“Why not?” said Manfred.
Erik sat back. “How long can you keep the oil burning on the moat?”
“Three, four hours.”
Another boulder slammed into the wall, and Erik said, “Jadow!”
As if hearing Erik’s voice, a catapult atop the central keep fired, releasing half a dozen barrels of oil. They came crashing down around the catapult in the street, drenching the machine and its crew.
The enemy catapult crew began to run. The oil spreading in the street quickly reached one of the many fires nearby, and suddenly the war engine was ablaze. Erik’s men on the walls of the citadel let out a cheer.
Erik said, “Well, that’s that.”
Manfred said, “When the oil in the moat is burned out, they’ll start filling it in again.”
“That will keep them out until sunrise, though.”
“Yes,” said Manfred. “But it still doesn’t solve one problem.”
The half brothers looked at each other and at the same moment they both said, “The eastern gate.”
* * *
Pug said, “Rejuvenation is all fine and wonderful, but I’m tired.”
Tomas said, “I feel I need to sleep.”
Calis said, “Men are dying.”
Tomas looked at his son and said, “I know. Even though the Lifestone is no more, there’s a very large army attempting to sack Darkmoor.”
Calis said, “Even if he’s free now of the demon’s control, by reputation Fadawah is not one to just quit and quietly withdraw.” He sighed. “Only we in this room and a few others know of the real stakes, but now we have a cunning, dangerous leader who still has most of his army intact, and he controls most of the Western Realm.”
Pug said, “This won’t end quickly.”
Miranda said, “At least we can get the Saaur out of the war.”
Pug said, “If I can convince them what Hanam told me was true.”
Tomas said, “We can only try.”
“How do we get there?” asked Nakor.
“We don’t,” said Pug. “Tomas and I will go to Darkmoor. Unless we end this battle, there’s no reason to take the rest of you into harm’s way.”
Calis said, “Remember, I’m the Prince’s man.”
Miranda said, “And you’re not leaving me here.”
Nakor motioned to Sho Pi, and Dominic, then grinned and shrugged. “Us too.”
Pug’s eyes widened, and he let out a slightly exasperated breath. “Very well. Gather around.”
Miranda turned to the leader of the Oracle’s servants and said, “Thank you for your help.”
The old man bowed and said, “No, we thank you for saving us.”
Miranda hurried to Pug’s side, and the magician said, “Hold on.”
They all held hands and suddenly they were standing in the courtyard of Villa Beata at Sorcerer’s Island. “This isn’t Darkmoor,” said Miranda.
“No,” said Pug. “I’ve never been to Darkmoor. So unless you want to materialize in the middle of the battle or inside a stone wall, you’ll give me an hour.”
Gathis hurried out of the house and welcomed them. “Hot food will be ready shortly,” he said, ushering them inside.
Tomas took aside Pug and said, “Is this where you live?”
“Most of the time,” said Pug.
Looking around the lovely estate, with the soft summer breeze from the ocean blowing across the meadows, he said, “I should have visited you a long time ago.”
Pug said, “We’ve changed. Until this morning, you could not bring yourself to leave Elvandar.”
Tomas said, “We’ve both lost a great deal. Even though my parents were fortunate and lived long lives, everyone else we knew as boys in Crydee has long since passed. But you, to have lost your children . . .”
Pug nodded. “I sensed over the last dozen years or so that I would outlive both of them, as Gamina and William aged and I didn’t.” Pug looked down at the ground, and was silent for a moment, lost in thought. Then he said, “Even though I expected it, the pain is still very real. I’ll never see my children again.”
Tomas said, “I think I understand.”
The two old friends stood quietly for a time, and Pug remained motionless. Then Pug looked up at the stars. “It’s such a vast universe. Sometimes I feel so insignificant.”
“If what Nakor suspects about the nature of that universe is correct, we are, all of us, at once insignificant and important.”
Pug laughed. “Only Nakor could come up with that.”
Tomas said, “You’ve known him awhile. What do you make of him?”
Pug put his hand on his friend’s arm and led him to the house. “I’ll tell you while I work on getting us to Darkmoor. He’s either the biggest confidence man in history or the most brilliant and original mind I’ve ever encountered.”
Tomas said, “Or both?”
Pug laughed. “Or both,” he agreed as they entered the house.
* * *
Pug moved his hands in a circle and a huge sphere of bluish light, shimmering with golden highlights, appeared. Taller than a man, it was as wide as a six-passenger coach. “What is it?” asked Miranda.
“It’s what is going to take us to Darkmoor,” Pug said. “I don’t know enough about Darkmoor to get us anywhere safely within sight of the city. If I don’t have a pattern to fix on, a location I know well enough, well, let’s just say it’s too dangerous.”
“I know the procedure,” said Miranda. “I thought we were coming here to get one of those Tsurani devices.”
“No good,” said Nakor, taking his out of his bag, “unless you’ve got it set for a place known to you.” He shook it. “If it still works.”
He laid the device aside.
Nakor grinned. “I’ll fly with you in your bubble.”
“How do we get in?” asked Miranda.
“Just step inside,” said Pug, and did so.
They followed him. “I had to dig up the spell to make this thing, but once I remembered how to do it”—he waved his hands, and the sphere lifted off the ground—“it’s easy.”
Gathis waved good-bye as the four friends flew high above the roof of the estate, and the sphere turned on a long, curving flight toward Krondor. “It’s easier if I follow landmarks I know, like the King’s Highway.”
“How long to get to Darkmoor?” asked Calis.
“We’ll arrive a little after dawn,” said Pug.
They sped across the sea, a hundred feet above the tops of the whitecaps. As the last of Midkemia’s three moons sank into the west, the predawn sky to the east lightened. A breeze blew, but they were comfortable inside the sphere. They stood in a circle, each with just enough room to move slightly.
Miranda said, “It would be nice if we could sit.”
Pug said, “After this is done, I’ll happily loan you the volume from which I got this spell, and if you can modify it to put seats in it, feel free.”
Nakor laughed.
“How fast are we going?” asked Tomas.
“As fast as the fastest bird,” said Pug. “We should be over Krondor in an hour.”
The time passed, and they watched the sky turn from jet black to dark grey. As morning approached, they could see the spindrift on the tops of the waves below, grey upon grey as the sea churned beneath them. “Are you sure that demon is dead?” asked Nakor.
Pug said, “He’s dead. Water is anathema to his kind. He was powerful enough to withstand it for a while, but not from that depth with the wounds Tomas gave him.”
“Look,” said Miranda. “Krondor.”
Pug had them coming in a direct line from Sorcerer’s Isle, so they approached the Prince’s city from almost directly west.
“Oh, gods!” said Miranda.
Across the horizon, where once a large city had teemed with life, only a lifeless black spot on the horizon loomed. Even at this hour of the morning, the city should have been alive with lights, as workers made their way along th
e streets in the predawn gloom. Boats should have been leaving from the fishing village outside the northern wall, and ships departing for distant ports should have been setting sail.
“There’s nothing left,” said Nakor.
Calis said, “Something’s moving.” He pointed up the coast, and in the murky light they could see a large company of horsemen moving north along the sea road.
“It looks like some of the Queen’s army has deserted,” said Sho Pi.
“Now that they’re free of the demon’s control, that should become more commonplace,” said Pug.
As they sped over the outer breakwater of Krondor harbor, the masts of burned ships stuck up above the bay, like a forest of blackened bones reaching for the sky. Beyond the water, everything was burned beyond recognition. The docks were gone, as were most of the buildings. Here and there a portion of a wall stuck up, but mostly it was rubble. The Prince’s palace was recognizable from its position atop the southern point of the harbor, high atop the hill that originally gave the first Prince of Krondor command of the harbor.
“It’ll be a long time before anyone uses that harbor again,” said Calis.
Tomas put his hand on his son’s shoulder. He knew the destruction of the city he had sworn to protect burned deeply. He also knew that Calis, better than anyone, understood what had been achieved by the destruction of the Lifestone, yet he recognized the pain Calis felt over the dear price paid by so many.
Pug willed the sphere along the King’s Highway. For mile after mile they witnessed wholesale destruction. Every farm and house was burned, and so many bodies lined the way the buzzards and crows couldn’t fly for their gorging. Dominic said, “We must get as many clerics as we can to come here, for plague will certainly follow such carnage.”
Nakor said, “All of the Order of Arch-Indar will help.”
Miranda said, “All two of you?”
Even in the midst of such destruction, Pug found it almost impossible not to laugh.
Tomas said, “Many of the priests will have perished during the destruction of the city.”
Calis said, “Not really. We passed word to the various temples months ago, and slowly they’ve been getting their clerics to safety. Duke James knew we would need much help after, if we survived.”
Miranda said, “And it helps to stay on the good side of the temples.”
Pug said, “In all my concern over the threat from the Emerald Queen and the demon, and our fears over the Life-stone, I lost sight of the simple fact that the Kingdom has been invaded by a very large army.”
Calis said, “I didn’t.” He pointed ahead. “Look.”
They were entering the foothills of the mountains, and Pug saw a sea of campfires, small shelters, and an occasional command tent. Then they were suddenly speeding over a huge command pavilion, the size of a large house. The closer they got to Darkmoor, the more mobilization they saw. “My gods,” said Tomas. “I’ve never seen such an army. Even during the Riftwar the Tsurani never threw more than thirty thousand men into the field, and never all in one place.”
Calis said, “They brought almost a quarter million men across the sea.” Dispassionately he said, “This below is the half we haven’t killed yet.”
“So many deaths,” said Nakor. He sighed with a heavy note of sadness. “And for no good reason.”
Tomas said, “Pug has heard me ask more than once if there was ever a good reason for war.”
“Freedom,” said Calis. “Preserving what is ours.”
Pug said, “Those are good reasons to resist. Even those aren’t good enough reasons to start a war.”
As the terrain rose, Pug kept the sphere at an even height. But as they found more and more men below pointing at them, and some starting to shoot arrows, Pug elevated the sphere.
At cloud level, they had a panorama of the battlefield below. “Incredible,” said Dominic.
An army of eighty or ninety thousand men lay sprawled out below them, like ants climbing up a hill. At the top of the hill was the city of Darkmoor. The foulburg and most of the city seemed to be in the enemy’s hands, and the fighting throughout the remainder of the city was fierce.
“Can we stop it?” asked Miranda.
Calis said, “I doubt it. The invaders are stuck on the wrong side of the ocean with no food.” He glanced at Pug and said, “Unless you have some magic means of removing them back to Novindus.”
Pug said, “A few at a time, perhaps, but . . . nothing like this.”
Tomas said, “Then we shall have to stop the fighting and sort it all out after men are no longer killing one another.”
“Do you see the Saaur?” asked Pug.
Tomas pointed to a corner of the city, near the southwest, where a small market was packed with the huge green riders. Pug stopped the sphere and said, “Let’s see if we can get their attention.”
He lowered the sphere, slowly, and as soon as the first Saaur saw it, they loosed their arrows at the humans.
But the arrows struck the walls of the sphere and bounced off, and Pug continued to lower the sphere slowly, and after it was clear no immediate threat was offered by the device, the arrows stopped.
Pug landed the sphere before a group of riders, the centermost of whom wore a particularly splendid horsehair-plumed helmet, and who carried an ornate shield and an ancient-looking sword. Pug said, “Get ready in case this doesn’t work.”
When the sphere vanished, Pug spoke in the language of Yabon, closely related to the Novindus dialect. “I seek Jatuk, Sha-shahan of all the Saaur!”
“I am Jatuk,” said the impressive rider. “Who are you, wizard?”
“I am called Pug. I have come to you to seek peace.”
The Saaur’s expression was alien, but Pug sensed he was being regarded with suspicion. “Understand we are bound by oath to the Emerald Queen and cannot make a separate peace.”
Pug said, “I bring word from Hanam.”
The reptilian face then proved quite expressive, as shock was clearly revealed in his features. “Hanam is dead! He died upon the world of my birth!”
“No,” said Pug. “Your father’s Loremaster used his arts to seize the mind and body of a demon, and in that body he came to this land. He sought me out and we spoke. He is now dead, but his soul is back on Shila, riding with the Sky Host.”
Jatuk urged his mount forward, and when he was right before Pug, he looked down, a towering presence. “Say what you will.”
Pug began, speaking of the ancient war between good and evil, the insanity of the Priests of Ahsart, and the betrayal of the Saaur by the Pantathians. At first the Saaur warriors appeared dubious, but as Pug spoke he told them what Hanam had told him to say. He concluded, “Hanam said to tell you that you must know, as will Shadu, your Loremaster, Chiga, your Cupbearer, and Monis, your Shieldbearer, that all I have said is true. The honor of your race demands you accept the truth, and the betrayal of your people is more than just lies. The Pantathians and the Emerald Queen and the demons—all have robbed you of your home world. They were the ones who destroyed Shila, and took from you, forever, your birthright.”
The Saaur rumbled in consternation. “Lies!” said one. “Clever falsehoods fashioned by a master of evil arts!” said another.
Jatuk held out his hand. “No. There is a ring of truth. If you are what you claim, if you have words from Hanam, then he must have told you one thing to let me know this is no clever lie.”
Pug nodded. “He said to remind you of the day you came to serve your father. You were the last of your father’s sons to serve. All your brothers were dead. You trembled in anticipation of meeting your father, and there was one who took you aside, and spoke softly into your ear to tell you all would be well.”
Jatuk said, “This is true. But name the one who comforted me.”
“Kaba, your father’s Shieldbearer, who told you what to say to your father. He said you were to say, ‘Father, I am here to serve the race, to avenge my brothers, and to do thy biddin
g.”
Jatuk leaned back, turned his face to the sky, and screamed. It was an animal sound of pure rage and anguish. “We have been betrayed!” he roared.
Without saying another word to Pug he turned to his companions. “Let it be known! Our bond is severed. We serve no one but the Saaur! Let death be the reward for those who have wronged us! Death to the Pantathians. Let no snake survive! Death to the Emerald Queen and her servants!”
Suddenly Saaur riders were heading back toward the city gate, and Jatuk said, “Human, when this is done, we will seek you out and make our peace, but there is a terrible debt of blood that must be paid!”
Tomas said, “Sha-shahan. Your warriors have known years of fighting. Put down your weapons. Withdraw from this fight. An army marches to this city to drive out the invaders. Step aside and let your wives and children know their fathers are returning to them alive.”
Holding his sword like a live thing, Jatuk’s eyes blazed. “This is Tual-masok, Blood Drinker in the ancient tongue. More than any other thing, it is the mark of my office and the badge of my people’s honor. It will not be put aside until this wrong is righted.”
Pug said, “Then know the Emerald Queen is dead. She was destroyed by a demon.”
Jatuk looked as if he could barely contain himself. “Demon! Demons destroyed our world!”
“I know,” said Pug, “and the demon is also dead.”
“Then who is there to pay the price?” demanded the Sha-shahan.
Tomas put away his sword. “No one. They are all dead. If there are any Pantathians alive they are hiding under the rocks of a distant land. The only ones left living are the victims, the tools, the dupes.”
The Saaur leader screamed in frustration to the skies. “I will have my revenge!”
Pug shook his head. “Spare your people, Jatuk!”
“I will have blood for blood!”
Tomas said, “Then go, but leave this city in peace.” Jatuk pointed his sword at Tomas. “My soldiers will depart, and no more will we trouble this place. But we are a nation without a home, and our honor is stained. Only by blood can we cleanse that stain.” He turned his horse in the direction of the city gate and with a hard kick sent the giant mount heading for the city gate.