Free Magician’s End by Raymond E. Feist Page A

discussions with more alacrity, Pug.’
    ‘I’m at a loss to know what it is I’m supposed to remember.’
    Kulgan glanced out the window at the failing light. ‘Let us walk, for it appears that a lovely evening is approaching and fresh air might give me that moment of brilliance we sorely require.’
    They exited the cottage and began hiking up the gentle path that led to the meadow above. ‘I found myself up there,’ said Pug, pointing to the other side of the meadow.’
    ‘Hmmm,’ said Kulgan. ‘Let’s go take a look, just in case there is something there you missed on your arrival.’
    They crossed the meadow and suddenly Kulgan stopped, tilting his head. ‘Did you hear that?’
    ‘Hear what?’ asked Pug, having only noticed the sound of the breeze in the branches, and the occasional forest noise – a bird call, or an animal moving through the brush.
    After a moment, Kulgan said, ‘Nothing.’ He looked sad. ‘It’s nothing.’
    ‘What?’ asked Pug. ‘You don’t look as if it’s nothing.’
    ‘It’s just an old man’s imagination, but I thought I heard my name called, from far away.’ He let his voice drop. ‘I thought it was Meecham. Of all those I’ve left behind …’ His voice fell to silence.
    ‘You were together a very long time,’ Pug said quietly.
    ‘More than forty years.’ He looked at Pug. ‘What became of him after I died?’
    Pug tried to be matter-of-fact. ‘He left Stardock. We never had word of him again. I assumed the memories were just too painful.’
    Kulgan nodded. ‘That was so like him. I always joked he’d have to die first, because I’d be reasonable about it, but he’d go off and crawl into a cave like a wounded bear and wait to die.’
    ‘Perhaps nothing so grim,’ said Pug, suddenly feeling guilty for not having done more to locate Kulgan’s companion. He was a franklin, a free man in service, but over the years they had become so much more than master and servant, forging a deeper bond than most Pug had seen. Pug had thought at the time that if it was Meecham’s wish to leave, it wasn’t Pug’s place to stop him. Yet now, all these years later, he wondered if he hadn’t had a duty to Kulgan’s memory at least to keep a watch over the man.
    He glanced over and saw Kulgan’s expression and felt, not for the first time, that his old teacher could read his mind. ‘Perhaps nothing so grim,’ he repeated softly.
    Kulgan nodded. ‘Let’s move on,’ he said in flat tones.
    The silence between them highlighted the deep and oddly conflicted emotions Pug had felt since encountering Kulgan. Since his first confrontation with the demon Jakan, ending with Pug lingering at the point of death, he had been cursed with a prophecy, that he would die in futility, after having seen all he loved lost. During the Riftwar he had lost his boyhood friend, Squire Roland, killed by raiders as he tried to protect a herd of cattle. He hadn’t learned of his death until his return from Kelewan, after a dozen years of war were ended.
    Since then he had lost the two women he had loved most in the world, and the appearance of the demon Child in the guise of Miranda had reopened that wound as if it were fresh. Pug’s ability to move forward with the actions necessary to preserve his world only masked the pain that echoed from years gone by. As it had been with the three children he had outlived. No one, 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,