Doom of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [135]
The young woman blinked her swanlike eyes in astonishment at this, staring at Simkin in either speechless wonder or speechless rage, neither of which made the slightest impression on the young man.
“Go along!” he said impatiently. “We’ll be late.”
After another moment’s hesitation, the driver took her place at the great bird’s neck and, grasping the reins, ordered the black swan to rise. “If we’re stopped at the Border,” she said ominously. “it’s on your head. I’m not going to lose my permit over the likes of you two.”
Nervously, Joram followed her gesture, looking up into the clouds.
“There are more eyes in those clouds than hailstones,” said Simkin casually as the swan spread its wings and propelled itself upward, leaping off the ground with its taloned black feet. “Watch it, there,” he added solicitously, catching hold of Joram who had nearly fallen overboard at the sudden jolt. “Forgot to warn you. Bit of a jarring takeoff, but — when you’re airborne — there’s nothing smoother than a good swan.”
“Duuk-tsarith?” Joram asked, referring to clouds not birds. Despite their fluffy pink-and-white puffiness, the clouds appeared suddenly as threatening to Joram as the boiling black thunderheads that wreaked havoc yearly on the farming villages. “Will they stop us, do you think?”
“My dear boy,” said Simkin, laughing and laying his slender hand upon Joram’s arm, “relax. After all, you’re with me.”
Glancing at Simkin, Joram saw the young man’s bearded face was calm and nonchalant, his manner so much at ease that Joram quit worrying. As for relaxing, that was quite out of the question. He burned with a fire of excitement and anticipation that would have made Simkin’s proposed orange outfit seem pale by comparison. Joram knew that he would find his destiny tonight, knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Nothing would stop him, could stop him. His dreams and ambitions mounted with every beat of the swan’s wings; he even ceased to worry about the Duuk-tsarith and stared with grim defiance into the pink clouds as the bird’s black feathers cut through them, scattering them into wisps of trailing fog.
The clouds parted and Joram saw the Crystal Palace of the Emperor of Merilon. Gleaming above them with a white radiance, it shone against the reds and purples of dying day; more brilliant than the evening star.
The beauty of the sight caused Joram’s heart to swell until it seemed too big for his chest and came near choking him. Tears stung his eyes, and he bowed his head, blinking rapidly. He did not hide his tears so much from shame. He bowed his head in humility. For the first time in his life, Joram felt the proud spirit that burned in his heart stamped out, trampled underfoot, as he himself had stamped out sparks from his forge.
Brushing his hand across his eyes, he closely examined his fingers. Long and slender and supple, they were the fingers of a nobleman, not a Field Magi. That was from his practice of sleight of hand. And, like the sleight of hand itself, those delicate fingers were a trick to fool the viewer’s eyes. Seen closely, the palms of his hands were calloused from the use of hammer and tools, the skin scarred with burns. Black soot had been ground so deeply into his pores that he thought he might have to resort to Simkin’s magic to disguise it.
“My soul is like that,” he said to himself in sudden, bitter despair, “as the catalyst tried to tell me — calloused, scarred, and burned. And I aspire to those heights.”
He lifted his gaze to the Palace and saw not only the beauties of Merilon glistening serenely in the sky but Gwendolyn, too, shining far above him. And the old black depression, the destructive melancholia that he had not known for so long and had thought was gone from his newfound life, returned, threatening to engulf him in darkness.
He stirred, some bleak idea of rising from his feathered seat and hurling himself into the perfumed evening air seething in his brain. At that moment, Simkin