A Darkness at Sethanon (57 page)

He halted before
a door. “This is a necessary shortcut, across a planet, which
will more than halve our travel time to Midkemia. The distance
between here and the next gate is less than a hundred yards, but be
advised: this world’s atmosphere is deadly. Hold your breath
for here magic has no meaning and you may not protect yourself with
arts.” He breathed heavily for a moment, then with a great
intake of breath, dashed through the door.

Tomas came next,
then Pug, then Ryath. Pug squinted and almost exhaled as burning
fumes assaulted his eyes and sudden, unexpected weight seemed to pull
him down. They were sprinting across a barren plain of purple and red
rocks, while overhead the air hung heavy with grey haze in orange
skies. The earth trembled, and giant clouds of black smoke and gases
were spewed heavenward by the bleeding mountains, glowing with
reflecting orange light from volcanoes. The stuff of the world flowed
down the sides of those peaks and the air hung heavy with oppressive
heat. Macros pointed and they ran into a rock face, which returned
them to the Hall.

Macros had been
silent for hours, lost in thought. He pulled up short, coming out of
his reverie, as he halted before a portal. “We must cut across
this world. It should be pleasant.”

He led them
through a gate into a lovely green glade. Through trees they could
hear the pounding of waves on the rocks and smell the tang of sea
salt. Macros led them along a bluff overlooking a magnificent view of
an ocean.

Pug studied the
trees about them, finding them similar to those upon Midkemia. “This
is much like Crydee.”

“Warmer,”
said Macros, inhaling the fragrance of the ocean. “It’s a
lovely world, though no one lives upon it.” With a sad look in
his eyes, he said, “Perhaps someday I’ll retire here.”
He shook off the reflective mood. “Pug, we are close to our own
era, but still slightly out of phase.” He glanced about. “I
think it a year or so before your birth. We need a short burst of
temporal acceleration.”

Pug closed his
eyes and began a long spell, which had no discernible effect, save
that shadows began moving rapidly across the ground as the sun
hurried its course across the sky. They were quickly plunged into
darkness as night descended, then dawn followed. The pace of time’s
passage increased, as day and night flickered, then blurred into an
odd grey light.

Pug paused and
said, “We must wait.” They all settled in, for the first
time apprehending the loveliness of the world about them. The mundane
beauty provided a benchmark against which to measure all the strange
and marvellous places they had visited. Tomas seemed deeply troubled.
“All that I have witnessed makes me wonder at the scope of what
we are confronting.” He was silent for a time. “The
universes are . . . such imponderable, immense things.” He
studied Macros. “What fate befalls this universe, if one little
planet succumbs to the Valheru? Did my brethren not rule there
before?”

Macros regarded
Tomas with an expression of deep concern. “True, but you’ve
grown either fearful or more cynical. Neither will serve us.”
He looked hard at Tomas, seeing the deep doubt in the eyes of the
human turned Valheru. At last he nodded and said, “The nature
of the universe changed after the Chaos Wars; the coming of the gods
heralded a new system of things - a complex, ordered system - where
before only the prime rules of Order and Chaos had existed. The
Valheru have no place in the present scheme of things. It would have
been easier to bring Ashen-Shugar forward in time than to undertake
what was required. I needed his power, but I also needed a mind
behind that power that would serve our cause. Without the time link
between him and Tomas, Ashen-Shugar would have been one with his
brethren. Even with that link, Ashen-Shugar would have been beyond
anyone’s control.”

Tomas
remembered. “No one can imagine the depth of the madness I
battled during the war with the Tsurani. It was a close thing.”
His voice remained calm, but there was a note of pain in it as he
spoke. “I became a murderer. I slaughtered the helpless. Martin
was driven to the brink of killing me, so savage had I become.”
Then he added, “And I had come to but a tenth part of my power
then. On the day I regained my . . . sanity, Martin could have sent
his cloth-yard shaft through my heart.” He pointed at a rock a
few feet away and made a gripping motion with his hand. The rock
crumbled to dust as if Tomas had squeezed it. “Had my powers
then been as they are now I could have killed Martin before he could
have released the arrow - by an act of will.”

Macros nodded.
“You can see what the risks were, Pug. Even one Valheru alone
would be almost as great a danger as the Dragon Host; he would be a
power unrestrained in the cosmos.” His tone held no
reassurance. “There is no single being, save the gods, who
could oppose him.” Macros smiled slightly. “Except
myself, of course, but even at my full powers, I could only survive a
battle with them, not vanquish them. Without my powers . . .”
He let the rest go unsaid.

“Then,”
said Pug, “why haven’t the gods acted?”

Macros laughed,
a bitter sound, and waved at all four of them. “They are. What
do you think we’re doing here? That is the game. And we are the
pieces.”

Pug closed his
eyes and suddenly the odd grey light was replaced by normal daylight.
“I think we’re back.”

Macros reached
out and gripped Pug’s hand, closing his eyes as he felt the
flow of time through the younger sorcerer’s perceptions. After
a moment Macros said, “Pug, we are close enough to Midkemia
that you may be able to send messages back home. I suggest you try.”
Pug had told Macros of the child and his previously unsuccessful
attempts at reaching her.

Pug shut his
eyes and attempted to contact Gamina.

Katala looked up
from her needlework. Gamina sat with eyes fixed, as if seeing
something in the distance. Then her head tilted, as if listening.
William had been reading an old, musty tome Kulgan had given him, and
he put it down and looked hard at his foster sister.

Then softly the
boy said, “Mama . . .”

Calmly Katala
put down her sewing and said, “What William?”

The boy looked
at his mother with eyes wide and said in a whisper, “It’s
. . . Papa.”

Katala came to
kneel beside her son and put her arm around his shoulders. “What
about your father?”

“He’s
talking to Gamina.”

Katala looked
hard at the girl, who sat as if enraptured, all around her forgotten.
Slowly Katala rose and crossed to the door to the family’s
dining room and softly she pulled it open. Then she was through it at
a run.

Kulgan and
Elgahar sat over a chessboard, while Hochopepa observed, offering
unsolicited advice to both players. The room was thick with smoke,
for both the stout magicians were sucking on large, after-dinner
pipes, enjoying their effects fully, oblivious to the reactions of
the others. Meecham sat nearby putting an edge on his hunting knife
with a whetstone.

Katala pushed
open the door and said, “All of you, come!”

Her tone and the
urgency of her manner caused all questions to be put aside as they
followed her back down the corridor to where William sat studying
Gamina.

Katala knelt
before the girl and slowly passed her hand before the glassy eyes.
Gamina didn’t respond. She was in some sort of trance. Kulgan
whispered, “What is this?”

Katala whispered
back, “William says she’s talking to Pug.”

Elgahar, the
usually reserved Greater Path magician, moved past Kulgan. “Perhaps
I may learn something.” He crossed to kneel before William.
“Would you do something with me?”

William shrugged
noncommittally. The magician said, “I know you can sometimes
hear Gamina, just as she can hear you when you speak to animals.
Could you let me hear what she’s saying?”

William said,
“How?”

“I’ve
been studying how Gamina does what she does, and I think I might be
able to do the same. There’s no risk,” he said, looking
at Katala.

Katala nodded
while William said, “Sure. I don’t mind.”

Elgahar closed
his eyes and put his hand upon William’s shoulder, and then
after a minute he said, “I can only hear . . . something.”
He opened his eyes. “She’s speaking to someone. I think
it is Milamber,” he said, using Pug’s Tsurani name.

Hochopepa said,
“I wish Dominic hadn’t returned to his abbey. He might be
able to listen in.”

Kulgan held up
his hand for silence. The girl let out a long sigh and closed her
eyes. Katala reached for her, afraid she might faint, but instead the
girl opened her eyes wide, then gave a broad smile and leaped up.

Gamina nearly
danced around the room, so excited were her movements as she shouted
in mind-speech,
It was Papa! He talked to me! He’s coming
back!

Katala put her
hand upon the girl’s shoulder and said, “Gently,
daughter. Now, stop jumping about and tell us what you said, and
speak, Gamina, speak.”

For the first
time ever, the girl spoke above a whisper, in excited shrieks
punctuated with laughter. “I spoke to Papa! He called me from
someplace!”

“Where?”
asked Kulgan.

The child paused
in her excited dance and tilted her head, as if thinking. “It
was . . . just someplace. It had a beach and was pretty. I don’t
know. He didn’t say where it was. It was just someplace.”
She jiggled up and down again and started to push on Kulgan’s
leg. “We have to go!”

“Where?”

“Papa
wants us to meet him. At a place.”

“What
place, little one?” asked Katala.

Gamina jumped a
little. “Sethanon.”

Meecham said,
“That’s a city near the Dimwood, in the centre of the
Kingdom.”

Kulgan shot him
a black look. “We know that.”

Unabashed, the
franklin indicated the two Tsurani magicians, and said, “They
didn’t . . . Master Kulgan.” Kulgan’s bushy
eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose as he cleared his throat, a
sign his old friend was right. It was the only sign Meecham would
get.

Katala attempted
to calm the girl. “Now, slowly, who is to meet Pug at
Sethanon?”

“Everyone.
He wants us all to go there. Now.”

“Why?”
asked William, feeling neglected.

Suddenly the
girl’s mood shifted and she calmed. Her eyes widened and she
said, “The bad thing, Uncle Kulgan! The bad thing from Rogen’s
vision! It’s there!” She clutched Kulgan’s leg.

Kulgan looked at
the others in the room, and finally Hochopepa said, “The
Enemy?”

Kulgan nodded
and hugged the child to him. “When, child?”

“Now,
Kulgan. He said we must go now.”

Katala spoke to
Meecham. “Pass word through the community. All the magicians
must ready to travel. We must leave for Landreth. We’ll get
horses there and ride north.”

Kulgan said, “No
daughter of magic would depend on such mundane transportation.”
His mood was light in an attempt to relieve the tension. “Pug
should have married another magician.”

Katala’s
eyes narrowed, for she was in no mood to banter. “What do you
propose?”

“I can use
my line-of-sight travel to move myself and Hocho to locations in
jumps, up to three miles or more. It will take time, but far less
than by horse. In the end we can establish a portal, near Sethanon,
and you and the others can walk through from here.” He turned
to Elgahar. “That will give all of you time to prepare.”

Meecham said,
“I’ll come, too, in case you pop into an outlaw camp or
some other trouble.”

Gamina said,
“Papa said to bring others.”

“Who?”
asked Hochopepa, placing his hand on the child’s delicate
shoulder.

“Other
magicians, Uncle Hocho.”

Elgahar said,
“The Assembly. He would ask for such a thing only if the Enemy
was indeed upon us.”

“And the
army.”

Kulgan looked
down at the little face. “The army? Which army?”

“Just the
army!” The girl seemed at the end of her young patience,
standing with small fists upon her hips.

Kulgan said,
“We’ll send a message to the garrison at Landreth, and
another to Shamata.” He looked at Katala. “Given your
rank as Princess of the royal house by marriage, it might be time to
go dig out that royal signet you routinely misplace. We’ll need
it to emboss those messages.”

Katala nodded.
She hugged Gamina, who was quieting down, and said, “Stay here
with your brother,” then hurried out of the room.

Kulgan looked to
his Tsurani colleagues. Hochopepa said, “Now, at last. The
Darkness comes.”

Kulgan nodded.
“To Sethanon.”

Pug opened his
eyes. Again he felt fatigue, but nothing as severe as the first time
he had spoken to the girl. Tomas, Macros, and Ryath observed the
younger sorcerer and waited. “I think I got through enough that
she’ll be able to give instructions to the others.”

Macros nodded,
pleased. “The Assembly will prove little match for the Dragon
Lords should they manage to break into this space-time, but they may
aid in keeping Murmandamus at bay, so we can gain the Lifestone
before him.”

“If they
reach Sethanon in time,” commented Pug. “I don’t
know how we stand with time.”

“That,”
agreed Macros, “is a problem. I know we are in our own era, and
logic says we must be there sometime after you last left, to avoid
one of the knottier paradoxes possible. But how much time has passed
since you left? A month? A week? An hour? Well, we’ll know when
we reach there.”

Tomas added, “If
we’re in time.”

“Ryath,”
said Macros, “we need to travel some distance to the next gate.
There are no mortal eyes upon this world to apprehend the
transformation. Will you carry us?”