Wrath of a Mad God (38 page)

Pug said, “I need to find the Confederation Council and, most importantly, I need to speak with the Kaliane.”

At the mention of the Kaliane, Jakam nodded his head, as if showing respect. “The Council meets at the Warm Springs of Shatanda, near the town of Tasdano Abear. Do you know it?”

“I can find it, if you point me in the right direction.”

“Take the road east, up into the mountains, and at the notch in the ridge, you’ll find two trails down. Take the northernmost, and follow it for a week if you walk, less if you have a horse or magic. That’ll put you in the Valley of Sandram and at the northern end you’ll find Tasdano Abear and the Warm Springs of Shatanda. The Council should be easy enough to find, it’ll be in all those tents and huts thrown up around the springs. But you’d better hurry. Council ends in six days and the leaders of the clans will return to their homes.”

“I’ll be there by nightfall,” said Pug.

“Black Robe,” said Jakam, as if it were a curse. “Anything else?”

“My thanks, and a warning.”

The four merchants stepped back and Jakam’s hand moved
across his chest, one motion away from drawing the sword over his shoulder. “Warning?”

“Yes. Prepare your people for travel, for word should come from the Council soon that the Thuril people must leave these lands.”

“What? Are you bereft of reason? Are you Tsurani claiming these lands again?”

“No,” said Pug, his voice echoing with sorrow. “They are leaving, too. Something terrible is coming into this world and all must flee. Just know that the more your people prepare, the more they will be able to take with them.”

Jakam was about to ask another question, but Pug knew that further talk would be pointless. He spied a distant rise where the trail could clearly be seen, and transported himself there. It was an old mode of travel he had employed before, jumping from place to place along his line of sight. It was fatiguing, but effective, for like all magicians save Miranda and Magnus, he could not jump to a place he had never seen before.

He reached his goal at nightfall, as he had anticipated. He could see the many fires up on the hillside around the springs, and made his way into town. Unlike Turandaren, Tasdano Abear was a classic Thuril town comprising wattle-and-daub buildings, only the inn making concessions to more modern requirements. On the top of the hill above the town was the fortress, the Thuril log emplacement surrounded by a ditch full of bramble and thorn bush. The Thuril had been impossible to conquer because they simply refused to die defending a particular piece of land. The fortress was designed more to maul an invader before being quickly evacuated than it was to withstand any long siege. These highlanders regarded all of the highland plateaus, valleys, meadows, and mountains as their home, and didn’t particularly care from season to season where they resided. A town like Tasdano Abear would flourish for a decade, then vanish when people got tried of trading there. Still, over the last century, reports from the highlands indicated peace was having the long-term effect of turning a seminomadic people into permanent residents of specific areas.

Clans traditionally had claimed ranges and meadows, but
who within that clan got rights to what was often a matter of very difficult, convoluted clan politics. As most families had several blood ties to every other family in the clan, bloodshed between families in clans was rare, but brawls were a staple of the hot-blooded highlanders.

Pug entered the tavern and looked around. As he expected it was crowded with many young warriors here in support of clan leaders at the Confederation Council. And while the mood was mostly festive, with this many young men from this many different families, they were always one moment away from a brawl.

The Thuril were an odd race in contrast to the Tsurani, for while the Tsurani were reticent to the point of near-silence, the Thuril were a ferociously outspoken people. Insult was an art form, and the art was to be as loud, boastful, and obnoxious as one could be, without starting a fight.

By the time Pug sat down at a long table in the corner, in the one unoccupied seat, the room had fallen silent. Never in the memory of the oldest living Thuril warrior had a Tsurani Great One walked into an inn during a Confederation Council and sat down.

Finally one of the older warriors, obviously drunk, said, “Are you lost?” He was a redheaded, brawny fellow, with ruddy cheeks and a long drooping moustache. He wore a beaten copper necklace that sparkled in the torchlight. It was a very valuable piece of jewelry on this metal-poor world.

Pug shook his head. “I think not.”

“So, you know where you are then?”

“This is the Sandram Valley, right?

“It is.”

“And this is the town of Tasdano Abear, right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“And that’s the Confederation Council up on the hillside at the Shatanda Warm Springs, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that it is.”

“Then I’m not lost.”

“Well, then, Tsurani, if you don’t mind me asking, what brings you to this place?”

“I need to speak to the Council and especially the Kaliane.”

“Ah, the Kaliane, is it?”

“Yes,” said Pug.

“And supposing she doesn’t wish to see you?”

“I think she will.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because I have something to say to her that she will certainly wish to hear.”

“Then why are you sitting here, you ill-gotten offspring of a musonga”—he invoked the name of a particularly stupid burrowing pest that was the bane of all farmers on Kelewan—“and not toddling up there to tell her what you’ve got to say?”

“Because, you rock-headed son of a flatulent needra and mud-wallowing baloo”—Pug rejoined with a pair of domestic animals, the stupid beast of burden and a filthy, and stupid, but edible meat animal—“it would be bad manners for me to ‘toddle’ without an invitation to an audience, which you would know if your mother had birthed any children who could tell it was daylight while standing outside staring into the sun, and had you half the wits the gods gave to a bag of rocks. It’s called ‘good manners.’”

The warriors nearby erupted into laughter: this Tsurani not only spoke passable Thuril, he could insult with style.

The redheaded warrior didn’t know whether to laugh or take umbrage, but before he could make up his mind, Pug said, “Be a welcoming host and ask the Kaliane if she will listen to the words of Milamber of the Assembly, once husband to a Thuril woman, Katala.”

The room fell silent. An old man sitting in the corner stood up and walked over to Pug. “How can that be? You are a young man, and Katala was a kinswoman of mine, dead before I was born. The story is told of her having wed a Black Robe.”

“I am that man,” said Pug. “I am long-lived, I remain as you see me, and was then as I am now when I was wed to her. She was my wife, and mother of my firstborn son, and I still grieve for her.”

The old man turned to one of the younger warriors and said, “Go to the Kaliane, and tell her a man of importance has
come from the Tsurani lands, to speak to her and the Council. He has a claim of kinship. I will vouch it is true.”

The young warrior nodded in deference to the old man, who sat down beside Pug. “Milamber of the Assembly, I would hear the tale of you and my kinswoman.”

Pug sighed, for these were memories he rarely visited. “When I was little more than a boy the Tsurani invaded my homeland and I was taken as slave, for the great house of the Shinzawai. It was there I met Katala of the Thuril, sold into slavery by border raiders. We met one day…” He told the story slowly and plainly, and soon it was clear that the memories were as vivid to him now as they had been years before, and the images of his first wife were undimmed by the passage of time.

When he had finished, warriors wept at the tale of their parting, for the proud warriors of the Thuril felt no shame in showing strong emotions. The room fell silent as the messenger returned and said, “The Kaliane bids you come and makes you welcome to the Council, Milamber of the Assembly.”

Pug rose and walked out of the inn. He followed his guide to the top of the trail, which opened into a large meadow, dotted with hide tents, erected for the meeting of the Council. The meadow was home to natural warm springs, which in the night sent up plumes of steam and gave off a faintly metallic odor.

Night birds sang and Pug was reminded that as alien as Kelewan had been to him when he had first come here as a Tsurani captive, he had come to think of it as home for the better part of eight years. He had met his wife here and fathered his firstborn, and this is where she had returned to die of an illness no priest or chirurgeon could cure.

As he was led through the sprawling community of huts, he finally found himself before an ancient longhouse. He knew enough of Thuril tradition to realize that this longhouse had been here for decades, perhaps a century, as a place where elders might come to council and seek the calming influence of the warm springs.

Once inside the long hall, Pug saw over forty Thuril leaders waiting for him, and in the center an imposing woman of advancing years with long iron-grey hair tied in two braids. She wore
a simple dress of dark red cloth, but over that a torc of beaten copper, set with precious gems. The others, both men and women, wore traditional headgear of feathers and quills, and shirts, trousers, kilts, and dresses of wool and homespun. The air in the room was thick with smoke from the large fire in a stone-lined pit in the center of the room, and from torches on the walls.

“Welcome, Milamber of the Assembly,” said an old chieftain sitting to the right of the Kaliane. “I am Wahopa, chieftain of the Flint Ridge people. It is my honor to host this year’s Council. I bid you welcome.”

The woman to his left said, “I am the Kaliane. You wished to speak to us?”

Pug said, “Yes. I bring words of warning, and hope.” He began slowly. These were not a stupid people, but he was explaining concepts difficult for a magician to grasp, let alone a warrior of the highlands. But they listened without interruption, and when he finished he added, “Safe passage will be provided to as many of your nation as can be made to muster here within the week. Bring your livestock and chattels, weapons and tools, for it is a new world opening, one that will demand much, but will give much in return.”

“Tell us of this new world, Milamber,” said the Kaliane.

“It is a fair place, with vast plains of grass, deep lakes, and rolling oceans. There are mountains that touch the sky and great highland valleys where herds can run free. It is a land abundant in game and fish, and more, and there is no one living there.”

“But you are Tsurani, and your people go there. Why would you offer to share it with your enemies?” asked a chief from the second row. His tone was suspicious.

“I am not Tsurani. I am the outland magician, Pug of Crydee, taken captive during the war on the world of Midkemia. It was I who freed the Thuril warriors at the Great Games and destroyed the great arena. It was I who was wed to Katala of the Thuril, whose kinsman I met down in the town just hours ago.

“We will take anyone to this new world who wishes to live,” Pug said calmly. “I have spoken to the Thūn.” This brought an angry response, for the Thūn were a bigger plague on the Thuril
than they were on the Tsurani. “Even now others are making the same offer to the Cho-ja, the dwarves across the Sea of Blood, and any other race who wishes to escape the devastation.” Passion rose in his voice as he said, “It was Mara of the Acoma who came to you seeking a way to meet with the great magicians at Chakaha, and she was mother to this line of emperors.

“You have had a century of truce with the Tsurani, despite occasional conflicts, but these have been no more than your own clan struggles. This world I speak of is vast, and the highlands are a great distance from where the Tsurani will reside, and if you wish, you can ignore them for another century.”

Several of the chieftains nodded, as if this were a good thing.

“Or you can reach an accord and forge a treaty that will last for generations. But none of this can come to pass if you do not leave these highlands, for death approaches rapidly and will be upon you suddenly.”

The Kaliane stood. “I would speak with this Great One alone,” she said and her tone indicated that she was not asking for permission. “Walk with me outside, Milamber.”

She took the lead and Pug followed. Once outside, she headed slowly down a trail leading to the larger of the many springs in the area. “You speak fairly, Milamber, but many will not believe you,” she began. “They will think this a Tsurani ploy to remove us from our lands, or a trap to lure us to our deaths.”

Pug was tired. He had been through ordeals no man had ever known, and despite the reinvigorating magic Ban-ath had employed, he felt exhausted in his heart and soul. He took a deep breath and said, “I know. I can only do so much. I cannot save everyone. I make a simple offer, Kaliane. Within two days I shall open a rift”—he looked around and then pointed to a clearing a short distance away—“there. It will lead to a highland meadow on the world of which I spoke.” He took a deep breath. “The Thūn will be put on a continent a vast sea away from all humans. It will be years, decades, perhaps even centuries, before human refugees and the Thūn meet again. Perhaps by then you’ll have made peace with the Tsurani. I do not know what the Cho-ja
say, for another has sought them out. The highlands where I will open the rift is at a great distance from where the Tsurani will arrive—you can avoid them or seek them out as is your pleasure, and either make war or peace, or you can remain here and perish.” Fatigue crept into his voice. “It is all your choice. I can only do so much.”

“I believe you,” she said. “I will urge the chieftains to send runners and gather the clans.” She crossed her arms on her chest and looked out over the hills below. “These have been our homes since the time of the Golden Bridge, Great One. It will be hard for some to leave.”

“Some will die,” Pug said. “Some will not get word in time to reach here, and others will be too ill to travel. Some will refuse to leave. All of those will die. It is up to you to save the rest.”