Hauling on the rope, Haplo swung the Sartan—arms and legs dangling like a dead spider—across the gap to his side of the ledge. Just at that moment, the part of the ledge on which Alfred had been standing gave way.
“Dog! Jump!” Haplo yelled.
The dog gathered itself and, as the rock slid out from beneath its feet, hurled its body into the dust-laden air. It slammed into Alfred, sent them both sprawling.
Boulders fell across the path, blocking it, blocking their way out. Haplo picked the Sartan up, shook him. Alfred’s eyes were starting to roll back in his head; his body was going limp.
“If you faint, you’ll die here. And so will I!” Haplo shouted at him. “Use your own magic, damn it!”
Alfred blinked, stared. Then he drew in a sucking breath. Singing the runes in a quavering voice, he spread his arms and began to fly toward the exit, which was rapidly growing smaller.
“Come on, boy,” Haplo commanded the dog and plunged ahead. His rune-magic struck the boulders that blocked his path, burst them apart, sent them bounding out of his way.
Alfred swooped up and out of the cavern opening. His arms flapping, feet stretched out behind him, he looked like a coattailed crane. A huge rock thundered down on top of Haplo, bowled him over, pinned his leg beneath it. The opening was closing; the mountain itself was sliding down on top of him. A tiny glimmer of gray light was all that remained. Haplo used his magic as a wedge, pried the boulder off his leg, lunged forward, thrusting his hand through the narrowing gap-The tunnel of light grew wider. Sartan runes flared around his hand, strengthening the glow of the Patryn runes.
“Pull him out!” Alfred was shouting. “I’ll hold it open!” Hugh the Hand grabbed hold of Haplo, pulled him through the magic-wrought tunnel. Haplo scrambled to his feet, began to run. The assassin and Alfred were at his side, the dog barking and racing in front of them. Alfred naturally stumbled over his own feet. Haplo didn’t even pause, but swept the Sartan up and kept going. Marit stood on a ridge, waiting for them.
“Take cover!” Haplo shouted at her.
An avalanche of rock and splintered trees roared down the mountainside. Haplo flung himself face forward on the ground, dragged Alfred down with him. The Patryn’s rune-magic sheltered him, and he hoped Alfred had sense enough to use his own magic for protection. Rock and debris bounced off the magical shields, crashed around them. The ground shook, and then suddenly all was quiet.
Slowly, Haplo sat up.
“I guess you won’t be going back now, Alfred,” he said. Half the mountain had collapsed in on itself. Gigantic slabs of stone lay across what had been the cavern’s entrance, sealing it shut, perhaps forever. Haplo stared at the ruin with a strange foreboding. What was wrong? He hadn’t really planned to come back this way. Perhaps it was nothing more than the instinctive fear of having a door slammed shut at his back. But why had the Labyrinth suddenly decided to seal off their exit?
Marit unknowingly spoke his thoughts.
“That leaves us just one way out now—the Final Gate.” Her words came back, a dismal echo, bouncing off the ruined mountain. The Final Gate.
34
“I can’t go on,” Alfred gulped, sinking onto a flat rock. “I have to rest.” The last panicked dash and the fall of the mountain on top of him had been too much for the Sartan. He sat hunched over, wheezing and gasping. Marit cast a disdainful glance at him, then one at Haplo. Then she looked away. I told you, said her scornful gaze. You are a fool.
Haplo said quietly, “There’s no time, Alfred. Not now. We’re exposed, out in the open. We find cover, then we rest.”
“Just a few moments,” Alfred pleaded meekly. “It seems quiet...”
“Too quiet,” Marit said.
They were in a small grove of scrub trees that appeared, from their stunted growth and twisted limbs, to have waged a desperate struggle for life in the shadow of the mountain. A sparse smattering of leaves clung dejectedly to the branches. Now that the mountain had collapsed, the Labyrinth’s sun touched the trees for perhaps the first time. But the gray light brought no cheer, no comfort. The leaves rustled mournfully, and that, Marit noticed uneasily, was the only sound in the land.
She drew her knife out of her boot. The dog jumped up, growled. Hugh the Hand eyed her suspiciously. Ignoring the animal, ignoring the mensch, Marit said a few words to the tree in her own language, apologizing for harming it, explaining her dire need. Then she began to hack at a branch. Haplo, too, had apparently noted the silence. “Yes, it’s quiet. Too quiet. That avalanche must have been heard for miles. You can bet someone is on their way to investigate. And I don’t intend to be here when they arrive.” Alfred was perplexed. “But... it was only an avalanche. A rock slide. Why would anyone care?”
“Of course the Labyrinth cares. It dropped a mountain on us, didn’t it?” Haplo wiped sweat and rock dust from his face.
Marit cut off the branch, began to strip away small twigs and half-dead leaves.
Haplo squatted down on his haunches, faced Alfred.
“Don’t you understand yet, damn it? The Labyrinth is an intelligent entity. I don’t know what rules it or how, but it knows—it knows everything.” He was silent, thoughtful. “But there’s a difference about the Labyrinth. I can sense it, feel it. Fear.”
“Yes,” agreed Alfred. “I’m terrified.”
“No, not our fear. Its fear. It’s afraid.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?”
Haplo grinned, though his grin was strained. “Strange as it sounds, us; you, Sartan.”
Alfred shook his head.
“How many heretical Sartan were sent through the Vortex? Hundreds... a thousand?” Haplo asked.
“I don’t know.” Alfred spoke into the lace of his draggled shirt collar.
“And how many had mountains dropped on them? None, I’ll wager. That mountain has been standing there a long, long time. But you—you enter the Vortex and bam! And you can be damn sure that the Labyrinth’s not going to give up.” Alfred looked at Haplo in dismay. “Why? Why would it be afraid of me?”
“You’re the only one who knows the answer to that,” Haplo returned. Marit, sharpening the point of the branch with her knife, agreed with Alfred. Why would the Labyrinth fear a mensch, two returning victims, and a weak and sniveling Sartan? Yet she knew the Labyrinth, knew it as Haplo knew it. It was intelligent, malevolent. The avalanche had been a deliberate attempt to murder them, and when the attempt had failed, the Labyrinth had sealed off their only route of escape. Not that it had been much of an escape route, with no ship to take them back through Death’s Gate.
Fear. Haplo’s right, Marit realized, with a sudden heady elation. The Labyrinth’s afraid. All my life I’ve been the one who was afraid. Now it is. It is as scared as I ever was. Never before has the Labyrinth tried to keep someone from entering. Time and again, it permitted Xar to enter the Final Gate. The Labyrinth even seemed to welcome the encounter, the chance to destroy him. It never shut the gate on Xar, as it tried to shut it on us. Yet not one of us, nor all of us combined, is nearly so powerful as the Lord of the Nexus.
Then why? What does the Labyrinth fear from us? Her elation faded, left her chilled. She needed to talk to Xar, report to him what had occurred. She wanted his counsel. Chopping off another branch, she wondered how she could find an opportunity to slip off by herself.
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Hugh the Hand, glancing around nervously, his face darkening. “And I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen how that damn Cursed Blade took on a life of its own. But I know fear. I know how it works in a man and I suppose it’s no different in a bunch of intelligent rocks. Fear makes a man desperate, reckless.” The assassin looked down at his hands, smiled grimly. “I grew rich off other men’s fear.”