‘Had they surrendered then, it would have ended well enough. After a few public executions to demonstrate the iron rule of the Sha-shahan, Jarwa by name, they would then have pardoned the rest to demonstrate his leniency, and then the horde would have ridden on, leaving little more than a garrison and tax collector behind.
‘Instead, a priest unsealed the demon gate, in the mad hope that the demons would repulse the horde, and that he could seal it up afterwards.’ Pug shook his head. ‘He was the first to be devoured.’ He sighed as they mounted steps leading up into the great Temple. There were fifty steps in the staircase; at each end of the broad expanse of carved stone, a pillar rose, on top of which sat empty stone cauldrons, where offerings to the gods and ancestors could be burned. ‘Of course the demons drove back the horde, but they also destroyed the only possibility the people had of repulsing them - the now exhausted priests and shamans of the Saaur.
‘A very courageous and intelligent shaman, by the name of Hanam, seized control of a demon through a brilliant ruse, and used his control to infiltrate the demons and reach your mother and me,’ he said to Magnus. ‘He was instrumental in defeating the demon captain, Tugor, as Macros, your mother, and I battled Maarg, keeping him on the other side of the rift.’
‘Tugor was defeated?’ asked Magnus. ‘I thought one of those imps mentioned him . . . perhaps I was mistaken.’
‘We’ll ask Amirantha when we return. I have the suspicion that demons are more difficult to kill than we thought,’ said Pug. He led them across a large pavilion, into an antechamber. Looking around he said, ‘It looks so different.’
The stones of the city were now free of the soot and ash that had coated them the last time Pug had been there. Fires had still raged across the landscape, but a century of wind and rain had effectively erased the stains, everywhere but in the deepest recesses.
Pug recognized a hallmark, a massive stone bas-relief showing some legend of the Saaur, and moved towards a deep vault. Once they were inside, the gloom swallowed them. Magnus moved his hand reflexively and light sprang up around them in a comforting cocoon.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, Pug felt the urge to whisper. He resisted and said, ‘Over there.’ He pointed to a cavernous doorway leading into the Seal Chamber, where the demon gate had been located. When he had last visited, along with Miranda, Macros, and the Saaur shaman Hanam, the alien race the Shangri had been trying to move a rift to Midkemia directly in front of the entrance to the demon realm. They had been disrupted and had fled. After that, Macros and Hanam had given their lives to stop the demon invasion. Pug had slain the Shangri who had created the rift and assumed the portal to the demon realm had been closed as well.
When they reached the site of the demon gate all four men froze in astonishment. A body lay sprawled out before the wall that had housed the gate. It was emaciated, barely larger than a human, but Pug instantly recognized it. Now he whispered, it’s Maarg.’
When he had last seen the demon king, he had been a mammoth, gross creature, nearly thirty-five feet in height. Massive jowls had hung down from his cheekbones, lending him an almost bulldog-like expression. Eyes of burning fire had regarded Pug with a hatred that came in waves; he was the personification of evil.
‘Everything is so much smaller now,’ said Pug softly. He turned Maarg over and found that his body weighed almost nothing. His face looked like parchment drawn across hollow bones, and showed evidence of being fashioned from the skins of living beings. When Pug had last seen him, every inch of his visage had moved and twitched, as if the souls he had devoured were attempting to escape. The nude body before him was a thing of tattered skins that looked sewn together like patchwork.
Pug stood up. ‘He had wings that could spread right across this chamber, and—’ He looked at the wall. ‘Unbelievable.’
The stone was gouged with deep talon marks, as though, once the demon gate had closed, Maarg had tried to claw his way back into his own realm.
‘How?’ asked Magnus.
‘When your grandfather died, I thought the gate was closed, but Maarg must have somehow slipped back into this realm moments before it shut. Your mother and I were already on Midkemia.’ He shrugged. ‘He must have devoured every life on this world and when hunger drove him even madder than before, he returned here and tried to get back . . .’ Pug shook his head. ‘I can’t feel sympathy for a thing like this, but it must have been a terrible way to die.’
‘There’s one thing, Father,’ said Magnus.
‘What?’
‘Amirantha’s imp was terrified of Maarg. If Maarg is dead, who’s pretending to be Maarg, and convincing the other demons that he’s their king?’
Pug looked stunned by the question.
CHAPTER NINETEEN - Onslaught
Miranda signalled.