Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [149]
So, too, must heaven see the flaring lights of the attacking tanks, the jagged lightning bolts of the defending wizards. As the darkness continued to deepen and the wind began to rise, Joram watched the battle around Merilon rage ever more furiously.
Glancing up into the heavens to see if Anyone was watching, he saw the reason for the darkness. The sun was disappearing. A solar eclipse. He had seen them before. Saryon had explained their cause. The moon, passing between Thimhallan and the sun, cast its shadow on the world. But Joram had never seen an eclipse like this. The moon was sweeping across the sun, devouring it. Not content with nibbling at it a small bite at a time, the moon was feasting on entire chunks, leaving no crumb or scrap behind.
The darkness grew deeper. At the edges of the world, along the horizon, it was night. Stars appeared, flashing into life for a brief instant, then vanishing as another darkness, deeper than night, engulfed them. The edges of this darkness flickered with lightning, and thunder rolled across the land.
The sky grew darker and darker. The shadows rose up slowly around Joram. It was still light upon the mountain peak—a tiny fragment of sun shone down on them, desperately clinging to life. Watching the darkness rise up from the land below, Joram had the strange feeling that he and Gwen were adrift on an ocean of night.
Eventually, however, the darkness must overtake them as well, the storm-tossed seas capsizing their fragile craft. Part of him was afraid, part begged him to find shelter from the coming storm. He knew he should, but he couldn’t move. It was like the paralysis of deep sleep; he watched what was happening as in a dream. His pain was gone, and he no longer had feeling in his arm. His right hand might have belonged to someone else’s body.
The wind grew stronger, lashing at him from all directions. Stinging bits of rock bit into his flesh. Gwendolyn’s golden hair enveloped her in a bright cloud.
Joram drew his wife near, and she huddled beside him in the shelter of the altar stone. She was not afraid but stared eagerly into the approaching storm; her eyes reflecting the jagged lightning, her lips parted to drink the wind.
And because she was not afraid, Joram’s last fears left him. He could no longer see Merilon now. The fragment of sun shone down on the mountain peak alone; the rest of the world was dark.
The dying light gleamed softly on Saryon’s peaceful face, touching him like a benediction. Then the darkness covered him. A last tiny ray formed a halo around Gwendolyn’s hair, and Joram kept his eyes fixed upon her. He would take this vision of her with him from this world and keep it, he knew, in the next. There she would recognize him. There she would call him by name.
The darkness surged closer. Joram could see only Gwen, her bright eyes on the storm. And he noticed, studying her face, that it had changed. Her expression was calm, there was no fear. But before it had been the calm of madness. Now it was the calm, beautiful face of the woman who had looked into his eyes once, so long ago, when he had supposed himself alone and nameless. The calm, beautiful face of the woman who had stretched out her hand to him in love and trust.
“Come with me.” He murmured the words he had spoken to her then.
Gwendolyn turned her blue eyes upon him. The darkness gathered thickly about him. The sun, it seemed, shone only in her eyes.
“I will, Joram,” she said, smiling at him through her tears. “I will, my husband, for I am free now—as the dead are free, as the magic is finally free!” Reaching out, she took him in her arms and held him tightly, cradling his head against her breast. With her gentle hand, she smoothed his hair, her soft lips touched his forehead.
His eyes closed,