Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [161]
“Who could be wanting to see me at this time of night?”
Hope’s wings caused his heart to flutter. His face flushed with anticipation. I, who had served him so long, knew exactly what he was thinking.
Long ago (twenty years ago, to be precise, although I doubt if he himself had any concept of the passage of so much time), Saryon had said goodbye to two people he loved. He had neither seen nor heard from those two in all this time. He had no reason to think that he should ever hear from them again, except that Joram had promised, when they parted, that when his son was of age, he should send that son to Saryon.
Now, whenever the doorbell rang or the knocker knocked, Saryon envisioned Joram’s son standing on the doorstoop. Saryon pictured that child with his father’s long, curling black hair, but lacking, hopefully, his father’s red-black inner fire.
The demand for Saryon to go to the front door came again, this time with such a forceful intensity and impatience that I myself was aware of it—a startling sensation for me. Had the doorbell in fact been sounding, I could envision the person leaning on the button. There were lights on in the kitchen, which could be seen from the street, and whoever was out there, mentally issuing us commands, knew that Saryon and I were home.
Jolted out of his reverie by the second command, Saryon shouted, “I’m coming”, which statement had no hope of being heard through the thick door that led from the kitchen.
Retiring to his bedroom, he grabbed his flannel robe, put it on over his nightshirt. I was still dressed, having never developed a liking for nightshirts. He walked hastily back through the kitchen, where I joined him We walked from there through the living room and out of the living room into the small entryway. He turned on the outside light, only to discover that it didn’t work.
“The bulb must have burned out,” he said, irritated. “Turn on the hall light.”
I flipped the switch. It did not work either.
Strange, that both bulbs should have chosen this time to burn out.
“I don’t like this, Master,” I signed, even as Saryon was unlocking the door, preparing to open it.
I moved to stop him, but—having been stunned by the sudden trickle of magic into my being—I was slow to react.
I had tried many times to convince Saryon that, in this dangerous world, there might be those who would do him harm, who would break into his house, rob and beat him, perhaps even murder him. Thimhallan may have had its faults, but such sordid crimes were unknown to its inhabitants, who feared centaur and giants, dragons and faeries and present revolts, not hoodlums and thugs and serial killers.
“Look through the peephole,” I admonished.
“Nonsense,” Saryon returned. “It must be Joram’s child. And how could I see him through the peephole in the dark?”
Picturing a baby in a basket on our doorstoop (he had, as I said, only the vaguest notion of time), Saryon flung open the door.
We did not find a baby. What we saw was a shadow darker than night standing on the doorstoop, blotting out the lights of our neighbors, blotting out the light of the stars.
The shadow coalesced into a person dressed in black robes, who wore a black cowl pulled up over the head. All I could see of the person by the feeble light reflected from the kitchen far behind me were two white hands, folded correctly in front of the black robes, and two eyes, glittering.
Saryon recoiled. He pressed his hand over his heart, which had stopped fluttering, very nearly stopped altogether. Fearful memories leapt out of the darkness brought on us by the black-clothed figure. The fearful memories jumped on the catalyst.
“Duuk-tsarith!” he cried through trembling lips.
Duuk-tsarith, the dreaded Enforcers of the world of Thimhallan. On our first coming—under duress—to this new world, where