Margaret Weis - Fire Sea

Glancing at the lazar, he saw that it had seen the same phenomenon and that it was not pleased.

Haplo didn’t know why, he didn’t care. Strange things had happened—were happening—in this room. The longer he stayed, the less he liked it and he hadn’t liked it much from the beginning. There had to be some way to shut off those damn blue lights ...

“The table,” said Alfred suddenly. “The key is the table.” He approached it, stepping carefully over the bodies that littered the floor. Haplo went with him, keeping up with him, step for step. “And look at this! The bodies around the table are facing outward, as if they had fallen defending it.”

“And they’re the ones who weren’t armed,” Haplo added. “The sacred runes, a table these people died to protect. If they had been mensch, I’d say this table was an altar.” His eyes met Alfred’s, the same question was in both.

The Sartan considered themselves to be gods. What could they possibly have worshiped?

He and Alfred drew close to the table now. Jonathan was examining it closely, brow furrowed. He reached out a hand.

“Don’t touch it!” Alfred exclaimed.

The duke snatched his hand back. “What? Why not?”

“The sigla on it. Can’t you read them?”

“Not very well.” Jonathan flushed. “The runes are old.”

“Very old,” Alfred agreed solemnly. “The magic has to do with communication.”

“Communication?” Haplo was disappointed, disgusted. “Is that all?”

Alfred began slowly unraveling the tangled skein. “This table is ancient. It did not come from this world. They brought it with them from the old world, the sundered world. They brought it with them and they established it here, beneath the first structure they ever built. For what purpose? What would be one of the first things these ancient Sartan would attempt to do?”

“Communicate!” Haplo said, studying the table with more interest.

“Communicate. Not with each other on this world, they could do that by means of their magic. They would try to establish contact with the other worlds.”

“Contact that failed.”

“Did it?” Alfred studied the table. He held his hands above the sigil-inscribed wood, fingers spread, palms facing down. “Suppose that, in attempting to contact the other worlds, they made contact with ... something, someone else?”

The force that opposes us is ancient and powerful. It cannot be fought, cannot be placated. Tears do not move it, nor do all the weapons we have at our command. Too late, we have come to admit its existence. We bow before it...

Haplo recalled the words, couldn’t think, for the moment, where he’d heard them. On another world. Arianus? Pryan? An image of a Sartan speaking them came to mind, but Haplo had never spoken to another Sartan, except Alfred, before coming to this place. It didn’t make any sense.

“Does it say how we get the hell out of here?” Haplo demanded.

Alfred, hearing the jagged edge to the Patryn’s voice, looked grave. “One of us must attempt the communication himself.”

“Just who are you going to communicate with?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right. Anything to end this. No, wait, Sartan. I’m in on this, too,” Haplo said grimly. “Whatever you hear, I’m going to hear.”

“And you, Jonathan?” Alfred turned to the duke. “You are the representative of this world.”

“Yes. Perhaps I can learn how to help. . .” Jonathan’s glance strayed to his wife, the words died on his lips. “Yes,” he said again in a low voice.

“I will guard the door,” offered the lazar, moving to stand beside the sealed rock.

“That’s not really necessary.” Alfred found it difficult to look directly at the dead woman. He tried, but his gaze kept shifting, sliding away from her. “No one can enter this hallowed chamber.”

“They entered the last time,” the lazar said.

“.. . the last time .. .” whispered her phantasm.

“So they did!” Alfred licked dry lips, swallowed.

“We can’t worry about that now,” Haplo said shortly. “What do we do?”

“Put your .. . uh, put your hands on the table. You can see the indentations where the hands are to be placed. Like this, palm down, thumbs touching, fingers spread. Haplo, make certain none of the sigla on your skin come in contact with the wood. Make your mind a blank—”

“Think like a Sartan, huh? I can manage that,” Haplo did as instructed. Gingerly, he placed his hands on the table. Muscles twitched involuntarily, expecting a jolt, pain, he didn’t know what. He touched wood, solid beneath his hands, cool, reassuring.

“I warn you, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Alfred reiterated, nervously placing his hands on the table.

Jonathan, opposite them, did the same.

Alfred began to chant the runes. The duke, after a moment’s hesitation, joined in, speaking the language of the arcane clumsily and uncertainly. Haplo sat still, kept silent. The dog curled up on the floor near its master.

Soon, the three men heard nothing except Alfred’s chanting. And, soon, they couldn’t hear that.

The lazar stood near the door, watching in silence, watched Alfred slump forward, watched Haplo’s head rest on the table, watched Jonathan cradle his cheek on the cool, white wood. The dog’s eyes blinked sleepily, closed.

The lazar raised its chill voice. “Come to me. Follow my call. Fear no runes of warding. They are for the living. They have no power over the dead. Come to me. Come to this chamber. They will open the door for you, as they opened it long ago, and invite their own doom inside. It is the living who have done this to us.”

“... done this to us . . .” came the echo.

“When the living are no more,” the lazar intoned, “the dead will be free.”

“...free...”

... A sense of regret and sadness filled Alfred. And although painful to him, the sorrow and unhappiness were better—far better—than the lack of feeling he’d experienced prior to joining this brotherhood. Then he had been empty, a husk, a shell containing nothing. The dead—those dreadful creations of those who were beginning to dabble in necromancy—had more life than he. Alfred sighed deeply, lifted his head. A glance around the table revealed similar feelings softening the faces of the men and women gathered together in this sacred chamber.

The sadness, the regret wasn’t bitter. Bitterness comes to those who have brought tragedy on themselves, through their own misdeeds, and Alfred foresaw a time for his people when bitter sorrow must encompass them all, unless the madness could be halted.

He sighed again. Just moments before, he had been radiant with joy, peace had spread like a balm over the boiling magma sea of his doubts and fears. But that heady sense of exaltation could not last in this world. He must return to face its problems and perils and thus the sadness, the regret.

A hand reached out, clasped his. The hand’s grip was firm, the hand’s skin smooth and unwrinkled, a contrast to Alfred’s aged, parchment-paper skin, his weakened grasp.

“Hope, brother,” said the young man quietly. “We must have hope.”

Alfred turned to look at the man seated beside him. The young was handsome, strong, resolute—fine steel from a forging fire.

No doubts marred its shining surface, its blade was honed to a sharp, cutting edge. The young man looked familiar to Alfred. He could almost put a name to him, but not quite.

“I try,” answered Alfred, blinking back the tears that suddenly misted his eyes “Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen so much during my long life. I’ve known hope before, only to watch it wither and die, as did the mensch, left in our care. Our people are rushing headlong into evil—madmen rushing to the edge of the cliff, intent on hurling themselves into the abyss below. How can we stop them? Our numbers are too few—”