Margaret Weis - Into the Labyrinth

Marit took pride in the fact that she had fought with her lord, side by side, in the grueling struggle to win her own freedom from the Labyrinth.... She was near the Final Gate when she was attacked by gigantic birds with leather wings and flesh-tearing teeth, who would first disable a victim by pecking out his eyes, then gorge on the warm, still-living flesh. Marit fought the birds by altering her own form to that of a bird—a gigantic eagle. Her talons ripped jagged holes in the leather wings; her plummeting dives knocked many from the sky.

But, as is the way of the Labyrinth, its heinous magic grew powerful in the face of defeat. The numbers of shrieking leather-winged birds increased. She was hit countless times, wounded by tooth and claw. Her strength gave out. She fell to land. Her magic could no longer support her altered state. She changed back to her own shape and fought what she knew would be a losing battle, as the horrid flapping things swirled about her face, trying to get at her eyes. Her skin was torn and bleeding. She was knocked to her knees by striking blows from behind. She was nearly ready to give up and die when a voice thundered over her.

“Rise, Daughter! Rise and battle on. You are not alone!” She opened her eyes, already dimming with approaching death, and saw her lord, the Lord of the Nexus.

He came like a god, wielding balls of flame. He stood protectively over her until she regained her feet. He gave her his hand, gnarled and wrinkled but beautiful to her, for it brought her not only life but hope and renewed courage. Together they fought until the Labyrinth was forced to retreat. The birds—those that survived—flapped away with shrill squawks of disappointment. Marit fell then. The Lord of the Nexus lifted her in his strong arms and bore her through the Final Gate, carried her to freedom.

“I pledge you my life, Lord,” she whispered to him, her last words before she lost consciousness. “Always... forever...”

He had smiled. The lord had heard many such pledges, knew that they would all be redeemed. Marit had been chosen to travel to Abarrach by her lord. She was just one of many Patryns he’d brought with him, all of whom would be willing to give their lives for the man who had given life to them. Approaching the study now, Marit was disturbed to see a lazar wandering the halls outside. At first, she thought it was Kleitus and was about to order him off. Admittedly the castle had once been his. But the lazar had no business here. Closer examination, which Marit made with extreme repugnance, revealed this lazar to be the one she had sent to serve her lord in the dungeons. What was it doing here? If she could have supposed such a thing possible, she would have said the lazar was lingering in the halls, listening to the voices that came through the closed door.

Marit was about to order it to be gone, when another voice—the eerie echoing voice of another lazar—forestalled her words.

“Jonathon!” Kleitus came shambling along the corridor. “I heard the Patryn lord raging over his failure to raise the dead. It occurred to me that you might have had something to do with that. I was right, it seems.”

“It seems...” The echo was mournful.

They were both speaking Sartan, a language Marit found uncomfortable and disturbing to hear, but one she understood. She backed into the shadows, hoping to learn something to her lord’s advantage.

The lazar called Jonathon slowly turned. “I could give you the same peace I gave Samah, Kleitus.”

The Dynast laughed, a terrible sound, made awful by the echo. It wailed in despair. “Yes, I’m certain you would gladly reduce me to dust!” The corpse’s bluish-white hands flexed, long-nailed fingers twitched. “Consign me to oblivion!”

“Not oblivion,” Jonathon corrected. “Freedom.” His gentle voice and its soft echo coincided with the despairing echo of Kleitus, producing a sad, yet harmonic note.

“Freedom!” Kleitus gnashed his rotting teeth. “I’ll give you freedom!”

“...freedom!” The echo howled.

Kleitus rushed forward, skeletal hands clutching at Jonathon’s throat. The two corpses grappled together, Jonathon’s wasted hands closing over Kleitus’s wrists, trying to drag the other off him. The lazar struggled, nails digging into flesh, drawing no blood. Marit watched in horror, disgusted by the sight. She made no move to intervene. This was not her fight.

A cracking sound. One of Kleitus’s arms bent at a sickening angle. Jonathon flung his opponent off him, sent the Dynast reeling back against the wall. Kleitus nursed his broken limb, glared at the other lazar in rage and bitter enmity.

“You told Lord Xar about the Seventh Gate!” Jonathon said, standing over Kleitus. “Why? Why hasten to what you must see as your own destruction?” Kleitus was massaging his broken arm, muttering Sartan runes. The bone was starting to re-form; thus the lazars kept their rotting bodies functional. Looking up at Jonathon, the corpse grinned hideously. “I didn’t tell him its location.”

“He will find out.”

“Yes, he will find out!” Kleitus laughed. “Haplo will show him. Haplo will guide him to that room. They will all be inside the chamber together...”

“...together...” The echo sighed dismally. “And you—waiting for them,” said Jonathon. “I found my freedom’ in that chamber,” Kleitus said, blue-gray lips curled in a sneer. “I’ll help them find theirs! As you will find yours—” The Dynast paused, turned his head to stare directly at Marit with his strange eyes, which were sometimes the eyes of the dead and sometimes the eyes of the living.

Marit’s skin prickled; the runes on her arms and hands glowed blue. Silently, she cursed herself. She had made a sound, nothing more than a sharp intake of breath, but it had been enough to give her away.

No help for it now. She strode boldly forward. “What are you lazars doing here? Spying on my lord? Begone,” Marit commanded, “or must I summon Lord Xar to make you leave?”

The lazar known as Jonathon departed immediately, gliding down the blood-spattered corridor. Kleitus remained, eyeing her balefully. He seemed about to attack. Marit began to weave a rune-spell in her mind. The sigla on her body glowed brightly.

Kleitus withdrew into the shadows, walking with his shuffling gait down the long hall.

Shivering, thinking that any living enemy, no matter how fearsome, was far preferable to these walking dead, Marit was about to knock on the door when she heard from within her lord’s voice, raised in anger.

“And you did not report this to me! I must find out what goes on in my universe from a doddering old Sartan!”

“I see now that I was mistaken in not telling you, Lord Xar. I offer as my excuse only the fact that you were deeply involved in the study of necromancy and I did not want to disturb you with grievous news.” It was Sang-drax. The dragon-snake was whining again.

Marit wondered what she should do. She did not want to get involved in an argument between her lord and the dragon-snake, whom she heartily disliked. Yet her lord had ordered her to report to him at once. And she could not very well remain standing out here in the hallway. She would look as much an eavesdropper as the lazar. Taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, a lull that perhaps arose from Xar’s being speechless with rage, Marit knocked timidly on the kaim-grass door.

“Lord Xar, it is I, Marit.”

The door swung open by Xar’s magical command. Sang-drax bowed to her with slimy officiousness. Ignoring him, Marit looked at Xar.

“You are engaged, Lord,” she said. “I can return—”

“No, my dear. Come in. This concerns you and your journey.” Xar had regained his calm demeanor, though his eyes still flashed when they turned to the dragon-snake.