He calculated the time in his head and knew they had no more than ten minutes. They were a dozen paces from the northern gate, near the so-called sea gate, the gate used most by smugglers and thieves to get in and out of the city.
Lysle sent one of his thieves forward, a young woman who nimbly climbed up and reported back that the way was clear. James signaled and the evacuation began.
Lysle said, ‘Out you go.’
James said, ‘No. I’ll go last.’
‘Captains and sinking ships?’ asked Jimmy the Hand’s brother.
With a smile that showed only pain and fatigue, he said, ‘Something like that.’
‘I’ll wait with you,’ Gambia said.
James said, ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
In his mind, James heard her say, You don’t want to leave, do you?
I don’t want to die, but I’ve caused so much death and destruction. This is the only home I know, Gamina. I don t see how I can live with this.
Do you think I don t understand that? she asked. I ear your thoughts and I feel your pain. There is nothing you can say that I won’t understand.
He looked into her eyes and smiled, and this time the smile was one of love and complete trust.
Then the world around them exploded. The six men on the other side of the gate were knocked to the ground and stunned. Three who were in the gate were shot from it like corks from a bottle and flew through the air, one breaking his neck on impact twenty yards away, the other two sustaining broken bones.
Inside the tunnel the very air turned into flames for an instant. In that brief moment, Gamina and James were linked in mind, their memories unfolding together, from the first instant they met as James swam in the lake near Stardock, first espying the love of his life as she bathed.
Almost drowning, he had been rescued by this woman who looked into his mind and saw everything he was, everything he had been, and loved him, who loved him despite everything he had done since then, despite the things he had asked her to do that had caused her pain. Everything around them was forgotten as they clung to that profound love they had shared, the love that had brought them a son who was safely away, and two grandsons they adored. For a brief instant they relived their lives together, from the journey to Great Kesh to the return to Krondor. As flames burned away the flesh from their bodies, their minds were deep within their love for one another and they felt no pain.
Pug cried out. ‘Gamina!’
Hanam said, ‘What is it, magician?’
Looking desolate, Pug whispered, ‘My daughter is dead.’
The creature didn’t dare touch the magician to comfort him. The hunger was too fierce, and the touch of human flesh might drive him into a feeding frenry. ‘I am sorry,’ the creature said.
Pug took a deep breath and let it out with an audible sigh. ‘My son and daughter are both dead.’ He had felt William’s death two days earlier, and now with Gamina’s passing a portion of his life was closing behind him. ‘I knew I would outlive both of them, but to know something and experience it are two different things.’
‘It is always thus,’ said the Saaur Loremaster from within the demon’s body. ‘Among our race is a benediction that is repeated when a boy becomes a man and is given his first weapon: “Grandfather dies, father dies, son dies.” Every Saaur repeats it when they get ready to ride into battle, sons beside fathers, for there is no cruder fate than for a parent to outlive a child.’
‘Macros called long life a curse, and now I understand. When my wife died many years ago, that was one thing, but this . . .’ Pug wept for a while. Then he composed himself and said, ‘I knew William was at risk, for he chose a soldier’s life. But Gamina . . .’ His voice faltered, and again he wept.
Time passed, and the demon creature said, ‘We must hurry, magician. I can feel my control slipping.’
Pug nodded as he stood up, and they left the cave.
Macros and Miranda should be in place.
Pug incanted and suddenly they were invisible. He understood Macros’s difficulty, for to do two things at once was always a problem, but coupled with the stress of expecting attack at any minute and the worry associated with achieving the goal, it was proving to be more than one of the most difficult things Pug had done.
Pug levitated and discovered that once over the initial strain of rising into the air, it was actually easier to float along toward the city of Ahsart than it was to walk.
Out of the air the voice of the demon said, ‘Fliers!’
A half-dozen winged creatures sped across the sky, to the south, and Pug knew that if he and the Saaur Loremaster hadn’t been invisible, the creatures would have swooped down and attacked. As foretold, life on this world was rapidly being devoured. The once lush grasslands were now withered and brown; this was an absence of life so obvious that no one would have confused it with the sleeping dormancy of winter, where the plants would reawaken with spring’s rain.