The Seventh Gate (The Death Gate Cycle #7) by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Author:Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman [Weis, Margaret & Hickman, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Science Fiction
Amazon: B0012SMGQK
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2007-12-18T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

SALFAG CAVERNS ABARRACH

“I WISH WE WERE STRONGER!” BALTHAZAR WAS SAYING, AS ALfred hesitantly approached the necromancer and the guard. The dog, tail wagging, pattered over to greet Alfred.

“Our numbers greater! But … it will have to suffice.” The necromancer glanced around. “How many of us are physically capable …”

“Um … what’s going on?” Alfred remembered just in time to pretend that he didn’t know.

“The lazar, Kleitus, is attempting to steal your ship,” Balthazar reported, with a calm that astonished Alfred. “Of course, the fiend must be stopped.”

So that you can take it yourself, Alfred added, but he added it silently. “The … um … that is … Patryn rune-magic guards the ship. I don’t think it can be broken …”

Balthazar smiled, thin-lipped, grim. “As you recall, I once saw a demonstration of ‘Patryn’ magic. The rune-structures are visible, they glow with light when they are activated. Isn’t that true?”

Alfred, wary, nodded.

“Half the sigla on your ship are now dark,” Balthazar reported. “Kleitus is unraveling it.”

“That’s impossible!” Alfred protested in disbelief. “How could the lazar have learned such a skill—”

“From Xar,” Haplo said. “Kleitus has been watching my lord and the rest of my people. The lazar has discovered the secret of the rune-magic.”

“The lazar are capable of learning,” Balthazar was saying at the same time, “because of the soul’s proximity to the body. And they have long wanted to leave Abarrach. They can find no living flesh here on which to feed. I do not need to tell you what terrible tragedies will befall in the other worlds if the lazar succeed in entering Death’s Gate.”

He was right. He had no need to tell Alfred, who could envision such horror all too clearly. Kleitus had to be stopped, but—once the lazar was stopped, it was— who was going to stop Balthazar?

Alfred sank down on a rock ledge, stared unseeing into the darkness. “Will it never end? Will we go on forever perpetuating the misery and the sorrow?”

The dog flopped down, whined a little in sympathy. Balthazar stood near, black eyes probing, plodding. Alfred flinched, as if the sharp gaze had drawn blood. He had the distinct feeling he knew what Balthazar was going to say next.

Balthazar placed his gaunt, wasted hand on Alfred’s shoulder.

Leaning over him, the necromancer spoke in low tones. “Once I might have been able to cast such spells as are required. But not now. You, on the other hand …”

Alfred blenched, shrank away from the man’s touch. “I … couldn’t! I wouldn’t know how …”

“I do,” Balthazar said smoothly. “I have been thinking long on the matter, as you might guess. The lazar are dangerous because—unlike the ordinary dead—the living soul remains attached to the dead. If that attachment were to be severed, the soul wrenched from the body, I believe the lazar would be destroyed.”

“You ‘believe’?” Alfred retorted. “You don’t know for certain.”

“As I said, I have not been strong enough to conduct such an experiment myself.”

“I couldn’t,” Alfred said flatly. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“Yet he’s right,” said Haplo.

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