Margaret Weis - The Hand of Chaos

Haplo guided his ship away from the shoreline. He glanced back at the Sartan, who seemed to dwindle in size as the expanse of black water separating them grew larger.

“What will you do now, Samah? Will you enter Death’s Gate, search for your people? No, I don’t think so. You’re scared, aren’t you, Sartan? You know you made a terrible mistake, a mistake that could mean the destruction of all you’ve worked to build. Whether you believe the serpents represent a higher, evil power or not, they’re a force you don’t understand, one you can’t control.

“You’ve sent death through Death’s Gate.”

Xar, lord of the Nexus, walked the streets of his quiet, twilight land, a land built by his enemy. The Nexus was a beautiful place, with rolling hills and meadows, verdant forests. Its structures were built with soft, rounded corners, unlike the inhabitants, who were sharp-edged and cold as steel. The sun’s light was muted, diffused, as if it shone through finely spun cloth. It was never day in the Nexus, never quite night. It was difficult to distinguish an object from its shadow, hard to tell where one left off and the other began. The Nexus seemed a land of shadows.

Xar was tired. He had just emerged from the Labyrinth, emerged victorious from a battle with the evil magicks of that dread land. This time, it had sent an army of chaodyn to destroy him. Intelligent, giant, insectlike creatures, the chaodyn are tall as men, with hard black-shelled bodies. The only way to destroy a chaodyn utterly is to hit it directly in the heart, kill it instantly. For if it lives, even a few seconds, it will cause a drop of its blood to spring into a copy of itself.

And he’d faced an army of these things, a hundred, two hundred; the numbers didn’t matter for they grew the moment he wounded one. He had faced them alone, and he’d had only moments before the tide of bulbous-eyed insects engulfed him.

Xar had spoken the runes, caused a wall of flame to leap up between him and the advance ranks of the chaodyn, protecting him from the first assault, giving him time to extend the wall.

The chaodyn had attempted to outrun the spreading flames that were feeding off the grasses in the Labyrinth, springing to magical life as Xar fanned them with magical winds. Those few chaodyn who ran through the fire, Xar had killed with a rune-inscribed sword, taking care to thrust beneath the carapace to reach the heart below. All the while, the wind blew and the flames crackled, feeding off the shells of the dead. The fire jumped from victim to victim now, decimating the ranks.

The chaodyn in the rear watched the advancing holocaust, wavered, turned, and fled. Under cover of the flames, Xar had rescued several of his people, Patryns, more dead than alive. The chaodyn had been holding them hostage, using them as bait to lure the Lord of the Nexus to do battle. The Patryns were being cared for now by other Patryns, who also owed their lives to Xar. A grim and stern people, unforgiving, unbending, unyielding, the Patryns were not effusive in their gratitude to the lord who constantly risked his life to save theirs. They did not speak of their loyalty, their devotion—they showed it. They worked hard and uncomplaining at any task he set them. They obeyed every command without question. And each time he went into the Labyrinth, a crowd of Patryns gathered outside the Final Gate, to keep silent vigil until his return.

And there were always some, particularly among the young, who would attempt to enter with him; Patryns who had been living in the Nexus long enough for the horror of their lives spent in the Labyrinth to fade from their minds.

“I will go back,” they would say. “I will dare it with you, my Lord.” He always let them. And he never said a word of blame when they faltered at the Gate, when faces blanched and the blood chilled, legs trembled and bodies sank to the ground.

Haplo. One of the strongest of the young men. He’d made it farther than most. He’d fallen before the Final Gate, fear wringing him dry. And then he’d crawled on hands and knees, until, shuddering, he shrank back into the shadows.

“Forgive me, Lord!” he’d cried in despair. So they all cried.

“There is nothing to forgive, my child,” said Xar, always. He meant it. He, better than anyone, understood the fear. He faced it every time he entered and every time it grew worse. Rarely was there a moment, outside the Final Gate, that his step did not hesitate, his heart did not shiver. Each time he went in, he knew with certainty that he would not return. Each time he came back out, safely, he vowed within himself that he would never go back.

Yet he kept going back. Time and again.

“The faces,” he said. “The faces of my people. The faces of those who wait for me, who enclose me in the circle of their being. These faces give me courage. My children. Every one of them. I tore them out of the horrible womb that gave them birth. I brought them to air and to light.

“What an army they will make,” he continued, musing aloud. “Weak in numbers, but strong in magic, loyalty, love. What an army,” he said again, louder than before, and he chuckled.

Xar often talked to himself. He was often alone, for the Patryns tend to be loners. [8] Those whom the Patryns accept into the circle of their being are few. They are fiercely loyal to these they term “family” either by blood or by vow. These circles of loyalty (Patryns would scorn to call it affection) are generally kept to the death. Once broken, however, the circle can never be mended. And so he talked to himself, but he never chuckled, never laughed.

The chuckle was a sham, a crafty bit of play-acting. The Lord of the Nexus continued to talk, as might any old man, keeping company with himself in the lonely watches of the twilight. He cast a surreptitious glance at his hand. The skin showed his age, an age he could not calculate with any exactness, having no very clear idea when his life began. He knew only that he was old, far older than any other who had come out of the Labyrinth.

The skin on the back of his hand was wrinkled and taut, stretched tight, revealing clearly beneath it the shape of every tendon, every bone. The blue sigla tattooed on the back of the hand were twisted and knotted, but their color was dark, not faded by the passage of time. And their magic, if anything, was stronger.

These tattooed sigla had begun to glow blue.

Xar would have expected the warning inside the Labyrinth, his magic acting instinctively to ward off attack, alert him to danger. But he walked the streets of the Nexus, streets that he had always known to be safe, streets that were a haven, a sanctuary. The Lord of the Nexus saw the blue glow that shone with an eerie brightness in the soft twilight, he felt the sigla burn on his skin, the magic burn in his blood.

He kept walking as if nothing were amiss, continued to ramble and mutter beneath his breath. The sigla’s warning grew stronger, the runes shone more brightly still. He clenched his fist, hidden beneath the flowing sleeves of a long black robe. His eyes probed every shadow, every object. He left the streets of the Nexus, stepped onto a path that ran through a forest surrounding his dwelling place. He lived apart from his people, preferring, requiring quiet and peace. The trees’ darker shadows brought a semblance of night to the land. He glanced at his hand; the rune’s light welled out from beneath the black robes. He had not left the danger behind, he was walking straight toward its source.

Xar was more perplexed than nervous, more angry than afraid. Had the evil in the Labyrinth somehow seeped through that Final Gate? He couldn’t believe it was possible. Sartan magic had built this place, built the Gate and the Wall that surrounded the prison world of the Labyrinth. The Patryns, not particularly trusting an enemy who had cast them inside that prison, had strengthened the Wall and the Gate with their own magic. No. It was not possible that anything could escape.