Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [64]
“Our magic is helpless against them!” Garald persisted. “You’ve seen that—”
“Only because you do not know them, Your Grace!” the man interrupted impatiently. “You don’t know how to fight them!”
“Then you must tell me what is going on? I need to know before I can make this decision.”
The man clenched his fist in frustration, and Garald was strongly reminded of the impatient, arrogant youth. The man checked himself, however, swallowing hot words. Fighting some internal battle for control, he rubbed his fingers over the leather that crisscrossed his chest, perhaps feeling a soothing comfort in the touch. When he spoke, his voice was calm.
“Look into my face.”
Reluctantly, the Prince did as he was asked Staring into the face that he knew yet didn’t know, he realized that he had been avoiding looking at this man, avoiding dealing with the inexplicable, fearful change.
“Who am I? Say my name.”
Garald tried to withdraw his gaze, but the brown eyes held him fast. “Joram,” he said at last, reluctantly. “You are Joram,” he repeated again.
“How long is it since I left this world?” Joram asked softly.
“A year,” Garald faltered.
Reality struck a telling blow. He was forced to confront the fact that only a few hundred days before he had walked in the wilderness with a youth. Now he faced a man as old or older than himself.
“I don’t understand!” he cried, frightened.
“Ten years have passed for me,” answered Joram. “There is not time enough for me to explain everything. If I do not survive this battle, seek out Father Saryon, who is in Merilon. I have left in his keeping a record of my life. What I am going to tell you now you must accept on faith. If not faith in the thankless boy you knew and helped”—Joram paused, sighing—“then faith in what I thought would be my final act: the renunciation of this sword I created, the voluntary walk into death.”
Joram’s face was anguished as he spoke; the hand closed over the leather straps, pressing them into his heart.
Garald recalled all that he had heard of the final, terrible day in Joram’s life on this world, and his last suspicions vanished. He tried to say something to this effect, but the words would not come. Joram saw and understood, removing the need for words by reaching out and grasping hold of the Prince’s hand.
“I walked into what I thought was death, but there is not death Beyond, Your Grace,” Joram continued quietly. “There is life! In our conceit, we imagined ourselves safe, protected from the rest of the universe by our magical Border. When we left the ancient world to come to this one, we thought—we hoped—the Old World would forget us as we forgot them.”
Joram looked away, staring beyond the wall of ice into realms that had been revealed to his eyes alone. “They did not forget,” he said softly. “They missed the magic and they searched for it, knowing that somewhere it still lived.” Joram smiled, but it was a dark smile and it sent a shiver through Garald. “I said before that there was not death Beyond. I was wrong. Actually, there is nothing out there except Death. Those worlds that lie Beyond are populated by the Dead. Some Life, some magic exists, but it is scattered throughout the universe like atoms in deep space.”
“Atoms deep space.” The words were strange, meaningless. Garald’s gaze turned, like Joram’s, to the heavens. His confusion was not dispelled, but rather was growing, as was his fear. The ancient world, the world they had fled in terror, was searching for them? He almost expected to see faces leering at him from the cloudless sky.
“I am sorry I know you don’t understand.” Joram’s gaze returned to Garald and it was pleading in its intensity. “What can I say?” He gripped the Prince’s hand harder, as though he could communicate through touch what he was failing to communicate with words. “They—the Dead, if you will—” there was a bitter irony in Joram’s voice that made Garald wince—“call this an expeditionary force. It has been sent to investigate this world, to conquer and subdue it, and prepare the way