Margaret Weis - Fire Sea

He took the ship back down, near the shoreline. He had caught a glimpse to his right of an object that appeared man-made jutting out into the water. Its lines were too straight and even to have been formed by nature’s hand, no matter how magically guided. Moving closer, he saw what looked like a pier, extending from the shore out into the lava ocean.

Haplo brought the ship down. He stared at the formation intently, trying to get a clear view.

“Look!” Alfred cried, sitting up and pointing, startling the dog, who growled. “There, to your left!”

Haplo jerked his head around, thinking they must be about to crash into a stalactite. Nothing loomed ahead of them and it took some moments to determine what Alfred had sighted.

Banks of clouds, created by the extreme heat of the magma sea meeting the cool air of the cavern far above, could be seen in the distance. The clouds drifted and parted, and then myriad tiny lights were visible, blinking out from beneath the clouds like stars.

Except that there could be no stars visible in this underground world.

The mist flew apart in tattered rags, and Haplo could see clearly. Perched on terraced steppes far from the magma sea stood the buildings and towers of an enormous city.

“Where are you taking the ship?” Alfred asked.

“I’m going to dock at that pier or whatever it is over there,” Haplo answered, with a glance and a nod out the window.

“But the city’s located on the opposite bank!”

“Precisely.”

“Then, why not—”

“It beats the hell out of me, Sartan, how you managed to survive so long. I suppose it’s due to that famous fainting routine of yours. What do you plan to do? Waltz up to the walls of a strange city, not knowing who lives there, and ask them nicely to let you in? What do you say when they ask you where you’re from? What you’re doing here? Why you want inside their city?”

“I would say—that is, I’d tell them—I guess you have a point,” Alfred conceded lamely. “But what do we gain by landing over there?” He gestured vaguely. “Whoever lives in this dreadful place”—the Sartan couldn’t resist a shudder—“will ask the same questions.”

“Maybe.” Haplo cast a sharp, scrutinizing gaze at their landing site. “Maybe not. Take a good look at it.”

Alfred started to walk to the window. The dog growled, ears pricked, teeth bared. The Sartan froze.

“It’s all right. Let him go. Just watch him,” Haplo told the dog, who settled back down onto the deck, keeping its intelligent eyes on the Sartan.

Alfred, with a backward glance at the animal, awkwardly crossed the deck; its slight rocking motion sent the Sartan staggering. Haplo shook his head and wondered what the devil he was going to do with Alfred while exploring. Alfred arrived at the window without major mishap and, leaning against the glass, peered through it.

The ship spiraled down out of the air, landed gently on the magma, floated on sluggish, molten waves.

A pier had been shaped out of what had once been a natural grain of obsidian, extending out into the magma sea. Several other man-made structures, built out of the same black rock, faced the pier across a crude street.

“You see any signs of life?” Haplo asked.

“I don’t see anyone moving around,” Alfred said, staring hard. “Either in the town or on the docks. We’re the only ship in sight. The place is deserted.”

“Yeah, maybe. You can never tell. This might be their version of night, and everyone’s asleep. But at least it’s not guarded. If I’m lucky, I can be the one asking the questions.”

Haplo steered the dragonship into the harbor, his gaze scrutinizing the small town. Probably not so much a town, he decided, as a dockside loading area. The buildings looked, for the most part, like warehouses, although here and there he thought he saw what might be a shop or a tavern.

Who would sail this deadly ocean, deadly to all but those protected by powerful magic—such as Alfred and himself? Haplo was intensely curious about this strange and forbidding world, more curious than he’d been about those worlds whose composition closely resembled his own. But he still didn’t know what to do about Alfred.

Apparently the Sartan was following the line of Haplo’s thoughts. “What should I do?” Alfred asked meekly.

“I’m thinking about it,” Haplo muttered, affecting to be absorbed in the tricky docking maneuver, although that, in reality, was being handled by the magic of the runes of the steering stone.

“I don’t want to be left behind. I’m going with you.”

“It’s not your decision. You’ll do what I say, Sartan, and like it. And if I say you’ll stay here with the dog to keep an eye on you, you’ll stay here. Or you won’t like it.”

Alfred shook his balding head slowly, with quiet dignity. “You can’t threaten me, Haplo. Sartan magic is different from Patryn magic, but it has the same roots and is just as powerful. I haven’t used my magic as much as you’ve been forced by circumstances to use yours. But I am older than you. And you must concede that magic of any type is strengthened by age and by wisdom.”

“I must, must I?” Haplo sneered, although his mind went almost immediately to his lord, a man whose years were numberless, and to the vast power he had amassed.

The Patryn eyed his opposite, eyed the representative of a race who had been the only force in the universe who could have halted the Patryn’s vaulting ambition, their rightful quest for complete and absolute control over the weak-minded Sartan and the squabbling, chaos-driven mensch.

Alfred didn’t look very formidable. His soft face indicated to the Patryn a soft and weak nature. His stoop-shouldered stance implied a cringing, sheepish attitude. Haplo already knew the Sartan was a coward. Worse, Alfred was clad in clothes suited only to a royal drawing room—a shabby frock coat, right breeches tied at the knee with scraggly black velvet ribbons, lace-trimmed neckerchief, a coat with floppy sleeves, buckle-adorned shoes. But Haplo had seen this man, this weak specimen of a Sartan, charm a marauding dragon with nothing more than a few movements from that clumsy body.

Haplo had no doubt in his mind who would win a contest between the two of them, and he guessed that Alfred didn’t either. But a contest would take time and the fighting magicks generated by these two beings—the closest beings to gods the mensch would ever know—would proclaim their presence to everyone within eyesight and earshot.

Besides, on reflection, Haplo didn’t particularly want to leave the Sartan on his ship. The dog would prevent Alfred from breathing, if Haplo ordered it. But the Patryn hadn’t liked the Sartan’s reference to the animal. I know about the dog, he’d said. What did he know? What was there to know? The dog was a dog. Nothing more, except that the animal had once saved Haplo’s life.

The Patryn docked the ship at the silent, empty pier. He kept close watch, more than half-expecting some type of welcome—an official demanding to know their business, an idle straggler, watching their arrival out of curiosity.

No one appeared. Haplo knew little of wharves or shipyards but he took this as a bad sign. Either everyone was fast asleep and completely uninterested in what was happening at their docks or the town was, as Alfred had said, deserted. And towns that were deserted were generally deserted for a reason and that reason was generally not good.

Once the ship was moored, Haplo deactivated the steering stone, placed it once more on its pedestal, its glowing runes extinguished. He began to prepare to disembark. Rummaging in his supplies, he found a roll of plain linen cloth and wound it carefully around his hands and wrists, covering and concealing the runes tattooed on the skin.