Triumph of the Darksword Read online

  BATTLE-MAGIC!

  At Joram’s command, the Druids sent the forest into battle. Giant oak trees with the strength born of centuries heaved themselves from the ground and lumbered forward to the attack. Mosiah, changing into a werewolf, knocked the strange humans to the ground With one blow of a massive paw, a were-bear caved in a helmet. Illusionists created gigantic tarantulas that dropped down out of the trees, their hairy legs twitching, their many-faceted eyes burning like flame. Skeletons clutching pale swords in their bony hands rose up out of the ground. Dragons swooped down out of the skies, bringing with them flame and darkness. Perhaps the oddest happening on the field of battle that day was the report by several wizards of seeing a ring of mushrooms suddenly appear in a glade. A band of the enemy, charging into the ring, found that they could not get out. One by one, the strange humans were sucked down into the ground. The wizards reported, not without a shudder, that the last sounds that could be heard were the raucous laughter and gibbering voices of the faeriefolk.

  Bantam Spectra Books

  by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

  THE DARKSWORD SERIES

  Forging the Darksword

  Doom of the Darksword

  Triumph of the Darksword

  Legacy of the Darksword

  ROSE OF THE PROPHET

  The Will of the Wanderer

  THE DEATH GATE CYCLE

  Dragon Wing

  Elven Star

  Fire Sea

  Serpent Mage

  The Hand of Chaos

  Into the Labyrinth

  The Seventh Gate

  and by Margaret Weis

  STAR OF THE GUARDIANS

  The Lost King

  Table of Contents

  Other Books by this Author

  Acknowledgments

  Part 1 - The Watcher

  Chapter 1 - … And Live Again

  Chapter 2 - And In His Hand …

  Chapter 3 - The Anniversary

  Chapter 4 - I Call It Cyclone

  Chapter 5 - Sharakan Prepares For War

  Chapter 6 - The Prince Frog

  Chapter 7 - A Discourse On The Rules Of War

  Chapter 8 - The Challenge

  Chapter 9 - To Victory!

  Chapter 10 - Out Of The Fog

  Chapter 11 - The Invisible Foe

  Chapter 12 - Creatures Of Iron

  Chapter 13 - Death Crawls

  Chapter 14 - Legions Of The Dead

  Chapter 15 - No Escape

  Chapter 16 - The Destruction Of The World

  Chapter 17 - The Angel Of Death

  Part 2 - Beyond

  Chapter 1 - The Enemy

  Chapter 2 - Of Great Price

  Chapter 3 - Of Salt Cellars And Teapots

  Chapter 4 - The Almin Have Mercy

  Chapter 5 - The Emperor’s Son

  Chapter 6 - Dona Nobis Pacem

  Chapter 7 - Eye In The Sky

  Part 3 - Per Istam ——— Sanctam….

  Chapter 1 - Emperor Of Merilon

  Chapter 2 - Simkin’s Bark

  Chapter 3 - Falling

  Chapter 4 - The Blink Of An Eye

  Chapter 5 - The Temple Of The Necromancers

  Chapter 6 - The Executioner

  Chapter 7 - Watching, Waiting

  Chapter 8 - My Poor Fool …

  Chapter 9 - There Will Be Born … One Who Is Dead

  Chapter 10 - And In His Hand He Holds

  Chapter 11 - The Destruction Of The World

  Chapter 12 - The Triumph Of The Darksword

  Chapter 13 - Requiem Aeternam

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  We wish to gratefully acknowledge the help and support of the following people:

  Our agent, Ray Peuchner, who died tragically of cancer in the summer of 1987 A kind and loving man, Ray was our friend as well as our agent and we mourn his passing even as we celebrate his beautiful life.

  Laura Hickman, for advice, support, and putting up with Tracy.

  Cover artist and friend, Larry Elmore, who makes our visions come to life.

  Interior artist, Valerie Valusek, and map-maker, Steve Sullivan, both friends as well and both valued members of our creative “team.”

  Darryl Viscenti, Jr., for portraying Joram in the cover paintings.

  Patrick Lucien Price for sharing his knowledge and advice on the tarot cards and the art of divination.

  John Hefter for providing us with our Latin phrases and for insight into the nature of the quest for spiritual understanding. It is to John that we dedicate the character of the wise and gentle priest, Saryon.

  Our editor, Amy Stout, who will probably remove this credit, but we hope she doesn’t because she deserves it.

  And finally, to you—our readers—whose continued enthusiastic support and kind words make this so much fun.

  The Watcher

  The thirty-foot stone Watcher, posting guard on the Border of Thimhallan, had seen with his eyes of rock many strange sights over the last nineteen years. He had been here only nineteen years, this Watcher. Once a human, a catalyst, his crime had been one of passion. He had loved a woman, committed the unpardonable sin of physically joining with her, and produced a child. He had been sentenced to the Turning, wherein his living flesh was transformed to living stone. He was destined to stand forever at the Border, staring into the realm of Beyond—the realm of death whose sweet peace and rest he would never know.

  This Watcher thought back to the first six years of his Turning. Six years of unendurable emptiness, of rarely seeing a human, much less hearing a human voice. Six years of mind and soul raging inside their stone prison. These six years passed, and a woman brought a child to his feet. The child was beautiful, with long black hair and large, dark brown eyes.

  “This is your father,” the woman told the child, pointing up at the stone statue.

  Did the Watcher know this wasn’t true? Did he know his child had died at birth? He knew. Deep in his heart, he knew the catalysts had not lied when they foretold that no living issue would come of his union with this woman. Whose child was this? That was something the Watcher did not know, and he wept for the child and still more for the poor woman he had once loved who now stood at his feet, dressed in rags, looking up at him with crazed eyes.

  Long years after that, the Watcher remained standing undisturbed without, his soul tormented within. Sometimes he saw others of his Order—the catalysts—changed to stone for some infraction they had committed. Sometimes he watched as a magus of the land was sent Beyond—the punishment inflicted upon those who have the gift of Life. He saw the Executioner drag the victim to the edge of the sandy shore. He saw the victim hurled into the ever-shifting mists that marked the Border of the World. He heard with his stone ears the last horrified scream that came back from those swirling gray fogs, and then nothing. The Watcher envied these victims. He envied them bitterly, for they were at rest, while he must go on living.

  But the strangest sight the Watcher ever saw had occurred only a year before. Why should it have touched him? he wondered often in the dark hours of the night that were the hardest to bear. Why should it have left a sorrowful mark upon his stone heart when none of these others had? He didn’t know, and he pondered it for days on end sometimes, reliving the scene over and over in his mind.

  It was another Turning. He recognized the preparations—the twenty-five catalysts appearing from the Corridors, the mark drawn in the sand where the victim was to stand, the Executioner dressed in his gray robes of justice. But this was no ordinary Turning. The Watcher was surprised to see the Emperor arrive with his wife. Then came Bishop
Vanya—the Watcher cursed him silently—and Prince Xavier, brother to the Empress.

  At last they brought in the prisoner. The Watcher was stunned. This young man with long black hair and strong, muscular body was not a catalyst! And, so far as the Watcher knew, only catalysts were ever sentenced to the Turning. Why was this young man different? What was his crime?

  The Watcher watched with avid curiosity, thankful for anything that relieved the terrible boredom of his existence. He saw a catalyst arrive next. As the Priest took his place beside the Executioner, the Watcher saw that the catalyst carried a sword, a strange looking sword. The Watcher had never seen one like it before, and he shivered as he gazed upon the black, ungleaming metal.

  A hush fell over the crowd Bishop Vanya read the charges.

  The young man was Dead. He had committed murder. Worse, he had lived among the Sorcerers of the Dark Arts and there he had created a weapon of demonic evil. For this, he was to be Turned to Stone. The last sight his eyes would behold, as their vision froze, was the terrible weapon he had brought forth into the world.

  The Watcher did not recognize the young man as the child who had crouched at his feet all those years before. Why should he? There was no bond between them. Still, he pitied him. Why? Perhaps it was because a golden-haired girl—not much older than the woman he had once loved—was being forced to stand and watch, as his beloved had once been forced to watch. The Watcher pitied both of them—the young man and the girl, especially when he saw the young man fall to his knees before the catalyst, crying unashamedly in fear and terror.

  The Watcher saw the catalyst embrace the young man, and his stone heart wept for them both. He watched as the young man stood—straight and tall—to face his punishment. The catalyst took his place beside the Executioner, sword in his hand. The twenty-five catalysts drew the magic, the Life, from the world, focused it within then own beings, then opened conduits to the Executioner. Magic arced from them into him. The Executioner drew upon it and began to cast the spell that would transform the young man’s flesh to stone.

  But suddenly the catalyst sacrificed himself, hurling his own body in the path of the magic. The catalyst’s limbs began to harden to rock. With his last strength, he tossed the sword to the young man.

  “Escape!” he cried.

  There was no escape. The Watcher felt the dread power of the sword even from where he stood, some twenty feet distant. He felt the sword began to absorb the Life from the world. He saw it destroy two warlocks in a burst of flame. He watched it bring the Executioner to his knees, and if his lungs had been able to draw breath, the Watcher would have let out a howl of victory and triumph.

  “Kill!” he longed to shout. “Kill them all!”

  But there was one thing the powerful sword could not do. It could not reverse the spell of the Turning. The young man saw the catalyst change to stone before his eyes. The Watcher felt his grief and looked forward with a heart filled with hatred to the young man’s revenge.

  It did not come. Instead, the young man took the sword and laid it reverently in the catalyst’s stone hands. The young man bowed his head upon the stone breast of his friend; then he turned and walked into the mists of Beyond. The golden-haired girl, calling out his name, followed him.

  The Watcher stared in amazement. He waited to hear the last wail of horror, but in vain. Only silence came from those shifting mists.

  The Watcher’s stone gaze went to those left behind and saw with grim satisfaction that the young man’s revenge was enacted without him. Bishop Vanya fell to the ground as though struck by a thunderbolt. The Empress’s body decomposed. It was then that the Watcher realized she must have been dead for some time, existing on magic alone. Prince Xavier ran to the stone statue of the catalyst and tried to wrest the sword from its grip, but the catalyst held it fast.

  Soon the living left the Border, left it once more to the living dead. Left it to a new statue—a new Watcher. But it was not made thirty feet tall like the others. Its face was not frozen in fear, or hatred, or resignation as were the faces of its fellow Watchers.

  The stone statue of the catalyst holding the strange sword in his hands stared out into the Realm of Beyond, and upon the stone face was a look of sublime peace.

  And there was one other unusual thing about this living statue. It had one more, unique visitor. Now, from around the catalyst’s stone neck, there fluttered gaily a banner of orange silk.

  1

  … And Live Again

  The Watchers had guarded the Border of Thimhallan for centuries. It was their enforced task, through sleepless night and dreary day, to keep watch along the boundary that separated the magical realm from whatever lay Beyond.

  What did lie Beyond?

  The ancients knew. They had come to this world, fleeing a homeland where they were no longer wanted, and they knew what lay on the other side of those shifting mists. To protect themselves from it, they encompassed their world in a magical barrier, decreeing that the Watchers be placed on its Border—eternal, sleepless guards. But now it was forgotten. The tides of centuries had worn away the memory. If there was a threat from beyond the Border, no one worried about it, for how could it pass the magic barrier?

  The Watchers kept their silent vigil still—they had no choice. And when the mists parted for the first time in centuries, when a figure stepped out of the shifting gray fog and put his foot upon the sand, the Watchers were appalled and cried out their warning.

  But there were none, now, who knew how to listen to words of stone.

  Thus the man’s return was unheralded, unannounced. He had gone forth in silence and in silence he returned. The Watchers shrieked, “Beware, Thimhallan! Your doom has come! The Border has been crossed!”

  But no one heard them.

  There were those who might have heard the silent cries, had they been attentive. Bishop Vanya, for one. He was the highest ranking catalyst in the land and, as such, it seemed likely that his god, the Almin, would have called His minister’s attention to such a calamity. But it was dinner time. His Holiness was entertaining guests and, though the Bishop prayed beautifully and devoutly over the meal, everyone had the distinct feeling that the Almin really hadn’t been invited.

  Prince Xavier should have heard the warnings of the stone Watchers. He was a warlock, after all—DKarn-duuk, a War Master, and one of the most powerful magi in the land. But he had more important matters to consider. Prince Xavier—pardon, Emperor Xavier—was preparing for war with the kingdom of Sharakan and there was only one thing more important to him than that. Or rather, it was all tied together. How to retrieve the Darksword, held fast in the arms of a stone statue. If he possessed this powerful sword—a weapon that could absorb magic—Sharakan must fall to his might.

  And so Bishop Vanya sat in his elegant chambers at the top of the mountain fastness of the Font, dining on boar’s head and piglet tails and pickled shrimp, discussing the nature and habits of marsupials with his guests, and the warnings of the Watchers were swallowed up with the wine.

  Prince Xavier paced about his laboratory, occasionally darting over to read the text in some musty, brittle-paged book, consider it, then shake his head with a bitter snarl. The warnings of the Watchers were lost in his curses.

  Only one person in all of Thimhallan heard the warnings. In the city of Sharakan, a bearded young man dressed in purple hose, pink pantaloons, and a bright red silken waistcoat, was wakened from his afternoon nap. Cocking his head toward the east, he cried out irritably, “E’gad! How do you expect a fellow to get any sleep? Stop that fearful racket!” With a wave of his hand, he slammed shut the window.

  Beware, Thimhallan! Your doom has come! The Border has been crossed!

  The man who stepped out of the mists was in his late twenties, though he appeared older. His body was that of a young man—strong, muscular, firm, and upright. His face was the face of a man whose sufferings might have spanned a century.

  Framed by thick black hair, the face was han
dsome, stern, and—at first glance—appeared as cold and unfeeling as the stone faces of those who watched him. Lines of care and of grief had been chiseled into that face by a Master’s hand, however. The fires of anger and hatred that had once burned in the brown eyes had died out, leaving behind cold ash.

  The man was dressed in long white robes of fine wool, covered by a wet, mud-stained traveling cloak. Standing upon the sand, he looked about him with the slow and deliberate gaze of one who looks about the home he has not seen in many, many years. The expression of sadness and of sorrow on his face did not change, except to grow deeper. Turning, he reached back into the mists. A hand took hold of his, and a woman with long, golden hair stepped out of the shifting gray fog to stand beside him.

  She glanced about her with a dazed air, blinking her eyes in the rays of the setting sun that stared at them from behind distant mountains—its red, unblinking eye seeming to regard them with amazement.

  “Where am I?” the woman asked calmly, as if they had walked down a street and taken a wrong turn.

  “Thimhallan,” the man replied in an even tone of voice that spread like salve over some deep wound.

  “Do I know this place?” the woman questioned. And though the man replied and she accepted his answers, she did not look at him or appear to be talking to him but continually sought out and spoke to an unseen companion.

  The woman was younger than the man, about twenty-seven. The golden hair, parted in the center of her head, was tied loosely in two thick braids that hung down to her waist. The braids gave her a childish look, making her seem younger than her years. Her pretty blue eyes enhanced this childish appearance as well—until one looked into them closely. Then it could be seen that their eerie brilliance and wide-open stare were not expressive of the innocent wonder of childhood. This woman’s eyes saw things that could not be seen by others.

  “You were born here,” the man said quietly. “You were raised in this world, as was I.”

  “That’s odd,” said the woman. “I would think I’d remember.” Like the man’s, her cloak was splattered with mud and wet through. Her hair, too, was wet, as was his, and clung damply to her cheeks. Both were weary and appeared to have traveled a long distance through a soaking rainstorm.