‘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.”
CHAPTERS 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 dynasfs 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.