Into a Dark Realm (28 page)

Pug nodded, preoccupied. He had been reassured that everyone on this boat had been selected for their ability to be both blind and deaf, and the captain was secretly a member of the White: no one aboard should be a danger to them.

Bek had been playing the role of Martuch’s protégé to perfection. His ability to subsume himself into the Dasati mind-set frightened Pug, as did Nakor’s blind faith in his ability to control the youth. What Bek really was, who he was, and how he got to be this way were questions Pug had pondered since first meeting the young warrior. Nakor didn’t have to tell him there was something unusual about him, for from the first Pug could sense the alien presence within him, and the yet-to-be-unleashed power. Nakor’s description of the fight between Tomas and Bek had surprised Pug at the time; Tomas was undoubtedly the most dangerous mortal with a sword on the entire planet, but now that Pug had had time to study Bek, he suspected that the day would come when Ralan Bek would surpass Tomas of Elvandar as the single most dangerous being on Midkemia.

If they ever got back to Midkemia.

Pug had asked Martuch how that was to be arranged, and the often taciturn warrior had merely said it was already done. But something in his tone left Pug wondering if he really thought any of them would survive whatever lay ahead of them.

They reached the docks as sundown approached, and by the time they had secured what passed for horses—varnin—Martuch said, “I know an inn we can use. It will take us the better part of the day to reach the Star Bridge, so we’ll rest in the city tonight.”

He assumed the role of Dasati warrior and motioned for Bek to follow. Neither paid any attention to the three Lessers who trailed behind them. Pug, Nakor, and Magnus would walk behind their master’s mounts, and Pug prayed everyone remembered his part, for now they were no longer in the relative safety of Lord Valko’s castle.

Pug had wondered about that young Deathknight. Pug sensed that Valko was fighting a battle inside himself, and prayed his mother retained her influence over him. So many things about these people were repellent: but he reminded himself that this wasn’t just an alien culture, it was an alien reality, and that similarities between Dasati and human were as often as not coincidental, and nothing more.

Magnus followed Nakor, who stayed close to Bek’s mount, the better to monitor his behavior. Pug was last in line.

Kosridi City was everything he had imagined from Kaspar’s description of what he had seen in Kalkin’s vision, and more. The city walls were massive, perhaps twenty stories high in places, with gates that required a gigantic mechanical engine to open and close them. Pug could not even imagine those gates being shut by the labor of the heaviest draft animals. Either powerful magic was employed, or another source of power he didn’t understand, because nothing he had seen humans devise would move those gates, short of a thousand men pulling on the ropes for hours on end.

They entered the city and Pug tried to etch every detail he could into his memory, yet so much of what he saw was inexplicable to him. Women swept along in groups of four or five, apparently shopping in stalls, merchants, and stores.

He struggled to remember that these very same females, apparently carefree now, would the rest of the time be fugitives harboring children from the very fathers and lovers in their lives who were trying to kill those children.

Pug found his mind swimming, and turned his attention away from these contradictions. He should know better than to attempt to force his own interpretation on what he saw. Just look, he chided himself. Just look, observe, and evaluate later.

A group of four men in black robes with a circle of white around the waist and a line of white running down the front and back, were walking purposefully through the crowd. “Praxis,” said Martuch. Pug knew the word meant “standard behavior or practice,” but here it was an organization of laymen working for the Dark One’s church. They were tasked constantly to remind Dasati citizens of His Darkness’s presence, and to report any sign of blasphemous behavior.

At a busy intersection, the two riders were forced to move slowly past a gathering of men and women who were listening to a man on a wooden stand. A lector was preaching to the Lessers, and his message was that every member of Dasati society had a role to play, and
that it was their task to live their lives as joyously as they could in His Darkness’s shadow.

Pug saw rapt expressions on the faces of those listening and again wondered how these people thought. It was clear that Martuch had grown and changed, and even the Lady Narueen, as Pug thought of her, seemed sophisticated enough for them to have a common basis for dialogue. But young Lord Valko could barely abide the sight of the human visitors, despite their Dasati appearance through magic, and Pug knew that he was sympathetic to their cause.

What would the average Dasati in the street think should the glamour fail and the humans be revealed? Pug had no doubt the most likely answer was that the four of them would be swarmed over and torn limb from limb by the bare hands of the Dasati Lessers long before any warriors could reach them. Whatever thought Pug had cherished that this world might have something in common with his own had been dispelled the morning of their departure, when he had seen a Lesser cook and her helpers fight what appeared to be domesticated barnyard fowl so she could get eggs for breakfast. Even the chickens here put up a fight, Nakor had observed.

They wended their way through the busy city, every sight and sound a distraction. Pug was forced not to stare, and had to prod Nakor several times for gawking.

Eventually they reached the inn where Martuch had said they would be safe as long as they maintained their pose as Lessers, and were quickly taken away from Martuch and Bek, to the quarters out at the back for servants of traveling warriors.

It was a barracks where three other Lesser men and a single woman were resting, while two other women were tending cooking fires. From the look of things, Pug realized they were going to have to manage on their own for food, but before he could tell Nakor and Magnus to dig rations out of their travel bags, one of the women cooking said, “Two sus each for food. And another su if you wish something other than water to drink.”

Pug reached inside his bag, pulled out nine coins and put them on
the table, unsure if he was supposed to say anything. He suspected “thank you” would earn him nothing but trouble.

The woman scooped up the coins and put them in the purse that hung from a woven cord belt which cinched together her dress. Pug sat quietly down near the table, watching as they prepared a meal.

The two Dasati women were chattering about things for which Pug had no frame of reference, until he realized they were gossiping about a woman who wasn’t present. The other three Dasati in the room were servants of others staying at the inn, and Pug decided that watching them for leads might be useful.

When food was placed on the table, the three Dasati who had arrived before Pug and his companions stood and took full bowls off the table, then returned to where they were resting. Pug nodded once to Nakor and Magnus, and they followed his lead.

As they sat eating, one of the Dasati women who had been cooking kept staring at Magnus. Pug leaned over and whispered to Magnus, “You never said anything about your encounter with Narueen.”

Magnus looked down at his bowl. “And I won’t.”

Pug said, “Difficult.”

“More than…” He smiled slightly. “There are things a son doesn’t want to share with his parents, even a father as…widely traveled as you.”

Suddenly Pug understood. The experience hadn’t been entirely unpleasant for Magnus, and that disturbed him.

Magnus swallowed another mouthful of the stir-fried vegetables and a grain like rice with some sort of meat in it, and finally said, “And, please, say nothing to Mother.”

Pug stifled a laugh.

Everyone ate in silence. Pug wondered if there was going to be a problem with women and Magnus. They just wanted to be ignored, but apparently Narueen was correct in her observation that Magnus was unusually handsome by Dasati standards. Unwarranted attention was unwelcome. Pug knew that he or his son could bring this entire inn down around the ears of anyone who might threaten them
without difficulty. They could create enough confusion to escape. But escape to where? Pug wasn’t entirely sure what this mission was, except to find out as much about these people as possible. So far he still had found no reason why these people would wish to invade the first plane of reality, beyond Nakor’s oft-aired thesis that evil is by nature mad. On the other hand, Nakor also observed that even if evil was mad, it could act with purpose. That had certainly been proven repeatedly in the case of Leso Varen.

That made Pug think of Varen hiding somewhere on Kelewan, and that in turn made him miss his wife. He wished he had the means to speak with her, if only for a moment, just to know she was well. And ask her if there was any hint of Varen anywhere within the Empire of the Tsurani.

Wyntakata hobbled along as quickly as he could, attempting to keep up with Miranda, who was impatiently walking toward a hill overlooking a deep ravine. “Please,” he said, and when she turned, he pointed to his staff. “My leg,” he added.

“Sorry, but you were the one who said this was important.”

“It is, and I think you’ll appreciate why I asked you to come along with me. But I am not a well man, and a little more leisurely pace would be welcome.”

Miranda had received his message only hours before, and ignoring the time difference—it was just before dawn at Sorcerer’s Isle, but late afternoon on this part of Kelewan—she had come at once.

They were moving across a meadow toward the hill, and when they reached the bottom, Wyntakata said, “Another moment, please.” He paused to catch his breath, then said, “You’d think with all the power…well, maybe one day we can do something about getting old.” He chuckled. “It’s odd, isn’t it, that this man you’re so eager to catch can move from body to body…a type of immortality, really.”

“From one point of view, I suppose so,” said Miranda, impatient to see what it was she had been summoned here to see.

The stout magician caught his breath and said, “Let us go.” As they trudged up the hill, he said, “Did you hear, old Sinboya was found dead last week?”

Miranda stopped. “You knew him?”

“How could you not?” Wyntakata stopped for a moment, puffed, then said, “He was perhaps the finest artificer of devices alive. Many of the Assembly had employed him to make his toys, useful as they were.”

Reaching the ridge, they could see down into a small valley, a half-mile depression between two rows of hills. Below them in the valley was a dome of energy, black as night and yet scintillating with colors, like coruscating oil floating on the surface of water. Miranda instantly recognized it as a barrier of some type; though what it was keeping in, she could only guess.

Wyntakata said, “I hear Pug visited Sinboya just before his death.”

Miranda hesitated for an instant, then said, “He hadn’t told me.” Instantly, she knew she had been lured into a trap: the magician had referred to her husband as “Pug” rather than his Tsurani name, Milamber.

She turned to gather energy, but suddenly a pain shot through her and her mind went numb. It was as if someone or something had sucked the air from her lungs, the blood from her veins, and all rational thought from her mind in an instant. She looked down and saw a faintly glowing latticework of lines in the soil beneath her feet. This spot had been the trap. The ward she stood upon negated her power and had stunned her like a blow to the head. She tried to move, and found her body disobedient.

Wyntakata smiled unpleasantly. “Your mistake was assuming that your fugitive would conduct himself here as he did on your world, Miranda.

“You see,” said the man she knew now must be Leso Varen, “you were so intent on looking for signs of necromancy that you neglected the obvious. These people”—he patted his rotund waist—“are such
powerful practitioners of magic that I could conduct myself as I saw fit and no one would notice, as long as I observed a few proprieties. ‘Your will, Great One,’ is such a wonderful phrase. I fly to ‘my’ estates, and say, ‘I would like a meal,’ and people jump to get it done. It’s a great deal like being a king of a tiny little kingdom, really.

“These people do appreciate power. But they are nothing compared to my new friends.”

Miranda fell to her knees, weakening by the minute. Wyntakata held up his hand and made a signal. He knelt, awkwardly, holding on to his staff. “It’s really too bad that I didn’t have any say in whose body I grabbed, but this won’t be my host much longer. I must confess I’ve been so busy since I found the first Dasati rift that I really haven’t had time to make a new soul vessel. I plan on taking care of that as soon as possible, once I find a safe place to practice necromancy again without having a hundred angry Great Ones descending on me.” He glanced at the dome. “I think it won’t be too long before they’re far too busy to worry about me.”

He reached out and took her chin in the cup of his hand. Her eyes were losing focus as he said, “My goodness, but you are an attractive woman. I never really noticed that. I think I found you off-putting at first because you are so…determined. You walk around with that frown and your eyes…glaring. I see why Pug fell in love with you, though I do find I prefer women who are more…submissive. But it would be fun to nail you to a wall and see how determined you remained while I did things to you with all the toys the Tsurani have invented for interrogation. They have quite a collection in a museum at the Assembly, you know.”

Someone was coming up the hill behind her, but Miranda was too stupefied to move, let alone turn and look. Leso Varen used his staff to push himself to his feet as powerful hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her upright.

“I’d like you to meet two new friends of mine,” said Varen. “These are, if I have it right, Desoddo and Mirab.”

Miranda was jerked around and found herself looking into the
face of an alien, a being with a slender skull, greyish skin, and black eyes. “They are what the Dasati call ‘Deathpriests,’ and they are going to have a lot of fun with you, I think. Pity I won’t be there, but I have other matters to arrange.