The Last Rune 4: Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  48.

  Vani woke to gold light filtering through her lashes.

  She lay on the mossy ground, naked, but she was not cold. His arms still encircled her, holding her close against the hard warmth of his body. She opened her eyes a fraction more and saw the lilies floating in the pool beside which she had found him. She must have dozed off. How long had she been asleep? It seemed as if they had lain here together for hours, but the angle of the light had not changed.

  You should return to the ship above. You should find the others and tell them of this place, of what you’ve found.

  No, not yet. She wanted this moment to last just a little longer. After all, she had been waiting all her life for it.

  Vani still remembered the first time her al-Mama had read her fate. She had been five summers old—there was no use reading the T’hot cards for one who was younger, for an infant’s Fate was not yet fully formed—and they sat together in the cramped, cozy space of their family wagon. Her al-Mama shuffled the cards, then made Vani cut them—a difficult task, for her hands were small. Then she had watched as al-Mama laid the cards out one by one, clucking and humming under her breath.

  “Does it say whom I’m to marry?” Vani had asked, for one of her older cousins had just wed, and ever since her mind had been consumed with fantasies of marriage.

  “It is as I suspected, and as your father and mother fear,” al-Mama said, tapping two cards: a citadel crossed by a woman holding a sword. “You are to be wed to steel, married to knives.” She pointed to three cards arranged beneath the two: One showed a pair of lovers, one the moon, and one a grinning skull. “No man will have you for a lover. Death will be your only consort in the fortress of Golgoru.”

  That was the first time Vani heard the name Golgoru, the Silent Fortress where she would spend nine years of her life training to become T’gol. But that day, when she was five, she thought nothing of the name.

  “But I have to marry someone, al-Mama,” she had said, frowning.

  “It is not the fate of those who enter Golgoru to wed,” her al-Mama replied. “Their destiny is to—what’s this?” The old woman’s fingers fluttered to another trio of cards, lying above the crossed two. “The Empress, the City, the Magician. But no, it cannot be. Or can it?” She had looked up, her gold eyes thoughtful.

  Her al-Mama had not told her what the cards meant, not that day. However, she had spoken to Vani’s mother and father, and Vani had crept into the shadows—skilled at keeping silent even as a child—and had listened as they spoke.

  “She is our only daughter,” her father had said, his face ruddy with anger. “I will not send her away to the vultures of the Silent Fortress.”

  “You have no choice,” al-Mama snapped at him. “It is her fate.”

  “What of the other cards, Mother?” Vani’s own mother asked, her eyes shadowed.

  The older woman passed a hand before her eyes. “It is a mystery, yet the cards cannot lie. One day she will bear a child to him.”

  “To whom?” her father demanded.

  “To the sorcerer who will raise Morindu the Dark from the sands of time,” al-Mama said. And neither of Vani’s parents had had an answer to that.

  Her father had resisted and delayed for many years, but in the end—tired and gray and broken—he had relented to the will of the Mournish elders and sent Vani to Golgoru in the autumn of her twelfth year. Vani had not wanted to leave her mother and brother. And she had known, if she left, she would never see her father alive again. But she had had as little choice as he, and she had ridden on a pony alone into the Mountains of the Shroud without looking back. She had cursed fate all the way.

  However, as the years passed, she grew to like her training, then to love it. There was a joy to giving in to fate, to being what one was destined to be, and she excelled at her studies. Many entered the Silent Fortress; few left as T’gol, or in so few years as Vani. Many took thirteen or more. She passed the ordeals in nine.

  Joyous, she had returned to her people, only to find that in her absence her mother had followed her father to the grave. But she still had Sareth and her al-Mama. And she still had her other fate, which had not changed. The cards were the same on her twenty-first birthday as on her fifth. The Empress. The City. The Magician. One day she will bear a child to him.

  The cards could not lie, that much Vani had learned. She would be wed after all—to the one who would restore all of the secrets lost to her people two eons ago. Ten more years had passed. And then...

  Vani shifted, pressing her back against his naked chest, and he sighed in his sleep. She had dared to use the gate artifact to cross the Void between worlds and find him on his Earth. Often over the years, she had wondered what he would be like. He was a powerful sorcerer, that much she had known. Would he be old and cruel, his face disfigured by scars? If so, she would still have given herself to him; such was destiny. Then she found him, and he was gentle and kind and pleasing of aspect, and that only made her fate seem more true than ever. Everything had seemed exactly as it should be——then they had rescued the blond knight Beltan from the prisons of Duratek.

  You should have known, Vani. You’ve read the cards for others often enough. Fate is always true, yet it is often cruel as well.

  She had believed they would fall in love as soon as they met. And they had; the cards had not lied about that. The moment she saw Travis Wilder, she had felt a weakness in her such as she had never experienced in all her years in Golgoru, but it had not been a troubling sensation; rather, she had reveled in it, as if she had craved it all her life. She wanted to give herself to him. And in his eyes, she could see he felt the same. What the cards had not told her was that he already loved another.

  Whatever Beltan might think of her, it had never been her desire to steal Travis from him, to cause him hurt.

  And is that not what you do? Did not your training make you skilled in the art of inflicting pain and death?

  Yes, but Beltan was every bit as skilled in that craft as she was. If he had been weak, or foolish, or selfish, it would have been easy to disregard him; she would have felt no shame in taking Travis from him. But he was courageous, full of laughter, and possessed of boundless loyalty, and it was precisely for those reasons that she had been so vicious to him on the journey. Beltan had earned Travis Wilder’s love; she had simply been granted it by the shuffle of the cards. If someone had asked her a year earlier if love was more important than fate, she would have laughed at the idea. But now...

  He stirred again; he was waking up. His lips nuzzled against the nape of her neck, soft, tender. She smiled, placing her hand atop his, pressing it against her stomach. Perhaps it wasn’t just fate. Maybe she had earned his love as well.

  How he came to be in this garden, she didn’t know. She wasn’t certain herself how she had gotten there. It had grown cramped and stifling on the ship; she had been wishing she could get away from the others somehow, to get away from Beltan. Then she had seen the trapdoor in the deck—a trapdoor she was certain had not been there before. Strange as it was, she had opened it, and had followed it down to the garden.

  She supposed some magic of the Little People had created this place within the ship, although the garden was certainly too large to be contained within the ship’s hold. It didn’t matter; it was not her nature to question the workings of magic. Some believed the craft of the T’gol was worked with sorcery, but all of it—even the skill of making matter phase in and out of being—was worked by focusing the mind.

  For a time she had wandered, enjoying the peace and solitude of the garden. Then she had seen him, kneeling next to the pool of water. Whatever magic had created her surrounding, somehow it must have brought him there as well. She had gone to him, and he had stood, smiling at her. He did not speak, and in her shock the truth had bubbled out of her. She told him that it was not simply due to fate that she loved him; she loved him for who he was as a man, and would have even if he were not the one who would someday rai
se Morindu the Dark from the desert.

  He had only smiled at her, stroking her hair with gentle fingers, and words that were more bitter—but still true—spilled from her.

  “I do not care what the cards say, what fate demands,” she had said. “I will not cause love to be broken. I know you love the knight Beltan, and that he loves you, that the bond between you is strong and deep. I would not come between you. If you wish me to leave you alone, I will do so. Forever.”

  The words were like knives in her heart, but she meant them, and she had stood proud and straight. However, he had touched her cheek, wiping away the moistness there, and without words he had leaned down to kiss her.

  In that moment, fear and uncertainty melted. The green scent of the garden intoxicated her like wine. Their clothes had fallen away, and they had sunk together to the soft ground.

  Vani had never known the full touch of a man before. She had been sent to Golgoru as a girl, and in those walls men and women were kept in seclusion from one another. In her nine years there, she saw men but once, at her final testing. In the time since, she had known the caresses of admirers, but always she had forced them away before they could have their will with her. They were not her fated. One was forever bound to one’s first lover—whether one wed that lover or not—and it was to him, to the Magician, she wished to be tied.

  Now there was no need to resist. After a lifetime of waiting, she wanted him as much as he wanted her; more, even. When first he entered her, she felt a tearing, and there was pain and some blood. However, he was gentle, and he took her from behind, which made the pain less. Soon the pain ceased altogether, and there had been only joy, and finally a sensation she had never experienced before, passing through her in shuddering waves. She heard his cry—the first sound he had made— and felt his warmth coursing deep inside of her.

  After that they had lain together, spent, damp with the dew of sweat, content with small caresses. She whispered some things to him—of fate and love and pleasure—and he answered with kisses. Then, at last, naked on the ground in the impossible garden, they had slept.

  Behind her, a soft groan escaped him. He released her, straightening his arms as he stretched. So her fated was finally awake. Smiling, she rolled over to face him.

  He stared back at her with green eyes, not gray.

  For a moment, both of them were too stunned to move. He was naked, as she was. Leaves were tangled in his blond hair, and bits of moss clung to his lean, rangy body. She could see the red marks on his neck where she had nibbled his flesh. Then, as one, they were moving.

  It took a moment to untangle her legs from his, then she leaped to her feet, clutching the bundle of her leathers in front of her. He rolled away, snatched up his breeches, then stood with his back to her, hastily tugging them on. By the time he turned around, she had swiftly managed to don her leathers, although there had not been time to fasten the straps and buckles.

  “What are you doing here?” Beltan growled. He brushed the moss from his bare chest and arms.

  Vani eyed him, wary. “I might ask the same of you.”

  “You have to ruin every good thing I have, don’t you? You can’t help yourself.” He advanced on her, his cheeks bright with anger. “Where is he now? I was here with him, then we fell asleep. What have you done with him?”

  Indignation rose within her. Why was he always accusing her of wrongdoing? “I have done nothing with him. And it was I who was here with Travis Wilder. I don’t know how or when you got to this place.”

  He shook his head, his green eyes clouded with confusion. “What are you talking about? I came down the ladder. I found him here in the garden, and we—”

  “No, I came down the ladder.” Vani held a hand to her throbbing head. There was moss in her own hair. “It was I who found him here, and together we...”

  Despite the balmy air of the garden, a coldness swept over her. Both she and Beltan gazed at the hollowed place on the ground between them, then at one another.

  His eyes went wide, and he took a step back, holding up a hand. “By all the Seven...”

  A spasm passed through her, and she knew her eyes were every bit as wide as his own. “No, it cannot be.”

  Except it was.

  “It wasn’t Travis,” he said in a choking voice. “It wasn’t Travis I...it was you. It was you who I...”

  She clamped her arms tight over her stomach, fighting an urge to be sick. “It was I to whom you made love. And I to you.” She should have been furious, she should have flown at him in a rage, striking him for what he had done to her, for this disgrace, this humiliation. But she felt only a gray emptiness inside, and a dull ache between her legs. She had thought it was he, her fated, her Magician. And instead it had been Beltan. She had been betrayed. But by whom?

  “Blast them,” Beltan snarled, circling around, shaking his fists at the trees. “It was them—the Little People. They did this to us. They tricked us with their enchantments.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “I don’t know. But they’ll pay for this. Do you hear me? You’ll be sorry!” He lashed out at one of the trees, striking it. The slender trunk bent under his wrath, then gracefully straightened, unharmed. Leaves shook with a sound like soft, smug laughter.

  Vani’s words were weary, resigned. “It’s no use. We can do nothing against their magic. And for whatever reason they wished it, the trick is done.”

  Beltan turned on her. “How can you be like this? How can you be so calm? Aren’t you angry at what they did to us, what they did to you?”

  “I am well aware of what has been done to me,” she said, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks, but she kept her chin up. “More than you can possibly know. All my life, I have saved myself for him.”

  The color drained from his cheeks. He stood still, his hands limp at his side. “Blood and ashes, Vani. I’m sorry. By the gods, I truly am. I shouldn’t have been the one to take that from you, to take your...”

  She turned away. “No, you shouldn’t have. But you had no choice in the matter, and neither did I. It was their will.” She gestured to the trees.

  Silence descended over the garden. A long minute passed, then she heard his footsteps behind her. He laid a hand on her shoulder. The gesture was tentative, awkward. She started to flinch away, then stopped. What was the use?

  “Are you all right?” he said, the words gruff.

  She shut her eyes. No, she was not all right. She would never be all right again. Her fate had just been taken from her. Instead she said, “We are bound now, you and I. A woman’s fate is forever entwined with the man who first makes love to her.”

  He was quiet for a time. “And what of a man?” he said finally. “Is his fate entwined with his first woman?”

  She opened her eyes and turned around. There was a look of anguish on his face, but there was a resolve in his gaze.

  “You have never been with a woman before this?”

  He shook his head.

  She sighed. “Then you are bound as I am.”

  “But what does it mean?” He was gazing at the lilies floating on the pond.

  She answered with the truth. “I don’t know.”

  “I still love him, Vani.” He looked up at her. “I can’t stop loving him. I won’t.”

  “Then you must vow never to tell him this happened.” It was their only choice; this was how their fates would be forever entwined, by this vow, this secret.

  Beltan nodded and held out his hand. “I swear it, by the Blood of Vathris. I will not tell another of this.”

  She took his hand in a tight grip. “And I swear it as well, on the blood of my ancestors.”

  They released their hands and stepped back.

  “Now what?” Beltan said, his broad shoulders slumped.

  Vani drew in a breath. “Now we live a lie,” she said, and started back for the ladder.

  49.

  Dawn came again, blue and bright silver, and this time no mist shrouded Grace�
�s view of the world. She stood at the prow of the ship, gazing at the white mountains that jutted out of the ocean. A being perched on the rail near her elbow—the first time she had seen one of the Little People that inhabited the ship close at hand. It was a withered thing, with a face like a root and a cap of mossy hair. The being pointed a finger toward the peaks, as if it were possible Grace didn’t know her future lay there.

  She had thought them icebergs at first. Then they had grown larger, reaching into the sky. Now she could make out the rough gray lowlands at the base of the mountains, and white dots floated before her eyes. Gulls.

  Grace gripped the cold piece of steel at her throat. The creature patted her other hand—its touch soft and dry as year-old leaves—then hopped down and loped away.

  Boots sounded on the deck, then Falken stopped at the rail beside her. “It’s Toringarth,” the bard said, the wonder in his voice as tangible as his breath fogging on the air.

  For the first time since stepping onto the ship, Grace felt cold. She shivered inside her cloak and pressed her cheek against the fox fur collar. “I’m not sure I can do this, Falken.”

  “You can, Grace. You’re Ulther’s heir. Even broken, his sword will know you.”

  “How?”

  “By your blood.”

  She thought maybe she understood. After all, wasn’t that what she had done countless times at the hospital? She would draw a vial of a person’s blood and send it to the lab to be analyzed. So much could be learned just from those few drops of fluid—if a man was drunk, if he had had a heart attack, if his kidneys were failing. Fellring would test her just the same.

  Grace glanced around. The Little People were nowhere to be seen, as if they shunned the brilliant northern light. All the same, the ship raced toward land with smooth purpose. She caught sight of Sindar at the ship’s stern. His face was turned out to sea—not where they were going, but from where they had come. What was he thinking, now that they were near their destination? Did he wonder what would become of him once his task, given him by the Little People, was done?