“What you said about danger... I don’t understand—” Alfred began.
“You should go back.”
“Back where?” Alfred stared, helpless, confused.
“To the Vortex. Hugh the Hand’ll go. Hell, you couldn’t pry him loose from you. You’d stand a pretty fair chance of making it, I think. The tiger-men—if they’re still around—will be tailing us.”
“But the Vortex is destroyed.”
“Not for you, Sartan. I’ve seen your magic! You killed the king dragon-snake. You raised the dead. You could probably lift up the pieces of that damn mountain and put it back together again.”
Alfred protested. “You said I wasn’t to use my magic. You saw what happened—”
“I think the Labyrinth will let you—especially if it knows you’re leaving.” Alfred flushed. His head down, he glanced at Haplo sideways. “You... you said you needed me...”
“I lied. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone. What I came to do is hopeless anyway. My child is dead. Murdered in your damn prison. Go on, Sartan. Get out.”
“Not ‘Sartan.’ My name is—”
“Don’t say Alfred!” Haplo was suddenly furious. “That isn’t your name! Alfred’s a mensch name you took when you decided to hide out by becoming a mensch. No one knows what your real name is, because it’s a Sartan name and you’ve never trusted anybody enough to tell them. So just—”
“It is Coren.”
“What?” Haplo blinked, pulled up short.
“My name is Coren,” Alfred repeated quietly.
“I’ll be damned.” Haplo mulled over what he knew of Sartan rune-language.
“That means ‘to choose’ or something like that.”
Alfred smiled faintly. “ ‘Chosen.’ Me—chosen. Ludicrous, isn’t it? The name doesn’t mean anything, of course. It’s quite common among Sartan. Almost every family has—er—had a boy they named Coren. Hoping for a self-fulfilling prophecy. You see why I never told you. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I didn’t want you to laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” Haplo said.
Alfred looked very uncomfortable. “You should be. It’s really quite amusing.” Hugh the Hand, shaking the water off his head and shoulders, walked back up from the stream. He stopped to stare around the empty clearing, probably wondering what had happened to the others.
“You didn’t think that name of yours was so amusing when you woke up and found yourself alone in that mausoleum, did you, Coren?” Haplo asked quietly. Alfred was red again, then pale. His hands trembled. He dropped the bread—to the extreme gratification of the dog. Sinking onto a tree stump, Alfred sighed, his breath rattling in his throat.
“You’re right. Chosen. Chosen to live when everyone I had ever loved had died. Why? For what? They were all so much better. So much more worthy.” Alfred looked up, his pale face hard. His trembling hand clenched. “I hated my name then. I hated it. I was happy to take the name I bear now. I planned to forget the other one. And I succeeded. I had forgotten it—until I met you.” Alfred sighed again. He smiled sadly. Haplo looked back at the assassin, made him a sign. Hugh swung himself easily up into the branches of a tree, gazed ahead, in the direction the other Patryns had taken. He motioned back, raised one finger.
So Kari was keeping an eye on them. She’d left one of the group to wait for them. Courtesy again. She was concerned, didn’t want them to get lost. Haplo snorted.
Alfred was prattling on, obviously deeply relieved to talk.
“Whenever you spoke to me, Haplo, even though you called me Alfred, I kept hearing Coren. It was frightening. And yet it felt good to me, all at the same time. Frightening because I didn’t understand. Yet good—you reminded me of my past, my distant past, when my family and friends were still alive.
“How could you do this? I wondered. Who are you? At first I thought you might be one of my people, but I knew immediately that wasn’t right. Yet you obviously weren’t a mensch. And then I remembered. I remembered the ancient history. I remembered the stories about the—forgive me—the old enemy.
“That night on Arianus, when we were imprisoned in the vat, I cast a spell on you, put you to sleep.” Haplo stared, astonished. “A spell on me! You?” Alfred flushed. “I’m afraid so. It was only a sleep spell. You wore the bandages around your hands, to hide the tattoos. I crept over, lifted one of the bandages, and I saw...”
“So that’s how you knew.” Haplo motioned for the assassin to join them. “I wondered. And as fascinating as this trip down memory lane has been, Coren, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re in danger and you should leave—”
“But it does,” Alfred said, standing up so swiftly that he startled the dog. It bounded to its feet with a whuff, ears up, hackles raised, wondering what was wrong. “Now I know what my name means.”
“It’s just a name, damn it! It doesn’t mean anything. You said so yourself.”
“But it does mean something—to me. You have taught me, Haplo. You even said it. Not ‘chosen,’ past tense. But ‘to choose.’ Present tense. Everyone else has always made my choices for me. I faint.” Alfred spread his hands helplessly. “Or fall down. Or”—he cast a guilty glance at Hugh the Hand—“when I do take action, I ‘forget.’ ”
Alfred stood up very straight, very tall. “But now that’s different. I choose to be here, Haplo. You said you needed me. You made me ashamed. You had the courage to come into this dreadful place—for what? For ambition? For power? No. You came for love. The Labyrinth is afraid. Yes, but not of me. It’s afraid of you, Haplo. You have brought into it the one weapon it doesn’t know how to fight.”
Reaching down, Alfred timidly petted the dog, stroked its silky ears. “I know it’s dangerous and I’m not certain how much help I can be, but I choose to be here,” he said softly, not looking at Haplo. “I choose to be here with you.”
“They’re watching us,” said Hugh the Hand, coming up from behind. “In fact, four of them have started back in this direction. They’re all armed. Of course, it could be that they like us so much they can’t bear to let us out of their sight. But I doubt it.”
The Hand took the pipe out of his pocket, studied it thoughtfully. Putting it into his mouth, he spoke through his teeth. “She betrayed us, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Haplo, looking far back the way they’d come, far back to the ruined mountain.
39
Roland, Rega, and Paithan stood outside the star chamber. Bright light welled out from under the door. Both Paithan and Roland were rubbing their eyes.
“Can you see yet?” Rega asked anxiously.
“Yeah,” said Roland bitterly. “Spots. If you’ve blinded me, elf—”
“It’ll go away.” Paithan was surly. “Just give it time.”
“I told you not to look down!” Roland snarled. “But no. You have to go stare into that damn well and pass out—”
“I did not! My hands slipped! As for the well”—Paithan shivered—“it’s fascinating, in a creepy kind of way.”
“Sort of like your sister,” Roland sneered.
Paithan aimed a blow in the human’s general direction. Missing, slamming his fist into a wall, he groaned and began to suck on his bleeding knuckles.
“Roland’s just teasing, Pait,” said Rega. “He doesn’t mean anything. He’s so in love with her himself he can’t see straight.”
“I may never be able to see anything!” Roland retorted. “As for my being in love with that slut—”
“Slut!” Paithan hurled himself bodily at Roland. “Apologize!” The two went down in a heap, rolling around, pummeling each other.
“Stop it!” Rega stood over them, screaming and occasionally kicking the one who happened to roll nearer her. “Stop it, both of you! We’re supposed to be going to the party...” Her voice died away.