Wrath of a Mad God (37 page)

“All know me by a different name, or guise, or aspect. I am the god of thieves, and liars, and gamblers. But I am also the god of those who undertake impossible quests, and hopeless causes. And that is why it is I who act on behalf of the gods of Midkemia, for if there was ever a hopeless cause it is stemming the advance of the Dread into our world, Pug.

“There are rules and they bind the gods as much as they
bind mortals, and Astalon and Killian, Guis-wa, and Lims-Kragma—for all their powers—cannot ignore those rules. The laws of the universe say that we are confined to this realm, that no matter how important and puissant we may be in this, our realm, in other realms we are trespassers and hold no sway. So then, who better to enter the other realm and effect change than I?”

“The god who ignores the law, and breaks the rules,” said Pug.

“Yes,” chuckled Ban-ath. “The Trickster. The Cheater. Only I can do what needs to be done, for it is as much my nature as it is the scorpion’s nature to sting that stupid frog to death!”

Suddenly they were standing on a hill, on the edge of a bucolic valley through which ran a stream where fish could be seen jumping.

“Where are we?” Pug asked.

“It’s somewhere you’ve been before, once.”

“When?”

“Remember,” said Ban-ath, and Pug did.

“Macros, Tomas, and I stopped here on our way back through the Hall of Worlds, after leaving the City Forever, before the Battle of Sethanon.” Pug looked around. Deerlike herbivores grazed in the meadows and birds sang in the trees. In so many ways this world resembled Midkemia. “Why did you bring me here?”

“So that you would remember this place,” said Ban-ath, and then he vanished. From the empty air came a disembodied voice.

“Consider this a small gift for services given. I have no concern for the Tsurani, for they are not my people, but you do, as I know well. No trick this, but a heartfelt expression of gratitude. I may be a natural force without compassion, but occasionally nature is clement.”

Pug said, “What do I do now?”

Suddenly they were back in his room, and he was in bed. His meal was finished, so he assumed while he was on this mystical journey he had actually been eating.

“You save this world,” came Ban-ath’s voice from the air around him.

Pug hesitated for only a moment, then he climbed out of
bed and donned a fresh robe. “Caleb!” he shouted, and waited for his son to appear.

People ran screaming from a thundering horde of Dasati Deathknights mounted on varnin. Whatever had prohibited the Dasati from protecting the war steeds during the early onset of this war had obviously been overcome, for now cadres of Dasati riders erupted from the constantly expanding Black Mount. Any Tsurani resistance was futile, for at best it merely stemmed the Dasati advance, while costing the lives of the defenders. At worst they were overcome and the Dasati reached their objective, which now seemed to be to capture as many Tsurani as possible and drag them back into the Black Mount.

Miranda stood next to Alenburga and surveyed the sphere, now miles across, dominating the horizon. “In the last hour,” she said, “I reckon it’s expanded by about another mile.”

Alenburga sighed. “I can’t keep throwing soldiers’ lives away. There must be another way.”

“I’ve tried every magic at my disposal, as has each member of the Assembly. We’ve lost more than two hundred magicians in the fight, and those who remain are fast losing hope.”

“Unless you have a miracle in reserve,” said the old general from Novindus, “I think it’s time to tell the Emperor he needs to evacuate.”

“I think you need to tell him yourself,” said Miranda.

Alenburga looked at Kaspar who nodded his agreement. Then he looked toward Erik, who said, “Go on. We’ll keep an eye on things.”

Alenburga turned to Miranda. “Take me there.”

Miranda put her hand on the General’s shoulder and suddenly they were standing in a garden miles away, in the middle of the old Acoma estates. White-and-gold-clad Imperial Guards drew their weapons before they realized the intruders were the woman magician and the outland General; then they moved to escort the visitors.

Inside the great house, Chomata, First Advisor to the Emperor, waited. “General,” he said, bowing his head in greeting.
Next he acknowledged Miranda, “Great One.” A thin, ascetic-looking old man with a balding pate, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week. “What news?”

“For the Emperor,” said the General, “and I fear it is not good.”

“He’ll want to see you at once,” said Chomata.

In his private chambers, the Emperor dined alone. Alenburga bowed as did Miranda, then the General said, “Majesty, I bring grave news.” He quickly recounted the situation and their best estimate of how long it would be before the Dasati dome menaced this very estate.

“I will not leave my people,” the Emperor said calmly.

“How many have you evacuated through the rifts?”

Miranda felt her heart sink. “Only twenty thousand or so, Majesty.”

“There are millions in the Empire, and what of those without…and have you considered the Cho-ja?”

Miranda realized she hadn’t. Kelewan had several intelligent races besides humans, just as Midkemia did, but here the relationships were different. The Thūn raiders from the north were a constant plague on the northernmost garrisons and occasionally made it through the passes of the High Wall, to pillage estates there. The Cho-ja were an insectlike hive culture, each hive ruled by a queen, but as Miranda understood it, somehow they were all linked in communication. Of the other races she knew little—there was a race of savage dwarves across the Sea of Blood in the Lost Lands, an alien race of lizardlike creatures that lived on islands across the great sea to the west…Feeling defeated, she said, “Majesty, I will plead to being mortal and having limits to my abilities. No, I have not thought of these things. My first thought was to defeat these monsters who menace both your world and mine. Now I seek to save the Tsurani people. As for those others, what would you have me do?”

From behind her a voice said, “I can help.”

Miranda turned with tears welling up in her eyes. In two strides she was across the floor and then she had her arms tightly around her husband’s neck. “I was so afraid,” she whispered,
words that Pug knew no other mortal would ever hear his wife utter. Then she said, “Magnus?”

“Yes,” he whispered back. “He’s on our island, safe.”

She sobbed once. “Thank the gods.” Then she asked, “Nakor?”

“No,” he said softly, and he felt her body go rigid. She was still for a moment, then took a deep breath.

She turned to the Emperor and said, “Despite this interruption, I must continue to urge you to make ready to seek refuge on Midkemia, Majesty.”

Pug said, “That won’t be necessary.”

All eyes turned to him. “What are you saying, Milamber?” asked the Emperor. “Can you defeat the Dasati?”

“No,” said Pug, acknowledging his Tsurani name. “But I have found you a haven.”

“A haven?”

“It’s a fair world.” He smiled. “I’d say it’s even a little more hospitable than Kelewan. There are forests and valleys, great seas with beautiful beaches, mountains and deserts. There’s game in abundance and many places for farms and orchards, to run herds and build cities. And no one else lives there.”

“Milamber, is there no other way?” asked Sezu, and for the first time since meeting the Emperor, Pug saw the mask of imperial confidence break, and behind it he spied the uncertain young man.

“I wish there was, Majesty. I wish I could say the horror I’ve seen can be defeated, but it cannot. It can only be frustrated, and to save other worlds in this universe from it, Kelewan…” He hesitated to say what he knew to be true, that this world must be destroyed to prevent the Dark One from establishing any sort of foothold in this realm. Finally he said, “Kelewan must be abandoned. It is the only hope for your people.”

Softly, the Emperor said, “What shall I do?” He first looked at his elderly First Advisor, then at Pug and Miranda.

Finally Pug said, “When I trained for the Black Robe, Majesty, I stood upon the Tower of Testing, and part of that ritual showed me what is known of the history of the Tsurani people.

“It all began with the Golden Bridge, when the people of Kelewan first came here, fleeing from some nameless terror through a vast portal, to this world.”

“This is our legend,” said Chomata.

“The Tsurani people did not originate on Kelewan,” Miranda added.

“The Tsurani people can survive on another world,” said Pug. “Tsuranuanni is not your cities and temples, the villages and towns, for you can build again, nor is it titles and honors for those can be restored. Tsuranuanni is your people. If they endure, a new Tsuranuanni can be forged.”

The Emperor was silent for a very long time, then he nodded. “It shall be done.”

Pug said to Miranda, “We have much to do. I will speak to the Thūn and you must speak with the Cho-ja. I will first go to the Assembly and see if any of those remaining have knowledge of the dwarves across the sea or other intelligent races.

“Then I must go to the Hall, and find that world I visited so long ago. Once there, I will open as large a rift as I can between that world and the original rift site, near the City of the Plain.

“Have the Great Ones of the Empire begin building rifts from every major city and from any safe place away from the Dasati and tell the people to gather what they may, for the Empire must be ready, the nations must be ready, the people must be ready! We have little time left.”

“How much time do we have?” asked the Emperor.

“Less than a week, Majesty. If we linger, we die, and with us die other worlds, eventually. I have seen it. It is the truth.”

“Go,” said Sezu, who now truly looked like a crestfallen young man, a young man wearing the mantle of leadership that had been thrust on him by an accident of birth. It was clear to everyone in the room that he would rather that burden be on other shoulders at this time, but he had made his decision and he was ready to act. “Make it so,” he said.

T
he chill wind blew.

Pug repeated an approach he had used many years before, of transporting himself via magic to a place on the vast tundra of the Thūn. He hiked to the north for the better part of an hour, his black robe a stark contrast to the bare grey-and-white soil beneath his feet. He was in one of the few places on this world which knew cold and ice, and it felt strange.

A band of Thūn males appeared an hour before sunset, riding toward him. They were centaurlike creatures, but rather than a marriage of man and horse, they looked more like Saaur warriors grafted to the torsos of warhorses. Each carried a round shield and a sword and they hooted odd battle chants.

Pug was ready to attempt the same tactic he had used the only previous time he had come this far north: erecting a passive barrier so that they could not harm him, or force him to defend himself with violence.

But this time they came close enough to see his black robe and veered off, speeding back the way they had come. Having no time to wait for them to send out an expendable emissary, Pug followed in a series of magic jumps, staying just far enough behind them not to provoke an attack.

In less than an hour a village came into view and Pug could see more than a score of massive sod huts with ramps leading down toward doors, so he deduced that the houses must be half underground. Smoke rose through vent holes, and Thūn children and females moved among the buildings.

An alarm was sounded and instantly the young scurried for the safety of the huts. The females took up positions in the doorways, obviously ready to defend their young if the males were defeated. Pug realized that all the Thūn’s encounters with humans in black robes had been punitive, save one, the last time he had spoken to them. As part of their nature, the Thūn attempted to range south of the mountains in winter, and for a thousand years they had been repulsed by the Tsurani.

Pug was about to seek to convince them to leave lands that had been their home since the dawn of time.

He erected a shield around himself, and approached slowly. A few used slings to hurl rocks at him and one shot at him with a bow, but when the missiles bounced harmlessly off the shield, they stopped. A few feigned charges and drew up short of slamming into him, but they all hooted and challenged him.

Pug stopped just outside the village boundary and said in a loud, calm voice, “I seek a parlay with the Lasura.” He used their own word for themselves, like so many others meaning “the people.” “Thūn” was a Tsurani word.

For almost ten minutes nothing happened while Pug stood motionless and the Thūn warriors shouted what he took to be insults and challenges to single combat. He knew it was ritualized and expected of braves, but he and the Thūn also knew that
the average Tsurani Great One could rain fire down on this village and Pug was far from average.

Finally an older male approached and in heavily accented Tsurani said, “Speak, Black One, if you must.”

“I speak of a great danger, not only to the Lasura, or Tsurani, or the Cho-ja, but to this whole world. Listen and heed me, for I come to you as a friend, and offer you escape.”

Pug spoke as well as he could, for nearly an hour, and tried to keep the concepts focused and plausible, for he knew there would be serious doubt that this was anything but some Tsurani ploy to lure the Thūn south to destruction. At the end he said, “I must leave, and I have only this to say. Send fast runners to your other villages and tell them of what I have spoken.

“If you stay here you will perish in less than eight sunrises. But if you wish to live, go to the place on the plains where the seven fingers of rock rise up from the mountains to the south. There I will leave a magic doorway. Step through it and you will find yourself on a grassy plain, with lush trees and warm breezes.”

“Why would a Tsurani for the Lasura do this?” asked the old male. “Enemies are we, and always have been.”

Pug avoided explaining he was not Tsurani born—it was a needless complication—but said, “This land was your land before the Tsurani came, and I would make this much right: come to where the Tsurani flee, to the new world, and I will make a home for you. You will have the oath of the Emperor of the Tsurani, and this entire land I speak of will be yours alone. No Tsurani will trouble you, for it is across a vast sea and you will share it with no others. This is my bond as a Great One of the Empire, and so is the bond of the Tsurani Light of Heaven.

“Heed my words, for I must leave now,” he said, and then he willed himself back to the Assembly.

Alone in the room set aside for Miranda and himself when they resided with the Tsurani, Pug closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that the Thūn would listen. But he was almost certain they would not.

Miranda approached the hive entrance with an escort of Imperial Guards. Cho-ja hive workers scurried about the Acoma
estates as they had for centuries. Miranda knew that there had been some kind of special relationship between the Emperor’s great-grandmother, Mara of the Acoma, and the hive queen and later the Cho-ja magicians in far-off Chakaha, the crystal-spired Cho-ja city far beyond the eastern border of the Empire. She did not know exactly what that relationship had been, but she understood that since then the Cho-ja had enjoyed the status of an autonomous people within the borders of the Empire.

At the entrance Miranda realized she had never been this close to a Cho-ja before. They were insects, as far as she was concerned, giant ants from her point of view, yet their upper torso rose like that of a human’s, with similar musculature in the chest, shoulders, and arms. Their faces were like those of a mantis, with eyes that looked like faceted metal spheres, but in the place of mandibles, the Cho-ja had mouths that were very humanlike. Their color in the sun was an iridescent blue-green. “May we address your queen?” asked Miranda.

The guard stood motionless for a long moment, then asked in the Tsurani tongue, “Who is it who seeks audience with our queen?”

“I am Miranda, wife of Milamber of the Assembly of Magicians. I seek an audience with your queen to bring word of grave peril to all Cho-ja.”

The guard twittered in a clicking language, then said, “Word will be sent.” He turned and clicked loudly down the hall, and several passing Cho-ja workers turned to look at Miranda. After a few minutes, another Cho-ja, wearing some sort of mantle around his shoulders, appeared at the entrance. He made a fair imitation of a human bow, and said, “I am one who advises, and have been sent to guide you. Please follow me and be cautious, the footing here is not easy for your feet.”

Miranda was too concerned by her mission to be amused by the odd syntax and the kindness of the warning. She followed the Cho-ja advisor into the tunnels. Her first impression was of a moist odor: a hint of a spice and a nutty tang. She realized this was the scent of the Cho-ja, and that it was not an unpleasant scent.

The tunnels were lit by some sort of fluorescence emanat
ing from a bulbous growth that hung from odd supports that appeared to be of neither wood nor stone. As she moved down a long tunnel, she saw Cho-ja diggers excavating a side tunnel and saw a small Cho-ja extruding something from his jaws, his cheeks blown out to impossible proportions as he spat a compound onto the wall, then patted it into form and realized that these tunnel supports must be made of some body secretion.

In a deeper chamber she saw strange little Cho-ja hanging from the ceiling. They had long translucent wings which they beat furiously for a while, then rested, staggering the beating of their wings so that at least one of them in a group was always moving. Miranda realized that with miles of tunnels this deep and with thousands of Cho-ja living in these vast hives, they had to keep the air moving or suffocation in the lower tunnels would be a risk.

It took a good hike downward, but at last Miranda came to the royal chamber. This was a vast excavation, easily five stories high, with a score of tunnels leading away on all sides. In the midst of this huge chamber lay the Cho-ja queen, resting upon a raised mound of earth

She was immense, her segmented body at least thirty feet long from her head to the end of her second thorax. Her chitin looked like cured hide armor, polished black, and from the withered appearance of her legs Miranda realized she never moved from this location. Her body was draped with a beautifully woven tapestry of ancient Tsurani origin. On all sides workers cared for her enormous body, polishing her chitin, fanning her with their wings, carrying food and water to her. Above and behind her, and mounted back upon her thorax, a stocky male perched, rocking back and forth as he mated with her. Small workers surrounded him, tending him, while other males waited patiently to one side to play their role in the constant, endless Cho-ja breeding.

A dozen Cho-ja males were arrayed before the queen, some wearing crested helms and others without visible ornament; all greeted Miranda with polite, silent bows. On either side of the chamber, smaller versions of the queen lay upon their stomach and attendants bustled about each of them. Miranda knew these were egg-bearing lesser queens, whose nonfertile eggs were
passed to the queen, who swallowed them whole, fertilizing them inside her body and then laying them again.

Miranda bowed low before the assembled Cho-ja. “Honors to your hive, my queen.”

“Honors to your house, Miranda of Midkemia.”

“I bear a most dire warning, Majesty,” she began. Calmly Miranda related all that Pug had told her of the coming of the Dreadlord and the plans to relocate the Tsurani to their new world. At the end, she said, “This world is lush and abundant, and there is ample room for the Cho-ja. I understand that what one queen hears, all queens hear, and that my words are even now being heard by your kin in distant Chakaha. Your magicians are legendary and we would welcome their aid in preparing the rifts to this new world, for time is short and there are so many to evacuate.”

The queen continued her normal duties, then finally she said, “We, the Cho-ja, thank Miranda of Midkemia for her warning, and we thank all who are concerned for the well-being of the Cho-ja.” She fell quiet for a long moment, and Miranda wondered if there was some sort of silent communication under way between this queen and the others. Then the queen said, “But we must decline your kindness.”

Miranda could scarcely credit what she had heard. “What?” she blurted.

“We will stay and we will die.”

There was a total lack of emotion in that statement, making it all the more alien for its starkness. “But why, Majesty? Of all those on Kelewan, you are the ones who are most able to facilitate your own evacuation. You have powerful users of magic and can fashion your own rifts through which to escape.”

“Mara of the Acoma came to fetch me when I was a hatchling,” began the old queen. “She said I was pretty and that is why I came here. Since then she visited me many times, as did her son, and his son, and his son. I enjoy those visits, as do all the queens who share the experience with me, Miranda.

“But no human has ever truly understood our nature. We are of this world. We cannot abide anywhere else. We were of
this world when humans first came here, in the time before history, and we will die with this world. It is what must be. Would you uproot trees and move them? Would you fish the seas and put creatures of the deep in alien waters to save them? Would you move the very rocks of Kelewan to save them? You humans are visitors here, and have always been such, and it is right you should move on, but we are of this world.” She paused for a moment, then repeated, “We are of
this
world.”

Miranda was speechless. There was such a profound finality in the queen’s words, that she knew debate was pointless. Feeling defeated, she said weakly, “If you have a change of heart, we will do what we can.”

“Again, we thank you for your concerns.”

“I will be away, for I have much to see to.”

“Honors to your house, Miranda of Midkemia.”

“Honors to your hive, Queen of the Cho-ja.”

Miranda felt something very beautiful and important was about to be lost, but there were still so many things to do that she pushed aside the ache in her chest and started the return to the surface where the Tsurani Imperial Guards waited to escort her back to the Emperor.

Pug felt a chill that had nothing to do with the unusually cool highland wind. Kelewan was a hot world compared to Midkemia, but these highlands were home to bitter winters and cold nights. He stood motionless and waited as a group of five Thuril approached him on foot. He waited at the edge of the town called Turandaren, which over the years had become a major trading center between the Thuril Confederation and the Empire. Once a village on the frontier, it had evolved over the years until it was the closest thing to a Tsurani settlement in the highlands.

Over a century of peace between the two people had not lessened their distrust of each other, for that peace had been preceded by centuries of war and attempted conquest by the Tsurani. The old walls might have crumbled but they were still defensible, and the Thuril were adept mountain fighters who had never been conquered by the Tsurani.

The leader of the five men was an old warrior by the look of him. His long grey hair was plaited and he wore a small wool cap with a long feather hanging down behind his left ear. His upper body bore clan markings and old wounds, showing that while peace with the Empire might be the norm, that didn’t preclude Thuril blood feuds and border raids. Banditry was commonplace along the trade routes, as well. He wore a deep blue tartan and carried a shield and longsword, both strapped to his back. The other four men looked more like merchants than warriors. The leader halted directly in front of Pug and said, “You’re standing as if you’re waiting for an invitation to enter the town, Black Robe.”

Pug smiled. “I thought if I waited here conspicuously I’d get faster results than if I wandered around town asking questions.”

The leader laughed. “Not a bad guess.” He rubbed his chin. “Now, I’m Jakam, hetman of Turandaren, and these worthies are men of note.” Pug noticed that he didn’t bother to introduce them. “What can we do for you, Tsurani?”