Legacy of the Darksword (28 page)

“But there is about the Kij vine,”
Mosiah replied. “It was created at the end of the Iron Wars, when some of the
D’karn-duuk
—the
warlocks and war masters—saw the battle ending with themselves on the losing
side. They had already used their magic to turn humans into giants, or twist
humans into a combination of beast and man, which became the centaur. The
warlocks perverted plant life, developing the Kij vine and other deadly
vegetation, used them to ambush the unwary.

“When the wars ended, the ranks
of the
D’karn-duuk
were depleted. They could no longer control their own
creations, and so the giants and the centaur and the Kij vines were left on
their own, to do what they could to survive.”

“I heard stories about the
centaur,” Eliza said. “They captured my father once and nearly killed him. He
said they were cruel and loved to inflict pain, but that this came out of their
own great anger and suffering.”

“I have to work very hard to feel
sympathy for the centaur,” Mosiah said dryly, “but I suppose this is true. Or
should I say it
was
true, for they must have died when the magic died.”

“Like the Kij vines,” said
Scylla, her pierced eyebrow arching.
“And certain bears of my
acquaintance.”
She glanced back at Teddy, who smirked at her and winked.

“Here’s a thought,” she said.
“What if the first Darksword did
not
destroy the Well of
Life, as everyone has always supposed.
What if, instead, the Darksword
capped it?”

“
Impossible.
The magic was released into the universe,” Mosiah stated.

“The magic of Thimhallan was
released, and perhaps a gush of magic from the Well. Then the Well was sealed.
And ever since, the magic has been building beneath the surface. . . .”

“Well, really!” Simkin cried
suddenly. “I
won’t
stay to be insulted.”

With that and a flash of orange
scarf, Teddy vanished.

“What was all that about?” Eliza
asked, bewildered. “Where did he go?”

“I wonder.” Mosiah glanced
sidelong at Scylla. “I wonder about a lot of things.”

So did
I
.
If Scylla’s theory was right and the magic had been building beneath Thimhallan
all these years . . . what would happen? One effect was most obvious.
Magic—strong and powerful—was available to whoever might be able to use it.

But surely, I argued with myself,
if that were true, then certainly the
Duuk-tsarith
would have discovered
it long ago.

Perhaps they had. Perhaps that is
why they are so desperate to attain the Darksword. Not only could it destroy
the Life that might be building beneath the Well, but if the new Darksword were
to be given this powerful Life, its own power might be increased.

I turned the question upside down
and inside out in my mind and never came to a satisfactory answer. It didn’t
seem to me that there could ever be an answer. Within forty-eight hours, we
would flee this place, most likely never to return.

Mosiah said nothing more. Scylla
appeared lost in thought. The two lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. I
continued my lesson with Eliza.

I was relieved that Teddy was
gone, until I remembered my master’s warning—that it was always better to know
where Simkin was than where he wasn’t.

“
It takes
nerves of
stone to enter Zith-el in this manner.”

DARKSWORD
ADVENTURES

W
e reached Zith-el not long after
sunset. The afterglow— bright beneath gray storm clouds—tinged the sky with a
lurid red that tipped the snow-covered mountains of the Ekard range with blood.
It was an ominous sign and one that was not lost on my companions.

“Of all the cities on Thimhallan,
Zith-el was the one that suffered the most damage when the Well of Life was
destroyed,” Mosiah told us. “The buildings of Zith-el soared countless stories
into the air. The people also tunneled deep into the ground in search of living
space. When the magic was withdrawn and the fearsome quakes shook the land, the
buildings fell, the tunnels collapsed. Thousands died, crushed to death,
trapped in the rubble, or buried alive beneath the ground.”

The air car slowed. Zith-el’s
Outer Wall, which had protected the city from invasion, had been a wall of
magic, completely invisible, much like what we on Earth know as a force field.
The wall should have been destroyed.

Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t.

We had no way of knowing, and
after the Kij vines we could no longer assume that magic on Thimhallan was as
depleted as we had once thought. I remembered what the Technomancers had said
about “residual pockets.”

All that could be seen inside the
city was the thick forest, which had been part of the marvelous Zoo, for which
Zith-el was known. Oddly, if the wall was gone, the forest had not encroached
onto the grasslands.

“Were there any survivors in
Zith-el?” Eliza asked. Her voice was strained. Mosiah said no word of blame,
but the daughter of the man who had caused the downfall of Thimhallan must feel
defensive.

“Yes,” Mosiah answered, “and they
were the most unfortunate of all. When the magic was weakened, the creatures of
the Zoo were set free and took their revenge on those who had kept them prisoner.”

Eliza gazed on the city that had
once teemed with life, whose walls now encompassed nothing but death. She knew
the history of her father and what he had done and why he had done it. Joram
was honest, brutally honest, and I do not believe that he would have spared
himself in the telling. In all probability he had judged himself more harshly
than even his detractors.

But sealed up, safe and secure,
inside the Font, Eliza had never been brought face-to-face with the knowledge
of what her father had done to this world and to its people. Father Saryon and
I had disturbed Eliza’s tranquillity by bringing her visions of a different
world. The Technomancers had shattered her happy life, her innocent pleasure in
her home and her family. Mosiah’s words and the crumbled walls of Zith-el shook
her faith in her father, the worst and most painful shock of all.

The air car had slowed. Scylla
lowered it into the tall stands of grass that surrounded the city. The shadows
of the mountains had brought dusk to us on the plains, though the sky was still
bright behind them. She kept the lights off.

She and Mosiah discussed how best
to proceed, arguing over whether it would be better to remain in the air car or
leave it outside the city and enter Zith-el on foot.

“The Technomancers know we are
here,” Mosiah observed. “With their sensor equipment, they’ve probably been
following us since we left the Font.”

“Yes, but they don’t know how
many we are or if we have the Darksword,” Scylla argued.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Mosiah
returned bluntly. “Why else would we come?”

Scylla admitted that he had a
valid point, but she urged stealth as opposed to driving right up to the gate. “At
the least, we should not turn over the Darksword until we are assured of the
hostages’ safety.”

Mosiah shook his head.

I left that decision to them.
With four of us facing an army of Technomancers, it didn’t seem to me to make
the slightest bit of difference what we did. Pulling out my electronic
notebook, I began looking up some reference material I had acquired on Zith-el,
thinking to let Eliza read my notes.

When I found them, I started to
show them to her,
then
checked myself.

Believing herself unobserved,
shrouded in the twilight shadows, she had leaned down and, with one hand, drawn
off the blanket from the Darksword. It was dark against darkness.

Her father had forged the first
Darksword. Father Saryon had given it Life. The blood of thousands had
consecrated it. Now here was a second, another. Would blood stain its blade as
well?

Her face was so open, so honest,
emotions passed across its surface like ripples on still water. I could guess
her thoughts. Her words, spoken softly to herself, proved my guess right.

“Why did he forge it anew? Why
did it have to come back into the world? And what should I do with it now?”

Sighing, she leaned against the
seat, her expression sad and troubled.

And yet, what choice did she
have?

None that I could see.
Unable to offer help, I did not
intrude on Eliza’s private pain. I reread the notes written by an unnamed
adventurer in the land of Thimhallan, notes that King Garald had taken with him
into exile.

Zith-el is a
compact city whose major distinction is that it is surrounded by the most
wonderful Zoo in all of Thimhallan. Visitors traveling from other cities to see
the Zoo’s wonders provide a large portion of Zith-el’s income.

History: Zith-el
—
a
Finhanish
druid of the Vanjnan Clans
—
was born about 352 YL. He purchased a wife
from a fellow clansman, who had captured the woman during a raid on Trandar.
The woman, named Tara, was a talented
Theldara.
Despite a turbulent
beginning, the two grew to love each other. Zith-el gave up his wandering ways
and promised to settle in one place with his beloved.

He, his wife,
and their family traveled up the Hira River until Tara called a halt.
Dismounting from her horse, she investigated the river, the trees, and the
lands, and if legend is correct, she sat down on the spot and declared it to be
her home.

The city was
built around her.

Zith-el believed
that the ground was sacred and . . . vowed to the Almin that he would never
allow the city to expand beyond its original borders.

And that was the reason why, as
its population grew, Zith-el was forced to build up and down. It could never
expand outward.

I glanced up from my reading. The
air car glided forward through the tall grass, which brushed against its sides
with an irritating swishing sound. At first, we were able to see the trees of
the Zoo above the waving sea of green, but we soon lost sight of them in the
gathering gloom of night. The city itself was
dark, that
once must have glittered with light.

Moving out of the foothills
toward the gate specified—the East Road Gate—we came upon the East Road , a
trail once used by overland traders. So packed and rutted was the dirt that not
even the tough prairie grasses had yet covered it over. It stretched out before
us, visible in the faint afterglow that
purpled
the
sky.

The stars were coming out. I
looked at them and found myself wondering if any of those sparkling points of
light were the battle cruisers of the Hch’nyv, bearing down on us. That
reminded me forcibly of the time constraint. We had this night, the next day,
and the next night before the window of safety slammed shut.

The moon shone, as well,
silvering the ragged storm clouds, which had continued to keep clear of us.
About three-quarters full, the moon was faint now, but would brighten as the
night darkened. That comforted me, though, when I thought of it, I had no idea
why it should.

Scylla brought the car to a halt.
The East Road Gate was built into a small section of the Outer Wall to the west
of the city. East Road therefore seemed a misnomer, but the East Road actually
took its name as meaning “east road leading away from the Font,” all directions
in Thimhallan having been determined from the Font, which was considered the
center of the world.

I went back to my notes.

There are two
walls around the city, the Outer Wall and the City Wall. The City Wall runs
along the lines originally laid down by Zith-el (the city’s founder) and marks
the place where the city ends and the Zoo begins. The Outer Wall surrounds the
Zoo. Completely invisible, it allows a marvelous view of all the creatures, yet
keeps
them
well confined. Its (the Zoo’s) nearest
point to the city is some four
mila
from the City Wall.

Four gates in
both walls provide the only entrances and exits for overland travelers. These
gates are one-way only. You step through the open portal, only to find the back
sealed shut. Gates leading into the city are located on the east and west sides
of the walls, while gates leading out of the city are located on the north and
south sides. It is said that all the gates through the City Wall can be
deactivated by a word from the Lord of Zith-el in order to keep the city
protected from attack.

The gates have a
second and highly startling function. Upon entering the gate in the Outer Wall,
the traveler must pass through the Zoo that surrounds the city in order to
enter the city proper. Since it would disturb the sensibilities of those
touring the Zoo to see other humans like themselves wandering about, the gates
temporarily transform the unsuspecting entrant into the illusion of some
animal.

We might all turn into Teddies, I
thought.