Wrath of a Mad God(166)

Millions of miles away in space a massive rift appeared before the moon, and just inside the top of the dome of the Black Mount its twin manifested. Pug lowered himself down to a position by the rift that led back home, and knew he had to be quick.

He could not leave this last rift open, for to do so would doom Midkemia to the same fate about to befall Kelewan.

Millions of miles away, the moon struck the rift gate. Only part of it was forced through, but its velocity was enough to drive an impossible amount of stone, equal to the tallest mountain on Kelewan, through it in scant seconds. Pug stepped inside the rift just as the moon’s vast shard appeared inside the Black Mount and slammed down at incalculable speed into the pit. The Dreadlord had only an instant to sense that something was terribly wrong. A massive increase in air pressure around the Dark One gripped the gigantic being as if an enormous hand squeezed him. Then for the briefest instant a wall of light fell upon him.

The moon shard and the black gem shard Nakor had released struck in the same instant. The Dreadlord was no mortal being; but in that instant he was crushed.

The universe began to tear.

No one on the planet’s surface felt pain. For one moment the world had been a landscape of terror, struggle and death, and in the next moment, everything was gone. A cloud of hot gas travelled a path around a distant yellow-green sun where minutes before a world and its moon had existed.





Pug found himself in a grey nothingness, devoid of any sensation, light, dark, cold or heat. He had experienced this once before, and then he had reached out with his mind to find his old teacher, Kulgan.

This time he had a more compelling target for his mind: his wife and sons. He gripped tightly the staff that was twin to the one at home. He let his magic senses run through the ancient wood and could feel Miranda, Caleb and Magnus out there, the three people he loved more than anyone else in that world.

He sensed them… somewhere… there! He could feel the echo of the staff in his hand and the touch of his loved ones on it, and reached for them. Then with a tearing pain, he was standing by them, shivering as if he had been exposed to the most profound cold possible.

He said, ‘It is done,’ then collapsed into his son’s arms.