“You can control it. You just don’t want to. It’s become an easy way out.” The Patryn pointed over the ship’s hull to the blazing lava sea, burning bright around them. “But if you faint and fall into a puddle in this world, that fainting spell’s liable to be your last!
“Let’s go, dog. You, too, Alfred.’ ”
CHAPTER * 11
SAFE HARBOR, ABARRACH
LEFT THE SHIP MOORED AT THE DOCK, ITS MAGIC KEEPING IT afloat in the air above the magma flow. He was not concerned over anything happening to the vessel, runes of protection guarded it better than he could have guarded it in person, would permit no one to enter in his absence. Not that this appeared likely. No one approached the ship, no dock authority demanded to know their business, no hucksters swarmed over to push their wares, no sailors lounged about, idly eyeing the cut of their jib.
The dog leapt from the deck to the pier below. Haplo followed, landing almost as silently and lightly as the animal. Alfred remained on deck, dithering nervously, pacing back and forth.
Haplo, exasperated, was on the point of leaving the man when suddenly, with desperate courage, Alfred launched himself into the air, arms and legs flailing, and landed in a confused heap on the rock pier. It took him several moments to sort himself out, looking for all the world as if he were endeavoring to decide which limb went where and making mistakes as he went along. Haplo watched, half-amused, wholly irritated, inclined to assist the clumsy Sartan simply to expedite their progress. Alfred at last pulled himself together, discovered no bones were broken, and fell into step beside Haplo and the dog.
They wandered slowly down the pier, Haplo taking his time investigating. He stopped once to stare closely at several bales stacked on the docks. The dog sniffed around them. Alfred gazed at them curiously.
“What are they, do you think?”
“Raw material of some sort,” Haplo answered, touching it gingerly. “Fibrous, soft. Might be used for making cloth. I—” He paused, leaned closer to the bale, almost as if he were sniffing it, like his dog. He straightened, pointed. “What do you make of that?”
Alfred appeared rather startled at being thus addressed, but he leaned down, squinting his mild eyes and peering distractedly. “What? I can’t—”
“Look closely. Those marks on the sides of the bales.”
Alfred thrust his nose nearly into the product, gave a start, paled slightly, and drew back.
“Well?” Haplo demanded.
“I… can’t be sure.”
“The hell you can’t.”
“The markings are smudged, difficult to read.”
Haplo shook his head, and walked on, whistling to the dog, who thought it had found a rat and was pawing frantically at the bottom of a bale.
The town of obsidian was silent, the silence was ominous and oppressive. No heads peered out of the windows, no children ran through the streets. Yet it had obviously once been filled with life, as impossible as that might seem, so near the magma sea whose heat and fumes must kill any ordinary mortal.
Ordinary mortals. Not demigods.
Haplo continued his scrutiny of the various goods and bundles piled up on the pier. Occasionally, he paused and shot a closer glance at one and when he did this, he often pointed it out silently to Alfred, who would look at it, look at Haplo, and shrug his stooped shoulders in perplexity.
The two moved into the town proper. No one hailed them, greeted them, threatened them. Haplo was certain, now, that no one would. The pricking of certain runes on his skin would have alerted him to the presence of anything living; his magic was doing nothing more than keeping his body cool and filtering out harmful properties in the air. Alfred appeared nervous—but then Alfred would have appeared nervous walking into a children’s nursery.
Two questions were on Haplo’s mind: Who had been here and why weren’t they here any longer?
The town itself was a collection of buildings carved of the black rock, fronting a single street. One building, standing almost directly opposite the pier, boasted thick-paned, crude glass windows. Haplo looked inside. Several globes of soft, warm light ranged around the walls, illuminating a large common room filled with tables and chairs. Perhaps an inn.