Serpent Mage by Margaret Weis Page A

every troubling doubt and feeling he'd been experiencing.
    Haplo felt renewed, refreshed, empty. And the emptiness, he discovered, was far preferable to the raging turmoil and confusion that had previously churned inside him.
    The dog. A crutch, as his lord had always said. The lucky and the strong were generally lonely. The dog had served Haplo's purpose.
    “It's gone.” He shrugged and forgot it.
    Alfred. That miserable Sartan.
    “I see it now. I was duped, tricked by his magic. Just as my people were duped and tricked before the Sundering. But not now. We will meet again, Sartan, and when we do, you won't escape me this time.”
    Haplo, looking back, was appalled to see how weak he'd grown, appalled to think he'd actually doubted and attempted to deceive his lord.
    His lord. He owed this new freedom from doubt, this new feeling of ease, to his lord.
    “As my father punished me when I was small, so my lord has punished me now. I accept it. I am grateful for it. I have learned from it. I will not fail you, My Lord.”
    He swore the oath, placing his hand upon the name rune over his heart. Then he walked out, alone, onto the upper deck of the elven ship called
Dragon Wing.

    Haplo paced the deck, looked up beyond the tall masts with the dragon-scaled wings, leaned over the rail to stare far below the ship's keel walked forward to study what lay beyond the snarling dragon's head that was the prow. He caught sight of something in the distance. Not much, nothing more than a dark splotch against the blue, but from the tingling of the sigla on his skin and the creeping feelings of dread shriveling his bowels, he came to the conclusion that he was looking at Death's Gate.
    Obviously, then, he'd passed through the Gate, since he certainly wasn't in the Nexus. His lord must have launched his ship on its way.
    “And, since I was preparing to travel to the fourth world, to Chelestra, the world of water, this must be it,” Haplo said, talking to himself, comforted by hearing a voice break the silence that surrounded him like the endless aqua blue.
    His ship was moving; he knew that much, now that he could fix his sight on a point—Death's Gate—and see it dwindle and grow smaller behind him. And he could feel, standing out in the open on the deck, the wind created by their forward motion blow strong against his skin.
    The air was cool and moist, but Haplo assumed that there must be more to a world of water than high humidity, and he again paced the length of the deck, trying to figure out where he was and where he was headed.
    A world of water. He sought to envision it, although he was forced to admit that he'd failed in his attempts to envision the previous three worlds he'd visited. He imagined islands, floating on an endless sea. And once he'd imagined that, he couldn't very well picture anything else. Nothing else made sense.
    But, if so, where were the islands? Was he, perhaps, in the air above them? But, if that was true, where was the vast expanse of water, glistening in the sun?
    Haplo returned below decks to try to sort out the problem, see if perhaps the runes of the steering stone offered some clue.
    But, at that moment, he found out what Chelestra was like. His ship slammed into a wall of water. 2
    The force of the impact sent Haplo toppling over backward. The steering stone jolted from its mountings and went rolling about the deck. Haplo started to regain his feet, froze, listened in astounded horror to a crack and a booming sound, like thunder. The main mast had snapped, broken.
    Haplo ran to the window, stared out to see what was attacking his ship.
    Nothing. He couldn't see any enemy, only water.
    Something fell over the window, blocking his view. He recognized it as part of the dragon's-wing sail that helped guide the vessel. Now it flapped and fluttered helplessly in the water like a drowning bird.
    Other crashes, occurring amidships, and the sudden trickling of small streams of water onto the bridge brought an