Pug let his mind reach out, and in the vast distance of space he found what he sought. He conjured the single most powerful spell he had ever fashioned, one he had imagined, but never thought he would ever use. Circling Kelewan was a single moon, locked in a perfect orbit by the balance of forces exerted by both the sun and the planet. Pug tipped that balance.
Millions of miles away in space a massive rift appeared before the moon, and just inside the top of the dome of the Black Mount its twin manifested. Pug lowered himself down to a position by the rift that led back home, and knew he had to be quick.
He could not leave this last rift open, for to do so would doom Midkemia to the same fate about to befall Kelewan.
Millions of miles away, the moon struck the rift gate. Only part of it was forced through, but its velocity was enough to drive an impossible amount of stone, equal to the tallest mountain on Kelewan, through it in scant seconds. Pug stepped inside the rift just as the moon’s vast shard appeared inside the Black Mount and slammed down at incalculable speed into the pit. The Dreadlord had only an instant to sense that something was terribly wrong. A massive increase in air pressure around the Dark One gripped the gigantic being as if an enormous hand squeezed him. Then for the briefest instant a wall of light fell upon him.
The moon shard and the black gem shard Nakor had released struck in the same instant. The Dreadlord was no mortal being; but in that instant he was crushed.
The universe began to tear.
No one on the planet’s surface felt pain. For one moment the world had been a landscape of terror, struggle and death, and in the next moment, everything was gone. A cloud of hot gas travelled a path around a distant yellow-green sun where minutes before a world and its moon had existed.
Pug found himself in a grey nothingness, devoid of any sensation, light, dark, cold or heat. He had experienced this once before, and then he had reached out with his mind to find his old teacher, Kulgan.
This time he had a more compelling target for his mind: his wife and sons. He gripped tightly the staff that was twin to the one at home. He let his magic senses run through the ancient wood and could feel Miranda, Caleb and Magnus out there, the three people he loved more than anyone else in that world.
He sensed them… somewhere… there! He could feel the echo of the staff in his hand and the touch of his loved ones on it, and reached for them. Then with a tearing pain, he was standing by them, shivering as if he had been exposed to the most profound cold possible.
He said, ‘It is done,’ then collapsed into his son’s arms.
EPILOGUE
It was a quiet afternoon lunch. Pug had slept the entire night and next day through, and deep into the morning before arising. He felt numb, and knew that the full weight of what had happened would not fall upon him for a few more days, or even weeks. He was old enough to understand that the mind and heart healed in their own good time and that when they were ready to deal with what he had done, they would.
Caleb, his wife Marie, and the boys, Jommy, Tad, and Zane, along with Magnus and Miranda, were quiet, lost in the gentle conversation of a family just pleased to be with one another. It was an overcast day outside, but sombre weather seemed appropriate to Pug.
At last, he asked Miranda, ‘How many Great Ones got through in the end?’
Miranda stopped chewing for a moment, then swallowed. ‘I believe forty-one got through the rift to the Academy, and perhaps another hundred or so through the rift to the new world.’
Jommy said, ‘They’re going to have to come up with a name for the place. They can’t just keep calling it the "new world", now, can they?’
Pug smiled. He was very pleased that his three foster grandsons had survived.
‘How about others?’ he asked.
Miranda said, ‘We’ve no official tally. Maybe ten thousand Tsurani got through the rifts to here and that other one up in LaMut. Most of them want to go to the new world, to the King’s relief, I’m sure, though a few want to stay in LaMut. A lot of those who were with Kaspar are staying with him down in Novindus. He’s going to have quite an army when he arrives to take service with the Maharaja of Muboya.’
Magnus said, ‘Will we ever know, Father, how many… ?’
Pug just shook his head briefly. ‘Died? No, we never will.’
The best estimate was that just over two million Tsurani had made it through to the new world, but that meant for each one who was saved, five had died at the hands of the Dasati or when the planet was vaporized. He looked at Miranda. ‘And the Thuril?’
Miranda forced a smile. ‘Apparently they’re a little more practical about things than we gave them credit for. Seems the majority of them got through in time. Given their culture, they’ll probably adapt to their new highlands faster than the Tsurani will to the rest of their continent.’
‘What about the Thūn?’
‘No one knows. We’ll have to send someone down there to see.’