Free Serpent Mage by Margaret Weis Page B

name rune is the most important sigil on the body, since every other sigil added later traces its origin back to it first—the beginning of the circle. 9
    Haplo moved his fingers over the name rune, redrawing its intricate design from memory.
    Memory took him back to the time of his childhood, to one of the rare, precious moments of peace and rest, to a boy reciting his name and learning how to shape the runes….
    … “Haplo: 'single, alone.' That is your name and your destiny,” said his father, his finger rough and hard on Haplo's chest. “Your mother and I have defeated the odds thrown for us already. Every Gate we pass from now on is a wink at fate. But the time will come when the Labyrinth will claim us, as it claims all except the lucky and the strong. And the lucky and the strong are generally the lonely. Repeat your name.”
    Haplo did so, solemnly running his own grimy finger over his thin chest.
    His father nodded. “And now the runes of protection and healing.”
    Haplo laboriously went over each of those, beginning with the ones touching the name rune, spreading out over the breast, the vital organs of his abdominal region, the sensitive groin area, and around the back to protect the spine. Haplo recited these, as he'd recited them countless times in his brief life. He'd done it so often, he could lethis mind wander to the rabbit snares he'd laid out that day, wondered if he might be able to surprise his mother with dinner.
    “No! Wrong! Begin again!”
    A sharp blow, delivered impersonally by his father with what was known as the naming stick, across the unprotected, rune-free palm of the hand, focused Haplo's mind on his lesson. The blow brought tears to his eyes, but he was quick to blink them away, for his father was watching him closely. The ability to endure pain was as much a part of this rough schooling as the recitation and the drawing of the sigla.
    “You are careless today, Haplo,” said his father, tapping the naming stick—a thin, pliable branch of a plant known as a creeping rose, adorned with flesh-pricking thorns—on the hard ground. “It is said that back in the days of our freedom, before we were thrown into this accursed jail by our enemies … Name the enemy, my son.”
    “The Sartan,” Haplo said, trying to ignore the stinging pain of the thorns left stuck in his skin.
    “It is said that in the days of our freedom, children such as you went to schools and learned the runes as a kind of exercise for the mind. But no longer. Now it is life or death. When your mother and I are dead, Haplo, you will be responsible for the sigla that will, if done correctly, grant you the strength needed to escape our prison and avenge our deaths on our enemy. Name the runes of strength and power.”
    Haplo's hand left the trunk of his body and followed the progression of the tattooed sigla that twined down his arms and legs, onto the backs of his hands and the tops of his feet. He knew these better than he knew the runes of protection and healing. Those “baby” runes had been tattooed onto him when he was weaned from the breast. He had actually been allowed to tattoo some of these newer sigla—the mark of an adult—onto his skin himself. That had been a proud moment, his first rite of entry into what would undoubtedly be a cruel, harsh, and brief life.
    Haplo completed his lesson without making another mistake and earned his father's curt nod of satisfaction.
    “Now, heal those wounds,” his father said, gesturing to the thorns protruding from the boy's palm.
    Haplo pulled out the thorns with his teeth, spat them on the ground, and, joining his hands, formed the healing circle, as he'd been taught. The red, swollen marks left behind by the thorns gradually disappeared. He exhibited smooth, if dirty, palms for his father. The man grunted, rose, and walked away.
    Two days later, he and Haplo's mother would both be dead. Haplo would be left alone.
    The lucky and the strong were generally