Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [128]
“I ... It’s been so long. . . .” Saryon put his hand to his temples, as if they ached. “If I fail, we would all die. Die most horribly.”
“We know,” Mosiah said.
I noticed in all this that Scylla kept silent. She did not venture to persuade or argue. I could not yet understand, but I was beginning to understand, if that makes any sense.
“Father Saryon.” It was Joram who spoke.
So intent had we been on our discussion I had not noticed that he had regained consciousness. His head was pillowed in his daughter’s lap. She wiped the sweat from his brow, smoothed back the damp hair, and watched over him anxiously, lovingly.
Joram smiled. He lifted his hand. Saryon knelt and clasped Joram’s hand to his breast. It was obvious to him, to all of us, that Joram had very little time left to live.
“Father Saryon,” he said, and it took an effort for him to speak. “You were able to charm me. What is a dragon, compared to that?”
“I will,” Saryon said brokenly. “I will . . . try. The rest of you . . . wait here.”
He stood up and would have rushed down the tunnel, then and there, if we hadn’t stopped him.
“You cannot charm the dragon and retrieve the Darksword at the same time,” Mosiah pointed out. “The Darksword would disrupt the charm.”
“That’s true,” Saryon admitted.
“I will recover the Darksword—” Mosiah began.
“I will recover the Darksword,” said Eliza firmly. “It is my legacy.”
A spasm of agony contorted Joram’s face. He shook his head, but he was too weak to argue or try to stop her. A single tear tracked through the blood on his cheek. A tear that was not wrung from him by his own physical pain, but by the pain of regret, remorse.
Eliza saw the tear and gathered her father close, hugging him to her. “Don’t, Father!” She wept with him. “I am proud to bear this! Proud to be your daughter. You shattered the world. Perhaps it is left to me to save it!”
Kissing him, she rose quickly to her feet. “I am ready.”
I was afraid Mosiah would argue or try to dissuade her. He regarded her intently for a moment, then he bowed. “Very well, Your Majesty,” he said. “I will go, and of course Reuven will go as well. I may need my catalyst,” he added.
I was filled with pride, so much that it almost pushed out my fear. Almost. I could not forget the terror of the last time we had faced the Dragon of the Night. The terror and pain of my own death. Worse—the horror of seeing Eliza die. Resolutely, I trampled down the memory. I would never have found the courage to stir a step otherwise.
“Someone must stay with my father,” Eliza said, looking at me. “I had hoped that Reuven—”
“I will stay with Joram,” Scylla volunteered. She grinned at us. The ring in her eyebrow glinted. “You’re on your own now.”
“I do not understand any of this,” Saryon said plaintively.
“You must have faith,” I signed to him.
“And you are impertinent to your teacher,” he said with a wan smile. He gave a bleak sigh. “Come, then. We will go charm this dragon.”
The Dragons of the Night loathe sunlight to such an extent that even though they burrow down into the deepest, darkest parts of Thimhallan they can find, they sleep during the daytime. This dragon was asleep, to judge by its rhythmic breathing, but its sleep appeared restless and shallow. We could hear the gigantic body move, scales scraping against the rock floor. I recalled in that other life what the dragon had said about the presence of the Darksword in its lair, how it had disturbed its rest. Either that, or its waking time was very near.
I remembered the stench from my last visit to this place. The smell seemed worse, this time. We all of us covered our noses and mouths, to keep from retching. We brought no light with us, for fear that even the beam of the flashlight might wake the dragon and arouse its ire. Moving slowly and silently, feeling our way with