He closed his eyes and Magnus looked around the crater that had at one time been the bottom of the great arena in Kentosani. The stones around them still reeked of conflict magic and Magnus detected other energies. A great battle had been waged here, as both magicians and priests from the various orders fought against the raiding Dasati. If the reports that had reached Valko were true – and apparently they were – the Dasati had destroyed a large part of the population after killing everyone in the Tsurani High Council and the Tsurani response had been slow; early estimates had put the dead at fifty thousand Tsurani, warriors and common people. But looking at the devastation around him, Magnus could easily believe more than that number had perished, for this was the result of Tsurani magic, not the deathmagic practised by the Dasati. Some group of magicians and priests had literally torn this arena down around the ears of the Dasati. While his father worked, Magnus used his own arts to rise into the air, gaining a better look.
Once he could see over the rubble that had been the shell of the great arena, he wished he hadn’t. The entire heart of the Holy City was in ruins. Fires still burned in sections abandoned by those who lived there and nowhere close by could Magnus detect any sign of life. There was still a faint stench of decay on the wind as bodies left unburied lay where they had fallen. Scavengers had finished most of the work days earlier, but just enough death lingered on the stones to suggest to Magnus this was now a dead city.
He felt overwhelmed, even after all they had been through. Could they really stop the Dark Lord from reaching this world?
He lowered himself down just as his father finished casting his rift-spell, and a doorway-sized grey oval appeared in the air.
Without saying anything to his son, Pug stepped through and Magnus followed him.
Caleb stood in shock as his father and brother walked through a rift into his father’s office and then he raced forward as his father collapsed to the floor. Magnus also could barely stand and had to put his hand to the wall to steady himself.
‘Mother will be overjoyed to see you,’ Caleb said, as he knelt beside Pug, ‘if you have the good grace not to die on me before she returns.’
Magnus smiled. He enjoyed Caleb’s dry sense of humour. ‘It’s good to see you, too, little brother.’
Half-conscious now, Pug required the help of both his sons to regain his feet. Once he had stood up, he said ‘I feel sick. The transition.’
Magnus felt as ill as he had when they had first transited to Delecordia.
‘Get a healer,’ said Pug to Caleb. ‘We do not have the luxury of time. We cannot afford to lie abed for days.’
‘I’ll send for one,’ said Caleb, ‘but until he arrives, to bed with both of you.’
Caleb called for help and a pair of students came to take Magnus back to his quarters, while Caleb helped his father to his own.
As soon as Caleb left his father to await the healer, Pug felt a searing pain across his forehead and he arched his back in agony. Then the pain vanished.
A man stood next to the bed. ‘Sorry,’ he said. He was a familiar figure, short and bandy-legged and wearing a tattered orange robe. He had a rucksack hanging from one shoulder and held a staff in the other hand. He waved his hand and Pug’s pain and fatigue lessened.
‘Nakor?’ asked Pug in wonder.
‘Not really, but I thought you’d prefer this appearance to the others I’ve used over the years,’ answered the figure. ‘And should anyone chance upon us, it’ll save a lot of questions.’
‘Ban-ath?’
Bowing, the figure said, ‘At your service, Pug. Or rather, you’ve been at mine. And you’re not done yet, but we are getting close to the end.’
Pug sat up, feeling as if he had rested for days. ‘What have you done?’
‘Well, if all goes according to plan, I’ve saved the world and everyone in it, as well as a sizeable piece of this entire universe,’ said the god in Nakor’s form. ‘You’re looking a mess, magician, and you have much left to do, so clean up while I tell you some things.’
‘More lies and manipulations?’
‘Oh, almost certainly, eventually, but for now I’m content to limit myself to the truth, for right now, that will serve me best.’
‘The truth?’
‘Yes, magician, this time you hear the truth.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Truth
PUG LISTENED.
‘There’s little to be gained by rushing, but time does press. Still, after what you’ve endured over the years—’
‘Over the years?’ Pug interrupted.
The god who looked like Nakor held up his hand. ‘Do you remember the story Nakor told you, the parable of the scorpion and the frog?’
‘The scorpion kills the frog who is helping it cross the river and when asked why answers, "because it is my nature". Yes, I remember it.’
‘Good,’ said Ban-ath. ‘Because it is my nature to lie, to manipulate, to steal, cheat, and ignore laws and rules at every hand. It was I who put you where Macros could find you, Pug. I who guided him to Crydee and let him think watching over you was his idea. It was I who manipulated every step of Macros’s way, making him think he was serving the lost God of Magic’ He betrayed a moment of reflection in his expression as he gazed out into space and said, ‘It will come to pass that Sarig returns, just as the others returned, as the Dasati gods returned to their realm… if we survive long enough, but Macros was not Sarig’s servant. He was mine. His vanity was my biggest ally; he never once conceived that anything he did might not be the product of his own genius.
‘I manipulated his magic to infuse the ancient armour found by Tomas in the dragon’s cave, so that my magic could bridge time and space, and convey Tomas’s thoughts back to Ashen-Shugar, manipulating one of the enemies of the gods, so a war we were losing could become a war postponed.’