Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [133]
He enjoyed his work in the iron forge, as well. Shaping the shapeless ore into useful tools and weapons gave him the satisfaction he imagined other men must feel when they summoned the magic. In fact, Joram became fascinated by Technology. He spent hours listening to Andon tell of the legends of the ancient days when the Sorcerers of the Ninth Mystery had ruled the world with their terrible and wonderful engines and machines. Through some mysterious means, the young man was able to discover the location of the hidden texts that had been written after the Iron Wars by those who fled the persecution. Intrigued with the wonders described, Joram fumed that so much had been lost.
“We could rule the world again if we had such things!” he told Mosiah more than once, his thoughts always turning to this direction in the feverish, talkative state that followed his black periods of melancholia. “A powder, fine as sand, that could blast down walls; engines that hurled balls of molten fire—”
“Death!” cried Mosiah, aghast. “That’s what you are talking about, Joram. Engines of Death. That is why the Technologists were banished.”
“Banished by whom? The catalysts! Because they feared us!” Joram retorted. “As for death, people die at the hands of the War Masters, the DKarn-Duuk, or, worse, they’re mutated, changed beyond recognition. But just think, Mosiah, think what we could do if we combined magic and technology …”
“Blachloch’s thinking of it,” Mosiah muttered. “There’s your ruler, Joram. A renegade warlock.”
“Maybe …” Joram murmured thoughtfully with that strange half-smile in his eyes. “Maybe not ….”
Joram had made a discovery in one of the ancient books. It was this discovery that led him to work late nights in the forge with such frustrating results. He lacked the key yet to complete understanding. That was why his experiment had failed. But now he thought he might have found it in an unlikely place—the catalyst. At last he had an idea what those strange symbols were in the text. They were numbers. The key was mathematics.
But now Joram was torn. He hated the catalyst. With Saryon came the bitter memories—Anja’s stories, the stone statue, the knowledge that he was Dead, the knowledge that he had murdered. His peaceful life was shattered. Old dreams returned to plague him, the black moods threatened once more to engulf him in their madness. When the catalyst first arrived, he had thought more than once of ending the man’s life as he had so easily ended another’s. Often he found himself standing, a large, smooth stone in his hand, remembering how easy it had been. He recalled clearly how it had felt to hurl the stone, how it had sounded when it struck the man’s head.
But he did not kill the catalyst. The reason being, he told himself, that he discovered the man knew mathematics. A plan began to take shape within Joram, becoming as sharp and strong as the iron blades he hammered.
The catalyst would be of use to him. Joram smiled inwardly. The catalyst would grant him Life—of a sort. I’ll have to wait and see what type of man he is, Joram said to himself. Weak and ignorant, like Tolban, or does he have something more in him? One thing was in the catalyst’s favor—the man had, surprisingly, been honest with him. Not that Joram trusted him. The young man almost laughed at the absurdity. No, he did not trust the catalyst, but he allowed him a grudging respect.
The true test would come soon. Joram was waiting, along with nearly everyone else in the group of bandits, to see how Saryon would react when Blachloch ordered him to help rob the villagers.
“Do you think what we’re doing is right?” Mosiah asked one night as they lay on a pile of dead, wet leaves beneath a tree. Even wrapped in their blankets, it seemed impossible to keep