Beyond the Pale (40 page)

Only, the lines did not glow like the other runes in the chamber. Instead they were dark as soot. The reason was obvious: A jagged crack ran right through the center of the disk. The Foundation Stone was broken.

Travis swallowed hard. “Falken, you said the Foundation Stone was the key to the tower’s defenses.”

The bard nodded.

“But the stone is broken.”

“Yes.”

“Then that means—”

“It means,” Falken said, “there is no hope after all.”

The four gazed at the darkened rune in silence.

“Your dagger, Travis,” Beltan said. “It’s glowing.”

Travis glanced down at the stiletto tucked into his belt. The ruby in its hilt pulsed with a crimson light, faint but growing brighter each second. He had seen the dagger glow like this once before. In Castle City, at the Magician’s Attic, when the intruders were near. Very near. He looked up at the others, licked his lips, and whispered the words.

“They’re coming.”

A metallic hum resonated on the air. Light poured through the archway into the domed chamber. The runes above dimmed under the livid illumination.

The four travelers stood shoulder to shoulder. Beltan unsheathed his sword, and Travis drew the stiletto from his
belt. The blade was laughably small in his grip. The ruby in the hilt blazed like fire.

The hum rose to a maddening whine. One by one they appeared against the white-hot glare that filled the archway, and slipped into the chamber with fell grace. Wraithlings. The light dimmed, and for the first time Travis saw the willowy beings as more than silhouettes.

He knew now why they were called the Pale Ones. Their skin was smooth and silvery-white, like the skin of a shark. They were tall and impossibly slender, with large heads, and necks that belonged on featherless swans. Huge eyes—black as obsidian—dominated their smooth faces. Their nostrils were no more than thin slits, and as far as Travis could see they had no mouths.

He choked on the words. “What do they want?”

“The Stone,” Falken said without taking his eyes from the advancing creatures. “That is why the Pale Ones were created. To seek the Great Stones.”

Even as Falken said this Travis realized his hand was in his pocket, that his fingers clutched the iron box. He pried them away, pulled his hand out, and forced it to join the other in gripping the stiletto.
The Great Stones
?

The wraithlings drifted closer, and glowing trails hovered on the air in their wake.

“Stop!” a clear voice commanded.

A slight figure stepped forward and raised a forbidding hand.

Beltan reached out. “Melia!”

Falken grabbed the knight’s shoulder, held him back. “No, let her try.”

The corona around Melia had brightened again, far beyond what it had been before. The blue-silver radiance drove the murk back to the edges of the chamber. The wraithlings hesitated and gazed at her with unblinking eyes. Whatever she was doing it was working, but her visage was lined with strain—the effort was costing her.

“They’re staying back,” Falken said.

Melia spoke through clenched teeth. “We must not let them get the Stone.”

“Maybe if we can hold them at bay long enough, they’ll leave.”

Melia did not answer the bard. She pressed her eyes shut, and the corona brightened a fraction around her small form. The wraithlings milled together in a tangle of willowy limbs and lidless eyes. Beltan raised his sword and stood behind and to the right of Melia, while Falken drew the knife from his belt and stood to Melia’s left. Travis started to follow after him.

“No, Travis. Keep behind us. You’re the holder of the Stone. It’s you they want.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but a sharp look from Falken rooted him in place. Sweat trickled down Melia’s brow, her hair clung to her cheeks. The wraithlings began to fan out to either side. Melia could not hold them from every direction. If the creatures circled around the chamber, all would be lost.

One of the beings moved within striking distance of Beltan. The knight lashed out with his sword, and metal clove flesh. A mouthless cry on the edge of hearing pierced the air, and the wraithling fell back. The creature clutched the wound on its arm, and white light welled through its thin fingers instead of blood. At the same moment Beltan cursed in pain, and his sword clattered to the floor. The blade was covered with frost. He grimaced and rubbed his hand, the flesh where he had gripped the sword blue as ice. The wraithlings stirred like lithe trees under a gale.

“I think you’ve made them mad,” Falken said.

Beltan groaned. He picked up his sword in stiff fingers. Falken raised his dagger. The wraithlings kept clear of the blades, yet at the same time continued to circle around to either side. Melia was trembling, and the corona had darkened to a flickering violet. Now the wraithlings had circled around a third of the chamber, now half.

Travis clutched the stiletto in a sweating hand. He could not watch the wraithlings advance. The light that emanated from their bodies was too painful to gaze upon. He turned his eyes instead to the circle of darkness at his feet. The Foundation Stone. He stood on the edge of the broken rune. His terror was tempered with a kind of sadness. So this was where all his drifting had finally led him: to death at the hands of glowing creatures on an alien world. If only the
rune of founding were not broken they might have had a chance against the wraithlings.

Then bind it
.

Travis stiffened at the sound of the voice. He knew there was no use in looking around for the speaker. The voice had come from within.

Jack
?

For a frantic moment his mind was filled only with silence. Then—

You must bind it. Quickly, while there is time
.

He shook his head in confusion.
Bind what
?

By Olrig’s hand, must you always be so dense, Travis! The broken rune, of course
!

It
was
Jack. Only his old friend would swear an oath like that. But what did Jack mean? Travis sank to his knees and gazed at the sundered rune. How was he supposed to bind it?

You will know. But you must hurry
!

And the voice was gone. Travis gazed at the black circle on the floor before him, then a terrible sound jerked him out of his trance.

“Melia—no!”

It was Beltan.

Out of the corner of his eye, Travis saw the corona that surrounded Melia flicker and wink out of existence. She slumped to the floor, and the wraithlings rushed in to caress her with pale hands. She shrieked, a sound of agony, and her back arched off the hard stone.

“Get away from her!” Beltan shouted.

He swung his sword in a whistling arc. The fey beings leaped back at the fury of the mortal man. Falken grabbed Melia and dragged her motionless form back toward Travis. Sword aloft, Beltan retreated after him. Tracing their shining paths on the air, the wraithlings followed.

Terrible as all this was, it seemed distant to Travis. He turned his gaze back to the broken rune.
Bind it
. He reached out a hand toward its surface. White light shone before him. The wraithlings had closed the circle. He looked up and found himself gazing into huge, lidless eyes.

For a moment the two gazed at each other, two worlds come face-to-face. Then a slender hand reached toward Travis. There was death in that touch. Fear propelled him to
action. He slashed outward with the stiletto, the ruby flared crimson, and the tip sank easily into translucent flesh. Somehow Travis knew it was for just such a purpose that the knife had been forged long ago, in the smithies of ancient Malachor.

Again came the soundless wail. The wraithling fell back. Light streamed outward from the wound in its hand, only this time the light was tinged with crimson. Travis heard his companions scream behind him. The wraithlings were everywhere, there was no more time. He dropped the dagger, pressed his hand against the dark circle of stone, and shouted the word in his mind.

Orm
!

In the space between two heartbeats everything went black. The glow of the wraithlings was extinguished, as was that of the runes that scattered the walls and ceiling of the chamber. Time and sound were suspended. Then two crossed lines appeared and shone in the dark like molten silver.

The blackness shattered.

Travis stared at the floor. The Foundation Stone was dark no longer. Instead it shone like the moon, its surface cool beneath the touch of his hand. All signs of the crack that had marred its surface were gone.

Each of the runes carved into the walls and ceiling of the chamber blazed with new blue-silver light. They began to spin like a sky of stars gone mad. The wraithlings flung their slender arms up and covered their huge eyes with willowy fingers.

The rune-stars spun faster yet, weaving a gauze of azure brilliance on the air. The wraithlings turned to flee but were caught in the gossamer net. Travis shut his eyes against the light and clutched at his companions, the only solid things in the room. There was a final cry: a chorus of mouthless voices merged into one chord of fear, agony, and—it almost seemed—release. Then, so sudden it was deafening, silence closed in.

Travis opened his eyes. The runes in the ceiling were motionless now and bathed the heart of the White Tower in a gentle radiance. The wraithlings were nowhere to be seen.

“They’re gone,” he murmured.

Falken struggled to his knees. “Yes,” he said, “they are.” The bard gazed at the Foundation Stone, now whole and smooth. Then he turned his faded eyes on Travis. “You did this, didn’t you?”

Travis could give only a jerky nod.

Falken opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted by Beltan’s anguished words.

“I can’t wake her up, Falken! She’s breathing, but only just barely.” The knight had risen also and now shook Melia’s shoulders, his grip gentle but fierce. “Wake up, Melia. Please!”

The bard moved toward them. “Let me see, Beltan. Maybe I can—”

A sound like thunder shook the air. Travis’s eyes snapped back to the Foundation Stone. Even as he watched a black line snaked across the Stone’s surface, cleaving it in two once more. The rune of founding dimmed. At the same moment a dark substance welled forth from the crack and spilled over the surface of the stone. Travis pulled his hand back. It came away stained with red.

“Blood,” he whispered. “It’s blood.”

Falken stared. “By the Seven, the blood of a Necromancer. So that was what they did. Oh, the fools! The poor, cursed fools!”

The floor jerked beneath them as a tremor shook the tower. The runes above flickered.

Falken looked up. “I don’t think the bones of this place can bear this a second time.”

As if to punctuate his words, a chunk of stone dropped from the ceiling and crashed to the floor a dozen paces away.

Beltan lifted Melia in his arms. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

The others did not argue. Falken helped Travis to his feet. Together they ran from the chamber as the glowing runes crashed down behind them.

The four travelers huddled around a fire as night cast its cloak over the valley. A frigid wind hissed through dry grass. The remains of the White Tower were no more than a ghostly heap of stones in the distant gloom.

When they fled through the archway, light had streamed from the tower, and had poured through cracks in the stones to slice like thin knives into the fabric of night. Then the light had ceased, and the tower had slumped in on itself. With a terrible din it had collapsed into a great cairn of rubble, forging its own burial mound even as it died. No one would ever set foot within the White Tower of the Runebinders again. They had stumbled back to their campsite, and there had found one bit of good fortune: Their horses stood in a knot next to their slashed pickets, whickering softly.

Travis clutched his mistcloak around himself and surveyed the firelit faces of the others. Neither Falken nor Beltan seemed the worse for their ordeal, though Beltan’s sword hand was still cold and stiff. And although he felt drained and hollow, and his head buzzed, Travis noticed no other ill effects from his actions in the rune chamber. It was Melia who had been most devastatingly affected. They had wrapped her inside all the extra blankets and had placed her as close to the fire as they dared. She had awakened shortly after their return to camp, but shivers wracked her slight form, and her usually coppery skin was gray as ashes. She stared into the fire, a stricken expression upon her visage.

“It touched me,” she said, her voice a whisper of remembered horror. “It was so cold. So horribly cold.”

The others shot Falken looks of concern, but he did not see them. The bard’s gaze was upon Melia, his weathered face lined with care. Then he turned his eyes toward Travis and spoke in a soft voice.

“Would you bring me my pack, Travis?”

Travis nodded and did so.

Falken rummaged inside his pack and pulled out a handful
of dried
alasai
leaves, taken from one of the Way Circles in which they had stayed. He crushed the leaves into a cup, filled it with hot water from a kettle over the fire, and let the fragrant herbs steep. Then he moved to Melia.