'Then I must go to the Hall, and find that world I visited so long ago. Once there, I will open as large a rift as I can between that world and the original rift site, near the City of the Plain.

'Have the Great Ones of the Empire begin building rifts from every major city and from any safe place away from the Dasati and tell the people to gather what they may, for the Empire must be ready, the nations must be ready, the people must be ready! We have little time left.'

'How much time do we have?' asked the Emperor.

'Less than a week, Majesty. If we linger, we die, and with us die other worlds, eventually. I have seen it. It is the truth.'

'Go,' said Sezu, who now truly looked like a crestfallen young man, a young man wearing the mantle of leadership that had been thrust on him by an accident of birth. It was clear to everyone in the room that he would rather that burden be on other shoulders at this time, but he had made his decision and he was ready to act. 'Make it so,' he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Warnings.

THE CHILL WIND BLEW.

Pug repeated an approach he had used many years before, of transporting himself via magic to a place on the vast tundra of the Thn. He hiked to the north for the better part of an hour, his black robe a stark contrast to the bare grey-and-white soil beneath his feet. He was in one of the few places on this world which knew cold and ice, and it felt strange.

A band of Thn males appeared an hour before sunset, riding towards him. They were centaur-like creatures, but rather than a marriage of man and horse, they looked more like Saaur warriors grafted to the torsos of warhorses. Each carried a round shield and a sword and they hooted odd battle chants.

Pug was ready to attempt the same tactic he had used the only previous time he had come this far north: erecting a pa.s.sive barrier so that they could not harm him, or force him to defend himself with violence.

But this time they came close enough to see his black robe and veered off, speeding back the way they had come. Having no time to wait for them to send out an expendable emissary, Pug followed in a series of magic jumps, staying just far enough behind them not to provoke an attack.

In less than an hour a village came into view and Pug could see more than a score of ma.s.sive sod huts with ramps leading down towards doors, so he deduced that the houses must be half underground. Smoke rose through vent holes, and Thn children and females moved among the buildings.

An alarm was sounded and instantly the young scurried for the safety of the huts. The females took up positions in the doorways, obviously ready to defend their young if the males were defeated. Pug realized that all the Thn's encounters with humans in black robes had been punitive, save one, the last time he had spoken to them. As part of their nature, the Thn attempted to range south of the mountains in winter, and for a thousand years they had been repulsed by the Tsurani.

Pug was about to seek to convince them to leave lands that had been their home since the dawn of time.

He erected a shield around himself, and approached slowly. A few used slings to hurl rocks at him and one shot at him with a bow, but when the missiles bounced harmlessly off the shield, they stopped. A few feigned charges and drew up short of slamming into him, but they all hooted and challenged him.

Pug stopped just outside the village boundary and said in a loud, calm voice, 'I seek a parlay with the Lasura.' He used their own word for themselves, like so many others meaning 'the people'. Thn Thn was a Tsurani word. was a Tsurani word.

For almost ten minutes nothing happened while Pug stood motionless and the Thn warriors shouted what he took to be insults and challenges to single combat. He knew it was ritualized and expected of braves, but he and the Thn also knew that the average Tsurani Great One could rain fire down on this village and Pug was far from average.

Finally an older male approached and in heavily-accented Tsurani said, 'Speak, Black One, if you must.'

'I speak of a great danger, not only to the Lasura, or Tsurani, or the Cho-ja, but to this whole world. Listen and heed me, for I come to you as a friend, and offer you escape.'

Pug spoke as well as he could, for nearly an hour, and tried to keep the concepts focused and plausible, for he knew there would be serious doubt that this was anything but some Tsurani ploy to lure the Thn south to destruction. At the end he said, 'I must leave, and I have only this to say. Send fast runners to your other villages and tell them of what I have spoken.

'If you stay here you will perish in less than eight sunrises. But if you wish to live, go to the place on the plains where the seven fingers of rock rise up from the mountains to the south. There I will leave a magic doorway. Step through it and you will find yourself on a gra.s.sy plain, with lush trees and warm breezes.'

'Why would a Tsurani for the Lasura do this?' asked the old male. 'Enemies are we, and always have been.'

Pug avoided explaining he was not Tsurani born it was a needless complication but said, 'This land was your land before the Tsurani came, and I would make this much right: come to where the Tsurani flee, to the new world, and I will make a home for you. You will have the oath of the Emperor of the Tsurani, and this entire land I speak of will be yours alone. No Tsurani will trouble you, for it is across a vast sea and you will share it with no others. This is my bond as a Great One of the Empire, and so is the bond of the Tsurani Light of Heaven.

'Heed my words, for I must leave now,' he said, and then he willed himself back to the a.s.sembly.

Alone in the room set aside for Miranda and himself when they resided with the Tsurani, Pug closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that the Thn would listen. But he was almost certain they would not.

Miranda approached the hive entrance with an escort of Imperial Guards. Cho-ja hive workers scurried about the Acoma estates as they had for centuries. Miranda knew that there had been some kind of special relationship between the Emperor's great-grandmother, Mara of the Acoma, and the hive queen and later the Cho-ja magicians in far-off Chakaha, the crystal-spired Cho-ja city far beyond the eastern border of the Empire. She did not know exactly what that relationship had been, but she understood that since then the Cho-ja had enjoyed the status of an autonomous people within the borders of the Empire.

At the entrance Miranda realized she had never been this close to a Cho-ja before. They were insects, as far as she was concerned, giant ants from her point of view, yet their upper torso rose like that of a human's, with similar musculature in the chest, shoulders and arms. Their faces were like those of a mantis, with eyes that looked like faceted metal spheres, but in the place of mandibles, the Cho-ja had mouths that were very human-like. Their colour in the sun was an iridescent blue-green. 'May we address your queen?' asked Miranda.

The guard stood motionless for a long moment, then asked in the Tsurani tongue, 'Who is it who seeks audience with our queen?'

'I am Miranda, wife of Milamber of the a.s.sembly of Magicians. I seek an audience with your queen to bring word of grave peril to all Cho-ja.'

The guard twittered in a clicking language, then said, 'Word will be sent.' He turned and clicked loudly down the hall, and several pa.s.sing Cho-ja workers turned to look at Miranda. After a few minutes, another Cho-ja, wearing some sort of mantle around his shoulders, appeared at the entrance. He made a fair imitation of a human bow, and said, 'I am one who advises, and have been sent to guide you. Please follow me and be cautious, the footing here is not easy for your feet.'

Miranda was too concerned by her mission to be amused by the odd syntax and the kindness of the warning. She followed the Cho-ja advisor into the tunnels. Her first impression was of a moist odour: a hint of a spice and a nutty tang. She realized this was the scent of the Cho-ja, and that it was not an unpleasant scent.

The tunnels were lit by some sort of fluorescence emanating from a bulbous growth that hung from odd supports that appeared to be of neither wood nor stone. As she moved down a long tunnel, she saw Cho-ja diggers excavating a side tunnel and saw a small Cho-ja extruding something from his jaws, his cheeks blown out to impossible proportions as he spat a compound onto the wall, then patted it into form and realized that these tunnel supports must be made of some body secretion.

In a deeper chamber she saw strange little Cho-ja hanging from the ceiling. They had long translucent wings which they beat furiously for a while, then rested, staggering the beating of their wings so that at least one of them in a group was always moving. Miranda realized that with miles of tunnels this deep and with thousands of Cho-ja living in these vast hives, they had to keep the air moving or suffocation in the lower tunnels would be a risk.

It took a good hike downward, but at last Miranda came to the royal chamber. This was a vast excavation, easily five storeys high with a score of tunnels leading away on all sides. In the midst of this huge chamber lay the Cho-ja queen, resting upon a raised mound of earth.

She was immense, her segmented body at least thirty feet long from her head to the end of her second thorax. Her chitin looked like cured hide armour, polished black, and from the withered appearance of her legs Miranda realized she never moved from this location. Her body was draped with a beautifully woven tapestry of ancient Tsurani origin. On all sides workers cared for her enormous body, polishing her chitin, fanning her with their wings, carrying food and water to her. Above and behind her, and mounted back upon her thorax, a stocky male perched, rocking back and forth as he mated with her. Small workers surrounded him, tending him, while other males waited patiently to one side to play their role in the constant, endless Cho-ja breeding.

A dozen Cho-ja males were arrayed before the queen, some wearing crested helms and others without visible ornament; all greeted Miranda with polite, silent bows. On either side of chamber, smaller versions of the queen lay upon their stomach and attendants bustled about each of them. Miranda knew these were egg-bearing lesser queens, whose non-fertile eggs were pa.s.sed to the queen, who swallowed them whole, fertilizing them inside her body and then laying them again.

Miranda bowed low before the a.s.sembled Cho-ja. 'Honours to your hive, my queen.'

'Honours to your house, Miranda of Midkemia.'

'I bear a most dire warning, Majesty,' she began. Calmly Miranda related all that Pug had told her of the coming of the Dreadlord and the plans to relocate the Tsurani to their new world. At the end, she said, 'This world is lush and abundant, and there is ample room for the Cho-ja. I understand that what one queen hears, all queens hear, and that my words are even now being heard by your kin in distant Chakaha. Your magicians are legendary and we would welcome their aid in preparing the rifts to this new world for time is short and there are so many to evacuate.'

The queen continued her normal duties, then finally she said, 'We, the Cho-ja, thank Miranda of Midkemia for her warning, and we thank all who are concerned for the well-being of the Cho-ja.' She fell quiet for a long moment, and Miranda wondered if there was some sort of silent communication underway between this queen and the others. Then the queen said, 'But we must decline your kindness.'

Miranda could scarcely credit what she had heard. 'What?' she blurted.

'We will stay and we will die.'

There was a total lack of emotion in that statement, making it all the more alien for its starkness. 'But why, Majesty? Of all those on Kelewan, you are the ones who are most able to facilitate your own evacuation. You have powerful users of magic and can fashion your own rifts through which to escape.'

'Mara of the Acoma came to fetch me when I was a hatchling,' began the old queen. 'She said I was pretty and that is why I came here. Since then she visited me many times, as did her son, and his son, and his son. I enjoy those visits, as do all the queens who share the experience with me, Miranda.

'But no human has ever truly understood our nature. We are of this world. We can not abide anywhere else. We were of this world when humans first came here, in the time before history, and we will die with this world. It is what must be. Would you uproot trees and move them? Would you fish the seas and put creatures of the deep in alien waters to save them? Would you move the very rocks of Kelewan to save them? You humans are visitors here, and have always been such, and it is right you should move on, but we are of this world.' She paused for a moment, then repeated, 'We are of this this world.' world.'

Miranda was speechless. There was such a profound finality in the queen's words, that she knew debate was pointless. Feeling defeated she said weakly, 'If you have a change of heart, we will do what we can.'

'Again, we thank you for your concerns.'

'I will be away, for I have much to see to.'

'Honours to your house, Miranda of Midkemia.'

'Honours to your hive, Queen of the Cho-ja.'

Miranda felt something very beautiful and important was about to be lost, but there were still so many things to do that she pushed aside the ache in her chest and started the return to the surface where the Imperial Guards waited to escort her back to the Emperor.

Pug felt a chill that had nothing to do with the unusually cool highland wind. Kelewan was a hot world compared to Midkemia, but these highlands were home to bitter winters and cold nights. He stood motionless and waited as a group of five Thuril approached him on foot. He waited at the edge of the town called Turandaren, which over the years had become a major trading centre between the Thuril Confederation and the Empire. Once a village on the frontier, it had evolved over the years until it was the closest thing to a Tsurani settlement in the highlands.

Over a century of peace between the two people had not lessened their distrust of each other, for that peace had been preceded by centuries of war and attempted conquest by the Tsurani. The old walls might have crumbled but they were still defensible, and the Thuril were adept mountain fighters who had never been conquered by the Tsurani.

The leader of the five men was an old warrior by the look of him. His long grey hair was plaited and he wore a small wool cap with a long feather hanging down behind his left ear. His upper body bore clan markings and old wounds, showing that while peace with the Empire might be the norm, that didn't preclude Thuril blood feuds and border raids. Banditry was commonplace along the trade routes, as well. He wore a deep blue tartan and carried a shield and longsword, both strapped to his back. The other four men looked more like merchants than warriors. The leader halted directly in front of Pug and said, 'You're standing as if you're waiting for an invitation to enter the town, Black Robe.'

Pug smiled. 'I thought if I waited here conspicuously I'd get faster results than if I wandered around town asking questions.'

The leader laughed. 'Not a bad guess.' He rubbed his chin. 'Now, I'm Jakam, hetman of Turandaren, and these worthies are men of note.' Pug noticed that he didn't bother to introduce them. 'What can we do for you, Tsurani?'

Pug said, 'I need to find the Confederation Council and, most importantly, I need to speak with the Kaliane.'

At the mention of the Kaliane, Jakam nodded his head, as if showing respect. 'The Council meets at the Warm Springs of Shatanda, near the town of Tasdano Abear. Do you know it?'

'I can find it, if you point me in the right direction.'

'Take the road east, up into the mountains, and at the notch in the ridge, you'll find two trails down. Take the northernmost, and follow it for a week if you walk, less if you have a horse or magic. That'll put you in the Valley of Sandram and at the northern end you'll find Tasdano Abear and the Warm Springs of Shatanda. The Council should be easy enough to find, it'll be in all those tents and huts thrown up around the springs. But you'd better hurry. Council ends in six days and the leaders of the clans will return to their homes.'

'I'll be there by nightfall,' said Pug.

'Black Robes,' said Jakam, as if it were a curse. 'Anything else?'

'My thanks, and a warning.'

The four merchants stepped back and Jakam's hand moved across his chest, one motion away from drawing the sword over his shoulder. 'Warning?'

'Yes. Prepare your people for travel, for word should come from the Council soon that the Thuril people must leave these lands.'

'What? Are you bereft of reason? Are you Tsurani claiming these lands again?'

'No,' said Pug, his voice echoing with sorrow. 'They are leaving, too. Something terrible is coming into this world and all must flee. Just know that the more your people prepare, the more they will be able to take with them.'

Jakam was about to ask another question, but Pug knew that further talk would be pointless. He spied a distant rise where the trail could clearly be seen, and transported himself there. It was an old mode of travel he had employed before, jumping from place to place along his line of sight. It was fatiguing, but effective, for like all magicians save Miranda and Magnus, he could not jump to a place he had never seen before.

He reached his goal at nightfall, as he had antic.i.p.ated. He could see the many fires up on the hillside around the springs, and made his way into town. Unlike Turandaren, Tasdano Abear was a cla.s.sic Thuril town comprising wattle-and-daub buildings, only the inn making concessions to more modern requirements. On the top of the hill above the town was the fortress, the Thuril log emplacement surrounded by a ditch full of bramble and thorn bush. The Thuril had been impossible to conquer because they simply refused to die defending a particular piece of land. The fortress was designed more to maul an invader before being quickly evacuated than it was to withstand any long siege. These highlanders regarded all of the highland plateaus, valleys, meadows and mountains as their home, and didn't particularly care from season to season where they resided. A town like Tasdano Abear would flourish for a decade, then vanish when people got tried of trading there. Still, over the last century, reports from the highlands indicated peace was having the long term effect of turning a semi-nomadic people into permanent residents of specific areas.

Clans traditionally had claimed ranges and meadows, but who within that clan got rights to what was often a matter of very difficult, convoluted clan politics. As most families had several blood ties to every other family in the clan, bloodshed between families in clans was rare, but brawls were a staple of the hot blooded highlanders.

Pug entered the tavern and looked around. As he expected it was crowded with many young warriors here in support of clan leaders at the Confederation Council. And while the mood was mostly festive, with this many young men from this many different families, they were always one moment away from a brawl.

The Thuril were an odd race in contrast to the Tsurani, for while the Tsurani were reticent to the point of near-silence, the Thuril were a ferociously outspoken people. Insult was an art form, and the art was to be as loud, boastful, and obnoxious as one could be, without starting a fight.

By the time Pug sat down at a long table in the corner, in the one unoccupied seat, the room had fallen silent. Never in the memory of the oldest living Thuril warrior had a Tsurani Great One walked into an inn during a Confederation Council and sat down.

Finally one of the older warriors, obviously drunk, said, 'Are you lost?' He was a red-headed, brawny fellow, with ruddy cheeks and a long drooping moustache. He wore a beaten copper necklace that sparkled in the torchlight. It was a very valuable piece of jewellery on this metal-poor world.

Pug shook his head. 'I think not.'

'So, you know where you are then?'

'This is the Sandram Valley, right?

'It is.'

'And this is the town of Tasdano Abear, right?'

'Yes, it is.'

'And that's the Confederation Council up on the hillside at the Shatanda Warm Springs isn't it?'

'Yes, that it is.'

'Then I'm not lost.'

'Well, then, Tsurani, if you don't mind me asking, what brings you to this place?'

'I need to speak to the Council and especially the Kaliane.'

'Ah, the Kaliane, is it?'

'Yes,' said Pug.

'And supposing she doesn't wish to see you?'

'I think she will.'

'And why would that be?'

'Because I have something to say to her that she will certainly wish to hear.'

'Then why are you sitting here, you ill-gotten offspring of a musonga,' -invoking the name of a particularly stupid burrowing pest that was the bane of all fanners on Kelewan- 'and not toddling up there to tell her what you've got to say?'

'Because, you rock-headed son of a flatulent needra and a mud wallowing baloo,' -Pug rejoined with a pair of domestic animals, the stupid beast of burden and filthy, and stupid, but edible meat animal- 'it would be bad manners for me to "toddle" without an invitation to an audience, which you would know if your mother had birthed any children who could tell it was daylight while standing outside staring into the sun, and had you half the wits the G.o.ds gave to a bag of rocks. It's called "good manners".'

The warriors nearby erupted into laughter: this Tsurani not only spoke pa.s.sable Thuril, he could insult with style.

The red-headed warrior didn't know whether to laugh or take umbrage, but before he could make up his mind, Pug said, 'Be a welcoming host and ask the Kaliane if she will listen to the words of Milamber of the a.s.sembly, once husband to a Thuril woman, Katala.'