Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [53]
“Sure,” Mosiah had sense enough to answer easily, falling into step beside the taller young man. “Where to?”
But Joram didn’t answer. Walking swiftly, he pushed ahead with a strange, eager expression of excitement and activity on his face that contrasted so vividly with the previous dark, brooding look that it seemed as if the sun had broken through a storm cloud.
On and on they walked, through the forested land the magi were gradually reclaiming from the wilderness, and soon left the ground where they had been working behind. The trees grew thicker as they moved deeper into the woods; the forest floor was choked with brush, almost impassable. Forced more than once to use his magic to clear a path, Mosiah felt his already low energy begin to drain. Having a good sense of direction, he knew fairly well where they were and this was confirmed by an ominous sound—the sound of rushing water.
Slowing his pace, Mosiah looked around uneasily.
“Joram,” he said, touching his friend on the shoulder, noticing as he did so that Joram, in his strange excitement, did not flinch away as usual. “Joram, we’re close to the river.”
Joram did not reply, he simply kept walking.
“Joram,” Mosiah said, feeling his throat tighten, “Joram, what are you doing? Where are you going?”
He managed to stop the young man, tightening his grip on his shoulder, expecting every second to be coldly rebuffed. But Joram only turned at his touch to look at him intently.
“Come with me,” he said, his dark eyes glowing. “Lets see the river. Lets see what’s across it.”
Mosiah licked his lips, dry with walking in the bright sunlight of late afternoon. Of all the wild schemes! Just when he had been able, so he thought, to see the beginnings of a crack in the stone fortress where some light might penetrate, he must now close it up with his very own hand.
“We can’t, Joram,” Mosiah said quietly and calmly, though he felt sick with despair inside. “That’s the border. The Outland lies beyond. No one goes there.”
“But you’ve talked to people there. I know you have,” Joram said with the wild eagerness that was so strange.
Mosiah flushed. “How did you know that? No, never mind,” he muttered. “I didn’t talk to them. They talked to me. And … I didn’t like … what they said.” Clutching Joram’s shoulder, he tugged on him gently. “Come back home, Joram. Why do you want to go there? …”
“I have to get away!” Joram answered in a voice suddenly fierce and passionate. “I have to get away!”
“Joram,” said Mosiah desperately, trying to think what might stop him, wondering what put this crazy notion into his head. “You can’t leave. Stop and think calmly a minute! Your mother—”
At the mention of the word, Joram’s face went blank. There was no shadow upon it, yet there was no light either. His face was as blank and cold as stone.
With a shrug, Joram jerked away from Mosiah’s grasp. Turning, he plunged back into the brush, seeming to care little if his friend followed or not.
Mosiah followed, with pain in his heart. The crack in the fortress was gone, the fortress made stronger and more durable than before. And he had no idea why.
11
Spring’s Bitter Harvest
Spring planting time came. Everyone worked together during spring planting. Each person, from the youngest to the eldest, toiled in the fields from before dawn to late evening—sowing the seed, or setting young seedlings which had been carefully nurtured through the winter, in the warm, freshly plowed ground. The work had to be done swiftly, for soon the Sif-Hanar would arrive to seed the clouds as the Field Magi seeded the earth, sending the gentle rains that would make the fields lush and green.
Of all the seasons of the year, Joram hated spring planting time most. Though now, at the age of sixteen, he was such a skilled sleight-of-hand artist that his tricks were almost impossible to detect, the seeds were so tiny that even with all his practiced dexterity, he appeared clumsy and slow in sowing them. His hands and shoulders ached at night from the hard work and the stress of maintaining