The Dark Remains (59 page)

The fairy drifted toward Beltan. With a slender finger it touched a small, round wound on the knight’s arm, then it turned its own arm over. They were faint and almost lost amid the radiance, but Travis could still see them: long, white scars.

A choking sound escaped Beltan. “By Vathris, that’s what they did. They put your blood in me, didn’t they?”

Again the fairy nodded. Beltan swayed, started to fall. The knight was still so terribly thin. Both Grace and Travis reached for him, but they were too slow.

With slender arms, the fairy caught Beltan, holding him in a gentle embrace. The knight looked up, eyes wide. Then tendrils of white light spun outward from the fairy, coiling around him.

Now Beltan did stagger back, but he did not fall. He stood stiff, arms thrust at his sides, as the light spun
faster and faster around him. The light grew more brilliant. It seemed Beltan’s skin was translucent as glass. Travis could see muscles undulating beneath, then the knight’s beating heart. Then even flesh was transparent, and his bones were silhouetted against the glare. The light flared, turning everything to white—

—then dimmed.

Shadows closed back in on the alley, and a breath of wonder escaped Travis.

Beltan held his hands out before him, mouth open. The lab coat had evaporated like the frost under the force of the light, and Beltan was naked. Travis knew he should not stare, but he could not turn away. The knight was no longer emaciated, but rather lean and rangy like a tawny lion. Sheets of muscles flexed beneath his pale skin. His thinning, white-blond hair tumbled over broad shoulders, and his scruffy beard was as gold as the sunlight outside the alley. On his left side, where the Necromancer Dakarreth had reopened his wound, there was only a pale line.

Beltan gazed at the fairy, astonishment on his face. It was hard to see for the radiance, but it seemed to Travis that the fairy smiled.

The last tendrils of light vanished from around Beltan. Smiling, Grace looked away, and Vani studiously averted her eyes.

Beltan glanced down, then his head snapped up. “By the Blood of Vathris! Sorry, my ladies. Er, Travis …”

Travis pulled his mistcloak from the backpack he still had slung over a shoulder and threw it around the knight. His hands lingered on Beltan’s chest; it was warm and firm. “How do you feel?”

The knight gave him a wry grin, holding the cloak around him. “A bit embarrassed. But otherwise fine.” Then wonder crept into his eyes. “More than fine. Not even an ache or pain from any of my old battle scars.”

A chiming sound. The fairy drifted past them, toward Vani. It made a graceful gesture. Vani seemed to understand. She drew the gate artifact from her jacket and removed the prism. Travis could see the artifact was empty now.

The fairy took the artifact in long fingers and drew it close to its body. There was a flash, and a sharp, crystalline sound, almost like a cry, then the light dimmed, and Vani was holding the artifact again. It was no longer empty, but filled once more with dark fluid.

Vani replaced the prism, sealing the fairy’s blood inside. However, Travis noticed she made certain the prism was turned at an angle, so that its sides were not aligned with the sides of the artifact. He supposed she did this so the gate would not be activated.

“Thank you,” Vani said simply.

Travis moved to the fairy, gripping the Stone of Twilight, the Great Stone he had entrusted to the Little People of Gloaming Wood not long after last Midwinter’s Day. “You let the sorcerer capture you and take you through the gate, didn’t you? You did it so you could come to Earth and bring me Sinfathisar. But why?”

The fairy tilted its head, then words chimed around Travis, and inside him.

To choose what it shall be
.

He didn’t understand. What was he supposed to choose? However, before he could ask, the fairy drifted away. The radiant being paused before Grace. Then, slowly, it bowed to her.

Grace lifted a hand to her throat, the light of the fairy shining in her vivid eyes. For a moment its light wavered, and the being seemed to reach a hand toward her. However, Travis must have imagined it, for the silvery corona that surrounded the fairy suddenly brightened, expanding like a star, then collapsed, leaving only a white-hot spark of light. The spark circled around them once, then sped away down the alley and was gone.

Travis gave Grace a questioning look, but she only shook her head, then moved to Beltan. First she lifted one of his hands, then the other, then studied his face.

“This is impossible. You were in a coma for two months, Beltan. Your muscles had experienced severe atrophy, and you were osteoporotic. And now”—Grace stepped back—“now you’re perfect.”

Beltan’s eyes sparkled, and he gave a bow. “Why thank you, my lady. So I’ve always liked to believe.”

“No, that’s not what I meant—”

He sighed, the mirth dimming in his eyes. “I know what you meant, my lady. My body is hale, that’s all.” The knight gazed down at his hands. “And I am anything but perfect.”

A note of alarm cut through the relief in Travis’s chest. What was Beltan saying?

Grace spoke again. “You said something about the fairy’s blood, Beltan, about them infusing you with it.”

“I believe so, my lady. There were tubes going into my veins when I woke in their fortress. They must have used them to put the fairy blood in me. I think … I think that was how I knew things I had no way to know, like how to speak their language.”

This struck Travis like a slap. Grace and he still had the silver half-coins Brother Cy had given them, and he had thought it simply the magic of the coins that had allowed him and Grace to understand Beltan. But Deirdre and Farr had been able to speak to Beltan as well, and Davis and Mitchell. So there had been another sort of magic at work.

“The
chin-pasi
at the fortress,” Beltan went on, “I think they put the fairy’s blood in it as well.”

“The chimpanzee?” Grace crossed her arms. “Yes, that has to be how they did it—that’s the delivery vector they were using for the gene therapy, and that’s how they made the
gorleths
. Which would mean—” She gazed at the knight. “Oh, Beltan …”

Travis moved closer. “What did they do to him, Grace?”

Beltan’s visage was solemn. “They were trying to make me into a killer.” He turned away, hands clamped together. “I guess they didn’t know I already was one.”

What was Beltan talking about? Travis looked at Grace.

“I don’t think we need to worry. I don’t see any outward morphological changes. And the fairy … I think all it did was heal him. He’s still our Beltan.” She smiled. “Just a little better than before.”

But that wasn’t entirely true. Beltan
looked
well enough. More than well. Before, Beltan’s face had always been rough and homely in a good-natured way, his handsomeness a secret that shone forth only when he smiled. But now it was as if Travis could see that part of him whether Beltan was smiling or not. Only there was something else, something that dimmed that light.…

A shadow blocked the sun. Vani stepped into the mouth of the alley. When had she gone?

“Here.” She held out a bundle of clothes. “Put these on. Then we must go.”

Travis eyed the garments. “You didn’t steal these, did you?” It seemed like people were always stealing his clothes for him on Eldh.

Vani’s gold eyes flashed. “You cannot wear your Earth garb here. It will attract undue attention.”

Travis sighed. Stolen all right.

Moments later they were dressed. Grace wore a simple shift of pale green, but she looked regal all the same. Vani wrapped a yellow cloth around herself. It hid her black leathers, but it could not disguise the sleek power of her movements. Travis and Beltan both wore long white shirts that came to their ankles.

Vani handed Travis a cloth sack. “Use this for your things.”

He stuffed his mistcloak into the sack, then transferred the few other items from his backpack: his gunfighter’s spectacles and Malachorian dagger, and the drawing of the sword Deirdre had given Grace. He cinched the sack’s rope and slung it over his shoulder.

“Can you walk?” Grace said to Beltan.

The knight nodded. “It’s odd, but I think I can. Although a pot of ale would give me strength.”

“We have no time for ale.”

“Nonsense,” Beltan said. “There’s always time for ale.”

Vani moved to the mouth of the alley. “We must find my brother at once.”

“But how do you know he’s here in Tarras?” Travis said. “You haven’t talked to him in months.”

“I saw the markings on a wall near where I took—that is, where I found the clothes.”

Travis frowned. “You mean you know your brother is here because he’s a vandal and likes to write on walls?”

“They are arcane signs, Travis, used by my people to signal one another of our presence. To the dwellers of this city, they would look like scratches, nothing more. Now come.”

Melia was dancing again.

Lirith stood in the doorway of the lady’s room, hand to her mouth. The coppery light of afternoon shone through the window’s sheer curtains. They had all been trying to rest, for none of them had slept after their visit to Sif’s temple last night, not after witnessing the murder of the arachnid god. Aryn had finally fallen asleep, but rest
eluded Lirith, so she had gone to Melia’s room. There were some things she wanted to ask the lady. Things about spiders.

Falken stood just inside the door, watching Melia. The small woman danced on a red carpet in the center of the room, placing her feet in precise positions, the rings on her toes gleaming. She murmured a soft, mournful song that once again reminded Lirith of the music of the Mournish.

Lirith glanced at Falken. “How long has she been like this?”

“I’m not certain,” he said softly. “She retired to her room about an hour ago. I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

Melia spun in a circle, bowed, then began the circle again. It was the same dance Lirith had witnessed before, in the shrine of Mandu in Ar-tolor. However, there was an urgency to it that had not been there the last time.

Lirith clutched the spider amulet at her throat. “What is she doing, Falken?”

“I think she’s reenacting her mystery.”

“Her mystery?”

“Yes, the story of how she became a goddess.” The bard tore his gaze from Melia. “Each of the New Gods has a mystery—a story around which their cult is centered. Like Vathris, who slew the white bull, and a red river of blood poured forth, quenching his parched kingdom. Or Jorus Stormrunner, who was thrown into the sea to die, only he was transformed into a horse and rode the waves back to crush his enemies.”

“Or like Tira,” Lirith said.

Falken lifted a hand to his chin. “Yes, I suppose you’re right at that. Like Tira, who was burned in fire, and who ascended with a star into the sky.”

“But what’s Melia’s mystery? I don’t know it.”

“Listen,” the bard said.

Only as he said this did Lirith realize that Melia was
no longer singing. Instead she spoke, her voice a singsong chant that rose and fell in time with the motions of her feet, her hands.

“… that I shall marry him not, my sister. For last night I heard him, drunk on wine and boasting with his men at table. It was he! It was he who slew our people, who spilled their blood upon the ground. It was he who took our mother and father from us. It was he who tore our brothers limb from limb and scattered their bodies for the vultures.”

Melia’s movements changed, reversing the circle, and her voice changed at the same time, growing higher, softer, as if it were another who spoke. And perhaps it was.

“But his word is law, Melindora. You dare not refuse him, or he will murder us both and what few of our people remain. He has chosen you, and nothing you might do would make him change his will—save only if you were made a woman by another man. But no man will touch the one he has chosen. To do so would be death.”

Again Melia’s voice and direction changed.

“No man will touch me? Very well, my sister. Then no man will I lie with, and no man will I marry, and no man will save me from this murderer’s bed. There, do you see him, so beautiful and brilliant? Ever has he been my companion. I shall marry the moon, my sister. I shall dance a dance of joining in his pale light, and by it I will be his wife.”

Lirith gazed at Melia in wonder. How could a young woman, grief-struck at being forced to marry the warlord who had slain her family, wed the moon instead? Yet that was why they were called mysteries. If desire was great enough, sometimes the impossible happened, and a god or goddess was born.

“Lirith?” a cool voice said. “Falken? What are you doing here? Last I recalled, this was my chamber.”

Melia stood hands on hips, wearing a frown.

Falken sighed. “Dear one …”

Those words were enough. Melia looked down at herself, then glanced back up, her amber eyes startled.

“I was … I was gone again, wasn’t I?”

Lirith did not hesitate. She rushed forward and caught the woman in a fierce embrace. “You were so brave to refuse to marry him.”

Melia stiffened, then melted into the embrace. “Or foolish, dear. And yet the gods do have a way of preserving fools. But all that is so long ago. And whatever the source of my memories, they are gone now, in the past where they belong.” Gently, she pushed Lirith away.

Falken’s mien was thoughtful. “Yes, Melia, all that was indeed a long time ago. And yet it seems it is as real for you as what is happening now.”

Melia turned away. “And at times even more real.” She turned back, her eyes clear now. “I do not know the source of my spells, Falken. They come without warning and are gone as quickly. But I know now I am not alone in them.”

“What?”

“Last night, I held counsel with my brothers and sisters. Those who would talk to me, at least. I suppose we are like a great, tangled family, and as in any family not all of us are on speaking terms. Especially now.”

Lirith wondered how Melia could speak with the other gods without even leaving the hostel. But then, couldn’t anyone speak to the gods in secret silence? It was called prayer. And Lirith had a feeling Melia’s prayers were paid a bit more attention than those of the average worshiper.