He realized that he and Carol were the center of attention—Sylvia, Jeffy, Ba, Glaeken—everyone but Nick was staring at them. He released Carol and showed his blanket-wrapped bundle to Glaeken.
"We got it. Those smallfolk you mentioned were there. They took the necklaces and gave us these in return."
Glaeken made no move to take the bundle. He pointed to the coffee table.
"Unwrap it and place it there, if you will."
Bill searched through the many folds of the blanket until his hand came in contact with cold metal. He wriggled it free and held it up.
Bill's gasp was echoed by the others in the room.
"A cross!" Carol said in hushed tones.
Yes. A tau cross, identical to the ones that studded the walls of the keep back in Rumania. But it was the colors that surprised him most. He'd expected something made of iron, a dull flat gray similar to the necklaces they had delivered to Haskins this morning. Not this. Not an upright of solid gold and a crosspiece of shining silver, reflecting the dancing light of the flames in the fireplace.
Bill tore his eyes away from its gleaming surface and looked at Glaeken.
"Is this it? A cross?"
Glaeken had stepped back, placing a section of the sofa between Bill and himself. He shook his head.
"Not a cross. But it is the source, the reason the cross is such an important symbol throughout the world. In truth it is merely the hilt of a sword."
Jack stepped forward, staring at the hilt. He ran his fingers over its surface.
"But what happened to the iron from the necklaces?"
"You're touching it," Glaeken said. "The small folk have a way with metals."
"I guess they do," Jack said. He began unwrapping his own, longer burden. "Then what's in here?"
"The rest of the instrument," Glaeken said. "Be careful. It may be sharp."
Another intake of breath across the room as the layers of blanket fell away to reveal a gleaming length of carved steel.
"The blade," Jack breathed.
The muscles in his forearm rippled as he held it by the butt spike and raised it in the air, turning it back and forth, letting the light leap and run across the runes carved along its length.
The blade was magnificent. The sight of it warmed one part of Bill and chilled another. Something alien and unsettling about those runes. He slipped his arm around Carol and held her closer.
He still held the hilt in his free hand. He'd noticed a deep slot in the center of its upper surface—a perfect receptacle for the blade's butt spike.
"Should we put them together?" he asked Glaeken.
The old man shook his head. "No. Not yet. Please place the hilt on the table."
As Bill complied, Jack lowered the blade.
"This too?"
"Drive that point first into the floor, if you will."
Jack shot him a questioning look, then shrugged. He upended the blade, grabbed the butt spike with both hands, and drove it through the carpet and deep into the hardwood floor beneath. It quivered and swayed a moment, then stood straight and still.
Glaeken turned to Sylvia. His eyes opaque, his expression grave.
"Mrs. Nash…it is time."
Sylvia stared at the gold and silver cross gleaming on the table not five feet in front of her and felt all her strength desert her in a rush.
Everything was happening—changing—too quickly. She'd gone to bed last night thinking she'd been freed of the burden of deciding. Jack had returned with only one necklace and it wasn't enough. The instrument could not be reassembled, Jeffy would not be called on to give up the Dat-tay-vao. She had been frightened, terrified of the near future, and ashamed at the relief she had felt at being spared the burden of risking her son's mind.
This morning she had awakened to find everything changed. Glaeken had both necklaces and the original plan was back in motion.
Sylvia had been preparing herself for this moment all day but she wasn't close to ready. How could she ever be ready for this?
She sensed Ba looming behind her and didn't have to look to know that whatever she decided he would be with her one hundred percent. But the rest of them…she glanced around the room. Carol, Bill, Jack, Glaeken—their eyes were intent upon her.
How could they ask her to do this? She'd already lost Alan. How could they ask her to risk Jeffy?
But they could. And they were. And considering all that was at stake, how could they not ask?
Jeffy, too, seemed to notice their stares. He drew his eyes away from the hilt—he'd been fixated on it since Bill had unwrapped it—and turned to Sylvia.
"Why are they all looking at us, Mom?" he whispered.
Sylvia tried to speak but no sound came out. She cleared her throat and tried again.
"They want you to do something, Jeffy."
He looked around at the expectant faces. "What?"
"They want you to—" She looked up at Glaeken. "What does he have to do?"
"Just touch it," Glaeken said. "That, is all it will take."
"They want you to touch that cross," she told Jeffy. "It will—"
"Oh, sure!"
Jeffy pulled away from her, eager to get his hands on the shiny object. Sylvia hauled him back.
"Wait, honey. You should know…it might hurt you."
"It didn't hurt that man," he said, pointing to Bill.
"True. But it will be different for you. The cross will take something from you, and after you lose that something you…you might not be the same."
He gave her a puzzled look.
"You may be like you were before, in the time you can't remember." How did you explain autism to a nine-year-old? "You didn't speak then; you barely knew your name. I…don't want you to be like that again."
His smile was bright, almost blinding. "Don't worry, Mommy. I'll be okay."
Sylvia wished she could share even a fraction of his confidence, but she had a dreadful feeling about this. Yet if she held him back, didn't let him near the hilt, then what had Alan died for? He'd gone to his death protecting Jeffy and her. How could she hold Jeffy back now and condemn him—condemn everyone—to a short life and a brutal death in a world of eternal darkness.
Yet the risk was Jeffy losing the light of intelligence in those eyes and living on as an autistic child.
Certain darkness without, a chance of darkness within.
What do I do?
She forced her hands to release him and she spoke before she had a chance to change her mind.
"Go, Jeffy. Do it. Touch it."
He lurched away from her, anxious to get to the bright metal thing on the table. He covered the distance in seconds, reached out and, without hesitation, curled his tiny fingers around the grip of the hilt.
For an instant his hand seemed to glow, then he cried out in a high-pitched voice. A violent shudder passed through him, then he was still.
What is that?
Something disturbs Rasalom. An aberrant ripple races across his consciousness, disrupting the seething perfection of the ambient fear and agony.
Something has happened.
Rasalom searches the upper reaches, sensing out the cause. There is only one possible place it could have originated—Glaeken's building.
And there he finds the source.
The weapon. Glaeken has managed to reassemble it. He has actually recharged it. That is what Rasalom felt.
But even now the sensation is fading.
Such hope concentrated in that room now, an unbearable amount. Yet exquisite misery is incipient there. How wonderful it will be to catch the falling flakes of that hope as it crystallizes in the cold blast of fear and terror when they realize they have failed utterly.
For it is too late for them. Far, far too late. This world is sealed away from Glaeken's ally force. Let him assemble a hundred such weapons, a thousand. It will not matter. The endless night is upon the world. A dark, impenetrable barrier. There can be no contact, no reunion of Glaeken with the oppo
sing force.
Let him try. Let his pathetic circle hope. It will make their final failure all the more painful.
There now. The disturbing ripple is gone, swallowed by the thick insulating layers of night that surround it like a shroud.
Rasalom returns to his repose and awaits the undawn.
"Jeffy?"
Her little boy stood stone still with his hand on the hilt, staring at it. Sylvia had jumped to her feet and rushed to his side at his cry of pain. Now she hovered over him, almost afraid to touch him.
"Jeffy, are you all right?"
He did not move, did not speak.
Sylvia felt a rime of fear crystallize along the chambers of her heart.
No! Please, God, no! Don't let this happen!
She grabbed him by the shoulders and twisted him toward her, caught his chin with her thumb and forefinger and turned it up. She stared into his eyes.
And his eyes…
"Jeffy!" she cried, barely able to keep her voice under control. "Jeffy, say something! Do you know who I am? Who am I, Jeffy? Who am I?"
Jeffy's gaze wandered off her face to a spot over her shoulder, held there for a few seconds, then drifted on. His eyes were empty. Empty.
She knew that face. She fought off the encroaching blackness that her mind hungered to escape to. She'd lived with that vacant expression for too many years not to know it now. Autism. Jeffy was back to the way he used to be.
"Oh, no!" Sylvia moaned as she slipped her arms around him and pulled him close. "Oh, no…oh, no…oh, no!"
This can't be! she thought, holding his unresisting, disinterested body tight against her. First Alan and now Jeffy…I can't lose them both! I can't!
She glared across the room at Glaeken who stood watching her with a stricken expression. She had never felt so lost, so alone, so utterly miserable in her life, and it was all his fault.
"Is this the way it has to be?" she cried. "Is this it? Am I to lose everything? Why? Why me? Why Jeffy?"
She gathered Jeffy up in her arms and carried him from the room, hurling one final question at Glaeken and everyone else there as she left.
"Why not you?"
The heaviness in Glaeken's chest grew as he stood at the far end of the living room and watched poor Sylvia flee with her relapsed child.
Because this is war, he thought in answer to her parting question. And every war exacts its price, on victors and vanquished alike.
Even in the unlikely event we win this, we will all be changed forever. None of us will come through unscathed.
That knowledge did not make him grieve any less for the loss of that poor boy's mind.
A single sob burst from Carol and echoed like a shot in the mortuary silence. Bill slipped his arms around her. Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. And Ba looked simply…lost. And tortured. Anything that hurt his mistress hurt him doubly. His pain-filled eyes reflected the war within—torn between following Sylvia or staying with the others.
"Please don't go yet, Ba," Glaeken said. "We may need you." He turned to the others. "We are ready."
"How can you be so cold?" Carol said.
"I am not immune to their torment," Glaeken told her. "I ache for that child, and even more for his mother. He may have lost his awareness and his ability to respond to the world around him, but he has lost his perspective as well—he doesn't know what he has lost. Sylvia does. She bears the pain for both of them. But there is no time to grieve. If the price the child has paid is to have meaning, we must take the final step."
"Okay," Jack said. "What do we do?"
"Put the hilt and the blade together."
"That's it? Then it's done?"
Glaeken nodded. "Then it is done."
"Then let's get to it."
Jack picked up the hilt, hefted it, and turned to the blade where it rose from the floor.
"Wait, Jack," Glaeken said. "There's something you should know."
The easiest thing would have been to allow Jack to ram the hilt onto the blade's butt spike and have done with it. But it was only fair to warn the man what he was getting into. Glaeken wished someone had warned him countless years ago before his own first encounter with the weapon.
But I was so reckless and headstrong then. Would it have made a difference?
Jack stood by the blade, waiting.
"When you join the two halves," Glaeken said, "you are, in a very real sense, joining yourself to the weapon and the force that fuels it. It's an intimate bond, permanent, one you will not be able to break no matter how much you desire to."
"Just by putting it together?" Jack said. "No spells or incantations or any of that stuff?"
"None of that stuff," Glaeken said, allowing himself a tiny smile. "Because that's just what it is—stuff. Show biz. This is the real thing."
He noticed that Jack seemed to have lost some of his enthusiasm for joining the hilt to the blade.
"You are free to choose to do so or not, Jack. Just as the weapon is free to decide who shall wield it."
"It has a say?"
"Of course. The Dat-tay-vao resides within it now. That is not an inert amalgam of metals you hold in your hand, it is very much alive—and sentient."
Jack's gaze dropped to the hilt, then rose again. Glaeken sensed the indecision there.
"What about you, Glaeken? Didn't this used to be yours? Shouldn't you be handling this?"
Glaeken fought the urge to back to the farthest corner of the room.
"No. This is not my age. I'm from another time, a long-dead time. This is your age. I saved mine. Someone from your time must save yours."
"One of ws?"
It was Bill. The ex-priest released his grip on Carol and approached Jack, hesitantly, as if Jack were holding a poisonous snake.
"Yes. You, Ba, Jack. Each of you qualifies, each of you has risked his life to bring us to this point. One of you is next."
Glaeken watched Jack. He could tell he would have liked nothing better than to hand the hilt to Bill, but his pride would not allow it. The hellish weight of machismo. Jack was burdened with an especially heavy load.
"All right," he said in a low voice. "Unless anyone objects, I'll go first."
Jack glanced around. No one objected. Shrugging, he hefted the hilt and stepped next to the blade. Glaeken was glad it was Jack first. He was almost certain Jack was the one. He had a warrior's heart. He was the perfect choice to wield the weapon.
Jack upended the hilt over the butt spike, then paused.
"What's going to happen?"
"Maybe nothing," Glaeken said. "It may be too late for anything to work. Rasalom may have us sealed off too completely for the signal to break through."
"But if it does work, how will I know?"
"Oh, you'll know," Glaeken said. "Believe me, you'll know."
Jack continued to stare at him questioningly.
Glaeken said, "For one thing, the blade and hilt will fuse. That will be your confirmation that the blade has accepted you."
And that will be the least of it, he thought, but said nothing. If you're the one Jack, there will be no doubt.
Jack nodded. Glaeken took a surreptitious step backward and looked away as Jack lined up the hole in the hilt over the butt spike, inhaled deeply, and rammed it home.
Nothing happened.
"Well," Jack said after a few heartbeats, "I don't feel any different." He pulled up on the hilt and it easily slipped free of the butt spike. "And neither does this thing. I guess I've been rejected."
Glaeken cursed softly under his breath. Jack would have been perfect. Why hadn't the instrument accepted him?
Jack glanced around the room.
"Ba—you want to give it a try?"
A good choice, Glaeken thought. Ba was the other warrior in the room. And he had a personal grudge against Rasalom—his friend Dr. Buhner had died and Jeffy had been harmed because of Rasalom. His righteous fury would further fuel the weapon.
The big Orie
ntal's expression remained calm but Glaeken sensed a tightening in the muscles of his throat. His nod was almost imperceptible.
Jack held up the hilt. "All yours, buddy."
As Ba stepped forward with no hint of hesitation, Glaeken noticed Sylvia slip back into the far corner of the room holding her listless Jeffy by the hand. She must have been listening, must have heard Ba's name called. She watched intently as Ba took the hilt from Jack and slipped it down over the spike.
Again—nothing.
Glaeken ground his teeth and hid his frustration. Not Jack, not Ba. Who?
Without a word, Ba removed the hilt and turned to Bill.
"Me?" Bill said.
Ba held it out to him.
"But I can't…I mean, I'm not…"
"But perhaps you are," Glaeken told him. "In a way, you've been Rasalom's nemesis since his rebirth—since before his rebirth. Is there anyone alive today—besides me—who Rasalom hates more? Anyone Rasalom has tried to harm so dreadfully? Is there anyone else from this age who has actually harmed Rasalom? No. Only you, Bill."
Yes. It was Bill. It had to be Bill. He was perfect—a holy man's soul and a warrior's heart. Bill had drawn first blood and had withstood the death, misery, and horror of Rasalom's vicious campaign to break him.
They were made to face off against each other.
Although at the moment Bill looked anything but the fearless standard bearer.
"Yeah," Jack said, smiling tightly. "It's you, Bill. I should've seen it."
Carol was clutching Bill's arm, but she let go as he moved forward. She stood back with her eyes fixed on the hilt and both hands pressed tight against her face, covering her mouth.
Slowly, hesitantly, Bill reached out with trembling hands and took the hilt from Ba.
"It can't be me," he said.
Ba stepped aside, clearing the path to the blade.
Like a sleepwalker, Bill shuffled to the blade, fitted the tip of the spike into the opening—and paused. He looked around.
"It's not me," he said. "I know it's not." But his hoarse voice lacked conviction.
Bill didn't shove the hilt down, he merely let it fall upon the spike. Once again, Glaeken averted his eyes…
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