Besides, Samah looked to have suffered a beating already. Haplo waited quietly. Samah did not glance up from his troubled musings. He might conceivably have walked past the Patryn without seeing him. The dog, unable to contain itself, remembering past wrongs, barked a sharp warning—the Sartan had come close enough.
Samah raised his head, startled at the sound but not, apparently, startled to see either the dog or its master. The Sartan’s lips tightened. His gaze shifted from Haplo to the small submersible floating behind him.
“Returning to your lord?” Samah asked coldly.
Haplo saw no need to reply.
Samah nodded; he hadn’t expected a response. “You’ll be glad to know your minions are already on their way. They have preceded you. No doubt a hero’s welcome awaits you.” His tone was bitter, his gaze dark with hatred and, lurking beneath, fear.
“On their way…” Haplo stared at the Sartan, then, suddenly, he understood. Understood what had happened, understood the reason for his seemingly unreasonable fear. Now he knew where the serpents were… and why.
“You bloody fool!” Haplo swore. “You opened Death’s Gate!”
“I warned you we would do so, Patryn, if your mensch lackeys attacked us.”
“You were warned, Sartan. The dwarf told you what she overheard. The serpents wanted you to open Death’s Gate. That was their plan all along. Didn’t you listen to Grundle?”
“And so now I should be taking advice from mensch?” Samah sneered.
“They have more sense than you do, seemingly. You opened Death’s Gate, intending to do what? Flee? No, that wasn’t your plan. Help. You sought help. After what Alfred told you. You still don’t believe him. Nearly all your people are gone, Samah. You few on Chelestra are all that’s left, except for a couple of thousand animated corpses on Abarrach. You opened the Gate, but it was the serpents who passed through it. Now they’ll spread their evil throughout the four worlds. I hoped they stopped long enough to thank you!”
“The power of the Gate should have stopped the creatures!” Samah replied in a low voice. His fist clenched. “The serpents should not have been able to enter!”
“Just as mensch can’t enter without your help? You still don’t understand, do you, Sartan? These snakes are more powerful than you or I or my lord or maybe all of us put together. They don’t need help!”
“The serpents had help!” Samah retorted bitterly. “Patryn help.”
Haplo opened his mouth to argue, decided it wasn’t worth it. He was wasting time. The evil was spreading. It was now even more imperative that he return to warn his lord.
Shaking his head, Haplo started for his ship. “C’mon, dog.”
But the animal barked again, refused to budge. The dog looked at Haplo, ears cocked.
Don’t you have something you want to ask, master?
A thought did occur to Haplo. He turned back.
“What happened to Alfred?”
“Your friend?” Samah mocked. “He was sent to the Labyrinth—the fate of all who preach heresy and conspire with the enemy.”
“You know, don’t you, that he was the one person who might have stopped the evil.”
Samah was briefly amused. “If this Alfred is as powerful as you claim, then he could have prevented us from sending him to prison. He didn’t. He went to his punishment meekly enough.”
“Yes,” said Haplo softly. “I’ll bet he did.”
“You value your friend so dearly, Patryn, why don’t you go back to your prison and try to get him out?”
“Maybe I will. No, boy,” Haplo added, seeing the dog’s gaze go longingly to Samah’s throat. “You’d be up sick half the night.”
He returned to his ship, cast off the moorings, dragged the dog—who was still growling at Samah—inside, slammed the hatch shut behind him. Once on board, Haplo hastened to the window in the steerage compartment to keep an eye on the Sartan. Magic or no magic, Haplo didn’t trust him.
Samah stood unmoving on the sand. His white robes were damp and bedraggled, the hem covered with slime and the ooze of the dead serpents. His shoulders sagged; his skin was gray. He looked exhausted to the point of falling, but—probably aware that he was under scrutiny—he remained standing upright, jaw thrust out, arms folded across his chest.