The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  Larad sighed, a sound of weariness and sorrow. “Because I didn’t serve the Necromancer, much as she believed I did, and I didn’t kill Sky. He gave himself of his own free will.”

  Beltan snorted. “That’s not how it looked to us at the Black Tower. We saw you stab him. I’m with Melia. I say we kill you right now.”

  The runespeaker did not look at him. “As I said, do what you wish. Just hear what I have to say first.”

  Travis hesitated, then moved closer. At the Gray Tower, it had been largely because of Larad’s machinations that Travis had been sentenced to die at the null stone. However, Larad had also helped to arrange Travis’s escape from that fate, and as they had learned, he had done the things he did to help the Runespeakers find purpose again.

  “How?” Travis pointed at the shattered fragments of the bound rune. “How did you manage to break the rune of sky? The art of Runebreaking is lost.”

  Larad’s expression was part grimace, part smile. “Not lost to you, Master Wilder. And nor to me, now.” He wiped his right hand against his robe, cleaning away the blood, then held it out. A silver symbol shone on his palm: three crossed lines. The rune of runes.

  Travis clenched his right hand into a fist; if he were to speak a rune, the same symbol would appear on his own palm.

  “By Olrig,” Falken swore, his faded blue eyes wide. “You’ve become a runelord. But how?”

  Larad’s eyes were thoughtful in his shattered face. “And if I told you it was Olrig One-Hand himself who made me into this, would you believe me, Master Falken?” He lowered his hand. “No, don’t answer, for it matters not. There is no time for this. I have broken the rune of sky. The circle of the world has been cracked open. Mohg, Lord of Nightfall, comes.”

  Melia balled her small hands into fists. “It took all of us gods working together, Old and New alike, to banish Mohg from the world. Such an alliance will never come again. And now you have opened the way for him.” Tears shone in her eyes. “Why?”

  Larad met her gaze. “Two worlds draw close to one another. They move nearer every day—our world, and the world from which Travis Wilder comes. Once they draw close enough, the way will be bridged, and Mohg would be able to return no matter what any of us might do.”

  “But it could have been years before such a thing took place,” Falken said, his wolfish face haggard. “We could have had more time to prepare.”

  “And so could the enemy,” Larad snapped.

  He winced, pressing his hand to his side, then spoke more softly, so that they had to move closer to listen to him.

  “Do you not see it? Sooner or later, evil will return to Eldh. By breaking the rune of sky, I have made it so that evil comes sooner, when it is ill prepared. If we waited until Mohg had gathered his strength, until he marched from that world to this with a vast army at his side, we never would have been able to stop him. We still may not be able to now, but at least we have a chance, however small it may be. Sky understood that. He found me not long after my exile from the Gray Tower, and he convinced me it was the only way. That was why he sacrificed himself at the Black Tower. The only hope for the world was to allow Mohg to return to it.”

  Sorrow shone in Falken’s faded eyes. “And now that Mohg has returned, he’ll break the First Rune and remake Eldh in his own shadowed image.”

  “Not if Master Wilder breaks it first,” Larad said, his voice ragged.

  All of them stared at the runespeaker. Above, bloodred lightning hissed across the churning sky.

  “No.” Sickness filled Travis, and dread. “No, I won’t do it. It’s not my fate. I have no fate.”

  Larad waved the words aside with an angry motion. “Fate is what we choose, Master Wilder, not what is chosen for us. The end is here, you can’t change that—no one can now. The First Rune will be broken. There will be a Runebreaker. It can be Mohg—or it can be you. That is your fate. That is your choice.”

  Travis couldn’t move. For so long he had run from this destiny. He had done everything he could to keep it from coming to pass. Only all this time he had been running, not away from it, but straight toward it.

  “Go, Master Wilder,” Larad said, and blood flecked his lips. “Take the three Imsari. Go to the Dawning Stone.” He nodded toward the two Maugrim, who had stood silently a short distance away. “They will help you. They know the way.”

  Travis reeled. Once again Larad had worked to purposes unknown to them—unknown to anyone, save for Sky, it seemed. Shemal must have thought him her slave, another Runebreaker she could manipulate to her own ends, a tool she could use to bring about victory for her master. But the Necromancer had been wrong.

  “So you betrayed Shemal,” Travis said.

  Larad gave him a rueful look. “I have betrayed us all, if you do not do what you must, Travis Wilder. Shemal was . . .” A shudder coursed through him. “No, I will not speak of my days with Shemal. It is enough to say I used her even as she thought she was using me, and somehow, though I never expected to, I have survived. Somehow she was wounded in Calavan, and she sought to flee back to Imbrifale for protection. I followed, knowing that was my chance to gain Gelthisar. Then, quite to my surprise, we came upon Kelephon, and he had the Stone of Ice with him. When I saw that was so, I knew the time to act had finally come.”

  “So you began the end of the world,” Travis said softly. “And now you want me to finish it.”

  “It is not my choice such a task should be given to you, Master Wilder. I still believe you are given to foolishness and impracticality, and that your knowledge is insufferably lacking.” Larad hesitated, then despite the pain on his face, he grinned. “But I also believe that you are good at heart, and that there is no one in this world stronger than you.”

  Travis was aware of the gazes of the others on him. He could only shake his head. Larad was wrong; he had to be.

  With stiff motions, Larad moved to Kelephon’s dead body, bent down, and picked up Gelthisar. “I am a runelord now. I can touch the Great Stones and live. But I have not your skill with the Imsari, Master Wilder. I could not wield them, not like you, even were I not wounded. This power is new to me. I have found it . . . difficult to control properly. That’s why this happened when I broke the rune of sky.” He touched the dark spot on his robe.

  Travis understood. It was hard to control something you had been given all at once, something that should be earned over time, gradually, and through hard work.

  But you have worked hard, Travis, Jack’s voice spoke in his mind. You’ve learned much. More than you think you have. Larad is right. Only you can do this.

  “You are losing blood,” Vani said, eyeing Larad’s robe. “You should let us see to your injuries.”

  Anger crossed his scarred face. “There’s no time for such unimportant things.” He limped toward Travis. “You must take the Stones, Master Wilder. You must go to the First Rune. That is what I had to tell you, and now I have.” He held out his hand. Gelthisar shone blue-white on his palm.

  Thunder rolled across the world, shaking the ground. A wind sprang up, rushing from the mountains, slicing through cloth and into flesh like a bitter knife. Forks of lightning tore apart the clouds, and the air deepened into dusk, as if a shadow had fallen across the world.

  “The Lord of Nightfall comes!” Larad shouted above the moan of the wind. “Mohg will be upon us in a moment, and he will wrest the Imsari from us.” He thrust the Stone of Ice forward. “Take it, Runebreaker. Go, before it’s too late!”

  Melia and Falken gazed at Travis, their faces pale, their eyes imploring. The wind blew ash into his eyes, stinging them. When he blinked the grit away, he saw Beltan standing before him. It was impossible, but the blond man was smiling.

  “I know you’re afraid, Travis.” Beltan took his hand and squeezed it tight. “We’re all afraid, too. I can’t really see how all this can possibly work out. But maybe it’s like the guard tower at Calavere after the explosion. Sometimes, to save something, you have to destroy it fir
st.”

  If Travis had added up all the grief, all the sorrow and despair—and all the love—he had ever felt in all the years of his life, it would have been nothing compared to what he felt in that one, single moment. He tried to speak, but the only sound he could seem to make was a sob. Over the knight’s shoulder, Vani was looking at him, her gold eyes filled not with fear or doubt, but with hope. She held both of her hands to her stomach, and she was smiling at him.

  Beltan kissed his brow. “Go.”

  For a moment Travis stood frozen. Then another crack of thunder rent the air like the sound of a great and terrible whip. The shadow deepened, stretching out over the world. Travis turned and took Gelthisar from Larad’s hand. It was not cold against his skin as he had expected, but rather cool and smooth as glass. He drew the other Stones from his pocket and held all three in his hand. They glowed softly, one blue-white, one fiery red-orange, and one as gray-green as twilight in a forest.

  The two Maugrim—the shaman and the gnarled witch-woman—had drawn close. Travis looked up at them. “Take me to the Dawning Stone.”

  The man pointed with a thick-knuckled finger, toward the mountains, and made a low grunting noise in his throat.

  This way.

  59.

  Travis did not look back.

  If he had, he was afraid he would fall to his hands and knees, that he would crawl back over the dusty ground to Melia and Falken, to Beltan and Vani, that he would clutch them and beg them not to make him go.

  Instead he kept his eyes forward and clenched his jaw as he followed after the Maugrim. They moved quickly across the valley, walking with a strange, loping gate, and he had to hurry to keep up with them. The cold, dry air knifed at his lungs, and the metallic taste of blood spread through his mouth. How far would they have to go? Was it even possible to reach the Dawning Stone before Mohg?

  The sky grew darker. The lightning had ceased, but the wind blew harder, howling down from the Ironfang Mountains, blowing away the clouds to reveal a jagged line running across the sky.

  Grit clawed at Travis’s eyes. By the time he blinked them clear, he had lost sight of the Maugrim. He turned in circles, calling out to them, but the wind snatched his voice away. He was lost, and this was the end of everything.

  A strong hand gripped his arm and pulled him to the side. The buffeting of the wind ceased, though Travis could still hear its keening. He rubbed his eyes and saw he was in a cave. Walls of rough stone pressed close, only the force was comforting rather than oppressive. In one direction lay the mouth of the cave; dust swirled beyond. In the other direction lay . . . what? Travis wasn’t sure. It was as if a gray curtain hung over the back of the cave, its fabric billowing as air moved past it. A faint silver light hung on the air.

  “Do you live here?” Travis said, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Is this your home?”

  The man—the shaman—shook his head. We make our homes in such places, in the sheltered spaces of the ground. But not here. Not under the watching eyes of He-Who-Wields-The-Ice.

  The witch-woman let out a cackle. She pointed at Travis. Now this is He-Who-Wields-The-Ice. And He-Who-Wields-The-Flame-And-The-Gloom.

  Travis clenched his hand around the Stones. Their touch was solid and reassuring, lending him a small measure of strength. He moved deeper into the cave. The gray curtain undulated. Soft tendrils curled away from it, evaporating.

  It wasn’t a curtain at all; it was a wall of fog. Only there was something queer about it—about the way it remained cohesive despite the air moving through the tunnel. He started to reach a hand toward it, then pulled back.

  “What is this?” he said. “Is this a way into the Twilight Realm?”

  The way can be found anywhere, the man said in his hooting language. Atop any lonely mountain, beneath any ancient tree, in the dim heart of any hollow hill. You have only to look for it.

  A cool tendril brushed Travis’s face. “But what kind of place is the Twilight Realm? I’ve heard Falken talk about it, about how the Old Gods and the Little People retreated there a thousand years ago, but I don’t really know what it is.”

  The old woman clucked her tongue. The Twilight Realm is not a place. It is a time. A time when the world was not so weary as it is now, when trees ruled the forests and clouds the mountaintops. A time when silence was the sweetest music, when the air had never been sundered by the sound of a smith’s hammer against a forge, or by the cries of men dying on the swords of other men. A time when the gods were everywhere—in every hill and river and stone. A time of wildness, of beauty.

  Sorrow shone on her strange yet human face, and joy. Her hands fluttered to her breast, and she sighed.

  It was . . . it is . . . our time.

  Travis breathed. He didn’t understand, not with words anyway. All the same, he could feel it in his heart: an ache, a longing, too deep and ancient to be expressed in such a recent and human invention as language. It was a peace, a power. A sense of belonging. For a moment he almost caught it, almost knew what it would be like not to try to master the world, but simply to be part of it—a single strand of the shining web that connected all things.

  Like the fog, he could not grasp it. The moment passed. The Stones weighed heavy in his hands.

  “How do I find the Dawning Stone?” he said.

  The Maugrim man pointed at the Imsari. They will know the way.

  The witch-woman nodded toward the wall of fog. Go. Tears ran down her weathered cheeks. Be the end of all things.

  Travis could find no words to reply. He gripped the Stones and stepped into the fog.

  In a heartbeat he was lost. The mist coiled around him, left and right, above and below. Something was wrong; he hadn’t passed through. He had to go back.

  Travis stumbled in what he thought was the direction he had come from, but his hands didn’t find the rough stone of the cave, just more cool fog. He called out to the Maugrim, but the mist filled his mouth, muffling his voice. This place was empty except for the fog and himself.

  No, there was something else here. A roar echoed through the mist: low and distant, yet drawing nearer. The fog swirled, agitated. The gloom deepened as a shadow drew closer.

  Mohg. He was here in the Twilight Realm. Or wherever this place was. Another cry sounded all around—hateful, longing. He was looking for Travis.

  Travis pressed forward, but it was no use; the mist and the shadow lay in every direction. The fog shuddered as another groan passed through it. The Lord of Nightfall was coming. He would find Travis, he would wrest the Stones from him. . . .

  The Stones. Travis had forgotten about the Great Stones. He brought his right hand close to his face, until he could see them glowing softly in the gloom. The Maugrim had said they would show him the way to the Dawning Stone. Only how?

  His right hand jerked, as if something tugged at it. Startled, he let go of the Stones. The three Imsari hovered before him, shining in the fog. Then they began to move.

  Travis was too surprised to do anything but follow. The glowing spheres floated swiftly, like tiny comets. The fog pushed against him, trying to hold him back, but he forced his way though it.

  “Krond,” he said, not trying to speak against the mist, but rather whispering with it. “Gelth. Sinfath.” The Stones knew their names. Their light brightened, driving back the fog, and Travis found he could move more freely.

  Again he spoke the names of the Imsari, and in so doing he caught a glimmer of knowledge. For so long Travis had resisted the power of the Stones; he had locked them away for fear of those who sought them, and for fear of the havoc he might wreak because he did not understand them. Only now that he had finally dared to speak their names, he realized he did understand them, at least a little.

  The Great Stones were everything. Creation, permanence, destruction—the Imsari combined all of those things, just as the Runelords had combined the arts of Runespeaking, Runebinding, and Runebreaking into one. However, while the magic of the Stones was like r
une magic in a way, it was not the same. It was deeper, older. Fire, ice, twilight—these essences had been infused into them by the craft of the dark elf Alcendifar long ago. The runes Krond, Gelth, and Sinfath colored their powers. However, at their core, each of the three Stones was the same—a part of a whole greater than any one rune. Together, they might perform wonders. Or horrors.

  It was too late to stop them. The Stones raced forward, swifter now, as if they sensed what it was they sought. Travis hurled himself after them.

  The fog ended. Travis blinked and found himself in a forest. He turned around, expecting to see the curtain of mist behind him, but all he saw was trees marching away in silent ranks.

  In a way, it was like his first journey to Eldh. He had fallen through an impossible billboard, and had found himself in a forest with no sign of the portal, no way to get back home. However, while the gray-barked trees of this forest looked like valsindar, they were taller than the trees of the Winter Wood, and there was no sign of Falken Blackhand.

  “Hello?” Travis called out.

  The word echoed away among the trees. No reply came back. The three Stones whirred around Travis’s head like insects. He held out his hand, and the Imsari settled onto it.

  “Which way do I go?”

  They glowed on his palm but did not move.

  Travis looked up, trying to see the sky, to see if it was broken in this place as in the world outside, but there was no gap in the leafy canopy. A drowsy green-gold light permeated the air, making him think of an afternoon in late summer, and he caught the cool sound of water flowing. A desire came over him to seek out the stream, to drink from its waters, and to lie down on its bank and doze. This was a peaceful place, an ancient place. Travis started toward the sound of the water.

  “Now is not the time for rest,” said a piping voice. “You will not find what you seek that way.”

  Travis turned around. A tiny man clad in a green jacket and yellow breeches sat on a fallen log ten paces away. His face was as brown as the forest loam, and his eyes as bright as river pebbles.