Legacy of the Darksword (38 page)

“Relinquish the Darksword,”
another of the
Duuk-tsarith
commanded. He approached Eliza. “Relinquish
it and you will come to no harm.”

“We have no need of you. Leave
us. We will take the Darksword to the Emperor!” Eliza said imperiously.

“Emperor no more,” countered the
Duuk-tsarith.
“Garald and his false, lying bishop have been deposed. We rule Thimhal-lan
now. Give us the Darksword.”

Eliza fell back before them. “You
have no right—”

Red flame sprang from the
fingertips of the
Duuk-tsarith,
formed into fiery tentacles that reached
out to encircle Eliza and make her captive.

Instinctively, she lifted the
Darksword to shield herself from the magic.

Tentacles of flame struck the
Darksword. The darkstone drank them in greedily and began to glow with a
white-blue flame of its own.

“The child of the traitor Joram
is hereby sentenced to death,” the
Duuk-tsarith
pronounced.

Magic surged and heaved and
sparked.

“Stop!
Cast no spells!” Saryon cried in
terror. He stumbled forward, to put himself between Eliza and the
Duuk-tsarith.
“The dragon—”

The Darksword sucked in the
magic. The metal seemed superheated, the white-blue glow of the flame was
dazzling, blinding. . . .

The Dragon of the Night roared in
pain and fury. It lifted its wings, the deadly stars glittered. The dragon
opened its eyes wide. Its mind-shattering light flared within the cavern.
Saryon clutched his head and reeled in pain,
then
he
collapsed upon the stone floor. White stars of death showered down around us.
The
Duuk-tsarith’s
black robes burst into flame. They and their spells
withered in the horrific blaze.

“Fools!”
Mosiah repeated, with the grim
quiet of despair. “You have doomed us all!”

I looked for Scylla, but could
not find her. Weaponless and alone, she must have gone forth to do battle with
the dragon.

“Eliza!” I cried, and ran into
the cave, not to save her, for nothing could do that, but to die with her.

I ran and it was as if I had
leapt off an immense cliff. I spread my arms and discovered I could fly.

“Simkin’s a monumental liar. I
don’t see how you can put up with him!”

“
Because he’s
an amusing liar.
And that makes him different.”

“Different?”

“
From the rest
of you.”

MOSIAH
AND JORAM;
FORGING THE DARKSWORD

A
gain, the frightening sensation
of being squeezed, the air forced from my lungs, my body compressed and
flattened like that of a mouse squeezing itself into a tiny crack. My flight
ended abruptly and painfully in a tumble. I rolled down a rocky incline, came
up hard against a stone wall.

For a moment I lay there, dazed
and bruised and cut, gasping for air like a landed fish. Fearing the dragon, I
opened my eyes, prepared to do what little I could to defend myself and Eliza.
I looked around, blinked.

The dragon was gone. The
Duuk-tsarith
were
gone. Father Saryon was gone. Scylla was
there, and Mosiah, and Eliza. We were in a cavern, the same cavern. It smelled
the same. The floor was covered with refuse, bones lay scattered about. Eliza
stood in the center of the cavern, holding the Darksword.

Dropping the sword, she hurried
to me, bent over me.
“Reuven!
That was a nasty fall!
Are you all right?” Was I? No, I wasn’t.

Eliza no longer wore the blue
velvet riding outfit, no glittering golden circlet adorned her head. She was
dressed in the plain woolen skirt and simple blouse she had been wearing when
we first set out upon this strange journey.

I started to push myself up,
mindful of entangling myself in my robes, except that I wasn’t wearing robes. I
was wearing jeans and a blue sweater.

“Scylla!
Quick! He’s hurt!” Eliza cried.

Scylla, clad in combat fatigues,
her earrings winking and sparkling in the light of a flashlight, squatted down
and peered at me intently. Reaching out her hand, she brushed aside the hair on
my forehead.

“The cut’s not deep. The bleeding’s
already stopped. He may have a headache for a while, but no permanent damage.”

Eliza drew out a handkerchief—a
plain, white handkerchief— and began to dab at the cut on my forehead.

Angrily, I thrust away her hand.
Scrambling to my feet, I backed up against the wall and glared at the two
women, who were regarding me in astonishment. Had it been a dream?
A hallucination?
If so, it was the most incredibly real
dream I had ever experienced.

“What’s going on here?” Mosiah
demanded, coming over to us.

“Reuven’s foot turned on a stone
and he fell and hit his head,” Eliza said. “Scylla says it’s not serious, but
look
at him. He’s staring at me as if I were a dragon about
to tear him apart!”

“And you,” said Scylla,
confronting Mosiah. “Where have you been?”

“I don’t know,” he said harshly. “Where
have
I been?”

“How the hell should I know?”
Scylla demanded, looking amazed. “What’s wrong? Did you hit your head, too?”

Mosiah was suddenly grave,
thoughtful. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Come to think of it, I did.”

He knew! He had been there,
wherever it was! Limp with relief, I leaned back against the cave wall and
tried to collect my thoughts. Most of them were too far scattered to get hold
of, but at least I knew I wasn’t going insane. I started to ask Mosiah one of
the thousand questions that
was
in my mind, but he
made me a discreet sign with his hand.

“Say nothing. Not yet,” he
counseled.

“There,” Scylla said, dusting off
my clothes with an enthusiasm which nearly had me back on the stone floor
again. “You look a little better.”

Eliza bent down, picked up the
Darksword. I had a sudden, horrifying vision of a black dragon, claws stained
red with blood, knocking the Darksword from her hands. She fell. The claws
ripped and tore her flesh.
Her
screams . . .

The vision faded, though not the
horror. My body was wet with sweat and I shivered in the cavern’s dank air.

“You do realize that we are
standing in a dragon’s lair,” Mosiah said sharply.

“That’s what Scylla told me.”
Eliza shrugged. She was too preoccupied with worry over her father to evince
much interest.

“It’s an old one,” Scylla said. “No
need to be afraid. All the dragons died when the Well of Life was destroyed.”

“It certainly
smells
occupied,”
Mosiah maintained, frowning. “And how did the Darksword end up
here!
I
threw it through the gate—”

“And damn near made me into a
shish kebab,” came a plaintive voice from a dark corner.
“Bear-on-a-Spit.
Teriyaki Teddy.
Lucky for you I was around. Those
silver-plated goons would have snapped it up if it hadn’t been for me. As for
the cave, it’s hermetically sealed. Like Tupperware.
Keeps
the rot fresh for centuries.”

Flashing her light around the
cavern, Scylla located the source of the voice.

“Teddy!” Eliza cried in delight.

The stuffed bear sat propped up
against a stalagmite. “I thought you’d never get here,” he said peevishly. “What
have
you been doing? Going on picnics, I suppose.
Taking
bus trips to Brighton.
I’ve been waiting and waiting. It’s been
frightfully dull, I don’t mind telling you.”

Still carrying the Darksword,
Eliza walked over to Teddy, bent down to pick him up.

The bear’s beady black eyes
glittered in alarm. The stuffed body squirmed out of her reach. “Don’t bring
that ugly thing near me!”

“The Darksword?”
Eliza said, wondering,
then
added, “Oh, of course. I understand.”

“I don’t,” Mosiah said sharply. “The
Darksword disrupts his magic. He can’t stand to have it near him. And yet he
maintains that he brought it here!”

“You’d be amazed what I can do
when I put my mind to it,” Simkin said, sniffing. “And I never said I brought
it here. I do have friends left in this world, you know.
People
who appreciate me.
My dear friend Merlyn, for one.”

“Merlyn.
Of course.”
Mosiah’s lip curled.
“Kevon Smythe for another?”

“Sticks and stones may break my
bones but Darkswords will never hurt me,” Teddy said, and the bear grinned.

“What does it matter how the
sword came to be here?” Eliza asked impatiently. “Now that we have it, we must
find my father and mother and Father Saryon.”

Startled, I looked at Mosiah.

“Your father.
Joram,” Mosiah asked. “He’s
alive?”

“Of course he is!” she answered,
and repeated emphatically, “Of course he is.”

“Oh, yes, Joram’s alive, all
right,” the bear said in languid tones. “In a foul temper, though.
Can’t blame him.
Locked up in a prison
cell with only the elderly bald party for company.”

Eliza grasped the Darksword
tightly, her knuckles whitening, on the hilt. “You’ve found him? He’s safe?”

“He’s seen better days, as the
Duchess of Orleans said when she discovered her husband impaled on the door
knocker. He’s
conscious,
and taking solid food.
Your father.
Not the Duke. There was nothing much we could
do for him, beyond polish his head every Sunday.”

“What about my mother?”

“
Nada.
Nothing.
Zip. Sorry and all that, but I
sighted neither hide nor hair of her. She is not being held captive in the same
location as your father and the catalyst, that much I can tell you.”

“You’ve been there.” Mosiah was
skeptical.

“Certainly,” replied the bear.

“To the Technomancers’ prison.
Where they’re
holding Saryon and Joram.”

“
If you would remove that black
hood from over your head, Mosiah,” the bear said in nasty tones, “you might be
able to hear
better
. Isn’t that what I said? I was
just returning from there, in fact, when you hurled that great bloody sword at
me.”

“And where is this prison?”

“Right there,” the bear replied,
and gave a bored glance upward.

“Above us!”
Eliza exclaimed. She had looked
pale and downcast at hearing no news of her mother, but now the color came
flooding back to her cheeks.

“In the upper chambers of the
cave.
Not
far. A good, brisk walk on a summer’s day, straight uphill, of course, but
think what wonders the climb will do for your calves.”

While this may have been good
news in one respect, it was certainly chilling in another. We flashed alarmed
glances at each other.

“I’ll watch the door,” Scylla
offered. “And keep your voices down!”

That warning came a bit late. We
hadn’t been shouting, but we hadn’t been talking in whispers, either. And noise
echoes in caverns.

“If the Technomancers are in the
chambers above us, why did you bring the Darksword here?” Mosiah demanded of
Simkin.
“Unless you meant to give it to them.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be down
here in this smelly, dank hole with the lot of you, now, would I?” Simkin said,
his nose button twitching. “I’d be up there where it’s dry and comfy and stinks
of nothing worse than Kevon Smythe’s cheap cologne. He may be a man of the
people, but I don’t see why he has to smell like one.

“Why bring the Darksword here?”
Mosiah pursued with extraordinary patience.

“Because, my dear thickheaded
clodhopper friend, this is obviously the
last
place they would think to
look! Having lost you, they are this moment turning Zith-el upside down
searching for you and the sword. You don’t see them searching down here, do
you?”

“He’s got a point,” Scylla
admitted.

“He always does,” Mosiah
grumbled. “Why didn’t we see the Technomancers or they see us when we entered
the cave?”

“You would have, if you’d come in
the front.”

“You’re saying we came in the
back?”

“I didn’t see any flashing signs,
exit or egress, don’t you know, but if you want to think of it that way, yes,
you came in the back.”

“Is my father in a cell?” Eliza
asked. “Is he being guarded?
How many guards?”