The keep of fire, p.36
The Keep of Fire, page 36
There was a silence so long Travis thought that even the voice had fled him now in this final hour. Then it came again, a whisper deep in his mind.
You’re wrong, Travis. The null stone is ancient, but there are powers more ancient still. The hand of Olrig will aid you.
This was a cruel joke. Travis pounded his fist against his thigh. “But Olrig isn’t here anymore. Don’t you remember? The Old Gods are gone.”
Are they?
Travis opened his mouth, then closed it. There was no use in replying. As if a door had shut in his mind, the voice was gone. At the same moment another door—the one to his cell—swung open. Three journeymen entered. Travis stood.
“You don’t need that,” he said, as one of them lifted a strip of leather. However, the man ignored him and tied the strip over his mouth, gagging him. Apparently they weren’t going to risk his breaking their rune of silence again. The others took his arms and shoved him through the door.
A half-dozen times he nearly saved them the work of taking him to the null stone by stumbling and just about breaking his neck on the steps as they pushed him down the staircase. However, with rough jerks they kept him upright, and he made it to the bottom. They forced him through the gate.
The light of the dying day spilled like blood across the plateau in front of the tower. The runespeakers were all there, gathered in a semicircle facing west. He could not see past them to the null stone, but he knew it was there, for it weighed like a blot on his mind. Hard hands propelled him toward it.
Sweat trickled in rivulets inside Travis’s robe, and he was unable to walk without knocking his knees together. It was difficult not to entertain thoughts of escape. If somehow he could get the gag off, just for a moment, he could freeze his captors with Gelth, or burn them with Krond. Then he could run far from here. Where he would go, he didn’t know. Maybe back to Calavere, to see Grace and Beltan, and …
The runespeakers parted, making way for him to pass, and all of Travis’s thoughts ceased. His eyes locked on the black outline of the null stone—then moved down to the heap of sticks piled at the base. Fear transmuted into panic. He strained against the grips that held him, but more hands reached out, pulling him toward the stone. Travis tried to scream but only choked against the gag instead. He had been wrong. Horribly, stupidly wrong. They weren’t going to just tie him to the stone and leave him.
They were going to burn him alive.
53.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
“There has to be a way out of here. There has to be.”
One more time Grace pawed at the rough wood of the cell’s door, digging her nails into every crack, groping for any sign of weakness.
“Grace.” Aryn’s voice was soft but urgent. “Grace, it’s no use. You have to stop.”
She hesitated, then lifted her hands to gaze at them: Blood oozed from the raw fingertips. With a stiff nod she stepped away from the door. Aryn let out a sigh, then cast a worried look at Lirith. The witch’s lips were pressed into a line, but she said nothing, her hands resting on Tira’s thin shoulders.
Grace paced around the boundaries of the wedge-shaped cell. They had found themselves in the cell upon waking—sometime after sunset the previous night—once the effects of the rune had worn off. Somehow Tira had already been awake, for Grace had opened her eyes to see the girl’s placid face bent over her. Now it was nearly sunset again. Grace knew that, when it rose over the western mountains, the moon would be full.
She considered shouting again, but her throat was as ragged as her fingers. Not that there was a point to it anyway. They would not come again. At least not until after nightfall. Oragien had made that much clear.
The old man who had met them at the tower’s gate had come to their cell just after dawn, and had spoken to them through a crack in the door, identifying himself as the All-master of the Gray Tower.
“Why are you keeping us?” Aryn demanded before either Grace or Lirith could speak. The baroness’s blue eyes blazed with ire. If Grace had forgotten Aryn was nobility of the highest degree, she had remembered it then.
“It is for the best that you remain here,” Oragien said, his voice weary but resolute.
“And for what crime are we being imprisoned?”
“For no crime, good sister. After sunset tonight we will release you, and you will be free to leave the tower.”
Grace clenched her jaw. After sunset … and after they had murdered Travis. Wasn’t that what the old man meant?
Aryn’s tone was frosty steel. “I am a baroness of Calavan, here with a duchess as well as a countess of Toloria. And all of us are companions to Queen Ivalaine. Do you truly believe you won’t have to answer for this deed?”
Oragien passed a withered hand before his eyes. “In the end, we each must answer for our deeds, good sister.”
At that, the color had drained from Aryn’s face, and words had seemed to flee her. Lirith gripped her shoulders, pulling her back from the door. Oragien stepped away from the crack.
Wait! Grace had tried to shout. You still haven’t said why you’re doing this to Travis!
But the door had already shut, and since then no other had come to the cell.
Now Grace sat on one of the two cots that occupied the cramped room. She shut her eyes and lifted a hand to her forehead. They had all awakened with headaches that still lingered. An aftereffect of the rune magic, perhaps.
“Here. Drink this.”
Grace opened her eyes and saw Lirith holding a wooden cup. At least they had been left a pitcher of water, along with some bread and raisins. Grace accepted the cup and drank, and the throbbing in her skull receded a bit.
“Maybe we should try again,” she said as she handed back the cup, meeting Lirith’s dark eyes. “To use the Touch.”
Lirith laid a slender hand on Grace’s arm. “The walls are stone, sister. The door wood and iron. Not mist, not water. You tried this morning when you were fresh and rested, and you could not move them. How can you now when you are weary?”
Grace stiffened. And maybe you just don’t want me to open the door. Sister. After all, you think he’s the Runebreaker. Maybe you don’t want me to save him.
But these thoughts were madness, brought on by exhaustion and fear. Lirith was her friend.
Grace drew in a breath. “You’re right. And even if we weren’t all too tired, the Weirding is weak here. I don’t think there’s enough life in this tower to fill a thimble.”
Aryn ran a hand over one of the impossibly smooth walls. “No, that’s not true. I know it seems odd, but there is life in this stone. It’s like the Weirding, but it’s different as well. Colder. More distant. I can’t …” She shook her head. “I just can’t seem to grasp it.”
Grace shot Aryn a grateful look. At least she had tried.
“My lady …” came a deep, faint voice.
At once Grace stood, moved to the farside of the cell, and knelt beside an opening at the base of the wall—so small even Tira would not have been able to slip her hand through it. The opening would allow water from this cell and the next to pour into a common drain. More importantly, it let Grace see into the adjacent space. She peered through and saw a stone floor and two sets of boots.
“Durge. Beltan.”
“We are still here, my lady,” came the Embarran’s somber voice.
“We’re sure as steel not going anywhere with these things on,” Beltan’s tenor followed.
Chains rattled. They sounded heavy.
“So you haven’t been able to get free?” Grace said without even attempting to sound hopeful.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” Beltan said, his voice hollow through the opening. “I don’t think a troll could break these chains.”
“My lady,” Durge said, “I called because I wondered what time of day it was. There is no window in here.”
Grace glanced at the glowing slit in the wall behind her. “It’s almost sunset.”
There was silence from the other side, then the chains rattled again, louder this time, and a shout of effort, rage, and pain echoed off stone.
“They can’t do this to him! By Vathris’s bloody blade, they can’t do this! Oh, gods …”
Grace squeezed her eyes shut as Beltan’s words ended in a strangled sound of anguish.
“Forgive us, my lady,” came Durge’s quieter but no less heartrending tones. “We have failed you. And we have failed Goodman Travis.”
No, Grace wanted to say. No, I’m the one who failed—failed to be where I was supposed to be. But she couldn’t give voice to the words.
She still couldn’t understand how this had happened. Her vision was going to come true, but she was not going to be there by the standing stone as she had believed. But that didn’t make sense. In the vision, Travis had seen her standing there, she was sure of it. But how was he going to see her now that she was locked in this cell?
Grace opened her mouth to say something, anything, that might comfort the knights—
—and stopped as a knock came at the cell door.
She jerked her head up. Both Lirith and Aryn stared at the portal. Tira only played with her burnt doll. The knock came again, louder this time. Then the cell door opened—not a crack, but all the way.
Grace was so astonished she could not move, could not bolt for freedom as she should have given the opportunity. Instead, she watched as a man—robed not in gray, but in brown—stepped into the cell. He was young, no more than twenty, his rubbery face misshapen but kindly.
“Who are you?” Grace said.
The young man drew something from inside his robe and held it toward her. Grace drew closer. It was a hand made of gray stone. She cast a puzzled look that was returned by Aryn and Lirith, then met the young man’s eyes.
“What is it?” she whispered, certain that something important was about to happen.
The young man opened his mouth. As he did, she saw the stump of flesh where his tongue had once been. He worked his jaw, his face contorting even further. Then sound issued from his lips.
“Oh … hrig.”
Grace stared. Her instincts told her this was the first time this man had spoken in many years, perhaps since he was a child, when his tongue was taken from him. Shaking, he held the stone hand out farther and spoke again.
“Oh-hrig.”
Grace gazed at the hand. It was broken at the wrist, as if once part of a larger sculpture. Ohrig. Was that a word for hand?
No, Grace. That’s not it. Think—he doesn’t have a tongue. That means he can’t form lingual sounds.
She took the hand and looked up into his eyes. “Olrig. This is the hand of the Old God Olrig.”
He nodded and grinned, his eyes bright.
Aryn stepped forward. “Grace, what’s going on?”
She shook her head. “I don’t …”
The young man handed her another object. Grace’s fingers closed around soft fabric. She shook the garment out and gasped. It was a robe the color of mist.
The young man gestured, his movements as eloquent as gently spoken words: Put it on, my lady.
She cast a shocked look at Aryn and Lirith.
Lirith’s eyes were intense as coals. “You must go, Grace. I looked out the window just a moment ago. Already the runespeakers are gathering.”
Grace clutched the robe. “But …”
“But there’s only one robe.” Aryn stepped forward and touched her shoulder. “We’ll do our best to free Beltan and Durge. Now go, Grace. You’re Travis’s only chance.”
Grace gazed at the two women. Then Tira moved between them. She patted Grace’s hand, then looked up and cast a beautiful half smile at the young man. He grinned back at her. Grace held up the robe.
“Well, here goes nothing,” she said.
54.
Travis strained against the hands that held him, but it was no use. His boots scraped against hard slate as they dragged him toward the heap of wood waiting beneath the standing stone.
Next time you’re sentenced to death, Travis, remember to ask what method they’re going to use. That way you can avoid these nasty little execution-day surprises.
Amidst the crowd of gray robes, Travis glimpsed a pair of myopic brown eyes. Eriaun. The stout master wrung plump hands as Travis stumbled past. Then he was lost to sight as the runespeakers closed the half circle behind Travis.
His captors thrust him toward the null stone, and all sounds receded, becoming muffled and indistinct, as if heard in a dream. His right hand itched, and he knew that if he tried to speak a rune, his tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth.
He slipped on the sticks as his captors grabbed his shoulders and pressed him hard against the stone. Air rushed from his lungs in a sickening whoosh. Before he could move, they had bound him to the stone with thick lengths of braided cord. One of them jerked the gag away from his mouth. There was no danger of his speaking a rune now.
The runespeakers retreated, their gray robes melding with the others, and a queer peace stole over Travis. At least he didn’t need to decide what to do anymore.
Just a little while longer, Max. Then I’m going to burn, just like you did.
“It is sunset. Let us be done with this.”
The voice was strong and carried even past the dullness surrounding the null stone, but the sound of it was weary all the same. Travis raised his head and saw two runespeakers standing in front of the others. One was Oragien, his white hair and beard fluttering on the listless breeze. The other was Master Larad. The shattered fragments of his face were arranged in an expression as lifeless as that of a statue.
Travis looked past Larad, searching for one kind, homely face—but there was no sign of Sky. However, he did see one who stood slightly apart from the others, as if reluctant to be close to them as they did this thing. Travis couldn’t see who it was—the hood of his gray robe was drawn up over his face—but maybe not all the runespeakers thought like Master Larad did.
Oragien leaned on his staff. “Do you understand the crime for which you are to be punished, Master Wilder?”
Before Travis could speak another, harsher voice answered.
“He has defiled the runestone,” Larad said with a sneer. “The runestone, which is the heart of our tower and the source of all we are. His punishment has been decided.”
Oragien kept his gaze fixed on Travis. “Have you any words to speak before the end?”
Again Larad answered first. “He’s spoken enough lies already.”
This time the master’s words won a sharp glance from the All-master. The scar-faced man fell silent, but his eyes did not move from Travis. Somehow, Travis drew a scant breath of air into his lungs. He forced his voice to carry past the stillness that weighed over the stone.
“I’ve only told you the truth, Oragien.”
He could see the All-master’s frail hands grow white as they tightened around his staff. Oragien pressed his eyes shut but said nothing. Larad made a sharp motion with his hand. Two runespeakers moved forward, each holding a burning torch. They plunged the brands into the pile of sticks beneath Travis.
Instinct forced Travis’s body against the ropes that bound him, but they were far too strong to break. His mind screamed the rune Sharn. Water. But when his lips tried to form the word, the presence of the null stone pressed down on him like an iron weight. A curl of smoke wafted against his face, stinging his nose and throat. He turned his head away—
—and saw Grace Beckett standing beside the null stone.
Wonder replaced fear. How could Grace be there?
She looked just as he remembered her, clad in a violet gown, her green-gold eyes as brilliant as summer gems. Except her hair was longer now, framing the fine, regal features of her face. But she seemed so pale, as if ill, and her expression was stricken. Why didn’t she speak to him?
“Grace!” he said, barely able to utter the word.
Still she did not speak. His first thought was that he was already dying, that this was one final hallucination brought on by smoke and pain. But the fire was still crackling its way upward through the wood, and when he blinked she was still there, standing just a few feet away.
No, not standing. He saw now that her form drifted above the ground, and while all things cast long shadows in the setting sun, she did not. Only then did he realize that he could see the faint outlines of rocks through her translucent body.
The heat was rising now, growing uncomfortable against his legs. More smoke drifted past his face, choking him. A few more seconds, then he would die. Was Grace dead as well? Was this her ghost coming to welcome him?
Not her ghost, Travis. Her spirit.
In that second he understood everything. It was just like the circle of standing stones outside Calavere, when Grace had cast a spell on the conspirator’s knife, and had flown from her body to see the two would-be murderers speaking there. How he could see her vision-self he didn’t know. But once, in the petty kingdom of Kelcior, it had seemed as if his gunslinger’s spectacles had helped him see auras of light around Melia, Falken, and Beltan. Wasn’t a spirit like an aura?
There wasn’t time to think about it. All that mattered was that Grace had seen him here. And if it was anything like the last time, then she had glimpsed all of this days ago. Maybe even weeks. This was her future. Which meant …
You could be here, Grace. If you saw this happen, if you cared enough, you could be here.
It was beyond desperate: a dying man’s fantasy. But if there was even one shard of possibility left for his existence, however small, he had to reach for it. Wasn’t that what Brother Cy had showed him?
But what do you do, Travis? Even if she saw you, even if she’s here, how do you help her help you?
His mind was blank. The heat rose to the threshold of pain—and moved beyond it. Smoke filled his eyes with tears, obscuring the ghostly vision of Grace. Then, like a whisper, words echoed in his brain.
The hand of Olrig will aid you.…
So that was what Jack had meant. He had to tell Grace—both then and now. A roaring filled Travis’s skull. There was no more time.
