Free Into the Labyrinth by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman Page A

that rune-joining opened up many hearts’ secrets to him. As for revealing his secrets to others, Xar was far too disciplined mentally to permit such a thing to happen. He revealed as much of himself as he deemed it useful to reveal, no more.
    He was pleased with Marit, as he would have been pleased with any new weapon that came into his hand. She would do readily whatever needed to be done—even if it meant slaying the man she had once loved.
    And Haplo would die knowing he’d been betrayed.
    “Thus,” said Xar, “I will be avenged.”
    1 Those who have read about the dragon-snakes before will note the difference between Sang-drax’s account of the Battle of the Kicksey-winsey and the truth, as recorded in
The Hand of Chaos
, vol. 5 of
The Death Gate Cycle.
    2 This sounds callous, but it was a common practice among the Runners to give their children to the tribes of the more settled Squatters, with whom a baby would have a far greater chance for survival.
    3 Haplo describes such a ceremony in
Dragon Wing
, vol. 1 of
The Death Gate Cycle.
    4 Either the elder inscribes the rune on the younger, or the one who is first joined inscribes the rune on the one who is not. If both have been previously joined, they inscribe the runes on each other. Once rune-joined, Patryns are forbidden to join with any other, so long as their rune-mate remains alive.

CHAPTER 5
THE FORTRESS
OF THE BROTHERHOOD
SKURVASH, ARIANUS
    “H E’S ARRIVED,” CAME THE REPORT, “STANDING OUT FRONT. ”
    The Ancient looked at Ciang, pleading in his eyes. The formidable elf woman had only to say … No, she had merely to nod … and Hugh the Hand would be dead. An archer sat in a window above the entrance. If the elf woman, sitting stiff and upright in her chair, barely inclined her smooth, skull-like head, the Ancient would leave her presence and carry a wooden knife, with Hugh’s name carved in it, to the archer. The archer would without hesitation send a shaft into Hugh’s breast.
    Hugh knew this. He was taking an enormous risk, returning to the Brotherhood. The knife had not been sent around on him 1 (if it had been, he would not have been alive at the moment), but the word had been whispered among the membership that Ciang was displeased with Hugh the Hand, and he had been shunned. No one would kill him, but no one would help him either. A shunning was one step away from the wooden knife. A member findinghimself shunned had better get to the Brotherhood and argue his case fast. Thus no one was surprised at Hugh’s arrival at the fortress, though a few were disappointed.
    To have been able to claim that you killed Hugh the Hand, one of the greatest assassins the Guild had fostered—such a boast would have been worth a fortune.
    No one dared do it without sanction, however. Hugh was—or had been—one of Ciang’s favorites. And though her protective arm was gnarled and wrinkled and spotted with age, it was spotted with blood as well. No one would touch Hugh unless Ciang commanded it.
    Ciang’s small, yellow teeth sank into her lower lip. Seeing this gesture and knowing it for indecision, the Ancient’s hopes rose. Perhaps one emotion could still touch the woman’s insensate heart. Not love. Curiosity. Ciang was wondering why Hugh had come back, when he knew his life was nothing but a word on her lips. And she couldn’t very well find out from his corpse.
    The yellow teeth gnawed flesh. “Let him come in to me.”
    Ciang spoke the words grudgingly and with a scowl, but she’d said them and that was all the Ancient needed to hear. Fearful she might change her mind, he hastened out of the room, his crooked old legs moving with more speed than they’d used in the past twenty years.
    Grabbing hold of the huge iron ring attached to the door, the Ancient himself swung it open.
    “Come in, Hugh, come in,” the Ancient said. “She has agreed to see you.”
    The assassin stepped inside, stood unmoving in the dim entryway until his eyes