by Mark Anthony
I love you, Travis.
I love you, too, Alice. Now go to sleep. You have to sleep for the medicine to work.
Will you be here when I wake up?
I promise.
Cross your heart?
Cross my heart and hope to die.
Okay. Good night, Big Brother.
’Night, Bug.
Travis opened his mouth. The knight’s blue eyes pierced him like a blade. In that moment he almost told Beltan—almost told him everything, how he had broken his promise, and how afterward the stifling silence had mantled the Illinois farmhouse.
A chill wind rushed down from the ridges above the valley, its touch icy against his wet skin. He shivered and swallowed the words he had been about to utter.
“We’d better get out of this water if we want to thaw before spring,” he said instead.
Beltan only nodded.
After that they washed their tunics, breeches, and undergarments in the brook, draped them on bushes, then lay on flat rocks and sunned themselves while their clothes dried. It was late afternoon by the time they returned to camp, now clean and warm. Melia glanced up as they approached.
“Well,” she said, “it’s an improvement.”
Beltan looked around. “Where’s Falken?”
“He isn’t back from the tower yet.” The tightness around Melia’s mouth belied her calm tone.
Beltan made a small gesture by his hip, where his sword was usually belted. “Perhaps I should …”
Melia gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. “Not yet, Beltan. Give him time.” She stood and affected an air of briskness. “Now, I imagine Falken would appreciate dinner being ready when he returns, and the fire is running low.”
“I’ll go find some more wood,” Travis said.
“Of course you will, dear.”
By the time Travis returned to camp with an armful of sticks and branches, the sun had dipped behind the western rim of the valley, and Falken was still not back. Beltan stoked the fire, and Melia heated a pot of stew, but they picked at their bowls without eating. Twilight flowed down from the folds of the mountains.
Melia stood, her fine-boned features chiseled in resolution. “I’m going in there.”
“Going in where?” asked a low voice.
The three spun around, and a figure stepped into the ring of firelight. Travis let out a relieved breath.
“Falken!”
Relief turned to concern. The bard’s face was lined with weariness, and his eyes were haunted in the twilight.
“I was about to come look for you,” Melia said.
“It is well you did not.”
Falken staggered. Beltan gripped his arm and helped him sit on a log. Melia pushed a clay cup of maddok into his hands, and Falken gulped some of the liquid. He set down the cup and drew in a deep breath.
“It’s worse than we thought,” he said.
Melia smoothed the folds of her gown. “Did you find the runestone?”
“Yes.”
“And could you read it?”
“Only after much work, and then only a few fragments. But they were enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“Enough to tell me my darkest suspicions have come to pass.” Falken flexed his gloved hand into a fist. “Blast it, but sometimes I hate being right.”
Melia laid a small hand over his fist. “I must know, Falken. Tell me.”
He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but the words were never uttered.
Metallic white light split the gloaming.
Falken lurched to his feet, and the others followed suit. The brilliant light crested the rim above the valley like terrible dawnfire. Only it came, not just from the east, but from every direction. Even as they watched, the light sped down the slopes to the valley floor and approached the ruined tower with preternatural speed.
Beltan unsheathed his sword. “It looks as if Travis’s friends have found us after all.”
Travis took an involuntary step forward, drawn by that which he dreaded. He could not look away from the now too-familiar light. Who were these things that had pursued him across two worlds? And what would they do to him when they finally caught him?
The eerie illumination drew closer. It formed a ring around the tower, encircling it completely, while the rest of the world dimmed to shadow. There would be no escape this time. Travis could see them now, as he had twice in Castle City, impossibly tall and thin, moving with terrifying grace: silhouettes in the light.
“By all the Seven,” Falken whispered. “Wraithlings.”
Melia glanced at him, amber eyes wide. “But that’s impossible. All of the Pale Ones were destroyed!”
Falken pointed toward the approaching light. “Then what do you call those?”
Melia opened her mouth, but she said nothing as the willowy beings closed in from all sides.
53.
Travis gazed into the light. Wraithlings. So that’s what they’re called. He wanted to look away but could not.
The four travelers drew closer together, and Beltan kicked out the campfire.
“How did they find us?” Falken said.
Melia eyed the approaching light. “A few moments more, and you’ll be able to ask them yourself.”
Travis lifted a hand to the pocket of his tunic. He had been unwilling to admit it to himself, yet he had an inkling of how his strange pursuers had followed him all this time. But it couldn’t be. All that day he hadn’t even opened the—
His hand slipped into his pocket, and his fingers brushed against slick stone.
How? Travis’s mind raced. He had taken the iron box out of his pocket when he washed his tunic. The latch must have come undone when he put it back. Before he even thought of what he was doing, he drew out the stone. It glowed gray-green in the dimness.
The shadows within the light reached out slender arms.
Falken grabbed his wrist with violent strength. “Put that away, you fool!”
Travis fumbled with the stone, shoved it back into the box, and shut the lid.
Melia glanced at Falken, her expression grim. “Perhaps we know after all how they followed us here. Wraithlings were created for but one purpose.”
Falken grunted but did not reply.
“So, what now?” Melia said.
Beltan pointed his sword toward the light. “Whatever it is, you’d better decide soon. I always thought wraithlings were just stories, and I really don’t want to find out I’ve been wrong all these years.”
“The tower,” Falken said. “It’s our only chance.”
There was no time to mount the horses. The beasts pranced and strained against their picket lines. Beltan slashed the ropes with his sword, and the horses thundered away into the gloom. On foot the four humans fled toward the base of the spire. Their own shadows splayed out before them, as spindly as the things in the light that followed. The archway in the stone wall yawned like a ravenous maw. Falken plunged into the opening, the others on his heels.
The darkness was a thick, suffocating blanket. Travis stumbled, his blind hands groped for anything to hold on to. There was a moment of sheer panic, then his fingers brushed cold links of metal over something broad and solid. Beltan. Big hands gripped Travis’s shoulders, steadied him.
“I’m afraid, Beltan,” he whispered.
“It’s all right, Travis. I’m here.”
“But you shouldn’t be. Don’t you see? It’s me that they’re after.” It was true—the others were in danger because of him, and if they were harmed it would be no different than if he had done it himself. He couldn’t allow that. “I have to go back out there, Beltan. Otherwise, they’ll take you, too.”
Travis started to pull away, but the knight encircled him with powerful arms.
“No, Travis. I will not let you go.”
Travis struggled, but Beltan’s arms might as well have been bands of steel.
Now Beltan’s voice was a low rumble in his chest. “Do not fe
ar, Travis. I am Melia’s Knight Protector, and she is your charge. That means I am your protector as well. No harm will come to you while I am alive. I swear it.”
But what harm will come to you? Travis did not speak the words.
Blue light sprang into being and drove back the shadows inside the tower, if only for a few paces in any direction. Now a nimbus hovered across the archway, like a gauze woven of moonlight. Melia lowered her arms and glanced at Falken.
“It will not hold them for long.”
“Then let’s get moving.”
The bard led the way deeper into the tower. After a few dozen paces Travis realized he could still see. The blue-silver radiance had followed them. No, that wasn’t right. It hadn’t followed them at all.
Melia was glowing.
The silvery light danced along the edges of her lithe form, like the corona Travis had once glimpsed shining around her in the ruins of Kelcior, only far brighter. What was Melia doing? And how had she managed that trick with the door? Was it the same thing she had done last night, along the narrow mountain path, to keep the beings in the light—the wraithlings—from pursuing them? She noticed his expression of awe and frowned at him.
“Don’t even ask,” she said.
Travis snapped his jaw shut. They moved down a dust-shrouded passageway. Melia drew alongside Falken.
“Where are we going?”
The bard did not slow his pace. “The White Tower was built nearly seven centuries ago, when things such as wraithlings were not yet forgotten. The Runebinders wove enchantments of warding into the very stones of this place. If we can find a way to awaken those defenses, we might have a chance.”
Beltan gave the bard a sharp look. “If the tower had defenses of old, then why did it fall?”
Falken only pressed onward.
The interior of the tower was a twisting maze of stone, and the walls were peculiarly curved, so that looking at them made Travis dizzy. Melia still shone in the gloom, but the shadows parted only grudgingly for the blue radiance, and the air grew more oppressive as they went, as if all the bulk of the tower above weighed upon it.
Travis did not notice when they first began to spiral inward. For some time they had been bending steadily to the left. The corridor was descending as well, at a shallow but detectable angle. Falken did not slow his pace. They kept moving while the passage curved in on itself in ever-tightening arcs, down and in, deeper and deeper.
They nearly collided with the bard as he halted. Travis felt a stirring of air—dry as death—against his face. They stood on the edge of some great space. Perhaps it was their spiraling path, perhaps it was instinct. Either way Travis knew what this place was. The heart of the White Tower.
“Melia,” Falken said quietly. “Light.”
She shook her head. The azure nimbus that surrounded her flickered and deepened in hue, like a dying flame. Darkness closed in.
“No,” she said, her voice strained. “My power is limited here. It is an older magic that holds sway in this place.”
Falken swore. “Well, I can’t very well read any runes if I can’t see. Can’t you manage something?”
“There may be no need. Will not this place know the presence of one of its own?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“There’s one way to find out.”
Sweat trickled down Travis’s sides. What were those two getting at?
Falken turned toward him, barely visible in the murk. “Take a step forward, Travis.”
He wasn’t certain what he had expected the bard to say, but that wasn’t it. “Why?”
“If Melia’s right, you’ll see.”
That sounded more than a little ominous, but as usual he seemed to have no choice in the matter. He braced his shoulders, held his breath for a moment, then stepped forward.
Lir.
It was as if someone spoke the word in his mind, but this time the voice was not Jack’s. Instead the voice was larger, deeper, and far more vast. A heartbeat later it happened.
Without sound, a thousand sparks of light appeared against the blackness and filled the air with shimmering radiance. Travis took another step forward and craned his neck back. The others followed after him into the domed chamber. It was like standing inside a globe of stars. Only they weren’t stars at all. Travis drew in a breath of wonder.
“They’re runes,” he murmured.
Countless runes had been carved into the stone of the walls and ceiling, and each of them shone with soft radiance. Even the floor was alive with blue firefly lights, except for a circle in the very center of the chamber, and this was as black as night, its edges so sharp they hurt to gaze upon. In all, the effect was like that of a brilliant night sky with runes for stars, reflected in a black lake below.
“It’s beautiful,” Beltan said.
Melia grimaced and lifted a hand to her temple. “Everyone’s entitled to his own opinion.”
Falken prowled deeper into the chamber. “Where is it? It’s got to be here.”
Travis tagged behind him. “What’s got to be here, Falken? What are you looking for?”
“The Foundation Stone. It’s the key to the tower. Or the heart, anyway. It should be here, at the very center, bound with Orm, the rune of founding. Two strokes crossing each other. We have to find it.”
Travis joined in the search. He peered at floor, walls, and ceiling, examined numberless glowing runes, and recognized barely a handful of them. None was formed of two crossed strokes.
Melia called from across the chamber. “I think I’ve found something.”
It was not the Foundation Stone but something else: a glowing panel in the wall covered with angular drawings. Travis cocked his head. When examined from left to right the pictographs seemed to tell some sort of story. Then it struck him.
“It’s the history of the White Tower,” he said.
“Yes,” Falken said. “Here the Runebinders are coming to the valley. And here they are laying the first stones of the tower.” He pointed to a group of stick figures gathered in a circle.
“But who is this person?” Melia said. “The one in the center of the circle, on his knees? I can’t quite translate the runes written above him.” She frowned in concentration. “Dead One. Is that what they read?”
Falken drew in a hissing breath. “No, not Dead One. Together those two runes mean Lord of the Dead.”
Melia looked at Falken. “A Necromancer? But they were all destroyed in the war against the Pale King. How could one have been here, more than three centuries later? And better yet, why?”
Falken rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know, but this gives me a bad feeling. I—”
“Falken, Melia, you’d better come over here.” It was Beltan. The knight stood some distance away, near the center of the chamber. “I think I’ve found your Foundation Stone.”
The three hurried toward the knight. He stood on the edge of the lightless circle in the center of the chamber. Travis gazed at the floor.
Of course. That’s why we didn’t find it, even though it’s huge. It’s so dark.
Falken swore an oath of dismay. The Foundation Stone was a great disk, as wide as the reach of Travis’s outstretched arms, set into the floor. Two crossed lines were etched into its surface—the rune of founding:
Only, the lines did not glow like the other runes in the chamber. Instead they were dark as soot. The reason was obvious: A jagged crack ran right through the center of the disk. The Foundation Stone was broken.
Travis swallowed hard. “Falken, you said the Foundation Stone was the key to the tower’s defenses.”
The bard nodded.
“But the stone is broken.”
“Yes.”
“Then that means—”
“It means,” Falken said, “there is no hope after all.”
The four gazed at the darkened rune in silence.
“Your dagger, Travis,” Beltan said. “It’s glowing.”
Travis glanced dow
n at the stiletto tucked into his belt. The ruby in its hilt pulsed with a crimson light, faint but growing brighter each second. He had seen the dagger glow like this once before. In Castle City, at the Magician’s Attic, when the intruders were near. Very near. He looked up at the others, licked his lips, and whispered the words.
“They’re coming.”
54.
A metallic hum resonated on the air. Light poured through the archway into the domed chamber. The runes above dimmed under the livid illumination.
The four travelers stood shoulder to shoulder. Beltan unsheathed his sword, and Travis drew the stiletto from his belt. The blade was laughably small in his grip. The ruby in the hilt blazed like fire.
The hum rose to a maddening whine. One by one they appeared against the white-hot glare that filled the archway, and slipped into the chamber with fell grace. Wraithlings. The light dimmed, and for the first time Travis saw the willowy beings as more than silhouettes.
He knew now why they were called the Pale Ones. Their skin was smooth and silvery-white, like the skin of a shark. They were tall and impossibly slender, with large heads, and necks that belonged on featherless swans. Huge eyes—black as obsidian—dominated their smooth faces. Their nostrils were no more than thin slits, and as far as Travis could see they had no mouths.
He choked on the words. “What do they want?”
“The Stone,” Falken said without taking his eyes from the advancing creatures. “That is why the Pale Ones were created. To seek the Great Stones.”
Even as Falken said this Travis realized his hand was in his pocket, that his fingers clutched the iron box. He pried them away, pulled his hand out, and forced it to join the other in gripping the stiletto. The Great Stones?
The wraithlings drifted closer, and glowing trails hovered on the air in their wake.
“Stop!” a clear voice commanded.
A slight figure stepped forward and raised a forbidding hand.
Beltan reached out. “Melia!”
Falken grabbed the knight’s shoulder, held him back. “No, let her try.”
The corona around Melia had brightened again, far beyond what it had been before. The blue-silver radiance drove the murk back to the edges of the chamber. The wraithlings hesitated and gazed at her with unblinking eyes. Whatever she was doing it was working, but her visage was lined with strain—the effort was costing her.