by Mark Anthony
“Do you think the king is still angry with me for asking Falken that question at the council yesterday?” she asked Aryn as they ran.
Aryn shot her a look that was halfway between smile and grimace. “Don’t worry, Grace. There hasn’t been a beheading at Calavere in months.”
Grace didn’t waste her breath with a response. She quickened her pace.
“My ladies, can you delay a moment in your haste?”
Grace and Aryn stopped as though they had hit an invisible wall. Nor was Grace so certain they hadn’t. She may have lived her entire life in a democracy, but there was a power to royalty that could not be denied. They turned to gaze into the ice-blue eyes of Ivalaine, Queen of Toloria.
At once they affected hurried curtsies. “Your Majesty!”
“Rise,” the queen said, and they did.
Ivalaine stood in an alcove, her arm resting upon a pedestal, as if she had been standing there for some time, waiting. But waiting for what?
Don’t you mean waiting for whom, Grace?
She looked over the queen’s shoulder and expected to see a flash of emerald. However, Kyrene was nowhere in sight. Only Tressa stood behind the queen, a serene expression on her plump, pretty face. The queen’s lady-in-waiting looked like an angel. Except angels didn’t have long red hair, did they? Grace returned her gaze to Ivalaine. On the pedestal against which the queen leaned was a bronze ewer filled with water, and next to it was a cup of horn. The medieval version of a drinking fountain.
“How can we assist you, Your Majesty?” Aryn said between gasps for breath.
“Drink,” Ivalaine said. “You are thirsty.”
Grace lifted a hand to her throat. Yes, she was thirsty, terribly so. Her throat burned with thirst. She took the cup, filled it from the ewer, and drank greedily. Aryn fairly snatched the cup from her hands and did the same. Grace wiped at her damp chin with the back of her hand. The water from the ewer had been cold and sweet, but already her throat was growing dry again. She started to reach for the cup. A slender hand on her wrist stopped her.
“The thirst is not so easily quenched, is it, my sister?”
Grace thought her touch would be like ivory, but instead the queen’s hand against her own was warm and light, the touch of a bird. She could feel a pulse, like a tiny, fluttering heart.
Grace licked her lips. “We should go.” Her voice was a croak. “King Boreas is waiting for us.”
Aryn nodded. “The king.” She could seem to speak no other words.
Ivalaine’s gown was the color of water. The air seemed to ripple. “Look into the ewer,” she said. “I think you will find something there.”
“What do you think we will see?” Aryn said, but Ivalaine did not answer. She only watched, and her eyes glittered like secret gems.
Grace and Aryn peered into the water.
What are you doing, Grace? You have to go. Boreas is going to feed you to his mastiffs if you don’t get moving. Besides, there’s nothing in the water.…
Grace drew in a sharp breath. If there was nothing in the water, then she should have been able to see the bottom of the ewer. She couldn’t. The inside of the vessel was black. The darkness claimed her vision, dragged her down, until she could see nothing else. A queasiness came over her, as though she drifted on a choppy ocean.
“I see a castle!”
It was Aryn’s voice, although she sounded too far away. Her words were bright and excited, like a small girl’s on her birthday, opening presents.
“There are seven towers—I can see them so clearly—and a hundred knights with banners tied to their lances. The banners are as blue as the sky. There’s a woman riding before the knights, on a horse as white as clouds. She must be their queen. She’s all in blue as well, with a sword belted at her side, and her dark hair streaming behind her on the wind. She’s so proud, so proud and … oh!”
Aryn’s words ended. What had she seen? Grace could not glimpse the castle or the proud queen. She saw only blackness.
No, that wasn’t true. There was something in the blackness after all. They were faint, but she could see them. Hands. Some were long and slender. Others were thick and rough. They reached out, pale against the darkness. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. And they were all reaching for her.
No!
The water in the ewer changed from black to crimson. Flames shot out of the darkness. Engulfed by the fire, the hands curled like dying spiders. She thought she heard screams. Then there was only the fire. Pure, hot, cleansing fire.…
“Lady Grace!”
The voice was stern but not alarmed. Grace snapped her head up. Next to her Aryn blinked, her expression bewildered. Ivalaine still watched them both, but now her gaze was calculating. Behind the queen Tressa nodded, a knowing look on her broad angel’s face.
Aryn shook her head. “What … what happened?”
“There is a power in water, a life,” the queen of Toloria said. “It has the ability to reflect both past and future, if one knows how to look.” Ivalaine stepped toward them and caught their hands in her own. Her expression was exultant. “There can be no doubt of it now. The Touch runs strong in both of you.”
Aryn cast a frightened look at Grace. Yet there was something else in the baroness’s gaze. A hungry light. Grace tried to swallow—her throat burned with thirst.
“What if we don’t want it?” she said. “What if we don’t want this Touch?”
Ivalaine’s gaze was as distant and frosty as a winter sky. “Then do not come to my chamber this evening at sunset.” The queen released their hands and without further words moved down the corridor, Tressa silent in her wake. The Tolorian women vanished around a corner. As if waking from a spell, Aryn slapped her forehead.
“The king!”
Grace didn’t move. She kept staring at the ewer. Small bubbles rose in the water, and a faint wisp of steam curled from its surface. Except that was impossible.
A tug on her sleeve. “Come on, Grace. We have to go.”
Still Grace didn’t move. “What did you see, Aryn? In the ewer, when you stopped speaking.” She looked at the baroness.
Aryn blushed and hung her head. “It’s foolish. A whim, a fancy. It can’t mean anything.”
“Tell me.”
She drew in a deep breath and lifted her head, and now her blue eyes shone. “It was me, Grace. The queen with the sword, going to war on the white horse. It was me.”
Of course. Ivalaine had said the water could reflect the future.
“What about you, Grace? What did you see?”
The future … or the past.
Grace swallowed. Her mouth tasted like ashes. “Nothing, Aryn. I saw nothing. Come on, we’d better go see King Boreas.”
She did not glance at the ewer again as she turned and started down the passageway.
72.
Travis rested his bearded chin on his hands and watched through the window as clouds rolled from the west to blanket the fields, hills, and copses of Calavan. The leaden sky descended until the castle’s towers scraped it and shreds of mist whirled around their turrets. Below, peasants and serving maidens and men-at-arms went about their business in Calavere’s two baileys. Life seemed hard in this place, but Travis envied the castle folk. At least they had something to do, even if it was only pushing a cart of peat through the muck.
“… but I managed to catch him for a few moments yesterday evening, outside the king’s chamber,” Falken was saying. He paced around the chamber, strumming his lute, which hung from a leather strap over his shoulder.
“And what did he tell you?” Melia said.
She sat near the fire, a shawl over her shoulders. A fluffy black kitten played on the rug near her feet. Travis had no idea where it had come from.
“Alerain said that, after any reckoning, the council must recess for three days.”
“Three days!” Melia’s coppery skin darkened. “How many more feydrim will be prowling the castle in three days? And how much closer
to freedom will the Pale King be?” She picked up the kitten and set it in her lap. It instantly began attacking the tasseled end of her sash.
“It’s frustrating, I agree, but you know how Calavaners are about regulations.”
“Rabid?”
Falken gave a snort. “That’s one word. Anyway, blame it all on King Indarus. He’s the one who set down the rules for calling a council.”
Melia stroked the kitten, and her eyes narrowed to gold slits. “I have half a mind to make this Indarus regret writing all those rules and regulations.”
“He’s been dead three centuries, Melia.”
“That’s not necessarily a problem.”
Travis started to ask what that had meant, then clamped his mouth shut. What was he thinking? That Melia or Falken would actually tell him what was going on? He had followed the two all those leagues, believing that once they got to Calavere the bard and lady would find a way to send him back to Colorado. However, since they had arrived at the castle two days ago, neither had even mentioned Travis’s home. It might have been bearable if Beltan were here, but Travis had not seen the knight since yesterday at the council.
You could go talk to Grace.
A thrill passed through him at the thought, but he dismissed it. He had seen Grace from a distance at the council. She had seemed so at ease with her noble friends, like the knight Durge, or that young baroness with the blue eyes. What was her name? Aryn?
Just because Grace is from Earth doesn’t mean she’s like you, Travis. She fits in here.
A soft but demanding mew reached his ears, and he looked down. The black kitten had tumbled and rolled across the floor to land at his feet. He lifted it up and set it on the windowsill. The kitten regarded him with golden eyes. They looked just like Melia’s.
“Has she sent you here to spy on me?” he said.
The kitten only purred and began exploring the sill. When it reached the window, it stiffened and let out a hiss. The hair on its back stood up. Travis peered out.
“It’s only a dog,” he said with a smile. “It’s all the way down in the bailey. It can’t hurt you.”
He started to pick up the kitten. It hissed again and slashed with tiny claws. A thin red line appeared on Travis’s skin. He snatched his hands back.
“Even you?” he murmured.
Now the kitten sat calmly, daintily licked a paw, and regarded him with those moonlike eyes.
“Traitor.”
The kitten leaped lightly to the floor and pranced back toward Melia. Travis picked up an empty pitcher from a table and followed.
“… was utterly disastrous,” Melia was saying now. “We have to find a way to break the deadlock.”
“And while there are still Dominions left to fight for.” Falken strummed a minor chord.
Travis cleared his throat. “I’m going to get some water.” He wasn’t really thirsty. It was just the only excuse he could think of to leave the room.
“All right, Travis,” Melia said in an absent tone.
He frowned. “And then I’m going to fling myself from the battlements and count how many seconds it takes before I splatter against the cobblestones.”
“That’s nice, dear.” She picked up the kitten and set it back in her lap.
It was no use. Travis walked from the chamber, leaving the bard and the lady to their machinations. He set the pitcher on a sideboard and headed down a corridor.
As always, Travis didn’t decide what direction to take. He wandered the castle for a time, and when he found himself at a door that led outside, it felt right enough. He opened the door and stepped into the lower bailey. Cold air slapped his cheeks, and woke him after the smoky dullness of the castle.
The bailey was thronging, and Travis felt odd not having an obvious task to do. He hurried across the courtyard—past short, powerful men with pockmarked faces and smudge-faced young women with toothless smiles—and hoped that would make him look like he had purpose enough. He didn’t want to be mistaken for an errant servant again.
A chorus of bleating erupted behind Travis. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a flock of goats bearing down on him. The beasts were small, but there were a lot of them, and something told him he wouldn’t enjoy the sensation of all their little cloven feet prancing across his back. He lurched out of the way and pressed himself against a wall. The shaggy animals trotted by, along with their switch-wielding master: a man every bit as shaggy as his charges.
Once the stench settled, Travis peeled himself from the stones. His dash for safety had taken him to a dim corner of the bailey. He looked up, and above him loomed a tower he hadn’t really noticed before. It was smaller than the castle’s other towers, and of all the nine it was the only one that seemed in ill repair. A hole gaped in the side where several stones had fallen out, and the slate roof slumped at an odd angle. Most likely it had been abandoned. Perhaps the tower was dangerous. Travis shrugged, then turned to move on.
Something caught his eye, and he froze. There. He walked to the tower’s door of wood, weathered the same gray as the stones it was set into. They had fashioned it of silver inlaid in the wood, and although tarnished with time he could still make it out: three intersecting lines. It was the same symbol that had glowed on his right hand in the ruins of Kelcior:
Travis lifted his hand and reached toward the rune.
“Can I help you?” asked a masculine voice behind him.
Travis snatched his hand back and turned around. The man was young—younger than Travis by several years. His face was broad and homely, and his nose flat, but a cheerful light shone in his brown eyes. He wore a robe of unassuming gray, but the garment did not quite conceal his short, massive frame. Travis recognized him—he was one of the two runespeakers who had spoken the rune of beginning at the Council of Kings.
“I’m sorry,” Travis said. “I was just looking at the … I mean, I was just looking.” How could he explain to this stranger what, even at that moment, itched beneath the skin of his right palm?
The man only nodded. He seemed neither suspicious nor angry. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He pointed to the symbol on the door. “Do you know it?”
Travis shook his head. “No, what is it?”
“It’s a rune—the rune of runes. See? There are three lines.” He traced them with a thick finger. “One for the art of runespeaking, and one for the two arts which are lost.”
Travis forgot his trepidation. He gazed at the rune on the door in new wonder. “The arts of runebinding and runebreaking,” he murmured.
The young man cocked his head and gave Travis a penetrating look. “Not many people know those words these days. Few are interested in runes anymore.”
“Why not?” Travis said.
He gave a wistful shrug. “Old ways are forgotten in the wake of new.”
Travis opened his mouth to speak, but another voice interrupted him.
“Hello there, Travis.”
He and the young man turned around. Travis wasn’t certain why he felt like a child who had just been caught in an illicit act, but he did. He crunched his shoulders inside his tunic.
“Hi, Melia. Hi, Falken.”
The young man glanced at Travis, surprise in his brown eyes, but Travis said nothing. The bard approached, and the lady drifted behind him.
“I’m surprised to find you here, Travis,” Melia said. Amusement touched the corners of her mouth. “I thought you were going to count how long it took to fall from the battlements.”
Travis winced. “How did you find me?”
Falken grinned his wolfish grin. “No, Travis, we weren’t looking for you. This was simply Lady Fate again, tangling our threads as she has before. We came to the bailey to buy a bolt of cloth for Melia.”
“I’m quite overdue for a new dress,” the lady said.
Her kirtle, as always, was without stain or rent or stray thread, but Travis said nothing.
Falken nodded toward the young man in the gray robe. “It’s good
to see you again, Journeyman Rin.”
The man bowed. “And you as well, Master Falken.”
Travis tried to reel in his dangling jaw. “You know each other?”
“I spoke with Rin the other day,” Falken said. “I asked him if he could take you on as an apprentice.”
Rin smiled at Travis. “And that solves a mystery for me. It is not every day someone who knows about runes comes to our tower door.”
“Will you be able to teach him, Rin?” Melia said.
The young runespeaker’s face grew solemn. “I discussed the topic with Master Jemis yesterday. Usually apprentices must make a petition to All-master Oragien at the Gray Tower.”
Melia opened her mouth to protest, but Rin held up a hand and laughed.
“No, great lady, I would not presume to argue with you. I think we will be able to make an exception in this case. We will take Travis as an apprentice. However, at the earliest chance, he must journey to the Gray Tower and present himself there.”
Melia’s visage grew placid again. “Thank you, Rin.”
He bowed again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to my own studies. I’m afraid I’m not a master yet. I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn, Travis.”
With that Rin opened the door of the ramshackle tower and disappeared within.
“Well,” Melia said to Falken with a pleased look, “that’s settled.”
Travis frowned. “Wait a minute. Don’t I get a choice about this?”
Amber eyes locked on him. “And what would you choose, dear?”
He opened his mouth to make an angry reply, but he could think of no words to say.
Falken laid his gloved hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Travis. Rin and Jemis can teach you better than I can.”