Cautiously Haplo opened his eyes a crack and peered out between the lashes. The light of a single candle, placed some-where near his head, did not illuminate his surroundings. He had no idea where he was, but he could manage to make out that he was alone.
Slowly Haplo lifted his left hand and was bringing it near his head when he saw that it was swathed in strips of cloth. Memory glimmered, shining a feeble ray of light into the darkness of pain that surrounded him.
All the more reason to rid himself of this debilitating injury.
Gritting his teeth, moving with elaborate care so as not to make the slightest sound, Haplo reached across with his right hand and tugged at the cloth covering the left. Wrapped in between the fingers, it did not come completely loose but gave way enough so that the back of the left hand was partially exposed.
The skin was covered with tattoos. The whirls and whorls, curls and curves, were done in colors of red and blue and were seemingly fanciful in nature and design. Yet each sigil had its separate and special meaning, which, when combined with other sigla that they touched, expanded into meaning upon meaning. [9] Prepared to freeze his motion at the barest hint that someone was watching him, Haplo raised his arm and pressed the back of his hand upon the gash in his forehead.
The circle was joined. Warmth streamed from his hand to his head, flowed through his head to his arm, from his arm back to his hand. Sleep would follow, and while his body rested, pain would ease, the wound would close, internal injuries would be healed, complete memory and awareness would be restored on his awaking. With his waning strength, Haplo arranged the cloth so that it covered his hand. His arm fell limply, striking a hard surface beneath him. A cold nose thrust into his palm … a soft muzzle rubbed against his fingers. . . .
Spear in hand, Haplo faced the two chaodyn. His only emotion was anger-a fiery, raging fury that burned up fear. He was within sight of his goal. The Last Gate was visible on the horizon. To reach it, he had only to cross a vast open prairie that had looked empty when he reconnoitered. He should have known. The Labyrinth would never let him escape. It would hurl every weapon it had in its possession at him. But the Labyrinth was smart. Its malevolent intelligence had fought against the Patryns for a thousand years before a few had been able to gain the skills to conquer it. Twenty-five gates [10] Haplo had lived and fought, only to be defeated in the end. For there was no way he could win. The Labyrinth had allowed him to get well into the empty prairie without so much as a single tree or boulder on which to set his back. And it had pitted him against two chaodyn.
Chaodyn are deadly foes. Bred of the insane magic of the Labyrinth, the intelligent giant insectlike creatures are skilled in the use of all weapons (these two were using broadswords). Tall as a man, with a hard black-shelled body, bulbous eyes, four arms, and two powerful back legs, a chaodyn can be killed- everything in the Labyrinth can be killed. But in order to slay one, you have to hit it directly in the heart, destroying it instantly. For if it lives, even a second, it will cause a drop of its own blood to spring into a copy of itself, and the two of them, whole and undamaged, will continue the fight.
Haplo faced two of these, and he had only one rune-marked spear and his hunting dagger left. If his weapons missed their mark and wounded his opponent he would face four chaodyn. Missing again, he would face eight. No, he could not win.
The two chaodyn were moving, one drifting off to Haplo’s right, the other to his left. When he attacked one, the other would strike him from behind. The Patryn’s only chance would be to kill the first outright with his spear, then turn and fight the other.