Doom of the Darksword Read online

  “— who is an old friend of our family’s that we have not seen in years. Indeed” — Gwendolyn turned to look at the catalyst — “I was quite a child when you saw me last, wasn’t I, Father? I’ll wager you didn’t recognize me.”

  “That — that’s quite true,” stammered Saryon. “I didn’t.”

  He saw that the young woman was enjoying the daring and danger of this enterprise, never dreaming how very real the danger was. The girl turned back to the Kan-Hanar with a smile. Saryon, his heart pounding in fear, glanced out the door and saw the Duuk-tsarith conferring together near the Gate, their black hoods nearly touching.

  “The catalyst and these gentlemen,” said Gwen, with a seemingly uninterested glance at both Mosiah and Joram, “are cold and wet and tired from their journey. Surely there can be no harm in letting me take them to my home. You will know where to find them, after all, if need be.”

  Apparently the Kan-Hanar considered this a good idea. Looking through the door, his gaze went to the Duuk-tsarith as well, then went past the warlocks to the line of people waiting admittance into the city. It was their busiest time of day, the line was growing longer, people were getting impatient, and his partner looked harried.

  “Very well,” the Kan-Hanar said abruptly. “I’ll give you passes for City Above, but they are restricted. These gentlemen” — he looked grimly at Mosiah and Joram — “are to be allowed outside only in the company of your father.”

  “Or another member of the family?” Gwen asked sweetly.

  “Or another member of the family,” the Kan-Hanar muttered, hurriedly notating the restrictions on the scrolls of parchment that he was filling out.

  The Kan-Hanar was busy with his work, the catalyst leaned wearily against a wall, and Gwen’s blue eyes turned their gaze to Joram. It was the innocent, flirtatious glance of a young girl playing at being a woman. But it was caught in the snare of serious dark eyes, caught by a man who knew nothing of such games.

  Gwen was accustomed to shedding her warmth and charm upon men and having them reflect it back to her. She was startled, therefore, to feel that warmth suddenly sucked into the dark well of a cold and hungry soul.

  It was unnerving, even frightening. The dark eyes were absorbing her. She had to break their hold or lose something of herself — although just what that might be she didn’t know. She couldn’t make herself look away; the feeling was frightening, but thrilling at the same time.

  It was obvious that the young man wasn’t going to quit staring, however! This was growing intolerable. The only thing Gwendolyn could think of to do was drop the bouquet of flowers. It wasn’t meant as a flirtatious advance. She didn’t even think about that. Leaning down to pick it up would give her a chance to regain her self-possession and break the disturbing gaze of that bold young man. It was not destined to work out that way, however.

  Someone else bent down to pick up the flowers as well, and Gwen only found herself in closer proximity to the young man than before. Each reached for the purple tulip — which was exhibiting most untuliplike behavior, its leaves curling, its petals fluttering in what may have been laughter — at the same time.

  “Allow me, my lady,” Joram said, his hand brushing hers and lingering there.

  “Thank you, sir,” Gwen murmured. Snatching her own hand back as though it had been burned, she rose hurriedly back into the air.

  Gravely, Joram stood up and handed the flowers to her — all except the tulip.

  “With your permission, my lady,” he said in a voice that was, to Gwen’s fluttered mind, as dark as his eyes, “I will keep this, a memento of our meeting.”

  Did he know who the tulip was? Gwen could say nothing, but muttered something incoherent about being “flattered” as she watched the young man take the tulip, smooth its petals with his hand (such an extraordinary hand, Gwen caught herself noticing, strong and calloused, yet with long, delicate fingers), and then slip the tulip into a pocket beneath his cloak.

  Half convinced that she had heard a strangled squeak of outrage before the tulip was extinguished by the smothering fabric, she found herself wondering what it would be like to be pressed against the breast of the young man. Gwen blushed feverishly and turned away. She remembered the passes to City Above only when the Kan-Hanar actually laid them in her hand, and forced herself to concentrate on what the man was saying.

  “You will not need a pass, of course, Father Dunstable, since you have dispensation to visit the Cathedral. The restrictions do not apply to you, either. You may go there whenever you like, and you will, I am certain, be desirous of making your presence known to your Order as soon as possible.”

  A delicate hint for the catalyst to report to the Cathedral at once.

  Saryon bowed humbly. “May the Almin give you a good day, Archmagus,” he said.

  “And you, Father Dunstable,” the Kan-Hanar replied. His gaze flicked over Joram and Mosiah as if they did not exist and he hurried out of the hexagonal tower room to interview the next in line.

  Fortunately for Gwen, she was captured by her cousins the moment she left the guard tower. This helped her put disquieting thoughts of the dark young man firmly out of her mind — though her heart seemed to beat in time with his footsteps that she could hear so clearly behind her.

  “If — if you will excuse me, Father Dunstable,” Gwen said, turning to the catalyst and ignoring his young companions, “I have to tell — explain … all this … to my cousins. If you would like to refresh yourselves, the cafe over there is quite nice. I’ll only be a moment.”

  Without stopping to wait for an answer, Gwen hurried away, dragging the excited cousins with her.

  “What will your mother say?” gasped Lilian when she had heard as much of Gwen’s story as Gwen felt capable of telling.

  “My heavens! What will Mama say?” Gwen had never considered that. To suddenly float in the door with houseguests! And of such an unusual nature!

  Lilian and Majorie were hastily dispatched to City Above with news that the renowned Simkin was going to honor the Samuelses with his presence. Gwen hoped fervently that news of his arrest and subsequent disappearing act had not reached her parent’s ears.

  Then, in order to give Lady Rosamund time to have the guest rooms opened and aired, the cook informed, and a servant sent to apprise Lord Samuels of the honor in store for him, Gwen returned to the cafe and offered to show her guests the wonders of the city.

  Although the catalyst appeared reluctant, the young men agreed with an eagerness Gwendolyn found quite charming. Obviously this was their first trip to Merilon, and Gwen discovered she was looking forward to showing it off. Floating up into the air, she waited, expecting them to join her. They did not, however, and — glancing down — she was astonished to see them looking at each other in some confusion. It instantly occurred to her that they had been walking everywhere and she wondered why. Of course! They must be tired from their journey, too tired to expend their energy in magic….

  “I’ll hire a carriage,” she offered before any of them could say a word. Waving a white hand, she motioned to a gilded blue eggshell drawn by a team of robins. It flew over to them, and they each climbed in, Gwen finding — to her embarrassment — that Joram managed to be on hand to assist her in entering.

  She ordered the driver of the carriage to take them through the shops and stalls that had sprung up around Earth Gate like a ring of enchanted mushrooms. More than a few people glanced at them as they drove by, many pointing them out as Simkin’s companions and laughing heartily. Leaving the area around Earth Gate, they drove past the tropical gardens, admiring the flowers that grew here and nowhere else in Thimhallan. Enchanted trees on the Walk of Crafts were singing in chorus, and raised their limbs as the carriage flew beneath them. A unit of Imperial Guards mounted on seahorses bobbed through the air in perfect unison.

  They could have spent hours in the Grove, but the afternoon sun was nearing the point designated by the Sif-Hanar as twilight. It was time to star
t home and — at Gwen’s command — their carriage joined others circling upward to reach the floating rock pedestal of City Above.

  Sitting in the carriage across from the young men, Gwendolyn thought how time had flown by all too rapidly. She could have stayed here forever. Seeing Merilon’s wonders reflected in the eyes of her guests — particularly the dark eyes of one of the guests — she seemed to see the city for the first time and she couldn’t remember having noticed before how beautiful it was.

  And what did her guests think? Mosiah was wrapped in a spell of enchantment, pointing and gaping at the splendors with a naïveté and childlike wonder that made him a figure of fun to all observers.

  Saryon didn’t see the city at all. His thoughts were turned inward. The fabulous sights brought back nothing but bitter memories to the catalyst, and only made the knowledge of his secret more burdensome.

  And Joram? At last he was seeing the city whose wonders his mother had described in such vivid detail every night of his childhood. But he wasn’t seeing it through Anja’s half-mad gaze. Joram’s first glimpse of Merilon was seen through eyes of blue innocence and a mist of fine, golden hair. Its beauty made his heart ache.

  3

  The Guildmaster’s Home

  “Mama,” said Gwen, “may I introduce Father Dunstable.”

  “Father.” Lady Rosamund gave the catalyst the very tips of her fingers, curtsying slightly. The catalyst bowed, murmuring words of appreciation for milady’s hospitality which milady returned cordially, if somewhat vaguely, her gaze fixed expectantly on the gate beyond him. Lady Rosamund greeted her guests in the front court garden as was customary in Merilon, the garden — of which milady was justly proud — providing a beautiful setting of ferns and rose trees.

  “And this is Mosiah and … and Joram,” continued Gwen, blushing prettily. Hearing a smothered giggle from her cousins in the background, the young girl tried to appear completely unconscious of the fact that his name came to her lips like a song of joy. An astute and doting mother like Lady Rosamund ordinarily would have noted the blush and guessed the truth the moment her daughter introduced the young man. But Lady Rosamund was nervous and somewhat flustered.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, giving them each her hand and looking around them and above them at the gateway. “But where is Simkin?” she asked after a moment passed and no one else entered.

  “Lady Rosamund,” said Joram, “we thank you for your hospitality. And we would like you to accept this as a token of our gratitude.” So saying, Joram drew the tulip — somewhat crushed and battered — from inside his tunic and handed it to his hostess.

  Her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed, as if she suspected she was the brunt of some joke, Lady Rosamund coldly reached out her hand —

  — and touched Simkin’s flowing, purple silk sleeve.

  “Merciful Almin!” she cried, backing up with a start. Then, “I ask forgiveness, Father, for the blasphemy,” she murmured, blushing nearly as pink as her daughter.

  “An understandable reaction, my lady,” Saryon said gravely, glancing at Simkin, who was staggering about the garden, gasping for air and fanning himself with the orange silk.

  “Almin’s Blood! My dear boy” — he turned to Joram — “a bath is requisite. Egad” — bringing his hand to his forehead, his eyes rolling back in his head — “I feel quite faint.”

  “You poor thing!” said Lady Rosamund, marshalling servants around her with a look. In a cool and calm voice, milady issued orders and directed troop movements with the skill of a warlock. All the while, she exhibited the most tender concern for Simkin, who looked more wilted in human form than he had in tulip. Calling upon the strongest of house magi, milady ordered them to assist Simkin indoors to the best front parlor. A gesture of her own hand brought a fainting couch hurrying to Simkin’s side. He collapsed on it, affecting a tragic pose.

  “Marie,” Lady Rosamund ordered, “conjure the herbal restoratives….”

  “Thank you, my dear,” said Simkin weakly, his nose wrinkling at the smell of the tea, “but only brandy can bring me out of this shock. Ah, madam!” — Gazing up piteously at Lady Rosamund — “if you only knew what a terrible ordeal I’ve been through! Oh, I say!” he called after the servant. “Bring the Year of the Frost Grape, will you, my dear? Duke d’Montaigne’s vineyard? What, nothing but domestic? Well, I suppose it will have to do.”

  The servant reappeared with the brandy decanter. Leaning his head back upon the silken cushions of the couch, Simkin suffered Marie to hold a glass to his lips, and took a sip. “Ah, that helps.” Marie removed the glass.

  “Just a touch more, my dear …”

  Taking the glass, Simkin sat up, drained it at a gulp, then fell back, exhausted, among the cushions. “Might I have just one more, my dear?” he asked in a voice that — from its weakness — might have been instructing Marie to draw up his last will and testament.

  The catalyst brought another brandy as Lady Rosamund gestured for a chair. At her command, one floated through the air, coming to rest near the couch where the young man lay. “Whatever do you mean, Simkin? What terrible ordeal have you been through?”

  Simkin grasped hold of her hand. “My dear madam,” he said, “today” — dramatic pause — “sink me, but I was arrested!” He cast the orange silk scarf over his face.

  “Merciful Al — Heavens,” Lady Rosamund stammered in astonishment.

  Simkin plucked the silk from his face again. “A most dreadful mistake! I have never been so humiliated. And now I am on the run, a common criminal!” His head lolled back, weak with despair.

  “Common criminal?” Lady Rosamund repeated in a voice suddenly grown cool, her gaze going to the plainly dressed Mosiah and Joram and even flicking, for an instant, over the untrimmed robes of the catalyst. “Alfred,” she said to one of the servants in the hurried undertone, “go to the Three Sisters and tell Lord Samuels to return home at once….”

  “Quite kind of you, madam, I assure you,” Simkin said, pushing himself up on unsteady arms, “but I doubt seriously if there is anything His Lordship could do. He is, after all, a mere Guildmaster.”

  Lady Rosamund’s face became exceedingly icelike. “My lord,” she began, “is —”

  “— going to be of no help to me, I’m afraid, ’m’dear,” said Simkin with a sigh. Lying back once more, he folded the orange silk and laid it carefully across his forehead. “No, Lady Rosamund,” he continued before she could speak, “if Alfred is going out, please send him to the Emperor. I’m certain this can all be cleared up.”

  “To … to the Emperor!”

  “Yes, of course,” Simkin said, somewhat irritably. “I suppose Alfred has been granted entry into the Royal Palace?”

  Lady Rosamund’s ice melted in the fever of embarrassment. “Well, to be frank — It’s just that we have never — I mean, there was the knighting ceremony, but that was —”

  “What? No access to the Palace? Sink me!” Simkin murmured, his eyes closing in the most desperate despair.

  During this interchange, Mosiah and Saryon stood in extreme discomfort in a corner, feeling forgotten and very much out of place. Mosiah, in particular, was overawed at what he had seen of the enchanted city and its people, who seemed so far above him in appearance, culture, and education that they might have been heavenly angels. He didn’t belong here. He wasn’t wanted here. He could see Gwen and her cousins smile every time he spoke. Well-bred as they were, the girls tried to hide their mirth at his uncouth way of talking — they weren’t particularly successful.

  “You were right, Father,” he whispered bitterly to Saryon under the cover of Simkin’s grand act. “We were fools to come to Merilon. Let’s leave, right now!”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t that easy, my boy,” said Saryon with a sigh, shaking his head. “The Kan-Hanar must approve all who leave the city through Earth Gate as well as all who enter. We would never be allowed to go now. We must do what we can to survive this.”

 
“Survive?” Mosiah repeated, thinking Saryon was joking. Then he saw the catalyst’s face. “You’re serious.”

  “Prince Garald said it would be dangerous,” Saryon answered gravely. “Didn’t you believe him?”

  “I guess not,” Mosiah muttered, his narrow-eyed gaze going to Simkin. “I thought he was, well, overreacting. I never dreamed it would be … so … different! We’re outsiders! Some of us, at least,” he added softly, with a glance at Joram. Mosiah shook his head. “How does he do it, Father? He seems a part of all this, as though he belonged here! Even more than Simkin! That fool is just a plaything. He knows it, and laps up the attention. But Joram —” Mosiah gestured helplessly — “he has everything these people have — grace, beauty.” His voice trailed off despondently.

  Yes, thought Saryon, his gaze going to Joram. He belongs….

  The young man stood some distance apart from where Saryon and Mosiah huddled near the wall. The separation was not intentional, but as though he, too, sensed the difference between them. His head thrown back proudly, he watched Simkin with that half smile on his lips as though the two were sharing a private joke on the rest of the world.

  He belongs, and he knows it now, Saryon saw with a pang of sorrow. Beauty? I would never have said it of him, not cold, bitter, and withdrawn as he is. Yet, look at him now. Much of it is the young woman’s influence, of course. What man does not become beautiful under the spell of first love? Yet it is more than that. He is a man in darkness, stumbling toward the light. And, in Merilon, that light beats down upon him, bringing a radiance and a warmth to his soul.

  What will he do, Saryon wondered sadly, if he ever discovers that the brightness of that light covers only a darkness deeper than his own? Shaking his head, he felt Mosiah’s warning touch on his arm, and returned to their present predicament.

  The household of Lady Rosamund that had been marching forward with such dispatch and efficiency suddenly came to a halt in the middle of the road, so to speak. Simkin lay languidly on the couch, moaning bleakly about “docks and gibbets, stocks and thumbscrews” in a manner not at all calculated to endear him to his hostess. Lady Rosamund hovered in the center of the parlor, clearly at a loss for what to do next. The servants stood about, some with teacups balanced in the air before them, others holding brandy decanters or bed linens, all looking uncertainly at their mistress for orders.