Midkemia Page 12

For these reasons, Lord James of Krondor, with the tacit permission of Prince Erland, acting as the Prince’s regent, gave Calis permission to take his band of desperate men to Novindus again, to assess the threat to the Kingdom. As I recall those days, from my own agents, it was the best possible concession Calis could have expected, given the political chaos at that time. Few living today could understand what an absolute anchor Prince Arutha had been to the politics of the nation; under his rule, the Western Realm had almost become a sovereignty to itself, proving the benefit of a stable constituent without cost to the Kingdom.

  Prince Patrick, on the other hand, was as impulsive as his father and grandfather at their worst, without the saving grace of tempered experience. Without a sure hand to guide him, his leadership, should war come to the Western Realm, was very much in doubt. So Lord James, the former boy thief of Krondor Jimmy the Hand, determined to keep Prince Arutha’s legacy intact, ordered Calis to take condemned men into a hopeless situation, to see if a small advantage might be gained by the Kingdom in preparing for another threat.

  Miranda finally overtook me, literally across several worlds, and at last we met for the first time in the Pavilion of the Gods. We then exchanged information in my quarters in Stardock, the ones thought unused for decades. She had been working for the Keshians, as much as she worked for anyone, in much the same fashion Calis had been working for the Kingdom, attempting to assess the threat to the Lifestone by the Emerald Queen and her army. She had even gone so far as to have recruited Calis as an ally, though I suspected he never fully understood her motives—I married the woman and to this day I don’t know if I have ever fully understood her motives.

  My mother was my father’s equal in magic in most ways, but in all other matters they were partners. As a result, my mother often felt no need to share her intentions with anyone, including father. She even went so far as to employ agents of her own, outside of our organization. It was a complex relationship to say the least.

  This journey involved the most daring actions by Calis, as he discovered one reason for the Queen’s rapid advance after years of slow conquest: the Saaur. I will tell of them shortly.

  Calis traveled to Novindus to gauge the threat while Miranda and I set out to form our own conclusions as to the immediacy of the threat as well. A picture was forming that there were forces of magic involved that were far more dangerous than originally thought. The fall of the city of Kilbur, and later Lanada, revealed the Emerald Queen had resources that grew with her need.

  By the time Calis had his company formed, he had been joined by Nakor, and two local mercenaries, Praji and Vaja, who were recruited for their familiarity with the local terrain.

  In many ways, this particular voyage on Calis’s part, while it resulted in some tragic losses, was less important for what it did, which was significant, than it was for the impact it had on two of those in the crew, Erik von Darkmoor and Rupert Avery.

  Despite a full pardon, Erik decided to stay in Calis’s service, becoming effectively third in command behind Calis and Bobby de Loungville. This would start him on a long path of service to the Kingdom, earning him rank that ended with him becoming one of the finest commanders and perhaps the greatest military logician in the history of the Kingdom of the Isles.

  Roo decided to take his bonus in gold and invest it, as he had plans that included learning all he could about trading and someday becoming the richest man in Krondor, if not the Kingdom. He began his career at Barrett’s Coffee House, the traditional meeting place for traders and underwriters and shippers, buyers, and sellers of cargo and commodities.

  This became important for the simple reason that wars cost money. Monarchs can raise a certain amount of revenue through simple taxation, but any student of history will recognize that at a certain level, taxes cause more harm than good, for not only does it prevent growth for those in trade, and create hunger for those in farming, it encourages smuggling, tax cheating, and other activities that deprive the Crown of revenue.

  So monarchs borrow. By the time the war with the Emerald Queen was over, Rupert Avery held more of the Crown’s debt than any man in history. So how he acquired that wealth to lend to King Borric is a story of passing interest in its own right, as it’s both instructive and a little entertaining.

  In his vanity, Rupert Avery commissioned a biography to be written, entitled Memoirs of a Master Merchant, which is awash with self-aggrandizement, no small amount of false heroics and taking credit for the achievements of others, but which also contains just enough facts and truth to make it worth reading if one is inclined. I have read the book and know enough of the facts to sift through it, and the irony here for me is that Roo Avery did enough remarkable things in his life this exercise in vanity was wholly unnecessary.

  Miranda Overtaking Pug in the Pavilion of the Gods

  The Emerald Queen’s Army Sacks Lanada

  The final intelligence gathered from this journey proved valuable in several ways. We knew finally that the Kingdom was the Emerald Queen’s destination. She would keep her army intact and use the massive shipbuilding facilities at Maharta to construct a fleet big enough to ferry her army across the ocean to the Straits of Darkness and into the Bitter Sea. As soon as Calis returned, Princes Erland, Nicholas, and Patrick began planning the defense of the Kingdom.

  Nakor contributed immensely in his unique and seemingly mad fashion; the Emerald Queen’s magic users had created a massive bridge of light that arched like a white and green rainbow over the Vedra River, and as it was growing, Calis’s company was attempting to fire the shipyards. Their plan was to deny the Emerald Queen the use of the yards for building her invasion fleet, forcing her to spend a year or two rebuilding before launching her attack across the ocean.

  When rain threatened to extinguish the fires, Nakor threw illusionary attacks against the Saaur and human magicians on that bridge and they responded by showering him with destructive bolts of energy that had the entire shipyard aflame within scant minutes. Nakor’s “attack” was totally imagined, but it got the response they needed, and in the end Maharta’s shipyards were destroyed.

  Some of Calis’s company got to shallow draft boats and managed to get out of the blockaded harbor, reaching the Freeport Ranger, while others made their escape overland to the City of the Serpent River where they rallied and took ships for home. But this voyage to Novindus by Calis and his band of “desperate men” gave us the warning without which we would surely have lost what was fated to be a difficult struggle in years to come.

  Entry, the Fifteenth

  I HAD MENTIONED THE SAAUR in the last section and neglected to expand on who they were and their role in what, because of their participation, has come to be known as the Serpent War, or the Second Riftwar, because of their use of rifts being part of this narrative. The Saaur are a race of lizardlike beings, though they are warm-blooded. They are massive by human standards, standing as tall as ten feet at times, nine feet being the average, and they ride horselike creatures that stand twenty hands at the shoulder, and they are master riders, among the finest heavy cavalry ever encountered on Midkemia.

  I had cause to visit the home world of the Saaur, Shila, as Miranda, Macros, and I sought out the origin of an unexpected, strange twist to the story behind how the Saaur had come to Midkemia to serve the Emerald Queen.

  Shila is a larger world than Midkemia, with fewer oceans. It has nine great oceans and a few smaller ones, some stunning mountain ranges, forests, swamps, tropical forests, and rain forests, but more than half the planet is rolling, grassy plains. The Saaur are nomadic people who were verging on what we would consider civilization. For a while the majority of their people were still nomads constantly riding toward the sunset, circling the world eventually; they had a rising population of cities and towns, and more Saaur were giving up their nomadic ways to pursue study and the arts. They had engineers, architects, builders, and magician-priests.

  Despite the rise of cities, the majority of the w
orld fell under the sway of the hordes, which were ruled over by the Sha-shahan, or High King. Each horde had a Shahan, ruler or King, who answered to the Sha-shahan. Everything under his rule was known as the Empire of Grass. He was ruler of the Nine Oceans. His army was vast, even compared to the Tsurani, who could put a million men under arms at the Emperor’s order.

  Each horde numbered a million riders, ten hosts of ten jatar, a hundred centuries to a jatar, a century being one hundred riders. He commanded seven hordes, seven million riders.

  He commanded a thousand cities, towns, and villages, and each horde had a million wives and children. Less than a dozen major cities still resided outside the empire. Thirty million subjects answered his every command, and those cities that were not under the banner of the Empire of Grass paid tribute—or were conquered.

  To understand the dangers unleashed on Midkemia, one must first understand what happened to the Saaur and the world of Shila. It had been the dream of Jarwa, Sha-shahan of the Empire of Grass, to be the ruler who brought the last few great cities to heel, and so he personally led his hordes to the gates of Ahsart, the City of Priests. Of all cities on this world, this thousand-year-old village, then town, now a city had been home to mystics, magic users, and priests of all stripes. Gods worshipped nowhere else on Shila were said to watch over Ahsart. When confronted by the horde, a small group of mad priests did something unimaginably stupid—they opened a gate into the demon realm.

  Thousands of demons, servants of the Demon King Maarg, flooded through, and a sixteen-year war began. At the end, the Pantathians arrived on Shila, offering what remained of the Saaur sanctuary on Midkemia, in exchange for service to the Emerald Queen. I am convinced that the Pantathians almost certainly played a part in the Saaur priests opening that demon gate though I have no firsthand proof.

  After sixteen years of war, less than one-half of one horde remained, fighting a final battle against the demon host, in the ancient capital city of Cibul, while the Pantathians guided Jawar’s son, Jatuk, to Midkemia. What soon became clear wasn’t that we had to fear the Emerald Queen and her army, alone, even with her Saaur auxiliaries, but the host of demons certain to follow after.

  I mentioned that Rupert Avery and Erik von Darkmoor came from the town of Ravensburg. Given my usual mode of travel, there are many places I have literally flown over that I have never stopped to visit. I found myself in Darkmoor and decided to finally visit Ravensburg.

  Darkmoor was the last major fortification created by Prince Richard before he founded his city in Krondor. Originally a simple tower keep, it took its name from a swampy moor to the southeast, the Dark Moor. It has long since been drained and cultivated and is now some of the better farmland in the area.

  Erik’s father was Otto, Count von Darkmoor, and there is a story about him and Erik’s mother that might be told someday. As Erik is still alive, I’ll wait until the opportunity presents itself to ask him if he would mind its inclusion in this narrative.

  Ravensburg is the largest town on the highway from Darkmoor to Sethanon, and for years a major lumbering trade route from the Dimwood to the east. Lumber headed to Krondor and the Principality came down the highway from Eggly, through Tannerus, to Krondor.

  Ravensburg also rests in a sprawling valley to the north of hills that don’t properly belong to the Calastius Mountains to the west, or the Grey Range to the south, and are known simply as the Darkmoor Hills. Those hills and the valley are home to some of the finest vineyards in the world. There are like valleys in Kesh, the south end of Queg, and in Novindus, but it can be argued that the greatest wine on Midkemia comes from Ravensburg.

  Three factors, two natural and one human, contributed to Ravensburg becoming the wine center of the Kingdom. The first is fine soil and abundant water. Several streams run off the Darkmoor Hills and form small lakes and large ponds throughout the region, as well as provide ample wells where needed. The second is a seemingly endless supply of oak. A large portion of the Dimwood is ancient oak of several varieties, including live oak, red oak, pin oak, and white oak as well as a massive stand of cork oak near the southern edge. This provides staves for barrels, vats, and corks for bottles.

  The third factor was Sebastian Sandovar. He was a Knight-Lieutenant in the army of Prince Richard whose father was a winemaker in Rodez, not far from the town of Dolth near the southwestern border of the Blackwood. While Richard moved on to Krondor, Sandovar was among those left to secure Darkmoor, and as part of his duties he conducted patrols all the way to the Dimwood. In later years, he was put in charge of creating the garrison that would become Sethanon. During his years serving the Crown, he got to know the area very well, and when he retired, rather than join the Prince in Krondor, he elected to return to Rodez, collect his father and brothers, and relocate to what is now Ravensburg. His captain, the first “von Darkmoor,” gladly gave the town to his trusted aide and convinced the King to give him the rank of squire so he and his family would have the opportunity to develop the region without interference from late-arriving nobles who were certain to come once Prince Richard had expanded the region and trade opened up.

  The Sandovar family took advantage of the opportunity. The father and two brothers brought cuttings of grapes and planted the first vineyard and traveled throughout the Kingdom and down into Kesh looking for better grapes over the years to come. It is said not one vine grows in Ravensburg that wasn’t touched by the hands of a Sandovar. They also started the first lumbering operation in the Dimwood and built the first lumber mill near Sethanon, using the raw lumber business to subsidize their wine-making trade.

  By the time of Sebastian Sandovar’s death, Ravensburg was a thriving little town, Darkmoor was a major trading center, and the wine being made in the region was becoming legendary.

  It’s a beautiful area, with just enough rain coming over the mountains off the Bitter Sea, but not too much. It has just the right climate, and its wine is the best I’ve ever tasted.

  Entry, the Sixteenth

  I WRITE THIS YEARS AFTER MY LAST ENTRY, for many reasons that will become apparent as you read the following sections. I am not commenting on events that ended, for me, years ago, so I have the benefit of hindsight in detailing what occurred next in this journal of places and notable incidents.

  During the few years following the fall of Maharta and the destruction of the shipyards there, preparations were made, but against exactly what forces we were unsure. Plans were drawn up, discarded, redrawn, and again put aside. Delicate overtures were made to Kesh and Queg, feeling them out on mutual defense. In the end some progress with Kesh was made, but Queg was indifferent, believing there was some nefarious motive behind the Kingdom’s question.

  In Krondor, Patrick was now Prince, named Heir to the Crown by his father, with his uncle Erland still acting as adviser. My son William was now Knight-Marshal of Krondor, which placed him in charge of all the Armies of the West, and Calis’s Crimson Eagles had evolved from his mercenary unit to an elite company of the Prince’s Own.

  My daughter’s husband, Duke James, was now completely installed as the power behind the throne, and it was among Patrick’s wiser choices to keep it thus. Of all in the royal family whom I can claim a distant kinship by adoption, Patrick conDoin was the ruler I had the most difficult time with. In the end, I think I ultimately reached a more reasonable perspective on what my duties and obligations were.

  But at this time I was closeted with Miranda, Nakor, and others on Sorcerer’s Isle, or else using my powers to visit Novindus surreptitiously, keeping an eye on the Emerald Queen. Miranda and I had spent over a year together on an unnamed little island not too far from the Sunsets, where we had become lovers, and discovered in each other we had at last met someone our equal in talent and intellect.

  I still mourned the loss of my first wife, though time had distanced that loss a great deal after fifty years. My memory of her is idealized, I am certain, and had she lived, she’d be an elderly woman. Miranda is not forthcom
ing about her past so I can only speculate, but she may in fact be older than me.

  Looking back, this was a transition for me, though I was scarcely aware of it, but at the end of it I emerged in some ways more like my earlier self, in other ways far different.

  So we secretly plotted and did everything as if the Emerald Queen’s spies were everywhere.

  A few false reports were floated indicating concern for a possible assault in the East, but that was for the benefit of Keshian agents and spies from the Eastern Kingdoms. The royal family, I, and my allies—we knew the target was almost certainly Sethanon again, and the Lifestone.

  By this time Rupert Avery had amassed a small fortune in trade, especially in the grain market, and was working on turning that into a large fortune.

  Erik von Darkmoor was now a sergeant in the army, under the command of my son, William, who was now Knight-Marshal of Krondor. Calis was still captain of his special unit and had been joined by Captain Owen Greylock, former Swordmaster of Darkmoor. The business of the Principality was being overseen by Duke James, with Prince Erland still regent while Prince Patrick matured into his duties, and James’s son, Arutha, Lord Vencar, was now serving as his father’s first deputy. As much as it was possible for the Western Realm to be functioning well after Prince Arutha’s death, it was.

  Nakor came to visit me at Sorcerer’s Isle and stayed awhile. I managed to get him to discuss his view on what had occurred down in Novindus, when Calis’s company along with Miranda and Nakor found themselves in the heart of the Pantathian warrens under the mountains. He spoke to me of things that I heard again from Miranda later, and in bits and pieces from Calis and others with whom I had the opportunity to speak over the following years.

  Of all the events of my life that were entwined in the fate of Midkemia, the Tsurani invasion, the Great Uprising, and the first manifestation of demons here in Midkemia, the events surrounding the Serpent War, the Emerald Queen’s War, or the Second Riftwar, no matter what it is called, these were the most confusing and complex to narrate. Part of that is due to the vast distances involved.