There was much cheering, and Limbeck blushed to the roots of his beard.
“What’s the delay?” asked Haplo softly. Quiet, keeping to the shadows, away from the other mensch, he stood near the statue of the Manger. “It’s safe. You can go down there now. The dragon-snakes are gone.”
At least they’re not down in the tunnels anymore, he added, but he added it to himself. Evil was in the world and would always be in the world, but now, with the prospect for peace among the mensch races, evil’s influence was lessened. Limbeck blinked in Haplo’s general direction. “Haplo, too,” he said to Jarre.
“Haplo’s a hero, too. He’s the one really responsible.”
“No, I’m not,” Haplo said hastily, irritably. “Look, you’d better get on with this. The people on the other continents above will be waiting. They might start to get nervous if there’s a delay.”
“Haplo’s right,” said Jarre, ever practical. She tugged Limbeck toward the entrance to the stairway.
The dignitaries crowded around the statue, preparing to follow. Haplo stayed put. He was feeling uneasy and could find no reason for it. He looked, for the hundredth time, at the sigla tattooed on his skin, the runes that would warn him of danger. They did not glow with their magical warning, as they would have if danger had threatened—if the dragon-snakes were lurking somewhere below, for instance. But he felt the warning still, a prickling of the skin, a tingle of nerve-endings. Something was wrong. He retreated into the darkness, planning to take a close look at everyone in the crowd. The dragon-snakes might disguise themselves effectively as mensch, but their glinting red reptile eyes would give them away.
Haplo hoped to remain unnoticed, forgotten. But the dog, excited by the noise and activity, was not about to be left out of the celebrations. With a cheerful bark, it bounded away from Haplo’s side and dashed for the stairs.
“Dog!” Haplo made a lunge for the animal and would have caught it, but at that moment he was conscious of movement behind him, movement felt rather than seen, of someone drawing near him, a whispered breath on the back of his neck. Distracted, he glanced around and missed in his grab for the dog. The animal joyfully leapt for the stairs and promptly entangled itself among the august limbs of the High Froman.
There was a perilous moment when it seemed that the dog and Limbeck would mark this historic occasion by tumbling down the stairs in a confused tangle of fur and beard. But the quick-thinking Jarre grabbed hold of both her renowned leader and the dog, each by their respective napes, and managed to sort them out and save the day.
Keeping firm hold of the dog in one hand and Limbeck in the other, Jarre glanced around. She had never really been all that fond of dogs.
“Haplo!” she called in a stern and disapproving tone. No one was near him. He was quite alone, not counting the various dignitaries all lined up at the head of the stairs, waiting for their chance to descend. Haplo stared at his hand. For one instant, he had thought the runes were about to activate, to prepare to defend him from imminent attack. But they remained dark.
It was a strange sensation, one he’d never before experienced. He was reminded of a candle flame, extinguished by a breath. Haplo had the disquieting feeling that someone had, with a breath, extinguished his magic. But that wasn’t possible.
“Haplo!” Jarre called again. “Come get this dog of yours!” No help for it. Everyone in the Factree was looking at him and smiling. Haplo had lost all opportunity of remaining comfortably anonymous. Scratching at the back of his hand, he made his way to the top of the stairs and, with a grim expression, ordered the animal to his side.
Aware from its master’s tone that it had done something wrong, but not quite certain why all the fuss, the dog pattered meekly up to Haplo. Sitting in front of the statue, the animal lifted a contrite paw, asking to be forgiven. This proceeding highly amused the dignitaries, who gave the dog a round of applause.
Thinking the applause was for him, Limbeck bowed solemnly, then proceeded down the stairs. Haplo, the crowd pressing behind him, had no choice but to join the procession. He cast one quick glance backward, saw nothing. No one was lurking about the statue. No one was paying any particular attention to him. Perhaps he’d imagined it. Perhaps he was weaker from his injury than he’d thought.
Puzzled, Haplo followed Limbeck and Jarre, the Sartan runes lighting their way into the tunnels.
Hugh the Hand stood against a wall, in the shadows, watching the rest of the mensch file down the stairs. When the last one was down, he would follow—silent, unseen.
He was pleased with himself, satisfied. He knew now what he needed to know. His experiment had been successful.
“A Patryn’s magic is said to warn him of danger,” Ciang had told Hugh, “much as what we call our sixth sense warns us of danger, except that theirs is far more accurate, far more refined. The runes they have tattooed on their skin flare with a bright light. This not only warns them of danger, but acts as a defensive shield.”
Yes, Hugh remembered—painfully—the time in the Imperanon when he’d tried to attack Haplo. A blue light had flared and a jolt like a lightning bolt had shot through the assassin’s body.
“It would seem to me logical that for this weapon to work, it must somehow break down or penetrate the Patryn’s magic. I suggest you experiment,” Ciang had advised him. “See what it does.”
And so Hugh had experimented. That morning, when the group of dignitaries assembled in the Factree, Hugh the Hand was among them. The assassin spotted his prey immediately on entering.
Recalling what he knew of Haplo, the Hand guessed that the quiet, unassuming Patryn would keep to the background, out of the sunlight, as the saying went, staying hidden in the shadows—making Hugh’s task relatively simple. The Hand was not wrong. Haplo stood apart, near that huge statue the dwarves called the Manger. But the dog was with him. Hugh cursed himself softly. He had not forgotten about the dog, but he was simply amazed to find it with its master. The last Hugh had seen of the animal, it had been with him and Bane in the Mid Realms. Shortly after saving Hugh’s life, the dog had disappeared. The assassin had not been particularly grateful to the dog for its action, and hadn’t bothered to go looking for it.
He had no idea how it had managed to make its way from the Mid Realms to the Low Realms, and he didn’t much care. The dog was going to prove a damn nuisance. If need be, he’d kill it first. Meanwhile, Hugh had to see how close he could get to the Patryn, see if the Cursed Blade reacted in any way. Drawing the knife, keeping it hidden in the folds of his cloak, Hugh drifted into the shadows. The glimmerglamps, which would have turned the Factree’s night into bright day, were dark, since the Kicksey-winsey that ran them was not working. The humans and elves had brought oil lamps and torches, but these did little to penetrate the darkness of the cavernous building. It was easy for Hugh the Hand, dressed in the clothes of the Unseen, to join that darkness, become one with it.
He crept silently up behind his quarry, came to a halt, waited patiently for the right time to make his move. Too many in Hugh’s trade, driven by fear or nervousness or eagerness, rushed to the attack instead of waiting, observing, preparing mentally and physically for the correct moment, which always came. And when it came, you had to know it, you had to react—often in only a splinter of an instant. It was this ability to wait patiently for that moment, to recognize it and act upon it, that had made Hugh the Hand great. He bided his time, thinking as he did so that the knife had adapted itself wonderfully to his hand. He couldn’t have hired a smith to design a hilt that suited him as well.