Legacy of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [73]
Teddy smirked insufferably, when Eliza was not looking, and made such suggestive noises—particularly when she was poking the stuffing back into him—that I could have cheerfully torn him apart again. But his foolery ceased whenever his black-button gaze fell on Scylla.
We sat down on the short-legged stools, drew them near the fire. Eliza sipped her tea and sewed up Teddy.
“How long will we have to wait?” she asked, trying to sound calm.
“Not long,” Mosiah replied.
“According to General Boris’s scouting reports, the Hch’nyv will be within attacking range of Earth and Thimhallan within forty-eight hours,” Scylla said.
“The Technomancers must have the Darksword away from here and back on Earth before then,” Mosiah added.
Eliza glanced at me and a faint flush stained her cheek. “So these . . . aliens really are a threat? It’s not a trick? They would really kill us all?”
“Without hesitation. Without compunction. Without pity or mercy,” Scylla replied, grave and somber. “We have found no level on which we can communicate with them, although it is rumored that others have.”
“The Technomancers have made contact,” said Mosiah. “That much we know. We fear that Smythe has made some sort of deal with them.”
Forty-eight hours. Not very much time. No one spoke, but each sat silent, absorbed in his or her own thoughts. Mine were very black and despairing. And, as if conjured up from the darkness of the mind, the smoke, and the fire, an image took shape and form upon the hearth.
Kevon Smythe stood before us.
“Don’t be afraid,” Mosiah said swiftly. “It is a hologram.”
It was well he said this, for the image appeared very real, not watery, as do many holograms. I would have sworn that the man himself stood before us. It must be the magic of the Technomancers, which so enhanced the electronically created image.
“I have read of such things!” Eliza gasped. “But I have never seen one. Can he ... can he hear us?”
She asked this because Scylla had her ringer to her lips and she, along with Mosiah, was hunting for the source of the hologram. Finding it—a small boxlike object tucked into a recess in the fireplace—they both examined it, both careful not to touch it. They exchanged glances—the first time, I believe, they had looked at each other directly—and Mosiah, nodding his head, drew his hood over his face and clasped his hands together.
Eliza stood up. Teddy slid, forgotten, from her lap. When he looked as if he was about to protest, I set my foot upon him and kicked him backward, none too gently, underneath my stool.
If I had not admired Eliza before now, I would have done so then. She was exhausted, frightened, grieving, anxious. She was well aware that this was the man who was responsible for the abduction of her parents and Father Saryon. Yet she faced him with the dignified reserve of a Queen who knows that any overt show of anger will only demean herself and never faze her enemy.
When I look back on that moment in memory, I see her clothed in gold, shining more brightly than the paltry light of the hologram of the Technomancer. She did not beg or plead, knowing both those to be fruitless. She asked of him what she might have asked of any base intruder.
“What do you want, sir?”
He was not wearing his suit, but was clad in white robes that I later learned were the ceremonial robes of the Khandic Sages. Around the sleeves and hem and neck were laid out in a grid pattern tiny filaments of metal, which glinted and winked as they caught the light. I thought at the time they were merely fanciful decoration.
Kevon Smythe smiled his ingratiating smile. “Since you come so swiftly to the point, mistress, I will myself be brief. Your father is with us. He is our guest. He has come with us voluntarily, because he knows our need is great. He left home in haste and unfortunately neglected to bring with him an object of which he is quite fond. That object is the Darksword. Its absence distresses him greatly. He fears it could fall into the wrong hands and cause inestimable harm.