The Keep of Fire (30 page)

“No!” a shrill voice cried. “There are more of us than them. We must kill them before they kill us!”

The villagers hesitated, staring with dirty, scarred, and battered faces. What had Jastar told these people?

Grace gazed across the commons. Now that she knew to look for the signs they were obvious enough; she should have seen them before. But then, from what little she knew, onset was sudden. His tunic was sodden, not just with the fog but with sweat, and his hair was plastered to his soot-smeared forehead. There were a few small blisters on his neck and on the backs of his hands. His eyes were already starting to darken.

“Get back,” Meridar barked at the villagers. “Get back and you won’t get hurt. It’s him that we want.”

“Jastar,” Durge said, “do not let your people be harmed for your own folly. Call them aside and stand forth to meet your judgment with dignity.”

“It is you who shall be judged, Sir Knight.” Jastar’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “You and your kind, who would bring death upon this village. It was your Sir Kalleth who killed Lord Eddoc. I saw it with my own eyes, and I killed the murderer before he could strike again.”

Hisses ran among the crowd. A few of the villagers stepped forward again, gripping their hoes and pitchforks. Dread filled Grace’s chest. She had to stop this. But how? Fog she could clear from the air—but this anger, this deceit, this hate? She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.

“Your words are easily proven false, reeve,” Meridar spat. “Eddoc’s body is putrid. We arrived only last evening, yet he has been dead for days.”

Again uncertainty flickered in the eyes of the villagers. They looked to Jastar, then to the knights.
Grace understood. These were people who had followed an authority figure all their lives. Right now all they wanted to know was who they should listen to, who would tell them what to do.

Fear pulled the air taut as a drum. Everything was still, then a slight figure moved forward to stand beside Grace. A small hand snaked up to grip her own. Tira.

Jastar’s face twisted into a mask of horrid glee. “Look! Look at the burnt child. They consort with her!”

A woman clad in a shabby dress the color of soil pointed at Tira. “She will bring the plague upon us. Jastar says she will.”

Durge’s mustaches drooped in a frown. “What is this madness you speak, goodwife?”

The woman wrung gnarled hands together. She was toothless, wrinkled, and hunched with osteoporosis. Grace supposed she was just over thirty.

“It’s the Burning Plague.” Fear filled her puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “Those stricken will burn up, but they won’t die. They’ll turn black as night and come back to burn us all. She’ll do the same. She’ll put fire to us all, she will!”

Now Daynen stood beside Tira. “You’re wrong!” he shouted, his face flushed. “Tira wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Grace clutched his shoulders, pulled him back. A smooth voice spoke beside her. Lirith.

“Was not the girl burned before Lord Eddoc brought her here, goodwoman, before this scourge began?”

Even as the witch spoke these words, Grace knew they were wasted, that reason was pointless.

Jastar raised a fist. “Maybe she started it all then. She should have died. Don’t you see? She’s the one who brought it on all of us. Take her with the knights!”

An energy coursed through the throng of villagers at these words, like a wild wind through a stand of trees. The knights positioned themselves before the three women and the children, swords ready, faces hard. It was going to be a massacre.

Then, just like the mist clearing, she understood.

“You’re wrong, Jastar,” spoke a voice that was so cool, so clear, so filled with authority that all were forced to cease motion and listen. Grace was only dimly amazed to realize the voice was her own.

Still holding Tira’s hand, she stepped forward, away from Daynen and the witches, past the stunned knights. The villagers pulled away from her. A few even started to bow, then caught themselves, faces puzzled at their own actions. Grace felt a power, and it had nothing to do with the Touch. It draped her like a gold mantle, and she did not resist. These people wished for someone to obey, and it would be her.

Jastar shook his fist at her, sputtering for words. “You have the plague! You and that monster of a girl.”

Grace took another step forward. “No, it is you who has the plague, Jastar. You have all the symptoms. Can’t you feel it? The heat rises in you even now.”

The villagers turned to stare at Jastar. He opened his mouth, but only a strangled sound emerged. Grace advanced again, and he moved back.

Her voice was soft and relentless. There was no need to raise it. “Even now you’re becoming one of them, Jastar. You know it. You slew Sir Kalleth because he discovered the truth. And that’s why you want them to kill Tira. Because she’s the only one who saw you touch Eddoc when you killed him. But then, you didn’t know at the time that was how it was transmitted, did you, Jastar? That even as you killed Eddoc to stop the plague, you brought it on yourself.”

Tremors coursed through his body. She could see the first telltale wisps of smoke rise from the shoulders of his tunic. So stress seemed to exacerbate the symptoms, she noted with clinical detachment.

“No, you’re wrong!” His voice was a wet shriek of fury. “Kill them!”

Durge and Meridar hastened forward to protect Grace, but they were too slow. Jastar pulled a knife from his belt and with weird speed lurched forward, until his face was inches from her. Heat shimmered from him in sick waves, and the stink of burnt meat filled her nostrils. Even as she gazed into his eyes, the last vestiges of white and brown faded, leaving only blackness.

“Die,” he hissed.

The knife slashed down—

—and passed inches from Grace’s throat. The expression on Jastar’s face was one of confusion. Grace had seen the look many times before. People seldom expected to die.

She stepped back with Tira and watched Jastar’s body fall facedown to the turf. A pitchfork protruded from his back. Even as Grace watched, the wooden tines blackened with heat. She looked up into a broad, coarse face and caught a peasant man’s eyes. He gave a shallow nod. The villagers stared at the dead reeve, then one by one they turned and walked from the commons. The man who had struck the fatal blow started to follow them.

Grace held out a hand. “Where are you going?”

The man’s leathery face was without expression. “I will wait in my house,” he said in thick words.

She shook her head. “Wait for what?”

“For them to come, my lady. And for all the world to burn.”

The man turned his back to her, walked to the edge of the commons, and disappeared into the wall of fog. He was the last; the villagers were gone. Grace was
aware of Lirith and Aryn to one side of her, Daynen between them. To the other, Durge and Meridar still gripped their swords, faces grim. But Grace did not look at them.

Instead she followed Tira’s calm gaze upward, to the red star that shone low in the morning sky, turning the mist to fire.

The rain poured down from a gray sky, washing away everything he was and ever had been.

“Blood and bones!” a man’s voice said, muffled by the din of the storm. “What was that?”

“What was what?” This voice was deeper and coarser, the final word merging with a crash of thunder.

Travis blinked water from his eyes. It was hard to see where he was. Dark walls pressed against him from every direction. He was cold—terribly cold. How had he come to be here?

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.…

The raspy words drifted through his mind. He shut his eyes, and images came to him: the old graveyard on the hill, the scarecrow preacher clad all in black, the rectangular gash in the earth. Again he read the fresh, sharp words incised on the slab of stone.
In death do we begin.…

He opened his eyes and gazed at the walls of wet soil. Mud oozed between his bare toes where he crouched. Yes—he understood now. That was why he
was so cold. He was dead. What other reason to lie naked in a grave?

The thunder rolled away.

“—so get back to digging. It’ll be full dark soon. Or sooner, with this queer storm.” A scraping sound punctuated the coarser of the two voices as it spoke.

“I can’t dig. Not when we’re being watched. I tell you, I saw something.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not … I’m not sure.”

The scraping sound ended in a
clank
. “Well maybe you’d see better if you quit looking out your arse, Darl.”

“Sulath slit me! I know what I saw, Kadeck. Something is over there. Like a light, it was. And it wasn’t lightning, mind you. It was all silvery and low to the ground.”

There was a groan, then, “All right, all bloody right. If that’s what it takes to make you dig, then let’s—”

A clap of thunder drowned out all other sounds, and a flash illuminated the rough planes of the grave. By its light, Travis saw a wadded-up bundle of cloth lying at his feet. On instinct he reached for it, and only then did he realize he already gripped something in his right hand.

He unclenched his fingers and peered at the object. It was a small half circle of silver metal, gleaming dully on his palm. That was right; the preacher had given it to him just before he climbed into the grave. He seemed to recall a story, something about dead men needing a coin to pay the one who would ferry them across a wide, silent river. But wasn’t the coin supposed to go under the dead man’s tongue? Yes, he was sure of it. He opened his mouth, then slipped the cool piece of metal into his mouth. It tasted like blood.

A crunching sound, as of boots on gravel, drew
near, and he huddled against the muddy wall of the grave. Craning his neck, he saw two shadows appear in the murk above. He froze. Something told him he did not want to be discovered—not here, not now, and not by these men.

The shadows hesitated—had they seen him? Then they passed on, and he let his sigh merge with the rain. After a time, he heard again the faint scraping sounds. It seemed to be growing darker; the light was failing. This disturbed him somehow, but he wasn’t certain why. What was light to the dead?

By Durnach’s Hammer, you’re not dead, Travis. Now get out of this hole!

This time it was not the rasping voice of the preacher that spoke inside his head. Instead the voice was angry and familiar. Travis answered with a faint thought.

Jack?

However, the voice was already gone. Still, he had to think that maybe the voice was right. His legs ached from crouching, and his jaw was chattering so hard it was difficult to muffle the sound of it. If this was death, then it was remarkably similar to sitting in a cold, wet hole in the ground with no clothes on.

But if he wasn’t dead, then what was he supposed to do? It was so hard to think. Whatever he did, he had a feeling this was not a good place to stay. The two voices above did not strike him as particularly kindly. He had to get out of here, to find someplace warmer and drier where he could concentrate.

He rose up in the grave, wincing as he straightened stiff legs. The hole was shallow, and his head reached the edge well before he reached his full height. He cocked an ear, listening, but there was no break in the rain or in the rhythmic
chunk-scrape
of shovels. Travis picked up the cloth bundle, set it outside the hole, then gripped the edge to pull himself up.

Saturated dirt liquefied under his hands. His purchase melted. He slid back into the grave, landing with a grunt. The sounds of the shovels ceased.

“There! Did you hear that, Kadeck?”

A pause, then, “Aye, that I did.”

“See, I told you.”

“Hssst!
Be still, you lump.”

Panic flooded Travis’s chest. He rose, turned his head, and through the gray veil of rain saw a spark of crimson light. His head snapped back, and he clawed again at the edge of the grave. Gobs of mud peeled off under his hands, covering him. But he kept moving, fueled by fear, using his feet as well as his fingers, half digging and half climbing his way out of the grave.

With one last heave he lurched over the edge, then fell facedown to the rain-soaked turf. He nearly choked on the half-coin, clenched his teeth to keep from swallowing it, then stumbled to his feet, grabbing the bundle of cloth on the way up.

A white-hot knife sliced apart the slate-colored sky, and light burst forth. In that disarticulated moment Travis witnessed a strange tableau. Headstones leaned at all angles, casting crazed shadows, and wind-worn statues gazed with dark, moss-filled eyes from atop pedestals. No more than ten paces away, two men hunched beside a grave. A skinny one with a beaklike nose and chinless jaw clutched a shovel. The other—short, squat, and pig-faced—was in the act of reaching for a pick with a thickly muscled arm. The grave between the men had been crudely torn open. A well-rotted corpse spilled out, lipless mouth gaping open as if thirsty to catch the rain, withered arms flung out as if eager to be free. Lightning glinted off gold bracelets, jeweled rings, pearled necklaces.

Gloom cast its cloak back over the scene. The graverobbers were lost from sight.