The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  They took the same places at the table they had the night before. Once again, there was an empty seat to the lord’s left: cup, knife, and trencher all placed carefully, as if an important guest would arrive at any moment. As they ate, Elwarrd inquired after their day: how they passed it, and how they were feeling. Grace explained that Leweth had brought her things to make medicines, and that these had helped, and this seemed to please the lord.

  “And how did you pass your day, my lord?” Grace asked, not sure if it was polite to question one’s host, but Elwarrd seemed not to mind her attention.

  “In a most dull fashion, my lady,” he said with a smile that was at once pained and self-mocking, and charming for it. “Since I have no vassals left, it’s up to me to see to affairs around my fiefdom. I’ve only just returned to the keep. It was all riding from holding to holding, counting heads of cattle and checking stores of grain against mold.”

  “It sounds interesting,” Grace said.

  “And now you’re lying, my lady. But duplicity suits you, so you are forgiven.”

  Grace lifted the wine cup to her lips to hide her smile. She filled the cup again and handed it to Elwarrd. As he leaned close, she noticed he didn’t smell of rain and sweat, as she might have expected given his day’s activities. Instead he smelled of smoke and soap. Castle smells.

  When Elwarrd glanced at a passing servant, she shifted slightly in her chair and looked down so that she could see the lord’s boots. They were clean, without any speck of mud. Yet it had rained all day outside. Surely the roads and paths around the keep were a quagmire.

  Perhaps you’re not the only one being duplicitous, Grace.

  But that was foolish. Even if Elwarrd hadn’t told her all he’d done that day, it was his right. They were strangers, and it was hardly his duty to tell them his private activities.

  As they ate, Grace stole several glances at the gallery above the hall. However, as far as her eyes could tell, the wooden platform was empty of anything but shadows. Then again, Grace knew shadows could trick the eye, and also that she had other ways to look.

  While the others were distracted by a joke Beltan was telling, Grace shut her eyes and reached out with the Touch. The life threads of the others glimmered around her, strong and bright, although she could still see the touches of sickness in Beltan, Vani, and Falken. Leweth’s thread was a bit on the dim side. That wasn’t a surprise; he was a kind young man, but not particularly vibrant. However, Elwarrd’s strand was a blazing green. Grace had to resist the urge to entangle her own thread with it. Instead, she willed her consciousness up toward the gallery.

  Coldness filled her, drowning her like the frigid waters of the ocean. The gallery was empty. Not empty like a room in which there were no people or animals, for even there the residual power of the Weirding would linger in air and stone. Instead, the gallery was a void, as if every last thread of life had been excised from that space with a cruel knife.

  Then, in the emptiness, something moved.

  “My lady, are you well?”

  Her eyes opened, and she saw Elwarrd’s face close to her own, his eyes concerned. She was dimly aware that the others were gazing at her, and more sharply aware that the lord’s hand was resting on her arm, warm and strong. She must have been swaying in her chair while her eyes were closed.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, but her voice quavered.

  “On the contrary,” the earl said, “you’re ill, and I’ve kept you away from your rest far too long. But I thank you for your company tonight. It would have been lonely otherwise.”

  The lord stood, and Beltan moved around the table, helping Grace to rise. They bid the earl good night, then followed Leweth out of the hall.

  As they walked, Beltan bent down and whispered in her ear. “What happened back there? You were casting a spell, weren’t you? I’ve seen you do it enough to know what it looks like. You go all still, like you’re made of stone.”

  “In the gallery,” Grace whispered to the knight. “Did you see anything up there while we ate?”

  “No, I didn’t. Why?”

  Grace moistened her lips. She still felt sickened by the overwhelming feeling of emptiness that had engulfed her when she probed the gallery. The space had been utterly devoid of life. Yet all the same, something had been up there.

  “It was Death, Beltan,” she murmured. “It was Death, and it was watching us.”

  25.

  Her Highness, the Lady Aryn, Baroness of Elsandry, Countess of the Valley of Indarim, and Mistress of the lands north of the River Goldwine and south of the Greenshield Downs, felt cold, dirty, more than a little nauseous, and anything but noble as she rode her bay mare up the winding road to Castle Calavere, accompanied by Lady Melia and Sir Tarus.

  On the journey north from Tarras, there had been many long leagues over which to resign herself to the fact that King Boreas was in all likelihood going to kill her the moment he laid eyes on her. Last summer, she had stolen away from Calavere without his leave to follow after Grace, and she had gone first east and then south without the king’s permission. What was more, she had traveled in the company of both witches and the bard Falken Blackhand, and which of these two Boreas disliked and mistrusted the more would be a sore contest to decide.

  Don’t be a goose, Aryn, she chided herself. Boreas can’t kill you if he’s going to marry you off for political gain. The groom will almost certainly notice if you’re deceased, thus considerably reducing the value of the alliance.

  Unless, that was, he was marrying her to Duke Calentry. The duke was said to be the oldest man still living in the Dominion of Calavan, and it was whispered there were scare-crows with more flesh and animation. If she met her demise before her wedding, well then, the old duke would simply find her to be all the more companionable.

  “Are you well, dear?” Melia said to Aryn, concern in her amber eyes. The lady seemed to float on the back of her white mare.

  Aryn managed an expression she hoped could be mistaken for a smile. “I’m fine. Really. Though on the off chance I faint and fall into the muck, I do trust Sir Tarus will be gallant enough to retrieve me.”

  “Of course, Your Highness,” said the red-haired knight, who rode his massive charger to her left. “Right after I’ve finished having a well-earned laugh.”

  Aryn glanced at Melia. “You’ve had a knight protector before. Are they always like this?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Melia said with a pained sigh. “I believe it’s a fundamental flaw in their makeup. It has to do with all that metal they wear. As far as I can tell, it prevents proper functioning of the brain.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” Aryn said.

  Tarus flashed his teeth in a dashing smile and bowed in the saddle. “I am ever at your service, my ladies.”

  Despite the butterflies in her stomach, Aryn couldn’t help laughing. Not for the first time, she found herself wishing her husband-to-be was someone full of cheer like Sir Tarus. Not that Tarus would be particularly glad to have her, of course; she knew he had heard the call of his bull god, just as Sir Beltan had. But no doubt he would do his husbandly duties as custom demanded, and she would not grudge him the time he spent with his fellow soldiers, if in turn he’d leave her to her studies with the Witches. As long as they produced an heir and ruled well in Elsandry, nothing else would be expected of them. It would be an amenable match.

  For a moment she amused herself with the fantasy that her husband would indeed be such a man. Then a cart rattled by them, splattering mud onto Aryn’s gown, and jerking her back into the gray, early Valdath day.

  Your marriage is to serve as an alliance, Aryn, you know that. King Boreas will marry you where he can achieve the most political gain—as he rightly should. A man like Calentry is far more likely for you than one like Tarus.

  Sometimes she thought of the stories Grace had told of her world: a place where women could make their own way, where they could choose when and whom to marry, if they married at all. But
this was her world, not Grace’s.

  And whom would you marry anyway, if it could be anyone?

  She shut her eyes, trying to imagine someone young, full of charm and grace, and who would not look at her withered right arm as anything other than what it was: a part of her. Lirith had the Sight and could sometimes glimpse the future. Was it possible Aryn possessed some fraction of that same talent? She didn’t know, but after a moment a face came to her.

  Only it wasn’t smooth and handsome. Instead, the man’s face was craggy and somber, with deep-set brown eyes that bespoke a lifetime of sorrow, and a boundless loyalty, and above all an abiding gentleness. Aryn gasped as her eyelids fluttered open.

  Tarus was gazing at her. “Casting a spell, my lady?” His grin returned. “I’m immune, you know. All that metal. It keeps witch magic out.”

  Aryn willed her troubled thoughts aside and returned Tarus’s grin. “That’s what you think, Sir Tarus.”

  The knight started to laugh, then stopped short, clearly unsure if she was joking or not.

  Aryn laughed. Despite the stone walls of the castle that loomed above them, she found her spirits lifting. She didn’t know what she would have done without Tarus and Melia on the journey north. Tarus always had a jest or some foolish story to make her groan and take her mind off what awaited her in Calavere. And while Aryn wasn’t certain she would ever feel like she truly knew Melia, the lady had been nothing but kind these last three weeks. Aryn had never known her mother; she had died while giving birth to Aryn. It was nice to think she might have been a little bit like Melia.

  Aryn knew it wasn’t simply out of kindness that Melia had decided to come on this journey. Sir Tarus had spoken of growing troubles in the Dominions, and no doubt Melia wished to observe these for herself. However, they had seen little evidence of strife themselves. The late-autumn weather had been cool and moist, and the villages they had passed through had all been quiet and sleepy now that the last harvest was safely brought in. Then again, Calavan was the southernmost of all the Dominions, and Aryn had learned last Midwinter that it was from the north that ill winds most often blew.

  They rode through the castle’s main gate as the guards knelt on the cobblestones, having recognized Aryn, but the three travelers didn’t stop. They made their way through the lower bailey—thronging with activity—and then through the gate that led to the upper bailey and the main keep.

  King Boreas’s seneschal, Lord Farvel, was waiting for them at the stables. He was a man well past his seventieth winter, with white hair and a kindly visage—although the expression was marred somewhat by the paralysis that afflicted the left side of his face, a result of a collapse he had suffered some years ago, and which had also weakened his left arm and leg. Boreas had called Farvel away from a comfortable retirement at his manor in western Calavan to serve as seneschal after Lord Alerain’s death.

  Aryn had kind memories of Lord Farvel. He had served as the king’s marshal some years before, and when she was younger he would let her sit upon whatever horse in the stable she wanted, provided it wasn’t too wild. The seneschal smiled when he saw her, and he knelt—rather clumsily—as Tarus helped her dismount. She let him kiss her hand, then begged him to rise, letting him lean on her arm as he did. Farvel shouldn’t be kneeling on hard stones, no matter what custom dictated.

  “Your Highness, it is a joy to see you again,” the seneschal said, breathing hard, warmth shining in his eyes. “I thank you, Sir Tarus, for delivering her safely. And your presence is a welcome surprise, Lady Melia. I’m certain the king will appreciate your attending his ward.”

  “I’ll see to it he does,” Melia said, smoothing her kirtle, which unlike Aryn’s gown and Tarus’s tunic was unblemished by dust or grime.

  Farvel turned toward Aryn. “King Boreas has been most anxious for your return, Your Highness, and he wishes to see you at once.”

  “That’s nice,” Aryn said. “But I don’t wish to see him.” Farvel’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “Your Highness, perhaps I did not make myself plain. The king gave strict orders that I bring you to his chamber the moment you arrive.”

  “That sounds like the king, all right,” Aryn said. “But I’m sure he’ll find our reunion much more pleasant if I’ve had a bath and have donned fresher and more proper attire.” What was more, that would give her time to compose herself and think. She still hadn’t decided exactly what she was going to say to Boreas when she first saw him. Or how much to tell him.

  Farvel wrung his hands. “But Your Highness—”

  “Has made herself very clear, my lord,” Melia said, her voice commanding.

  Farvel sputtered, then turned and hobbled into the stable to make arrangements for their horses.

  “It’s always best to meet others on your own terms,” Melia said, her tone approving. “You’ve learned a great deal since I first met you.”

  Aryn reached out and took the lady’s hand. “I’ve had good teachers. Boreas may be my king, but a lady still has certain rights, and I’m going to exercise them.”

  Tarus let out a snort. “You women are determined to take over the world, aren’t you?”

  Melia gave the knight a pitying smile. “The poor dears. Don’t they know that we already have?”

  Aryn laughed as Melia took her good arm, and together they entered the castle, Tarus grumbling behind them.

  An hour later, Aryn’s cheerful spirits were nowhere to be found. She walked through the familiar corridors of Calavere, warm and clean after her bath, clad in a gown the same blue-gray color of the dusk settling outside the windows. One of the king’s guards had offered to accompany her to Boreas’s chamber, but she had declined. She needed a moment alone to prepare herself for what she was about to do.

  No matter how she looked at it, she had been able to come to only one conclusion: She couldn’t tell the king about her studies with the Witches. Because if she did, then she would have to tell him what the Witches believed, and what they planned— how they intended to keep watch upon the warriors who worshipped Vathris Bullslayer, and to work against them.

  From what little Aryn knew, the Warriors of Vathris believed that a Final Battle was coming. What was more, they believed they were destined to lose this battle, but that in the fighting of it they would gain great glory, and in death they would dwell in the halls of their bull god.

  Like the Warriors, the Witches also believed a great conflict was coming—a conflict precipitated by the one they named Runebreaker, and who Aryn was forced to admit was none other than Travis Wilder. The Warriors seemed ready, even eager for this conflict to come. Thus the Witches feared the Warriors intended to fight on the side of Runebreaker in the Final Battle. So in the weaving of the Pattern, they had decided to work against the men of Vathris.

  And it was because of the Pattern that Aryn could tell Boreas nothing of this.

  It was only a few weeks ago that she finally understood what it truly meant to be bound to the Pattern. Ivalaine had commanded her to follow Melia and Falken to Tarras, to keep watch, and to send a missive at once if Travis Wilder returned to Eldh. Then Travis did return. Only in the chaos of working against the sorcerers of Scirath and the demon, there had been no time to write a letter to Ivalaine, and then as quickly as he had appeared, Travis was gone again.

  At first, in her despair, it had been easy not to think of Ivalaine’s command. However, soon enough, thoughts of her duty returned to her. Without even thinking, she would find herself with pen and parchment in hand, and only by great effort could she force herself to let go of them. How could she tell Ivalaine about Travis when she hadn’t even talked to Grace? She knew Grace cared deeply for Travis Wilder. And if they ever found him, the Witches intended to imprison him. Grace deserved to know the truth. However, each time she tried to tell Grace about the Pattern, Aryn found herself frozen, utterly unable to form the words.

  Perhaps it was part of the Pattern’s magic that it could not be revealed to those whose thread w
as not bound into it. But Aryn’s thread was bound, and each day she did not pen the missive to Ivalaine, the thoughts in her mind grew louder and more shrill, until they were like a swarm of bats flying out of the mouth of a cave, beating and shrieking at her. It was even worse when she reached out with the Touch. Nor did setting out on the road to Calavere improve things. Melia had begun to cast her frequent concerned looks, and Aryn knew she was muttering to herself and pulling at her own hair.

  Finally, there was no resisting it. In a moment of near madness, when they stopped for the night at a hostel outside of Gendarra, Aryn scribbled a letter, explaining how Travis Wilder had briefly appeared, and how he was gone again, and how Lirith had vanished with him. With one of her few jewels, she hired a messenger to take the letter to Queen Ivalaine in Ar-tolor. Almost at once, the shrieking voices in her mind fell silent. She could use the Touch to reach out and grasp the Weirding without being assailed, and she reveled in it. Although the sensation was marred with a slight tinge of guilt.

  You should have found a way to tell Grace about the Pattern.

  But even if she could have, it was too late. Grace was leagues and leagues away. For all Aryn knew, she and the others were already in Toringarth, finding the shards of Ulther’s sword. If only there was a way to speak so far across the web of the Weirding. But there wasn’t, and she didn’t know when she would see Grace again.

  As she turned the corner into the passage that led to the king’s chamber, something caught her attention, drawing her out of her thoughts. It was like a soft sound, or a shadow fleeting past the corner of the eye, but it was neither of these things. Aryn halted and quickly reached out with the Touch, probing. There was nothing; she was alone in the corridor.

  Except the threads of the Weirding still hummed ever so slightly, as if something had been woven among the strands only a moment ago.

  Aryn released the Weirding, reluctantly letting its warmth and light slip through her fingers. Then she moved to the door at the end of the corridor. Inlaid into its surface was the royal crest of Calavere: two swords crossed above a crown with nine points. Aryn lifted her good left hand, but before she could knock, a gruff voice called, “Come in.”