The Sworn Knight by Robert Ryan (novels to read txt) 📕

“Welcome to your future, sister knight. The glory of servingthe Morleth Stone, of serving Osahka, will be yours. And with it, the torment.It will never cease. Each day it will grow stronger. You will yearn for death,but you will taste of life everlasting, and despair.”

Ferla already felt despair. It bound her more strongly thatSavanest’s sorcery. Her future was not her own. Her life was a plaything forthe evil in the world. Desperately, she sought a means of escape. She wonderedwhat Aranloth would do, for certainly he would never have been caught by hisown stupidity in such a trap.

She remembered their many lessons, and their times togetherin the pursuit of knowledge and mastery. She remembered, and even as her mindreached out toward those memories, it seemed to her that she sensed his mindsomewhere far away.

It was both dark and light where he was. There was magic,and the touch of the void that once she had walked. It was hardly less fearfulthan what she experienced here, and yet over the vast gulf between them hiswords brushed against her mind.

Flee! he commanded. All is illusion. Flee!

Her mind lurched back to where she was. Aranloth’s voice wasurgent, if it were his voice at all and not some delirium caused by fear, butit was also reassuring.

Yet how was it possible to flee when she was bound?

Frustration welled up within her, but she beat it down evenas she beat down the fear. She must think.

And then she had it. In one swift thought she realized all.This was the spirit world, and all was illusion. Just as when she had walkedthe void once before when she had been poisoned and near to death, and learnedthat thought was action. Thought was reality. Thought ruled perception. Byaccepting that the bonds placed on her by Savanest were real, she had made themso.

With a primal shout that was not of words but relief andtriumph and hope all at once, she shrugged off the fetters of fire as thoughthey were but strings.

Savanest recoiled, and a look of incredulity was on hisface. Fast as an arrow sped from a bow she flew toward where her body restedfar away. Yet the voice of the Morleth Knight shadowed after her.

As it was in the world of spirit, so too will it be inthe world of flesh. You are mine, and you will know it when next we meet.

She heard those words, and they filled her with dread. Yetshe was free now, and with a rush she filled her body. Shuddering, she cameawake and leaped up, drawing her sword.

Asana and Kubodin were startled. They had been nearby,watching her. She knew they saw the naked fear on her face, and thatembarrassed her.

“I should not have gone,” she whispered, sheathing hersword. Then she looked at her arms. They were unblemished, yet still she feltthe memory of pain.

19. A Worthy Foe

Druilgar stood atop the Tower of the Stone, and hesurveyed his realm.

The night was old, and from his vantage he saw the slow grayingof the eastern sky. Dawn was not far off. Yet still the night was dark. He hadcommuned earlier with the Morleth Stone, and he knew that another kind of dawnwas not far away. This one would herald an epoch of reason. The new age wascoming, and the world would be reordered. Justice would prevail. The laws ofall lands would be right and proper. The past would be erased, so that it wouldnot blight the glorious future.

He would be the sun of that new world, and he felt theburden of it. His would be the responsibility to ensure it came to pass, and itwas humbling.

Never had he been humbler in his life. He served a greaterpurpose now, and if it bestowed everlasting glory upon him, and raised himabove humanity, then so be it. What he would do, and what he would achieve, wasall to serve the Great Purpose, and not himself.

Lights glimmered all over Faladir. There were lamps instreets, and within windows. But better was the dark expanse of the shadowed areasof the city, enveloped in murk and the beauty of mystery. Dark were the alleys,and even whole suburbs where the poorer citizens dwelt were draped byunrelieved night. There, his servants found nourishment. They did not like thelight. Not yet. But their day was coming, too. For they served the GreatPurpose, as did he. They would be raised even as he would.

The time of reckoning was coming, and the world would bewashed clean.

At last, he saw what he had been waiting for. An elù-draksped through the night. It was a thing of perfect beauty. Its thin bodyglistened palely against the dark beat of its graceful wings. It glided towardthe tower, dropping height and alighting with confidence upon a merlon of theparapet.

She stood there, and she fixed him with her eyes. He smiledat that. The creatures possessed a natural magic. With their eyes they couldseduce and make a man kill himself. She was testing him now.

He understood the lure, too. She was a thing of beautyunsurpassed, and her eyes gazed into his and he felt the fire of her magic.Those were eyes to gaze into, too. They promised so much, and yet held mystery.

But he was immune to that magic. Osahka had granted himpower over them rather than them power over him. He was in command, and theyobeyed. Or they were punished.

“Speak,” Druilgar commanded.

“I have flown widely,” she answered, “and hunted far.”

Her voice was soft and alluring also. Many had thought thecreatures could not speak, but he had known better. They spoke to those whocontrolled them, but seldom to their victims.

“From the west I have come, and Knight Sofanil I haveconversed with.”

“What did he say?”

“He had no message. None other than what you already know.He continues to search.”

“And what of Savanest?”

“He, I have not spoken to. But Sofanil says his brother hasfound a treasure of old. A hoard of were-stones, and with them he bettercontrols his men. Sofanil believes he does not quite understand the magic andunderestimates the influence of the stones.”

That