The Last Rune 5: The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  Deirdre snatched it up. Sasha was right; Farr at his most coy and arrogant was vastly preferable to this maudlin version. “This is ridiculous, Hadrian. You're one of the most important agents the Seekers have, and they've rewarded you for your work. Why is that so hard to bear?”

  Farr let out a bitter laugh. “Come now, Deirdre, surely you're not that guileless, not after what we've witnessed. This is no reward. It's simply another ploy to control us. Think of what we've seen, what we know. And think of who besides the Seekers might want that knowledge for themselves.”

  “Duratek,” she said on reflex.

  “Exactly. The Philosophers will do anything to keep us out of the hands of Duratek—even if it means giving us what we've always wanted. But that doesn't mean we're anything more than the puppets we were in Colorado.”

  Anger bubbled up inside Deirdre, at Farr—and, she had to admit, at the machinations of the Philosophers. Much as she would have liked to deny it, there was a ring of truth to Farr's words. But it didn't matter.

  “So what?” she said. “So the Philosophers are trying to manipulate us. No matter why we have them, these cards still work.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “Think of what we can do with them, Hadrian, what we can learn. We never knew until last year that the Graystone and Beckett cases were connected. What other connections will we find with access to all of the files of the Seekers?”

  Farr winced, and Deirdre knew her words had stung him. It was cruel to mention Dr. Grace Beckett—whom he loved, and who was now a world away from him. However, Deirdre didn't care; he had to listen to her.

  “If the Philosophers really think we're their puppets,” she said, “then the joke's on them. We'll be reinstated and—”

  He pulled his hand from hers. “I'm not resuming my work with the Seekers, Deirdre. I'm resigning from the order as of this moment.”

  This was ridiculous. She glared at him. “You can't quit, Hadrian. I know; I tried it once. And you were the one who told me that leaving the Seekers isn't an option.”

  “It seems I was mistaken.”

  Deirdre hardly believed what she was hearing.

  Farr's face was haggard but not unsympathetic. “I'm sorry, Deirdre, I truly am. I know it's difficult. But you have to face the fact that we've lost.”

  “Lost what?”

  “Our belief.”

  She sat back, staring as if slapped. In all the years she had known him, Farr had never wavered in his quest for other worlds, had never stopped believing in them. “I don't understand. You were there, Hadrian, on the highway to Boulder. You saw it all with your own eyes.”

  “You misunderstand me. I haven't lost my belief in other worlds. It's my belief in the Seekers I've lost. And from everything you're telling me, you have as well.”

  She struggled for words but could find none.

  “To Watch, To Wait, To Believe—that was our motto. We thought all we had to do was keep our eyes open, be patient, and one day it would happen. One day the Philosophers would reveal everything, and the door would open for us. Well, the door did open, only it wasn't the Philosophers who did it.” He laughed, and the cold sound of it made her shiver.

  “Stop it, Hadrian.”

  “I used to believe the Philosophers knew everything, that they were infallible. But it turns out they're not. They make mistakes just as the rest of us do. Do you think our mission in Denver went even remotely as they had planned?”

  “I said stop it.”

  “We don't have to be their playthings, Deirdre. And we don't need them or the magic of their little plastic cards in order to find other—”

  “Stop!”

  She hit the table with a hand. Beer sloshed, and patrons turned their heads. Deirdre hunkered deeper into the dimness of the booth; the eyes turned away.

  Farr was watching her, one eyebrow raised. She drew a breath, willing the spirits to grant her strength. She was going to need it.

  “Don't even think about it,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “I mean it, Hadrian. Leaving the Seekers is one thing. If you want to start a nice quiet life as a shopkeeper or an accountant, that's fine. But leaving the Seekers and continuing your . . . work is something else altogether.”

  He started to speak, but she held up a hand.

  “No—shut up for once in your life and listen to me. The Seekers have eyes everywhere; you know that better than anybody. And you also know how the Philosophers feel about renegades. If they can't be sure of your allegiance, they'll make sure no one else can, either.”

  She locked her eyes on his and listened to the thudding of her own heart. For a moment she thought she had him, that he had finally seen reason. Then a smile touched his lips—it was a fond expression, sad—and he stood up.

  So it was over; the words escaped her anyway. “Please, Hadrian. Don't go like this.”

  He held out a hand. “Come with me, Deirdre. You're too good for them.”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Farr was wrong. It wasn't just their belief they had lost. He had lost Grace Beckett to another world. And Deirdre had lost Glinda to the fire in the Brixton nightclub. To Duratek.

  All the same, Deirdre hadn't lost her faith. There was still so much to learn, and with the new card the Seekers had given her—with Echelon 7—there was no telling what she might discover.

  Deirdre gripped the silver ring on her right hand. “I can't go with you, Hadrian. I have to stay here. It's the only chance I have to learn what I need to.”

  “And that's the reason I have to go.”

  Despite his grim expression, there was something about him—a fey light in his eyes—that made him seem eager. He had always taken risks—that was how he had risen so high so quickly in the Seekers—but he had never been one recklessly to thrust himself into danger. Now Deirdre wasn't so sure. In the past, she had been angry with Farr, awed by him, even envious of him. Now, for the first time, she was afraid for him.

  “What are you going to do?”

  He shrugged on his rumpled coat. “You're a smart girl, Deirdre, and you've got good instincts. That's why I requested you for my partner. But you're wrong about something. You said we've done the one thing the Seekers have always wanted to do. Except that's not quite true.” Farr put on his hat, casting his face into shadow. “You see, there's still one class of encounter we haven't had yet. Good-bye, Deirdre.”

  He bent to kiss her cheek, then turned and made for the door of the pub. There was a flash of gray light and a puff of rainscented air.

  Then he was gone.

  4.

  They came home to Calavere on a cold, brilliant day late in the month of Geldath.

  Grace Beckett smiled as the familiar silhouettes of the castle's nine towers hove into view, banners snapping atop their turrets, as blue as the winter sky. All her life, she had lived in places she had not chosen, houses in which she had not belonged—the orphanage, an endless rotation of foster homes, countless drab apartments where she had never bothered to hang a picture on the wall. But she belonged in Calavere; she knew it by the beating of her heart. If ever she had a home, on any world, it was here.

  A small form wriggled in the saddle in front of Grace. She wrapped her arms around the girl and rested her chin atop Tira's curly red head.

  “Do you see the castle on the hill over there?” Grace murmured. “That's where I live.”

  Tira reached out her hands and laughed.

  Grace stroked the girl's hair, smoothing tangles she knew would reappear in an eyeblink. In moments like this, it was possible to believe Tira was a normal child. Possible, if Grace didn't think about how she ran around in the frigid air wearing just her thin smock, yet was always warm to the touch. Possible, if Grace forgot how she had once risen into the sky like a star to become a goddess.

  Tira had not spoken a word since Midwinter's Eve, since she appeared at the Black Tower without warning, handed the Stone of Fire to Travis, and called him Runebreaker. There was
so much Grace wanted to ask her—where she had been, how she had come back, and why she had brought Krondisar to Travis—only there was no point. Tira wouldn't—perhaps couldn't—answer. And Grace did not for a moment let herself believe she wouldn't be leaving again soon.

  “I love you,” Grace said, tightening her arms around the girl's tiny body.

  Tira gazed up with a placid expression, one side of her face soft and pretty, the other a blank mask of scar tissue. On Midwinter's Day, when they had set out from the Tower of the Runebreakers, Grace had wondered about Tira's face. Krondisar had turned her into a goddess. So why hadn't the transformation made her whole? However, as the leagues passed by, Grace understood. Tira was whole. This was what the Stone of Fire had made her.

  Grace kissed her forehead—the scarred half—and Tira looked again at the looming castle.

  “That is a sight I feared we would never see again,” said a deep voice, comforting in its gloominess.

  Grace looked up to see Durge guide his horse close to hers. She smiled again. “I don't believe you, Durge. I think you've known all along we would make it back here. Why else would you have set out on the journey in the first place?”

  “To be by your side, my lady. Where I belong.”

  Grace couldn't help feeling a note of pleasure. She loved the craggy-faced knight; he was truer than any person she had ever met. Travis had told her Durge had been a sheriff's deputy in Castle City, in the year 1883, to which they had traveled and returned from with the magic of the gate artifact. It wasn't difficult to see Durge as a frontier lawmen; no matter where he went, no matter what century he was in, he would always be a knight. Her knight. However, she doubted loyalty was his only reason for returning with her to Calavere.

  We're coming, Aryn. Grace cast the words across the threads of the Weirding, not knowing if her thoughts could be heard from so far away. Several times, as they journeyed east, the baroness had contacted Grace over the Weirding, the web of life and power that wove itself among all things in the world. Aryn had spoken of affairs in Calavere and the Dominions, and Grace had recounted their own harrowing encounters at the Black Tower. However, each time Grace tried to contact Aryn herself, she had failed. She did not have the ability to reach out with her thoughts over such long distances as Aryn seemed able to do.

  Grace stole a glance at Durge's somber profile. His eyes were focused on the castle as he rode, his left hand pressed against his chest. She wasn't certain when she had first begun to suspect the truth. Maybe it was the way, each time she told the others Aryn had contacted her over the Weirding, Durge seemed to take particular interest. At the same time, Lirith would cast frequent glances at the knight, her dark eyes troubled.

  One night, as they lay on the frozen ground near the feet of the Gloaming Fells, Grace had asked Lirith if there was something about Aryn and Durge she ought to know. Lirith had tried desperately to hide the truth, but Grace was a doctor; she knew precisely where to make an incision. At last, over the secret strands of the Weirding, Lirith had told her what she had learned by accident in the Barrens last summer, when she and Durge had traveled with Falken to find the Keep of Fire. In that desolate place, the witch had tried to lend a bit of her own life power to the weary knight, but in the process she had unwittingly stolen some of Durge's memories.

  He loves her with all his heart, Grace, Lirith's anguished voice had sounded in Grace's mind. But he says she must never know, that she is too young and good to be bothered by one as old and derelict as he, and he made me vow never to tell anyone. Only now I have, and so I've betrayed him again.

  No, Lirith, you haven't betrayed Durge—he's betraying himself. If he loves Aryn, he owes it to her to tell her the truth. Just because he didn't want to trouble Aryn was not reason enough to hide his feelings from her. Grace always gave her patients the true diagnosis, even if it was something they didn't want to hear.

  The wind blew Durge's hair from his brow and tugged at the mustaches that drooped beneath his hawkish nose. Durge wasn't handsome. All the same, there was a kindness to his craggy visage, a nobility that went beyond mere beauty. She didn't know if Aryn could return Durge's love, but the young woman deserved the chance.

  Durge glanced at her. “Is something amiss, my lady? We must look our best to greet King Boreas and Lady Aryn, and I suppose there's a bit of this morning's porridge stuck in my mustaches.”

  Grace laughed. “No, Durge. You're absolutely perfect.”

  This statement appeared to confound the knight. He opened his mouth, shut it again, gave her an odd look, then spurred his mount ahead, toward Falken's horse.

  “What did you do to him?” Travis said, veering his horse toward Grace's. “It looks like his brain just went bonk.”

  “I told him the truth.”

  “That'll do it,” Travis said with a nod. “I used to complain that no one ever told me what was really going on. Only then they did, and I realized how much happier I was not knowing.”

  “And would you go back if you could? To not knowing?”

  Travis smiled, only there was a look in his eyes—sorrow? resignation?—she couldn't quite name. His hair was coming in now, thick and red as his beard. After Krondisar destroyed and remade him last summer, he had taken to shaving his head, hating the way his hair had changed from sand to flame. However, since the Black Tower, he had been letting it grow. It was as if he didn't mind anymore seeing the outward reflection of what he really was. And maybe that meant he had answered her after all.

  Travis gazed at the castle, bouncing in the saddle like a sack of turnips. After all these leagues, he was still a terrible rider. Grace sat on her own mount straight and tall, rising and falling with its gait as if she had done it all her life. Of course, the horses were only a recent luxury. For most of the journey they had traveled on foot. Grace, Falken, Beltan, and Vani had had no horses; they had taken the fairy ship as far as they could up the River Farwander, then had marched the rest of the way to the Black Tower. And the horses Travis, Durge, Sareth, and Lirith had ridden there had been left over a century in the past.

  It was nearly a hundred leagues from the Black Tower of the Runebreakers to Calavere. The idea of walking the entire way had filled Grace with despair, but with little other choice they had set out on foot on Midwinter's Day, and much to their surprise, they made good time. Perhaps too good. After they made camp each night, Falken would judge the landmarks, and by his estimates they would have covered more leagues than seemed possible.

  “Something's not right about this,” Falken said the third night of their trek, and Grace agreed. As they walked, she would keep her eyes fixed on a distant hill, measuring their progress toward it. Then they would pass through a copse of trees or descend into a ravine, and when she caught sight of the hill again it would suddenly loom close, as if it had leapfrogged over the intervening miles when she wasn't looking.

  “That's just not possible,” Beltan said, scratching his head after one such instance, and Tira had laughed, as if he had told a marvelous joke.

  Grace looked at Tira, but the girl only bent her head over the half-burnt pinecone she had plucked from the campfire, and around which she had wrapped a rag, as if it were a doll.

  Soon they left the wild reaches of the western Fal Sinfath and moved along the borders of Brelegond. Several times they caught sight of a troop of knights in black armor riding heavy warhorses, their shields marked with a silver tower and red crown. Durge and Beltan would draw their swords, Vani would vanish into the shadows, and Lirith and Grace would use the Touch to weave illusions to divert the eye.

  They needn't have bothered. Each time, the knights rode on without getting close. The runelord Kelephon—whom the Onyx Knights knew as their supreme general Gorandon—wanted both Grace's blood and the magical sword Fellring, which he had failed to wrest from her in the dead kingdom Toringarth. What would he have done if he had known his knights had come within a half a mile of her more than once? Only he wouldn't know.

  �
��You're keeping them from seeing us, aren't you?” she whispered to Tira one night as they curled together on the ground. The girl's little body was so warm Grace hardly needed her cloak, which she had thrown over them as a blanket. The snow curled into steam as it landed on them. “Just like you're helping us walk faster than we should be able to.”

  Tira snuggled against her and went to sleep.

  The Onyx knights were not the only peril they encountered on the road. Sometimes, those first few nights after they left the Black Tower, whoever was standing watch—Beltan or Durge or Vani—would see a pale glow atop a distant hill or ridge. The Pale King had failed to gain Sinfathisar and Krondisar at the Tower of the Runebreakers, but his minions still searched for the Stones.

  However, before they left the tower, Travis had taken a rusted iron pot he found—their old cooking pot from a hundred years before—and had held it in his hands while he spoke the rune Dur. The pot shone with blue radiance, and when the light dimmed, in its place was an iron box. The box was surprisingly delicate and perfectly formed; whether or not he cared to use his power, his ability was growing. Travis slipped the Stones into the box and shut it. On its lid were angular symbols.

  “What are they?” Grace asked, touching the runes on the box.

  “A warning,” he said, and tucked the box inside his tunic.

  The Pale King's wraithlings could see the trail of magic the Imsari left on the air—but not if the Stones were encased in iron. The eerie glow never drew close to their camp, and after a few nights they did not see the lights again.

  At last they crossed the headwaters of the Dimduorn and entered into Calavan. They saw no more Onyx Knights, and when they came to a town, they dared to stop and buy horses with some of the gold Grace had left. After that, the leagues had flown by more quickly yet.

  “Our journey's almost over.” Grace only realized she had said the words aloud when Travis gave her a sharp look.