He had only recently come through Death’s Gate and knew that he should not be going back this quickly. He had lost consciousness on the journey from Abarrach. No, lost wasn’t quite the correct term. He’d deliberately cast it aside. The resultant undreaming sleep had restored him completely to health, healed the arrow wound he’d taken in the thigh, removed the last vestiges of the poison given him by the ruler of Kairn Necros. When he awoke, Haplo was well in body, if not in mind. He was almost sorry to have awakened at all.
His brain was like the hold. Thoughts and ideas and feelings were in a tangle. Some were thrust away in dark corners, where he could still see them watching him. Others were tossed in any which way. Precariously and carelessly stacked, they would come tumbling down at the slightest provocation. Haplo knew he could organize them, if he took the time, but he didn’t have time, he didn’t want time. He had to escape, get away.
He’d sent his report on Abarrach to the lord via a messenger, giving as his excuse for not coming in person the need to hurry after the escaped Sartan.
My Lord, You may remove Abarrach completely from your calculations. I found evidence to indicate that the Sartan and the mensch did once inhabit that hunk of worthless, molten rock. The climate undoubtedly proved too harsh for even their powerful magic to sustain them. They apparently tried to contact the other worlds, but their attempts ended in failure. Their cities have now become their tombs. Abarrach is a dead world,
The report was true. Haplo had said nothing false about Abarrach. But its truth was polished veneer, covering rotten wood beneath. Haplo was almost certain his lord would know his servant had lied; the Lord of the Nexus had a way of knowing everything that went on in a man’s head . . . and his heart.
The Lord of the Nexus was the one person Haplo respected and admired. The one person Haplo feared. The lord’s wrath was terrible, it could be deadly. His magic was incredibly powerful. When still a young man, he had been the first to survive and escape the Labyrinth. He was the only Patryn—including Haplo—who had the courage to return to that deadly prison, fight its awful magics, work to free his people.
Haplo grew cold with fear whenever he thought about a possible encounter between his lord and himself. And he thought about it almost constantly. He wasn’t afraid of physical pain or even death. It was the fear of seeing the disappointment in his lord’s eyes, the fear of knowing that he had failed the man who had saved his life, the man who loved him like a son.
“No,” said Haplo to the dog, “better to go on to Chelestra, the next world. Better to go quickly, take my chances. Hopefully, with time, I can sort out this tangle inside me. Then, when I return, I can face my lord with a clear conscience.”
He arrived on the bridge, stood staring down at the steering stone. He’d made his decision. He had only to put his hands on the sigla-covered round stone and his ship would break the magical ties binding it to the ground and sail into the rose-hued twilight of the Nexus. Why did he hesitate?
It was wrong, all wrong. He hadn’t gone over the ship with his usual care. They’d made it safely out of Abarrach and through Death’s Gate, but that didn’t mean they could make another journey.
He’d prepared the ship in a slapdash manner, jury-rigging what he could not take time to carefully repair. He should have strengthened rune structures that almost surely had been weakened by the journey, should have searched for cracks, either in the wood or the sigla, should have replaced frayed cables.
He should have, as well, consulted with his lord about this new world. The Sartan had left written lore concerning the four worlds in the Nexus. It would be folly to rush blindly into the world of water, without even the most rudimentary knowledge of what he faced. Previously, he and his lord had met and studied . . .