Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [7]
Even in his distraught state of mind, Saryon found himself routinely making the tricky mathematical calculations for a journey of such distance. Within moments, he had it completed, and he realized that the Cardinal had wasted his energy—a grievous sin among catalysts, for it leaves them weak and vulnerable and grants the magi extra energy that they can store and use again at will. But, Saryon supposed, it didn’t matter this time. Though a skilled mathematician, it would take the Cardinal long moments of study to arrive at the same answer that Saryon had reached in seconds. Both Saryon and the Cardinal knew that those were long moments he didn’t dare waste.
Acting quickly upon Vanya’s order, the warlock entered the Corridor that opened up, a gaping blue disk, before him. The Bishop, carrying his tiny burden, followed. When all three were inside, the disk elongated, compressed, and vanished.
It was over. The Bishop and the baby were gone.
The court began to function again. Members of the Royal Household floated up to the Emperor to offer their condolences and their sympathy and to remind him of their presence. The Cardinal, who had given his all to the Marshal, dropped over like a rock, sending most of the brethren of his Order running to his aid.
One catalyst, however, did not move. Saryon remained standing in place in the now-broken Circle, his plans and hopes and dreams falling around him, shattering like the Empress’s tears upon the weeping-blue floor. Lost in his own grief, Saryon fancied he could still hear, lingering upon the air, the faint wail of the baby, and the mournful whispering of the trees.
“The Prince is Dead.”
2
The Gift of Life
The wizard stood in the doorway of his manor house. A plain, serviceable dwelling, it was neither opulent nor ostentatious, for this wizard, though of noble birth, was yet of low rank. Though he could have afforded a glittering crystal palace, this would have been considered unseemly for one of his station. He was content with his life, however, and now stood looking out over his lands in the early morning with an air of calm satisfaction.
At a sound behind him in the hall, he turned. “Hurry, Saryon,” he said with a smile for his little boy, who was sprawled on the floor, struggling to put on his shoes. “Hurry, if you want to see the Ariels deliver the disks.”
With a final, desperate wrench, the child tugged his shoe over his heel; then, leaping to his feet, he ran to his father. Catching the child up in his arms, the wizard spoke the words that summoned the air to do his bidding. Stepping into the wind, he was lifted from the ground and floated over the land, his silken robes fluttering about him like the wings of a bright butterfly.
The child, one hand clinging to his father’s neck, opened the other to greet the dawn.
“Teach me to do this, Father!” Saryon cried, delighting in the rushing of the spring air past his face. “Tell me the words that summon the wind.”
Saryon’s father smiled and, shaking his head, solemnly tweaked one of the little boy’s feet encased in its leather prison. “No word of yours will ever summon the wind, my son,” he said, fondly brushing back the child’s flaxen hair from the disappointed face. “Such is not your gift.”
“Maybe not now,” Saryon said stubbornly as they drifted above the long rows of newly plowed ground, smelling the rich, dark fragrance of wet earth. “But when I am older, like Janji—”
But his father was shaking his head again. “No, child, not even when you are older.”
“But that’s not fair!” Saryon cried. “Janji is only a servant, like his father, yet he can tell the air to take him on its back. Why—”
He stopped, catching