“Where are we?” Alfred asked in awe. Apparently, from the terror-stricken expression in the wide, watery eyes, he had just undergone a similar experience.
“Entering Death’s Gate,” Haplo answered grimly.
Neither spoke for a moment, but looked around, watching, listening with inheld breath.
‘Ah.” Alfred sighed, nodded. “That would explain it.”
“Explain what, Sartan?”
“How I arrived … er … here,” Alfred said, lifting his eyes for an instant to meet Haplo’s, immediately lowering them again. “I didn’t mean to. You must understand that. I—I was looking for Bane, you see. The little boy you took from Arianus. The child’s mother is frantic with worry—”
“Over a kid she gave away eleven years ago. Yeah, I’m in tears. Go on.”
Alfred’s wan cheeks flushed slightly. “Her circumstances at the time— She had no choice— It was her husband—”
“How did you get on my ship?” Haplo repeated.
“I… I managed to locate Death’s Gate in Arianus. The Gegs put me in one of the dig-claws—You remember those contraptions?— and lowered me down into the storm, right into Death’s Gate itself. I had just entered it when I experienced a sensation as… as if I were being pulled apart and then I was jerked violently backward . .. forward … I don’t know I blacked out. When I came to myself, I was lying here.” Alfred spread his hands helplessly to indicate the hold.
“That must have been the crash I heard.” Haplo gazed at Alfred speculatively “You’re not lying. From what I’ve heard, you miserable Sartan can’t lie. But you’re not telling me all the truth either.”
Alfred’s flush deepened, he lowered his eyelids. “Prior to when you left the Nexus,” he said in a small voice, “did you experience an odd . . . sensation?”
Haplo refused to commit himself, but Alfred took his silence for acquiescence. ‘A sort of ripplelike effect? Made you sick? That was me, I’m afraid,” he said faintly.
“It figures.” The Patryn sat back on his heels, glaring at Alfred. “Now what in the name of the Sundering do I do with you? I—”
Time slowed. The last word Haplo spoke seemed to take a year to emerge from his mouth and another year for his ears to hear it. He reached out a hand to grasp Alfred by the frilly neckerchief around the man’s scrawny neck. His hand crept forward a fraction of an inch at a time. Haplo attempted to hasten his motion. He moved slower. Air wasn’t coming in fast enough to supply his lungs. He would die of suffocation before he could draw a breath.
But impossibly he was moving fast, far too fast. His hand had grasped Alfred and was worrying the man like the dog worried a rat. He was shouting words that came out gibberish and Alfred was trying desperately to break his grasp and say something back, but the words flew by so swiftly that Haplo couldn’t understand them. The dog was lolling on its side, moving in slow motion, and it was up and leaping around the deck like a thing possessed.
Haplo’s mind attempted frantically to deal with these dichotomies. Its answer was to give up and shut down. He fought against the darkening mists, focusing his attention on the dog, refusing to see or think about anything else. Eventually, everything either slowed down or speeded up. Normality returned.
It occurred to him that this was the farthest he’d made it into Death’s Gate without losing consciousness. He supposed, he thought bitterly, he had Alfred to thank.
“It will keep growing worse,” said the Sartan. His face was white, he shook all over.
“How do you know?” Haplo wiped sweat from his forehead, tried to relax, his muscles were bunched and aching from the strain.
“I… studied Death’s Gate before I entered it. The other times you passed through, you always blacked out, didn’t you?”
Haplo didn’t answer. He decided to try to make his way to the bridge. Alfred would be safe enough in the hold, for the time being. It was damn certain the Sartan wasn’t going anywhere!
Haplo rose to his feet. .. and kept rising. He stood up and up and up until he must crash through the wooden overhead, and he was shrinking, becoming smaller and smaller and smaller until an ant might step on him and never notice.