Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [158]
Shaking his head, Saryon hastily returned to the forge, where Joram was busy cleaning up all traces of their strange work.
“How much darkstone exists?” the catalyst asked, watching Joram carefully brush the fine grains of the pulverized ore into a small pouch.
“I don’t know. I found these few rocks in the abandoned mines below Andon’s house. According to what I read in the texts, there was a large deposit of the ore located around here. Of course, that’s why the Technologists came to this place after the war. They planned to forge their weapons anew, return, and take their revenge on those who persecuted them.”
Saryon felt the accusing, penetrating gaze of the dark eyes, but he did not flinch before it. From what he had seen in the books, the members of his Order had been right in banishing this Dark Art and suppressing this dangerous knowledge. “Why didn’t they?” he asked.
“They had too many other things to worry about,” Joram muttered, “such as staying alive. Fighting off the centaurs and the other mutated creatures created and then abandoned by the War Masters. Then there was hunger, sickness. The few catalysts who had come with them died, leaving no heirs behind. Soon, all the people cared about was survival. They stopped keeping records. What for? Their children could not read. They didn’t have time to teach them—the fight to live was too desperate. Eventually, even the memories and the old skills died, and with them died the idea of going back and seeking their revenge. All that remain are the chants of the Scianc and a few rocks.”
“But the chants carry the tradition, surely they could have been used to carry on the knowledge,” Saryon argued mildly. “What if you are wrong, Joram? What if these people realized the horror they had come near bringing upon the world and chose to deliberately suppress it themselves?”
“Bah!” Joram snorted, turning around from where he had hidden the crucible in the refuse pile. “The chants preserve the key to the knowledge. It was the only way the wise could hope to pass it on, when they saw the darkness of ignorance beginning to close in around them. And that is what refutes your sanctimonious theory, Catalyst. There are clues in the litanies to those who truly listen to them. That is where I got the idea of searching in the books. To the Sorcerers”—he gestured out beyond the cavern walls at the settlement—“the chants are nothing but mystical words, words of magic and power maybe, but, when you get right down to it, only words.”
Saryon shook his head, unconvinced. “Surely there would have been those before now who recognized that.”
“There have been,” Joram said, the half-smile burning deep in his dark eyes. “Andon, for one. Blachloch for another. The old man knew the clues were there, he knew they led to the books that had been so carefully preserved.” Joram shrugged. “But he couldn’t read. Ask him sometime, Saryon, about the bitter frustration that gnawed at him. Hear him tell about going down into the mine shaft and staring at the books, cursing them even, in helpless fury, because he knew that in them was the knowledge to help his people, more precious than the treasure of the Emperor, and just as impossible to acquire—to those without the key.”
Joram spoke with a low, passionate intensity Saryon found quite remarkable in the usually reticent, sullen young man. When Joram mentioned the key, his hand closed over some unseen object, his eyes flamed with a feverish excitement. The catalyst stirred uncomfortably. Yes, now he had the key, the key to the treasury. And Saryon himself had shown him how it fit the lock.
“What did you say about Blachloch?” he asked, trying to banish his uncomfortable thoughts and trying also to keep his mind from the fact that the sand in the bottom of the hourglass was accumulating rapidly.
“The first time he heard