Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [66]
Still the Prince hesitated. “Why are you doing this for us, Joram? If, as you say, we brought this fate upon ourselves, why do you care? After what we did to you—”
“You call me Dead! …” Joram murmured, repeating the last words he had said before he walked into Beyond. “But it is you who have died. It is this world that is dead.”
He stared at the sword, dark and unlovely in his hand. “I was gone ten years. I came back, hoping to find the world changed, intending to—” He stopped abruptly, scowling. “But never mind that. It isn’t important now. Suffice it to say that I returned to find that you—this world—had not changed. In an effort to gain power, you had tortured and tormented a helpless being. I abandoned my project, my hopes, and walked the land in bitterness, seeing everywhere the signs of tyranny, injustice.
“In my anger, I planned to return to Beyond when I discovered that it, too, had betrayed me.” The dark half-smile twisted his lip. “I had no world, it seemed I was willing to leave you, all of you.”—his bitter glance included the creatures of iron attacking the wall of ice—“to your fate, little caring whether either of you won or lost.
“Then a man, a very wise man, reminded me of something I had forgotten. ‘It is easier to hate than to love.’” Joram fell silent, his gaze going to the sparkling wall of ice, to the trees, the surrounding hills, the blue sky, the fiery sun. “I realized that this world is my home. These people are my people. And therefore I cannot speak of it in the second person. I say ‘you’ tormented Saryon, but I should say ‘I’ tormented that good man. Had it not been for me, he would not have suffered.”
Absently, Joram ran his fingers through his dark, tangled hair. “And there is one other reason,” he said, an inexpressible sadness shadowing his face. “Not a day passed during those ten years in another world that I didn’t dream of the beauty of Merilon.”
He looked quizzically at Garald. “It is easier to hate than to love. I’ve never done anything the easy way. Do we fight for this world … Your Grace?”
“We fight,” said the Prince. “And call me Garald,” he added with a wry smile. “I still hear those words. ‘Your Grace’ stick in your throat.”
17
The Angel Of Death
They said afterward—those that survived—that they were led into battle by the Angel of Death.
Confused rumors about Joram began to spread among the magi fighting for their lives inside the fortress of stone and ice. Few knew his true history—Mosiah, Garald, Radisovik, and the witch. Many more knew fragments of it, however, and it was these fragments that were hastily whispered to companions during the brief lull in the battle following the raising of the ice wall. Emperor Xavier had said enough prior to his death to enable people to piece these fragments together as they might have a broken stone statue. Unfortunately, it was like putting together a statue that they had never seen whole in the first place.
Several of the catalysts fighting in the fortress had been present at the Judgment of Joram. Those who had been standing near Prince Garald heard him pronounce that name, and they remembered it. Xavier’s words, The Prophecy is fulfilled. The end of the world is come, were repeated in hushed tones, as was each catalyst’s version of what had occurred that dreadful day on the beach when they had all witnessed this man—this Joram—step into Beyond.
“He is Dead….”
“He carries a sword of darkness that sucks the life out of its victims….”
“He murdered countless numbers, but only the wicked, or so I heard. He was falsely accused and now he has come back from the dead to seek his revenge….”
“Xavier fell at his feet! You saw it! What more proof do you want? The old Emperor dropped out of sight opportunely for The DKarn-Duuk, didn’t he? What does it matter who hears me now? Xavier’s dead now and I’ll wager he won’t come back….”
“The Prophecy? I heard a tale once that had to do with a Prophecy, something about the old wizard, Merlyn, and a king with a shining sword that would come back to his land and save them