Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [147]
“Yes,” Saryon said. Clasping his hands, he looked down at them, noticing the blueness in his fingernails. “I’m losing the feeling in my fingers,” he murmured. Rising to his feet, he walked from the table to the feeble fire. “I wonder what the Almin is doing now,” he said to himself, holding his hands to the warmth. “Getting ready to attend Evening Prayers in the Font? Preparing Himself to listen to Bishop Vanya praying for guidance that he probably doesn’t need? No wonder the Almin stays there, safe and secure, within the walls of the Font.
“What an easy job.”
6
Fallen
“It cannot be done,” said Saryon, looking up from the text he was reading, his face pale and strained.
“What do you mean, it can’t be done?” Joram demanded, ceasing his restless pacing and coming to stand next to the catalyst. “Don’t you understand it? Can’t you read the math? Is there something we lack? Something we’re missing? If so—”
“I mean it cannot be done because I will not do it,” Saryon said wearily, leaning his head upon his hand. He gestured at the text. “I understand it,” he continued in a hollow voice. “I understand it all too well. And I will not do it!” He closed his eyes. “I will not do it.”
Joram’s face twisted in fury, his fist clenched, and for an instant it seemed as though he might strike the catalyst. With a visible effort, the young man controlled himself and, taking another turn about the small, underground chamber, forced himself to calm down.
As he heard Joram walk away, Saryon opened his eyes, his wistful gaze falling on the volumes and volumes of leather, hand-bound texts that stood neatly arranged on wooden bookshelves, so crudely fashioned that it appeared they might have been the work of children. An early example of woodworking without the use of magic, the catalyst guessed. He felt Joram’s anger—it radiated from him like a wave of heat from the forge—and Saryon sat tense and expectant, waiting for the attack, either verbal or physical. But none came. Only a seething silence and the steady, measured pacing of the young man walking out his frustration. Saryon sighed. He would almost have preferred an outburst. This coolness in one so young, this control over a nature so obviously in turmoil, was frightening.
Where did it come from? Saryon wondered. Surely not from his parents, who—if reports were true—gave way to passions that encompassed their downfall. Perhaps this was some sort of attempt at reparation, Joram’s father reaching out to him with his stone hands. Or then there was that other possibility, the one that had come to Saryon out of the darkness, out of the pain of his injury. The one he had shut out, the one he would never think of again ….
Saryon shook his head angrily. What nonsense. It was the influence of this room, it had to be.
Joram sat down in a chair beside him.
“Very well—Saryon,” he said, his voice cool and even, “tell me what must be done and why you will not do it.”
The catalyst sighed again. Raising his head, he looked back at the text that lay before him on the table. Smiling sadly, he ran his hand over the pages with a touch almost caressing. “Do you have any idea of the wonders within these pages?” he asked Joram softly.
Joram’s eyes devoured the catalyst, watching every nuance of expression upon the man’s tired, lined face. “With these wonders, we could rule the world,” he replied.
“No, no, no!” Saryon said impatiently. “I meant wonders, wonders of learning. The mathematics …” His eyes closed again in exquisite agony. “I am the best mathematician of this age,” he murmured. “A genius they call me. Yet here, within these pages, I find such knowledge that makes me feel like a child crouched at my mother’s knee. I don’t begin to understand them. I could study for months, years …” The look of pain faded