Legacy of the Darksword

by Margaret Weis

  “The Duuk-tsarith,” Saryon murmured, perplexed. “I am to trust the Duuk-tsarith and so they send Mosiah, who is now one of them and who used to be a Technomancer. Technomancy. Life from death.”

  Then Saryon looked up. “Why me?” he asked. But he knew the answer, as well as I did.

  “Joram,” Mosiah replied. “They want Joram. Or perhaps I should say, they want the Darksword.”

  Saryon’s mouth twitched. I realized then the subtlety of my master, one might almost say cunning, if a man as gentle and honest could be accused of such a thing. Though he had not known the news Mosiah had imparted, Saryon had known from the outset that this was why Mosiah had come, and yet my master had not mentioned it. He had been stalling, gaining information. I regarded him in admiration.

  “I am sorry, Mosiah,” said Saryon, “but you and King Garald and this Kevon Smythe and apparently a great many other people have wasted your time. I cannot take you to Joram and Joram cannot give you the Darksword. The circumstances are all detailed in Reuven’s book.”

  Saryon shrugged. “The Darksword no longer exists. When Joram thrust the sword into the altar in the Temple , the sword was destroyed. Joram could not give you the sword if he wanted to.”

  Mosiah did not appear astonished or chagrined; nor did he rise to his feet and apologize for having disturbed us over nothing.

  “A Darksword exists, Father. Not the original. That, as you say, was destroyed. Joram has forged a new one. We know the truth of this, because an attempt was made to steal it.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  This is what the Duuk-tsarith are trained for—to be aware of everything going on around them, to be in control of everything, yet manage to keep themselves above and apart from it.

  FORGING THE DARKSWORD

  Saryon was angry. His hand clenched, his anger flickered in his eyes. “You had no right! If Joram did forge a new sword, it must have been because he felt threatened. Was King Garald behind this? His own law clearly forbids—”

  “What care do they have for the law?” Mosiah interrupted impatiently. “They know no laws but their own.”

  “They?”

  “The Technomancers. Don’t you understand yet, Father?” Slowly, Saryon’s hand unclenched. Fear replaced his anger. “Is Joram safe? He was supposed to send the boy to me to be educated. I’ve heard nothing and I feared—”

  “Joram is alive, Father,” Mosiah said, smiling slightly. “And he is well and so is Gwendolyn. As for Joram not sending his son to you, he did not do so because he and Gwen did not have a son. They have a daughter. His only child, she is precious in his sight. He is loath to send such a jewel to this world—and I can’t say that I blame him.” Mosiah sighed.

  “How do you know this?” Saryon demanded, his voice sharp. “You are spying on him!”

  “Protecting him, Father,” said Mosiah softly. “Protecting him. He doesn’t know of our watchfulness. He doesn’t suspect. How could he know, who has no magic Life within him? We are careful not to disturb him or his family. Unlike others.

  “Just recently, an arm of the Technomancers known as the D’karn-darah defied the law which prohibits any person from traveling to Thimhallan. They had read Reuven’s book”—he gave me a wry smile—”and they went to the altar at the Temple of the Necromancers to try to recover the Darksword. They found what one might have expected. As you know, Father, the altar itself was made of darkstone. The sword had fused with the stone.

  “The Technomancers used every device known to man to try to free the sword, from the most sophisticated laser cutting tools to old-fashioned blowtorches. They attempted to cut the altar itself into pieces, to haul it back to their laboratories. They did not even scratch its surface.”

  Saryon appeared relieved. “Good.” He nodded. “Excellent. Thank the Almin.”

  “Don’t be so quick to thank Him, yet, Father,” Mosiah said. “Failing to make a dent in the altar, the Technomancers went to Joram.”

  “They were wasting their time. He would have been furious,” Saryon predicted.

  Mosiah’s smile twisted. “He was furious. The Khandic Sages had never seen such fury. His anger astonished them, and they are not easily astonished. Kevon Smythe himself talked to Joram, though now Smythe denies that he did so. He thought to win Joram with his charm, but, as you know, Father, our friend is not easily charmed. Smythe offered Joram vast wealth, power, whatever he wanted in exchange for the location of raw darkstone and the secret of the forging of Darkswords.

  “Smythe barely escaped with his life. Joram threw Smythe— literally picked him up and threw him—out the door and warned him that the next time he returned he could count his life as nothing. By this time, the Border Patrol had arrived. You ask what took them so long? How the Technomancers evaded their defenses? Easily. Several of their own had managed to get themselves assigned to the duty. They shut down the alarm signals, permitted their brethren to cross the Border without notice.

  “When the Border Patrol arrived, they escorted Smythe and his followers off-planet. To our relief, the Technomancers lost interest in the Darksword after that. Their scientists studied the reports brought back from Thimhallan and made the determination that the original sword could never be removed from the altar and it was therefore useless to them. Without Joram’s assistance, and without permission to take teams of workers to Thimhallan—permission that would never be granted—the search for raw darkstone would be too difficult and too costly to undertake.

  “King Garald hoped that this incident would be an end of the Technomancers’ desire for the Darksword and it might have been, Father, except that Joram did a very foolish thing.”

  Saryon looked as pained and unhappy as if he himself had been responsible for Joram’s behavior. “He forged a new sword.”

  “Precisely. We are not certain how. Smythe’s visit had made Joram suspicious and paranoid—”

  “Made him feel as if he were being watched,” Saryon interrupted.

  Mosiah paused a moment, then slightly smiled. “I have never known you to be sarcastic, Father. Very well. I grant that Joram had some basis for his feelings. But if he had only gone to King Garald or General Boris instead of trying to fight the whole world all by himself!”

  “Battling life alone was always Joram’s way,” Saryon said, and his voice was filled with affectionate sorrow and understanding. “His blood is that of Emperors. He comes from a long line of rulers who held the fate of nations in their hands. To ask for help would be a sign of weakness. You recall the effort it took him to ask me to help him create the Darksword. He was—”

  Saryon paused. I had been wondering when this would occur to him.

  “Joram could not have forged a Darksword,” he said excitedly. “Not without a catalyst. I drew Life from the world, gave Life to the Darksword, which in turn used that Life to drain Life from those who possessed it.”

  “He didn’t need you to forge the sword itself, Father. He only needed you to enhance its abilities.”

  “But without a catalyst to do that, the sword is no more dangerous than any other sword. Why would the Technomancers still want it?”

  “Consider the number of catalysts among our people, Father. Catalysts living in poverty in the relocation camps, who would be more than willing to exchange their gifts for the promise of wealth and power from the Technomancers. Though the corrupt Bishop Vanya is now dead, his legacy lives on among some of his followers.”

  “Yes, I can see how that could be true,” said Saryon sadly. “How did Joram manage to escape the watchful eye of the Duuk-tsarith long enough to forge the sword?”

  Mosiah shrugged and spread his hands. “Who knows? Such a feat would be relatively simple, especially if he had an amulet made of darkstone. Or, for all we know, he forged this sword years ago, before we began to keep watch. None of that matters now, however. We attempted to keep word of this new Darksword secret, but the Technomancers found out. Their interest has been rekindled.”

  “Are
Joram and his family in danger?” Saryon asked anxiously.

  “Not for the moment, mainly because of the efforts of the Duuk-tsarith. Ironic, isn’t it, Father. Those who once sought Joram’s death now risk death themselves to guard his life.”

  “You?” Saryon asked. “You’re risking death?”

  “Yes,” Mosiah replied, very calmly. He gestured around the darkened room. “Thus the reason for these precautions. The T’kon-Duuk are eager to get their hands on me. I know too many of their secrets, you see, Father. I am a great danger to them. I have come to warn you of them, of the techniques they will try to use to persuade you to take them with you to Joram—”

  Saryon raised a hand to halt the flow of words. Mosiah ceased speaking instantly, with a quiet respect for the elderly catalyst which did much to increase his favor with me. I could never trust him completely, not while he wore the black robes of the Enforcers. The Duuk-tsarith never worked for just one end. They worked for several and sought to gain the middle into the bargain.

  “I will not go,” Saryon said firmly. “Have no fear of that. I would be of no use. I don’t know what you or they or anyone else thinks I could do.”

  “Joram respects and trusts you, Father. Your influence with him is—” Mosiah broke off.

  He was staring at me. They were both staring at me. I had made a noise. It must, I realize, have sounded very strange—a guttural sort of croak in my throat. I made a signal to my master.

  “Reuven says that there is something out there,” Saryon said.

  The words had not yet left Saryon’s lips before Mosiah was standing next to me. This sudden movement of his was at least as startling as the apparition I thought I had seen outside the window. One moment he was across the room from me, sitting in the darkened hallway, and the next instant he was by my side, peering out the window. In his fluid, silent motion, he was one with the shadows. Imagine my astonishment when, glancing back at my master to be certain he was all right, I caught a glimpse of Mosiah, seated in his chair!

  I realized, then, that the Enforcer next to me was insubstantial. Mosiah’s shadow, so to speak, had been sent on an errand by its master.

  “What did you see? Tell me! Immediately!” he demanded. The words blazed in my mind.

  I signaled with my hands. Saryon translated.

  “Reuven says he thinks he saw a person dressed all in silver—”

  Mosiah—the Mosiah seated in the chair—was on his feet. His shadow had returned to its body.

  “They are here,” he said. “The D’karn-darah. Blood-doom knights. Either they followed me or they have come for their own reasons. I fear it is the latter. You are not safe here, either of you. You must come with me. Now!”

  “We’re not dressed!” Saryon protested.

  It must be a very real and present danger which sends an elderly man dashing out into the cold winter night clad only in his nightshirt and bedslippers.

  “You don’t need to be,” Mosiah replied. “Your bodies aren’t going anywhere, except to bed. Follow my instructions exactly. Father, remain where you are. Reuven, go upstairs to your room and climb into your bed.”

  I was not happy at the thought of leaving my master, though what I could have done against the power of the Duuk-tsarith was open to question. Saryon indicated with a nod that we were to obey Mosiah and that is what I did. I urged Mosiah to care for my master and left to go upstairs to my small room.

  Saryon always waited until he heard me in the bedroom, which was on the level above his, before turning out the downstairs light. Tonight was the exception since his light was already off. As I have said, it was usually my practice to spend some time writing, but—acting on Mosiah’s orders—I abandoned this custom and retired immediately to my bed. I turned out my light and the house was dark.

  Lying alone in the darkness, I began to be afraid. It is easy to frighten oneself at this time of night. I recalled childhood terrors of monsters lurking in the closet. The fear I experienced could not be banished by a flashlight, however. I wondered why I was experiencing this feeling of dread and I realized it was because I felt Mosiah’s fear.

  Whatever is out there in the night must be terrible, I thought, to have frightened someone as powerful as the Duuk-tsarith.

  I lay in my bed, ears stretched to catch every sound. The night had its usual noises, I suppose, but they were all alarming to me, who had never before paid them much heed. The bark of a dog, the whine and snarl of fighting cats, a lone automobile traveling up the street. I invested these with such sinister meanings that when Mosiah’s words again lit up my mind, I was so startled that my shudder shook the bed frame.

  “Come to me,” said Mosiah. “Not your body. Leave that behind. Let your soul rise from its shell and walk with me.”

  I had no idea what the man was talking about.

  I think I would have laughed—in fact, I am afraid that I did giggle, perhaps from nervous tension—except that I felt his dire urgency. Bewildered, I lay in my bed, wondering what I was supposed to do, wondering if my master knew what to do. Mosiah—or perhaps I should say the “shadow” of Mosiah—took form in the darkness, standing at the foot of the bed.

  He held out his hand to me. “It is quite simple,” he said. “You are coming with me. Your body is staying behind. My body is downstairs right now. Yet here I stand before you. Picture yourself rising up out of bed and walking with me. You are a writer. You must have traveled like this in your imagination many times. When I read your description of Merilon, I could see it again in my mind, it was so vivid. You are a professional day-dreamer, one might say. Simply concentrate a little bit more.”

  And when I did not immediately move, Mosiah’s tone sharpened. “Saryon will not leave without you. You are putting him in danger.”

  He knew that would rouse me. It would have roused me from my grave. I closed my eyes and imagined myself rising up from my bed and joining Mosiah. At first, nothing happened. I was in such a flutter of excitement and fear that it was difficult to concentrate.

  “Relax,” Mosiah said softly, hypnotically. “Relax and slough off the heaviness of the body that weighs you down.”

  His words no longer burned in my mind, but seemed to flow through it like running water. I found myself relaxing, letting the water run over me. My body did, in fact, feel very heavy, so heavy that I knew I could not lift it. And yet, there was the imperative that I bad to leave!

  I stood up and I walked over to join Mosiah. When I looked back, I was not surprised to see the heavy body still lying in the bed, slumbering soundly, to all appearances.

  My fears were forgotten in my wonder and awe.

  I started to move toward the door, thinking to go through it and down the stairs to my master’s bedroom, as I was accustomed, but Mosiah stopped me.

  “You are no longer constrained by physical barriers, Reuven. A thought will take you to Saryon.”

  And he spoke truly. The moment I thought about being with my master, I was there beside him. At the sight of me, Saryon smiled and nodded and then, hesitantly, as if having to relearn skills long forgotten, his soul left his body.

  I was not surprised to see his spirit suffused with a soft radiant white glow; a distinct contrast to Mosiah, whose spirit seemed cloaked with the same black robes his body wore.

  My master was pained by this, as I could tell. And so could Mosiah.

  “Once—you remember, Father—my soul was bright and crystal clear as Reuven’s. The dark and terrible things I have seen since have left their mark upon me. But we must hurry. They will wait only until they think you are asleep. Don’t be afraid, I will not let them harm either of you.”

  Mosiah’s soul slid back into its body. He spoke a word, reached out with his hand as if to some invisible door, pushed on nothing, and walked inside.

  “Hurry!” he commanded. “Follow me.”

  The mind thinks of the strangest things at the most inappropriate times. I remembered, suddenly, a television cartoon I had seen a
s a child, in which the character—perhaps a rabbit, I’m not certain—is being chased through the forest by a hunter with a gun. The rabbit is cornered, apparently, until he opens a hole in the cartoon, crawls inside, and pulls the hole in after him, leaving the hunter extremely befuddled.

  Mosiah had done the very same thing. He had opened a hole in our bedroom and was urging us to crawl inside!

  Saryon, having lived for many, many years in the magical world of Thimhallan, was much more accustomed to such arcane manifestations than I was. He immediately entered the hole, then beckoned to me to follow. I started to cross the room, remembered that I didn’t have to rely on my feet, and wished myself at my master’s side.

  I was in the hole. The hole closed behind me and formed a bubble around us, holding us suspended in the air, floating somewhere near the ceiling of Saryon’s bedroom.

  “A Corridor?” Saryon asked, amazed. “Here on Earth?”

  I must mention, by the way, that we did not speak, but communicated mind to mind. And it occurred to me that, in this spirit realm, I was no longer mute. I could talk and be heard. The knowledge filled me with such trembling joy and terrible confusion that I was immediately rendered more silent than I had ever been in the physical realm.

  “Not as you mean it, Father. Not a Corridor in time and space such as we had on Thimhallan,” Mosiah replied. “That skill has been lost to us, and we have not regained it. But we do have the ability to slip inside one of time’s folds.”

  I must try to explain the sensation of being hidden in a “fold” of time, as Mosiah called it. The only way I can put this is to say that it was very much like hiding behind the folds of a heavy curtain. And, in fact, I began to feel an almost smothering constraint upon me, which is caused by, so I learned later, the knowledge that time was passing for my body and I—the spirit— was standing still.

  The sensation is not as bad, I understand, for those who enter the fold with both mind and body, for one has only to step out again to be caught up in time’s flow. But, despite the fact that my body was slumbering, I began to feel a panic inside me akin to that felt by someone fearing he may miss the last train home. The train—i.e., my body—was moving on ahead, and I was running frantically to catch up. I think I would have attempted to escape, then and there, but I would not leave Saryon.