‘Like Maarg?’ asked Sandreena, having heard from Pug about the demon king’s corpse found on the Saaur world of Shila.
‘He ruled in the outer ring, as best I can tell,’ said Gulamendis. ‘It is an every-demon-for-himself sort of place, and he literally clawed and bullied his way to the top. Amirantha and I feel that what we had discerned about demons before all of this began was mainly true; demons hold a loose organization of alliances and services. They either destroy their rivals, absorbing their power, or take service. The weaker ones find a stronger demon to serve in exchange for protection, and the stronger demon then has a retinue ready to aid him in conflicts with his rivals. Much of rising and falling among the demons of the outer circle was the result of betrayal, ambush, and treachery. And it always raised the question in my mind how could anything remotely like a society arise from this chaos? How could they evolve beyond animal states, to have a language and magic?
‘But here,’ he said, indicating the inner circle, ‘is the answer. Each canton has its own society, apparently an army, and a ruler. Demons who somehow evolve enough to escape the outer circle but who don’t contest for domination, they find their way to one of these cantons and…’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not certain. Service? Slavery? Freedom?’
‘We struggle to apply mortal concepts to a race more alien to us than any other we’ve encountered, even trolls and goblins.’
‘Certainly true,’ said Amirantha. ‘The author of this work labelled these cantons with a variety of colourful names, “Pandamonia”, “Discordia”, “Despair”, “The Miasma” and “The Fallen”. We have no way of knowing much about them, what the demons called them, or even if the number is correct.
‘He writes a great deal about experiences here on Midkemia, and the rest is inference.’ Gulamendis sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Putting aside the colourful embellishment, at the heart of this work stands this truth: another realm threatens our own, at the heart of which stands a society, or societies, we know almost nothing about, one that we were completely ignorant of until recently.’ With no vanity, he pointed to Amirantha and said, ‘And it is most likely that we are more expert on the subject than any other being in this world.’
‘Speaking of the heart,’ said Sandreena pointing to a dark spot in the middle of the map. ‘What is that?’
Gulamendis shrugged. ‘Another, tiny realm perhaps? It is only marked with a single word, “Void,” and there is nothing written about it anywhere in the book.’
Laromendis arrived at the door and said, ‘Ah, there you are. Time to gather below. We are leaving.’
Sandreena, Amirantha, and Gulamendis all looked through the window and saw the sun hanging low in the western sky. They hurried down to the marshalling yard without further discussion.
HAPTER SIXTEEN - Reconnaissance
KASPAR SIGNALLED.
They had ventured down the first trail to the rim of the valley, where they would begin the tedious descent down the switchback trails unless Pug decided he and Magnus needed to get everyone down in a hurry. All the magic users had been cautioned to not use their art in any form, active or passive, unless they were attacked, as the defenders might have placed wards to detect it. Looking at the long downward trail, and out beyond the distant rim, Amirantha turned to Gulamendis and said, ‘We should have a quicker exit, at least. I’d hate to have to run back up those trails.’
The elf nodded. ‘Some of my people are able to trek like this for days; sadly I am not one of them.’
They had discussed the plan in detail, but the sight when they arrived at the valley’s edge, caused them all to stop. ‘My gods,’ said Kaspar. ‘What is it?’
The construction looked finished. The four large arching towers now stretched towards a central point above the vast open area at the heart of the structure.
Pug said, ‘It looks something like the portal used by the Dasati when they invaded Kelewan, though they didn’t have all this fortification around it. They used a magic shield that was very difficult to breech, and it expanded as they sent more and more of their Death Knights through.’
Sandreena said, ‘Where are all the labourers?’ She pointed and said, ‘There were hundreds of them working…And the demon overseers patrolling the walls?’
Pug said, ‘We need to get closer. I can see some movement in the distance, but it’s too far away to make out who it is.’
Kaspar said, ‘Sandreena lead us to that gully, please.’
His band had worked their way down the switchback trails cautiously, until they reached the gully Sandreena had used to circumvent the guard post at the bottom of the slope. In single file they followed her to the rim of the dry river basin, and after motioning for the others to wait, Kaspar and Sandreena crawled on their bellies up to the rim and looked over.
‘It’s quiet,’ whispered Kaspar.