Margaret Weis - Into the Labyrinth

“He is a serpent mage. He changed into dragon form—”

“I know all that!” Marit snapped impatiently. “Surely he has changed back by now. Take me to him!”

“He... did not return,” Vasu said.

The life drained from Marit’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

“He fell from the skies, perhaps mortally wounded. He’d been fighting a legion of dragons...”

“Perhaps!” Marit grabbed the word, clung to it. “You didn’t see him die! You don’t know if he’s dead!”

“Marit, we saw him fall—”

She rose from her bed, shoving aside the restraining hands of the healers.

“Show me where.”

“You can’t go out there,” Vasu said sternly. “It’s too dangerous. There are roving bands of wolfen and tiger-men, furious at their defeat, waiting to catch one of us alone.”

“The human assassin. Where is he?”

“Here, Marit.” Hugh the Hand stood up. He had been watching by her bedside, unseen, unnoticed. “I’ll go with you. I need to find Alfred myself,” he added grimly.

“He is our only hope,” Marit said. Her eyes glimmered with tears for a moment.

“He is Haplo’s only hope.” She blinked the tears away and reached for her weapons, which the healers had set aside.

Vasu did not ask what she meant. Xar’s magic had not blinded the headman’s eyes. He had seen the Lord of the Nexus, had witnessed the meeting of the three. He had seen Xar leave with Haplo... and the dog. He had guessed that the Lord of the Nexus was not traveling to the battle of the Final Gate.

“Let her go,” he said to the healers.

They stood aside.

Vasu led Marit and Hugh the Hand to the wall. He pointed out to them where he had seen the dragon—flaming green and gold—fall from the skies. He opened the gate of Abri and saw them depart into the darkness.

Then he stood for long, long hours, until the dawn, watching in despair a sullen red glow that lit the horizon in the direction of the Final Gate.

Of all the unfortunate things my people did just before the Sundering, the development of a weapon such as this cursed knife—now in the possession of Sir Hugh—is one of the most deplorable. Here is evidence that we involved innocent people—humans, elves, dwarves, the very people we were supposed to be protecting—in our battle against the Patryns.

That the blade was intended for use by the mensch is beyond doubt. I have examined it, examined the runes inscribed on it, and I am convinced. It was crafted in haste—that much is obvious from its crude design and manufacture—and therefore, most probably, the blades were turned out in large quantities.

Were Samah and the Council members so terrified of the Patryns that they armed entire legions of mensch with these heinous weapons? I can only suppose that the answer is, sadly, yes. Yet nowhere have I read that any wars involving mensch took place in the final days of pre-Sun-dering Earth. Such battles as did occur between Patryn and Sartan were generally fought on an individual basis, terrible tourneys of magic which invariably proved fatal to one or both combatants.

But from information about those last days obtained from my dear Orla, I think I can speculate on what happened. Consumed by fear, terrified that the Patryns were forming their own armies (this may or may not have been the case), Samah and the Council decided to prepare a defense, armed vast numbers of mensch with these magical weapons. I doubt they meant to send the mensch to war (For one thing, Samah wouldn’t trust them!). Most likely, the mensch armies were to be used as cover, to fight a delaying action, allowing the Sartan time to enter the Seventh Gate and proceed with the Sundering.

Such a battle apparently never took place. Perhaps the mensch revolted (I hope so!), or perhaps even Samah felt some twinges of conscience over forcing others to fight his battles for him. Apparently most of the cursed weapons were either destroyed in the Sundering or confiscated by the Sartan before establishing the mensch on the new worlds.

How did this one escape? It undoubtedly fell into the hands of an unscrupulous elf who, impressed by the weapon’s power, decided to keep it for himself. The blade itself would be a willing ally, eager to assist in its own survival. The elf was trained in the blade’s use, but, due to circumstance—perhaps his untimely death—such information was not passed along to future generations. Only the blade was handed down. The elf could have no idea he was passing on such a deadly legacy.

How does the blade work?

The following are my speculations based on Hugh’s and Haplo’s accounts of the blade in action, and my own study of the sigla inscribed on the weapon. (An interesting point: in enhancing the weapon with rune-magic, we Sartan did exactly what we had always claimed we despised the Patryns for doing, giving life to that which is not meant to have it!)

1. The first action the blade takes is to block the enemy’s ability to sense danger. Thus Haplo had no warning that Hugh the Hand was stalking him in the Factree, never knew that the assassin was waiting in ambush on the ship. 2. The blade’s second action reduces an enemy’s possibilities of retaliation. The blade cannot eliminate all possibilities; that would take far greater power than the blade possesses. But it can and does limit the choice of options to those it can easily handle.

3. The blade’s third action analyzes both the enemy’s strength and weakness and reacts accordingly. Sometimes this reaction is a very simple one for the blade to perform, as in the unfortunate “fight” between the two elf brothers. The blade, facing a dueling dagger, had only to turn itself into a sword to kill its foe. When Hugh the Hand first encountered Haplo, the blade changed itself to an ax against Haplo’s knife.

Notice, however, that when the blade encounters additional opponents, its strength increases. The blade became a bat when attacking both Marit and Haplo. When this attack failed, the blade turned into a tytan. Also of interest is the fact that the blade appears to draw on the memories and thoughts of the victims. Haplo says that he does not recall thinking specifically of tytans during the brief stop their ship made in Pryan (admittedly, he did have a great deal on his mind!), but it seems logical to me that he must have at least had the giants he encountered on that world in his subconscious.

And that is all I have been able to determine about the blade so far. As to any further speculations, I would have to see the blade in action (something I’d rather not do!) to be able to provide additional information on it. I take this moment to add some information that I have acquired on the Cursed Blade. [42] This last is written in an agitated style, from which we must conclude that Alfred probably recorded this information just before the Siege of Abri. The second piece of information is very bad. Apparently the blade can also be controlled by outside forces! I have evidence that the dragon-snakes are able to wield some sort of influence over it. The first bit of information is good: the blade can be controlled by the user. All one has to do is to say the word “stop” in Sartan.

The weapon was created out of fear, designed to kill, and so it would naturally be drawn to the dragon-snakes.

They, in turn, appear to be able to control the blade’s magic. They cannot, it seems, cause the blade to turn against its user. But the snakes can direct the blade’s actions and reactions to suit their own purposes. Haplo thinks now that it was the Cursed Blade that brought the tiger-men down on us. And the blade apparently issued some sort of call to the dragon-snakes, alerting them to its presence in Abri.