“Pah! If your insides feel like they’re going to be your out-sides any minute, it doesn’t matter how sharp your instincts are—”
“Hush, Grundle!” Devon squeezed the dwarf’s hand. “Let Alake finish.”
“I was about to say, before I was interrupted”—Alake glanced sternly at Grundle—“that in this case we really don’t need to have particularly sharp instincts because we don’t intend to fight anything. We just want to sneak up on the dragon-snakes, listen to what they talk about, and then sneak away. This herb would help take away our fear of them.”
“Is it magic?” Grundle asked suspiciously.
“No. Just a plant. Like lettuce. Its properties are inherent. All you have to do is chew it.”
The three looked at each other.
“What do you think?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Alake, can you get hold of it?”
“Yes, the herbalist brought some along with her. She thought some of the warriors might want it if we went to war.”
“All right, then. Alake gets the herb for us. What’s it called?”
“No-fear weed.”
“Weed?” Grundle frowned. “I don’t think—” Voices out in the passageway interrupted them. The meeting was breaking up.
“When will you leave, Haplo?” Dumaka’s deep tones carried clearly through the closed door.
“Tonight.”
The three companions exchanged glances.
“Can you get the weed by then?” Devon whispered.
Alake nodded.
“Good, then. It’s all settled. We go.” Grundle held out her hand. Devon placed his hand over the dwarf’s. Alake grasped both.
“We go,” each said firmly.
Haplo spent the remainder of the day ostensibly learning how to operate one of the small, two-person submersibles, used by humans and elves for fishing. He studied the operation of the dwarven boat carefully, asked questions—far more than would have been needed simply to sail the vessel the short distance to Draknor. He went over every inch of the craft, rousing the suspicions of dwarves by his intense interest.
But the Patryn was profuse in his praise of dwarven carpentry and navigation skills, and, eventually, the captain and crew were looking for things, to impress him.
“This will serve my purpose well,” said Haplo, glancing around the submersible in satisfaction.
“Of course,” growled the dwarf. “Yer only taking her far as Draknor. You ain’t plannin’ to circumnavigate the bleedin’ world.”
Haplo smiled quietly. “You’re right, friend. I’m not planning to circumnavigate the world.”
He was planning to leave it. Just as soon as the dragon-snakes flooded Surunan, which he hoped would be tomorrow. He’d capture Samah. This ship would carry him—and his prisoner—through Death’s Gate.
“I’ll put the runes of protection on the inside of the vessel, instead of the outside,” he said to himself, once he was alone, back in his cabin. “That should solve the problem of the seawater.
“And that reminds me. I’ll need to take back a sample of the water to my lord, have it analyzed, determine if there isn’t some way to nullify its debilitating effects against us. And perhaps he can discover how this strange water came into existence. I doubt if the Sartan created it. . . .” Haplo heard a thump in the corridor outside his cabin.
“Grundle,” he guessed, shaking his head.
He’d spotted the mensch trailing behind him all day. Her heavy tread, heavier boots, and her huffing and snorting would have alerted a blind and deaf man to her presence. The Patryn wondered vaguely what mischief she was up to now, but gave the matter little thought. One nagging concern continued to prey on his mind, drove all else out.
The dog. Once his dog. Now, apparently, Alfred’s.
Haplo took from his belt two daggers, given to him by Dumaka, and laid them on the bed, examined them carefully. Good weapons, well-made. He called on his magic. The sigla on his skin glowed blue, flared red. Haplo spoke the runes, placed his finger on the flat of the knife’s blade. The steel hissed and bubbled, smoke drifted upward in a thin line. Runes of death began to form on the blade, beneath Haplo’s tracing finger.
“Let the damn dog do what it wants.” Haplo took extreme care drawing the runes on which his life might depend, yet he’d done this so many times he could allow his mind to turn to other matters. “I lived for a long time without the animal and I can do it again. The dog came in handy, admittedly, but I don’t need it. I don’t want it back. Not now. Not after it’s been living with a Sartan.”
Haplo completed his work on one side of the dagger. He sat back, studied it carefully, searching for the tiniest flaw, the smallest break in the intricate pattern. There wouldn’t be any, of course. He was good at what he did. Good at killing, cheating, lying. He was even good at lying to himself. Or at least he’d been good once. He used to actually believe his own lies. Why couldn’t he believe them anymore?
“Because you’re weak.” He sneered at himself. “That’s what my lord would say. And he’d be right. Caring about a dog. Caring about mensch. Caring about a woman who left me long ago. Caring about a child of mine who might be stranded back there in the Labyrinth. A child alone. And I don’t have the courage to go back and search for it ... for her!”
A mistake. A broken, incomplete sigil. None of the rest would work now. Haplo swore savagely, bitterly, swept the daggers off the bed.
The brave Patryn, risking his life to enter Death’s Gate, risking his life to explore new, uncharted worlds.
Because I’m afraid to go back to one world I do know. That’s the real reason I was ready to give up and die that long time ago in the Labyrinth.[46] I couldn’t take the loneliness. I couldn’t take the fear.
And then, he’d found the dog.
And now, the dog was gone.
Alfred. It was all Alfred’s doing. Damn him to hell and back again. A loud drumming, which sounded suspiciously like the heels of heavy boots beating against a wooden deck, came from outside Haplo’s cabin. Grundle must be getting bored.
The Patryn stared grimly at the daggers lying on the deck. Work botched; He was losing control.
Let Alfred have the damn dog. He was welcome to it.
Haplo picked up the daggers, carefully began his work over again, this time giving it his full and undivided attention. At last, he etched the final sigil onto the dagger’s blade. Sitting back, he studied the dagger. This time, all was correct. He started to work on the next.
Task complete, he wrapped the two rune-enhanced daggers safely and securely in what the dwarves called oilcloth. The cloth was completely waterproof; Haplo knew, he’d tested it. The oilcloth would protect the daggers, keep them from losing their magic, just in case something happened and he lost his. Not that he was expecting trouble, but it never hurt to be prepared. To be honest—and he supposed bitterly that this must be his day for honesty—he didn’t trust the dragon-snakes, though logic told him he had no reason not to. Perhaps his instincts knew something his brain didn’t. He’d learned, in the Labyrinth, to trust his instincts.
Haplo walked to the door, flung it open.
Grundle tumbled inside, falling flat on her face. Nonplussed, she picked herself up, dusted herself off, then glared at Haplo.
“Shouldn’t you be going?” she demanded.
“Just now,” he said, with his quiet smile.
He thrust the oilskin pouch into the belt around his waist, hiding it beneath the folds of his shirt.
“About time,” Grundle snorted, and stomped off.
That afternoon, Alake went to the herbalist, complaining of a sore throat and cough. While the herbalist was preparing an infusion of chamomile and peppermint and droning on about how terrible it was that most young people didn’t seem to have any respect these days for the old ways and how nice it was that Alake was different, Alake managed to pluck several leaves of the no-fear weed the herbalist had growing in a small tub.
46
Reference to Haplo’s fight with the chaodyn, Dragon Wing, vol. 1 of The Death Gate Cycle.