Saryon stood to face him. His cheeks were flushed, his voice shook, not with weakness, but with anger. "I am not here for the sword, Joram. I have stated as much. You know-or at least you should know-that I would not lie to you."

Gwendolyn was on her feet, her hands on Joram's arm. "Joram, please!" she said softly. "You don't know what you're saying. This is Father Saryon!"

Joram's fury subsided. He had the grace to look ashamed of himself and to apologize. But the apology was brief and it was cold. He returned to his chair. Gwen did not go back to hers, but remained standing behind Joram, her presence strong and supportive, defending him, though he had been in the wrong.

Eliza was troubled, confused, and a little frightened. This was not what she had expected.

Saryon sat back down, looked gently, grievingly, on Joram. ''My son, do you think this is easy for me? I see the life you have made for yourself and your family. I see that it is peaceful and blessed. And I am the one telling you it must end. I wish I could add that it would be possible to regain such peace back on Earth, but that I cannot promise. Who knows whether any of us will find peace when we return, or if we will all be plunged into terrible war.

"Smythe spoke to you of the Hch'nyv, the aliens who have one avowed purpose and that is to destroy the human race. They have no interest in negotiating, they refuse all contact with us. They have slaughtered those we sent to them in hopes of obtaining a truce. They are closing in on us. Our military forces have pulled back, in order to make a final stand on Earth. This outpost is the last to be evacuated.

"I cannot even promise that you will be safe on Earth," Saryon admitted, "I can't promise that any of us will. But at least there you will have the protection of the combined Earth Forces. Here, you and Gwen and Eliza would be at the aliens' mercy. And, from what we have seen, they have no concept of mercy."

Joram's mouth twisted. "And if you have the Darksword-"

Saryon was shaking his head.

Joram amended his statement, though the twist of his mouth deepened and his tone was bitter and ironic. "If someone someone has the Darksword, then has the Darksword, then someone someone could use it to stop these fiendish aliens and save the world. Still trying to redeem yourself, Father?" could use it to stop these fiendish aliens and save the world. Still trying to redeem yourself, Father?"

Saryon gazed at him sadly. "You don't believe me. You think I am lying to you. I am sorry, my son. Very sorry."

"Joram," Gwen whispered in gentle reproof, and placed her hand on his shoulder.

Joram sighed. Reaching up, he took hold of her hand and rested his cheek against it. He kept fast hold of her as he talked.

"I do not say you are lying, Father." Joram spoke in a softened tone. "I am saying that you have been tricked. You were always gullible," he added, and the bitter smile warmed into one of affection. "You are too good for this world, Father. Much too good. People take advantage of you."

"I do not know that I am particularly good," Saryon said, speaking slowly, earnestly, his words gathering force as he went, "but I have always tried to do what I believed was right. This does not mean that I am weak, Joram, nor that I am foolish, though you always equated goodness with weakness. You imply that these aliens do not exist. I've seen the news reports, Joram! I've seen the pictures of the ships attacking and destroying our colonies! I've read the accounts of the terrible slaughter, the senseless butchery.

"No, I have not seen these aliens with my own eyes. Few men have and lived to tell of it. But I have seen the anxiety, the concern, the fear in the eyes of General Boris and King Garald. They are afraid, Joram. Afraid for you, afraid for all of us. What do you think this is-an elaborate hoax? To what purpose? All to trick you out of the Darksword? How is that possible, when you have said yourself that it was destroyed?"

Joram made no response.

Saryon sighed again. "My son, I will be honest with you. I will leave nothing hidden, though what I have to tell will anger you and rightly so. They know you have forged a new Darksword. The Duuk-tsarith Duuk-tsarith have been watching you-only to protect you, Joram! Only to protect you from Smythe and his a.s.sociates! So the have been watching you-only to protect you, Joram! Only to protect you from Smythe and his a.s.sociates! So the Duuk-tsarith Duuk-tsarith claim, and I ... I believe them." claim, and I ... I believe them."

Joram was indeed furious, so furious that he was choked by his rage and could not speak. And so my master was able to continue.

"I know why you made the sword, Joram-to protect yourself and those you love from the magic. And that is why you cling to it. And, yes, I admit that they want the Darksword and its secrets, Joram. Bishop Radisovik-you remember him? You know him to be a good, wise man. Bishop Radisovik received a message which he believes came from the Almin concerning the Darksword and how it might be used to save our people. Whether you take the sword to Earth or not is your decision. I will not try to influence you. I care only for the safety of yourself and your family. Do you care about the Darksword so much, my son, that you would sacrifice your family for it?"

Joram rose to his feet. Releasing Gwen's hand, he stepped away from her placating touch. His voice was deep with anger. "How can I trust them? What have I known from these people in the past, Father? Treachery, deceit, murder-"

"Honor, love, compa.s.sion," Saryon countered. Joram's face darkened. He was not accustomed to being contradicted. I don't know what he might have said next, but Gwendolyn intervened.

"Father, tell us what King Garald plans for us," she said.

Saryon did so. He related how a ship was waiting for them at the outpost. The ship would take them back to Earth, where housing had been arranged. He spoke with regret of things left behind, but there was not enough room on the ship to store many personal belongings.

"Just room enough for the Darksword," Joram said, and sneered.

"The h.e.l.l with the Darksword!" Saryon said angrily, losing patience. "Consign it to perdition! I do not want to see it! I do not want to hear of it! Leave it! Bury it! Destroy it! I do not care what you do with it. You, You, Joram! You and your wife and your child. These are all that matter to me." Joram! You and your wife and your child. These are all that matter to me."

"To you!" Joram countered. "And that is why they sent you! To make exactly this plea in this tone! To scare us into running. And when we are gone, then they will be free to come and search and take what they know I would die before I give up!"

"You can't mean this, Father!" Eliza spoke for the first time. Rising to her feet, she faced him. "What if they are right? What if the power of the Darksword could save lives? Millions of lives! You have no right to withhold it. You must give it to them!"

"Daughter," said Gwendolyn sharply, "hold your tongue! You can't possibly understand!"

"I understand that my father is being selfish and obstinate," Eliza returned. "And that he doesn't care about us! About any of us! He cares only for himself!"

Joram glared darkly at Saryon. "You have accomplished your task, Father. You have turned my child against me. No doubt that, too, was part of your plan. She can go with you to Earth, if she wants. I will not stop her. You may stay the night, you and your accomplice. But you will be gone in the morning."

He turned and started to leave the room.

"Father!" Eliza pleaded, heartbroken. "I don't want to leave! Father, I didn't mean . . ." She stretched out her hands to him, but he walked past her without a glance and disappeared into the darkness. "Father!"

He did not return.

With a ragged cry, Eliza ran from the room, into another part of the dwelling. I heard her footsteps and then, in the distance, a door slam.

Gwendolyn stood alone, drooping and pale as a cut flower.

Saryon began to stammer out an apology, though the Almin knows he had nothing for which to apologize.

Gwendolyn lifted her gaze to meet his. "They are so alike," she said. "Flint striking flint. The sparks fly. And yet they love each other. . . ." Her hand went to her mouth and then to her eyes. She drew in a shuddering breath. "He will reconsider. He will think about this through the night. His answer will be different by morning. He will do what is right. You know him, Father."

"Yes," said Saryon gently. "I know him."

Perhaps, I thought. But in the meantime it will be a long night.

Gwendolyn gave Saryon a kiss on his cheek. She bid me good night. I bowed silently, and she left us.

The fire had died to embers. The room was dark and growing chill. I was afraid for Saryon, who looked very ill. I knew how exhausted he must be, for the day had been a tiring one. The evening's stressful and unpleasant scene had left him empty and shaken.

"Master," I signed, going to him, "come to bed. There is nothing more we can do this night."

He did not move, nor did he seem to see my speaking hands. He stared into the glowing coals, and from his words, spoken to himself, I shared his vision. He was seeing the forge fire, the making of the sword.

"I gave the first Darksword life," he said. "A thing of evil, it sucked the light from the world and changed it into darkness. He is right. I am am still searching for redemption." still searching for redemption."

He was shivering. I looked around the room, spotted a woolen throw tossed on a stool near the fireplace. As I went to retrieve it, my eye caught a tiny flash of orange light, in the corner between the fireplace and the wall. Thinking it might be a cinder that had caught the wood on fire, I started to brush it off, intending to stamp it out.

The moment my hand touched it, a shiver went through my body. Smooth, plastic, it was not of this world. It did not belong here. I saw again the green glowing listening devices Mosiah had discovered in our house. Except why should this one glow orange . . . ?

"No reason," said a furry voice, near my elbow. "Except that I happen to like orange."

Teddy sat upon the stool. The orange glow of the listening device was reflected in his b.u.t.ton eyes.

I might have asked how Simkin knew what such a device was, or even if he did did know what it was. I might have asked why he waited to show it to us now, now that it was too late. I might have asked, but I did not. I think I feared the answer. Perhaps that was a mistake. know what it was. I might have asked why he waited to show it to us now, now that it was too late. I might have asked, but I did not. I think I feared the answer. Perhaps that was a mistake.

And I did not tell Saryon that all we had said had been overheard by the Technomancers. Perhaps that, too, was a mistake, but I was afraid it would only add to his misery. Whereas, if Gwen was right-and she should surely know Joram-by morning he would have reconsidered. By morning, we would all be gone from this place and the Technomancers could listen to the silence.

Picking up the throw, I placed it over Saryon's shoulders, and rousing him from his bleak reverie, I persuaded him to go to bed. We walked together down the dark hallway, with only the lambent light of the stars to guide us. I offered to make his tea for him, but he said no, he was too tired. He would go straight to bed.

Any doubts I had about concealing my knowledge of the listening device vanished. It would only worry him to no purpose, when he needed rest.

And if that was a mistake, then it was the first of many to be made that night. Still another mistake, and perhaps the most drastic, was that I neglected to keep an eye on "Teddy."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"Wrap the sword in these rags. If anyone stops you, tell them you are carrying a child. A dead child."

JORAM; FORGING THE DARKSWORD FORGING THE DARKSWORD.

I woke up, thinking I heard a sound, but unable to place what the sound had been. Lying in bed, trying to recollect what it was and not making much headway, I heard the creak of hinges, as of a door being either opened or shut very slowly, so as not to disturb anyone. woke up, thinking I heard a sound, but unable to place what the sound had been. Lying in bed, trying to recollect what it was and not making much headway, I heard the creak of hinges, as of a door being either opened or shut very slowly, so as not to disturb anyone.

Thinking perhaps it was Saryon and that he might need me, I left my bed, pulled on my sweater and jeans, and went out into the hall and down to his room. Listening at the door, I could hear his gentle snoring. Whoever was up and wandering around in the night, it was not my master.

"Joram," I thought, and though I had been angered by his obduracy and his show of disrespect for Saryon, I felt sorry for the man. He was being forced to leave a home he loved, a life he had made.

"Almin give him guidance," I prayed, and returned to my room.

Restless, knowing I would not be able to go back to sleep, I walked to the window and parted the curtains to look out upon the night.

My window opened up onto one of the many gardens with which the Font was surrounded. I have no idea of the name of the flowers which grew out there; some sort of large, white blooms that hung heavy on their stems and seemed, to my imagination, to be hanging their heads in sorrow. I was thinking to myself that this would make a good metaphor to use in a new book I was then planning. I was about to turn away, to note it down, when I saw someone enter the garden.

Of course, Joram has taken his worries outside, I thought. I felt uneasy about disturbing his privacy and also about the possibility of him seeing me through the window and thinking I was spying on him. I was about to draw shut the curtains when the figure stepped out into an open walkway, almost directly opposite me, and I saw that it was not Joram.

It was a woman, wearing a cloak and hood and carrying a bundle in her arms.

"Eliza!" I said to myself. "She's running away from home!"

I went cold all over. My heart constricted. I stood bolted to the floor in that terrible indecision which sometimes comes over one in a crisis. I had to do something, but what?

Run and wake Saryon and have him talk to her? I recalled his weariness and how ill he had looked and decided against that.

Wake her parents?

No. I would not betray Eliza. I would go to her myself, try to persuade her to stay.

Grabbing up my jacket, I threw it on and dashed out into the hall. I had only the vaguest idea where I was going, but on reflection, I seemed to remember pa.s.sing the garden on my way to the outbuildings. I found the door after only one wrong turn and stepped out into the night. The creak of the hinges, as I pa.s.sed through, was the same creak I'd heard earlier.

The night was bright and it was easy to see the shadowy figure ahead of me. She had been moving at a fairly rapid pace when I first saw her from my window, and I was afraid she might have already crossed the garden and disappeared over the wall before I could reach her. As it was, she had reached the wall, but the bundle she was carrying had slowed her down. She had placed the bundle on the top of the wall and with it something else, the sight of which gave me another cold chill-Teddy.

Teddy, a.k.a. Simkin, sat on the top of the wall beside the bundle while Eliza vaulted over the wall, in a flurry of cloak and skirt. Turning, she reached for the bundle with one hand and Teddy with the other. She saw me.

Her face, framed by its night-dark cloud of hair, was pale as the heavy flowers; pale but resolute. Her eyes widened when she saw me, and then narrowed in displeasure.

Frantically, I waved my hands, though what I hoped to accomplish by this gesturing was beyond me. Whatever it was, it didn't work. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bundle, and it was obviously heavy, for she had a difficult time managing it. She was forced to drop Teddy-on his head, I hoped-and use both hands to grasp the bundle.

There was a m.u.f.fled clang-steel wrapped in cloth striking stone.

I knew then what she carried and the knowledge knocked the breath from my body. I faltered, came to a halt.

She saw that I knew, which served only to increase her haste. Securing her burden, she turned away from me and I heard her footsteps slipping on the rocks of the hillside.

I came to my senses and hurried after her, for now it was more imperative than ever that I catch up to her.

The Technomancers were listening. But according to Mosiah, the Duuk-tsarith Duuk-tsarith were watching! were watching!

Expecting to see their dark forms leap out of the shadows any moment, I scaled the wall, scrambling over it clumsily. I have said that I was not very athletic. I could not see the ground beneath me in the dark shadow cast by the wall. I misjudged the drop and fell heavily, bruising my knees against the wall and sc.r.a.ping away the skin on the palms of my hands.

"Oof! Zounds! Oaf! You've knocked the stuffing out of me!" came a voice.

I was too busy trying to regain purchase on the steep slope to pay any attention to the lamenting Teddy. My feet scrabbled on a loose rock, which bounded down the hillside and started a small avalanche. I slipped and slithered and then she hovered over me. The folds of her cloak settled around me. Hands grasped my arms and pinched my flesh.

"Stop it!" she whispered furiously. "You're making enough noise to wake the dead!"

"Happened once," said a doleful voice, somewhere near my elbow. "The Duke of Esterhouse. Dropped dead, sitting in his armchair, reading the paper. Everyone afraid to tell him. Knew he'd take the news frightfully hard. So we left him there. And then one day cook forgot and rang the dinner bell-"

Startled, Eliza let go of me and sat back on her heels.

"You can talk!" she said to me in a tight voice. She was not carrying the bundle.

I shook my head emphatically. Reaching underneath my sc.r.a.ped rump, I pulled out the alleged stuffed bear and gave it a -shake.

Eliza looked at the bear and bit her lower lip and the sudden inkling of the truth formed in my mind.

"Are you hurt?" she asked in a grudging tone.

I shook my head.

"Good," she said. "Go back to bed, Reuven. I know what I'm doing."

And without another word, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the bear from my hand and was up and gone in a flutter of skirt and cloak. She stopped some distance on the hill below to pick up her heavy bundle, and then I lost her in the darkness.

She knew where she was going. I did not. She was accustomed to climbing and walking these steep hills. I was not. I could not shout after her, although I wouldn't have, in any case. The last thing I wanted to do was call attention to her and what she carried. I hoped to be able to persuade her to return home before any harm was done. But first I had to catch her.

It would cost more time in the long run, I reasoned, if I stumbled blindly down the hillside. There had to be a trail; she could not be moving so fast otherwise. I took time to search, my knees stiffening and my palms burning. My patience was rewarded. Not far from where I had fallen I found a crude trail, half-natural, half-man-made, carved into the hillside. It was an old trail; the feet of many catalysts had trodden it before me. The trail was formed of deep gouges in the hillside, reinforced here and there with large embedded rocks or exposed tree roots.

The rocks gleamed white in the starlit night; the tree roots, worn by the pa.s.sage of many feet, were slick and shiny. I made my way down the trail, wondering as I did so where it led.

The way was steep, and despite the help from rocks and other foot and handholds, my going was difficult and slow. I could no longer hear Eliza's footfalls and knew she must be far ahead of me. My taking this route was a foolish idea. If I slipped and fell, I would probably break my leg or my ankle, and be forced to lie out here all night with no hope of rescue.