Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [5]
Now that we could talk, all the questions which had been crowding my mind fled. Not that I could have spoken them myself, but I could have let my master speak for me. I could see that Saryon was in much the same state.
He could only munch his biscuit, sip his tea, and stare. The face of the Duuk-tsarith was in the direct light and Saryon seemed to find something vaguely familiar about the man. Saryon would later tell me that he did not experience the sensation of overwhelming dread one usually feels in the presence of the Enforcers. Indeed, he felt a small thrill of pleasure at the sight of the man and, if he could only have remembered who he was, knew that he would be glad to see him.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Saryon faltered. “I know that I know you, but between age and failing eyesight ...”
The man smiled.
“I am Mosiah,” he said.
CHAPTER TWO
One by one, after each had been coldly rebuffed by the strange, dark-haired child, the other children let Joram severely alone. But there was one among them who persisted in his attempts to be friendly. This was Mosiah.
THE DARKSWORD
I believe that Saryon would have exclaimed aloud in astonishment and pleasure, but he remembered in time the injunction to keep our voices down. He started to rise from his bed to go enfold his old friend in a fond embrace, but the Duuk-tsarith shook his head and motioned with his hand that Saryon was to remain where he was. Although the bedroom shades were drawn, the light was visible from outside and so was the catalyst’s silhouette.
Saryon could only stammer, “Mosiah ... I can’t . . . I’m so sorry, my dear boy . . . twenty years . . . I’m getting old, you see, and my memory . . . not to mention my eyesight . . .”
“Don’t apologize, Father,” Mosiah said, falling back on the old form of address, though it was hardly applicable now. “I have changed a lot, over the years. It is small wonder you did not recognize me.”
“Indeed you have changed,” said Saryon gravely, with a sorrowful glance at the black clothing of the Enforcer which Mosiah wore.
Mosiah seemed surprised. “I thought perhaps you might have heard that I had become one of the Duuk-tsarith. Prince Garald knew.”
“We rarely speak, the Prince and I,” said Saryon apologetically. “He felt it was best, for my own safety, or so he was kind enough to say. Remaining in contact with me would have damaged him politically. I could see that clearly. It was the main reason I left the relocation camp.”
And now it was Mosiah who looked sadly upon Saryon, and the catalyst who was stricken with confusion and guilt.
“I ... deemed it was best,” Saryon said, flushing. “There were those who looked at me ... if they didn’t blame me, I brought back memories. . . .” His voice died away to silence.
“There are those who say you abandoned them in return for favors,” Mosiah said.
I could no longer contain myself. I made a quick and violent gesture with my hand, to negate these cruel words, for I could tell that they wounded my master.
Mosiah looked wonderingly at me, not so much in astonishment that I did not speak—for he, as an Enforcer, must already know everything there was to know about me, including the fact that I was a mute—but that I was so quick to defend Saryon.
“This is Reuven,” said Saryon, introducing me.
Mosiah nodded. As I said, he must have known all about me.
“He is your secretary,” Mosiah said.
“That is what he has me call him,” Saryon said, glancing in my direction with a fond smile. “Though it has always seemed to me that ‘son’ would be the more appropriate term.”
I felt my skin burn with pleasure, but I only shook my head. He was dear as a father to me, the Almin knows, but I would never take such a liberty.
“He is mute,” Saryon continued, explaining my affliction without embarrassment.
Nor did I feel any embarrassment myself. The handicap which one has had a lifetime seems more normal than not. As I had foreseen, Mosiah had advance knowledge of this, as his next words proved.
“Reuven was only a small child when the Shattering”—the term the people of Thimhallan now