Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [2]
The Watcher did not recognize the young man as the child who had crouched at his feet all those years before. Why should he? There was no bond between them. Still, he pitied him. Why? Perhaps it was because a golden-haired girl—not much older than the woman he had once loved—was being forced to stand and watch, as his beloved had once been forced to watch. The Watcher pitied both of them—the young man and the girl, especially when he saw the young man fall to his knees before the catalyst, crying unashamedly in fear and terror.
The Watcher saw the catalyst embrace the young man, and his stone heart wept for them both. He watched as the young man stood—straight and tall—to face his punishment. The catalyst took his place beside the Executioner, sword in his hand. The twenty-five catalysts drew the magic, the Life, from the world, focused it within then own beings, then opened conduits to the Executioner. Magic arced from them into him. The Executioner drew upon it and began to cast the spell that would transform the young man’s flesh to stone.
But suddenly the catalyst sacrificed himself, hurling his own body in the path of the magic. The catalyst’s limbs began to harden to rock. With his last strength, he tossed the sword to the young man.
“Escape!” he cried.
There was no escape. The Watcher felt the dread power of the sword even from where he stood, some twenty feet distant. He felt the sword began to absorb the Life from the world. He saw it destroy two warlocks in a burst of flame. He watched it bring the Executioner to his knees, and if his lungs had been able to draw breath, the Watcher would have let out a howl of victory and triumph.
“Kill!” he longed to shout. “Kill them all!”
But there was one thing the powerful sword could not do. It could not reverse the spell of the Turning. The young man saw the catalyst change to stone before his eyes. The Watcher felt his grief and looked forward with a heart filled with hatred to the young man’s revenge.
It did not come. Instead, the young man took the sword and laid it reverently in the catalyst’s stone hands. The young man bowed his head upon the stone breast of his friend; then he turned and walked into the mists of Beyond. The golden-haired girl, calling out his name, followed him.
The Watcher stared in amazement. He waited to hear the last wail of horror, but in vain. Only silence came from those shifting mists.
The Watcher’s stone gaze went to those left behind and saw with grim satisfaction that the young man’s revenge was enacted without him. Bishop Vanya fell to the ground as though struck by a thunderbolt. The Empress’s body decomposed. It was then that the Watcher realized she must have been dead for some time, existing on magic alone. Prince Xavier ran to the stone statue of the catalyst and tried to wrest the sword from its grip, but the catalyst held it fast.
Soon the living left the Border, left it once more to the living dead. Left it to a new statue—a new Watcher. But it was not made thirty feet tall like the others. Its face was not frozen in fear, or hatred, or resignation as were the faces of its fellow Watchers.
The stone statue of the catalyst holding the strange sword in his hands stared out into the Realm of Beyond, and upon the stone face was a look of sublime peace.
And there was one other unusual thing about this living statue. It had one more, unique visitor. Now, from around the catalyst’s stone neck, there fluttered gaily a banner of orange silk.
1
… And Live Again
The Watchers had guarded the Border of Thimhallan for centuries. It was their enforced task, through sleepless night and dreary day, to keep watch along the boundary that separated the magical realm from whatever lay Beyond.
What did lie Beyond?
The ancients knew. They had come to this world, fleeing a homeland where they were no longer wanted, and they knew what lay on the other side of those shifting mists. To protect themselves from it, they encompassed their world in a magical barrier, decreeing that the Watchers be placed