Authors: Mark Anthony
The woman on the gurney stared up at her with green-gold eyes.
Doctor, heal thyself
, the woman whispered.
The vision shattered like crystal. Sound rushed back in a clap of thunder. Grace stood in the great hall of Calavere again. She stared at the object she held before her face. It was the bracelet Trifkin Mossberry had given her. The stone charm spun in a circle.
It is the same kind of stone as the artifact of Malachor in the great hall
.
Grace knew what she had to do.
She jerked her head up. Melia staggered now, and the blue nimbus flickered wildly. Falken reached for her. The feydrim hissed and started to climb over the fallen tables. The guards gripped their knives before them.
Grace’s eyes traveled across the hall, to the artifact that hulked in a corner: a massive ring of dark stone balanced on a stout wooden stand. The stone circle rested on its side, parallel to the floor.
A spark of sapphire near the artifact caught Grace’s eye. It was Aryn. The baroness had stumbled from a side door. Her face was white, her eyes dazed. She staggered forward. Before Grace fully realized what she was doing she touched the Weirding, spun a thread, and cast it toward the baroness.
Aryn
!
The baroness looked up, her pale visage stunned.
Aryn, can you hear me
?
Grace
? The reply was faint but clear.
Are you all right
?
There was a pause, then,
I’m … I’m here, Grace
.
Something had happened, something terrible—Grace could feel it—but it would have to wait.
Aryn, you’ve got to align the relic
.
What
?
The relic of Malachor. Turn it, Aryn. Get others to help you. Now
!
Grace sensed more confusion. Words were not working. She formed an image in her mind, then cast it along the web toward the baroness. Now understanding flowed back to her.
All right, Grace
.
There was no more time. Logren spun around and leered at her. Grace did not turn away, did not move back. Instead she looked into the face of evil.
“Your precious knight can’t save you now, witch,” he said. “No one can.”
“You’re wrong, Logren.” Her voice was cool and sharp as a scalpel.
He frowned at her words, opened his mouth to speak, and then his head snapped up. Like a puppet controlled by a capricious master, Logren’s body was jerked around so that he faced the front of the hall. His feet skittered forward on the dais.
Across the great hall, Aryn and several revelers stood beside the relic of Malachor. They had turned the massive ring of magnetite so that it stood vertically. Grace glanced at her bracelet. The charm did not point at Logren now, but instead pointed at the hollow center of the artifact. Knives flew through the air—plucked from the hands of those who held them—to strike and adhere to the relic.
“No!” Logren said.
A shudder passed through him, and his boots slid several more inches across stone as an inextricable force pulled at him. A gurgle sounded low in his throat, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Revelers ducked as more objects—spoons, rings, nails—streaked across the hall to strike the relic.
Grace moved up beside Logren. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and spoke in a choking whisper.
“Please, my lady. Help me.”
Grace gazed at his twisted face and knew in that moment she did have power over evil—not despite her suffering but because of it. She met his eyes and spoke in a crisp voice.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to operate, Lord Logren.”
His eyes widened. Grace planted a hand on his back and
shoved him forward to the edge of the dais. Logren screamed, and his arms spread out like the wings of a raven.
Then his iron heart burst from his chest and flew across the great hall toward the center of the relic.
Travis trudged through the unbroken snow of Shadowsdeep, toward the knife-edged mountains that loomed in the night before him.
The vale was still and frozen. There was no wind, and the air was crystal, sharp in his nose and lungs. The only sound was the crunch of his battered cowboy boots breaking the hard crust of the snow. The bitter cold sliced through his mistcloak and crept into his chest as if it wished to still his heart. Even the moon and stars seemed bound by ice in the dark sky above.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been walking. Awhile, judging by the numbness of his hands and the ice that clung to his beard. Then again, he had a feeling time didn’t really matter, not now, not in this place. This moment would last as long as it needed to. That sounded like something Brother Cy would have told him, but he knew it was true. The vale waited, and watched.
The mountains cut higher into the sky, excising more stars from the onyx firmament. However far he had come, he was closer now. Much closer. The Rune Gate lay directly ahead of him: a massive plane of iron as black as the peaks into which it was set. With every step the gate took up more of his vision, blotting out all else.
Neck stiff, Travis looked back over his shoulder. He traced the line of his footprints across the moonlit snow. It was hard to be sure, but he thought he saw a small rectangle of gray at the place where his trail vanished into the night. The door back to the castle? Perhaps. However, even as he gazed at it, the faint patch of light vanished. If it had been the door, then it was gone now. Not that it mattered. There was only one door left for Travis to face, and that lay ahead of him.
Not that he knew what he would do when he reached it.
The Rune Gate is about to open. Only you can shut it, Runelord
.
Except he had no idea how he was supposed to keep the gate from opening, and the hag had not offered him any clues.
Go then, and make your choice. Life or death
.
But it wasn’t up to him, was it? How could he choose if it wasn’t his choice?
Travis didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to go there, to the gate. For good or ill, all his wandering in life, all his drifting, had led him here, to this moonlit vale in another world. If he wanted to go beyond, he had to go through. It was the only way.
Travis started to turn back toward the mountains, and toward his destination, then halted. There—in the still desolation of the vale—something moved. The figure drew nearer, and Travis drew in a breath of wonder. He took a step through the snow toward the approaching knight.
Beltan’s movements were stiff, as if the cold—or perhaps something else—hampered him. Long legs thrashed through the snow, and the knight covered the last of the distance between them. He came to a halt, broad chest heaving, his breath summoning frosty ghosts.
Travis gazed at the blond man. “Beltan, what are you doing here?”
The knight struggled to find words between breaths. “I’m coming with you.”
Travis started to shake his head. This was his task—his peril to face—he couldn’t ask another to stand with him. Then he hesitated. How else would Beltan have found him if it wasn’t supposed to be this way, if
she
hadn’t meant it to happen? Besides, he was grateful to see his friend in this lonely place. Despite the dread that filled him at what he was supposed to do, Travis smiled.
“I’m glad you’re here, Beltan.”
“I told you I would protect you, Travis.”
The two men embraced, and for a moment there was warmth in the frozen waste. Then Travis pushed his friend away. Beltan gazed around and shuddered.
“What is this place, Travis?”
“Shadowsdeep,” he whispered.
With that he started through the unbroken snow, and Beltan followed after.
Minutes passed as they walked, or hours—or perhaps less than a shard of a moment—and they were there. The two men came to a halt before a jagged wall of black stone. The Fal Threndur: the Ironfang Mountains. Travis had glimpsed them his first day in the world of Eldh. He could not have known it then, but even as he had traveled away from the mountains he had journeyed toward them. Maybe it made sense that things came to an end here.
Set into the cliff face was a gigantic slab of iron. The Rune Gate. The very door of Imbrifale.
The gate’s surface was rough, pitted by wind and time, but unmarked save for three circular impressions in the metal, each as large as a splayed hand. Travis knew what the impressions had once contained: the three seals forged by the Runelords a thousand years ago. Except
Krond
and
Gelth
had been broken, and now Travis glanced down at the ground before the gate and saw, fallen in the snow, another disk of stone. He knelt and picked it up, but before he even touched its smooth surface he knew what it would be. It was
Sinfath
, the third and final seal from the Rune Gate, and it too was broken.
“Travis, look into the shadows.”
Beltan’s words were low and soft with danger. Travis stood and glanced into the gloom. All around them spindly shapes moved in the darkness.
Beltan drew his sword and eyed the shadows. “Whatever you came here to do, Travis, you might want to think about doing it. Now.”
Travis took a step toward the gate. He reached out a hand to touch the rough surface—then drew it back.
What am I supposed to do
? But he didn’t know, and Grisla had not told him. A fear colder than snow froze Travis, paralyzing him.
The things in the shadows were closer now. Yellow eyes flickered like flames without warmth. Moonlight glinted off gray fur and curved fangs.
Beltan’s back brushed against Travis’s. “Keep behind me,” the knight said.
Travis opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. The Rune Gate was an abyss of blackness before him,
and he stood on the edge.
What do I do
? But he couldn’t do anything. One step and he would fall forever.
The darkness all around undulated, then the feydrim scuttled into the moonlight before the gate.
It was hard to be sure how many there were—they slunk in and out of the shadows, making it impossible to count—but it didn’t matter. One thing was certain enough: There were far more than two men could fight.
The feydrim pressed closer.
Beltan lashed out with his sword as one of the creatures leaped forward. It scuttled back, away from the blade and into the gloom, eyes winking with hate. Another lunged from the opposite direction—they were testing the knight, measuring him—and Beltan twisted to engage it. He brought his sword around, but the movement was stiff, clumsy. The feydrim scrambled back to avoid his blade, but not before it had reached out with a claw. Beltan sucked in a breath of pain. Now a dark line scored his cheek, and a guttural sound, almost like purring, emanated from the shadows: They liked the scent of blood.
“Travis?” Beltan’s voice was tight now. “Travis, I’m not sure how long I can hold them back.”
Travis wanted to answer, wanted to reach down for the stiletto at his belt and help the knight. The gem set into the knife’s hilt blazed crimson. However, Travis was a statue. He could not decide what to do.
A gray form sprang from the shadows beside the gate and stretched its talons toward Travis’s throat.
“Get away from him!”
The knight’s shout sundered the frozen air. He leaped before Travis and thrust with his sword. The feydrim fell squealing to the snow. It writhed with Beltan’s blade stuck in its gut, then twitched and fell still. The feydrim was dead, but now Beltan was weaponless. He started to reach forward to retrieve the sword, but two more feydrim snarled and crawled over the corpse. They glared at the knight with yellow eyes, then as one they leaped onto him.
Beltan grunted and staggered back under the weight of the creatures. They bit and tore at him with fang and claw, shredding cloth and skin alike, but he did not go down. The knight let out a bellow of rage and agony, then dug his
thumbs into the eyes of one of the creatures. The yellow lights dimmed, colorless ichor oozed out, and the feydrim screeched. Beltan heaved the carcass off him, then wrapped his fingers around the other’s throat. Even as it raked his side with its hind claws Beltan crushed the feydrim’s throat with bare hands. The snap of its neck echoed on the air like the sound of ice cracking, then Beltan cast its limp body aside.
The feydrim circled around the two men, wary now but not retreating. Travis stared at the knight, horrified. Beltan staggered, his shoulders hunched in. With one arm he clutched his side, while the other hung limp from his shoulder. Blood smeared his face, his hands, his clothes. Not all of it was his, but most of it was.
Beltan looked up at Travis and grinned.
“I beat them, Travis,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I beat them.”
Then the knight’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he fell backward into the snow. A stain spread out from his body, black in the moonlight like ink on parchment: one final rune.
No
! Travis cried in his mind, although no sound escaped his lips.
Beltan
!
He wanted to rush to the knight, but his limbs might as well have been carved of ice. The feydrim stalked around him and the fallen man, and the circle tightened with every revolution. In moments they would tear his throat out, would rend him limb from limb. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Beltan was dead, and he had done nothing.
The circle was complete. The feydrim stretched their spindly arms toward Travis. He almost welcomed them.
Crack
!
It was a sound like thunder, a sound like doom, a sound like a giant’s bones breaking. Travis wondered if it was the sound of the feydrim snapping his neck, but he blinked and saw that the creatures had fallen back. Now they trembled on the ground, snouts down, whining and pawing the snow like dogs at once terrified and overjoyed to see their master coming.
Their master coming …
Travis’s eyes flickered to the Rune Gate, and his heart ceased to beat, utterly frozen. A line had appeared in the
Gate—a thin crack that ran top to bottom in the center of the iron slab. Pale light welled through the slit, cutting the night in half, then the crack widened, spilling the illumination into the vale of Shadowsdeep.