Legacy of the Darksword (9 page)

“Not half so flattering, Your
Majesty,” I signed and Saryon translated, “as
some
would have had me
make it.” I cast a fond glance at my master. “I had to dig very hard to
discover some human flaws in you, to make you an interesting and believable
character.”

“I have flaws enough, the Almin
knows,” Garald said with a slight smile, adding, “Several of my staff members
have taken a great interest in your work, Reuven. Perhaps you would be so kind
as to do them the favor of answering their questions while your master and the
General and I talk over old times.”

I admired and appreciated the
smooth way he was getting rid of me. Rising to my feet, I was about to leave
when Saryon reached out a hand and clasped me by the wrist.

“Reuven is in my confidence.”

Garald and General Boris
exchanged looks. The General gave a slight nod, and the King responded with a
nod in his turn.

“Very well.
General, if you please?”

The General went to the entrance
to the living
room,
spoke a few words to a member of
his staff. The soldier gestured to several of his men and they departed,
leaving the four of us in the room. I heard booted footsteps resound throughout
the house, making one last check, then the booted footsteps departed and the
front door closed. I saw, through the window, the soldiers deploying, securing
the area.

Though four of us remained in the
house, it seemed empty and alone, the house of a stranger who has moved away.
A chill raised my flesh. It was
as if we had already left this house, never to return.

Of the four of us, Saryon was the
most at ease. His decision made, he was calm, gracious, and—oddly enough, with
a King and General in attendance—it was my master who was in command of the
situation.

In fact, when Garald was about to
speak, Saryon interrupted him.

“Your Majesty, your emissary
Mosiah explained matters quite clearly to me last night. The visit from the
Technomancers was also quite instructive.”

At this, King Garald shifted
uncomfortably on the couch and would have again spoken, but Saryon continued
on, placid and imperturbable.

“I have reached a tentative
decision,” Saryon said. “I need more information before I can make my decision
final. I hope you two gentlemen, as well as the gentleman who is expected to
arrive later, will be able to provide it.”

“About the one expected later,”
General Boris said. “There are a few things you should know, Father, in regard
to Kevon Smythe.”

“I know quite a bit about him,
already,” Saryon said, with a half smile. “I spent the night researching him on
the World Wide Weave.”

“Web,” I signed, correcting him.

“Web,” Saryon replied. “I always
get that confused.”

The two gentlemen seemed amazed.
If they knew Saryon at all, they should not have been. Though the technology of
the combustible engine left him baffled, he had adapted to the com--puter world
like a duck to water.

“I tapped into various sources,”
he continued, and I suppressed a smile, for I knew now he was innocently
showing off. “I read articles on Smythe written by political analysts. I read
newspaper reports, and even scanned a biography, which is in the works. Not one
of these mentioned that Kevon Smythe is a Technomancer.”

“Of course not, Father,” said
Garald. “He has taken care to keep that part of his life secret. And, after
all, who would believe it?
Only those of us who were born and
raised on Thimhallan.
And,” he added, including General Boris, “those who
once visited there. Surely, you don’t doubt it! After last night . . .”

“Indeed,
Your
Majesty.” Saryon was calm. “As I said, last night was most instructive. All the
accounts of Kevon Smythe speak of his ambition, his meteoric rise to fortune
and fame, his charismatic ability to sway people to his cause. They all
marveled at his luck—what they term ‘lucky breaks’—that gained him wealth, or
put him in the right place at the right time, or caused him to make exactly the
right decision.”

“What they call luck, some of us
call magic,” said King Garald.

“How is it possible that no one
knows?” Saryon asked mildly.

“
Are you
doubting
His Majesty?” General Boris’s face flushed.

Garald waved him to silence. “I
can understand Father Saryon’s concern. It was difficult for me to believe, at
first. But this is how the Technomancers have long worked in this world.

“You’ve heard, undoubtedly,
stories of those who practice so-called Black Magic; cults of Satan worshipers,
who don black robes and mutilate animals and dance around graveyards at
midnight. This is what most of the people on Earth equate with the dark arts.
This is
not
the Technomancer. They laugh at such nonsense and even use
it for their own purposes—it deflects attention away from them.

“Who would believe that the
businessman in the three-piece suit who is said to be a genius at playing the
stock market uses his magical ability to make himself invisible, sits in on
board meetings of various companies, and thus gains inside information? Who
would believe that the embezzler who left her firm in financial ruin was able
to mislead everyone because of the magical hold she had on their minds?”

It sounded ludicrous, even to me,
and I had seen with my own eyes the silver-robed Technomancers invade our
house.

King Garald grew bitter. “When I
first discovered that the Four Cults of Dark Magic still existed, I tried to
warn people in Earth government. Even my best friend did not believe me.” He
looked at James Boris, who smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I will not
waste time by relating what occurred that finally convinced him. It nearly cost
us both our lives, but—in the end—he believed. The General suggested that I was
wasting my time and energy attempting to fight the Technomancers in the open. I
must adopt
their own
strategy.”

“Mosiah told you he had been one
of them,” said General Boris. “Did he tell you that he volunteered to become
one of them?
To go undercover?
To
risk his life ferreting out their dark secrets?”

“
No,” said Saryon, and he looked
relieved. “No, he did not.”

“Through him we found out much
about their organization; we discovered the true nature of this ‘chemical
factory’ which they operate and for which”—King Garald smiled wryly—”they even
receive lucrative government grants!”

“You work with Smythe,” Saryon
said. “You do not denounce him.”

“We have no choice,” said King
Garald, and his voice was grim and harsh. “He holds our people and the people
of Earth hostage.”

“The Technomancers have
infiltrated every part of the military,” said General Boris. “They do not
commit sabotage. Oh, no. They are far too clever for that. They have made
themselves indispensable to us. Because of their power and their skill, we are
holding our own against the Hch’nyv. Should they withdraw their magical
assistance—worse yet, should they turn their magic against us—we would be lost.”

“How do they do this?” Saryon was
perplexed.

“I’ll give a very simple example.
We have a torpedo that has an electronic brain. We can program that brain to
aim the torpedo to hit its target. The enemy detects the torpedo, sends out an
electronic signal which scrambles its brain. But they can’t send out a signal
to scramble magic. A Technomancer, magically guiding that torpedo, will send it
unerringly to its target.

“And if”—General Boris’s voice
dropped—”they were to magically alter that torpedo’s programming, cause it to
turn and strike a different target.
Not
an enemy target . . .” He
shrugged his massive shoulders.

“From what they have told us,
they control nuclear armaments in the same way,” said King Garald. “From our
investigations, we have reason to believe that they are telling the truth.”

“To put it another way, we dare
not call their bluff,” said the General bluntly.

“I don’t see how the Darksword
could possibly aid you in any way against these people,” said Saryon, and I was
convinced then that I knew his decision.

“Frankly, we don’t either,” said
King Garald.

“Then why—”

“Because they fear it,” said the
King. “We don’t know why. We don’t know what they’ve found out or how they found
out, but they have received a warning from their researchers, those called the
D’karn-kair,
that the Darksword could be both an asset to them and a danger.”

Saryon shook his head.

Garald regarded him silently,
then
said, “There is another reason.”

“I thought as much,” said Saryon,
adding dryly, “You would not have gone to this much trouble to recruit me
otherwise.”

“No one knows about this except
the
Duuk-tsarith,
and they, as always, are sworn by their oaths of
loyalty to secrecy. Otherwise, Mosiah would have told you last night. Do you
remember Bishop Radisovik, whom you used to know as Cardinal Radis-ovik?”

“Yes, yes. I remember.
A good, sensible man.
So he is Bishop now. Excellent!” said
Saryon.

“The Bishop was working alone in
his study one day when he sensed someone in the room with him. He lifted his
head and was astonished to find a woman seated in a chair in front of his desk.
Now this was a very unusual occurrence, for the Bishop’s secretary has strict
orders never to introduce anyone into the Bishop’s office without an
appointment.

“Fearing that perhaps the woman
was there to do him some type of harm, the Bishop talked to her pleasantly, all
the while using a secret button, hidden beneath his desk, to alert the guards.

“The button apparently did not
work. No guards appeared. The woman, however, assured the Bishop that he had no
reason to be afraid.

“ ‘I
have come to give you
information,’ she said. ‘First, I suggest that you discontinue your war against
the Hch’nyv. You have no chance—absolutely none—of defeating the aliens. They
are far too strong and too powerful. You have seen only a smattering of their
entire force, which numbers in the billions of billions. They will not
negotiate with you. They have no need. They intend to destroy you and they will
succeed.’

“The Bishop was astonished. The
woman, he said, was very calm and imparted this terrible information in a tone
which left no doubt in his mind but that she spoke the truth.

“ ‘Excuse
me, madam,’ the Bishop said, ‘but
who are you? Whom do you represent?’

“She smiled at him and said, ‘Someone
very close to you, who takes a personal interest in you.’ Then she continued,
telling him, ‘You and the people of Earth and Thimhallan have one chance for
survival. The Darksword destroyed the world. It may now be used to save it.’

“ ‘But
the Darksword no longer exists,’
Bishop Radisovik protested. ‘It was itself destroyed.’

“ ‘It
has been forged anew. Offer it
to Thimhallan’s maker and find salvation.’

“At that moment the Bishop’s
intercom buzzed. He turned to answer it, and when he looked back, the woman was
gone. He had not heard her leave, any more than he had heard her enter. He
questioned his secretary and the building’s security people, who said that no
one had either gone into or come out of the Bishop’s office. The button on the
desk was discovered to be operational. No one could say why they hadn’t heard
the alarm.

“What was truly remarkable,”
Garald added, “is that the security cameras in the building show no evidence of
this woman, not even the camera which is placed in the Bishop’s office. Even
stranger—at that point in time we knew nothing of the fact that Smythe had been
to visit Joram or that Joram had, as the woman said, forged a new Darksword.”

“To what does the Bishop
attribute this visit, then?” Saryon asked.

Garald hesitated,
then
replied, “Judging from what the woman said, about
representing someone very close to the Bishop, someone who takes a personal
interest in him, the Bishop is convinced that he was visited by an agent of the
Almin. An angel, if you will.”

I noted that General Boris
shifted in his chair and looked extremely embarrassed and uncomfortable.

“An agent, maybe,” said the
General. “CIA, Interpol, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, FBI. But not of God.”

“How very interesting,” said
Saryon, and I could see him mulling over this in his mind.

“Whoever brought us this
information, our own researchers now want that sword,” said General Boris. “To
determine if there really is some way we can use it to stop the Hch’nyv.”

“But that wasn’t what
the an—
the woman said,” Saryon interposed. “She said that
the sword must be returned to Thimhal-lan’s maker.”

General Boris had the look on his
face of a man indulging a child’s whim to hear a fairy tale. “Who is that
supposed to be— Merlyn? You find him, Father, and I’ll give him the Darksword.”