Mahawat nodded. “If it is your will, Majesty, it is our will.”
The Emperor turned to a servant. “Instruct the Warlord to convene the High Council tomorrow, and I shall leave instructions on what must be done to prepare for the coming invasion.”
The servant bowed and hurried off to discharge his duty.
A palace official appeared to inform the Emperor that the fires in the garden pavilion were extinguished. The Emperor dismissed everyone, but bade Miranda to linger. When they were alone with the remaining bodyguards, the Emperor’s calm mask fell away and Miranda now saw a very angry young man before her. “The war has begun, hasn’t it?”
Miranda assumed a level of familiarity she wouldn’t have risked even hours before. She reached out and put her hand on the Emperor’s shoulder. Guards in the room shifted position slightly, ready to leap to their ruler’s defense if the outland woman should attempt any harm. “It has begun,” she said softly. “And it will not end until the Dasati are completely repulsed from this world and this realm, or Kelewan lies in ruins at their feet. You are about to do something no other Emperor has ever been forced to do: order every house in the Empire to arms, to muster the entire armed might at your command, for never in its two-thousand-year history has the Empire stood at greater risk.”
The anger remained, but the Emperor’s voice was calm. “We will do what we must. We are Tsurani.”
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Miranda hoped that would be enough. “What of the message?” she asked.
The Emperor looked off into the distance. “I . . . where would we go?”
Miranda knew that was the heart of the issue. The cryptic message from some future Pug to the Emperor instructing him to make ready an evacuation left a lot of room for interpretation.
But taken at its worst possible meaning, to remove everyone from this world, or even just from the Empire, would be a colos-sal enterprise. A hundred rifts would have to be fashioned and controlled day and night, a task that would challenge the entire Assembly. Even with help from the Academy and Sorcerer’s Isle, the enormity of the undertaking would be overwhelming. And during a war with the most dangerous enemies ever confronted?
Miranda knew what the Emperor was thinking: it was an impossible choice.
Moreover, his question still hung in the air: where would they go?
Miranda saw a look of relief on her son’s face as she entered the office her husband had created at the rear of their home. She wished she could smile at the look, but she knew that he was about to be disabused of any notion that she was there to relieve him from his duty.
“Mother,” he said, rising and kissing her on the cheek.
“Caleb,” she replied, “you look as if you’re aging before my eyes.”
“I had no concept of how difficult it was to coordinate all the Conclave’s activities as well as manage this school on a day-to-day basis.”
“Any problems?” she asked, taking the chair behind the desk he had just vacated.
“The school? None to speak of. As Father instructed, we’re turning down requests to send new students, focusing our efforts on training to make our magicians ready to help in the coming fight, and everyone’s cooperating.”
“And?” she asked. “What isn’t going well?”
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“We’ve heard nothing from Kaspar’s expedition to the Peaks of the Quor.”
“How overdue is contact?”
“A few days.”
“I won’t start worrying until he’s a week overdue,” she said.
“Remind me of the mission?”
Caleb’s dark eyes narrowed. He knew that his mother had an almost perfect memory for details, when she bothered to study them, and realized she must have neglected to apprise herself of the details of this mission, because it was one of the last Pug had approved prior to his departure for the Dasati realm.
“One of our agents in Freeport picked up a message between a smuggler and some unknown band of raiders whom Father suspected of either working for Leso Varen or perhaps with him.”
“For or with? He thinks they’re either unwilling dupes or willing accomplices.”
“Something like that,” said Caleb. “The west shore of the Peaks of the Quor, specifically a large cove called ‘Kesana Cove,’
along with an approximate date, was expressly mentioned in the message—”
“And your father was off and running to find out what that was all about.”
Caleb nodded. “He also wanted to get some of the lads from different groups working together, so he asked Nakor to talk to Lord Erik about his . . . irregulars out of Krondor, and they joined with some lads from Kesh and Roldem and he put Kaspar in charge.”
“Well, your father’s been curious about the Peaks of the Quor for years,” she admitted. “We’ve had little luck finding out much and have both been too busy to go down there personally to poke about, so I understand his reasons.” Thinking about the coming confrontation with the Dasati, she added, “Though his timing could have been better. Let me know if you hear anything from Kaspar. Now, go and take the rest of the day off.”
Caleb frowned. “Only the rest of the day?”
“Yes, because you’re not heading out to go hunting or 1 2 1
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whatever else you want to do. I’m sure your wife won’t object to you staying at home for a few more days . . . or weeks.” Caleb’s frown deepened. “I’m not going to be here for long. I have a lot to do and I need to come up with a plan on how to accomplish it without your father and Nakor around.”
“Do what?”
Miranda sighed. “Convince the Kings of the Isles and Roldem, as well as the Emperor of Great Kesh, to accept refugees from Kelewan should it come to that.”
Caleb blinked in surprise. “Refugees? You’re thinking of contingency plans?”
Caleb saw his mother visibly wilt before his eyes. All her usual strength and vitality seemed to ebb away and she sat back in the chair with a look of resignation he had never seen before.
Softly she said, “No. Not a contingency. An eventuality.”
Pug sat quietly watching the faces of those nearby, as the sun settled behind the western horizon, a portion of the city wall so vast and so distant it looked like a remote ridge in the evening haze. He occupied a small bench where, he had been told, Lessers who farmed the grove came to eat their midday meal.
The others were arrayed around the workers’ shack, the only building in the grove, shielded from casual sight by hundreds of adapa fruit trees. Pug considered the fruit a Dasati apple, though the color was more of a yellowish-orange than red or green, and there was a luminous shimmer to the surface when it was freshly picked, the flesh of the fruit being a deep purple color.
As the sun disappeared from view, Macros turned and said,
“It’s done. The Great Culling is now over.” With a heavy sigh he came to sit down next to Pug. “The killing will continue for a bit—the fights don’t simply stop because the sun has set, but combatants will now withdraw rather than press the issue, and those in hiding will slowly emerge, and tonight the cleanup will commence.”
Nakor stood a few feet behind Pug, observing the bucolic peace that all knew to be an illusion. Safety was almost an impossibility on this world, yet for a moment, he could see in the faces 1 2 2
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of the others the same thought: once this had been a tranquil, lovely world, with industrious people whose lives in many ways resembled those on Midkemia. Softly he said, “This is how it should be.”
“Yes,” said Pug as the sun set completely and the sky above turned into a stunning riot of colors, the western clouds reflecting a spectrum no human eye could ever appreciate. “What happened?”
“The Dark God,” said Macros. Pug could tell that his illness was taking more of a toll than usual; the exertion of the last day was bringing him to the edge of exhaustion
.
Nakor said, “No, it’s more than that.”
Magnus also approached. “What do you mean?”
“It can’t just be one local god, no matter if he’s this world’s version of the Nameless—a Greater God—disrupting the balance. We know what happened when the Nameless One tried to take dominance during the early part of the Chaos Wars on Midkemia: the surviving Greater and Lesser Gods put aside their differences and combined to banish him to somewhere safe until order and balance could be restored. That didn’t happen here.
The Dark God overwhelmed the combined might of hundreds of other Dasati gods. But how?”
Macros said, “Not hundreds. Thousands. We don’t know how. The history of that era is lost.”
Pug nodded. “Logic tells us that the Dark God could not have done it alone. He must have had allies.”
“Who?” asked Magnus. “And what happened to them?”
“Perhaps he turned on them at a crucial moment, until he alone remained,” offered Macros.
“No,” said Nakor, again softly, as if afraid to be overheard.
“Too many things would have had to fall into place for him. It’s too unlikely.” He offered a rueful smile.
Pug nodded in agreement. He weighed his words carefully, then looked at Macros. “What do you know of the next realm?”
“The third plane of existence?”
Pug nodded.
“Nothing, really.”
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“The fourth?” asked Pug.
“Again, nothing.”
“The fifth?”
Macros sighed. “I had a few very painful but highly memo-rable moments in the fifth plane. When you closed the rift to the demon realm behind me, I was left in the clutches of Maarg, the Demon King. I unleashed every bit of power I possessed, stunning him for the briefest instant, and he released his hold on me.
I fell to what I take it was a stone floor, in some sort of demonic palace. Merely touching it caused me great pain. I had only a few impressions, then I lost consciousness. I expect Maarg killed me moments later, for the next thing I knew I was in front of Lims-Kragma, listening to a litany of . . .” He faltered.
“What?” asked Pug.
“Until this moment, I had no memory of . . . the time between my death and my childhood here.” He paused. “In fact, I had no memory of a childhood, really. Impressions of a mother and being in hiding, and a difficult journey to . . .” He looked from face to face. “I really didn’t live that life. My memories are . . . someone else’s.”
Nakor nodded. “Somehow Lims-Karagma put you in another’s body.”
“How many years has it been since I died, Pug?”
“About forty.”
“I’ve been here, or at least I remember being here, thirty-three or so Midkemian years.”
“What happened to the rest?” asked Magnus.
Macros let out a slow breath. “It’s a mystery.”
Nakor said, “Not really. What is your earliest memory, of you being you, Macros, not the Dasati you thought you were?”
“Eleven years ago, after a summer rite, I was walking home and became overcome with dizziness. I ducked out of sight, afraid that someone might see me weakened . . .” He shook his head.
“Before that, I was a Lesser, a minor fabricator of clothing.”
“A tailor,” said Magnus.
“Yes,” said Macros.
“But in only eleven years you have fashioned a planetswide 1 2 4
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resistance to the Dark God, and have won over thousands of followers,” said Pug.
Macros closed his eyes. “The White has been around a lot longer than me . . .”
“Who was the Gardener before you?” asked Magnus.
Macros appeared confused, uncertain. “I . . . don’t know.”
His shoulders rounded as he slumped down, looking troubled.
“I awoke under a stone wall, not unlike those you see around here. I had a massive headache and I stumbled back to the hovel where I . . . where this body lived.” He looked Nakor in the eyes.
“I was not reborn, was I?”
Nakor slowly shook his head. “I don’t know, but I think not. I think somehow the gods of our home world took your mind and put it in another body. I think that’s why you’re sick.”
“Dying,” corrected Macros.
“Who was the Gardener before you?” repeated Magnus.
Now Macros looked genuinely disturbed. “I don’t know,”
he said again. “I don’t know who would know,” he added quietly. “No one here is likely to know. Perhaps Martuch, Hirea, or Narueen, or they might know . . .”
“What?” asked Pug.
“The Bloodwitch Sisters. If anyone knows, it is they.”
Nakor stood, as if ready to depart. “Then we must ask them.”
Pug said, “Yes.”
Macros said, “But we should . . .”
For the first time in his life, since meeting Macros the Black on Sorcerer’s Island—back when Pug was only a simple squire in Lord Borric’s court at Crydee Castle—Pug saw confusion and uncertainty in Macros’s face. “Nakor is right. We are embarking on the most dangerous undertaking attempted in this, or perhaps any other, world. There is a being who calls itself the Dark God of the Dasati, who endangers not only this world, but countless others. And we are going to stop it.
“I am not going to attempt such an undertaking rashly, and waste the lives of myself and my friend and my son because 1 2 5
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someone else wants us to act the part of mindless dupes. I need to know who is truly the person responsible for all this.”
Magnus said, “We need to know who controlled the White before you.”
“I . . .” began Macros, then he faltered. He shook his head.
“I left my home, in a quadrant of the city not too distant from here, and I took the Star Bridge to another world. Mathusia.
From there I traveled to . . . a place. I don’t remember where, but when I got there, they were expecting me!”
“What sort of place was it?” asked Nakor.
“A Bloodwitch enclave,” said Macros softly.
“Then we must speak with whoever is in charge of the Bloodwitch Sisterhood.”
“Lady Narueen?” asked Magnus.
“No,” said Nakor. “She is important, but she’s not in charge.”
“How do you know that?” asked Pug.
“Because whoever is in charge isn’t having babies and hiding out and risking being killed by crazy Bloodknights. Whoever’s in charge is somewhere very safe telling others to go out and take risks.”
“Father’s in charge of the Conclave, and he certainly takes risks.”
Nakor grinned, and even through his false alien visage, the smile was all his own. “Your father, at times, is not the sanest man I know, but on our world, it’s rarely the case that when you step outside the door of your home, everyone and everything is trying to kill you.”
“Rarely,” Pug agreed dryly.
“Where are the Bloodwitches’ leaders, Macros?” asked Nakor.
“On the other side of this world, in a hidden valley in a mountain range called the Skellar-tok.”
“Then we’d better get started,” said Nakor. “If we don’t take these Lesser servants with us, we can travel faster.”
Macros laughed. “One more night won’t make a difference.
I need to rest, and you do as well, though not so much as I do.
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Besides, I need to remain here until word of what has occurred reaches us. I may be someone else’s idea of a dupe, but I am still the leader of the White and I need to know my people are safe and ready to serve.”
“One night,” agreed Pug. Looking around, he said, “While it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve slept outside, I don’t imagine you brought us here to this grove just
to sleep on the ground.”
Macros shook his head and laughed. “No. There is a hidden entrance to an underground safe haven over there. It’s a little . . .
lacking in amenities, but it will serve until morning.” He led them to the workers’ shed, and opened the door. Inside two Lessers stood waiting, both armed, which was unusual for those of their rank, and Macros motioned them aside. He waved his hand and Pug felt magic coalesce in the air. A trio of planks in the floor vibrated and then vanished and suddenly a flight of narrow steps led down into the gloom. With another wave of his hand, Macros caused light to appear at the bottom of the steps and down they went. Whatever the two guards left above might think about all this went unspoken, as they resumed their duties of protecting everything in this nameless shed without a word.
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Chapter 9
discoveries
Jim ducked behind a boulder.
Not for the first time since leaving the elves, he cursed himself for a fool. Up till now, one of the things that had made him both successful and dangerous was an optimism bordering on the foolhardy, a sense there was nothing he couldn’t do once he put his mind to it.
Blessed with mental agility as well as a physical quickness bordering on the supernatural, he could quickly assess situations and make snap judgments that were almost always correct.
But it was those occasional moments when he wasn’t correct that had nearly got him killed over the years. Now, he was certain this was going to be one of those moments if he made a wrong move.
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He had considered the location of the trail taken from the beach up to the elves’ stronghold, and where the ships lay at anchor on the opposite side of the peninsula and had judged a game trail up into the mountains they had passed along the way to Baranor a likely route over the crest—he had even spied a gap in the peaks in the moonlight and was feeling confident of his choice. His only concern at that time had been either other elven pursuers, which he doubted, or those wolf-riding creatures, of which there had been no sign.
Until he almost walked into their encampment.
He crouched low expecting to hear a howl of alarm at any second, but after moments passed with no outcry, he ventured to peer around the edge of the rocks.
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