Fire Sea (25 page)

Her gaze flicked, as if by accident, to the two strangers. Haplo kept his eyes firmly fixed on the woman, his expression impassive. He dared not risk a glance at the Sartan, but he knew without looking that Alfred would look as guilty as if the words
Yes, I Come From Another World
were written across his forehead.

“And, yet, you, Your Grace, became a necromancer,” Edmund observed, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“Yes, I did,” Jera said, sadly. “It was necessary. We are caught in a circle that is like a snake, who can maintain its life only by feeding off its own tail. A necromancer is essential to the
running
of any household. Most especially to ours,
since
we have been banished to the Old Provinces.”

“What are those?” Edmund asked, glad to change the subject, steer it away from talk he obviously considered dangerous, perhaps blasphemous.

“You will see. We must pass through them on our way to the city.”

“Perhaps you, Your Highness, and you, gentlemen, would be interested in observing how the ship operates?” Jonathan offered, anxious to end this conversation. “You'll find it really quite amusing and entertaining.”

Haplo agreed readily, any type of knowledge about this world was essential to him. Edmund agreed, perhaps secretly thinking that ships like these would carry his people to Death's Gate. Alfred went along simply, Haplo thought uncharitably, so that the inept Sartan might have the opportunity of falling headfirst down a flight of iron steps into the ship's hot, dark belly.

The ship was operated by a crew of cadavers, better kept than the army, who had performed their tasks in life and so continued to perform them in death. Haplo explored the mysteries of something called a “boiler” and marveled politely at another essential piece of equipment known as a “paddle wheel,” its iron heated red-hot, that churned through the magma, pushing the dragonship along from behind.

The mechanics reminded the Patryn forcibly of the great Kicksey-winsey, the wondrous machine built by the Sartan and now run by the Gegs of Arianus; the wondrous machine whose purpose no one had understood until the child, Bane, figured it out.

The time is long past when we should cease to wait for those from other worlds to come and “rescue” us.

Haplo, ascending back on deck, thankful to leave the terrible heat and oppressive darkness below, recalled Jera's words. The Patryn couldn't help grinning. What sweet irony. The one who had come to “rescue” these Sartan was their ancient enemy. How his lord would laugh!

The iron ship sailed into a harbor, far larger and much busier than the one they had just left. Ships plied the magma sea both above and below where they docked. The thriving New Provinces, Jonathan pointed out, were located near the shores of the Fire Sea, close enough to benefit from the heat, yet far enough not to suffer from it.

Once off the ship, the duke and duchess turned the captaincy of their army over to another necromancer, who shook his head at the sight of the cadavers and marched them off to effect what repairs he could.

Thankful to be rid of their charges, Jera and her husband gave their guests a brief tour of the dockyard. Haplo had the impression that, for all Jera's gloomy talk, Necropolis—to judge by the goods piled up on the docks or being loaded onto ships by teams of cadavers—was a thriving and wealthy community.

They left the pier, heading for the main highway into the city. But, before they reached it, Jera brought the party to a halt, pointed back at the shoreline of the fiery ocean.

“Look, there,” she said, her hand extended. “See those three rocks, standing one on top of the other. I placed them in that position before we left. And when I placed them there, the magma sea reached to their base.”

The ocean was not at the base any longer. Haplo could have set his hand down in the breadth of empty shoreline left between rock and sea.

“Already, in this short span of time,” said Jera, “the magma has receded that far. What will happen to this world, to us, when it has cooled completely?”

CHAPTER
20
NEW PROVINCE HIGHWAY,
ABARRACH

A
N OPEN-AIR CARRIAGE AWAITED THE DUKE, DUCHESS,
and their guests. The vehicle was constructed of the same grasslike substance, woven together and covered with a high-gloss finish painted in glowing colors, Haplo had noted in the village.

“A much different material from that used to build your ship,” said Jera, climbing into the carriage and seating herself beside Haplo.

The Patryn kept silent, but Alfred tumbled into the trap with his usual grace. “Wood, you mean? Yes, wood is quite common in … er … well…” He realized his error, stammered, but it was too late.

Haplo saw, in the Sartan's enthusiastic words, visions of the trees of Arianus, lifting their green and leafy bows to the sun-drenched blue skies of that distant world.

The Patryn's first impulse was to grab Alfred by his frayed coat collar and shake him. By their expressions, Jera and Jonathan had seen the same visions and were staring at Alfred in undisguised wonder. Bad enough these Sartan knew or guessed they came from a world different from their own. Did Alfred have to show them how much different?

Alfred was climbing into the carriage, still talking, trying to cover his mistake by babbling, and succeeding in doing further damage. Haplo insinuated his booted foot between Alfred's ankles, sent him sprawling headlong across Jera's lap.

The dog, excited by the confusion, decided to add its own and began barking frantically at the beast drawing the carriage—a large fur-bearing creature as long as it was wide with two small beady black eyes and three horns on its massive head. For all its girth, the beast could move swiftly, it whipped out a clawed paw at the pesky dog. The dog leapt nimbly to one side, danced a few paces out of reach, darted forward to nip at the back legs.

“Whoa, pauka! Stop! Get back there!”

The carriage driver—a well-kept cadaver—slashed at the dog with a whip, at the same time struggling to maintain a grip on the reins. The pauka attempted to swing round its head to get a good view (and mouthful) of its antagonist. Those in the carriage were jounced and jostled, the carriage itself seemed likely to tip over, and all thoughts of another world fled in their concern over remaining in this one.

Haplo jumped out. Collaring the dog, he dragged the animal away from the fray. Jonathan and Edmund ran to the head of the pauka, as Haplo learned it was called from certain maledictory phrases being hurled at it by the dead coachman.

“Mind the snout horn!” Jonathan called anxiously to the prince.

“I've dealt with these before,” Edmund said coolly, and grabbing a handful of fur, he pulled himself up deftly onto the pauka's broad back. Sitting astride the plunging, frantic beast, the prince caught hold of the curved part of the sharp horn located just behind the snout. Giving it a swift, strong tug, he jerked the pauka's head back.

The pauka's beady eyes opened wide. It gave its head a shake that nearly threw the prince. Edmund clung firmly to the horn, jerked it back a second time. Leaning down, he said a few soothing words and patted the beast on the neck. The pauka paused to consider the matter, cast a baleful glance back at the grinning dog. The prince said something else. The pauka appeared to agree and, with an air of offended
dignity,
settled stolidly back into the harness.

Jonathan sighed in relief and hastened to the carriage to see if any of the passengers had come to harm. The prince
slid off the pauka's back, patted it on the neck. The cadaver retrieved its dropped reins. Alfred was extracted from Jera's lap, from which he emerged extremely red in the face and profuse in his apologies. A small crowd of dockside necromancers, who had gathered around to watch, drifted back to their work, which involved keeping the laboring cadavers at theirs. Everyone climbed aboard the carriage. It rolled off, on iron wheels, the dog trotting along behind, tongue lolling and eyes bright over the remembrance of the fun.

Not a word more was said about wood, but Haplo noted that, during the ride, Jera would glance at him, her lips curving in a smile.

“What lush and fertile land you have!” said Edmund, gazing about him with undisguised envy.

“These are the New Provinces, Your Highness,” said Jonathan.

“Land left behind with the falling of the Fire Sea,” added the duchess. “Oh, it is prosperous now. But its very prosperity spells our doom.”

“We grow mostly kairn grass here,” the duke continued with almost desperate cheerfulness. He was aware of the prince's discomfort and cast a pleading glance at his wife, begging her to refrain from bringing up unpleasant subjects.

Jera, with another glance through lowered lids at Haplo, clasped her husband's hand in her own in silent apology. From then on she went out of her way to be charming. Haplo, leaning back in the carriage, watched the change of expression on the mobile face, the flash of wit in the eyes, and thought that only once before in his life had he ever met a woman to equal this one. Intelligent, subtle, quick to think and to act, yet not one to act or speak rashly, she would have made a man a good partner in the Labyrinth. It was extremely unfortunate that she was bonded to another.

What was he thinking? A Sartan woman! Once again, in his mind, he saw the motionless figures resting peacefully in the crystal tombs of the mausoleum. Alfred did this to me. It's all the Sartan's fault. Somehow, he's playing tricks on my
mind. The Patryn cast the Sartan a sharp glance. If I catch him at it, he'll die. I don't need him anymore.

But Alfred was hunched miserably in the corner of the carriage, unable to so much as look at the duchess without a wave of blushes sweeping over his bald head. The man appeared incapable of dressing himself without help, yet Haplo didn't trust him. Looking up, feeling eyes on him, he caught Jera, looking back as if she were reading every thought in his mind. Haplo affected to be intensely interested in the conversation going on around him.

“You grow primarily kairn grass here?” Edmund was asking.

Haplo stared at the tall, golden stands of grass undulating in the hot vectors blowing from the magma sea. Cadavers, new dead by the looks of them, worked in the fields, busily cutting the grass with curved sickles, stacking it in bundles that other cadavers pitched onto trundling carts.

“The plant is extremely versatile,” Jera said. “It's flame resistant, thrives on heat, drawing its nutrients from the soil. We use its fibers in almost everything, from this carriage to the clothes we wear to a kind of tea we brew.”

She was, Haplo realized, speaking to people from another world, a people who wouldn't know kairn grass from paukas. Yet all the while she was talking directly to the prince, who—probably having grown up eating, sleeping, and breathing kairn grass—appeared slightly amazed at being thus edified, but was too polite to say anything.

“Those trees you see growing over there are lanti. They can be found in the wild. We cultivate them. Their blue flowers are known as lanti lace and are highly prized for decoration. Beautiful, aren't they, Your Highness?”

“It has been some time since I have seen the lanti,” Edmund said, his expression grim. “If any do still grow in the wild, we did not run across them.”

Three thick, stalwart trunks thrust up through the surrounding stands of golden kairn grass. The trunks twined together to form one gigantic braided trunk that soared high up into the air, the tops lost in the mists. The tree's limbs, thin
and fragile, gleaming silver-white, were so intertwined that it appeared impossible to separate one from another. Some of these bore flowers of a soft pale blue color.

As the carriage neared the grove of these trees, Haplo noted that the air smelled sweeter, seemed easier to breathe. He saw, by the dimming of the runes on his skin, that his body was using less magic to maintain itself.

“Yes,” answered Jera, seeming again to understand his unspoken thoughts. “The flowers of the lanti have the unique ability to draw the poisons from the atmosphere and give back pure air in return. That is why the trees are never cut. To kill a lanti is an offense punishable by oblivion. One may pick the blue flowers, however. They are highly valued, particularly by lovers.” She turned a sweet smile on her husband, who squeezed her hand.