Where is the citadel? What must we do?
The voice startled Haplo, speaking to his mind, not his ears. It wasn’t threatening. The voice sounded frustrated, desperate, almost wistfully eager. Other creatures in the grove, hearing the silent question of their companion, had ceased their murderous pursuit to turn to watch.
“Tell me about the citadel,” said Haplo cautiously, spreading his hands in a gesture of appeasement. “Perhaps I can—”
Light blinded him, concussive thunder blasted him from his feet. Lying face down on the deck, dazed and stunned, Haplo fought to retain consciousness, fought to analyze and understand.
The magical spell had been crude—a simple elemental configuration calling upon forces present in nature. A child of seven could have constructed it, a child of seven should have been able to protect himself against it. Haplo hadn’t even seen it coming. It was as if the child of seven had cast the spell using the strength of seven hundred. His own magic had shielded him from death, but the shield had been cracked. He was hurt, vulnerable.
Haplo enhanced his defenses. The sigla on his skin began to glow blue and red, creating an eerie light that shone through his clothing. He was vaguely aware that the being had retrieved its tree trunk and lifted it high, preparing to smash it down on him. Rolling to a standing position, he cast his spell. Runes surrounded the wood, caused the trunk to disintegrate in the creature’s hand. Behind him came shouts and the thudding of feet, panting breath. His diversion of the creature’s attention must have given the old man time to rescue the elf and his friends. Haplo felt, more than saw or heard, one of them come creeping up to him.
“I’ll help—” offered a voice, speaking in elven.
“Get below!” the Patryn snarled, enraged, the interruption unweaving an entire fabric of runes. He didn’t see whether the elf obeyed him or not. Haplo didn’t care.
He was intent upon the creature, analyzing it. It had ceased using its potent magic, turned again to brute force. Dull-witted, stupid, Haplo decided. Its reactions had been instinctive, animal-like, unthinking. Perhaps it couldn’t consciously control the magic—He started to stand up. The blast of wind hit him with hurricane force. Haplo struggled against the spell, creating dense and complex rune constructs to surround him, protect him.
He might have built a wall of feathers. The raw power of the crude magic seeped through minuscule cracks in the sigla and blew them to tatters. The wind battered him to the deck. Branches and leaves hurtled past him, something struck him in the face, nearly knocking him senseless. He fought against the pain, clinging to the wooden rails with his hands, the gusts pummeling, hammering. He was helpless against the magic, he couldn’t reason with it, speak to it. His strength was seeping from him rapidly, the wind increasing in force.
A grim joke among the Patryns purports that there are only two kinds of people in the Labyrinth: the quick and the dead, and advises, “When the odds are against you, run like heli.”
It was definitely time to get out of here.
Every move taking a supreme effort against the force of the wind, Haplo managed to turn his head and look behind him. He spotted the open hatch, saw the elf crouched, waiting there, his head poking up. Not a hair on the elf’s head was ruffled. The full force of the magic was being expended against Haplo alone.
That might end soon.
Haplo released his hold on the rail. The wind blew him across the deck, toward the hatch. Making a desperate lunge, he grabbed the rim of the hatch as he slithered past, and held on. The elf grasped him by the wrists and fought to drag him below. The wind fought them. Blinding, stinging, it howled and pounded at them like a live thing who sees its prey about to escape. The elf’s grip loosened, suddenly broke. The elf disappeared. Haplo felt his hold on the rim weakening. Inwardly cursing, he concentrated all his strength, all his magic into just hanging on. Down below, he heard the dog barking frantically, and then hands had hold of him again—not slender elf hands, but strong human hands. Haplo saw a human face—grim, determined, flushed red with the effort the man was expending. Haplo, with his failing energy, wove his magic around the man. Red and blue sigla from the runes on his own arms and hands twisted and twined around the human’s arms, lending him Haplo’s strength.
Muscles bunched, jerked, heaved, and Haplo was flying head first down the hatch.
He landed heavily on top of the human, heard the breath leave the man’s body in a whoosh and a grunt of pain.
Haplo was on his feet, moving, reacting, ignoring the part of his mind that was trying to draw his attention to his own injuries. He didn’t glance at the human who had saved his life. He rudely shoved aside the old man who was yammering something in his ear. The ship shuddered; he heard timber cracking. The creatures were venting their rage against it or perhaps endeavoring to crack open the shell protecting the fragile life inside.
The steering stone was the only object in Haplo’s line of sight. All else disappeared, was swallowed up in the black fog that was slowly gathering about him. He shook his head, fought the darkness back. Sinking to his knees before the stone, he placed his hands upon it, summoning from the deep well within him the strength to activate it.
He felt the ship shudder beneath him, but it was a different type of shudder than the one the creatures were inflicting. Dragon Wing rose slowly off the ground.
Haplo’s eyes were gummed almost completely shut with something, probably his own blood. He peered through them, struggled to see out the window. The creatures were behaving as he had anticipated. Amazed, startled by the ship’s sudden lift into the air, they had fallen back away from it. But they weren’t frightened. They weren’t fleeing from it in panic. Haplo felt their senses reaching out, smelling, listening, seeing without eyes. The Patryn fought back the black haze and concentrated his energy on keeping the ship floating up higher and higher.
He saw one of the creatures lift its arm. A giant hand reached out, grabbed hold of one of the wings. The ship lurched, throwing everyone to the deck. Haplo held onto the stone, concentrated his magic. The runes flared blue, the creature snatched its hand back as if in pain. The ship soared into the air. Looking out from beneath his gummed eyelashes, Haplo saw green treetops and the hazy blue-green sky and then everything was covered by a dense black, pain-tinged fog.
27
“What … what is he?” asked Rega, staring at the unconscious man lying on the deck. The man was obviously seriously injured—his skin was burned and blackened, blood oozed from a wound on his head. But the woman held back, afraid to venture too close. “He … he glowed! I saw him!”
“I know it’s been a difficult time for you, my dear—” Zifnab gazed at her in deep concern.
“I did!” Rega faltered. “His skin glowed! Red and blue!”
“You’ve had a hard day,” said Zifnab, patting her solicitously on the arm.
“I saw it, too,” added Roland, rubbing his solar plexus and grimacing. “And what’s more, I was about to lose my hold on him, my arms were getting weak, and those … those markings on his hand lit up like a torch. Then my hands lit up, and suddenly I had enough strength to drag him down through the hatch.”
“Stress,” said the old man. “Does queer things to the mind. Proper breathing, that’s the key. All together, with me. Good air in. Bad air out. Good air in.”