Legacy of the Darksword by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman Page B

She did know, but she didn’t like it. My guess was that this
had all been arranged—the air car, I mean—with the understanding that she would
drive us, keep an eye on us, make her reports. Haven’t you got spies enough? I
thought bitterly, but did not put into words. I had won this round and could
afford to be magnanimous.
    “Keep in contact,” the base
commander warned. “Circumstances with the enemy could change. And probably not for the better.”
    The aide returned to the ship, to
complain to the General. The base commander accompanied me to the air car, gave
me quick refresher lessons in operating the thing—lessons which served to
confuse me thoroughly. I tossed the knapsack in the backseat and left the air
car to fetch Saryon, who, in his eagerness, had started walking in the
direction of the distant mountains.
    I hadn’t taken six steps when the
commander called after me. I turned to see him picking something up off the
ground.
    “Here.” The commander handed it
to me. “The priest dropped this.”
    He held out Saryon’s leather
scrip, one of the few objects he had brought with him from Thimhallan. I
recalled it well, for it was given an honored place in his study, carefully
arranged upon a small table near his desk. I always knew when Saryon was
thinking about Joram or about the past, for he would rest his hand upon the
scrip, his fingers stroking the worn leather.
    I thought it touching that he had
brought the scrip with him, perhaps as a holy relic, to be rededicated. I
couldn’t imagine, though—cherishing the scrip as he did—how he had come to
carelessly drop it. Thanking the commander, I placed the scrip in the backseat
along with the knapsack. Then I went to retrieve my master.
    “Air car,” he said, and gave me a
sharp look. “And who’s to be the driver?”
    “I am, sir,” I signed. “It’s
either that or the General’s aide will drive us, and I knew you wouldn’t like
to have a stranger along.”
    “I would much prefer that
alternative to being splattered against a tree,” said Saryon irritably.
    “I have driven an air car before,
sir,” I returned.
    “In an amusement park!” Saryon snorted.
    I was hoping that in his
excitement, he would have forgotten the circumstances. Apparently
not.
    “I will go find the General’s
aide, sir,” I signed, and started to head back toward the ship.
    “Wait, Reuven.”
    I turned around.
    “Can you . . . really drive one
of those contraptions?” He cast a nervous glance at the air car.
    “Well, sir.” I relaxed, smiled,
and shrugged. “I can try.”
    “All right, then,” he said.
    “Do you know the way?” I asked. “Where
are we going?”
    He looked out again across the
landscape, toward the mountains that rose, snowcapped, on the horizon.
    “There,” he said. “The Font. The only building left standing, after the
terrible storms broke over the world with the destruction of the Well of Life.
Joram and Gwendolyn took refuge there, and there, according to King Garald, is
where they live still.”
    We started walking back to the
air car. “We have seventy-two hours,” I told him, “before the last ship leaves.”
    He gave me the same shocked look
I had given the commander. “So short a time?”
    “Yes, sir. But surely it won’t take nearly
that long. Once you explain the danger to Joram . . .”
    Saryon was shaking his head. I
wondered if I should tell him what the base commander had said about Joram’s
being insane, decided that I would keep that to myself. I did not want to add
to my master’s worries. My research on the book had seemed to indicate that
Joram was a manic-depressive and I thought it quite possible that the isolation
of his life, plus the tension created by the arrival of the Technomancers,
might well have driven him to the breaking point.
    Reaching the car, I opened the
door for Saryon and saw the leather scrip draped over the backseat. I pointed
at it.
    “You dropped it,” I signed. “The
base