Xar had shrugged. “And let all these fine structures go to waste? No. The Sartan underestimate us, to think we would be so easily seduced. We will turn their plan against them. In these surroundings that they provide, our people will rest and recover from their terrible ordeal and we will grow strong, stronger than ever, and ready to fight.”
The Patryns—the few hundred who had escaped the Labyrinth—lived in the city, adapted it to their own use. Many found it difficult, at first—coming from a primitive, harsh environment—to feel settled and comfortable inside four walls. But Patryns are practical, stoic, adaptable. Magical energy once spent fighting to survive was now being channeled into more constructive uses: the art of warfare, the study of controlling weaker minds, the building up of supplies and equipment necessary to carrying a war into vastly differing worlds.
Haplo entered the city, walked its streets, which glimmered like pearl in the half-light. He had always before experienced a pride and fierce exultation when he traveled through the Nexus. The Patryns are not like the Sartan. The Patryns do not gather on street corners to exchange high-minded ideals or compare philosophies or indulge in pleasant camaraderie. Grim and dour, stern and resolute, occupied on important business that is one’s own concern and no other’s, Patryns pass each other in the street swiftly, silently, with sometimes a nod of recognition.
Yet there is a sense of community about them, a sense of familial closeness. There is trust, complete and absolute.
Or at least there had been. Now he looked around uneasily, walked the streets warily, with caution. He caught himself staring hard at each of his fellow Patryns, eyeing them suspiciously. He’d seen the serpents as gigantic snakes on Arianus. He’d seen one as one of his own people. It was obvious to him now that the creatures could take on any form they chose.
His fellow Patryns began to notice Haplo’s odd behavior, cast him dark, puzzled glances that instinctively shifted to the defensive if his suspicious stares appeared about to invade personal boundaries.
It seemed to Haplo that there were a lot of strangers in the Nexus, more than he’d remembered. He didn’t recognize half the faces he saw. Those he thought he should know were altered, changed.
Haplo’s skin began to glow faintly, the sigla itched and burned. He rubbed his hand, glared furtively at everyone passing by him. The dog, pattering along happily, noticed the change in its master and was instantly on guard itself.
One woman, wearing long, flowing sleeves that covered her arms and wrists, passed by too closely, or so Haplo thought.
“What are you doing?” He reached out, grabbed her arm roughly, shoved the fabric up to see the sigla beneath it.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The woman glared at him, broke his grip on her arm with a practiced, easy twist of her wrist. “What’s wrong with you?”
Other Patryns halted in their pursuit of private affairs, banded instantly and instinctively together against the possible threat.
Haplo felt foolish. The woman was, indeed, a Patryn.
‘Tin sorry,” he said, lifting empty hands, bare and unprotected palms facing out, the sign of harmless intent, a sign that he would not use his magic. “Hush, dog. I—I thought maybe …”
He couldn’t tell them what he’d thought, couldn’t tell them what he’d feared. They wouldn’t believe him, any more than Xar had believed him.
“Labyrinth sickness,” said another, older woman in flat, practical tones. “I’ll take care of him.”
The others nodded. Her diagnosis was likely correct. They had seen this type of reaction often, especially to those newly come from the Labyrinth. A mindless terror takes possession of the victim, sends him racing into the streets, imagining he is back in that dread place.
The woman reached to take Haplo’s two hands in her own, to share the circle of their beings, restore his confused and wandering senses.
The dog glanced up at its master questioningly. Should I allow this? Or not?
Haplo caught himself staring fixedly at the sigla on the woman’s hands and arms. Did they make sense? Was there order, meaning, purpose in them? Or was she a serpent?