Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [173]
Sweating beneath his robes, Saryon found it safer not to reply. Matters were going well, almost too well. Probably, as Joram had said, because he was not having to lie. Well, not that much. Suicide was an unpardonable sin only if one believed in a god.
“Where is the young man?” Blachloch rose to his feet.
Saryon, too, stood up, thankful for the flowing robes that covered his trembling legs. “In … in the forge,” he said faintly.
No (fire burned in the forge this night. A faint red glow glimmered from the banked coals, but it was the white, cold glimmer of the sinking moon that touched the blade of the sword, it surface pockmarked with hammer blows, its edge sharp, though irregular and uneven.
The sword was the first object Saryon saw as he and Blachloch materialized within the moonlit darkness of the forge. The weapon lay upon the anvil, basking in the moonlight like a perverse snake.
Blachloch saw it too, Saryon knew. Though he could not see the warlock’s face, hidden as it was by the shadows of his black hood, he could tell by the sharp intake of breath that even the discipline of the Duuk-tsarith could not suppress. The clasped hands quivered, their fingers twitching, longing to touch. But the Enforcer was in command of himself. Every sense alert, his mind reached into the shadows, seeking his prey.
Saryon himself looked about almost casually for Joram. The catalyst had expected to be paralyzed with fear; his hands had been shaking so when he left Blachloch’s dwelling that he had barely been able to open a conduit to the warlock. But now that he was here, his fear had left him, leaving a cold, clear feeling of emptiness inside.
Standing in the forge, looking around for what might be the last minutes of his life, Saryon felt the world rush in to fill the void. It was as if he were living each second separately, moving from one to another with the steady regularity of a heartbeat. Each second absorbed his complete attention; he literally saw everything, heard everything, was aware of everything around him in that one second. Then he moved on to the next. The oddest thing was that none of it had any meaning for him. He was detached, an observer, looking on while his body performed its role in this deadly play. Blachloch could have cut off his hands right now, severed them at the wrist, and Saryon would not have cried out, would not have felt a thing. He could almost envision himself, standing there in the moonlit darkness, staring calmly at the dripping blood.
So this is courage, he thought, watching as a hand, glowing white in the moonlight, reached out from the shadows and silently grasped the hilt of the sword.
There was no sound and only the barest hint of movement. Indeed, if Saryon had not been staring straight at the sword, he would never have noticed; Joram had acted with the skill and deftness of the art his mother had taught him as a child. But the Duuk-tsarith are trained to hear night itself creep up behind them.
Blachloch reacted with such speed that Saryon saw only a black wind whirling through the forge, scattering sparks from the coals. With a motion and a word, the warlock cast the spell that would leave his opponent powerless to move or act or even think, the spell that drained magic, drained Life.
Except Joram had no Life.
Saryon almost laughed, so tense was he, as he felt the magic spell hit the young man a blow that should have been shattering. It fluttered down around him like so many rose petals. The white hand continued to lift the sword. The metal did not gleam. It was a streak of darkness slashing through the moonlight, as though Joram held the embodiment of night.
Stepping into the light, Joram lifted the sword before him, his face tense and strained, his eyes darker than the metal. Saryon could sense the young man’s fear and uncertainty; despite all his study, Joram had only the vaguest idea of the metal’s powers. But the catalyst, every sense alive and attuned for the first time—he might have been newborn in this instant—could also