Triumph of the Darksword (31 page)

At this moment, a young man who had been sitting—quiet and unobserved—on the back of the black swan rose into the air and came drifting down beside the Field Magus.

“Prince Garald,” said the young man, “allow me to present my father.”

“I am honored, sir,” the Prince said, bowing in his graceful manner. “Your son is a valiant warrior who fought the enemy at my side yesterday.”

The Field Magus flushed in pleasure at hearing this praise of his boy, but it did not deter him from his purpose. Clearing his throat in embarrassment, he glanced around at his followers, then continued.

“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 around 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.”