Legacy of the Darksword Read Online Free PDF Page A

him.”
Mosiah sighed.
    “How do you know this?” Saryon demanded, his voice sharp. “You are spying on him!”
    “Protecting him, Father,” said
Mosiah softly. “Protecting him. He doesn’t know of our
watchfulness. He doesn’t suspect. How could he know, who has no magic Life
within him? We are careful not to disturb him or his family. Unlike
others.
    “Just recently, an arm of the
Technomancers known as the D’karn-darah defied the law which prohibits
any person from traveling to Thimhallan. They had read Reuven’s book”—he gave
me a wry smile—”and they went to the altar at the Temple of the Necromancers to
try to recover the Darksword. They found what one might have expected. As you
know, Father, the altar itself was made of darkstone. The sword had fused with
the stone.
    “The Technomancers used every
device known to man to try to free the sword, from the most sophisticated laser
cutting tools to old-fashioned blowtorches. They attempted to cut the altar
itself into pieces, to haul it back to their laboratories. They did not even
scratch its surface.”
    Saryon appeared relieved. “Good.”
He nodded. “Excellent. Thank the Almin.”
    “Don’t be so quick to thank Him,
yet, Father,” Mosiah said. “Failing to make a dent in the altar, the
Technomancers went to Joram.”
    “They were wasting their time. He
would have been furious,” Saryon predicted.
    Mosiah’s smile twisted. “He was furious. The Khandic Sages had never seen such fury. His anger astonished
them, and they are not easily astonished. Kevon Smythe himself talked to Joram,
though now Smythe denies that he did so. He thought to win Joram with his
charm, but, as you know, Father, our friend is not easily charmed. Smythe
offered Joram vast wealth, power, whatever he wanted in exchange for the
location of raw darkstone and the secret of the forging of Darkswords.
    “Smythe barely escaped with his
life. Joram threw Smythe— literally picked him up and threw him—out the door
and warned him that the next time he returned he could count his life as
nothing. By this time, the Border Patrol had arrived. You ask what took them so long? How the Technomancers evaded their defenses? Easily. Several of their own had managed to get themselves
assigned to the duty. They shut down the alarm signals, permitted their
brethren to cross the Border without notice.
    “When the Border Patrol arrived,
they escorted Smythe and his followers off-planet. To
our relief, the Technomancers lost interest in the Darksword after that. Their
scientists studied the reports brought back from Thimhallan and made the
determination that the original sword could never be removed from the altar and
it was therefore useless to them. Without Joram’s assistance, and without
permission to take teams of workers to Thimhallan—permission that would never
be granted—the search for raw darkstone would be too difficult and too costly
to undertake.
    “King Garald hoped that this
incident would be an end of the Technomancers’ desire for the Darksword and it
might have been, Father, except that Joram did a very foolish thing.”
    Saryon looked as pained and
unhappy as if he himself had been responsible for Joram’s behavior. “He forged
a new sword.”
    “Precisely. We are not certain how. Smythe’s
visit had made Joram suspicious and paranoid—”
    “Made him feel as if he were
being watched,” Saryon interrupted.
    Mosiah paused a moment, then
slightly smiled. “I have never known you to be sarcastic, Father. Very well. I grant that Joram had some basis for his
feelings. But if he had only gone to King Garald or General Boris instead of trying
to fight the whole world all by himself!”
    “Battling life alone was always
Joram’s way,” Saryon said, and his voice was filled with affectionate sorrow
and understanding. “His blood is that of Emperors. He comes from a long line of
rulers who held the fate of nations in their hands. To ask for help would be a
sign