something like that. I’m not sure Macros knew that world had been taken over by a rogue Dreadlord who subverted the entire race.’
Sandreena said, ‘I remember hearing the details from Pug, or at least those he was willing to share.’ She glanced at Miranda who nodded. ‘What I never understood is how one Dreadlord could do that.’
‘We may never know,’ answered Miranda. ‘I don’t know how often you talked about that after I … well, after Miranda was killed.’ She rolled her shoulders then chuckled ruefully. ‘I can still feel that demon’s jaws tearing into my neck.’
Sandreena stood up. ‘If you will excuse me.’ She tried to sound apologetic and failed. ‘I just need some time to think …’
Amirantha waited for a moment, then said, ‘I’ll go speak to her.’
He followed Sandreena out of the kitchen and down the path that led to the quest quarters. ‘Are you unwell?’
She rolled her eyes in a way that told him she considered that as stupid a question as could be. ‘This goes against every instinct I have, Amirantha. I’m sitting at a kitchen table chatting with demons. All I want to do is break their skulls with my mace and send them back to the Fifth Hell!’
‘It’s an unusual situation for you, I know,’ he said. ‘My experiences are different-’
She interrupted him. ‘Of course they’re different! You summoned them to play your confidence game on gullible villagers and nobles alike. You kept them around for pets. You had one as a lover!’
‘I thought we agreed never to discuss Dalthea again?’
‘You agreed,’ she nearly spat. Amirantha had summoned a succubus as a lover when he grew tired of watching those he cared for die, and unfortunately Sandreena and he had become intimate at a time when he was still under the impression it was a passing thing. It was only after she found him in bed with the demon and tried to murder them both that he understood she had been a great deal more serious about the affair than he. It had taken them years to get past that, and from her current attitude, it appeared she wasn’t as far past it as he had thought.
‘Look, can we just put that aside until we are in a place less fraught with danger? I don’t think you fully grasp the scope of this. Yes, it’s startling to see Nakor and Miranda in front of us, and her looking as we last saw her moments before she died.’ Neither had met Nakor before, but hearing his story combined with Miranda had given weight to both stories. ‘But think of this: a god has manipulated things beyond recognition, towards an end only he knows, but it must be vital, otherwise why bother?’
‘The Trickster?’ she asked. ‘Because he’s bored?’
‘Maybe, but unlikely. No, this is something critical.’ He looked out into the distance. ‘Things are moving out there,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen too many terrors and wonders in our days not to understand that this is no longer a simple matter of an errant demon blundering into our world to be banished again; these two are here for a reason and we must discover it.’ Then he added, ‘And I feel we must discover it soon.’
‘I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you this serious about anything.’
Amirantha looked away into the distance. ‘There are many things I would change if I could, Sandreena. How I treated you is one. But since encountering Kaspar and having him bring Brandos and me here … my perspective on many things has changed. I’ve never spoken of this to anyway, not even Brandos, and you know he’s like a son to me.’ She nodded, saying nothing. ‘As a boy I watched my people destroyed in a mad ruler’s war against another petty tyrant. What was left of the Saltumbria was my mother, myself and two crazy brothers, both of whom seemed to spend a large part of their creative energies trying to kill me. We were spared only because we had been driven away by our people because they thought our mother was a witch and mad. Both were true, but that’s beside the point. Had we been welcomed within that community we would have perished with the rest of our tribe. Here I found something larger than myself to believe in.’ He looked at her. ‘You understand that. You would give your life for your order and your goddess.’
She said, ‘If need be, yes, but it wouldn’t be my first choice.’
‘Nor mine, and I’m not even sure if it came to that I could be that self-sacrificing, but I know I never cared about doing the right thing before I came here. Oh, I think I did the right thing in caring for Brandos.’ He smiled in remembrance. ‘You should have seen him as a boy. He was tough and defiant and could fight like a cornered sewer rat, but there was something in him I liked.’
‘So you took him in.’ Sandreena said. ‘Is he coming back?’
‘He and Samantha are keeping to themselves in the tor I built outside Maharta. I think he’s worried that if I find out he’s ill I’ll worry too much.’
‘He’s ill?’
‘Just an old man’s cough, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? I raised him from a boy, and now he looks old enough to be my father.’ He held out his hands and turned them over, as if trying to see something. ‘They don’t look any different than a hundred years ago, Sandreena. I have no grey hair. No wrinkles, and until I met Pug, Marcus, and Miranda, I’d never met another human being who didn’t age. There is something here to fight for, even if I’m not quite willing to die for it.’
She nodded, not sure where he was going.
‘The point,’ he said as if reading her mind, ‘is that those two came back from the dead for a reason, and it’s that reason we should be thinking about, not that they are here.’
‘I think I understand. It’s just … I’ve been fighting demons since I took up the shield, and to sit and chat with two of them … it takes getting use to.’
‘Let’s go back and see if we can begin to uncover the reason for this strange turn of events and, please, try not to kill either one before we’re done?’
She gave him a tiny smile. ‘I’ll try. No promises, but I’ll try.’
He chuckled.
‘What about those elves?’ she asked as they walked back toward the house.
‘What about them?’
‘Calis I like, but that other one, Arkan …’
Amirantha nodded. ‘There’s something different about him, true, but I can’t put my finger on it. But then, before I came here the only elves I had met were in Novindus, and down there they are not all that different from you and me.’
Sandreena said, ‘I’ve seen a few up here, and, well … he’s just different.’
Amirantha remained silent and they returned to the kitchen.
Nakor and Miranda looked as the two of them entered. Behind them, students and magicians who worked for the Conclave began preparing the evening meal.
‘It’s changed, the Villa,’ said Miranda.
Amirantha nodded. ‘It was utterly destroyed when you-’
‘Died,’ supplied Miranda. ‘I remember. The dying I mean.’
‘Pug abandoned the Villa,’ said Sandreena. ‘He took your death, and Caleb’s, and Marie’s very hard.’
Amirantha said, ‘He just … left, for a while. Travelled I guess. We few who remained lingered at the black castle. The rest scattered.’
‘For a while I think he feared another such attack,’ said Sandreena. ‘It was a dreary few years, but then one day, Pug seemed to have come to some sort of closure and he decided it was time to revive the Villa and bring back the students and teachers. He decided to change things as he went, making some improvements.’
Miranda looked thoughtful. At last she said, ‘I don’t know how long we’ll be here. Perhaps it’s best we not dwell on such things as the past.’
Sandreena looked at her quizzically.
Miranda said, ‘We know we were … resurrected for a purpose.’
Nakor said, ‘And it is most certainly a critical one.’
‘But we do not know what that purpose is.’ She opened her hands. ‘I was hoping once I reached the island, met Pug … something would be revealed, our purpose made clear.’ She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘So we wait until Pug returns. I wish I could go to him.’
‘Why not?’ asked Amirantha, rubbing his forehead absently.
‘I have Miranda’s memories, but not her abilities. I have demon “tricks” as Nakor calls them.’
‘How did you throw that fireball in Ylith?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you.’
