Forging the Darksword - Margaret Weis [83]
Jacobias, a look of indecision on his face, glanced at his wife. Leaving her tea untouched as well, she was staring into the coals of the fire. He squeezed her hand. Without turning her gaze to him, she nodded her head. Rumbling deep in his throat, Jacobias rumpled up his hair, scratched his chin, and finally said, “Very well, Father. I’ll do what I can fer you, though I’d sooner send a man Beyond! I would indeed!”
“I understand,” Saryon said, genuinely affected by the man’s obvious pain. “And I truly thank you for your help.”
“You are a kind and gentle man,” said Jacobias’s wife suddenly, still staring into the fire. “I’ve seen you look at us with something in your eyes that says we’re not animals but people to you. If—if you see my son—”
She could not go on, but began to weep silently.
“You better be getting gone, Father,” Jacobias said gruffly. “Moon’s almost to the tops of the trees and ye’ve a ways to go. If you haven’t made it to the river by the time she sets,” he added sternly, “sit yourself down and wait till mornin’. Don’t go bumblin’ about in the dark. Ye’re liable to tumble down a cliff.”
“Yes,” Saryon managed to say, drawing another deep breath and smoothing the folds of his robes around him with his shaking hands.
“Now, come here”—Jacobias led the catalyst to the door, which opened at his approach—“and look where I point and listen to my words careful, for they could mean life instead of death, Father.”
“I understand,” said Saryon, holding onto his courage as tightly as his hands gripped his sack.
“See that star yonder, the one at the tip of the stars they call the Gods Hand. You see it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the North Star. It’s not called God’s Hand fer nothin’, ’cause it’ll point yer way, if ye let it. Keep that star in yer left eye, as the saying goes. Know what that means?”
The catalyst shook his head, and Jacobias checked a sigh. “It means—Never mind. Just do this. Always make certain yer walkin’ straight toward the star and just a bit to the right of it like. Never let the star get to the right of you. Understand? If so, you’ll end up in centaur land. If they get hold of you, you can just pray to the Almin for the swiftest death there is.”
Saryon stared up into the night sky, looking at the star, and felt suddenly dismayed. He had never looked up into the night sky before, he realized. At least, not out here, not where the stars seemed so close and so many. Overwhelmed at the vastness and immenseness of the universe and of his own tiny, tiny part in it, it seemed to Saryon terribly ironic that another tiny, cold, faraway and uncaring part was going to lead him. He thought of the Font, where the stars were studied as they affected a person’s life from his birth. He saw the charts spread out on the table, he recalled the calculations he had made regarding them, and it occurred to him that he had never once really looked at the stars as he was looking at them now. Now that his life truly depended on them.
“I understand,” he murmured, though he didn’t, not in the slightest.
Jacobias looked at him dubiously. “Maybe I should take him,” he muttered to his wife.
Saryon glanced around quickly. “No,” he said. “No, there would be trouble. I’ve stayed too long as it is. Someone might have seen us. Thank you very much. Both for your help and—and your kind words. Good-bye. Good-bye. May the Almin’s blessing be with you both.”
“Maybe it’s not right of me to say this, Father,” Jacobias said roughly, “me not bein’ a catalyst an’ all, but may the Almin’s blessing be with you.” Flushing, he looked down at the ground. “There. I don’t reckon He’ll take offense, do you?”
Saryon started to smile, but the quivering of his lips led him to believe he might very well weep instead, and that would be disastrous. Reaching out, he shook hands earnestly with Jacobias,