Beyond the Pale (55 page)

“Tell me.”

She drew in a deep breath and lifted her head, and now her blue eyes shone. “It was me, Grace. The queen with the sword, going to war on the white horse. It was me.”

Of course. Ivalaine had said the water could reflect the future.

“What about you, Grace? What did you see?”

The future … or the past.

Grace swallowed. Her mouth tasted like ashes. “Nothing, Aryn. I saw nothing. Come on, we’d better go see King Boreas.”

She did not glance at the ewer again as she turned and started down the passageway.

Travis rested his bearded chin on his hands and watched through the window as clouds rolled from the west to blanket the fields, hills, and copses of Calavan. The leaden sky descended until the castle’s towers scraped it and shreds of mist whirled around their turrets. Below, peasants and serving maidens and men-at-arms went about their business in Calavere’s two baileys. Life seemed hard in this place, but Travis envied the castle folk. At least they had something to do, even if it was only pushing a cart of peat through the muck.

“… but I managed to catch him for a few moments yesterday evening, outside the king’s chamber,” Falken was saying. He paced around the chamber, strumming his lute, which hung from a leather strap over his shoulder.

“And what did he tell you?” Melia said.

She sat near the fire, a shawl over her shoulders. A fluffy black kitten played on the rug near her feet. Travis had no idea where it had come from.

“Alerain said that, after any reckoning, the council must recess for three days.”

“Three days!” Melia’s coppery skin darkened. “How many more feydrim will be prowling the castle in three days? And how much closer to freedom will the Pale King be?” She picked up the kitten and set it in her lap. It instantly began attacking the tasseled end of her sash.

“It’s frustrating, I agree, but you know how Calavaners are about regulations.”

“Rabid?”

Falken gave a snort. “That’s one word. Anyway, blame it all on King Indarus. He’s the one who set down the rules for calling a council.”

Melia stroked the kitten, and her eyes narrowed to gold slits. “I have half a mind to make this Indarus regret writing all those rules and regulations.”

“He’s been dead three centuries, Melia.”

“That’s not necessarily a problem.”

Travis started to ask what
that
had meant, then clamped his mouth shut. What was he thinking? That Melia or Falken would actually tell him what was going on? He had followed the two all those leagues, believing that once they got to Calavere the bard and lady would find a way to send him back to Colorado. However, since they had arrived at the castle two days ago, neither had even mentioned Travis’s home. It might have been bearable if Beltan were here, but Travis had not seen the knight since yesterday at the council.

You could go talk to Grace
.

A thrill passed through him at the thought, but he dismissed it. He had seen Grace from a distance at the council. She had seemed so at ease with her noble friends, like the knight Durge, or that young baroness with the blue eyes. What was her name? Aryn?

Just because Grace is from Earth doesn’t mean she’s like you, Travis. She fits in here
.

A soft but demanding
mew
reached his ears, and he looked down. The black kitten had tumbled and rolled across the floor to land at his feet. He lifted it up and set it on the windowsill. The kitten regarded him with golden eyes. They looked just like Melia’s.

“Has she sent you here to spy on me?” he said.

The kitten only purred and began exploring the sill. When it reached the window, it stiffened and let out a hiss. The hair on its back stood up. Travis peered out.

“It’s only a dog,” he said with a smile. “It’s all the way down in the bailey. It can’t hurt you.”

He started to pick up the kitten. It hissed again and slashed with tiny claws. A thin red line appeared on Travis’s skin. He snatched his hands back.

“Even you?” he murmured.

Now the kitten sat calmly, daintily licked a paw, and regarded him with those moonlike eyes.

“Traitor.”

The kitten leaped lightly to the floor and pranced back toward Melia. Travis picked up an empty pitcher from a table and followed.

“… was utterly disastrous,” Melia was saying now. “We have to find a way to break the deadlock.”

“And while there are still Dominions left to fight for.” Falken strummed a minor chord.

Travis cleared his throat. “I’m going to get some water.” He wasn’t really thirsty. It was just the only excuse he could think of to leave the room.

“All right, Travis,” Melia said in an absent tone.

He frowned. “And then I’m going to fling myself from the battlements and count how many seconds it takes before I splatter against the cobblestones.”

“That’s nice, dear.” She picked up the kitten and set it back in her lap.

It was no use. Travis walked from the chamber, leaving the bard and the lady to their machinations. He set the pitcher on a sideboard and headed down a corridor.

As always, Travis didn’t decide what direction to take. He wandered the castle for a time, and when he found himself at a door that led outside, it felt right enough. He opened the door and stepped into the lower bailey. Cold air slapped his cheeks, and woke him after the smoky dullness of the castle.

The bailey was thronging, and Travis felt odd not having an obvious task to do. He hurried across the courtyard—past short, powerful men with pockmarked faces and smudge-faced young women with toothless smiles—and hoped that
would make him look like he had purpose enough. He didn’t want to be mistaken for an errant servant again.

A chorus of bleating erupted behind Travis. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a flock of goats bearing down on him. The beasts were small, but there were a lot of them, and something told him he wouldn’t enjoy the sensation of all their little cloven feet prancing across his back. He lurched out of the way and pressed himself against a wall. The shaggy animals trotted by, along with their switch-wielding master: a man every bit as shaggy as his charges.

Once the stench settled, Travis peeled himself from the stones. His dash for safety had taken him to a dim corner of the bailey. He looked up, and above him loomed a tower he hadn’t really noticed before. It was smaller than the castle’s other towers, and of all the nine it was the only one that seemed in ill repair. A hole gaped in the side where several stones had fallen out, and the slate roof slumped at an odd angle. Most likely it had been abandoned. Perhaps the tower was dangerous. Travis shrugged, then turned to move on.

Something caught his eye, and he froze. There. He walked to the tower’s door of wood, weathered the same gray as the stones it was set into. They had fashioned it of silver inlaid in the wood, and although tarnished with time he could still make it out: three intersecting lines. It was the same symbol that had glowed on his right hand in the ruins of Kelcior:

Travis lifted his hand and reached toward the rune.

“Can I help you?” asked a masculine voice behind him.

Travis snatched his hand back and turned around. The man was young—younger than Travis by several years. His face was broad and homely, and his nose flat, but a cheerful light shone in his brown eyes. He wore a robe of unassuming gray, but the garment did not quite conceal his short, massive frame. Travis recognized him—he was one of the two runespeakers who had spoken the rune of beginning at the Council of Kings.

“I’m sorry,” Travis said. “I was just looking at the … I
mean, I was just looking.” How could he explain to this stranger what, even at that moment, itched beneath the skin of his right palm?

The man only nodded. He seemed neither suspicious nor angry. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He pointed to the symbol on the door. “Do you know it?”

Travis shook his head. “No, what is it?”

“It’s a rune—the rune of runes. See? There are three lines.” He traced them with a thick finger. “One for the art of runespeaking, and one for the two arts which are lost.”

Travis forgot his trepidation. He gazed at the rune on the door in new wonder. “The arts of runebinding and runebreaking,” he murmured.

The young man cocked his head and gave Travis a penetrating look. “Not many people know those words these days. Few are interested in runes anymore.”

“Why not?” Travis said.

He gave a wistful shrug. “Old ways are forgotten in the wake of new.”

Travis opened his mouth to speak, but another voice interrupted him.

“Hello there, Travis.”

He and the young man turned around. Travis wasn’t certain why he felt like a child who had just been caught in an illicit act, but he did. He crunched his shoulders inside his tunic.

“Hi, Melia. Hi, Falken.”

The young man glanced at Travis, surprise in his brown eyes, but Travis said nothing. The bard approached, and the lady drifted behind him.

“I’m surprised to find you here, Travis,” Melia said. Amusement touched the corners of her mouth. “I thought you were going to count how long it took to fall from the battlements.”

Travis winced. “How did you find me?”

Falken grinned his wolfish grin. “No, Travis, we weren’t looking for you. This was simply Lady Fate again, tangling our threads as she has before. We came to the bailey to buy a bolt of cloth for Melia.”

“I’m quite overdue for a new dress,” the lady said.

Her kirtle, as always, was without stain or rent or stray thread, but Travis said nothing.

Falken nodded toward the young man in the gray robe. “It’s good to see you again, Journeyman Rin.”

The man bowed. “And you as well, Master Falken.”

Travis tried to reel in his dangling jaw. “You know each other?”

“I spoke with Rin the other day,” Falken said. “I asked him if he could take you on as an apprentice.”

Rin smiled at Travis. “And that solves a mystery for me. It is not every day someone who knows about runes comes to our tower door.”

“Will you be able to teach him, Rin?” Melia said.

The young runespeaker’s face grew solemn. “I discussed the topic with Master Jemis yesterday. Usually apprentices must make a petition to All-master Oragien at the Gray Tower.”

Melia opened her mouth to protest, but Rin held up a hand and laughed.

“No, great lady, I would not presume to argue with you. I think we will be able to make an exception in this case. We will take Travis as an apprentice. However, at the earliest chance, he must journey to the Gray Tower and present himself there.”

Melia’s visage grew placid again. “Thank you, Rin.”

He bowed again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to my own studies. I’m afraid I’m not a master yet. I’ll see you tomorrow at dawn, Travis.”

With that Rin opened the door of the ramshackle tower and disappeared within.

“Well,” Melia said to Falken with a pleased look, “that’s settled.”

Travis frowned. “Wait a minute. Don’t I get a choice about this?”

Amber eyes locked on him. “And what would you choose, dear?”

He opened his mouth to make an angry reply, but he could think of no words to say.

Falken laid his gloved hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Travis. Rin and Jemis can teach you better than I can.”

Travis gave a wordless nod. Melia and Falken started to
continue on their way, then the lady halted and glanced back at Travis.

“By the way, Travis,” she said. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you this yet, but you were very brave the other night, when you helped Lady Grace against the feydrim.”

He could only stare as the bard and the lady walked away and vanished into the throng.

Travis shook his head. Maybe Brother Cy was right. Maybe he did have a choice after all. He glanced up at the tower of the runespeakers and rubbed his right hand.

Just maybe.

Grace stared at the flat expanse of wood before her. She had been standing at the door for what seemed an eternity, although in truth it had been no more than five minutes. Still, she was lucky no servant or noble had turned down this corridor. If someone saw her standing there, she would have to knock. After all, that’s what normal people did at doors.

And why can’t you, Grace? It’s not as if your doom is waiting for you on the other side. It’s just a man, that’s all
. Except it wasn’t just a man on the other side of the door. This chamber belonged to Logren of Eredane. She lifted her hand but could not bring her knuckles to bear on the wood.

This was all Aryn’s fault. Earlier that day, after their encounter with Ivalaine, Grace and the baroness had careened through the castle to Boreas’s chamber. Grace had expected to find him in a rage, stamping about the room, snorting curses like fire, and tossing aside any objects unlucky enough to get in his path—chairs, tables, small noblemen. Instead the king had sat near the fireplace, still and composed, and somehow this had frightened Grace even more. At least one could see a mad bull coming.

Their audience had been brief. Boreas was displeased with Falken’s outburst and the council’s premature decision—Grace had never before heard anyone make the word
displeased
sound like cause for murder. The council was to meet again in three days to begin anew, and Boreas wanted
to discover why the first reckoning had gone as it had, so that the second would not go the same. Grace, needless to say, was going to help him.