Jimmy climbed out and kept watch while Martin came next, followed by the others. By agreement they split up into three groups: Baru with Laurie, Roald with Martin, and Jimmy with the Prince. They would scout the lake-shore for the plant, and as soon as one found it he would return to the crack in the rocks, waiting down below for his companions.
Arutha and Jimmy were slated to move towards the big black building, and by agreement had decided to begin their search behind the building. It seemed wise to check for guards before searching near the ancient Valheru edifice. It was impossible to know the moredhel attitude towards the place. They might hold it in similar awe to the elves and refuse to enter, give it wide berth until some ceremony, as if it were a shrine, or they might be inside the building in numbers.
Slipping through the dark, Jimmy reached the edge of the building and hugged it. The stones felt unusually smooth. Jimmy ran his hand over them and discovered they were textured like marble. Arutha waited, weapons ready, while Jimmy did a quick circumnavigation of the building. ‘No one in sight,’ he whispered, ‘except at the bridge towers.’
‘Inside?’ Arutha hissed.
Jimmy said, ‘Don’t know. It’s a big place, but only one door. Want to look?’ He hoped the Prince would say no.
‘Yes.’
Jimmy led Arutha down along the wall and around the corner, until he came to the solitary door to the large building. Above it was a half-circle window, with a faint light showing. Jimmy signalled for Arutha to give him a boost, and the young thief scampered up to the cornice above the door. He gripped it and pulled himself up to peek through the window.
Jimmy peered about. Below him, behind the door, was an ante-room of some sort, with a stone slab floor. Beyond, double doors opened into darkness. Jimmy noticed something strange about the wall below the window. The exterior stone was only facing.
Jimmy jumped back down. ‘There’s nothing I can see from the window.’
‘Nothing?’
‘There’s a passage into the darkness, that’s all; no sign of any guards.’
‘Let’s start looking around the lake’s edge, but keep an eye on this building.’
Jimmy agreed and they headed down towards the lake. The building was beginning to make his ‘something’s odd’ bump itch, but he shoved aside any distraction and concentrated on the search.
Hours were spent stalking the shore. Few water plants lined the lake’s edge; the plateau was almost devoid of flora. In the distance there would be an occasional faint rustling sound, which Arutha supposed came from one of the other pairs who searched.
When the sky became grey, Jimmy alerted Arutha to the coming dawn. Giving up in disgust, the Prince accompanied the boy thief back to the crevice. Laurie and Baru were already there and Martin and Roald joined them a few minutes later. All reported no sight of Silverthorn.
Arutha remained silent, turning slowly until his back was to the others. Then he clenched his fist, looking as if he had been struck a terrible blow. All eyes were on him as he stared away into the darkness of the cave, his profile etched in relief by the faint light from above, and all saw tears upon his cheeks. Suddenly he spun to confront his companions. Hoarsely he whispered, ‘It must be here.’ He looked at each of them in turn, and they glimpsed something in his eyes: a depth of feeling, a sense of overwhelming loss that caused them to share his dread. All of them saw suffering and something dying. If there was no Silverthorn, Anita was lost.
Martin shared his brother’s pain, and more, for in this instant he saw his father, in those quiet moments before Arutha had been old enough to know the depths of Borric’s loss of his Lady Catherine. The elven-taught hunter felt his own chest constrict at the thought of his brother reliving those lonely nights before the hearth, beside an empty chair, with only a portrait over the fire to gaze upon. Of the three brothers, only Martin had glimpsed the profound bitterness that had haunted their father’s every waking moment. If Anita died, Arutha’s heart and joy might well die with her. Unwilling to surrender hope, Martin whispered, ‘It will be here somewhere.’
Jimmy added, ‘There is one place we haven’t looked.’
Arutha said, ‘Inside that building.’
Martin said, ‘Then there’s only one thing to do.’
Jimmy hated to hear himself say, ‘One of us must get inside and take a look.’
• Chapter Seventeen •
Warlord
The cell stank of damp straw.
Pug stirred and found his hands tethered to the wall with needrahide chains. The skin of the stolid, six-legged Tsurani beast of burden had been treated to almost the hardness of steel and was anchored firmly to the wall. Pug’s head ached from the encounter with the strange magic-disrupting device. But there was another irritation. He fought off his mental sluggishness and looked at the manacles. As he began to incant a spell that would cause the chains to change to insubstantial gases, a sudden wrongness occurred. He could put no other name to it but a wrongness. His spell would not work. Pug sat back against the wall, knowing the cell had been blanketed by some ensorcellment neutralizing any other magic. Of course, he thought: how else does one keep a magician in jail?
Pug looked about the room. It was a dark pit of a cell with only a little light coming through a small barred opening high in the door. Something small and busy bustled through the straw near Pug’s foot. He kicked and it scurried off. The walls were damp, so he judged that he and his companions were below ground. He had no way of telling how long they had been here, nor had he any idea where they were: they could be anywhere upon the world of Kelewan.
Meecham and Dominic were chained to the wall opposite Pug, while to his right Hochopepa was likewise bound. Pug knew at once that the Empire rested upon a fine balancing point for the Warlord to risk bringing harm to Hochopepa. To capture a denounced renegade was one thing, but to incarcerate a Great One of the Empire was another. By rights, a Great One should be immune to the dictates of the Warlord. Besides the Emperor, a Great One was the only possible challenge to the Warlord’s rule. Kamatsu had been correct. The Warlord was nearing some major ploy or offensive in the Game of the Council, for the imprisonment of Hochopepa showed contempt for any possible opposition.
Meecham groaned and slowly looked up. ‘My head,’ he mumbled. Finding himself chained, he tugged experimentally at his bonds. ‘Well,’ he said, looking at Pug, ‘what now?’
Pug looked back and shook his head. ‘We wait.’
It was a long wait, perhaps three or four hours. When someone appeared, it was suddenly. Abruptly the door had swung open and a black-robed magician entered, followed by a soldier of the Imperial Whites. Hochopepa nearly spat as he said, ‘Ergoran! Are you mad? Release me at once!’
The magician motioned for the soldier to release Pug. He said to Hochopepa, ‘I do what I do for the Empire. You consort with our enemies, fat one. I will bring word to the Assembly of your duplicity when we have finished with our punishment of this false magician.’
Pug was quickly herded outside and the magician named Ergoran said, ‘Milamber, your display at the Imperial Games a year ago has earned you some respect – enough to ensure you do not wreak any more havoc upon those around you.’ Two soldiers fastened rare and costly metal bracelets upon his wrists. ‘The wards placed in this dungeon prevent any spell from operating within. Once you are outside the dungeon, these bracelets will cancel your powers.’ He motioned for the guards to bring Pug and one pushed him from behind.
Pug knew better than to waste time on Ergoran. Of all those magicians called the Warlord’s pets, he had been among the most rabid. He was one of the few magicians who believed that the Assembly should be an arm of the ruling body of the Empire, the High Council. It was supposed by some who knew him that Ergoran’s ultimate goal was to see the Assembly become the High Council. It had been rumoured that while the hot-tempered Almecho had publicly ruled, as often as not Ergoran had been the one behind him deciding the policy of the War Party.
A long flight of stairs brought Pug into sunlight. After the darkness of the cell he was blinded for a moment. As he was pushed along through the courtyard of some immense building, his eyes quickly adjusted. He was taken up a broad flight of stairs, and as he climbed, Pug looked over his shoulder. He could see enough landmarks to know where he was. He saw the river Gagajin, which ran from the mountains called the High Wall down to the city of Jamar. It was the major north-south thoroughfare for the Empire’s central provinces. Pug was in the Holy City itself, Kentosani, the capital of the Empire of Tsuranuanni. And from the dozens of white-armoured guards, he knew he was in the Warlord’s palace.
Pug was pushed along through a long hall until he reached a central chamber. The stone walls ended, and a rigid, painted wood-and-hide door was slid aside. A personal council chamber was where the Warlord of the Empire chose to interrogate his prisoner.
Another magician stood near the centre of the room, waiting upon the pleasure of a man who sat reading a scroll. The second magician was one Pug knew only slightly, Elgahar. Pug realized he could expect no aid here, even for Hochopepa, for Elgahar was Ergoran’s brother; magic talent had run deep in their family. Elgahar had always seemed to take his lead from his brother.
The man sitting upon a pile of cushions was of middle years, wearing a white robe with a single golden band trimming the neck and sleeves. Remembering Almecho, the last Warlord, Pug couldn’t think of a more striking contrast. This man, Axantucar, was the antithesis of his uncle in appearance. While Almecho had been a bullnecked, stocky man, a warrior in his manner, this man was more like a scholar or teacher. His wire-thin body made him look the ascetic. His features were almost delicate. Then he lifted his gaze up from the parchment he had been reading and Pug could see the resemblance: this man, like his uncle, had the same mad hunger for power in his eyes.
Slowly putting away his scroll, the Warlord said, ‘Milamber, you show courage, if not prudence, in returning. You will of course be executed, but before we have you hung, we would like to know one thing: why have you returned?’
‘Upon my homeworld a power grows, a dark and evil presence that seeks to advance its cause, and that cause is the destruction of my homeland.’
The Warlord seemed interested and motioned for Pug to continue. Pug told all he knew, completely and without embellishment or exaggeration. ‘Through magic means I have determined that this thing is of Kelewan; somehow the fates of both worlds are again intertwined.’
When he was finished, the Warlord said, ‘You spin an interesting tale.’ Ergoran appeared to brush aside Pug’s story, but Elgahar looked genuinely troubled. The Warlord went on, ‘Milamber, it is truly a shame you were taken from us during the betrayal. Had you remained, we might have found employment for you as a storyteller. A great power of darkness, aborning from some forgotten recess within our Empire. What a wonderful tale.’ The man’s smile vanished and he leant forward, elbow upon knee, as he looked at Pug. ‘Now, to the truth. This shabby nightmare you spin is but a weak attempt to frighten me into ignoring your true reasons for returning. The Blue Wheel Party and its allies are on the verge of collapse in the High Council. That is why you return, for those who counted you as ally before are desperate, knowing the utter domination of the War Party to be all but a fact. You and the fat one are again in league with those who betrayed the Alliance for War during the invasion of your homeworld. You fear the new order of things we represent. Within days I shall announce the end of the High Council, and you have come to thwart that event, true? I don’t know what you have in mind, but we shall have the truth from you, if not now, then soon. And you shall name those who stand arrayed against us.
‘And we will have the means of your return. Once the Empire is secure under my rule, then shall we return to your world and quickly do what should have been done under my uncle.’
Pug looked from face to face and knew the truth. Pug had met and spoken with Rodric, the mad King. The Warlord was not as mad as the King had been, but there was no doubt that he was not entirely sane. And behind him stood one who betrayed little, but just enough, for Pug to understand. Ergoran was the power to be feared here, for he was the true genius behind the dominance of the War Party. It would be he who would rule in Tsuranuanni, perhaps, someday, even openly.
A messenger arrived and bowed before the Warlord, handing him a parchment. The Warlord read quickly, then said, ‘I must go to the council. Inform the inquisitor I require his services the fourth hour of the night. Guards, return this one to his cell.’ As the guards pulled Pug about by his chain, the Warlord said, ‘Think on this, Milamber. You may die slowly or quickly, but you will die. The choice is yours. Either way, we shall have the truth from you eventually.’
Pug watched as Dominic entered his trance. Pug had told his companions of the Warlord’s reaction, and after Hochopepa had raged on for a time, the fat magician had lapsed into silence. Like others of the black robe, Hochopepa found the notion of any whim of his being ignored almost unfathomable. This imprisonment was nearly impossible to contemplate. Meecham had shown his usual taciturnity, while the monk had also seemed unperturbed. The discussion had been short and resigned.
Dominic had soon after begun his exercises, fascinating to Pug. He had sat and begun meditating until he was now entering some sort of trance. In the silence, Pug considered the monk’s lesson. Even in this cell, apparently without hope, there was no need for them to surrender to fear and become mindless wretches. Pug turned his mind back, remembering his boyhood at Crydee: the frustrating lessons with Kulgan and Tully, as he sought to master a magic that he would discover, years later, he was unsuited to practise. A shame, he thought to himself. There were many things he had observed during his time at Stardock that had convinced him the Lesser Magic of Midkemia was significantly further advanced than on Kelewan. Most likely, it was a result of there being only one magic on Midkemia.
For variety, Pug tried one of the cantrips taught him by Kulgan as a boy, one he had never mastered anyway. Hmm, he mused, the Lesser Path spell isn’t affected. He began to encounter the strange blocking from within himself and almost felt amusement at it. As a boy he had feared that experience, for it signalled failure. Now he knew it was simply his mind, attuned to the Greater Path, rejecting Lesser Path discipline. Still, somehow the effects of the anti-magic wards caused him to attack the problem more obliquely. He closed his eyes, imagining the one thing he had tried on innumerable occasions, failing each time. The pattern of his mind balked at the requirements of that magic, but as it shifted to take on its normal orientation, it somehow rebounded against the wards, recoiled, and … Pug sat up, eyes wide. He had almost found it! For the briefest instant he had almost understood. Fighting down excitement, he closed his eyes, head down, and concentrated. If he could only find that one instant, that one crystalline instant when he had understood … an instant that had fled as soon as it had come … In this dank, squalid cell he had stood upon the brink of perhaps one of the most important discoveries in the history of Tsurani magic. If only he could recapture that instant …
Then the doors to the cell opened. Pug looked up, as did Hochopepa and Meecham. Dominic remained in his trance. Elgahar entered, motioning for a guard to close the door behind him. Pug stood, uncramping legs that had succumbed to the cold stones beneath the straw while he had meditated upon his boyhood.
‘What you say is disturbing,’ said the black-robed magician.
‘As it should be, for it is true.’
‘Perhaps, but it may not be, even if you believe it to be true. I would hear everything.’
Pug motioned for the magician to sit, but he shook his head in negation. Shrugging, Pug returned to his place on the floor and began his narrative. When he reached the portion relating to Rogen’s vision, Elgahar became observably agitated, halting Pug to ask a series of questions. Pug continued, and when he was through, Elgahar shook his head. ‘Tell me, Milamber, on your homeworld, are there many who could have understood what was said to
this seer in the vision?’
‘No. Only myself and one or two others could have understood it; only the Tsurani in LaMut would have recognized it as ancient High Temple Tsurani.’
‘There is a frightening possibility. I must know if you’ve considered it.’
‘What?’
Elgahar leant close to Pug and whispered a single word in his ear. Colour drained from Pug’s face and he closed his eyes. Back on Midkemia, his mind had begun the process of intuiting what it could from the information at hand. He had subconsciously known all along what the answer would be. With a single, long sigh, he said, ‘I have. At every turn I have shied from admitting that possibility, but it is always there.’
Hochopepa said, ‘What is this you speak of?’
Pug shook his head. ‘No, old friend. Not yet. I want Elgahar to consider what he has deduced without hearing your opinion or mine. This is something that must make him reevaluate his loyalties.’
‘Perhaps. But even if I do, it will not necessarily alter our present circumstance.’
Hochopepa exploded in rage. ‘How can you say such a thing! What circumstance can matter in the face of the Warlord’s crimes? Have you come to the point where all your free will has been surrendered to your brother?’
Elgahar said, ‘Hochopepa, you of all who wear the black robe should understand, for it was you and Fumita who played in the Great Game for years with the Blue Wheel Party.” He spoke of those two magicians’ part in helping the Emperor end the Riftwar. ‘For the first time in the history of the Empire, the Emperor is in a unique position. With the betrayal at the peace conference, he has come to the position of having ultimate authority while having lost face. He may not use his influence, and he will not again utilize his authority. Five clan Warchiefs died in that betrayal, the five most likely to achieve the office of Warlord. Many families lost position in the High Council because of their deaths. Should he again attempt to order the clans, he may be refused.’