Pug said, ‘Cattle.’
Hirea said, ‘It is a matter of personal pride for any Dasati warrior that what we take, we keep. Six worlds have been conquered since the rise of the Dark. One, and in every case we have never surrendered a jot of what we have taken. For a Dasati to die is one thing, for we all expect that, but we die so our people may expand their territory. We do not die just to die. It is not the Dasati way.’
Martuch saw that the explanation wasn’t entirely clear to Pug and Magnus, for he had lived among the beings of the first realm and knew more about their ways. ‘We are not a philosophical people, like the Ipiliac. They understand things we can not imagine. They imagine things we can not comprehend. We are a violent race which judges conquest as the highest manifestation of successful violence, for violence without purpose is—’
‘Comedy,’ said Pug softly. ‘Other people’s pain.’
‘And that is offensive,’ said Martuch. ‘It makes a mockery of what ten thousand Dasati warriors, the best of us, were born to do: conquer!’
‘To laugh with contempt at the pain of others, that is one thing. But to see waste like this…’ Hirea’s words trailed off.
Magnus said, ‘It depends on what they were chosen to do, why they were used.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Martuch.
Magnus looked at the old warrior thoughtfully. ‘If the TeKarana wanted merely to overwhelm Kelewan, he could have ordered millions of you into the field.’
Martuch and Hirea both nodded in agreement.
‘The Tsurani are valiant warriors, and to a man they will die defending their homeland, but they could not withstand such an attack.’
‘So there must be a compelling reason to sacrifice ten thousand of his personal guards, rather than launch a full-scale invasion of Kelewan,’ said Pug. ‘I do not know for a fact, but I suspect it will take as much adjustment for the Dasati warriors to exist on my plane as it did for us to exist here.’
Martuch said, ‘Absolutely. I can travel to Delecordia without much discomfort. The Ipiliac are as much like me as Hirea is, but they live in a world caught half way between this realm and yours. But it must have taken centuries for them to have grown accustomed to the energies of that world.’ He paused. ‘Without preparation it would be difficult for any of us to live there for more than a week or two. Some might adapt, but others would sicken and die. But Delecordia is not in the first realm. It would be impossible without much the same preparation as you endured for any Dasati to exist in your world for more than a few hours, perhaps a day or so at the most.’
Pug recalled just how arduous the conditioning he, Nakor, Bek, and Magnus had endured had been. ‘How can they hope to prepare an army of non-magicians to invade?’ he asked quietly.
‘They don’t,’ said Martuch. ‘We Dasati do not change to exist in the new world; we change the world to our liking.’
‘How?’ asked Magnus.
‘By magic,’ said Hirea, as if it was an obvious answer to the question.
‘But,’ said Pug, ‘magic on that scale…’ He fell silent. ‘The Dark One does not need so many lives merely to open rifts to the first plane of reality, or to move armies through them; he needs millions of lives so that he has enough power to remake worlds!’ Pug fell silent. Magnus looked down at his father and saw a man nearly overwhelmed by the enormity of what confronted them. ‘Father?’
‘This attack today, it’s not to conquer, but to confuse.’
‘What do you mean, human?’ asked Martuch.
‘Your TeKarana has an ally, an insane necromancer by the name of Leso Varen. He’s a body stealer, and is somewhere within the Empire of Tsuranuanni. My wife and others are trying to track him down, but he could have taken the body of anyone. They’re looking for signs of his death-magic, but until he reveals himself…’
‘How do you know they are in league?’ asked Hirea. ,
‘Because they have similar goals: wholesale destruction and death on Kelewan.’
‘Why would any human desire that?’