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 rilled 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?’