Forging the Darksword

by Margaret Weis

  “Very well—Saryon,” he said, his voice cool and even, “tell me what must be done and why you will not do it.”

  The catalyst sighed again. Raising his head, he looked back at the text that lay before him on the table. Smiling sadly, he ran his hand over the pages with a touch almost caressing. “Do you have any idea of the wonders within these pages?” he asked Joram softly.

  Joram’s eyes devoured the catalyst, watching every nuance of expression upon the man’s tired, lined face. “With these wonders, we could rule the world,” he replied.

  “No, no, no!” Saryon said impatiently. “I meant wonders, wonders of learning. The mathematics …” His eyes closed again in exquisite agony. “I am the best mathematician of this age,” he murmured. “A genius they call me. Yet here, within these pages, I find such knowledge that makes me feel like a child crouched at my mother’s knee. I don’t begin to understand them. I could study for months, years …” The look of pain faded from his face, replaced by one of longing. His hand stroked the pages of the text. “What joy,” he whispered, “if I had found this when I was young ….” His voice died.

  Joram waited, watching, as patient as a cat.

  “But I didn’t,” Saryon said. Opening his eyes, he moved his hand away from the pages of the text swiftly, as another might move his hand from a burning brand. “I have found them now that I am old, my conscience fixed, my morals formed. Perhaps those morals are not right,” he added, seeing Joram frown, “but, such as they are, they are fixed within me. To deny them or fight them might drive me mad.”

  “So you are saying that you understand what this means”—Joram gestured toward the text—“and that you could do what must be done except that it goes against your conscience?”

  Saryon nodded.

  “And did it go against this conscience of yours to kill that young catalyst in the village—”

  “Stop!” Saryon cried in a low voice.

  “No, I won’t stop,” Joram returned bitterly. “You’re so good at preaching sermons, Catalyst. Preach one to Blachloch. Show him the evil of his ways as he ties old Andon by his hands to the whipping post. You watch while his men flail the flesh from that old man’s bones. You watch, and comfort yourself with the knowledge that it may be wrong but it isn’t going against your conscience—”

  “Stop!” Saryon’s fist clenched. He glared angrily at the young man. “I don’t want to see that happen anymore than you—”

  “Then, help me to stop it!” Joram hissed. “It’s up to you, Catalyst! You’re the only one who can!”

  Saryon shut his eyes again, resting his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped.

  Sitting back, Joram watched and waited. The catalyst raised a haggard face. “According to the text, I must give Life … to that which is Dead.”

  Joram’s face darkened, the thick brows drew together. “What do you mean?” he asked tightly. “Not to me—”

  “No.” Drawing a deep breath, Saryon turned to the text. Moistening a finger, he carefully turned one of the brittle parchment pages, his touch gentle and reverential. “You have failed for two reasons. You have not been mixing the alloy in the correct proportions. According to this formula, that is quite important. A deviation of a few drops can mean the difference between success and failure. Then, once it is taken from the mold, the metal must be heated to a extremely high temperature—”

  “But it will lose its form,” Joram protested.

  “Wait …” Saryon raised his hand. “This second heating is not done in the fires of the forge.” Licking his lips, he paused a moment, then continued, speaking slowly and reluctantly. “It is heated within the flame of magic ….”

  Joram stared at him in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “I must open a conduit, take the magic from the world, and infuse it into the metal.” Saryon looked at Joram steadily. “Can’t you understand, young man? I must give the Life of this world to something Dead, made by the hands of men. This goes against everything I have ever believed. It is truly the blackest of the Dark Arts.”

  “So what will you do, Catalyst?” Joram asked, sitting back and regarding Saryon with triumph.

  But Saryon had lived over forty years in the world. Sheltered years, as he had come to learn, but he had lived them nonetheless. He was not the fool Joram thought him, walking near the edge of the cliff, his eyes staring at the sun shining above him instead of at the reality of the world around him. No, Saryon saw the chasm. He saw that in a very few steps he would fall over the edge. He saw it because this was a familiar path he walked, one he had trod before, though it had been a long time ago.

  A soft knocking upon an overhead door caused both men to start up in alarm.

  “Well?” said Joram insistently.

  Looking at him, seeing the eager intensity of the face, Saryon drew a breath, shut his eyes, and leaped off the cliff. ‘“Yes,” he answered inaudibly.

  Nodding to himself in satisfaction, Joram hurried across the floor to the center of the small room and peered upward as the door in the ceiling above him opened a crack.

  “It is Andon,” came the whisper. “The guard is looking for you. You must return.”

  “Let down the ladder.”

  A rope ladder tumbled down in response, Joram catching it as it fell.

  “Catalyst …” He motioned.

  “Yes.” Gathering his robes about him, Saryon came over to stand beneath the ladder, not without a final, hungry glance at the storehouse of treasure that surrounded him.

  “Should we take the book with us?” Joram asked, starting back to pick it up.

  “No,” Saryon said tiredly. “I have the formula memorized. You had best put it back in its place, however.”

  Hastily Joram set the book on the shelves, then snuffed out the candle. Thick darkness buried the chamber, musty with the smell of the ancient texts lying in their hidden sepulcher.

  Did the spirits of those who had written them live in this place as well, Saryon wondered as he fumbled clumsily with the rope ladder in the dim light from a candle Andon held above them. Perhaps my spirit will return here when I am dead, the catalyst thought, unable to refrain from a backward look as he clamored up the ladder with Joram’s impatient assistance. Certainly, here, I could remain happily for centuries.

  “Here, Father, give me your hand.”

  He was at the top. Clasping him by the wrist, Andon pulled him through the trapdoor, helping Saryon climb up into the old mineshaft that ran beneath Andon’s house. “Hold the light,” the old man told him, handing him the candle in its wrought-iron holder. Shadows leaped and danced about the rock walls as Saryon took the light.

  Joram pulled himself up easily; Saryon looked at the strong, muscular arms with envy. Bending down, the young man made certain the trapdoor was closed tightly, then he and Andon between them fastened it with something the old man called a lock, inserting a piece of oddly shaped metal into it and turning it with a clicking sound. Returning the key to his pocket, Andon stepped back and, after a brief inspection, nodded to Joram.

  Placing his hands upon a gigantic boulder, the young man slowly and with obvious effort rolled the rock into place over the trapdoor, effectively concealing it from sight.

  Andon shook his head. “It generally takes two grown men to move that rock,” he said to Saryon, watching Joram and smiling in admiration. “At least so I remember from my youth. The rock had not been moved in years, not until the young man here insisted on seeing the ancient texts.” He sighed. “There was no need to move it, no need to go down there. None of us can read them, nor could they in my father’s day. I saw that rock moved only once, and then I suppose it was just to check to make certain the texts were surviving without damage.”

  “They are well preserved,” Saryon murmured, “The room is dry. They should last for centuries if they are undisturbed.”

  His face soft with sympathy, Andon laid his hand upon the catalyst’s arm. “I am sorry, Father. I can imagine
how you must feel.” His brow creased in irritation. “I tried to tell Joram—”

  “No, do not blame him,” Saryon said steadily. “It was my decision to come here. I am not sorry I did.”

  “But you seem upset ….”

  “So much knowledge … lost,” the catalyst replied, his gaze going to the boulder, his thoughts with what lay beneath it.

  “Yes,” agreed Andon sadly.

  “Not lost,” said Joram coming over to them, his eyes burning brighter than the flame of the candle. “Not lost …” he repeated, rubbing his hands.

  “’Pon my honor, it’s devilishly cold in here. Or is that a contradiction in terms? You’ll forgive me, I trust,” Simkin said, slipping into a fur cape that he conjured up with a negligent wave of his hand, “but I have a tendency to weakness in the lungs. Sister died of pneumonia, you know. Well, not actually. She died of being rather badly squashed from falling off one of the platforms in Merilon, but she wouldn’t have fallen if she hadn’t been wandering about delirious from the fever that she ran on account of the pneumonia. Still—”

  “Not now,” snapped Mosiah, sitting down at the table near the young man. “We can’t stay long. The guard didn’t want to let us in at all, but Simkin got Blachloch to agree to it. Why did you send for us?”

  “I need your help,” Joram said, sitting down near the young men.

  “Oh, I say, a conspiracy! How frightfully fearful sounding. I am all ears. I could be all ears, you know,” Simkin added in sudden inspiration. “If it would help.”

  “All mouth is nearer the mark. Shut up,” muttered Mosiah.

  “I won’t say another word.” Muffled to the eyes in fur, Simkin obligingly snapped his lips shut and gazed at Joram with grave intensity that was, however, rather spoiled by a gaping yawn. “Beg pardon,” he said.

  Huddled, shivering, in a corner as close to the feeble fire as he could get, Saryon snorted in disgust. Joram glanced at him irritably, making a motion as if to reassure him. Then he turned back to his friends.

  “The catalyst and I have to get out of here tonight …”

  “You’re escaping?” Mosiah asked eagerly. “I’ll come with you—”

  “No, listen!” Joram said in exasperation. “I can’t tell you what we’re doing. It’s better you don’t know, anyway. In case anything goes wrong. We have to get out of here and back in without the guard knowing and, more important, we have to be free to do … what we have to do without being interrupted,”

  “That should be easy.” Mosiah appeared disappointed. “You went to Andon’s last night—”

  “And the guard escorted us there and back, just like he escorts me to the forge every day,” Joram finished grimly.

  “In other words,” said Simkin coolly, “you want the guard to be in the land of Bidey-Bye whilst you two perform dark and treacherous acts. In the morning you want him to find you slumbering peacefully in your little beds when he himself awakes.”

  Glancing at Simkin, Saryon stirred uneasily. The young man was near the mark with his playful guessing. Too near. The catalyst hadn’t wanted to involve these two at all—Mosiah because it was dangerous and Simkin because he was Simkin.

  “In addition,” the fur-covered young man was continuing languidly, “you do not want interruptions by one person in particular—our Blond and Baleful Leader. My dear boy”—Simkin snuggled comfortably into his cape—“nothing simpler. Leave everything to me.”

  “What do you intend to do?” Saryon asked, his voice rasping.

  “I say, old fellow. You’re not taking cold, are you?” Simkin asked anxiously, twisting around to look over at the catalyst. “A bit dangerous for one of your advanced years. Carried off the Earl of Mooria in a matter of days, and he was your age to the year. Sneezed his head off. Quite literally. It landed—splat—in the baked custard. Oh, Duke Zebulon said it was just his little joke—a sort of after-dinner entertainment for the amusement of his guests—and that he never meant his catalyst to take him seriously and grant him such an excessive amount of magic. But we all wondered. He and the Earl had quarreled over Swan’s Doom just the day prior. Something about cheating. At any rate, the guests were highly diverted. Nothing else was talked of for weeks. It’s quite the thing, now, to land a dinner invitation from the Duke—”

  “I am not taking cold!” Saryon snapped when he could get a word in edgewise.

  “Delighted to hear it,” Simkin said earnestly, leaning over to pat the catalyst’s hand.

  “Let’s get on with this,” Joram said impatiently. “The guard and Blachloch?”

  “Ah, yes. I knew we were talking about something else. The guard. I’ll handle him,” said Simkin.

  “How?” asked Mosiah suspiciously, glancing at the catalyst. It was obvious he and Saryon shared the same opinion of the bearded young man.

  “A mild sedative—recipe known only to myself and the Marchioness of Lonnoni, who had fourteen children. So much for the guard. Now, as to Blachloch. I am engaged to play tarok with him this evening anyhow. He will not disturb you. ’Pon my honor.”

  “Honor!” Mosiah sneered. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh, no. Quite impossible,” Simkin said with another yawn. Stretching his feet out toward the fire, he lounged back in the chair at a seemingly impossible angle, shifting around until he got himself completely comfortable. “Not to sound unfeeling, but you are a bit of a bumpkin, dear boy. I mean, I don’t dare take you anyplace in polite society. Table manners quite shocking. Besides,” he added, ignoring Mosiah’s glare, “someone should stay here in this wretched shack and keep up the illusion that Father and Son are within.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Joram, placing his hand on Mosiah’s clenched fist restrainingly. “What would he have to do?”

  “Nothing much,” said Simkin, shrugging his fur-cloaked shoulders like a dainty bear. “Build up the fire. Move back and forth in front of the window now and then so that his shadow is visible. I say, Mosiah,” he added with a yawn so wide his jaws cracked, “I could even conjure your hair to look like Joram’s. Just a little help from our Life-giving friend here and your tresses would be the envy of every woman in the settlement. Long, thick, luxuriant …”

  Mosiah turned to Joram. “He’s a buffoon,” the young man said quietly. “You’re staking your life on a fool!”

  The bored expression on Simkin’s bearded face changed suddenly to a look so shrewd and penetrating that Saryon could have sworn, for an instant, that a stranger sat there. Mosiah had his back turned to the young man; Joram was scowling at Mosiah. No one saw the look but the catalyst, and before he could realize it or absorb it, the look was gone, replaced by the playful, negligent smile.

  The fur cape vanished, as did the silken breeches and waistcoat. There was a blur of color and, in an instant, Simkin was dressed from head to toe in motley. Rainbow colors wildly clashing, his ribbons fluttering, and bells tinkling, Simkin slithered out of his chair and crawled on hands and knees across the floor to Joram. Sitting cross-legged before him, he shook the bells on his cap.

  “A fool, yes, I am a fool,” cried Simkin gaily, waving his arms in a grand flourish, the ribbons floating about him like a swirling, multicolored fog. “I am Joram’s fool. Remember the tarok reading? The king of Swords was your card! You will be Emperor someday and you will need a fool, won’t you, Joram?” Leaning forward, Simkin put his hands together in a mockery of prayer. “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,” Simkin said softly.

  Joram stared at Simkin in silence for as long as it took to draw a breath, then—seeing the bearded face split into a grin—he lifted his booted foot and placed it firmly on the young man’s chest, shoving him backward. Tumbling head over heels, laughing wildly, Simkin performed a graceful somersault and came up on his feet.

  Ignoring Simkin, who was dancing abou
t the room, Mosiah put his hand on Joram’s shoulder, almost shaking him in his earnestness. “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “Forget this! Forget the cards, forget whatever idea you have of challenging Blachloch. Oh, come on, Joram! I know you! I’ve heard you talk. I’d be a fool myself not to figure it out. Let’s take this chance to escape! Let Simkin use his potion on the guard, and we’ll try our luck in the Outland. We can make it. We’re young and strong, plus we’ll have the catalyst along to give us Life. You’ll come, won’t you, Father?”

  Saryon could do nothing but nod. The idea of losing himself in the wilderness was suddenly so appealing that he would have rushed out the door then and there if but one person had led the way.

  Joram did not immediately answer, and Mosiah, seeing the thoughtful expression on his friend’s dark face and mistaking it for interest, hurried on. “We could go north, to Sharakan. There’ll be work for us there. No one knows us. It’s dangerous, but not as dangerous as staying around here, not as dangerous as fighting Blach—”

  “No,” said Joram quietly.

  “Joram, think—”

  “You think!” Joram said. Flame flickered in the brown eyes as he shook Mosiah’s hand from his shoulder. “Do you believe for one instant that Blachloch would just let his catalyst escape without doing everything in his power to bring him back? And his power is pretty damn extensive. What are the Duuk-tsarith trained for—hunting, tracking people down! He knows the Outland! We don’t. And when he caught us, he’d kill us, you and I. What are we, after all? But what about the catalyst? What do you think he would do to him?”

  “Cut off his hands,” said Simkin, divesting himself of the fool’s clothing with a gesture. Dressed once more in his habitual garish costume, he conjured up the fur cape and draped it gracefully around his shoulders. “It’s what they used to do to them in the old days, I understand,” he continued with an apologetic glance at Saryon. “Doesn’t affect their usefulness, you see.”

  Scowling, Mosiah kept his eyes on Joram. “And what happens if he catches us now?”

  “He won’t.”