Legacy of the Darksword (42 page)

“We must carry him away from this
place,” Scylla urged. “We should not leave him here for them to find. They
might take out their wrath at your escape on him.”

She touched Joram on the
forehead. Her deft hands glided smoothly over the broken skin, wiping away the
blood.

Joram opened his eyes, blinked,
as if he were looking into a dazzling light.

“The guards aren’t answering.
Something’s wrong,” came the voice from outside the cavern. “I’m going to go
check.
” .

“Go!” Mosiah snarled. He bounded
over to hide in the shadows near the cavern entrance.

“I can make it,” Joram said,
fending off all offers of assistance. “I don’t need any help.”

As it was, he stumbled when he
tried to rise, but Scylla was there, her strong arm and shoulder supporting
him.

“Reuven,” she called, “take hold
of him from the other side.”

I did as she commanded. Hastening
to Joram’s side, I caught hold of him around the waist. He glowered at both
Scylla and me and for a moment I thought he was going to defy us.

“If you don’t allow us to help
you, sir,” Scylla said quietly, “you will not move ten paces from this spot.
When you fall, your daughter will remain with you, as will Father Saryon. The
Technomancers will catch them and that will be an end to all which you have
struggled to protect. Is that what you want?”

Joram’s forbidding expression
dissolved. He shook his head. “No. I will accept your help.” He glanced over at
me.
“And Reuven’s.”

“Eliza, you lead the way,” Scylla
said. “Hurry now.”

“Wait!” Eliza turned to Father
Saryon. “Where is Mother? Was she in that prison with you?”

“No, child,” Saryon said, looking
concerned. “She was not. I thought perhaps you might know—”

Eliza shook her head.

“She is not here,” Saryon said. “And
that is a hopeful sign. If the Technomancers had made her captive, they would
have made use of her by now. I think that somehow she managed to escape them.”

“Then where is she?” Eliza
demanded.

“Perhaps I have an idea,” Saryon
said. “Do not worry. I believe that wherever she is, she is safe. Safer than we
are.”

Eliza gave her father a gentle
kiss on his bloodstained cheek,
then
grabbing hold of
Saryon’s hand, she led the way back down the spiraling tunnel. Scylla and I,
half carrying Joram, hastened after. He groaned with pain only once, when we
first started to move, then gritted his teeth and tightened his lips over his
agony.

Behind us, we heard a savage howl
and a scream.

It occurred to me to wonder, just
as we left the area, what had become of Simkin.

I glanced back. There, lying on
an empty pile of silver
robes,
was a teddy bear. Its
head was missing and so were both of its arms. The orange ribbon that had been
tied in a jaunty bow around Teddy’s neck lay limply across the body.

I hurried on, thankful that Eliza
had been too preoccupied with her father to see.

“It’s very strange,” said Saryon,
after we had traveled about a mile down the corkscrew tunnel, “but this place
seems familiar to me. And I know I’ve never been here in my life.”

“Not in this life, perhaps,
Father,” said Scylla, “but who knows where you’ve been gallivanting around in
other lives?”

Saryon glanced back at her with a
weak smile, thinking she was joking and politely pretending to be amused,
although he must have been thinking that this was not the time for levity.
Eliza was endeavoring to find our way, using Scylla’s flashlight as a guide,
and paying no attention to what was being said. Joram was too intent on
combating his pain to search for hidden meanings.

I alone realized that there might
be more to Scylla’s statement than appeared. I glanced at her sidelong, with
Joram between us, and caught her looking at me, a smile on her lips. I could
not question her; my hands were occupied in supporting Joram.

I had no thought, then, of the
truth. I’m not certain I would ever have figured it out, but I began to see how
a few small pieces of the puzzle might fit together. I wished that Mosiah were
here, to see what he would have made of her peculiar statement.

But for all I knew, Mosiah might
very well be dead. We had heard nothing of him since we left. Our only sign
that he had lived long enough to perform his task was that we had not been
overtaken by the guards.

We continued on. Joram grew
heavier as his strength flagged and he relied more on us to support him. Scylla
bore most of the weight, but I had my share and my shoulders burned and ached
with the strain. I thought of the pain he must be enduring in silence, with no
complaint, and I felt ashamed. Resolutely, I put the thought of my own
discomfort out of my mind and trudged on.

Saryon came to a sudden halt. “I
don’t like this,” he said. “Something lives down here. Can’t you smell it? A
dragon,” he added, his brow furrowed.
“A Dragon of the Night.”

“Something
used
to live
down here, Father,” Eliza answered, flashing the light around the smooth-sided,
smooth-floored tunnel. “I’m not sure what it was, but it’s gone now. It must
have died when the magic died. Why do you think it’s a dragon?”

“I don’t know.” Saryon was
perplexed. “The thought came to me,
that’s
all.” He
was shrewd and he had lived most of his life in magical Thimhallan. He looked
at Scylla, his expression puzzled and uneasy. He was beginning to take her joke
more seriously. “Perhaps we should wait here for Mosiah. Not travel any farther
until we find out what has happened to him. Are you certain we have to go
deeper into this awful place?”

“Yes, Father,” said Eliza. “I’m
sorry, but we must go on. The Darksword is down here.”

At this, Joram raised his head.
His pallor was frightening, the blood formed dark streaks over his face. He had
once again lapsed into unconsciousness, his feet dragged, his eyes closed.
Except that I could feel the beat of his heart beneath my arm, I might have
thought he had died. The word
Darksword
on his daughter’s lips was
perhaps the only thing that could have roused him.

“Where is it?” he gasped, and his
voice was little more than a breath. “Is it safe?”

“Yes, Father,” Eliza answered,
and her suffering for his suffering choked her. “It is safe. Oh, Father, I am
so sorry! I had no right-”

He was shaking his head. “I was
the one who had no right,” he said, and then his head lolled. His eyes closed
and he sagged in our arms.

“Whatever happens, I have to
rest!” I signed urgently, afraid I would drop him.

Scylla nodded and we lowered him
to the cavern floor.

Painful warmth flooded through my
cramped shoulders. I bit my lips to keep from crying out.

“Is he going to be all right?”
Eliza asked fearfully, crouching down beside him. She smoothed the black curly
hair from his face, the hair that, but for the streaks of gray at his temples,
was the exact match of her own. “He looks so ill.”

“We don’t have much time,” Scylla
admitted.
“Either for Joram or for ourselves and the rest of
those who are counting on us.”

“I am confused,” I signed. “I
have lost track of time—any time! How long do we have?”

“Until midnight this night,”
Scylla said, consulting a green-glowing watch she wore on her wrist.

“That’s when the last ship leaves
the outpost?” Saryon asked.

Scylla gave him a strange look. “The
last ship has left,” she replied coolly. “Midnight is when the Hch’nyv will
arrive.”

“What?” My frantic gestures
revealed my fear and alarm. “How will we return the Darksword to Earth? What
good would it do? Why do we persist in this folly? We’re all going to die
anyway!”

She was about to answer when the
sound of footfalls, moving rapidly, echoed down the tunnel. The noise silenced
us all. Scylla was on her feet, placing herself between us and whoever was
coming down the tunnel.

“Douse the light!” she hissed.

Eliza shut off the flashlight. We
huddled together in the dark, our fear a living thing that seemed to take shape
and form around us. Then I heard a voice, a soft voice, Saryon’s voice,
speaking to the Almin in prayer. His hand, strong and warm, closed over mine.
He was offering me comfort and a gentle reminder that our lives were being
guided, watched over,
protected
by one greater than
ourselves. Though this should all come to some terrible end, we would not be
alone. I said a prayer myself, asking for forgiveness for my lack of faith and
strength to go on.

A figure lurched out of the
darkness, nearly ran headlong into Scylla. “What the—” came a voice.

“Mosiah!”
Scylla breathed a sigh in
relief.

Eliza switched on the light.

Mosiah glared around at us. “What
the devil are you all doing?” he demanded angrily. “Having a picnic? Why—”

He caught sight of Joram, lying
unconscious on the tunnel floor. “Oh,” Mosiah said, and he shook his head. His
gaze shifted back to Scylla. “Is he dead?”

“No, but he’s not doing well,”
she answered guardedly, with a glance at Eliza.

“We can’t wait. I took care of
the Technomancers, but more will be coming through the teleporter at any
moment. I could not prevent them from sounding the alarm. We must recover the
Darksword and get out of here quickly! You and I will carry him.”

“You don’t look able to carry
yourself,” Scylla said as they bent together to lift up Joram. “Do you have any
Life left?”

“Not much.” Mosiah grunted from
the exertion. He had changed back to his usual form, but the alteration must
have been a draining one. He looked exhausted to the point of dropping.

“Perhaps I could give you Life
again,” I said, feeling guilty that I had failed them.

Saryon regarded me with
amazement. “You gave Mosiah Life, Reuven? How?
When?”

“
It will take too long to explain,
Father,” said Mosiah. He and Scylla, supporting Joram between them, started
moving down the tunnel. He refused my offer, stating that I should conserve my
strength, for we were not out of this yet.

The Hch’nyv would be attacking
Thimhallan at midnight. Smythe and his Technomancers would be desperate to find
the Darksword. Where could we go that they would not discover us? And how would
we fight the massive armies of the Hch’nyv with one sword, however powerful? On
a more mundane level, the word
picnic
reminded me that we had not eaten.
Our water supply was running low. All of us were thirsty and hungry and who
knew how long it would be before we could find food and water? Joram was near
death. Perhaps he was the lucky one among us, I caught myself thinking.

Of course, I should have faith,
as Saryon had silently counseled. But it was very hard for me to trust in the
Almin when reason and logic were so overwhelmingly against us.

I was trying to nurture hope’s
flickering flame when I heard a sound that doused it utterly.

It was a sound I had heard before
in this tunnel, a sound I’d heard in that other life, a life that had come to
such a horrible end.

Stentorian breathing rumbled from
the cavern that was not all that far below us.

“Here’s to folly,” Simkin
announced, and together they tottered forward into the fiery illusions, the
champagne glasses clinking along behind.

DOOM
OF THE DARKSWORD

T
he dragon,” Mosiah said.
“A Dragon of the Night.”

“But that’s impossible!” Saryon
gasped. “The dragons were creations of the magic. They must have all died when
Life disappeared from Thimhallan.”

“The Life didn’t disappear,
Father. The Well was shattered, but the magic didn’t escape, as we had thought.”

“We believe that the Well may
have been capped, Father,” Scylla added.

“I don’t believe there’s a
dragon. There can’t be,” Eliza argued. “We were just down there.”

“If you remember, I
said
that
cave smelled occupied,” Mosiah returned.

“But ... I still don’t understand.
. . .” Saryon appeared bewildered. “How do you know that a Dragon of the Night
lives in that cavern? It could be anything! A bear, maybe.”

“
A bear?
Yes, of course. Dear Teddy! Well, that explains it. Or doesn’t, as the case may
be. As to the cavern, we’ve been there before. In fact, we’ve died there
before.” Mosiah was looking directly at Scylla. “Haven’t we, Sir Knight?”

Scylla shrugged.
“If you say so.”
She rolled her eyes and, leaning over to
me, whispered, “Humor him.”

“The Darksword is there, too,”
Eliza reminded us. “We must return to the cavern to recover the sword.”