Rise of a Merchant Prince (50 page)

Pug hurried over. “Miranda!”

She turned and, upon seeing him, nearly flew to him, throwing her arms around his neck. “It's so good to see you again.”

“Calis?” asked Pug.

“He's been injured.”

“How badly?”

“Badly.”

Pug held her a moment, then said, “Tell me where to find him.”

“I can't. He wears a ward that protects him from magic sight. It shields him from the Pantathians, but it shields him from us as well.”

“Tell me about it,” said Pug.

Miranda reconstructed the events of the journey, the discovery, and the escape. “I left six men, those who survived the fights on the way out, in a frigid cave in the peaks,” she finished. “I pray they've gotten down from the mountains, but I fear they are all dead.”

Pug said, “Every one of us knew the risks.”

Miranda nodded, clutching his hand, but her face was drawn. “There is this,” she said, “and Calis judged it critical I bring it here.”

Pug looked at the key. “What is it?”

“A Pantathian thing. A key to free the Green Lady from the Lifestone,” said Miranda.

Pug looked dubious. He looked at the object for long minutes, placing his hand over it, but not quite touching it. He closed his eyes several times, and his lips moved. Once a tiny spark of energy leaped from the palm of his hand to the stone. At last he stood upright and said, “It's a key of some sort, that's certain, but to free the Valheru. . ..”

He looked at the assembled Spellweavers of Elvandar and addressed the eldest. “Tathar, what do you see?”

“This is something of those whose name may not
be spoken,” said the senior adviser to the Queen. “But there is an alien presence here as well, one of which I have no knowledge.”

Pug said, “The demon you spoke of, Miranda?”

“No. It was a nearly mindless thing, a killing device, pure and simple. I witnessed it at work, and while it was powerful and able to hold a dozen serpent priests at bay, it had cunning but no intelligence—at least not enough to have conceived this device. Whatever fashioned this thing was more than that simple being. Someone sent it through a rift into the heart of the Pantathian home to wreak havoc and destroy them, the same intention as ours.”

Pug said, “Once before, we dealt with duplicity; why not now?”

Tomas stood next to his friend and said, “What do you think?”

Pug stroked his beard. “As Murmandamus was but a false icon, to manipulate the moredhel to rise up and capture Sethanon, a Pantathian ruse, so might not this be a demon ruse to use the Pantathians to capture the Lifestone?”

“Toward what end?” asked Aglaranna.

Pug sighed. “Power. It's a powerful tool, no matter who wields it.”

“Weapon,” said Nakor. “Not a tool.”

“What of the Valheru?” asked Tomas. “Can some other force imagine they can do anything with the Lifestone, use it somehow, without having to deal with those trapped within the stone?”

Pug said, “The problem is that the only source of lore we have is what you remember, from the memory of AshenShugar.” Tomas possessed the memories of the ages-dead Dragon Lord whose armor he
had donned during the Riftwar. “But he alone of the Valheru had nothing to do with the creation of the Lifestone. He knew something of its nature, something of its purpose, that it was to be a weapon to destroy the new gods, but beyond that he was ignorant of its nature.”

“So you suspect that someone else, whoever is behind this demon's entering our world, may have a purpose for the Life-stone that hasn't occurred to us?” said Miranda. “Could they simply grab the Lifestone and use it as a weapon, the way a man might use a sword or crossbow?”

“That,” said Pug, “I do not know. It's clear, though, that someone is prepared to try.”

“What do we do?” asked Miranda.

Pug said, “We wait and study this thing, and see what they do next.”

Miranda said, “What about Calis?”

Tomas said, “We wait.”

Miranda said, “I want to return to look for him and the others.”

Pug said, “I know you do, but it would be foolish. They will have moved on, and whoever we face, whoever is left alive there will be on guard and looking for him as well. The second you pop into existence there, whatever magic is left will fall on you like a burning house.”

Nakor said, “I'll go.”

Pug turned and said, “What?”

“I will go,” he said slowly. “Get me to Krondor and I will get a ship and I will sail down to that place he left his boat and I will get him back.”

Pug said, “You're serious?”

Nakor said, “I told this one”—he motioned to
Sho Pi—“we had to go on a trip. This is just a bit farther than I thought.”

He grinned a moment, then the smile faded. In the most serious tones anyone had heard Nakor use, he said, “A great and terrible storm is coming, Pug. It is black and deadly and we don't understand yet what is behind it. Everyone here has a duty. I do, too: to find Calis and the others and bring back whatever they've learned after Miranda left.”

Aglaranna said, “Take from us whatever we can give if it will help you find our son.”

Nakor said, “Just get me to Krondor.”

Pug said, “Any particular place?”

Nakor thought a moment. “The court of the Prince will do.”

Pug nodded, then to Sho Pi he said, “You too?”

“I follow my master.”

Pug said, “Very well; join hands.”

They did, and Pug wove a spell, and suddenly they were gone.

Calis was unconscious and Erik carried him as he would a child. Bobby was barely conscious, and leaned on Alfred's shoulder. Of the thirty-seven men who had left the deep temple of the Pantathians, nine were alive. Three times they had encountered hostile forces and had to fight. At Calis's insistence, they had continued on. Despite his demand they leave him, they carried him.

Erik had found a deep fissure in the mountain, from which heat rose in shimmering waves. He had ordered the armor and other items thrown into the fissure, certain that even if the heat wasn't sufficient to destroy the Valheru artifacts, no mortal would be
able to retrieve them.

A few minutes after he had done this, the mountain shook with a terrible quake, and rocks fell, killing one man, injuring another. A howling wind shot through the tunnel they were in, knocking them down and deafening them for nearly an hour afterward, and a crackle of angry energy shot along the ceiling of the tunnel, as if mad lightning were seeking a way upward, back into the sky.

Erik judged that even when they attempted to destroy those magic items, it was wise not to let them come into contact. He hoped the violence heralded the destruction of the Valheru artifacts.

Then they had been attacked, first by a ragged band of Pantathians, who appeared to have been survivors of the demon's raid on one of the crèches, and twice they had been forced to confront the Saaur. The only reason they were alive was that those other forces were trying to get out of the mountains as desperately as Calis's company, and didn't pursue once combat was broken off.

But the attacks had forced them upward, higher into the mountains. Alfred came from the head of the line and said, “There's a cave ahead.”

They entered the cave and Erik looked out its mouth. Arrayed at his feet were the snow-covered peaks of the mountains as the late afternoon sun struck rose and golden highlights across the ridges. For a brief moment he thought that despite his pain and fear, beauty endured, but he was just too tired, hungry, and cold to enjoy it.

“Make camp,” he ordered and wondered how long they could survive. Men broke torches out of a backpack and used them to make a small fire.
Erik took inventory and judged they had enough food and things they could burn to keep them alive for five or six days. After that, no matter how damaged the men, they would have to start down from the snow line, trying to avoid detection from whatever Pantathians had escaped the destruction of the Dragon Lord artifacts, and find forage enough to keep them going.

He wondered if the horses were still in the valley, and if he could even find that valley. With both Calis and de Loungville hurt, Erik was now leading the survivors.

“Sergeant,” said Alfred. “Better come here.”

Erik worked past the men struggling to light a fire and knelt next to Alfred. De Loungville's eyes were open.

“Sergeant Major,” said Erik.

“How's the Captain?” asked de Loungville.

“Alive,” said Erik. He marveled at that simple fact. “Any lesser man would have been dead this morning. He's asleep.”

Erik looked at the pale complexion of his immediate superior and said, “How are you?”

De Loungville coughed and Erik could see blood fleck the saliva running from his mouth. “I'm dying,” said de Loungville in the same matter-of-fact tone in which he would have asked for another helping of supper. “Each breath is . . . harder.” He pointed to his side. “I think I have a piece of rib sticking me in the lung.” Then he closed his eyes in pain. “I know I have a piece of rib sticking me in the lung.”

Erik closed his eyes and fought back regret. If the man had been allowed to rest and if the bone fragments had been discovered, something might
have been done, but a fragment sticking him while he was being half carried, dragged, forced to walk . . . it must have been sawing into that lung for half the day. The pain must have been incredible. No wonder de Loungville had been unconscious most of the time.

“No regrets,” said de Loungville as if reading Erik's thoughts. He reached out and took Erik's tunic in his hand. Pulling him close, he said, “Keep him alive.”

Erik nodded. He didn't need to be told whom de Loungville spoke of. “I will.”

“If you don't, I'll come back and haunt you, I swear it.” He coughed and the pain was enough to cause his body to spasm, and his eyes filled with tears.

When he could speak again, he whispered, “You don't know, but I was the first. I was a soldier, and he saved me at Hamsa. He carried me for two days. He raised me up!” Tears gathered in Bobby's eyes; Erik couldn't tell if it was from pain or emotion. “He made me important.” De Loungville's voice grew even weaker. “I have no family, Erik. He is my father and brother. He is my son. Keep him—” De Loungville's body contorted in spasm, and he spewed blood across his chest. A great racking attempt to breathe brought only tears to his eyes and he pulled himself upright.

Erik wrapped his arms around Bobby de Loungville, holding him close, tightly so he wouldn't flop on the stones, but as gently as he would a child, and listened with tears running down his own cheeks as de Loungville tried to take a breath that would not come. Only a gurgling sound of lungs filling
with blond was heard, and then de Loungville went limp.

Erik held him closely for a long minute, letting the tears fall without shame. Then he gently lowered him to the stone. Alfred reached out and closed the now vacant eyes. Erik sat unable to think, until Alfred said, “I'll find a place where the scavengers won't get him, Sergeant.”

Erik nodded, and looked back to where Calis lay. Feeling the bitter cold, he began pulling Bobby's heavy cloak off his body. He said to a soldier near by, “Help me. It's what he would have done.”

They stripped the Sergeant Major's body and piled the clothing upon the unconscious half-elf. Erik looked at his color and wondered. If he survived the blast in the Pantathian hall, he might survive this cold, provided he could rest and heal.

Erik knew that the only possibility would be to rest a few days, and then cold and hunger would force them out of the cave and down the mountain. He turned as Alfred and another man picked up de Loungville's body and carried it out into the snow, and he returned his gaze to Calis's face.

“I promise, Bobby,” Erik said softly. “I'll keep him alive.”

A short time later, Alfred and the other soldier returned, and Alfred said, “There's a small ice cave over there.” He pointed slightly to the west. “We put him in there and piled some rocks over the entrance.” Sitting as close to the fire as he could, he said, “I don't think it ever thaws out up here. He'll be safe there, Sergeant.”

Erik nodded. His mind pleaded to fail into black despair, and he felt as if he needed nothing more than
to lie down and sleep. Instead he knew he had to plan and to work, for there were six other men, and one very special being who was more than a man, who were now dependent upon him to survive, and he had made a promise, a promise he would honor. He took a deep breath, pushed aside fatigue and failure, and turned his mind to getting everyone out of these mountains.

Roo looked up as a commotion broke out downstairs. Several voices were raised in protest. “What . . . ?”

“Nakor!” he said as the Isalani gambler hurried up the stairs, a step before three waiters trying to halt him.

“You can't go up there!” shouted Kurt, trying to overtake Nakor.

Roo stood up and said, “It's all right, Kurt. He's an old . . . business associate.”

“I tried to tell him,” said Nakor. He grinned at Kurt as the now disgruntled waiter turned and descended the stairs.

Roo said, “What brings you here?”

“You do. I just came from the palace, and Lord James tells me he can't give me a ship. I need a ship. He said you have ships, so I came here to get a ship from you.”

Roo laughed. “You want me to give you a ship? What for?”

Nakor said, “Calis, Erik, Bobby, the others, they're stuck down in Novindus. Someone has to go get them.”

Roo said, “What do you mean, ‘stuck'?”

Nakor said, “They went down to find and destroy
the Pantathians. I don't know if they destroyed them, but they hurt them badly. Calis sent Miranda to his father on some important business, and now they are all stuck down there with no way to get home. Lord James says he can't spare the ships and is going to keep them here to defend the city. So I thought I'd get one from you.”