Keystone (Gatewalkers) (18 page)

“What have you been reading?” Charlie checked the history on her pocket comp. She felt her cheeks heating up. “Those aren’t historical documents. Those are four years of high school obsession. On my world we do
not
have real werewolves, vampires, or zombies. Or anything besides humans. Not so much as an elf.”

“Oh.” Jack looked crushed. “No cars?”

“Ok, we do have cars. And trains, shuttles, and planes.”

Jack perked up again. “Airplanes? Truly? I thought for certain they must be a fiction. Then the Death Star -”

“Fiction.”

Jack wilted. “Oh.”

“You read
really
fast,” Charlie said, goggling at the sheer number of books he’d gone through.

“It is my specialty,” Jack said smugly, but then added with a regretful air, “I forget much of it in short order. I have the memory of a sieve.”

“You should put moss in the bottom of it.”

“Put moss - Oh, I remember that story. The maiden put moss in the sieve to accomplish her impossible task.” He tapped the side of his head. “See? Not everything goes away. But I have a terrible time remembering complex things.”

“Such as how to make camp,” Rhys said dryly. “You placed the tent where the wind will carry the smoke from the fire.”

Jack’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, bother.”

***

That night Charlie stared up through the transparent roof of the tent and through the thin canopy of leaves at the alien sky, splashed with blue and purple stars and lit with two moons. She’d managed to doze fitfully, but it hadn’t lasted, despite the exertions of the day. Jack snored softly a few feet away and through the open tent flap Charlie could see Rhys. He sat with his back to the fire, staring out into the trees. Was he looking at the ruins and wondering, just as she had? Did he ever
sleep
? There was still so little she really knew about him, or anything else in this world for that matter.

What was she doing here? Jack was a mage. He knew how to start fires with a few words and create gates. Rhys was a mercenary; a warrior and a vampire, with speed and strength to match.

She was just Charlie. Manager on duty at the virtual reality arcade. What could she possibly add to this expedition? Besides cannon fodder, and she didn’t particularly want to die. What was she thinking when she came up with the brilliant idea of following Rhys? Wouldn’t he be better off unencumbered?

But every time she considered the idea of sitting around Rosethorn Manor waiting…. She just couldn’t do it. Maybe it was the height of stupidity, but there it was.

Charlie rolled over on her side and reached out to poke the pixies’ bowl, set up on a small folding table Jack had produced from his bag. Lallia popped up, bright and perky, as if it weren’t the middle of the night.

“Out of everyone in my world,” Charlie said, “why did you pick me?”

Guilt washed over Lallia’s face and she dropped into a limp ball, pretending to sleep.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Charlie dug her out of the bowl with two fingers and lifted her up. “I want to know.”

Lallia opened her purple eyes and reluctantly looked up at Charlie. “I do feel so terribly about your family, being separated and all, but I picked you because you were the right one. You are the hero Seinne Sonne needs.”

“But why me? Why did you think I was the ‘right one’?”

“He said to trust the one I picked, so I know it’s you.”

“But I’m not a hero…. Wait, ‘he’? Who are you talking about?”

The guilt flashed across Lallia’s face again. Her wings fluttered faintly and Charlie released her to hover on her own. “Tom and I
were
truly separated once before,” Lallia whispered. “Only for a few moments. When the Great Gates opened, I got caught in one. But it didn’t take me all the way through. Not at first. I almost got caught…” Lallia lowered her voice even further, her eyes widening, “
in between
. And I
saw
him.”

Before Charlie could ask “who,” Lallia rushed on. “He told me where to find Rhys, and told me that I would find Seinne Sonne’s hero.” Lallia glowed with glee, brightening the interior of the tent. “So I searched, and I
did
, didn’t I? I found you.”

“Charlie,” Rhys called through the night. “As it seems you are not sleeping, would you come here?”

Charlie gave Lallia a brief glare that said their conversation wasn’t finished, and hauled herself off her cot.

The night air outside of the tent was freezing cold. Charlie rubbed her arms, but didn’t want to go back for her cloak. Yet, at least. “You need something?”

Rhys stood, swift and graceful as the predator he was. Something in his expression warned her that he intended something other than simple conversation between a pair of insomniacs.
 

“Draw your knife,” Rhys said.

“Why?” Charlie said, but her hand reached for her belt and drew the small blade.
 

Rhys’ muscles coiled, giving her a split second warning. He sprang at her, intent on blood.
 

Charlie startled back with a gasp, flinging her knife at his face in reflex. As it left her fingers, it glittered in the firelight for the split second before it struck Rhys in the face. He flinched back, clutching his cheek.
 

Charlie gasped again, horrified, diving forward. “Oh, I’m so sorry! You startl–”

Rhys dropped his hands, his colorless eyes knifing into her brown ones, and Charlie immediately realized her mistake. He didn’t have so much as a shallow cut on his cheek. It had been a feint, and she’d put herself squarely in the snake’s jaws.

“In a vampire’s den, they have every advantage.” Rhys slowly stalked toward her, his eyes holding hers as if they were a tangible force. They no longer seemed as colorless as she first thought. There was a hint of red in the not-quite-gray that turned them into a bruised purple in the firelight. “The vampires have greater speed, greater strength, and far more experience fighting for their lives.”

Charlie tried to turn her face away. To move her body. To do
something
. But felt the same surreal, numbing paralysis as before.

“They will not offer mercy, or opportunity to retreat.” Rhys stopped so close to her that he eclipsed the firelight, and her head was forced to tilt up to meet eyes she could no longer see.
 

Rhys held up her knife, twisting it between his fingers. She remembered it was the one taken from his personal armory.

An icy hand grasped her wrist. “Never throw away your only weapon.” He pressed the cool leather grip into her hand.

Her own hand gently lifted the knife toward her throat. She tensed her muscles, fighting it down alongside a surge of panic. Vampire mind magic. That’s what he was doing. He was using magic on her.

They’ll have you offering up your own throat.
Jack’s words bubbled up out of her memory. Rhys was trying to make her kill herself.
 

No!
Charlie thrust the dagger away. It fell from her suddenly limp fingers to clatter to the stone. Charlie looked down at her hands, shaken. Would he really have let her kill herself?
Made
her?

Charlie forced her head up, to look at him.

He stepped back, the firelight playing with light and shadow across his face. She couldn’t read anything there.
 

Rhys inclined his head in a small nod. “The only possible advantages that you have are surprise and the ability to break free of their eyes. Simply knowing that you
can
is part of the battle.”

She had just broken free of a vampire’s eyes. On her own.
 

“You frightened me.” Her voice came out small and tight. She hated it, because it made her feel small.

“Good,” Rhys said flatly. “You
need
to be frightened. It will strengthen you. Complacency makes you an easier target.” He handed her the knife again. “You
need
to break free of compulsions, if you ever face another vampire.”

Charlie nodded grimly. Next time she stabbed at him with the knife, it would be on purpose. She dropped into a defensive crouch. “Do it again.”

It was grueling work; mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting. Rhys changed it to simpler commands, such as fall, walk, stand still, jump, and Charlie found out at first she hadn’t realized she was obeying compulsions. Half the time she found herself staring stupidly at him while her dazed brain chased the hint of color in his eyes.
 

Then she started recognizing the surreal feeling of his mind on hers, no matter how subtle. It was very strange once she actually put a finger on the sensation. She could start discerning the alien touch of his commands. Once she could sort his compulsions from her own thoughts she started breaking herself free of them faster.

Rhys didn’t call a halt until she broke free of his command to try to kill him with little more than a twitch, and by then she was completely drained. As Charlie collapsed on her cot, for a wonder Rhys woke Jack to take watch. But Charlie couldn't keep her eyes open long enough to see if Rhys actually slept.

***

Her compulsion-breaking lesson seemed to have also broken some ice. The next day when Jack packed up his square of canvas and they hit the road, winding their way down the steep mountainside, Rhys didn’t travel as far ahead of them as before and started speaking to them as they walked. He argued over spells with Jack and the efficiency of potion ingredients, and traded insults with the pixies.
 

When they paused for a midday meal, Rhys showed Charlie different ways to deflect an opponent’s blade away from her body and drilled it into her until she could practice the motions on her own. She had to fight against her game-trained instinct to just lash out and keep hacking. Real life didn’t have “hit points” that she could waste.

Jack devoured the novels on Charlie’s pocket comp, almost forgetting to devour his food.

Mid-afternoon, as they neared a low point, bits of silver started showing below them through the trees. Shortly after the first signs, it became obvious that they’d found a river.

CHAPTER TEN

Mitternacht

It was so peaceful here. The wind picked up over the water, where the trees couldn’t break it, rippling the surface of the wide river. The brown water flowed past steadily, but unhurried. Sunlight painted patches of gold on the water where it peered through the hazy clouds in the pale sky.

Three huge stone pylons, obviously built by humanoids in some distant past, rose from the water in a line, bristling with intrepid trees clinging doggedly to their sides. The remains of an ancient bridge. On the other side of the river, the land rose in nearly a sheer cliff, nothing but rock.

Tiny white shells cluttered the mud around the rocks at the river bank, mixed with larger, iridescent mussel shells - or at least, what looked like iridescent mussel shells. The pixies chased small neon frogs along the shallow edges.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

“Marcus was here,” Jack said, squinting upward at the cliffside.

“How do you know?” Charlie said. “And who’s Marcus?”

Jack pointed. “That writing, there. ‘Marcus was here.’ I couldn’t make it out at first. It looks like a mix of Rya and ancient elven. Very odd. Very old.”

Charlie chuckled. “Nightmare Wars graffiti? Your world isn’t so different from mine after all.”

“Do you suppose? Oh, oh!” Jack’s eyes widened as he pointed at the cliff. “May we take a painting?”

“Take a - You mean take a picture.” Charlie handed her pocket comp to Jack and showed him how to work the camera. She had to steady his hand as he held it up, because he kept wanting to pull it down to look at the picture as it was rendering, creating a blurred smear. “You have to let it
focus
, or nothing will come out.”

“Yes, yes. Focus and concentration,” Jack said, cradling the pocket computer lovingly between his hands. “I understand.”

Charlie had to roll her eyes.

“This presents a problem,” Rhys murmured.

“Let me guess,” Charlie said. “We have to cross the river.” Of course.

“No,” Rhys said. “We cannot cross the river.”

Charlie eyed the depth through the clear surface. “I don’t see why not. Might get soaked to the knees, but -”

“It is too deep to ford.” Rhys pointed out the wide slab of broken rock they stood on. More broken pieces extended further into the water, poking out like bits of opaque black glass. “This was a ferry. If it was deep enough for boats then, it is likely even deeper now. The water is fast.”

It didn’t look fast at all. Charlie’s doubtful thoughts must have shown on her face.

Rhys picked up a thick stick and flung it out into the middle of the river. The water grabbed it and ripped it downstream in a matter of moments.

Ok. Lot faster than it looked.

Rhys nodded at the opposite bank. “Besides. Once on the other side, there is nowhere to go but up. If there was once another shore, there is no longer.”

“I didn’t bring a boat,” Jack said mournfully, his nose buried in his bag of holding.

“So what’s the plan then?” Charlie said.

Rhys peered upriver, then up at the cliff. “We follow the river.” He nodded upriver. “Northward.”

***

“By the way,” Charlie said to Rhys as they continued hiking through the trees, following Rhys’ sense of the Keystone fragment. “Your armory, on the second floor? Creepy stuff. You planning to run your own army?”

“I did notice the knife you borrowed. Run my own army? No. That little collection came about through habit, beginning with sheer practicality in my early days as a free lance. After all, one’s life relies upon one’s equipment. Initially, the weaponry I had was rather poor quality and I found they deteriorated quickly, so I got into the habit of….”

“Collecting,” Charlie said, with a hint of distaste. The blades
were
off the battlefield.
Eeeeew
.

“Collecting,” Rhys agreed, with more than a hint of amusement. “Besides, I’m rather partial to a good blade.” He produced the one he currently carried, a polished silver short sword with a long handle, the blade incised with blue marks. It was a lot prettier than she would have expected of Rhys, especially after seeing the weapons he had in storage. She would have expected something functional but plain. The one he carried was obviously functional, but also elegant with its markings and curves.