“I would have expected the man I knew, the one I studied, to have begun reconstruction on the villa at once, almost defiantly, as if telling his enemies that they would not prevail.”

Amirantha nodded, pursing his lips as if thinking, and remained quiet for a moment, then asked, “How much time do you think his enemies spend studying him?”

Jim inclined his head slightly as if conceding the point.

“Would it not seem, given what has happened here, that Pug also realizes he’s under a great deal of scrutiny? By all reports, in one form or another, these enemies of his have been coming at him for years.”

“If you assume that there is one intelligence behind a series of assaults on this world going back more than a century and a half, yes. But that is an assumption.”

“A better one to make,” observed the Warlock, “than thinking this land is merely beset by a string of coincidental afflictions.

“I may not be the master of magic on Pug’s scale, but I know enough about the other realms to know this is not a series of odd happenings.” He paused, and Brandos recognized his expression. Amirantha was frustrated. “Over the last year I’ve heard enough references to things such as the Pantathian Serpent Priests—with whom I am familiar—and the Riftwar, and the Great Uprising, and all the rest of it to believe there is one intelligence behind all of this, one agency that has targeted this world, perhaps this nation, even perhaps this island, for reasons known only to them, but irrespective of those reasons, the consequences for this entire world are dire.”

“I agree,” said Jim, “but tell me your reasons.”

“The Pantathians exist in the distant mountains to the west of my home, yet stories of them travel; they are a strange race, and they have been thought to be obliterated numerous times, yet they linger.

“They serve an ancient hate, a woman symbol they call ‘mother of us all’ and kill without remorse any who will not serve her.

“The Emerald Queen, whose army savaged my homeland before traveling halfway around the world to come to the Kingdom, was a demon in disguise.” Suddenly Amirantha became animated. “Do you have any notion of how remarkable that is?”

Jim shook his head.

“I will bore you with a long lecture—”

“And he will,” interjected Brandos.

“—some other time, but suffice it to say that demon possession on that level, of an already powerful magic user…it’s unknown to those of my calling.”

Jim said, “I still don’t see the connection.”

Amirantha seemed to fight for words. “I can’t explain…I mean, it’s as if I’m on the edge of understanding something, but I’m not quite there yet. Just, it’s more than a feeling, Jim.” He looked at Brandos and said, “Am I one to leap to conclusions?”