Miranda paced.
Macros said, ‘Will you stop that, please?’
She sat. For days they had been studying the site of the rift between Midkemia and Shila, and they had discovered that it had unusual properties.
Macros had spent a great deal of time investigating the structure of the magic involved and had arrived at the conclusion that the rift had been sealed from this side. He had voiced his suspicions to Miranda, who had said she had no idea what he was talking about.
Miranda said, ‘How long are you going to stare at that thing?’
‘Until I know what it is I’m dealing with.’
She sighed. ‘What else do you need to know?’
‘Well, there is a great deal I would like to know. I would like to know how the Pantathians have succeeded in creating a rift that Pug couldn’t detect. I’d like to know how they managed to create one that’s different in several significant properties from any I’ve ever seen. This is very much like those rifts created by the accidental combination of too much magic, yet it also behaves in some very stable ways, much like the artificial rifts the Tsurani created. But what has me most concerned is that it has qualities of magic I’ve never thought of, let alone encountered. This one is almost “organic,” if I had to find a word to use, something almost alive.’
‘Alive?’
‘Most rifts are like tunnels or doorways. This one is like a … wound.’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘Observe,’ he said, and he waved his hand. Mystic energies came into being, a shimmering gate of blue-white light, woven closed with strands of what appeared to be blue-green energy, a threading of lines so tight nothing could squeeze through.
‘The whiter light is the energy pulse of the rift. Notice how it seems to move slightly, like a thing breathing.’
‘Energy pulse?’
‘Each occurrence of magic leaves a signature, a pattern of forces that can tell you a great deal about what has taken place. Rifts are both unique and common. They are unique in that each acts in a particular way, in where it comes from and where it goes to, but common in that they share many properties. This one is more unique than common. In fact, it’s completely unique.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘I would love to have the opportunity to study the rift to the demon realm. It might give me a clue to who built this one.’ He sat back with a sigh. ‘I’m certain it wasn’t the Pantathians. Someone else gave them the tools to do this.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’ He pointed at the rift. ‘This one was opened from the other side. If you get a chance to study enough of these fissures in space and time, you’ll be able to tell the difference between the sending side and the receiving side, or if it’s a two-way gate – this is a two-way gate.’ He shook his head in obvious wonder. ‘Now, this other energy,’ he said, pointing to the weaving. ‘This is even stranger.’
‘What is it?’
‘A barrier, obviously, but one that puzzles me.’ He motioned for her to come closer. ‘What do you see here?’ he asked, pointing to several of the strands.
‘Dark green strands.’
‘Hmmm. To me they’re more of a lime color. Anyway, look closer.’
She leaned forward and studied the strands. ‘There’s something irregular about this.’
‘Yes!’ he said with delight. ‘I think they have been sundered and reconnected.’
‘By whom?’
Macros sat. ‘If what Hanam has told us is entirely accurate, he was the uninvited guest when the third demon was sent through. I suspect the first two encountered Pantathians. The first one fought and killed many, while the second, this Jakan, slipped away to safety. The first demon may have been the one you witnessed when you came here with Calis: the huge killer, driven mad or mindless by the Pantathians’ magic.’
‘So Jakan slipped away, started sneaking around the halls, killing as he went and building up his strength,’ Miranda said.
‘Yes. Eventually the Pantathians rallied, and sealed this rift again.’
‘That must have been when we found their deepest enclave and killed those high priests.’
Macros nodded. ‘I wondered what happened to the first demon.’
Miranda looked around. ‘Dead? I hope.’
Macros laughed. ‘If he’s still around, I think the two of us can deal with him. He won’t have had much to eat, and from what you told me, he didn’t appear to have much of a mind left.’
Miranda said, ‘It’s hard to appraise the intellect of a demon when it’s embroiled in a battle with a dozen Pantathian serpent priests.’
‘True,’ he agreed. ‘There are three different ways we could approach this. We could wait to see if something else tries to break through from the other side. Or we could attempt to unwrap these barrier forces, letting whatever is on the other side come through unaided. Or we could destroy the barrier and go through to the other side.’
‘I like the fourth choice.’
‘Which is?’
‘We do our best to reinforce the barrier.’
Macros shook his head. ‘No, that won’t do.’
‘Why not?’
Macros looked at his daughter. ‘I take it you haven’t studied rifts much?’
‘Not at all. I know next to nothing about them.’
Macros shrugged. ‘Well, there’s a large volume of my work on the subject in Pug’s library. But given we can’t risk the time to return there and wait while you study, let me sum up: no matter what barriers we add to those already in existence, as long as the rift exists it can be opened. We not only have to destroy it, we have to ensure that the demons don’t create another.’
‘I was under the impression the demons followed the Pantathian rift,’ Miranda said. ‘Or is there something else here you’re not telling me?’
‘Not really. Just that it’s foolish to make assumptions. We both know we have things locked away up here.’ He tapped his head with his forefinger. ‘We both feel comfortable that the knowledge is locked away for a good reason, but we are foolish not to draw a few likely conclusions from the fact of that hidden knowledge.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as there may be yet another player who had a hand in the creation of these rifts. From what we know, the demons seized the advantage when the mad priests of Ahsart opened the seal between their realm and Shila, but no one has asked who built that portal in the first place. Why were the priests of Ahsart driven to open the rift to the demon realm? What compulsion or obsession involved them in that particular idiocy?
‘We also know that the Pantathians came here easily with the Saaur, yet the demons must struggle to come here, and given the conflict between them, they are not allies.’
‘Or at least allies who had a falling out.’
‘That’s possible,’ admitted her father.
Miranda said, ‘Well, we can chat about this until the world ends. What do you suggest?’
‘We wait. I have a feeling that when Pug and Hanam finish on their side of the rift, things might get lively here.’
Miranda sighed. ‘Do we have the time?’
Macros shrugged. ‘Enough for a few more days.’
She stood. ‘Then I’m going to transport to Sorcerer’s Isle and get a bath. I’ll bring back some food.’
Macros shook his head. ‘Don’t bother. Tell Gathis I’ll be along shortly. I’ll visit with him while I eat there. It will be good to see him again. Then I intend to take a bath as well.’
She smiled. ‘Good. I wasn’t going to say anything …’
He returned her smile. ‘I know I haven’t been a father to you, but I must say I’m pleased with the woman I see here.’
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
‘Before you go, I would like to know one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Pug?’
‘What about him?’
‘Are you going to wed?’
‘If he asks me,’ she said. ‘I love him and think we could have a good life together.’
Macros said, ‘I have demonstrated without question no expertise when it comes to falling in love.’ He sighed in memory. ‘Your mother was a woman of remarkable beauty and uncommon guile. I can’t claim I was young, but I was inexperienced, and at first our time together was pleasant.’ He frowned as he said, ‘Your birth was something neither one of us dealt with well, and for that I apologize.’
Miranda said, ‘What’s done is done.’
‘True, but at least I can say I regret some of it.’
‘Only some of it?’
‘Well, I do like how you turned out, and if I could I don’t know what I would change, for to change anything in your past would risk turning you into less than you are now.’
‘Or more?’
He smiled. ‘I don’t see how that’s possible.’
She smiled at her father. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘I mean it.’ He sat back and stared at the rift. ‘Pug is fortunate, and if he doesn’t ask you, you do the asking. I think you need each other.’
‘I thought you said you had no expertise.’
‘It’s a father’s prerogative to give unwelcome advice. Now run along and take your bath.’
She vanished, and he sighed. He let regrets about past failings fade into the background as he returned his attention to the rift and wondered what was happening on the other side.
Pug stood panting, his robe torn and his face bathed in perspiration. He and Hanam had fought a battle with six man-size fliers, and the conflict had come close to ending their quest.
One of the creatures alone would not be any match for either of them, but three on Pug and three on the Saaur Loremaster had proven a close thing. Hanam feasted on the three remaining dead demons. Pug had vaporized the other three.
He watched in fascination as Hanam ate flesh and drank energies. As he shifted his perceptions, he could see how the Saaur Loremaster had used his intelligence to subvert the creature. When it was finished eating, Hanam said, ‘This feast will make it easier for me to concentrate.’
‘How far have we to go?’
‘The demons are not that clever, but they are being driven to wider patrols looking for anything to eat.’ Pointing to the bits of flesh thrown around the rocks on which they stood, he said, ‘These would have been required to bring back anything they found to Cibul, to feed those captains attempting to open the rift to your world.’ He glanced around, as if apprehensive about further detection. ‘By traveling along this course, we avoid many of the demons.’
‘We have been flying over ice and mountains for a day and more,’ said Pug.
‘True.’ The demon form pointed to the south. ‘There we will find Cibul. We may be able to come close before we have to hide ourselves from demon sense. And be warned, the spells you use to confound the simple demons may not suffice for the captains and lords.’
‘I will do what needs to be done.’
‘Then we must plan,’ Hanam said. ‘I have no wish to continue this life. My soul begs to be joined with my brothers in the Sky Horde, here on Shila. So here is what I propose. Let me attack whichever great lord we may discover, drawing off any guards and servants nearby. That will give you time to examine and close the rift to the demon realm.’
Pug said, ‘A brave plan, but I don’t know if it will gain me enough time. There are things here that worry me. I have the vanity to think I know as much about the nature of rift magic as anyone, including Macros, and until I saw the empty altar at Ahsart, I would have told you that an open rift could not be moved in the fashion you describe. That means there are forces at play beyond my knowledge. It may also mean that closing the rift may be beyond my ability.’
‘What will you do if that is the case?’
Pug said, ‘I will do the only thing I can think of: destroy the rift to Midkemia and hope that is enough.’
‘With Macros attempting the same feat from the other side, will you be able to?’
‘Undoubtedly one of us will succeed.’
‘Then let us go among them and do what we can.’
The demon figure launched himself outward, with a snap of gigantic wings, gliding down the mountain slope rather than flying. He let his downward speed build up, and then, with a flex of his wings, he was soaring high in the air. Pug used his magic to fly after him.
They dove and flew close to the ground, in the hope of avoiding detection. Pug glanced to the west and saw the sun set. The lack of light would help a little, though demons saw at night almost as well as cats.
Above a world devastated by forces alien to anything Pug had witnessed in his life they flew; from trees to grass, from humans to the smallest insect, the lands around the once great city of Cibul were devoid of life. Pug could sense it was more than the destruction of war or forest fire, where the land was burned, for there a sign of life would be seen here or there, even if only a blade of grass.
Here there was nothing.
They were within a mile of the city when Hanam said, ‘Cloak our passage, magician.’
Pug forced his mind into the difficult task of rendering the two of them invisible while flying. He felt terrible pain from the unusual exertion but accomplished the requirements for both without faltering. For a few minutes the pain lingered, then it began to lessen as Pug mastered this combination of magics.
As they flew over the city, several demons below turned to look up, as if sensing something, but none gave alarm. Pug hoped they would reach their destination soon.
Hanam landed in what had once been a lush garden, and now was a burned-out mass of dead plants on rock. No moss or lichen, algae or mold clung to the tiniest corner of this formerly flourishing place.
Once they were safely inside a vast hall, Pug dropped the spell of invisibility. ‘Are you all right?’ asked the Saaur Loremaster.
‘It will take a minute for me to regain my strength. I need to catch my breath.’ Pug managed a smile. ‘It’s getting easier to do this, but I’d rather not have to practice in the future under these conditions.’
‘Understood. Abide here a while. I will be back.’
So saying, the Saaur Loremaster in demon body left the room. Pug sat on the wreckage of a once-grand bed, on a piece large enough to provide him a comfortable resting place. The faint evening light could not hide the opulence of the residence. A Saaur noble of rank had slept here, perhaps the leader or his primary consort.
Pug heard a faint scuffle outside and was on his feet as Hanam entered, carrying a struggling demon by the head. As Pug watched, the Saaur cracked the skull and drank the creature’s life energies.
‘Is that wise?’ asked Pug.
‘Necessary. If I am to face Tugor or Maarg, and hold them at bay even for a few minutes, I must gather as much strength as possible. If I prayed for a chance of victory, I would lie in wait for months, killing as many demons as possible, until they became aware of my hunt and sought me out. After I battled the hunters and survived, I would then come and announce myself to the one whom I challenged. At that point I would be granted single combat.
‘But I have no desire to win. I wish release from this prison.’ He tapped the crystal vial hanging from a chain around his neck. ‘This is a favor I must ask of you, magician.’ He removed the vial and handed it to Pug. ‘When the battle is high, release my soul by smashing the vial.’
‘What will happen?’
‘I will be free, and the demon whose body I control will be destroyed. But if that vial isn’t broken, any demon who found it would be able to continue my captivity.’
Pug nodded and took the vial, placing it inside his robe.
‘Time is short,’ said the Loremaster. ‘Come.’
They hurried through several halls to a large chamber, where several other demons gathered. Two rifts hung in the air, only a few meters apart, while strange cloaked figures, hunched over and shambling, moved between them. The demons didn’t notice them.
‘What are they?’ asked Hanam.
‘I recognize them,’ said Pug. ‘They are Shangri, also called Panath-Tiandn, creatures I have faced once before. They live on a world called Timiri, where magic is a solid matter, manipulated by machine and will. They may be related to the Pantathians. I still don’t know their part in all this.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘They’ve moved both rifts!’ Pug exclaimed. ‘They mean to create a direct path from the demon realm to Midkemia!’
‘Then Maarg is soon to come through.’
A demon turned and saw them, and screeched an alarm. Hanam didn’t hesitate, but launched himself at the creature. Rather than engage the first creature, who crouched, claws extended in anticipation of the attack, he leaped past, slashing its throat with a talon.
One demon, larger than Pug could have imagined possible, turned and shouted, ‘Hold!’
Hanam screamed, ‘Tugor! I challenge! Meet me and die!’
The other demons fell back. Pug didn’t know if they ignored him because of the challenge, but he rendered himself invisible.
Hanam and Maarg’s captain squared off. Pug saw at once that Hanam had been right, for in a fair fight, Tugor would quickly destroy the lesser demon. But what the captain didn’t understand was that the Loremaster of the Saaur faced him, not another lesser demon, and that being was prepared to die.
Pug hurried to the two rifts and attempted to make some sense of them. The two shambling creatures ignored the demons, working like automatons on the two rifts. When Pug had first encountered these creatures, years before, he had found them nearly mindless servants of an unknown dark power, technicians of magic, clever in their ability to work the solid form of what was an invisible force on Midkemia, but without a strong intellect. They had been servants of others then, and here again they were servants.
Once more Pug confronted the knowledge locked away in his own mind, and he intuited that these creatures were serving whatever the greater power behind this madness might be. He knew that to dwell further on their part in this would be to risk distraction.
He quietly stunned both creatures, letting them fall to the floor.
He quickly studied the rift to the demon realm, and realized it was readily opened at any time. He decided Maarg, their great ruler, was waiting safely in his own realm until his captain opened the rift to Midkemia. Then he could easily cross into the lush, life-filled world without long pause in Shila.
Pug turned to study the other rift with the thought that should Maarg reach Midkemia, he might be in for a rude surprise should Jakan reach the Lifestone.
Screams of pain and rage filled the hall as Tugor fought Hanam. The demon lord was injured, because rather than keep his distance, the smaller demon closed and accepted wounds in exchange for giving them.
Pug tried to ignore the combat, knowing seconds counted. He looked at the Midkemian rift and saw the Shangri were on the verge of punching through whatever barriers had been erected on the other side. His intervention had forestalled that.
Then a chilling presence behind Pug caused him to cease moving. A voice that ground his bones together said, ‘What have we here?’
Pug turned and looked into the face of horror.
A face the size of a dragon’s leered at him through the rift.
For a brief instant Pug was astonished to witness a rift that was as transparent as a window, that looked like a hole in the wall between two worlds, but that fascination lasted less than a second, for it was what confronted him through that transparent rift that demanded his undivided attention.
While the other demons looked muscular and powerful, Maarg looked gross. Jowls hung down from a face eight feet from brow to chin. Fire burned in the pits of its eyes, and evil emanated from it like a visible miasma of black smoke. The creature’s face seemed fashioned from the skins of living beings, which still moved and twitched in agony. A face contorted in torment was stretched across Maarg’s right cheek, mouthing silent screams while a clawed hand moved feebly along his right jawline. Details of the various bodies devoured and incorporated into the Demon King became evident as the creature moved closer to the other side of the rift to inspect Pug.
The figure behind the face was immense. Maarg must have stood thirty-five feet tall when upright. His body was likewise covered with other beings, twitching and undulating in the faint red light of the demon home-world. Wings to hide the sun spread out behind him, and a long tail with the head of a serpent at the tip writhed behind him, hissing and spitting at Pug from over Maarg’s shoulder.
Pug didn’t hesitate. He knew instantly he was overmatched. He turned, and with all the power he could muster, he blasted open the rift to Midkemia.
‘Tugor!’ came the cry from the other side of the demon rift as the room rang with the explosion of powers Pug unleashed. The rift to Midkemia seemed to contract, then expand, then rush forward with a tremendous ripping sound.
Then Pug was staring at Macros and Miranda.
Macros returned from his bath and a meal. ‘That was delightful. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed Sorcerer’s Isle.’
Miranda said, ‘Has it changed much?’
‘A great deal. Pug has it crawling with students, some rather interesting ones, I must say. Gathis is the same as always. It’s as if I had left yesterday.’ Macros sighed. ‘I’m afraid he’s become something of a fixture there. It would be a shame to ask him to leave with all the good work he’s doing for Pug. Why –’
Suddenly he looked wide-eyed and distracted.
‘What?’ asked Miranda.
‘I don’t know. Something –’
Before he could finish, the silence in the cave was shattered by a tremendous keening sound. Abruptly, the rift before them ripped open and Pug stood on the other side of a window between worlds, looking at them. Behind him a vision of horror reared up into view.
Miranda raised a mystic shield to protect herself, reflexively, but her father reacted by leaping forward, landing on the other side of the rift beside Pug. He unleashed a furious blast of mystic energy, which tore through the opened rift into the demons’ realm, striking the Demon King in the face. The horror that was Maarg reared back, shrieking in pain.
Miranda followed her father and shouted, ‘What is going on?’
Pug said, ‘They’ve moved the rift. We arrived just as Maarg was preparing to come across!’
Macros said, ‘You must close both rifts, now!’
Pug looked at Miranda’s father and said, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Distract that thing,’ he said, and he leaped through the rift into the demon realm.
‘Father!’ shouted Miranda. ‘No!’
Pug spared a glance to the other struggle, and saw that Hanam had managed to sink his fangs into Tugor’s neck. Pug was no judge of such things, but it appeared to him the Loremaster might take his foe with him into death. The other demons in the room shrank back, for to them there would emerge a victor, Tugor whom they feared, or another who had destroyed Tugor, making him one to fear even more.
At the other side of the demon rift, Maarg fell back as Macros’s flames seared his face. Then he raised an arm, to shield his face, and screamed in pain. Macros kept the blast of blue flame directed at the Demon King’s head.
Pug quickly examined the rift. He said, ‘This one is much like that created by the Tsurani Great Ones, to reach Midkemia. It is vulnerable, from within.’
‘From within?’ said Miranda in astonishment. ‘How do we get inside a rift?’
Pug looked around it one last time, and said, ‘By attacking it from the void.’
They risked a glance at Macros as he continued to press his attack against the Demon King, who backed away. Perhaps it was that a relatively small creature dared to confront him, or that he had not been forced to face a challenger in years, but Maarg was on the defensive. He now used his great wings as a cloak, keeping Macros’s flames from his eyes.
Macros’s spell ended, and the flames vanished. Maarg regarded the intruder and reached forward, as if to seize Macros in his huge hand. Macros raised both arms above his head and brought them down in a quick gesture, and yellow flames seemed to explode from within his body. The Demon King seized him around the waist, and screamed in pain and fury as the sorcerer withstood his direct attack.
Miranda said, ‘Can we help him?’
Pug said, ‘No. We must close this rift.’
‘We can’t. Father will be stranded in the demon realm.’
Pug calmly said, ‘He knew that.’
Miranda stared at her lover a long moment, then nodded once.
Pug said, ‘We also may not survive this closure.’
Miranda said, ‘Tell me what to do.’
‘First, keep them off our backs.’ He pointed to two demons who had left the spectacle to investigate what was occurring between the two rifts.
Miranda said, ‘Gladly,’ and sent out a bolt of mystic energy, a blue light that engulfed the two demons and left them writhing in agony, while Pug finished his examination of the rift.
Pug turned his attention from the rift to the struggle beyond it, as the Demon King attempted to crush Macros with his bare hands. The sorcerer was held in the demon’s grip, but he had his hands free, and he cast another spell while the mystic yellow flames kept him from being crushed. Sparkling white lights appeared around the Demon King and started spinning. Each looked like a diamond, reflecting light off myriad facets, and as they spun, they took on a sinister aspect. As they moved, they swooped in and out in a weaving pattern, and when they touched Maarg, he shrieked in agony.
‘Kelton’s knives,’ said Pug.
Miranda said, ‘That’s a particularly nasty spell.’
The mystic blades continued to pick up speed, buzzing around the Demon King, but while he was being cut over most of his body, he still held fast to Macros. ‘Human!’ he shrieked. ‘You shall reside in a soul jar for eternity, to be tormented every instant for this!’
Macros managed to shout, ‘First you have to kill me.’
Pug said, ‘It’s time. Come with me.’
He took Miranda’s hand and they jumped into the rift, but rather than continue through, he halted their flight in the void.
Miranda waited to be told what to do. Pug had cautioned her that some rifts could be closed only from inside, and that was what her father and he had had to do during the Riftwar. The difference then was that Pug had been able to return to Midkemia from the void because of a staff Macros had given him, one that was linked with another that Pug’s old teacher, Kulgan, had kept tightly bound to Midkemian soil.
Pug prayed that his advanced skills over the last fifty years would allow him to get home by force of will.
Miranda’s thoughts came to him in the void. I love you.
Pug replied, And I you. Let us begin.
Cold unlike anything Miranda had experienced gripped both of them. Their lungs cried for air. But their magic gave them minutes where lesser beings would have perished in seconds.
Pug wove powerful magic. Miranda aided him where she could, taking instructions from him, and in this place without time it seemed to take forever for the great spell to form. When it seemed the task would never finish, it was done.
Pug said, Now!
Miranda gave him all her power and felt her body drain of strength.
Pug shattered the rift.
In a moment they saw the grey fabric of the void splinter into shards, and behind those shards they glimpsed another reality. Pug recognized it from his fever dream, when injured, and knew behind the void lay the realm of the gods.
Then they saw, as through a window, the struggle in the demon realm. Maarg gripped Macros and burned in flames that were running up his arms from the sorcerer, causing the demon’s flesh to ripple and crisp, but Maarg continued to crush Macros’s defenses, and the sorcerer screamed in pain as his will weakened. The Demon King dropped to his knees, as the sorcerer’s attacks took their toll, but he refused to relinquish his grip on the Black One.
‘Die!’ he roared, and he attempted to bite Macros’s head from his shoulders. But the legendary sorcerer’s defenses held, and the foot-long fangs couldn’t close on Macros.
Then the demon’s tail appeared over his shoulder and the serpent head hissed, revealing long, poison-dripping fangs. The thing struck, but with an unbelievable display of will and strength, Macros seized the thing and turned it so that its fangs plunged into Maarg’s wrist.
The Demon King cried out and released Macros, letting the sorcerer fall to the hot stone floor of his den.
Then the window seemed to close, to grow smaller or more distant, they couldn’t tell which. Miranda shouted, Father!
Macros seemed aware of them, stealing a glance in their direction. He sent one thought, They are creatures of fire, then he redoubled his attack on the demon, one that was met by more fury.
As the window through which they looked closed, a chilling presence appeared. Pug felt fear beyond any he had known so far in his life, a fear that threatened to break his concentration as he attempted to return them to Cibul. The presence was outside the window through which they peered, and beyond it, next to them, and a vast distance away. It was everywhere. It was profoundly evil, and it was aware. Yet it seemed to be speaking from within the rift, from the demon realm. The presence said, You are mine at last!
Macros shouted, ‘Never!’ and before Pug and Miranda lost sight of him, he raised his hands high over his head, and for the briefest instant, instead of the plainly dressed sorcerer, clad in his familiar brown homespun robe with his whipcord belt, his cross-gartered sandals, and his plain oak staff, a being of profound wisdom and strength rose up, a godlike being of unknowable mystery. He lashed out with a white ivory staff that appeared out of the air, and, touching the Demon King, he created a blinding flash of white light that filled the closing window. With the dying scream of the Demon King, absent its rage and power, now the wailing cry of a creature reduced to terror and pain, a triumphal sense of victory washed over Pug and Miranda.
Pug did not know how he knew, but in that instant he felt the presence of Sarig, as Macros reached across space and time and reconnected with his god.
Then the rift was closed, and Pug said, Now!
Using what was left of his strength, he forced his way through the very fabric of the void, dragging himself and Miranda back to the hall of the Saaur in Cibul.
For one brief moment, they witnessed the finality of Hanam’s battle with Tugor, as the two lay on the floor, each too weak to best the other, neither able to escape. When it was obvious that neither would survive, the remaining demons leaped atop the two, rending them limb from limb.
Remembering his promise, Pug withdrew the soul vial he had been given, and smashed it upon the stones.
A brief thought came to Pug, Thank you! and then it was gone.
Miranda was half-stunned from the experience, and Pug had to almost push her through the rift to Midkemia.
On the other side, back in the Pantathian mines under the Ratn’gari Mountains, Miranda sank down to sit on the floor, her back against the cool rocks.
Pug sat next to her, his hands on his head, and he said, ‘We only have a moment. We must close this rift.’
She said, ‘How?’
‘This is different from the first. This must be closed the way one would sew a wound.’
He sat a long moment, then took a deep breath. He waved his hands, and faint energies left his fingers, snaking out toward the rift. Around the edges they flew, and as Miranda found her strength starting to return along with warmth, she saw Pug’s energies forming a lattice work around the edges of the rift.
Then Pug changed the spell, and the binding energies he had cast around the edges of the rift began to contract. Miranda watched for a minute, then said, ‘I see.’
She gathered together her strength, watching in fascination as the rift closed slowly. While she rested she considered what she had just witnessed. She had known her father briefly, having spent most of her life tracing him through his legend. He had not visited her since she had turned sixteen or seventeen, she couldn’t remember which, and she had spent most of her life holding the man in contempt.
But as she had discovered her mother’s part in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives, she reassessed her father’s role in things. She was discovering that even at her advanced age, she still felt like a child in some ways.
She thought she would have grown to like her father, perhaps even love him someday, but now that day would never come. For that she felt regret.
But for the loss of his life compared to the deaths of thousands she had already seen, she couldn’t find a means to compare; perhaps someday she’d mourn him, or at least mourn the loss of an opportunity, later, when she had time. If she had time.
Suddenly a face appeared on the other side of the rift, looking like a cow’s skull stretched over with black hide, topped by a stag’s rack of antlers. Coals for eyes burned in it, and they regarded the two humans.
With a howl of glee the demon, obviously the final victor in the carnage that had just finished in the great chamber in Cibul, flushed with a feeding of tremendous scope, started to leap through the rift.
‘Stop it!’ shouted Pug, and Miranda lashed out with all her remaining strength. It was enough to knock the demon back into the other world, and stun it.
Miranda almost fainted from the effort. In a hoarse voice she said, ‘Hurry. I have nothing left.’
Pug concentrated his entire focus on continuing to close the rift. Miranda could see that as the rift became smaller the rate of closing was accelerating.
Then the demon was back, cautious in its approach. It feinted toward the rift, then ducked back, pausing a moment.
When no further attack came from Miranda, it tried to climb through, much as a human climbs through a window.
First the creature’s head poked through, then one arm. It reached for Pug, but found him still too far away. The creature turned sideways, and started to put one leg through, but found its large wings a hindrance. It shifted position, and tried another angle, not noticing that the aperture was closing by the second.
Unable to pass, the creature became enraged with frustration, and tried to force its way through the rift. A headlong dive managed to get it wedged within the rift.
Then pressure began to exert as Pug continued closing the rift.
Rage turned to panic, then to pain and terror as the rift closed on the creature. Howling as it was being cut in two, the demon thrashed like a fish on the deck of a boat.
Miranda took a breath, tried to add her energy to Pug’s and felt the rift closing even more quickly. The demon’s cries echoed through the Pantathian halls, resounding off the rocks and shaking the very mountains.
Dust rained down on Miranda and Pug as the creature’s thrashing increased, then suddenly it went limp. A moment later, the rift closed, and the upper half of the demon fell into the cave.
Miranda looked at it and said, ‘We did it?’ Then she passed out.
Pug said, ‘Yes,’ and he too collapsed on the floor, unconscious as the last reserve of his strength was paid out.