“Begging your pardon, Your Grace. You say you aren’t our enemy anymore. You say that there’s an enemy out there bigger’n we can imagine. I guess we know that’s true. We’ve all heard the tales told by my boy here, and others who were out there with you. An’ we’re willin? to fight this enemy, whoever he is or wherever he comes from.”
The murmuring grew louder, and there were calls of support from the crowd.
“But,” the Field Magus continued, nervously smoothing the hat with his callused, work-hardened hands, “no matter how honorable or noble a man you are, Prince Garald—and I’ve heard good things told of you, I admit—you’re a stranger to us. I think I speak not only for us field workers but for the people who work in this city as well”—cries of assent from the crowd—“when I say that we would feel better goin’ into battle, led by someone who was one of us, so to speak Someone we could count on to think of us as people he knew, not cattle bein’ led to slaughter.”
Joram stepped forward, watching his footing carefully on the slippery platform. “I know you, Jacobias. And you know me, though you may find that difficult to believe I swear to you—” extending his hands, he looked out at the crowd—“I swear to all of you,” he shouted, “that you can trust this man, Prince Garald, with your lives! We have just come from a gathering of the Albanara! They have chosen Prince Garald as their leader, I pledge him my support and I ask you—”
“No, no! We won’t follow Sharakan!”
“One of our own!”
Mosiah, flushing in embarrassment, was arguing with his father. Garald glanced at Joram, as much as to say “I told you so.” Joram, avoiding his gaze, was trying to make himself heard when one single voice, coming from the center of the crowd, rose above the clamor. “You lead them, my son!”
The crowd hushed. The voice was familiar The words, though quietly spoken, were said with such pride, mingled with a deep sorrow, that they echoed in the heart louder than a shout.
“Who said that?” People hovering in the air peered down beneath their feet, for the voice had seemed to come from below.
“He did! The old man! Stand aside and let him speak!” Several people, floating above an old man, pointed at him Backing away, they left him to stand alone in an ever-widening circle. The old man remained on the ground, he did not rise into the air with the others. No catalyst was with him, no friends, no family. His clothes were shabby and tattered, nearly falling from his body in rags. He was so bent and stooped that it was difficult for him to raise his head to peer upward toward the platform, blinking as the raindrops fell into his eyes.
A few of those in the crowd who had descended to get a better view suddenly sprang back up to join their fellows. An awed whisper began to circulate.
“The Emperor! The old Emperor!”
The circle around the old man grew larger, people craning their heads to see. Bishop Vanya, recognizing him, flushed red, then went white in anger. The Cardinal gasped audibly.
Prince Garald looked swiftly at Joram to see his reaction. There was none. Joram regarded the old man silently, without expression. The Prince gestured to the Duuk-tsarith, and the platform on which they stood sank slowly to the ground, the people swirling around it like leaves in a whirlwind.
As the platform came to rest on the stone pavement, the Prince motioned to the old man, who walked haltingly forward.
Looking intently into the old man’s face, Prince Garald bowed. “Your Majesty,” he said softly.
The Emperor nodded absently. He hadn’t even looked at the Prince. Coming to stand in front of Joram, the old man reached out to touch him, but Joram—his face impassive, his eyes focused above his Father.’s head—took a step backward. The Emperor, smiling sadly, nodded and slowly withdrew his hand.
“I don’t blame you,” he said softly. “Once, many years ago, I turned my back on you and they took you away to die.” He glanced up at Joram. Though he was level with him, his bent body forced him to twist his head to look into the face of the tall man standing on the platform. “This makes the fifth time I have seen you, my son. My son …” The Emperor’s voice lingered over the words. “Gamaliel. That was to have been your name. It is a word of the ancient days. It means ‘reward of God.’ You were to have been our reward, your mother’s and mine.” The Emperor sighed heavily. “Instead, the mad woman named you Joram—‘a vessel.’ It was a fitting name. In our pride and fear, we cast you from us. The poor mad woman caught you up, and poured into you the sorrows of this world.”
The Emperor gazed into the face of his son, who still did not look at him.
“I remember the day they took you from me I remember the tears your mother shed, the crystal tears that shattered on your body. Tiny streams of blood ran down your skin I turned my back on you, and they took you away to die. My fault, you say? The Church’s fault?”
Straightening suddenly, rising almost to his full height, the Emperor cast a stern glance about the crowd. For an instant, the wan face was regal again, the crooked old man a proud and noble ruler. “My fault?” the Emperor questioned loudly. “What would you have done, people of Merilon, if you knew that a Dead child was destined to rule over you?”
The people drew away from him, looking askance at one another. The word mad was whispered about, and there was much nodding of heads. Yet there was not one among them who could meet the old man’s accusing eyes.
Unconsciously, Joram’s hand moved to touch his chest as though it pained him.
“Yes, my son”—the Emperor noticed the gesture—“they tell me you bear the scars of your mother’s tears. They tell me that those scars helped prove your identity. I knew you long before that! I didn’t have to see the scars on your chest. I saw the scars on your soul. Do you remember? It was the day at the house of Lord Samuels, the day I came to rescue Simkin the Fool from his latest folly. I saw your face in the sunlight, I saw your hair.” The Emperor’s eyes went to Joram’s black hair, glistening in the rain. “I knew then that the son I’d fathered eighteen years ago lived! Yet I did nothing. I said nothing. I was afraid! Afraid for myself, but more afraid for you! Can you believe that?”
Joram’s lips tightened, the hand on his breast twitched spasmodically, the only outward signs that he even heard his Father.’s words.
“The next time I saw you was at the Crystal Palace, the night of the anniversary of your Death. Gamaliel. My reward! Your name burned my heart. I watched you meet your mother. Your mother—a corpse, the Life flowing through her veins a mockery. And you—alive but Dead. Yes, you were my reward.”
Joram averted his face, a low strangled cry in his throat. “Take him away!”
The Duuk-tsarith glanced at Prince Garald, who shook his head. Garald put a hand upon his friend’s shoulder, but Joram tore himself free. Gesturing furiously, he tried to say something but choked on his words. The Emperor gazed up at him pleadingly.
“The last time I saw you was at the Turning,” he said in a voice as soft as the steady fall of the raindrops. “I saw the hope dawn in your eyes when you recognized me. I knew what you were thinking—”
“You could have acknowledged me!” Joram looked at his father directly for the first time, his eyes burning with the fire of the forge. “Vanya could not have put me to living death if you had claimed me for your own! You could have saved me!”
“No, my son,” the Emperor said gently. “How could I save you when I could not save myself?” He bowed his head and his body bent again, crumpling back into the slumped, broken old man dressed in rags.
“I can’t stay! I can’t … breathe!” Clutching his chest, gasping for air, Joram turned to leave the platform.
“My son!” The old man reached out a trembling hand. “My son! Gamaliel!” the Emperor cried. “I cannot ask you to forgive me.” He stared at Joram’s back. “But perhaps you can forgive them. They need you now…. You will be their reward….”
“Don’t say that!” Once again Joram tried to leave but it was too late. People surged aroun
d him, asking questions, demanding answers, elbowing the old man out of the way. The Emperor’s last words went unheard, drowned in the growing clamor of the crowd.
“The doddering old idiot,” snarled Bishop Vanya from on high. “Xavier was right. We should have hastened his death—”
The Cardinal uttered a shocked reproof.
Bishop Vanya, rolling his head on its layers of paunchy skin, fixed his minister with a scornful gaze. “Don’t give me that sanctimonious drivel. You know what’s been done in the Almin’s holy name. You’ve been able to close your eyes as you mumble your prayers, but you’ll be quick enough to open them and snatch the rewards when I’m gone!”
Turning back again to observe the crowd, Bishop Vanya missed the glance of enmity and loathing bestowed upon him by his loyal minister.
It was growing dark. Night, hastened by the storm, was closing its fingers over Merilon. Here and there amid the crowd, the wizards caused magical lights to flare. Illuminated by their multicolored flames, Mosiah’s father—now apparently the unofficial spokesman—stepped forward.
“Is what he says true, milord!” the Field Magus asked the Prince.
“Yes,” Prince Garald replied. Lifting his voice so that all could hear, he repeated, “Yes, what you have heard is true—to the shame of every one of us in Thimhallan, not just Merilon. It was our fear that caused this man”—he laid his hand on Joram’s shoulder—“to be sentenced to death, once as a child and again as a man. Joram is the son of the former Empress and Emperor of Merilon Xavier, his uncle, knew of his existence and tried to destroy him. In this, he had the cooperation of Bishop Vanya.”
The eyes of everyone in the crowd raised to the office in the Cathedral. Vanya, glaring at them all, reached out his good hand and, with a swift yank at the pull rope, dropped down the tapestry that covered the crystal wall.
He could shut out the eyes but not the sounds.
“The Almin has sent Joram to us in our hour of need!” It was Prince Garald’s voice. “This proves that He is with us! Will you follow Joram—the son of your Emperor and the rightful ruler of Merilon—into battle?”
The crowd responded with a mighty shout.
Bishop Vanya, peeping through a chink in the curtain, saw that Joram did not turn to look at the people, but remained standing with his back to them, his head lowered, his face averted. Prince Garald leaned near, talking earnestly to him, and at last, Joram lifted his head and slowly faced the crowd, his white robes glimmering in the magical torchlight.
The crowd roared its approval. Surging forward, people surrounded their new Emperor, trying to touch him, begging for his blessing. Instantly, the Duuk-tsarith closed ranks around Joram. Prince Garald caused the platform to rise up into the air. The people spiraled upward with it, cheering and applauding.
The old man did not have the magical strength to join them, and so was left standing alone on the ground in the drizzling rain, forgotten.
“The Prophecy!” Vanya muttered in a hollow voice. “It is upon us! There is no escape!” Fear stood out in beads of perspiration on his forehead and trickled down the neck of his elegant robes. With faltering footsteps, he lurched backward, sinking into his chair, assisted by the Cardinal.
“E’gad! No escape? What a defeatist attitude! Quite a touching little reunion, wouldn’t you say, Eminence? What with my tears and the rain, I’m half-drowned!”
The voice came from behind His Holiness. The Bishop, with a fearful start, squirmed around in his chair to see who had entered his private chambers unannounced and uninvited.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” the Cardinal was sputtering.
A young man—chin and upper lip adorned by a soft, well-trimmed beard—stepped casually from the Corridor. He was dressed in a bright red brocade dressing gown, decorated in black fur. The long, pointed toes of his red shoes curled up and in upon themselves, a bit of orange silk fluttered from one hand like a flame.
“Sink me, Your Tubbiness,” said the bearded young man, strolling across the rug toward the Bishop and tripping over his curly-tipped shoes, “you don’t look at all well! You there”—this to the stunned Cardinal—“a glass of brandy. Look lively. Thank you.” Lifting the snifter, the young man remarked, “To your health, Holiness,” and drained it at a gulp. “Thank you.” The young man handed the Cardinal the glass. “I’ll have another.
“Ah, Bishop,” he continued gaily, “you’re looking better already. One more drink and you’ll seem almost human. Who am I? You know me, my dear Vanya. The name’s Simkin. Why am I here? Because, O Rotund and Flabby One, I have two new friends who are longing to meet you. I think you’ll find them interesting. They are—quite literally—out of this world.”
6
Dona Nobis Pacem
We came to this world in peace, Bishop Vanya,” said Menju the Sorcerer in a smooth, melancholy voice. “We made the mistake—as is apparent to us now—of stumbling in upon your … un … war games. We were attacked, entirely by accident, according to you.” This spoken reassuringly as Vanya appeared about to make some remonstrance. “But, not knowing this, we could only assume that Joram, a known criminal who is fleeing the law in our world, had discovered our plans and was lying in wait to destroy us.” The Sorcerer sighed heavily “It is truly a most regrettable incident. The waste of lives on both sides, deplorable. Isn’t that so, Major Boris?”
Bishop Vanya glanced at the military man, who had been sitting stiff-backed on the edge of a soft, cushioned chair, staring fixedly before him. Simkin had removed the disguises the two men wore through the Corridor and the Major was once again dressed in what Vanya assumed was the military uniform of his kind.
“Isn’t that so, Major?” the Sorcerer repeated.
The Major did not reply. He had not spoken a word the entire time that he, Simkin, and this man who called himself the Sorcerer had been in the room. Vanya watched closely for his reaction to the magician’s repeated call for confirmation and did not miss the swift glimmer of hatred and defiance that flickered in the blond. Majors light eyes. The man’s strong, bulldog jaw was clenched so tightly that cords in the thick neck were plainly visible.
Vanya looked to see the Sorcerer’s response. It was an odd one. Raising his right hand in the air, the magician flexed it several times, absently forming the fingers into a semblance of a bird’s claw. Vanya was considerably interested to note that the Major blanched at the sight. The hate-filled glance was watered down by fear, the massive shoulders slumped, and the man appeared to shrink visibly into his ugly uniform.
“Isn’t that true, Major?” the Sorcerer repeated the question.
“Yes,” said Major Boris briefly, quietly. The lips closed tightly once more.
“The Major is extremely uncomfortable in this magical world and, of course, feels very strange here,” Menju said in apology to Vanya. “Though he has been studying the language for several months and understands what we have been saying quite well, he does not feel confident of conversing yet. I hope you will forgive him his deficiencies in conversation.”
“Certainly, certainly,” the Bishop said, waving a pudgy hand, the hand that functioned. The other remained hidden beneath the massive desk at which His Holiness sat.
The Bishop had quickly recovered from his initial shock of receiving guests from a world that until an hour ago had not existed for him. Despite his stroke, Vanya retained all the shrewd observation and knowledge of mankind that had kept him in power so many years. While he began to chat idly with the Sorcerer about the differences and similarities in the languages of the two worlds—both of which had their roots in ancient times—he was in reality mentally summing up his two visitors, endeavoring to guess their motives for coming.
These two men were similar to anyone in Thimhallan, Vanya realized, with the exception that the Major was quite Dead and that the Sorcerer—having been bereft of magic for a number of years—was crude and clumsy at the art.
Studying the Major, Vanya almost immediately
dismissed Boris from consideration. The Major, a blunt and honest military man, was obviously completely out of his depth and drowning in these deep waters. He was overawed by this world; he feared the Sorcerer. Boris was under the magician’s control, which meant that the Sorcerer was the only true player in the game.
Menju the Sorcerer was lying when he claimed that he came here with peaceful intent. Of that, Vanya had no doubt. Menju did not remember Vanya, but Vanya knew and remembered Menju. The Bishop recalled something of the man’s history. A secret practitioner of the Dark Arts of Technology, Menju had attempted to use his arts to seize control of a dukedom near Zith-el. Captured by the Duuk-tsarith, he had been summarily tried and sentenced by their tribunal to be cast into Beyond. The execution had been handled quickly and quietly; most of the people in Thimhallan probably never knew anything about it. That had been what—four years ago? Menju had been twenty then, he appeared to be about sixty now, and had spent, he told Vanya, forty years in the world Beyond.
The Bishop didn’t understand that at all, although the Sorcerer had patiently attempted to explain—something to do with the speed of light and dimension doors. The Almin works in mysterious ways, the Bishop told himself, dismissing the matter as unimportant. What was important was the fact that this powerful man was here now and he wanted something. What did he want? And what was he willing to give up in return? Those were the urgent questions.
As for what he wanted, that at first seemed obvious to the Bishop. Menju wanted the magic. Forty years without Life had gnawed at this Sorcerer. Vanya could see the hunger in Menju’s eyes. Now, back on his home world, the Sorcerer had once more partaken of Life. He had dined sumptuously, and the Bishop saw Menju’s firm resolve that he would never go hungry again.
He’s lying about coming here in peace, Vanya repeated inwardly, outwardly speaking of nouns, gerund phrases, and verbs. The attack upon our forces was no accident. It was too swift, too organized. That much I know from Xavier’s early reports. According to the Duuk-tsarith, the strange human army is in serious trouble now. Our magi inflicted heavy casualties, forced them to retreat. Why is the Sorcerer. Here? What is his plan?
Triumph of the Darksword Page 23
