sartan who entered the Chamber ages ago discovered it.”

“The Sartan on Chelestra did the same,” Haplo added.

“So they did,” said Zifnab. “So have you.”

“Oh!” Alfred’s face was alight, aglow. Then, slowly, his glow faded. “But I didn’t see anything.”

“Of course not,” said Zifnab. “You looked in the wrong place. You’ve always looked in the wrong place.”

“In a mirror,” Haplo murmured, remembering his lord’s last words.

“Ah, ha!” Zifnab shouted. “That’s the ticket!” The old man reached out a skinny hand, jabbed Alfred on the breast. “Look in a mirror.”

“D-dear me, no!” Alfred blushed, stammered. “I don’t! I can’t! I’m not the higher power!”

“But you are.” Zifnab smiled, waved his arms. “And so is Haplo. And so am I. So is—let’s see, on Arianus, we have four thousand six hundred and thirty-seven inhabitants of the Mid Realms alone. Their names, in alphabetical order, are Aaltje, Aaltruide, Aaron . . .”

“We get your point, sir,” said the dragon sternly.

The old man was ticking them off on his fingers. “Aastami, Abbie . . .”

“But we can’t all be gods,” Alfred protested, confused.

“Don’t know why not.” Zifnab huffed. “Might be a damn good thing. Make us think twice. But if you don’t like that notion, think of yourself as a teardrop in an ocean.”

“The Wave,” said Haplo.

“All of us, drops in the ocean, forming the Wave. Usually we keep the Wave in balance—water lapping gently on the shoreline, hula girls swaying in the sand,” said Zifnab dreamily. “But sometimes we throw the Wave out of kilter. Tsunami. Tidal disturbances. Hula girls washed out to sea. But the Wave will always act to correct itself. Unfortunately”—he sighed—“that sometimes sends water foaming up in the opposite direction.”

“I still don’t understand, I’m afraid,” Alfred said sadly.

“You will, old chap.” Zifnab smote him on the back. “You’re destined to write a book on the subject. Nobody will read it, of course, but—hey—that’s the publishing game for you. It’s the creative process that counts. Consider Emily Dickinson. Wrote for years in an attic. Nobody ever read—”

“Excuse me, sir,” the dragon mercifully interrupted. “But we don’t have time to discuss Miss Dickinson. There is the matter of the impending battle.”

“What? Ah, yes.” Zifnab tugged on his beard. “I can’t quite see how we’re going to get out of this one. Ramu is a thickheaded, hardhearted, stubborn old—”

“If I may say so, sir,” said the dragon, “it was you who gave him the wrong information—”

“Got him here, didn’t I!” Zifnab cried triumphantly. “You think he would have come otherwise? Not on your Great-Aunt Minnie! He’d still be hanging around Chelestra, causing no end of trouble. Now, here, he’s—”

“Causing no end of trouble,” concluded the dragon gloomily.

“Well, actually, that’s not precisely true anymore.”

Headman Vasu, accompanied by Balthazar, entered the glade.

“We bring good news. For the time being, there will be no battle. At least not among ourselves. Ramu has been forced to resign his post as Councillor. I have taken over. Our people”—Balthazar glanced at Headman Vasu, who smiled—“are now forming an alliance. Working together, we should be able to drive back the armies of evil.”

“That is truly good news, sir. My kind will welcome it. You both realize,” the dragon added gravely, “that this battle will not be the end. The evil present in the Labyrinth will remain here forever, although its effect will be lessened by the advent of trust and reconciliation between your two peoples.” The dragon glanced at Alfred. “The Wave correcting itself, sir.”

“Yes, I see,” said Alfred thoughtfully.

“And here remain our cousins, the serpents. They can never be defeated, I’m afraid. But they can be contained, and, I am thankful to say, most of them are now trapped in the Labyrinth. Very few live among the mensch on the four worlds.”

“What will happen to the mensch, now that Death’s Gate is closed?” Alfred asked wistfully. “Will all they have accomplished be wasted? Will they be completely shut off from each other?”

“The Gate is closed, but the conduits remain open. The great Kicksey-winsey continues working. Its energy beams through the conduits to the citadels. The citadels amplify that energy and send it to Chelestra and Abarrach. Chelestra’s sun is starting to stabilize, which means that the seamoons will awaken. Life there will flourish.”

“And Abarrach?”

“Ah, we are not certain about Abarrach. The dead have left it, of course. The citadels will warm the conduits, which will melt its icy shell. Regions now gripped by cold will be habitable once more.”

“But who will come to repopulate it?” Alfred asked sadly. “Death’s Gate is closed. The mensch could not have traveled through it anyway.”

“No,” said the dragon, “but one mensch currently living on Pryan—an elf named Paithan Quindiniar—is working on experiments begun by his father. Experiments having to do with rocketry. The mensch might reach Abarrach sooner than you think.”

“As for us, life for our peoples will not be easy,” said Vasu. “But if we work together, we can hold back the evil and bring a measure of peace and stability—even to the Labyrinth.”

“We will rebuild the Nexus,” said Balthazar. “Tear down the wall and the Final Gate. Perhaps, someday, our two peoples will be able to live there together in harmony.”

“I am truly grateful. Truly thankful.” Alfred wiped his eyes with the frayed lace of his collar.

“So am I,” said Haplo. He put his arm around Marit, held her close. “All we need to do now is to find our daughter—”

“We’ll find her,” said Marit. “Together.”

“But,” said Alfred, with a sudden thought, “what in the name of the Labyrinth happened to Ramu? What caused him to relinquish command?”

“A peculiar incident,” said Balthazar gravely. “He was wounded, I’m afraid. In rather a tender spot. And, what’s truly odd, he can’t seem to heal himself.”

“What wounded him? A dragon-snake?”

“No.” Balthazar glanced shrewdly at Haplo, almost smiled. “It seems poor Ramu was bitten by a dog.”