Into a Dark Realm (11 page)

Aruke rose and said, “I am pleased tonight.”

This was as close as any warlord could come to giving thanks to anyone without revealing weakness. Lord Sand and Lord Valin stood and nodded to their host, and almost in unison said, “It was my pleasure to be here.”

Quickly the hall emptied until Aruke and Valko were alone, save for a handful of servants. Seeing Nolun at Valko’s elbow, the Lord of the Camareen asked, “Are you claiming this one?”

Valko said, “I claim him as my body servant.”

It was a very slight challenge, one which could serve as an excuse for a fight—and Valko knew that despite his youth his father was still powerful and had years of experience—but he was correct in assuming that his father was merely observing form; he would hardly kill a surviving son over such a trivial issue.

“Then I acknowledge the claim,” said Aruke. “Come with me, and have your thing follow. I wish to speak with you of matters between fathers and sons.”

Aruke did not wait to see if he was obeyed; he assumed Valko would be a step behind him as he turned and walked from the table to a large wooden door in the left wall. It was highly polished, and in the dim light, Valko could see that it pulsed with energy. It was an open warning: this door was magically warded and only certain people could open it without injury or death.

The lord of the castle put his hand on the door and it opened to his touch. “Wait outside,” he instructed Nolun. He removed a torch from a nearby sconce and led Valko through the door.

Once through, Valko saw they were in a short hallway, at the end of which waited another door, also warded. Aruke said, as he opened the second door, “It is foolish to hide the wards, for I am not setting traps, and the spellmongers demand ridiculous prices for such niceties.”

At the mention of spellmongers Valko felt a familiar tightening of his stomach. It was weak, he knew, to harbor fears from childhood, but stories of evil spellmongers and the mysterious sand wizards had been the common fodder for night tales before sleep, and his mother had ingrained in him a healthy distrust of those who could fashion things from air, by making incantations and waving their fingers in mystic patterns.

The room was simple, though beautiful, if that word could be safely used. Beauty was always something to be suspicious of, his mother had told Valko. It gulled fools into not knowing the true worth of a thing, for often beauty adorned worthless things…or people.

Aruke had furnished this room with two chairs and a chest. Even the stone floor had been left devoid of any item of comfort: no furs, woven rugs, or quilt warmed the room. But it was beautiful: every stone facet had been polished and whatever this strange stone might be, it had the property of reflecting the torchlight as if a treasury of gems had been crushed and applied to the surface; every hue at the edge of the visible spectrum raced across the surface in scintillating sheets of color. It hinted of alien energies.

As if reading the boy’s mind, Aruke said as he put the torch in a sconce, “This room has but one purpose. It is where I keep that which is most valuable to me.” He waved Valko to the chair nearest the single window. “I come here to think, and find the colors of the walls…refresh me. And sometimes I come here with a few others with whom I wish to speak plainly.”

Valko said, “I think I understand, Father.”

“It is about being your father I wish to speak.” He sat back and for a moment seemed to relax.

Valko knew it might be a ruse, a ploy to lure him into an early assault, for it was not unheard of for a newly named heir to attempt to seize power. In some ways that made sense to Valko: this man might be his father, but until a few days earlier he had been a total stranger, a shadowy figure whom he could not imagine even after asking his mother countless questions.

Valko waited.

Aruke said, “It is our custom to prize strength above all else.” He leaned forward. “We are a violent people, and we honor violence and power above everything else.”

Valko said nothing.

Aruke regarded him. After a while he said, “I remember your mother vividly.”

Again Valko remained silent.

“Have you had a woman?”

Valko appraised his father, attempting to discern if there was a correct answer. Finally he said, “No. My Hiding was in an isolated—”

“I do not need to know where,” his father interrupted. “No father should know where his surviving son was hidden and raised. It might be tempting to eradicate such a place in the next Purging.” Then softly he added, with something close to a chuckle, “And if it is a place where a strong son was raised, that might…be wasteful.”

Valko blurted, “As wasteful as killing another man’s son who was only beaten by the scantest margin?”

Aruke’s face was impassive, but there was a faint tightening around his eyes. “Such a question borders on blasphemy.”

“I mean no disrespect to His Darkness, nor His Order, Father. I just wondered: what if the youth I killed today was a better warrior than one who was victor in another match, in another keep, within the Order? Isn’t that a waste of a fine warrior to serve the Order?”

“Mysterious Are His Ways,” intoned his father. “Such long thoughts are the thoughts of the young. But it is best to keep them to yourself, or to speak of them only with those under the seal of silence: your priest, an Attender, or…” He laughed. “Or an Effector like your mother.”

Aruke stared out of the window for a moment at the roiling surface of the distant sea, and the ripple of scintillating colors that played across its surface. “I have been told that there is a realm in which the sun shines so brightly that without a spell or ward a warrior would burn up within hours from the heat of it. And that those who live there can’t see the splendors we take for granted.” He looked at his son. “They see only colors, but not high hue or low hue. They can only hear waves of sound in the air, but not the thrum of the God Speak in the heavens or the vibration of the Whole beneath their feet.”

“I saw a blind man once, serving an Attender.”

Aruke spat and made a ritual sign. “In such a one’s care is the only way you’d see such weakness. I’m sorry you had to see such a thing at so young an age.

“The Attenders have their uses, His Darkness knows, and he also knows I would not be sitting here speaking with you had they not
ministered to me after battle. But this thing they have…this caring for weakness…it disgusts me.”

Valko said nothing. Rather than feeling disgust, he was fascinated. He wanted to know why the Attenders kept such a one alive. He had asked his mother, and all she would say was “they find him useful, no doubt.” How could a blind one be useful? He realized this must be another of what his father had just called his “long thoughts,” and he had best keep his own counsel.

Aruke sat back. “A woman. We must get you one…” He pondered. “But not tonight. You held up well and made me proud, but I’ve seen enough battle cuts to know you’ve lost too much blood to do aught but sleep tonight. Perhaps in a day or two.

“Your mother was the one who…” He seemed to get lost in thought. “She spoke of things. As we lay side by side after coupling, she’d muse about…all manner of things. She had a unique mind.”

Valko nodded. “Even those other Effectors I’ve met during my Hiding were nothing like Mother. One said she saw things that weren’t there.” Aruke’s eyes widened, and Valko knew he was treading close to a disastrous mistake; even a hint that his mother was gripped by the madness could cause his father to order his immediate death. He quickly added, “Possibilities.”

Aruke laughed. “She often spoke of Possibilities.” He gazed out of the window. “Sometimes what she spoke of bordered on…well, let’s say it wouldn’t have been good for her to be heard speaking by any of the Hierophants. A Soul Priest would have cautioned her and bid her repent, praying for her darkness within to assert itself, but there were things to her moods and natures that I found…appealing.” Looking down at his hands, clasped before him, he said, “She once wondered aloud what would happen were a child to grow up at his father’s knee.”

Valko’s mouth dropped in astonishment, then he shut it. “Such thoughts are forbidden.”

“Yes.” With a sad smile Aruke added, “Yet you would know more than I of your mother’s ways. Of all those I have coupled with who
have declared before witnesses to bear me an heir, it is she I recall…most often.” He stood. “I have often wondered what you would be like, whether you would share some of your mother’s nature.”

Valko also stood up. “I will confess she made me think about things at times, in odd ways, but I never strayed from His Teachings and…I ignored much of what she tried to teach me.”

Aruke laughed. “As I ignored my mother during my Hiding.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. Squeezing it firmly, he added, “Stay alive, son of mine. I’ve fifty-four winters behind me, and while other sons will appear in years to come, they will be fewer and fewer. And I would not be displeased if you were the one to take my head at the end, just as I took my father’s. I still remember the pride in his eyes as I swung down at his neck, while he lay on the sand of the pit.”

“I will not disappoint you,” said Valko. “Yet I hope that day is years away.”

“As do I. But first, you must stay alive.”

“Stay alive,” repeated Valko in an almost ritual tone. “As He wills it.”

“As He wills it,” repeated Aruke. “What is discussed in here is never repeated. Understood?”

“Understood, Father.”

“Now go and have your thing escort you to your quarters, and sleep. In the morning you begin your training to be the future Lord of Camareen.”

“Good night, Father.”

“Good night, Valko.”

Valko left and Aruke returned to his chair. He stared out at the sea and the stars, fascinated by what he knew of them, and curious about what he didn’t know. He saw the starlight pushing through the thick air of Kosridi. He thought of his third journey to the Capital to present his son to the Karana, to have him swear allegiance to the Order and the TeKarana who sat upon an ancient throne worlds away. He thought of his third day of enduring the Hierophants and
their long incantations as Valko dedicated himself to His Darkness and the Way.

Then Aruke rose and removed a single, very old scroll from the chest. He opened it and read slowly, for reading had never been one of his better skills. Yet, he knew every word by heart. He read the words on this scroll twice, and put it away, wondering as he had, twice before, if this son was the one in the prophecy.

P
ug waited.

After a pause, the merchant said, “No, sir, but you are not far from the truth.” He waved Pug over to a small table and two chairs of sufficient proportion to provide comfortable seating for humans as well as himself. When he was seated, Vordam went on. “An understandable misapprehension; we of the Ipiliac are related to the Dasati.”

Pug was not sure he could read the alien merchant’s expressions, but he thought he saw something akin to surprise on his face. “I must confess I never expected to find anyone here at the Inn who would ever have heard of the Dasati let alone be able to recognize one on sight.”

“I heard a vivid description,” said Pug, choosing to
hide his ability to sense the differences between the vibrations in this room and the rest of Honest John’s. “For reasons I’m reluctant to discuss at the moment I would rather not go into why I need information, just that I need information.”

“Information is always among the most prized commodities.” The merchant clasped his hands before him and leaned forward on the table, a very human gesture. “As to the reasons for your inquiry, they remain your business, but I feel compelled to inform you that I am bound by several oaths of privilege regarding the business I do with my clients here in the Hall.” He nodded once. “It is, you understand, essential for staying in business.”

“What is it you do, exactly?”

“I procure hard-to-find items and other…things: rare artifacts, unique devices, lost people, information. If you have something you wish to find cheaply, I am most certainly not your first choice. If you have something you are desperate to find, I am almost certainly your final choice.” He regarded Pug and the magician discovered he was beginning to understand the Ipiliac’s facial expressions. The merchant was curious.

“I need to find a guide.”

“Guides are plentiful, even the good ones. You must need a special guide if you seek me out. Where do you wish to go?”

“Kosridi,” said Pug.

Pug had no doubt that the expression he read on Vordam’s face was one of surprise, for the merchant’s eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Very.”

For a long moment the merchant sat appraising him, then he said, “May I ask your name?”

“Pug of Midkemia.”

A slow nod. “Then perhaps…” Vordam considered his choice of words, then said, “Perhaps it is possible. Your reputation in the Hall has grown, young magician.”

Pug smiled. It had been some years since anyone had called him “young.”

“I knew your mentor, Macros.”

Pug’s eyes narrowed. No matter what occurred in his life, he found signs that his father-in-law’s hand was in it somewhere. “Really?”

“Yes, he had occasion to do business with me, several centuries ago. When you first arrived in the Hall, in his company and with two others, your passing was not unnoticed. Tomas of Elvandar caused quite a stir, you see, as he appeared at first glance to be a returned Valheru, a potential cause of great distress to several races on many worlds. The young woman, though remarkable by all reports, was, and remains, unknown to us.”

To the best of Pug’s recollection of their traveling back to Midkemia through the Hall, after rescuing Macros from the Garden in the City Forever, they had encountered no other person along the way. “Apparently, you have very acute sources of information,” said Pug. “Did you know Macros well?”

The trader sat back farther, allowing his left arm to hang over the back of his chair in a relaxed pose. “Did anyone? I have not met another like him, however.”

Pug realized that the merchant was holding something back, something he was unlikely to divulge until he was ready, so he moved back to the reason for his visit. “The guide?”

For a moment the merchant was silent. Then he said, “It is very difficult.”

“What is?”

“For any being from this plane of reality to journey to the Dasati realm.”

“Yet you are here and claim kinship with the Dasati.”

Vordam nodded, then looked toward the door, as if expecting someone. Slowly, he said, “Understand…great thinkers and philosophers from myriad worlds have grappled with the nature of reality. How to explain the existence of so many worlds, so many sentient races, so many gods and goddesses, and most of all, so many myster
ies.” He looked at Pug directly. “You are not a man to whom I need describe the nature of curiosity. So I have no doubt you have often spent time considering these and other imponderables.”

“I have.”

“Think of everything, I mean
everything,
as an onion. Each layer you peel away has another layer below. Or if you could start from the center, each layer another above. Only it’s not a sphere, this ‘everything,’ but, well…everything.

“I know you to be a man of keen perception, Pug of Midkemia, so forgive me if I sound like a tedious lecturer, but there are things you
must
understand before even considering a journey to the Dasati realm.

“Above and below this universe we inhabit there exist discrete realities, which we have knowledge of only indirectly. Much of what we know is filtered through mysticism and faith, but most scholars, theologians, and philosophers hold that there are other dimensions, the seven higher and lower levels.”

“The Seven Hells and the Seven Heavens?”

“So many races call them,” answered Vordam. “There are probably many more, but by the time one reaches the seventh level of either the Heavens or Hells there are no frames of reference beyond them that…well, that make enough sense to bother with. The Seventh Heaven is a realm believed to be so blissful, so joyous that mortal minds cannot encompass even the concept of it. The Sixth Heaven is populated with beings whose brilliance and beauty would bring such wonder and joy to us that we would die, overwhelmed by happiness from merely being in their presence.

“According to some accounts,” said Vordam, “you’ve had dealings with the demons of the Fifth Circle, the Fifth Hell.”

“One of them,” said Pug with a grim expression. “It nearly cost me my life.”

“The Fifth Heaven is its opposite. Those beings are concerned with matters beyond our ability to apprehend, but they mean us no harm. Yet to see them would be dangerous in the extreme, so intense
is the state of their being.” He paused. “Beyond the so-called Spheres, or Planes, lies the Void.”

“Wherein dwell the Dread,” Pug supplied.

“Ah,” said Vordam. “Your reputation is not overstated.”

“I have had dealings with the Dread.”

“And live to speak of it. My respect for your abilities grows by the second. The Dread are anathema to both the Heavens and Hells, as the Void surrounds them, and would devour them if it could.”

“You speak as if the Void has awareness.”

“Doesn’t it?” Vordam asked rhetorically. “Directly above us, so to speak, is the First Heaven, as the First Hell is seen to be below us.” He looked into Pug’s eyes and said, “Just so we have no misunderstanding, Pug. That is where you wish to travel. That is the Dasati realm of which you speak. You’re asking for a guide to take you to Hell.”

Pug nodded. “I think I understand.” His expression was a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. “At least in the abstract.”

“Then let me provide you with a less abstract image. You can’t breathe the air or drink the water for more than a little while. The air may act like corrosive gas and the water like acid. That is an analogy, though the truth is likely to be far more subtle, for their air may not be corrosive nor their water contain acid.”

“I am…confused,” Pug admitted.

“Think of water running downhill. The higher up the realms we climb, from the lowest hell to the highest heaven…all energy, light, heat, magic, everything burns brighter, is hotter, is more powerful; and therefore, all energies flow down from the highest to the lowest. The air and water of Kosridi world would literally drag all the energies from your body: you would be like a handful of dry straw thrown onto a low fire. It would burn brightly for a while, then fade.

“The inhabitants of that realm have an equally difficult time in your realm, though their problems would be different; they would become blissful as they drank in all the abundant energies surrounding them, but after a while, they would be like men who have had
too much to drink and eat, and be overwhelmed by drunkenness and gluttony, barely able to move until excess caused their death.”

“How then can you, kin to the Dasati, exist here in the Hall?”

“Before I explain that, might I suggest you select your companions who wish to accompany you and return here with them?”

“Companions?” asked Pug.

“You may be willing to risk going to the Dasati world, but only a madman would venture there alone.” The merchant regarded Pug with an expression that could only be called calculating. “I’d suggest a small party, perhaps, but a powerful one.” He stood. “I will explain the rest of this to you once they’ve arrived. While you are away, I shall set about finding you a guide, who will also be your teacher.”

“Teacher?” asked Pug.

With what Pug could only call a smile, an expression another might regard as a fearful-looking grimace, Vordam said, “Return here in one week by your calendar, and all will be ready for your instruction.”

“What instruction, Father?” asked Valko.

Aruke sat back in his chair. They were once again in the room where he had taken his son to speak after their first supper together. “There is a place maintained by the Empire in which we train our sons.”

“Train? I thought
you
would train me,” Valko said, preferring to stand by the window rather than sit opposite his father. “You are an excellent warrior, one who has ruled his house for twenty-seven winters.”

“There is more to ruling than the ability to lop off heads, my son.”

“I don’t understand.”

Aruke had brought two large flagons of wine into the chamber. Valko’s sat untouched on the floor next to his chair. The Lord of Camareen drank from his. “I remember emerging from my Hiding. I was at a disadvantage compared to you, for my mother was not as clever as yours. I knew how to fight. No one survives living in the Hiding without that, but the ability to knock someone down and
take what you need is only part of it.” He studied his son. In the few days he had been living here, Aruke had come to feel a sense of pleasant expectation at seeing the boy. They had even gone hunting two days earlier and he had found the lad able, if not polished. Yet he had stood fearlessly before a charging tugash boar defending his sow and their litter, decapitating the animal with a deft move that prevented the creature from killing him. Aruke had been visited by an odd notion: that had the beast killed Valko he would have felt a sense of loss. He wondered whence that alien emotion had arisen, and if it was a sign of that weakness which came with age: sentiment?

“This place is called a school. It is not far from here so you will be able to return to visit from time to time. It is a place where Facilitators and Effectors will show you the things you will eventually need to know if you take my head and rule after me.”

“That will be years away, Father, and I hope when I do you will welcome it.”

“If you spare me weakness and prove my line is strong, no man can ask for more than that, my son.”

“What will I be learning?”

“First of all, the ability to learn. It is a hard concept: sitting for hours listening to Effectors and watching Facilitators can numb the mind. Secondly, to hone your fighting skills. I remember how I learned, as a child, with wooden sticks at first, battling the other boys who were Hiding. Then the forays into a neighboring village at night, to steal what we needed, eventually trading with Facilitators for enough gold to buy armor from a monger.” He sighed. “It seems so long ago.

“But no amount of scuffling with older boys, not even your defeat of Kesko’s son, means you’re a skilled warrior. You have raw talent, but it needs refinement before you’re fit to ride with the Sadharin.” Aruke sat back, sipped his wine, and then added, “And, as unpleasant as it may sound, a ruler has to know how to deal with the Lessers.”

“Deal with them? I don’t understand. You take what you need, or they are killed.”

“It’s not that simple. The Effectors will teach you just how complex things can be, but do not worry; you appear intelligent enough to understand. And the Facilitators will show you how to implement what the Effectors have taught you.”

“When do I go to this school, Father?”

“Tomorrow. You will leave with a full escort, as befits the heir to the Camareen. Now, go and leave me to my own thoughts.”

Valko rose, leaving his untouched drink sitting by the chair. As the door closed, Aruke wondered if the boy had somehow guessed the drink was poisoned or just hadn’t been thirsty—he never would have let him die so early in his education, but a little writhing in pain was a good point-maker, and an Attender had been standing close by to administer the antidote.

As the door closed behind him, Valko smiled slightly. He knew that right now his father must be wondering if he had known the drink was poisoned. His smile widened. Tomorrow he would start the serious education his mother had told him about. He looked forward to the day he could send for her and tell her all that she had taught him had not been wasted. What she had told him about his father had been true, and what she had told him about school would certainly be true. Perhaps then she would tell him the truth about why she had him lie to Aruke about her death. He put that thought aside, and instead remembered her parting words:
Always let them underestimate you. Let them think they are more clever than you. It will be their undoing.

“Instruction?” asked Jommy. “What for?”

“Because,” answered Caleb, who had just arrived from Sorcerer’s Island.

Talwin Hawkins added, “Pug says you need it.”

Tad and Zane exchanged glances. They knew that Jommy was in a mood to argue, and when he did, he became as stubborn as a mule with its hooves nailed to the floor. The boys had been enjoying a long
stretch of city life, and all had been delighted by the distractions and amusements offered by Opardum, capital of the Duchy of Olasko, now part of the Kingdom of Roldem.