The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  I know yeh know all about them Seven Cities...them cities of gold that men have hunted fer five hundred years...I seen yeh come on through, just like the gold man. I got to know the likes of him there. He’ll be looking for a way back....

  “Are you sure?” Travis said when Lirith finished, his mouth dry. “You’re certain that was what Ezekial said?”

  She nodded. “What is it, Travis? What are these Seven Cities he spoke of?”

  “A legend. A myth, that’s all. Centuries ago, when explorers first came here from across the ocean, the native people who lived here told them stories about seven cities filled with riches, cities where the streets were paved with gold. The explorers were greedy men, and for centuries they searched for the Seven Cities of Cibóla. Only they never found them.”

  Understanding flickered across Lirith’s face. “I have never been to Al-Amún—the land that lies south across the Summer Sea. But it is famous for its cities, which are the most ancient still standing in all of Eldh. I have heard the greatest of the cities are seven in number, and that they are built of white stone.” She drew in a deep breath. “Stone that is painted the color of gold by the light of the sun. At least so the stories say.”

  Travis had no doubt those stories were true. How it had happened he didn’t know, but he could picture it: Ezekial Frost falling into a ravine, or wandering into a forgotten cave in the lonely desert of southwestern Colorado, and finding it hanging on the air: a window rimmed with blue fire. Somehow in his wanderings, the mountain man must have come upon a way that was still open.

  Where the gate was, or how it had come to be there, he supposed they would never know. But after the sorcerers of Al-Amún created the gate artifacts, would they not have used them to explore worlds beyond the void, just as the conquistadors explored the lands of the New World? Sorcerers could have found their way here. And perhaps people had gone through the other direction as well. Five hundred years before the Spanish explorers first came to Colorado, an entire people—the Anasazi—vanished without a trace.

  Travis rose. “We have to go to the jail. We have to tell Sareth.”

  Durge stopped pacing. “Tell him what?”

  “That a sorcerer followed us through the gate.”

  A quarter of an hour later, Travis, Lirith, and Durge burst through the door of the sheriff’s office. One of the front windows was boarded up. Deputy Wilson sat behind the desk, a dime novel open before him. On one of the pages was a pen-and-ink illustration of a gunfighter clutching his chest, taking a fatal wound. Wilson looked up, confusion on his pink, pudgy face.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Dirk?” he said, hands still gripping the pulp novel.

  Durge wiped sweat from his brow. “Give me the keys to the jail, Deputy. Now.”

  Wilson stared a moment, then jumped up, fumbling with the ring of keys at his belt. At last he got the ring unhooked and handed it to Durge. Durge unlocked the door to the jail. Wilson’s jaw was agape as he watched the three of them enter. Durge shut the door behind them.

  Sareth stood up in his cell as they entered. He and Lirith exchanged a long look, then glanced away. What had the two spoken about the previous day? It seemed to Travis that sorrow registered in his eyes as well as in hers.

  He could wonder about it later. They were in danger, and Sareth needed to know about it; the Mournish man knew more about the Scirathi than any of them. In quick words, Travis explained what they had learned.

  Sareth leaned against the bars of his cell, his expression grim. “One of the Scirathi must have remained in the Etherion after you destroyed the demon, Travis. We must not have seen him amid all the rubble. And after we passed through the gate, the sorcerer must have followed.”

  “But would we not have seen him if he followed us?” Durge said, glowering.

  Sareth gripped the bars. “His kind are used to the magic of sorcery. We were all dazed for a short time after passing through the gate. The sorcerer would have recovered more quickly. That would have given him time to escape.”

  “I felt him,” Lirith said, hugging her arms around herself, her dress whispering as she paced. “That first night we stayed in the cabin.”

  Travis remembered. Lirith had sensed a presence outside the cabin, only when they opened the door nothing was there.

  “I imagine the sorcerer heard us speaking that night,” Durge said, a grim light in his eyes. “We must assume he knows all that we discussed.”

  Travis swallowed, but he couldn’t get rid of the metallic taste of fear in his mouth. If the sorcerer had heard them, that meant he knew about the gate and the scarab.

  “I should have known it was one of the Scirathi.” Sareth spat out the word like poison. “Only a sorcerer could make a monster of a dead man. They have performed their foul work on animals for thousands of years, combining different beasts into one. I should not wonder that they would do the same to a man. Although I did not know they could work with dead flesh.”

  Travis’s stomach cramped into a sick ball. “Maybe Murray was still...fresh enough when the sorcerer got him. Do you remember what Gentry said that night? ‘We’ll take care of our boy.’ I suppose he and Ellis took Murray right to the sorcerer.”

  Shock played across Durge’s craggy face. “Are you saying you believe this sorcerer is in league with Gentry?”

  “No, I’m saying he’s in league with Gentry’s employers.” It was the only possible conclusion. “Look, the sorcerer made Calvin Murray into a...into whatever he is. And it was Murray who threw the rock through the window. There’s no doubt that the message on that rock was from the vigilance committee. Somehow, the sorcerer and the Crusade are working together.”

  “But why?” Durge said, glowering. “Does not the sorcerer simply desire the gate artifact and the scarab for himself?”

  Sareth nodded. “He would want them, yes. Badly.”

  “Then why would he ally himself with these other men? I can see how the vigilance committee might benefit from the sorcerer’s abilities. But what does the sorcerer stand to gain?”

  Sareth’s lip curled in disgust. “The Scirathi dislike doing their own dirty work. Once he learned of the Crusade, I imagine he thought it would be easy to bend it to his own purposes.”

  But what were those purposes? If all the Scirathi wanted were the gate artifact and the scarab, he could simply have attacked them that first night in the cabin. So there had to be a reason he didn’t. Travis voiced these thoughts to the others.

  “Perhaps the sorcerer was weak when he came through the gate,” Sareth said. “He may have been wounded in the Etherion and has only now regained his strength. After all, we have been here a month, and the Scirathi has only now made himself known.”

  Lirith coiled a hand under her chin. “Perhaps. Or perhaps he’s simply in the same bind we are. If he heard us speaking, then he knows we have found ourselves adrift on the sea of time. If he uses the gate artifact to return to Eldh, it will be over a century before he left. I doubt he desires that any more than we do.”

  Understanding jolted through Travis. “Of course. He heard everything. And that means he’s waiting for the same thing we are—Jack Graystone.”

  “And while he waits for the wizard Graystone to arrive, he is using the vigilance committee to gain power,” Durge rumbled. “That way, he can be sure to get what he wants when the time comes.”

  Lirith heaved her shoulders in a sigh. “Ezekial must have seen us all come through the gate. I suppose he went looking for the sorcerer, hoping to find a way back to Al-Amún and to his seven cities.”

  “And Frost must have found him,” Sareth said.

  “There is still one thing I don’t understand,” Durge said. “Why does the sorcerer wish for us to release Sareth?”

  Travis rubbed his shaved head. “That message might not have come from the sorcerer. He may just be letting them use Murray for their own purposes. It might just be Gentry and the Crusade who want Sareth.”

  “No, it’s him.”
<
br />   The others looked at Sareth. The circles beneath his eyes were as dark as bruises. “My people and his are ancient enemies. Even as magic runs in his blood, so does hatred for me. He would see me dead before he goes.”

  “Then I shall see him dead first!” Lirith said, voice rising, hands clenched into fists.

  The three men stared at the witch; her eyes glittered like black opals. Travis had never seen her like this. Always in his experience Lirith had shown a profound and abiding reverence for life. He had never believed she had the will or power to bring death. Until now.

  “Beshala.”

  Sareth’s word was soft. A plea. Or a prayer. Lirith drew in a ragged breath, then leaned against the bars.

  “I won’t lose you, Sareth,” she said in a fierce whisper. “I will not.”

  He reached up to touch a dark ringlet of her hair that had slipped between the bars. “You could never lose me, beshala.”

  There was nothing more they could do now. Sareth was still safest at the jail—if he was safe anywhere. Durge opened the jail door, and they stepped into the front office. Deputy Wilson was still reading his dime novel. The young man must have been a slow reader, given that the book was still open to the page with the picture of the dying gunfighter. For some reason the illustration bothered Travis.

  “I will not be at the boardinghouse for supper,” Durge said. “But I will try to come to the saloon this evening and see if you are well.”

  Travis and Lirith returned to the Bluebell and spent the afternoon sitting in the torpid air of the parlor. For a time they spoke in low voices, but soon they ran out of words, and after that they were quiet, each lost in their own thoughts. The silence was punctuated only by the intermittent rattle of a wagon outside or, from somewhere upstairs, the sound of Maudie’s coughing.

  “She’s getting worse, isn’t she?” Travis said, scratching Miss Guenivere between the ears. “It won’t be long now.”

  “No,” Lirith said. “It won’t.”

  “I wonder if Tanner knows.”

  “He knows.”

  Travis nodded. The little calico cat purred, rubbing her head against his hand.

  The heat broke about five o’clock, and an hour later Liza came to the parlor to tell them supper was ready. They did their best to put on cheerful faces for Maudie. However, Maudie’s green eyes were hazy and distant, and more than once she nearly dropped a dish off the table as she served supper, and Travis knew she was thinking about Bartholomew Tanner.

  After supper they went upstairs to change clothes before going to the saloon. Lirith stopped to check on Niles Barrett, but there was little for her to do. Liza had been caring for him, keeping him clean and changing the dressings on his wounds. The Englishman was still unconscious. He no longer tried to speak, and only lay very still. Travis wondered if he would ever wake again.

  “Give him time,” Lirith said when Travis voiced his fears. “Lord Barrett is stronger than you think.”

  At seven o’clock, Travis and the witch headed to the saloon. The dusty swath of Elk Street was already beginning to clear out. No doubt word of what had happened to Ezekial Frost had already spread across town; after this, few would wish to be caught out after dark anymore. Only those who cared for whiskey more than their own skins.

  As they approached the door of the Mine Shaft, they saw a piece of paper tacked next to the door. Travis’s heart caught in his throat as he read the notice:

  Thou shalt not bear false witness.

  He tore down the paper and wadded it inside his fist, then pushed through the swinging doors, Lirith close behind him.

  A half dozen men were scattered throughout the saloon, hunkered over their glasses. Manypenny stood behind the bar, absently wiping the glossy wood with a rag. His usually jovial face was sober, and his ruddy cheeks uncharacteristically pale. Sweat stained his crisp white shirt.

  “What is this, Mr. Manypenny?” Travis said, spreading the crumpled paper out on the bar.

  Manypenny glanced down at the paper, but his eyes seemed distracted, and he looked up again. “I should have told them what they wanted. But I’m a good man, or by Jove I try to be. It’s not my nature to deceive, no matter what they might say.”

  Lirith laid a hand on his. “Who, Mr. Manypenny? Who did you talk to?”

  The saloonkeeper blinked, as if only now seeing the two of them standing there. “It was them, Lady Lily. They were wearing masks, but I recognized them, and I don’t think they cared that I did. Lionel Gentry and Eugene Ellis. They came in a few hours ago. They asked me what I planned to tell the circuit judge when he comes to town.”

  “What you plan to tell the judge about what?” Travis said, feeling cold despite the sweat running down his sides.

  “About the night Mr. Murray met his end. I told them I intended to speak the truth, as I always do, and that I didn’t see who shot Mr. Murray. Only then Gentry said that wasn’t the truth at all, that the truth was I saw Mr. Samson shoot Mr. Murray dead. And that if I...if I didn’t...”

  Manypenny slumped forward, leaning on the bar, his massive shoulders shaking.

  Lirith tightened her grip on his hand. “What did he tell you?”

  The saloonkeeper’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I always thought I was a strong man. In my day, I could wrestle any man to the ground with one arm tied. But I can’t wrestle men like these. They said lightning would strike my saloon, that it would burn the place down if I didn’t say what they wanted. That it would be God’s punishment.” He drew his hand from hers and held it to his face. “It’s all I have, Lily. My strength is gone, if ever I had it. I can’t lose the saloon.”

  “You won’t,” Lirith said, her voice resolute. “Those men are cowards, and it is they who shall be struck down.”

  Travis wadded the notice back up, anger giving way to weariness. He moved away to don his apron and wash glasses while Lirith spoke quiet words to Manypenny. Whatever she said must have comforted the saloonkeeper, for after a time he laughed, and his cheeks were ruddy again. Travis shot her a look of thanks as she headed over to the faro table.

  Dusk came, bringing welcome coolness if not many customers. As Travis had suspected, only the hardest drinkers and gamblers stepped through the saloon’s swinging doors. However, Aaron Locke and his clerks from the First Bank of Castle City came through at nine o’clock, right on schedule.

  Travis was glad to see them. They were always polite and cheerful, and their presence brightened both the saloon and Manypenny’s mood. Aaron Locke himself came up to the bar, a smile on his boyish face, and bought a round of whiskey for the entire saloon.

  “I think we could all use a drink tonight,” Locke said, eyes twinkling behind his gold-rimmed glasses, and this elicited a good deal of vigorous whooping. A number of people were drawn in from the neighboring saloons by the noise, and soon the Mine Shaft was, if not crowded, at least far from empty. Travis let himself think that maybe things would be all right after all. He smiled at Locke, and the bank owner tipped his hat in Travis’s direction.

  “She’s so purdy she almost makes losing easy,” said one grizzled miner to another, as they left Lirith’s table and headed to the bar.

  “Almost,” the other said, peering into his nearly empty bill-fold.

  Travis poured two glasses of whiskey. “Don’t worry, gentlemen. Mr. Locke is buying the whiskey tonight.”

  “Well bless him!” said one of the men.

  “Now that’s how a man with money should behave,” said the other, setting down his glass. “Not like that Mortimer Hale. He owns half this town, but he never has two bits in his pocket for an old woman or a man down on his luck.”

  “Well, I heard old Hale got his comeuppance the other night.”

  “How’s that?”

  Travis had moved away to pour more drinks, but he kept an ear tilted in the direction of the two miners. They were speaking in lower voices now.

  “I heard Hale lost at paigow the other night. Lost big, fair and square.
Ten thousand dollars.”

  “Ten thousand? Lord Almighty, the whiskey that could buy a man.”

  “I heard Hale was in a royal fit. Only I say it serves him right. Half the land he owns, he’s swindled out of folk. He got Abraham Jesco to sell him the livery by threatening to foreclose on Jesco’s brother’s farm. And I heard he got Miss Ladyspur to deed over the Bluebell to him by promising to make her a society lady. He’s a liar and a thief.”

  “Whoa now, watch what yeh say about Hale,” said the first miner, glancing over his shoulder. “He’s got ears everywhere in this town. And yeh know what happens to folk as cross him.”

  The men headed back to the faro table. Travis watched them go. So Mortimer Hale had swindled Maudie out of her home. But why did it surprise him Hale would do such a cruel thing? The signs were clear; Hale was the man behind the Crusade. And in league with the sorcerer. Why else would the Castle City Clarion print the stories it did?

  “Travis.”

  It was Lirith; he had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t even seen the witch approach. Her dark eyes were wide.

  “What is it?” he said, his heart skipping in his chest.

  She pressed her hands against the bar. “He’s coming. I think he’s taking a stagecoach from the train depot. His thread is so bright, Travis, even brighter than yours. I could see it like lightning in a clear sky.”

  Wonder filled him. “Whose thread, Lirith?” But even as he spoke the words, he knew.

  “It’s your friend,” the witch said. “The wizard, Jack Graystone.”

  Five minutes later, Travis stood in front of the Silver Palace Hotel. He had told Manypenny he needed to step out for a moment and get some air, and the saloonkeeper’s mood had lifted so much he simply waved Travis away with a smile.

  Travis peered into the night. Elk Street was empty, save for the slinking shadow of a dog and the occasional miner staggering between saloons. Then he heard it: the thunder of hooves, the rattle of wheels.