The keep of fire, p.34
The Keep of Fire, page 34
Although they remained always watchful, they saw no more krondrim as they rode. They were cutting deep across Toloria by then, and all Beltan’s reports had indicated that the Burnt Ones were staying close to the river and the mountains.
“Or close to borders,” Beltan said one night as they camped beside a stream.
Durge grunted. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure. Not completely, anyway. It’s like they’re looking for something. Or someone. Only it’s not in one place. It’s on the move.”
“Of course,” Aryn said, looking up from the rent in her riding gown she was mending with thread and needle. “It’s simple tactics. If you want to find something that could be anywhere, and that’s most likely moving, then you should keep watch at the borders that lead from one Dominion to the next.”
Grace regarded the baroness, jaw open. “How did you know that, Aryn?”
The young woman shrugged. “I’m the ward of a king, Grace. I pay attention now and then.”
“This explains their movement,” Lirith said, gazing into the flames of the campfire. “Yet it still doesn’t tell us what it is they hope to find.”
Her words met only silence. None of them had a theory to explain that.
As they journeyed, Grace kept a close watch on Aryn. The months since Midwinter’s Eve had been a dark time for the young woman. First she had used the Weirding to kill Leothan in self-defense. Then Garf, who had clearly loved her, had died in front of her eyes. Finally Meridar, who had loved her as well, had shouted her name even as he walked into the arms of death. Grace had seen catatonic patients in the ED who had been through less.
However, much as Grace searched for signs of distress, the baroness seemed better than she had in many months. At times Aryn was sad and thoughtful, at others quietly happy. There was an air about her that was calm, even assured, but in no way prideful or smug. The coy and secretive girl who had begun this journey had not crossed the Dimduorn with them. It was a strong and noble young woman who had made it to the other side.
Finally, one evening, Grace dared to approach Aryn and ask her how she felt about Meridar.
Aryn bent her head, then looked up, her sapphire eyes refracting the last light of day. “He died for me, Grace. I didn’t ask him to do it, and I didn’t want him to. But he did, and I can’t change that. So I have to be strong. For him. If I’m not, then what would it all mean?”
Grace had tried to speak, but there were no words she could say that would be more true than what the young woman had spoken. Aryn was growing up—really growing up. However, there was yet a long road ahead of her, and many burdens to carry upon it, of that Grace was certain. With a gasp that might have been joy or sorrow, she reached out and embraced her friend. Yes, her friend, the best she had on any world. Aryn hugged her back, and the gesture was no less fierce for the fact that it was made with only one arm.
“I love you, Grace. I love you so much.”
I love you, too, Aryn, Grace wanted more than anything to say. But she was weak, and words failed her, so instead she had held the young woman more tightly yet.
It wasn’t until the next day—their fourth since the crossing of the Dimduorn—that Lirith spoke of what Grace had done at the bridge.
The Tolorian woman’s words came without preamble. “The Weirding has never been woven like that before, sister.”
Startled, Grace dropped the knife with which she had been cutting a hard loaf of bread for their supper and looked up. Lirith sat on the ground, watching her. Grace cast a startled look at Aryn, who picked flowers with Tira nearby, then forced her gaze back to the witch.
“What do you mean?” Grace’s voice was quiet. Durge and Beltan had walked off to gather wood for a fire, but the knights were not so far away the wind couldn’t bring them into earshot.
Lirith’s visage was smooth as ebony, but there was an intensity about it all the same. “The best of us—and that is only a few—can pluck some threads of the Weirding and weave them into a new strand. It is a great talent, but the magics we can make with it are small and private. We might cause the eye to see a shadow that is not there, or the mind to perceive a voice the ears alone cannot hear. These are useful things, yes, even powerful in their own way, but they are illusion.”
Aryn had stopped all pretense of picking flowers and stared at Lirith outright. Grace could not move, as if cast of stone. Tira undulated in a silent dance amid tall grass.
“I don’t understand,” Grace managed to say.
A fleeting smile touched Lirith’s deep red lips, then was gone. “Nor do I. What you did at the river was not illusion, Grace. It was real. You did not weave the Weirding. You hardly seemed to Touch its threads. Instead, it was as if you made yourself a vessel and simply let all the force of the river pour through you to drive the krondrim back.”
Grace clutched the handle of the knife. Maybe it seemed strange to Lirith to have worked magic in the way she did, but Grace had had no other choice. She could not weave the threads of the Weirding because the strand that connected her to it led to the shadow. To reach the Weirding, she would have to pass through the shadow first.
In her mind she saw the pulsing blot of darkness, and it gathered itself inward and upward, taking on shape: fire-darkened walls, jagged cupolas, and windows staring like empty eyes toward barren peaks. No—that was the place her thread would take her, and she could not go there. She had escaped with her life and her sanity once; she could not possibly hope to do so again.
“You helped me.” Grace didn’t realize she had spoken the words until she saw Lirith’s shocked expression. She clung to them. “You helped me, Lirith. And Aryn did, too. What I did … I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been there.”
Lirith’s eyelids closed halfway, and her look of astonishment was replaced by one of mystery. “Yes, it was not only from the river that the flood came. There was another source.”
Her gaze flickered toward Aryn who stood nearby, forgotten flowers crushed in her left hand. The young woman swallowed hard, then nodded toward Grace.
“You’re bleeding, Grace. You’ve cut yourself.”
Grace lifted her hand. The knife had nicked her finger, and now blood oozed forth in a thin, red stream.
“I’ll get a rag,” Lirith said, and that was the last they spoke of the incident at the river.
Now, three days later—the sixth since their crossing of the River Darkwine, they finished their scant breakfast in the shelter of the knoll. As the sun rose above the horizon, they readied themselves for the day’s journey.
When she was finished packing their foodstuffs into Shandis’s saddlebags, Grace took a pair of water flasks and walked the short distance to the brook that ran beneath the knoll. She stepped past a stand of willows to the edge of a clear pool.
By the time she saw that she was not alone, the other was already moving. In one action he rose from a crouch, grabbed his sword from the stone where it lay, and spun around with the blade raised before him.
“Grace!”
Beltan lowered the sword as recognition flashed in his eyes. Water streamed from his white-blond hair, running down the bare skin of his chest.
Grace raised a hand to her throat. If she had been a robber, she knew she would be dead right now. It was a valuable reminder for her. Beltan was kind and good-natured, and because of these things she had forgotten what he was: a disciple of Vathris and a man of war. The scars that crisscrossed his pale, lean chest bespoke a violence she had never witnessed firsthand. Prominent among them was a thick band of knotted scar tissue that snaked down his side—the wound he had received on Midwinter’s Eve. It had healed, but by the looks of it just barely.
Grace realized she was staring. She forced herself to take a breath. “I’m sorry, Beltan. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s all right. I just didn’t see you there in the shadow.” He slicked his wet hair back from his brow, then bent to sheathe his sword again.
Grace frowned. Her startlement had faded, but there was something else that had unsettled her—something about what had just happened.
Beltan gazed at her, concern written across his plain face. “What’s wrong?”
She stared at him, then she had it. Her name. It was the way he had said her name.
Grace!
In her vision, when she saw Travis bound to a stone before the Gray Tower, he had turned, his eyes had gone wide, and he had spoken her name in surprise just as Beltan had. She had thought he couldn’t have seen her, that he must have been calling her name in despair. But what if that wasn’t so? What if he had seen her?
I just didn’t see you there in the shadow.…
A certainty flooded her. Yes, it had to be—Travis had said her name because he really had seen her. Except he couldn’t have glimpsed her vision-self. There was nothing, no body, for visible light to bounce off of. Which left only one possibility.
“You were there, Grace,” she murmured. “I mean, you will be there. That’s how he saw you.”
Beltan cocked his head. “Grace, are you all right?”
She grinned at the knight. “We’re going to make it, Beltan. I know it now. I was there, at the stone. I mean, I’m going to be there. That’s what I saw in the vision. I’ll be there to help Travis.”
The blond man grinned back. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, Grace. But if you say we’re going to be there, then we’re going to be there.”
For the first time since the bridge, Grace felt hope—real hope—rise inside her. With a laugh, she threw her arms about his wet, bare shoulders, stunning him anew.
50.
This time the chorus of the Runespeakers met at dawn. Red light oozed through the window slits high in the domed chamber. Travis knew it was just the morning sun. But the light looked like blood, and for all the quiet murmurs of the masters in their gray robes, he knew he was in danger—perhaps greater than any he had ever faced before on Eldh.
Although he dreaded what it might bring, Travis was glad to see morning come. The night had been a dim and silent eternity, spent alone in the confines of his cell. He had not needed to try the door to know it was shut with Banu, the rune of closing. Instead, he had spent the hours sitting on his bed, listening for Jack’s voice, begging it to tell him what to do. But the only voice he heard was Oragien’s, echoing in his mind.
By Olrig, what have you done?
Despite Oragien’s words, breaking the runestone had had nothing to do with Olrig. Travis had done it for the Runespeakers, and he had done it for himself. That was his only consolation through the lonely hours of darkness—that if given the opportunity to change what he had done, he would not. But something told him he was going to have a tough time selling the Runespeakers on the idea that destroying their one link to the knowledge of the ancients was a good thing.
They came for him in the gray light before dawn.
There was no knock, but he heard and felt the whisper of magic as Urath, the rune of opening, was spoken on the other side of the door. When the portal swung inward, he hoped he would see Sky there. Instead, two grim-faced runespeakers stepped into the cell. Travis had seen them both at chorus, but he did not know their names.
The elder of the two masters glanced at the younger. “Speak the rune of silence upon him.”
You don’t need to do that, Travis wanted to say. I won’t try to speak a rune to get out of this.
However, even as he opened his mouth, the runespeakers chanted a single word in harmony.
“Siiith.”
Silence enshrouded Travis, smothering his words. A spark of anger rose in him, along with an urge to speak the rune Reth, to break their rune, and to turn it back on them. It would have been easy, despite the fact that they were two and he was one. The magic of the rune they had spoken was weak, barely held together by their combined will—he could feel it.
Instead, Travis clenched his jaw, letting the silence close around him. He could hear sounds perfectly, but as long as the power of the rune lasted he could make no noise himself.
“Come with us,” the younger master said.
They passed no one on their descent through the tower. Then, as they entered the chorus chamber, Travis understood why. A low murmur surged on the air of the domed chamber: waves on a deep, sullen ocean. All the runespeakers were there, filling the lowest third of the stone tiers.
On the dais in the chamber’s center stood Oragien. Travis knew the All-master had reached his eightieth winter, and for the first time since Travis had met him he looked his years. His skin was nearly as gray as his robe, stretched thinly over the sharp bones of his face, and he stooped over the runestaff as if it were the only thing propping him upright.
And perhaps it was. He had brought Travis there to help study the runestone, to discover its secrets. Instead, Travis had shattered the stone. And just maybe, from the way he stared at the floor with blank eyes, Oragien with it.
Guilt seeped into Travis’s lungs like cold fluid. He forced the feeling aside. Remember, Travis, you didn’t ask for this. You didn’t sing a little song about rainbows, and you didn’t wish to be whisked from Colorado and dumped here. If they thought they could just wave their hands and summon you and have you do their every bidding, then they were wrong.
Now indignation bubbled into his chest, as it had when he spoke to the Duratek agent in Castle City, and then to Deirdre Falling Hawk and Hadrian Farr. It seemed like everyone wanted to use him for something: Duratek, the Seekers, the Runespeakers. Even Jack Graystone had used Travis without asking. It wasn’t fair. However, he knew none of this had anything to do with fairness. A sigh escaped his lips, although it made no sound.
“This way,” the younger of the two runespeakers said with a jerk on his arm. They led him to the bench closest to the dais. It was empty. “Sit.”
Travis hesitated. However, even if he were to escape this place, where would he go? He would find no more love outside the walls of the tower than he could find right now within.
Travis sat on the empty bench, and the two runespeakers withdrew. He could feel angry eyes on the back of his head, but he did not turn around. Instead he hung his head and gripped his right wrist. He found himself thinking of Grace Beckett, and wishing she were there. He could have used a little of her cool logic just then, to help make some sense of all this. But Grace was leagues and leagues from the place, safe behind the stone walls of her castle.
“This chorus has begun!”
Oragien’s voice echoed and reechoed around the chamber. The words were not loud—they did not need to be in this place—but they were hard and solid. The All-master stood straight now, his blue eyes bright as lightning. So there was strength left in Oragien yet.
The murmuring of the runespeakers ceased, leaving only the sigh of ancient voices on the air. Oragien did not look at Travis as he spoke, but rather over him.
“I have summoned this chorus as our laws demand, although there is little enough to speak about now. We know well the crime and the one who committed it.” Here the All-master’s gaze did flicker for a moment in Travis’s direction. “And what our order will do now that our one trove of knowledge is no more is a matter that will take not one chorus to decide, but a hundred. So the question before us today is simple.” Oragien pointed his staff directly at Travis’s heart. “We have only to decide the fate of this heretic.”
Travis clenched his jaw. At least he wasn’t going to have to go through all the fuss of a trial.
Oragien lowered his staff. “Is there any who would speak in defense of this runebreaker?”
A laugh escaped Travis—who would be mad enough to defend him?—but fortunately the rune of silence swallowed the sound. Then movement caught Travis’s eye.
His was not the only jaw agape in the chamber as a short, rotund form waddled down the steps to stand before the dais. Oragien’s bristling eyebrows knit together in a scowl.
“Master Eriaun, you would speak for this man?”
“Yes, All-master.” The runespeaker’s myopic eyes bulged as a hiss ran around the chamber. “I mean, no.”
Oragien’s frown deepened. “Which is it, Master Eriaun?”
Eriaun clutched his hands together before him. “I mean, I simply want to speak, All-master. May I?”
Oragien hesitated. “Very well, Master Eriaun. But be brief.”
Eriaun cleared his throat, his voice rising tremulously to the dome. “I just wonder if we understand what we’re doing, that’s all. It seems like there’s so much we don’t understand these days. We don’t understand the runestone.” He bit his lip. “Or we didn’t, at any rate. I don’t understand how we managed to summon Master Wilder here, even with the help we had. And I certainly don’t understand this power of his. Why, here he is a runelord and breaking runestones and all, and he can hardly read an apprentice’s first list of runes.” Eriaun’s eyes went wide. “Oh, no offense intended, Master Wilder!”
Despite himself, Travis grinned. None taken.
Eriaun opened his mouth, then frowned, then spread his arms. “Evidently that’s all I have to say. But we’ve been a bit rash with things that are a bit beyond us, and I think we should be careful not to do the same now.”
Eriaun waddled back to his seat. It had been a brave effort on the part of the stout runespeaker. However, even before the next voice spoke, Travis knew it had only made things worse.
“Master Eriaun is right,” a hard voice splintered the whispering air. “There is much we don’t understand. And it’s time we did.”
Master Larad descended the steps toward the center of the chamber. He did not look at Oragien or Travis, but rather turned to address the other runespeakers.
“It’s time we understood why he was brought to us. It’s time we understood how some believed he was to help us. And it’s time we understood who truly has the ability to lead our order now that the runestone has been broken.” Larad shrugged, then let his dark gaze flicker toward Oragien. “But perhaps it is not quite time for those things … yet.”
