save perhaps his son Magnus, would ever see a hint of the pain Pug bore every day.
Kulgan’s death, at least, had been a natural consequence of a mortal’s span. And he had died surrounded by those who loved him; yet now, finding himself in the presence of his old mentor, Pug again revisited that loss.
Glancing around, he realized that the beautiful vista beyond the meadow, the magnificent range of mountains above, were all indifferent reminders of how fleeting life could be and how indifferent the universe was to a single life. Pug felt diminished.
He stopped. ‘Kulgan, I think I understand.’
Kulgan stopped and said, ‘What, Pug?’
‘Perspective,’ said Pug softly. ‘This world is vast, and it is but a tiny part of a much larger universe. I feel humbled.’
Kulgan nodded. He put his hand on his former student’s shoulder. ‘Greatness, smallness, these are relative concepts, Pug, and it is important to remember that. But this doesn’t change the fundamental reality that what stands before you is a challenge that seems trivial compared to the vastness of which you speak.’ He narrowed one eye in an expression Pug had seen a thousand times before, one that showed he was coming to the point of a lesson. ‘But though the task before you seems trivial, the consequences may be anything but trivial in reality.’ He nodded. ‘More than once I’ve taught you the lesson of the keystone, the one brick that when removed can bring the entire building down upon your head.’
He pulled out his unlit pipe, a long churchwarden in style, and tapped Pug on the chest with it. ‘Just be outside the building when you do it,’ he laughed.
Pug tried to enjoy the mirthful tone, but inside he felt darkness gathering. ‘What I’ve lost sight of is the fundamentals of magic.’
‘Probably not,’ suggested Kulgan, ‘but rather the simple roots of even the most complex causality; you look at a chaotic outcome, well, it’s easy to overlook that it may have begun with the simplest cause. A stray spark from this pipe I hold could eventually lead to a conflagration that would destroy this entire forest,’ he added with a sweep of his hand.
‘And amid the chaos,’ Kulgan continued, ‘it’s also easy to lose sight of multiple causes of an event. Consider a storm that lashes the Far Coast. You know from the time you were a boy that often the worst storms are not a single storm, but a convergence of two, one coming down the coast from the frigid north, the other sweeping in from the south-west where it’s warm and turbulent.’ He left his pipe dangling from his mouth as he linked both hands together, fingers intertwined, and twisted his hands in a wrenching motion. ‘Together they combine to be so much more than each was separately.’ He took his pipe from his mouth and tapped Pug on the shoulder with the tip. ‘Which then leads us back to where each storm comes from …’
‘I’m still not seeing this,’ said Pug. ‘But I’m getting a sense of it.’
‘It’s about the fundamentals of things, Pug. What is the nature of a storm?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re asking. It’s a storm?’
Kulgan sighed. ‘It’s all that time on Kelewan. Had you the knack for what those Tsurani call the Lesser Path of Magic …’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, had you studied weather magic—’
Pug remembered a long conversation he had had with an elven Spellweaver named Temar. ‘Equipoise,’ said Pug, and Kulgan stopped talking.
A slow smile spread out over the old teacher’s face. ‘Equipoise? Go on.’
‘Storms are the most extreme examples of nature seeking balance, equipoise. There’s too much energy built up in one place and it seeks …’ He shook his head. ‘The sphere! All different energy states. The difficulty of moving from one to another because of that. The magic needed to survive in higher states or lower states.’
Kulgan nodded. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about specifically, but if I’m guessing right, you’re on the right path.’
‘If you come to a higher energy state place, such as this one—’ Pug waved his hand in a circle, indicating the entire world, ‘you need protection so that you don’t absorb energy too fast, don’t burn up from it. If you go to a lower state world, the entire environment sucks the energy right out of you, like a spider sucks an insect dry in its web.’
‘There you have it, then,’ said Kulgan. ‘Your first clue, I expect. This all has something to do with the energy states of the sphere … whatever that may be.’
‘Ah, Kulgan,’ said Pug with a sad laugh. ‘You have no idea—’
Kulgan interrupted. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘What?’
‘I thought I heard …’ He fell silent, then said, ‘Just an old man’s imagination. Let’s get back. I could use another cup of hot tea and some more of your company, my best student.’
Pug laughed. ‘Your only student! I still recall the look on the other masters’ faces when you claimed me as apprentice on the day of my Choosing.’
Kulgan chuckled. ‘I assume it’s safe to say that all of that is part of all of this. A plan, not of our own choosing, in which we are but pieces?’
Pug nodded. ‘Apparently. For reasons not made clear to me, I was selected to live this life, to be the tool of the gods in this conflict.’
‘It’s a puzzle,’ said Kulgan as he carefully stepped down off a slight rise in the trail and halted for a moment to fuss with his robe. ‘You were, I say with no judgment, a rather unremarkable child. I remember when you were brought to the castle, a foundling. As babies are, you were endearing. We were told that a scullery maid and a wandering soldier were your parents, and she handed you over to a mendicant friar of the Order of Dala, who brought you to Lord Borric. Certainly nothing remarkable was evident in you until that stormy night you came to my cottage in the woods.’ He shook his head in memory. ‘When you sat before that scrying orb fashioned by Althefain of Carse for me, and without effort saw into the kitchen at Crydee Keep …’ He clucked his tongue. ‘That was remarkable.’
‘I don’t remember it as effortless,’ said Pug with a smile. ‘I had quite the headache after.’
‘You are a master, Pug. You know how remarkable it is for any user of magic to just … use it, without instruction and conditioning.’
Pug nodded.
They approached the cottage and Kulgan stopped. ‘Did you hear that? It was Meecham!’
Pug turned and saw no one there. Where Kulgan had stood only a second before was now empty space on the trail, and suddenly he knew that this had been his last visit with his former mentor and that he would never again lay eyes on Kulgan in this life.
He turned to enter the cottage, and before him stood only sparse woods cut through by the narrow game trail on which he stood. Of the cottage no hint remained. Instead, a thick tree stood in its place.
A sudden shift in air pressure and a slight popping sound caused him to turn again, and where Kulgan had stood another vortex hung in the air. Pausing for only a moment as he wondered which agency was moving him towards what end, and deciding that was hopeless speculation and a waste of time, he took a breath and jumped into the vortex.
• CHAPTER FOUR •
Homeward
MARTIN REINED IN HIS MOUNT.
The escort behind him also halted as they crested the rise. To their left squatted the abandoned fortification he had seen burning only short months ago, fired on his brother’s command in order to deny the use of it to the Keshians. Down the road ahead, they could see the distant walls of the city of Ylith.
‘Downright peaceful-looking, Highness,’ observed Sergeant Oaks. The rangy, red-headed commander