Читать книгу The Complete Demonwar Saga 2-Book Collection - Raymond E. Feist - Страница 14

PUG CAST HIS SPELL.

The assembled students watched in rapt attention as a column of energy rose above the master sorcerer, speeding upwards unseen. They could still sense the energy, and some, more attuned to the magic arts than others, could almost feel it radiating on their skin. He was teaching them a basic skill, one usually left to those whose time was less valuable to the Conclave of Shadows, but Pug felt the need to be in the classroom from time to time. The lesson was a simple one: how to feel the presence of magic, and locate it when it was employed nearby. Over the years he had been astonished to discover that many magicians and magical clerics didn’t realize a fireball had been cast until the flames had singed their hair.

Young men and women from many nations, and a few from alien worlds, had gathered here to study under the tutelage of the greatest practitioner of the arcane arts on Midkemia. Today’s lesson was on perception and reaction to changes in magic, and the first step was mastering the ability to recognize when magic was being deployed. The skill might seem rudimentary to most of the students, but the three people who observed the lesson from a short distance away knew better: it was the first step in learning how to react to hostile magic; instant recognition of changing magic often kept a magician alive.

Magnus turned to his brother and mother and said, ‘He seems to be fine.’

Miranda shook her head. ‘Seems is the operative word. It’s another bout of melancholia.’

‘Nakor?’ asked Caleb.

Miranda nodded. ‘I don’t know; maybe. It’s been almost ten years, and he hides it well, but those black moods come upon him still.’

Caleb, Pug and Miranda’s younger son, said, ‘Marie notices it, too.’ His wife was a perceptive woman and in the ten years since she had arrived on Sorcerer’s Island, had become something of the mistress of the household, a position Miranda was more than happy to cede to her, as she had her magical studies to conduct.

Magnus said, ‘I was there, and no one could have done more than Father did. Nakor chose his fate.’ Quietly, he added, ‘As much as any of us can choose.’

Miranda’s dark eyes showed a mixture of distress for her husband’s pain, and irritation, an expression both sons knew well. A tender-hearted woman at times, but she could also be as impatient as a child.

‘Nakor?’ asked Caleb again.

‘He misses him,’ agreed Miranda. ‘More than he’d like anyone to know. That bandy-legged little vagabond had a unique mind and even when I was furious with him he could make me laugh.’ She paused and turned away, motioning for her sons to follow her down the hill and back towards the main villa. ‘During the ten years since his death, your father has uttered Nakor’s name once or twice a month. But he has mentioned him half a dozen times in the last week. Something is on his mind, something new and troubling.’

Villa Beata, ‘the beautiful home’, had grown over the years. The large square house still commanded the heart of the vale in which it nestled, but along the ridge, other buildings had been constructed, providing housing and study space for the students whom Pug had recruited. Miranda, Caleb and Magnus made their way down a long winding path towards what had once been the perimeter garden on the original property; it was now flanked on the north and south by barracks-like student housing.

Magnus said, ‘If Father is anticipating some new trouble, he’s not mentioned it to me or anyone else, as far as I can tell.’

Caleb said, ‘I’ve seen or heard nothing to suggest that our present tranquillity is in peril.’

Miranda said, ‘There’s always peril. Sometimes we simply don’t see it coming.’

Caleb smiled and said nothing. He had been given the responsibility, along with his brother and a pair of younger magicians, of coordinating the intelligence gathered by the Conclave of Shadows’ numerous agents, many of whom were placed in high offices throughout the major nations of Midkemia. There were reports of political rumblings in the Kingdom of the Isles, but they were so frequent that it wasn’t seen as a major concern. Kesh was unusually tranquil, and Roldem’s nobility continued to sit comfortably on their island, secure in their own sense of superiority.

They reached the villa and once inside, walked to the family’s quarters, now occupied only by Pug and Miranda since their sons had grown to manhood. Caleb lived nearby with his wife in a small house that Miranda had built for them when her son had first brought Marie to Sorcerer’s Island. Magnus still lived in the heart of the students’ wing on the large estate, to be on hand should the need arise when his father was absent.

Sitting in her favourite chair, a large wooden one with upholstered seat and back, Miranda said, ‘Something more than Nakor’s death has been haunting your father for years.’ She glanced at her ‘boys’; only Caleb looked his age, now well into his middle years, while Magnus still looked much as he had in his twenties, despite his snow-white hair and seniority. Neither son betrayed any hint that they knew of what she spoke.

‘No one knows your father like I do,’ said Miranda. ‘Yes, he’s a man of deep feelings and convictions, as well you both know.’ She pointed first at Magnus then at Caleb. ‘But what you don’t know is what happened to him before you were born, during the war with the Emerald Queen’s army. He nearly died when the demon’s magic took him by surprise.’ She looked away as she remembered. ‘I can’t persuade him to tell me much about that time, he lay near death and every healer we could find worked frantically to save him, but something in him changed after that.

‘Nakor’s death …’ She stopped and said, ‘Of course he was saddened by it, but this is not …’ Again she paused, choosing her words carefully. ‘It’s more than wistful regret. Your father is the most complex man I’ve known. He sees things, considers options, and makes choices before most men even understand what it is they are seeing. ‘His mind works in ways that I can’t begin to fathom. Oh, most of the magic disciplines—’ she glanced at Magnus, ‘—I recognize, but beyond that.…’

She caught her breath, realizing that she was no closer to sharing her concerns than she had been minutes before. It was Caleb who said, ‘He’s waiting for the other boot.’

Magnus said, ‘What?’

‘The old expression, “waiting for the other boot to drop”.’ Still his older brother didn’t seem to understand. ‘Comes from you wearing sandals, I suppose,’ said Caleb with a smile. ‘When you’re at an inn and someone in the room above kicks off a boot before going to bed, you hear the first one hit the floor and you wait until you hear the second before your mind can return fully to what it was doing before.’

Magnus nodded. ‘He does appear distracted from time to time.’

‘Preoccupied,’ said his mother. ‘He just hides it well from everyone, but me.’

‘Perhaps Father is anticipating something?’ Magnus said. He glanced out the window at the warm afternoon sun, ‘Well, as you said, he masks it well.’

Caleb shrugged at his mother. ‘Why don’t you ask him what he expects?’

‘You think I haven’t?’ She stood up and walked over to her younger son. Looking into his eyes, she said, ‘He is adroit at not telling me what he doesn’t want me to know.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I always tell him to mind his own affairs and leave me alone. He’s more diplomatic in his avoidance.’ With an aggravated sound she added, ‘I hate it when he does that!’

Her sons laughed. Their parents loved one another deeply, but both Magnus and Caleb were aware that their parents’ marriage was occasionally tense. Their mother was a strong-willed woman and older than her husband, though when both parents were over a century, the age difference became mostly academic. Still, they both knew that something else was bothering their father.

Pug had assumed a huge amount of responsibility over the years since he had returned to Midkemia from his life on the now extinct world of Kelewan. First he had ended the terrible war between the Tsurani and the Kingdom of the Isles, and then he had founded the colony of magicians called Stardock.

Magnus said, ‘He has been visiting Stardock more often than usual.’

When Stardock had become rife with political intrigue, he had quietly started his school here on Sorcerer’s Isle. The outside world considered the island a damned place, and ships from all nations gave it a wide berth; an attitude that Pug encouraged with deftly planted rumours and the occasional frightening display should a ship venture too close.

Pug was close to achieving his dream, creating the place he originally intended Stardock to be: an academy where magicians could study and practise their arts, exchange information and leave a legacy of knowledge to be passed on to future generations of magic users. This was the mandate he wished to leave as his personal legacy; Pug wished to perfect a haven for those who wished to be free of petty politics, the bigotry of superstition, a place where students were inculcated with the desire to serve and benefit others, rather than use their talents for personal aggrandizement, gain, or dominion.

Miranda said, ‘I count that as another sign he’s worried. He rarely bothers to visit them, unless he’s summoned. He’s fairly pleased with the current political situation.’

‘He had good reason,’ said Caleb. ‘That envoy from the Kingdom who offered some nonsense … What was it?’

‘As soon as Father learned that it once again involved us pledging fealty to the Kingdom, he rejected it,’ reminded Magnus.

Miranda nodded. ‘He wouldn’t even hear the man out. He didn’t tell me, the last time I was at Stardock one of the students took evil delight in explaining how the envoy from the Kingdom suddenly found himself in the lake, about a hundred yards off the docks at Landreth.’

Caleb laughed. ‘I assume the poor man could swim, else we’d be at war with the Kingdom by now. Drowning their envoys doesn’t sit at all well with kings.’

Magnus said, ‘They would never start an open war with Stardock. They still fear magic too much, and with that many spell casters …’ He left the thought unfinished.

Miranda said, ‘The King’s men are often stupid, but rarely are they suicidal.’

Pug had learned some bitter lessons from the Academy. He had eventually bequeathed daily control of Stardock to those who lived there, angering the Kingdom of the Isles who had considered the island in the middle of the Great Star Lake to be one of their minor holdings, though its elevation to the status of Duchy simply served their own political ends.

To the south, the Empire of Great Kesh had sought to ensure their interests were served by persuading many young practitioners of magic to seek refuge at Stardock, while retaining their loyalty to the Empire. The two brothers, Watoom and Korsh, had almost succeeded in convincing the majority of students that Kesh’s claim to the island was legitimate. Only Nakor’s time at the Academy, and his formation of a third faction, which he had mirthfully called the Blue Riders to honour the gift of a beautiful horse and blue cloak from the Empress herself, restored a precarious balance and stopped the brothers, who Pug was now convinced long after their deaths had been Imperial agents.

He had visited the Academy occasionally, always with two aims in mind; first he wished everyone there to remember he still held official title to the island, even though he had renounced his claim to Kingdom nobility. Secondly, he wished to maintain contact with a handful of Conclave agents and keep an eye on whatever nonsense the ruling triumvirate – the current leaders of the three factions – were up to.

The ‘Hands of Korsh’ were the most conservative group, but they were as opposed to becoming a province of the Empire as they were of joining the Kingdom. But they also perceived all non-magic users, and anyone outside their faction as possible enemies.

‘The Wand of Watoom’ were more moderate in their policies towards general outsiders, but decidedly pro-Keshian in their world-view.

The Blue Riders continued to delight Pug, for their leadership always seemed to reflect Nakor’s slightly mad and manic views on magic. Many of them had adopted his notion that there really wasn’t any magic, but only some mystical “stuff” that could be manipulated by anyone once they managed to achieve a certain level of familiarity with it.

They were the group almost entirely responsible for recruiting new students, while the more conservative factions waited until someone who met their more rigid standards of acceptance arrived at Stardock. Pug was always grateful for their closed-mindedness, for it allowed the Blue Riders more opportunity to keep the island’s population in balance.

Caleb said, ‘If Father’s spending more time there, something is undoubtedly wrong. Either he’s alerting our agents to be on the watch for something, or they’ve told him that something’s already happening.’

Magnus said, ‘No, he would have said something to one or all of us.’ He glanced out of the window, as the breeze rustled the leaves of the old trees sheltering the building from the afternoon heat. ‘No, it’s something else.’

The mother and her two sons were silent as they pondered what could be disturbing Pug so deeply that despite his attempts to disguise his distress, they all could see it. Miranda finally stood and said, ‘Well, we can be certain of one thing: when your father judges it time to share his worries, he will be totally forthright, and whatever he’s worried about will be a very big problem.’

She left the room and the brothers exchanged nods, for they knew she was probably making an understatement. Whatever worried their father was likely to be more approaching disaster than problem.

Pug dismissed his class and gathered up the few items he had used to demonstrate the lessons of the day. He knew his family had been observing them for a while, and was nearly certain of the reason. He had attempted to conceal some grave concerns from them, but had obviously failed. Still, today he was reluctant to assume things worse than he already knew them to be; today he would finally come to grips with the cause of his worries: a summons from the Oracle of Aal.

But it was more than the missive, it was also the way in which it had arrived; one moment Pug had been alone in his study, writing notes late into the night, and the next a figure in a white robe had appeared at his side. As soon as he saw the man, he had recognized him as one of the consorts or companions of the Oracle. Conventional human concepts were only an approximation. For the Aal, gender was a function of legacy, their bodies were human, so their physical makeup was familiar, yet their spirits and minds were alien. Pug had felt cautious at first, for the Oracle had taken the dying body of a great dragon, her golden scales fused with a riot of gemstones welded by furious magic unleashed in the heat of battle, as the dragon and its rider, Tomas, heir to the power of the Valheru, had confronted the most dangerous of creatures: a Dread Lord.

That battle had been fought over a century before, yet for Pug it might as well have been yesterday. He could still conjure vivid memories of the chaos that had surrounded him, of Macros the Black, and the two Tsurani magicians who had joined him in trying to stem the return of the assembled host of the Valheru, the Dragon Lords, to Midkemia.

That battle beneath the long-abandoned city of Sethanon had been but the first of many encounters with agents of the Nameless One, Nalar, God of Evil; the agent behind the Chaos Wars and the subsequent battles waged by Pug and his allies.

He paused to gather his thoughts. The strangest thing about the summons wasn’t its personal delivery, but that he hadn’t been asked to come at once. He had been summoned to appear before the Oracle upon a date nearly a month away. And now the day was upon him.

Pug considered letting Miranda know what was occurring, but for some reason he felt it best to hear the Oracle first, then deal with his wife’s moods. She would certainly wish to come with him, but neither her name, nor Magnus’s had been mentioned.

Besides, his previous encounters with the Oracle had tended to be short, the longest lasting barely half an hour. He would be back before the evening meal.

For ten years he had been practising the art of transporting himself without the use of the Tsurani orbs. They were becoming increasingly rare as the years passed since the destruction of Kelewan. A few artificers from Kelewan had immigrated to LaMut, but most who survived the destruction of their home planet now lived on New Kelewan.

Though he would never admit it, Pug hated the fact that his wife was able to transport herself effortlessly to places she barely knew, while he had to muster all of his concentration.

Still, the chamber of the Oracle was unique and he had been there many times over the years. It should present him little difficulty to move there now. And now was the time to go.

Pug closed his eyes and willed himself to the chamber; as he appeared, he heard the voice of the Oracle within his mind.

Welcome, sorcerer. Your timing is perfect.

As Pug turned to regard the majesty of the gem-encrusted great golden dragon, a screech loud enough to make her companions cover their ears tore through the room.

Something appeared between Pug and the Oracle, a shadowy form at first, which rapidly resolved into a figure. A demon, at least twenty feet in height, stood motionless for an instant, disoriented by the magic that had brought it to this place. But its confusion lasted but a moment. It quickly surveyed the room, judging the little figures around it as scant risk, then it turned its attention to the Oracle.

With a bellow that echoed in the vast chamber, the demon launched itself at the great golden dragon.