Gwendolyn reached out to seize hold of Eliza.
Mosiah barreled into the woman, knocking her heavily to the ground.
Eliza screamed, a scream that ended in a strangled gasp.
Gwendolyn vanished. Mosiah wrestled with a being clad in short white robes, white boots, white gloves, and a smiling skull mask beneath a white hood.
“An Interrogator!” Scylla sucked in her breath.
“Run!” Mosiah cried, pinning the white-robed person to the ground. “More will be coming!”
Indeed, we could see the silver shimmer of the D’karn-darah surround us as they sprang up from the tall grass and surged toward us.
“Run where?” Scylla demanded.
The D’karn-darah stood between us and the air car. They were bearing down on us. Mosiah slammed the head of the Interrogator into the ground. The skull mask lolled to one side, lay quiet. Mosiah leapt to his feet and made a scrambling dash toward us.
“The gate!” he gasped. “Run for it!”
The D’karn-darah had formed a semicircle and were closing in on us, though not very fast. It almost looked as if they were herding us toward the gate, which was now the only retreat open to us.
Eliza stood numb with shock, staring at the hideous being that had taken the form of her mother. I caught hold of her hand, pulled her away, nearly dragged her off her feet. Scylla took hold of her from the other side.
“Your Majesty, we must get you safely away from these evil men,” Scylla said firmly. “This way! Through the gate!”
Eliza nodded and started to run, but she stumbled over her long skirts. Scylla and I helped her up and propelled her toward the gate. By now, Mosiah had joined us. We were within a foot or two of the gate, about to enter, when he gave a loud cry and held out his arms, blocking our way. He pointed to what looked like a silver coin, shining on the ground.
“Look out! It’s a stasis mine! Go around! Don’t step on it!”
Glancing back, I saw the D’karn-darah increase their speed.
They had been expecting the stasis mine to stop us. Seeing it had failed, they started to close in. But we had already reached the gate.
What made me think that, once inside the gate, we would be safe from our pursuers? For all I knew, they would come in after us. The most we could hope for was to lose them in the forest’s darkness, but they were so close behind that this hope seemed a forlorn one.
Of course, I now know what drew me forward. A good thing I did not know then, I would never have believed it. As it was, I had no chance to believe or disbelieve. I entered the Eastroad Gate, entered the city of Zith-el , and I knew immediately that Scylla’s theory was right.
Magic was very much alive on Thimhallan.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Magic is the substance and essence of Life—that is the philosophy of this land and all who dwell here. Life and magic are one and the same. They are inseparable and indistinguishable.
DARKSWORD ADVENTURES
I did not recall losing consciousness, yet it seemed to me that I awoke from sleep. Then came a frightening sensation of being compressed, the air squeezed from my lungs, as if some force were trying to flatten me. That sensation ended almost before I was fully aware of it. All I could see around me was a dreamlike shimmer of color. I could hear only indistinct sounds.
I experienced a sickening feeling of falling, as when one dreams of falling. The fall was gentle, however, and I hit the ground running, fearful of pursuit. I almost immediately tripped over the hem of a long robe.
I tumbled forward and landed painfully on my hands and knees, scraping my knees against the cloth of the robes and cutting my right hand on an exposed tree root.
The fall left me shaken. My entrance through the gate left me more shaken still. I sat back on my heels, drew a shivering breath, and looked around. My first thought was of Eliza: was she safe? My second thought was in question marks and exclamation points: what in the Almin’s name had happened to me?!
My blue jeans and sweater were gone. In their place, I was wearing a long robe, made of cloth that was white in color. The cloth was velvet, and very fine, soft and smooth. Though well made, the robe was plain, devoid of any decoration save for a red band of trim around the hem of the sleeves, and the skirt, which reached to my ankles.
Feeling an unusual coolness on my head, I lifted my hand to discover that my long hair was gone, cut short, and tonsured! Gingerly, and with a certain amount of horror, I felt the smooth round bald spot on the top of my head, where my hair had been shaved, and now grew in a ring that framed my face and just barely covered my ears.
The magic of the gate must have done this, I realized confusedly, yet the information I had just read on Zith-el indicated that the gate would change us into creatures of the Zoo. I had never read that the people of Zith-el kept catalysts in their Zoo, yet that is most certainly what I was dressed as—a catalyst in Thimhallan.
A catalyst in a Thimhallan which no longer existed!
I pondered this amazing and perplexing occurrence and wondered what I should do next. I was alone, so far as I could tell, in a thick and shadowed forest. Had I not fallen over my robes, I would have run headlong into a large oak tree. I was encircled by trees—oaks, mostly, though here and there some pines and ferns grew, vying for the meager sunlight which filtered through the oaks’ green foliage. I was just noting in relief that I did not see the heart-shaped leaves of the Kij vine, when it occurred to me that what I was seeing, I was seeing by the light of the sun.
It had been near nightfall when we ran into the gate.
Slowly I rose to my feet, the white robe falling in soft folds around me. I could not call out to my companions to let them know where I was, which was—on second thought—probably just as well. I might have been discovered by our pursuers. I looked around, trying to see some sign of my companions. Almost the moment I moved, I heard a soft voice.
“Reuven? Is that you? Over here.”
I heard at almost the same instant another voice say worriedly, “Your Majesty! Are you all right?”
I stumbled through the undergrowth toward the first voice, which I had recognized as Mosiah’s, and emerged into a small clearing. He had his back to me, for he had turned at the sound of the other voice. It resembled Scylla’s, though its accent was strange.
We heard the clink of metal and the rattle of chain and a crashing in the brush and Scylla’s voice again calling to Her Majesty.
I touched Mosiah on the arm to attract his attention.
He turned and looked at me and his eyebrows shot up, his mouth gaped, and his eyes widened. By that I knew that the white robes and tonsured hair were not an illusion of my own making, as I had been most desperately hoping.
“Reuven?” He gasped out my name, and it was more question than recognition.
“I think so,” I signed. “I’m not sure. Do you know what is going on?”
“I have no idea!” he replied. His words were heartfelt and uttered with such sincerity that I believed him. My first thought was that he or the other Duuk-tsarith had been responsible for this transformation. I knew now that was not the case.
A flash of sunlight glinting off metal some distance away caught my eye.
A knight clad in silver-plate armor worn over chain mail burst through the forest cover, sword drawn. The knight bent over something on the ground and quickly sheathed the sword.
“Your Majesty!” cried the knight. “Are you hurt?”
“I am all right, Sir Knight. Only a bruise here and there and those more to my dignity than my person.”
“Allow me to assist you, Your Majesty.”
The knight reached out a gloved hand.
A slender, delicate hand that flashed with jewels reached up from the forest floor and grasped the knight’s hand. A figure clad in the long, straight skirts of an old-fashioned riding habit rose to her feet. It was Eliza, or rather it had been Eliza, I was not sure who she was now, any more than I was sure who I was. The kni
ght in plate and chain mail was undoubtedly Scylla.
“Blessed Almin,” whispered Mosiah, and I would have echoed his prayer if I’d had the voice to do so.
“What is going on?” I signed to Mosiah.
He made no answer, but he stared hard at Scylla.
I tried again. “The Technomancers? Did they follow us?”
He glanced around, shrugged, and then shook his head. “If they have followed us, they’re nowhere in sight and that’s not like them. The D’karn-darah don’t deal in subtleties.”
By which I gathered that if they had followed us we would be their captives by now. I breathed a little easier. Some good had come out of this, it seemed, though the old saying about frying pans and fires came into my mind.
The knight was respectfully brushing dirt from Eliza’s gown, which was made of blue velvet, trimmed in black. A golden crown gleamed in her black hair, jewels sparkled on her hands. I realized in baffled amazement and with a sense of growing wonder that I recognized her. This was the Eliza I had seen in that brief glimpse inside another life. Her dress was different, but everything else about her was the same: her hair, now intricately braided and coiffed, her stance, her bearing, the jewels on her fingers. Eliza was ruefully plucking twigs from her hair and wiping the mud and grass stains from her hands, her every movement graceful and regal.
“Where are our Enforcer and our priest?” she asked worriedly, glancing around. “I hope they escaped the mob safely.”
“I trust they did so, Your Majesty. The catalyst was to my left when we entered the gate, the Duuk-tsarith was behind us. The mob was not that close. Most were at the West Gate, trying to attack the carriage. Our ruse worked perfectly. Everyone thought you were in the carriage, Your Majesty. It never occurred to them that you would dare to enter the Eastroad Gate on foot.”
“My brave knights,” Eliza said with a sigh. “We fear many have suffered grievous harm for our sake.”
“Their lives are pledged to Your Majesty, as is my own.”
Mosiah started forward, slipping silently through the undergrowth. I followed after him, trying to emulate his stealth, but at my very first step my foot snapped a tree branch with a sound like a gunshot.
Scylla raised her sword and moved to stand protectively in front of her charge. Eliza looked curiously and without fear in our direction as Mosiah and I walked into the light filtering down from the oak leaves. I was expecting the same astonishment in their faces which I had seen in Mosiah’s, even laughter at my expense, at the sight of my odd haircut.
But the only expression on the faces of both was relief and gladness, which emotions were echoed in Scylla’s voice.
“Thank the Almin! You are safe!” Scylla’s tone altered, becoming commanding. “Were any of the mob bold enough to follow us through the gate, Enforcer?”
Mosiah glanced around. “Why ask me? You can see as well as I.”
“Pardon, Enforcer,” Scylla returned coolly, “but you Duuk-tsarith have magical means at your disposal, means which I lack.”
“Pardon me, Sir Knight”—Mosiah’s tone was sarcastic—”but have you forgotten that I am devoid of Life and cannot work my magic?”
Scylla indicated me with a nod of her head. “But you have a catalyst with you. He may be a house catalyst and not trained to the specific needs of you warlocks, but he would do in an emergency, I suppose.”
They were all looking at me now.
“Father Reuven, you are hurt!” Eliza pointed at my hand and I noticed, for the first time, that it was bleeding. Before I could sign that it was nothing more than a scratch, she had taken hold of my hand and was stanching the flow of blood with a handkerchief that she drew from out of the cuff of her long sleeve. The handkerchief was lacy and appeared to be made of the finest cloth. I drew my hand back.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Father,” she said in an imperious tone which indicated she was accustomed to being obeyed. She clasped my hand and dabbed at the wound with the handkerchief, wiping off the blood and dirt.
“We will send for the Theldara when our meeting is concluded and we are safe within the walls of the city,” she continued.
Her touch was gentle, so as not to give me pain. But her touch did give me pain, a pain that was not of the flesh but shivered through my body as if I had been pierced with a sword.
She continued, “The cut is not deep, but it is fouled with dirt and likely to putrefy if it is not treated.”
I bowed my head in humble acknowledgment of her command and gratitude for the kindness she showed to me. I noticed that she kept her eyes lowered so as not to look into mine, and that her hand holding my hand trembled ever so slightly.
“Father Reuven,” said Mosiah sharply. “Why do you call him that?”
Eliza gazed at Mosiah in astonishment. “Do you speak, Enforcer, even though no one spoke to you? We must have been in danger, to have so loosened your tongue! But, you are right.” Her cheeks flushed prettily and she glanced up at me from beneath her long eyelashes. “We should say ‘Lord Father’ now that Reuven has been raised in rank. You must pardon us, Lord Father,” she added gravely, “for this promotion was so newly done that we are not yet accustomed to the new title.”
My hand signed the words, “I owe it all to Your Gracious Majesty’s intercession on my behalf with Bishop Radisovik.”
She gave me a cool, slight smile with her lips and a sparkling, pleased smile with her eyes. She understood me! She understood the sign language, as if we had been speaking it for years, not for only a few hours to pass the time in the air car. And I had known before I signed that she would understand me.
I only wished I understood myself! Who was this Bishop Radisovik I had mentioned? The only Radisovik I knew of was with King Garald back on Earth. Some part of me was cognizant of what I was saying, some part of me had guided my hand to sign the words. If I looked deep into myself, I was certain I would see and understand.
Coward that I was, I turned my face away. I wasn’t ready to know the truth. Not yet.
Half turning his body, his motions concealed by his black robes, Mosiah mouthed the words, “Do you know what is going on?”
Slowly, I shook my head.
Scylla looked to the blue sky, that was barely visible beneath the oak trees. “It is midmorning, the time set for the rendezvous. We should make our way to the meeting place without further delay. Centaurs still roam this forest, or so I have heard. First, though”—her gaze went to Mosiah—”we should make certain that we are not being followed.”
Mosiah turned to me and held out his black-robed arm.
“Open the Conduit. Give me Life, Catalyst,” he commanded, his tone mocking, as if he would have added, Now we’ll see this charade come to an end!
I wanted to run. Nothing I had yet encountered, not even the Technomancers, had frightened me as much as this command. It was not the fear that I couldn’t grant Life that daunted me. It was the knowledge that I could do it which made me want to flee in panic.
I would have run, I think, if Eliza’s eyes had not been on me. She was watching me with pride and affection. I stretched out a trembling hand and grasped Mosiah’s arm. I stepped back and allowed the other Reuven to move forward.
“Almin,” he prayed with my thoughts, “grant me Life.”
The Conduit opened. The magic of Thimhallan flowed through me.
I felt the Life thrumming beneath my feet, swelling up from the living organisms underground. I was aware of the roots of the oak trees digging in the soil, drawing in nourishment and water. Like the oak, I was drawing in nourishment. I was drawing in the magic.
I breathed it. I heard it singing. I smelled it and tasted it as it flowed through my being. I concentrated it within me and then gave it, a wondrous gift, to Mosiah.
His eyes widened with astonishment as he felt the Life flow into his body. His arm jerked in my grasp. He wanted at first to break the connection. He didn’t want to believe this any more than I did. But common sense prevai
led. We were in danger. He needed Life and I was supplying it. He held his arm still in my grasp.
And then it was over. The Life was drained from me. As a catalyst, I could neither use magic nor retain it. I could act only as the intermediary. I was exhausted. It would take many hours of rest for me to recover, still more before I would be able to open the Conduit again. Yet I knew that I had been blessed, for I felt within me the touch of this world and all its beings, a touch which would never leave me.
Suffused with Life, looking considerably confused by it all, Mosiah stared from one to the other of us—from me, drained and tired, but left with a feeling of serenity; to Scylla, who was frowning with impatience and tapping the hilt of her sword with her fingers; to Eliza, calm and aloof, standing somewhat apart from the rest of us, in a shaft of sunlight that glittered on the golden circlet she wore in her black hair.
“I wish I knew what the hell was going on,” he muttered to himself, and then, shrugging, he placed his hand on the nearest of the oak trees, bent his head near it as if he were conversing with it.
Branches above my head began to creak and rattle together as if in a high wind, rubbing against the intermingled branches of the tree’s neighbor, who stirred and began conversation with its neighbor. Soon all the trees around us were shifting branches and dropping twigs and reaching out their long arms to touch other trees.
The leaves rustled and shadows shifted. Mosiah stood beside the oak, his cheek pressed against its rough trunk. At length the rustling and creaking seemed to die down somewhat.
“This part of the Zoo is safe to walk in,” he reported, “for the time being. A band of centaurs live near here, but they are out hunting and will not be back before nightfall. Because of them, no one else dares enter. That includes the mob, Your Majesty,” he said, with a slight touch of cynical disbelief remaining in his voice. “Your knights entered the West Gate safely, though I fear your carriage is destroyed.”
Eliza received this news with equanimity, bowing her head in gracious appreciation and smiling to hear those who risked their lives to protect her had not met with any harm.
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