The Gates of Winter (6 page)

“Travis, get back!” came Beltan's voice through the doors.

Grace set Tira down. “Keep her safe,” she said to Lirith, then dashed through the doors.

She turned to her left and saw Travis and King Boreas with their backs to the wall. A spindly gray form wove toward them, maw open. Boreas slashed with his knife, and Travis gripped his stiletto before him, the gem in its hilt blazing crimson. They were holding the
feydrim
off, but just barely; the knives were pitifully small.

On the other side of the broad corridor, Durge, Beltan, and Teravian had been cornered by two more of the monsters. Beltan stood in front of Teravian, pressing the prince back against the wall. Like Boreas, he had only a small knife, but Durge gripped his Embarran greatsword in his hands. Only there wasn't enough room to get a proper swing. The two
feydrim
hissed and spat, looking for an opening.

Grace knew she should feel fear. Instead outrage rose within her. Before she thought about what she was doing, she had drawn Fellring from the scabbard belted at her side. The slender blade gleamed in the dim light, the runes on the flat undulating like things alive.

“Get away from them,” she commanded.

Snarling, the two
feydrim
closest to her turned, glaring at her with yellow eyes. Her hand sweated around the sword's grip. Maybe that hadn't been such a good idea after all.

Before she could move, Durge let out a roar. The two
feydrim
had scuttled a few feet toward Grace, and now he had room for a proper swing. The beasts tried to leap aside, but Durge's sword caught one of them on the neck, and the thing's head flew across the corridor. The blade continued its arc, cutting a deep gash in the other
feydrim's
belly. Its black guts spilled onto the floor. The thing kicked and whined, then went still.

The last remaining beast lunged at Boreas, going for his throat. Travis thrust with his stiletto. The move was unskilled, but the blade was sharp, and it pricked the
feydrim
. The beast hissed and turned on Travis. By then Durge had crossed the corridor in three strides. He lunged, and his sword pierced the
feydrim
, passing entirely through its body. The light flickered in its eyes, then went dark.

Grace thrust Fellring into its scabbard and hurried to the king. “Your Majesty, are you all right?”

“I am, but that stone hit me harder on the head than I thought. I didn't even see the beast leap at me from that doorway there. Luckily Goodman Wilder did. He drew his blade and kept its jaws from closing around my neck.” He gave Travis a solemn look. “I owe you my life.”

Travis took a step back. “Not me. It was Durge who killed them. He was the one who—Durge?”

Grace turned around, and her blood froze. Durge's face was pallid and lined with pain, and he was gasping for breath. He leaned on his sword and clutched at his chest with his left hand.

“Durge, what's wrong?” Grace said, rushing to him.

“A pain in my chest, my lady. But it's nothing—it's already passing.”

His breathing was growing easier, and color was returning to his face. All the same, Grace grabbed his wrist with a thumb and two fingers, checking his pulse. Durge was in his mid-forties, and he had exerted himself strenuously that day, first digging through the wreckage of the tower and now fighting the
feydrim
. He was in excellent physical shape for his age, but that didn't mean he couldn't be having a heart attack.

Except he wasn't. His pulse was rapid, but not erratic, and it was already beginning to slow, as was his respiration. He wasn't just being stoic; the pain had passed. All the same, she should be certain. She pressed a hand to his chest and shut her eyes. Yes, his heart was strong and healthy, beating at a regular pace. She started to let go, then halted. There was something else in his chest, small and shadowy . . .

“Travis, you're bleeding,” Beltan said.

Grace opened her eyes and turned around. Travis held up his left hand, staring at it with a look of confusion. Blood streamed from a long gouge in his forearm where the
feydrim
had clawed him. She hesitated.

“Do not concern yourself with me, my lady,” Durge said, standing straight now. “I am getting old, that is all. Go see to Travis.”

She nodded, then hurried to Travis. The wound was not deep, and it was bleeding freely, which was good, as that would clean away any contaminants from the
feydrim'
s talon. She pulled a kerchief from her pocket and started to bind it around his arm.

He pulled away from her.

“Keep still, Travis.”

“You have to be careful, Grace.”

She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

“It was in Castle City. I . . .” He glanced at the others. Boreas was bellowing for his guards, demanding to know how the
feydrim
had gotten into the castle, and Teravian knelt, examining one of the dead creatures, but all of the others were nearby, watching.

Grace touched his hand.
What is it, Travis? You can tell me anything.

Surprise registered in his gray eyes, then he nodded.
It's about the scarab's blood.

What about it, Travis? You used the last drop to open the gate to the Black Tower.

No, Grace. I didn't.

She didn't understand.
But if you didn't use it, how did you get here? And where's the last drop of blood?

It's in me, Grace.

An image formed in his mind, and she saw everything: Travis's final encounter with the sorcerer in Castle City, and the way the last drop of blood in the scarab—the blood of the god-king Orú—had fallen on his hand and had entered a wound, merging with his own blood, changing him.

Stunned, she let go. “Oh, Travis . . .”

“First Jack made me into a runelord. Then Krondisar destroyed and made me again. Now this.” He shook his head. “I don't know who I am anymore, Grace. I don't know even know
what
I am.”

Shock melted away, replaced by a fierce resolve. She took his arm and deftly bound the handkerchief around his wound, then took his hand in her own. “You are and always will be the man we love.”

Travis smiled at her, but the expression was as sad as it was beautiful. “Sometimes I don't know if I'm cursed, or if I'm the luckiest man alive.”

Grace felt a tingling and looked up. Beltan stood a ways off, but his green eyes were locked on Travis.

“Lucky,” she said.

7.

Three days later, Travis sat on a wall in the lower bailey, soaking up the scant warmth of the winter sun. Across the bailey, fifty men—peasants impressed into labor by the king—swarmed over the wreckage of the guard tower. They had been working since the day after the explosions. Already they had cleared the castle gates and shored up the tunnel with beams. All of the debris had been removed from the yard of the bailey, but the guard tower itself was still a heap of shattered stone.

In another corner of the bailey, more men worked to repair the breach in the wall where the tower of the castle's runespeakers had stood. From his vantage, Travis could see through the outer wall of the castle, across the snowy landscape. Dark clouds hovered on the horizon, not approaching yet, but gathering all the same.

It was no use; the workmen would need many months to repair the gap in the castle wall. Only they didn't have months. Travis didn't know when the dark clouds would start marching toward them. Only that it would be soon. After all, winter was his time.

Except it's not just the Pale King that's coming, Travis.

Vani and Aldeth had returned to the castle at dawn the day after the explosions. They had not found the Duratek agent, the one named Hudson. However, the
T'gol
and the Spider had discovered an empty hut in the town beneath Calavere that contained signs of a hasty departure, as well as an item they could not identify, but which Travis recognized as a roll of black electrical tape. Aldeth had found three distinct sets of footprints on the dirt floor.

But how had Duratek gotten three of its agents from Earth to Eldh? Maybe they had learned something in their workings with the sorcerer on Earth. They had possessed one of the gate artifacts—albeit an incomplete one—for a time. No doubt they had studied it closely, and who knew how much of the fairy's blood they had taken? They could have gallons of it frozen in a vault somewhere.

They're smart, Travis, and they're learning. First they were able to send guns through. Now people. What's next, entire armies?

No, they couldn't have perfected the technology yet. Otherwise, they would already be here in force. However, they were getting ready for a full-scale invasion, that much was clear. Yesterday, Boreas had received a missive from Queen Inara in which she described a mysterious concussion that had destroyed one of Perridon's border keeps. That meant the Duratek agents who had blown up Calavere's towers weren't the only advance team sent to Eldh. There were others here, and their job was to sow strife and confusion, to weaken the Dominions and its peoples, so that when Duratek's main force arrived they would be assured an easy victory.

Except Duratek was going to find itself fighting over the spoils. The Pale King gathered his strength again, preparing for the coming of his master, the Old God Mohg, Lord of Nightfall. At the Black Tower, the man in the dark robe—the one they believed to be another Runebreaker—had gained the rune of sky. If he broke the rune, he would shatter the borders of the world, allowing Mohg to return to Eldh. Then all Mohg would need were the three Great Stones. With them, he could break the First Rune and forge the world anew in his own image.

The Pale King already possessed one of the Imsari—Gelthisar, the Stone of Ice. At the Black Tower, he had tried to wrest Sinfathisar, the Stone of Twilight, from Travis, but his minions had failed—though just barely. Then Tira had appeared, and she had given Krondisar, the Stone of Fire, to Travis.

As long as the child goddess had guarded Krondisar in the heavens, there was no way the Pale King could have gained it, and no way Mohg could break the First Rune. Only now all three of the Imsari were on Eldh; all the Pale King had to do was come and take them.

“Why did you give me the Stone?” he had asked Tira last night in Grace's chamber. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

She had only given him a shy smile, then had run off and buried her half-scarred face in Grace's skirts.

Some things ought to be broken
, a raspy voice echoed in his mind.

Brother Cy. That was what the strange preacher had said in Castle City. Travis knew now that Cy and Samanda and Mirrim were all Old Gods. They had helped lure Mohg beyond the circle of Eldh a thousand years ago, and they were trapped there with him when the way was shut. Only then Travis had traveled back to Castle City, to the year 1883, and his Sinfathisar came in contact with the version carried by Jack Graystone. Two copies of the Stone couldn't be in the same place at the same time, and a rift was opened, allowing Mohg and Cy to slip into Earth. And, decades later, the Pale King's forces as well, along with the infant who would grow to be Grace Beckett.

Travis rubbed his aching neck. What had Brother Cy meant? He found himself thinking of Beltan's words from a few days earlier.
Sometimes, when something's ruined, the only way to repair it is to destroy it first.

But a world wasn't the same thing as a building, and Travis was not going to destroy Eldh, no matter what the prophecies of witches and dragons said.

He watched the men work for a while more. One thing was certain: The attack on Calavere meant that war was no longer coming; it had already begun. King Boreas had sent messengers all over his Dominion, calling for a muster. Even now, his barons, dukes, earls, and knights would be readying for battle and preparing to march to Calavere. Boreas had sent messengers to the rulers of the other Dominions as well, reminding them of the pact they had made over a year ago at the Council of Kings. He had even sent word to Tarras.

Travis shivered. The sun had edged close to the top of the castle wall. He slipped down from his perch and started back toward the keep. Near the archway that led to the upper bailey, he ran into Aryn.

“Hello,” he said, startling her. She had been absorbed, watching the men work as he had. She blinked and turned toward him.

“Travis, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there.”

Her gaze moved again to the broken wall and the workers, and a frown shadowed her face.

“What is it?” he said.

“Have you ever had the feeling you've seen something before, even when you know you haven't?”

“We call it déjà vu where I come from. What is it you feel like you've seen before?”

“This.” She gestured to the ruined towers. “It all seems so familiar to me. I'm sure I've seen it before, or something like it. Only that's impossible, isn't it?”

Travis ran a hand through his short red-brown hair. “Since I came to Eldh, I've learned that
impossible
only means
just hasn't happened yet
.”

That won a soft laugh. “I imagine you're right. We've seen so many things I would have thought impossible a year ago.” She smiled at him, only then the expression fled, and her eyes turned a deeper shade of blue, like the darkening sky. “Sometimes it's so hard to believe that you would . . .”

Travis swallowed the lump in his throat. “That I would what?”

“We should be going inside.”

He moved closer to her. “You have to tell them I'm here, don't you? Ivalaine and the Witches. They think I'm going to destroy Eldh, that I'm Runebreaker—the one they've been looking for—and now you have to tell them you've found me.”

Her face was an ivory mask of determination, but she was trembling, and something told him it was not only because of the cold.

“So you aren't going to tell them about me.” His words fogged on the air. “The dragon was right. He said you would betray your sisters.”

“Maybe I already have.” She crossed her arms, hunching her shoulders. “Did not Falken say dragons always speak truth?”

Yes, and the dragon had also said Travis was doomed to destroy the world.

“I heard Grace and Lirith talking yesterday,” he said after a moment. “I heard them say you're powerful. Maybe more powerful than any other witch alive.”

“What does that mean?” she murmured, and he had the feeling the question was not for him.

He started to reach out, to touch her shoulder, then pulled his hand back. “Neither of us asked for this. This power. We're not really all that different, you and I.”

She turned around, her eyes startled. “No, I don't believe we are.”

“It's good not to want it, Aryn. That's the one thing I've learned. Because if you want the power, then there's nothing to stop you from becoming like them.”

She nodded. “Except sometimes I do want it.”

“You're right,” he said, shivering. “We should go inside.”

The next few days were strangely empty. It was too cold to venture outside the castle, and inside there was little for Travis to do. Grace and Beltan spent much of the time in conference with King Boreas, as did Melia and Falken, Durge and Sir Tarus, and the Spider Aldeth. Aryn was often busy with Lord Farvel, who was planning her wedding to Teravian, though the prince himself was usually as scarce as shadows at noon.

Vani was scarce herself. Travis knew she was busy patrolling the castle and the surrounding lands, watching for
feydrim
and other intruders. All the same, he would have liked to see her, to talk to her. Or to Beltan. However, both continued to avoid him.

When he wasn't alone, Travis most often spent his time with Lirith and Sareth, who were keeping an eye on Tira while Grace was in council with the king. Unlike the rest of them, the dark-eyed witch and the Mournish man rarely spoke of the coming storm. Instead they seemed content to dwell in the fragile peace of the moment. The laws of the Mournish people forbid him to marry Lirith, but except for his sister Vani, Sareth's people were a hundred leagues away. For a time, at least, he and Lirith could be together.

Given that, it was strange and tender how fleeting their expressions of love for one another were. They did not share a chamber at night, and Travis had never seen them kiss. However, their emotion was clear when they gazed at one another, though there was often a sadness in their eyes as well.

They frequently spent afternoons in Lirith's chamber. The witch would work on her embroidery, and Tira would play quietly with a doll Sareth had carved for her from a fir branch, while Sareth and Travis played a Mournish game using
T'hot
cards. To Travis's surprise, he usually won.

“I should know better than to play
An'hot
with one of the Fateless,” Sareth grumbled one day, scooping up the cards. Hard crystals of snow scoured the chamber's window, and they all huddled close to the fire. All except Tira, who padded about barefoot, clad only in her simple shift.

Travis rubbed the palm of his hand. The skin was still smooth—burned away and re-formed in the fires of Krondisar—but lines were beginning to appear again. Were they his fate, forming anew? He was aware of Lirith's eyes on him.

“I'm sorry, Travis,” Sareth said, concern in his coppery eyes. “I wasn't thinking. You know I didn't mean anything by it. It's only a card game.”

He shrugged. “I just hope it's true. I hope I don't have a fate.” He couldn't help glancing at Lirith. Was the witch of the same mind as Aryn? Or had she already penned a missive to Queen Ivalaine saying he was here in Calavere?

“I think I'll send to the kitchens for some
maddok
,” she said, setting down her embroidery.

Tira laughed and danced before the fire. Travis touched the iron box tucked inside his tunic. He could sense them, nestled in the box, quiescent but craving release. He didn't dare. If he opened the box, wraithlings would see the glow of their magic; they would know where he was.

At first, after the attack of the
feydrim
, he had feared the Pale King's minions already knew he was here. Only when Beltan had referred to the attack as an assassination attempt had Travis realized the truth. The
feydrim
hadn't been after him; they had been after King Boreas. What better way to plunge Calavan into chaos? They must have crept through the gap in the castle walls unseen. It was all part of the plot to sow strife in the Dominions.

Except it was Duratek who had engineered the destruction of the castle's towers, not the Pale King.

“Duratek's allied with the Pale King,” Grace said that night at supper when Travis voiced these thoughts. “I've suspected it for a while now, and this only confirms it.”

“But they want to get to Eldh to exploit its resources, to make a profit.”

Grace shook her head. “I think that's just a happy side effect. The real reason they want to open a gate is to help Mohg get back to Eldh.”

“I believe you're right,” Sareth said. He and Lirith sat close by. “The sorcerer who held me captive in Castle City—his kind are ancient enemies of the Mournish, and he could not resist gloating as he held me in thrall. He said the Scirathi were allied with people from the world Earth, that these people wished to open a gate to let their master return to Eldh. While he did not name Mohg, it can only be he.”

Lirith touched Sareth's hand. “But why did the sorcerers ally themselves with this Duratek?”

Sareth closed his hand around hers. “They were promised knowledge of Morindu the Dark. My ancestors destroyed their own city, burying it beneath the sands of Amún, rather than let the Scirathi gain the secrets of their magic. The sorcerer told me their reward for helping Duratek would be the key to finding Morindu the Dark.”

Lirith shook her head. “But you said before Morindu has been lost for eons. Who could tell them where it was?”

“Shemal,” Melia said, her small hand clenched into a fist. “All of this bears the mark of her meddling. And I felt her presence near here not long ago.”

“But would this Shemal person know where to find Morindu the Dark?” Sareth said.

Melia sighed. “Shemal is a Necromancer, not a person. She was once a goddess of the south, as was I, but Morindu was lost well before our time. I imagine she was simply lying to the sorcerers in order to make them do her bidding.”

Travis was stunned—not so much by this new knowledge, but rather by the fact that he hadn't seen it sooner. He gave Grace a shaky grin. “You and your logical mind.”

“Don't be too impressed.” She stared into her wine goblet, and she lowered her voice so only he could hear. “If I was that smart, I would be able to figure out a way to keep Falken from asking me to fight the Pale King.”