At the Gates of Darkness

  The High Priest said, “Perhaps this is of some use to you?”

  Pug said, “A great deal, perhaps.” He rose and Amirantha followed suit.

  Gregori appeared and ushered them from the room and left them to their own devices in the large main hall of the temple. Jim asked, “What next?”

  “Sarth,” said Pug. “The Ishapians are accommodating but not particularly helpful in this, but now we have something specific to investigate.”

  “The Demon Brothers,” said Amirantha. “A very odd name for necromancers.” To Pug he said, “Do we need to advise those waiting for us at the island that we’re not returning soon?”

  Pug said, “I’ll see to it after we reach Sarth.”

  “Good,” said the Warlock. “Samantha grows very short with me when I fail to show up for meals on time.”

  For the first time in recent memory, Pug laughed. Everyone in the temple turned and several of those before the votive candles stared, while some glared, for laughter was almost unknown in this place.

  Jim said, “Now would be a fair time to depart, I think.”

  “Stand close,” said Pug and he held out his hands. Each man gripped Pug’s forearm, one to a side, and suddenly they were in another place.

  CHAPTER 5

  LEGACY

  Amirantha gawked.

  Jim also was astonished by the scale of the room in which he found himself, but managed to retain a small shred of decorum. Pug motioned for them to follow and led them deep into the vault.

  Vault was the only word to describe the room, for the ceiling rose up into a gloom that prevented the unaided eye from perceiving its height. Massive columns rose to support the unseen ceiling, and row upon row of shelves were lined up in orderly fashion. The aisles between them, with the intersecting spaces separating them, provided a chessboard of areas. At each intersection a slender stand was erected, a graceful ironwork that bent over in a swan-neck fashion ending in a hook, from which hung a small crystal bound by a metal chain. The crystal provided illumination, just enough to allow those in the room to see to the next lamp.

  “Amazing,” said Amirantha, as he regarded row upon row of books.

  Jim echoed his tone when he said, “I’ve been in the Royal Archives in Rillanon, but this dwarfs them in scope. How many volumes, Pug?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea,” said the magician. They moved between row after row of shelves, some vanishing up into the gloom, with ladders set on rails along the wall. “Perhaps the librarian can tell you?”

  “This is Sarth?” asked Amirantha.

  “That Which Was Sarth,” corrected Pug.

  “I don’t follow,” said the Warlock.

  Turning with a wry smile, Pug said, “Before the invasion of the Emerald Queen’s army, the Ishapians abandoned their abbey near the town of Sarth.”

  “I still am not clear as to the odd name,” said Amirantha, following Pug down a long narrow passage between vaults.

  Pug stopped and said, “The Ishapians have a prophecy, or perhaps ‘had’ is a better word. It said that a great upheaval would come upon the land and after the destruction of the west, all that would remain would be ‘That Which Was Sarth.’”

  Amirantha looked at Jim, then Pug, and said, “Was Sarth destroyed during the Emerald Queen’s invasion?”

  “Essentially,” said Pug, “though the old abbey itself was relatively intact. How would it have fared had the brothers still occupied it…?” He shrugged.

  “So, they made the prophecy come true,” said Amirantha, as Pug resumed walking.

  As the Warlock and Jim joined him, Pug said, “Perhaps. Or perhaps there’s another destruction headed our way, and this place, ‘That Which Was Sarth,’ is what is destined to survive.”

  “Exactly where are we?” asked Amirantha. “I assume underground, as I have not noticed anything remotely like a window in the last two vaults.”

  “We are very deep underground,” said Pug. “As to where, I promised the monks I would not reveal that location unless given leave. As I transported you here by magic outside your understanding, it’s safe to assume you would have no way of finding your way back here should the urge visit you.”

  Amirantha chuckled. “Indeed.”

  They reached a large door and Pug pulled it open. Inside was a small room, with a table fully occupying half its area, over which stood a white-haired magician in black robes. “Father,” said Magnus to Pug as he entered. Then he greeted Amirantha and Jim.

  Next to him stood a monk in the simple light brown robes of the Ishapians. He was a nondescript man of middle years, with a round head topped by a thatch of brown hair cut with a tonsure. He inclined his head in greeting and said, “Pug. You bring guests?”

  “Brother Victor, these are friends. This is James, Baron of the King’s Court in Rillanon, and great-grandson of Lord James of Krondor, also known as Jimmy the Hand.”

  At that the monk smiled. “We have a story about your ancestor you may not know,” said the monk.

  “And this is Amirantha, a Warlock of a people from across the great ocean, the Satumbria. He is something of an expert on demons and I have need of his wisdom.”

  “Your vouching for them grants an indulgence,” said the monk. “But the Father-Superior might not be so kindly disposed.”

  “Which is why I came straight here,” said Pug with a nod.

  The monk smiled. “So when I mention, in passing, your visit, I should do so, what? An hour or so after you depart?”

  “That should be ample,” said Pug. “We don’t plan on staying long, unless there’s a need.”

  “Well, then,” said the monk with a wry expression, “what do you seek this time?”

  Magnus turned to Amirantha and said, “We’ve been challenging Brother Victor’s nearly inexhaustible knowledge on every subject imaginable.”

  The monk held up his hands, palms outward, and said, “Hardly that.”

  “He is the living repository of where everything in this vast library is placed,” said Pug.

  Amirantha said, “Prodigious is the only word that springs to mind. Don’t you have some sort of written record?”

  “Of course,” said the monk, “and a dozen brothers labor ceaselessly to update it as new material is found and sent to us, but until they do, we make do with scraps of hastily cobbled together notes, and this.” He tapped the side of his head with a forefinger.

  “What do you know of the Demon Brothers?” asked Pug.

  The monk went almost completely motionless for nearly a half minute, then he closed his eyes. “I believe there’s a mention of them…” His eyes widened. “Wait! I’ll be right back.”

  The four men remaining in the room exchanged strange glances, which became expressions of curiosity as time dragged on. “Right back” became a half hour when the monk finally returned, a dusty old leather-bound volume in hand.

  “It should be in here,” he said as if he had merely stepped out of the room, then reappeared.

  “What is it?” asked Pug as the monk laid the book down on the table and gently opened it.

  “It’s a chronicle of one Varis Logondis, a Quegan trader who lived about four hundred years ago. He was a compulsive journal keeper who felt every detail in his life was worthy of mentioning.

  “In fact, most of his life was remarkably un-noteworthy, unless you are an aficionado of travelogues, long discourses on mercantile trends of the day, or the state of Varis’s digestive health at any given moment in his life. But, in passing he remarks on many issues of the day, useful in providing corroboration or refutation of other histories and accounts of the time.

  “But one remark in particular stuck with me over the years.” He scanned the page. “Ah, there it is. Let me read—the dialect is somewhat antiquated and his spelling is atrocious. ‘In the evening, we came upon a village, by name Hamtas on Jaguard, whereupon we were welcomed at an inn by name, the Restful Station. There did we encounter soldiers of the Empire, at their ease after
a battle.

  “‘I remark on this for two counts’—reasons is what he means, I am certain—‘that first they were not of the militia, yet were Legionaries from Queg that had been haste posted to this region, and last that they had struggled mightily against the Demon Brothers and their living dead.’”

  “Back then most of the Bitter Sea was still under control of the Empire of Great Kesh,” Pug remarked.

  “What’s interesting about this passage, Pug, is that it supports two other sources we are aware of, one in our possession, another not.” He looked at the magician and his two companions with a satisfied smile. “Varis wrote sixty-five volumes over his lifetime, so I had to skim a couple before I could find this passage.” He pointed to the page and said, “The source we possess along with this is a fairly standard tally of captured goods returned to Queg by the expedition encountered by Varis. We know that Varis was surprised to find Imperial Legionaries in that town instead of local soldiers; it implies something significant was being undertaken. Legionaries were only stationed in three garrisons around the Bitter Sea at that time: Durban, Queg City, and Port Natal. They were not used unless there was an uprising or some other menace of equal weight.

  “If we look at what that expedition brought back with them, we encounter an unlikely list of things; along with an unusually short inventory of gold, silver, copper, and lead, livestock and slaves, we also see a very long list of idols, books, and scrolls.”

  Pug looked interested but uncertain of what was being said to him. “It sounds as if they raided a library.”

  The monk smiled. “There were no libraries, either Imperial or maintained by any order of temple known to us at that time, anywhere west of Malac’s Cross or north of Queg, in the Empire! Oh, some rooms of books here and there, but nothing that would require a detailed cataloguing that the Empire was so famous for at that time.” There was a merry glint in the man’s eyes as his smile broadened.

  “What is it?” Pug said, unable to resist returning the man’s smile.

  “It’s your Demon Brothers!”

  “According to this inventory of captured items, over a score of volumes came from the ‘frateri demonicus,’ which is very bad Quegan spelling for Demon Brothers, or more accurately, Brothers to Demons!”

  “The necromancers?” asked Pug.

  “Not a common name, by any measure,” said Brother Victor. “And there’s more.”

  “More?” asked Magnus a moment before Jim echoed the word.

  “The title of a volume; the maker of this list was, by any measure, barely educated. Legionaries were not as a rule much better educated than the common Keshian Dog Soldiers of today. The officers read and write—a necessity for giving and receiving orders—but the common soldiers, no. Either this list was compiled by a relatively uneducated officer, or the task was given to one of the common rank who claimed to write. In any event the title given is Libri Demonicus Amplus Tantus or Really Big Demon Book.”

  Amirantha laughed. “I speak Quegan, and it’s nothing I recognize.”

  “It’s four hundred years old. I originally thought the scribe just didn’t understand that ‘Amplus’ and ‘Tantus’ have similar meanings—ample and large—but it occurs to me now our less than scholarly scribe was trying to describe two aspects, that it’s a physically large volume, and also that it’s important. ‘Tantus’ can mean ‘of such great size,’ but ‘amplus,’ besides ample, can also be read to mean ‘of great importance.’ So, what you may wish to consult is a very large, very important book concerning demons, written by a four-hundred-year-dead necromancer.”

  “I don’t suppose you have that volume here?” asked Amirantha.

  “No,” said Brother Victor with a regretful expression. “I wish we did. It sounds fascinating from what you have revealed.”

  “But you know where we might find it,” suggested Magnus.

  The monk nodded. “If it still exists.”

  “The Imperial library in Queg?” suggested Magnus.

  Pug said, “If the book was among the property seized by Legionaries, and if they didn’t loot the library when recalled to Kesh during the abandonment of the north…” He tapped his chin in thought. “Likely. Gold and other valuables they’d take south with them. Books and scrolls? Not as likely. Certainly it’s the place we can start looking.”

  Brother Victor said, “I must leave as the evening prayer is about to begin. I assume you do not need me to show you out?” His merry expression revealed he already knew the answer.

  “No,” said Pug. “Thank you, my old friend.”

  “No, thank you for all you have given. Too few people know what they owe you, Pug. Until we meet again,” he finished, then turned and left the four visitors alone in the library.

  Magnus said, “We have a problem, Father.”

  “I know,” said Pug. To Jim he said, “Queg is the one court where we have no friends.”

  Jim sighed, as he could anticipate what was coming next. “I thought you had agents, or at least ‘friends,’ everywhere.”

  Pug gave him a tight smile. “Queg is strategically unimportant. We manipulated some information their way during the invasion of the Emerald Queen. They believed they were attacking a foreign treasure fleet, while instead they ran into her armada, half the Imperial Keshian Fleet, and the Kingdom Navy. Not wishing to attack nations they were at peace with, they did their best to loot a few ships which instead of treasure held angry soldiers. It made them distrustful of information that doesn’t come from reliable sources.

  “To the point they resisted all attempts to infiltrate their intelligence.”

  Jim smiled ruefully. “I know. I have had the same problem.”

  “How about Kesh?” asked Magnus. “Have they anyone within the Quegan Court who might prove useful?”

  Jim slowly shook his head. “No, they’re just as annoyed by their former cousins as the Kingdom is. If Queg didn’t have as formidable a navy as it has, they’d have been reabsorbed by the Empire a century ago or conquered by the Kingdom. There is not a lot on that island that is worth owning, but they are a serious annoyance, and while they may not be strategically important to you, Pug, controlling that island would prove a significant advantage to Kesh or the Kingdom.”

  “Which is why neither of you will let the other gain control,” finished Magnus.

  Amirantha said, “Back to the point, if you don’t have anyone in that court, how do you propose to find out if this tome exists?” He smiled dryly. “Are you just going to show up one day and ask to browse the shelves?”

  Pug got a distant look for a moment, then he slowly smiled. “That may just be the thing.”

  “What?” asked Jim. “I was certain you were going to ask me to swim ashore, sneak into the library, and steal the book.”

  “No,” said Pug, looking amused at the suggestion. “You’re going to use your rank to get the Prince of Krondor to send you, with three advisors”—he indicated the three of them—“on a scholarly project, to correct some distortions of the truth in our own history. This will play to the Quegan vanity as you will explain that their place of glory will be forever enshrined in the annals of the Kingdom, and you would like permission to let your three scholars spend a few leisurely days browsing the shelves of the Imperial Quegan Library.”

  Jim’s face went through a spectrum of emotions, from surprise, to doubt, to agreement, and then to delight. “Play to their vanity!”

  “Yes,” said Pug. “Then when we find out if the book is there, you can sneak into the library and steal it.”

  Jim rolled his eyes. “Can’t we just glance at it for a while?”

  “No,” said Amirantha. “We will need to study it, and that may take weeks. If it’s some ancient variant of the Keshian language, we’ll need to find a scholar who can help us understand it.”

  “And the Quegans would love to know why we’re spending all our time studying one ancient, obscure text on demons when we’re supposed to be looking at thei
r own histories,” finished Magnus.

  Amirantha said, “It would be helpful if you could convince those Star Elves to let their Demon Master come back once we get the book.” Shaking his head slightly as if he hated making the admission, he added, “There’s a lot he knows that I don’t. I taught him a few tricks when he was on the island, but I think if Gulamendis was with us, we’d work faster.”

  Pug looked at Magnus. “Have we heard anything from the Taredhel?”

  Magnus shook his head in the negative. “Only through Tomas. He and his Queen still are in contact with the Lord Regent, but you know how elves are about taking their time.”

  “All too well,” conceded Pug. “Well, first things first. Let’s get the book.” He looked at Jim. “Can you do it?”

  “Of course I can. The Duke of Krondor is another eastern caretaker who doesn’t really have any sense of what’s going on in the Western Realm. He’s content to hunt, drink, chase serving girls, and let me tell him all is well in the west. Then he reports back to the King that all is well in the west.

  “I’ll have my personal scribe draw up the messages to the Emperor of Queg and he’ll just sign them when I put them in front of him. If you think it would help, I can put the royal seal on it and make it look as if the document comes from the King, himself.”

  “Forgery?” said Pug with newfound respect. “Is there no end to your larcenous skills?”

  “Few,” said Jim with no hint of modesty. “This will take a couple of weeks, and the sooner begun the sooner done.”

  Pug said, “Very well. Magnus, get us to the island, please, and then take Jim to Krondor.”

  As they assembled to transport to Sorcerer’s Isle, Amirantha said, “I wonder how that demon-loving elf and his brother are doing.”

  CHAPTER 6

  SURVIVORS