“Last time I looked, the generals were heading that way,”
Jommy said, pointing to the southeast.
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“Then that’s the way we go,” said Dasher. “You know, I think I’ve had enough of this.”
“What?” asked Servan.
“The war?” Tad suggested.
“That, certainly,” said Dasher. “No, I mean the whole service to the Crown business.”
“Well, no one made you do it,” suggested Zane.
“Actually, someone did,” said Jim.
“Who?” Jommy asked.
Dasher shrugged. “You lads must have figured out by now that I’m not just a thief from Krondor.”
Jommy laughed as they trudged along, keeping alert for any marauding Dasati. “We sort of got the notion when you showed up carrying royal dispatches for Lord Erik. They don’t usually hand those over to random pickpockets and bashers and tell them to scoot along through the nearest rift to a war on another world.”
“Well, it was my grandfather, really, who got me into ‘the family business,’ I guess you could say.”
Servan said, “Don’t keep us guessing.” His tone was dry and he seemed unconvinced. He had known Jim Dasher long enough to judge him an accomplished liar.
“My grandfather is James, Lord Jamison, Duke of Rillanon.”
Jommy laughed. “That’s a wonderful tale.”
“No, I’m serious,” said Dasher. He picked up a rock and threw it, hitting a larger rock some distance away. “I’m tired of risking my life, thugs, gamblers, whores, and all the rest of it, and I’m ready to settle down and start a family.”
“You?” said Jommy, laughing. “A family?”
“Yes,” said Jim, beginning to become nettled. “I even have a girl in mind.”
“This I must hear,” said Servan. “Who, among the kingdom aristocracy, has the Duke’s grandson in mind?”
The others began to laugh.
“If you must know,” said Jim, “she’s Lady Michele de Frachette, daughter of the Earl of Montagren.”
The laughter stopped.
“You’re serious? Michele?” asked Servan.
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“Yes, why?”
The four former university students looked at one another, and Jommy said to Tad, “You tell him.”
Zane said, “You should tell him, Jommy.”
“No,” said Jommy. “I really think it should be you, Tad.
You’re the first one she . . .” He looked at Jim Dasher, then said,
“. . . danced with at the King’s reception.”
“Yes,” said Tad, looking askance, “but you . . . danced with her the most.”
Jommy sighed and stopped walking. “Ah, Jim, we have all had the pleasure of her . . . ah . . . acquaintance. She attended a reception at the Royal Court in Roldem, when Tad, Zane, and myself were made Knights of the King’s Court.” With a grin, he also said, “Which is where I met Servan’s lovely sister, too.”
Servan’s expression darkened. And it was Tad who said,
“She’s, ah . . .’
“A lovely girl,” supplied Zane. “Really.”
“Are you talking about Michele or my sister?” Servan’s expression was not happy.
Tad jumped in. “Both, about the lovely girl part, but ignore him,” he said, pointing to Jommy. “He just likes your sister to annoy you.”
“That’s not true!” protested Jommy. “She really is a wonderful girl.” He mock-scowled at Servan. “How the two of you came from the same parents is a mystery to me.”
“Enough,” said Dasher. “Michele?”
“Ah, yes, Michele. Lovely, but . . . ambitious,” said Jommy.
“She’s looking for a well-positioned husband, you could say.”
“That’s what I’d say,” agreed Servan.
“And no one would be as well positioned as the grandson of the Duke of Rillanon, would he?” offered Zane.
“But before that she was . . . more open to other suitors,”
supplied Zane.
“So, let’s say we’ve all had the pleasure of . . . her company,”
said Tad.
Jim’s expression turned dangerous and his color began to rise, his cheeks turning red. “When?”
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Jommy said, “Second Day. The reception was the previous Fifth Day.”
Tad said, “First.”
“Really?” asked Jommy. “I thought I had supper with her first.”
“No, I did,” said Tad.
“And you?” Jommy asked of Zane.
“Fourth.”
Jim looked ready to lose his temper completely. “So, you’re telling me that the three of you—”
Servan said, “Ah, four.” They looked at him and he added,
“Third Day.”
Jommy put his hand on Jim’s shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze, as friendly a gesture as he could manage. “Look at it this way, old son. We’ve saved you from a world of embarrassment, haven’t we? Whoever does wed her is going to be the butt of a lot of jokes in court. Can’t have that for the Duke’s grandson, can we?”
Jim looked from face to face, and the color in his cheeks began to fade. He was not by nature an idealistic sort, but he had built up a very lovely ideal of Michele. Better to find out now, he acknowledged. Finally he shook his head and said, “Women.”
They resumed walking and Jommy said, “Yes.”
Tad said, “You know what the monks of La-Timsa at the university say about women, don’t you?”
Jommy, Servan, and Zane had heard the old joke a dozen times and in unison answered, “Women! You can’t live with them and you can’t live with them.”
Jim groaned, realizing that La-Timsites were a celibate order. “I think I’ll stick to whores.”
Servan said, “Knowing the young women of the Royal Court in Roldem, I’d say it’s probably less expensive.”
“And you’ll be lied to less often,” said Zane.
“Well, this is all good and all,” said Jommy, “but have you seen any sight of a retreating army?”
“That way,” said Jim, pointing at a litter of dropped items.
“We follow what they threw away.”
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“Let’s hope the Dasati didn’t. I’m not anxious to walk into their rearguard,” Tad said.
Conversation fell off as they trudged up a hillside and over another ridge. Then Jim said, “You know the tune that magician was humming?”
“What about it?” asked Servan.
“I just realized I recognize it! It’s a tune common in the alehouses in Land’s End and Port Vykor.”
“So?” asked Tad.
“So where’s a Tsurani magician learn a tune sung by drunken sailors down in Land’s End?”
No one had an answer.
Leso Varen felt positively buoyant, though he was at a loss to explain why. So much of his life was made up of odd impulses that he could not explain, so he had long ago given up any seeking of reasonable explanations. He knew it all began with the amulet he had found so many years ago, and the dreams that had come afterward. He had thrown it away, twice, then spent years recovering it, and once he destroyed it, he thought, only to find the shards and restore it, killing a half dozen jewelers in the process.
Something about that amulet . . .
That damned pirate Bear, the murderous monster, had it on when he died, and it was lost somewhere in the Bitter Sea. He had really desired that amulet. Wearing it had given him the first glimpse of what was possible, how death and life were so closely linked, and there was no more powerful source of power than a life slipping into death.
He never found the amulet, though he had searched in the sea for it years ago . . . There, his mind was wandering again.
He was certain there was some higher agency at work her
e, for he could not rest once he got an idea until he took it to fruition. Several times he had been frustrated by others, but somehow he had always endured.
As he climbed the road, Varen saw dead bodies littering the landscape. Perhaps that was why he felt so good. There was so much death everywhere that he had been able to leach away flee-3 84
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ing life here and there. These Dasati were like children when it came to death-magic; very powerful children, granted, but their ability to find the subtle side of magic was nonexistent, and they operated in a very wasteful fashion. But at least their waste had left enough ambient life force lingering that he was physically rejuve-nated to the point of no longer needing a walking stick—though Wyntakata really wasn’t much of a specimen, to be truthful. Once Varen found a good lair, he’d start building up the things he needed to seize another body. He idly wondered what he could accomplish with the level of slaughter these aliens achieved.
He wondered why he was feeling the need to go back and visit the Dasati again. His initial contact with them had seemed a wonderful opportunity, but once they had established their first little dome on this world, and after he had delivered Miranda to them for study, they were downright inhospitable. He had exited without a farewell, fairly certain they were getting ready to study him. And he was certain they thought less well of him after he had killed two of their Deathpriests on his way out of the door.
Still, his time with them had not been a complete waste, for he knew he could work necrotic magic they could only dream of.
And now appeared as good a time as any to do so, since a Dasati patrol was thundering down the road toward him.
He drew on a spark of the rage he harbored within, called up a large supply of the life-force he had recently acquired, and waited. There were twelve Deathknights riding at him, and as they approached they slowed, perhaps wondering why a lone human would stand waiting for them.
“Hello,” he said in passable Dasati, learned from the Deathpriests he had negotiated with after he had discovered their little probe-creature.
The leader pointed his sword at him. “You speak our language?”
Sighing theatrically, Leso Varen said, “By the gods, you are a master of the obvious.” His hand shot out and a dozen tendrils of green energy sprang forth, each cocooning a Deathknight’s head. Instantly swords were dropped as they reached up, clawing at the suffocating head covers.
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Within moments, they were falling from their saddles, writhing on the ground in agony as their lungs burned. Varen could feel their lives pulsing up the tendrils and his own vitality increasing. Just to be thorough, Varen did the same with the milling varnin, killing them all by draining their lives. When the last of them was dead, he smiled. “Well, that was refreshing.”
He started humming the song again as he resumed his trek to the Black Mount.
Pug was nearly exhausted. Even after the return trip from the second plane he had not felt this depleted. The creation of rifts was a difficult enough task when carried out under normal conditions; but conditions as they stood were hardly normal.
He took a deep breath and nodded to Magnus. His son still showed the price paid by the foray into the second realm, but he had insisted on accompanying his parents to give whatever help he could.
Magnus lifted his father up, raising him so that he could see the thousands flooding across the plains. In the distance, to the north, loomed the Black Mount. It had grown again twice in the last day, its most recent increase bringing it miles closer.
Pug calculated that it now covered two major cities and a score of towns along the river, as well as overlapping a huge portion of the northern plain. It rose up so high that its top vanished into the clouds: to Pug it looked like nothing so much as a giant black wall advancing down on them.
He motioned to Magnus, who lowered him.
“Can we do more?” Miranda asked.
“No,” said Pug. “We might open another rift or two from the far west, but there are not that many people there.” He sighed.
“I fear all we can do now is wait and see how many we can get through the rift and how long it is before we must close it.”
Magnus looked into the distance. “That thing will be down on us in two or three days.”
Pug looked at the first and largest of the rifts to the new world, and saw that people were streaming through it, but there were so many frightened, tired, hungry people waiting that the 3 8 6
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line was miles long. He had made it clear to everyone that as soon as people were through the rift they had to move off, for the valley on the other side of the rift did not have sufficient capacity to hold all these people. He also knew that soon the people going through would be too exhausted once they were on the other side to move very far off. He turned to Magnus and said, “Hold them up for a few minutes.”
Magnus passed orders to the Imperial Guards, who ordered the halt to people passing through. This brought instant grumbling and complaint from the otherwise dutiful and obedient Tsurani.
Miranda said, “The next time you do that, we’re going to have a riot.”
Pug nodded.
“How many have gone through already?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know, really. Two hundred thousand today, maybe. Half that many yesterday when we started.”
“Not even the population of one good-sized city.”
“Enough to start a new civilization,” said Magnus.
Miranda looked at her son and realized he was trying to make them feel that something had been accomplished. “Only if they don’t mind spending the next two or three generations in mud huts.” She looked across the plain and saw that fires were being lit as evening approached. “Maybe some cooking and a short rest will help some of them.” As fires appeared across the horizon to the east at first and then to the west, she said, “There are so many.”
“Millions yet to come,” said Pug. “We’re going to lose most of them.”
“We don’t know that, Father.” Magnus pointed. “I’ll go and help to open another rift to the new world. I’ll go through this portal and fly myself miles away, and open another—”
“We have six spread out all over that region. It’s going to take them weeks to find each other and establish some sort of communication.” He looked around. “We can’t wait too much longer to send the Light of Heaven through.”
“Will he go?” asked Miranda. “He seemed determined to be the last through when I talked to him.”
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Magnus smiled. “I think he’s going to have to fight General Alenburga for the honor.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Pug said quietly. “The last to go through . . .” He looked at the campfires now springing up in all quarters. “Anyone who waits to be last through will die here, Magnus.”
His son said nothing.
Varen trudged along the road, watching the Black Mount rise up, getting larger by the hour yet somehow seemingly never closer.
“That is really big,” he said to himself.
At least four times in the last hour he had destroyed small bands of Deathknights, but he sensed he was overmatched as he crested a rise and saw a full hundred of them riding out of a dell.
Wishing he had some of his toys from his old study in Kaspar’s citadel in Olasko, he conjured up an illusion he hadn’t tried in years. It was an old standby and easy enough to deploy. Any Tsurani would have stopped to examine the massive old dead oak that was suddenly sitting by the side of the road, but the Dasati had no idea the tree was as alien to this world as they were. They rode past and when they were safely down the road, Varen reappeared as the tree illusion vanished.
Continuing along, he wondered how long it would take him to reach the edge of the sphere. Perspective was difficult, for the featureless sides gave him nothing by which to judge s
cale.
It might be a mile on the other side of the next ridge, or it could be five miles.
Then suddenly it was dark and his lungs started to strain as his ears rang and his eyes burned. It also felt as if the grandfather of all thunderclaps had exploded right above his head.
And then hands gripped him.
Varen saw a pair of Deathknights had an iron hold on each of his arms and were propelling him forward, expecting him to be incapacitated. But he had been inside a Dasati dome before and knew what to do, and suddenly he could breathe easily. He let the Deathknights pull him along what had up to minutes ago been a countryside road out in the bright sun. Now it was a path-3 8 8
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way shrouded in darkness and even as he watched the leaves on the trees on either side of the road began to blacken and shrivel.
“Oh, this is so clever!” he shouted.
The two Deathknights tightened their grips and one looked at him. He was the first to die.
Varen simply reached inside the man with his mind and stopped his heart. “Oh, I love this place!” he said to the still-upright Deathknight. The warrior let go of Varen and drew his sword, and Leso realized he had been speaking Tsurani. He spoke in Dasati: “I said, ‘Oh, I love this place!’” The Deathknight raised his sword to strike and Varen held out his hand and another encompassing cocoon of green, life-devouring energy engulfed the Deathknight.
Varen was motionless as the Deathknight died. Others nearby saw the single human standing with two dead Deathknights at his feet and ran to attack him. Varen easily snatched life from each of them until there was not a living Deathknight in sight.
“I never used to be able to do that!” he exclaimed, delighted at his newfound power. “It must be this place!”
He looked around and adjusted his perception, and everywhere he looked he could see life energy rushing in toward the center of the great sphere. “That’s where I need to be,” he said.
He never once for a moment considered where these impulses that had ruled his life came from. He accepted them, and knew that when he gave in to his most outrageous and destructive impulses, the more pain he caused, the more chaos he created, the happier he was. At times in the past he had found himself working very much alone, in moldy old caves or damp huts in noxious swamps. At other times he had finessed his way into comfort, living in luxury, hosted by dupes like the Baron of Land’s End or the Duke of Olasko. He had endured his share of pain along the way; and discovered that dying was no fun at all, even if he woke up in a healthy new body moments later.