Triumph of the Darksword Read online

  Sniffing, wiping his nose with orange silk, Simkin flung himself back on the couch pillows and stared gloomily at the ceiling.

  “Seventy-two hours,” Joram muttered to himself “That’s the time from the nearest starbase.

  “You believe him?” Garald demanded.

  “I must!” Joram flashed back. “And so must you,” he added grimly. “I don’t know how to explain it, but he’s seen the Sorcerer. He’s described him and Major Boris! And what he claims he overheard makes sense. Boris didn’t come here with orders to slaughter us! He came, undoubtedly, to intimidate us with a show of force, figuring we’d surrender. But Menju doesn’t want that.” Joram shifted his gaze from Garald back to the flickering embers. “He wants the magic. He is of this world. He wants to return to it and gain its power. And he wants everyone in it who could be a threat to him dead!”

  “That’s why he has taken the catalysts prisoner,” said Saryon in sudden understanding. “He is using them to give him Life—”

  “—and he is using that Life to intimidate Major Boris and to seal off the Corridor.”

  “I don’t believe it! This is ridiculous!” Standing in the shadows of the study, practically forgotten, Mosiah had listened to Simkin’s story in disbelief. Now, coming forward, he looked from the Prince to Joram to Saryon pleadingly. “Simkin’s made this all up! They couldn’t kill us all—everyone in Thimhallan! That’s thousands, millions of people!”

  “They can and they will,” Joram said flatly. “They have committed genocide before on their own world, back in ancient times, and when they went forth into the stars and found life there, they did it again—slaughtering large numbers of beings whose only crime was that of being different. They have developed highly efficient methods of killing—weapons that are capable of wiping out entire populations within minutes.

  “They won’t use those here on this world, however,” Joram added thoughtfully. “Menju needs the magic in this world to remain intact, undisturbed. He couldn’t risk using a high-energy weapon, one that might disrupt Life….”

  Garald shook his head, frustrated, obviously not understanding. “I agree with Mosiah. It’s impossible!”

  “No it isn’t!” Joram cried angrily. “Get that out of your mind! Admit the danger! There are millions of people here, yes! But there are hundreds of thousands of millions in Beyond! Their armies are enormous. They can bring in soldiers numbering three times the population of Thimhallan if they choose!

  “We fight. We defend our cities.” Joram shrugged. “In the end we must lose, overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers alone. Those that survive the sieges and the battles will be systematically rounded up and put to death: man, woman, and child. The Sorcerer will keep a few hundred catalysts or so, to make certain their kind doesn’t die out, but that will be all. He will gain control of this world, of its magic, and he and those few like him in the world Beyond will become invincible.”

  “The end of the world….” Garald spoke before he thought. Saryon saw his face flush, and he cast a swift glance at Joram. “Damn it!” the Prince said suddenly, slamming his hands on the desk. “We’ve got to stop them! There must be a way!”

  Joram did not immediately answer. The fire flared and, for an instant, Saryon saw by its light the man’s lips twist in a dark half-smile and suddenly the catalyst was no longer in Lord Samuels’s home, in the snow-bound city of Merilon. Once again, Saryon stood in the forge in the Sorcerer’s village; he saw the fire of the hot coals shine in dark eyes, he saw a young man hammering a strangely glowing metal, once again, he saw the bitter, vengeful youth forging the Darksword.

  Someone else saw that youth, too. Someone else in the room saw and remembered. Mosiah looked at the man who had a year ago been his best, his only friend.

  He looked at a man he no longer knew.

  In the excitement and danger of the past day and night, Mosiah had been able to avoid looking at Joram—a Joram who had aged ten years to Mosiah’s one, who had lived in another world, who had seen wonders that Mosiah could neither imagine nor comprehend. Now, in the hushed, fear-laden silence, Mosiah could no longer avoid studying the face that he knew so well, yet didn’t know at all. His eyes misted with tears and he chided himself, knowing that he should be concerned with this larger tragedy, the impending destruction of his people, his world.

  But that was too big, too awful to grasp. He focused on his smaller, personal tragedy, feeling selfish, but helpless to do otherwise. Hearing Joram’s voice was like listening to one who was dead. It was—to Mosiah—the ghost of his friend speaking through this stranger.

  Had it been the same for Saryon? Mosiah glanced at the Priest, whose eyes were fixed on Joram as well. Grief and sorrow mingled with pride and love on the catalyst’s face, and it made Mosiah feel very lonely. No, the catalyst’s love for the man is as strong and abiding as it was for the youth. And why shouldn’t it be? After all, Saryon had sacrificed his life for that love.

  And Garald? Mosiah’s gaze turned toward the Prince. That was different. It had been easy for the Prince to find in this man the admired comrade he had seen in the young Joram. Differences in age and maturity had made friendship difficult to establish then. Now at last they were equals. It was Garald who had taken Mosiah’s place.

  As for Simkin, Mosiah cast him a bitter glance. Joram could have come back a salamander and it wouldn’t have affected the fool’s feelings one way or the other. There was no one else who mattered. Lord Samuels and Lady Rosamund were still in shock, unable to register any feelings at all except confusion and grief and fear.

  That was how Mosiah had felt at first, but the initial fear had been submerged in much greater fears, the shock had worn itself out. Now he felt only empty and sad—a feeling made worse whenever Joram looked at him. For Mosiah saw, reflected in the man’s eyes, his own sense of bitter loss. Neither could ever regain what they once had. For him, Joram had died when he stepped across that Border. Mosiah had lost his friend, never to find him again.

  Long minutes passed. The only sound intruding on the silence in milord’s study was Gwendolyn’s voice, rising and falling, wandering in and out like a playful child. The voice wasn’t disturbing. In an odd way, Mosiah considered it as much a part of the silence as the silence itself. If silence found a tongue and could speak, it would talk with her voice. And then, Gwen’s voice could no longer be heard. Unnoticed by Saryon, who was lost in a frightful dream of the past, she glided silently from the parlor.

  Now a waterclock, keeping track of the seconds, could be heard, its drip, drip of passing time causing tiny ripples to mar the surface of the silence. Outside, the snow changed to rain. Drumming dismally upon the roof, it thudded into the thick snow with dull, plopping splatters. A miniature avalanche of snow, loosened by the rain, slid off the roof with a rumbling, scraping sound, crashing down in the garden outside the window. So quiet was the room and so tense were those inside that this caused everyone to start, including the disciplined, unmoving Duuk-tsarith. Black hoods quivered, fingers twitched.

  At last, Joram spoke.

  “We have seventy-two hours,” he said, turning to face them, his voice firm, resolved. “Seventy-two hours to do to them what they intend to do to us.”

  “No, Joram!” Saryon rose from his chair “You can’t mean that?”

  “I assure you I do mean it, Father. It is our only hope,” Joram said coldly. His white robes, catching the light of the dying fire, gleamed faintly in the gray gloom of the room that was darkening with the coming of night. “We must destroy the enemy utterly, to the last man. There must be no one left alive to return to Beyond. Once we have wiped them out, we can repair the Border and seal ourselves off from the rest of the universe finally and forever.”

  “Yes!” said Garald decisively. “We’ll strike them swiftly, take them by surprise!”

  Walking to the desk, Joram bent over a map “Here’s where the enemy is located.” He pointed, tracing a route with his fingers. “We’ll bring in War Mast
ers from Zith-el here Centaurs and giants from the Outland. We can attack from these positions—” Impatiently, he glanced about. “I can’t see. We need light.

  Globes of flame burst into life, the Duuk-tsarith casting them into the air to dispel the shadows.

  “The Field Magi will fight!” Mosiah said eagerly, hurrying over to the table to join Joram and the Prince.

  “We’ll present this plan to the nobles at the meeting tonight.” The Prince hurriedly began rolling up the map. “Speaking of that, it’s time we were going.”

  “How soon can we be ready?”

  “Tomorrow night. Our people will be rested by then. We can strike tomorrow night.”

  “And we kill them all, every one! No survivors!”

  “I say, how jolly!” Simkin woke up. “I have just the ensemble. I call it Blood and Guts!”

  “May the Almin have mercy on their souls!” Prince Garald said coolly, motioning for the Duuk-tsarith to bring his sword and his cloak.

  “Almin have mercy!” Saryon’s hoarse cry startled them all Joram and Mosiah turned, Prince Garald looked around.

  “I beg your pardon, Father,” the Prince said apologetically, “I meant no sacrilege.”

  “Sacrilege? Don’t you fools see? How can you be so blind? There is no Almin! There will be no mercy! I couldn’t admit it to myself until now.” Saryon spoke feverishly his gaze not on them but abstracted, staring far away. “But I’ve known for a long, long time.

  “I knew it as I watched Vanya carry that tiny baby to its death. I knew it as I watched Joram step into Beyond. I knew it as I watched the endless mist day after day while they chopped at my flesh with their tools and broke my fingers, trying to take the weapon forged of darkness! I knew it as I watched the creatures of iron rumble across our world.”

  Saryon clasped his deformed hands together as if he would pray, but his twisted fingers turned the gesture into a pitiful mockery. “And now I hear you talk of more killing, of more slaughter. The Almin doesn’t exist! He doesn’t care! We have been left here alone to play this senseless game!”

  “Father!” Mosiah, appalled, hurried over to lay his hand remonstratingly on Saryon’s arm. “Don’t say such things!”

  Angrily Saryon shook himself free. “No Almin! No mercy!” he cried bitterly.

  A crash, sounding from another room, interrupted the catalyst’s tirade. A shout from the servants caused everyone—including the Duuk-tsarith—to run from the study to the dining room. Everyone, that is, except Simkin, who took advantage of the confusion to quickly and quietly disappear.

  “Gwendolyn!” Joram caught hold of his wife. “Are you all right? Father, come quickly! She’s hurt herself!”

  The china cabinet was in ruins, its wood shattered; the fragile porcelain and glass it contained were nothing but splintered fragments scattered about the floor. In the midst of the wreckage knelt Gwendolyn, holding a fragment of broken glass in her hand. Blood dripped from her fingers.

  “He’s sorry, he truly is,” Gwen said, looking around at them with her bright blue eyes. “But you’ve changed things so much, he doesn’t recognize his own home anymore.”

  5

  The Emperor’s Son

  The muttering of the crowd outside could be heard within the walls of Crystal Cathedral, an ocean of sound surging up from the street and breaking in rolling waves upon their transparent surface.

  Standing beside his chair, staring out at the hundreds of people who hovered in the rain-soaked twilight outside, Bishop Vanya’s right hand clenched in impotent fury. His left hand would have clenched as well, except that it hung limp at his side. Moodily Vanya reached over to massage the limb that refused to obey his commands, his eyes glaring at the crowd below with increasing frustration.

  “What do they want of me?” he demanded, turning his glare upon the Cardinal, who recoiled from the baleful gaze. “What do they expect me to do?”

  “Perhaps talk to them, say a few words…. Let them know the Almin is with them,” suggested the Cardinal in mollifying tones.

  The Bishop snorted, the explosive discharge so loud that it startled the Cardinal, already trembling with nervous dread. The Bishop was about to tell his minister what he thought of that idea when a hush fell over the people below, catching the attention of both men.

  “Now what?” Vanya muttered, turning to look back through the crystal wall, the Cardinal hurrying to his side. “See?” The Bishop snorted again. “What did I tell you?”

  Prince Garald had appeared above the crowd, riding upon a black swan. Accompanying him was Joram. At the first sight of the man in the white robes, a ripple of excitement ran through the multitude. The Bishop, pressed against the crystal wall, could hear their shouts.

  “Angel of Death!” he repeated bitterly. He glanced at his quaking minister. “You want me to tell them the Almin is with them, Cardinal? Hah! They are being led by the Prince of Sorcerers, the devil incarnate, allied with a Dead man! He is marching them straight to their doom! And they, not content to follow like sheep, rush toward it, hurling themselves off the cliff!”

  Pursing his lips angrily, the Bishop turned back to watch the scene outside his walls.

  Prince Garald, descending from the swan’s back, walked onto a marble platform that floated in the air above the heads of the crowd. Throwing back the hood of his cloak, he stood bareheaded in the rain, holding up his hands to call for silence. Joram followed more slowly. He appeared uneasy, standing on the platforms rain-slick surface so far above the ground.

  “Citizens of Thimhallan, listen to me!” Prince Garald cried.

  The crowds shouting ceased, but the silence that replaced it was an angry silence, almost louder than the noise preceding it.

  “I know,” Garald spoke to the silence. “I am your enemy. Say, rather, I WAS your enemy, for I am your enemy no longer!”

  Vanya muttered something at this.

  “Holiness?” asked the Cardinal, who didn’t catch it.

  The Bishop, attending closely to the Prince’s words that could just barely be heard through the crystal walls, motioned irritably for his minister to keep quiet.

  “You have all heard the rumors about the battle,” the Prince was saying. “You have heard about creatures of iron that can kill with a glance of their blazing eyes. You have heard of strange humans who carry death in their hands.”

  The silence remained unbroken, but there was a shifting and rustling in the crowd as each man glanced at his neighbor, nodding in confirmation.

  “It is all true,” Prince Garald continued in a low, grim voice. Low as it was, it could be heard quite plainly by the hushed crowd. It could be heard quite plainly by the Bishop and his Cardinal, standing in the Bishop’s chambers above them.

  “It is true!” Garald raised his voice. “It is also true that Emperor Xavier is dead.”

  Now the silence broke. The crowd cried out in anger, scowling and shaking their heads and occasionally their fists.

  “If you don’t believe me,” Prince Garald called out, “look up there and you will see the truth!” He pointed—not to heaven as some supposed at first, but to Bishop Vanya.

  Standing near the transparent wall, illuminated by the lights in his office, the Bishop was plainly visible to the crowd below Too late, he tried to move, but he could not. Although his left leg wasn’t paralyzed as was his arm, it was weak and he could not maneuver his great bulk about as easily as before. He could do nothing, therefore, except stand in his chambers, staring down at the people, his face contorted by an outer struggle to appear calm and an inner struggle with his fury. There was no mistaking the truth in the pallor of the man’s jowls, the sagging face, the writhing grimace of the mouth. The rain sliding down the wall made the Bishop appear as if he were melting. Glancing at one another, muttering, the people turned away from the Bishop to listen to the Prince.

  “An enemy is out there,” Prince Garald continued relentlessly, shouting above the growing restless voice of the crowd, “an en
emy more terrifying than you can imagine This enemy has penetrated the Border! It has come from Beyond, from the realm of Death! This enemy seeks to bring death to our world!”

  The crowd shouted loudly, drowning out the Prince’s words.

  Bishop Vanya shook his head, a sneer curled his lip. “There will be born to the Royal House one who is dead yet will live, who will die again and live again. And when he returns, he will hold in his hand the destruction of the world,” Vanya repeated softly. “Follow him, you fools. Follow him….”

  “We must join together against this enemy!” Garald cried out, and the crowd cheered. “I have been meeting with the nobles of your city-state. They have agreed with me. Will you fight?”

  “Aye, but who’ll lead us?”

  This voice came from the front of the crowd, spoken by a man dressed in the plain, shabby clothes of a Field Magus. He flew forward hesitantly, as though being shoved from behind. Snatching off a bedraggled hat, he held it awkwardly in his hand and appeared at first abashed to be standing before the Prince. But once there, hovering in the air in front of the platform, he straightened his shoulders, facing the Prince and the white-robed man with quiet dignity.

  At this moment, a young man who had been sitting—quiet and unobserved—on the back of the black swan rose into the air and came drifting down beside the Field Magus.

  “Prince Garald,” said the young man, “allow me to present my father.”

  “I am honored, sir,” the Prince said, bowing in his graceful manner. “Your son is a valiant warrior who fought the enemy at my side yesterday.”

  The Field Magus flushed in pleasure at hearing this praise of his boy, but it did not deter him from his purpose. Clearing his throat in embarrassment, he glanced around at his followers, then continued.