Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [38]
“Joram!” Mosiah repeated, aghast. Standing up nervously, he moved nearer Simkin and laid his hand on the couch in the forest, relieved to touch something solid and real. “But … that doesn’t make sense! Maybe you heard wrong, or she didn’t mean …”
“Precisely what I said. I was quite floored. Literally. Tumbled down, plop, right out of the air. ‘Bit of fluff in my ear,’ I said to the witch. ‘Didn’t hear well. Thought you asked if I’d seen Joram.’”
“‘I did,’ she replied. Straightforward, these Duuk-tsarith. No beating about the old bush.
“‘Joram?’ I repeated. ‘Chap with the remarkable sword who … er … passed on about a year ago?’
“‘The same,’ says the witch.
“‘Are we speaking ghostly manifestation, here’? I inquired further in what I fear was a trembling voice. ‘Rattling bones, clanking chains, things going bump in the night, Joram seen stalking the halls in his nightshirt’?
“She did not answer, but stared at me like this.” Simkin imitated the piercing dagger gaze of the witch so well that Mosiah shuddered again and nodded hurriedly.
“I understand,” he muttered. “Go on.”
“Then she said, ‘I will be in touch,’ which—with them—means exactly that. I swear,” continued Simkin solemnly with a shiver of his own that was not entirely affected, “that I have felt icy fingers lingering near my ear….”
“Don’t say things like that!” Beads of sweat dotted Mosiah’s lip. “Especially not now.” He glanced about. “I hate this wretched fog! Did you hear something?” He paused, listening. A strange sound—a low humming noise—was coming from out of the mist. “What’s going on? Why don’t we do something?”
“Well, you understand, of course, what all this means?”
“No,” Mosiah snapped, cocking his head, trying to figure out the direction of the odd sound. “But I suppose you’re going to tell me….”
“It means, dear boy,” said Simkin loftily, “that Xavier doesn’t have the Darksword. Not only that, but either he or the Duuk-tsarith or both believe Joram has returned. And with Joram—the Prophecy.”
Mosiah said nothing. He couldn’t hear anything anymore and assumed it must have been his imagination. Staring out into the fog, he shook his head. “Xavier’s right, you know,” he said finally, reluctantly, in a low voice. “Joram is back. I knew it in my heart when I stepped on that beach and saw Saryon lying there. Joram’s the only one who could have broken that spell …” He paused, then said heavily. “We have to convince Garald—”
“Hush! The fog’s lifting!” cried Simkin, raising his head and starting to his feet.
The note of a single trumpet sounded. A sharp, crisp wind sprang up, blowing the fog to wispy shreds that curled about the ground, then fled completely. The noonday sun shone full upon them.
Blinking in the bright light, feeling it warm his blood, Mosiah hurriedly grabbed his crossbow and slung the quiver of arrows over his shoulder.
“There’s my unit!” He pointed to a band of men forming into ranks under the leadership of one of the blacksmiths sons. “Not twenty feet away! I didn’t lose them! I’m over here!” Mosiah began to shout, waving his arm, when he heard the weird humming sound again, much nearer and louder. Turning, he glanced around behind him.
Mosiah gasped in horror. Fear impaled him on its sharp-honed point, driving deep, draining him. He could not move, he could not think. He could only stare.
“Simkin!” Mosiah cried out wretchedly, praying for the touch of living flesh, needing it to reassure him of his own reality in the midst of the blinding terror that was closing over him, thicker and more chill than the fog. “Simkin!” he moaned, frozen in fear. “Don’t leave me! Where are you?”
There was no answer.
11
The Invisible Foe
Prince Garald could not understand what was happening. He stared down at his Gameboard in bewilderment,