At the Gates of Darkness Read online

  As the younger man departed, the old prelate held out his hand to Pug and they shook. “As if you could pop into my temple without me knowing it,” he said dryly. Then he said, “Ah, Jim Dasher, or is it Baron James Dasher Jamison today?”

  Jim shook his hand as well and said, “Today it’s Jim.”

  “And who is this?” asked the old man, waving the three of them to sit.

  “Amirantha, Warlock of the Satumbria,” said Pug.

  The High Priest’s eyebrows rose. “A Warlock!” He sat as soon as the others had taken seats. “I’ve sent for wine and food, if you’re hungry.”

  Jim nodded approval.

  Looking at Amirantha, the High Priest said, “Leave off the serious discussion until my servant has come and left. Until then…I thought the Satumbria obliterated.”

  “All but me,” said Amirantha without emotion. “We were always a small nation—just a loose confederation of villages, really, scattered around the northern grasslands of Novindus. The Emerald Queen’s army ended our existence.”

  “Ah,” said the High Priest as his servant entered. All four men remained silent as food and wine were served, then the servant withdrew.

  The High Priest looked at Pug and said, “No matter how many years pass, you look no different.” He turned to Amirantha and said, “When I first met our friend here, I was a young priest, just ordained, working in the temple at Krondor. This fellow had several encounters with the High Priestess serving there.” He looked regretful. “A wonderful woman, really, if you got to know her. She was my mentor and it’s because of her I now hold this impossible office that was thrust upon me.”

  He looked again at Amirantha. “I suspect years after I’ve gone to meet Our Lady, he will still look as he does.”

  Amirantha only nodded politely.

  Then the old man’s manner changed. “Now, enough of reminiscence. What brings you here at this late hour?”

  Pug said, “I am not sure, myself. Amirantha, Jim?”

  The Warlock said to Jim, “You begin.”

  Jim had just bitten off a large hunk of bread and cheese, and was forced to wash it down with red wine, and after almost choking a bit he said, “Very well.” He related his entire experience out in the Jal-Pur desert, describing the scene of slaughter and self-sacrifice as best he could. Given his years of training in observing detail, the narrative lasted almost a half hour.

  None of the others spoke until he was finished. Pug said, “That is horrible, indeed.” He looked at Amirantha and said, “You demanded we have an expert in death. Here he sits. Now, what in all this troubles you, that we are not seeing?”

  Amirantha had been preparing for this question since he had first heard Jim’s account. “Nothing that Jim observed makes sense. I will explain, but first let me ask you this, Holy Father: how much demon lore do you understand?”

  “Little, truth to tell,” answered the old man. “Our concerns here are in preparing the faithful for their eventual journey to Our Lady. We are put upon this world to let a fragile humanity understand that this life is but part of a much more profound journey, and that by living a just and honorable existence, when they meet Our Mistress she will place them upon a proper path toward ultimate enlightenment. Beyond that, our knowledge is much like anyone else’s, we gather information where we may, share what we know with others”—he indicated Pug with an inclination of his head—“and have in turn been given the benefit of their wisdom.” He laughed. “Besides, I was told to work with Pug.”

  Amirantha looked surprised. “Told to? By whom?”

  “By Our Lady herself,” said the old priest. “It is rare to have a visitation by the Goddess, but it does occur. Usually it’s a revelation for the faithful and is proclaimed throughout the land, but in this case I was told to help Pug in whatever way I could and to keep my mouth shut.” He laughed. “I may be the only High Priest or Priestess in the history of the temple to have a personal revelation and be unable to boast of it.”

  Amirantha said, “Then to understand what I must tell you, I shall have to tell you a story I have already shared with Pug and Jim.”

  Amirantha detailed his childhood, describing his existence on the fringes of Satumbria society, his mother’s role as “witch” and her being tolerated by the villagers because of her skill with potions, herbs, and unguents. “She was also very beautiful; as a result, she bore three children by three fathers, none of whom would claim us.”

  He went on to contrast his brothers and himself, explaining how the eldest, named Sidi, had murdered their mother for the sheer pleasure of it. Of his next eldest, Belasco, he painted a portrait of a man obsessed with surpassing his brothers in any endeavor, one given to rages at the thought of being bested, and someone who had, for reasons Amirantha only vaguely understood, been trying to kill his younger brother for nearly fifty years.

  “I can’t even begin to guess which slight, real or imagined, set Belasco off on his quest to see me dead, but it hardly matters.” He paused to sip some wine as his throat was dry.

  The High Priest observed, “An interesting family, certainly, but I’m failing to see how any of this has to do with what Jim reported to us.”

  “I’m getting there, Holy Father,” said Amirantha. “I recount my history so you’ll fully understand what I believe is behind that exercise in murder.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “My eldest brother Sidi—whom you may also know as Leso Varen—was insane by any measure. He was mad when he was a child and only got more so as he grew. By the time he killed our mother he was a remorseless monster with no sense of humanity. His obsession was death magic.”

  The old priest nodded. “I recognize the name Leso Varen, and know he was a necromancer of prodigious art and from all reports, a font of evil.”

  “Whatever you read would not do the man justice,” said Amirantha as Pug nodded agreement. “If there ever existed a shred of humanity in his being, it was extinguished long before he became a player in this monstrous game we find ourselves in.

  “But Belasco is of another stripe; he is a man consumed by envy and rage, and jealous of any feat or skill achieved by my brother or myself. But unlike either of us, he has his own skills and talents, though he often leaves them aside to emulate our achievements. His dabbling in necromancy or demon lore, that I can see. But anything as murderous as the scene Jim described is…it’s not something he would normally be a party to. Neither is serving a demon, no matter how powerful.”

  “Why?” asked Pug.

  Sipping his wine again, Amirantha said, “Because Belasco would choose death before he would willingly serve anyone or anything.”

  “There’s more,” asked the High Priest, though it wasn’t a question.

  “Belasco also would not be a user of this sort of death magic. Here’s the conundrum: whatever else death magic is good for, it’s almost of no use whatever to those of us who are trafficking with demons.”

  Pug looked suddenly very interested, as if he wished to say something or ask a question, but instead said, “Go on.”

  “Holy Father,” asked Amirantha, “what use is death magic?”

  Pug realized the question wasn’t rhetorical, but rather Amirantha asking a question to clarify a point he was about to make.

  “It’s an abomination,” said the prelate. “Death magic, necromancy, are misnomers, for really what it becomes is the foulest form of life magic. At the moment of death, that which we call life leaves the empty shell of our bodies—it is what some call the anima, others call soul—and that energy is the fundamental core of being. The body is transitory and will fail, but the life which leaves it is eternal”—he held up a finger for emphasis—“unless something prevents that energy from translating to Our Mistress’s hall.”

  Amirantha appeared impatient. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the heart of the question is, what can you do with that energy if you trap it, bind it, intercept it somehow?”

  The High Priest sat silently for a moment, then sa
id, “An excellent question; the answer is beyond my knowledge.

  “What little we know of necromancy is due to our having spared no effort to stamp it out; it’s an abomination against the nature of Our Mistress to prevent a soul from returning to her for judgment.” He turned in his chair and shouted, “Gregori!”

  A moment later his servant appeared, and he said, “Ask Sister Makela to join us, please.”

  The servant bowed, and the High Priest said, “The sister is our Archive Keeper. If she doesn’t know of something, she knows where to look to find out about it.”

  “I have already visited the Ishapian Abbey at That Which Was Sarth.”

  The old prelate smiled and shook his head. “The Ishapians are a noble order, and we venerate them, but despite their authority and knowledge, they tend to vanity from time to time. Their library is prodigious but hardly exhaustive. There are things that have not found their way into their library.”

  “But have into yours?” observed Jim.

  Smiling even more broadly, the High Priest said, “We all keep our prerogatives. What we find is ours unless we wish to share with others.” Then his mood turned somber. “And much of the knowledge we do not share is of the sort about which you inquire; some things are best kept secret or at least closely guarded by those who understand them best.” He turned to Amirantha. “While we are waiting, I believe you had other points to make?”

  “You are perceptive, Holy Father. Beyond my ignorance of the nature and purpose of this death magic, or as you pointed out, the stolen life force, I have never in my study of the demon realm found any connection.”

  Pug said, “A thought I’ve been holding for a few moments is there is something from my past that should be mentioned.” He looked at the three other men and said, “Back when the Emerald Queen’s host sailed across the ocean from Novindus and invaded the Kingdom of the Isles, their leader, the Emerald Queen, had been replaced by a seeming of her, a false guise worn by a demon named Jakan.”

  Amirantha tilted his head slightly, as if pondering this.

  “What is not known to any but a few of us who were there—” He hesitated a moment, remembering that among those who had been present at the events he was about to describe was his wife, Miranda, and he felt a pang. “I was about to say, this was not about simple conquest, but rather a massive assault to reach the city of Sethanon.”

  Jim’s brow furrowed. “Why? Sethanon had been abandoned since the end of the Great Uprising. There was nothing there.”

  Pug said, “Even your Kingdom annals were not privy to what took place below the city after the sacking of Krondor and the final victory at the Battle of Nightmare Ridge.”

  Pug paused, gathering his thoughts. Then he said, “During the Chaos Wars, the Dragon Lords fashioned a mighty artifact that was called the Lifestone. I never had the opportunity to fully study it, as it was deemed so dangerous we left it—” He considered the wisdom of revealing the true whereabouts of the Oracle of Aal, and decided not to burden his companions at the table with that information. “It was hidden in a deep cavern below the city.” He looked at the High Priest and said, “I believe the Lifestone was constructed from captured life elements, as you have described.”

  The High Priest snorted. “Ishapians! I knew they were keeping something from us. Long have we been curious about what happened at Sethanon at the end of the Great Uprising, and why King Lyam never attempted to rebuild that city. The official reasons were that it was no longer an important stop along a trade route, or that it was cursed…” He shook his head and sighed.

  “The Ishapians knew only what we told them,” confessed Pug. “All we knew was the Lifestone was a vessel of great power and the demon Jakan was determined to reach it.”

  “But why?” asked Amirantha. “What use would a demon have for that artifact, no matter how powerful it is?”

  “If we can deduce that,” said High Priest Marluke, “then we might understand why your mad brother is so interested in wholesale slaughter and death magic and what that has to do with this demon he serves.”

  Amirantha sat back and sighed. “Perhaps, but I don’t think so.”

  “Why?” asked Pug.

  “Let me ponder a while longer before I venture any more speculation,” answered the Warlock.

  “Can’t we, I mean you, study this Lifestone now?” asked Jim.

  Pug shook his head in the negative. “It was destroyed before the demon could reach it.”

  The expression on the High Priest’s face revealed distress. “Destroyed?”

  Pug raised his hand in a placating gesture. “Perhaps that’s the wrong word. The elf queen’s son, Calis, managed to unbind the confining magic, and the trapped life energy within was set free.”

  The High Priest appeared almost delighted at that news. “A blessing! Those souls were freed to resume their journey to Our Mistress!” He looked eagerly at Pug. “What was it like?”

  “Difficult to describe, Holy Father. A crystal to all outward appearances, the Lifestone pulsed with green energies, but when it was…unraveled is the only word that fits, a flurry of tiny green flames…floated away, in all directions.”

  The High Priest sat back and said, “In the ages of our temple, no such manifestation of the actual act of translation has been documented. Occasionally we have reports from one of our priests, priestesses, or lay brother or sister, and a few have reported glimpsing a tiny green flash.” He sighed in resignation. “There are so few overt signs of the reality of what we do. Those of us who have been blessed by a visitation from our Goddess…” He looked at his wine cup and took a sip. “It is difficult at times to convince the faithful. So few actually have experienced the divine.”

  Pug resisted the urge to remark on that, as he felt he had had more than his fill of experiencing the divine. Several encounters with both Lims-Kragma, and Banath—the God of Thieves, Liars, and a host of other malfeasances—made it clear the gods were as real as the chair upon which he sat, so faith was never an issue, but he certainly felt as if he was their creature at times, and that left a sour taste in his mouth if he dwelled upon it too long.

  The door opened and an elderly woman in the garb of a priestess entered, followed by a younger woman in similar attire. “You called for me, Holy Father?”

  “Sister Makela, we have need of your knowledge.”

  “I am at your disposal,” she said as Jim rose to offer the older woman his chair. She smiled, nodded her thanks, and took the seat. She was as old as the High Priest, and frail in appearance. But she shared the same lively gaze as the Holy Father.

  The High Priest outlined what had already been discussed, finishing with a question: “Have there been any exhaustive studies on the exact nature of necromancy, specifically what use the life force robbed from Our Mistress might have to the necromancer?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, the old woman said, “Exhaustive, no. Several volumes of opinion exist, and I can have them brought up from the archives if you wish, Holy Father. The evidence suggests that the necromancer usually has one of two goals. First, to control the dead, harboring enough life energy to animate corpses to do his bidding.”

  “Why?” asked Jim.

  “A dead servant can have several advantages,” suggested the librarian. “It is impervious to death, obviously, and can only be stopped by the utter destruction of the body. These so-called undead can be prodigious bodyguards or assassins. They can exist in places where the living cannot long survive, stay underwater for a few hours, or in a room cursed, protected by poisonous vapor, or some other passive defense harmful to the living. Moreover, they can kill with plague or infection as well as weapons.

  “The difficulty is they decay, as do all the dead, though life magic can be employed to slow it for quite some time.”

  “What’s the other reason to use life magic?” asked Pug.

  She sighed, as if this was distasteful for her to discuss. “To extend their own life, after death, to continue t
heir consciousness in their mortal shell, rather than journey on to Our Mistress to be judged.”

  “A litch,” said Amirantha.

  “Yes,” agreed Makela. “It is the ultimate defiance of Our Mistress and the natural order of things. But the toll is great, for the mind of the magic user who extends his life this way is the first casualty of such evil; litches are universally mad, from all reports.”

  “Madness does not preclude cunning and purpose,” observed Pug.

  “True,” said the High Priest.

  Amirantha looked at the librarian and said, “Is there any mention in the annals of any ties between such magic and the summoning or controlling of demons?”

  The woman regarded the Warlock in silence for a moment, then said, “Demons are creatures of the other realms, beings not answerable to the laws and natures of our own world; we have almost no dealings with such practices. This is more the province of other orders, those who serve Sung the Pure or Dala, Shield of the Weak.

  “They may have heard of some such knowledge, but I have not.” She looked at the High Priest. “Is there anything else, Holy Father?”

  “I think not, Makela. I thank you for your knowledge.”

  She rose, bowed slightly before the High Priest then moved toward the doorway where her aide waited. As she reached the door, she paused, turned, and said, “I have thought of one thing, though.”

  “What?” asked the High Priest.

  “A passing reference, nothing more. In ancient times a war was fought with a cabal of necromancers, which was strange for that; they tend to be solitary types.

  “But it was their name that I recall now as being the thing most odd. They were the Demon Brothers.”

  Amirantha said, “Is there more?”

  “Only that they were called that.” She tilted her head slightly as she thought. “It was something I found odd, really.” She looked from face to face in the room as she said, “We always assumed it was simply a name, describing the cabal much as you might call them something evil. But the more I think on it, it may be more than this, for the accurate translation of that ancient name would be ‘Brothers to Demons.’ I hope this helps.” She nodded, as her assistant opened the door, and they departed.