The Gates of Winter (11 page)

Grace couldn't believe it. She wouldn't. Except she had to. She wiped tears from her cheeks and looked up. “You do it, then. You can help him with your magic.”

“I fear that is not so,” the forest queen said, sorrow on her wizened visage. “Iron is a thing whose touch none of us can bear. I have no power over it.”

Anger boiled up in Grace, and she seized on it as she stood, because it was so much easier to endure than despair. “I came here to find Trifkin Mossberry and the Little People. I wanted to ask them for help in standing against the Pale King, and I found you. But you're no help at all. You don't even care. You ran away from the world to hide here in your forest, and now I can see why. Your magic is old and weak and useless.”

For a moment, anger touched the old woman's face, and her eyes blazed like the noonday sun. It was a terrible sight, but such was Grace's own rage that she did not flinch.

At last the forest queen shook her head, and her eyes dimmed. “Perhaps you are right, perhaps we have grown too distant from the world outside. Yet you are wrong if you think we do not care. Quellior is brash and foolish, but he was right—if you cannot stop the Lord of Winter from riding forth, summer will never come again. And while we cannot stand beside you in the way you hoped, perhaps I can help you discover a way to help yourself.” She met Grace's eyes. “You seek a key, do you not, one that can aid you in the war you must fight? Sit in the chair that is forbidden to all others, and the key shall be revealed to you.”

It wasn't enough, Grace wanted to say. She wanted the Little People to fight beside her when the Rune Gate opened. And she wanted Durge to be solid and whole, to be there for her as he always was. All the same, Grace felt her anger melting. She turned away.

“Do not lose all hope, daughter,” the old woman said behind her. “The splinter has not yet reached his heart. You will yet have time with your knight before the end.” Her voice was receding now. “Farewell. And remember the chair.”

Grace turned around, but the gold light filled the forest, and she couldn't see the old woman. Then the light dimmed, and she turned back to see a silver snake slither up against Durge's side. Only it wasn't a snake at all, but his greatsword. He was clothed again, his garments bearing no sign of rip or stain.

“My lady, what has happened?” Durge sat up, blinking gentle brown eyes as he stared in all directions.

Grace knelt beside him and gripped his hand. Her breath fogged on the air; the bitter cold had returned. “What do you remember?”

“I'm not entirely certain.” His mustaches pulled down into a frown. “I recall riding to the forest with you. And then . . .” He shook his head, his expression one of wonder. “I fear the Little People must have been at work, my lady, even if we never saw them, for I had the most peculiar dream. I dreamed I was a stag running through the forest, and that hunters wanted to slay me. Only a beautiful maiden threw herself upon me, protecting me from their arrows. It was all most queer.”

Relief flooded Grace. He didn't remember what had really happened. “Don't think about it, Durge. You're fine now.” Only that wasn't true, was it? Even now the splinter of iron was working its way nearer his heart.

Grace didn't even realize she was crying until he wiped the tears from her cheek.

“What is this, my lady?” he said in a chiding tone. “You must not weep. After all, there was never any hope the Little People would help us. Nor does it matter. I can't imagine we'll ever find a way to stop the Pale King from riding forth, but at least we'll not find it together.”

“Oh, Durge,” Grace said, and to his clear astonishment she threw her arms around him and wept.

13.

There was a package from the Seekers waiting for Deirdre Falling Hawk when she stepped through the door of her flat. She set her keys next to the cardboard box on the Formica dinette table. The landlady must have let them in.

Or maybe the Seekers have a skeleton key that works for all of London.

Regardless, the package could wait. She squeezed into the closet with a stove and a sink that served for a kitchen, put on a pot for tea, then headed to the adjoining bathroom. She took a shower, letting the hot water pound her, as if it had the power to wake her when she knew perfectly well she wasn't sleeping.

She toweled off, wrapped herself in a terry robe, and padded back to the kitchen to fix a cup of Earl Grey with lemon. Cup in hand, she curled on the threadbare sofa. She sipped tea, watching the day drizzle away outside the window, and wondered if she would ever see Hadrian Farr again. Over and over, she thought through their conversation at the pub earlier that day. It was no use; nothing she could have said would have stopped him from leaving.

It rained until night fell. Deirdre rose and switched on a tasseled floor lamp. Whoever decorated this place for the Seekers had clearly possessed a penchant for vintage stores—along with a fierce and single-minded need to make sure every object in the flat was a completely different color.

She donned jeans, a lamb's wool sweater she had picked up in Oslo a few years ago, and her leather jacket. She left the flat, walking down streets made black mirrors by the rain. After a few blocks she passed a neon-lit nightclub. Pounding music spilled out the door, running down the gutters like rainwater. Laughter floated on the moist air. Hands in pockets, she walked on.

She bought Indian takeout at a small shop and headed back to the flat. The Seekers' box took up almost the entire table, so she moved it to the floor. There was no mark on it, not even a mailing label—only a small symbol stamped in one corner: a hand with three flames.

Deirdre sat at the dinette and ate slowly, breathing in the heady aromas of cardamom and clove. As she ate, she looked at the newspaper she had bought from a box, only noticing after she had nearly finished going through it that it was yesterday's edition. Not that it mattered. These days, the news was always the same: more fear and unrest, more shootings and suicide bombings, more rumors of war.

Things had gotten better for a while last fall, after the plague of fire had ended as suddenly as it began. Now troubled times were back, darker than ever. Things seemed particularly bad in the United States. People were afraid, and the economy was crashing as a result. At the same time, the government's rhetoric was growing increasingly hard-line. Basic civil liberties were being suspended, and some senators were actually talking about closing the borders. Only that would accomplish nothing. Hiding in a locked room didn't do any good when the whole house was falling down around you.

Appetite gone, she folded up the paper and tossed it in the recycle bin, then took the leftovers and dishes to the kitchen. Finished, she went back to the sofa and sat. The box from the Seekers lurked in the corner, sinister in its blankness.

Deliberately, she pulled her gaze from the box and reached for the wooden case that held her mandolin. It was too quiet in this place; every thought was like a shout in her head. Maybe a little music would help. She strummed the mandolin and winced. The poor thing could never seem to hold a tune in the damp London air. She tightened the strings, then strummed again. This time she smiled at the warm tone that rose from the instrument, a sound as welcome and familiar as the greeting of an old friend.

She plucked out a lilting Irish air. It was the first tune she had learned to play as a girl at her grandmother's house. She supposed she had been no more than eight or nine, and small for her age, so that she had barely been able to finger chords and strum at the same time. Now the mandolin nestled perfectly against the curve of her body, as if it had been fashioned just for her.

More songs came to her fingertips, bright and thrumming, or slow and deep as a dreaming ocean. Her mind drifted as she played, back to the days when she had been a bard, wandering to a new place, earning a little money with her music, then moving on. That was before she had ever heard of Jack Graystone or Grace Beckett. Before Travis Wilder was anything other than a gentle saloonkeeper in a small Colorado town with whom she had almost had an affair. Before she met Hadrian Farr in that smoky pub in Edinburgh, fell like countless other foolish women for the mystery in his dark eyes, and found her way into the Seekers.

It was only as she thought how strange and unexpected were the journeys on which life could lead one that she realized it was a song about journeys she was playing. In a low voice, she sang along with the final notes.

We live our lives a circle,
And wander where we can.
Then after fire and wonder,
We end where we began.

Her fingers slipped from the strings, and the music faded away. A chill stole over her, and she shivered. What had made her choose that song?

She had found the music and lyrics two years ago in the Seekers' file on James Sarsin. Sarsin had been the focus of one of the Seekers' most famous cases. He had lived in and around London for several centuries before abruptly disappearing in the 1880s after his bookshop burned. After that, the Seekers lost track of him. It was only recently, through Deirdre's work, that they discovered James Sarsin was in fact one and the same with Travis Wilder's antique dealer friend Jack Graystone.

Among the few papers recovered from Sarsin's burnt bookshop were several sheaves of music. One of them was “Fire and Wonder.” The music had been transcribed in a manner Deirdre had never seen before, but at last she had managed to decipher the code and learn the song. She had played it in Travis Wilder's saloon, curious to see if it would get a reaction from him.

And it did, Deirdre, though not for the reason you thought. He didn't hear it from Jack Graystone. He heard it from a bard on another world.

She hadn't played the song since that day. It was a simple tune, pretty, yet there was a sadness to it that made her heart ache. Again she strummed the last few chords. The words reminded her of something. Something that had happened in Castle City, something she had forgotten.

She set down the mandolin and moved over to the trunk where she had stowed her few belongings. After a bit of rummaging, she pulled out a leather-bound book—one of her journals. Farr had taught her early in her career as a Seeker to take notes. Lots of them. She checked the label on the spine to make sure it was the right volume and headed back to the sofa. She flipped through the pages, trying to remember. Then three words caught her eye, and her heart fluttered in her chest.

Fire and wonder. . . .

Quickly, she read the entire entry. She remembered now. It was the day she had ridden alone into the canyon above Castle City, to make a satellite phone call to Farr. There, by the side of a deserted road, she had encountered a pale girl in an archaic black dress. Only later did she learn that both Grace Beckett and Travis Wilder had encountered this same girl, that her name was Child Samanda, and that there were two others she seemed to travel with: a preacher named Brother Cy, and a red-haired woman named Sister Mirrim.

The Seekers had never been able to locate any trace of these three individuals, but that didn't surprise Deirdre. Maybe Marji, the West Colfax Avenue psychic, had been right. Maybe Deirdre did have some ability as a shaman. Because Deirdre had known in an instant this was no normal child.

Cradling the journal, Deirdre ran her finger over the conversation she had transcribed over a year ago.

Seek them as you journey,
the child had said.

What do you mean?
Deirdre had asked.
Seek what?

Fire and wonder.

At the time, there had been so much going on—the Burned Man, the illness of Travis's friend Max Bayfield, Duratek's agents in Castle City—that Deirdre hadn't noticed the connection. Now, at last, she did. What was the significance of the ghostly child's words? And why had she appeared to Deirdre?

She set the journal down and found herself staring once more at the box in the corner. Maybe it was a hunch. Or maybe it was what Marji would have called her gift. Either way, Deirdre moved to the box and knelt beside it. She broke the tape with a key, dug through layers of packing peanuts, and pulled out something cool and hard. It was a notebook computer. The machine was sleek and light, encased in brushed metal.

She took the computer to the dinette table, opened it, and pressed the power button. A chime sounded as it whirred to life. A login screen appeared, but there was no place to type her agent name or password.

She turned the computer, studying it. Inserted into the side was a silvery expansion module. The module bore a thin slit, about the width and thickness of a credit card. Deirdre reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her new ID card. It slid into place with a soft
snick
.

The login screen vanished, replaced by a spinning wheel. Just as Deirdre was thinking she should have plugged the computer into a phone jack, the screen went black. Then words scrolled into being, as if typed by invisible hands:

DNA authentication scan accepted. Seeker Agent Deirdre Falling Hawk—identity confirmed.
Working . . .

Deirdre let out a low whistle. So this thing was wireless. More glowing words scrolled across the screen.

Welcome to Echelon 7.
What do you want to do?
>

The cursor blinked on and off, expectant. Deirdre sat back in the chair and ran a hand through her red-black hair.

“Damn,” she said.

What was she supposed to do? There were no menus on the screen, no windows to explore, no buttons to click. Just the glowing words.

It asked you a question, Deirdre. So why not answer it?

She swallowed a nervous laugh, then leaned forward and tapped out words on the keyboard.

I want to find something.

She pressed
Enter
. A moment later new words appeared on the screen.

What do you want to find?
>

Deirdre hesitated, fingers hovering over the keys. Then, quickly, she typed three words.

Fire and wonder.

Again she pressed
Enter
. The words flashed, then vanished. Deirdre chewed her lip. Had she done something wrong? She reached out to press another key.

Before her finger touched the keyboard, the screen exploded into a riot of motion and color. Dozens of session windows popped into being. Text poured through some of the windows like green rain, while in others images flashed by so quickly they were superimposed into a single blurred montage of stones covered with runes, medieval swords, pages of illuminated manuscripts, and ancient coins.

Deirdre leaned closer to the screen. Some of the data windows contained menus and commands she recognized; they belonged to various systems in the Seeker network she had accessed in the past. However, most of the windows contained unfamiliar interfaces, their indecipherable menus composed in glowing alien symbols. Atop everything was a single flashing crimson word:
Seeking . . .
Trembling, she reached out to touch the computer.

The screen went dark. Deirdre jerked her hand back. Had she damaged it somehow? Then her heart began to beat once more as glowing emerald words scrolled across the screen.

Search completed.
1 match(es) located:
/albion/archive/case999–1/mla1684a.arch
>

So it had found something. But where? Deirdre didn't recognize the server name; wherever this file was located, it wasn't in a database she had ever searched before.

And why should it be? This is Echelon 7. And if Hadrian is right, this file is something just about no one in the Seekers has access to.

She drew in a breath, then typed a quick command.

Display search file. [Enter]

The cursor flashed, and the computer let out a beep.

Error. Unable to access file mla1684a.arch.
File does not exist.
>

Deirdre swore. “What do you mean the file doesn't exist? You just found it, you stupid computer.”

She forced herself to take a breath. It was not a good sign when one started berating inanimate objects. Forcing her hands to hold steady, she typed another command.

What happened to search file? [Enter]

File mla1684a.arch has been deleted from the system.
>

That made even less sense. How could the query have found the file in the first place if it had been deleted? Deirdre typed with furious intensity.

When was file mla1684a.arch deleted? [Enter]

File mla1684a.arch was deleted from the system at time stamp: Today, 22:10:13
>

A coldness stole over her. She forced her eyes to focus on the wall clock—10:12
P.M.
Two minutes ago. The file had been deleted from the system two minutes ago. But that had to be . . .

“Just a few seconds after your search query located it,” Deirdre whispered.

She pushed back from the table and reached for the phone on the wall. Fumbling, she punched the number of the flat where Farr had been staying. One ring, two.

Someone had deleted the file the moment after she found it. Why? To keep her from reading it, of course. But then why leave the file on the server where she could find it in the first place? Her mind whirred like the computer.

Maybe deleting the file would have drawn attention to it, Deirdre. Maybe whoever erased it didn't want to do so until they absolutely had to—until the file was found. So how were they watching it?

She had to talk to Farr; he would know what to do.

Three rings, four. “Come on, Hadrian, answer. Bloody hell—come on.”

A click. The ringing ended, and a robotic voice spoke in her ear. “The number you have reached has been disconnected. If you feel you have reached this recording in error—”

Deirdre slammed the phone back onto the wall. No, it was no error. Farr had left. But where was he going? There had been something about him earlier—a power, a peril—she had never seen before. Then, with a shiver, she remembered his last words to her.