Lunging off the stone bed, he hurled himself at the cell door, fell to the floor. He reached out a grasping hand and clutched at the hem of the dynast’s robe before the startled man had time to withdraw.
“Why?” Haplo demanded, clinging to the purple-dyed black fabric. “I would have taken you .. . Death’s Gate!”
“But I don’t need you to take me,” replied Kleitus calmly. “I know where Death’s Gate is. I know how to get through it. I don’t need you … for that.” The dynast bent down, his hand moved to touch the rune-covered hand holding on to the black robes.
Haplo grit his teeth, but did not loosen his grasp. Delicate fingers traced over the runes on the Patryn’s skin.
“Yes, now you begin to understand. It takes so much of our magical ability to bring life to the dead that it drains us. We hadn’t realized how much until we met you. You tried to hide your power but we felt it. We could have thrown a spear at you, thrown a hundred spears at you, and none would have so much as scratched you. True? Yes, of course it’s true. In fact, we could probably have dropped this castle on top of you and you would have emerged alive and well.” The fingers continued to trace the tattooed runes, slowly, longingly, with desire.
Haplo stared, understanding, disbelieving.
“There is nothing more we can gain from our magic. But there is a great deal we can gain from yours! That is why,” the dynast concluded briskly, rising to his feet, looking down at Haplo from what seemed to the dying man to be a tremendous height, “we couldn’t afford to injure your body. The rune patterns must be left unblemished, unbroken, to be studied at our leisure. Undoubtedly your cadaver will be of assistance in explaining the meaning of the sigla to me.
” ‘Barbaric’ our ancestors called your magic. They were dolts. Add the power of your magic to ours and we will be invincible. Even, we surmise, against this so-called Lord of the Nexus.”
Haplo rolled over on his back. His hand released its grip on the dynast’s robe; he no longer had the strength left in his fingers to maintain it.
‘And then there is your comrade, your ally—the one who can bring death to the dead.”
“Not friend,” Haplo whispered, barely aware of what he was saying or what was being said to him. “Enemy.”
Kleitus smiled. “A man who risks his life to save yours? I think not. Tomas gathered, from certain things this man has said, that he abhors necromancy and that he would not come to restore your corpse, if you were dead. Most likely he would flee this world, and we would lose him. We inferred, however, that there must be some sort of empathic connection between the two of you. It turned out we were right. Tomas reports that your friend knows, somehow, that you are dying. Your friend believes that there is a chance you might be saved. There isn’t, of course, but that won’t matter to your friend. Or, at least it won’t matter to him long.”
The dynast drew aside the hem of his robe. “And now I must commence the resurrection of Prince Edmund.”
Haplo heard the man’s voice receding, heard the rustle of the robe’s fabric along the floor and the voice became the rustle, or perhaps the rustle was the voice. “Don’t worry. Your agony is almost over. We would imagine the pain eases, near the end. ‘And so you see, Haplo, there is no need for you to ask why The prophecy,” came the rustling voice. “It is all for the prophecy.”
Haplo lay on his back, on the floor, too weak to move. That bastard’s right. The pain is beginning to fade . . . because my life is fading. I’m dying. I’m dying and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I’m dying in fulfillment of a prophecy.
“What is … the prophecy?” Haplo cried out.
But his cry was, in reality, nothing more than a breath. No one answered. No one heard him. He couldn’t even hear himself.