Читать книгу At the Gates of Darkness - Raymond E. Feist - Страница 7

LIGHTNING FLASHED ACROSS THE SKY.

Amirantha silently counted before the distant boom of thunder came. Looking at his old companion, Brandos, the Warlock of the Satumbria said, ‘The storm is moving away from us.’

The fighter nodded, remaining silent as he concentrated on cleaning his armour. He sat on a low stool near the massive fire burning in the ancient keep’s fireplace in the tiny room near the top of the only occupied tower.

Amirantha had been amused the first time he had visited the legendary castle of the Black Sorcerer. Now he simply found it old and drafty, stifling in its familiarity and a place locked in the grip of sorrow. After a year of living with these people, the Demon Master now understood their pain and anger. Whatever had passed for normalcy before the vicious attack on Villa Beata, the death of Miranda, her son Caleb and his wife Marie, along with the murder of a score of students, that normalcy had never returned.

One of the few brighter moments over that year had been Brandos’ return a month previous. He had travelled back from their home near the city of Maharta in Novindus, with his wife Samantha. But even that unrelentingly cheerful woman had only been able to lift the constant pall of gloom of this place momentarily.

Pug and his surviving son, Magnus, would come and go from the castle, and at times they shared interesting discussions. Amirantha was forced to concede he had broadened his understanding of demons and the demon realm more in the last year than he had in fifty years of solitary study. Often they possessed similar information, but the magicians had misinterpreted its significance, and he had frequently helped Pug identify misapprehensions in his knowledge.

But those times were growing more infrequent as Pug and Magnus were away for longer stretches dealing with matters pressing upon the Conclave. Amirantha and Brandos had not been formally invited to join their organization, but there was a tacit understanding that they were nevertheless a part of it, willing or not. Amirantha had no doubt that the magicians had the means to ensure he didn’t leave the island with the vital knowledge he possessed, so he considered his choice in the matter a moot point.

He stood and stretched, then made a small motion with his head to indicate that Brandos should look out of the small window. The old fighter put aside the leather jerkin he had been cleaning and walked over to his friend. He now looked ten years the magic user’s senior despite being the younger of the two. ‘What?’ he asked softly.

‘The rain is going to play out soon,’ answered the Warlock as he looked out at the late afternoon murk.

‘You look bored.’

‘Constantly,’ said the Warlock. ‘When I first came here, I did so with great anticipation, I thought that for the first time in my life I might have colleagues with whom I could share my knowledge as well as learn from; that I might find kindred souls, and I did at first, but lately…Now, who do I have instead?’

‘Children.’

Amirantha smiled. The magicians who remained here with Pug and his son, Magnus, were hardly children, yet with one word Brandos reminded Amirantha of his tendency to be dismissive of almost everyone he met, because of his long life and the perspective it offered. Yet, Pug was even older than him, as were others who came and went from this island. Miranda, Pug’s late wife, had been one of those, and her sudden death had served as a grim reminder to Amirantha that his long life and vast experience was not a defence against mortality.

‘Hardly,’ said Amirantha. ‘But most of them are still in the formative stages of their education, training, and power. None of them have been practicing their arts for more than twenty years.’

Brandos returned to his stool and took up the leather he had been cleaning. Applying a generous dollop of soap to his weapons belt, he said, ‘It makes you wonder where all the grown-ups went, doesn’t it?’

Amirantha continued to stare out of the window. ‘Indeed.’ He craned his neck slightly. ‘I’m ready to go outside.’

Brandos sighed, looking at his unfinished cleaning. ‘Well, a short walk. I could use a leg stretcher.’ Looking at his friend, he added, ‘Samantha says that lately I’ve been as irritated as a bear woken from an early hibernation, so maybe it’ll do us both good.’

‘We’ve had four days of rain.’

‘It’s an island in the middle of an ocean, Amirantha. It’s late autumn. There’s going to be a lot of rain.’

Muttering as he opened the door, Amirantha said, ‘It’s not an ocean. It’s a sea.’

Brandos shook his head but said nothing.

While Amirantha descended the stairs that led to the common room, he let out a long silent sigh. He knew his foster son understood that his argumentative impulse was only borne of frustration. After the destruction of the villa there had been a flurry of activity. The dead had been cremated, the wounded tended to, and then the long conferences between Pug and his most trusted advisors had drawn to a close. Those discussions had animated the Warlock in a way he rarely experienced; they had made him happy.

Continuing down the stairs, Amirantha realized that some of his current irritation was brought forth by the contrast between that initial period of reorganization on the island, and what he was now forced to endure here. It had changed one night, two months ago; Pug and Magnus had simply vanished, along with more than thirty of their most powerful colleagues. What had been a somewhat crowded keep was all of a sudden occupied by fewer than a dozen souls.

The month Brandos had travelled south to fetch Samantha had been the loneliest time in Amirantha’s life, and he was vexed to discover how lonely he could feel. He had strong feelings on matters concerning his own conduct and appearance, and the extent to which he had missed his foster son did not sit well with them. He had cursed himself for such a feeling more than once. It was not wise to grow close to anyone, especially as he was destined to outlive most people, assuming he survived the approaching struggle.

Reaching the floor of the tower, they entered the common room and were met with an unexpected presence.

‘Jim Dasher!’ said Amirantha in greeting.

Jim turned and rose from his seat before the warming fire and said, ‘You’re still here, Amirantha.’ He extended his hand and they shook.

He exchanged greetings with Brandos, as Amirantha said, ‘My lingering was at Pug’s request. He can be most persuasive.’

‘Ah,’ said Jim, nodding. ‘He wouldn’t let you leave.’

Brandos snorted, and Amirantha said, ‘He was insistent, but truth to tell, I have found many things here interesting.’

Glancing around the stark hall, Jim said, ‘Really?’

Amirantha smiled, ‘Well, not so much lately, but the first nine months were fascinating.’

He motioned for Jim to move with him towards the large doors. ‘My quarters are adequate, but hardly commodious, so I thought to step outside for a breath of air now that the rain has nearly stopped.’

Jim nodded, pulled his boots on, and fell into step behind him. ‘I just came in from the…’ Jim began, and then stopped himself. ‘Actually, I’m supposed to report directly to Pug on this matter.’ He looked hard at Amirantha, then said, ‘Still, much of what I’ve seen concerns you, too.’

‘Really?’ said the Warlock. He said no more, content to let the mysterious noble-turned-spy speak when he was ready.

As they reached the entrance to the yard, they paused, feeling the occasional rain-drop blown in by the freshening wind, then continued on, leaving the relative warmth of the keep entrance for the soggy ground of the marshalling yard. The rain had almost stopped and the wind was freshening a little; it already felt dryer.

‘So, you were about to say?’

Jim appeared annoyed. ‘I can never tell who knows what around here.’

Amirantha laughed. ‘I can tell you this much, my friend: all of us here have some power and ability, despite appearances to the contrary. Pug ensured all the vulnerable students were safely away within a day of—’

‘The attack,’ Jim finished.

‘I was going to say the death of his wife and son.’ Amirantha sighed. ‘Never having had children, I can only imagine what he’s going through. I had little experience of him to judge what he was like before that, scant hours really, but…’ He shrugged.

‘You sense he’s changed,’ said Jim. He looked to the west where somewhere behind the clouds the sun was lowering toward the horizon. ‘He knew I was engaged on important business, and yet he has left no apparent means of contacting him; that is most unlike Pug. It’s as if he’s…’ Jim shrugged.

‘Distracted?’ offered Amirantha.

‘More,’ said Jim. ‘He’s distant in a way that troubles me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Jim smiled slightly. ‘I don’t expect you to. I hardly know the man well, despite our tenuous kinship.’

‘Kinship?’

Jim said, ‘My great-grandmother was his foster daughter.’

Amirantha raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. ‘Tenuous by blood perhaps, but otherwise?’

‘We are not close. It is a long story, a family matter, and really not pertinent to the discussion at hand.’

Amirantha shrugged. ‘Perhaps, but we have ample time to fill. Enlighten me.’

Jim stared off into the darkening afternoon gloom and said, ‘While Pug and I may not be close, I do know a great deal about him; his role in Kingdom politics has been significant, since long before I was born.’

‘Obviously,’ agreed Amirantha. ‘Given the rank and status of those who have visited here since I was first made aware of the Conclave’s existence.’

‘So in my other duties to the Crown, I’ve been required to study a great deal of history, much of it penned by my own forbearers. I know Pug to be a man of strong convictions and one who pays attention to detail. He is not the sort to let important things slip by. Yet lately…’ Jim took a deep breath.

‘I assume you mean this,’ Amirantha said, indicating the cold, nearly empty castle around them with a wave of his hand.

‘I would have expected the man I knew, the one I studied, to have begun reconstruction on the villa at once, defiantly, to let his enemies know that they would not prevail.’

Amirantha nodded, pursing his lips in thought. He remained quiet for a moment, then asked, ‘How much time do you think his enemies spend studying him?’

Jim inclined his head slightly as if conceding the point.

‘Would it not seem, given what has happened here, that Pug knows he’s under a great deal of scrutiny? By such accounts, his enemies have been coming at him for years, in one form or another.’

‘Only if you assume that there is a single intelligence behind the series of assaults on this world going, yes. But that can only be an assumption.’

‘A better one,’ observed the Warlock, ‘than thinking that this land has been beset by a string of coincidental afflictions.

‘I may not be a master of magic on Pug’s scale, but I know enough about the other realms to suspect this is not a series of random occurrences.’ He paused, and Brandos recognized his expression. Amirantha was frustrated. ‘Over the last year I’ve heard frequent reference to things such as the Pantathian Serpent Priests, the Riftwar, the Great Uprising, and all the rest of it; enough of them to believe there is one agent behind all of this, one intelligence that has targeted this world, perhaps this very nation, even perhaps this island, for reasons known only to them; but irrespective of those reasons, the consequences for this entire world are bound to be dire.’

‘I agree,’ said Jim, ‘but explain your reasons.’

‘The Pantathians exist in the distant mountains to the west of my home, yet stories of them travel; they are a strange race, and their obliteration has been assumed numerous times, yet they linger.

‘They serve an ancient hate, a female idol they call “the mother of us all”. They kill without remorse any who refuse to serve her.

‘The Emerald Queen, whose army savaged my homeland before travelling half-way around the world to come to the Kingdom, was a demon in disguise.’ Suddenly Amirantha became animated. ‘Do you have any notion of how remarkable that is?’

Jim shook his head.

‘I will bore you with a long lecture some other time—’

‘And he will,’ interjected Brandos.

‘—But demon possession on that level, of a powerful magic user…It’s unknown to those of my calling.’

Jim said, ‘I still don’t see the connection.’

Amirantha seemed to fight for words. ‘I can’t explain. It’s as if I’m on the edge of understanding something important, but I’m not quite there yet. But it’s more than a feeling, Jim.’ He looked at Brandos and said, ‘Am I usually prone to leap to conclusions, Brandos?’

Brandos shrugged, then realized it wasn’t the time for more japes; it had been a serious question. ‘No, you’re occasionally too convinced of your own brilliance, but you are hardly rash.’ He paused, and then added to Jim. ‘He’s miscalculated and almost killed us several times, but at those times he was wrong, not impetuous. If he says he’s on the edge of understanding something huge, I’d believe him.’

‘Well, then,’ said Jim Dasher. ‘Is there any way I can help?’

‘Only if you can supply me with more information than I’ve been privy too lately.’

Jim was silent for a long moment as he stared out into the fading light.

Brandos cleared his throat and said, ‘I’m going to go inside; I will ask Samantha to rustle up something for you to eat. I imagine you’re hungry.’

Jim smiled. ‘Thank you, Brandos. That would be wonderful.’ After the old fighter had left, Jim said, ‘He should be a diplomat.’

Amirantha laughed. ‘Hardly, but he can be discreet at times.’

Jim paused, then said, ‘Very well. I expect that Pug will ask you to listen to my report anyway, as you are the demon expert.’

Amirantha nodded. ‘That elf, Gulamendis, is the only being I’ve met who knows as much, possibly more.’

Jim looked uncomfortable. ‘Those Star Elves make my skin itch. But they’re a matter for another time.’ Jim told the Warlock what he had witnessed in the distant Jal-Pur desert and when he was finished, he asked, ‘What do you think?’

Amirantha said, ‘I think we need to find a way to fetch Pug back here as soon as possible.’

‘Why?’

Heading back towards the keep, Amirantha said, ‘Come with me.’

He didn’t wait to see if Jim followed, but hurried inside. He glanced around the common room and asked the four younger magicians there, ‘Where is Jason?’

One of them pointed towards a door that led to a small room Pug occasionally used as a private office. Amirantha went to the door, knocked once and then opened it. Jason sat behind the tiny desk in the former storage room, squinting at a paper under the dim glow of a single candle. The tiny window above hardly admitted any light on the brightest of days.

‘Yes?’ he asked, apparently untroubled by the sudden entrance.

‘Pug,’ said Amirantha. ‘You need to summon him at once.’

Jason sat back. ‘And how am I supposed to do that, given that I have no idea where he is?’

Amirantha gave Jim a sidelong glance, then said, ‘I count Pug many things, but a fool is not one of them. Even if you don’t know where he is, I’m certain that he’s left you with the means to contact or summon him, should the need arise; and such a need has arisen.’

‘Really?’ asked the younger magician. He looked at Jim for corroboration.

‘I think so, as well,’ said Jim.

‘Very well,’ said Jason, rising from behind the small desk. ‘Come with me.’ He picked up the candleholder.

He led them out of the room and across the floor of the keep’s great hall. Brandos stood near his wife beside the large hearth where a pot of stew was simmering. The old fighter shot a questioning look at Amirantha, but with a nod of his head the Warlock indicated that he should stay where he was.

Jason led them up a flight of stairs to the upper floor of the main building and down a long hall that traversed the building to the tower opposite Amirantha’s residence. The single candle Jason held provided the only light on that floor. To the best of the Warlock’s knowledge, the tower stood empty, save for the enchantment on the top floor that caused the ominous blue light to glow whenever a ship came within sight of the castle.

They climbed a circular staircase to the second to last floor and Jason opened a door. Inside the room was bare, save for a construct of wood: two curving poles sat on top of a base that looked metallic. Amirantha glanced at Jason and said, ‘Tsurani?’

The young magician said, ‘In design, yes. Pug built it.’

‘What is it?’ asked Jim.

‘A rift gate,’ said Amirantha. ‘What our friends the Star Elves call a portal.’

Jason went to a small shelf near a shuttered window and pulled down a small cloth bag. He handed the candle to Jim, then knelt and carefully opened the bag. Reaching inside he pulled out an odd looking device: a square box covered with odd designs, strange levers and wheels.

‘This was created by an artificer of Tsurani descent, in LaMut. It’s a little ungainly compared to the old Tsurani devices.’ He shrugged as if what he was saying was simple trivia.

He then placed the device on the metallic base between the two poles, tripped one of the levers and stood back. ‘I have no knowledge or ability when it comes to rift magic,’ said the young magician. ‘It is difficult and outside of my interests. Only Magnus and a few others know much about it, although no one knows as much as Pug. He had this constructed should the need arise to summon him.’

Suddenly a whooshing sound filled the room, then a crackle of energy, followed by a shimmering between the poles. A grey void appeared, scintillating colours ran faintly over its surface, like oil refracting light on water.

‘Pug will receive the alert in a moment. He should appear as soon as he is able.’

‘Do you know where he went?’ asked Jim.

Jason said, ‘We only know what little he tells us.’

Long moments dragged by, then, suddenly a figure stepped through the rift. A short man with a closely trimmed beard, Pug still wore the ancient fashion of the Tsurani Great Ones: a simple black robe and cross-gartered sandals. ‘What is it?’ he asked as soon as he was through.

Jason inclined his head towards Jim and Amirantha, and it was the Warlock who spoke. ‘We’re being played for fools, Pug.’

Pug’s brow furrowed as he asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll explain,’ said Amirantha, ‘when Jim has told you what he saw a few days ago in the Jal-Pur, but it would help if we had another with us.’

‘Who?’

‘We need an expert on death.’

Pug looked slightly bemused. ‘I know just the fellow.’ He turned and held up his hand. The Warlock could feel shifting magic in the room, though Jim only felt his ‘bump of trouble’ start to act up. After a moment, Pug said, ‘You two, follow me.’ To Jason he said, ‘Put the toy away when we’re through.’ He stepped into the rift.

Jim turned and said, ‘Please send word to Captain Jenson to weigh anchor and make for Krondor. I’ll find him there.’ He turned and followed Pug.

Just before he entered, Amirantha turned to Jason and said, ‘You might also tell Samantha that Jim and I will be missing supper tonight.’ He then followed the other two men into the rift.