Legacy of the Darksword Read Online Free Page A

too, went to
bed. I did so, going upstairs and turning on the light. Then I crept back down
the stairs in the darkness. Mosiah did not look particularly pleased to see me,
but I think he knew that nothing short of my death would keep me from my master’s
side.
    Saryon’s room was now dark. We
sat in the darkness, which was not, after all, very dark, due a street lamp
right outside the window. Mosiah drew his chair closer to Saryon’s bed. The CD
player remained on, for it was Saryon’s habit to fall asleep to music. It was
much past his usual hour for retiring, but he stubbornly refused to admit he
was tired. Curiosity kept him awake and fighting his body’s
need for rest. I know because I felt the same.
    “Forgive me, Father,” said Mosiah
at last. “I did not mean to be drawn down that old road, which, in truth, has
long been overgrown with weeds and now leads nowhere. Twenty years have passed.
That young girl of twenty is now a matron of forty. She learned to walk,
learned to do for herself what had previously been done for her by magic. She
learned to live in this world. Perhaps she has even come to believe something
of what the mundanes tell her. Thimhallan is nothing but a charming memory to
her, a world more real in her dreams than in her waking life. And if, at first,
she chose to cling to the hope that she would return to that enchanted world of
such miraculous beauty, who can blame her?”
    “A world of beauty, yes,” said
Saryon, “but there was ugliness there, too. Ugliness made more hideous by being
denied.”
    “The ugliness was in the hearts
of men and women, was it not, Father?” Mosiah asked. “Not in the world itself.”
    “True, very true,” Saryon said,
and he sighed.
    “And the ugliness lives still,”
Mosiah continued, and there came a change in his tone, a tension, which caused
both my master and me to glance at each other and brace ourselves, for we each
felt that a blow was coming.
    “You have not been back to the
camps for many years,” Mosiah said abruptly.
    Saryon shook his head.
    “You have not been in contact
with Prince Garald or anyone else? You truly know nothing of what has been
going on with our people?”
    Saryon looked ashamed, but he was
forced to shake his head. At that moment I would have given all I own to be
able to talk, for it seemed to me that there was accusation in Mosiah’s tone,
and I would have spoken most vehemently in my master’s defense. As it was, Saryon heard me stir in restless anger. He set
his hand on mine and patted it gently, counseling patience.
    Mosiah was silent, wondering,
perhaps, how to begin. At length he said, “You maintain that our people could
leave the camps of their own free will, as you did. In the beginning, that
might have been true. It is not true now.
    “The guards of the mundane left
us years ago. To give them credit, they fought to protect us, as they were
ordered, but they were not equal to the task. After several had died and more
had deserted, the army pulled out. The guards of the mundane were replaced—by
our own.”
    “Fought against whom? Who
attacked you? I’ve heard nothing of this!” Saryon protested. “Forgive me for
doubting you, Mosiah, but surely, if such dreadful things were happening,
journalists from all over the world would have descended on the camp.”
    “They did, Father. The Khandic
Sages spoke to them. The journalists believed the lie—they could not help
themselves, for the Khandic Sages coat all their bitter lies with the sweet
honey of their magic.”
    “Khandic Sages! Who are they?”
Saryon was bewildered, shocked beyond coherent speech. “And Prince Garald . . .
How could he ... He would have never allowed ...”
    “Prince Garald is a prisoner,
held hostage by his love for his people.”
    “A prisoner!” Saryon gaped. “Of
... of the mundanes?”
    “No, not of the mundanes. And not of us Enforcers, either,”
Mosiah added, with another slight smile, “ for I see
that question in