The Last Rune 5: The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  Travis was aware of the gazes of the others on him. He could only shake his head. Larad was wrong; he had to be.

  With stiff motions, Larad moved to Kelephon's dead body, bent down, and picked up Gelthisar. “I am a runelord now. I can touch the Great Stones and live. But I have not your skill with the Imsari, Master Wilder. I could not wield them, not like you, even were I not wounded. This power is new to me. I have found it . . . difficult to control properly. That's why this happened when I broke the rune of sky.” He touched the dark spot on his robe.

  Travis understood. It was hard to control something you had been given all at once, something that should be earned over time, gradually, and through hard work.

  But you have worked hard, Travis, Jack's voice spoke in his mind. You've learned much. More than you think you have. Larad is right. Only you can do this.

  “You are losing blood,” Vani said, eyeing Larad's robe. “You should let us see to your injuries.”

  Anger crossed his scarred face. “There's no time for such unimportant things.” He limped toward Travis. “You must take the Stones, Master Wilder. You must go to the First Rune. That is what I had to tell you, and now I have.” He held out his hand. Gelthisar shone blue-white on his palm.

  Thunder rolled across the world, shaking the ground. A wind sprang up, rushing from the mountains, slicing through cloth and into flesh like a bitter knife. Forks of lightning tore apart the clouds, and the air deepened into dusk, as if a shadow had fallen across the world.

  “The Lord of Nightfall comes!” Larad shouted above the moan of the wind. “Mohg will be upon us in a moment, and he will wrest the Imsari from us.” He thrust the Stone of Ice forward. “Take it, Runebreaker. Go, before it's too late!”

  Melia and Falken gazed at Travis, their faces pale, their eyes imploring. The wind blew ash into his eyes, stinging them. When he blinked the grit away, he saw Beltan standing before him. It was impossible, but the blond man was smiling.

  “I know you're afraid, Travis.” Beltan took his hand and squeezed it tight. “We're all afraid, too. I can't really see how all this can possibly work out. But maybe it's like the guard tower at Calavere after the explosion. Sometimes, to save something, you have to destroy it first.”

  If Travis had added up all the grief, all the sorrow and despair—and all the love—he had ever felt in all the years of his life, it would have been nothing compared to what he felt in that one, single moment. He tried to speak, but the only sound he could seem to make was a sob. Over the knight's shoulder, Vani was looking at him, her gold eyes filled not with fear or doubt, but with hope. She held both of her hands to her stomach, and she was smiling at him.

  Beltan kissed his brow. “Go.”

  For a moment Travis stood frozen. Then another crack of thunder rent the air like the sound of a great and terrible whip. The shadow deepened, stretching out over the world. Travis turned and took Gelthisar from Larad's hand. It was not cold against his skin as he had expected, but rather cool and smooth as glass. He drew the other Stones from his pocket and held all three in his hand. They glowed softly, one blue-white, one fiery red-orange, and one as gray-green as twilight in a forest.

  The two Maugrim—the shaman and the gnarled witch-woman—had drawn close. Travis looked up at them. “Take me to the Dawning Stone.”

  The man pointed with a thick-knuckled finger, toward the mountains, and made a low grunting noise in his throat.

  This way.

  59.

  Travis did not look back.

  If he had, he was afraid he would fall to his hands and knees, that he would crawl back over the dusty ground to Melia and Falken, to Beltan and Vani, that he would clutch them and beg them not to make him go.

  Instead he kept his eyes forward and clenched his jaw as he followed after the Maugrim. They moved quickly across the valley, walking with a strange, loping gate, and he had to hurry to keep up with them. The cold, dry air knifed at his lungs, and the metallic taste of blood spread through his mouth. How far would they have to go? Was it even possible to reach the Dawning Stone before Mohg?

  The sky grew darker. The lightning had ceased, but the wind blew harder, howling down from the Ironfang Mountains, blowing away the clouds to reveal a jagged line running across the sky.

  Grit clawed at Travis's eyes. By the time he blinked them clear, he had lost sight of the Maugrim. He turned in circles, calling out to them, but the wind snatched his voice away. He was lost, and this was the end of everything.

  A strong hand gripped his arm and pulled him to the side. The buffeting of the wind ceased, though Travis could still hear its keening. He rubbed his eyes and saw he was in a cave. Walls of rough stone pressed close, only the force was comforting rather than oppressive. In one direction lay the mouth of the cave; dust swirled beyond. In the other direction lay . . . what? Travis wasn't sure. It was as if a gray curtain hung over the back of the cave, its fabric billowing as air moved past it. A faint silver light hung on the air.

  “Do you live here?” Travis said, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Is this your home?”

  The man—the shaman—shook his head. We make our homes in such places, in the sheltered spaces of the ground. But not here. Not under the watching eyes of He-Who-Wields-The-Ice.

  The witch-woman let out a cackle. She pointed at Travis. Now this is He-Who-Wields-The-Ice. And He-Who-Wields-The-Flame-And-The-Gloom.

  Travis clenched his hand around the Stones. Their touch was solid and reassuring, lending him a small measure of strength. He moved deeper into the cave. The gray curtain undulated. Soft tendrils curled away from it, evaporating.

  It wasn't a curtain at all; it was a wall of fog. Only there was something queer about it—about the way it remained cohesive despite the air moving through the tunnel. He started to reach a hand toward it, then pulled back.

  “What is this?” he said. “Is this a way into the Twilight Realm?”

  The way can be found anywhere, the man said in his hooting language. Atop any lonely mountain, beneath any ancient tree, in the dim heart of any hollow hill. You have only to look for it.

  A cool tendril brushed Travis's face. “But what kind of place is the Twilight Realm? I've heard Falken talk about it, about how the Old Gods and the Little People retreated there a thousand years ago, but I don't really know what it is.”

  The old woman clucked her tongue. The Twilight Realm is not a place. It is a time. A time when the world was not so weary as it is now, when trees ruled the forests and clouds the mountaintops. A time when silence was the sweetest music, when the air had never been sundered by the sound of a smith's hammer against a forge, or by the cries of men dying on the swords of other men. A time when the gods were everywhere—in every hill and river and stone. A time of wildness, of beauty.

  Sorrow shone on her strange yet human face, and joy. Her hands fluttered to her breast, and she sighed.

  It was . . . it is . . . our time.

  Travis breathed. He didn't understand, not with words anyway. All the same, he could feel it in his heart: an ache, a longing, too deep and ancient to be expressed in such a recent and human invention as language. It was a peace, a power. A sense of belonging. For a moment he almost caught it, almost knew what it would be like not to try to master the world, but simply to be part of it—a single strand of the shining web that connected all things.

  Like the fog, he could not grasp it. The moment passed. The Stones weighed heavy in his hands.

  “How do I find the Dawning Stone?” he said.

  The Maugrim man pointed at the Imsari. They will know the way.

  The witch-woman nodded toward the wall of fog. Go. Tears ran down her weathered cheeks. Be the end of all things.

  Travis could find no words to reply. He gripped the Stones and stepped into the fog.

  In a heartbeat he was lost. The mist coiled around him, left and right, above and below. Something was wrong; he hadn't passed through. He had to go back.

  Travis stu
mbled in what he thought was the direction he had come from, but his hands didn't find the rough stone of the cave, just more cool fog. He called out to the Maugrim, but the mist filled his mouth, muffling his voice. This place was empty except for the fog and himself.

  No, there was something else here. A roar echoed through the mist: low and distant, yet drawing nearer. The fog swirled, agitated. The gloom deepened as a shadow drew closer.

  Mohg. He was here in the Twilight Realm. Or wherever this place was. Another cry sounded all around—hateful, longing. He was looking for Travis.

  Travis pressed forward, but it was no use; the mist and the shadow lay in every direction. The fog shuddered as another groan passed through it. The Lord of Nightfall was coming. He would find Travis, he would wrest the Stones from him. . . .

  The Stones. Travis had forgotten about the Great Stones. He brought his right hand close to his face, until he could see them glowing softly in the gloom. The Maugrim had said they would show him the way to the Dawning Stone. Only how?

  His right hand jerked, as if something tugged at it. Startled, he let go of the Stones. The three Imsari hovered before him, shining in the fog. Then they began to move.

  Travis was too surprised to do anything but follow. The glowing spheres floated swiftly, like tiny comets. The fog pushed against him, trying to hold him back, but he forced his way though it.

  “Krond,” he said, not trying to speak against the mist, but rather whispering with it. “Gelth. Sinfath.” The Stones knew their names. Their light brightened, driving back the fog, and Travis found he could move more freely.

  Again he spoke the names of the Imsari, and in so doing he caught a glimmer of knowledge. For so long Travis had resisted the power of the Stones; he had locked them away for fear of those who sought them, and for fear of the havoc he might wreak because he did not understand them. Only now that he had finally dared to speak their names, he realized he did understand them, at least a little.

  The Great Stones were everything. Creation, permanence, destruction—the Imsari combined all of those things, just as the Runelords had combined the arts of Runespeaking, Runebinding, and Runebreaking into one. However, while the magic of the Stones was like rune magic in a way, it was not the same. It was deeper, older. Fire, ice, twilight—these essences had been infused into them by the craft of the dark elf Alcendifar long ago. The runes Krond, Gelth, and Sinfath colored their powers. However, at their core, each of the three Stones was the same—a part of a whole greater than any one rune. Together, they might perform wonders. Or horrors.

  It was too late to stop them. The Stones raced forward, swifter now, as if they sensed what it was they sought. Travis hurled himself after them.

  The fog ended. Travis blinked and found himself in a forest. He turned around, expecting to see the curtain of mist behind him, but all he saw was trees marching away in silent ranks.

  In a way, it was like his first journey to Eldh. He had fallen through an impossible billboard, and had found himself in a forest with no sign of the portal, no way to get back home. However, while the gray-barked trees of this forest looked like valsindar, they were taller than the trees of the Winter Wood, and there was no sign of Falken Blackhand.

  “Hello?” Travis called out.

  The word echoed away among the trees. No reply came back. The three Stones whirred around Travis's head like insects. He held out his hand, and the Imsari settled onto it.

  “Which way do I go?”

  They glowed on his palm but did not move.

  Travis looked up, trying to see the sky, to see if it was broken in this place as in the world outside, but there was no gap in the leafy canopy. A drowsy green-gold light permeated the air, making him think of an afternoon in late summer, and he caught the cool sound of water flowing. A desire came over him to seek out the stream, to drink from its waters, and to lie down on its bank and doze. This was a peaceful place, an ancient place. Travis started toward the sound of the water.

  “Now is not the time for rest,” said a piping voice. “You will not find what you seek that way.”

  Travis turned around. A tiny man clad in a green jacket and yellow breeches sat on a fallen log ten paces away. His face was as brown as the forest loam, and his eyes as bright as river pebbles.

  Travis was beyond astonishment. “Trifkin Mossberry.”

  The little man stood on the log, doffed his feathered cap, and bowed.

  Travis took a step forward—slowly, afraid that if he moved suddenly the little man might vanish. He had first encountered Trifkin Mossberry and his troupe of curious actors in King Kel's keep. Then, on that fateful Midwinter's Eve more than a year ago, Trifkin had helped Travis and Grace to uncover the conspiracy of murder in Calavere. The next day, the little man had been gone. Travis had not seen him since.

  Until now.

  “Who are you?” Travis said. “Who are the Little People, really?”

  “A wordless song no longer sung. A memory of a time long lost except in the minds of forgotten gods. A dream.” Trifkin shrugged small shoulders. “Even we don't know who we are, and the world could not tell us, for when it came into being, we were already here. Just as we are here at its end.”

  Travis felt so heavy. The Stones seemed to weigh him down, as if they had grown larger. However, they still fit snugly in his right hand.

  “Does it have to end?”

  The tall trees swayed, as if a wind stirred their tops, though the balmy air of the forest was still.

  Trifkin sighed. “It has already ended. More times than there are trees, the world has been made and unmade and made anew. Always there is a Worldsmith. And always there is a Worldbreaker. Just as night follows day. You cannot change that. You can only choose what the world will be.”

  The trees danced in slow circles. Travis felt the first stirring of a cold wind. Always before, facing into the wind had brought a sense of limitless possibility to him. However, now it brought . . . fear. A low rumble shook the air, like the sound of thunder. The gold light dimmed.

  Travis's hand sweated around the Imsari. “What do I do?”

  “You know what you must do. Go to the Dawning Stone.”

  “But I don't know where it is.”

  Despite the sorrow in his eyes, Trifkin clapped his small hands and laughed. “Why, it's right beneath your boots.”

  This was too much for Travis. “What?” he croaked.

  Trifkin hopped down from the log. “Think, mortal man. You already know the answer. What happened at the making of the world?”

  It was hard, but Travis thought back to the stories the runespeakers had told him. “The Worldsmith spoke the First Rune, the rune Eldh, and the world came into being. Then he bound the First Rune into the Dawning Stone, so that the world would know permanence and endure.”

  “Yes,” Trifkin said. “Permanence.” He knelt and pressed his hands against the ground, digging his fingers into the soil.

  For a moment Travis stared, not comprehending. Then it struck him like a bolt of lightning. All this time he had been picturing the Dawning Stone as a piece of rock with a rune in it, like one of the creations of the Runebinders of old. But that was ludicrous. The Worldsmith was far more than a mere mortal wizard, and Eldh far more than a simple disk of stone.

  “The world,” Travis said softly. “The whole world Eldh is the Dawning Stone.”

  Trifkin held up his dirty hands and smiled.

  Travis staggered. “That doesn't make sense. Falken said the Dawning Stone was hidden in the Twilight Realm.”

  Trifkin cocked his head. “And have you not found it here?”

  Travis knelt and pressed his left hand to the ground. He felt it—the force of the rune Eldh, binding the world, holding it and everything on it together.

  And so the First Rune shall also be the Last Rune, spoke Jack's voice in his mind, for when it breaks, the world shall end, and in that instant all things will cease to be.

  The gold light dimmed. Dusk stole amon
g the trees, as if carried on the wind.

  “Night comes,” Trifkin said.

  Then the little man was gone, and Travis was alone.

  No, not alone. He could feel it drawing closer. A shadow—a thing forged of fury and hate, its heart consumed by a dragon and replaced by cold, hard iron.

  Mohg, Lord of Nightfall.

  The forest was dark now; the only light came from the Imsari. Travis laid them on the ground.

  “I don't know what to do,” he said simply.

  Yes you do, Travis, Jack's voice spoke in his mind. You are the Runebreaker. There is but one thing you can do.

  “No, Jack.” He clasped his hands together. “I don't want to destroy the world. I want to save it.”

  By the Lost Hand of Olrig, don't be so dim! Haven't you figured it out by now? Worldmaker and Worldbreaker—they're the same thing. You can't be one without being the other. Mohg knows that—that's why he wants to break the First Rune. Not to destroy the world, but to remake it in his own image.

  The trees rocked wildly under the force of the wind. Their trunks cracked and splintered as they fell over. One tree came crashing down beside Travis. A few feet more to one side, and it would have crushed him. He stared at the three Stones and dug his fingers into the dirt beside them. Jack was wrong, he had to be. Creation and destruction—they couldn't really be the same thing, could they?

  Except they were, and Beltan was right. Sometimes the only way to save something was to destroy it first.

  A shadow streaked toward Travis: vast, malevolent, unstoppable. The wind verged into a shriek. Trees burst apart in deafening explosions. The darkness was complete, save for the glow of the Stones. Silhouetted by their light, Travis saw a figure: tall and powerful beyond mortal imagining, a single, blazing eye staring from a face both beautiful and terrible. A maw opened, revealing fangs like daggers. Hands reached out, extending talons toward the Imsari.

  Mine, intoned a voice as deep as a midnight ocean.

  Travis looked up, into the one fiery eye, and a sharp smile cut across his lips.