Read Online Legacy of the Darksword by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman - Free Book Online

The Almin grant that it be the right one.”
    To our intense astonishment, two Duuk-tsarith materialized. Black-hooded,
black-robed, faces hidden, they appeared, one on either side of Mosiah.
    Bodyguards, reinforcements, witnesses . . . Perhaps all of these.
Certainly they had been here this entire time, watching, guarding, protecting,
spying. The three formed a triangle. They raised their hands, each placed the palm of one hand on the palm of the hand of the person beside him.
Thus linked, their power merged, they vanished.
    Saryon and I stared at the place
where they had been standing, both of us shaken and disturbed.
    “They planned this!” I signed,
when I was over my shock enough to be able to give expression to my thoughts. “They
had advance knowledge that the Technomancers were coming here this night. King
Garald could have sent us warning, told us to leave.”
    “But he didn’t. Yes, Reuven,”
Saryon agreed. “It was all staged for our benefit, to make us fear the
Technomancers and force us to join sides with the Duuk-tsarith.
    “Do you know, Reuven?” my master
added, glancing at the chair in which Mosiah had been sitting. “I grieve for
him. He was Joram’s friend, when it was not easy to be Joram’s friend. He was
loyal to Joram, even to death. Now he has become like all the rest. Joram is
alone now. Very much alone.”
    “ He has you,” I said, touching my
master very gently on his breast.
    Saryon looked at me. The sorrow
and anguish on his pale and haggard face brought tears to my eyes.
    “Does he, Reuven? How can I say
no to them? How can I turn them down?” He stood up, leaning heavily upon the
chair. “I am going to bed.”
    I bid him have a good night,
though I knew that was impossible. Taking my computer, I went up to my room and
entered all that had happened while the incidents were still fresh in my mind.
Then I lay down, but I could not sleep.
    Every time I drifted off, I saw,
once again, my spirit rise from my body. And I was afraid that next time, it
would not know how to return.

CHAPTER FIVE
    “What you did was right, my son.
Always believe that! And always know that I love you and honor you.”
    SARYON’S
FAREWELL TO JORAM; TRIUMPH OF THE DARKS WORD
    T he next morning, quite early, an
army of police entered our neighborhood and took over our quiet row of flats.
Arriving shortly after the police was a cadre of reporters in huge vans with
various gadgets all pointing skyward.
    I can only imagine what the
neighbors thought. Again it struck me as odd, how the human mind dwells on the
most inconsequential issues at times of crisis. While I was busily engaged in
preparing our dwelling to receive three such notable dignitaries— the three
most powerful men in the world—my biggest worry was how we were going to
explain this to Mrs. Mumford, who lived in the flat across the street.
    She was (or thought she was) the
conductor of the orchestra of our lives here on our street and nothing was
supposed to happen—be it divorce or a case of breaking and entering—without the
wave of her baton.
    So far she had left Saryon and me
in peace, our lives being, up until this juncture, extremely uninteresting. Now
I could see her pinched, inquisitive face pressed close against the glass of
her living-room window, avid with frustration and curiosity. She even made a tentative
foray out into the street, to accost a policeman. I don’t know what he told
her, but she dashed like a rabbit to the home of her assistant conductor, Mrs.
Billingsgate, and now two faces pressed against the latter’s living-room
window. They’d be pressed against our front door tomorrow.
    I was arranging some
last-of-the-season roses in a vase, and trying to think what we would say to
our neighbors in the way of explanation, when Saryon entered the room. The idle
curiosity of two snoopy old ladies vanished from my mind.
    My master had not risen for
breakfast, nor had I disturbed him. Knowing he had been up late, I left him