Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [21]
“This has been an unnerving experience for you both,” he said. “You’re not thinking clearly. Go to bed, Father. Sleep on your decision. The Almin grant that it be the right one.”
To our intense astonishment, two Duuk-tsarith materialized. Black-hooded, black-robed, faces hidden, they appeared, one on either side of Mosiah.
Bodyguards, reinforcements, witnesses . . . Perhaps all of these. Certainly they had been here this entire time, watching, guarding, protecting, spying. The three formed a triangle. They raised their hands, each placed the palm of one hand on the palm of the hand of the person beside him. Thus linked, their power merged, they vanished.
Saryon and I stared at the place where they had been standing, both of us shaken and disturbed.
“They planned this!” I signed, when I was over my shock enough to be able to give expression to my thoughts. “They had advance knowledge that the Technomancers were coming here this night. King Garald could have sent us warning, told us to leave.”
“But he didn’t. Yes, Reuven,” Saryon agreed. “It was all staged for our benefit, to make us fear the Technomancers and force us to join sides with the Duuk-tsarith.
“Do you know, Reuven?” my master added, glancing at the chair in which Mosiah had been sitting. “I grieve for him. He was Joram’s friend, when it was not easy to be Joram’s friend. He was loyal to Joram, even to death. Now he has become like all the rest. Joram is alone now. Very much alone.”
“He has you,” I said, touching my master very gently on his breast.
Saryon looked at me. The sorrow and anguish on his pale and haggard face brought tears to my eyes.
“Does he, Reuven? How can I say no to them? How can I turn them down?” He stood up, leaning heavily upon the chair. “I am going to bed.”
I bid him have a good night, though I knew that was impossible. Taking my computer, I went up to my room and entered all that had happened while the incidents were still fresh in my mind. Then I lay down, but I could not sleep.
Every time I drifted off, I saw, once again, my spirit rise from my body. And I was afraid that next time, it would not know how to return.
CHAPTER FIVE
“What you did was right, my son. Always believe that! And always know that I love you and honor you.”
SARYON’S FAREWELL TO JORAM; TRIUMPH OF THE DARKS WORD
T he next morning, quite early, an army of police entered our neighborhood and took over our quiet row of flats. Arriving shortly after the police was a cadre of reporters in huge vans with various gadgets all pointing skyward.
I can only imagine what the neighbors thought. Again it struck me as odd, how the human mind dwells on the most inconsequential issues at times of crisis. While I was busily engaged in preparing our dwelling to receive three such notable dignitaries— the three most powerful men in the world—my biggest worry was how we were going to explain this to Mrs. Mumford, who lived in the flat across the street.
She was (or thought she was) the conductor of the orchestra of our lives here on our street and nothing was supposed to happen—be it divorce or a case of breaking and entering—without the wave of her baton.
So far she had left Saryon and me in peace, our lives being, up until this juncture, extremely uninteresting. Now I could see her pinched, inquisitive face pressed close against the glass of her living-room window, avid with frustration and curiosity. She even made a tentative foray out into the street, to accost a policeman. I don’t know what he told her, but she dashed like a rabbit to the home of her assistant conductor, Mrs. Billingsgate, and now two faces pressed against the latter’s living-room window. They’d be pressed against our front door tomorrow.
I was arranging some last-of-the-season roses in a vase, and trying to think what we would say to our neighbors in the way of explanation, when Saryon entered the room. The idle curiosity of two snoopy old ladies vanished from my mind.
My master had not risen for breakfast, nor had I disturbed him. Knowing he had been up late, I left him to sleep as long as