‘Be ready to protect yourself and we’ll find out,’ said Nakor. ‘I think it’s going to be very hot for you two.’
Magnus studied the little man for a moment, nodded once, and glanced at his father. Pug tilted his head slightly, indicating that he understood the warning and both men encased themselves in protective spells without a word exchanged.
Magnus closed his eyes for a brief moment and the sphere around them vanished. Pug knelt and touched the glass beneath his feet. ‘Odd …’
‘What?’ asked Miranda.
‘The energy … I expected it to be more … I’m not sure.’ He looked from his son to Miranda. ‘Both of you are more adept at sensing the nature of a given spell. Does this feel like just an explosion to you?’
Miranda knelt next to Pug. ‘Feel like an explosion? We lived through it; it was massive and loud.’ She touched the glass beneath them. ‘Oh, yes, I see what you mean.’
Magnus did likewise. ‘This … the explosion was the by-product.’
Nakor looked at the three kneeling magicians and said, ‘Please?’
‘The energy released was the result of a spell that wasn’t just some spell of massive destruction,’ said Magnus, standing. ‘We need to go.’
Pug waved his hands without comment. All four rose upward and floated towards the edge of the crater.
Magnus said to Nakor, ‘As best I can tell, that spell did two things. Besides obliterating everything within a fairly large radius, it also moved us to … I’m not sure where we are, but it’s not where we were when the spell was triggered.’
They reached the lip of the crater and Pug said, ‘You are right, Magnus. We are not where we were minutes ago.’
‘Where’s the sea?’ asked Miranda.
They looked to the south and where waves had lapped the shore just minutes before, only a long, sloping plain remained. To their rear there was a rising bluff and hills beyond that roughly resembled what they would have seen on the Isle of the Snake Men, but these hills were denuded of any plant life – no trees, no brush, not even a blade of grass could be seen.
The devastation was complete: nothing moved save by force of the wind. There was sand everywhere: years past this land had turned to desert. They were at the edge of a vast, deep crater, and like the crater, the land around had been fused by the blast, its surface nothing but glass of coruscating colours, as smoke, ash, and dust swirled upward, admitting narrow shafts of sunlight. The wind was blowing the smoke northward, clearing it away quickly. On this world nothing burned, for there was nothing to burn, and the rocks and sand that had been turned molten were rapidly cooling.
‘I think we’re still in the same place,’ said Nakor. ‘I mean, an analogous place, as when we travelled to Kosidri.’ Pug, Magnus, and Nakor had discovered that on the other planes of reality the worlds were identical, or at least as much as the variant conditions of that reality permitted. So wherever they were was a world similar in geography to Midkemia. ‘But I think the energy state here is going to prove troublesome soon.’
Pug nodded.
Miranda said, ‘I feel a little odd.’
Magnus said, ‘I remember how we adapted when we travelled to the Dasati realm, father.’
‘But this time it feels … different, obverse?’ said Pug.
‘A higher state than either the demon realm or Midkemia,’ agreed Miranda. ‘As if there’s too much air?’
Nakor grimaced. ‘We could be overwhelmed by it if we do not tread cautiously.’
Each fashioned a protective spell that returned a tiny bubble of protective energy around themselves, reducing the more intense energies in this world to a level their own bodies could accommodate.
‘If it’s a higher energy state,’ said Magnus, ‘we did not go into a lower realm. But a higher one. Which means—’
‘We’re in the first realm of heaven?’ suggested Miranda.
Contemplating the desolate landscape, Nakor quipped, ‘It’s obviously overrated. There’s more to offer in the demon realm.’
They were silent for a moment as they contemplated the barren world around them.
Pug looked at his son and said quietly, ‘I neglected to say thank you. Had you not returned …’
Magnus embraced him. ‘You’re my father. No matter how much I may disagree with … what we talked about … I will never leave you when you need me.’
Father and son held each other for a moment, then separated, returning their attention to the moment. Glancing at Miranda, they saw she had tears on her cheeks. She reached up and wiped them away and in an angry tone they both knew well, said, ‘Damn these memories. I know they are not mine! I know it!’ She crossed her arms across her chest. A bitter chuckle was followed by her observing, ‘Part of me remembers a time I’d have happily torn your heads from your shoulders and devoured your still-beating hearts.’ Then she glanced up and in softer tones said, ‘And part of me feels that I’ve never loved anyone more than I’ve loved you two. Only Caleb was your equal.’ This last came out a hoarse whisper.
Magnus understood his father well enough to know Pug was fighting an impulse to reach out and embrace the form of his former wife, to comfort a person who wasn’t really there. Softly he said, ‘I can’t call you Mother.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘But I never understood until now just how difficult this must be for you.’ In what was an impulsive act for the usually stoic magician, he took a step, slipped his arms around the demon in human form and held her closely for a brief moment.
When he stepped away, he saw more tears streaming down the face of the first person in life he had beheld. Powerful emotions tore through him, and he fought back the urge to say more. No matter how much he wished his mother back, alive and before him, it was nothing compared to what his father must feel. He put his hand on Pug’s shoulder and said, ‘We must make the best of a terribly confusing and awkward situation, and if we focus on what is before us, perhaps what is behind us will distance itself enough that we may develop new ways of seeing each other.’
Nakor grinned. ‘That’s very nice, but have you noticed someone is coming towards us?’
All looked in the direction Nakor indicated and saw the landscape was starting to resolve itself. Approaching them was a familiar figure clad in a black robe, wearing sandals bound upon his legs with whipcord, and using a staff as a walking stick. His hair was black, his posture youthful and his stride vigorous, as he had been in his prime.
All four were momentarily stunned and finally Pug put voice to their incredulity. ‘Macros!’
The figure held up his hand. ‘No, though I resemble him, no doubt.’
Miranda and Nakor exchanged glances and the short gambler asked, ‘You have Macros’s memories?’
‘No,’ said the figure.
‘Who are you?’ asked Magnus.
‘I have no name. You may think of me as a guide.’
‘Why do you look like my father?’ asked Miranda.
The guide shrugged slightly, in a perfect mimicry of Macros. ‘That is a mystery, for I am by nature formless in the mortal realm. I can only speculate, but my conclusion is that I appear to be who you expected me to be. I am sent by One whose Will is Action, but I needed to be in a form with which you could converse.’
The four exchanged quick glances, then Nakor laughed. ‘It is true that for most of the last hundred or more years I’ve expected to see that rascal’s hand behind every turn and twist of our existence.’
The others