Triumph of the Darksword (34 page)

T
he sun sank down into the horizon hurriedly, without calling attention to itself. Night came quickly to Thimhallan, therefore, and a new moon rose. Curved in a malicious grin, it might well have been laughing at the follies of mankind that met its eyes…

“The magician takes me for a fool?”

Left alone with the Cardinal after the departure of Simkin and his “friends,” Bishop Vanya sat behind his desk, glaring at the empty chair the Sorcerer had lately occupied.

The Bishop had been all pleasant smiles—or at least the half of his face that could smile had been smiling—until his guests left. But once they were gone—Simkin’s voice prattling away merrily the while, its irritating tones the last sound Vanya heard as the Corridor closed about them—the smiling side of the face became as cold and frozen as its paralyzed other half.

“The Darksword! That is what he wants,” Vanya snarled, the pudgy hand crawling over the desk, the Cardinal staring at it in a horrible kind of fascination. “A token of goodwill! Bah! He knows the truth about it, about its powers. Joram must have told him. Menju knew about Simkin, after all. He knew about the Turning, he knew about Joram crossing into Beyond.
Yes!
He knows about the sword!

“You
are the fool, Menju, to think I would give it up!” Vanya muttered, his plans bubbling and fermenting, coming to a frothing head. It appeared, from the perspiration on his brow, that his mental cup was overflowing.

“You Sorcerer! You devil of the Dark Arts! No wonder you have no fear of demons in that cursed place you have chosen to do your foul deed. You are one yourself, no doubt. But you might as well serve me as serve a Darker Master. Rid me of the Prophecy. Rid me of Joram. I’ll make of
him
a martyr and throw
you
to Prince Garald and the mob that will be howling for your blood. They’ll have you and your pitiful army to crucify.
I’ll
have the Darksword….”

With the heat of his emotions, the ice thawed, the smile returned to half the face.

“Send for the Executioner,” ordered the Bishop.

“The fat Priest takes me for a fool,” the Sorcerer said complacently.

Staring into a mirror he had conjured up, he carefully straightened his tie and smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from his lapels. He and the Major were back at their headquarters seated in the Major’s office. He had divested himself of his disguise—though Simkin had assured him, before leaving, that the red brocade dressing gown “is
you
!”

“I think you are mad!” Major Boris muttered in hollow tones.

“What did you say, James?” the Sorcerer asked, though he had heard well enough.

“I said I don’t understand!” the Major returned heavily. “What have you done except put us in a more desperate situation than ever! Why did you reveal our plans to Joram! You knew it would force him to attack us before the reinforcements arrive—”

“Assuredly,” the Sorcerer said coolly, combing his thick, wavy hair.

“But why?”

“Major”—the magician continued to look critically into the mirror—“consider this. We have sent a frantic message for reinforcements back to our world. They arrive and find us seated calmly in the midst of this enchanged realm, not a shot being fired. Then we regale them with tales of giants and dragons, whimpering that we don’t dare fight because the bad bogeymen are going to get us? They will double up with laughter!” His usual suave and unruffled appearance restored, the Sorcerer banished the mirror with a clap of his hands. Turning, he faced the Major. “Instead, they find us battling for our lives against monsters and crazed wizards. They’ll enter the fight, kill without mercy, and be only too glad to wipe out this demonic populace.”

“And by provoking Joram to attack, you’ve forced me to fight as well,” Major Boris said, staring out into the night with glazed, unseeing eyes.

“It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Major.” Reaching across the table, the Sorcerer patted James Boris’s right hand. Shuddering at the touch, the Major snatched his hand away, thrusting it protectively in his pocket. “It was just that I needed … insurance I think it a bit naive of you to believe that Joram would have let you escape this world unharmed anyway. You saw them mobilizing Merilon for war….”

Major Boris had seen, and he remembered. Darkening the room, Bishop Vanya had invited his guests, before they left, to look upon Merilon the Beautiful.

Preparing for war, Merilon’s twilight had been changed into day—its streets lit by countless angry, flaring suns. The Major’s grim face grew grimmer still as he gazed upon nightmare monsters flying through the air, legions of skeletons marching down the street. He could repeat the Bishop’s scornful words, tell himself that they were illusions, incapable of harm. But who would tell his men, facing these things on the field of battle? And if he did tell them, why would they believe him? Especially if they had just seen their comrades torn to shreds by the beaks of real cockatrice, their invincible
tanks crushed beneath the feet of real giants. There was no separating illusion from reality in this awful world.

Fear chewed at Boris, like centaurs devouring the flesh of their living victims. His right hand, hidden in the pocket of his fatigues, shook. It was all he could do to keep from bringing it out to examine it, to see if it still
was
a hand….

“My men may be hunks of meat in your trap,” he told the Sorcerer bitterly, “but we’re not going to wait for the wizards to fall on us like ravening wolves. I’m going to attack their city tomorrow. Take them by surprise.”

The Sorcerer shrugged. “I don’t care what you do, Major, as long as you do not interfere with my plans for acquiring the Darksword.”

“I won’t,” James Boris returned heavily. “I need the damn sword, remember? I’ll launch the attack at noon. You’re certain Joram will be out of the way by then?”

“Absolutely.” Menju said, rising and preparing to take his departure. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, Major, I have plans of my own to make for tomorrow.”

The Major continued to look glum.

“What about this … Simkin? I don’t trust him.”

“That fop?” The Sorcerer shrugged. “He’ll do what he’s promised. He wants his reward, after all.”

“But you’ve no intention of taking him back with us, have you, Sorcerer?” Major Boris stood up as well, keeping his hands in his pockets. “He may be a fop, but he’s a dangerous one. From what I’ve seen, he’s a better magician than you can ever hope to be!”

The Sorcerer regarded the Major with a cool, unfaltering gaze. “I trust that shot made you feel better, James. Now you can go to your bed with some shreds of dignity clinging to you. Not that I have to explain, but to be quite honest I
had
considered taking him. He would be an undoubted asset to my act. But you are right. He is too powerful. He would—so to speak—demand top billing. Once he has given me Joram, Simkin will meet the same fate as everyone else in this world.”

“And what about Joram?”

“I want him alive. He will be useful to me. He’ll tell me of the powers of the Darksword and how to construct more of these weapons—”

“He won’t, you know.”

“He’ll have no choice. I’ll have his wife.

The moon roamed across the sky, perhaps in search of new diversion. If so, it found little.

Following a highly satisfactory meeting with the Executioner, the Bishop retired to his bedchamber. Here, assisted by a novitiate, he was engulfed in a voluminous nightshirt and helped to his bed. Once there, Vanya realised he had forgotten, in the excitement of the evening, his nightly prayers. He did not get back up. Surely this once the Almin could make do without receiving instruction and advice from his minister.

In another part of the world, Major Boris, too, went to his bed. Lying on his regulation cot, he was ostensibly trying to rest, although he didn’t know which alternative he feared worse—that he wouldn’t fall asleep or that he would. Either way, he knew his dreams were likely to be extremely unpleasant.

Two men were still awake—the Sorcerer and the Executioner, both planning how to take their prey upon the morrow.

The moon, finding nothing interesting in that, was about to set when, after all, it did run across something amusing.

A bucket with a bright orange handle sat in a corner of the geodesic dome that served as the headquarters for the army from another world. This was by no means an ordinary bucket. Having worked itself into a state of indignation, it was, literally, coming apart at the seams.

“Menju, you cheat! You’re not playing at all fair! Taking Joram back to a brave, new world and not me!” The bucket flipped its handle about quite savagely. “Well, we’ll see about that!” the bucket predicted ominously. “We’ll see.”

C
ount Devon is truly sorry about the china cabinet, but it happened, he thinks, because he is uneasy in his mind about the mice nibbling his portrait. The painting would be glad to return to its old place upon the wall if only someone would so instruct it. He has tried, but it doesn’t hear his voice.

“He doesn’t want the portrait destroyed, for without it he can’t recall what he looks like.

“The mice concern him. He says there are far too many. It comes with being shut up in a closed, comfortable attic without any predators; his late wife being terrified of cats. The mice have had a comfortable life and are now fat and sleek with a decided taste for art. Yet he has discovered in his solitary, wakeful ramblings (for the dead who can sleep do so, never to wake, while those who can’t find sleep roam constantly in search of rest) many small corpses in the attic.

“The mice are dying, and he can’t understand why. Their tiny bodies litter the floor, more each day. And here is a very
Strange thing. He has heard from a woman who once lived across the street and who, it seems, died from lack of attention and it took three days for somebody to notice, that the mice in her attic are suffering the very same fate.

“Sealed up, safe and secure, they are, she says, suffocating.”

N
ight attempted to lull Merilon to sleep, but its soothing hand was thrust away by those preparing for war. Joram took command of the city, naming Prince Garald his military leader. He and the Prince immediately began to mobilize the population.

Joram met with his people in the Grove Gathering around the ancient tomb of the wizard who had brought them to this world, many of the citizens of Merilon wondered if that almost forgotten spirit stirred restlessly in his centuries-old sleep. Was his dream about to end and yet another enchanted kingdom fall to ruin?

“This is a fight to the death,” Joram told the people grimly. “The enemy intends to wipe out our entire race, to destroy us utterly. We have seen proof of this in the wanton attack upon innocent civilians on the Field of Glory. They have shown no mercy. We will show none.” He paused. The silence that flowed through the crowd grew deeper, until
they might have been drowned in it. Looking at them from where he stood on the platform above the tomb, Joram said slowly, emphasizing each word, “Every one of them must die.”

No one cheered when Joram left the Grove. Instead, they turned quickly and quietly to their duties. Women trained alongside the men; the very old and the infirm staying behind to mind the children—many of whom might be orphans when night fell again on Thimhallan.

“Better that,” Mosiah’s father said to his wife as they both prepared to practice for battle, “than dead.”

A call went forth for War Masters, who came to Merilon through the Corridors from all parts of the world. Under their tutelage, the civilians, including the Field Magi, were given hasty instruction in fighting the enemy, aided by their own catalysts.

Mosiah’s parents took their places beside old Father Tolban, the Priest who had served the village of Walren for so many years. Due to his advanced age, the meek, dried-up Field Catalyst could have remained behind with the children. But he insisted on going to battle with his people.

“I have never done a worthwhile thing in my entire life,” he told Jacobias. “I have never known a proud moment. Let this be it.”