Midkemia Read online

  It sounds odd to say, given that I’ve visited other planets, traveled the Hall of Worlds, but what I have discovered is that the essential element for what must be done to meet these threats is communications. More on that when I have time. For now, let me return to the portion of this narrative concerning the Emerald Queen’s invasion of the Kingdom.

  There are so many events to recount, and much of the invasion history is well known, so perhaps I would best serve you, the reader of this journal, by speaking to some aspects of this war that were not widely known.

  What was unknown to us until much later was an event that occurred on the Saaur home world of Shila. The last great Shaman of the Saaur, a venerable sage named Hanam, had contrived a means to seize control of a demon who had just come through the Pantathian rift into Midkemia.

  In attempting to open the gate between Shila and Midkemia, the Demon King Maarg had sent one of his captains, Jakan, through the rift. Jakan then betrayed his master, seeking to find his own kingdom to rule.

  To sum up, two demons were now loose in Midkemia with two entirely different purposes, one ignorant of the arrival of the other. The identities of both of them were unknown to us. What Nakor had determined at some point and relayed to me later was that somehow the Emerald Queen had been dispossessed of her body and now the demon Jakan had replaced her, using powerful illusions to convince anyone who saw him that he was the Emerald Queen.

  So while we knew the general size of the army that would eventually arrive, and while we planned for that eventuality, we really were still ignorant of the danger at the heart of this threat. I was still very ignorant on the nature of demons—which was true for all but a handful of magic users and priests—so it wasn’t until much later I realized how disastrous it would be for a powerful demon to gain the Lifestone.

  For although someone like the Emerald Queen might contrive to use the Lifestone in some fashion as a weapon, a demon would hungrily devour the massive life energies contained within, and if that occurred, the result would have been a Demon Lord of godlike powers.

  I had concluded by then we must find Macros. Not having seen him for nearly fifty years made a search for him somewhat difficult, but I repeated that need many times over a period of months, mostly to the annoyance of Miranda.

  We searched in earnest, our journey literally taking us through time and space, only to at last return to Midkemia and find him on the shores of Stardock Island. Dirty, wearing rags, unrecognizable, he had been thought a near mindless vagabond, a beggar who had somehow come to live in the community near the Academy. There I used my arts to reach out and sever a bond that was drawing him into godhood, as he sought to replace Sarig, the Lost God of Magic.

  It was at that point I discovered Miranda was in fact Macros’s daughter, and the Emerald Queen was her mother. I have since come to accept as a fact of life that Miranda tells me what she wants to tell me when she’s ready.

  Years later my father and I discovered that, indeed, that had been the Pantathians who had created the dimension rift that opened the world of Shila to the demons and began the series of crises that were to plague Midkemia for decades.

  I also feel the need to say my father was entirely correct on my mother’s nature. She was not what one might call forthcoming, but by the same measure, she wasn’t particularly secretive. Secrets imply something to hide, and with my mother it was usually a case of her deciding you didn’t need to know certain things, either as a matter of efficiency and expediency, because she had her own ideas on things and knew Father or I would disagree and just wanted to spare herself the argument, or because she had concluded whatever it was, it was nobody else’s business. Unlike most traditional families, with the father as the recognized head of household, mine was blessed with a woman who had decided early on she needed nobody’s permission to act as she pleased. My father was a powerful man, strong enough to cope with a very independent wife, and I grew up assuming that’s how life was.

  The tragic death of Prince Nicholas and Admiral Vykor overshadowed the brilliant plan to trap the Emerald Queen’s fleet at the harbor mouth of Krondor and destroy nearly a third of her army before she came ashore.

  This is roughly how I finally found out Miranda had come to be involved in this, as an agent for Great Kesh who deserted her responsibilities because she saw a threat that warranted a stronger response than merely protecting Kesh’s interests. It’s also when, in the single most arrogant moment of my life, I directly confronted the Emerald Queen, and discovered in harsh fashion she was in truth an extremely powerful demon who was expecting me and had prepared. I was almost killed and only by the strangest luck did I lie and recover.

  Politics as much as warcraft and magic was in play in defeating the invading army, with a large portion of her army switching sides for political gain and wealth. A rogue unit tried to set itself up as an independent Kingdom based in Ylith, and that took time to solve. In the end, a heroic struggle in the Calastius Mountains along what is known as Nightmare Ridge ended the invaders’ advance.

  Quegan War Galleys Prepare to Attack the Emerald Queen’s Fleet

  A MAP accompanying the account of the Battle of Nightmare Ridge, from the report filed by Eric von Darkmoor, later Knight-Marshal of Rillanon.

  Like most wars, the reconstruction afterward was long and painful. Kesh attempted to take advantage of the chaos and for the first time attacked up into the southern Principality, to the very gates of Krondor, in an attempt to finally and for all wrest the Vale of Dreams from the Kingdom. I halted the conflict, but as a result I made my final break with the Kingdom, chastising Prince Patrick publicly before his own soldiers in Krondor and the invading Keshians. My relationship with the Kingdom is over. I suffered enough loss during this war that petty political loyalties didn’t concern me.

  My father glosses over events again, neglecting to mention the terrible losses he, and the Kingdom, suffered in this war. He lost both his children, William, who died defending the city, and his daughter, Gamina, who died with her husband, Lord James, attempting to flee the city too late. It would be years before those wounds healed. The Kingdom lost Owen Greylock, Arutha—Lord Vencar—and its two finest admirals, Lord Vykor and Prince Nicholas.

  AFTER MY FATHER’S BREAK WITH THE KINGDOM OF THE ISLES, declaring Stardock an independent entity, we entered a long period of apparent peace. I say apparent because many things happened that went unreported or were hidden.

  Stardock was left alone by both the Kingdom and the Empire. This, I believe, is because the Kingdom was simply unable to press any claim in that region, given how badly mauled it was by the Emerald Queen and because of the resources needed to rebuild the West. Kesh pressed no claim, I judge, because the loss of a Kingdom claim on the island was already a benefit to them, and they thought better of trying to seize by force of arms an island populated by magicians, some of whom had already demonstrated their ability in warfare. So, despite the occasional attempt to infiltrate a spy into the population of the island, we were left to our own devices.

  My mother and father married, quietly, on Sorcerer’s Isle and as a result of the “dismantling” of the Lifestone Calis achieved at the end of the war with the Emerald Queen, my mother at a very advanced age was suddenly able to conceive. And I was born.

  As was my younger brother, Caleb.

  As children we took for granted things that would have been alien to the point of terrifying to people elsewhere on Midkemia. Our home was shared by students from other worlds, some whose appearance would inspire fear in strangers despite the students being among the most gentle, intelligent, and kind beings I’ve encountered.

  With my father’s refusal to consider himself subject to the Kingdom or Kesh, and with such a diverse population of students, it’s easy to understand why my brother and I grew to manhood devoid of any sense of national loyalty or prejudice. We took people as we found them.

  I will comment no more on specifics, because my father did not, but suffice
it to say despite the unique quality of my family, my parents were loving and kind.

  Entry, the Seventeenth

  I RETURN TO THIS AFTER SUCH A LONG ABSENCE I had to reread what I’ve written so far. As is often the case, issues become pressing, and this sort of project, organizing all the maps and charts into something coherent with a narrative to connect the elements, becomes a leisure-time activity when leisure time doesn’t exist.

  So many events have occurred that to detail them would prove a lifetime undertaking. I now have two grown sons. Suffice it to say that there are many histories and personal journals regarding what has come to be known as the Serpent War. The near total destruction of the Prince’s City and the invasion of the Army of the Serpent Queen and the effects of that struggle are also widely known. A common misconception is that the struggle ended with the Battle of Nightmare Ridge, but that is not the case. The struggle continued long after the battle.

  Over the course of those years, quite a number of small, hidden struggles erupted, thwarting our enemies’ plans, disrupting lines of communication, destroying caches of supplies and resources, often leaving us with little or no sense of a bigger plan. All we knew was we were causing harm to our enemies.

  I have gotten ahead of myself. After the end of the Serpent War, I determined that two things had to change. The first was severing all ties with any nation. That I did in somewhat dramatic fashion with Prince Patrick of Krondor. Which brings me to the second thing that had to change: Stardock had become nearly useless to my larger needs; it had become another Assembly of Magicians. It was evolving into a Guild of Magic. Its magicians had even begun to broker commissions for providing magic aid to nobles in need of special services.

  More, they had sought to take control over some small guilds utilizing magic in their craft, the Mudcrafters and the Salvagers. The Mudcrafters had one relatively trivial spell of magic, how to turn rock into mud and reverse the spell. For building, it was an efficient way to make walls, tide jetties, and foundations for buildings. It was becoming a highly profitable trade, and the secret of that spell is jealously guarded by the guild, who have no wish to come under the authority of Stardock.

  The Salvagers likewise have two minor magic abilities, to dive deep underwater for very long periods of time without need to breathe, and to raise wreckage, bringing it to the surface. They also have no desire to come under Stardock’s sway.

  So, besides bringing the finest of students to Sorcerer’s Isle, I have also created an organization called the Conclave of Shadows.

  It is a group dedicated to finding the root source of all the ills that have plagued Midkemia since the Riftwar and putting an end to them for well and good. Miranda and I are apparently destined to be very long lived, so we look upon the Conclave as a longtime commitment. Our longevity is clearly a result of our abilities, just as there are prices paid for using what we call dark magic, and from recent experience, it seems the first price paid for the dark arts is sanity.

  Which brings me to a particular master of the dark arts, whom I first heard of by the name Sidi, but later encountered calling himself Leso Varen. Our paths crossed on several occasions, though at certain times we both were ignorant of that fact.

  One story that might illustrate best how our conflicts with the agents of darkness moved into small arenas of conflict, which in turn had large-scale consequences, concerns a young man—one might have called him a primitive—from a small tribe of mountain people in the Eastern Kingdoms. His name, in his own tongue, translated to Talon of the Silver Hawk.

  I presume to interrupt my father at this point as this was the first instance where my part was more central and critical than my father’s. Even as I write that, it feels odd, but my father came late to Talon’s involvement in the business of the Conclave.

  The magician my father named, Leso Varen, had insinuated himself in the household of a very ambitious Duke, Kaspar of Olasko. Olasko had at one time been a provincial outpost of the Kingdom of Roldem, but broke away centuries before. The map of the Eastern Kingdoms shows a crowded neighborhood of nations. Each has its own history, tradition, and culture, offering a great variety to the traveler, as well as no small amount of dangers, as the first best pastime of the Eastern Kingdoms seems to be making war on one another.

  Only the specter of enemies behind their backs while they wage war against a determined defender keeps any of them from trying to expand westward, across the Grand Salnamar River. The Duke of Ran has had enough conflict with adventurers coming across that wide river from Maladon, Dungaram, Tuskalon, the High Fastness, and other points up to Farinda. As a result, Ran is considered to have the most battle-ready army in the Eastern Realm.

  It was in this context that Kaspar, Duke of Olasko, sought to expand his influence through strength of arms and wished to war against the Duchy of Franinda, on the other side of the mountain range known as the High Fastness. Only one route presented itself without violating the borders of nations with which he did not currently wish to go to war, a series of interconnecting valleys running through the mountains, south of the High Reaches. The difficulty was these lands were occupied by a peaceful tribe of hunters and farmers known as the Orosini.

  Kaspar’s solution to this tactical problem was direct and simple: obliterate the Orosini. He hired a mercenary army, under the command of a black heart named Raven who killed the majority of those harmless, gentle people, keeping a few to sell as slaves.

  By then the Conclave had established listening posts throughout the world, in places we judged critical. Inns and trading posts in key locations proved valuable sources of information. One such was a trading post, a fortified inn, by name Kendrick’s Steading. Originally it had been an attempt at farming, but Kendrick quickly came to realize he’d picked a terrible place for a farm.

  His neighbors included a high number of thieves, marauders, and generally hostile people, and he had put himself squarely on an efficient route through the mountains for the northernmost nations, some tribal areas, and routes to the south and west.

  In short, he’d try to claim the hub of a smuggler’s highway.

  Kendrick was barely able to keep his buildings from being burned and his family and servants from being slaughtered when one of Father’s agents found this Steading. With some help from the Conclave, the Steading inn quickly became the only safe roadhouse between the Land of the Orodon—distant kin to the Orosini—and the Duchy of Farinda, in a tiny little nation known as Latagore. The Prestmauk of Latagore, their ruler, happily granted a patent to Kendrick in exchange for a healthy bribe, giving the Conclave’s listening post a patina of legitimacy. That didn’t keep Kendrick’s neighbors from continually trying to raid his little fortress, but it provided Kendrick the license to retaliate or occasionally preemptively attack without fearing any interference from local government. Within a year, Kendrick had been successfully recruited into the Conclave and was a valuable source of intelligence.

  The Conclave literally has hundreds of places like Kendrick’s scattered around Midkemia. Men like to boast to pretty girls, talk success with friends—more with rivals—and generally let slip information best not revealed, more so with ample drink to goad them.

  Two agents of the Conclave, Pasko and Robert de Lyes—our most powerful magician in that region—had been following Kaspar’s carnage closely, in a wagon posing as traders heading to Kendrick’s, when they found one left alive among the slaughtered Orosini, a boy named Talon of the Silver Hawk.

  THE EASTERN KINGDOMS, copied from a map in the Royal Library at Rillanon. While the borders of these nations are often in flux, this map fairly accurately accounts for their present dispositions.

  The High Fastness of the Eastern Kingdoms

  Nursing him back to health, Robert decided Talon was a young man of potential, and faced with two choices, abandoning him without resources in the wilderness or bringing him into the Conclave, he felt he had no choice.

  I answered Robert’s call and after
spending some time with the youth, came to the same conclusion. He had potential. So I told Robert and Pasko to begin his training. Kendrick had been a mercenary soldier in his youth and he taught Talon as much swordcraft as he could, recognizing Talon had the potential to be a great swordsman. My brother Caleb spent time at Kendrick’s as well and helped Talon improve his hunting skills, which had been of high quality from his training by his father, and judged him an exceptional archer.

  Talon of the Silver Hawk came to Sorcerer’s Isle and proved to be a willing student. Part of this, I believe, was his having few other choices, given the destruction of his people at the hands of Kaspar of Olasko, and part of it came from a natural curiosity of nature and desire to learn. He proved his worth in a completely unexpected way one day when our enemies sent three death-dancers to kill my son Magnus.

  Death-dancers are summoned beings, akin in a fashion to demons, but specifically designed to kill powerful magic users. They are very fast, hard to see, and lethal.

  Expecting a magic user, they were completely unprepared for a gifted swordsman. Talon would have died save my son and I, among others, instantly recognized the magic threat and arrived in time to dispatch the dancers, but his speed and instinctive use of a sword to protect himself kept him alive long enough to survive.

  We honed Tal into a weapon for the Conclave after that. He studied languages, court manners, and all that was needed to create the illusion of the perfect minor noble of the Kingdom. Arranging a false patent of nobility was easy enough, and Talon of the Silver Hawk became Squire Talwin Hawkins, a very minor noble of the Kingdom from a tiny estate near the city of Tyr-Sog in the Western Realm, and we turned him loose in the city of Roldem. He was victorious in the celebration known as Masters’ Court, a competition designed to select the finest swordsman in the world, held once every five years.