The keep of fire, p.41
The Keep of Fire, page 41
Travis huddled inside his mistcloak—the cloak that, except for its frayed edges, was just like the one worn by the dying man they had come upon at the border. A Spider, Falken had called the other. Was it from one of King Persard’s spies that Falken had gotten this garment? He resolved to ask the bard about it. But later, he amended at another outburst of curses.
Durge let out a rumbling sigh. “I suppose this means Falken will never open the door.” His voice was as dull and heavy as the mist. “We’ll most likely all die waiting here.”
Grace sat up. “He’ll open the door, Durge. You’ll see.”
The Embarran’s shoulders slumped even farther than usual. “Then I suppose we’ll go through and get choked by foul air on the other side. Or we’ll be bitten by poisonous snakes, or get lost in the dark and never find the light again.”
The knight bowed his head, and Grace cast a startled look at Travis. He nodded. Such sentiments were disturbingly gloomy—even for Durge. Travis opened his mouth but was interrupted by an angry voice.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Durge?”
All of them looked up at Beltan. The blond knight had leaped to his feet, his face ruddy and eyes hard. “I think you’d like it if something terrible happened, if all of us were killed. You say it so often I have to believe you want it to be true.”
The Embarran did not look up.
Beltan’s hand slipped to the hilt of his sword. “Tell you what—I’ll give you something to worry about.…”
“Beltan!”
Melia’s voice was not loud, but it sliced through the mist all the same. Beltan jerked his hand away from his sword and sat down again, but he did not take his eyes from Durge.
“Is that all you knights can think of when you’re faced with a problem?” Lirith’s voice was a hiss of contempt. The dark-eyed woman was sitting. She braided her hair with rapid movements, then as quickly unbraided it again. “Is the sword your answer to everything?” She twined her hair once more; it was getting snarled.
Beltan snorted, his lip curling. “And what would you do, witch? Cast a spell and have us all do your bidding?”
Dread rose in Travis’s throat. Was he really hearing this? He felt as if he was going to scream, although he had no idea why, and he glanced again at Grace. However, she held Tira tightly, her head bowed over the girl.
Another curse sounded from Falken’s direction. The bard turned from the ancient door and marched toward them.
“Any luck?” Melia said as he approached.
“What do you think?” he shot back in a caustic voice.
Melia’s amber eyes widened, then narrowed to thin, glowing slits. “Maybe if you had thought ahead this problem would not have happened.”
“And maybe if your friend had warned us about what to expect we wouldn’t be stuck here.”
“Are you saying you think Tome did not tell us all he knew?”
“And do your kind ever tell everything they know, Melindora Nightsilver? Do they really?”
Falken’s words were as harsh as poison. Melia’s face blanched, and Travis stared along with the others. Before the bard could say anything further, Aryn—who had been lying still on her blanket—suddenly rose.
“Shut up!” The young woman’s voice quivered on the edge of a shriek. “All of you shut up! You sound like crows, did you know that? All cackling and cawing and saying nothing. I swear, it’s driving me mad!”
The baroness stiffened, then slumped back to her knees, shaking. Grace reached a hand toward her, then snatched it back and looked up. “What’s going on?” she said. “Something’s wrong—wrong with us. We don’t argue like this.”
Melia blinked, then glanced at Falken, and he nodded.
“It’s like a sickness,” Lirith said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “I can feel it on the air of this place. Everything is sick and twisted here.”
The witch shuddered, and Tira moved over to sit in her lap and snuggle against her. Of them all, only the girl appeared the same as she ever did.
Aryn’s eyes fluttered shut, then all at once they flew open, and her scream drove a spike through Travis’s heart. Grace rushed to the young woman’s side.
“What is it?” She touched Aryn’s brow, cheeks, chest.
The baroness lifted a shaking finger and pointed, her face white with horror. “I saw it. Over there. Like … like a rip in the Weirding, filled with … with nothing.” She bent forward, pressed her face into her hands, and sobbed.
Falken looked up, his face hard. “Beltan, Travis, come with me. The rest of you stay here.”
Travis jumped to his feet, and he and the knight followed after the bard, walking in the direction Aryn had pointed, toward a tall clump of dead bushes tangled with vines.
“I should have known,” Falken muttered. “I should have known there would be one in this place.”
Travis started to ask what the bard was talking about, but then they reached the clump of dead foliage. With a gloved hand, Falken jerked a branch aside.
“Help me.”
Travis and Beltan moved forward and tore at the vines and bushes. Thorns bit into their flesh, but Travis ignored them and kept pulling. He could feel it, too—not as vividly as Aryn, but it was still there: a dark, ponderous mass that pulled at him, casting a dusky veil over his eyes even as it drew him on. With a grunt, the three men ripped a knotted mass of branches and vines free and heaved it aside. Travis stared at what they had uncovered.
It was a standing stone hewn of black rock, with four planed sides that tapered toward the top. The stone’s surface was worn and pitted, but he could still make out a few of the symbols carved upon it. They were not runes.
Waves of sick, suffocating power radiated from the stone, shimmering on the air, distorting it like the heat waves above a desert plain. Beltan reached a hand toward the standing stone. Travis began to do the same.
A voice cut through the torpor like a cool copper knife.
“You must not touch the stone.”
Melia. But she seemed so distant, so small.
“Move away from it, dears. Now.”
Travis stiffened, caught between the strength of the lady’s words and the inexorable pull of the stone. Then he gasped and lurched backward. The dim veil lifted from his eyes, and only as air rushed into his lungs did he realize he had stopped breathing. Beltan stumbled after him.
Falken glanced at Melia. “Are they all right?”
Melia touched Beltan’s brow, then Travis’s. Her fingertips were soft and cool as rainwater. “They are unharmed. But we must get away from the pylon at once. Its evil has tainted all of us.”
A half hour later they huddled inside a ring of tumbled boulders that was just circular enough to make Travis wonder if it had been, if not built, at least shaped by human hands. He sipped the fragrant liquid in the clay cup he held and sighed. Melia had brewed a tea of alasai, and as they drank it their eyes had grown clear and color had crept back into their faces. All except for Tira, who turned her nose up at the tea and ignored them as she scrambled atop one of the boulders to play with her doll.
“What was it, Falken?” Grace set down her cup and regarded the bard with brilliant green-gold eyes. “What was that stone back there?”
It was Travis who answered. But then, it was not the first time he had seen such a thing. “It’s a pylon. An artifact of the Pale King.”
“No, that’s not entirely right,” Melia said.
The bard nodded. “It was the Necromancers, the Pale King’s wizards, who created the pylons. It was during the War of the Stones. No one is really certain what the pylons were for, but I think they helped the Necromancers communicate somehow—with each other, and with other servants of the Pale King.”
Lirith cupped her hands around her tea. “Falken, were not all of the Necromancers slain in the War of the Stones?”
“So it is told.”
“And yet you seem to know so much of them.”
The bard reached up and fingered the silver brooch that clasped his cloak. “You could say I’ve had some … experience in the subject.”
Travis frowned. How could Falken have experience with something that had passed from the world an eon ago?
Durge spoke then. “There is yet one question you have to answer, Falken. Why is there a pylon here?”
“Because it was a Necromancer who built this place, before the War of the Stones began.”
All stared at the bard, but no one found words to reply.
Falken stood. “I should get back to the door. I still have to find a way to open it.”
“Not alone,” Melia said. “It is too close to the pylon.”
Travis scrambled to his feet. “I’ll go with him.
“And I,” Lirith said, rising.
Melia caught and held their gazes. “You must each watch the others for signs of the shadow cast by the pylon.”
They both nodded in answer. Falken turned to go. Travis followed several paces behind the bard, Lirith beside him.
“There is more they have not told us,” the witch whispered as they walked.
Travis couldn’t suppress a soft laugh. “I have a feeling there always is.”
They reached the door set into the cliff wall. Travis could feel the power of the pylon, like a shadow just on the edge of his vision, but now that he knew it was there it was easier to close his mind to its call.
Falken let out a breath. “All right, let’s start over. Maybe three heads will be able to figure out what all these lines and dots mean. Who wants to take a look at the inscription first?”
“Why don’t we all look at the same time?” Lirith said.
Travis shook his head. “The alcove’s not big enough for us all to step in and see the inscription.”
“Well, then let’s bring the inscription out to us,” Lirith said.
Falken frowned at the witch. “How do you mean?”
Instead of answering, Lirith moved to a nearby bush. If pressed for a name, Travis supposed he would have had to call it not-holly. Lirith snapped off a handful of bare twigs, gathered several bunches of red berries, then returned to the others. She held out the sticks and berries.
“Lines and dots,” she said.
Travis and Falken stared at the witch, then both laughed in understanding.
They took turns stepping into the alcove, studying a few of the symbols, then returning to a large, flat stone on which they re-created the symbols using Lirith’s sticks and berries. Soon they had duplicated the entire inscription.
The three gathered around the stone, studying the symbols they had copied. In a way, the markings were familiar to Travis, and not just because they looked vaguely like runes. This was what written words always looked like to him—a chaotic jumble of lines and dots—before he concentrated and sorted them out. But no matter how hard he stared, these markings refused to organize themselves in any meaningful fashion.
Falken groaned and stepped back from the stone. “It’s no use. We’ll never understand the message.” He looked up. “And that’s not just the pylon talking.”
Lirith held a hand to her brow. “We have to keep trying. Perhaps we made a mistake in copying the inscription. I’ll go check again.”
Falken heaved his shoulders in a sigh. “I’ll help.”
The bard and the witch turned back toward the alcove. Travis gazed again at the stone. The sticks and berries seemed to dance, and he gave up trying to make them stop. If there was meaning in the symbols, it was beyond him. He let the dots and lines swim freely before his eyes.
Two of the sticks and one of the berries collided, forming a new shape. Travis sucked in a breath. It was Urath, the rune of opening.
He blinked, and the twigs and berries ceased their wandering. The rune Urath vanished.
No, that wasn’t true. It was still there, wasn’t it? He picked up the stick farthest to the right, then placed it on top of the stick and berry farthest to the left. Together, they formed the rune of opening.
Shaking, Travis moved the two sticks that were now the farthest to the right and moved them onto the two sticks next to Urath. A jolt passed through him. Pel. Door.
He worked swiftly now, moving sticks and berries from right to left, until he had formed seven recognizable runes on the flat stone. Before he even thought about what he was doing, Travis sounded out the runes.
“Urath pel sar bri, fale krond val.”
“What are you doing, Travis?”
Travis jerked his head up. Falken approached, frowning at the sticks. Travis opened his mouth to answer, but Lirith, still beside the alcove, spoke first.
“Look at the door,” she whispered.
Both Travis and Falken turned to follow her gaze. Deep in the alcove, the symbols glowed with a pale light of their own. A faint snick sounded on the air, like a lock turning, and a dark line appeared in the midst of the fragmented runes, running from the top of the archway to the bottom.
“What’s happening?” Travis said.
However, his question was answered for him as—with a whisper of dry, ancient air—the doorway swung open.
62.
“By Olrig, they were runes.” Falken peered through the archway into the opening and ran a hand through his black-and-silver hair. “I just couldn’t see it.”
“We all have our off days, dear,” Melia said, her voice a trifle too smug to be genuinely sympathetic.
The bard shot a sour look in her direction.
Grace gazed past Falken, into the lightless space beyond the arch. It was a passageway. Dusty, faintly metallic air spilled from its mouth—air that Grace was certain had not been breathed in long centuries.
She looked at Travis. “How did you know you were supposed to rearrange the symbols into runes?”
He gave her a sheepish shrug. “I didn’t.”
Grace studied him. Of course. It was his dyslexia. He didn’t mean to rearrange the symbols—it just happened in his mind when he got tired and couldn’t concentrate.
Beltan shot Travis a wry smile. “Maybe it’s not so bad being a mirror reader after all.”
“Indeed,” Lirith said.
Aryn gestured to the symbols fashioned of sticks and berries. “So what do the runes say?”
Falken opened his mouth, but it was Travis who murmured the translation. “Open this door of dark stone, and seek the king of the valley of fire.”
All of them cast startled looks at Falken. It was Lirith who first managed to find words.
“Now that your magic door is open, Falken, who shall step through?”
“All of us.”
“Are you certain that’s wise, dear?” Melia said.
Falken shrugged. “Is there anyone who cares to stay behind?”
There was not.
“We’ll have to leave the horses,” Beltan said. “We’re not going to get them into that tunnel.”
“Will they be all right here?” Aryn asked the blond knight.
Durge stepped forward. “I am certain they will be fine, my lady.”
As one, seven pairs of eyes turned on the Embarran. Those had been awfully optimistic words coming from Durge.
The knight smoothed his mustaches. “That is … I mean to say … I am certain Blackalock and Sir Beltan’s charger will guard the other horses against the wolves, mountain lions, and other perils that are certain to come along in our absence.”
Grace let out an audible sigh. She turned her attention back to the doorway along with the others.
Melia traced her fingers over the symbols carved into the arch. “Why here, Falken? I believe Tome, of course—he has never been wrong to my knowledge. But why did the Stone come to this of all places?”
Falken rested his black-gloved hand on her shoulder. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
She reached up and touched his hand. Falken looked at the others.
“There’s no need to bring anything besides a little food and water. If all goes well, we won’t be long.”
The bard’s conditional was not lost on Grace. If … All the same, she brought only a small water-skin and some dried fruit for herself and Tira to share. She wished she had some shoes for the girl—it had never mattered while they were riding—but it was too late now.
I’ll carry her if the passage gets too rough. She can’t weigh more than twenty-five kilos.
However, as they stepped through the tunnel into the gloom beyond, Grace saw that the floor was as smooth as the cliff wall, hewn of black stone and polished like glass. The passage slanted upward slightly, and within a minute the door was a bright, tiny window floating in the darkness behind them. Then the passage curved to the left, and the doorway was lost to sight. Ancient shadows closed in.
“Travis,” the bard said, his quiet words hissing off stone in all directions, “can you give us light?”
Grace sensed Travis hesitate, then he whispered a single word. Lir. As before, a silvery radiance sprang into being. However, now the light flickered and contracted under the weight of the darkness. Lines of strain crossed Travis’s face, and sweat beaded on his brow—then the light stabilized in a small sphere around him.
Lirith touched his arm. “What is wrong, Travis?”
“I don’t know. It feels almost like … like the shadows are trying to squeeze out the light.”
Falken nodded. “A different magic holds sway here, one of the south, not the north. It is a newer magic, but still strong.” He glanced at Melia. “You know, you could—”
The amber-eyed lady raised a hand. “No. I will use no power in this place, not unless there is terrible need. All I might do would be tainted here.”
Without further explanation, Melia continued on. Grace started forward, holding Tira’s hand, then winced as something pricked through her boots into the flesh of her ankles.
Don’t tell me you’ve already found one of Durge’s improbably poisonous snakes.
Grace looked down at her feet. Two small, moon-gold eyes gazed up at her.
Grace sighed. “So it’s you. I should have known—Travis warned me about you.” She bent down and picked up the black ball of fluff. “Why aren’t you with Lady Melia?”
