Doom of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [179]
Placing both hands on the prayer rail, gritting his teeth, Saryon struggled to his feet. He stood still for several moments, breathing heavily, until he was certain he could move.
“Father Saryon?” came the voice again, a tinge of worry. There was a scratching on the chapel door.
“Yes, I’m coming,” Saryon snapped. “What is your hurry? Impatient to see the show?”
Shuffling forward, his shoes dragging the ground as he forced his hurting muscles to move, the catalyst crossed the small room in a few steps and fell against the door, his strength giving way.
Pausing to wipe the chill sweat from his brow with a shaking hand, Saryon at last found the energy to remove the magical seal he had placed last night upon the door. It was not a powerful spell; the catalyst had cast it himself using the small amount of Life within his body. But he wondered if he had the ability to break it. After a moment’s hesitation, the door opened, swinging inward silently.
The pale face of a novitiate looked in at him. The woman’s eyes were wide and frightened; she bit her lip at the sight of his ashen face, and lowered her gaze.
“I — I was concerned about you, Father,” she said in a quivering voice. “That is all.” Passing a slender hand over her eyes, she added brokenly, “I do not want to see this, but it is required —” Her words failed.
“I am sorry, Sister,” Saryon said wearily. “Forgive me. It has been … a long night.”
“Yes, Father,” she said more strongly, lifting her gaze to meet his. “I understand. I have asked the Almin for courage to undergo this trial. He will not fail me.”
“How fortunate for you,” Saryon sneered.
The priest’s tone of sudden, bitter anger startled the novitiate, who stared at him, half-frightened. Saryon sighed and started to ask her forgiveness again, then gave it up. What did her forgiveness matter? What did anyone’s matter except for one person’s…. And that he would never have, did not deserve.
“Is … is that … the sword?” The novitiates frightened eyes — as bright and soft as a rabbit’s, Saryon thought — went to a shapeless mass of darkness lying on the rosewood altar, barely visible in the light cast from the small globe she held in her hand.
“Yes, Sister,” Saryon said briefly.
That was the reason for the magical seal upon the door. Only one person had been considered fit to handle the weapon of darkness.
“This will be part of your penance, Father Saryon,” Bishop Vanya had decreed. “Since you assisted in creating this foul tool of the Sorcerers of the Ninth Mystery, you will spend the rest of your life guarding it. Of course,” the Bishop had added in a softer, more pleasant voice, “there will be those of our Order required to study it that we may learn more about its evil nature. You will grant those elected to undertake this task all the benefit of your knowledge of the Dark Arts.”
Humbly, Saryon had bowed his head, accepting his penance gratefully, firm in his belief that this would cleanse his soul and grant him the peace he sought so desperately. But the promised peace had not come. He thought it had — until last night, when he had looked into Joram’s dark eyes. The young man’s bitter words, “I trusted you!” seemed to the Priest to have been scribed in flame upon his soul. Forever they would burn within him; he would never be free of the agony.
It was that flame, he supposed dully, burning up his prayers of supplication to the Almin — prayers begging for mercy, for forgiveness of his sins. The words drifted like ashes from his mouth and scattered in the wind, leaving his heart a charred and blackened lump in his chest.
The novitiate glanced at a window in the corridor where the light of the night stars was slowly beginning to fade.
“Father, we must go.”
“Yes.” Saryon turned, and with slow and faltering steps walked over to the altar.
The Darksword lay like a dead thing. The light the novitiate held in her hand gleamed softly in the highly polished rosewood of the intricately shaped altar; it did not gleam in the black metal of the sword. His heart heavy with