“Yes, you do. You are Sartan. You are one of us. And you did not come from this world.”
Alfred was completely nonplussed, he had no idea what to say. He couldn’t lie. Yet how he could tell the truth when, as far as he knew, he didn’t know it?
Baltazar smiled, but it was a frightening smile, tight-lipped, and filled with a strange and sudden exultation. “I see the world from which you come, I see it in your words. A fat world, a world of light and pure air. And so the ancient legends are true! Our long search must be nearing an end!”
“Search for what?” Alfred asked desperately, hoping to change the subject. He did.
“The way back to those other worlds! The way out of this one!” Baltazar leaned near, his voice pitched low, tense and eager, “Death’s Gate!”
Alfred couldn’t breathe, he felt as if he were strangling.
“If—if you will excuse me,” he stammered, trying to stand, trying to escape. “I… I’m not feeling well—”
Baltazar laid a restraining hand on Alfred’s arm. “I can arrange for you to feel worse,” He cast a glance at one of the cadavers.
Alfred gulped, gasped, and seemed to shrivel. The dog raised its head, growled, asking if the Sartan needed help.
Baltazar appeared startled at Alfred’s reaction, the necromancer looked somewhat ashamed.
“I apologize. I shouldn’t have threatened you. I am not an evil man. But,” he added in a low, passionate voice, “I am a desperate one.”
Alfred, trembling, sank back down onto the cavern floor. Reaching out an unsteady hand, he gave the dog a hesitant, reassuring pat. The animal lowered its head, resumed its quiet watch.
“That other man, the one with you, the one with the runes tattooed on his skin. What is he? He is not Sartan, not like you, not like me. But he is more like us than the others—the Little People.” Baltazar picked up a small, sharp-edged stone, held it to the softly glowing light that filled the cavern. “This stone has two faces, each different, but both part of the same rock. You and I are one side, it seems. He is another. Yet all the same.”
Baltazar’s black eyes pinned the struggling Alfred to the wall. “Tell me! Tell me about him! Tell me the truth about yourself! Did you come through Death’s Gate? Where is it?”
“I can’t tell you about Haplo,” Alfred answered faintly. “Another man’s story is his to tell or to keep hidden, as he chooses.” The Sartan was beginning to panic, decided that he could find refuge in the truth, even if it was only partial truth. “As to how I came here, it… was an accident! I didn’t mean to.”
The necromancer’s black eyes bored into him, turned their sharp blade this way and that, probing and piercing. Finally, grunting, he withdrew his gaze. Brooding, Baltazar sat staring at the location on the rock floor where the dead had lately rested.
“You are not lying,” he said finally. “You cannot lie, you are not capable of deceit. But you’re not telling the truth, either. How can such a dichotomy exist within you?”
“Because I don’t know the truth. I don’t fully understand it and, therefore, in speaking of the small portion I see only very imperfectly, I might do irreparable harm. It is better if I keep what I know to myself.”
Baltazar’s black eyes blazed with anger, reflected the yellow firelight. Alfred faced him, steadfast and calm, blanching only slightly. It was the necromancer who broke off the attack, his frustrated rage dwindling to a heavy sorrow.
“It is said that such virtue was once ours. It is said that the very notion of one of our own kind shedding the blood of another was so impossible to conceive that no words existed in our language to speak of it. Well, we have those words now: murder, war, deceit, treachery, trickery, death. Yes, death.”
Baltazar rose to his feet. His voice cracked, its hot rage cooled and hardened, like molten rock that has flowed into a pool of chill water. “You will tell me what you know about Death’s Gate. And if you won’t tell me with your living voice, then you’ll tell me with the voice of the dead!” Half-turning, he pointed at the cadavers. “They never forget where they have been, what they have done. They forget only the reasons why they did them! And thus they are quite willing to do them again . . . and again . . . and again.”