Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [8]
But Joram did not answer. Leaning down, he lifted the Darksword from the sand and carefully slipped it into the leather scabbard. His hands lingered on the soft leather, caressing it, thinking undoubtedly of the man whose gift it had been.
“Your Grace,” Saryon thought he heard Joram murmur, shaking his head.
“Joram?” Saryon persisted.
Still Joram did not answer the unspoken question that echoed all around them like the silent cries of the Watchers. Stripping off his robes and his wet cloak, he strapped the leather scabbard around his bare chest, positioning the sword on his back where it would remain hidden beneath his clothes. When it was comfortably in position—the magic of the scabbard causing the sword to shrink in size—Joram drew his white robes back on, secured them tightly with a belt at his waist, and flung his cloak over his shoulders.
“How do you feel, Father?” he asked abruptly. “Are you well enough to travel? We have to find shelter, build a fire. Gwendolyn is chilled through.”
“I am well enough,” answered Saryon, “but—”
“Fine. Let’s be off.” Joram took a step forward, then stopped as he felt Saryon’s hand on his arm. He did not turn around, and the catalyst was forced to draw near to see his averted face.
“Why have you returned, Joram? To fulfill the Prophecy? Have you come to destroy the world?”
Joram did not look at the catalyst. His eyes were on the mountains before him.
Night had fallen. The first bright evening stars sparkled in the sky and the jagged peaks were visible against them only by their darkness. Joram stood in silence so long that the moon rose from behind the black rim of the world—its single, white, uncaring eye glaring down at the three figures standing on the shores of Beyond.
At the sight of the moon, Saryon saw the twisting half-smile darken Joram’s lips.
“Ten years have passed for me, my friend, my father, if I may call you such?”
The catalyst nodded, unable to speak. Reaching out, Joram grasped Saryon’s hands in his own, though it seemed the catalyst would have stopped him if he could. But Joram gripped them firmly. Looking down at the hands held fast in his, he continued “For ten years I have lived in another world I have lived another life I never forgot this world, but when I looked back on it, I seemed to see it as through a mist. I remembered its beauty, its wonder and I came back to to—” He stopped abruptly.
“To what?” Saryon urged, trying unobtrusively to withdraw his hands.
“No matter,” Joram answered “Someday I’ll tell you. Not now.”
His eyes were on Saryon’s hands.
“How does that Prophecy read, Father?” he asked softly. “Doesn’t it say something like this—‘And when he returns, he will hold in his hand the destruction of the world’?”
Suddenly, without warning, Joram roughly shoved Saryon’s sleeves back. Fushing, Saryon attempted to cover his hands, but too late. The moonlight shone on long white scars on his wrists and his palms, on the broken fingers that had healed crooked and misshapen. Joram’s lips pressed together grimly.
“Nothing has changed. Nothing will change.” Releasing the Priest from his grasp, Joram walked away, moving across the sand, heading inland toward the mountains.
Saryon remained standing beside Gwendolyn, who was calling on the night to talk to her.
“The destruction is not in my hand,” Joram said bitterly. The darkness closed around him, the rising wind obliterating all trace of his footsteps in the sand. “It is not in my hand but in theirs!”
Half-turning, he glanced behind him. “Coming?” he asked impatiently.
3
The Anniversary
Cardinal Radisovik?”
The Cardinal raised his head from the book he was reading and turned to see who called him. Blinking in the bright sunlight of early morning that beamed through the intricate patterns of the shaped glass window, he saw only a dark figure silhouetted in the doorway of his study.
“It’s me, Mosiah, Holiness,” the young man said, realizing the catalyst did not recognize him. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. If I am, I can come back another