Triumph of the Darksword (28 page)

T
hough it was only late afternoon, the snowfall in Merilon brought premature night to the city. The House Magi’s magic caused the lights in Lord Samuels’s elegant mansion to glow softly, bringing cheerful light into the cheerless parlor where Lady Rosamund sat with Marie and her daughter. Globes of light brightened guest rooms that had been long closed up as the servants aired out linen and warmed beds, scattering rose petals about to drive out the musty odor of long disuse. As they worked, the servants repeated to each other whispered tales of people returned from the dead.

The only room in the house that remained dark was milord’s study. The gentlemen who met in there preferred the shadows that seemed conducive to the nature of their dark conversation.

“And that is the situation we face, Lord Samuels,” concluded Joram, staring out the window, watching the snow that continued to fall. “The enemy is intent on conquering
our world and releasing the magic into the universe. We have convinced them that such a goal will be difficult to attain and will cost them dearly.”

He had spent the past hour describing as best he could the battle on the Field of Glory. Lord Samuels listened in dazed silence. Life Beyond. Creatures made of iron who kill with a glance. Humans with metal skin. Gazing from Joram to Lord Samuels, Saryon saw that milord was apparently struggling to get a firm grip on the situation, but it was obvious from the bemused expression on his face that he felt as if he were trying to catch hold of fog.

“What … what do we do now?” he asked helplessly.

“We wait,” replied Joram. “There is a saying in Beyond. We must hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”

“What is the best?”

“According to the
Duuk-tsarith
who have been watching them, the invaders fled in panic. It was a rout, something better than I had hoped. They appear to be—from what the warlocks can tell—divided and unorganized. I know the officer they chose to lead this expedition, a Major James Boris. In any other situation he would be a good officer, he is rooted in logic and common sense. But that makes him a poor choice to send to this world. He is out of his depth, over his head. He won’t be able to cope with a war that—to him—must come straight out of a horror novel. I am betting he will retreat, take his men off-world.”

“And then?”

“Then, we must find a way to seal the Border once and for all. That shouldn’t be too difficult—”

“The
Duuk-tsarith
are already working on it,” Garald said. “But it will take an extraordinary amount of Life. Some from each Living person in Thimhallan—or so they speculate.”

“And what about the worst?” Lord Samuels asked, after a pause.

Joram’s lips tightened. “Boris will send for help. We don’t have the time or the energy now to stop them on the Border. We must fortify Merilon. We must wake this city from its enchanted sleep and prepare its people to defend it.”

“First someone must wrest control from that quivering mass of jelly who huddles in his Crystal Cathedral and
whines to the Almin to protect him,” Garald pointed out. “Begging your pardon, Father Saryon.”

The catalyst smiled wanly and shook his head.

“You’re right, of course, Your Grace, but who will the people follow?” Lord Samuels shifted in his chair, sitting forward. This was politics, something he could understand. “There are some—like d’Chambrey—who are intelligent enough to put aside differences and come together to fight this common enemy. But there are others—like Sir Chesney, that thickheaded, stubborn mule. I doubt he’ll believe any of this about other worlds. Merciful Almin!” Lord Samuels ran his hand through his graying hair “I’m not sure I believe it and I have proof before my own eyes …”

His gaze left the study where the men sat talking and turned toward the adjoining parlor. From within the cold, formal room with its elegant furnishings, barely seen through the half-open door, Saryon could hear Gwen’s voice. Its sad, haunting music was a fitting accompaniment—so it seemed to him—to this talk of war and death.

“Please don’t misunderstand,” Gwendolyn was telling her confused and distraught mother. “Count Devon is pleased with most of the changes you have made in his house. It’s just that he finds it so confusing, what with the new furniture and all. Then there’s so
much
furniture! He wonders if it’s all necessary. Particularly these little tables.” Gwendolyn fluttered a hand. “Everywhere he turns there’s another little table. He keeps blundering into them in the night. And just when he thought he was growing used to the tables, you moved the china cabinet. It has stood in the same place for years—on the north wall of the dining room, wasn’t it?”

“It—it blocked the morning light … from the east windows …” murmured Lady Rosamund faintly.

“The poor man ran smack into it during the night,” said Gwen. “He broke a salt cellar—quite by accident, he assures you. But the Count was wondering if it would be too much trouble to move it back.”

“My poor child!” said Lord Samuels. With an abrupt motion of his hand, he caused the door between his study and the parlor to shut itself quietly. “What is she talking about?” he demanded in a low, anguished voice. “She doesn’t recognize
us, yet she knows about the … the china cabinet and … the salt cellar! The salt cellar! My god! We assumed one of the servants broke it!”

“What was the name of the previous owner of this estate?” Joram asked. He, too, had been listening to his wife, his eyes shadowed with pain that echoed in his voice.

Saryon started to offer comfort, but Lord Samuels was answering Joram’s question and the catalyst clamped his lips shut. Shifting restlessly in his chair, the Priest began to rub his misshapen fingers, as though they ached. What comfort could he offer anyway? Empty words, that was all.

“The previous owner? He’s dead. His name was …” Lord Samuels broke off, staring at Joram in horrified understanding. “Count Devon!”

“I tried to tell you,” Joram said, sighing. “She talks to the dead. In this world, she would be known as a Necromancer.”

“But the Necromancers are gone! Their kind was destroyed during the Iron Wars!” Lord Samuels turned his agonized gaze from Joram back to the parlor; his daughter’s voice could still be heard faintly through the closed door.

Joram absently ran his fingers through his hair. “In the world Beyond they consider her to be insane. They do not believe in Necromancy. The healers theorize that the terrible trauma Gwendolyn underwent caused her to seek escape in a fantasy realm of her own imaginings, a realm where she feels safe from harm. I alone believe that there is a certain sanity in her madness, that she
can
truly communicate with the dead.”

“Not you alone….” Saryon corrected ominously.

Joram’s dark brows came together. “No, you are right, Father,” he said in a low voice. “I am not alone. Menju the Sorcerer—the man I mentioned in my document—also believes that she is a Necromancer. When he realized how valuable this ancient skill could prove to him, he tried to abduct her. That was when I first became aware of his true nature.”

“Valuable?” Garald stirred in his chair. Sitting at Lord Samuels’s desk, he’d been studying maps of Thimhallan, but it had grown too dark in the room to read them, and now he listened to the conversation. “How? What can the dead offer the living?”

“Have you never studied the work of the Necromancers, Your Grace?” asked Saryon.

“Not much,” Garald admitted indifferently. “They propitiated the spirits of the dead—making amends for misdeeds, finishing tasks left undone, that sort of thing. According to the histories, their dying out after the Iron Wars was no great loss.”

“I beg to differ with you, Your Grace,” Saryon said earnestly. “When the Necromancers died out, the Church made it
appear
to be no great loss. But it seems to me that it was. I have spent many hours with Gwendolyn, listening to her talk with those only she can see and hear. The dead possess something of incomparable value—something that will forever be withheld from the living.

“And that is—” Garald said somewhat impatiently, obviously wanting to turn the conversation to more important matters but too polite to offend the catalyst.

“Complete understanding, Your Grace! When we die, we will become one with the Creator. We will know His plans for the universe. We will see, at last, the Cosmic Scheme!”

Garald suddenly appeared interested “Do you believe this?” he asked.

“I—I’m not certain” Saryon flushed, averting his face, staring down at his shoes. “It is what we are taught,” he added lamely. The old tormenting questioning of his faith—questioning he had thought answered by Joram’s “death”—was being bandied about by his soul again.

“Say this is true,” Garald persisted. “Could the dead grant this knowledge of the future to the living?”

“Whether or not I believed it, Your Grace”—Saryon smiled sadly—“that would seem to me to be impossible. The world the dead see is beyond our ability to comprehend, much as it is impossible for us to understand this world Joram has seen. We see time through a single window that faces only one direction. The dead see time through hundreds of windows facing all directions.” The catalyst spread his scarred hands in an effort to express the enormity of this vision. “How, then, can they hope to describe what they see? But they can offer advice. And they did—through the Necromancers. In ancient days, the dead were granted the opportunity
to counsel the living. People venerated their dead, they kept in contact with them, and they had the benefit of the dead’s insight into the one Vast Mind. That is what has been lost, Your Grace.”

“I see.” Garald pondered, his eyes gazing thoughtfully at the closed door.

Saryon shook his head.

“No, Your Grace,” he said quietly. “She cannot help us. For all we know, this unfortunate Count, talking of china cabinets and salt cellars, may be trying to get our attention to explain something much more important. But, if so, Gwendolyn could not impart that information to us. She can communicate with the dead, but not with the living.”

The Prince appeared ready to pursue the subject, but Saryon—with a glance at Lord Samuels and another at Joram—shook his head slightly, reminding the Prince that—for two people at least—this was a painful subject. The father gazed through the closed door, the expression on his face one of perplexity and grief. The husband stared out into the dead, snow-shrouded garden in bitter resignation. Clearing his throat, Prince Garald abruptly changed the subject.

“We were discussing the fact that Merilon needs a leader, someone to rally the people,” he said briskly. “I have stated before, I can think of only one person….”

“No!” Joram turned from the window with an impatient gesture. “No,
Your Grace,”
he added more gently, in a belated attempt to soften the harshness of his reply.

“Joram, listen to me!” Garald leaned forward to argue. “You are by far the—”

A Corridor gaped open suddenly in the center of the study, interrupting the Prince. Everyone in the room stared at it expectantly, but for a moment nothing was visible. Saryon could hear voices coming from within, however, and what sounded like a struggle.

“Take your hands off me! Lout! You’ve crushed the velvet. I’ll have fingermarks on my sleeve for a week! I—”

Simkin, dressed in bright green hose, an orange hat, and a green velvet doublet tumbled out of the Corridor, landing in a heap on the floor. He was followed by Mosiah, still dressed in the uniform of an archer of Sharakan, and by two, black-robed and hooded
Duuk-tsarith.

Apparently nonplussed at his less than graceful entrance, Simkin rose to his feet, bowed to the assembled gentlemen, and said grandly, with a flutter of orange silk and a graceful wave of his hand, “Your Grace, congratulate me I have found them?”

Ignoring Simkin, who was preening himself on his latest triumph, Mosiah turned to the Prince. “Your Grace,
we
found
him.
He was in the enemy’s camp. Acting on your orders, the
Thon-li
, the Corridor Masters, caught him and brought him to me. With their help”—he indicated the warlocks—“I managed to drag him here.”

“Which is precisely where I was coming!” said Simkin with a pained expression. “Or I would have been if I’d known where
here
was. I’ve been searching everywhere, quite pining away for a glimpse of your handsome face, O Prince. You see, I have the most frightfully important information—”

“According to the
Thon-li
, he was on his way to the Cathedral,” interrupted Mosiah caustically.

Simkin sniffed. “I presumed Your Grace was there, of course. Everyone who is anyone is at the Cathedral. The peasants are giving the most jolly riot—”

“Riot?” Prince Garald looked at the
Duuk-tsarith
for confirmation.

“Yes, Your Grace,” said the black-robed warlock, hands folded before him. “We were coming to report this to you when Mosiah requested our assistance. The Field Magi have broken out of the Grove and are storming the Cathedral, demanding to see the Bishop.” The black hood lowered slightly, one of the hands making a deprecating movement. “We could not stop them, Your Grace. Though they have few catalysts, they are still strong in magic, and our forces are weakened.”

“I understand,” Prince Garald said gravely, exchanging alarmed glances with Lord Samuels. Saryon saw both of them look toward Joram, who refused to meet their eyes, but stood with his back turned, staring into the garden that could now barely be seen through the gloom. “What is the Bishop doing?”

“He refuses to see them, Your Grace. He has ordered the doors to the Cathedral magically sealed. Those members of
our Order with strength enough to cast spells are guarding it.”

“So the Cathedral is safe for the time being?”

“Yes–”

“They won’t attack it, Your Grace!” Mosiah cried. “They don’t want to hurt anyone! They’re frightened and they want answers.”

“Is your father among them, Mosiah?” Prince Garald asked quietly.

“Yes, my lord,” Mosiah said. His face flushed. “My father is their leader. He knows what really happened in the battle yesterday. I told him. Maybe it was wrong of me,” he added with half-proud, half-shamed defiance, “but they have a right to know the truth!”