At the Gates of Darkness

  His brother caught it and said, “I could use some help; this thing is heavy!”

  Laromendis reached out and grappled with the hinge edge of the door and helped his brother swing it out of the way. Then they stopped and examined the locked room.

  “What is this place?” whispered Laromendis.

  The late afternoon light illuminated the room enough for both the brothers to see it had once been someone’s personal study. There were books and tomes against one wall, and a writing desk with a dried up inkwell and ancient quills. Rolls of brittle parchment lay scattered on the surface.

  “My skin is itching,” said Gulamendis. “Whoever resided here practiced dark arts.”

  “Is that why the demons didn’t open the door?”

  “Probably just too lazy,” said Gulamendis. “They tend to take the path of least resistance.”

  Laromendis picked up a paper and said, “Whoever penned this left in a hurry. It’s unfinished.”

  “But he expected to return,” said Gulamendis. “He locked the door behind him.”

  “A mystery,” said his brother. Pointing to the window, he said, “Let’s take a look outside.”

  The window was a vaulted affair, with a large cushioned window seat. They both could stand on it and peer through the dirty glass. “Can we open this? I can’t see a thing,” said Laromendis.

  “It has a latch,” answered his brother.

  Gulamendis jumped down and his brother followed suit. The Demon Master tried the latch and found it reluctant, but it slowly released. He pulled on the window and found the hinges as reluctant as the latch. “No one has used this in a very long time.”

  Laromendis said, “Does any of that look familiar to you?”

  Gulamendis looked and saw a dark and foreboding mountain range in the distance. The low light in the loft told him he was looking southward as the sun set behind the dark clouds. After a moment, Gulamendis said, “No, nothing.”

  “Can you see the fire peaks?” he asked, indicating the distant volcanoes.

  “Of course,” said Gulamendis. “Why?”

  “See how that one massive one rises up on the right, while those other two look like smaller twins to the left?”

  “Yes,” said the Demon Master. “Does it mean something to you?”

  “The Fire Twins.”

  “Could it be?”

  “If you were miles to the south, looking northward…” said Laromendis.

  “From the battlements of Can-ducar!”

  “The twins would be on the right and the Fire Queen on the left!”

  “How did we not know about this ancient fortress?” asked Gulamendis.

  “We never got this far,” answered the Conjurer. “Can-ducar was the northernmost fortification on Telesan when the demons appeared. We never occupied much of the world because of this foul smoke and ash. The only reason we had anyone here was for mining metals.”

  “Do you think that’s why the demons have dwarven prisoners?”

  “Possible,” said Laromendis.

  “Well,” said his brother. “We have some idea where they came from, at least.”

  “Do we?”

  Feeling defeat, the Demon Master said, “No. I mean, we know that portal in the wall by the gate leads to the world where we saw the demon battle, but we don’t know where they came from originally.”

  Laromendis sat down in the gloom of the fading afternoon light. “We dare not light anything…assuming we can find tinder and flint, lest a light be seen, so we must wait until tomorrow to see if anything here is useful.”

  Gulamendis stood. “Help me get the door back on the hinges, just in case this is the one day they decide to investigate the top of the tower. Then one of us should go back to the storage shed and fill up a sack.”

  “I’ll go,” said Laromendis. “You were always the better scholar. See what you can make of this with what little light is left.”

  They quickly got the door back on its hinges and closed it to ensure it was secure. Then Laromendis left, closing the door behind and Gulamendis latched it shut. He looked at the many volumes on the shelves, wondering where to start, then he found his gaze drifting to one at the top, large and covered in leather. He reached up and when his fingertips touched it, he jerked his hand back. “Demon,” he whispered. “Could this be—?” He pulled the book down and opened it. At once his vision swam and he recognized the writing, the arcane runic symbols of demon control. “Oh, my,” he whispered as he sat down and began to read.

  A short time later his brother returned with a sack full of food and said, “It’s a good thing we vacated that shed. When I got there some dwarves were leaving with food for the prisoners.”

  “Why didn’t they find us last night?”

  Laromendis shrugged and tossed an apple to his brother. “Perhaps they don’t feed them every day.” He started eating an apple as well and after a juicy bite, asked, “Find anything?”

  “Yes,” said his brother. “I think I may have found several important things.”

  “Such as?”

  “Where the Demon Gate is that lets them into this realm.”

  “Really?” he seemed impressed. “What else?”

  “Who or what may be at the heart of this madness.”

  Laromendis let out a slow sigh. “It’s almost too dark to read. Finish that tomorrow.” Elves were capable of seeing things on the darkest of nights, even if only starlight was the source, but without some light, reading ancient ink on parchment was beyond even their gifts.

  “One other thing,” said Gulamendis.

  “What?”

  With a broad smile he said, “I think I have found a way for us to get home.”

  Night dragged on and Laromendis repeated back what he had just been told to be certain he understood it. “So, this lair was the study of a human magician, by name Makras—”

  “Macros.”

  “Macros, and he was the magician advisor to the local ruler.”

  “The King of Des.”

  “The King of Des. He discovered a portal, built by some unknown people in ages past.”

  “Yes.”

  Laromendis said, “So while experimenting with this device, he opened the portal.”

  “Yes, to a world…well, I will have to reread that part when the light returns.”

  Laromendis sat silently in the darkness a moment, then he said, “I’ll skip the other parts. It’s not the portal we came through to get here?”

  “No, for he described its location as being in a nearby vale; I assume he meant nearby from where he was writing and I assume he was writing here.”

  “Well, let us say we can find this portal. How are we to operate it?”

  “This is why I said ‘I think’ I have found a way home, instead of ‘I know.’ If there are controls we can use, I suggest we make for Home.” Laromendis was about to object, but Gulamendis cut him off. “Not for E’bar, but for Sorcerer’s Island.”

  “How?”

  “I spent enough time near that portal in the keep on the island to…I think,” he stressed, “I can contrive to get us there.”

  Laromendis was determined not to let his brother get his hopes up. “And what do we use for power?”

  Gulamendis held up a small bag and even though his brother could barely see him in the gloom, he sensed his brother was smiling. “I took these from the dead galasmancer.”

  “Crystals?”

  “Crystals.”

  Laromendis said, “As I don’t have a better idea, can I suggest we leave now, take the volume with us, and read it somewhere far from here at first light?”

  Gulamendis was loath to leave the treasure trove of ancient human magic behind, but saw the wisdom in getting out of this place when activity was at its lowest point. He took the volume and nodded once, and opened the door.

  They moved purposefully but slowly down the circular stairs of the tower and at the base, looked down the long connecting hallway that would eventua
lly lead them to the stairs back down to the dungeon, and then up to the yard. They made their way past silent doors and empty rooms and when they were once again in the dungeon, Gulamendis risked a hurried peek through the viewing window in the door to the cells. Prisoners were huddled together for warmth, all sleeping. There were no guards.

  They moved as silently as possible and when they were once again at the low door that opened on the courtyard, Laromendis opened it a crack and peeked through. The three steps up to the surface were open and no one else was in sight.

  They crept along the wall, staying as much as possible against it, despite being covered in darkness. With even a chance at freedom before them, they were loath to take even the slightest risk that they might bring failure upon themselves.

  A quick stop in the storage shed and they loaded up with provisions. They were stymied for a short while when they reached the gate and found it bolted. They realized they had come in through a portal in the wall that emptied into the marshaling yard, and hadn’t given any thought of getting through the gate. Logic dictated there was more than one way through the wall so a hurried examination of the defenses led them to a postern gate behind the keep. It was unguarded and they opened it and went outside.

  “If I understand what it is we’re looking for,” said Gulamendis, “we need to start south.”

  “Toward the volcanoes and the battlefield?” asked his brother.

  “Yes,” said Gulamendis.

  With a slight turn of his head to indicate acceptance, the Conjurer indicated his brother should lead the way. Into a very dark night two elves ventured, neither of them certain of where they where headed, but both knowing there was nothing good being left behind.

  Dawn found Gulamendis and Laromendis sitting under the shelter of an overhang, eyes smarting from the acidic smoke that hung on the hillside like an ill-conceived cloud of suffering. The three volcanoes were belching smoke and ash into the sky on a regular basis, and at one point Laromendis had observed it would be just their luck to reach their destination when one of the three erupted, destroying the portal. He was uncertain if it would be fate’s crueler irony to have them burned alive with the portal, or to stand on a relatively safe outcropping watching their last hope of escape go up in flames. He was inclined to think the second a more painful outcome.

  His brother merely gave him a withering look and said nothing. As soon as he could, Gulamendis avidly began reading the volume he had purloined from the ancient keep. Finally he said, “As I understand this, these people, called the Edhara, were just beginning to experiment with portals. They had created the one we are seeking in a cave—I hope not too far from here—and had discovered a few relatively benign worlds. Then the demons found them.”

  “Found them?”

  “Remember what Pug said about the nature of rifts?”

  “Not really,” said his brother. “I think that was a conversation you had while I was learning some things from that very odd creature from that world whose name I can’t pronounce. The fellow with the blue skin and those things coming out of his neck, but whose illusions…they were stunning.”

  “From you, my not so modest brother, that is high praise,” said Gulamendis.

  “I’ll grant him his due; he was very good.”

  “Rifts have a loadstone quality. As loadstones draw iron to them, rifts tend to draw other rifts. So if you have an established portal from one world to the next, if someone is casting about for a random destination, there’s a better than average chance it will connect to a world that already has a portal on it.”

  “I wonder if that’s why the galasmancer created Hub?”

  His brother shrugged. “As the Regent’s Meet didn’t see fit to consult with me on the matter, I can only speculate.” His finger stabbed a page. “From here to the end it’s written very hastily.

  “It reads much as the reports we had when our people first encountered the demons; massive assaults in chaotic fashion, no quarter asked or given, mindless wave after wave of demon of every stripe.”

  “Obviously something is different,” said Laromendis. “Those demons we saw being slaughtered, and those in the keep to the north…they are nothing we’ve seen before.”

  “This is where it gets interesting,” said Gulamendis. “Let me read: ‘And then to our lord Hijilia came a herald of the demon kind, under a banner of truce, offering terms.’”

  “A truce?” Thinking of the dozens of worlds overrun by the Demon Legion and the millions of Taredhel left dead on those worlds, he muttered, “We never got the offer.”

  “These Edhara didn’t accept, in any event, vowing to fight to the end. The author of this chronicle began writing as if this was his last testament, and jammed in every detail he thought was important.

  “The reason I think we might contrive to use the portal in the cave to get away is that was what the rulers of the Edhara were planning on doing. It’s unclear to me if they managed to get away in time or if they reached the portal.

  “The point is, if we manage to get out of here, and if we can reach Sorcerer’s Island, and then E’bar, we have something vital to tell the Regent’s Meet.”

  Laromendis was silent a moment, then said, “You mean we need to tell Tandarea.”

  Gulamendis fell silent also and then said, “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?”

  “The Meeting cannot continue on the course it has been on for the last three hundred years, brother. The Circle of Light must be reformed, and all matters regarding magic need to be restored to it. Just a few months with those humans on Sorcerer’s Island tells me that this is true; if you spoke to Magnus or Pug about their own history and learned of Pug’s first attempt, the Academy at Stardock, and all the problems that created…” He took a breath. “Let’s get home first.”

  Gulamendis said, “Let’s. I think we can be there today if we leave now.”

  “In daylight?”

  “Do you see anyone else around here?”

  “No, but a few months ago there was a really massive battle taking place a few miles south of here,” reminded the Conjurer.

  “And as we abandoned this position, I doubt it’s still in progress,” said the Demon Master. “That would explain why there’s only a small garrison in that huge fortress we just left, and why we were able to come and go as we pleased. They’ve gone somewhere else.”

  Laromendis stood up. “The thing that’s annoying me most,” he said, “is that there are still too many mysteries and odd goings-on. I’m a simple elf at heart; I make things appear out of thin air, and people give me things: food, gold, their daughter’s virtue, a nice robe…”

  “You have always thought like a brigand, and a brigand you are at heart.” Gulamendis smiled. “Still, you’re my brother and my brigand, and I shall stand with you.”

  For the first time in days Laromendis felt like returning his brother’s smile. He clapped him on the shoulder and said, “As it should be. You may consort with the foulest of beings, but I shall be at your side to the end.”

  “Let us go.”

  As they walked to the south, Laromendis said, “A question I’ve been meaning to ask for some time now…”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember when that human girl, Sandreena, was saying all those things about Amirantha?”

  Gulamendis laughed. “How could I forget?”

  “Remember that part about a summoned creature named Dalthea? A female of extraordinary beauty, as I recall.”

  “A demon who looked like a beautiful human woman. Yes, I remember. He conjured a succubus and modified her to look beyond compare.”

  “Imagine a totally obedient beautiful female elf? Do you know that trick?”

  Gulamendis, for the first time in almost a century, hit his brother in the arm.

  Midday and the two brothers were getting closer to the volcanoes. The air was rich with the stench of burning ash and their eyes stung from low-hanging smoke—there was almost no wind today. That
helped mask them from casual observation, but it also made their lungs and eyes hurt.

  The landscape was now exclusively a rugged sea of basalt rock—large, relatively smooth patches of light grey to black sheets, interrupted by jagged outcroppings of up-thrust stone. At times their weight would crack the rock below as they stepped on the relatively thin top of a bubble, occasionally releasing a cloud of noxious, sulfurous gas. Once Gulamendis dropped partway into a gas dome and his brother had to help pull out his right leg. The edges of the rock were sharp and they had to move slowly to avoid injury at almost every step.

  “Who would want this miserable place?” asked the Demon Master.

  “We did, for a while,” said Laromendis. “Besides the crystals that come out of these volcanoes, there are huge deposits of metals on this world.” He glanced around, as if gaining his bearings. “I spent a little time here, early on when I was exploring for the Regent’s Meet, and the mines to the south of here, on the other side of our abandoned fortress…impressive is all I can say. There was copper, silver, iron, gold.” He took a deep breath, then coughed. “How far?”

  Gulamendis paused to read out of the journal just to ensure he was not making any mistakes. “If I understand this correctly, we climb that ridge there”—he pointed to the south, and Laromendis could see there was a high ridge about a mile away. He saw a notch that looked as if it might be navigable, as a long flow of basalt created a relatively smooth ramp leading up to it. “On the other side.”

  They moved slowly, taking their time, and an hour later made it to the top of the notch in the ridge. They surveyed the landscape and Laromendis said, “Gods and fathers!”

  Before them spread out mile after mile of more twisted and broken rock. In the distance they could see gas plumes and steam vents, and they knew they were reading the outer boundary of volcanic activity. Since coming to this world, the Taredhel had witnessed two eruptions, neither of which was violent enough to threaten the fortification to the south, but large enough to prevent exploration in this region. Had they not occurred, the brothers speculated the Taredhel explorers would have found the human fortress to the north. Of course once the demons had reached this world, it was behind their lines.