Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [3]
The Watchers kept their silent vigil still—they had no choice. And when the mists parted for the first time in centuries, when a figure stepped out of the shifting gray fog and put his foot upon the sand, the Watchers were appalled and cried out their warning.
But there were none, now, who knew how to listen to words of stone.
Thus the man’s return was unheralded, unannounced. He had gone forth in silence and in silence he returned. The Watchers shrieked, “Beware, Thimhallan! Your doom has come! The Border has been crossed!”
But no one heard them.
There were those who might have heard the silent cries, had they been attentive. Bishop Vanya, for one. He was the highest ranking catalyst in the land and, as such, it seemed likely that his god, the Almin, would have called His minister’s attention to such a calamity. But it was dinner time. His Holiness was entertaining guests and, though the Bishop prayed beautifully and devoutly over the meal, everyone had the distinct feeling that the Almin really hadn’t been invited.
Prince Xavier should have heard the warnings of the stone Watchers. He was a warlock, after all—DKarn-duuk, a War Master, and one of the most powerful magi in the land. But he had more important matters to consider. Prince Xavier—pardon, Emperor Xavier—was preparing for war with the kingdom of Sharakan and there was only one thing more important to him than that. Or rather, it was all tied together. How to retrieve the Darksword, held fast in the arms of a stone statue. If he possessed this powerful sword—a weapon that could absorb magic—Sharakan must fall to his might.
And so Bishop Vanya sat in his elegant chambers at the top of the mountain fastness of the Font, dining on boar’s head and piglet tails and pickled shrimp, discussing the nature and habits of marsupials with his guests, and the warnings of the Watchers were swallowed up with the wine.
Prince Xavier paced about his laboratory, occasionally darting over to read the text in some musty, brittle-paged book, consider it, then shake his head with a bitter snarl. The warnings of the Watchers were lost in his curses.
Only one person in all of Thimhallan heard the warnings. In the city of Sharakan, a bearded young man dressed in purple hose, pink pantaloons, and a bright red silken waistcoat, was wakened from his afternoon nap. Cocking his head toward the east, he cried out irritably, “E’gad! How do you expect a fellow to get any sleep? Stop that fearful racket!” With a wave of his hand, he slammed shut the window.
Beware, Thimhallan! Your doom has come! The Border has been crossed!
The man who stepped out of the mists was in his late twenties, though he appeared older. His body was that of a young man—strong, muscular, firm, and upright. His face was the face of a man whose sufferings might have spanned a century.
Framed by thick black hair, the face was handsome, stern, and—at first glance—appeared as cold and unfeeling as the stone faces of those who watched him. Lines of care and of grief had been chiseled into that face by a Master’s hand, however. The fires of anger and hatred that had once burned in the brown eyes had died out, leaving behind cold ash.
The man was dressed in long white robes of fine wool, covered by a wet, mud-stained traveling cloak. Standing upon the sand, he looked about him with the slow and deliberate gaze of one who looks about the home he has not seen in many, many years. The expression of sadness and of sorrow on his face did not change, except to grow deeper. Turning, he reached back into the mists. A hand took hold of his, and a woman with long, golden hair stepped out of the shifting gray fog to stand beside him.
She glanced about her with a dazed air, blinking her eyes in the rays of the setting sun that stared at them from behind distant mountains—its red, unblinking eye seeming