“Not oblivion,” Jonathon corrected. “Freedom.” His gentle voice and its soft echo coincided with the despairing echo of Kleitus, producing a sad, yet harmonic note.
“Freedom!” Kleitus gnashed his rotting teeth. “I’ll give you freedom!”
“...freedom!” The echo howled.
Kleitus rushed forward, skeletal hands clutching at Jonathon’s throat. The two corpses grappled together, Jonathon’s wasted hands closing over Kleitus’s wrists, trying to drag the other off him. The lazar struggled, nails digging into flesh, drawing no blood. Marit watched in horror, disgusted by the sight. She made no move to intervene. This was not her fight.
A cracking sound. One of Kleitus’s arms bent at a sickening angle. Jonathon flung his opponent off him, sent the Dynast reeling back against the wall. Kleitus nursed his broken limb, glared at the other lazar in rage and bitter enmity.
“You told Lord Xar about the Seventh Gate!” Jonathon said, standing over Kleitus. “Why? Why hasten to what you must see as your own destruction?” Kleitus was massaging his broken arm, muttering Sartan runes. The bone was starting to re-form; thus the lazars kept their rotting bodies functional. Looking up at Jonathon, the corpse grinned hideously. “I didn’t tell him its location.”
“He will find out.”
“Yes, he will find out!” Kleitus laughed. “Haplo will show him. Haplo will guide him to that room. They will all be inside the chamber together...”
“...together...” The echo sighed dismally. “And you—waiting for them,” said Jonathon. “I found my freedom’ in that chamber,” Kleitus said, blue-gray lips curled in a sneer. “I’ll help them find theirs! As you will find yours—” The Dynast paused, turned his head to stare directly at Marit with his strange eyes, which were sometimes the eyes of the dead and sometimes the eyes of the living.
Marit’s skin prickled; the runes on her arms and hands glowed blue. Silently, she cursed herself. She had made a sound, nothing more than a sharp intake of breath, but it had been enough to give her away.
No help for it now. She strode boldly forward. “What are you lazars doing here? Spying on my lord? Begone,” Marit commanded, “or must I summon Lord Xar to make you leave?”
The lazar known as Jonathon departed immediately, gliding down the blood-spattered corridor. Kleitus remained, eyeing her balefully. He seemed about to attack. Marit began to weave a rune-spell in her mind. The sigla on her body glowed brightly.
Kleitus withdrew into the shadows, walking with his shuffling gait down the long hall.
Shivering, thinking that any living enemy, no matter how fearsome, was far preferable to these walking dead, Marit was about to knock on the door when she heard from within her lord’s voice, raised in anger.
“And you did not report this to me! I must find out what goes on in my universe from a doddering old Sartan!”
“I see now that I was mistaken in not telling you, Lord Xar. I offer as my excuse only the fact that you were deeply involved in the study of necromancy and I did not want to disturb you with grievous news.” It was Sang-drax. The dragon-snake was whining again.
Marit wondered what she should do. She did not want to get involved in an argument between her lord and the dragon-snake, whom she heartily disliked. Yet her lord had ordered her to report to him at once. And she could not very well remain standing out here in the hallway. She would look as much an eavesdropper as the lazar. Taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, a lull that perhaps arose from Xar’s being speechless with rage, Marit knocked timidly on the kaim-grass door.
“Lord Xar, it is I, Marit.”
The door swung open by Xar’s magical command. Sang-drax bowed to her with slimy officiousness. Ignoring him, Marit looked at Xar.
“You are engaged, Lord,” she said. “I can return—”
“No, my dear. Come in. This concerns you and your journey.” Xar had regained his calm demeanor, though his eyes still flashed when they turned to the dragon-snake.
Marit stepped inside and shut the door behind her, first glancing outside to make certain the hall was empty.
“I found Kleitus and another lazar outside your door, My Lord,” she reported.
“I think they were attempting to overhear your words.”
“Let them!” Xar said, without interest. He then spoke to Sang-drax.
“You fought Haplo on Arianus. Why?”
“I was attempting to prevent the mensch from seizing control of the Kicksey-winsey, Lord,” the dragon-snake replied, cringing. “The machine’s power is immense, as you yourself have surmised. Once it is in operation, it will not only change Arianus, but will affect all the other worlds as well. In the hands of the mensch—” Sang-drax shrugged, leaving that terrible possibility to the imagination.
“And Haplo was assisting the mensch?” Xar pursued. “Not only assisting them, Lord,” said the dragon-snake. “He actually provided them with information—undoubtedly obtained from that Sartan friend of his—on how to operate the great machine.”
Xar’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you,”
“He has a book, written in four languages: Sartan, elven, human, and dwarven. Where else could he have obtained it, Lord, but from the one who calls himself Alfred?”
“If what you say is true, he must have had it with him, then, when he last saw me in the Nexus,” Xar muttered. “Why would Haplo do such a thing? What reason?”
“He wants to rule Arianus, Lord. And perhaps the rest of the four worlds as well. Isn’t that obvious?”
“And so the mensch, under Haplo’s guidance, are about to start up the Kicksey-winsey.” Xar’s fist clenched. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Would you have believed me?” Sang-drax asked softly. “Though I have lost an eye, I am not the one who is blind. You are, Lord of the Nexus. Look! Look at the evidence you have amassed—evidence indicating one thing. Time and again Haplo has lied to you, betrayed you. And you permit it! You love him, Lord. Your love has blinded you as surely as his sword almost blinded me.” Marit trembled, astounded at the dragon-snake’s temerity. She waited for Xar’s fury to thunder around them. But Xar’s clenched fist slowly relaxed. His hand shook. Leaning on his desk, he turned away from Sang-drax, away from Marit.
“Did you slay him?” the lord asked heavily.
“No, Lord. He is one of your people, and so I took care not to kill him. I left him critically wounded, however, for which I apologize. Sometimes I do not know my own strength. I tore his heart-rune open. Seeing him near death, I realized what I had done and, fearing your displeasure, withdrew from the battle.”
“And that is how you came to lose your eye?” Xar asked wryly, glancing around.
“Withdrawing from the battle?”
Sang-drax glowered; the single red eye glowed, and Marit’s defensive runes suddenly glimmered to life. Xar continued to regard the dragon-snake with apparent calm, and Sang-drax lowered his eyelid, extinguishing the red glow.
“Your people are skilled warriors, Lord.” The single eye slid to Marit and flared briefly; then its gleam was doused again.
“And what is Haplo’s condition now?” Xar asked. “Not good, I should think. It takes time to heal the heart-rune.”
“True, Lord. He is exceedingly weak and will not soon recover.”
“How did Bane come to die?” Xar asked mildly enough, though his own eyes flickered dangerously. “And why did Haplo attack you?”
“Bane knew too much, Lord. He was loyal to you. Haplo hired a mensch called Hugh the Hand, an assassin friend of Alfred’s, to murder Bane. This done, Haplo seized control of the great Kicksey-winsey for himself. When I attempted to stop him—in your name, My Lord Xar—Haplo drove the mensch to attack me and my people.”[6]
6
Those who have read about the dragon-snakes before will note the difference between Sang-drax’s account of the Battle of the Kicksey-winsey and the truth, as recorded in