But not now. No, not now.
Haplo’s mouth was dry, had a foul taste in it. He swallowed, but it did no good. He reached out his hands to the steering stone and was startled to see his fingers tremble. Time was running out. The Lord of the Nexus would have received his report by now. He would know that Haplo had lied to him.
“I should leave . . . now,” Haplo said softly, willing himself to place his hands on the stone.
But he was like a man who sees dreadful doom coming upon him, who knows he must run for his life, yet who finds himself paralyzed, his limbs refusing to obey his brain’s command.
The dog growled. Its hackles rose, its eyes shifted to a point behind and beyond Haplo.
Haplo did not look around. He had no need. He knew who stood in the doorway.
He knew it by countless signs: he’d heard no one approaching, the warning sigla tattooed on his skin had not activated, the dog had not reacted until the man was within arm’s reach.
The animal stood its ground, ears flattened, the low growl rumbling deep in its chest.
Haplo closed his eyes, sighed. He felt, to his surprise, a vast sense of relief.
“Dog, go,” he said.
The animal looked up at him, whimpered, begged him to reconsider.
“Get,” snarled Haplo. “Go on. Beat it.” The dog, whining, came to him, put its paw on his leg. Haplo scratched behind the furry ears, rubbed his hand beneath the jowl.
“Go. Wait outside.”
Head lowered, the dog trotted slowly and reluctantly from the bridge. Haplo heard it flop down just outside the doorway, heard it sigh, knew it was pressed as close against the door as was possible to do and still obey its master’s command.
Haplo did not look at the man who had materialized out of the twilight shadows inside his ship. Haplo kept his head lowered. Tense, nervous, he traced with his finger the runes carved upon the steering stone.
He sensed, more than heard or saw, the man come near him. A hand closed over Haplo’s arm. The hand was old and gnarled, its runes a mass of hills and valleys on the wrinkled skin. Yet the sigla were still dark and easily read, their power strong.
“My son,” said a gentle voice.
If the Lord of the Nexus had come raging aboard the ship, denouncing Haplo as a traitor, hurling threats and accusations, Haplo would have defied him, fought him, undoubtedly to the death.
Two simple words disarmed him completely.
“My son.”
He heard forgiveness, understanding. A sob shook Haplo. He fell to his knees. Tears, as hot and bitter as the poison he’d swallowed on Abarrach, crept from beneath his eyelids.
“Help me, Lord!” he pleaded, the words coming as a gasp from a chest that burned with pain. “Help me!”
“I will, my son,” answered Xar. His gnarled hand stroked Haplo’s hair. “I will.”
The hand’s grip tightened painfully. Xar jerked Haplo’s head back, forced him to look up.
“You have been deeply hurt, terribly wounded, my son. And your injury is not healing cleanly. It festers, doesn’t it, Haplo? It grows gangrenous. Lance it. Purge yourself of its foul infection or its fever will consume you.
“Look at yourself. Look what this infection has done to you already. Where is the Haplo who walked defiantly out of the Labyrinth, though each step might have been his last? Where is the Haplo who braved Death’s Gate so many times? Where is Haplo now? Sobbing at my feet like a child!
“Tell me the truth, my son. Tell me the truth about Abarrach.”
Haplo bowed his head and confessed. The words gushed forth, spewing out of him, purging him, easing the pain of the wound. He spoke with fevered rapidity, his tale broken and disjointed, his speech often incoherent, but Xar had no difficulty following him. The language of both the Patryns and their rivals, the Sartan, has the ability to create images in the mind, images that can be seen and understood if the words cannot.
“And so,” murmured the Lord of the Nexus, “the Sartan have been practicing the forbidden art of necromancy. This is what you feared to tell me. I can understand, Haplo. I share your revulsion, your disgust. Trust the Sartan to mishandle this marvelous power. Rotting corpses, shuffling about on menial errands. Armies of bones battering each other into dust.” The gnarled hands were once again stroking, soothing.