Midkemia Read online

  In the valley where the Taredhel built their city of E’bar, treachery of the vilest stripe, breaking faith with one’s own people, was in motion. For reasons that may never be known, for those who survived were not among the plotters and all that’s left is speculation, the leader of the Star Elves, the Lord Regent himself, betrayed his nation to the Dread.

  In an act of self-destruction that cost the traitors their lives, a fate too forgiving, a portal was opened into a dimension that was alien to anything experienced by even my father and me. A gateway was established allowing the very antithesis of life to come into our realm.

  This was the goal of a plan put into play ages before my father had been born. For events carried us to places beyond our ability to fathom as we experienced events I scarcely believe myself, and I lived them.

  There were two significant events, one well known, the other known to but a few, that also changed our circumstance. King Gregory of Isles died without a male heir. This set the stage for a full-blown civil war in the Kingdom, with several claimants to the throne.

  The second event, not noticed save by a few, was the return of Nakor and my mother.

  I should hasten to reassure you, the reader, they did not in fact return from the dead, but in as strange and unexpected a fashion as imaginable. Some agency, and even now after the fact I can only speculate who, conspired to visit two demons with the memories of my mother and Nakor.

  How this was achieved remains a mystery. In our dealings with the gods, Father and I have encountered many strange and inexplicable events, including finding a Dasati in the Second Realm who had the memories of my grandfather, Macros. But at the time of meeting the two demons, Child, who bore the memories of my mother, and Belog, who now possessed Nakor’s memories, both appeared exactly as we knew them in life. To say the first meeting was troubling is an understatement.

  I may at some future date devote my energies to a detailed recounting of all the events and strange journeys associated with this period, as the two demons, my father, and I were propelled across space and time and forced to endure lessons by visions of people from our pasts before we returned to Midkemia to confront the menace that was now fully revealed to be the might of the Dread.

  As much of this journal is concerned with the geography of Midkemia, I feel the need to add that my father and I discovered an island lying south of the Keshian Confederacy, home to an ancient race of Pantathians, but unlike any we had encountered over decades of conflict with them. These were a gentle and scholarly people, the antithesis of the evil masters of dark magic we had fought since Father first confronted the false Murmandamus.

  This island was home to a community of well-tended farms and valleys with sheep and cattle, scattered orchards and fishing villages, and a lovely city with a peaceful population.

  All of which was obliterated in a trap for my father and me.

  In our travels, we learned the Dread was a collective conscious of an entity that manifested at the very first instant of creation, a being of power that sought to return the universe to the primal state in which it existed before creation.

  Although that concept is difficult enough to contemplate, the next fact we learned was even more so; the entities we called the Dread were not many individuals, but one creature that spawned its aspects across space and time, simultaneously acting from its point of view at every moment and every place it chose.

  Our one advantage appeared to be its inability to understand causality, that, to it, acts and results happened at the same instant, so that Murmandamus’s plan to bring the Dread into Midkemia occurred at the same instant as the assault from the heart of the city of E’bar. Basically, it appeared that the Dread were doing everything possible that could be imagined because the Dread did not know what was working at any given instant in time.

  I can do no better in explaining this alien consciousness, so I will leave it here: we endeavored to do all within our ability to prevent the utter destruction of everything we held dear, and more, for should the Dread prevail, all reality as we understood it would change so profoundly it can be said the universe as we knew it would cease to exist.

  If I attempted to explain here every detail of that final encounter, the battle that saved this world, I would be writing for days, weeks perhaps, and still only bring the most superficial of understanding.

  As the majority of this journal or chronicle, begun by my father, has concerned itself with the larger world of Midkemia, perhaps my best choice is to detail changes wrought by the unleashing of the terrible magic needed to save us all.

  At the heart of the conflict, in the valley in the Grey Towers, a portal of energy, like a rift, was unleashed to usher the Dread into our world. The combined arts of elven spellcrafters, Moredhel shamen, human magician, and priests all contrived to take that energy and twist it into a confining dome of ruby red light, one that imprisoned the Dread for a time. When at last my father contrived a means of inverting that spell, using the enemy’s own arts against them, the results were catastrophic.

  An inversion of the very laws of nature occurred, and like a monstrous whirlpool, matter was sucked into a dark maw that was the passage between our realm and the realm from which the Dread originated.

  Words fail me in describing what happened, in part because there was a period where I seemed to have lost consciousness; for one moment I saw the beginning of the destruction of the ruby dome, then the next I regained my wits literally miles away, as if I had been picked up by some giant hand and tossed to safety.

  It’s been a few months since those terrible events. Even yet we do not have a full accounting of those lost in the struggle. I can say with certainty that Father is dead.

  Miranda and Nakor, or rather the two demons who shared a slice of their existence, have returned to the demon realm of the Fifth Circle. Tomas, Father’s boyhood friend turned Dragon Lord, was also lost and played a key role in our . . . triumph is such a poor word in light of the destruction. Survival, perhaps better suits the reality.

  Ashen-Shugar Metes Out Justice to Draken-Korin

  Where the Grey Tower Mountains once reared to the skies, in their place is a crater, miles deep and easily two hundred miles or more across at the rim. Weeks after the destruction it roiled with dust, smoke, and wild magic. It is a pit of newly forming life, strange rends in the fabric of time and space that are spilling . . . I know not what is down there. At some point in the future I will undertake an exploration of what is now being called the Sunken Lands, but for the time being I am content to leave that to the future. I still hurt too deeply over the loss of my father, and what feels like losing Mother and Nakor again.

  I’m leaving Sorcerer’s Isle for a while. I feel the need to travel a little, see what this unleashing of mad energies has done to this world. Agents from remote corners of the Empire and as far away as Novindus report changes, some trivial, others profound.

  The school is in good hands. Ruffio is Father’s designated heir in seeing to its daily operation, and of those magicians who survived the fight in the Grey Towers, young Simon is especially gifted. Amirantha has agreed to stay, for I think he at last feels here is a community to which he can belong. Surprisingly, the two Star Elf brothers, Gulamendis and Laromendis, have also requested they be permitted to abide for a while. Most of their kin have either settled in LaMut or traveled to Elvandar. The thought of elves who prefer to live in human cities is strange, but like many things, I expect I’ll grow used to it.

  My brother’s foster children all managed to survive, thanks to Father’s insistence they be tasked with duties far away. Jommy, Tad, and Zane will grow old and fat with their families.

  We have a new King in Rillanon, Henry conDoin, a direct descendant of the first Duke of Crydee, and he has wed a Princess of Roldem, tying those two royal houses closer together. Not that either nation seems troubled by Kesh these days, as the disaster that befell E’bar and the Grey Towers seems to have had repercussions in the Empire as much
as anywhere else in the land.

  The Sunken Lands, a preliminary survey. More to follow. —Magnus of Sorcerer’s Isle

  Most significant is the forest in northern Kesh known as the Green Reaches. It has changed into something alien and impossible to navigate. First reports are that trees are now packed so closely together that the old travel roads and paths are gone, and that strange plants now spring up among the familiar, things with vines that attack those who seek to enter the forest, thorns with unknown poisons, and strange animals never seen before. Whether this is the result of minor rifts allowing alien life forms to come to Midkemia or this is magic changing existing life, I do not know, but I will put this forest high on my list of places to visit.

  I have reports that the forest around the Great Northern Mountains is likewise changed in noticeable ways. Our agents in Durbin are hearing reports of changes up in the Trollhome Mountains, where more strange creatures are seen wandering the peaks and in the alpine valleys, as if they had always been there. Large sheep with four horns, black wool, and red glowing eyes, as well as birds unseen before the destruction of the Grey Towers.

  Herds of strange-looking animals have been seen roaming the plains to the west of the Dimwood, antelope with crimson fur, a bisonlike creature twice the size of a normal bull, and two-legged pack hunters that look like lizards.

  Other reports indicate changes in the land near Opardum and the City of the Guardians in the Eastern Kingdoms, and subtle but noticeable ones in Rillanon, where flowers unseen before are blooming, and brightly colored birds, something like macaws or parrots yet not quite those birds, are nesting in trees around the King’s palace.

  With few left in the Confederacy, it’s hard to credit reports that entirely new species of animals and plants abound everywhere, odd herds of tiny deer and black-furred cats with manes like lions.

  Triagia after the cataclysm. —Magnus of Sorcerer’s Isle

  Likewise we hear that the escarpment in Wiñet, the upper plateau, has risen a hundred feet or more higher than its previous elevation, while much of the lower lands have been submerged in the sea, creating a series of isles and an archipelago.

  The Sunset Islands have disappeared, with a terrible loss of life to those who lived there. Storms raged across the oceans for days as nature attempted to contain the unimaginable energies released by my father on that terrible day.

  Of those who sought to protect this planet, half the magic users and clerics attempting to aid my father died instantly, and the remaining were driven mad or rendered senseless. If it weren’t for those who remained at Stardock, refusing to aid my father, or those at the villa on Sorcerer’s Isle he instructed to stay behind, I fear the population of magic users on our world would be even more endangered than it is now.

  Of more mundane concerns, I can say this. The new King in Rillanon and his Queen, they are young, seemingly in love, and very happy. His brothers serve, with Prince Martin now installed in Krondor, and Brendan being named Duke of Krondor, to act as his brother’s first adviser.

  Jim Dasher has disappeared. He always claimed he someday would do so, preferably to an island where warm soft winds blew and the beaches were bathed by gentle waves. I suspect two things: if I need to find him, I will, and he has someone installed in Rillanon to take his place as head of the Kingdom’s intelligence network. Given circumstances, I will wager that person is Tyron Hawkins, my old friend Tal’s son. Jim thinks of himself as being very clever, which he is, but I’ve been watching Tal’s family since the start and while I like Ty, he’s just the sort of sneaky bastard Jim Dasher would choose. Besides, they seemed to always be in the same place at the same time when something critical was occurring. And, to tell the truth, the Conclave has its own spies out there spying on other spies.

  I do not know for certain what it is I will do in the coming days. There is a great deal to see, and in the chaos that is following on the heels of the sealing of the rift used by the Dread, no doubt people are in need of a bit of magic help. I shall find them.

  There is this one thing: if I fully understand what I have been shown, the lessons put before me, as harsh as they may have been, then I feel certain my father spent his life for a good cause. I believe that the menace of the Dread has ended, if not for all time, at least in a fashion that generations will come and go before anyone here, or anywhere else, need fear its return. If Tomas’s sacrifice was not in vain, then the Dread is locked in a moment of time, in eternal struggle, with a foe that commands the Dread’s entire focus and that moment stretches out across time and space in a way we humans will never fully understand.

  In the end, I count the horrible sacrifices and terrible consequences well paid, and I weigh my own personal sorrow and sense of loss trivial compared to the greater good. This admission would cause my father a great deal of amusement.

  He and I had words recently, as to the mounting sacrifice asked by the need to “do the right thing,” as my father would have put it. He saw no cost too high or pain that could not be endured to act on behalf of others. He was the most selfless man I have ever known, with a commitment to caring for the well-being of others at any cost.

  I have learned from my father. I hope I will someday be counted his equal, not just in the magic arts, but as a human being, as a man.

  So where now? First I think I shall investigate the changes down in the Green Reaches, to see for myself what this mad release of magic around the world has begun. I shall pay my respects to the new King and Queen and shall venture across the seas. I shall poke around in the mountains of Novindus, to see if any hint of the Pantathians remains, and I shall visit the Saaur up in Wiñet and make myself known to them as Pug’s heir. My father gave them a pledge they would know peace on this world and I intend to keep this pledge.

  I will try to repair what can be repaired, and I shall attempt to compensate others for their losses where I can. Avowing what was done was for noble causes is but one part of what my father taught me. Repaying those who had much taken away is another.

  I shall spend some time in the South, in the Keshian Confederacy, seeing what the mix of shifting populations and wild magic has wrought there, and then I shall move along.

  I will come back to Sorcerer’s Isle and visit Stardock from time to time, simply to keep an eye on things, but trust in others to do important work while I travel and see this newly reformed world.

  Perhaps I shall venture to visit the Moredhel in the Northlands and see how they fare. For most of my life they have been faceless enemies of man, yet the experience I had with them during the war with the Dread taught me they are a fierce, proud, and unique people, an honorable people.

  Eventually I shall return to the crater called the Sunken Lands, to see what has happened at the heart of the changes on this world. I shall perhaps risk poking around down there should conditions permit.

  And I shall eventually return to Crydee, my father’s birthplace. I have not been there in years, and though it holds none of the special meaning for me that it did for my father, none of the close associations with childhood memories, it still holds a special place in my heart, for it was my father’s first home.

  It may be years before I finish all my travels, and I may be diverted along the way, but in the end I shall see everything I can, for this I know. Somehow my father conspired to keep me alive when I should by all rights have perished. My life is my father’s gift to me, twice now, and I will not squander it.

  It may be many years before I reach his boyhood home in Crydee, but I will eventually get there. I have more than enough time left before me.

  —Magnus of Sorcerer’s Isle,

  Son of Pug

  Acknowledgments

  For this project especially, I wish to acknowledge the original Thursday/Friday Nighters. Among that group, Jon and Anita Everson, and their son Dan, contributed greatly to this project and deserve special mention. As for that core group of beer-drinking college know-it-alls: Dave Guinasso, Rich Spahl, April App
erson, Lorri and Jeff Velten, Ethan Munson, Tim LeSelle, Conan LaMont, Steve Barrett, Bob Potter, and everyone else who drifted into and out of the group. Without them, the world of Midkemia might have existed, but it would have been a shadow of what we present to you now. Midkemia developed as it did because several creative people kicked in their bit. Everything about Midkemia—its various cultures and politics and people—stems from discussions, arguments, practical jokes, and everything associated with the old-style paper-and-pencil role-playing games of the Thursday/Friday Nighters. Steve and I owe a debt of gratitude to this core group of Nighters. We may have been the main cooks in this, but you guys added the spice and the flavor.

  And a special thanks to Signe Bergstrom at HarperCollins Publishers, MinaLima, and Steve Stone.

  Raymond E. Feist

  San Diego, California

  I’d like to echo every word Ray wrote and additionally acknowledge my wife, Mary, who allowed me to concentrate on this project to the detriment of learning French for our vacation to Paris.

  Steve Abrams

  San Diego, California

  About the Authors

  Raymond E. Feist was born in Los Angeles, California, at the end of World War II. His father, Raymond Elias Gonzales II, died when Feist was not quite five years old, and four years later his mother, Barbara, married Felix E. Feist, who adopted both Raymond and his younger brother, hence the name change. His stepfather died in 1965 and his mother in 2010, at the age of ninety-three.

  Feist grew up in the San Fernando Valley and attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California. From his high school graduation until 1980 he attended college intermittently, worked all manner of odd jobs, and traveled. While working in Jamestown, New York, in 1971, Feist undertook his first attempt at writing. After he lost a very good job due to a lack of a college degree, he returned to California to attend college. He matriculated first at Grossmont College and then the University of California–San Diego, where he earned his BA in communications arts with an emphasis in mass market and public opinion.