Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [139]
He ceased his magic show. Doffing his feathered hat, he extended his leg, and made a graceful bow. “Your Majesty.” Rising, he replaced the hat at a jaunty angle on his head and asked, “Do you like my outfit? I call it Apocalypse Apricot.”
Eliza looked dazed. The sight of Simkin emerging from the Darksword had shocked her from her grief. But she didn’t know what to make of this. Like the rest of us, she wondered if he brought victory or if he was fixing the lock and seal on our doom.
“Who are you?” Kevon Smythe demanded.
“A pocket of residual magic,” said Simkin with a sly smile. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t know me. You and your kind never did. Oh, you tried to manipulate me. You tried to use me. But it never truly worked, because you never really believed in me.”
Simkin turned on his fancy orange heel. He gave the raven a pat on the head and smoothed its feathers, to which affectionate gesture the bird answered with a rude croak. Grinning, Simkin walked around the marble tomb to stand at Joram’s head.
We watched him in silence. None of us moved, not Eliza nor Saryon, not Mosiah, Smythe, nor the Technomancers who still had nerve enough to remain. Simkin held us all in thrall.
He gazed down at Joram’s ashen face that was still and cold as the marble on which he lay. Simkin ran his fingers through Joram’s black curls, carefully arranged them on the dead man’s shoulders.
“He believed,” Simkin said. “He could make no use of me whatsoever. I betrayed him, I mocked him, I used him. He shattered a world to free me, he gave his life to protect me. What I do now, I do for him.”
Again, Simkin transformed, shriveling and shrinking, withering in upon himself. He was, once again, the black and unlovely Darksword. Except that this time I noted the sword had a flashing orange jewel embedded in the hilt.
The Darksword placed itself across Joram’s chest.
A wind rose from the west, strong and biting cold. Above us, in the night sky, the storm clouds blew away, torn to shreds by the wind. The light of star and starship glittered white against the darkness. And then the wind died. The air was still.
All waited, stars and wind and ourselves.
Scylla stretched out her hand. “You can wake up now, Joram. Hurry. It’s nearly midnight.”
Joram slowly opened his eyes. He looked first at Scylla.
She nodded. “All is well.”
I knew then that my vague understandings had been right. She was the one who had sent us hopscotching through time. She was the one who had brought all this about. She was an agent, as she had claimed, but she did not work for the CIA or the FBI. She was an agent of God.
Joram turned his head, looked over at Gwen and Eliza.
Gwen smiled, as if she had been a party to the charade. I saw then, gathered around her, shadowy figures, hundreds of them. The dead. She had once spoken for them and they had not forsaken her. She had escaped capture by the Technomancers. The dead had rescued her. The vision we had seen in the dragon’s lair was true.
Eliza gasped, wanting to believe, yet not daring to believe.
“No!” Kevon Smythe cried, half-strangled. “It can’t be! You were dead!”
“ There will be born to the royal house one who is dead but will live, who will die again and live again,’ “ Joram quoted. He sat up, hearty and vigorous, and jumped down from the tomb.
“Quidquid deliqusti. Amen,” said the Darksword.
Joram laid the Darksword on Merlyn’s tomb.
A man appeared beside the tomb. He was tall, with short-cut white hair and a gray, grizzled beard. He wore armor of an ancient design over chain mail. He bore no weapon, other than a staff of oak twined with holly.
Reaching down, he clasped his hand around the Darksword and picked it up.
“You’re no Excalibur,” he said, “but you’ll do.”
“Thank you,” the sword said coldly.
The old man held the sword high in the air and spoke words long forgotten. Light began to shine from the sword, a light that was blinding to some, for Smythe cried out in pain and flung his arms