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‘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 of 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 unprecedented 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 occasions 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 specifically 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 magician. ‘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 • (#ulink_959b823c-0649-5208-8be1-7506edfd69ad)
Journey (#ulink_959b823c-0649-5208-8be1-7506edfd69ad)
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.
The entire wall around the city appeared seamless, as if crafted from a single stone of mountainous size. Gates to the north and south and smaller portals to the east and west appeared to have organically grown within the wall as it was formed, and the Warlock thought this might not have been far from the truth. Even the gates themselves were of stone, though how they were engineered to swing freely upon unseen hinges was beyond his ability to even guess at. Even the background tingle of magic he felt when Pug or Magnus used their powers was missing. There was a far more subtle sense of the otherworldly to this place, something he had experienced in a much more disturbing fashion when dealing with certain demons. That alone would have fascinated him, but it was merely one of a million details that strove to capture his thoughts.
Everywhere there was colour, subtle but vivid. Columns of pale sand and rose edged in white or silver rose to support graceful arches above streets. Even the streets were paved with alternating squares of bright ochre and grey, with light purple grouting in between. Window shades were of the finest silk, many-layered to block unwelcome gazes yet allow light to enter. And the gold! Everywhere gold glistened in the sunlight, decorating the poles from which flew bright banners and pennons. Gold adorned doors and windows and ran as trim along rooflines. It was astonishing.
‘I’m gawking, aren’t I?’ he asked his host.
Gulamendis, Demon Master of the taredhel, smiled. ‘More than one visitor to E’bar looks as you do now. You’ll get accustomed to it.’ Glancing around to see if he was being overheard, he added, ‘Truth to tell, we are a vain people. And I suspect my people look much that way when they visit Elvandar.’
‘Do many of you journey to pay homage to the Queen?’
‘More than the Lord Regent likes.’ He paused, awkward. ‘Come, let us refresh ourselves. You will pay a courtesy call on the Lord Regent later today, but before that we must speak of many things.’
The elf’s tone was almost conversational but Amirantha had spent enough time with Gulamendis to know that his host was troubled and that many things were best not discussed in the open. Amirantha had arrived at the eastern portal and had not been allowed to step into E’bar until Gulamendis arrived to escort him. The Warlock had the distinct feeling that had his host not put in an appearance, he might have found it difficult to depart in peace. The two Sentinels looked like seasoned, hardened fighters, not the sort of city watch or constable one tended to find on the gates of a human city.
In the distance a baby’s crying could be heard briefly until it was calmed by its mother. ‘I understand babies are a rarity among your kind,’ Amirantha said.
Gulamendis looked at him with one raised eyebrow. ‘Really. Who told you that?’
‘Perhaps I misunderstood.’
‘If you are thinking of the other races of the edhel, perhaps. But the taredhel are a fecund race. I know little of our distant kin, but we enjoy our children.’
Amirantha had the sense that he had stumbled across something significant but couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. He decided to wait until such a time as he could speak with Pug, who knew as much about the elves as any human living.
They reached Gulamendis’s quarters and the elf beckoned for his guest to enter.
As quarters went, the Warlock had lived in far worse, but somehow he had expected a little more, given the opulence and splendour he had seen elsewhere in this city. The walls were bare, with no decoration of any sort, and the only furniture was simple: a bed, table, chair which Gulamendis offered his guest while he sat on the bed, and a pair of chests. The one other thing that caught his eye was a small case of scrolls and books. Otherwise, it looked more a monk’s quarters than a scholar’s.
‘Where do you eat?’ asked Amirantha.
‘We have a large kitchen in the square. We all take turns helping, cooking, cleaning. Should I choose a mate, larger quarters will be found for me, and once children arrive, larger still.’ He smiled. ‘There’s little chance of that, I suspect.’
‘Really?’ The Warlock knew very little about the Star Elves, but he had a vague sense that the elf with whom he spoke was not well regarded.
‘I will say, though, these are better quarters than the last the Lord Regent allotted me.’
Amirantha frowned.
‘I was housed for weeks in an iron cage in the Lord Regent’s compound while my brother was exploring this world, as a hostage against his good behaviour.’
‘Sounds uncomfortable.’
With a small, bitter laugh, the Demon Master said, ‘It was. So, we invited you years ago, and now you appear. Why?’
‘To the point,’ agreed Amirantha. ‘Pug and I have been chasing every tale of demon or summoner since we witnessed—’ he paused as Gulamendis held up his hand, palm outward, cautioning him against specifics, ‘—what we witnessed. So far we have found little that is useful: empty huts, abandoned homes, deserted caves. Or we find signs of conflict and destruction. Not one demon summoner we had working for our …’ he glanced around, ‘… friends, has survived.’
At the choice of words, Gulamendis queried, ‘Survived?’
‘Someone, it appears, is hunting down Demon Masters and summoners,’ said Amirantha quietly. ‘And it appears a fair number of demons have come into the world and broken wards and killed their summoners.’
‘They’d be powerful,’ said Gulamendis thoughtfully.
‘But where are they?’
Gulamendis was silent for more than a minute as he pondered the question. Finally he said, ‘How many do you estimate?’
‘More than a dozen.’
‘Ah.’ He smiled as he looked at his human friend. ‘Now I see the reason for the visit. Does Pug know?’
‘He knows there are more than a dozen demons loose in this realm. He doesn’t know the significance of that fact.’
