Into a Dark Realm

He felt positively buoyant in anticipation of the coming fight. He liked some of the things Nakor made him do, but he hadn’t been in any sort of combat for far too long. He’d bashed a few skulls in a tavern or two, but there had been no serious bloodletting since he’d killed that emperor for Nakor the year before. That had been fun. He almost laughed aloud thinking of the stunned expressions on the faces of everyone looking up at where he stood, his sword thrust straight though the old man’s back.

A man wearing black armour but no helm walked around a corner and before he stopped moving, Ralan Bek had run his sword point into the man’s throat, which was exposed above the cuirass. The man dropped with a fairly loud noise, but Bek didn’t care. Less than a hundred feet ahead light beckoned and he was anxious to bring havoc.

He strode down the last length of shadowy hall into a high-ceilinged chamber. It was an old-style keep hall, where in the dead of winter the family and close retainers of the original ruler of Cavell Keep would sleep during winter’s coldest nights. Once magnificent, the great hall had fallen into drab disrepair.

The vaulted roof was still supported by massive wooden beams so ancient they were as hard as steel, but the once whitewashed walls were now dark grey and high in the darkness above Bek could hear bats fluttering. No tapestries hung on the walls to shield the inhabitants against winter’s chill in the stones, nor were there rugs on the floor. But a fire burned in the massive fireplace to the left of the door through which he entered. Sword drawn and with a maniac’s grin in place, he surveyed the two dozen men resting before the fire.

In the centre of this group sat two men, both in large chairs made in an older style – a ‘u’ of wood set on top of another to make the legs, with a wooden back nailed across the upper half, stuffed with cushions or furs. The rest sat on camp stools or on black cloaks spread on the floor. All were dressed in black armour, the hallmark of the Nighthawks, except for the two men in the centre. One wore a tunic of finely woven linen and trousers and boots worthy of a high-born noble, though his clothes hung loosely on this frame, as if he had lost a great deal of weight lately; the other wore the black robes of a cleric or magician. The man in the tunic wore a heavy amulet of gold around his neck, identical to the black amulet Bek had been shown by Nakor. The robed man wore no jewellery whatsoever. He was thin and there wasn’t a hair on his face or head.

A moment after Bek appeared the eighteen seated men were scrambling, two blowing bone whistles that sent a shrieking alarm throughout the keep.

The man with the gold around his neck looked harried, and his eyes were wide as he pointed at Bek screaming, ‘Kill him!’

As the first swordsman raised his sword, Bek gripped his own weapon with two hands, his eyes narrow slits, focusing with keen anticipation on the coming slaughter. But the robed man shouted, ‘No! Halt!’ His eyes locked onto Bek’s in wonder.

Everyone, including Bek, froze as the man wove between the swordsmen. He passed the man closest to Ralan Bek, and came straight towards the young warrior. Bek sensed some strange power in this man, and his lucky feeling told him something unusual was about to happen. He hesitated, then began to swing at the man in the robe.

The man held up his hand, not in defence, but in supplication. ‘Wait,’ he said as Bek hesitated again. He reached out slowly, almost gently, and put his hand on Bek’s chest, and said again, ‘Wait.’

Then slowly the robed man went to his knees and in a voice that was little more than a whisper, he said, ‘What does our master bid us?’

The man with the amulet looked on in mute astonishment, then he too went to his knees, followed moments later by every other man in the room. Another half a dozen men ran into the hall from other parts of the keep, answering the alarm. Seeing their brethren on their knees, their eyes lowered, they followed suit.

Bek’s sword lowered a little. ‘What?’

‘What does our master bid us?’ asked the robed man again.

Bek tried to puzzle out what to say next, from what he had overheard Nakor, Pug and the others say at Sorcerer’s Isle. At last he said: ‘Varen’s gone. He’s fled to another world.’

‘Not Varen,’ said the robed man. ‘He was highest among our master’s servants.’ The man slowly reached out and touched Bek on the chest. ‘I can feel our master, there, inside you. He lives within you; he speaks through you.’ He raised his eyes to Bek’s again, and asked once more, ‘What does our master bid us?’

Bek had been ready for combat, and this was beyond his ability to comprehend. Slowly, he looked around the room, rising frustration in his voice as he said, ‘I don’t know …’ Then suddenly, he raised his sword and brought it down, shouting, ‘I don’t know!’

Minutes later Magnus rushed into the room with a company of Erik’s soldiers at his back, and more Kingdom soldiers entered through the same door as Bek. All of them stopped at the scene before them. Twenty-six corpses littered the floor, but there was no sign of a struggle. Twenty-six headless bodies lay in a wash of blood. Heads still rolled on the crimson stones and blood-soaked cloaks.

The fire crackled. Bek stood beside it, covered in blood. His arms were crimson to the elbows and gore was smeared across his face. He stood like a fiend possessed by madness. Magnus could see it in his eyes. He was trembling so much he looked like a man about to go into convulsions.

Finally, Ralan Bek threw back his head and gave out a howl which rang off the stones high above. It was a primal burst of rage and frustration, and when even the echoes had passed away, he looked around the room, then directly at Magnus. Like a petulant child he pointed to the corpses, and said, ‘This wasn’t fun!’

He wiped his sword on the tunic of a nearby corpse, and sheathed it. Then he picked up a bucket of water which had been set near the fireplace to heat and lifted it, letting it wash down over his head, without even bothering to remove his hat, and then picked up a relatively clean cloak to use as a towel. Cleaning himself off as best he could, Bek said in a more controlled tone, ‘It’s not fun if they don’t fight back, Magnus.’ He looked around the room and then said, ‘I’m hungry. Anyone got anything to eat?’

• CHAPTER FIVE •

Preparation

MIRANDA SHOUTED.

‘Are you mad?’ she cried far louder than was necessary in the small room.

Magnus watched his mother with guarded amusement as she strode away from her husband’s desk for as far as she could in the small study, then turned with a dramatic frown. She often would vent loudly over matters that eventually would end up exactly as his father wished them to be. But Pug had over the years come to understand that his wife’s often volatile nature required a physical expression of her frustrations.

‘Are you mad?’ Miranda shrieked for the second time.

‘No more than you were to spend almost a half-year shadowing the Emerald Queen’s army down in Novindus,’ said Pug, calmly, as he rose from behind his desk.

‘That was different!’ shouted Miranda, still not through venting. ‘There was no Pantathian snake priest who could find me, let alone challenge me, and I’m the one who can transport herself without a Tsurani sphere, remember?’

Magnus saw his father begin a comment – probably on how Nakor, Pug, and Magnus were all becoming adept at the skill – but think better of it and say nothing as Miranda continued.

‘You’re talking about going to an alien world! Not only an alien world, but one in a different plane of reality! Who knows what powers you may have there, if any?’ She pointed her finger at Pug. ‘You don’t even know how to get there in the first place, and don’t tell me you’re going to use the Talnoy on Kelewan to anchor a rift there. I know enough about rifts to know that you could find yourself swimming at the bottom of some poison sea, or standing in the middle of a battlefield or any other number of deadly places! You’d be going in blind!’

‘I won’t be going in blind,’ said Pug, holding up his hands in supplication. ‘Please, we must learn more about the Dasati.’

‘Why?’ demanded Miranda.

‘Because I’ve been to see the Oracle.’ He didn’t need to tell either his wife or son which oracle.

Miranda’s anger leeched away as curiosity took over. ‘What did she say?’

‘They’re coming. There are too many uncertainties for her to say more, now – I will return to her later as events draw closer. But for now we must learn more of these people.’

‘But the Talnoy down in Novindus are warded, as motionless and without magical presence as they were for the countless years they lay hidden,’ countered Mirada. ‘If they’re warded, how could the Dasati find us?’

Pug could only shake his head. ‘I don’t know. The Oracle is rarely wrong when she speaks of certainties.’

Magnus sensed an argument coming and deftly changed the subject. ‘And again I ask, as I have many times before,’ he said, like a patient schoolmaster, ‘who put them there?’

Pug knew the question was rhetorical, since they had several theories and no facts, but he thanked his son silently for diverting his wife’s ire. Their first thought had been that one of the Valheru, a Dragon Lord of fabled antiquity, had brought the Talnoy back, but there was no proof of that. Tomas, Pug’s boyhood friend, was imbued with the memories of one of the ancient Dragon Host, and had no recollection of any of his brethren returning from their ill-fated raid on the Dasati homeworld with a single Talnoy as a trophy. They had been too busy trying to keep those fiendish creations from destroying them; several dragon-riders had fallen during the incursion into the Dasati realm. In the end, there was only one inescapable conclusion.

‘Macros.’

Miranda nodded in agreement. Her father, Macros the Black, had been an agent of the lost God of Magic. ‘Every time we turn around we bump into one of Father’s schemes.’ She crossed her arms, getting a far-away look as she seemed to remember something. ‘I remember … once …’ She looked down at the cavern floor, her face revealing flickering emotions as if what she recalled was painful. ‘I spent so many years being angry with him for abandoning me …’

Pug nodded sympathetically. He had been with his wife when she had last been reunited with her father and remembered her poorly-hidden anger at seeing him after years of estrangement. He also remembered her grief when he had been swallowed up in the rift that closed around him as he held the Demon Lord Maarg, giving his life in a desperate act that saved this world.

Pushing aside her memories, Miranda said, ‘But we do end up with another of his bloody messes, don’t we?’ Her tone held a hint of affectionate humour, as well as some bitterness.

Before his mother could get back into another black mood because of his grandfather, Magnus spoke. ‘We know that Grandfather had a hand in warding off the Dasati rifts from the one Talnoy we found, and his wards are still in place around the others.’

Both parents regarded their eldest son and Miranda said, ‘This we all know, Magnus. What’s your point?’

‘Grandfather never did anything without a reason, and everything you have both told me about him leads me to conclude that he knew, somehow, that the day would come when one or both of you would discover the Talnoy, and that leads me to believe he also knew there would be a confrontation with the Dasati.’

Pug sighed aloud. ‘Your father,’ he said to his wife, ‘knew more about time travel than anyone. Gods, all of us combined probably know only a hundredth part of what he knew. What he did with Tomas and the ancient Valheru, Ashen-Shugar, his ability to understand the time trap sprung on us by the Pantathians at the City Forever, all the rest of it. I’ve struggled to learn as much as I could about what he did, but most of it remains a mystery. However, in this I agree with Magnus. He left things as he did in Novindus for a reason, and I believe that reason involves the Conclave.’

Miranda looked unconvinced, but said nothing.

Magnus said, ‘Mother, if Grandfather had not wanted the Talnoy found he had the magic to bury that cave under a mountain which it would have taken millennia to uncover. Something vast and dangerous is moving out there.’ He made a sweeping gesture. ‘And this thing is coming no matter what we do.’

‘What we can do is try to understand our enemy’s nature, to see his face,’ said Pug.

‘Well, I’m not ready to agree this is a good plan,’ said Miranda. ‘But obviously you two have your minds made up. So how do you propose to get to the Dasati world, stay alive, and bring back the information, or are those details too trivial to worry about?’

Pug was forced to laugh. ‘Hardly trivial, my love. I plan on looking for someone who has been to that realm and can, perhaps, guide us there.’

‘And where do you expect to find such a person?’ asked Miranda. ‘Is there anyone in this entire world who has visited the second circle of reality?’

Pug said, ‘Probably not. But I’m not going to be looking on this world. I plan on visiting Honest John’s.’

Miranda froze for an instant at the mention of the establishment at the heart of the Hall of Worlds. Then she gave a sharp nod. ‘If there’s anywhere to find such a one, that is where I’d start looking, too.’

Magnus said, ‘Who will go with you, Father?’

Pug threw a warning look at his son, knowing that this was certain to set off another round of complaints from Miranda, who even now was regarding her husband with an expression of curiosity. Pug took a breath, then said, ‘You, Nakor and Bek.’

Instead of the anticipated eruption from Miranda, she merely said, ‘Why?’

‘Magnus because he is ready and I need someone as powerful as myself with me – and you need to stay here and conduct the business of the Conclave, as well as visit the Assembly and see to their progress with the Talnoy.’ He waited, and when she said nothing, he continued, ‘Bek because … something tells me he is important; and Nakor because he is the only one who can control Bek. Besides, if anyone can get us out of an impossible situation it’s Nakor.’

Miranda said, ‘You’ve planned this all out, so I suppose there’s no point in continuing to argue about it. I’m not even sure you can find a safe means to visit the second plane.’

‘Still, we must try.’

‘When do you leave?’ asked Miranda.

‘For the Hall? Tomorrow. I still need to do a few things around here before I go.’ To Magnus he said, ‘Why don’t you see how the boys are doing in Roldem, then be back here in a day or so to let your brother’s wife know how her boys are?’

Magnus nodded. ‘What about the Talnoy down in Novindus?’

Pug paused at the door of the study. ‘Rosenvar and Jacob will keep an eye on things. If anything out of the ordinary occurs, Nakor or myself can be back here quickly enough. It’ll be some time before we leave for the Dasati world. I am going to make one more quick trip to Kelewan and see if there’s any hint of Varen’s presence there.’

‘You think he’ll be foolish enough to reveal himself?’ asked Magnus.

‘He’s a clever man,’ said Pug. ‘Brilliant in a twisted fashion, but he’s also driven. His madness has made him more impulsive over the years. The duration between his attacks lessens each time. He will either do something rash over there, or he will return to Midkemia. Either way, eventually we will find him out, and this time he has no easy way to seize a new body.’

‘What about a hard way?’ asked Miranda.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You said he has no easy way to take over a new body. I understand that, since you destroyed his soul jar, but he still has the knowledge of how to inhabit another’s body, and might there not be other means, perhaps less convenient, but equally effective?’

Pug said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

Miranda could barely constrain her smug expression.

‘Then we must be both meticulous and stealthy,’ said Pug, ignoring his wife’s superior expression. ‘I shall make enquiries of some less than high-born sources in Kelewan, while you see what you can find out in the Assembly while I travel to the Hall. Trust only Alenca.’

‘How can I trust anyone?’ asked Miranda. ‘After taking possession of the Emperor of Kesh, I think it safe to argue that Varen can be anyone on Kelewan, including their Emperor.’

‘I think not,’ said Pug. ‘Consider how he placed his soul jar in the sewers near the Emperor’s palace. I suspect location has much to do with who he can reach. In any event, without the jar, I think he had to leap blind and inhabited the body of whoever was closest. As his “death rift” acted in many ways like normal rifts, I would expect it propelled him to a point near the Assembly, if not within its halls. As he would have been a disembodied spirit, the Assembly’s usual defences would have been useless – that’s the reason, by the way, I think it unlikely he would ever be able to occupy a high level cleric on either world; wards against spirits are common in temples.’

‘Very well,’ said Miranda. ‘I’ll speak with Alenca when I go. Now, one more question.’

‘Yes?’ said Pug, obviously impatient to be underway.

‘If you’re going to visit Kelewan without the Assembly being aware, just how do you propose to go through the rift without being noticed?’

Pug smiled, and years seemed to fall away from him. ‘A trick, as Nakor would call it.’

He left the room and Magnus started laughing at the consternation on his mother’s face.

Miranda glared at her older son. ‘That annoying little man is such a bad influence around here!’

Magnus laughed even harder.

Pug crept down a side street, his face hidden beneath a deep hood. Beards were rare in the Tsurani Empire among freemen, being worn for the most part by those of Midkemian birth and a few rebellious youths. Being out late at night and sporting facial hair was likely to mean being stopped by any patrolling city watch, and while his rank as a member of the Assembly of Magicians meant instant obedience from any soldier or constable, Pug wished to avoid drawing attention to his clandestine visit.

The domicile he sought was modest, off a side street in a section of the city of Jamar that was only a slight improvement over the slums and docks. The houses here were modest, the whitewash traditional to the Tsurani home kept somewhat clean, and the streets not too littered with refuse. There was even a street lamp some way behind him.

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