A Darkness at Sethanon

A Darkness at Sethanon

Riftware Sage Book 3

Raymond E. Feist

A
fter
the Riftwar against the Tsurani, alien invaders from the world of
Kelewan, peace reigned in the Kingdom of the Isles for nearly a year.
King Lyam and his brothers, Prince Arutha and Duke Martin, toured the
eastern cities and neighbouring kingdoms, then returned to Lyam’s
capital at Rillanon. The Princess Carline, their sister, gave an
ultimatum to her lover, Laurie the minstrel: wed her or leave the
palace. Arutha and Princess Anita became engaged, and plans were made
for their wedding in Krondor, Arutha’s city.

When Arutha
finally returned to Krondor, late one night, Jimmy the Hand, a boy
thief, stumbled across and foiled a Nighthawk, an assassin, whose
target was Arutha. It was a standing order among the Mockers that all
news of the Nighthawks be reported at once. Jimmy became confused
about where his loyalty lay, with the Mockers -the Guild of Thieves -
or with Arutha, whom he had known the year before. Before he could
decide, Jimmy was set up for murder by Laughing Jack, an officer in
the Mockers, proof Jack was in league with the Nighthawks. During the
ambush, Jimmy was wounded and Laughing Jack killed. Jimmy then
decided to warn Arutha.

Warned of the
plot, Arutha, Laurie and Jimmy trapped two assassins and imprisoned
them in the palace. Arutha discovered the Nighthawks were somehow
connected to the temple of the Death Goddess, Lims-Kragma. He ordered
the High Priestess to attend him, but by the time she arrived one of
the assassins had died and the other was dying. She sought to
discover how her temple had been infiltrated by the Nighthawks. Upon
dying, one of the captured Nighthawks was revealed as a magically
disguised moredhel, a dark elf. The now dead creature rose up, called
upon his master, Murmandamus, and attacked the High Priestess and
Arutha. Only the magic intervention of Arutha’s adviser Father
Nathan balked the otherwise unkillable creature.

When the High
Priestess and Father Nathan recovered from their ordeal, they warned
Arutha that dark and alien powers sought his death. Arutha was
troubled over the safety of his brother the King and the others who
would be attending Arutha’s forthcoming wedding, especially his
beloved Anita. Deciding upon a quick solution rather than further
magic investigation, Arutha empowered Jimmy to arrange a meeting for
him with the Upright Man, the mysterious head of the Mockers.

In darkness,
Arutha met one who claimed to speak with the voice of the Upright
Man, though it was never made clear to the Prince if the speaker was
himself the leader of the thieves. They came to an understanding on
the need to rid the city of the Nighthawks and, in the bargain, Jimmy
was given into Arutha’s service as a squire of the Prince’s
court. Jimmy had broken oath with the Mockers and his career as a
thief was over.

Later the
Upright Man sent word of the location of the Nighthawks. Arutha and a
company of trusted soldiers raided the Nighthawks’
headquarters, the basement of the most expensive brothel in the city.
Every assassin was killed or committed suicide. The finding of the
body of Golden Dase, a thief and false friend to Jimmy, revealed that
the Nighthawks had indeed infiltrated the Mockers. Then the dead
assassins rose up, again by some dark power, and only by burning the
entire building were they destroyed.

At the
palace, Arutha decided the immediate danger was over, and life
returned to a semblance of normalcy.

The King, the
Ambassador from Great Kesh, and other dignitaries arrived at the
palace, and Jimmy caught a glimpse of Laughing Jack in the crowd.
Jimmy was shocked, for he had been certain the false thief had died.

Arutha
alerted his most trusted advisers of the danger and learned strange
things were occurring in the north. It was decided there was a
connection between those events and the assassins. Jimmy arrived with
the news that the palace was honeycombed with secret passages and his
fear that he had seen Jack. Arutha decided upon a course of caution,
taking care to guard the palace, but determined to proceed with the
wedding.

The wedding
became a gathering point for all those who had been separated since
the Riftwar: in addition to the royal party, Pug the magician came
from Stardock, site of the Academy of Magicians. He was a onetime
resident of Crydee, home to the King and his family. Kulgan, his old
teacher, attended along with Vandros, Duke of Yabon, and Kasumi, the
former Tsurani commander, now Earl of LaMut. With King Lyam came
Father Tully, another of Arutha’s boyhood teachers, now an
adviser to the King.

Just before
the wedding, Jimmy discovered that a window had been tampered with
and Laughing Jack was secreted in a cupola overlooking the hall. Jack
overpowered the boy and bound him. When the wedding started, Jimmy
managed to foil Jack’s attempt at killing Arutha by wiggling
forward and kicking Jack. They both fell, but were saved by Pug’s
magic. But after he had been cut loose, Jimmy discovered Jack’s
crossbow bolt had struck Anita.

After
examining the wounded Anita, Father Nathan, in conference with Father
Tully, announced that the bolt had been poisoned and the Princess was
dying. Jack was questioned and revealed the truth behind the
Nighthawks. He had been saved from death by a strange power named
Murmandamus, in return for attempting to kill Arutha.

All he knew
of the poison was that it was called Silverthorn. With that he died.
As Anita neared death, Kulgan the magician remembered that a large
library existed at the Ishapian abbey at Sarth, a town up the coast
of the Bitter Sea. Pug and Father Nathan used their magic to suspend
Anita in time until a cure could be found.

Arutha vowed
to travel to Sarth, and after an elaborate ruse to confuse possible
spies, Arutha, Laurie, Jimmy, Martin and Gardan, Captain of the
Prince’s Royal Household Guard, journeyed north. In the forest
south of Sarth, they were attacked by black-armoured moredhel riders,
under the command of a moredhel recognized by Laurie as a chieftain
from the Yabon mountain clans. Pursuing Arutha’s party to the
abbey at Sarth, the moredhel were repulsed by the magic of Brother
Dominic, an Ishapian monk. The agents of Murmandamus attacked twice
more at the Abbey, almost bringing about the death of Brother Micah,
revealed to be the former Duke of Krondor, Lord Dulanic. Father John,
the Abbot, explained to Arutha that there was a prophecy regarding
the return to power of the moredhel, once the ‘Lord of the
West’ was dead. One of Murmandamus’s agents had called
Arutha that, so it seemed the moredhel believed that the prophecy
might be approaching fruition. At Sarth, Arutha also discovered that
‘Silverthorn’ was a corruption of an elven word, so he
decided to journey on to Elvandar and the court of the Elf Queen.
Gardan and Dominic were ordered by Arutha and the Abbot to travel to
Stardock, to carry the latest news to Pug and the other magicians
there.

In Ylith,
they encountered Roald, a mercenary and boyhood friend of Laurie, and
Baru, a Hadati hillman from northern Yabon. Baru was seeking the
strange moredhel chieftain, called Murad, wishing to avenge Murad’s
destruction of Baru’s village. Both agreed to continue on with
Arutha.

At Stardock,
Dominic and Gardan were attacked by flying elemental creatures,
servants of Murmandamus, and were saved by Pug. Dominic met the
magician Kulgan and Katala, Pug’s wife, as well as William,
Pug’s son, and Fantus the firedrake. Pug listened to what they
reported and asked the other magic users at Stardock for help. A
blind seer, Rogen, had a vision of some dread power behind
Murmandamus, which then attacked the old man across time and against
probability, in defiance of all Pug understood of magic. A mute girl,
Gamina, Rogen’s ward, shared the vision, and her mental
screaming overwhelmed Pug and his companions. Rogen survived the
ordeal, and Gamina used her telepathic ability to recreate the vision
for Pug and the others. They saw a city’s destruction, and the
terrible thing in the vision spoke in an ancient Tsurani tongue. Pug
and the others who spoke the language were stunned at hearing this
nearly forgotten temple language of Kelewan.

In Elvandar,
Arutha and his company met the gwali, gentle apelike creatures who
were visiting the elves. The elves told of strange encounters with
moredhel trackers near the northern borders of the elven forests.
Arutha explained his mission and was told of Silverthorn by Tathar,
adviser to Queen Aglaranna and Tomas, the Prince Consort and
inheritor of the ancient power of the Valheru - the Dragon Lords.
Silverthorn grew in one place, on the shores of the Black Lake,
Moraelin, a place of dark powers. Tathar warned Arutha that it would
be a dangerous journey, but Arutha vowed to continue.

At Stardock,
Pug determined that what menaced the Kingdom was of Tsurani origin.
Somehow Kelewan and Midkemia again seemed to have their fates
intertwined. The only possible source of knowledge about this threat
would be the Assembly of Magicians upon Kelewan, thought to be
forever closed off to them. Pug revealed to Kulgan and the others
that he had found a means of returning to Kelewan. Over their
objections, he decided to go back to see what he might do to gain
knowledge. Once it was decided, both Meecham the forester, Kulgan’s
companion for years, and Dominic forced Pug to take them along. Pug
established a rift between the two worlds and the three passed
through. Back in the Empire of Tsuranuanni, Pug and his friends spoke
first with Netoha, Pug’s old estate manager, then with Kamatsu,
Lord of the Shinzawai, Kasumi’s father. The Empire was in
turmoil, on the verge of an open break between Warlord and Emperor,
but Kamatsu vowed to carry Pug’s warning of this alien terror
to the High Council, for Pug was convinced that should Midkemia fall,
Kelewan would follow. Pug was met by his old friend Hochopepa, a
fellow magician, a Great One of the Empire. Hochopepa agreed to plead
Pug’s cause before the Assembly, for Pug had been named traitor
to the Empire and was under sentence of death. But before he could
depart, they were assaulted magically and captured by the Warlord’s
men.

Arutha and
his party reached the Black Lake, Moraelin, avoiding a number of
moredhel patrols and sentries. Galain the elf was sent by Tomas to
carry news of another possible entrance to Moraelin. He told Arutha
he would accompany them to the edge of the ‘Tracks of the
Hopeless’, the canyon surrounding the plateau where Moraelin
lay. Arutha and his company made their way to the Black Lake and
discovered a strange black building, which they took to be a Valheru
edifice. The search for Silverthorn was fruitless, and Arutha and the
others spent the night in a cave below the surface of the plateau,
where they decided they must enter the building.

Pug and his
companions awoke in a cell and found their magic blocked by an
enchantment. Pug was questioned by the Warlord and his two magician
aides, the brothers Ergoran and Elgahar, about his purpose in
returning to the Empire. The Warlord was convinced it had to do with
political opposition to his plans to take control of the Empire from
the Emperor. Neither he nor Ergoran believed Pug’s story of a
strange power of Tsurani origin menacing Midkemia. Elgahar later came
to Pug’s cell to discuss the matter further, and said he would
consider Pug’s warning. Before he left, he whispered a
speculation to Pug, which Pug agreed was possible. Hochopepa asked
Pug what that speculation was, but Pug refused to discuss it. Later,
Pug, Meecham, and Dominic were put to torture. After Dominic entered
a trance to block the pain, and Meecham was rendered senseless, Pug
was tortured. The pain and his resistance to the magic blocking his
own caused Pug to succeed in using Magic of the Lesser Path,
something thought impossible heretofore. He freed himself and his
companions as the Emperor arrived with the Lord of the Shinzawai. The
Warlord was executed for treason and Pug was granted permission to
conduct research in the Assembly. Elgahar was instrumental in freeing
Pug and, when asked why, revealed the speculation he shared with Pug.
Both believed the Enemy, the ancient terror that drove the nations to
Kelewan at the time of the Chaos Wars, had returned. At the Assembly,
Pug discovered a reference to strange beings living in the polar ice,
the Watchers. He parted company with his friends and left to seek the
Watchers, while Hochopepa, Elgahar, Dominic and Meecham returned to
Midkemia and the academy.

While hiding,
Jimmy overheard some conversation between a moredhel and two human
renegades, which gave him a clue something was not right about the
black building. Jimmy convinced Arutha he should explore alone, as he
was less likely to fall prey to any trap or ambush. Jimmy entered the
strange black building and discovered what looked to be Silverthorn,
but too many things about the place rang false. Jimmy returned to the
cave with news that the building was one giant trap.