Rides a Dread Legion

by Raymond E. Feist

  Amirantha turned to Father-Bishop Creegan and Sandreena and said, “Now I am certain there is nowhere else on this world I’d rather be this moment.”

  CHAPTER 16

  ALLIES

  The dragon leaped into the sky.

  Tomas bid it farewell and said he would call it again if needed, though as often as not, when he visited Pug, one of the magicians transported him home in much swifter, if less dramatic, fashion. Everyone watched in silent awe the spectacle of a great golden dragon winging its way into the blue vault above.

  Pug glanced at those standing near him and felt a pang. Here were some of the people he loved most in the world, his wife, his surviving children, his oldest friend. Again, as he had in the past, he felt a burden of foreboding threaten to overwhelm him. Only Nakor, now dead, had known what Pug knew. Miranda had learned most of it, though he held back one painful and terrifying thing: he was doomed to watch everyone he loved die before him.

  He had told Tomas some of the truth behind the manipulations of the god Ban-ath over the years, and even less to Father-Bishop Creegan, but not the entire truth: that most of his life had been spent as a tool for the Trickster to ensure the survival of this very world. He had no doubt that if the God of Thieves and Liars wasn’t the primary agency behind what was occurring now, he was involved somehow. Pug pushed aside his rising sense of sadness, realizing that part of what triggered this was his need to communicate some of the truth—again, only a part—to others. There was no one alive who fully knew the burden Pug carried every day of his life.

  Pug motioned to Tomas and his companion and said, “Come, we have much to discuss.” He turned to Father-Bishop Creegan and said, “Join us, please,” and then with a nod indicated Amirantha was to attend as well. To Sandreena he said, “I believe you could use new clothing and some arms?”

  She nodded, still agape at what she just witnessed. Pug motioned for one of the students who had observed Tomas’s arrival, and instructed him to take Sandreena in tow and find her what she needed.

  Pug said, “Excuse me a moment,” then went to speak privately with Miranda. They conferred quietly and briefly, then she nodded and departed, hurrying off to another part of the house.

  Pug motioned for his guests to join him and led them to the private quarters set aside for him and his family. An open garden with several benches served as a casual meeting place, and while this gathering lacked any aspect of the social about it, the privacy afforded here was needed. There was no one on the island Pug didn’t trust, but many of his students were young, excitable, and prone to gossip.

  “If anyone wishes any refreshments,” said Pug, “I’ll send for them.”

  As Amirantha and Father-Bishop Creegan had just finished a repast in the dining hall, it fell to Tomas and Gulamendis to decline.

  “Very well,” said Pug. He glanced from face to face, then said, “Too many times in my life I assumed coincidence, only to find later that some higher agency was at work. I may say things that either surprise or alarm you, but what I say will be not conjecture but truth. There is something here bringing us all to council, something of the gods, or perhaps fate.” He looked at the strange elf from another world and said, “Let us begin with our newest guest. Tell us your tale, Gulamendis.”

  The elf studied the three human faces before him, his own an unreadable mask, but he did glance at Tomas, who subtly nodded he should cooperate, and the elf began to tell his tale. He started slowly and began with the history of his people as it pertained to this current crisis.

  Time seemed to halt for Amirantha, Father-Bishop Creegan, and Pug as the elf painted images with his words. He spoke of a struggling band of refugees, fleeing this world for another, and a few thousand survivors mastering the land around them. He evoked images of the reverent elves planting the saplings of the great trees they called the Seven Stars and building their first city around those trees, then expanding their control over the world.

  His tale became a people’s epic as the elves who had fled to the stars became masters of all they beheld. Arts flourished, music, healing, and scholarship. They encountered other races, and Gulamendis was unapologetic in recounting how those encounters became conflict and how relentless and unforgiving the Taredhel were. Those who would not yield were destroyed. And few yielded.

  The client races withered and died out, so that after five centuries, on all the worlds of the Clan of the Seven Stars, only elves endured.

  Pug remained stoic during the narrative, but Tomas, his oldest living friend, could see the subtle signs of concern as the tall elf spoke. These were a harsh and unforgiving people, as relentless in their own fashion as the Moredhel but so much more powerful.

  “For nearly a millennium, we had peace and we flourished,” said Gulamendis. “Then we came to a new world. It was devoid of life, but life had once abided. We saw the rubble of structures and the remnants of civilization. We investigated and discovered another portal, one not of our fashioning. Our aremancers studied it while others scoured the world, seeking clues as to what happened. Those who worked with the portal unraveled its secrets and we opened it to yet another world. And there we met the demons.”

  He looked from face to face and asked, “Have any of you faced a demon?”

  Pug said, “Of one stripe or another, all of us at different times.”

  Looking at Amirantha, Gulamendis said, “You are a summoner, yes?”

  Amirantha nodded. “I am.”

  “You understand then, better than these others, what is required to bring a demon across the realms to our own dimension.”

  “Yes,” said Amirantha. “The magic is complex and difficult to master.”

  With a smile that could only be called ironic, the elf said, “That is why there are so few of us. Those who lack talent do not survive the learning process.”

  He paused, and said, “We are explorers, and for centuries we used our translocation portals, what you call ‘rifts,’ to reach other worlds.

  “Explorers died and most worlds we found were uninhabitable, but over the centuries we moved through the stars.

  “Of late, for two hundred years or so, some have spoken of finding this world, our Home, the world from which we sprang. Some were against this, thinking it likely this world was destroyed by the war between the Valheru”—he glanced at Tomas—“and the new gods.

  “Others dreamed of finding this world free of strife, as it was in our oldest myths.” Again he glanced at Tomas. “Though it was judged likely we might again face our former masters.” He took a deep breath. “Until I met Tomas I, like most of my people, thought we had risen high enough in our ability that we could vanquish the Valheru should they endure.” He lowered his eyes. “I fear that proud certainty of our own power is why we fall before the demons.”

  “Tell us of the demons,” urged Pug.

  “One of our explorers found a world, desolate beyond measure. Barren rock and empty oceans, but once lush.”

  “How could you judge that?” asked Father-Bishop Creegan.

  “The world had been inhabited; there were ruins of great cities. In those cities we found artifacts belonging to the people who had lived on that world. Within were sprawling gardens with irrigation systems of clever design. Given the volume of water employed, we assume that hot, dusty world was once tropical, or at least verdant on every hand. Vast plains of farming land, again with miles of irrigation systems still in evidence, lay exposed to relentless hot winds, stripping them down to rock and sand. From the age of the artifacts and buildings, we judged the world depopulated less than a century.

  “Yet there was not a hint of life. Of the great race that once inhabited this world, we found nothing, not even bones, and there was little remaining to give us any hint of who they might be. They were physically small, we think, because their doorways were short and their rooms tiny by our measure, yet they built majestic monuments to their own glory, great pyramids of stone. We found art, paintings and tapestries, t
hough few showed any hint of their maker; they tended to abstract designs of rich color. We found a few likenesses, and we think they may have been a race akin to the dwarves.

  “They may have had libraries or great schools, but of books, tomes, or scrolls we found nothing but ash. Fires raged throughout their cities, across every vista, and we wondered who or what had caused this planetwide catastrophe.

  “In the deepest vault of one of those great stone buildings we found words, hastily scrawled over murals on a wall. Words painted with the most indelible paint they knew, so that this tiny legacy of this race might endure.

  “It took our Lorekeepers years to unravel their meaning, but they simply said, ‘Why have our gods deserted us? Why are we to perish?’ And a word that we could not translate followed by ‘…are without this hall. So we will end. Should any read this, cry for the…’ and another word we could not translate.”

  “Demons?” asked Amirantha.

  “Later experience led us to believe so.”

  Pug said, “If demons somehow came to that world, and ran free, eventually all life as we know it would end. Once they ran out of prey, they would turn on one another, and eventually one would survive. He would finally starve to death.”

  Amirantha and Gulamendis exchanged questioning looks, and the Warlock said, “I’ve never conjured a demon to this realm that remained long enough to starve to death.”

  The elf smiled as he nodded agreement. “I have fed a few, along the way, but as with you, when they have done my bidding I banish them back to their own realm. Until we encountered the Demon Legion, I had never even considered how an unfettered demon would behave in our realm.”

  Amirantha said, “I have encountered a few.” He glanced at Father-Bishop Creegan and said, “Not everything I do is a confidence trick. I have rid this world of several serious evils over the years.”

  “No doubt,” said the cleric dryly.

  Amirantha turned his attention back to Gulamendis. “One weak-willed would-be demon master, overstepping his limitations, to his very short regret, and a demon would be running loose. I have hunted down and dispatched a dozen over the years.”

  Jommy appeared at the doorway and entered the garden. Pug motioned him over and the red-headed noble said, “Miranda is gone, she asked me to tell you. She’ll be back soon.” He glanced around, and said, “Should I leave?”

  Pug shook his head no, and said, “Stay. You’ll be neck-deep in whatever we run into as much as any of the rest of us.”

  Jommy moved off to one side and took a seat on the bench beside where Tomas stood.

  Gulamendis said, “Among my people, I am considered something of an outcast.” He noted Amirantha’s slight smile in acknowledgment. “Many of my people mistakenly blame me and others who are students of demon lore for the assaults.”

  “Even though you found proof of demon incursion into other worlds decades before you encountered the Demon Legion?”

  Gulamendis nodded sadly. “It is the nature of things that many people are more interested in affixing blame than fixing the problem.”

  Amirantha said, “We hadn’t encountered any of the problems you’ve mentioned on any significant scale until recently.” He sat back. “I’m not sure we are, even now. It is almost certain that much of what I’ve recently seen with unexpected demon encounters is the work of one agency, a summoner who has the ability to wreak havoc for…his own reasons.” He shrugged.

  “How certain are you of this?” asked Gulamendis.

  “Absolutely, for he interfered with one of my summonings and almost got me killed. I tried calling forth a familiar demon and instead got the most aggressive battle demon I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Fascinating,” said the elf. “I’ve never heard of a summons being distorted that way. I’ve had them interrupted, abruptly at times, but never…perverted in such a fashion.” His eyes narrowed. “It would involve magic of extreme power…”

  “And subtlety,” added the Warlock. “At key instances changes in the summoning would need to be introduced.”

  The two demon experts seemed on the verge of discussing the specifics when Pug interrupted. “I’m as fascinated by this as either of you, but we need to consider the larger picture. Why?”

  “Why?” repeated Amirantha. “Well, as I’ve said, my brother has been trying to kill me for years.”

  “Your brother?” asked Gulamendis.

  “I’ll explain,” said Amirantha. To Pug he said, “As I said, I’m surprised he has developed the skills needed, but not that he’s trying to kill me.”

  “Why now?” asked Pug. “Why after all these years, and in a way that would be the most likely to create echoing chaos around you? If he’s as powerful as you say, and he has knowledge of your whereabouts, why not just drop a ball of fire into the room with you?”

  “Fire wards are part of the proactive spells,” said Amirantha while Gulamendis nodded in agreement. “But I see your point. He could easily have dropped a very large rock on my head while I walked to the cave.”

  “Unless he couldn’t see you,” added Jommy. When all eyes turned to him, he said, “Sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry,” said Pug. “That is a good point.”

  Amirantha said, “It means he sees me with magic, not sight.”

  “So he could be anywhere,” added Gulamendis, “but he needs you to be working your arts to know exactly where you are at the moment.”

  Pug said, “My feelings, entirely. But to be able to spy upon you, somehow, so as to know when you’re actively conjuring a demon…?” Pug shrugged, as if asking how.

  Gulamendis slowly shook his head. “That is very subtle and very powerful magic craft, even for my people.”

  Pug said, “I have been a student of magic for most of my life, and am well into my second century of study, yet there is so much more we do not know than what we do.

  “I also have difficulty imagining how your brother is able to do this.”

  “My magic signature, for lack of a better term, would be as familiar to Belasco as his is to me,” said Amirantha. “As yours and your wife’s are, apparently, to your son Magnus.”

  “But how is he able to know where you will be, until you actually begin to conjure?”

  “That,” said Amirantha, “is, indeed, the question.”

  “Spies?” offered Jommy.

  Amirantha said, “Only Brandos, and perhaps his wife, Samantha, might know where I’m going to be when next I conjure. I trust them as family.”

  “What about demon spies?” asked Jommy. “I mean, I don’t really know how this conjuring of demons works, do I? But maybe he’s got a demon somewhere whose job is to alert him when you’re calling up some other demon.”

  Amirantha and Gulamendis both looked thunderstruck. The human demon master spoke first. “I don’t know…?”

  “Is that possible?” asked the elf.

  Jommy shrugged. “You two are the demon lore experts. You don’t know?”

  Gulamendis seemed insulted by the remark, but said nothing. Amirantha said, “There is far more that we don’t know, as Pug observed, than we do.”

  Jommy shrugged. “So, why don’t you ask?”

  “Ask whom?” Gulamendis’s tone was cold.

  Jommy grinned. “Ask the demons?”

  Amirantha looked stunned. Then he laughed aloud. “Oh, gods and fishes,” he exclaimed. The Star Elf also looked astonished at the suggestion, then he started to chuckle.

  Amirantha said, “I suspect my new friend here has fallen prey to the same failing as I have, to wit, being so focused on mastering our particular arts—which is part of staying alive—that we neglected a broader curiosity about those very creatures we employ to do our bidding.”

  “What do you do now?” asked Creegan.

  Amirantha stood and said, “Why, we summon a demon and start asking questions!”

  With a single gesture and a word, he executed a spell. Pug and Jommy both felt the familiar sensati
on, like hair rising on the arms, when standing near a powerful spell. Tomas remained standing, but his hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

  Creegan stood reflexively and stepped back as a puff of black smoke revealed a small, blue-skinned imp. “Nalnar!” shouted Amirantha. “You are summoned.”

  “Master,” said the creature, looking around the group.

  Gulamendis laughed in obvious delight. “It’s Chokin!”

  “Chokin?” asked Pug.

  “I have an imp that serves me—two, actually, Choyal and Chokin. This one looks like Chokin.”

  Hearing that name, the imp regarded Gulamendis. “Chokin?” he asked in a high-pitched voice.

  “Do you know Chokin?” asked Amirantha.

  Nodding vigorously, Nalnar said, “We be of blood, and he is my elder. Choyal is my younger.”

  “Brothers?” asked Gulamendis.

  “What is brothers?” asked the imp.

  “You are of the same mother or father,” said the Warlock.

  “Mother? Father? Not understand, master.”

  “Apparently they don’t have parents,” said Jommy, fascinated by his first look at a creature from the demonic realm that wasn’t trying to kill him.

  “What do you mean he’s of your blood?” asked Amirantha.

  “We spawn together. Choyal, Chokin, Lanlar, Jodo, Takesh, Tadal, Nimno, Jadru, and Nalnar! We nine. Jodo and Lanlar no more. Seven only now.” He lowered his head, an expression of sadness totally unexpected on a face that alien.

  “What happened to your…brothers?” asked Amirantha.

  “Eaten,” he replied. Looking from face to face, the imp asked, “Master needs Nalnar?”

  Amirantha looked at Pug. “Could we have something for Nalnar to nibble on? He’s more cooperative if we feed him.”

  “Certainly. What do you require?”

  Looking at the imp, who now had an eager expression on his blue face, Amirantha said, “I think a plate of cheese and bread, perhaps a small slice of sausage, and any fruit would keep him occupied.”