Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  A tap on Travis’s shoulder. It was Sky. The young man made an intricate series of gestures.

  I should have expected this. He knew you would be here, and now it seems the Pale King does as well.

  “Who knew I would be here?”

  Sky only kept gesturing. I will take a message to Lady Grace. I can reach her...swiftly. However, it will take her many weeks to journey to this place. It is best if you move forward to Midwinter’s Day and meet her then.

  Travis struggled to comprehend these words. Why was Grace coming here?

  “They’re closing in on the tower,” Durge said. Metal rang out as he drew his greatsword.

  Lirith cast a frightened look at Sareth. “The tower door. Did we leave it open?”

  The Mournish man met her eyes, then nodded.

  Do not fear, Sky spoke with his hands. I will lock the door as I go.

  “But you can’t fight them yourself,” Durge said.

  I do not think I will need to. Once you leave, I believe they will as well. It is the Stone of Twilight they seek. Sky made a breaking motion with his hands. Go now, Master Wilder. To Midwinter’s Day.

  Then he turned and disappeared down the stairs. As he did, a shadow passed over them. They looked up to see a raven winging away into the gloom.

  Lirith gazed at Travis with frightened eyes. “What do we do?”

  “Exactly what Sky says.” And once again Travis broke the rune of time.

  He was ready this time. He kept his eyes on the pillar to the south and east, willing himself to see, not the succession of sunsets, but the succession of dawnings. He watched the shadow of the pillar stretch toward the center stone, growing closer with each flashing of light and dark.

  Time. Travis shoved the two halves of the rune together, commanding them with his will to be whole. There was odd resistance this time, but he squeezed harder. Blue light welled through his fingers; two halves became one. The sun ceased its frantic race across the sky. Now it hung just above the western horizon, sinking slowly.

  Durge stepped forward, gauging the position of the sun. “I believe you were a bit hasty this time, Travis. It is Midwinter’s Eve. Tomorrow will be Midwinter’s Day.”

  The knight’s breath fogged on the air. Lirith was shivering, and Sareth wrapped his arms around her. It was clear and bitterly cold. They were dressed for autumn, not the depths of winter.

  “I didn’t want to overshoot the day this time,” Travis said. “I might have stopped even earlier, except I had some trouble with the rune this time. Somehow it was hard to—”

  The stone disk crumbled. White dust sifted from his cupped hands like snow.

  Sareth let out a hot oath in the Mournish tongue. “What did you do to it?”

  “I’m...I’m not sure.” The frigid wind blew the last of the dust from Travis’s hands. “I think maybe being bound and broken again was too much for it.”

  Lirith shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We won’t need the rune of time again. Sky said this is where—this is when—we need to be.”

  Speaking of Sky, where was he? Travis expected to see the young man striding toward them, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  “Travis,” Durge called out, “you had better come look at this.”

  The knight was peering over the outer wall at the edge of the circle. They moved to him. Far below, the trees were bare, and the ground was covered with snow. It was easy to see the dark shapes slinking toward the tower from all directions.

  Sareth looked up. “I thought Sky said they would leave.”

  “Maybe they’re back.” Travis thought of the shadow of the raven that had flown over the tower just before he broke the rune of time again. “Maybe they knew again to expect us. To expect me.” He felt the hardness of the Stone in his pocket.

  The sun sank lower. Red light stained the snow like blood. “The door,” Lirith said. “Do you think Sky locked it as he said?”

  The four stared at each other. Then they were running for the stairs.

  They reached the narrow window and slipped through. The steps Travis had conjured with the rune of stone were still there. They picked their way down, reaching the chamber that held the runestone, and ran to the top of the tower’s main staircase. Durge held up a hand; they needed to be cautious.

  They descended the staircase slowly. Halfway down, they heard the sounds of fighting drifting up from below. There was a crash. Something let out a shrill, animal cry. Then came another cry of pain, only this one was human. A man.

  “Sky,” Travis said, casting a startled look at the others.

  They quickened their pace. Durge went first, followed by Travis, then Sareth and Lirith. They passed through an archway and stepped onto a landing. Below was the large chamber at the base of the tower.

  Sky stood at the foot of the stairs, using his bare hands to fend off at least five feydrim. The creatures paced before him, spitting and snarling, talons scraping against the stone floor. Sky managed to keep just out of their reach. However, he was limping. There was a rip in his robe, the ragged edges dark with blood.

  Two more feydrim scuttled toward the young man. Where were they coming from? The iron door of the tower was shut. It seemed the creatures had emerged from the shadow of one of the alcoves that lined the chamber. The two feydrim loped toward Sky from the left. He couldn’t see them coming.

  “Sky!” Travis shouted, his voice echoing.

  The young man turned, saw the creatures, and thrust out with both hands. The feydrim flew backward, squealing. One of them sprawled to the floor and did not get up. The other shook its head, then started forward again, but more slowly.

  “We must help him,” Durge said. He gripped his sword and started down the stairs. After a stunned second Travis followed. However, as they began their descent, another figure stepped from the shadow of one of the alcoves.

  It was not a feydrim, but a man clad from head to toe in a black robe. He walked straight toward Sky, swiftly, with purpose. In his hand was a slender dagger. The feydrim saw the man and fell back whimpering. Sky turned just as the man in black raised the dagger.

  “Sky!” Travis shouted again.

  The young man looked up at Travis. It almost seemed he was smiling.

  The dagger descended, its blade piercing Sky’s robe and sinking deep into the center of his chest. The young man’s eyes went wide. His hands fluttered to the hilt of the dagger, then fell to his sides.

  Travis crashed into Durge’s shoulder; the knight had stopped on the staircase.

  “No!” Travis screamed.

  The five remaining feydrim were already bounding up the stairs. Below, the man in the black robe pulled the dagger from Sky’s chest. There was a burst of blue light. When it faded, Sky was gone. Something clanged, stone on stone, and Sky’s empty robe fluttered to the floor. The man in black knelt, groping at the heap of brown cloth with his hands.

  “Travis, Durge!” Lirith shouted behind them.

  Travis jerked his gaze away from the man in the black robe. The feydrim raced up the stairs. Ten steps away. Five.

  “Be ready!” Durge gritted between his teeth, holding his greatsword before him.

  Travis pulled the Malachorian stiletto from his belt. The ruby in the hilt blazed wildly. The feydrim bared curving fangs; hunger and pain shone in their yellow eyes.

  And with a sound like a cannon, the iron door burst open below, and light poured into the tower in a silver flood.

  66.

  To Grace, the journey was like a dream.

  Time moved strangely, for one thing, just as it did when she was dreaming. One moment she might be standing at the prow of the white ship, watching the sun rise. Then, in the space between two blinks of an eye, the sun was gone, and a horned moon sailed in the black ocean of the sky. At times the stars wheeled dizzily around the invisible axis of the heavens, and at others the sun hung just above the horizon for what seemed hours and hours, turning the sea to molten copper.

  Certain
ly the Little People who piloted the ship were like beings from a dream. It was almost impossible to catch sight of them directly. They were seen best from the corner of the eye, and if Grace quickly turned her head to gaze at one of them, all she saw was a silver shimmer on the air, then nothing at all.

  There were a few times when they caught clearer glimpses of the ship’s crew. Once she stood with Beltan near the stern, watching in the light of the full moon as a circle of goat-men pranced around a trio of slender women with twigs for fingers and leaf-tangled hair. When the shaggy goat-men closed the circle around the tree-women, Grace was forced to turn away, her cheeks hot. However, Beltan only laughed, his eyes merry as he watched a dance of a different sort.

  There were a few other encounters. Once, when Grace was alone, the withered little creature with the mossy hair came to her again and touched her hand. Before it left, it looked at her with eyes like black stones in its knobby face, and it seemed to Grace a look of sorrow, and of hope.

  Another time, a greenman—short and stocky, his beard grown of oak leaves and his eyes brown as acorns—brought a wooden cup to Falken on a day the bard was not feeling well, and the liquid within, though it seemed to be only water, brought color back to his cheeks. On several more occasions, the greenman brought a similar cup for Vani to drink.

  The T’gol appeared to be sick often. More than once, from a distance, Grace saw Vani leaning over the ship’s rail. Her skin often bore a greenish tint, and much of the time she walked with her hand pressed to her stomach and her shoulders hunched. Grace supposed the T’gol was seasick. Although the draughts brought by the greenman always seemed to restore her.

  The sea through which they sailed was dreamlike as well. They passed floating islands of blue-green ice the elements had wrought into fantastic shapes that looked like castles and domed palaces, glittering in the sunlight. Then the ship veered southward, and the shore that appeared to port was more nightmare than dream.

  Sheer black cliffs jutted three hundred feet out of the ocean, and the sea roiled and foamed about their base, as if cut upon the sharp rocks. From time to time, atop the cliffs, Grace saw jutting fingers of black stone. She assumed they were some kind of natural formation. Then she saw the yellow smoke pouring from the top of one of the spires.

  “Watchtowers,” Falken said behind her. “And foundries.”

  It was warm on the ship, but all the same she felt suddenly cold. “What land is that, Falken?”

  “It’s Imbrifale.” The bard’s blue eyes were grim. “The Pale King’s Dominion.”

  After that she kept her gaze to the east and north, until finally they left the jagged coast behind.

  Although it was always the same balmy temperature aboard the ship, Grace was sure the sea was growing warmer. They saw no more icebergs, and birds circled above the dense forest that lined the coast. All the same, she sensed winter had cast its spell over the land. Once the ship sailed close to the shore, and she could see that the forest was green because its trees were coniferous—spruce and pine. Often they were white as well, dusted with snow. However, no matter how close the ship sailed to land, she saw no keeps, no farms. It was a wild land.

  Twice more as they journeyed, she spoke with Aryn over the web of the Weirding, marveling at the way the young baroness was able to reach across the leagues. Grace listened, fascinated, as Aryn described all that had happened to her since their parting—and all that she had learned. Grace knew she would have to tell Falken the knowledge Aryn had gained from Ivalaine’s missive. But not just yet. After seven centuries of care and worry, the bard deserved a little peace.

  As time went on, the travelers spoke less and less with one another. It was not due to weariness or strain; there simply seemed no need for conversation, as if the quiet conveyed their feelings with more clarity than words ever could. Sometimes Grace would sit with Falken and take his silver hand—warm and smooth—while they watched the forest slip by. At others she walked in silence with Vani, or rested on the deck with her head upon Beltan’s chest. They never really slept anymore; they felt no weariness, although at times it was good to lie down and be still.

  Often Grace saw Beltan and Vani together. It seemed their enmity for one another had been left behind in Toringarth. Now Grace saw something new blossoming between them. It was not romantic in nature. That was impossible; both loved Travis Wilder with all their souls. Still, there was a fondness between them, even a tenderness. What had caused this change of heart? Had the strange air of the ship had something to do with it? It was a mystery to Grace, but she was glad all the same.

  Like speaking and sleeping, eating was something that was unnecessary. They drank the cool liquid the Little People left on the table at odd times, and that was more than enough to sustain them. Yet as strange as all of that was, there was another reason the journey seemed like a dream to Grace. The reason lay on the table in the center of the deck, cool and gleaming, and always eager for her touch. Fellring.

  This must be a dream, Grace. It has to be. You can’t be a queen, and this can’t be your sword.

  Only she was, and so was it.

  Sometimes she dared to pick it up, and it seemed to hum in her hands. At some point its hilt had been fitted with a grip of polished wood—another gift of the Little People. The wood was pale and hard, but light; Falken said it was valsindar. The grip fit her hand perfectly, and the blade was so skillfully balanced it seemed to swing itself.

  Each time she picked up the sword, questions filled her. What did the runes carved on it mean? Was she truly strong enough to wield it? And how—why—had Sindar sacrificed himself in order to forge it again?

  “He knew, Grace,” Beltan said one evening as stars appeared in the purple sky. He had been teaching her how to wield the sword again, and she was getting better.

  She lowered the blade and looked at him. “Who knew?”

  “Sindar. He knew that sometimes love means giving up everything you are.”

  Grace’s knuckles went white around the hilt. No, it was too much. “Was this sword really worth a life, Beltan?”

  “Drive it into the Pale King’s heart, Grace. Keep his army from marching across the Dominions. Stop him from finding the Great Stones and giving them to Mohg. Then ask yourself that same question.”

  Beltan turned and left her then, and it was only as she watched his broad back fading in the twilight that she wondered if his words had really been meant for her. What if they had been meant for himself?

  Sometimes love means giving up everything you are....

  “No, Beltan,” she whispered. “Don’t give yourself up. Not for anything. Not for anyone.”

  But her words were too quiet to be heard.

  The ship sailed on into the east, until one day they reached a silver ocean. The ship turned southward, skimming past a rocky shore where gigantic trees reached twisting branches toward the muted sky. They came to the mouth of a great river, and on the north side of the broad estuary they saw a city.

  The city was carved of white stone, and in its center rose a slender spire as silver as the ocean. At first they gazed at the city in wonder. Then the wind picked up, and a banner unfurled itself atop the tower. The banner was red as blood.

  “Eversea,” Falken murmured, his voice thick with sorrow.

  Grace put a hand on the bard’s shoulder. It was there those who fled the fall of Malachor had come, to the tower raised by King Merandon centuries before with the help of fairies. They had built a shining city, one to honor the spirit and memory of the kingdom which they had been forced to flee.

  Then the runelord Kelephon had come, like a snake in a garden, and paradise had rotted from within.

  For a time they held their breath, fearing dark ships would sail from the city and race after them, crimson sails full to the wind. However, the white ship passed into a bank of mist, and by the time the fog cleared they had sailed far up the great river, and the city was lost to sight.

  Falken was certain the rive
r was the Farwander, whose headwaters lay hundreds of leagues to the east, near Kelcior in the Fal Erenn. At first the river was so broad Grace could barely see the shores to either side of the ship. However, as the days and leagues slipped past, the banks drew closer and closer.

  At last, on a snowy day, they came to a confluence where a river from the south poured its rushing waters into the Farwander. The ship turned and sailed up this river.

  “It’s the Silverflood,” Falken said, as the ship navigated upriver, propelled by no means they could discern. “To the east lies Eredane.”

  The Silverflood was narrow and rougher than the Farwander, but still navigable by the fleet little ship. On the right bank of the river was a broad plain and, in the distance, the dark line of a forest that drew a bit nearer to the water each day. To the east they saw cities and castles. All were bleak, stained with soot and mantled by clouds of acrid smoke.

  “By Vathris, Eredane was never like this,” Beltan said, as they watched one of the dreary cities go by. “What’s happened to this Dominion?”

  However, their question was answered when they saw the long procession of people in black robes snaking its way toward the city. Grace could hear the chant rising on the air, but they were too far away to make out the words. However, she knew them all the same; in Omberfell she had heard a similar procession intoning the prayer to the Raven.

  From time to time they saw more such processions. Where they were going and what their purpose was, Grace wasn’t sure, but it seemed most of the people of the Dominion were taking part in the pilgrimage, for the ship constantly passed abandoned dwellings and farms where the crops had been left to wither in the fields. They glimpsed several bands of men in black armor riding along the road that followed the east bank of the river. It seemed Kelephon’s knights were still in command of Eredane.

  Sometimes Grace feared that the knights would raise up a hue and cry as the white ship sailed past. However, if the knights saw the ship, they showed no sign of it.

  At last, thankfully, they left Eredane behind. The western forest drew close to the river, which became narrower yet, filled with jutting rocks and frothing rapids around which the white ship nimbly maneuvered. Then, small as the ship was, it could go no farther.