I jerked back on the wheel, pulled up the nose. At the same time I inadvertently increased the power and we soared up and jumped forward, the sudden thrust nearly snapping our necks in the process.
“Almin save us!” Saryon gasped.
“Amen to that, Father,” came a sepulchral voice.
Saryon stared at me and I think it was in his mind that perhaps the whiplash had miraculously restored my speech. I shook my head emphatically and motioned with my chin—my hands were gripping the wheel so tightly that I dared not let go—that the voice had come from the backseat.
Twisting around, Saryon stared.
“I know that voice,” he muttered. “But it can’t be!”
I don’t know what I expected—the Duuk-tsarith, I suppose. Not completely certain how to stop the air car, I kept driving and at last managed to stabilize it. I cast a quick look in the rearview mirror.
There was no one in the backseat.
“Ouch! I say!” The voice had a peevish quality to it now. “This great smelly green bag has fallen on top of me. I’m being frightfully dented.”
Saryon was searching wildly around the backseat and was now groping about with his hands. “Where? What?”
I managed at last to halt the air car. I kept the jets on, and we remained floating in the air. Reaching back, I shoved aside the knapsack.
“Thanks awfully,” said the leather scrip.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Let me be your fool, sire. You need one, I assure you.”
“Why, idiot?” asked Joram, the half smile in his dark eyes.
“Because only a fool dares tell you the truth,” said Simkin.
FORGING THE DARKSWORD
“Simkin!” Saryon gulped, swallowed. “Is that you? “In the flesh. Leather, actually,” replied the scrip. “You can’t be,” Saryon said and he sounded shaken. “You’re … you’re dead. I saw your corpse.”
“Never buried,” the scrip returned. “Grave mistake. Speaking of stakes, one through the heart. That or silver bullet or sprig of holly in the heel. But everyone was so busy those last few days, destroying the world and so forth, I can see how I came to be overlooked.”
“Stop the nonsense.” Saryon was stern. “If it is you, change into yourself. Your human self, that is. I find this very disconcerting. Talking to a … a leather scrip!”
“Ah, bit of a problem.” The scrip wriggled, its leather ties curled in upon themselves in what might have been embarrassment. “I don’t seem to be able to do that anymore. Become human. Rather lost the knack. Death takes a lot out of a fellow, you know, as I was saying just the other day to my dear friend Mer-lyn. You remember Merlyn? Founder of Merilon? Adequate wizard, though not as good as some would have you believe. His fame due entirely to his press agent, of course. And spelling his name with a y, I mean—how pretentious! But then anyone who goes around dressed in a blue-and-white star-spangled bathrobe—”
“I insist.” Saryon was firm, ignoring the desperate attempt to change the subject. He reached out his hand for the leather scrip. “Now. Or I shall toss you out the window.”
“You won’t get rid of me that easily!” said the scrip coolly. “I’m coming with you, no matter what. You can’t imagine how boring it has been! No amusement, absolutely none. Toss me out,” the scrip warned as Saryon’s hand drew nearer, “and I’ll change into an engine part on this simply fascinating vehicle. And I know very little about engine parts,” he added, as an afterthought.
Recovering from the initial shock of hearing what I considered to be an inanimate object speaking, I was regarding Simkin with a great deal of interest. Of all those whose stories I had written, those concerning Simkin intrigued me the most. Saryon and I had argued in friendly fashion over just exactly what Simkin was.
I maintained that he was a wizard of Thimhallan with extraordinary powers—a prodigy, a genius of magic, like Mozart was a genius of music. Add to this a chaotic nature, an addictive lust for adventure and excitement and a self-centered, shallow personality, and you have a man who would betray his friends at the drop of an orange silk scarf.
Saryon admitted that all this was true and that I was probably right; still, he had reservations.
“There are things about Simkin that your theory doesn’t resolve,” Saryon had once said. “I think he is old, very old, perhaps as old as Thimhallan itself. No, I can’t prove it. Just a feeling I have, from things he’s mentioned. And I know for a fact, Reuven, that the magic he performed is not possible. It is simply, mathematically, not possible. It would take far more Life than a hundred catalysts could give for him to transform himself into a teapot or a bucket. And Simkin could perform this magic, as you say, at the drop of his orange silk scarf! He died when Technology invaded the realm.”
“What do you think he is, then?” I had asked. Saryon had smiled and shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.” My master was about to pick up the scrip. “I’m warning you!” Simkin told us. “Carburetor! I have no notion what one is or what it does, but the name attracts me. I will become Carburetor if you so much as lay a finger—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to throw you out,” Saryon said mildly. “On the contrary, I’m going to carry you safely—where I would normally carry my scrip. Around my waist. Beneath my robes. Next to my skin.”
The scrip vanished so suddenly that I found myself doubting my senses, wondering if I had actually seen (and heard) it. In its place, in the backseat of the air car, was the pale and ephemeral-looking image of a young man.
He was not ghostlike. Ghosts, from what I’ve read about them, are more substantial. It is difficult to describe, but imagine someone taking watercolors, painting the figure of Simkin, then pouring water over it. Ethereal, transparent, he faded into the background and would not have been noticed if you weren’t already looking for him. The only bright spot of color anywhere about him was a wisp of defiant orange.
“You see what I’ve become!” Simkin was doleful. “A mere shadow of my former self. And who is your silent friend here, Father? Cat got his tongue? I recall the Earl of Marchbank. Cat got his tongue, once. Earl ate tuna for lunch. Fell asleep, mouth open. Cat enters room, smells tuna. Ghastly sight.”
“Reuven is mu—” Saryon began.
“Let him speak for himself, Father,” Simkin interrupted.
“Mute,” Saryon resumed. “He is mute. He can’t speak.”
“Saves his breath to cool his porridge, eh? Must eat a considerable amount of cold porridge. This finger-wiggling. Means something, I presume?”
“It is sign language. That is how he communicates. One way,” Saryon amended.
“How jolly,” said Simkin, with a yawn. “I say! Could we get a move on? Nice to see you again and all that, Father, but you were always a bit of a bore. I’m quite looking forward to talking to Joram again. Been ages. Simply ages.”
“You haven’t seen Joram? All this time?” Saryon was skeptical.
“Well, there’s ‘seen’ and then there’s ‘seen,’ “ Simkin said evasively. “ ‘Seen’ from a distance, ‘seen’ to one’s best advantage, ‘seen’ to the task at hand, ‘seen’ off on a long ocean voyage. I suppose you might say that I have, in fact, ‘seen’ Joram. On the other hand, I haven’t ‘seen’ him, if you take my meaning.
“To put it another way,” he added, having seen that we were both lost, “Joram doesn’t know I’m alive. Quite literally.”
“You propose to go with us, to have us take you to Joram,” said Saryon.
“Jolly reunion!” Simkin was enthusiastic. “In your ecclesiastical company, Padre, our dark and temperamental friend might be willing to overlook that harmless little joke I played on him there toward the end.”
“When you betrayed him? Plotted to murder him?” Saryon said grimly.
“It all turned out right in the end!” Simkin protested. “And it wouldn’t have, you know, if it hadn’t been for me.”
Saryon and I looked at each other. We really had no choice in t
he matter, as Simkin well knew. It was either take him with us or throw him out, and although his magic might be weakened, he was, as he had so cleverly proved, still adept at altering his form.
“Very well,” Saryon said testily. “You may come with us. But you are on your own. What Joram chooses to do with you or to you is up to him.”
“What Joram chooses …” Simkin repeated softly. “It seems to me, from what I’ve heard—Merlyn is such a gossipy old busybody—Joram is running out of choices. I say, you don’t mind if I change back to the scrip, do you? Very fatiguing in this form— breathing and all that. You must promise, though, Father, that you won’t put me next to your skin!” Simkin shivered. “No offense, Father, but you’ve gone all wrinkly and prunelike.”
“What do you mean about Joram running out of choices?” Saryon demanded, alarmed. “Simkin! What—the Almin take him!”
The watercolor image was gone. The leather scrip was back, resting on the seat of the air car. And it had gone mute, apparently. As mute as myself.
Nothing Saryon did or said could induce it to talk. I wondered if the scrip had ever talked at all. And if it hadn’t, what did that make me? Delusional? That would be a kind word. I glanced at my master to see if he was prey to the same uncomfortable feelings.
He was certainly regarding the scrip very grimly. “We better drive on, Reuven,” Saryon said, adding with a frown for the scrip. “We’ve wasted precious time as it is.”
We crossed the Borderland which had, for endless ages, separated Thimhallan from the rest of the universe and separated magic from the rest of the universe as well. A field of magical energy, created by the founders of Thimhallan, the Border permitted people to leave, but prevented them and all others from entering or reentering. It was Joram, the Dead child of a dying world, who not only crossed that Border, but was able to return. He had brought the two realms—one magical, one technological—together. They had met with the violence of a thunderclap. Keeping the speed of the air car slow, I was able to handle the vehicle with some proficiency, although our ride was still rough and we were jounced about considerably. Not having had much experience with air cars—or cars of any type, for that matter—Saryon attributed the roughness to the buffeting winds. I am ashamed to say that I did not disabuse him.
As for Simkin, we had barely started off again when the leather scrip slid to the floor. The knapsack tumbled down on top of it. We heard a muffled shriek, but Saryon couldn’t reach the scrip.
“Should I stop?” I mouthed. With the wind tossing around the air car, I was reluctant to do so.
“No. Serves him right,” Saryon said.
I had not thought my master could be so vindictive.
We drove past a red beacon light that was now no longer operational. Saryon stared at it, twisting around to gaze at it when it was behind us.
“That must be the alarm beacon,” he said, turning back around. He was holding fast to a hand strap above the door on his side. “The one that used to alert those in the outpost to anyone crossing the Border. Next, we should see the Stone Watchers. Or what is left of them.”
Along the Borderland had once stood enormous statues known as the Watchers, the guardians of the Border. They had been living men, before their flesh was changed to rock, frozen forever, while their minds remained active.
Such a dreadful fate had once been Saryon’s.
I recognized the site, when we reached it, though I had never seen it. During the last days of Thimhallan, when violent quakes and fierce storms swept the land, the Watchers fell; the spirits in them freed at last. Now the shattered remains littered the ground, some of them completely covered over by windblown sand. The mounds looked very much like graves.
Noticing the pain of memory contort Saryon’s face, I was about to increase our speed by giving more power to the rear thrusters, taking us quickly away from this tragic site. Saryon understood my attempt and forestalled it. I hoped he was not going to ask me to stop, for the wind, though lessened somewhat, was still strong. If I tried to halt the air car, we might be blown out of control. Stinging sand blasted our windshield, rattled against the doors.
“Slow down a moment, Reuven,” he said. He stared long at the mounds as we drove slowly past. “They cried their warning, but no one paid heed. The people were too intent on their own ambitions, their own plots and schemes to listen to the voices of the past. What voices call to us now, I wonder?” Saryon mused. “And are we listening to them?”
He fell silent, thoughtful. The only voice I heard was a faint one coming from the floor of the backseat of the air car. The language it was using was shocking. Fortunately Saryon could not hear Simkin over the rush of the jets and his sad reverie remained undisturbed.
We left the Border behind, crossing over the vast stretch of sand dunes, and entered the grasslands. Saryon gazed around blankly and I realized that he recognized nothing, no landmarks looked familiar to him. Not only had the land changed during the cataclysmic upheavals that followed the emptying of the Well of Life, but, I reasoned, my master had been accustomed to traveling the magical Corridors, built by the long-lost Diviners, which whisked the people of Thimhallan through time and space from one place to another.
I continued flying toward the mountains on the horizon, that being our general destination, but I was growing worried. Heavy blue-gray clouds were massing; lightning flickered on their fringes, which dragged the desolate ground. The wind was increasing. One of the fierce storms for which Thimhallan is noted was fast approaching. The mountains were my only guide and I would lose sight of them in the driving rain. The air car was equipped with all manner of devices to assist one in navigation, but I did not know how they worked.
Bitterly I regretted the impulse which had prompted me to turn down the offer of a driver. We would have to stop the air car when the storm hit, not only because we might easily lose our way, but because we ran the risk of slamming into a tree or the side of a cliff. Heavily forested lands lay ahead and, beyond that, the foothills.
A gust of wind hit the car, blew it sideways about three feet. The rain began, large drops splatting into the windshield. I thought of the small, lightweight tent we had brought and shook my head. I couldn’t share my fears and doubts with Saryon, for my hands were my voice and I was forced to keep both hands on the steering mechanism.
There was only one thing to do and that was to turn back before the storm grew any worse. I cut the power, lowered the car to the ground. Saryon turned to look questioningly at me. Once the air car had settled, I was about to explain to him our predicament, when his eyes—looking at me—suddenly widened and shifted their gaze to a point behind me. I turned swiftly and shrank back, startled, at the sight of the apparition which loomed in the window.
I don’t know why I was surprised. I should have known they would be around.
The black-robed and -hooded Enforcer made a motion. I touched the button, the window slid into the side of the car. Rain struck me in my face. The wind blew my hair into my eyes and howled so that I could barely hear. Yet the black robe of the Duuk-tsarith remained dry, its folds still and unruffled. He might have been standing in the eye of the cyclone, while we—only inches from him—were in the teeth of the storm.
He pushed back his hood and I recognized Mosiah.
“What do you want?” Saryon shouted. He didn’t look pleased.
“You are wasting time,” Mosiah said. “Abandon this technological monstrosity. You can be with Joram in an instant if you use the magic.”
Saryon looked questioningly at me.
“We don’t know the way, sir,” I signed to him. “The storms will only grow worse. We dare not travel blind. And we have only seventy-two hours.”
“It seems we have no choice,” Saryon admitted. “How will you take us there?”
“The Corridors,” said Mosiah. “You must leave the vehicle. Bring your things with you.”
I opened the door. The wind nearly pulled it out of my hand. I was instantly s
oaked. Reaching into the backseat for my knapsack, I lifted it from the floor and looked beneath it for the leather scrip. At least this would be an opportunity to rid ourselves of Simkin.
The leather scrip was gone.
With deep misgivings, I pulled the knapsack out of the backseat. I wondered what strange object I was now carrying inside the knapsack—a teapot, perhaps.
Saryon, his robes whipping about his lean body, stood next to Mosiah. With some difficulty caused by the wind, I hoisted the knapsack onto my shoulders.
“Did you bring my leather scrip?” Saryon shouted.
“No, sir!” I signed back. “I couldn’t find it.”
“Oh, dear,” said Saryon, and looked extremely worried. “It is always better to know where Simkin is than where he isn’t,” he said to me in a low voice.
“Have you lost something?” Mosiah asked.
“Probably not,” Saryon said gloomily. He peered at Mosiah through the rain. “How do we travel the Corridors? I thought they were destroyed!”
“We thought so, too,” Mosiah said. “We searched for the Corridors, after the destruction of Thimhallan, and couldn’t find them. We assumed that they were lost to us, because the magic that had supported them was gone. But it seems that they had only moved, shifted with the upheaval of the land.”
Saryon frowned. “I don’t see how that’s possible! Mathematically speaking, it isn’t! Admittedly we never knew exactly how the Corridors functioned, but the calculations necessary to open them precluded any—”
“Father!” Mosiah interrupted, with a smile, as if reliving old memories. “I would be interested to hear about these calculations, but at a later date. Now shouldn’t we be going?”
“Yes, of course, I’m sorry. Here’s poor Reuven soaked to the skin. I told you to wear something heavier than that jacket,” he added in concern. “Didn’t you bring a warmer coat?”
I indicated that I was warm enough, only very wet. I was wearing a white cable-knit sweater and blue jeans, with a jacket over that. I knew my master, however. Had I been wearing fur, wrapped up from head to toe, Saryon would have still been worried about me.
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