The Keep of Fire (49 page)

Melia treated the bard to a withering look.

Travis did his best to absorb this information. He knew there was something … 
special
about Melia. But he wouldn’t have thought this was a feat she could manage, summoning him across worlds. Then he thought of Brother Cy, and he wondered if Melia had indeed been lucky—if perhaps her call had been heard by another.

“I saw you, Melia,” he said quietly. “When I was sick. I saw you bending over me, and you were shining. But I thought it was just the fever showing me what I most wanted to see.”

Melia’s gaze softened. “I’m sorry we had to leave you, Travis. But we received an important message, and we had to pay a visit to an old friend of mine.”

Before he could ask more about this old friend, the bard and the lady were summoned back into the chorus chamber.

A short while later he watched as a stream of runespeakers passed by. Some cast glances at him, but
what their looks portended he didn’t know. Finally, two last figures stepped through the triangular opening: Melia and Falken.

“He wants to speak with you, dear,” Melia said, touching his arm.

Travis frowned. “Who?” But even as he asked, he knew.

“Go on,” Falken said. “He’s waiting for you.”

Travis hesitated, then stepped into the chorus chamber. The sound of argument had faded; only the murmur of ancient voices drifted on the air. A single, stooped figure stood below the dais at the center.

Oragien spoke as he approached. “I hope you can forgive us, Master Wilder.”

Travis nearly choked. Why should the Runespeakers forgive
him?
He had broken their runestone, destroying their one link with the past. Had he really saved them? Or had he simply hastened their inevitable fading? He halted before Oragien. To Travis’s surprise, the old man was smiling.

“You know, you are fortunate to have friends such as Falken Blackhand and Lady Melia. There were those among the masters who felt you should stay, to help us learn as we begin to rebuild the runestone. But those two argued strongly that you were needed elsewhere.”

“You mean I’m free to go?”

“Yes, Master Wilder, you may go. The null stone has broken, and all judgments against you are void.” The All-master ran knobby fingers over the timeworn wood of his runestaff. “But are any of us truly free?”

Travis didn’t know how to answer and so said nothing.

After that, despite his protests, Oragien had pressed the runestaff into his hands, and Travis had felt quiet power coursing up and down its length.

Use it well, and only when you must, runelord
,
Oragien had said.
And when you can, come back to us
.

Then the old man had turned and limped from the chamber, leaving Travis alone.

For a time Travis had stood alone in the chorus chamber, listening to the echoes of voices past. However, if they had any message for him, he could not make out the words. He had left the chamber and spent the next hour searching the tower for one other person whom he wanted to bid farewell. Again that morning he had searched. However, Sky was nowhere to be found.

“Perhaps he was needed somewhere else,” Melia had said last night when Travis asked if she had seen the young man, not looking up from Beltan’s cloak, which she was mending.

Travis had thought this an odd answer, but maybe she was right. Melia usually was. He had finally given up his search, but he hoped one day he would find Sky again, and have a chance to thank him for his kindness.

Strangely, Sky was not the only person in the tower to go missing. To everyone’s puzzlement, Master Eriaun was gone as well. The last time anyone remembered seeing the plump little master had been just after Travis broke the null stone. Travis hoped the nearsighted runespeaker hadn’t wandered off the edge of a precipice in the twilight. However, no one had seen any trace of him—although the runespeakers had not given up their search. Travis hoped Eriaun was all right.

“It’s going to be a hot day.”

Travis blinked as Durge’s words jerked him back to the moment. He let his hands fall from the felt-covered staff.

“You’d better get used to the heat,” Falken said. “It’s only going to get hotter where we’re riding.”

Travis wanted to ask the bard about their destination and their quest, but he knew better. Falken would tell them when he was ready. All he had said so far was that this had something to do with one of the Imsari, the three Great Stones—the one called Krondisar.

Travis glanced up at the sun. He knew enough about runes now to translate that word. The Stone of Fire.

“Travis, will you assist me?”

Melia stood beside her white mare. Travis hurried over and with his fingers wove a step for her tiny boot. Once in the saddle, she arranged her kirtle into an elegant cascade. Travis reached to buckle one of her saddlebags—

—and it hissed at him.

He snatched his hand back, but not in time to keep needle-sharp claws from tracing a red line across his skin. He lifted his stinging hand to his mouth, then saw the fluffy black ball peeking out of the saddlebag with moon-gold eyes.

“You!”

The kitten let out a purr, cleaning a tiny paw with delicate laps of its pink tongue.

But it can’t be the same kitten she had in Calavere, Travis. That cat would be full-grown by now
.

All the same, Travis eyed the kitten warily. Something told him he was going to have to be careful on this journey if he wanted to finish it with skin still on his ankles.

The others had begun mounting their horses, and Travis turned to do the same. He halted as a man in a gray robe stepped between the two standing stones that marked the trail to the tower. He noticed the pack strapped to the other’s back. So he wasn’t the only one about to embark on a long journey.

“Master Larad,” he said.

The scar-faced man nodded. “Master Wilder.”

“Where are you going?”

Larad’s lips twisted in a mocking smile. “Anywhere I wish, as long as it’s not here.”

“So they banished you,” Falken said from aback his horse.

“It would seem that way, Falken Blackhand.”

Travis studied Larad’s face. For a time yesterday, while the chorus recessed, Travis and Grace had spoken with Larad in an alcove near the chorus chamber.

So you set everything up
, Travis had said.
Getting me to break the runestone, then showing that escape from the null stone wasn’t impossible
.

Yes
, Larad had said.
The Runespeakers had to learn how to forget that word
.

What word?

Impossible
.

Grace had spoken then.
But there are still some things I don’t understand, Master Larad. Why didn’t you just use Olrig’s hand yourself? Why give it to Sky to give to me?

Because I was to stand near the null stone as one of Master Wilder’s accusers. If I were holding the hand, its power might have been revealed by the null stone too early to help him
.

Then it had been Travis’s turn to express his confusion.
But if you wanted me to go free, why go to such great lengths to punish me in the first place?

I wished for you to break the runestone, Master Wilder. To reforge it the Runespeakers must truly come to understand it. But this required punishing you for the deed. While we must think of the future, the ancient laws must still be obeyed. Without them we have no foundation upon which to build
.

Travis had thought about these words all last night. Now he approached the runespeaker. “I think I understand, Master Larad. Why you did things the way you did, I mean.”

Larad nodded. “It was important for you not to like me.”

“Well, you did a good job of that.” Travis’s smile faded. “But why didn’t you just tell me what you wanted me to do? Wouldn’t that have been easier?”

“And if I had told you the truth, and what your punishment would be, would you have done it?”

Travis thought about this, then answered with the truth. “I’m not sure.”

“Nor was I.”

Travis hesitated, then held out a hand. “It’s all right, Master Larad. I’m not mad at you.”

“I did not ask for your forgiveness, Master Wilder.”

Ignoring Travis’s hand, Larad started away. Then he paused to cast a glance back over his shoulder, his dark eyes gleaming in the shattered mosaic of his face. “I wish you well on your journey. Runelord.”

“You too,” Travis whispered, but Larad had already disappeared around an outcrop of stone.

Travis let out a soft breath, then turned toward the others. They all sat on their horses. It was time to go. He moved to Patch, grabbed a handful of mane, and climbed into the saddle. He looked up to see amber eyes upon him.

“Are you all right, dear?” Melia said.

Travis gripped the reins. “Let’s get away from this place.”

They kept close to the Fal Erenn as they journeyed, and with every league that passed, Grace’s spirits rose higher. Maybe it was Travis they had helped to save at the Gray Tower, but Grace felt like she was the one who was suddenly free. The road to the tower had been shadowed, and marked by fire and death. But all
of that was behind her now. Despite Falken’s admonition to the contrary, the air grew cooler and moister as they traveled east and—if Grace recalled her maps rightly—nearer the ocean.

She spoke little that first day of riding, instead content to keep Shandis back and watch her companions. One by one, her gaze alighted on each of the others. Travis laughed at one of Beltan’s bawdy jokes. Melia bowed her head toward Falken as the two spoke in low voices. Aryn gazed at the world with brilliant blue eyes, her visage pale but exquisite, while Lirith rode nearby, her expression as calm and deep as still water. Then there was Durge—good, kind, true Durge—spurring his charger ahead and searching so very hard for any signs of bandits, monsters, or unlikely natural disasters.

A small hand reached up to brush Grace’s cheek. She looked down into Tira’s half-melted face. The girl nodded, as if she had merely wished to remind Grace of her presence, then turned her placid gaze forward again. Fingers tightened around Grace’s heart, but it was a good pain.

You’re never alone, Grace. Even when sometimes it feels like you are. You have to remember that
.

Just after midmorning, Melia and Falken guided their mounts close to Travis’s to ask him what seemed a never-ending series of questions. At the Gray Tower, the same evening they had freed him, Travis had told his story. All of them had listened in rapt attention, shuddering as they learned the fire evil walked not one world, but two. Grace couldn’t hear much of their conversation now, but the bard and the lady seemed to be probing Travis for finer details of his story, especially about the man in the black robe who had come to Travis’s saloon. Grace shivered as she remembered Travis’s description of the other.

Beware—it will consume you
.

Had the man in black been speaking of the Burning
Plague? It was the only answer that made sense. She almost wished she could go back to Denver, so she could study one of the plague victims at the hospital—to run blood tests and biopsies, to take X-rays and MRIs, to probe with modern tools and see if she could comprehend the nature of this disease.

Then she thought of the man in the farmhouse, the one she had ended with an iron poker, and she knew no tools or tests, however advanced, would be able to truly explain this affliction. Besides, if a door to Denver were to open before her at that moment, Grace was not so certain she would step through. How would it feel to put on a stark white lab coat again after wearing bright gowns of violet and gold?

Her eyes moved again to Lirith. The Tolorian woman sat straight atop her palfrey, not as stiffly as Melia, and perhaps not as regal, yet commanding all the same. No,
commanding
wasn’t the right word. Compelling—that was it. Lirith didn’t order you to do things, not like Melia did. Instead she made you
want
to do them.

It had been interesting observing the two women these last days. At the Gray Tower, Melia and Lirith had stared at each other like two women who had worn the same expensive dress to a party. Now, as they rode, Lirith cast surreptitious but frequent glances at the amber-eyed lady, and while Melia didn’t look up, there was something about the set of her shoulders that made Grace think Lirith’s looks had not gone unnoticed.

At last curiosity won out, and Grace guided Shandis toward the Tolorian woman’s palfrey. “What is it, Lirith?” she whispered without preamble.

“What do you mean, sister?” Even as Lirith spoke these soft words her eyes moved past Grace to the lady on the white horse.

“That,” Grace said. “You can’t take your eyes off her. Lady Melia.”

“It’s nothing,” Lirith said far too quickly.

Grace’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Of course. I always stare at other people for absolutely no reason.”

Lirith raised a slender eyebrow. “I see you learned much indeed from the Lady Kyrene.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Grace said with a fierce grin. “You’re not going to get out of this by throwing it back to me. You know something about Melia—something you’re not telling.”

Again Lirith’s eyes moved past Grace, and she spoke in a quiet tone. “If I know anything, it is only what she chooses to reveal to all of us.”

Before Grace could ask anything more, Lirith lightly touched the neck of her palfrey, and the horse leaped into a canter, leaving Grace behind.

They made camp as the long shadows of the mountains reached into the east. Beltan had brought down a small mule deer with a snare, and while Grace’s heart had fallen to see the young animal get captured, her stomach was more than happy to give purpose to the creature’s death.

That night there was an almost festive air around the campfire. Beltan told colorful anecdotes about drunken warriors, Falken sang songs, and Lirith astonished them all by performing tricks of magic with a coin. These feats relied on sleight of hand rather than the Weirding, but Grace gasped all the same as Lirith made the coin vanish in her hand, then pulled it from the ear of a wide-eyed Durge. Tira clapped her hands and laughed, and Grace hugged her.