The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  However, in passing through her shadow, she had exhumed memories she had forgotten as a means to survive, memories from twenty years ago: the night the orphange had burned down. She knew now what she had seen that night. The orphanage’s cook, Mrs. Fulch, being made into an ironheart. The bright, baleful form of the wraithling. And the figure emblazoned on the tapestry in the forbidden upstairs room: ancient, primal, its one staring eye filled with desire and hate.

  It was Mohg, Lord of Nightfall. The Old God who feared the coming of men and tried to claim Eldh for his own, only to be banished from the world by the alliance of the Old and New Gods—an alliance that could never happen again, for the Old Gods had since faded into the Twilight Realm. Somehow Mohg had found his way to Earth; his likeness in the Beckett-Strange Home for Children had proved that. He sought to use Earth as a bridge to Eldh, to lay claim to it once again, and to cast it under the gloom of night forever.

  “Well,” Melia said, regarding Falken, “did you find anything at the library?”

  He gazed into his empty cup. “Nothing that we don’t already know: how Mohg drank the blood of the dragon Hriss to gain the dark wisdom of how to claim Eldh for his own; how he tried to reach the Dawning Stone, to break the First Rune and remake Eldh in his image; and how the New Gods and Old Gods banded together, tricking Mohg into stepping beyond the circle of the world, then closing the way behind him, banishing him forever.”

  Aryn clutched her good left arm around herself, shivering despite the sunshine. “Only he wasn’t banished forever. Not if he finds a way back.”

  Beltan wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about what hasn’t happened yet, cousin. Mohg won’t get back—not if Falken has his way.”

  A small, black form hopped up onto the table—Melia’s kitten. Somehow, Grace had gotten used to the fact that the kitten never seemed to get a day older. Its golden eyes gleamed as it started stalking toward a bowl of milk. Melia picked the kitten up, and it let out a petulant mew .

  “So you found nothing else, then?” Melia said, petting the kitten as it struggled to get free. “I thought Briel would be a better record keeper than that.”

  The bard grunted. “You’re not the only one. Most of the books were falling apart or never finished at all. And there was one thing I found especially confusing. In the oldest of the books that recounted the story of Mohg, there was a passage that mentioned ‘those who were lost beyond the circle.’ But the book never said who they were. Do you have any idea what it might mean?”

  Melia lifted the wriggling kitten to her cheek; the little creature seemed to forget its displeasure and began to purr. “I’m not certain. As far as I know, none of the gods were slain in the war against Mohg. At least, none of the New Gods. The Old Gods were so strange and distant to us. Even though we worked with them, we understood them little. Then, so soon after the war, they faded away, back to their Twilight Realm. I suppose it’s possible some Old Gods perished in the battle, and that we didn’t even know about it.”

  Falken scratched his chin—in need of a shave, as usual. “Maybe,” he said, but that was all.

  They finished breakfast, then made their plans for the day. Melia mentioned that a message from the emperor had arrived just after dawn, inviting them to the palace tomorrow night.

  Falken rolled his eyes. “I haven’t been to so many feasts since we stayed at King Kel’s court.”

  “Or seen such poor manners,” Melia said with a look of displeasure.

  “Please,” Falken snorted. “That’s an insult to Kel’s wildmen. Have you seen how Ephesian’s courtiers eat? It must be high fashion to forgo using a napkin in Tarras.”

  Aryn shuddered. “Don’t remind me! My hand was so sticky after the Minister of the Treasury kissed it that I had to peel it away from his lips.”

  Grace supposed the invitation was largely her fault. In the absence of Lirith, it had been up to her to fulfill Ephesian’s ravenous new appetite for knowledge about morality and virtue. Grace wasn’t certain she was the best model in those topics, but she had enlisted Aryn’s help, and the emperor had gobbled up everything they had to tell him. Unfortunately, Ephesian had had a more difficult time convincing the members of his court—or the staff of his kitchens—of the value of moderation.

  “I really don’t see what you people have against feasts,” Beltan said in a wounded tone. “What could be wrong with eating until you burst?”

  Melia patted the big knight’s hand. “I think you just answered your own question, dear.”

  “Besides,” Grace said softly, “we have other things to do.”

  At once Beltan’s visage grew solemn. He nodded, as did the others. It was time to start searching again.

  In the ED, Grace had seen cases of phantom limbs: amputees who still felt the pain of appendages that were no longer there. In a way, what they were feeling was the same. Every time they sat at the table, it was agonizingly clear that some who should be there were not.

  What had happened those last seconds in the Etherion, they could only conjecture. The dome had been on the verge of collapse. Trapped on the other side of a chasm, Travis, Lirith, Durge, and Sareth had intended to use the gate artifact and a drop of blood from the Scarab of Orú to make their escape. But as Grace and the others waited outside, the four never appeared. Vani said transport through the gate was instantaneous. Which meant something had gone wrong.

  For a fortnight she had feared there hadn’t been enough time, that the Etherion had come crashing down upon the four before they had a chance to activate the gate. But the emperor’s army of laborers had worked swiftly, carting away the broken rubble of the Etherion so it could be built anew. Dozens of bodies were found in the destruction, some human, some not. But there had been no sign of Travis, Lirith, Durge, or Sareth.

  Which means they made it through the gate, Grace. They’re alive, they have to be.

  But where? The gate artifacts had the power to whisk one between worlds, and with blood as powerful as that in the scarab, there was no telling where the four had ended up.

  As servants—more gifts from the emperor—cleared away the remains of breakfast, Melia announced she was going to visit the temple of Mandu the Everdying. Some of the gods had begun to accept followers of Ondo, Sif, Geb, and Misar into their temples, which meant the lost sheep no longer needed Mandu to care for them.

  “Mandu’s work is nearly done,” Melia said, “and I fear when it is, he’ll pass on to another circle. I need to talk to him before he goes. He might have some wisdom that can help guide us in our own search.”

  Aryn, in turn, said she intended to visit the witches of Tarras that day. She had sought them out a few weeks before, in the grotto where Lirith had first found them.

  It had been difficult for the young baroness to get close to the witches, for they were secretive—there in a city that did not favor the old ways like those of Sia—but gradually she had gained the trust of Thesta, the leader of the coven. Several in the coven possessed the Sight, and Aryn hoped they might have seen something in their dreams.

  The baroness sighed. “If only I had the Sight like Lirith, maybe I would have seen something myself.”

  Grace squeezed her good hand. Aryn had her own powers, ones that seemed to grow by leaps and bounds every day.

  “Grace,” Falken said, “do you think I could borrow your necklace again today? Just for a little while?”

  Twice before, Falken had asked to study the steel shard of her necklace. Grace wondered what he did with it. He had said he was going to spend the day examining some of the notes he made at the Library of Briel. What did that have to do with her necklace? Grace didn’t know, but all the same she carefully removed the necklace and handed it to Falken. She felt strangely naked without it.

  Beltan was looking at her, his expression serious but eager. “Are we going to the university again today?”

  She drew in a deep breath, gathering her strength, knowing she was going to need it. “If you�
�ll come with me.”

  “Lead the way, my lady.”

  3.

  The University of Tarras occupied almost an entire quadrant of the city’s Second Circle. At first, when passing the high arch of its gates on the way to and from visiting the emperor, Grace had mistaken the precisely arranged quadrant of buildings— with their columned facades, elaborate friezes, and plethora of marble statuary—for a complex of temples. It was only one day when she stopped to ask a man approaching the gates to which god these temples were sacred that she learned the truth.

  Since that day, Grace had come to the university several times a week. Ephesian had given her a gold ring marked with the signet of the empire: three trees crowned by five stars. The ring possessed near-magical abilities to open doors in Tarras. The gatekeeper of the university had looked at her in suspicion when she first requested entrance. However, one flash of the ring, and he had hurriedly escorted her inside.

  On her first few visits, Grace had been content just to wander, eavesdropping on scholarly debates or speaking to those students or professors who seemed amenable to interruption. She soon gathered there were four main colleges in the university, each centered around one general topic: rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and history. While all of the colleges interested Grace, it was to the College of History that she directed her attention. It was the smallest of the four, located on the south end of the quadrant.

  In the college’s library, she discovered its focus was history in the broadest sense: both natural and civilized. Many of the library’s tomes and treatises concerned biology, comparative anatomy, and a rudimentary kind of chemistry. In addition, a large portion of the library was devoted to a collection of animal specimens that had been caught over the centuries and preserved for study. Grace opened drawer after drawer, encountering the skins and blindly staring skulls of animals she could not name, and which looked almost but not quite like primates, rodents, and marsupials.

  The faunas of Earth and Eldh are similar, Grace. Too similar. There’s simply no way they could have evolved this closely in parallel. But certainly things here have diverged, just like the animals of Australia did in isolation from the rest of the continents.

  But if it was true that the creatures of Earth and Eldh had diverged, then it was also true they shared a common ancestry. So when were the faunas of the two worlds exchanged?

  Intriguing as that question was, Grace forced herself to shut the specimen drawers and focus instead on the shelves of books. Her reason for coming to the university was simple: to learn something that could help them discover what had happened to Travis and the others.

  She spent days poring through tome after tome. Grace was particularly interested in any book that concerned the history of the southern continent of Moringarth and the ancient city-states of Amún. Morindu the Dark had been one of those city-states, and it was the sorcerers of Morindu who first learned of the world beyond the void—the world Earth—and created the gate artifacts to get there.

  Why they had wanted to find a way to Earth, Grace had no idea. Nor did the Mournish seem to know the answer—at least not any they had voiced—and they were the descendants of the people of Morindu. But it didn’t matter. Grace just wanted to learn more about how the gate artifacts functioned, not why they were created.

  Grace was surprised when, after her first few visits to the university, Beltan asked if he could help her. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for his company; it was simply that she knew the knight’s career had left him little time for more scholarly pursuits. However, once she recovered from her astonishment, she gladly accepted his help.

  Now, as they once again sat at a long table scattered with books they had pulled from dusty shelves, Grace regarded the big man. A hand held his thinning, white-blond hair back from his high forehead, which was furrowed in concentration. His lips were moving, and Grace knew he was sounding out the words scribed by hand on the page before him.

  Beltan was literate, but only barely. Of course, even that was something of an accomplishment for a man of war living in a medieval world. However, Grace had spent some time coaching him, and since then his reading had improved rapidly. His eyes moved eagerly over the page. Whatever Beltan thought of himself, he was not stupid. Still, Grace wondered why he really wanted to join her on her forays to the university.

  Maybe he’s coming for the same reason you are, Grace. To have something to do that at least seems constructive, even if it’s a long shot.

  Tired of her own book, and having found nothing in it about gates, Grace rested her chin on a hand, watching the knight. “So, are you planning to trade in your sword for a student’s robe?”

  He looked up with a grin. Beltan’s face was plain except when he smiled, and then it became brilliantly handsome. “I just might at that,” he said, then bent back over his book.

  Smiling, Grace returned her attention to the tome before her. Beltan wasn’t the only one whose reading skills were improving. While it was still easier to read when the silver half-coin was about her person, she found that even without it she could pick her way through just about any book in the library, even those written in archaic dialects. What’s more, she was nearly fluent in spoken Eldhish now, although one day when she experimented with this, Beltan told her she had a peculiar accent.

  “It’s like you’re talking with your nose pinched shut. Underwater. And with a mouthful of bread. But otherwise you sound wonderful, Grace.”

  After that, she stuck to keeping the half-coin in the small pouch at her belt—although it was nice to know she’d be able to make do in a pinch.

  A thought occurred to her. The silver half-coin granted her the ability to speak Eldhish. And she knew the fairy blood Beltan had been infused with, and which had healed him, had also allowed him to speak English when he was in Denver.

  So maybe his newfound skill at reading isn’t exactly a coincidence, Grace.

  As the sun crept across the mosaic floor, and students in brown robes shuffled quietly in and out of the library, Grace worked her way through several more tomes, including The Rise and Fall of Amún , The God Kings: Holy Tyrants of the South, and Blood Ritual in the City States of Moringarth— Myth or Magic? However, as interesting as some of them were, none contained anything about gate artifacts.

  At last, head aching and eyes bleary, she shoved aside the books. How many tomes had she read these last weeks? A hundred? Whatever the number, it was only a fraction of what lined the precisely organized shelves that were the antithesis of Falken’s description of the Library of Briel. There was so much knowledge here—there had to be something that would help them. They just needed a better system for finding it.

  “I wish Durge were here,” she said, not realizing she had spoken aloud until Beltan looked up.

  “It’s all right, Grace.” He reached across the table, covering her hand with his. It was large and marked with white scars. “We’ll find them somehow.”

  Grace smiled, and amazingly the expression wasn’t forced. The knight’s strength these last weeks had been a crutch all of them had leaned upon. Beltan loved Travis; the knight should have been a wreck. Only somehow he wasn’t.

  After they returned to Eldh, after the fairy healed him, Beltan had been empty and broken, consumed by the shadow of his past, whatever it was. She knew only that it had to do with someone the knight said he had slain; although, as a warrior, certainly he had been forced to kill many in battle. Yet ever since they faced the demon in the Etherion, it seemed Beltan had left his shadow behind him just as Grace had. Now the knight was as bright and full of humor as she remembered him, as if Travis’s vanishing had not caused despair, but instead had granted him new life and purpose.

  What knight doesn’t need a quest, Grace? And now he has one: to find Travis, no matter what it takes.

  No matter the reason for his transformation, it was good to have the old Beltan back. Although, whether it was the strange blood that now ran in his veins or something else he h
ad gained along the way, there were changes in the knight. Sometimes she could glimpse the hidden light of his face even when he wasn’t smiling, and there was a depth to his green eyes she had never seen before.

  He cocked his head, and only then did she realize she had been staring.

  “What is it, Grace?”

  She fumbled for words. “It’s nothing. I was just—”

  “You can see it, can’t you?” His words were soft. “But I suppose it makes sense. After all, you saw it in me before, on the road to Spardis. My shadow.”

  She shook her head. “Beltan, you don’t have to—”

  “No, it’s all right, Grace. The past doesn’t own us. That’s what we learned in the Etherion, isn’t it? And I think I’ve wanted to tell someone for a while now. I think maybe I have to.”

  Grace couldn’t move. The knight tightened his grip on her hand. He didn’t look at her as he spoke, but instead at a half circle of cobalt sky outside a high window.

  “For so many years, I searched for the man who murdered my father, King Beldreas. I suppose I thought if I avenged his death, I might somehow finally win his approval. Vathris knows, I never could seem to get it when he was alive, as much as I longed for it. Only then, in Spardis, I learned the truth. I had known my father’s murderer all along. You see, it was me.”

  For several hushed minutes, Grace listened, frozen, as the knight described what the Necromancer Dakarreth had revealed to him in the baths beneath Castle Spardis: how the Pale King had ordered Dakarreth to go forth and sow strife in the Dominions; how Dakarreth had stolen into Beltan’s dreams, compelling the knight to take up a knife and drive it into his father’s back; and how, as he reopened Beltan’s old wound, the Necromancer had at last let Beltan relive the terrible moment in his memories.

  The knight fell silent, and Grace found the power to move, laying her other hand atop his. “Oh, Beltan...”