by Mark Anthony
Maybe they’re afraid.
He wasn’t sure where the thought came from. It wasn’t the voice that had spoken to him, the voice that had sounded so much like Jack’s. Maybe it was just instinct, but it seemed right. Melia and Falken were afraid of something. Jack had been, too. And the weird man in black? Travis had no idea what Brother Cy had thought. But even the preacher had been unwilling to touch the iron box Jack had given him.
For the first time in days, as they rode, Travis drew out the small box. He had forgotten how heavy it felt in the palm of his hand. With a finger he traced the intricate runes that covered the surface. He recognized a few of them now. The largest of them, in the center of the lid, was the rune Sinfath: twilight.
Travis chewed his lip. Somehow, everything revolved around this box and the stone inside. Jack, Cy, Falken, Melia—everyone who knew anything about what was going on had been interested in the box, yet had been reluctant to touch it.
He started to lift the lid, then hesitated. He glanced up. The bard and Melia had ridden some distance ahead. They wouldn’t see, and he would only open it for a moment. He just wanted to see the stone again, maybe feel its smooth touch against his skin, just for a second or two.
Before he changed his mind he lifted the lid. A calm came over him. The mottled green stone glistened on its cushion of velvet. He closed his fingers over its surface. Guilt crept through his pleasure, and with great reluctance he placed the stone in the box and slipped it back inside his tunic.
However, several times over those next days, he took the stone out again. He did not mean to. He would just find himself letting his horse drop back, and before he knew it the stone was in his hand. It was easy to lose himself in its iridescent surface, and the leagues seemed to pass more quickly when he held it in his hand—although he always placed it back in its box and caught up to the others before they noticed he was lagging.
It was near evening on their eleventh day out of Kelcior—their fourth since the incident at the mad lord’s house—when Falken raised his black-gloved hand and brought the group to a halt.
From the back of his jet horse the bard gazed at two large stones that stood in the bracken beside the road. The stones were thrice as tall as they were wide, and the patterns carved into their wind-pitted surfaces were only faintly visible. Beyond them Travis caught a glimpse of what looked like a path winding up into the foothills of the Dawning Fells.
Melia flicked her braided hair over her shoulder. “I thought we had agreed we didn’t have time for this little detour of yours, Falken.”
“And I thought we had agreed to discuss it when we got here.”
“You’re getting old, Falken. Your memory is starting to go.”
The bard laughed. “Oh, you’re a fine one to talk about age, Melia.”
Her smooth visage darkened. “So how are we going to solve this?”
“I don’t know. How are we?”
Beltan cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I know it’s rather ironic, but … I actually have an idea.”
Melia and Falken turned toward the big knight. Both wore curious expressions.
Now that Beltan had gained their attention, he looked uncomfortable. “Why doesn’t Falken just go where he needs to go while the rest of us keep riding down the Queen’s Way?”
Falken crossed his arms. “Ditching me is not really a viable option, Beltan.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Melia said. “I rather like the notion.”
“You would.”
“Wait a second,” Beltan said. “That’s not the whole plan. The rest of us will ride at half our usual pace, and when Falken is finished doing whatever it is he needs to do, he can ride hard to catch up with us. That way Falken gets to take his detour, and we make some progress toward Calavere at the same time.”
Travis grinned at Beltan. For someone who claimed not to be much of a thinker, it was an awfully clever plan.
Falken and Melia studied each other, as if to predict what the other would say.
“The plan has its merits,” Melia said.
The bard snorted. “It might be acceptable.”
Beltan let out a breath of relief. “Why don’t you both think about it? It’s getting dark, and either way we won’t be able to do anything until morning.”
This the two were actually able to agree on, and they made camp beside the road.
That night it was Travis’s turn to take the first watch. Normally he might have minded, exhausted from the day’s long ride. However, for some reason he couldn’t name, he was restless. He sat on a rock a short way from the dying campfire, gazed into the night, and listened to the steady breathing of the others.
Boredom stole over him. Before he even thought about taking it out of his pocket, he found the iron box in his hand. He looked up and for a moment watched the shadowy forms by the fire. Neither Falken nor Melia moved. He opened the box.
A sigh escaped his lips. The stone was even more beautiful in darkness. It caught the starlight and wove it into a gray-green aura that shimmered just above its surface. He bent over the box, enraptured.
A low thrumming brought him out of his trance.
Travis shook his head. Although it only seemed a minute or two since he had last looked up, the stars had shifted in the sky above. How long had he been gazing at the stone?
The thrumming sound grew, and a chill danced along his spine. He closed the stone in the iron box, shoved it back into his tunic, and stood to peer into the gloom. Then he saw it: A pale glow shone against the distant dark. Twice before had seen the same light: once at Jack’s antique store, when the intruders had attacked, and once again on the highway north of Castle City, just before he stepped into the old billboard. Even as he watched, the light drew nearer.
Travis ran back to the campfire and shook Falken’s shoulder.
The bard groaned in annoyance. “What is it, Travis?”
He whispered a single word. “Danger.”
Falken sat up, at once alert. “Wake the others.”
Moments later they gathered around the remains of the campfire, which Beltan had extinguished with a flask of water.
“It seems, Travis,” Melia said, “the enemies of your wizard friend Jack have found you. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Though I wonder why now, and here, and not before.”
Travis lifted a hand and touched the iron box through the coarse fabric of his tunic, but he said nothing.
Beltan’s hand slid to his sword. “What do we do? Fight?”
“No,” Falken said. “We ride.”
Scant minutes later they nudged their mounts forward, onto the broad swath of the Queen’s Way. The glow was closer now, a ghostly blue-white to the north. They turned away from the light, but before they could spur their mounts down the road, Falken swore an oath.
“What’s wrong?” Melia said.
“Look.”
Faint but clear, another patch of light glowed against the darkness to the south. Travis’s hand crept inside his tunic, and his fingers brushed the iron box. A powerful compulsion to open the box filled him, and he started to draw it out.
Melia turned in her saddle, and her amber eyes bored into him. He clenched his jaw, resisted the strange urge, and withdrew his hand.
Falken moved his horse near Melia’s. “What do you think they are?”
“I know of only one thing that comes in such light. But it can’t be. It has been so long.”
“Well, I’m not exactly eager to wait and see if you’re right.”
Beltan’s charger pranced a nervous circle. “Now what do we do?”
“We can turn west and travel overland,” Melia said.
The big knight shook his head. “There’s nothing to the west but open plains. We would be completely exposed.”
Melia made an exasperated sound. Evidently this wasn’t the response she was looking for.
“There is another way.”
It was Falken who spoke.
Melia gave him a
withering look. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
Falken eyed the approaching patches of light. “This isn’t the time to be stubborn, Melia. The mountains offer our best chance at finding cover.”
“This isn’t fair, you know.”
“Fair has nothing to do with it.”
Travis tried to swallow the panic that clawed its way up his throat. Was he imagining it? Or were those thin silhouettes he saw against the approaching light?
Melia crossed her arms and glared at the bard. “Very well, Falken. We’ll take your detour. But if we’re late to the council, it’s on your head.”
“As if it wouldn’t be anyway.”
They turned away from the road, guided their mounts between the two timeworn standing stones, and cantered up the winding path beyond.
52.
All through the night they picked their way up the treacherous trail, deeper into the shadowed mountains. Travis clung to his mount’s back and dug his fingers into the gelding’s mane each time the horse stumbled on an unseen stone. Neither moon nor stars shone in the cloud-cloaked sky, yet Melia led the way with confidence. Her mare drifted through the gloom like a ghost, and the other horses followed their companion by scent. From time to time Travis thought he glimpsed two sparks of amber light ahead, piercing the dark like the gleaming eyes of a cat, but he couldn’t be certain his own eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.
At first, as they rode along the narrow trail, Travis looked back over his shoulder every few minutes, and each time he expected to see blue-white light rending the night behind them. However, all he saw was unblemished blackness. There was no sign of his mysterious pursuers. Finally weariness stole over him and blunted the edges of his fear. In the end he slipped into a sort of waking dream: a dull trance filled only with darkness and the ceaseless clop-clop of the horses’ hooves.
He woke with a start to the sound of murmured voices on the chill, moisture-laden air.
“Whatever you did to conceal our trail, it seems to have worked. I don’t think they’ve followed us.” That was Falken’s low, musical voice.
“How much farther is it?” Water over copper. Melia.
“Actually, I believe we’re nearly there. Though I grant you, it’s been a long time since I last journeyed to this place. A long time indeed.”
“Should we rest here a while?”
“No, let’s press on. I think it might be safer to make camp once we’re there.”
Travis blinked, and only then did he realize he could see. A pearly luminescence had crept into the fog, and all around them he made out the muted outlines of rugged mountains: dimmer patches of gray against the glowing air. The trail passed between the outstretched arms of two horned peaks, and they entered a valley bounded on all sides by forested ridges. A crisp morning wind rushed into the vale and tore the mist to tatters. The white-gold light of the dawning sun broke through the shroud of fog.
That was when they saw it. It stood like a pale sentinel atop a mound in the center of the valley. They brought their horses to a halt.
Even in ruin the tower was glorious. Smooth walls of ivory soared skyward in a single, tapering spire. There were no windows in its surface, nor ledges, nor turrets—nothing that might mar the perfect symmetry of its form. Yet time had not been so mindful of the tower’s airy perfection as had its creators. The summit of the spire, which should have risen to a slender point, ended abruptly in a jagged crown of broken stone. Heaps of dirty white rubble, overgrown with moss and weeds, surrounded the tower. Dead vines clung to the walls like veins.
Travis’s breath conjured ghosts on the cool air. “Where are we, Falken?”
The wind tugged at the bard’s black-silver hair. “This was the White Tower, the tower of the Runebinders. It was one of three bastions of runic magic founded after the fall of Malachor, over seven hundred years ago, by the followers of the Runelords.”
Travis nudged his horse forward. “The Runelords?”
Falken nodded. “The Runelords were the greatest wizards Falengarth has ever known. Much knowledge was lost in their passing, knowledge that will never be regained. But some of their students fled the destruction of Malachor. They raised three towers in exile, to preserve the arts of speaking, binding, and breaking runes.”
“But what happened to them?”
“Both the White Tower and the Black Tower fell many centuries ago, and the arts of runebinding and runebreaking were lost from the world. Of the three, only the Gray Tower stands today, and even so the power of the Runespeakers is but a faint shadow of what it once was. No more than a fraction of what is carved upon the runestone in the Gray Tower is understood by the Runespeakers today—and it is but one of nine runestones that were created by the Runelords long ago.” The bard’s words drifted away on the wind.
Melia laid a gentle hand on his arm. “All things must rise and fall, Falken. It is simply the way of the world. Of all worlds.”
A smile touched his lips. He shrugged, as if to say, I know. But the sadness in his blue eyes did not fade altogether.
“Come on,” he said in a gruff voice. “Let’s find a place to make camp. If I don’t have a hot cup of maddok, and soon, I’m going to get very testy.”
The four travelers rode into the valley, and the ancient spire loomed higher above them. They made camp in a grassy depression not far from the base of the tower. Soon they sat around a cheerful fire, bellies full from the breakfast Melia had prepared, and sipped hot maddok from clay cups
“How nice that everybody is so comfortable they feel no pressing need to clean the dishes,” Melia said in a voice that was dangerously pleasant.
The others leaped to their feet and set to the task.
Weary after the night’s forced ride, they spent the remainder of the morning resting. Travis curled up in his mistcloak, and when he finally woke the sun was already near its zenith. He rubbed bleary eyes and sat up. Beltan sat nearby, clad in his green tunic, polishing his mail shirt with a cloth. Melia and Falken stood by the fire, speaking in low voices.
“You’re certain you should go alone?” Melia said.
“I’m not expecting any trouble inside, but it’s been centuries since anyone set foot in this place. There’s no telling what’s in there. I think it’s better for one person to venture in and see rather than all of us. Besides, studying the stone is a one-person job.”
Melia did not look pleased. “Be careful, Falken.”
She and the bard locked gazes, and it seemed some unspoken message passed between them. Falken nodded. Without further words he left the hollow where they had made camp and walked toward the ancient tower. Travis watched until he stepped into the mouth of an arched doorway and disappeared into the ruin.
Melia turned around and regarded Travis and Beltan, her expression critical. “There’s soap in one of the saddlebags, and I believe there’s a stream over that hill.” Her nose wrinkled. “You two may wish to take advantage of it.”
Travis and Beltan exchanged looks.
“I’ll get the soap,” the knight said.
The day had turned warmer than usual, which was to say it was merely brisk rather than frigid. However, the sun was bright and the air still, and Travis could imagine worse bathing conditions—although these would likely involve chipping a hole in ice first. He and Beltan crested a rise and found the stream Melia had seen. It was little more than a brook that tumbled over polished stones, but in one place it formed a clear, sandy-bottomed pool, several feet deep in the center, and perfect for washing. They shucked off their clothes and, before they lost all their nerve and body heat, plunged in.
The water was bone-achingly cold, but after a minute or two numbness set in, and after that the pain was almost bearable. They scrubbed with the soft, brown soap, then dived under to let the current wash away the sweat and grime of travel. After several seconds of submersion, the cold threatened to crack Travis’s skull, and he stood up and gasped for air. A moment later Beltan broke throug
h the surface in a spray of crystalline droplets.
“By the balls of Vathris’s Bull!” the knight roared.
Travis cringed. “You know, that’s probably not the most appropriate oath for bathing in cold water.”
The other man snorted in agreement. He slicked his long, thinning hair back from his brow. That was when Travis noticed the knight’s scars.
In stark contrast to his bright demeanor, Beltan’s body spoke of a life of hard and violent work. The Calavaner was muscular, but not at all like some gym-toned magazine model from Earth. More like a wild Serengeti lion, hungry and feral and ribs showing, a patch of tawny hair in the center of his chest. Countless fine white lines crisscrossed the knight’s fair skin, along with a number of pink welts. Travis raised a hand to his own chest. True, he had sacrificed most of the old layer of fat to the rigors of this world, but beneath the sandy brown coils his skin was smooth and unmarked. How had he ever dared to think he had known hardship in his life?
“What is it, Travis?”
Beltan’s high forehead was furrowed in a frown. Travis fumbled for words.
“I’m sorry. It’s just … your scars … I didn’t know.”
The blond man shrugged. “I’m a knight. It goes with the territory.”
“Doesn’t it ever make you want to stop? Being a knight, I mean.”
“Not really. You get used to bleeding.”
“I don’t think I ever would.”
“You might be surprised. I think you’d make a fine knight, Travis.”
Travis laughed and tried not to notice how hollow the sound was. “I don’t think anyone on this world will ever mistake me for a knight, Beltan. The worst scar I have to show is from a paper cut.”
It had been meant as a jest, but Beltan didn’t laugh.
“Not all wounds leave scars that show, Travis.”
Almost any other words he might have expected. Not those. Travis took a step backward in the pool and stared. Had the knight guessed something about him? But how could Beltan know? He had never told another.