‘What did you find?’ Jim asked Amirantha.
‘What we came for,’ he answered. ‘It is the Greater Demon Lore, and more.’
‘More?’ asked Pug. ‘What is in it?’
‘Everything there is to know about demons,’ he said with barely contained excitement. ‘I consider myself a practiced warlock, demons are my specialty; but I know nothing!’ He sat back. ‘I haven’t finished it yet, but I have read enough to know that something incredible is underway.’
Pug glanced at Magnus. ‘Another minute, no more.’
Amirantha said, ‘We can talk in detail later,’ he glanced at Jim. ‘After you steal the book.’
Jim shrugged, as if that would be a trivial issue. The library was not the Imperial Treasury, he could be in and out in minutes with the volume secreted within his baggage. As a diplomat, he would be spared any search of his personal items, and once at sea, the three magicians could pour over it to their hearts content.
Amirantha said, ‘There is so much to consider.’ He paused, knowing they would have to keep silent soon. ‘The demons are so much more than we thought.’ He fell silent. ‘Much more,’ he repeated, then Magnus raised his hand and loudly said, ‘I found a recounting of the sea battle of Questor’s View, in the Fifteenth Year of the Reign of Rodney the Third.’ Forcing a mild laugh, he added, ‘This account is quite different to the one we found in the Royal Library at Krondor.’
Talk turned to mundane academia with a few comments made about the hospitality of the Quegans, all flattering; each of the men quickly falling into their role of innocent guest.
Jim considered the perfect time to leave his quarters without waking whoever was with him; he knew the Quegans would ensure he shared his bed with an agent. If he encountered no one along the short road from the palace to the library, he could get to the library, get the book—once Amirantha gave him a precise description—and return in less than a half hour, perhaps as little as a quarter.
Pug and Magnus shared the same thought: just what had Amirantha found in that book?
And Amirantha sat silently, unsure that he had even begun to understand what he had uncovered, and wondering if he was able to make sense of it. For if this book wasn’t the total fabrication of a deluded mind, it changed everything he had ever thought he knew about demons and what his people called the Fifth Hell.
Amirantha placed the huge volume down on the table. Jim quipped, ‘Stealing it wasn’t a problem. Getting it back without falling over was.’
The tome was a foot and a half along the spine and contained about fifty or sixty pages of heavy vellum. It easily weighed fifty pounds; not a difficult load to carry, but impossible to hide. Luckily, as Jim observed, if the Quegans suspected he might skulk around during the night, they would expect him to attempt to pilfer state secrets or imperial treasure, not forgotten books.
They had left Queg less than an hour before, and once clear of the harbour and any observation, mundane or magic, Magnus had transported them to his father’s study on top of the tower at Sorcerer’s Isle.
Amirantha looked as fascinated as a child opening a gift from Father Winter at the Midwinter’s Festival. He pointed at the book and said, ‘It should take me only a day or two to determine if what is written is remotely true. If so…’ He looked at Pug. ‘My newfound friend, the elf Gulamendis, and I both came to our skills the hard way, through trial and error. We are among the few who survived that education, Pug, for I suspect a few lads and lasses who tried to conjure their first demon ended up with painful, deadly results.
‘With this,’ he poked his finger at it for emphasis, ‘I would be twice the master of demon lore that I am now.’
Pug said, ‘This sounds impressive.’
‘You sound very enthusiastic,’ observed Jim.
Magnus shot him a sideways glance and then asked the Warlock. ‘Who wrote it?’
‘I see no author name,’ replied Amirantha. ‘It may be stated somewhere; I only read a fourth of it before Livia returned to call it a night.
‘There are—’ He caught his breath. ‘I don’t know where to begin.’ He paused again, then said, ‘My perception of the demon realm, what we call the Fifth Circle of Hell, was that it’s a place of chaos, constantly shifting and violent, where the strong rise and take command.’ He let his voice drop. ‘But it’s so much more than that.’
‘They have hierarchies.’ He held up his hand and could see he had both magician’s undivided attention; even Jim listened closely. ‘I, like you, thought that the demon king, was simply the strongest, the one who had achieved his rank through combat, murder, terror, or alliances with those seeking his protection…’ He sighed.
‘What is it?’ asked Magnus.
‘Those demons are a slave class,’ said Amirantha.
‘Slave class?’