“What… what are you?” At least, that’s what Haplo tried to say. His brain shaped the words clearly, but they came out mush.
“Talking’s difficult just now, I fancy, isn’t it?” remarked the elf, speaking Patryn again. “No need. I can understand your thoughts. You know what I am. You saw me on Chelestra, though you probably don’t remember. I was only one of many. And in a different body. Dragon-snakes, the mensch dubbed us. Here, what would you say? Serpent-elf? Yes, I rather like that.”
Shape-changers… Haplo thought in a vague kind of horror. He shivered, mumbled.
“Shape-changers,” agreed the serpent-elf. “But come. I’m taking you to the Royal One. He’s asked to speak with you.”
Haplo willed his muscles to respond to his command, willed his hands to strangle, hit, jab, anything. But his body failed him. His muscles twitched and danced in erratic spasms. It was all he could do to remain standing, and then he was forced to lean on the elf.
Or, he supposed he should start thinking, the serpent.
“Suppose you try standing, Patryn. Oh, I say, that’s quite good. Now walking. We’re late as it is. One foot in front of the other.”
The serpent-elf guided the stumbling Patryn’s footsteps as if he were a feeble old man. Haplo shuffled forward, feet falling over each other, hands jerking aimlessly. A cold sweat soaked his shirt. His nerves flamed and tingled. The sigla tattooed on his body had gone dark, his magic disrupted. He shook and shivered and burned, leaned on the elf, and kept going.
Limbeck stood in the darkness that was so extraordinarily dark—far darker than any darkness he could ever remember— and began to think that he’d made a mistake. The sigil Haplo had left above the arched passageway still glowed, but it cast no light, and, if anything, its solitary brilliance so far above the dwarf only served to make his own darkness darker.
And then the light of the sigil began to dim.
“I’m going to be trapped down here in the dark,” said Limbeck. Removing his spectacles, he started to chew on the earpiece, a habit of his when nervous. “Alone. They’re not coming back.”
This possibility had not occurred to him. He’d seen Haplo perform marvelous feats of magic. Surely, a handful of elves wouldn’t be a problem for a man who had driven away a marauding dragon. Haplo would scare away the elves, then come back, and Limbeck could continue investigating that wondrous metal personage inside the room.
Except Haplo didn’t come back. Time passed. The sigil grew dimmer. Something had gone wrong.
Limbeck wavered. The thought of leaving this room, perhaps forever, was agony. He had been so close. Give the metal man its instructions and the metal man would start the heart of the great machine beating again. Limbeck was not quite clear on what the instructions were or how they were to be given or what would happen once the great machine started up, but he had faith that all would be made clear to him in time—just like putting on his spectacles.
But, for now, the door was closed. Limbeck couldn’t get back inside. He knew he couldn’t get back inside, because he’d given the door a push or two, after Jarre had left him. He supposed he should be encouraged because the metal man had at least followed Haplo’s orders, but right at the moment Limbeck could have opted for a more slovenly, undisciplined attitude on the metal man’s part.
The dwarf considered beating on the door, shouting, demanding to be let in.
“No,” Limbeck muttered, grimacing at an awful taste in his mouth, a taste left behind by the earpiece, “yelling and shouting might alert the elves. They’d come searching and find the Heart Room [as he was now terming it]. If I had a light, I could see that symbol Bane drew on the door, then maybe I could open it. But I don’t have a light and no way to get a light without going away and bringing one back. And if I go away to bring one back, how will I get back when I don’t know the way?”