At the Gates of Darkness

by Raymond E. Feist

  “Anything interesting?” asked Pug as he picked up a stoneware plate and a long two-pronged fork and began putting cheese, meat, and fruit on his plate.

  “Nothing worth being excited over,” answered the Warlock. He pointed to a large pitcher of water then another with wine and his expression was a question.

  “Water, please,” said Magnus. “Wine with lunch and I’m asleep all afternoon.”

  Pug nodded, and Amirantha said, “Three goblets of water it is.”

  They assumed they were being overheard so they spoke in a fairly noncommittal fashion. They chatted and Amirantha finished his meal and said, “So, anything noteworthy?”

  They knew he was asking if there was any clue that might help point him in his search under the massive pile of books.

  Magnus said, “Quite a bit. It’s clear that Kingdom records of the region are spotty at best.”

  That was a code phrase agreed upon telling Amirantha they had found nothing that would aid his search.

  After the meal, servants returned them to their respective areas and Amirantha felt a mild disappointment over Livia not putting in an appearance. He cursed himself for his appetites and willingness to construct reasons to do what he wanted over the years, rather than what he should. Since meeting Pug and his companions, many things had left him profoundly changed in his view of the world in which he lived: the scope of the dangers being faced, the commitment and bravery of those undertaking the task of confronting those dangers, and their generosity and selflessness. But one thing had continued to leave him constantly unsettled and troubled, and it had been something of minor importance, he had once thought.

  His encounter with Sandreena and Creegan had reopened old wounds, wounds he had not even admitted to himself existed before that encounter.

  To those like Brandos who knew him well, he was unapologetic about his bad behavior with women over the years. He stopped a moment and considered the pile of books still to be examined, yet he hesitated. His mind was on the young Knight-Adamant from Krondor.

  As a young man, like many young men do, he loved easily, or at least he had told himself it was love, but whatever it was, he had felt strong attachments. But his life being what it was, they never endured. By the time he found Brandos as a boy scrabbling around the city streets, he had come to not let his heart get involved. Women were creatures of comfort, to be taken and then left behind, lest one became attached and again faced loss in the end.

  What he felt deepest was that he had cared a great deal more for Sandreena than he had admitted, that the time they had spent together in the oddly named little village north of Krondor had forged something deeper than merely the physical or a liaison of convenience. He hated how he felt.

  He forced aside this morbid introspection and cursed himself for a sentimental old fool trapped in a young man’s body, and set about working on the volumes before him.

  An hour into the afternoon, Amirantha began to sense something. He held a book in his hand and glanced at the title, then put it aside. He picked up the next and again felt the oddly familiar, yet nameless tingling. He cast aside that book and picked up two more. As he dug deeper into the pile, the sensation became more familiar, and more immediate.

  It was demon.

  He pushed his way downward, ignoring the damage he might be doing to ancient books—many of which were on the verge of falling apart due to improper storage in this very room—and felt the sense grow even more compelling.

  His hand touched something and he recoiled as if experiencing a shock.

  Trying to work as quickly as possible, yet not damage the object of his attention, he got the cover of the work clear and once he could clearly see the volume, his flesh crawled.

  This volume was rife with demonic magic.

  When he had at last cleared away the covered tome, he reached in and gripped it; the alien sense of demon magic assaulted him again, but this time he was ready for it.

  He lifted the large volume off those below it and carried it over to the table. He gently put it down and studied it a moment before he touched it again.

  He was almost certain the cover was skin; human, elf, or some other, he was unsure, but this book was bound by something that was once living and aware.

  He opened the cover and let the magic spell Pug had given him serve him. The language may have been ancient and obscure, but he read it as easily as he did the first language he had learned as a boy.

  Whispering aloud, he read the title page. “Greater Demon Lore.”

  Slowly he turned the first page and began to read.

  After a few minutes his legs grew shaky and his stomach began to knot, but he kept reading, and slowly he sat in the chair offered and resisted the urge to run from the room screaming.

  His mind rejected what he saw before him, but he kept reading for the rest of the afternoon.

  From the moment they gathered at the end of the day to dine, it was evident to the others that Amirantha had something to tell them but was keeping silent lest they be overheard. When at last they were alone, Pug gave Magnus a questioning look. The younger magician nodded once, closed his eyes a moment, then said, “We have a few minutes; the magic they’re using to spy upon us is poorly done, but if I counter it too much, someone may notice.”

  “What did you find?” Jim asked Amirantha.

  “What we came for,” he answered. “It is the Greater Demon Lore, and more.”

  “More?” asked Pug. “What is in it?”

  “Apparently everything there is to know about demons,” he said with barely contained excitement. “I consider myself a practiced Warlock; demons are my specialty. I know nothing!” He sat back. “There is more that I haven’t finished reading, but I have read enough to already know something incredible is under way.”

  Pug glanced at Magnus. “Another minute, no more.”

  Amirantha said, “We can talk in detail later.” He glanced at Jim. “After you steal the book.”

  Jim shrugged as if that would be a trivial issue; the library was not the Imperial Treasury. He could be in and out in minutes and have the volume secreted within his baggage before departure. As a diplomat, he would be spared any search of his personal items, and once at sea, the three magicians could pore over it to their hearts’ content.

  Amirantha said, “There is so much to consider.” He paused, knowing they would have to keep silent in a moment. “The demons are so much more than we thought.” He fell silent. “Much more,” he repeated, then Magnus raised his hand and loudly said, “I found a recounting of the sea battle off of Questor’s View, in the Fifteenth Year of the reign of Rodric the Third.” Forcing a mild laugh, he added, “This account is quite different than what we found in the Royal Library at Krondor.”

  Talk turned to the mundane matters of academia and a few comments about the hospitality of the Quegans, all flattering, and each sat, quickly playing the role of innocent guest.

  Jim considered the perfect timing to leave his quarters—without waking whoever was with him; he knew the Quegans would ensure he was not alone and whoever shared his bed was an agent. He could get out of his rooms, to the library, get the book once Amirantha gave him a precise description, and return in less than a half hour, perhaps as little as a quarter hour if he encountered no one along the short road from the place to the library.

  Pug and Magnus shared the same thought: what had Amirantha found in that book?

  And Amirantha sat silently, uncertain if he was even beginning to understand what he had uncovered and wondering if he was even capable of making sense out of it. For whatever he had imagined the demon realm to be like, if this book wasn’t the total fabrication of a deluded mind, it changed everything he had ever thought he knew about demons and what his people called the Fifth Hell.

  Amirantha placed the huge volume down on the table. Jim quipped, “Stealing it wasn’t a problem. Getting it back without falling over was.”

  The tome was a foot and a half along t
he spine and half that per pages, about fifty or sixty pages of heavy vellum. It easily weighed fifty pounds—not a difficult load to carry, but impossible to hide. It was only as Jim observed that if the Quegans were expecting him to go skulking in the night, they thought he’d be pilfering state secrets or imperial treasure, not forgotten books.

  They had left less than an hour before, and once clear of Queg’s harbor and any observation, mundane or magic, Magnus had transported them to his father’s study atop the tower at Sorcerer’s Isle.

  Amirantha looked as fascinated as a child opening a gift from Father Winter at the Midwinter’s Festival. He pointed at it and said, “It should take me…only a day or two to determine if what is written in here is remotely true. If so…” He looked at Pug. “My newfound friend, the elf Gulamendis, he and I both came to our skills the hard way: trial and error. We may be among the few who survived that education, Pug, for I suspect a few lads and lasses who tried to conjure their first demon ended up with painful, deadly results.

  “With this”—his finger poked at it for emphasis—“I would be twice the master of demon lore that I am now.”

  Pug said, “This sounds impressive.”

  “At the least you sound very enthusiastic,” observed Jim.

  Magnus shot him a sideways glance and then asked the Warlock, “Who wrote it?”

  “I see no author named,” replied Amirantha. “It may be stated somewhere in there; I only read a fourth of what was here before Livia took me back to call it a night.

  “There are…” He caught his breath. “I don’t know where to begin.” He paused, then said, “My perception of the demon realm, what we call the Fifth Circle of Hell, is that it’s a place of chaos, constantly shifting and violent, where the strong rise and take command.” He let his voice drop. “It’s so much more than that.”

  “They have…hierarchies.” He held up his hand and could see he had both magicians’ undivided attention, and even Jim was listening closely. “I, like you, thought that there was a demon king, Maarg, others before, perhaps after, but that he was simply the strongest, one who achieved his rank through combat, murder, terror, alliances with those seeking his protection…” He sighed.

  “What is it?” asked Magnus.

  “That’s a slave class,” said Amirantha.

  “Slave class?”

  “Like Keshian Dog Soldiers, trained killers, crazed, vicious, only good for one thing—fighting war. Even the imps are little more than criminals in their society.”

  “Criminals?” asked Jim, now obviously interested.

  “They have a society,” answered Amirantha. “They have builders…where did that hall you describe on the other side of the rift where Macros died fighting Maarg come from?” he asked Pug.

  Pug blinked as if he had never thought of the question. “I saw it so briefly—”

  “Yet you described it to me when you told me of Macros’s death facing Maarg,” said Amirantha.

  “I thought it was some world…” He shrugged.

  “One the demons had already conquered?” said Magnus.

  Amirantha said, “I’ll have to spend a few days studying this.” He looked at Pug. “May I take it to my quarters?”

  “Of course,” said Pug.

  Amirantha put his hands on the book, but instead of picking it up, he opened it to the very last page. That page was folded up, and as he unfolded it, the others could see that it had been tipped into the volume so that only a third of its length was attached to the spine, so that when it unfolded a four-foot-by-three-foot piece of heavy vellum was revealed.

  “What is that?” asked Jim.

  Almost grinning, the Warlock said, “Unless I’m mistaken, My Lord James Dasher Jamison, this is a map of hell!”

  CHAPTER 11

  ESCAPE

  The brothers stood motionless.

  Laromendis used all his arts to conceal their presence in the basement as a pair of demons escorted a handful of prisoners out of the cells. Only Gulamendis’s demon sensitivity had alerted them in time. The quip of moments before became reality as they stood flat against the wall and the Conjurer made it look as if they were part of the wall.

  The moments that passed were torturously slow yet eventually the door to the cell block was closed and the prisoners marched away. They had been a mixed group: four dwarves, two humans, and two elves. All were silent, sullen, yet not looking particularly fearful.

  When the room was empty, Laromendis let the illusion fade. “What was that?”

  “I couldn’t understand the language,” said his brother. “The demons are not speaking anything I recognize.”

  Since coming to this alien castle on this unknown world, they were confronted with one conundrum after another. The frustration that had gripped Gulamendis when he had first encountered the demon encampment on the previous world, raised to a maddening degree when he witnessed the assault by the rival demon faction, was now close to delivering him into near rage at not knowing what was occurring.

  “We need information,” said Gulamendis.

  “Where do you suppose we get it?”

  “I think our only choice is to go in there and talk to some of the prisoners.”

  “Are you mad?” asked Laromendis.

  “Why? Do you think they might give us up to their masters?”

  “If they think it will curry favor, perhaps!” argued the Conjurer.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I think we try to find out more by ourselves. Let us get out of here and see what else we may discover.” He sighed. “If we find no clear way home or at least a better sense of this place, we can always come back.” He glanced around and said, “Besides, I’d rather strike up a conversation in there with our distant cousins when it’s less likely we’d be surprised by guards.”

  Gulamendis inclined his head as he thought, then said, “Agreed. We might better be served to do it while the humans and dwarves slept. We can almost certainly count on our kin not to betray us.”

  “You have a better opinion of our people than I do, brother,” said Laromendis. “Come on and stay close. If I have to suddenly conjure another illusion quickly, it’s certain to be a small one.”

  “I shall be your virtual shadow,” said his brother softly.

  “Which way?” asked Laromendis.

  “That way we came, opposite lie the cells. Across or behind? Let’s go forward.”

  They set off softly and carefully, moving up the stairway that had been on their right side when they first entered the dungeon.

  “Any other suggestions?” whispered Gulamendis.

  “Keep still,” hissed his brother, and they both backed down the hallway, ready to turn and run.

  They had reached the top of the stairs and found themselves in a vast armory, and at the far end a group of demons were endeavoring to fit armor to what apparently were new recruits. With grunts and other guttural sounds, they communicated with them how to fasten the new chest-plates and helms. They were so intent on their task, they failed to notice the two elves who walked into the hall.

  Gulamendis backed into the hallway as his brother tugged on his tunic. When they were back in the shadows, they turned and hurried down the stairs. When they were near the level of the entrance to the dungeon, they knelt and peered into the room. Seeing no movement, they hurried across the large expanse and paused. “That way,” said Laromendis.

  “This time a little slower, brother.”

  “Agreed.”

  They crept up the stairs.

  Most of this huge keep was empty. The elves judged there was enough room for a thousand or more soldiers to be garrisoned in a host of now empty barracks rooms scattered throughout the massive structure. It was clear from this design, that elements of any army occupying the fortification were positioned to reach their defensive positions in the shortest time possible, rather than the more common practice of placing them in a single large barracks. It was also clear this gigantic assembla
ge of buildings and walls had been constructed by someone ages before. The scale was wrong for demons. The halls and galleries were too large for the smallest of them, and yet far too small for the greater demons. Something between dwarf and tall elf lived here, in the past.

  Moreover, the demon occupation was recent. Vast areas of the place were empty, dust covered, and showed only the most cursory inspection by the current tenants. One tower to the front of the main keep showed signs of occupancy, but the others were abandoned. They climbed one tower out of curiosity, to see if a high vantage might give them some better sense of where they were.

  When they reached the top room, they found the door locked. “Do we try to break it?” asked Laromendis.

  “We might as well risk one of the knives,” said Gulamendis. “If we run into demons, these two blades will not count for much.”

  “I still have the wand,” Laromendis said, patting his tunic.

  “That might buy us a few minutes,” said the Demon Master, “but I’d rather not put that to the test. If an alarm is raised…?”

  Laromendis said, “How do you propose attacking this door?”

  His brother smiled at the inadvertent joke. “By stealth,” he answered.

  “No, seriously, what are you thinking?”

  “Hinges,” said Gulamendis, taking his blade edge to the top of the bottom hinge. It resisted, but after fussing with it and wiggling the blade, he managed to get it under the head of the hinge bolt, and when it came up slightly, he gripped it with powerful fingers and pulled straight up. “Got it,” he said softly.

  The second hinge took longer but after several frustrating attempts, finally yielded to the brothers, leaving Gulamendis with bruised knuckles and a dull knife edge. The door protested as they pushed on the hinge side, but grudgingly gave and moved forward slightly. “The latch, it must be one of the long metal type,” said Laromendis.

  “Let me see if I can squeeze through and free it from the other side.” They pushed and wiggled the door back as far as it could go, then the Demon Master squeezed through, barely clearing the side of the door and the nearby wall. Once on the other side, he said, “Move back, I need to push the door a little.” He did so, then Laromendis heard a door latch free up and suddenly the door began to wobble and fall.