Margaret Weis - Fire Sea

“Yes, come to think of it, that is odd, isn’t it? You people pride yourselves on peaceful solutions to problems, don’t you? But”—he shrugged—“it sure looks that way to me.”

“I don’t understand—”

Haplo waved an impatient hand. “The door standing ajar, chairs overturned, food left uneaten, not a ship in the harbor.”

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand.”

“A person who leaves his property expecting to come back generally shuts his door and locks it, to keep that property safe until his return. A person who flees his property in fear for his life just leaves. Then, too, these people fled in the middle of a meal, leaving ordinarily portable goods behind them—plates, cutlery, pitchers, bottles—full bottles at that. I’ll wager that if you went upstairs, you’d find most of their clothes still in their rooms. They were warned of danger, and they got the hell out of here.”

Alfred’s eyes widened in sudden horror, realization dawning on him with a sickly light. “But ... if what you say is true .. . then whatever is coming down on them—”

“—is coming down on us,” Haplo finished. He felt more cheerful. Alfred was right. It couldn’t be Sartan.

From what he knew of their history, the Sartan had never made war on anyone, not even their most feared enemies. They had shut the Patryns into prison, into a deadly prison, but—according to the records—that prison had been originally designed to rehabilitate, not kill, the prisoner.

“And if they left in such a hurry, it must be quite close by now.” Alfred peered nervously out the window. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Not much more to be learned around here.”

Clumsy footed as he was, the Sartan could move fast enough when he wanted to. Alfred reached the door ahead of any of them, including the dog. Bursting out into the street, he was halfway down the pier, running awkwardly for the ship, when he must have realized he was alone. Turning, he called to Haplo, who was heading in the opposite direction, toward the edge of town.

Alfred’s shout echoed loudly among the silent buildings. Haplo ignored him, kept walking. The Sartan cringed, swallowed another shout. He launched into a trot, stumbled over his feet, and fell flat on his face. The dog waited for him, on orders from Haplo, and eventually Alfred caught up.

“If what you say is true,” he gasped, breathing heavily from his exertion, “the enemy’s bound to be out there!”

“They are,” said Haplo coolly. “Look.”

Alfred glanced ahead, saw a pool of fresh blood, a broken spear, a dropped shield. He ran a shaking hand nervously over his bald head. “Then . . . then where are you going?”

“To meet them.”

The narrow street Haplo and his reluctant companion followed dwindled down and eventually came to an end among gigantic stalagmites thrusting upward around the base of a slick-sided obsidian cliff. The magma sea churned sluggishly at its feet, the rock gleamed brilliantly in the lurid light. The top of the cliff reared upward until it vanished in the steamy darkness. No army was advancing on them from this direction.

Haplo turned, gazed out over a large flat plain behind the small seaside town. He could not see much, most of the land was lost in the shadows of this realm that knew no sun except that within its own heart. But occasionally a stream of lava branched off from the main flow and wandered out onto the vast rock plains. By its reflected light, he saw deserts of oozing, bubbling mud; volcanic mountains of jagged, twisted rock; and—oddly—cylindrical columns of immense girth and width vaulting upward into darkness.

“Man-made,” Haplo thought and realized, too late, that he’d spoken the thought aloud.

“Yes,” Alfred replied, looking upward, craning his neck until he nearly fell over backward. Recalling what Haplo’d said about tumbling into a puddle, the man looked down, regained his balance hastily. “They must reach straight up to the ceiling of this vast cavern but... for what reason? The cave obviously doesn’t need the support.”

Never in Haplo’s wildest imaginings had he envisioned himself standing on a hell-blasted world, calmly discussing geological formations with a Sartan. He didn’t like talking to Alfred, he didn’t like listening to the high-pitched, querulous voice. But he hoped, through conversation, to lull Alfred into a sense of security. Lead him into discussions that might cause him to slip up, reveal whatever he was concealing about the Sartan and their plans.

“Have you seen pictures or read accounts of this world?” Haplo asked. His tone was casual, he didn’t look at Alfred when he spoke, as if the Sartan’s reply mattered little to him.

Alfred cast a sharp glance at him, however, and licked his lips with his tongue. He was really a terrible liar.

“No.”

“Well, I have. My Lord discovered drawings of all the worlds, left behind by your people when they abandoned us to our fate in the Labyrinth.”

Alfred started to say something, checked himself, and kept silent.

“This world of stone your people created looks like a cheese that has been populated by mice,” Haplo continued. “It’s filled with caverns like this one in which we’re standing. These caverns are enormous. One single cave could easily hold the entire elven nation of Tribus. Tunnels and caves run all through the stone world, crisscrossing each other, delving down, spiraling up. Up—to what? What’s on the surface?” Haplo gazed at the cylindrical towers, soaring into the shadows above. “What is on the surface, Sartan?”

“I thought you were going to call me by my name,” Alfred said mildly.

“I will, when it’s important,” Haplo grunted. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

“To answer your question, I have no idea what is on the surface. You know far more about this world than I do.” Alfred’s eyes glistened as he considered the possibilities. “I would speculate, however, that—”

“Hush!” Haplo held up a warning hand.

Remembering their danger, Alfred turned deathly white and froze where he stood, body trembling. Haplo clambered over the broken rocks with stealthy ease, being careful to dislodge no small chunk that could fall, rattling, and reveal their presence. The dog, padding softly as its master, went ahead, ears pricked, hackles raised.

Haplo discovered that the street didn’t end, as he had thought, against the sheer rock wall. He found a path running along the stalagmites at the cliff’s base. A hasty and crude attempt had been made to obliterate the path’s existence, or perhaps just slow whatever was coming along it. Piles of rock had been stacked in front of it to hide it. Molten pools of lava made a slip extremely treacherous. Haplo eased himself over the rock piles, following after the dog, who seemed to have an extraordinary talent in picking out safe places for its master to cross. Alfred remained behind, quaking, shivering all over. Haplo could have sworn he heard the man’s teeth chatter.

Rounding the last jumble of rock, the Patryn reached the mouth of a cave. Its high, arched entrance was invisible from land, but could be seen clearly from the seaside. A magma tributary flowed into the cave. On one side of the lava flow—Haplo’s side—the path continued, leading into the cavern’s lava-lighted interior.

Haplo paused near the entrance, listening. The sounds he’d first heard were clearer now—voices, echoing through the cavern. A large number of people, to judge by the sometimes clamorous noise, although occasionally everyone fell silent and one alone continued speaking. The echoes distorted the words, he couldn’t understand what language was spoken, and it had a cadence that was unfamiliar to him. Certainly it was not like any of the elven, human, and dwarven dialects he’d heard on Arianus and Pryan.