Legacy of the Darksword (44 page)

“Cover it!”
the dragon shrieked, and the
light from its eyes was hooded, plunging us into darkness.

Hastily, Eliza wrapped the
Darksword in its blanket, which had been lying near it.

“Take it and get out!” The dragon
writhed and thrashed, as if it was in the most terrible pain.

“This way!”
Saryon called, his voice alone
guiding us, for we could not see.

Clasping hands, finding comfort
in each other’s touch, Eliza and I advanced cautiously toward his voice. We
tried to hurry, but we were afraid of falling over the rocks, bones, and other
debris scattered around. The journey across the dragon’s lair, with the great
beast roaring and lashing out so near us, was terrifying. Saryon’s voice, calm
and steady, guided us through the nightmare.

“Here, I am here!” Saryon cried,
and his hands found us in the darkness, his arms gathered us to him.
“My children!”
His embrace on us tightened and I knew then
that he had seen into that alternate time. “My children!” he repeated.

My heart swelled with love for
him, love that enhanced the love I felt for Eliza, expanded that love until it
filled me completely,
admitted
no room for fear. I was
no longer afraid of the darkness or the dragon, the Technomancers, or even the
Hch’nyv. The future might be filled with horror. I might never see the
sunrise,
I might be dead by morning. But this moment, with
this blessed feeling warm inside me, would be enough.

Saryon’s grip tightened still
further. I felt his body tense.

“Be careful,” he warned softly. “Someone
is in here.”

“Father,”
came
Mosiah’s voice at almost the same moment. “Get out of there!
Now!”

The dragon had ceased its
pain-filled roar. It lay still on the cavern floor, its eyes hooded, so that
only a slit of pale light shone from them. I could still sense its hatred of
us, but that hatred was now tempered with fear.

“Father!”
Mosiah’s call was urgent.

“Wait,” said Saryon quietly.

A figure stood before us in the
middle of the dragon’s lair. Calm and relaxed, she might have been standing in
our living room back home. She took no notice of the dragon, who had pressed
its body back up against the wall, as far from her as it could manage.

“Mother!”
Eliza breathed.

Mosiah was beside us. “It could
be another trick!”

My first thought was that the
Technomancers must be very brave or very desperate to enact a charade before
such a dreadful audience as the Dragon of the Night. Then I realized that
desperate was an apt description of Kevon Smythe as we had last seen him.

Gwendolyn looked exactly as I had
seen her when we first met, except that the lines of care and worry had been
smoothed from her face. Her expression was serene. She had eyes for only her
daughter, and no Interrogator could have mimicked the love and pride with which
she gazed upon Eliza.

“It
is my
mother,” Eliza
said,
her voice aching with longing. “I am
sure
of it.”

“Wait,” Mosiah counseled. “Don’t
go near. Not yet.”

Remembering the horror of the
last meeting with the Interrogator, Eliza remained standing beside Saryon. She
wanted this to be real. Yet how could it? From where had Gwendolyn come? And
why had she come to us now, in the middle of the dragon’s lair?

“I want you to meet someone,
Daughter,” Gwen said.

She reached out her hand, reached
into the darkness, and another figure appeared, shimmering into view at
Gwendolyn’s side. I was reminded of Simkin, for this second figure had the same
watercolor, transparent look to it that Simkin had exhibited when he wasn’t
playing at being stuffed. Gwen led the figure by the hand, drew the figure
close to us.

And then I recognized the person.
I gasped and looked wildly at Eliza. I even reached out and touched her, to
make certain she was real. Eliza stood beside me and Eliza stood before me,
both at the same time or, rather, one in one time and one in another. The one
before me I recognized as Queen Eliza. She wore the same blue riding habit, the
same circlet of gold glinted in her dark hair.

Mosiah sucked in his breath.
Saryon smiled wistfully, sadly. He kept his arm around Eliza, supporting her.

“What . . . what is this?” Eliza,
my true Eliza, cried brokenly. She stared at her reflection in time’s mirror.
“Who
is
this?”

“You, my daughter,” said
Gwendolyn. “You as you might have been in another time. She cannot speak to
you, for in her time she is dead. I alone can understand her words. She wanted
to prove to you, to all of you”—her gaze swept over every one of us, lingered
longest on Mosiah—”that everything you have experienced has been real. That
I
am real.”

“I don’t understand!” Eliza
faltered.

“Look at yourself, Eliza. Look at
yourself and open your mind to the impossible.”

Eliza stared long at the
shimmering figure and then she suddenly looked around at Saryon, who smiled and
nodded yes to her unspoken question. She next looked wildly at me and I signed,
“I am as you remember, in this time and the other.”

Her lips parted, her eyes
glistened. Her gaze next went to Mosiah, who grudgingly and reluctantly
inclined his hooded head.

“I am your Enforcer, Your
Majesty,” he said, a hint of irony in his voice.

“
Your
Majesty. So Scylla called me. I never even noticed that until now. So some part
of me did know, even then,” Eliza said softly, wonderingly, to herself.

“And now, my daughter,” Gwendolyn
said, “
you
must heed my instructions and obey them.
You must take the Darksword to Merlyn’s tomb.
Now.
This moment.
It must be lying on Merlyn’s tomb at midnight.”

“
Merlyn!”
Eliza was amazed. “Teddy kept talking about Merlyn. He said something about
giving the sword to Merlyn—”

“Oh, Blessed Almin!” Mosiah
snorted in disgust.

“But . . . Father. You don’t
know, Mother!” Eliza went back to her point of main concern. “They’ve poisoned
him! I must give them the sword or Father will die.”

“Take the sword to Merlyn’s tomb,”
Gwen repeated.

“Why?” Mosiah asked harshly. “Why
take it there?”

“Trust me, Daughter,” said
Gwendolyn, ignoring Mosiah. “Trust yourself. Follow your heart.”

A cry shattered the darkness.
From back in the tunnel, where she was guarding Joram, Scylla shouted, “Mosiah!
They’re coming! Look out! I can’t stop—” Her voice was cut short.

We heard scuffling sounds and
then the tramping of many pairs of booted feet. The dragon lifted its head,
anger rumbled in its chest. The eyes opened wider, the light that drove men to
madness gleamed more brightly.

Gwendolyn was gone and so was the
image of Eliza.

“Father!”
Eliza cried.

“No time!” Mosiah said urgently,
catching hold of her. “We have to find a way out. Simkin said there was another
exit. Father Saryon! The dragon! It must know another way. You must command it
to show us.”

“What?
Oh,
dear, no!”
Saryon was alarmed and appalled. He cast the dragon a
sidelong glance and shuddered. “Not again. The spell is slipping. I can feel
it.”

“Father Saryon,” Eliza pleaded.
She held the Darksword, wrapped in the blanket. “Mosiah is right. This is our
only chance. How else can we take the sword to the tomb in time?”

Leaning down, he kissed her on
the forehead. “I could never deny you anything. Reuven used to complain that I
spoiled you. But then, you two were all I had.”

Saryon left us. He walked over to
stand, once more, in front of the dragon. He kept his eyes lowered.

“Make certain the sword is
hidden,” Mosiah said to Eliza. “You remember what happened the last time.”

Then it had been the
Duuk-tsarith
who had attacked us. Then Eliza had wielded the Darksword and its power had
broken the spell. Outside, in this time, I could hear the footsteps coming
nearer. I wondered what had happened to Scylla and hoped with all my heart that
she was safe. I trusted that they would not hurt Joram any more than he’d been
hurt already. They needed him alive still, so long as his daughter was in
possession of the Darksword.

“Dragon,” said Saryon. “I command
you. We are in danger. Help us to escape those who pursue us.”

“You are in danger, old man,”
said the dragon, its lip curling to reveal hideous, yellowed, and bloodstained
fangs. “Your danger lies ahead of you, not behind.”

The diamond’s light was rapidly
dimming. As Saryon had warned, the spell was slipping. The dragon started to
crawl toward us. It began to lift the night-dark wings. I could see the sparkle
of the deadly stars.

Saryon drew himself up tall. I
saw in him now what I had seen in him before, in our living room, facing a
king, a general, and the dread leader of the Dark Cultists. His inner strength,
his love for us, his faith in his Creator shone brighter than the dragon’s
hideous light.

“Dragon, you will obey me,” said
Saryon.

The diamond on the dragon’s head
flared, glittered with brilliance. The dragon glared at him balefully, but it
was constrained by the charm’s unseen force to lower its head. The Dragon of
the Night bowed before Saryon. The pale eyes were slits of enmity, but the
dragon kept them hooded.

“If you dare, old man, climb upon
my back.”

“Quickly, children!”
Saryon urged.
“Mosiah?”

“I will stay behind to cover your
escape,” Mosiah said.

“But they’ll kill you!” Saryon
cried.

“Come with them,
Duuk-tsarith,’“
the dragon said, its voice grating. “I will deal with those who pursue you.
I feel the need to kill
something!”

Mosiah did not wait to be asked
twice. I now trusted him. He was loyal to his word and would have defended us
to the death, but he still had hopes of obtaining the Darksword and was loath
to let it out of his sight.

By this time I was climbing up
onto the dragon. I followed Saryon, who appeared to have been riding dragons
all his life, though I know for certain he had never done such a thing. We
crawled up the bony structure of the enormous black wing, being careful—as he
warned us—not to step on the membrane or we might tear it. The dragon’s body
quivered beneath us, as the ground in the vicinity of a volcano quakes from the
pent-up fire within. Saryon and I both helped Eliza, who would not relinquish
the sword to anyone, not even for a moment. We were settling on the dragon’s
bony back, which proved extremely uncomfortable, Mosiah had just climbed off
the wing and onto the back, when the Technomancers in their silver robes entered
the cavern.

“Hide your eyes!” Mosiah shouted
to us, and pulled his hood over his head.

I did as he ordered, covered my
eyes with my hands, but I could still see the white glare, so intense was the
pale light beaming from the dragon’s eyes. The beast roared and reared its head
and lifted its wings, but even as it attacked it took care not to dislodge us,
who were seated on its back.

I heard dreadful, agonized
screams. Star bursts flashed on the backs of my closed eyelids. The screams
ended very suddenly.

The body beneath me began to
move, to ripple into motion. The wings creaked, the glow of the white light
faded. A rush of fresh air, cool and sweet smelling after the rank stench of
the cavern, struck me in the face. I opened my eyes. Before me was a gigantic
opening, like a huge chimney, large enough for the dragon to ascend.

We soared out and upward, the
dragon’s wings beating slowly, carrying our weight without effort. We were
nothing more than annoying insects, clinging to its hide.

I looked up into the night sky
and I gasped.

It was filled with stars, more
stars than I remembered having seen when we first arrived. And then the truth
hit me a terrible blow, even as Mosiah put it into words.

“Those aren’t stars. Those are
spaceships.
Refugees.
The last
survivors from Earth.
They have come here, the final hope. The Hch’nyv
are
behind them.”

Merlyn looked upon it with eyes
that had seen centuries pass, chose this place for his tomb, and now lies bound
by the Last Enchantment in the glade he loved.

FORGING
THE DARKSWORD

W
e flew over the darkened land of
Thimhallan, while above us the sky was bright with the lights of thousands of
starships, carrying millions of people. Hope sparkled above us.
Hope and desperation.
They must have sighted us on their
sophisticated instruments. I wondered what they made of us—a gigantic black
winged shape flying just above tree level.
Probably nothing.
Dismissed as animal life indigenous to the region.