Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [65]
“What?” Gerald repeated, stunned. Conquer, subdue, occupation: these were words he knew, he understood. He forced himself to attend, urging his brain to let loose of its grasp of what he had known this morning as reality. “You say, they—the Dead”—he stumbled over the word, his mind still stubbornly disbelieving, although all he had to do was look out beyond the wall of ice to see the evidence of his senses—“want to conquer us? Why? What then?”
Removing his hand from that of his friend, Joram thrust it in the sleeves of his robes. The temperature inside the icebound fortress was gradually falling, growing colder and colder.
“They plan to destroy the barriers, release the magic back into the universe,” he replied. “They will take you prisoner and carry you back to their worlds.”
“But if such is their object,” argued Garald, with the strange sensation that he was debating a point in a meaningless dream, “why are they killing everyone they encounter, including civilians?” He gestured. “They’re not taking prisoners? Or, if they are,” he added, remembering Radisovik’s observation, “they’re only taking catalysts!”
“Are they?” Joram appeared startled, his gaze shifting swiftly to Garald.
“Yes! I saw—the nobles, their wives, their children, riding in their glittering carriages, coming with their wine and their lunches to watch a game. These creatures murdered them!” Once again, Garald was turning over that body, seeing the grinning face of the skeleton. “Is this how they fight in Beyond?” he demanded angrily. “Do they slaughter the helpless?”
“No,” said Joram, appearing grave and troubled. “They are not savage like the centaur. They do not love to kill. They are soldiers. They have rules of warfare, handed down through centuries. I don’t understand. They wanted prisoners.” He paused, his face darkened. “Unless….” He did not continue.
Garald shook his head. “Make some sense of it for me, Joram.”
“I wish I could!” It was a murmur, spoken almost to himself. “I thought I knew them. Yet I have proof now that they betrayed me. Are they capable of more …?”
Garald looked at him intently, hearing again the old, familiar bitterness in Joram’s tone and now something else as well—an echo of pain and loss.
“All the more reason we must fight them,” Joram said suddenly, his voice as cold as the chill breath blowing from the ice wall. “We must show them that they will not take this world as easily as they anticipated. We must make them fear us so that when they leave they will never return.”
“But what will be our weapons?” Garald asked helplessly. “Ice?”
“Ice, fire, air. The magic, my friend,” Joram said. “Life—Life will be our weapon … and Death.”
Reaching behind him, he drew the Darksword from its scabbard. “Long years have passed since I made this. Yet I’ve often dreamed of that night—the night in the blacksmith’s when I forged the metal and Saryon gave it Life.” Joram turned the sword, studying it. His man’s hand fit it better than had the boy’s, but it was still heavy and awkward and unbalanced, difficult to wield. “Do you remember?” he asked Garald, the half-smile touching his lips, “the day we met? When I attacked you in the glade? You said this sword was the ugliest of its kind you had ever seen.”
Joram’s gaze went to the sword the Prince wore at his side. The sun sparkled off the ornately carved hilt of shining silver. By contrast, it did not even flicker in the beaten metal of the Darksword. He sighed.
“Though I didn’t know about the Prophecy, I knew I was bringing something evil into the world with this sword. Saryon knew it—he warned me to destroy it, before it destroyed me. I’ve thought about it since then, and I’ve come to understand that I wasn’t the one who brought the evil into the world with the sword.” He gazed down upon the weapon, running his fingers over the crude, misshapen hilt. “The sword is the evil in the world.”
“Then why keep it?” Garald glanced at it, shuddering.
“Because, like any sword, it cuts two ways,” Joram replied “Now, the Almin willing, I can use it to save us. Will you fight,