A Kingdom Besieged

by Raymond E. Feist

Jim studied him for a moment, then glanced around. ‘It’s getting late and I must get to bed soon, for there’s a full day of diplomatic nonsense I must endure before tomorrow’s gala.’ Everyone stood, and Jim said, ‘Hal, if I might request something.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Do not return to the university tonight. With the hour late and stirrings of trouble in the air, I would sleep better knowing you are safe. You may be distant kin to his majesty, but you are still kin and I would feel a personal responsibility should anything happen to you while I was in this city.’

  Tal said, ‘We have extra rooms for those rare occasions when a patron is not safe to go home. The bedding is fresh. Ty, show our two guests to their rooms.’

  ‘You can travel to the university in the morning,’ said Jim, ‘as you must look your best tomorrow evening.’ To Phillip, he said, ‘Feel free to return to your duke, tomorrow, Swordmaster. Until certain matters here in Roldem are resolved, I will personally undertake to look after young Lord Henry’s well-being. Rest assured, and please let his father know this is the case.’

  ‘I will, sir. Then goodnight, gentlemen,’ said Swordmaster Phillip.

  Ty led the two guests upstairs. When they were out of earshot, Tal said, ‘What’s really going on down there, Jim?’

  While not close, the two men knew each other well enough that Tal knew Jim was very high up in the King’s court, a much more important man than his rank indicated. He also knew Jim was in charge of the King’s intelligence service. And each knew the other had served the Conclave in the past.

  ‘I don’t know, Tal, and that’s the gods’ truth. What has me concerned is that all my reports from north of the Girdle are routine: everything in the Empire itself is calm. But all my agents south of the Girdle have gone silent.’

  ‘Silent?’

  ‘I haven’t had a report from anyone in the Confederacy in three months. The two men I’ve dispatched to see why have yet to return or report.’

  ‘Now I understand your worry.’

  ‘There’s something going on down there, and there are strange reports coming from the Imperial Court. There’s a faction of the Gallery of Lords and Masters that is almost outright calling for war against the Kingdoms.’

  ‘Kingdoms?’

  ‘Roldem as well as the Isles.’

  ‘Are they mad? Roldem’s fleet alongside the Isles would sweep every Imperial ship from the ocean. The Quegans would love an excuse to sack Durbin and Elarial in the West.’

  ‘They are not mad,’ said Jim, tapping his cheek absently as if goading himself to think. ‘But if it’s true this makes no sense.’

  ‘What else?’ asked Tal.

  ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’

  ‘My people are taught at a very early age to be observant, and the Conclave put me through some rigorous training.’ With a small smile he said, ‘Why do you think I get so few invitations to play cards?’ Then his features grew solemn once more. ‘You hid it well, but there’s something you didn’t tell young Lord Henry.’

  ‘The Prince is worried as to what might occur should Crydee be ordered to reinforce Krondor. It’s a small enough army – the smallest in the West – and there’s a lot of territory to protect.’

  ‘Protect?’ Tal’s gaze narrowed. ‘If the attack is on Krondor, you don’t expect a simultaneous assault on the Far Coast, surely?’

  ‘Not from Kesh.’

  ‘Then from whom?’

  Jim shook his head. ‘Just suffice it to say the Prince is not sanguine about Crydee’s neighbours.’

  For a moment, Tal was confused. ‘The Free Cities . . .?’ Then comprehension dawned. ‘The elves?’

  ‘The Star Elves, in particular. We’ve had a long and peaceful relationship with those in Elvandar, but these newcomers . . .’ Jim fell silent. After a long moment he went on, ‘I don’t know what to tell you. They’ve made no hostile act, yet they are aloof and we get reports now and again of people wandering near their borders disappearing, never to be seen again. They’ve come to some sort of understanding with the dwarves to their south, but as I understand it, friendship is hardly the word. They are an unknown quantity, and unknowns make me very nervous.’

  ‘What do you hear from Pug?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jim. ‘If the Conclave has heard rumours of war, they are not sharing them with me. Besides, Pug has always said he will not become involved in matters of national conflict again.’

  Talwin was silent as he thought about this, then said, ‘He might if such a war would weaken us enough to be unable to withstand another assault . . . like the Dasati.’

  Both men fell silent. An entire world, Kelewan, had been destroyed in a barely repulsed attack by powerful forces from another plane of reality. And for more than ten years all members of the Conclave, active or not, had been asked to keep their ears open for any news of demon activity.

  Jim said, ‘Perhaps I should presume to remind him of that?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Tal, ‘you should. I wonder what Pug is up to these days?’

  Pug looked around the cave. Magnus held his hand aloft, using magic to create a bright light on the palm of his hand, which he moved around the room like a lantern. ‘We’re too late,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Amirantha. ‘What happened here happened more than a year ago.’

  Amirantha’s companion, the old warrior Brandos, knelt, complaining, ‘Ah. My knees aren’t what they once were.’ He peered at the stones around the broken remnants of a wooden table. ‘Fair tore this place apart, it did.’

  Looking at the Demon Master, Pug asked, ‘What do you think happened?’

  Amirantha, Warlock of the Satumbria, considered the question. He was garbed in plainer fashion than he had affected when Pug had first met him. He was still vain enough to trim his beard daily and make sure his flowing dark hair was combed, but his florid robes with their golden and silver threading lay in a clothes chest at the old castle on Sorcerer’s Isle that served as the headquarters for the Conclave of Shadows. Unlike the mummery he had employed to flummox local nobles and convince them to pay him gold to chase away the very demons he summoned, his work with the Conclave had involved real danger and travelling under harsh conditions. Now he wore simple tunics and trousers and rugged leather boots.

  After thinking about the question for a moment, Amirantha said, ‘I think the object of our search conducted his last summoning here.’ He pointed to a distant corner and Magnus turned his hand in that direction, throwing light upon it.

  The tall, white-haired magician, Pug’s sole surviving child, moved closer until they could see clearly what Amirantha had noticed. Outlined more darkly than the rock against which it lay was the form of a man, crouching. Brandos ran his hand over the surface of the cave wall. ‘It’s as if he was turned to ash and pounded into the rock itself.’

  The old fighter had been with Amirantha for most of his life, having been a boy when the Warlock had taken him under his care. Now looking older than his mentor, he turned to face Pug and the others. ‘I’ve seen this before, but I can’t remember where.’

  ‘I do,’ said Amirantha. ‘Years ago, when you were a child, it happened at one of the very first summonings you were party to, remember?’ When it became clear that Brandos didn’t, he prompted, ‘The cat?’

  ‘Oh!’ responded Brandos as comprehension dawned. ‘Yes, the cat!’

  Amirantha said, ‘When Brandos was a child and came to live with me, I thought having a boy along would make me look even more credible as I came to rid a town or village of a demon. After all, what sort of mountebank would lovingly care for a child?’

  ‘Your kind,’ said Brandos with a rueful smile.

  ‘The cat?’ prompted Pug.

  ‘Yes, the cat. It’s a long tale, but the part that applies here is that my friend, when he was a boy, managed to interrupt one of my summonings at the worst possible moment. He was annoying a cat we had around the house and it fled into my chamber . . . well, instead o
f the tractable creature I expected, one showed up I’d never seen before or since. A massive winged monster that spewed fire of an incredible heat.’

  ‘Nearly burnt the entire house down,’ added Brandos. Pug and Magnus could tell the story had been told enough times that it had become one of those family lore events that was treasured as much for the entertainment value as it had caused outrage and consternation at the time it had happened.

  ‘Unfortunately for the cat, but fortunately for me, the creature’s attention seem drawn to movement. I was motionless, in the midst of my summoning, while the cat was scampering, stopping only long enough to hiss at the demon.

  ‘The demon made short work of it, and I was able to banish it back to the demon realm, but not before, as Brandos said, a rather large fire had broken out in my chambers.

  ‘When we went back the next day to see what might be salvaged, the outline of the cat could clearly be seen against the wall, much as you see here.’

  ‘Another accident?’ asked Pug, his brow furrowing. ‘Or another attempt by those behind the Demon War to destroy anyone who might eventually oppose them?’

  Looking around the cave, Amirantha said, ‘We can only speculate.’

  Pug’s frustration was surfacing. Since the advent of demon incursions into Midkemia, and especially after the events several years earlier at the abandoned Keshian fortress above the Valley of Lost Men, he was balked at every turn as he attempted to understand what was threatening his world. Something un precedented was occurring in the demon realm, which Pug and his companions referred to as the Fifth Circle, and while evidence of that upheaval and its potential danger to Midkemia was scant and infrequent, Pug knew that even though the Demon King Dahun had been destroyed attempting to enter this realm, they were still far from safe.

  In fact, one topic of conversation revisited on a regular basis with the Warlock was what could cause a powerful demon lord to flee from that realm into this one; not coming at the head of an army as had happened in the past, to conquer and destroy, but sneaking in disguised as a human, seeking to find a safe place to hide.

  To hide from what?

  That was always the question they were left with.

  With a last look around the cave, Pug said, ‘Magnus?’

  Understanding his father’s wishes, the younger magician motioned for the others to stand close to him and a moment later they were all back in the large entrance hall on Sorcerer’s Island.

  It was early spring and the weather was still cold and damp. ‘Have you ever considered rebuilding that lovely villa?’ Brandos asked lightly.

  Pug shot him a sharp glance. The remnants of the sprawling estate that had housed his school of magic had been the scene of his worst defeat at the hands of those seeking to destroy the Conclave, and it had cost him the lives of his wife, son, and daughter-in-law, as well as over two dozen students. The charred timbers and stones still standing were being quickly overgrown with vines and wild grasses. In not too many more years it would be difficult for anyone chancing on the site to recognize it as the once-proud home of a thriving community.

  Without further comment Pug turned and walked away to speak with Jason, the magician who acted as the castle’s reeve, the man who was responsible for the fortification and those living within it while Pug and Magnus were absent.

  Brandos glanced at Magnus who shrugged slightly. If the white-haired magician understood his father’s reason for keeping the villa abandoned, he wasn’t sharing it. At first it had simply been a matter of expediency, in case enemies were spying on them, suggesting that the Conclave had been destroyed and that only a few refugees were left huddling for safety in the old castle on the bluffs overlooking the Bitter Sea. Which, Brandos conceded silently to himself, wasn’t that far from the truth.

  But the Conclave had endured, even thrived, though it was now scattered across the entire span of the world, with pockets of research and teaching located in isolated spots, while many who worked for the organization did so in the hearts of power, in various courts and capitals.

  Amirantha watched Magnus follow his father and turned to his old companion. ‘You still have a knack for it, don’t you?’

  ‘Apparently,’ said Brandos. He let out a long sigh. ‘I’ve seen it before and I know you have. He’s hanging on by sheer will and there’s no joy in him.’

  Amirantha took a moment, then looked around. ‘Could there be any joy here?’

  Both men knew the answer already. They had supped with others from the Conclave here many times, a warm fire in the hearth, chatting about this and that, but on none of those oc casions had there been anything close to a sense of celebration. When a child was born, it was somewhere else. When the great holidays of Midwinter Day or Midsummer Day, the Planting Celebration, or the Harvest Festival came along they were largely ignored save perhaps for a minor remark.

  Of all in the Conclave, there was only a handful who resided permanently here in the castle. Among those who stayed were Amirantha, Brandos, and Brandos’s wife Samantha. Jason, the castle’s caretaker, Rose, his wife and a magician in her own right; and a very young apprentice, Maloc. And of course Pug and Magnus. There were always one or two others coming and going but those eight comprised the whole of the household of the castle.

  Brandos said, ‘We’ve seen a lot here, but there’s more to this than just a man having trouble moving on after the death of his wife and son.’

  Amirantha motioned for Brandos to follow him up the stairs leading to the tower room put aside for him. They passed the door into Brandos and Samantha’s quarters and the old fighter stopped briefly to put away his sword and shield and change out of his shirt. Then he followed his adopted father up to the topmost room.

  Brandos said, ‘We could go back to Gashen Tor. Samantha misses the women from the village.’ The village was called Talumba and it was situated two days east of the city of Maharta, now the capital of the kingdom of Muboya. For an idle moment Amirantha wondered how Kaspar of Olasko was faring; he was the First Minister to the Maharaja of Muboya and had returned to serve his lord and master when they had finished with the demon gate business five years earlier.

  ‘No,’ said Amirantha. ‘But take Samantha and go for a visit. I think it would do both of you some good.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Brandos, scrutinizing his foster-father for any sign of distress or sadness. The mood throughout this place tended towards melancholy and the Warlock was already a man given to dark introspection if given half a chance.

  ‘Actually, Gulamendis has invited me to visit him at E’bar.’

  Gulamendis was another Demon Master, one of the taredhel, or Star Elves, and he and Amirantha had become friends, or as friendly as one of those arrogant creatures could be with a human. Their affinity stemmed from a ravenous curiosity about all things demon, and Gulamendis has spent close to a year in residence here before returning to the city built in the Grey Tower Mountains by his people.

  ‘Well, say hello for me,’ said Brandos. ‘Now, how do we get to Gashen Tor? Do you have one of those orb things, or is it a long sea voyage?’

  ‘I’ll ask Jason if he has one to lend.’

  ‘He may say no,’ answered Brandos. ‘Seems they’re breaking down and none of the artificers, even of Tsurani descent up in LaMut, know how to fix them or make new ones.’

  Amirantha frowned. ‘I would have thought after all these years Pug would have seen to that.’

  A voice from the door said, ‘I know a great deal, Amirantha, but I don’t know everything.’

  Brandos hadn’t heard the magician come up the stairs, and he stepped aside to let him into the room.

  ‘No disrespect intended, Pug.’

  ‘I know,’ said Pug. ‘I overheard a bit. So you’re going to visit the elves in E’bar?’

  ‘Overdue,’ said Amirantha. He motioned for Pug to take the chair by the small desk, while he sat on his bed. ‘We’re at something of a dead end. I’m not entirely sure what specifica
lly you’re seeking, but each piece of information your agents turn up leads us to a dead end.’

  ‘Very dead, sometimes,’ said Brandos. Seeing his humour fall flat, he said, ‘I think I’ll go tell Samantha to pack up and we’ll talk about a visit home.’

  ‘Ask Magnus to take you and arrange a signal to fetch you back. You were right about the Tsurani orbs: we’re down to a scant few and need them for more pressing use.’

  ‘I understand. Thanks for lending us Magnus,’ said Brandos as he departed.

  Amirantha watched him go. Then he looked over at the ma gician. ‘Pug, I don’t claim to know you well, but it has been over five years now. And I do know what a driven man looks like. I even share your sense of alarm over what we’ve discovered up to this point, but I detect an urgency in you that doesn’t seem entirely born out of what we know. What is it you’re not telling me?’

  Pug’s face was immobile, though his eyes searched the Warlock’s face. ‘A time is coming, soon, when I will tell you things you will wish I had never told you.’ Then he got to his feet, turned away and hurried down the tower stairs.

  Amirantha was left alone to reflect on this. He had a nasty feeling that what Pug had just said was almost certainly true.

  Chapter Four Journey

  AMIRANTHA WAS ASTONISHED.

  He had been unprepared for the magnificence of the Star Elves’ city, E’bar. Although less than three years had elapsed since it had been completed, the city was anything but unfinished or roughly hewn but showed grace and beauty far beyond even the most impressive human achievements in Rillanon, the Jewelled City, capital of the Kingdom of the Isles, or the Upper City in the city of Kesh, home of the Imperial Family and the Truebloods.

  Here were few of the massive stone-and-wood constructions of humans; here, stone had been sculptured in a fashion far beyond any mortal mason’s ability. Amirantha roughly understood the concept: geomancers willed stone into a fluid state, then sculpted it. Human geomancers were rare, though some did exist, but their craft was crude compared to what Amirantha saw before him.