Forging the Darksword (8 page)

The young man blinked; the glass hovering before him wavered as his concentration on it slipped. Grabbing it hastily, he set it down upon a nearby table with a trembling hand. “Holiness,” murmured the wretched Saryon distractedly, “my crime … is wicked … unforgivable ….”

“My son,” said Vanya in a tone of such infinite patience and kindness that Saryon’s eyes filled with tears again, “the Almin in his wisdom knows of your crime and, in his mercy, he forgives you. Compared to our Father, I am but a poor mortal. But I, too, would share his knowledge of the crime that I may share in its forgiveness. Explain to me what led you down this dark path.”

Poor Saryon was so completely overcome that for several moments he could not speak. Vanya waited, sipping his sherry with that outward look of fatherly benevolence upon his face and the inner, unseen smile of satisfaction. Finally, the young Deacon began to talk. His words came haltingly, limping at first, as his eyes sought the floor. Then, as he glanced up now and then to see the effect of what he believed were confessions of a soul so blackened and corrupt as to be lost forever and saw only compassion and understanding, he became more relaxed. His sins gushed forth in a torrent.

“I don’t know what made me do it, Holiness!” he cried out helplessly. “I used to be so happy, so content here.”

“I think you know. Now you must admit it to yourself,” Vanya said placidly.

Saryon hesitated. “Yes, perhaps I do know. Forgive me, Holiness, but lately, I’ve felt—” He faltered, as though unwilling to speak.

“Bored?” suggested Vanya.

The young man flushed, shaking his head. “No. Yes. Perhaps. The duties are so simple …” He made an impatient move with his hand. “I have learned all the skills to be a catalyst to any type of magi. Yes”—this in response to Vanya’s skeptical look—“I’m not boasting. Not only that, but I have developed new mathematical formulas to take the place of centuries-old, traditional, clumsy calculations. I suppose
that should have satisfied me, but it didn’t. It left me hungrier.” Forgetting himself in his words, Saryon talked faster and faster, finally standing up and pacing about the room, gesturing with his hands. “I started working on formulas that could pave the way for new marvels, magics never before dreamed of by man! In my research, I delved deeper and deeper into the libraries of the Font. Finally, in a remote part of the Library, I came across the Chamber of the Ninth Mystery.

“Can you imagine what I felt? No”—Saryon glanced at the Bishop in embarrassment—“how could you, who are goodness personified? I stared at the runes carved above the doorway and a feeling crept over me much akin to the feeling of the Enchantment that we feel every morning on sensing the magic. Only this feeling was not one of light and fulfillment. It was as if the darkness in my soul deepened until it was sucking me inside. I hungered and thirsted and literally shook with desire.”

“What did you do?” asked Vanya, fascinated in spite of himself. “Did you enter it then?”

“No. I was too scared. I stood before the chamber, staring at it for I don’t know how long.” Saryon sighed wearily. “It must have been hours, because I was suddenly aware of an aching in my legs and a feeling of dizziness. I sank into a chair then, terrified, and looked around. What if I had been seen? Surely the forbidden thoughts I was thinking must be plain upon my face! But I was alone.”

Unconsciously suiting his actions to his words, Saryon sank back into his chair. “Sitting there, in the Study Room near that forbidden chamber, I knew what it was to be tempted by Evil.” His head lowered into his hands. “You see, Holiness, I knew, as surely as I sat in that wooden chair, that I could enter those forbidden doors! Oh, they are guarded and shielded by wards and runes”—he shrugged impatiently—“but they are such simple spells of sealing that anyone with any Life in him at all can easily undo them. It’s as if they are guarded in this way as a mere formality, it being simply assumed that no one in his right mind would even want to be near the forbidden texts, let alone read them.”

The young man was silent then. His voice dropping, he spoke almost to himself. “Perhaps I’m not in my right mind.
It seems lately that everything I look at is distorted and foggy, as though I’m seeing it through a gauze curtain.” Glancing up at Vanya, he shook his head and continued, his voice tinged with bitterness.

“I realized something else in that instant, Holiness. I had not discovered those books by accident.” His fist clenched. “No, I had been searching for them, deliberately hunting for them without admitting it to myself. Entire passages of other books I had read came clearly to my mind as I sat there, passages that made reference to books that I was never able to find and assumed must have been destroyed after the Iron Wars. But, when I found that room, I knew differently. They were in there. They had to be. I’d known it all along.

“What did I do?” He laughed hysterically, a laugh that cracked into a sob. “I fled the Library as though pursued by phantoms! Running back to my cell, I cast myself upon the bed and shivered in fear.”

“My son, you should have talked to someone,” Vanya remonstrated gently. “Do you have so little faith in us?”

Saryon shook his head, impatiently wiping away his tears. “I almost did. The
Theldara
sent for me. But I was afraid.” He sighed. “I thought I could manage by myself. I tried to drown this thirst for forbidden knowledge in my work. I sought to cleanse my soul in prayer and obedience to my duties. I never once missed Evening Ritual, after that. I took to exercising with the others in the courtyard, letting myself get so exhausted that I couldn’t think.

“Above all, I avoided the Library. Yet not a moment passed—waking or sleeping—but that I did not think of that room and the treasure which lay within.

“I should have known then that I was fast losing my soul.” Saryon’s words swept him on. “But the ache of my desires was too much. I gave in. Last night, when everyone else had retired to their cells for Resting Time, I slipped out and crept through the corridors until I came to the Library. I didn’t know the old Deacon had been posted there to scare off rodents. I don’t suppose it would have stopped me had I known, so completely consumed was I by my torment.

“As I had foreseen, undoing the spells of sealing was simple. I could have cast such magic as a child. For a breathless moment I paused on the threshold, savoring the sweet ache
of anticipation. Then I entered that forbidden room, my heart beating so that it came near bursting, my body drenched in sweat.

“Have you ever been in there?” Saryon looked at the Bishop, who raised his eyebrows so alarmingly that the young man shrank back. “No, no, I—I suppose not. The books are not assembled neatly or in any sort of order. They’re just piled up in stacks as though they had been hurriedly tossed inside by hands eager to cleanse themselves of the contamination. I picked one up, the first one I came to.” Saryon’s hands twitched. “The elation and fulfillment I felt when I touched the small book made me lose all sense of sight or sound or where I was or what I was doing. I remember only holding it and thinking what wonderful mysteries were about to be revealed, and that my burning pain would burst forth at last and free me from its torment.”

“And what was it like?” Bishop Vanya asked very softly.

Saryon smiled wanly. “Dull. Boring. Turning the pages, I grew more and more confused. I understood nothing of it, absolutely nothing! It was filled with crude drawings of strange and senseless devices, containing oblique references to such things as ‘wheels’ and ‘gears’ and ‘pulleys.’” Sighing, Saryon’s head drooped and he whispered in the voice of a disappointed child, “It didn’t mention one thing about mathematics.”

Vanya’s inner smile slipped out upon his lips, but it didn’t matter. Saryon wasn’t looking at him, the young man was staring at his shoes.

In a lifeless voice, Saryon concluded. “At that moment, the Enforcers came in and … everything went black. I—I don’t remember anything more until … until I found myself in my cell.” Exhausted, he sank back into the soft cushions of his chair, his head in his hands.

“What did you do then?”

“Took a bath.” Looking up, Saryon saw Vanya’s smile and, assuming it was at this statement, added by way of explanation. “I felt so filthy and dirty, I must have bathed twenty times last night.”

Bishop Vanya nodded in understanding. “And, no doubt, you spent the night imagining what your punishment might be.”

Saryon’s head dropped again. “Yes, Holiness, of course,” he murmured.

“Undoubtedly you saw yourself sentenced to become one of the Watchers—turned to stone to stand forever on the Border of the land.”

“Yes, Holiness,” Saryon spoke in a low tone, barely audible. “It is nothing more than I deserve.”

“Ah, Brother Saryon, if we were all punished so drastically for seeking knowledge, this would be a land of stone statues—and deservedly so. The search for knowledge is not evil. You sought in the wrong place, that is all. This dreadful knowledge was banished for a reason. It very nearly destroyed our land. But you are not alone. All of us are tempted by Evil at one time or another in our lives. We understand. We do not condemn. You must trust us. You should have come to me or one of the Masters for guidance.”

“Yes, Holiness. I am sorry.”

“As for your punishment, it has already been inflicted.”

Astonished, Saryon raised his head.

Vanya smiled gently, his voice pleasant. “My son, you have suffered far more this night than your mild crime merited. I would not add to it for the world. No, in fact, I am going to offer you something to try in some small way to make up for what I fear is my share in your crime.”

“Holiness!” Saryon’s face flushed, then went white. “Your share? No! I am the one—”

Vanya waved a deprecating hand. “No, no. I have not been open with you young people. It is obvious that you consider me unapproachable. The same is true, I begin to see, with the other members of the hierarchy. We will try to remedy that. But, for now, you need a change of scenery to brush these dusty cobwebs from your mind. Therefore, Deacon Saryon,” said Bishop Vanya, “I would like to take you with me to Merilon, to assist in the Testing of the Royal Child, whose birth is expected to take place any day now. What do you say to that?”

The young man could not respond, being literally struck dumb. This was an honor for which the members of the Order had been politically vying and shuffling for months—ever since it was announced that the Empress was finally with child. Being absorbed in his studies and consumed by
his lust for forbidden knowledge, Saryon had paid little attention to the talk. He was outside the circle of the popular young men and women in the seminary anyway and figured he would not have been asked to go, even if he had wanted it.

Seeing the young man’s befuddlement, and realizing that it would take him some moments to work this out in his mind, Vanya talked of the beauties of the royal city and discussed the political ramifications of the birth until Saryon eventually was able to at least mutter an intelligible remark or two. The Bishop understood what the young man was thinking. Having expected to be cast out in darkness and disgrace, he was suddenly to be taken to the city of beauty and delight and presented to the Royal Court. His fortune would be made—not a doubt of it.

A Royal Child had not been born in years, the Empress having assumed the throne following the death of her brother, who himself was childless. The celebrations the city of Merilon was planning were to be spectacular beyond belief. As an honored and revered member of Bishop Vanya’s staff, as well as related—if distantly—to the Empress on his mother’s side, Saryon would be feted and entertained by the wealthiest nobles in the land. Undoubtedly, he would be invited by some noble family to be House Catalyst—there were several vacancies that needed filling. He would be set for life.

And, best of all, said Bishop Vanya to himself as he graciously walked the still-dazed Saryon to the door, the young man would be living in Merilon. He would not be returning to the Font for a long, long time—if ever.

Merilon

E
nchanted city of dreams … Merilon. Named for the great wizard who led his people to this distant world. He looked upon it with eyes that had seen centuries pass, chose this place for his tomb, and now lies bound by the Last Enchantment in the glade he loved.

Merilon. Its crystal cathedral and palaces sparkle like tears frozen on the face of the blue sky.

Merilon. Two cities; one built on marble platforms constrained by magic to float in the air like heavy clouds that have been tamed and molded by the hands of man. Known as City Above, it casts perpetual, rosy-hued twilight upon City Below.

Merilon. Surrounded by a sphere of magic, its decorative snow falls beneath a hot summer sun, its balmy breezes perfume chill and brittle winter air.

Merilon. Can any visitor, riding upward in the gilded carriages drawn by steeds of fur and feather created out of wonder and delight, look upon this enchanted city without feeling his heart swell until its overflow of pride and love must trickle down his own face?