“I am... I was,” said the voice of the corpse.
“I am... I was,” came the dismal echo from the trapped phantasm.
“Why did you come to Abarrach?”
“To learn necromancy.”
“You traveled here to Abarrach,” repeated the lazar, its voice a lifeless monotone, “to learn the art of necromancy. To use the dead as slaves to the living.”
“I did... I did.”
“And you know now the hatred the dead bear for the living, who keep them in bondage. For you see, do you not? You see... freedom...” The phantasm coiled and wrenched in a futile attempt to escape. The hatred on the face of the corpse as it turned its sightless—yet all too clear-seeing—eyes to Xar caused even the Patryn to blanch.
“You, lazar,” the Lord of the Nexus interrupted harshly, “what are you called?”
“Jonathon.”
“Jonathon, then.” The name meant something to Xar, but he couldn’t think what.
“Enough talk of hatred. You lazar are free now, free from the weaknesses of the flesh that you knew when you were alive. And you are immortal. It is a great gift we living have given you...”
“One we would be happy to share,” said the lazar of Samah in a low, dire voice.
“...to share,” came the fearful echo.
Xar was displeased; the rune-glow that came from his body flared. “You waste my time. There are many questions I will ask you, Samah. Many questions you will answer for me. But the first, the most important, is the one I asked you before you died. Where is the Seventh Gate?”
The countenance of the corpse twisted; the body shook. The phantasm peered out through the lifeless eyes with a sort of terror. “I will not...” The blue lips of the corpse moved, but no sound came out. “I will not...”
“You will!” Xar said sternly, though he was somewhat at a loss. How do you threaten one who feels no pain, one who knows no fear? Frustrated, the lord turned to Jonathon. “What is the meaning of this defiance? You Sartan forced the dead to reveal all their secrets. I know, because Kleitus himself told me this, as did my minion, who was here previously.”
“This man’s will was strong in his life,” the lazar answered. “You raised him too quickly, perhaps. If the body had been allowed to remain quiet for the requisite three days, the phantasm would have left the body and then the soul—the will—could no longer have any effect on what the body did. But now the defiance that died with him lives still.”
“But will he answer my questions?” Xar persisted, frustration growing.
“He will. In time,” Jonathon answered, and there was sorrow in the echoing voice. “In time he will forget all that meant anything to him in life. He will know only the bitter hatred of those who still live.”
“Time!” Xar ground his teeth. “How much time? A day? A fortnight?”
“I cannot say.”
“Bah!” Xar strode forward, came to stand directly before Samah. “Answer my question! Where is the Seventh Gate? What do you care now?” he added in wheedling tones. “It means nothing to you. You defy me only because that’s all you remember how to do.”
The light in the dead eyes flickered. “We sent it... away...”
“You did not!” Xar was losing patience. This wasn’t turning out as he had foreseen. He’d been too eager. He should have waited. He would wait the next time. When he killed the old man. “Sending the gate away makes no sense. You would keep it where you could use it again if need be. Perhaps you did use it—to open Death’s Gate! Tell me the truth. Does it have something to do with a citadel—”
“Master!”
The urgent cry came bounding down the corridor. Xar jerked his head toward the sound.
“Master!” It was Sang-drax, calling and gesturing wildly from the end of the corridor. “Come swiftly! The old man is gone!”
“Dead, then?” Xar grunted. “All for the best. Now let me be—”
“Not dead! Gone! He is gone!”
“What trick is this?” Xar demanded. “He couldn’t be gone! How could he escape?”
“I do not know, Lord of the Nexus.” Sang-drax’s sibilant whisper shook with a fury that startled even Xar. “But he is gone! Come and see for yourself.” There was no help for it. Xar cast a final baleful look at Samah, who appeared completely oblivious to what was going on. Then the lord hastened down the corridor. When the Lord of the Nexus had left, when his voice could be heard rising strident and angry from the far end of the cellblock, Jonathon spoke, quietly, softly.
“You see now. You understand.”
“Yes!” The phantasm peered out of the lifeless eyes in despair, as the living man had once peered out of his prison cell. “I see now. I understand.”
“You always knew the truth, didn’t you?”
“How could I admit it? We had to seem to be gods. What would the truth have made us?”
“Mortal. As you were.”
“Too late. All is lost. All is lost.”
“No, the Wave corrects itself. Rest upon it. Relax. Float with it, let it carry you.”
The phantasm of Samah appeared irresolute. It darted into the body, fled out of it, but could not yet escape. “I cannot. I must stay. I have to hang on...”
“Hang on to what? To hatred? To fear? To revenge? Lie back. Rest upon the Wave. Feel it lift you up.”
The corpse of Samah remained seated on the hard stone. The eyes stared up at Jonathon. “Can they forgive me... ?”
“Can you forgive yourself?” the lazar asked gently. Samah’s body—an ashen and blood-covered shell—laid slowly down on the stone bed. It shuddered, then was still. The eyes grew dark and now truly lifeless. Jonathon reached out his hand, closed them.
Xar, suspecting some trick, stared hard into Zifnab’s cell. Nothing. No sight of the wet and bedraggled old Sartan.
“Hand me that torch!” Xar commanded, peering about in baffled outrage. The Lord of the Nexus banished the cell bars with an impatient wave of his hand and strode into the cell, flashing the light into every part of it.
“What do you think you will find, Lord?” Sang-drax snarled. “That he is playing at peekaboo in a corner? I tell you, he is gone!” Xar didn’t like the dragon-snake’s tone. The lord turned, held the light so that it would flare into the dragon’s one good eye. “If he has escaped, it is your fault! You were supposed to be guarding him! Sea water of Chelestra!” Xar sneered, “takes away their power! Obviously it didn’t!”
“It did, I tell you,” Sang-drax muttered.
“But he can’t get far,” Xar reflected. “We have guards posted at the entrance to Death’s Gate. He—”
The dragon-snake hissed suddenly—a hiss of fury that seemed to wrap its coils around Xar and squeeze the breath from his body. Sang-drax pointed a rune-covered hand at the stone bed. “There! There!” He could say no more; the breath gurgled in his throat.
Xar held the torchlight to shine on the spot. The lord’s eyes caught a glint, a sparkle that came from something on the stone. He reached down, picked it up, held it to the light.
“It’s nothing but a scale—”
“A dragon’s scale!” Sang-drax glared at it with enmity, made no move to touch it.
“Perhaps.” Xar was noncommittal. “A lot of reptiles have scales, not all of them dragons. And what of it? It has nothing to do with the old man’s disappearance. It must have been here for ages—”
“Undoubtedly you are right, Lord of the Nexus.” Sang-drax was suddenly nonchalant, though his one good eye remained fixed on the scale. “What could a dragon—one of my cousins, for instance—possibly have to do with that daft old man? I will go and alert the guard.”
“I give the orders—” Xar began, but his words were wasted. Sang-drax had vanished.
The lord stared around at the empty cell, fuming, a disturbing and unfamiliar unease jabbing deep beneath his skin.
“What is going on?” he was forced to ask himself, and the simple fact that he had to ask that question indicated to the Lord of the Nexus that he had lost control.
Xar had known fear many times in his life. He knew fear every time he walked into the Labyrinth. But still he was able to walk in; he was able to grapple with his fear and put it to use, channel its energy into self-preservation, because he knew that he was in control. He might not know which enemy the Labyrinth was going to hurl at him, but he knew every enemy that existed, knew their strengths and their weaknesses.