Rage of a Demon King (18 page)

“That doesn’t break my heart,” said Erik as he started shouting orders to strike camp.

“What I mean,” said Duga, “is they can’t send any more soldiers with that magic. Because if they could, they would, don’t you see?”

Erik stopped. “You must be right. Else why hide you all down here?”

He scratched his beard. “Some very odd goings-on, if you ask me. Why didn’t they just put us in this city of Sethanon?”

“Because you’d all be dead before you got your bearings,” answered Erik. He thought it best not to elaborate. The truth was, he didn’t know why that was so, but all Duke James and Knight-Marshal William would say was that it wouldn’t be possible for the Pantathians to send men directly into Sethanon. Erik suspected it had to do with one or another of the magicians that James was talking about, Pug or that woman Miranda.

Erik didn’t dwell further on the question. He had too many things to do. “Duga?”

“Yes?”

“These other companies, do you know them?”

“A couple. Taligar’s Lions were the first through. They’ll not throw down swords easily—Taligar’s got a bitch of a temper and he just doesn’t like to lose. Nanfree’s Brothers of Iron might listen to reason if I can talk to them before people start bleeding.” He grinned. “Nanfree’s a smart old fox who likes to work as little for as much gold as he can.”

Erik said, “Good. We’ll go in and talk to them first, if we can, but if we need to fight, I expect you to know which side you’re on.”

Duga shrugged. “I forgot which side I was on years ago.” He glanced around the woods. “This seems like a nice place. I’ve had my fill of killing and burning. Might as well pick this land to call home and die for. Don’t see much back where we started worth that.”

Erik nodded. “That’s as good an answer as I could expect.”

Duga turned and shouted to his men, “Up we go, lads. It’s time to earn some pay.” He glanced at Erik, then with a grin he shouted, “You’re all soldiers of the King now, so behave yourselves!”

“Wait!” Erik instructed softly.

The defenders had holed up behind some rocks, and Erik had sent bowmen along a ridge above to provide cover fire. For a month he had swept through the Dimwood, using the map to locate and encircle the various companies of the Emerald Queen who were hidden there.

Of the first dozen companies Erik and his men had routed, eight had surrendered and four had fought. Erik had been forced to delegate some of his men to escort the captured soldiers who refused to turn coat to a safe holding place.

His company now numbered eleven hundred men, spread out in five squads. Coordinating efforts was difficult, and he regretted the many horses that were lamed as messengers raced between squads, but all reports indicated the sweep of the Dimwood was going well.

More than once he had wondered how much of this Calis had anticipated, for it seemed too providential that he should just happen to be riding through here with six hundred crack soldiers when the Emerald Queen’s advance forces popped into view. Sometime he’d have to remember to ask just where Calis got so much good intelligence.

A scout came running toward Erik, and one of the enemy soldiers behind a rock loosed an arrow that barely missed the man. Erik grabbed him by the tunic and demanded, “What’s wrong?”

The soldier was one of Duga’s mercenaries. Short of breath, he could blurt out only one word: “Saaur!”

“Where?” demanded Erik.

“That way,” said the soldier, turning to look back over his shoulder into the wood.

“How many?” Erik asked as he heard the thunderous pounding of their gigantic mounts echoing through the trees.

“Fifty!”

Erik stood, risking an arrow, and shouted, “Fall back!”

The bowmen who were climbing a distant ridge turned to see what the shout was, and saw Erik waving them back down toward the tree line. They waved acknowledgment and started down.

Erik ducked as two arrows flew at him from the defenders’ position and shouted, “Archers! Kill anything coming through those trees.”

Erik had fought the Saaur once before, and he had no illusions of this being a simple fight. He might have two hundred men with him, but fifty Saaur were easily their match. And he had a hundred-plus mercenaries who could sally forth at any time, putting Erik squarely between two armed foes.

Erik ran back to where the horses were picketed, and climbed into the saddle. He shouted to one of the nearby soldiers, “Ride to the north. James of Highcastle is up there with his men. Tell him to come as fast as possible.”

Even if the soldier found the Corporal from Highcastle and his men and they rode straight back, it might be too late.

The sound of the advancing Saaur was now like a storm about to break over them. Erik glanced around
frantically, looking for any advantage. The Saaur averaged nine feet in height, with horses twenty-five hands at the withers. “Into the woods!” shouted Erik.

Then the Saaur came crashing into view. Armored with helms, breastplates, greaves, and bracers, the riders looked like a soldier’s worst nightmare. Reptilian faces showed more emotion than Erik ever would have imagined before meeting them, and the expression on their faces was anger. A Saaur wearing the flowing horsetail plume of an officer led the charge. “Die, traitors!” he cried as he saw Erik’s men pulling back.

The fight became a blur. Erik dodged around trees, attempting to strike at the hocks of the larger animals, avoiding the powerful blows of the Saaur. Erik had once charged a Saaur rider, and he knew just how much more powerful they could be. From the screams around him, punctuated with curses, it was clear other men were discovering this fact the hard way.

Erik lost track of time and let the battle flow. He knew that by giving his men a chance to survive in the trees he had lost any hope of organizing the fight. More distant shouts led him to believe the company they had been readying to attack had joined the fray.

A Saaur bore down on him from behind, and Erik felt the approach more than heard it, moving his horse around a tree just in time to avoid being overrun. As the alien rider swept past, Erik put heels to his horse’s flanks and took out after another Saaur, moving in a different direction. It was clear to Erik that attacking these giant creatures from behind was the best course of action.

The air hissed with arrows and Erik prayed they came from his archers taking Saaur riders out of saddles,
and not the other side killing his men. He came up behind the Saaur he followed as the rider reined in to catch his bearings. The creature was half-turned in the saddle when Erik caught him with his sword point, thrusting as deeply into the creature’s ribs as he could. The shocked Saaur looked down at the smaller human, astonishment being the only possible word to describe the expression on that alien face, and then he fell backward out of the saddle, almost ripping the sword from Erik’s hands.

Throughout the afternoon they rode through the trees, a crazy weaving dance of death with both sides dying more from blunders than from the other side’s tactics. Then a horn sounded and Erik turned to see more riders entering the woods. He expected to see his men from the north, but these riders were coming from the south, as best he could judge.

“What now?” he muttered to himself, his voice barely more than an exhausted croak.

Suddenly Calis rode into view, and horse archers started picking off Saaur who were locked in combat with Erik’s men. Erik saw his Captain point behind Erik and shout something, but he couldn’t hear what he said over the din of fighting.

Then the world exploded in pain and Erik saw the ground rising up to strike him. The breath was knocked from him. His shrieking horse fell on his leg, and he barely kept his wits about him. More by instinct than thought, he disentangled himself from his thrashing animal, blood spraying from a wound to the horse’s flank.

A Saaur rider turned his animal as Calis charged, and Erik struggled to his feet. He put his hand to his head and found his helmet gone. Blood covered his
hand when he brought it away, but he couldn’t tell if it was his or the horse’s.

The rider ignored Erik and charged Calis. Erik braced his hand on the trunk of a tree to support himself, then knelt to pick up his sword. Nausea knotted his stomach and his head swam from the effort, but he stayed conscious. He quickly killed his dying horse and looked to see Calis engaged with the Saaur.

If the Saaur that Erik had killed had looked surprised, it was nothing compared to the expression on this one’s face at the first blow Calis delivered to the creature’s shield. Erik was certain nothing could have prepared that rider for the impact of someone as strong as Calis. The blow knocked the creature from his saddle.

Then it was quiet. Erik opened his eyes and realized he was sitting on the ground, his back against the tree. Someone had put a tunic over his legs and a rolled-up shirt behind his head.

A familiar voice said, “You took a nasty one to the head.”

Erik turned to see Calis standing nearby. Erik said, “I think I’ve been hit worse.”

“I’m sure. Blade glanced off the back of your helmet and that rock head of yours and struck your horse behind the saddle. Broke its spine. You’re a lucky man, von Darkmoor. A couple of inches farther forward and he would have split you in two.”

Erik’s head rang and throbbed. “I don’t feel lucky,” he said. Taking a drink of water from a skin held before him, he asked, “What brings you to this dark and lonely place?”

Calis said, “I got your message, but mostly it was because I gave you orders to be back in Krondor in two months.”

Erik smiled and it made his head hurt worse. “I told you I needed three.”

“Orders are orders.”

“Does it help that I brought you two thousand men instead of six hundred and have captured or killed another thousand of the Queen’s army?”

Calis considered this a moment. “A little. But not much.” Then he smiled.

Miranda spoke.

“Where are we?”

Pug heard the words, though he knew they were projections of her mind. He wondered at that peculiar aspect of the human mind which sought always to force something to fit its perceptions, irrespective of what the true nature of the thing might be.

“On our way to heaven,” he answered.

“How long have we been traveling?” she asked. “It seems like years.”

“Funny,” answered Pug. “It seems but moments to me. Time is warped.”

“Acaila was right,” she observed.

“He usually is,” said Pug.

The region they traveled through was a multicolored distortion of space, or at least that was how Pug viewed it. Stars swam through vortices of violent
colors, rather than the void of night he expected. And the stars were as often as not colorless.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Miranda, and to Pug’s mind she seemed to whisper in awe. “How do you know where to go?”

“I follow the line,” he answered, indicating with a thought the fragile line of force they were following from Midkemia.

“It goes on forever,” she said.

“I doubt it, but I think Macros the Black went on a very long journey when he last left Midkemia.”

“We’re following his journey?”

“Apparently,” said Pug.

They voyaged through the cosmos, and at last they descended to a world, a green and blue orb that circled a star. Around it circled three moons.

“We’re back where we started,” said Miranda.

Pug turned his attention to the world below, and it was indeed Midkemia. “No,” he said. “I think we’ve come to a time much earlier than when we left.”

“Time travel?”

“I’ve done it before,” he answered.

“You must tell me of this someday.”

Pug projected amusement. “I’ve never been fully in charge of those events. And I’ve always felt the risks far outweighed the benefits.”

“You don’t think traveling in time to kill this Emerald Queen in her crib would be a good idea?” she asked, and Pug detected the familiar dry humor in the question.

“We can’t, or else we would have.”

“There is that paradox, isn’t there?”

“More, there are laws that we can’t begin to contemplate.” He fell silent, and Miranda couldn’t judge
if it was a moment or a year before he spoke again. “All of reality as we know it is but an illusion, a dream of some agency we can barely comprehend.”

“It sounds so trivial, put that way.”

“It’s not. It may be the most profound thing humankind is able to comprehend.”

They moved down toward a scene familiar to Pug. Standing near the wreckage of the city of Sethanon was an army, led by King Lyam. Pug felt odd emotions as he viewed himself, fifty years earlier, listening to Macros’s good-bye, again.

“What’s he saying?” asked Miranda.

“Listen,” said Pug.

A younger Pug said, “Yes, but it is still a hard thing.”

A tall, thin man, wearing a brown robe with a whipcord belt and sandals, said, “All things come to an end, Pug. Now is the end of my time upon this world. With the ending of the Valheru presence, my powers have returned fully. I will move on to something new. Gathis will join me, and the others at my island are cared for, so I have no more duties here.”

Miranda said, “Gathis didn’t leave!”

Pug said, “I know.”

She focused her attention on her lover and felt something that was familiar. “You find this funny?”

“Ironic, perhaps,” came the answer.

Macros the Black, legendary sorcerer supreme, was bidding good-bye to a younger Tomas, who stood resplendent in his gold-and-white armor.

Miranda said, “He’s doing it again, isn’t he?”

“What?” asked Pug.

“Lying to you.”

“No, not this time,” answered Pug. “He honestly believes what he’s saying about the Pantathians and Murmandamus.”

Macros said, “. . . the powers granted to the one who posed as Murmandamus were no mean set of conjurer’s illusions. He was a force. To have created such a one and to have captured and manipulated the hearts of even a race as dark as the moredhel required much. Perhaps without the Valheru influence across the barriers of space and time, the serpent people may become much as others, just another intelligent race among many.” He stared into the distance a moment. “Then again, perhaps not. Be wary of them.”

“He was right on that count,” said Miranda. “The Pantathians could never be redeemed. The Valheru heritage has warped them beyond redemption.”

“No,” said Pug. “It’s something else. Something much larger.”

Pug and Miranda watched as Macros finished his goodbyes, and Pug felt stirrings of old emotions. “It was a difficult time,” he said to Miranda.

He sensed more than heard her understanding.

Macros, more than any other man in Pug’s life, was the central figure in Pug’s development. Pug still had dreams of his days in the Assembly of Magicians on the world of Kelewan, dreams in which Macros was among his teachers. Pug knew there were things still locked away in his head, things that only Macros or time could unlock.

Pug and Miranda saw Macros turn and walk away from the assembled army, from Pug and Tomas. As he moved, he began to fade from sight.

“Cheap theatrics,” said Miranda.

“No, more,” said Pug. “Watch.”

He shifted his perceptions and saw that Macros was not vanishing from sight but was changing. His body continued to walk, but it became intangible, a thing of mists and smoke. Power flowed upward as Macros spoke to some unseen agency.

“What is this?” asked Miranda.

“I’m not sure,” answered Pug. “But I have suspicions.”

“Master,” said Macros to the unseen agent. “What is your bidding?”

“Come, it is time,” said the voice.

Miranda and Pug sensed joy in the sorcerer as he rose up on mystic energies, flying into the void much as Miranda and Pug had in Elvandar.

“Look!” said Miranda, and below they could see his body lying upon the ground. “Has he died?”

“Not really,” said Pug, “but his soul is moving elsewhere. That is what we must follow.”

Through years and across vast distances, they flew in close pursuit, chasing the very essence of Macros the Black. Again time had no meaning as they moved across the vast gulf between stars, only to return to Midkemia at last, to be confronted again with a new vista, as they descended from the skies to a point high above the vast peaks of the Ratn’gari Mountains.

“We’ve been here before!” said Miranda.

“No,” said Pug. “I mean, yes, we’ve been here, but not yet.”

“Look, there’s the Celestial City you created.”

“No,” answered Pug. “This is the real thing.”

Across the peaks of mountains capped with snow sprawled a city of incredible beauty. Crystal pillars
held aloft roofs like giant diamonds, brilliant facets sparking with an inner fire. Pug said, “Below, thousands of feet below the clouds, rests the Necropolis. This is where lied you, and this resembles the illusion I created for you, but mine was a shadow to this.”

Miranda agreed. “This is solidity where your illusion was smoke and shadow, but it also feels less real.”

“What I built was created to fool your physical senses. This is a thing of the mind. We are experiencing it through direct contact, without any instrument of perception intervening.”

“I understand,” she said, “yet I am disoriented.”

Pug suddenly shifted before her eyes, and he was as she knew him, a man of solid form, a body as familiar to her as her own. “Is this better?” he asked, and the words seemed to issue from his mouth.

“Yes,” she answered.

“You can do the same. You have only to will it so.”

She concentrated and suddenly felt herself become solid, and, holding up her hand before her eyes, she saw it as she expected it to be, solid flesh.

“It is but another illusion,” said Pug, “but one that will give you a firmer foundation upon which to stand.”

The hall in which they stood was similar to the one of illusion Pug had created to deceive Miranda when they had first met. When she had first come searching for Pug, he had led her a merry chase, finally ending up in the Ratn’gari Mountains, only a short distance from here. He had created an illusionary version of this place in which to hide from her.

Miranda said, “This is similar, but so much more!” The ceilings above were vaults of heaven themselves; lights shone down that were stars. Miranda saw that where in Pug’s illusion small areas had been set aside for the worship of each of the gods, here the areas were the size of cities.

In the distance, the line of energy they had followed from the time of Macros’s departure to the present descended in a gentle arc, coming down from the ceiling, and disappearing beyond their perception.

As they moved toward it, they passed an intersection of two paths, and stood where the areas of four gods touched.

Odd stirrings in the air caused Miranda to say, “Can you feel that?”

“Again, shift your perception,” Pug told her.

Miranda experimented, and suddenly the hall was filled with shadowy figures. Like the energy beings they had become in the groves of Elvandar, these beings lacked features and identifying marks. But where Pug and Miranda had been brilliant beings of light, these were shadowy figures, barely perceptible with a faint illumination.

“What are they?”

“Prayers,” answered Pug. “Each person who prays to the gods is heard. We perceive that prayer as an icon of the person praying.”

Miranda moved down the path and looked upward. A huge statue, many times the size of a human, rested upon a throne of azure. The figure was of a man, still and white, with a faint blue tinge. His eyes were closed. Few of the shadow figures moved near this statue.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“Eortis, dead God of the Sea. Killian tends his domain until he returns.”

“He’s dead, but he’s returning?”

“You’ll understand more, soon, but for now suffice it to say that if my suspicions are right, there is far more concerned with this war than merely defeating mad creatures bent on mindless destruction.” He led her to another intersection. Pointing at a distant wall, he said, “Turn your mind’s eye toward that distant vista, and tell me what you see.”

She did as she was bid and at last a giant symbol appeared on the wall. It was incomprehensible to her for what seemed a very long time, then it resolved itself into a pattern. “I see a Seven-Pointed Star of Ishap, above a field of twelve points in a circle.”

“Look deeper,” he instructed.

She did so and after a minute another pattern resolved itself. “I see another pattern, with four bright lights overlapping the top four points of the star. And there are many dim points between the twelve bright ones.”

“Of the three points of the star below those that are brightly lit, tell me what you see.”

Miranda concentrated on them, and after a moment she saw what Pug meant. “One of them is dimly alight! The one in the center. The one to the right of it . . .” She faltered.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s not dim! It’s . . . blocked. Something is preventing it from being seen!”

Pug said, “That is what I perceive, too. What of the remaining light?”

“It is dead.”

“Then I think I may be close to knowing the truth.” The tone he projected into her mind led her to think he wasn’t pleased to learn this particular truth.

They continued along. They reached the farthest corner of the Hall of the Gods and found themselves between two statues. One was totally lifeless, and Pug said, “Wodar-Hospur, the dead God of Knowledge. So much we might know if he were to return.”

“Does no one worship knowledge anymore?”

“A few,” said Pug, “but might and riches seem to occupy humankind’s time more than anything else. Of all the men I’ve met, only Nakor seems truly driven to know.”

“Know what?”

“Everything,” he answered with amusement.

They turned and regarded the other statue. The faint line that had been the spirit of Macros descended into the head of the statue. Miranda looked at the features and gasped. “Macros!”

“No,” answered Pug. “Look at the name across the foot of his statue.”

“Sarig,” she said. “Who is he?”

“The not-quite-so-dead God of Magic.”

“That’s Macros the Black!” she blurted, and for the first time since he had known her, Pug saw in Miranda’s visage true confusion and even a little fear. “Macros is a god?” asked Miranda, and for the first time since he had met her, Pug sensed a genuine flash of concern in her voice. The mocking, dry humor was gone.

“Yes,” he answered, “and no.”

“Which is it?”

“We’ll know better when we talk to him,” answered Pug. “I think I know the answer, but I want
to hear it from him.” Pug willed himself into the air, until he stood before the giant, immobile statue’s face. Loudly he called, “Macros!”

He was greeted by silence.

Miranda “moved” to stand next to Pug, and said, “What now?”

“He sleeps. He dreams.”

“What is all this?” she asked. “I still don’t understand.”

“Macros the Black is attempting to rise to godhood,” answered Pug. “He seeks to fill the void left by the departure of Sarig. Or Sarig created Macros the Black so that someday he would rise to replace him. Something like that.” He pointed to the line of force. “That line still functions, and at the other end we’ll find the mortal body that we know as Macros, but the mind, the essence, the soul—that is here, within this being that is forming. They are one and yet different, connected yet apart.”

“How long will it take, this rising to godhood?” asked Miranda, not attempting to hide the awe in her voice.

“Ages,” answered Pug softly.

“What do we do?”

“We wake him up.”

The illusion that was Pug closed his eyes and focused his attentions within. Miranda felt energy building within the sorcerer and a mighty magic being forged. She waited, but when she expected some sort of release of energy, it continued to build. Soon she was in awe, for while she had thought she understood the magic arts and the limits of Pug’s talents, she saw she was wrong on both counts. After moments more, she became truly astonished, for
while her own knowledge of magic was not inconsequential, this was a feat beyond her capacity.