At the Gates of Darkness (15 page)

“Sir?” came a voice from behind.

“Oh,” said Amirantha, seeing two servants in the doorway. One held a tray with a pot and infuser, a cup, and a canister of tea, and the other held a short ladder. “Never mind.” He pointed to the stocky man with the ladder and said, “Put that over there and climb to the top, and
gently
pull down the topmost book.” To the other he said, “Put that on the table, please…” As the servant moved to do as he was instructed, Amirantha said, “And find me a chair for that table. Thank you.” He turned his attention to the man climbing the ladder and the job that lay before him.

The day wore on, and Amirantha drank two pots of tea. Other than having to relieve himself three times before lunch, his morning was uneventful; there was nothing remarkable about his findings. He had chanced across a few interesting things, a treatise on higher consciousness and the gods—which he found more compelling for the abso
lutely blind leaps of faith than he did for any compelling evidence to support the hypothesis, but done in language both precise and elegant. He found himself admiring it despite it having no relevance to his current search.

There was one interesting account of a very bad famine, more family chronicles than he imagined possible; the Quegans were a self-aggrandizing people beyond his imagination. Even modestly successful merchants had commissioned family histories—most of which were far more fanciful than fact, he surmised. One particularly vivid but improbable tale concerned a merchant from the Kingdom city of Krondor who had contrived to build a fortune out of thin air, or so he claimed.

There were a couple of interesting finds, beyond their value as quaintly curious; a book of “dark spells” that had more truth in it than the author understood; anyone with a talent for magic would recognize elements in it. He put it aside in case Pug or Magnus might be curious.

Another work was a chronicle of a struggle between two temples, neither of which he recognized. The magic he used to read foreign languages did not make the understanding of proper nouns any easier. Someone named Rah-ma-to was named Rah-ma-to, and his only insight into that worth anything was context. He might be a local god, a local name for one of the gods he knew, or a farmer, for all Amirantha knew. Still, it touched on something of myth and magic, so he set it aside.

Other volumes were likewise curiosities, but nothing remotely akin to the information he was seeking. He wondered if Pug and Magnus were having any more luck.

Time of the midday meal was announced by the arrival of Livia. The charming Quegan woman seemed amused by the sight of Amirantha on his knees stacking books. “Are you finding anything?”

He pointed to a dozen volumes stacked over on the table next to the empty—again empty—teapot and said,
“Those look promising.” He exaggerated, but he wanted to make this look like a worthwhile undertaking to bolster his need to return.

“I’ve come to take you to the archivists’ quarters, where a repast has been provided.”

He rose up and found his knees slightly stiff. Feigning more discomfort than he felt, he said, “I need walk a bit more, I think. Too many days of sitting and I’m turning into an old man.”

She smiled as she slipped her arm through his in a gesture of familiarity. Amirantha had dealt with flirtatious women all his life and knew he had been judged and found appropriate enough to warrant further scrutiny. He considered the oddity of this culture’s social constraints if a woman this attractive and bright might consider a foreign scholar of modest means a suitable substitute for a man of rank in her own nation; then he remembered women of her age who saw their child-bearing years coming to a close and reconsidered. She might be ready to marry the first man who asked.

He sighed and considered his need for pleasure and weighed it against possible injury to her.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” he replied.

“You sighed, and a rather heavy one at that.”

He smiled. “Oh, just the amount of material yet to be considered is daunting,” he lied. He would dismiss the servant after lunch. The pile was manageable enough now for him to sort through it, and now that he was becoming used to the manner in which Quegans recorded their personal histories, business records, and the other sea of useless trivial piled up inside the archives, he should be able to get through the bulk of this by supper.

“Perhaps you might stay longer?”

He smiled as he looked at her and saw that his instincts in this were almost certainly correct; this woman needed to
find a husband and start a family. With a pang he realized that he didn’t find the idea repellent, just impossible.

He shook his head. “As I understand it, the agreement between your Emperor and the King of Isles is three days, no longer. As I am but a companion to the official researchers…” He shrugged.

“I might talk to someone,” she ventured.

“I live a very long way from here,” he said neutrally, but she took his meaning.

She fixed him with a narrow gaze and pulled away ever so slightly. “You have a wife?”

“No, nothing like that,” he said. “My work…consumes me.”

“Ah,” she said as if that explained everything.

They remained quiet until they reached the room set aside for their meal. A modest lunch by Quegan standards, but a small feast by anyone else’s, was waiting for them. A moment after Amirantha had been shown through the door, Pug and Magnus arrived. Their escort and Livia withdrew, leaving the three of them alone.

“Anything interesting?” asked Pug as he picked up a stoneware plate and a long two-pronged fork and began putting cheese, meat, and fruit on his plate.

“Nothing worth being excited over,” answered the Warlock. He pointed to a large pitcher of water then another with wine and his expression was a question.

“Water, please,” said Magnus. “Wine with lunch and I’m asleep all afternoon.”

Pug nodded, and Amirantha said, “Three goblets of water it is.”

They assumed they were being overheard so they spoke in a fairly noncommittal fashion. They chatted and Amirantha finished his meal and said, “So, anything noteworthy?”

They knew he was asking if there was any clue that might help point him in his search under the massive pile of books.

Magnus said, “Quite a bit. It’s clear that Kingdom records of the region are spotty at best.”

That was a code phrase agreed upon telling Amirantha they had found nothing that would aid his search.

After the meal, servants returned them to their respective areas and Amirantha felt a mild disappointment over Livia not putting in an appearance. He cursed himself for his appetites and willingness to construct reasons to do what he wanted over the years, rather than what he should. Since meeting Pug and his companions, many things had left him profoundly changed in his view of the world in which he lived: the scope of the dangers being faced, the commitment and bravery of those undertaking the task of confronting those dangers, and their generosity and selflessness. But one thing had continued to leave him constantly unsettled and troubled, and it had been something of minor importance, he had once thought.

His encounter with Sandreena and Creegan had reopened old wounds, wounds he had not even admitted to himself existed before that encounter.

To those like Brandos who knew him well, he was unapologetic about his bad behavior with women over the years. He stopped a moment and considered the pile of books still to be examined, yet he hesitated. His mind was on the young Knight-Adamant from Krondor.

As a young man, like many young men do, he loved easily, or at least he had told himself it was love, but whatever it was, he had felt strong attachments. But his life being what it was, they never endured. By the time he found Brandos as a boy scrabbling around the city streets, he had come to not let his heart get involved. Women were creatures of comfort, to be taken and then left behind, lest one became attached and again faced loss in the end.

What he felt deepest was that he had cared a great deal more for Sandreena than he had admitted, that the time they had spent together in the oddly named little village north
of Krondor had forged something deeper than merely the physical or a liaison of convenience. He hated how he felt.

He forced aside this morbid introspection and cursed himself for a sentimental old fool trapped in a young man’s body, and set about working on the volumes before him.

An hour into the afternoon, Amirantha began to sense something. He held a book in his hand and glanced at the title, then put it aside. He picked up the next and again felt the oddly familiar, yet nameless tingling. He cast aside that book and picked up two more. As he dug deeper into the pile, the sensation became more familiar, and more immediate.

It was demon.

He pushed his way downward, ignoring the damage he might be doing to ancient books—many of which were on the verge of falling apart due to improper storage in this very room—and felt the sense grow even more compelling.

His hand touched something and he recoiled as if experiencing a shock.

Trying to work as quickly as possible, yet not damage the object of his attention, he got the cover of the work clear and once he could clearly see the volume, his flesh crawled.

This volume was rife with demonic magic.

When he had at last cleared away the covered tome, he reached in and gripped it; the alien sense of demon magic assaulted him again, but this time he was ready for it.

He lifted the large volume off those below it and carried it over to the table. He gently put it down and studied it a moment before he touched it again.

He was almost certain the cover was skin; human, elf, or some other, he was unsure, but this book was bound by something that was once living and aware.

He opened the cover and let the magic spell Pug had given him serve him. The language may have been ancient and obscure, but he read it as easily as he did the first language he had learned as a boy.

Whispering aloud, he read the title page. “Greater Demon Lore.”

Slowly he turned the first page and began to read.

After a few minutes his legs grew shaky and his stomach began to knot, but he kept reading, and slowly he sat in the chair offered and resisted the urge to run from the room screaming.

His mind rejected what he saw before him, but he kept reading for the rest of the afternoon.

From the moment they gathered at the end of the day to dine, it was evident to the others that Amirantha had something to tell them but was keeping silent lest they be overheard. When at last they were alone, Pug gave Magnus a questioning look. The younger magician nodded once, closed his eyes a moment, then said, “We have a few minutes; the magic they’re using to spy upon us is poorly done, but if I counter it too much, someone may notice.”

“What did you find?” Jim asked Amirantha.

“What we came for,” he answered. “It is the Greater Demon Lore, and more.”

“More?” asked Pug. “What is in it?”

“Apparently everything there is to know about demons,” he said with barely contained excitement. “I consider myself a practiced Warlock; demons are my specialty.
I know nothing!
” He sat back. “There is more that I haven’t finished reading, but I have read enough to already know something incredible is under way.”

Pug glanced at Magnus. “Another minute, no more.”

Amirantha said, “We can talk in detail later.” He glanced at Jim. “After you steal the book.”

Jim shrugged as if that would be a trivial issue; the library was not the Imperial Treasury. He could be in and out in minutes and have the volume secreted within his baggage before departure. As a diplomat, he would be spared any search of his personal items, and once at
sea, the three magicians could pore over it to their hearts’ content.

Amirantha said, “There is so much to consider.” He paused, knowing they would have to keep silent in a moment. “The demons are so much more than we thought.” He fell silent. “Much more,” he repeated, then Magnus raised his hand and loudly said, “I found a recounting of the sea battle off of Questor’s View, in the Fifteenth Year of the reign of Rodric the Third.” Forcing a mild laugh, he added, “This account is quite different than what we found in the Royal Library at Krondor.”

Talk turned to the mundane matters of academia and a few comments about the hospitality of the Quegans, all flattering, and each sat, quickly playing the role of innocent guest.

Jim considered the perfect timing to leave his quarters—without waking whoever was with him; he knew the Quegans would ensure he was not alone and whoever shared his bed was an agent. He could get out of his rooms, to the library, get the book once Amirantha gave him a precise description, and return in less than a half hour, perhaps as little as a quarter hour if he encountered no one along the short road from the place to the library.

Pug and Magnus shared the same thought: what had Amirantha found in that book?

And Amirantha sat silently, uncertain if he was even beginning to understand what he had uncovered and wondering if he was even capable of making sense out of it. For whatever he had imagined the demon realm to be like, if this book wasn’t the total fabrication of a deluded mind, it changed everything he had ever thought he knew about demons and what his people called the Fifth Hell.

Amirantha placed the huge volume down on the table. Jim quipped, “Stealing it wasn’t a problem. Getting it back without falling over was.”

The tome was a foot and a half along the spine and half that per pages, about fifty or sixty pages of heavy vellum. It easily weighed fifty pounds—not a difficult load to carry, but impossible to hide. It was only as Jim observed that if the Quegans were expecting him to go skulking in the night, they thought he’d be pilfering state secrets or imperial treasure, not forgotten books.

They had left less than an hour before, and once clear of Queg’s harbor and any observation, mundane or magic, Magnus had transported them to his father’s study atop the tower at Sorcerer’s Isle.