Quickly the Duke added, ‘I pray to any god who’ll listen not to give me the job of king. Montgomery is not a man for the job, any more than Prince Edward in Krondor is. That leaves Oliver, but now there’s you.’ With a humourless chuckle, Chadwick said, ‘Be cautious, boy. You’re about to make a great many new friends, and enemies as well.’
Hal sat back, trying not to feel overwhelmed.
A few minutes later the squire announced Princess Stephane, who made her entrance as the entire company of nobles rose and bowed. Hal could barely breathe at the sight of her. It was the gala for the Masters’ Court Championship all over again. The Queen’s seamstresses had worked magic in creating a stunning lilac gown edged with embroidered golden pears. She wore a matching set of jewellery, as well as a gold embroidered shoulder wrap. Gabriella entered behind her in a shimmering gown of dark green that set her colouring off to good effect, as did as fine a set of emeralds as Hal had ever seen. He suspected the jewellery were on loan from the Queen’s collection.
Stephane moved gracefully until she stood before the King’s table and bowed. ‘Welcome,’ said Gregory. He indicated she should come around and sit to the left of his wife, and when she was in place, everyone again sat down.
Hal hardly noticed when the first course of dinner was placed before him. He looked around the hall and saw it with different eyes, as if he was in the most improbable wilderness one could imagine. Some of these nobles were harmless, while others were as dangerous as any predators in the wild.
He felt eyes on him, and turned to see Sir William Alcorn watching him for a brief second from a seat at the far end of the table, before turning away as if in conversation.
Hal had never felt more out of his depth in his life.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Miranda jumped into the water.
Nakor was a step behind, as both leapt into the waist-deep surf. The two elves followed.
It had taken a little bribery beyond the normal bullying from the garrison captain in Sarth to get Captain Sully to sail to Sorcerer’s Isle. Even then, he had refused to come ashore, insisting they wade in from as close as he was willing to get and Miranda had grudgingly agreed, too pleased to have finally reached Sorcerer’s Isle to be concerned by the discomfort. Arkan and Calis were elven-kind, so their natural reticence masked whatever they might be feeing at this point.
‘Now we hike,’ Miranda said briskly.
As they trudged up the long pathway from the beach to the rise that marked the end of sand and beginning of meadow, they were not unobserved.
In the distant tower of the Black Castle, a lookout had spied their boat approaching and had already alerted those whose job it was to guard the island from interlopers.
As they approached the crest of the hill, they saw figures waiting for them.
A young magician named Theodor stood flanked by Amirantha and Sandreena, who had volunteered to accompany the youngster as much out of boredom as any fear of assault on the island. All three now stood in astonishment and confusion seeing the group, one of whom they were sure was dead, climb the hillside.
Miranda waved a greeting, her face split in as broad a grin as anyone had ever seen, such was her joy to be home. Then suddenly Amirantha cried, ‘Demons!’
Sandreena put her shield up and drew back to attack Miranda while Amirantha began a spell of banishment. Theodor stood rooted, uncertain of what was happening.
Calis and Arkan were both caught unprepared. Arkan began to unlimber his bow, but Calis put out a retraining hand before the moredhel chieftain could nock and fire.
Nakor felt the banishment magic gather and knew that within a moment he and Miranda would find themselves back in the Fifth World; in the second circle if they were lucky, and if they were not, in the mad lands or into the void. He reached into his bag and drew back, throwing as hard as he could.
An orange struck Amirantha dead in the centre of his forehead, breaking his concentration and interrupting the spell.
Sandreena had been fighting demons for years, so what she didn’t expect was one to step away from her attack instead of attacking back. Miranda deftly stepped to one side and let the heavily armoured Sergeant Knight-Adamant of the Order of the Shield of the Weak overbalance when she met no resistance. Miranda couldn’t resist sticking out her foot, so that Sandreena tumbled down the path.
Amirantha shook off his blurry vision to find Nakor holding out his hand, and saying, ‘Please don’t do that until we’ve talked.’ Unable to think of anything better to do, Amirantha reached up and let the little man help him to his feet.
Sandreena finally stopped rolling, came to her feet in a crouch and was about to attack, but found Miranda patiently waiting at the top of the path, holding out one hand, palm outward. ‘Don’t!’ was all she said.
Sandreena hesitated and Nakor laughed. ‘You must be Sandreena and Amirantha. I am Nakor. I died before we met.’ The absurdity of that statement made him laugh. ‘We have a lot to talk about, but let’s wait until we get back to the villa. I’m sure Pug and Magnus will want to hear this as well.’
Arkan and Calis exchanged looks, revealing in subtle elven fashion that they found the entire exchange vaguely amusing.
Sandreena slowly shook her head. ‘Why not?’ She trudged up the path and said, ‘We know you’re not who you seem to be. Who are you?’
‘Well,’ said Nakor in obvious delight. ‘I am Nakor. This is Miranda. The dark-haired fellow is Arkan, and the fair-haired one is Calis.’ He pointed to the elves. ‘They’re who they appear to be.’ He pointed to Miranda and then himself. ‘We sort of are who we seem to be, but that’s not the full story, which is better told over wine.’
He turned and started walking down the long path to the villa below. Sandreena gave Miranda a wide berth and followed, obviously very unhappy at being made to look foolish. Amirantha fell in beside Miranda and looked at the dead woman who now reeked of demon-magic, absently tossing the orange in the air. ‘I suspect wine will help,’ the warlock said to Miranda, ‘but I’m not certain it’ll help me understand.’
She looked at him and simply said, ‘Kalkin’, as if that explained everything.
Amirantha said, ‘Oh,’ then a moment later said, ‘Oh! Yes, we do have much to speak of.’
Sandreena tried hard not to turn to look at what she knew to be two demons calmly walking into the heart of the Conclave of Shadows.
Sitting in the kitchen, Sandreena seemed unable to grasp what she had just heard. ‘So, somehow … Kalkin, Ban-ath, the god of thieves and liars … put your minds into the body of demons? In the demon realm?’
Miranda seemed ready to throttle the holy knight, but she restrained herself. Nakor said, ‘No, those aren’t ‘our minds,’ but our memories. I do not know what happened to Nakor’s mind when he died on Omadrabar. Maybe mind and soul are the same thing? Maybe he went to Lims-Kragma’s hall and started anew on the Wheel? Maybe he didn’t. He was on the Dasati world, so maybe he’s now reborn a Dasati? I have no idea. But what I do have is all of Nakor’s memories.’ He shrugged. ‘I have the memories of Belog as well. I was Belog first. But the more I live like Nakor, the more like him I feel. Mostly I think of myself as Nakor now.’
‘And you?’ Sandreena asked of Miranda.
Looking off into space, she replied, ‘The same.’ She had been crushed to discover that Pug and Magnus were somewhere on the other side of the world investigating the Pantathians, and not for the first time, but with the most vehemence, she cursed not having Miranda’s powers. In her mind she could remember how it worked. The true Miranda would have been able to sense where they were and just go there.
Amirantha repeated an earlier observation. ‘And we so far have no idea why Ban-ath would do such a thing.’
Nakor shrugged, his hands held out palms up in perplexity. ‘The last time was when he put the memories of Macros the Black into a dying Dasati who became important in rescuing that race from a horrible end. Maybe it’s
