Beyond the Pale (17 page)

Afterward he was never quite certain, but as Travis drifted down into sleep, it seemed to him Falken still sat by the glowing coals, and that he drew an instrument, like some
sort of lute, from his pack. The bard strummed a soft melody, and after a time, as the strange stars glowed in the sky above, he began to sing in a low voice. The bard sang about memory, and loss, and most of all about beauty. And whether it was a dream or not, the words lingered in Travis’s mind for the rest of his life:

Either the going was not as rough as the day before, or Travis was already getting used to the thinner air of this new world. All day he tramped after Falken through the still reaches of the Winter Wood, and he kept pace so that never once did he lose sight of the bard.

As the ghostly
valsindar
slipped by, Travis’s thoughts turned to Castle City. He supposed he had been missed by now. No doubt Sheriff Dominguez had put out a missing person bulletin, and Deputy Windom would be questioning everyone in town concerning his whereabouts. At least Max was there to keep the saloon running. A longing filled Travis then—for the smoky warmth of the Mine Shaft and the familiar sound of Jack’s voice. A sharp pang of loss pierced his heart, and he rubbed his right hand.

After a time Travis shook his head. These were melancholy thoughts, but then the Winter Wood was a melancholy place. A shadow lay upon it, yet the shadow was not
of
it, and it was almost a sweet sadness that lingered there among the trees, like a memory of beauty. He sighed as he trudged after Falken. Sometimes it was all right to be sad.

It was late afternoon, and the sun had just dipped behind the sentinel trees, when Travis and Falken came upon a clearing. The silence of the wood weighed on this place, and the two men slowed to a halt. The clearing was roughly circular and about thirty paces across. Nothing grew on the frozen ground, not even moss or witchgrass.

In the center of the glade was a standing stone. The stone was as tall as a man and about half that much wide, hewn of some dark volcanic rock. Its surface was weathered and pockmarked with time. Propelled by curiosity—or perhaps some other force—Travis approached the stone. He now saw it was covered with carvings, but they were faint and illegible, all but worn away by centuries of wind and rain and ice. As he neared the standing stone, the air dimmed and grew colder, as if he had stepped into a shadow. In answer to a
wordless compulsion, he lifted his arm and reached toward the rough surface of the stone.

“No, Travis, do not touch it,” a voice beside him whispered, gentle but insistent.

Travis stood frozen. The stone seemed to fill his mind and blotted out everything else. Then, with great effort, he shuddered and withdrew his hand. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry as dust.

“What is this place, Falken?” The unnatural hush stifled his words.

“It is evil,” the bard said, the line of his mouth grim. He paced around the stone, careful to keep his distance. “It is a relic of an ancient war, a war fought in this land long ago. A
pylon
, I believe such things were called then. I had thought all such traces of the Pale King were cast down in ages past. It seems I was wrong.”

Travis stared at the standing stone. The bard’s words thrummed in his mind, and he thought he saw a thousand sparks of crimson, like fire glinting off raised spears as a shining army marched toward a vast, shadowed host. Faint but clear, the sound of horns rang out as the army of light pressed onward, until it seemed like a tiny white ship lost in an undulating sea of darkness.

“Let us go,” Falken said. “We will find nothing good in this place. Even after all these centuries, the land has not forgotten the evil that dwelled here.”

Travis shook his head, and the vision melted away on the cold air. He stepped away from the standing stone, and the day brightened once more. He cast one last troubled glance at the stone, then hurried after Falken. While the bard had set a brisk pace before, now Travis almost had to jog to keep up with him. However, he did not complain, and soon the two left the glade and the pylon far behind.

For three more days they traveled south. As they marched, Travis found he had little extra energy to worry about how he was going to return home. Each day they rose with the frigid dawn and pushed on until twilight mantled the Winter Wood. They subsisted mostly on
maddok
and a thin soup Falken concocted of bitter herbs and hermit’s root—a kind of white root which the bard always seemed to know where to find. Once or twice a day Falken would pause in their trek to
kneel and pry several of the roots from the frozen soil with his knife. Travis would not have ventured so far as to term the soup filling, but it did keep the worst of his hunger at bay. Then, late on the fifth day of their journey, the trees thinned, and the two found themselves on the edge of a gold-brown plain. At once the oppressive silence that had hung over the forest lifted, and the air, although it remained crisp, grew a trifle warmer.

“We have journeyed beyond the shadow of the Fal Threndur,” Falken said in answer to Travis’s unspoken question. “Winter comes early to this part of the world and lingers late, but in the Dominions autumn still wanes. We should find the climate a bit kinder as we travel on.”

Travis glanced back over his shoulder. True to Falken’s words, he could no longer glimpse the brooding line of mountains through the barren trees. However, to the south and east, the land rose up to meet a new range of mountains—a lower yet still rugged jumble of peaks. These Falken named the Fal Erenn, or the Dawning Fells.

“That way lies Kelcior,” the bard said.

Together they set out across the plains, leaving the sadness of the Winter Wood and the
valsindar
behind.

Two days later they came upon the ancient road.

“This is the Queen’s Way,” Falken said as they scrambled over a grassy bank and onto the broad swath of the road. “Folk still call it by that name, though few know the true reason why they do.”

Travis plopped down on the side of the steep road bank to catch his breath, and Falken sat beside him. As far as they could see in either direction, the surface of the road was covered with flat stones. The paving stones were cracked and worn with centuries of wind and rain, and the passage of countless feet. Wind rattled through dry grass that had pushed up between them. However, the road was still passable, and it cut across the rolling landscape—straying from its course for neither hill nor valley.

They rested beside the road for a time and sipped water from a flask Falken pulled from his pack. The sun was bright, but the wind was sharp, and Travis was grateful for his new garb. In place of his jeans, work shirt, and jacket, he now wore a forest-green tunic and fox-colored breeches along with the gray mistcloak. The breeches fit him well enough, and while the tunic was on the baggy side, he had cinched it with a wide leather belt, into which he had tucked the Malachorian dagger. He had slipped the iron box and the half-coin Brother Cy had given him into a pocket sewn inside the tunic.

Falken had pilfered the clothes the day before from a ramshackle farm—the first sign of human habitation they had come upon.

“I cannot say I enjoy resorting to thievery,” the bard had said as he handed Travis the clothes. A mischievous light had twinkled in his faded blue eyes. “Nor can I say it is the first time. Regardless, now that we have reached the edge of settled lands, it is important you look less outlandish. Times were troubled when I left the Dominions, and they may have grown more troubled yet in my absence. It is best if we do not draw undue attention to ourselves.”

Travis had bathed in the frigid stream next to which they had made camp, and had donned the new attire. When he had returned to the campfire he had discovered, much to his chagrin, that Falken had burned his old clothes while he wasn’t looking. He had belatedly realized his wallet had still been in the back pocket of his jeans. Now his cowboy boots and his gunslinger’s spectacles were his only connections to Earth.

Travis scratched the red-brown stubble on his chin, then reached into his pocket and drew out the silver half-coin. He had all but forgotten about Brother Cy’s gift until last night. Now he studied the broken coin. There was something engraved on each side, but he couldn’t make out what the carvings were. It would take the other half to determine what the pictures represented.

Falken leaned over and peered at Travis’s hand. “What have you got there?”

Travis explained how the strange preacher had given him the coin after the revival.

Falken gave him a peculiar look. “May I see it?”

With a shrug, Travis handed the half-coin to him. The bard examined it closely, then shook his head.

“
Kethar ul-morag kai ennal,
” Falken said. “
Sil falath im donnemir.
”

The words that tumbled from the bard’s lips were flowing and beautiful but completely incomprehensible.

Travis gaped at Falken in confusion. “What did you say?”

This time it was Falken who looked confused. “
Min uroth, kethar ul-morag kai ennal.
” He handed the half-coin back to Travis. “As I mentioned, you’ll probably want to hold on to it. Whatever land this is from, it is very ancient. And do try not to mumble, Travis. I couldn’t understand a word you just said.”

Travis stared at the broken coin that glinted on the palm of his hand. “You weren’t the only one,” he said. Then, quickly, he explained what had occurred.

A few more experiments confirmed Travis’s suspicions. If he held the half-coin, or if it was anywhere about his person, he could understand Falken’s speech perfectly, and the bard could understand his. However, if Travis was not in contact with the coin, neither could understand a word the other said. There was only one answer. The language Falken spoke was not English—a fact that made perfect sense once Travis considered it. After all, this
was
an entirely different world. However, the half-coin Brother Cy had given him functioned as some sort of translator and allowed Travis to speak and understand Falken’s tongue, even though it seemed to him he still spoke English.

Falken’s expression was thoughtful. “It seems your friend Graystone was not the only wizard in this Castle City of yours. Tell me, are there any more surprises you have yet to spring on me?”

Travis gave a weak smile. “Only ones that will be surprises to me, too.”

The bard shot him a speculative look, then stood. “Come,” he said. “The day is wasting. If we press on, we may reach Kelcior before nightfall.” He shouldered his pack and started southward down the road, and Travis followed after.

“So just why
is
it called the Queen’s Way?” Travis asked after they had been walking for a time.

“It’s an old story,” Falken said. “This road was built a thousand years ago, in the years after the army of the Pale King was defeated by King Ulther of Toringarth. It is for Elsara, Empress of Tarras far to the south, that folk call it the Queen’s Way, although they do not remember it. It was she who commanded a road be forged, running from the city of Tarras on the shore of the Summer Sea, all the way to the then-new kingdom of Malachor in the north, where her son sat upon the throne side by side with Ulther’s daughter. But all those names are forgotten now.”

“Why were they forgotten?”

Falken paused to scoop up a handful of dirt in his gloved hand. “Malachor fell to ruin, and the Tarrasian Empire dwindled. Its borders moved ever southward, and left only barbarian lands in its wake, until the Dominions were forged centuries later. Of them all, only Toringarth endures to this day, although little is heard from the icy land beyond the sea. Kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, Travis.” The dirt slipped through the bard’s fingers and was gone. “It is simply the ebb and flow of history.”

With that Falken started once more down the ancient highway. He began to sing in a clear voice, and Travis felt his blood stir, as if he could see the great battle conjured by the bard’s song:

It was late afternoon, and the sunlight had turned to gold, when they came to the crossroads. The old road had plunged into a dense copse. There, within the leafless stand of trees, a narrower road intersected the Queen’s Way at right angles.

“We turn east from the Queen’s Way here,” Falken said. “It is not far now.” With that he started toward the left-hand road. Travis followed after.