Legacy of the Darksword

by Margaret Weis

  I found out later that he felt the same, but that he would not leave because of me. We laughed over that, but our laughter was hollow.

  “Shh, hush! Look!” Mosiah cautioned.

  He did not silence us so that we would not be heard—for that was not possible, not even for the D’karn-darah. He silenced us that we might hear them. What we heard and what we saw chilled us.

  Though we could move through physical barriers, we could not see through them. Trapped inside time’s fold, we could not move to another part of the house or see what was transpiring in any other part of the house except Saryon’s bedroom. My hearing is acute, however, and the nervous tension I was under accentuated it. I heard a slight clicking sound, which was our front-door lock giving way. The creak of the door’s hinges (which Saryon had been asking me to oil) meant that the front door was being stealthily opened. At the same time I heard the snick of the lock of the back door, heard the door itself scrape across the mud rug which we had placed at the entrance.

  Whoever had been out there had entered the house by the front and by the back. But try as I might, I could not hear them moving at all through the front part of the house. One of them was in the bedroom before I was fully aware of his coming.

  He was clad all in paper-thin silver robes that clung to his body and crackled faintly as he moved, occasionally emitting tiny blue sparks, like the fur of a cat in the darkness. His face was plastered with the same paper-thin silver, so that only the outline of features—a nose and mouth—were visible. Silver fabric covered his hands and feet like a second skin.

  He stood in the bedroom and Mosiah, with a whispered thought, called our attention to a strange phenomenon. The machines in the bedroom knew the D’karn-darah was there. The machines responded to his coming.

  The machines’ response was not overt or dramatic. I would not have noticed it, except for Mosiah’s mention. The bedroom’s overhead light, which had, of course, been turned off, flickered on. A faint hum of music came from the compact-disc player. The reading lamp gave a feeble gleam.

  The D’karn-darah ignored all this and went immediately to Saryon’s body, which continued to sleep soundly. He put out a silver-covered hand and shook the catalyst by the shoulder.

  “Saryon!” he said loudly.

  Beside me, I could feel Saryon’s spirit shiver. I was thankful, then, for Mosiah’s arrival and his timely warning. If my master had been wakened in the night and seen such a horrific sight bending over him, he might never have recovered from the shock.

  At that moment I heard a female voice say “Reuven!” loudly. I felt a slight brushing sensation across my shoulder. Then I knew that the second person, the one who had entered by the back door, had gone to my room. She was standing over my body.

  The D’karn-darah shook Saryon again, more forcibly, turning the sleeping body over in the bed. “Saryon!” the man repeated, and his voice was harsh.

  I trembled, for I was afraid he would do Saryon some harm. Mosiah again reassured both of us.

  “They will not hurt you,” he repeated. “They do not dare. They know you may be of use to them.”

  The one who had been in my room now appeared in Saryon’s bedchamber.

  “Same thing?” she asked.

  “Yes,” answered the D’karn-darah who stood beside my master. “Their souls have fled. They were alerted to our coming.”

  “Duuk-tsarith.”

  “Of course. Undoubtedly the one named Mosiah, that Enforcer who was once the catalyst’s friend.”

  “You were right, then. You said we would find him here.”

  “He has been here. He is probably still here, hiding in one of their cursed time folds, no doubt. And the other two are probably with him right now. Very possibly”—the man’s silver faceless face turned and gazed around the bedroom—”they are listening to us at this moment.”

  “Then it is simple. Torture the body. Pain will cause their spirits to return. They will be only too glad, after a while, to tell us where to find the Enforcer.”

  The female D’karn-darah raised her hand, and where before had been five fingers were now five long steel needles. Electricity began to arc from one to another. She reached the hand with the horribly crackling needles toward Saryon’s defenseless form.

  Her partner halted her, his own hand closing around her wrist.

  “The Khandic Sages will be here tomorrow, working their own methods of persuasion. They would know that we had been here and they would not be pleased.”

  “They know that we are hunting this Enforcer. They want him as much as we do.”

  “Yes, but they want this catalyst more.” The D’karn-darah sounded irritated. “Very well, we will leave him to them. A pity we could not have arrived a few moments sooner. We would have been able to capture the Duuk-tsarith. As it is, our meeting is only delayed, Enforcer!” He spoke to the air. “And, you, Catalyst.” The silver face turned toward the figure in the bed. “I leave this, my … business card.”

  He opened the palm of his gloved hand, reached into his other palm, gave a twist, freeing some object—I could not see what. He tossed that object onto the bed, at the feet of Saryon’s slumbering figure. Then the two of them left the bedroom, left the house by the back door.

  At their departure, the machines in the house returned to normal. The lights went off, the CD player ceased to play.

  We waited, hidden, for some time, to make certain the D’karn-darah were gone and that this was no trick to lure us out of hiding. When Mosiah permitted us to return, my spirit drifted back to find my body. I looked down upon myself.

  This was much different than looking into a mirror, for the mirror shows us what we see every day, what we have grown accustomed to seeing. Before now, I had never seen myself with such clarity. And though I was eager to return to Saryon and had questions to ask of Mosiah, I was so entranced by this ability to see myself as a casual observer might see me that I took a few moments to do just that.

  Physical attributes I knew well. The mirror shows us these. Fair hair, worn long, that someone in my childhood once called “corn silk.” Brown eyes beneath eyebrows that I did not like. They were thick and dark brown, in stark contrast to my fair hair, and gave me a grave and overly serious aspect. The features of my face tended to be sharp, with prominent cheekbones and a nose that was called aquiline. It would grow beaky as I aged.

  Being young, my body was lithe, although certainly not strong. Exercise of the mind suited me far better than running very fast on a machine that took me nowhere. Yet now I looked at those thin hands and spindly arms with disfavor. If Saryon was in danger, how could I defend him?

  I found that I did not have the leisure to spend long on this inspection. The nearer my spirit drew to my body, the more it longed to return, and I had the impression that I dove down to my body from a great height. I awoke, shaking, stomach clenching, as one does from a falling dream. And I have wondered, ever since, if perhaps those dreams aren’t really the first tentative journeys our spirits make.

  I sat up in my bed, shaking off the feelings of sleep that clung to my body. Hurriedly grabbing my robe, I wrapped it around myself, and switching on the hall light, hastened down the stairs. Light came from Saryon’s bedroom. I found my master, looking as groggy as I felt, staring at the object which the D’karn-darah had left upon the blanket.

  “It will not harm you,” Mosiah was saying as I entered. “You may pick it up, if you like.”

  “I will do so, sir,” I signed, and swooped down upon the object, gathering it into my hand before Saryon could touch it.

  Mosiah watched me with a slight smile, which was, I think, approving. Saryon just shook his head with fond exasperation.

  When I was certain that the object was benign, not likely to explode or burst into flame or—I don’t know what I’d expected exactly—I opened my hand and held it out. Saryon and I peered down on it wonderingly.

  “What is it?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Death
,” said Mosiah.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Like a Living being, the sword sucked the magic from him, drained him. dry, then used him to continue to absorb magic from all around it.

  FORGING THE DARKSWORD

  “Death!” Saryon tried to snatch the object from me, but I was too quick for him. I clasped my hand over it tightly.

  “I do not mean for any of us, here and now,” Mosiah said. His voice held a note of gentle rebuke. “I would not have allowed this to remain in this room if it had been dangerous.”

  Saryon and I exchanged glances, both considerably ashamed.

  “Of course, Mosiah,” Saryon said. “Forgive me—forgive us—for not trusting you… . It’s just … it has all been so strange… . Those dreadful people… .” He shivered and drew his robe closer around his tall, spare form.

  “Who were they?” I gestured. “And what is this?”

  I opened my palm. In it lay a round medallion about two inches in diameter made of very hard, heavy plastic. The medallion had what appeared to be a sort of magnet on the back. One side was clear. I could see inside and what I saw was very strange. Encased in the medallion was some sort of bluish-green, thick, and viscous sludge. As I held the medallion in my hand the sludge began undulating, surging against the sides of the medallion, as if it were trying to escape. It was not a pleasant sight and made me feel queasy to watch it.

  I was loath to hold on to the medallion longer and I fidgeted with it in my hand.

  “It … it looks as if it’s alive!” Saryon said, frowning in disgust.

  “They are,” Mosiah answered. “Or rather they were. Most are already dead, which is why the D’karn-darah gave this up. The rest will be dead shortly.”

  “The rest of what! What’s trapped in there?” Saryon was horrified and looked about vaguely, as if for something he could use to crack the medallion open.

  “I will explain in a moment. I am first going to remove the listening devices which the D’karn-darah placed in your living room and in the phone. They made their presence known. There is no longer any reason to keep up the pretense.”

  He left the room, returned a moment later. “There. Now we may speak freely.”

  I handed over the medallion, thankful to be rid of it.

  “A very elemental organism,” Mosiah said, holding it to the light. “A sort of organic soup, if you will. Single-celled creatures, who are born and bred by the Technomancers for one purpose— to die.”

  “How terrible!” said Saryon, shocked.

  “But not much different from calves,” I pointed out, “who are born only to become veal.”

  “Perhaps,” Saryon said with a smile and a shake of his head.

  The only disagreements—I can’t even call them arguments— he and I have ever had have been over the fact that I am a vegetarian, while he enjoys a bit of chicken or beef on occasion. Early in my arrival, I made the attempt—in my zeal—to convert him to my way of thinking. I made life very unhappy for us both, I am sorry to say, until we reached an agreement to respect each other’s opinions. He now views my bean curd with equanimity and I no longer stage a protest over a hamburger.

  “The living always feed off the dead,” said Mosiah. “The hawk kills the mouse. Big fish eat their smaller cousins. The rabbit kills the dandelion it devours, if it comes to that. The dandelion feeds off the nutrients in the soil, nutrients which come from the decomposing bodies of other plants and animals. Life thrives on death. Such is the cycle.”

  Saryon was quite struck by this. “I never looked at it that way.”

  “Nor have I,” I signed, thoughtful.

  “The Dark Cultists have, for generations,” Mosiah continued. “They carried their beliefs one step further. If death was the basis for life—”

  “Then Death would be the basis for Life!” Saryon said, suddenly understanding.

  It took me a moment longer to understand, mainly because I did not, at the time, hear the capital letters in his words.

  Of course, when he spoke of Life, he was referring to magic, for the people of Thimhallan believe that magic is Life and that those born without the ability to use magic are Dead. And that, one might say, was the beginning of the story of Joram and the Darksword.

  The magic—or Life—is present in all things living. The dandelion possesses its tiny share, as do the rabbit and the hawk, the fish, and we humans ourselves. In very ancient times certain people discovered how to take the Life from things around them and used it to perform what others considered miracles. They termed such miracles “magic” and those who could not use the magic feared and distrusted it immensely. Wizards and witches were persecuted and slain.

  “But who are the Dark Cultists?” Saryon asked.

  “Recall your history lessons, Father,” Mosiah said. “Recall how the magi of ancient times came together and determined to leave Earth and find another world—a world where magic could flourish and grow, not wither and die as it was bound to do on this one.

  “Recall how Merlyn, the greatest of us all, led his people into the stars and how he founded the new world, Thimhallan, where magic was concentrated, trapped, so that it seemed to have disappeared from Earth completely.”

  “ ‘Seemed to have’?” Saryon repeated.

  “Excuse me,” I signed, “but if we are going to stay up for the rest of the night, may I suggest that we move to the kitchen? I’ll turn up the heat and make tea for everyone.”

  We had been standing, shivering—at least Saryon and I were shivering—in Saryon’s bedroom. He looked haggard and weary, but neither he nor I could sleep now, after so many astounding and puzzling events.

  “That is,” I added, “unless you think those terrible beings will return.”

  Saryon translated my gestures, but I had the feeling that wasn’t necessary. Mosiah understood me—either my thoughts or the sign language.

  “The D’karn-darah will not come back this night,” Mosiah said with confidence. “They thought to ambush me, to take me by surprise. They know now that I am aware of them. They will not face me in direct battle. They would be forced to kill me and they do not want my death. They want to capture me—they must capture me—alive.”

  “Why?” Saryon asked.

  “Because I infiltrated their organization. I am the only disciple of the blood-doom knights to have ever escaped their clutches alive. I know their secrets. The D’karn-darah want to find out how much I know and, most importantly, who else knows. They hope, by capturing me, that I will tell them. They are wrong,” he said simply, but with firm conviction. “I would die first.”

  “Let us have some tea,” Saryon said quietly.

  He put his hand on Mosiah’s arm, and I knew now that my master trusted this man implicitly. I wanted to, but it was all so strange. It was hard for me to trust my own senses, let alone trust another person. Had what happened really happened? Had I truly left my body? Had I hidden away in a fold of time?

  I filled the teakettle with water, put it on the burner, brought out the teapot and cups. Mosiah sat at the table. He declined to have tea. He held, in his hand, the medallion. None of us spoke, the entire time we waited for the water to boil, the tea to steep. When, at last, I poured my master’s tea, I had begun to believe.

  “Start at the beginning,” said Saryon.

  “Do you mind,” I indicated, “if I take notes?”

  Saryon frowned and shook his head, but Mosiah said he did not mind and that our experiences might, someday, make an interesting book. He only hoped people would still be left alive on Earth to read it.

  I retrieved my small computer from my bedroom, and seated with the computer in my lap, I wrote down his words.

  “The Dark Cultists have existed down through time, although we, in Thimhallan, had no record of them. What we knew as the Council of Nine on Thimhallan, representing the nine magical arts, was once the Council of Thirteen here on Earth. At that time the Council believed that all magi should be represented, even those who held
diverse ethical views, and so those who practiced the dark side of magic were included. Perhaps some of the more naive members hoped to turn their brothers and sisters who walked in the shadows back to the light. If so, they did not succeed and, in fact, they incorporated their own eventual downfall.

  “It was the Dark Cultists who poisoned the mundane of Earth against magi. Life did not come from life, for them. Life—or magic—came from death. They engaged in human and animal sacrifice, believing that the deaths of others enhanced their power. Cruel and selfish, they used their arcane arts only to indulge themselves, to further their own ambition, to enslave and seduce, to destroy.

  “The mundane fought back. They held witch trials, inquisitions. Magi were rounded up, tortured until they confessed, and were burned or hanged or drowned. Among these were many members of the Council who had used their magic for good, not evil. Shocked and saddened by their losses, the Council of Thirteen met to consider what to do.

  “The Four Dark Cults—the Cult of the White Steed, the Black Steed, the Red Steed, and the Pale Steed—all advocated war and conquest. They would rise up and destroy those who opposed them, enslaving all who survived. The Nine Cults of Light refused even to consider this option. Furious, the Four members stormed out of the meeting. In their absence, the other members made their decision. They would leave Earth forever. Realizing now the danger the Dark Cultists represented to their order, the Council took care that the Dark Cultists were excluded from all their plans.

  “In A.D. 1600, when Merlyn and the Council of Nine left this world, the Dark Cultists found out about the exodus, but—so well kept was the secret—they were too late either to impede the exodus or to force their way along. They were left behind on Earth.

  “At first, they welcomed the change, for the Council of Nine had long curtailed the activities of the Dark Cultists. They saw themselves as rulers of the people of Earth and so they set out to advance their goals. But during this time on Thimhallan, Merlyn established the Well of the World, which drew magic from Earth and concentrated it within the boundaries of Thimhallan. The Dark Cultists found themselves bereft of their magical power.