'How did you put... a tiny bit of a G.o.d into Bek, Nakor?' asked Magnus.

'That's the hard part to explain,' said Nakor. He pointed to his own chest. 'I have something here, and sometimes it... takes over. Sometimes I remember it doing things, tricks I don't know, and other times... it's just blanks. I go to sleep one place, wake up another, and sometimes people are very angry with me, or sometimes I have things I didn't have before in my sack.'

'Do you know who's doing this?' asked Pug.

'Oh, yes,' said Nakor with a grin. 'And you need to know, because you need to take him back.'

'Take who back?' asked Magnus.

'Ban-ath.'

Pug sat down next to Nakor. 'The G.o.d of Thieves?'

'The Midkemian G.o.d of thieves,' confirmed Nakor. 'He cannot stay without a protective vessel,' -Nakor pointed to his own chest- 'or he will perish well, he won't perish, but the tiny part of him I carry within will and what he has learned here must go back. You must be his vessel for a little while, until you get home.'

'But why don't you take him back?' asked Magnus.

Nakor grinned. 'Because I'm not going back. This is my time.' He looked around at the vast cavern and said, 'It's an odd place to die, don't you think? At least I'll have a lot of company, human as well as Dasati.'

'Why do you need to stay, Nakor?'

'Because something very big, and very important, needs to happen, and I need to be here to see that it does. I will have just enough tricks left to ensure that this thing goes as it should, and then I will... end.' He stood up slowly. Pug also stood up. Nakor touched his own chest with his hand and said, 'He may answer some questions; perhaps he will think he owes you that much. Perhaps not.' He moved his hand from his chest suddenly and put it against Pug's, and instantly Pug could feel something flow from Nakor's hand into Pug's body.

'What-?'

'I'm going to rest now,' said Nakor. 'You have something you must do, and soon.'

'What?' asked Pug.

'You must go to the cave in Novindus and tell something to the Talnoy there, with that crystal I fashioned, or the ring, either will do.'

'What must I tell them, Nakor?' asked Pug as he helped his friend sit down again.

His eyes suddenly tired and his face lined with age, the tiny gambler looked at his friend and said, 'You must open a rift to Kelewan, near the Dasati invasion site. Then tell them one thing: tell them to go home.'

Magnus said, 'We must find Martuch and have him send us back.'

'No need,' said Nakor. 'He would tell you what I am telling you: stop trying so hard.'

'What?' asked Magnus.

Grinning even more, Nakor said, 'Your father understands.'

Magnus looked at Pug who started to laugh. 'It's all a joke, isn't it, Ban-ath?'

A voice inside his head said, 'Sometimes.'

Pug reached out and took his son's hand. 'With all those things taught to us by Martuch on Delecordia, we began a process of trying to be here. Now, to go home, all we must do is-'

'Stop trying,' finished Magnus.

Pug gripped his son's hand tightly. 'Just let go, Magnus.' He looked down at his old friend and said, 'I will miss you, gambler.'

'I will miss you as well, magician.' Nakor yawned. 'The end comes quickly as it must. That is good, for I am very tired and need to rest. The G.o.d of Thieves gave me a far longer allotment than most men have, so I do not feel cheated it ends now.' He rested his back against the rear of the throne. 'I'm going to start time again, so it will get noisy and unpleasant. You might want to leave now.' He held up his hand and suddenly the wind and noise returned.

Pug said to his son once more. 'Let go, Magnus.'

Magnus closed his eyes and tried to relax. 'Father, it's as if I've clenched my fist for a year. I can't unfold my fingers.'

'Slowly. Let go slowly'

Pug and Magnus stood motionless, concentrating the part of themselves that had been controlling the magic that allowed them to stay in the second realm, and suddenly, there was a wrenching pain, as if fire burned across their minds. Then their lungs burned and their skin felt as if lightning danced across it.

Both men fell to their knees and then lay prostrate on the ground. When the pain ebbed away and they at last could open their eyes, they found they were no longer in the deep cavern. Instead they were in a crater littered with stones and rubble. The noise and stench of the deep pit was gone.

Pug felt his lungs almost collapse from the pain of breathing, but with each breath the pain lessened. After a moment he sat up and saw his son, looking as he always had. Magnus groaned and then started to cough and finally managed also to sit up. Pug saw that his son's illusion was gone and that he looked human once more.

'Where are we?' Magnus asked his father.

Pug stood on unsteady legs and looked around. 'I recognize this! We are in a sub-bas.e.m.e.nt-'

'But there's nothing above us,' interrupted his son.

'I know, but once this was the lowest level of the great arena in the Holy City.'

'We're back on Kelewan?'

'Apparently,' said Pug as he looked around. 'Given the congruency of the two worlds, it makes sense that if we changed the realm in which we resided, we wouldn't have any reason to change location.' He pointed to the rubble surrounding them. 'The Dasati raid... it was more like utter destruction.'

A pain erupted inside Pug's chest and head, and he doubled over, only staying upright with his son's help.

'What is it, Father?'

'Ban-ath,' said Pug. 'He's reminding me I need to get back to Midkemia.'

'Can you conjure a rift home, or should I fly us to the a.s.sembly?'

'I can make a rift and take us where we need to go,' said Pug, though he was almost at the point of total exhaustion.

He closed his eyes and Magnus looked around the crater that had at one time been the bottom of the great arena in Kentosani. The stones around them still reeked of conflict magic and Magnus detected other energies. A great battle had been waged here, as both magicians and priests from the various orders fought against the raiding Dasati. If the reports that had reached Valko were true and apparently they were the Dasati had destroyed a large part of the population after killing everyone in the Tsurani High Council and the Tsurani response had been slow; early estimates had put the dead at fifty thousand Tsurani, warriors and common people. But looking at the devastation around him, Magnus could easily believe more than that number had perished, for this was the result of Tsurani magic, not the deathmagic practised by the Dasati. Some group of magicians and priests had literally torn this arena down around the ears of the Dasati. While his father worked, Magnus used his own arts to rise into the air, gaining a better look.

Once he could see over the rubble that had been the sh.e.l.l of the great arena, he wished he hadn't. The entire heart of the Holy City was in ruins. Fires still burned in sections abandoned by those who lived there and nowhere close by could Magnus detect any sign of life. There was still a faint stench of decay on the wind as bodies left unburied lay where they had fallen. Scavengers had finished most of the work days earlier, but just enough death lingered on the stones to suggest to Magnus this was now a dead city.

He felt overwhelmed, even after all they had been through. Could they really stop the Dark Lord from reaching this world?

He lowered himself down just as his father finished casting his rift-spell, and a doorway-sized grey oval appeared in the air.

Without saying anything to his son, Pug stepped through and Magnus followed him.

Caleb stood in shock as his father and brother walked through a rift into his father's office and then he raced forward as his father collapsed to the floor. Magnus also could barely stand and had to put his hand to the wall to steady himself.

'Mother will be overjoyed to see you,' Caleb said, as he knelt beside Pug, 'if you have the good grace not to die on me before she returns.'

Magnus smiled. He enjoyed Caleb's dry sense of humour. 'It's good to see you, too, little brother.'

Half-conscious now, Pug required the help of both his sons to regain his feet. Once he had stood up, he said 'I feel sick. The transition.'

Magnus felt as ill as he had when they had first transited to Delecordia.

'Get a healer,' said Pug to Caleb. 'We do not have the luxury of time. We cannot afford to lie abed for days.'

'I'll send for one,' said Caleb, 'but until he arrives, to bed with both of you.'

Caleb called for help and a pair of students came to take Magnus back to his quarters, while Caleb helped his father to his own.

As soon as Caleb left his father to await the healer, Pug felt a searing pain across his forehead and he arched his back in agony. Then the pain vanished.

A man stood next to the bed. 'Sorry,' he said. He was a familiar figure, short and bandy-legged and wearing a tattered orange robe. He had a rucksack hanging from one shoulder and held a staff in the other hand. He waved his hand and Pug's pain and fatigue lessened.

'Nakor?' asked Pug in wonder.

'Not really, but I thought you'd prefer this appearance to the others I've used over the years,' answered the figure. 'And should anyone chance upon us, it'll save a lot of questions.'

'Ban-ath?'

Bowing, the figure said, 'At your service, Pug. Or rather, you've been at mine. And you're not done yet, but we are getting close to the end.'

Pug sat up, feeling as if he had rested for days. 'What have you done?'

'Well, if all goes according to plan, I've saved the world and everyone in it, as well as a sizeable piece of this entire universe,' said the G.o.d in Nakor's form. 'You're looking a mess, magician, and you have much left to do, so clean up while I tell you some things.'

'More lies and manipulations?'

'Oh, almost certainly, eventually, but for now I'm content to limit myself to the truth, for right now, that will serve me best.'

'The truth?'

'Yes, magician, this time you hear the truth.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Truth.

PUG LISTENED.

'There's little to be gained by rushing, but time does press. Still, after what you've endured over the years-'

'Over the years?' Pug interrupted.

The G.o.d who looked like Nakor held up his hand. 'Do you remember the story Nakor told you, the parable of the scorpion and the frog?'

'The scorpion kills the frog who is helping it cross the river and when asked why answers, "because it is my nature". Yes, I remember it.'

'Good,' said Ban-ath. 'Because it is my nature to lie, to manipulate, to steal, cheat, and ignore laws and rules at every hand. It was I who put you where Macros could find you, Pug. I who guided him to Crydee and let him think watching over you was his idea. It was I who manipulated every step of Macros's way, making him think he was serving the lost G.o.d of Magic' He betrayed a moment of reflection in his expression as he gazed out into s.p.a.ce and said, 'It will come to pa.s.s that Sarig returns, just as the others returned, as the Dasati G.o.ds returned to their realm... if we survive long enough, but Macros was not Sarig's servant. He was mine. His vanity was my biggest ally; he never once conceived that anything he did might not be the product of his own genius.

'I manipulated his magic to infuse the ancient armour found by Tomas in the dragon's cave, so that my magic could bridge time and s.p.a.ce, and convey Tomas's thoughts back to Ashen-Shugar, manipulating one of the enemies of the G.o.ds, so a war we were losing could become a war postponed.'

'What?' Pug was incredulous.

'What you call the Chaos Wars is only a small part of a much vaster conflict, one about which you are now learning, one which has been raging since before the rise of humanity and even the creation of the G.o.ds. At the advent of a new epoch, when we who are your G.o.ds rose and deploy those forces you think of as the Two Blind G.o.ds of the Beginning, as the Valheru rose against us, all of that... well, to put it bluntly, at that time we... or more to the point, I I was on the losing side.' was on the losing side.'

Pug could only stare at the likeness of Nakor.

'So I cheated.'

Pug suddenly started to laugh. He could not help himself, but in that instant he realized that no matter how vast and deep this conflict was, no matter how dire the results were for millions of intelligent beings, to this ent.i.ty, this 'G.o.d', it was just a game, no more worthy of respect than a game of lin-lan in the back room of an ale-house in Krondor.

Nakor's face grinned. 'Ah, you do appreciate a good joke, don't you?'

'Joke?' said Pug, sobering. 'I'm laughing at the sheer madness of this all. I'm laughing to stop myself from reaching out to strangle you.'

'I wouldn't recommend your trying, Pug,' said Ban-ath, suddenly solemn. 'Understand, I am the scorpion, and I can no more change my nature than you can become a frog.'

Pug waved away the remark. There was a knock at the door, and suddenly the figure of Nakor was gone. The door opened and Caleb appeared with a young woman behind him, a healer named Mianee.

Pug said to them, 'I'm fine, really. Bring me some food if you don't mind, and some ale. Actually, I'm famished.'

Mianee was a no-nonsense type who refused to be put off, so Pug endured a quick examination, after which she p.r.o.nounced him fit. She left and Caleb returned with food and ale. When the tray was on the table at the bedside, Pug said, 'I would like some time alone, son. I'll call you if I need something.'

Caleb appeared about to ask a question, thought better of it, then left, closing the door behind him. Pug looked from the door hick to the tray and found a stranger standing next to it, picking up a piece of cheese. He was of slight build and had curly brown hair and Pug took a moment to recognize him. 'Jimmy?'

'Of course not,' said the figure, nibbling at the cheese. He was now the twin of young Lord James, Jimmy the Hand, when he had first come into Prince Arutha's service as a squire. 'This is very good.'

'Ban-ath,' said Pug.

'Of if you prefer Kalkin, Antrhen, Isodur, or any number of other names humanity inflicts on me Coyote is one of my favourites but no matter the name, I am myself He gave a theatrical bow which very much reminded Pug of the former thief who had grown up to marry his daughter and become one of the legendary figures of Kingdom history.

Pug sat back and started to eat. After a moment of silence, Ban-ath said, 'As I was saying: we were losing the war with the ancient powers and the Valheru were doing us no good. Of a hundred lesser aspects and the dozen greater aspects of the G.o.dforce only a dozen lesser and four greater endured.

'You must understand I am giving you a limited perspective, a glimpse of a far greater whole, but a whole which is beyond even your not inconsiderable intellect's ability to grasp. Yours is, perhaps, the greatest mind in the history of the human race on Midkemia, Pug.' Pug began to object, but Ban-ath cut him off. 'Save your modesty, for although it may be considered a pleasant quality by most people, I don't see it that way. Vain people like Macros are easy to manipulate. There is an axiom, "you can't cheat an honest man", and an honest man admits his own shortcomings. With you I must approach certain tasks in a different fashion than I did with Macros; I could easily convince him he was the genius behind all his plots and intrigues;. You, on the other hand, are more effective working on behalf of something you believe in, and while telling you the truth is less fun, it is more efficient. Still, I'm willing to be honest occasionally since I am a creature of hard facts and probabilities. Best of all, you know what you don't know and long to learn, which is why you're a great deal more intelligent than most people.' Ban-ath waved him out of the bed. 'Get dressed.'