Pug said, ‘No. I can’t tell you why.’ He glanced at Macros and Miranda. ‘Things are hidden from us, and we sense that it is necessary to have these things hidden, for our own protection and that of others, but I know down to the fiber of my being that you must remain here.’
Miranda and her father had found the door in the Hall and had entered it to the cave on Shila. They had watched from the mouth of the cave as demon flyers sped across the sky, and as demons of all sizes could be seen coming from the direction of where they had been told the city of Ahsart lay. After seeing far more demons than they could defeat, they had retreated to the Hall, returned to Midkemia and sought out Pug.
They had spent two days evolving a plan, and now it was determined that Macros and Miranda would return to the tunnels beneath the Ratn’gary Mountains, while Pug and Hanam would go to Shila. Hanam in demon form would not attract attention, while Pug could better keep himself invisible than Macros could himself and Miranda.
Miranda and her father would attempt to seal the rift into Midkemia permanently, as Macros had once done with the rift between Midkemia and Kelewan, while Pug and Hanam would attempt to close the entrance to the demon realm.
Miranda glanced at her father, then at Pug, and said, ‘I need to speak with Calis, alone.’
She rose and moved to where the half-elf warrior sat, indicating he should walk with her. They moved past the gigantic form of the sleeping oracle, a dragon of immense proportions who lay deep in a sleep of regeneration. Surrounding her were men, both young and old, the attendants who were also passing along their knowledge; the Oracles of Aal and their attendants would die in their time, but their knowledge would live on as long as new bodies could be found to contain their minds.
When they had walked far enough away from the others for some privacy, Miranda said, ‘What worries you?’
Calis laughed. ‘Everything.’ Then he said, ‘I fear I will never see you again.’
She sighed and touched his cheek. ‘If that is our fate, we must accept it. If not, we shall see each other again.’
With elven understatement, he raised an eyebrow slightly and said, ‘Pug?’
She nodded. ‘There are things that must be.’ She came close and put her head upon his chest, saying, ‘In time you will know so much more than you do now, and you will remember what we had as a gift, predous and wonderful, but you’ll also realize that it was a lesson, for us both, that we might better leam what it is that we truly needed.’
He gathered her into his arms and held her tightly for a moment, then slowly released her. When his arms were again at his sides, he said, ‘I will not claim to understand, but I do accept what you say as true.’
She touched his face again and, looking into his eyes, said, ‘Sweet Calis. Always willing to serve. Always willing to give. Yet you have never asked of anyone for yourself. Why is that?’
He smiled and shrugged. ‘It is who I am. I have much to learn. As you delight in reminding me, I am still young. I feel that by service I can learn, and through learning, I can discover who I am.’
‘You are someone wonderful and unique,’ she said softly, kissing his cheek.
He nodded. ‘While I wait in this cave, can you at least give me a hint to what it is I’m to do?’
Miranda said, ‘I know only what Pug has told me.’
‘Then let me ask him one more time.’ He stepped past her and walked to where Pug and Macros were waiting with Hanam.
Calis said, ‘If you do not know why I’m here, can you at least tell me what you suspect?’
Pug turned and pointed to a huge dais that sat on the stone floor, within a few feet of the slumbering dragon. ‘That is why,’ he said, and everyone in the room felt a shift, as if they were moving slightly, yet no one budged. But where the empty dais had been, now a giant glowing green gem rested, a golden sword embedded in it. It pulsed with a life of its own and Calis instantly felt drawn to it and went over to it. ‘The Lifestone,’ he said quietly.
Pug said, ‘One has to be shifted slightly in time to see it.’
Calis looked at the sword. ‘My father’s sword.’
‘That portion of the Valheru which sought to seize this, embodied in the form of Draken-Korin,’ said Pug, ‘threw itself across this stone, and your father drove that sword deep into it. I do not know why, but that ended the Riftwar. The Valheru were drawn deep within its facets, and your father refused to risk retrieving his sword.’
Calis nodded, not taking his eyes from the gem. ‘I will study this thing.’
Miranda turned to Pug and said, ‘We can wait no longer.’ Pug, Macros, and Hanam gathered, and Pug went to stand next to the demon. In his mind’s eye he pictured the device over the door into Shila, the distinctive glyph that indicated which doorway they needed in the Hall. Miranda had memorized it, then given that memory to Pug, so it was if he himself had stood before it. He nodded once and blinked out of existence with the demon.
Miranda cast one last look at Calis, then nodded to her father, took his hand, and willed herself and Macros to the tunnels under the mountains across the sea.