Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [100]
“The next time I saw you was at the Crystal Palace, the night of the anniversary of your Death. Gamaliel. My reward! Your name burned my heart. I watched you meet your mother. Your mother—a corpse, the Life flowing through her veins a mockery. And you—alive but Dead. Yes, you were my reward.”
Joram averted his face, a low strangled cry in his throat. “Take him away!”
The Duuk-tsarith glanced at Prince Garald, who shook his head. Garald put a hand upon his friend’s shoulder, but Joram tore himself free. Gesturing furiously, he tried to say something but choked on his words. The Emperor gazed up at him pleadingly.
“The last time I saw you was at the Turning,” he said in a voice as soft as the steady fall of the raindrops. “I saw the hope dawn in your eyes when you recognized me. I knew what you were thinking—”
“You could have acknowledged me!” Joram looked at his father directly for the first time, his eyes burning with the fire of the forge. “Vanya could not have put me to living death if you had claimed me for your own! You could have saved me!”
“No, my son,” the Emperor said gently. “How could I save you when I could not save myself?” He bowed his head and his body bent again, crumpling back into the slumped, broken old man dressed in rags.
“I can’t stay! I can’t … breathe!” Clutching his chest, gasping for air, Joram turned to leave the platform.
“My son!” The old man reached out a trembling hand. “My son! Gamaliel!” the Emperor cried. “I cannot ask you to forgive me.” He stared at Joram’s back. “But perhaps you can forgive them. They need you now…. You will be their reward….”
“Don’t say that!” Once again Joram tried to leave but it was too late. People surged around him, asking questions, demanding answers, elbowing the old man out of the way. The Emperor’s last words went unheard, drowned in the growing clamor of the crowd.
“The doddering old idiot,” snarled Bishop Vanya from on high. “Xavier was right. We should have hastened his death—”
The Cardinal uttered a shocked reproof.
Bishop Vanya, rolling his head on its layers of paunchy skin, fixed his minister with a scornful gaze. “Don’t give me that sanctimonious drivel. You know what’s been done in the Almin’s holy name. You’ve been able to close your eyes as you mumble your prayers, but you’ll be quick enough to open them and snatch the rewards when I’m gone!”
Turning back again to observe the crowd, Bishop Vanya missed the glance of enmity and loathing bestowed upon him by his loyal minister.
It was growing dark. Night, hastened by the storm, was closing its fingers over Merilon. Here and there amid the crowd, the wizards caused magical lights to flare. Illuminated by their multicolored flames, Mosiah’s father—now apparently the unofficial spokesman—stepped forward.
“Is what he says true, milord!” the Field Magus asked the Prince.
“Yes,” Prince Garald replied. Lifting his voice so that all could hear, he repeated, “Yes, what you have heard is true—to the shame of every one of us in Thimhallan, not just Merilon. It was our fear that caused this man”—he laid his hand on Joram’s shoulder—“to be sentenced to death, once as a child and again as a man. Joram is the son of the former Empress and Emperor of Merilon Xavier, his uncle, knew of his existence and tried to destroy him. In this, he had the cooperation of Bishop Vanya.”
The eyes of everyone in the crowd raised to the office in the Cathedral. Vanya, glaring at them all, reached out his good hand and, with a swift yank at the pull rope, dropped down the tapestry that covered the crystal wall.
He could shut out the eyes but not the sounds.
“The Almin has sent Joram to us in our hour of need!” It was Prince Garald’s voice. “This proves that He is with us! Will you follow Joram—the son of your Emperor and the rightful ruler of Merilon—into battle?”
The crowd responded with a mighty shout.
Bishop Vanya, peeping through a chink in the curtain, saw that Joram did not turn to look at the people, but