Flight of the Nighthawks (11 page)

They hurried after Magnus, who now turned right and moved rapidly down another corridor to a suite of private rooms. A short man with a dark beard, a woman in a royal-blue dress of simple cut, and a man in a faded orange robe, tattered at the hem, were waiting for him.

The group ignored the two boys as Magnus entered a generously sized but sparsely appointed bedroom. He laid his brother down on the low bed and stepped away. The man in the tattered orange robe inspected Caleb and after a minute said, “He needs rest, and when he awakes, some light food and drink.” He turned to Magnus. “Tell us what happened?”

Magnus said, “You'll have to start with these two,” and he pointed to the boys.

The bearded man approached Tad and Zane and said, “I am Caleb's father, Pug. What happened?”

Tad spoke first and told them of the ambush and Zane inserted a comment from time to time. When they reached the part about McGrudder at the Sleeping Rooster, Magnus said, “Let me continue.” He turned to Pug and said, “The old witch in the village slowed his death.”

The short man in orange interrupted. “Old witch?”

“I'll get to that in a minute,” said Magnus. He described his journey into the Hall of Lims-Kragma, and as he spoke Tad noticed Zane take a step closer to him, as if seeking comfort.

When Magnus had finished the story, he said, “The white-haired woman looked exactly as I remembered the village witch. She said you two”—he gestured at his father and the other man—“would know who she was. Lims-Kragma said she was an echo.”

Pug turned to the other and said, “Nakor?”

Nakor shrugged. “Do you remember Zaltais, whom we battled when the Emerald Queen invaded the Kingdom? I told you he was a dream.”

Magnus said, “I have not heard of this.”

“There are many things you have not heard of.” Pug frowned as he looked at his son. “What were you thinking, risking a visit to the Death Goddess's Hall?”

“I knew Caleb had no more than minutes, Father. And I knew you have been to see the Goddess twice, and have lived.”

“The second time was not of my choosing,” reminded Pug. Magnus knew the story; his father had been almost killed by the demon who led the Emerald Queen's army during the Serpentwar.

“But the first time you went seeking Grandfather and returned,” countered Magnus.

“Tomas and I were nearly dead when we revived from our first visit to Lims-Kragma's Hall. You could have been trapped there.”

“Her hall is an illusion, Father.”

Nakor shook his head. “The gods' illusions can kill as easily as steel or stone, Magnus. They are real enough when they need to be.”

Miranda said, “It was madness! I could have lost both sons.”

Magnus's blue eyes narrowed. “You've taught me well. I did not become ensnarled in the illusion; in fact, I forced a change and met her in the Pavilion of the Gods.” Pug and Miranda exchanged glances at that.

“I would risk my own life for my brother's,” Magnus continued. When his mother said nothing, but let her expression show her displeasure, he added, “Mother. I know you fear for us both, but you lost neither.”

“That is something for us to discuss in a moment,” said Pug. “Nakor?”

“I will tell you what I know, Pug,” he said with a grin. “But first…” he pointed one finger at the boys.

Pug turned, and despite having just spoken to them moments before, it was as if he were noticing the boys for the first time. “Who are you?”

Tad pointed at himself and inclined his head, as if asking if he was whom he meant. Pug's scowl made it clear. “I'm Tad. He's Zane. We're from Stardock.”

“Why were you with my son?” asked Miranda.

Tad launched into the story of the festival and how they woke up in the wagon, and while it was a disjointed and somewhat rambling version, they got the story in one telling. At the end, Magnus said, “You mean to say that you're not Caleb's apprentices?”

Tad and Zane exchanged guilty looks, and then Zane said, “No. But we never said we were.”

“McGrudder said you were.”

Tad shrugged. “Caleb was taking us to Yar-rin and then down into Kesh to find us crafts that we could apprentice. If he couldn't place us together there, he was going to take us up to Krondor. He was doing it for our mother.”

Pug stepped forward and said, “You already know more than you should, just through what you've seen and heard in the last day.” He glanced at his wife and son then added, “I think we'll give some thought about what to do with you. But in the meantime, why don't you get some rest.” He glanced at Nakor. “We'll talk in a while, but would you please find them a room, now?”

Nakor nodded and moved quickly to the door, motioning for the boys to follow. Tad and Zane fell in behind.

“I'm Nakor,” said their guide. “I'm a gambler. Do either of you know how to play card games?” Both boys said no, and Nakor shook his head. “I'm getting out of practice. No one on this island plays cards. What do you do?” He glanced over his shoulder as he asked the last question.

Both boys were silent as each waited for the other to speak first. Finally Tad said, “Things.”

“What things?” asked Nakor as they reached a hallway lined with doors.

“Loading and unloading cargo,” said Zane.

“So you're young stevedores?”

“Not really,” said Zane. “And we can drive wagons!”

“Teamsters, then?”

“No, not really. But I can sail a boat,” said Tad. “And we've both done some fishing.”

“I can hunt a little,” said Zane. “Caleb took me once and showed me how to shoot a bow. He said I had the makings, and I took down a deer by myself!” His pride shone clearly as he walked next to his foster brother.

“I help Fowler Kensey mend nets sometimes,” offered Tad. “And he showed me how to catch ducks on the lake.”

“And I've helped Ingvar the Smith mend pots,” added Zane. “He doesn't like to tinker so he showed me. And I know how to bank a forge so the fire's there the next morning, and how to temper steel.” Tad shot him a dubious look. “I've watched him do it often enough!”

Nakor led them into the room, which was empty save for four beds with rolled-up mattresses. “Well,” he said, “that's quite an impressive list of skills, far more than most boys your age have.” He waved to them to unroll the mattresses. As they did so, he pointed to a chest near the door and said, “Blankets are in there. A candle and flint and steel, too, though you'll not need it. I expect you'll be asleep as soon as I close the door. It's three hours to sunrise here, so rest for a
while. Someone will come and get you and take you to get something to eat when you wake. I expect you'll be hungry.”

“I'm hungry now,” said Zane with a slight note of complaint.

Tad shook his head slightly.

“But I can wait to eat,” he quickly amended as he went to fetch blankets out of the wicker chest.

As Nakor turned to leave, Tad said, “Sir, a question.”

“Call me Nakor, not sir. What's the question?”

“Where are we?”

Nakor was silent a moment, then grinned. “I can't tell you yet. You will know what you may after Pug decides what to do with you.”

“What do you mean, sir—Nakor?” asked Tad.

Nakor lost his smile. “You boys have seen things and heard things that could get someone else killed.” Tad's face drained of color and Zane's eyes widened. “Pug has to decide what we can do with you. Magnus thought you were Caleb's apprentices, which meant certain things. You are not, which means certain other things. I can't be more specific, but soon you will know what Pug wishes. Until then, you are guests, but don't wander off without a guide. Understood?”

Both said, “Yes,” and Nakor departed.

They went to bed and as they lay down, Tad said, “Killed?”

“He said someone else, not us.”

“But why?”

“I don't know,” said Zane. “Caleb's father is powerful, he's a magician like his other son.” Both boys had the usual fear of things magic widespread among the common folk of the region, but it was tempered by the fact they were talking about Caleb's father. In the boy's minds Caleb was like a generous and kind uncle, which would almost make Pug something akin to a grandfather. At least they hoped so.

Zane continued. “Everyone says that he owns Stardock Island. That would make him a noble of some kind. They have enemies. Nobles fight wars and things.”

Tad laid his head down on his arm. “I'm tired, but I don't feel sleepy.”

“Well, you heard him; we can't go anywhere. Maybe we should try.”

Tad rolled over on his back and stared upward in the darkness. “I wish we were back at Stardock.”

Zane sighed deeply. “Me, too.”

A
ll eyes were on Nakor.

He pulled an orange from his seemingly bottomless rucksack and offered it first to Miranda, then to Pug, and then to Magnus. All declined. He stuck his thumb into the peel and began to remove it, a process all of them had witnessed a thousand times before.

“Nakor,” said Pug, “what are you not telling us?”

“Nothing,” said Nakor. “At least nothing I knew until Magnus arrived.”

“What do you mean?” asked Miranda, sitting on the side of the bed where Caleb lay sleeping.

Pug stood at his younger son's feet and Magnus occupied the other chair in the room.

“You know who the old witch in the village was, yes?” asked Nakor.

“Not really,” said Magnus. “I've encountered her twice before and all I sense is that she's more than a common purveyor of charms and herbal remedies. There's power there, but it's muted.”

“You said the goddess called her an echo,” said Miranda. To Nakor she said, “What does that mean?”

Nakor glanced at Pug who said, “I think I understand, or at least I have a partial understanding. Tell us what you know.”

Nakor shrugged and his usual happy demeanor vanished. Instead, Pug saw the darkest expression Nakor had ever revealed to him. “The gods are beings of vast power,” Nakor began. “Our understanding of them is filtered through the limits of our perceptions.” He looked at the other three. “All of you have been to the Pavilion of the Gods, so you know that it is both a physical place and a metaphor for something much less objective. It is a place of the mind as well as a place of the body.

“When I have encountered beings of a certain type in the past—” He stopped and was silent for a moment as if considering his choice of words, then he resumed. “I mentioned Zaltais of the Eternal Despair,” he said to Pug, who nodded. “Do you remember him being cast into a pit—I said he was a dream, remember?”

Pug nodded. “You've said that each time he's been mentioned, yet you have offered no explanation.”

With a slight smile, Nakor said, “I assumed, perhaps in error, that you would have gleaned the truth without my having told you since we discussed this all down in Krondor, before the Serpentwar destroyed that city.”

Magnus said, “This is all new to me, so why not explain it now?”

“The Nameless One sleeps,” Nakor said.

All three knew of Nalar, the Greater God of Evil, who had been cast out by the other Controller Gods, as the Greater Gods were sometimes called. “That is the legend, anyway,” continued Nakor. “When the Chaos Wars raged, the Nameless One seduced the Valheru and caused them to rise up and challenge the Lesser Gods, just as he had seduced the Lesser Gods to rise up and challenge the Controllers.”

Magnus said, “I've studied the lore as much as any outside the priesthood, Nakor. But nowhere have I read about the Nameless One bidding the Lesser Gods to attack the Greater Gods. He was a Greater God. Why would he invite such an attack upon himself as well as the other Greater Gods?”

“To skew the balance,” answered Pug. “To change the dynamics between the seven Controller Gods.” He looked at Nakor, who nodded, and Pug said, “Before the Chaos Wars, when the old order died and the new order arose, there were seven Controllers.” He started to count on his fingers, as if emphasizing each in turn. “The Nameless One, who is the Darkness; Arch-Indar, the Light; Ev-Dem, the Worker from Within; Abrem-Sev, the Builder; Graff, the Weaver of Desire; Helbinor, the Abstainer, and at the center, the Balance.”

“Ishap,” supplied Magnus.

Pug nodded, and Nakor resumed. He finished his orange and put the peel into his bag, licked his fingers, and held them up as he counted on them. “After the Chaos Wars, the balance changed.” He held up one hand, displaying four fingers and a folded thumb. “Left behind were the Nameless One and the four dynamic gods: Abrem Sev, Ev-Dem, Graff, and Helbinor.”

He then unfolded his thumb. “Ishap, in the middle, is the balancer. He is, in a way, the most powerful, for he will add to any side that is disadvantaged, and he will oppose any side that seeks to gain supremacy, always striving to restore the balance.

“All of them are vital to the very existence of our world. One is action, one is reaction, one is higher purpose and mind, and the other is all things unseen and unknowable, but vital to our very being. And the last maintains the balance.”

He put his hands together, his fingertips and thumb forming a circle. “They are a unity. They form the very fabric of our reality. But they are but expressions of forces. Those forces are vital, dynamic, and they are the expression of even more basic beings.

“The Selfless One, She Who Is Light, and the Nameless One, He Who Is Darkness, are the sources of those two basic powers. The Good Goddess died in the Chaos Wars, and the other five Controllers were forced to imprison the Dark One in another realm, under
a mountain so vast that this entire world could rest upon a ledge on its peak.

“There he slumbers.” Nakor looked around. “Zaltais was one of his dreams.”

Pug said, “I thought I understood, but I didn't.”

“If one lies in a prison, might one not dream of a surrogate, a ruler who sits on a throne in a distant place and who can command armies to free the prisoner?”

Miranda said, “Zaltais was trying to raise an army to storm a prison on another plane of reality?”

“No, it's just a metaphor,” said Pug.

“Everything is a metaphor,” said Nakor. “The witch is but an echo of the Good Goddess.”

Magnus said, “Wait. The old woman I encountered in the Pavilion may have been such, but the village witch is a real person.”

“Undoubtedly,” agreed Nakor. “The gods will often place a tiny fragment of themselves within a mortal. It is how they learn to manifest their roles in this world, to understand fully their obligation to their worshipers. When the mortal dies, the spark returns to the god.

“The relationship between gods and humanity is complex. The gods are also manifestations of how humanity sees them. Ban-ath here in Midkemia and Kalkin in Novindus are essentially the same, yet they manifest differently, with slightly different charges and natures.”

“So the old witch has a divine spark within her?” asked Magnus.

“Just so,” said Nakor. “Arch-Indar is dead as we understand such things, but her power was so vast, so profound and fundamental, that even ages after her death the echoes of her being still influence us.”

“Is that why you started that religion down in Krondor?” asked Miranda.

“I didn't start it,” answered Nakor. “I only resurrected it. When the avatar appeared, I knew that eventually goodness will return. When that young girl, Aleta, started manifesting all those abilities, I knew that it was the right choice.

“When it does, the other Controllers will release the Nameless One from his prison and return the order of our world to its proper
place. Without Arch-Indar to offset his evil, the Nameless One must stay imprisoned.”

“Remember that Ishap is also ‘dead,' but his followers have retained considerable power, some from the other Controllers, but some simply from the memory of the Balancer. He'll return before the Good Goddess because his temple has been restored for a longer time, and the one I reinstituted is still very young. But when Ishap's back, and Arch-Indar eventually returns, then the other Controllers can release the Nameless One from his prison, returning the order of our world to its proper place. Without her to offset his evil, the Nameless One must stay imprisoned.”

“And having worshipers will cause that?” asked Magnus.

“Eventually,” said Nakor with a shrug. “How long is anyone's guess.”

“Centuries,” said Miranda.

“If we're lucky,” said Nakor. “It could be longer. Certainly it's unlikely that any of us will live long enough to see it—and we're all going to live a lot longer than most!” he added with a grin.

Magnus sighed loudly. “You speak of centuries into the future, longer perhaps; what has this to do with our current situation?”

Nakor put both palms out and gave a dramatic shrug. “I have no idea.” He looked at Pug. “Do you?”

Pug nodded. “A little. One of our problems is that the Nameless One still impacts on our world, even if it is over a vast distance and only indirectly. The Good Goddess may have left her echoes and memories, but she has no direct impact on this world, even on the level that her opponent does. So, in a way, we are her agents, attempting to counteract those who are being influenced by the Nameless One.

“I doubt that our old nemesis, Leso Varen, has even the most remote idea when he became a thing of evil. Perhaps it was something that he chose—striking a deal for power in exchange for service.”

“He may not even realize who he serves,” suggested Nakor. “Remember that situation with the Tear of the Gods?”

Pug's expression darkened. “I had a long and heated discussion with Arutha about not letting me know about that until after the matter was decided.”

Nakor nodded. He knew the story, but hadn't been directly involved. And he also knew it was a painful subject because William, Pug's eldest child, and Jezhara, one of his better students, had been at the center of the confrontation.

They, along with the man who would later become Duke James of Krondor, had managed to thwart Varen and his agents in their attempt to steal the Tear of the Gods—the artifact that allowed the temples to communicate with their deity.

Nakor continued. “We will never fully know some aspects of that story. From what we do know, the man called the Bear was acting on his own. He had ceased taking instructions from Varen, and that's one hallmark of those serving the Nameless One; they are often mad and go off at…whim and wreak havoc even among their own allies.

“That's one of our few advantages; the Conclave are united and even those who view us with some suspicion—such as the temples or the magicians at Stardock—don't interfere with what we're doing.”

“They don't know what we are doing,” offered Magnus.

Pug laughed indulgently. “Do not underestimate them, son, or attach too great an importance to ourselves. The temples and monarchs have a very good idea what we are about, else they might be less cooperative than they have been.”

Nakor laughed, as well. “When the day comes that we must confront the agents of the Nameless One, we may have great need of these people you disdain.”

Magnus had the good grace to look crestfallen.

Nakor continued. “What troubles me is that these manifestations of godpower, these dreams and echoes and memories, are now appearing with more frequency. At least a dozen strange incidents that our agents have reported since the Serpentwar lead me to believe this is so.”

“What do you think it means?” asked Miranda.

“That something is coming. Something that is tied to the slumbering enemy.”

Pug looked at Nakor. “The Dasati?”

“It was the Nameless One who influenced the Pantathians to bring the Saaur through the rift to our world. We know it was a ruse to loose demons here.

“Destruction and chaos are the Nameless One's allies. He has no cares for the short-term effects on this world, so long as horrors and evil are visited on people and his powers rise. I can only guess,” said Nakor, “but I think he dreams of supremacy, else why try to establish Zaltais on a throne, instead of the Emerald Queen? He needed his surrogate, his dream being, in control, so he could hasten his return to this reality. He seeks to put himself above the other Controller Gods before they can return the balance.”

“Madness,” said Magnus.

“By its nature, evil is madness,” replied Nakor. “Hence the Days of the Mad Gods' Rage.”

“The Chaos Wars,” said Pug.

Magnus said, “So we must struggle and die and our children are to struggle and die after us?”

“Perhaps,” said Nakor. “We may never know a moment of transcendent triumph, a time when we can say, ‘the day is ours!' and know the struggle has passed forever.

“Think of us as ants, if you will. We must topple a mighty citadel, a monstrous thing of stone and mortar, and we have only our naked bodies to spend in the effort.

“So we labor for years, centuries, millennia, even epochs; scraping away at stone with our tiny jaws. Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of us die, and slowly the stones begin to crumble.

“But, if we have a design, and possess knowledge, we can choose where to bite. We will not trouble all the stones, merely the keystone upon which all the others rest. And then we may wear away at the mortar around that stone, so that at last, the stone can be pushed aside, and once that is accomplished the massive stones above begin to move, and over time, fall.

“No,
we
may never see an end to this struggle, but in time the Good Goddess and the Nameless One may return, and the balance would be restored.”

“What sort of world would that be?” wondered Magnus.

“One with less strife, I hope,” said Miranda.

“Perhaps,” said Nakor. “But even if it is not, the strife will be far more prosaic. What we do now is contest with worlds hanging in the balance.”

Magnus looked down at his younger brother. “And the price of defeat is too grim to contemplate.”

Pug looked at his two sons and his wife, then said, “As well I know.”

No one needed to say more; they all knew that Pug's first two children had died during the Serpentwar and that the loss was still bitter to him.

Nakor stood and said, “We should go. I'll send messages to our agents in the region to see if the attack on Caleb was part of a greater design or merely an unhappy accident.”

“Wait a moment, Nakor,” asked Pug, as Miranda and Magnus left. “McGrudder was right that we should move him?”