Legacy of the Darksword (13 page)

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to
throw you out,” Saryon said mildly. “On the contrary, I’m going to carry you
safely—where I would normally carry my scrip.
Around my
waist.
Beneath my robes.
Next
to my skin.”

The scrip vanished so suddenly
that I found myself doubting my senses, wondering if I had actually seen (and
heard) it. In its place, in the backseat of the air
car,
was the pale and ephemeral-looking image of a young man.

He was not ghostlike. Ghosts,
from what I’ve read about them, are more substantial. It is difficult to
describe, but imagine someone taking watercolors, painting the figure of
Simkin,
then
pouring water over it. Ethereal,
transparent, he faded into the background and would not have been noticed if
you weren’t already looking for him. The only bright spot of color anywhere
about him was a wisp of defiant orange.

“You see what I’ve become!”
Simkin was doleful.
“A mere shadow of my former self.
And who is your silent friend here, Father? Cat got his tongue? I recall the
Earl of Marchbank. Cat got his tongue, once. Earl ate tuna for lunch. Fell
asleep, mouth open. Cat enters room, smells tuna.
Ghastly
sight.”

“
Reuven is mu—” Saryon began.

“Let him speak for himself,
Father,” Simkin interrupted.

“Mute,” Saryon resumed. “He is
mute. He can’t speak.”

“Saves his breath to cool his
porridge, eh?
Must eat a considerable amount of cold
porridge.
This finger-wiggling.
Means
something, I presume?”

“It is sign language. That is how
he communicates. One way,” Saryon amended.

“How jolly,” said Simkin, with a
yawn. “I say! Could we get a move on? Nice to see you again and all that,
Father, but you were always a bit of a bore. I’m quite looking forward to
talking to Joram again.
Been ages.
Simply ages.”

“You haven’t seen Joram?
All this time?”
Saryon was skeptical.

“Well, there’s ‘seen’ and then
there’s ‘seen,’ “ Simkin said evasively
. “
‘Seen’ from
a distance, ‘seen’ to one’s best advantage, ‘seen’ to the task at hand, ‘seen’
off on a long ocean voyage. I suppose you might say that I have, in fact, ‘seen’
Joram. On the other hand, I haven’t ‘seen’ him, if you take my meaning.

“To put it another way,” he
added, having seen that we were both lost, “Joram doesn’t know I’m alive.
Quite literally.”

“
You propose to go with us, to
have us take you to Joram,” said Saryon.

“Jolly reunion!” Simkin was
enthusiastic. “In your ecclesiastical company, Padre, our dark and
temperamental friend might be willing to overlook that harmless little joke I
played on him there toward the end.”

“When you betrayed him? Plotted
to murder him?” Saryon said grimly.

“It all turned out right in the
end!” Simkin protested. “And it wouldn’t have, you know
,
if it hadn’t been for me.”

Saryon and I looked at each
other. We really had no choice in the matter, as Simkin well knew. It was
either take him with us or throw him out, and although his magic might be
weakened, he was, as he had so cleverly proved, still adept at altering his
form.

“Very well,” Saryon said testily.
“You may come with us. But you are on your own. What Joram chooses to do
with
you or
to
you is up to him.”

“What Joram chooses . . .” Simkin
repeated softly. “It seems to me, from what I’ve heard—Merlyn is such a gossipy
old busybody—Joram is running out of choices. I say, you don’t mind if I change
back to the scrip, do you? Very fatiguing in this form— breathing and all that.
You must promise, though, Father, that you won’t put me next to your skin!”
Simkin shivered. “No offense, Father, but you’ve gone all wrinkly and
prunelike.”

“What do you mean about Joram
running out of choices?” Saryon demanded, alarmed.
“Simkin!
What—the Almin take him!”

The watercolor image was gone.
The leather scrip was back, resting on the seat of the air car. And it had gone
mute, apparently.
As mute as myself.

Nothing Saryon did or said could
induce it to talk. I wondered if the scrip had ever talked at all. And if it
hadn’t, what did that make me?
Delusional?
That would
be a kind word. I glanced at my master to see if he was prey to the same
uncomfortable feelings.

He was certainly regarding the
scrip very grimly. “We better drive on, Reuven,” Saryon said, adding with a
frown for the scrip. “We’ve wasted precious time as it is.”

We crossed the Borderland which
had, for endless ages, separated Thimhallan from the rest of the universe and
separated magic from the rest of the universe as well. A field of magical
energy, created by the founders of Thimhallan, the Border permitted people to
leave, but prevented them and all others from entering or reentering. It was
Joram, the Dead child of a dying world, who not only crossed that Border, but
was able to return. He had brought the two realms—one magical, one
technological—together. They had met with the violence of a thunderclap.
Keeping the speed of the air car slow, I was able to handle the vehicle with
some proficiency, although our ride was still rough and we were jounced about
considerably. Not having had much experience with air cars—or cars of any type,
for that matter—Saryon attributed the roughness to the buffeting winds. I am
ashamed to say that I did not disabuse him.

As for Simkin, we had barely
started off again when the leather scrip slid to the floor. The knapsack
tumbled down on top of it. We heard a muffled shriek, but Saryon couldn’t reach
the scrip.

“Should I stop?” I mouthed. With
the wind tossing around the air car, I was reluctant to do so.

“No. Serves him right,” Saryon
said.

I had not thought my master could
be so vindictive.

We drove past a red beacon light
that was now no longer operational. Saryon stared at it, twisting around to
gaze at it when it was behind us.

“That must be the alarm beacon,”
he said, turning back around. He was holding fast to a hand strap above the
door on his side.
“The one that used to alert those in the
outpost to anyone crossing the Border.
Next, we should see the Stone
Watchers. Or what is left of them.”

Along the Borderland had once
stood enormous statues known as the Watchers, the guardians of the Border. They
had been living men, before their flesh was changed to rock, frozen forever,
while their minds remained active.

Such a dreadful fate had once
been Saryon’s.

I recognized the site, when we
reached it, though I had never seen it. During the last days of Thimhallan,
when violent quakes and fierce storms swept the land, the Watchers fell; the
spirits in them freed at last. Now the shattered remains littered the ground,
some of them completely covered over by windblown sand. The mounds looked very
much like graves.

Noticing the pain of memory
contort Saryon’s face, I was about to increase our speed by giving more power
to the rear thrusters, taking us quickly away from this tragic site. Saryon
understood my attempt and forestalled it. I hoped he was not going to ask me to
stop, for the wind, though lessened somewhat, was still strong. If I tried to
halt the air car, we might be blown out of control. Stinging sand blasted our
windshield, rattled against the doors.

“Slow down a moment, Reuven,” he
said.
He stared long at the mounds as we drove slowly past. “They
cried their
warning,
but no one paid heed. The people were too intent on their own ambitions, their
own plots and schemes to listen to the voices of the past. What voices call to
us now, I wonder?” Saryon mused. “And are we listening to them?”

He fell silent, thoughtful. The
only voice I heard was a faint one coming from the floor of the backseat of the
air car. The language it was using was shocking. Fortunately Saryon could not
hear Simkin over the rush of the jets and his sad reverie remained undisturbed.

We left the Border behind,
crossing over the vast stretch of sand dunes, and entered the grasslands.
Saryon gazed around blankly and I realized that he recognized
nothing,
no landmarks looked familiar to him. Not only had
the land changed during the cataclysmic upheavals that followed the emptying of
the Well of Life, but, I reasoned, my master had been accustomed to traveling
the magical Corridors, built by the long-lost Diviners, which whisked the
people of Thimhallan through time and space from one place to another.

I continued flying toward the
mountains on the horizon, that being our general destination, but I was growing
worried. Heavy blue-gray clouds were massing; lightning flickered on their
fringes, which dragged the desolate ground. The wind was increasing. One of the
fierce storms for which Thimhallan is noted was fast approaching. The mountains
were my only guide and I would lose sight of them in the driving rain. The air
car was equipped with all manner of devices to assist one in navigation, but I
did not know how they worked.

Bitterly I regretted the impulse
which had prompted me to turn down the offer of a driver. We would have to stop
the air car when the storm hit, not only because we might easily lose our way,
but because we ran the risk of slamming into a tree or the side of a cliff.
Heavily forested lands lay ahead and, beyond that, the foothills.

A gust of wind hit the car, blew
it sideways about three feet. The rain
began,
large
drops splatting into the windshield. I thought of the small, lightweight tent
we had brought and shook my head. I couldn’t share my fears and doubts with
Saryon, for my hands were my voice and I was forced to keep both hands on the
steering mechanism.

There was only one thing to do
and that was to turn back before the storm grew any worse. I cut the power,
lowered the car to the ground. Saryon turned to look questioningly at me. Once
the air car had settled, I was about to explain to him our predicament, when
his eyes—looking at me—suddenly widened and shifted their gaze to a point
behind me. I turned swiftly and shrank back, startled, at the sight of the
apparition which loomed in the window.

I don’t know why I was surprised.
I should have known they would be around.

The black-robed and -hooded
Enforcer made a motion. I touched the button, the window slid into the side of
the car. Rain struck me in my face. The wind blew my hair into my eyes and
howled so that I could barely hear. Yet the black robe of the
Duuk-tsarith
remained
dry, its folds still and unruffled. He might have been standing in the eye of
the cyclone, while we—only inches from him—were in the teeth of the storm.

He pushed back his hood and I
recognized Mosiah.

“What do
you
want?” Saryon
shouted. He didn’t look pleased.

“You are wasting time,” Mosiah
said. “Abandon this technological monstrosity. You can be with Joram in an
instant if you use the magic.”

Saryon looked questioningly at
me.

“We don’t know the way, sir,” I
signed to him. “The storms will only grow worse. We dare not travel blind. And
we have only seventy-two hours.”

“It seems we have no choice,”
Saryon admitted. “How will you take us there?”

“The Corridors,” said Mosiah. “You
must leave the vehicle. Bring your things with you.”

I opened the door. The wind
nearly pulled it out of my hand. I was instantly soaked. Reaching into the
backseat for my knapsack, I lifted it from the floor and looked beneath it for
the leather scrip. At least this would be an opportunity to rid ourselves of
Simkin.

The leather scrip was gone.

With deep misgivings, I pulled
the knapsack out of the backseat. I wondered what strange object I was now
carrying inside the knapsack—a teapot, perhaps.

Saryon, his robes whipping about
his lean body, stood next to Mosiah. With some difficulty caused by the wind, I
hoisted the knapsack onto my shoulders.

“Did you bring my leather scrip?”
Saryon shouted.

“No, sir!”
I signed back. “I couldn’t find
it.”

“Oh, dear,” said Saryon, and
looked extremely worried. “It is always better to know where Simkin is than
where he isn’t,” he said to me in a low voice.

“Have you lost something?” Mosiah
asked.

“Probably not,” Saryon said
gloomily. He peered at Mosiah through the rain. “How do we travel the
Corridors? I thought they were destroyed!”

“We thought so, too,” Mosiah
said. “We searched for the Corridors, after the destruction of Thimhallan, and
couldn’t find them. We assumed that they were lost to us, because the magic
that had supported them was gone. But it seems that they had only moved, shifted
with the upheaval of the land.”

Saryon frowned. “I don’t see how
that’s possible! Mathematically speaking, it isn’t! Admittedly we never knew
exactly how the Corridors functioned, but the calculations necessary to open
them precluded any—”