Serpent Mage (32 page)

This worked for the night, but the shade did not disappear with morning's light. Alfred sat at breakfast, pretending to eat, when in reality all he could think about was Ramu examining that one compartment. What was in it that was so closely guarded?

“Curiosity. Nothing more than curiosity.” Alfred scolded himself. “Samah is right. I've lived around the mensch far too long. I'm like that girl in the ghost stories Bane's nurse used to tell him. may go into any room in the castle except the locked room at the top of the stairs.' And is the fool girl satisfied with all the other one hundred and twenty-four rooms in the castle? No, she can't eat or sleep or have any peace at all until she's broken into the room at the top of the stairs.

“That's all I'm doing to myself. The room at the top of the stairs. I'll stay away from it. I won't think about it. I'll be satisfied with the other rooms, rooms that are filled with so much wealth. And I will be happy. I
will
be happy.”

But he wasn't. He grew more unhappy with each day that passed.

He attempted to keep his restlessness hidden from his host and hostess and succeeded, or so Alfred fondly imagined. Samah watched him with the attentiveness of a Geg watching a leaky steam valve on the Kicksey-winsey, wondering when it's going to erupt. Intimidated by Samah's awe-inspiring and daunting presence, humbled by the fact that he knew he'd been in the wrong, Alfred was cringing and subdued in the Councillor's presence, barely able to lift his eyes to Samah's stern and implacable face.

When Samah was gone from home, however—and he was gone a great deal of the time on Council business— Alfred relaxed. Orla was generally on hand to keep him company, and the haunting spirit was not nearly as bothersome when he was with Orla as it was during the infrequent times when he was on his own. It never occurred to Alfred to wonder that he was rarely left alone anymore or to think it odd that Orla herself wasn't involved in Council business. He knew only that she was sweet to devote so much time to him—a thought that made him feel all the more wretched on the occasions when the ghost of the library reappeared.

Alfred and Orla were seated on her terrace, Orla busying herself by softly singing protective runes on the fabric of one of Samah's robes. Chanting the words, she traced the patterns with her deft fingers on the cloth, putting her love and concern for her husband into each sigil that sprang up at her command.

Alfred watched sadly. Never in his life had a woman sung the protective runes for him. One never would now. Or, at least, not the one he wanted. He was suddenly wildly and insanely jealous of Samah. Alfred didn't like the way the Councillor treated his wife—so cold and unresponsive. He knew Orla was hurt by it, he'd witnessed her silent suffering. No, Samah wasn't good enough for her.

And I am? he asked dolefully.

Orla glanced up at him, smiling, prepared to continue their conversation on the healthy state of her rosebushes.

Alfred, caught, was unable to hide the images of the ugly, tangled, thorny vines that were twisting around inside him— and it was painfully obvious he hadn't been meditating on the roses.

Orla's smile faded. Sighing, she laid aside her work.

“I wish you wouldn't do this to me … or to yourself.”

“I'm sorry,” said Alfred, looking and feeling wretched.

His hand went to pet the dog, who, seeing his friend's unhappiness, offered sympathy by laying its head on his knee.

“I must be an extraordinarily wicked person. I'm well aware that no Sartan should have such improper thoughts. As your husband says, I've been corrupted by being around mensch too long.”

“Perhaps it wasn't the mensch,” suggested Orla softly, with a glance at the dog.

“You mean Haplo.” Alfred stroked back the dog's ears. “Actually Patryns are very loving, almost fiercely loving. Did you know that?”

His sad gaze was on the dog and he missed Orla's look of astonishment.

“They don't think of it as such. They call love by other names: loyalty, a protective instinct to ensure the survival of their race. But it is love, a dark sort of love, but love nevertheless, and even the worst of them feels it strongly. This Lord of the Nexus—a cruel, powerful, and ambitious man—risks his own life daily to go back into the Labyrinth to aid his suffering people.”

Alfred, caught up in his emotion, forgot where he was. He stared into the dog's eyes. Liquid, brown, they drew him in, held him until nothing else seemed real to him.

“My own parents sacrificed their lives to save me, when the snogs were chasing us. They might have escaped, you see. but I was only a child and I couldn't keep up with them. And so they hid me and lured the snogs away from me. I saw my parents die. The snogs tortured them. And later, strangers took me in, raised me as their own.”

The dog's eyes grew soft, sad. “And I have loved,” Alfred heard himself saying. “She was a Runner, like myself, like
my parents. She was beautiful, strong, and lean. The blue runes twined around her body that pulsed with youth and life beneath my fingers when I held her in my arms at night. We fought together, loved, laughed. Yes, there is sometimes laughter, even in the Labyrinth. Often it is bitter laughter, the jests dark and grim, but to lose laughter is to lose the will to live.

“She left me, eventually. A village of Squatters, who had offered us shelter for the night, was attacked, and she wanted to help them. It was a stupid, foolish notion. The Squatters were outnumbered. We would have only died ourselves, most likely. I told her so. She knew I was right. But she was frustrated, angry. She'd come to love those people, you see. And she was afraid of her love, because it made her feel weak and powerless and hurting inside. She was afraid of her love for me. And so she left me. She was carrying my child. I know she was, though she refused to admit it. And I never saw her again. I don't even know if she is dead, or if my child lives—”

“Stop it!”

Orla's cry startled Alfred, shocked him out of his reverie. She had risen from her seat, was backing away, staring at him in horror.

“Don't do this to me anymore!” She was deathly pale, struggled for breath. “I can't bear it! I keep seeing those images of yours, the wretched child, watching his parents raped, murdered, their bodies torn apart. And he can't scream, he's so afraid. I see that woman you talk about. I feel her pain, her helplessness. I know the pain of bearing a child and I think of her alone, in that terrible place. She can't scream, either, afraid that her cries will bring death to her and her baby. I can't sleep nights for thinking of them, for knowing that we … I… I am responsible!”

Orla covered her face with her hands, to blot out any more images, and began to sob. Alfred was appalled at himself, uncertain how those images—that were really Haplo's memories—got into his head.

“Sit… Good dog,” he said, shoving the animal's head (was it grinning at him?) off his knee.

Hurriedly, he approached Orla. He had some vague notion of offering her his handkerchief. But his arms appeared to have other ideas. He watched in amazement to see them steal around the woman's body, pull her close. She rested her head on his breast.

A tingling thrill shot through him. He held her, loved her with every fiber of his being. He stroked her shining hair with an awkward hand and, because he was Alfred, said something stupid.

“Orla, what knowledge is in the library of the Sartan that Samah doesn't want anyone to know about?”

She struck him, shoved him back so violently that he tripped over the dog and fell into the rosebushes. Her anger blazed in her eyes and burned in her cheeks—anger and … was it Alfred's imagination or did he see the same fear in her eyes that he'd seen in Samah's?

Without a word, Orla turned and left him, walking from her garden in hurt, offended dignity.

Alfred struggled to disentangle himself from the thorns that were pricking him painfully. The dog offered assistance. Alfred glared at it.

“It's all your fault!” he said crossly.

The animal cocked its head, looked innocent, denied the charge.

“It is, too. Putting such ideas into my head! Why don't you go off and find that blasted master of yours and leave me alone! I can get myself into quite enough trouble without your help.”

Cocking its head in the other direction, the dog appeared to agree that this was true. It seemed to think the conversation had reached its logical conclusion, however, for it stretched luxuriously, bending forward over its forepaws, back over its hind end, and finally shook itself all over. Then, it trotted over to the garden gate, looked at Alfred expectantly.

Alfred felt himself go hot and cold, both at the same time—a most uncomfortable sensation.

“You're telling me that we're alone now, aren't you? No one's with us. No one's watching us.”

The dog wagged its tail.

“We can …” Alfred swallowed. “We can go to the library.” The dog wagged its tail again, its expression long-suffering and patient. It obviously considered Alfred slow and thickheaded, but was magnanimously willing to overlook these minor faults.

“But I can't get inside. And if I could, I can't get back out. Samah would catch me …”

The dog was afflicted by a sudden itch. Plopping down, it scratched vigorously, fixed Alfred with a stern gaze that seemed to say,
Come, come. It's me, remember?

“Oh, very well.”

Alfred cast a furtive glance around the garden, half-expecting Samah to leap out of the rosebushes and lay violent hands upon his person. When no one came, Alfred began to sing and dance the runes.

He stood outside the library. The dog dashed up to the door, sniffed at it with interest. Alfred slowly followed, gazed at the door sadly. The warding runes had, as Samah had promised, been strengthened.

“‘Due to the current crisis situation and the fact that we cannot spare the staff needed to assist our patrons, the library is closed until further notice.’” Alfred read the sign aloud.

“It makes sense,” he insisted. “Who's interested in doing any research anyway. They're spending all their time trying to rebuild and establish their city, trying to decide what to do about the Patryns, and wondering where the rest of our people are and how to get in touch with them. They have to deal with the necromancers on Abarrach and these dragon-snakes …”

The dog didn't agree.

“You're right,” Alfred heard himself arguing, his own inner being as rebellious as his limbs and appendages. “If I had all those problems to solve, where would I turn? To the wisdom of our people. Wisdom recorded in there.”

Well,
the dog demanded, bored with sniffing at the door,
what are we waiting for?

“I can't get inside,” Alfred said, but the words came out a whisper—a halfhearted, faint, and ineffectual lie.

He knew how to get in without being detected. The idea had come to him, suddenly, last night.

He hadn't wanted it to come. And when it did, he'd told it in no uncertain terms to go away. But it wouldn't. His stubborn brain had gone right ahead making plans, examining the risks and deciding (with a cold-bloodedness that shocked Alfred) that the risks were minimal and worth running.

The idea had come to him because of that stupid story told by Bane's nurse. Alfred caught himself hoping irritably that she'd come to a bad end. She had no business telling such nightmare tales to a susceptible child. (Never mind the fact that Bane himself was a nightmare personified.)

Thinking about that tale, Alfred had found himself remembering Arianus and the time he'd lived at the court of King Stephen. One memory led to another memory, and that led to another, until his mind had carried him, without him being aware of where he was headed, to the time the thief broke into the treasure vault.

Money is water, on Arianus, where the life-sustaining liquid is in short supply and is, therefore, considerably valuable. The royal palace had stockpiles of the precious commodity, kept for use in times of emergency (such as when the elves succeeded in cutting off the water shipments). The vault where the barrels were stored was located in a building behind the palace walls, a building of thick walls and heavy bolted doors, a building guarded day and night.

Guarded—except on the roof.

Late one night, a thief, using a most ingenious system of ropes and pulleys, managed to make his way from a neighboring roof to the top of the water vault. He was drilling through the hargast-wood timbers when one gave way with a shattering crash, literally dropping the unlucky thief into the arms of the guards below.

How the thief had proposed to get away with enough water to make this dangerous feat worth his while was never learned. It was assumed he had accomplices, but, if so, they escaped and he never revealed them, not even under torture. He met his death alone, accomplishing nothing except to ensure that guards now patrolled the roof.

That and he'd provided Alfred with a plan for breaking and entering the library.

Of course, it was always possible that Samah had enveloped the entire building in a magical shell, but, knowing the Sartan as he did, Alfred considered it unlikely. They had considered runes politely advising people to keep out sufficient protection and they would have been, had not Alfred's wayward feet flung him inside. The Councillor had strengthened the magic, but the thought that anyone (much less Alfred) would have the temerity to deliberately enter a place he'd been commanded to avoid would be unthinkable.

It is unthinkable, Alfred thought miserably. I am corrupt. This is insanity!

“I… I must get away from here …” he said faintly, mopping his forehead with his lace cuff.

He was firm, resolved. He was going to leave. He didn't care what was in the library.

“If there is anything—which there probably isn't—then surely Samah has an excellent reason for not wanting stray scholars to poke at it—although what that reason could be is beyond me—not that it's any of my business.”

This monologue continued for some time, during which Alfred made up his mind to leave and actually turned around and started down the path, only to find himself walking up it again almost immediately. He turned back, started home, found himself walking to the library.