Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [71]
Shortly after my return to Thimhallan, Father Saryon asked me if I was thinking consciously of the Prophecy when I made my decision to walk into death. Was I actively working to bring it to its fulfillment as a kind of revenge upon the world?
Once more, I consider the words of the Prophecy. They are, as you might imagine, graven upon my heart as Bishop Vanya once threatened to carve the image of the Darksword upon my stone chest.
There will be born to the Royal House one who is dead yet will live, who will die again and live again. And when he returns, he will hold in his hand the destruction of the world—
It would be to my credit, I suppose, if I could answer yes to Saryon’s question. At least it would show that I was thinking clearly and rationally. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. Looking back, I see myself as I was then—arrogant, proud, self-centered—and I find it miraculous that I had the mental and physical strength to survive at all. That I did, I owe more to Father Saryon than to myself.
I spent the hours before the Turning alone in a prison cell. There, my mind fell victim to the darkness that lurks within me. Fear and despair claimed me. To have suddenly discovered my true parentage and the strange accident of my upbringing, to know the terrible fate that was to be mine in order to keep me from fulfilling the Prophecy—these drove me almost to madness. When I stood upon the sand that day, I was aware of very little going on around me. I might well have been turned to stone already.
The terrible, noble, loving sacrifice made by Father Saryon was a shining light into the darkness of my soul. By its bright radiance I saw the evil that I had brought upon myself and those I loved. Overwhelmed by grief for a man I had come too late to love and admire, sickened by the corruption I saw in the world—a corruption I knew was reflected in me—my only thought was to rid the world of the evil I had brought into it. I gave the Darksword into Saryon’s lifeless hands and I walked into death.
I did not know at the time—so lost was I in my own despair—that Gwendolyn had followed me. I remember hearing her voice as I stepped into the mists, calling me to wait, and I may even have hesitated at that point. But my love for her, like everything else in my life, was a selfish love. I cast her from my thoughts as the chill fog closed over me, and I did not think of her again until I found her, lying unconscious, on the other side.
The other side.
I can almost see the parchment in your hands tremble as you read this.
The other side.
Long I walked. I don’t know how long, for time itself is warped and altered by the field of magic that surrounds this world and keeps it cut off from the rest of the universe. I was conscious of nothing except the fact that I was walking, that there was solid ground beneath my feet, and that I was lost and wandering in a gray nothingness.
I don’t recall being frightened and I think I must have been in shock. I have heard, however, from others I have met in Beyond, others who passed through the magical boundary, that it was not frightening to me because I was Dead. To those with magic, it is a fearful experience. The ones who survived with their sanity intact (and there are not many) cannot talk of it without difficulty. And I will never, to my dying day, forget the look of terror and horror I saw in Gwendolyn’s eyes when she first opened them.
I think it probable that, in my despairing and unreasoning state of mind, I might have continued to walk uncaring through the gray and shifting mists until I sank down and died. Then—with a suddenness that literally took my breath away—the mists ended. As one can walk out of a patch of dense fog and find oneself standing in broad sunlight, so I emerged from the realm of death (so I thought) and found myself standing in an open field of grass.
It was night, a perfectly clear and lovely night. The sky above me—yes,