Jonathan knelt on the floor. He held Jera in his arms.
The two had almost reached the prince’s cell. The light of the gas lamp above it streamed over them, shone off the shaft of an arrow, buried deep, lodged in Jera’s right breast. Her eyes were fixed on her husband’s face and, just as Alfred reached them, her lips parted in a sigh that took the last breath from her body.
“She jumped in front of me,” Jonathan cried dazedly. “The arrow was meant for me and... she jumped in front of me. Jera!” He shook the corpse, as if he were trying to waken a deep sleeper. Her lifeless hand slid to the floor. Her head lolled to one side. The beautiful hair fell over her face, covering it like a shroud.
“Jera!” Jonathan clasped her to his breast.
Alfred could still hear the voice of the preserver, attempting to raise the dead guard.
“But he’ll soon realize that’s futile and summon other guards. Maybe that’s where Tomas, the traitor, went.” Alfred was talking to himself, knew he was talking to himself, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “We have to get away, but where do we go? And where’s Haplo?”
A soft groaning came to him as if in response to the sound of the name, cutting beneath Jonathan’s cries and the preserver’s chants. Alfred looked around hurriedly, saw Haplo lying on the floor near his cell door.
Swift-spoken runes and a graceful weaving of the hands, all done without conscious thought on Alfred’s part, reduced the iron bars of the cell to small piles of rust lined up in a neat row.
Alfred touched the Haplo’s neck. He could not find the heartbeat, the life’s pulse had sunk low, and he feared he was too late. Reaching out a gentle, trembling hand, he turned the man’s head to the light. He saw the eyelids flutter. He could feel a soft stirring of warm breath on the skin of the hand that he held near the Patryn’s cracked and parched lips. He was alive, but just barely.
“Haplo!” Alfred leaned near, whispering urgently. “Haplo! Can you hear me!” Watching anxiously, he saw the man’s head nod with a feeble motion. Relief flooded through him. “Haplo! Tell me what happened to you? Is it sickness? A wound? Tell me! I”—Alfred drew a deep breath, but there had really never been any doubt over his decision—“I can heal you—”
“No!” The crusted lips could barely move, but Haplo managed to form the word, managed to summon enough breath to speak it aloud. “I won’t... owe my life ... Sartan.” He ceased talking, shut his eyes. A spasm convulsed his body and he cried out in agony.
Alfred hadn’t foreseen this, couldn’t think how to handle it. “You wouldn’t owe your life to me! I owe you!” He was babbling, but it was the only thing he could think to do under the circumstance. “You saved my life from the dragon. On Arian—”
Haplo sucked in a breath. He opened his eyes, reached out and gripped Alfred’s robes. “Shut up and ... listen. You can do ... one thing for me ... Sartan. Promise! Swear!”
“I—I swear,” Alfred said, not knowing what else to say. The Patryn was very near death.
Haplo was forced to pause, summon his waning strength. He ran his swollen tongue over lips coated with a strange, black substance. “Don’t let them. . . resurrect me. Burn... my body. Destroy it. Understand.” The eyes opened, gazed intently into Alfred’s. “Understand?”
Slowly, Alfred shook his head. “I can’t let you die.”
“Damn you!” Haplo gasped, his weak hand losing its grasp.;
Alfred traced the runes in the air, began his chant. His only question now, the only dread left in his heart was: would his magic work on a Patryn?
Behind him, he heard, like an echo of his own words, the soft phrase, “I won’t let you die!” And he heard the chanting of runes. Alfred, concentrating on his work, paid no attention.
“Damn you!” Haplo cursed him.
33
Following Alfred’s first encounter with Haplo on Arianus, the Sartan took pains to study the Patryns, the ancient enemy. The early Sartan were meticulous record keepers, and Alfred delved into the mass of histories and treatises kept in the record vaults in the mausoleum beneath Drevlin. He searched particularly for information on the Patryns themselves and their concepts of magic. He found little, the Patryns having been wary of revealing their secrets to their enemies. But one text struck him particularly, and it came now to his mind.
It had been written, not by a Sartan, but by an elven wizardess, who had formed a romantic liaison (brief and volatile) with a Patryn.
The concept of the circle is the key to the understanding of Patryn magic. The circle rules not only the runes they tattoo upon their bodies and how those runes are structured, but it also extends into every facet of their lives—the relationship between the mind and body, relationships between two people, relationships with the community. The rupture of the circle, whether it be injury to the body, the destruction of a relationship, or rupture in the community, is to be avoided at all costs.
The Sartan and others who have encountered the Patryns and are familiar with their harsh, cruel, and dictatorial personalities are continually amazed at the strong loyalty these people feel for their own kind. (And only their own kind!) To those who understand the concept of the circle, however, such loyalty is not surprising. The circle preserves the strength of their community by cutting the community off from those the
Patryns consider beneath them. [There followed irrelevant material concerning the wizardess and her failed love affair.] Any illness or injury that strikes down a Patryn is seen to have broken the circle established between body and mind. In healing practices among the Patryns, the most important factor is to reestablish the circle. This may be done by the wounded or a sick person himself or it may be done by another Patryn. A Sartan who understood the concept might possibly be able to perform the same function, but it is highly doubtful 1: if the Patryn would permit it and 2: if even a Sartan would be inclined to exhibit such mercy and compassion for an enemy who would a turn around and slaughter him without compunction.
The mensch wizardess had not had much use for either Patryns or Sartan. Alfred, on originally reading the text, was somewhat indignant at the woman’s tone, feeling sure his people were being unfairly maligned. Now, he wasn’t so certain.
Mercy and compassion ... to an enemy who would show you none himself. He had read the words lightly, glibly, without thinking about them. Now he didn’t have time to think about the question, but it occurred to him that somewhere in that sentence was the answer.
The circle of Haplo’s being was broken, shattered. Poison, Alfred guessed, noting the black substance on the lips, the swollen tongue, the evidence around him that the man had suffered terrible sickness.
“I must mend the circle, then I can mend the man.”
Alfred took hold of Haplo’s rune-tattooed hands—the Patryn’s left hand held in the Sartan’s right, the Sartan’s right hand holding the Patryn’s left. The circle was formed. Alfred closed his eyes, shutting out every sound around him, banishing the knowledge that more guards were coming, that they were still in deadly peril. Softly, he began to sing the runes.
Warmth surged through him, blood pulsed strongly in his body, life welled up inside him. The runes carried the life from his heart and head to his left arm and his left hand and he sensed it passing through his hand to Haplo’s hand. The chill skin of the dying man grew warm to the touch. He heard, or thought he heard, the man’s breathing grow stronger.
Patryns have the ability to block Sartan spells, to obviate their power. Alfred was truly afraid, at first, that Haplo might do just that.
But he was either too weak to tear apart the weaving of the runes Alfred spun around him, or the urge to survive was too strong.