The Last Rune 5: The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  “Too late,” he said.

  The blazing eye widened. The talons lashed out, only too slow. Larad was right. Despite an eon of exile, this moment had come sooner than Mohg had expected; he was not prepared.

  Travis was. He lifted his muddy hands from the ground, pressed them on top of the three Stones, and cried out the word with all his being.

  Reth!

  Travis braced himself for terrible thunder, for a blinding flash. He waited to feel the ground buckle and crack beneath him, for fire to rain down from above, to feel his body being ripped to shreds. Instead there was . . .

  . . . nothing. Nothing at all.

  It didn't work, Jack, he called out in his mind. You were wrong—I'm not the Runebreaker after all. It didn't work.

  He tried to laugh, only he could make no sound.

  Jack?

  Travis heard nothing, not even the beat of his own heart. All was silence. The forest was gone, and he drifted in some sort of fog. Was this the mist that bordered the Twilight Realm?

  No, it was different. Even then, he had been able to see different shades of gray swirling in the mist. Here, everything was the same color, though exactly what color it was, he couldn't say. It was neither white nor black, neither light nor dark, neither warm nor cold. It was nothing.

  And it was everything at once.

  He had always feared the end of the world because he had imagined it as a violent happening: a time of boiling seas and crumbling stone, of screams cried out in pain and fear, of blood and mayhem. Of death. But he had been so absurdly wrong.

  For when it breaks, the world shall end, and in that instant all things will cease to be. . . .

  The words were a whisper in his mind, though whether they were spoken by a voice or a memory of a voice, he couldn't be sure.

  Jack?

  Again there was no reply. He was alone. Truly alone. The world was gone. Eldh was no more. He was the very last being in all of existence.

  Or the very first.

  That was when he sensed it, like the first whisper of a wind in the stillness. It made him think of Castle City, of standing on the boardwalk outside the Mine Shaft Saloon and turning to face the wind as it raced down from the mountains. Waiting to see what it would blow his way.

  He felt it now—the sweet ache of endless possibilities. The old world was no more. The new world was yet to be. And it could be anything he chose to make it. Joy filled him, and power. Like a billion doors, the possibilities opened before him—a different world beyond each one. What should he choose? A world without hatred, without fear, without violence?

  Yes, there was such a world. He reached toward it . . . then recoiled. The people in that world huddled in mud huts, staring with listless eyes at smoky fires, their bodies filthy and covered with sores. They spoke no stories, sang no songs, made no music. They had no fears, no cares, no worries. And no hopes, no desires, no dreams.

  Did such things have to go hand in hand? He had chosen the wrong door, that was all. Travis moved toward another, toward a world without hunger, without pain, without sorrow.

  He saw a modern city, not unlike Denver, but its lines cleaner, sharper. In it, a mother walked down a street. She stared at the dead child in her arms, then let it fall to the gutter as she continued on. Nearby, a man had been struck by a car. He flopped in the street, confusion on his face, not agony. No one stopped to help him. He dragged himself to the edge of the street, trailing shattered legs, then died. A street sweeping truck drove by, scooped up the bodies, and drove on. The sky was dark with soot; no one looked up.

  No, that wasn't what he had meant. Travis turned away and flung open another door. In this world, there was no such thing as death. He saw a village like that below Castle Calavere, its dirt streets littered with bundles of sticks.

  Horror blossomed in him. They weren't sticks, but people—withered, decrepit people. They raised desiccated arms, staring with milky eyes, opening toothless mouths in moans of suffering, begging for release. Passersby stared at them with hate, then hurried past.

  Travis fled. That wasn't it. A world of peace, of joy, of beauty, that was what he wanted. He found a door beyond which people danced and laughed, smiles on their simple faces. Yes, this was right. Then he drew closer and saw more. At night, monsters dragged the children from their beds and ate them. The people made it a game; they never spoke of the ones who went missing. They simply danced and clapped their hands as shadows prowled just beyond the lights of their small, happy towns.

  A thousand doors he opened, and Travis glimpsed a thousand terrible worlds beyond them. He cried out into the nothingness, but there was no one to listen to him. It wasn't supposed to be like this. There had been such sorrow in the old world. War and hatred and violence. What was the use of being the Worldsmith if he couldn't create a world without these things? He wanted a world without pain and suffering, without despair. A world where Beltan and Vani's daughter had a hope of growing up . . .

  Travis stopped, letting himself drift in the fog. He reached up to touch the bone talisman at his throat, but of course, like all things, it did not exist.

  Yet it could.

  He knew a world where there had been pain, and sadness, and death, and where all the same people kept on going, kept on fighting, kept on living. Because they had hope. Hope that they and the ones they loved could someday be happy. Hope that, after night, another day would come.

  Yes, he knew a world where there was hope.

  Travis searched, and he saw it at once among all of the other possibilities. It seemed so dim and imperfect. No wonder he hadn't noticed it before; surely there were far better worlds to choose than this. Maybe, if he had been a god, he could have found those worlds. But Travis wasn't a god. He was a man. A man who loved and hated. Who laughed and wept. Who feared. And who hoped.

  Even as he wondered how to make his choice, he did.

  Eldh, he whispered to the mist. For the world to be, I choose the world that was.

  Somewhere, there was a sound like a door shutting.

  And then.

  60.

  Beneath a flawless cerulean sky, Grace Beckett, Queen of Malachor, opened her eyes.

  For a time she simply lay there without moving, nestled in the embrace of the ground, content to gaze upward. The sunlight was like a warm caress on her cheeks, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. She couldn't remember ever seeing anything so beautiful as this sky in all her life.

  “Over here!” a man's voice shouted, breaking the silence. “I've found her—over here!”

  More shouts came in reply, though too distant for Grace to make out what was said. She heard the thud of boots draw closer, followed by the jingle of chain mail as someone knelt beside her. She couldn't see who it was; the sky filled her gaze.

  “Your Majesty, can you hear me?” said a man, the same one who had shouted. “Are you well?”

  What a strange question! She felt no pain, no fear, no sorrow. Why shouldn't she be well? Nothing could possibly be wrong when you were already dead. She would lie here in the embrace of the ground and watch the sky forever.

  The sound of more boots, as well as lighter footsteps and the soft swish of wool. This time it was a woman's voice who spoke. “What is it, Sir Tarus? Oh, by Sia, she's not . . . ?”

  “No, her eyes are open, thank the Seven, but she won't answer me. Your Majesty—lend me a hand.”

  Strong hands reached down, gripping her, pulling her upward, and the sky tilted. Black shapes hove into view, jagged as teeth. Mountains. She gasped as the hands sat her upright, and cold air rushed into her lungs.

  “Lay me back in the ground,” she murmured. “I'm dead. Lay me back down.”

  “I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, Your Majesty,” the man said with a laugh, “but you're very much alive.” Amazement stole into his voice. “Somehow we all are, though I don't have the foggiest idea how that can be.”

  Grace blinked, and three faces came into focus before her. Tarus and Teravia
n held her shoulders, and Aryn knelt before her, relief in her sapphire eyes.

  “Thank Sia you're alive,” the young witch said. “We've been searching the battlefield for hours, but we couldn't find you, and night comes soon. Only we didn't give up hope.”

  “We must have walked right past this place a dozen times,” Teravian said. The wind blew his dark hair from his brow. “We were certain you fell somewhere near here, Your Majesty, only we couldn't sense your thread. The Weirding is a tangle of life and death here.”

  “It was this blasted crack in the ground,” Tarus said. “She was wedged down inside of it. There was no way to see her unless you were three paces away.” The red-haired knight grinned at her. “And I still wouldn't have found you, Your Majesty, if it hadn't been for your breath. It's getting colder, and I saw a white puff rise up from the ground.”

  Aryn threw her left arm around Grace. “We were near you when it all happened, only we lost track of you in the chaos. We saw you strike down the Pale King. Then everything went mad.”

  Piece by piece, the shards of memories came together in Grace's mind. She remembered ancient eyes, burning with hatred in a face as pale as frost. “He was about to strike me down with his scepter. I couldn't stop him. Only then the sky . . . there was a terrible sound, and something happened to the sky. Berash looked up, and I saw a gap in his armor. I thrust at it with my sword.” She looked around. “My sword . . .”

  “There, Your Majesty,” Teravian said, pointing into the narrow pit in the ground from which they had pulled her. “I'm afraid you won't be wielding Fellring again.”

  She must have fallen on top of them in the pit: several shards of steel. The sword ended in a broken stump just above the hilt. It had done what it had been forged to do; she would not need it again.

  Thank you, Sindar, she whispered in her mind.

  The shadows of the mountains stretched out over the vale, and Grace shivered. Somehow the world was still here, and she wasn't dead after all.

  “I think I'd like to stand up now,” she said.

  Wanting and doing were two different things, but with the help of the two men Grace got her feet beneath her. The feeling of wellness was gone. Her sword arm ached, and she couldn't feel her right hand at all.

  “It's cold as ice,” Aryn said, touching Grace's hand.

  She murmured a spell, and Grace felt the warmth of the Weirding flow into her. The pain in her arm receded, and her hand burned with a thousand hot pinpricks. She concentrated and found she could move her fingers.

  Turning, Grace gazed out over the vale toward the Rune Gate, which yawned like a dark maw. The Gate stood open, but she saw no sign of the enemy—only the abandoned siege engines, which hulked like gigantic scarecrows over the battlefield. The floor of the vale was white in the gloaming. Had it snowed while she was asleep?

  Another shiver passed through her. It wasn't snow that covered the ground. It was a layer of bones, stretching all the way to the foot of the mountains.

  “The Pale King's army,” she said, clutching Tarus's arm. “What happened to them?”

  “They're dead,” the knight said.

  “But how?”

  Together, Tarus, Aryn, and Teravian did their best to describe what had happened, though it was hard for them to put into words exactly what they had seen. What they told her fused with what she recalled herself, and an amalgam of the truth began to form in her mind. It was dim and incomplete, but she thought perhaps she understood.

  The feydrim, the wraithlings, the ironheart wizards and witches—even, it seemed, the trolls of the Icewold—all had been created by the dark magic of the Necromancers, who themselves had been forged by the will of the Pale King. When Berash perished, so did everything he had created.

  A thousand years ago, in this same vale, when King Ulther plunged Fellring into Berash's chest, shattering the Pale King's iron heart, the Necromancers had been there; they had managed to pour some of their essence back into Berash, sustaining him until his heart could be reforged.

  This time, there were no Necromancers to save the Pale King. Shemal was the last of her kind, and wherever she might be, she had not shown herself in this place. When Fellring shattered his heart, Berash had died—truly, finally—and so did everything he had brought into being with his dark enchantments. Only the bones remained.

  Tarus moved to a jumbled heap of armor. It was forged of black metal; spikes jutted from it. “You did it, Your Majesty. You slew the Pale King.” With the toe of his boot, he kicked at a helm crowned by antlers of iron. The helmet rolled over; it was empty.

  Grace stared at the fallen armor, pressing her aching arm against her chest. It seemed impossible. He had been a figure of dread majesty, and she was a skinny mortal woman. All the same, she had defeated him. She should have been relieved, only she wasn't. Something nagged at her. Then, as the sun touched the tips of the mountains, she had it.

  “Mohg,” she said, staring at the dying sun. “The Pale King wasn't the real master of these creatures. Mohg was. He created Berash, just as Berash made the Necromancers and they made the feydrim and wraithlings. These things shouldn't have died when the Pale King did.”

  Teravian shrugged. “Maybe Mohg's power couldn't sustain them. After all, he's still banished beyond the circle of the world.”

  Grace looked up at the sky. Cerulean had deepened to cobalt. “Beyond the circle of the world,” she murmured.

  “Can you walk, sister?” Aryn said, touching her arm. “It's growing colder. We should return to the keep.”

  Tarus nodded. “Sir Paladus and Sir Vedarr are in charge of things there at the moment, but I imagine they'll be more than happy to turn command over to you, Your Majesty. There are many who are wounded, and the sight of you alive will lend all the men heart. I know Master Graedin and All-master Oragien in particular will be glad to see your face.”

  “Wait a moment,” Teravian said. “We won't want to forget these.” He took off his cloak, then laid the broken shards of Fellring on it. He wrapped them up in the cloak and held the bundle toward Grace.

  She gave him a wan smile, then gestured to her right arm. “Would you do the honors, Your Majesty? I don't think I'll be carrying any swords, broken or not, for a while.”

  The four of them moved slowly toward the passage that led back to the keep. Though the light was beginning to fail, men still combed the battlefield, looking for any survivors they might have missed, and gathering the bodies of their comrades who had fallen. The Spiders Aldeth and Samatha were directing the search, and the witches Senrael and Lursa assisted them, seeking out the life threads of any who still lived.

  It was grim work, but according to Tarus it was nearly done. Of the five thousand men that had marched to Gravenfist Keep, over a thousand were lost forever, and many hundreds more would never fully recover from their wounds, but that they were not all dead was a miracle Grace still could not comprehend.

  They had nearly reached the door to the secret passage when a massive figure strode over the battlefield toward them. It took Grace a moment to realize it was Kel. His bushy red beard had been shaved off, and without it the petty king looked younger and jollier—more like an overfed monk than a warrior-chieftain.

  “Your Majesty!” he cried out, clamping big arms around her and lifting her off the ground. “By Jorus, you're alive!”

  Grace gritted her teeth. “Not for much longer if you keep that up.”

  Kel set her back down. “Sorry about that.” He turned his head, gazing from side to side.

  “Have you lost something?” Tarus said.

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” Kel said with a grunt. “I've lost my witch. Somehow I managed to misplace her during the fray, and now I can't find her.”

  “Maybe she's back at the keep,” Aryn offered.

  Kel scowled. “I've already tried there, but no one's seen her. This is most bothersome. I need her to look at her runes and tell me whether it would be auspicious to grow my beard back or not.”
He clenched a meaty fist. “The wretched hag is hiding from me somewhere.”

  “How about right in front of your face, Your Obliviousness?” croaked an acidic voice.

  As one they turned to see a ragged form shambling toward them on stick-thin legs. Grisla halted before Grace and bared her lone tooth in a grin. “Greetings, Queen of Malachor.”

  The hag bowed low, and Grace was so flustered she started to bow in return until Tarus caught her arm.

  Kel glared at the crone. “What about me, hag? Aren't you going to show me proper obeisance? And where have you been all this time?”

  She thrust her hands against her lumpy hips and rolled her one bulbous eye. “I've been seeing to more important things than the fur on your face, Your Hairiness. I've been searching for stragglers on the battlefield. In fact, I've just found some.” She gestured with a knobby hand.

  Grace and the others looked up. Five figures walked toward them—slowly, as if exhausted beyond imagining. At first they were only silhouettes in the gloom. Then one last stray beam of sunlight found its way through a gap in the mountains to fall on the battlefield, illuminating their faces.

  There is a joy that is beyond expression in words. It is experienced, not by the heart or by the mind, but by the soul—a sudden sense of rightness so clear and perfect that man's fleeting glimpses of it are surely what first gave him the idea of heaven.

  Grace felt such a joy now. The sunlight made their faces shine, as if illuminated from within, so that each of them was more fair than she remembered. Melia and Falken. Beltan and Vani clad in strange, primitive leathers. And . . .

  “Travis,” she whispered, and then louder, with all the force of her joy. “Travis!”

  She staggered forward, then he was running. He caught her in his arms, holding her with gentle strength. Her right arm wasn't much use, but she gripped him with the left, holding on with all her might. Like Vani and Beltan, he wore clothes made of aurochs hide, though his were stained orange with ocher.

  The others reached them, and Grace was being held by Falken and Melia at once, and she was dimly aware that both the bard and the lady were weeping. Before she knew it, Beltan scooped her up in his arms, and she didn't care—she couldn't feel pain, not now. Then she found herself gazing into gold eyes. Vani. She embraced the T'gol, and as she did Grace felt the faint swelling of the other woman's stomach.