Magician's End

by Raymond E. Feist

  We have an opportunity, Pug sent mentally to his son, Ruffio, Miranda, and Nakor.

  What? came the reply from all four.

  The creature at the heart of the pit is frantic. I think that wrenching feeling we experienced is related to this. It is trying to get out prematurely.

  Nakor’s voice entered their minds. When I lay dying on the Dasati world, I saw the Dreadlord rising through the dimensional rift, and it took time. The life energy it was using was enormous, yet it was moving slowly. If you are right, Pug, the Dread in the pit will need more energy. Be cautious.

  What are you thinking? asked Miranda.

  Pug said, Ruffio, send word to the waiting magicians and priests worldwide that it’s time to start linking up the magic chain. It will take an hour or two, but once it’s in place, I think the Dread in the pit will be vulnerable.

  Ruffio replied, I will.

  You dropped a portion of Kelewan’s moon down the last rift, Pug, said Nakor. What are you planning this time?

  We won’t be able to fully re-establish this dome for an hour or two. When we do get control back, I want to invert the spell, twist it inside-out, and push back with everything we can muster and drive the Dread back into that pit, then fix the inverted spell in place as a ‘stopper’, and collapse these mountains in on it.

  Nakor said, What about the dwarves to the south?

  Ruffio, can you send word to King Dolgan and his people that they should move to the south end of their valley?

  I will, said the younger magician and then they felt a void as if he had vanished.

  Nakor’s voice returned to Pug’s mind. I’m not sharing this with the others. Can you control this?

  I must, replied Pug. There is no other choice. If the Dread flood into this realm, we and every other living thing on this world will die. And from here it will move out to other worlds.

  I saw the void in the Fifth Circle, Pug. It moves slowly. Perhaps we could come up with a different solution?

  Miranda said it moved ‘slowly, but inexorably’ when she described it, observed Pug. We must keep it from entering entirely. He paused, then added, Everything we’ve encountered from the first attempt to reach the Lifestone to the incursion of demons and Dasati, all of it was to clear the way for the Dread to enter this realm. Here is where they need to be if they are to reunite with what Macros called ‘Mind’, and return everything to that perfect state of timeless bliss.

  Timeless bliss, said Nakor with a mental chuckle. That doesn’t sound so bad.

  Except for everything we’ve ever known ceasing to exist. If time is returned to that state, nothing that has ever occurred will have happened. All we know will never have existed. Inverting the rift is our only hope.

  No one knows more about rifts than you, Pug, said Nakor, but this is unprecedented.

  The threat is unprecedented, replied Pug and Nakor had no answer to that.

  They worked to push back the Dread emerging from the dome, and when it was at last closed off once more, Pug dived mentally into the lattices of energy. He described what he saw to the others while they attended to the needs of the failing magicians. Several had been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by the fury of the breach, and magicians who had not fully recovered were being asked to return to hold the barrier.

  Pug worked for nearly an hour before he was forced to take a rest and withdraw his mind from the energy matrix formed between the intersection of the elven magic and the dome energy. He took stock of the situation around him and saw that at least a dozen moredhel dead had been gathered together and a funeral pyre was being built. He walked over and took a moment to bow his head in acknowledgment of their sacrifice, then trudged up the hill to where Magnus stood watching over the dome.

  ‘Father,’ said the tall magician in greeting.

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘Better than you, from appearances. You need to rest.’

  ‘No time,’ said Pug. ‘We have the dome contained for a while, but I don’t know if everything we need will be in place in time. It feels as if it will break again soon, and next time I don’t think we have the resources to close it down. When it breaks, that is when we must be ready to turn the spell in on itself, even if we’re not entirely ready. We have to attempt to seal the rift and drive the Dread back to the void.’

  ‘I know more about rifts than anyone except you,’ said Magnus. ‘I have grave concerns whether this will work.’

  ‘As do I, but if the dome tears again, we will have no choice but to act at once. Which is why I need you to do certain things to improve our chances.’

  ‘What?’ asked Magnus, stepping off the rock upon which he had been observing the dome.

  ‘There are two stages to this undertaking,’ said Pug quietly. ‘We can all work on the preparation – you, me, Miranda, Ruffio, Nakor, the Spellweavers and shamans. When we are ready, however, there are only two of us who can do what comes next.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this, Father.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ admitted Pug. ‘But there’s no choice in the matter. I need you to act as the conduit for all the magic energy that is going to be routed to us through the chain of magicians and priests worldwide. You are the only magician who has the strength and ability to not be overwhelmed and consumed by it, Magnus. Even Ruffio, who is a prodigious talent, is years away from being able to manipulate those energies. I’m not sure even I could sustain it for very long. And in any event, I need to be in the rift, ensuring that the power you send me does as it is supposed to do.’

  ‘In the rift?’ asked Magnus, his face a mask of disbelief. ‘You’re going to pull everything in on top of yourself?’

  ‘I have to be close to the rift to gauge how best to apply the inversion spell, then I have to force the Dread back down into the pit.’

  ‘Why not simply ask the sun to reverse itself?’ said Magnus bitterly. ‘How long do you expect you’ll survive even trying to reach the rift?’

  ‘I have the means to protect myself from the entities that have been flooding out of the dome,’ said Pug. ‘Long enough to reach the centre of the city and then after that …’

  ‘Do you believe you can survive this, Father?’

  Pug was silent for a moment. ‘Honestly no, but then I’ve felt that way before.’ He looked at Magnus. ‘When we went to the Dasati home world I wasn’t certain either of us would survive.’ He sighed. ‘And Nakor didn’t, despite our thinking he somehow did.’

  ‘I know,’ said Magnus. ‘The longer we’re around those two demons, the harder it is to remember they are not who they seem to be. But we’ve always considered risk.’

  ‘There is no risk,’ said Pug, suddenly impatient. ‘It’s a certainty we’ll all die if the Dread break through to this realm in strength. It will consume everything it touches, growing stronger by the minute while we weaken. We could flee to the Hall and find another world, and eventually we would succumb to old age, or some other mishap, but that thing in the pit would be swallowing worlds ages after we were gone – everything in this realm would be gone!’ He shook his head and lowered his voice. ‘And this is different,’ he said. ‘From what Macros showed us, this would be a tipping of a balance so profound that everything we imagine as real would return to the primal state. Nakor and I just discussed this a few minutes ago.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if it takes a day or a year or thousands of years, but eventually we’d all be inside that perfect, blissful ball of … whatever it is, or was, before creation. And none of this,’ he waved his hand, ‘will have happened. Time will be as it was before. This … thing will not only obliterate everything that is, it will engulf everything that ever was.’

  Magnus was silent for a long moment. Then he said, ‘Was there ever so bleak a possible outcome?’ He looked at his father and smiled. ‘May I offer a suggestion?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘As a boy you told me more than once about your first experience within the void, shut
ting down the Tsurani rift, and how you returned with Kulgan’s staff as a guide. How it tethered you to him. I would like to be a tether, if I may.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ said Pug.

  ‘You know me as well as anyone can. If you can just reach out to me at the last moment, if possible, I will do everything in my power to pull you back to safety.’

  Pug smiled and said, ‘I will attempt to do that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Magnus softly, and both knew nothing more need be said on the matter, because both knew the chances of that succeeding were virtually non-existent.

  Pug said, ‘Until that moment, you are the only one I can trust to shepherd the others, to take that energy I need and feed it to me. So, first and foremost, no matter what else happens, you must do that. Once I no longer need it, you must flee, for either I’ve failed and the Dread is among us, or that rift will be imploding and most of what we’re standing on will be sucked into a vortex of unimaginable power. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’ Magnus looked around. ‘What about the rest of them?’

  Pug shook his head in regret. ‘Some things you can’t think about, or bear the pain of doing so.’

  ‘Miranda?’

  ‘She can get many free of here.’ He paused and thought for a moment, then said, ‘Thank you, son. You’ve given me an idea.’

  Pug hurried to find Miranda. ‘I’ve been speaking to Magnus and we’ve worked out a plan to shut down the rift without needing you to be part of it, so I have favours to ask.’

  ‘What?’ said Miranda and her suspicious look told Pug he’d have a difficult time convincing her that what they were planning had a modicum of hope.

  Pug said, ‘When I go inside the dome—’

  ‘What?’ interrupted Miranda. ‘Inside? When did that become part of your plan?’

  ‘I have to get to the rift to ensure what I plan to do will work.’

  ‘And how is it supposed to work if that thing inside obliterates you before you get an opportunity to examine the rift?’ she said, her voice rising until she was shouting.

  Pug was silent for a moment, letting his mind wrestle with a flood of emotions. He was old enough and experienced enough that he could separate his feelings from his decision-making. He had lost so many friends over the years, his first three children, and his two wives, but in this one moment, despite knowing that this wasn’t really Miranda, he felt an almost overwhelming fear that he would never see that face again. He willed himself to push aside feelings and to concentrate on the task at hand.

  ‘I know in many ways this is as difficult for you as it is for me,’ he began.

  She grabbed him and kissed him passionately for a long moment, then whispered, ‘You have no idea.’ A tear ran down her cheek. ‘I can barely remember anything of my life as a demon. Every minute I spend in this form those memories … my memories! They are mine!’ She leaned forward and put her cheek against his. ‘I know this has hurt you and Magnus in ways I can only imagine, but here,’ she struck her own chest with her fist, ‘I live and breathe as Miranda. I am your wife, Pug, and I am Magnus’s mother.’ She looked up at the sky as if trying to compose herself. ‘I remember a day and more of labour, and all that pain vanishing the moment he was born.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I miss Caleb every day.’ Then she stepped back a half step and struck him on the chest with a half-hearted blow. ‘And now you’re telling me to … pretend we don’t both know you’re going into that dome and you’re never coming back.’ She took a deep breath and whispered, ‘I’m sorry. I’ll do what you ask, of course. Just don’t ask me not to care.’

  With a tear in his eye, he whispered, ‘I have not understood until now … just how painful this must be for you. I’m sorry.’ He kissed her. ‘I know you are not Miranda, but I want to tell you what I never got to say to her. When she … you died, part of me died with you. I have never for a moment in my life thought that love was limited, that there was a finite space in one’s heart for people. I love Tomas like a brother, and still miss Prince Arutha and Martin Longbow, and Father Tully and Kulgan. I wish I could see Hochopepa and Shimone one last time, and watch Fantus frighten the serving staff in Krondor. I miss Carline and Laurie, and I miss Katala as much as I miss you. So different, the two of you, yet both of you made me better and kept me … from spending too much time inside myself. The things we’ve had to do, the places we’ve gone, the pain and loss we’ve endured …’ Now tears ran down his cheeks. ‘I miss Caleb, and Marie.’ Pug started to sob. ‘I miss the boys, Zane, and Tad, and Jommy, and their families. But I want them safely gone from here. I may not survive this. But I want you safe, too. When I tell you, promise me you’ll leave and take as many of these as you can with you.’

  ‘Pug—’ she whispered.

  ‘Promise me!’ he demanded, his voice thick with emotion. He knew he was cursed to watch everyone he loved die before him: it was why he had distanced himself from those he met after his encounter with Lims-Kragma after his battle with Jakan the demon. Of those he counted loved ones, he had only Tomas and Magnus left alive. With his foster-grandchildren he had kept his distance, and with close associates like Ruffio he had not let personal bonds grow, as he refused to watch them die. But Miranda had already died, and unless the gods were cruel beyond understanding, what was left of her, her memories, her soul, and her heart, would live on within this body. ‘Promise,’ he repeated.

  ‘I promise,’ she said, tears running down her face. ‘I have lived a short life, by mortal standards, yet I have centuries of memory. But most of all, I have known love beyond my ability to imagine in the realm of my birth.’

  ‘Just stay alive,’ he whispered.

  She stepped back, wiping her eyes. ‘I will,’ she replied.

  Pug looked around and said, ‘The time of reckoning is near.’ He pointed to where a fatigued Liallan stood, perspiration dripping from her face, as she waited against another assault from the dome. ‘She must be saved.’

  ‘Why, of all of them?’

  ‘She is the future of the dark elves,’ said Pug. ‘I know something of what occurs up there, and there is a dark elf named Narab … he must not take the crown of the moredhel. She can make them so much more than what they are now. Besides, we are in their debt.’ He indicated the pyre that was being lit. ‘They’re here, giving their lives not just for themselves, but for even their most hated enemies on this world. We have a debt.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said.

  Disentangling himself from her embrace, he looked to see if anyone was watching. It was amusing that with a cataclysmic event perhaps hours away, he was still concerned over their privacy. ‘We have very little time,’ he said. ‘Get ready.’

  She nodded. ‘What of our son?’

  ‘I have told him what I need of him.’ He refused to share with her in this moment, in this form, what he had not shared with her when she was human: that Magnus was preordained to die before him.

  ‘What happens next?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘We wait and when the next upheaval occurs, I will use all my powers to get to the pit and examine the rift and begin the transformation. Magnus will act as a conduit for all the magic we are gathering, and if all goes according to plan I’ll be able to trap whatever is emerging through the rift in it, suspend it between the void and here, then drop this entire mountain on top of it.’

  ‘The last time you did something like that, an entire world was destroyed, Pug,’ said Miranda.

  Pain flickered across his face as he thought of the millions who had died to prevent the last incursion of the Dread into this space and time. ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I had less preparation and less understanding of the transit from that realm to this. I basically had no other idea how to close down that rift and destroy the link. But here we have an advantage. That red thing is its making, the Dread’s, and by luck or genius the original elf who tried to stem it created a perfect tool to manipulate it. I will use the spell to turn it back on itself, driving
the Dread back into the void, and the vortex it creates should pull most of this valley and some of the surrounding mountains after it, sealing the passage.’

  ‘There’s a lot of conjecture there. If your calculations are off …’ She left the end of her thought unfinished, for they both knew the possible consequences.

  ‘I’ve been doing little but study this since I arrived,’ he said. ‘I know the risk, but we have no other choice. If I did have another course of action, I’d take it.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Soon. If there’s not another major shift within the dome, or another breach in it, I’ll order the dome opened from this side, and we’ll try to achieve what we need.’

  ‘If you can do that, why wait?’

  ‘It will take a great deal of energy to force the upheaval from this side. If we wait, we can let the Dread do half our work for us. But from what I’m seeing in that matrix, I suggest sooner rather than later.’ He looked up the hillside to where Nakor, Magnus, and Ruffio were in deep conversation with a pair of priests. ‘I need to speak with some others, so if we don’t get the opportunity to speak again …’

  ‘I know.’ She took his hand and squeezed it, then let it go.

  Pug moved to where the three magicians were and nodded greeting. He was in time to hear Ruffio say, ‘All you need to ensure is that those back at your temples are ready. I judge we’ll be ready soon.’ He glanced at Pug.

  Pug said, ‘Very soon. In fact I was coming to ask you to start spreading the word.’ He glanced again at the dome and said, ‘Within hours.’

  The two priests bowed and moved off. Pug turned to Ruffio and Nakor and said, ‘I have something to ask of you both.’

  Ruffio said, ‘Anything.’

  ‘Magnus and I will be responsible for the assault on the rift. You, despite being magicians of prodigious power, will add little here by linking into the web of magic we will be using. Magnus will funnel the energy to me which will allow me to form a protective barrier around myself and reach the pit and rift. I need you two to keep as many people alive as you can once the dome is reopened.’