Into the Labyrinth [Paperback]

From his army of the undead, Xar, Lord of the Nexus, learns of the existence of the mysterious Seventh Gate. It is said that this gate grants whoever enters it the power to create worlds—or destroy them. Only Haplo knows its location—but he doesn't know he knows it. Now an ex-lover has been sent to betray Haplo and bring back his corpse. Meanwhile, the assassin Hugh the Hand is also after Haplo, wielding the Accursed Blade. With his old companion Alfred, Haplo must seek sanctuary in the Labyrinth—a deadly prison maze whose inhabitants are condemned to death. 

 Millennia ago a battle raged between the Sartan and the Patryn, and the Sartan sundered the world into four realms—air, fire, stone, and water—and then vanished. But now the two races have rediscovered each other through the magic of the Death Gate—and war is about to erupt anew.CHAPTER 1
 
ABARRACH
 
 
ABARRACH: WORLD OF STONE, WORLD OF DARKNESS LIT BY THE fires of molten sea, world of stalagmites and stalactites, world of fire dragons, world of poisonous air and sulfurous fumes, world of magic.
 
Abarrach: world of the dead.
 
Xar, Lord of the Nexus, and now Lord of Abarrach, sat back in his chair, rubbed his eyes. The rune-constructs he was studying were starting to blur together. He’d almost made a mistake—and that was inexcusable.
 
But he had caught himself in time, corrected it. Closing his aching eyes, he went over the construct again in his mind.
 
Begin with the heart-rune. Connect this sigil’s stem to an adjoining rune’s base. Inscribe the sigla on the breast, working upward to the head. Yes, that was where he’d gone wrong the first few times. The head was important—vital. Then draw the sigla on the trunk, finally the arms, the legs.
 
It was perfect. He could find no flaw. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the dead bodyl“-