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Aglaranna spoke. ‘The Spellweavers feel there is something alien about it.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Tomas, ‘and it is more than the Pantathian presence. There is something about this that is alien even to the Valheru.’
Martin said, ‘There is something I don’t understand.’
‘What, old friend?’ asked Calin.
‘In all of this, since the first Tsurani ship was wrecked on Crydee shores, to the fall of Sethanon, no one has asked one important question.’
‘Which is?’ asked Acaila.
‘Why have all these plots, all these plans, involved such chaos and destruction?’
Tomas said, ‘It is the nature of the Valheru.’
Martin said, ‘But we haven’t faced the Dragon Lords; we’ve faced only their agents, the Pantathians, as well as those who’ve served or were duped by them.’
Pug tried to dismiss Martin’s observation. ‘I think we’ve seen ample proof of the nature of the Pantathians.’
Martin said, ‘You mistake my meaning. What I’m saying is that in all of this, much is without apparent motive. We’ve assumed things, over the years, about why and how the Pantathians were acting in the fashion they have, but we don’t know why they’re behaving the way they are.’
Pug said, ‘I must be guilty of some oversight. I still don’t see your meaning.’
Miranda said, ‘Because you’re not paying attention.’ She stepped past Pug to stand before Martin. ‘You’ve got an idea.’ It wasn’t a question.
The old bowman nodded. Turning to Tathar, Acaila and Redtree, he said, ‘Feel free to correct anything I say that isn’t as it should be.’ To Pug and Tomas he said, ‘You have powers I cannot begin to imagine, but I have spent most of my life here, in the West, and I know the lore of the edhel as well as most men, I wager.’
‘Better than any human living,’ offered Tathar.
‘In the lore of the eledhel,’ said Martin, ‘some things are said about the Ancient Ones.’ He faced the Queen. ‘Most Gracious Lady, why is that usage preferred?’
The Queen considered the question a moment, then said, ‘Tradition. It was once believed that to use the name of the Valheru would be to call their attention.’
Miranda said, ‘A superstition?’
Martin looked to Tomas. ‘A superstition?’ he repeated.
Tomas said, ‘Much of the memories given to me of the ancient times is clouded, and even those that are well remembered are the memories of another being. We share much, but much is also unknown to me. The power was once given to the eldar to call us by speaking our names aloud. That may be where this belief originated.’
Martin, better than anyone except Pug, fully understood the strange duality of Tomas. He had known this half-alien man when Tomas and Pug had been boys at Castle Crydee, and had watched as the mystic armor of the long-dead Dragon Lord Ashen-Shugar had transformed Tomas into the strange being he was today, neither fully man nor Dragon Lord but something of both.
Tomas looked at the eldar and said, ‘Acaila?’
The old elf nodded. ‘The legends say such. We who were first among the slaves of the Valheru were able to contact them. This may have given rise to the practice of never speaking their names aloud.’
Miranda said, ‘What, then, is your point?’
Martin shrugged. ‘I’m not even sure I have one, but it seems to me that we’re making many assumptions here, and if any one of them is incorrect, we risk all by building our plans upon such mistaken beliefs.’ He stared into Miranda’s eyes. ‘You returned from the land on the other side of the world with artifacts, apparently made by the Ancient Ones, yet Pug and Calis both say they are “tainted,” not what they seem to be.’
Acaila again nodded. ‘They are not pure. We know enough of our former masters to recognize another hand has touched these items.’
‘Yet they sing to you?’ offered Pug.
‘Yes, they are much of the Valheru,’ offered Aglaranna.
Martin said, ‘So, then, whose is that other hand?’
‘The third player,’ said Pug. Looking at Miranda, he said, ‘The demon – I assume that’s who he meant.’
Martin nodded. ‘I think so, as well. What if the Pantathians are not tools of the Ancient Ones, but rather are tools of these demons?’
Tomas said, ‘That would explain a few things.’
‘Such as?’ asked Redtree, taking a sip of wine.
Pug said, ‘The Dread, for one.’
Acaila asked, ‘What of them?’
Tomas said, ‘They are an unlikely ally for my brethren.’ He used the term brethren for the Valheru when he was caught up in thinking as one.
‘And an even less likely tool,’ supplied Acaila. ‘What lore has passed down through the generations of the eldar always shows the Dread to be rivals to the Valheru on the occasions when they crossed paths.’
‘Yet,’ said Pug, ‘we didn’t consider the oddity at the time.’
With a faint smile, Tomas said, ‘We were a bit preoccupied.’
Pug’s brow furrowed and his expression was a question.
‘The Riftwar?’ Tomas added, with a laugh.
Pug returned the laugh. ‘I know what you mean, but what I mean is, why didn’t you think of this before?’
It was Tomas’s turn to look perplexed. ‘I don’t know. I just assumed the presence of the Dreadmaster in the City Forever and the Dreadlord at Sethanon were part of the Valheru attempt to distract us. I assumed somehow the Pantathians made contact with those creatures –’
Acaila interrupted. ‘You have memories and some knowledge, and great power, Tomas, but you lack experience. You are less than a century of age, yet you wear powers not gained in five times that span.’ He looked around the gathering. ‘We are as children when we speak of beings like the Valheru and Dreadlords. We are presuming when we attempt to understand them, or apprehend their purpose.’
Pug said, ‘I grant that, but we must try, for there are things that cannot be allowed to simply come to us; we must discover the purpose behind those who seek to take the Lifestone and end us all.’
Miranda said, ‘All of which brings us back to this: we know little and we need to find Macros the Black, and you still haven’t suggested where we start to look.’
Pug looked defeated. ‘I don’t know.’
Acaila said, ‘Perhaps you should cease looking for a place, and begin looking for a person.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Pug.
The ancient elf said, ‘You spoke of a sense of Macros being close by. Perhaps it is time to turn your focus on that sense, look for the presence, and let it lead you to the man.’
Pug said, ‘I don’t imagine how that is possible.’
‘You studied with me for a brief time, Pug. There are many things we have to teach you still. Let me instruct you and Miranda now.’
Pug looked at his companion, who nodded.
‘Do I need to come along?’ asked Tomas.
Acaila looked at the Warleader of Elvandar and shook his head. ‘You’ll know when it is time to leave, Tomas.’
To those of the Queen’s Court he said, ‘We will need to retire to the contemplation glade. Tathar, I would appreciate your help in this matter.’
The old elven adviser bowed to his Queen and said, ‘By your leave, lady?’
She nodded and the four of them left the Queen and Tomas’s private quarters. Down through the bowers that formed the elven city in the trees they moved, until they came to the ground, where large cookfires were brightly burning.
They moved silently away from the heart of Elvandar until at last they came to a tranquil glade. Here Tomas and Aglaranna had pledged their vows; here only those ceremonies most important to the elves were conducted.
Pug said, ‘We are honored.’
‘It is necessary,’ said Acaila. ‘Here our magic is most potent, and I suspect we need to use it to ensure your survival.’
‘What do you propose?’
‘Tomas spoke to me of your previous travels to the Halls of the Dead, through the entrance at the Necropolis of the Gods. While we have a different vision of the universe and its order, we elves understand your human vision enough to know that only Tomas’s raw strength allowed you to survive that journey.’
‘I awoke with my lungs burning and feeling as if I had been frozen to my bones,’ said Pug.
Acaila said, ‘You do not enter the realm of death while you are alive – not unless you make extensive preparations.’
Pug said, ‘Are we to return to Lims-Kragma’s halls?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Acaila. ‘That is why we must do what we are to do here. Time passes differently in other realms, that much we remember from our Master’s travels across the dimensions. You may be gone but hours, yet experience years. You may be gone months, yet experience minutes. We have no means to know which will be true. However long it takes, you are to leave your bodies for a while. Tathar and I will ensure your bodies are ready to receive you when you return. We shall keep you alive.’
Miranda said, ‘We appreciate the effort.’
Pug turned and saw her dubious expression. ‘You don’t have to come,’ he said.
‘I must,’ she said. ‘You’ll understand.’
‘When?’
‘Soon, I think,’ she answered.
‘What must we do?’ Pug asked Acaila.
‘Lie down,’ he answered.
They did as he bade and he said, ‘First, you must remember what I said about the passage of time. This is important, for you must hurry while you are in spirit form. If you linger but for an hour, months may pass here on Midkemia, and we know how quickly the enemy approaches. Second, your bodies will follow your spirits. When you return, you may not find yourselves here. If all goes as we hope, you will arrive where you need to be, and Tathar and I will know you were successful because you will awaken here or your bodies will vanish from our sight. Last, we cannot help you return. This is something you must accomplish by your own arts. We shall know if you fail only when your bodies die despite our efforts. Our arts can do only so much.
‘Now close your eyes and attempt to sleep. You will see visions. When they first come to you, they will be as dreams. But they will become more real to you as the moments pass. When I call to you, stand up.’
Pug and Miranda closed their eyes. Pug heard Acaila’s voice as the ancient eldar Spellweaver began chanting. There was something tantalizingly familiar about the words, but he could not quite recognize them. It was as if he heard the words of a song forgotten the moment he heard the words.
Soon he dreamed of Elvandar. He could see the faint glow of the magic-imbued trees above him, as if his eyes were open. But they appeared to him as brilliant shimmering colors, blues and greens, golds and whites, reds and oranges, and the sky was as black as the darkest tunnel under the mountains.
Pug ‘looked’ deep into that void and soon found specks of color appearing against the blackness. Time passed unnoticed as he saw the spirits of stars dance across the heavens. A strange, distant keening sound intruded on his awareness, also familiar yet unrecognized.
Time continued to slip by, and Pug was lost in an awareness unlike anything he had ever experienced. The texture of the universe lay open to him, not the outer shapes, or even the illusions of matter and time, but the very fabric of reality. He wondered if this was the ‘stuff’ Nakor spoke of, the fundamental matter of all that was.
His mind started to soar, to voyage through the distances, and he discovered he could move at will from place to place. Yet he sensed he still lay in the grove. Something about his body had changed, and he felt alien powers and odd sensations course through him.
Not since his time on the Tower of Testing, high above the Assembly on the distant world of Kelewan, had he felt so connected to the world around him. Thinking of that time in his life, he turned and looked ‘down’ at Midkemia.
Suddenly he floated miles above the highest peaks of the Kingdom, with seas and coastlines looking like maps to his perception. But rather than flat lifeless things, the very land and seas were living things, pulsing with power and beauty.
He shifted his perceptions and saw every fish swimming in the sea. How very much like being a god! he thought.
‘Pug.’ A distant call and one that almost caused him to lose his perception.
‘Find Macros,’ came the instruction. ‘And ’ware the time!’
He glanced one way and another, and every being on the world had a signature of energy, a line of force that started at Sethanon, at the Lifestone, which bound all living things in Midkemia together. As time passed, lines vanished as beings died, and new lines sprouted from it as births occurred. It looked like nothing so much as an emerald fountain of pulsing energy, life incarnate, and it took Pug’s breath away.
Among the myriad strands he sought one, one with a familiar quality to it. He lost track of time, and did not know if hours or years passed, yet eventually he saw something familiar.
The Sorcerer! he thought as he saw a particular pulsing line of force. How strong and distinct it was, he thought as he focused. But it was odd. It existed in two places at the same time.
‘Arise!’ came the spoken command, and Pug stood up.
He saw Acaila and Tathar, but they looked alien to him, beings of coarse matter and finite energy, while he was a creature of enhanced perception and unlimited power. He glanced at Miranda and saw a being of stunning beauty.
She wore no clothing and revealed no hint of sex. Where he should have seen breast and hips, as familiar to him as his own body, he saw only smoothness, featureless and without distinguishing marks. Her face was an oval, with a pair of burning lights where eyes should be. She had no nose. A single slit where her mouth should have been moved, but rather than his hearing her voice, her mind touched his.
‘Pug?’ Miranda asked.
‘Yes,’ he answered.
‘Do I look as odd to you as you do to me?’ she said.
‘You look stunning,’ he replied.
Suddenly he was seeing himself through her eyes. He was as featureless as she. They were of like height and they both existed with a shimmer of energy illuminating them from within. Neither had hair or sexual organs, teeth or fingernails.
From a great distance they heard Acaila’s voice. ‘What you see are your true selves. Look down.’
They did, and saw their own bodies lying on the grass, as if asleep.
‘Hurry, now,’ said Acaila. ‘Follow the thread that leads you to Macros, for the longer you are out of your bodies, the harder it will be for you to return. We will keep you alive, and when it comes time to return, you only have to think of it. Your bodies will appear wherever you need them to be,’ he repeated. ‘May your gods protect you.’
Pug sent, ‘We understand.’ He said to Miranda, ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Where do we go?’
With a thought he made the thread appear to her, and he said, ‘We follow that!’
‘Where does it lead?’ she asked as he reached out with his mind and ‘took her hand’ leading her along the thread’s path.
‘Don’t you sense it?’ he asked. ‘It is going to the one place I should have expected it to lead us. It’s taking us to the Celestial City. We travel to the home of the gods!’
• Chapter Six • Infiltration
Calis pointed.
Erik nodded, then signaled for his squad to move out behind him. The men duck-walked in the gully, keeping their heads below the rim of the wash through which they were approaching their opposition.
Erik was both sick to death of this drilling and frantic that it might not be enough. In the six months since he had taken the first band of soldiers into the mountains, he had judged he had a solid twelve hundred soldiers under his command, reliable men who would survive on their own for as long as possible.
There were another six hundred men who were close, needing a bit more training.
The band he led now were those he feared would never become the soldiers needed to win this coming war.
Alfred tapped him on the shoulder and Erik turned. The corporal pointed to a man on the other side of the gully, who was not walking as instructed, letting the discomfort in his knees drive him to recklessness.
Erik nodded, and Alfred nearly dove to get to the man and pull him to the floor of the gully. Sharp rocks cut both men, but Alfred’s hand clamped hard over the soldier’s mouth, preventing his cry from being heard by the nearby sentries. Erik could hear his corporal’s whisper: ‘Now, Davy, your sore knees just got you and your comrades killed.’
A distant voice told Erik the exercise was a failure, and as if reading Erik’s mind, Calis stood and said, ‘This is done.’
Erik and the others rose and Alfred jerked the soldier named Davy to his feet with one powerful tug. Now his voice was unleashed in all its volume and fury. ‘You rock-headed layabout! You sorry excuse for a water boy! You’ll regret the day your father looked at your mother when I’m done with you.’
Calis heard a challenge, turned, and called out the password. He motioned to Erik, and the Sergeant Major and his Captain walked away from the men. Calis said, ‘Corporal, start them back to camp.’
Alfred shouted, ‘You heard the Captain! Back to camp! Quick march!’
The soldiers set out at a ragged run, and the Corporal harried them every step of the way.
Calis watched in silence until the men were out of sight; then he said, ‘We have a problem.’
Erik nodded. The sun was setting in the west and he said, ‘Each day about this time, I feel as if we’ve lost another step. We’re never going to get six thousand men trained in time.’
‘I know,’ said Calis.
Erik looked at his Captain and sought any hint of his mood. In the years he had spent with Calis he had come no closer to being able to read him than he had the first day they had met. He was an enigma to Erik, as unreadable as one of those foreign texts William kept in his library. Calis smiled. ‘That’s not the problem. Don’t worry. We’ll have our six thousand men in the field when the time comes. They won’t be as well trained as either of us would like, but the core will be solid, and that backbone of really fine soldiers will help keep the others alive.’ He studied his young Sergeant Major’s face for a while, then said, ‘You forget that the one thing you can’t teach is the seasoning you get in combat. Some of the men you judge fit will get themselves killed in the first few minutes, while some you would wager everything you have will perish will survive, even flourish in the midst of the carnage.’
His smile vanished. ‘No, the problem I speak of is we’ve been infiltrated.’
Erik said, ‘Infiltrated? A spy?’
‘Several, I suspect. It’s a hunch, nothing more. Those we face are occasionally heavy-handed, but they’re never stupid.’
Erik thought it time to broach his own unease. ‘Is that why the Prince’s guards are ensuring no one sees the Royal Engineers building supply roads along the rear of Nightmare Ridge?’
‘Nightmare Ridge?’ asked Calis. His expression was clear to Erik. He wasn’t being disingenuous, he didn’t recognize the name.
‘That’s what we call it in Ravensburg,’ answered Erik. ‘It’s probably called something else up north.’ He glanced around. ‘I ran a company up into the north and took them farther than usual. We ran into a company of Pathfinders and a bunch of Prince Patrick’s Household Guards. I could hear the sound of tools coming from the other side of the valley we entered, echoing from behind the ridge: trees being felled, anvils striking steel, and spikes being driven into rock. The Prince’s corps of engineers is building a road. That ridge runs all the way from the Teeth of the World down through Darkmoor, and halfway to Kesh. It’s almost impossible to cross anywhere there isn’t a road, and more than one traveler’s been found dead up there. That’s why we call it Nightmare Ridge. You get lost anywhere up there in cold weather, you’re a dead man.’
Calis nodded. ‘That’s the place. You weren’t supposed to be there, Erik. Captain Subai was not pleased, nor was Prince Patrick. But yes, that’s why no one is permitted to go there, in case the enemy does have agents snooping around outside Krondor.’
Erik blurted, ‘You’re going to abandon the city.’
Calis sighed. ‘I wish it were that simple.’ He was silent as he watched the sunset. Brilliant orange and pink faced by black clouds far away, over the sea, gave an unreal quality to the approaching evening, as if nothing that beautiful should exist in the same world as the coming evil.
Calis looked at Erik. ‘We have several plans in place. You need worry only about the disposition of soldiers under your command. You’ll be told where to take them and what your options are. Once you are in the mountains with your soldiers, you’ll have to make the decisions, Erik. You’ll have to judge what is best for both your men and the overall campaign. A great deal will ride on your judgment.
‘But until the Prince and Knight-Marshal are ready to brief you on the overall operation, I will not give you details you might blurt out to the wrong person.’
‘The infiltrators?’
‘That, or if you’re abducted and some agent of the Pantathians doses you with some potion to make you speak, or if they have mind readers like the Lady Gamina in their employ. We have no idea what might happen. That’s why whatever you hear you share with no man, and you’re only to be told what you need to know.’
Erik nodded. ‘I’m worried …’
‘About the girl?’
Erik was surprised. ‘You know about that?’
Calis motioned they should start walking after the departing soldiers, and said, ‘What sort of Captain would I be if I didn’t know about my Sergeant Major’s life outside the barracks?’
Erik had no answer for that. He said, ‘Of course I’m worried about Kitty. I’m worried about Roo and his family, too. I’m worried about everybody.’
‘Now you’re starting to sound like Bobby, though he would never have voiced it that way.’ Calis smiled. ‘He’d have said, “We’ve got too damn much work to do and half the time needed, and a bunch of incompetent fools doing it.”’
Erik laughed. ‘That sounds like him.’
‘I miss him, Erik. I know you do, as well, but Bobby was one of the first I picked. The first of my “desperate men.”’
Erik said, ‘I thought you fetched him from the Border Barons to work for you.’
Calis laughed. ‘Bobby would have put it that way. He failed to mention he was going to be hanged for having killed another soldier in a brawl. I had to beat him a half-dozen times to get him to control his temper.’
‘Beat him?’ asked Erik, negotiating his way over a large rock, as they followed the gully downward.
‘I told him each time he lost his temper I’d strip to the waist and we’d have at it. If he was standing and I was not, he was a free man. It took that fool six beatings before he finally realized I was a great deal stronger than I look.’
Erik knew that was the truth. The Captain’s father was a man called Tomas, some sort of lord or another up in the north. By all rumors, his mother was the Elf Queen. But whatever the truth of his parentage, Calis’s strength was unmatched by that of any man Erik had run across. The former smith from Ravensburg had been the strongest man in his village, and of all those soldiers who had served with him on his first voyage to Novindus, only the huge man named Biggo was his equal. But Calis had done things that Erik could only judge impossible. He had once seen the Captain easily pick up a wagon so Erik could replace the wheel, when Erik knew from experience he would have needed the help of at least two other men to duplicate the feat.
Considering Bobby de Loungville’s nature, Erik said, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t have to kill him.’
Calis laughed. ‘I came close, twice. Bobby wasn’t a man to take defeat easily. When I came back from that first trip to Novindus, and we came limping into Krondor harbor like whipped hounds, Prince Arutha called me the “Eagle” because of the banner on our ship.’ Erik nodded. He knew as well as any man that in that distant land Calis played the part of a mercenary captain, and his company was called the Crimson Eagles. ‘Bobby elected to call himself the Dog of Krondor. Prince Arutha seemed less than pleased, but said nothing.’