Legacy of the Darksword (14 page)

“Father!” Mosiah interrupted,
with a smile, as if reliving old memories. “I would be interested to hear about
these calculations, but at a later date. Now shouldn’t we be going?”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry. Here’s
poor Reuven soaked to the skin. I told you to wear something heavier than that
jacket,” he added in concern. “Didn’t you bring a warmer coat?”

I indicated that I was warm
enough, only very wet. I was wearing a white cable-knit sweater and blue jeans,
with a jacket over that. I knew my master, however. Had I been wearing fur,
wrapped up from head to toe, Saryon would have still been worried about me.

“We should hurry, sir,” I signed.

Not only was I looking forward to
getting out of the rain, I was eager to see the magic.

“Am I supposed to open the Corridor?”
Saryon asked. “I’m not sure I remember ...”

“No, Father,” Mosiah replied. “The
days are gone when you catalysts controlled the Corridors. Now anyone who knows
the magic may use them.”

He spoke a word and an oval void
appeared in the midst of the rain and the wind. The void elongated, until it
was tall enough for us to enter. Saryon looked back uncertainly at Mosiah.

“Are you coming with us? Joram
would be glad to see you.”

Mosiah shook his head. “I do not
think so. Step into the Corridor, before you catch your death.” He turned to
me. “The sensation you will feel is very frightening at first, but it will soon
pass. Remain calm.”

Saryon started to enter the void,
then
he halted. “Where will it take us?”

“To the Font, where Joram lives.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to
end up in some shattered castle in Merilon—”

“I am certain, Father. I said the
Corridors had shifted. Like spokes in a wheel, they now all lead either to the
Font or away from it.”

“
How strange,”
said Saryon.
“How very strange.”

He entered the void. Urged by
Mosiah, I followed quickly after my master, almost tripping on his heels. I
lost sight of him immediately, however. The Corridor closed around me, as if it
would compress me into nothingness. I felt squeezed and smothered, unable to
breathe.

Remain calm. . . .

All very well for Mosiah to say!
He wasn’t suffocating! I struggled for air, struggled to free myself. I was
drowning, dying, losing consciousness. . . .

Then suddenly the Corridor
opened, like a window shade in a dark room springing up to let in bright
sunlight. I could breathe. I was on a mountaintop. The air was crisp and cool.
No rain fell. The storm clouds were in the valleys beneath us.

I looked into blue sky, saw
white, scudding clouds that were so close I felt as if I might snag one.

Saryon stood next to me,
gazing
around with the eager, wistful, hungry look of one who has returned at long
last to a site where memories, painful and pleasant, were forged. We stood on
the ramparts of what had once been an immense city-fortress.

He shook his head, looking a
little dazed. “So much has changed,” he murmured. He drew near, took me by the
arm, and pointed. “Up there, on the mountain’s peak—made
from
the
mountain’s peak—was the cathedral. It is gone.
Entirely gone.
It must have collapsed later on, after we left. I never knew.”

He stared at the ruins, which lay
scattered over the mountainside,
then
he turned and
looked in a different direction. His sadness brightened somewhat. “The
University is still here. Look, Reuven.
The building on the
side of the mountain.
Magi from all over Thimhallan came to study there,
to perfect their art. I studied mathematics there. What happy hours!”

Tunnels and corridors burrowed
into the mountain. The work of the Church had been done here, its catalysts
living, working inside the mountain, worshiping at its peak. Deep within the
mountain was the Well of Life, the source of the magic on Thimhallan, now empty
and broken.

It occurred to me, suddenly,
that—but for Joram and the Darksword—I might now be a catalyst, walking these
very corridors, bustling about importantly on the business of the Church. I
could picture myself here very clearly, as if that same shade that snapped open
to reveal the sunshine had also afforded me a glimpse of another life. I looked
out that window and saw myself looking back in.

Saryon saw his past. I saw my
present. It was exhilarating and unnerving, yet eminently satisfying. This was
the land of my birth. I was a part of this mountain, the sand, the trees,
the
sky. I took a deep breath of the crisp air, and felt
uplifted. And though I had no idea how to go about it, I think—at that moment—I
could have drawn Life from the world around me, focused it within my body, and
given it away.

A sound touched my reverie.
Concern for my master drew me back to reality.

Saryon stood with bowed head. He
brushed his hand swiftly across his eyes.

“Never mind,” he said, when I
would have offered comfort.
“Never mind.
It was for
the best, I know. I weep for the beauty that was ruined, that is all. It could
not have lasted long. The ugliness would have overwhelmed it, and like Camelot,
it might have been destroyed and irretrievably lost. At least our people still
live and their memories live and the magic lives, for those who seek it.”

I had not sought it, yet it had
come to me anyway. I was not a stranger to this land. It remembered me, though
I had no memory of it.

Like Saryon, I had come home.

“I will run to Joram and he will
take me in his arms and we will be together forever and ever. ...”

GWENDOLYN;
DOOM OF THE DARKSWORD

“I
say!”
came
a peeved voice from the vicinity of the knapsack. “Are you two going to stand
around and slobber over each other all day? I’m dying of ennui—the same sad
fate that befell the Duke of Uberville, who was such a boring old fart that he
bored himself and died for lack of interest.”

I considered overturning the
knapsack and searching for Simkin, but to do so would have wasted precious
time. I had spent hours trying to see to it that everything fit inside and I
dreaded the thought of having to do all that over again.

I signed to Saryon, “If we ignore
him, perhaps he’ll go away.”

“I heard that,” Simkin said. “And
I can assure you, it won’t work!”

I was astonished, for I had not
spoken, and I don’t think that even Simkin could have learned sign language in
the space of the few hours we had known each other.

Saryon shrugged and wryly smiled.
“The magic lives,” he whispered, and there was
a warmth
in his eyes that was rapidly drying up the tears.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I was just trying to figure that
out myself,” said Saryon, peering down from our perch on the ramparts.

“
I
know,” said a muffled
voice from inside the knapsack, adding huffily, “but
I’m
not telling.”

Below us was a courtyard, its
paving stones cracked and overgrown with a wide variety of plant life, including
several varieties of wildflower. Across the courtyard was a long, low building
with a great many windows, to let in the sunlight. Some of the windows had been
broken, but the holes had been neatly covered over with pieces of wood. Here
and there, in the courtyard, some attempt had been made to cut back the weeds,
sweep away the dead leaves, and make the area more attractive.

“Ah, yes! In that building”—Saryon
pointed to the building past the courtyard—”the Theldara, the healers, had
their infirmary. Now I know where I am.”

“Did I ever tell you about the
time the Theldara came to treat my little sister for ringworm? Or was it
tapeworm? I’m sure there’s a difference. One eats you and you eat one. Not that
it mattered to poor little Nan, for she was eaten by bears. Where was I? Ah,
yes, the Theldara. He—”

Simkin prattled on. Saryon turned
and began to walk along the ramparts, making his way toward a flight of stairs
which led down into the courtyard. “There was a garden here, on the other side,
where they grew herbs and other plants which they used in healing.
A quiet, restful, soothing place.
I came here once.
A very fine man, that Theldara.
He tried to help me, but
that proved impossible. I was quite unable to help myself, which is always the
first step.”

“It looks as though someone lives
here,” I signed, pointing to the boarded-up windows.

“Yes,” Saryon agreed eagerly. “Yes,
this would be an excellent place for Joram and his family to reside, with
access to the interior portions of the Font.”

“Oh, jolly,” was the opinion of
the knapsack.

Rounding a corner of the
retaining wall, we found further evidence of habitation. One part of the
courtyard, where the great Bishop Vanya had once walked in ceremony and state,
was now apparently a laundry. Several large washtubs occupied the paving stones
and lengths of rope had been strung between two ornamental trees. Fluttering
from the ropes were shirts and petticoats, sheets and undergarments, drying in
the sun.

“They
are
here!” Saryon
said to himself, and he had to pause a moment, to gather his strength.

Up to this point he had refused
to let himself believe that at last, after all these years, he would see the
man he loved as well or better than he could have ever loved a son.

Courage regained, Saryon hurried
ahead, not thinking consciously of where he was going, but allowing his memory
to show the way. We circled around the laundry tubs, ducked beneath the
clothes.

“Joram’s flag—a nightshirt.
Well, it figures,” said Simkin.

A door led into the dwelling.
Looking through a window, we could see a sunlit room, with comfortable couches
and chairs, and tables decorated with bowls of blooming flowers. Saryon
hesitated a moment, his hand trembling, then he knocked at the door. We waited.

No answer.

He knocked again, staring
intently, hopefully, through the glass windowpane.

I took the opportunity to search
the area. Walking the length of the building, I looked around the corner and
into a large garden. Hastening back to my master, I tugged on his sleeve and
motioned him to follow me.

“You’ve found them?” he said.

I nodded and held up two fingers.
I had found two of them.

I stayed behind as he entered
that garden. The women would be startled, frightened, perhaps. It was best that
they saw him, at first and alone.

The two were working in the
garden, their long, cream-colored skirts kilted up around their waists, their
heads protected from the sun by wide, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their sleeves
were rolled up past the
elbow,
their arms were tanned
brown from the sun. Both were hoeing, their arms and the tools they held rising
and falling with swift, strong chopping strokes.

Wind chimes, hanging on a porch
behind them, made music for them, to lighten their work. The air was filled
with the rich smell of freshly turned loam.

Saryon walked forward on unsteady
legs. He opened the gate that led into the garden, and that was as far as his
strength and courage would bear him. He put out a hand to support himself on
the garden wall. He tried, I think several times, to call a name, but his voice
was mute as my own.

“Gwendolyn!” he said at last, and
spoke that name with so much love and longing that no one who heard it could
have been the least bit frightened.

She wasn’t fearful. Startled,
perhaps, to hear a strange voice where no strange voice had spoken in twenty
years. But she wasn’t afraid. She stopped her hoeing, lifted her head, and
turned toward the sound.

She recognized my master in an
instant. Dropping her hoe, she ran to him straight across the garden, heedless
of the plants she crushed, the flowers she trampled. Her hat flew off, in her
haste, and a mass of hair, long and golden, tumbled down behind. “Father
Saryon!” she cried, and flung her arms about him.

He clasped her tightly, and they
both held on to each other, weeping and laughing simultaneously.

Their reunion was sacred, a
private special moment for only the two of them. It seemed to me that even
watching must intrude, and so, deferentially and
with
some considerable
curiosity, I turned my gaze on the daughter.

She had ceased her work. Standing
straight, she regarded us from beneath the broad brim of her hat. In figure and
stature, she was the twin of her mother, of medium build, graceful in her
movements. That she was accustomed to physical labor showed in the well-defined
muscles of her bare arms and legs, her upright stance and posture. I could not
see her face, which was hidden by the shadow of the hat. She came no closer,
but stood where she was.