16.
She spoke little with the knights who accompanied her as they rode south from Gravenfist Keep along the Queen’s Way. When she gave Tarus the names of the warriors she wished for her retinue, she had deliberately chosen the most reticent and taciturn in the keep; she had no desire for idle conversation on this journey.
Her only purpose now was to ride as swiftly as possible, to reach Sareth, and have him lead her to Hadrian Farr. Not because she wished to see the Seeker—though, she was forced to confess, the thought of seeing him again did give her a strange thrill she couldn’t quite analyze. For a reason she couldn’t name, she kept trying to picture him, though all she could seem to see were his eyes: dark, mysterious, compelling. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that Farr could lead her to Morindu the Dark. And if she found Morindu, then she would find Travis—she was certain of it.
The weather was fine and clear, and they made good time that first day. Over the last few years, the Embarran engineers had labored on the Queen’s Way, clearing away fallen trees, replacing cracked paving stones, and shoring up bridges. By nightfall they had covered nearly all the ten leagues of the Queen’s Way the Embarrans had repaired. They were deep in the Winter Wood now, and they made camp in a grove of
valsindar
trees as the last sunlight filtered between silver-barked trunks.
They ate a supper of the foodstuffs that would not keep— bread, a clay pot of butter, fruit, and some roasted chicken, which was already a little questionable after a full day riding in their saddlebags—then readied for sleep as purple dusk crept among the trees. The summer night was balmy, and the four men spread blankets on beds of old leaves, while Grace slipped into a small tent they had set up for her. She wouldn’t have minded sleeping out in the open like the men, but maybe it was better not to. This way she wouldn’t try to peer through the leafy branches of the
valsindar
to see if the dark hole in the sky had grown.
Grace had just shut her eyes when she heard the ringing of steel. She threw back the flap and scrambled out of the tent. All four of the knights stood with their swords drawn. As Grace’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, fear stabbed at her heart. A figure stood on the edge of the clearing where they had made camp, hooded and robed in black.
“Move, and you will be slain,” said one of the knights—a stout, gray-bearded man named Brael.
“How about if I simply speak?” the figure said in a sardonic voice, and before the knights could move, the one cloaked in black uttered a word in a commanding tone. “Lir!”
There was a flash of blue light, and the knights staggered back. However, the light quickly shrank to a ball hovering above the man’s palm, and in its soft glow Grace saw that the man’s garb was not black, but rather deep blue. There was a look of satisfaction on his scarred face.
The knights recovered, and looked more ready than ever to use their swords. However, Grace hurried forward.
“That wasn’t particularly wise, Master Larad,” she said in a sharp whisper. “These men might have killed you.”
The Runelord simply shrugged, as if to say he was less certain of that outcome than she.
Brael regarded Larad with suspicion. “This one must have been skulking after us all day, Your Majesty. I’d like to find out why. I’ve always thought he had a crafty look about him.”
“You can put that sword away,” Grace said to Brael. She gave the other knights what she hoped was a commanding glance. “All of you. I’ve been expecting Master Larad. Though he’s a little late.”
Brael gave her a startled look. He began to speak, but she turned her back on him, and she knew the knight would not dare to question her. Being a queen did have certain advantages. She heard the men grumble as they sheathed their swords. Taking Larad’s arm, she steered him to the other side of the grove. The ball of blue light bobbed after them.
“You can thank me later for saving you from getting your head lopped off,” she said quietly. “Right now, I want you to tell me what you think you’re doing. And I had better be mightily entertained by the story, or I’m handing you back over to Brael.”
“I’m coming with you,” Master Larad said.
It was a statement, not a request. Grace knew it was neither useful nor queenly, but she could only gape at him.
“I must speak with Master Wilder,” the Runelord went on. “After you left my tower, I considered all that you told me. I can only believe the rift and the weakening of magic are linked somehow. Perhaps both arise from the same cause. In which case, my recent studies regarding magic may prove useful to Master Wilder in his search for the Last Rune.”
Grace finally found her tongue. “And it didn’t occur to you this morning to ask if you could come with me?”
“It did, and I rejected that idea, for I knew you were refusing all who asked.”
“So you decided to follow me without my permission.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. “What’s to stop me from sending you back to Gravenfist?”
“You won’t, Your Majesty.”
“And why not?”
“Because yours is a logical mind, and you’ve already realized that I must come with you on this journey.” He nodded to the ball of light. “Even this simple runespell is proving a challenge to maintain. Something must be done before all magic ceases to be, and our chances of finding a solution are greater if Master Wilder and I can work together.”
Grace was angry enough to disagree out of spite, but before she could, the dry doctor’s voice spoke in her mind.
He’s right. You didn’t refuse the o fers of the others because
you didn’t want their company, but because you knew that this
time they couldn’t help you. However, Larad is a Runelord.
There’s a significant probability he can help Travis discover
what the Last Rune is.
Even so, she had the feeling Larad was not telling her all his reasons for following her. The Runelord had a history of keeping his true motivations secret. However, he also had a history of doing what he believed was for the greater good, without regard to the cost to himself.
She looked him in the eye. “No more tricks, Master Larad. From now on, if you want something, then you ask me for it. Do you understand?”
His scarred face was as unreadable as ever. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He closed his hand around the ball of blue light, snuffing it out, and night closed back in over the forest.
Dawn found them already riding down the Queen’s Way. Larad had ridden after them on one of the trusty mules the Runelords favored. With a rider, the mule would not be able to travel as fast as the horses, so they had transferred the foodstuffs and gear to it, and now Larad bounced in the saddle of the former packhorse. The Runelord was every bit as poor a horseman as Travis. Grace was beginning to think a talent for wizardry precluded any ability whatsoever for riding. Luckily, the horse was a placid beast, and it bore Larad with a resigned look on its long face.
They moved at a steady pace over those next days, though their progress seemed maddeningly slow to Grace. On the second day they left behind the section of the Queen’s Way the Embarran engineers had repaired. While the road continued to cut unswervingly over the landscape, its stones were cracked and weathered, or in some places gone altogether, replaced by grass or trees, so that the way could be discerned only as a flat space between two sloping banks. However, all of the bridges they came to still stood, arching over stream or gorge, a testament to the skill of the ancient builders who had erected them.
On their fourth day they left the silvery trees of the Winter Wood behind and found themselves riding over plains that had been baked gold by the summer sun. To their left rose the Fal Erenn, the Dawning Fells: a purple-gray range of mountains, their tumbled brows crowned by circlets of white clouds. For the first time in a long time, Grace found herself thinking of Colorado. The Beckett-Strange Home for Children—the orphanage where she had spent most of her childhood—had been built on a high plain not so different from this. Except its windows had all been boarded up, shutting out the beauty of the mountains.
“What is it, Your Majesty?” Master Larad said as his horse veered close to Shandis. “Is something amiss?”
She smiled, not taking her gaze from the mountains. “No, I was just looking out the window.”
The next afternoon they came to a crossroads. A timeworn statue stood watch over the meeting of ways, a nameless goddess who gazed with moss-filled eyes. The main road continued on straight, while a smaller path led off to the left, winding up a steep embankment. Grace had never been that way—despite many invitations over the last three years—but she knew that if she followed the path she would come to a valley and a half-ruined keep on the shores of a lake.
She had long wanted to visit Kelcior, though she was always afraid doing so would convince King Kel she had at last acquiesced to his proposals of marriage. Now it was but an hour’s ride away. However, Kel was not at his keep; he had remained in Malachor to give Melia and Falken advice on ruling in her absence.
“The bard has more experience at wrecking kingdoms than running them, in case you didn’t know,” Kel had told Grace in a gruff attempt at a whisper that half the keep could hear.
Besides, she didn’t have even an hour to spare. Now that they had left the forest behind, Grace had been able to see the rift again at night. It was still there, and she was certain it was larger than when she first saw it—a dark hole twice the size of Eldh’s enormous moon.
They left the silent goddess at the crossroads and rode on.
Three days later they came to the town of Glennen’s Stand. The town stood on the banks of a stream a few furlongs from the Queen’s Way: a hundred or so slate-roofed houses clustered beneath a hill with a modest stone keep. As they drew near, Grace noticed that here and there a section of a pale stone wall still stood on the perimeter of the town, though in most places it had been knocked down and its stones hauled away. A lot of walls had been torn down since the war, Grace thought as they rode closer. And not just those around towns.
They found Glennen’s Stand crowded, dirty, and thronging with life. There were at least as many animals as people, and all of them were talking, laughing, or braying loudly. The Dominion of Eredane had suffered longest under the oppression of the Onyx Knights, and its people were perhaps the most grateful to be freed from it. As they rode through a market in the heart of the city, Grace saw folk selling mysteries—small figures carved of wood, representing the gods of the seven Mystery Cults— and hedgewives hawking potions. Such acts would have been punishable by death under the rule of the Onyx Knights. Now they were practiced in broad daylight.
They reached the edge of the market. There, an old woman was taking small bottles of green glass from a table where they had been displayed and, one by one, opening them and pouring their contents into the gutter.
Grace pulled her horse away from the others and rode close. “What are you doing, sister?”
The woman did not look up. “Wrong,” she muttered. “All wrong.”
“What’s wrong?” Grace said, shaking her head.
“My simples, that’s what. All the good has gone out of them. There’s no use in selling them anymore. This morning I tried to weave a spell of plenty over my hens. Only they pecked at each other, and broke one another’s eggs. Sia is angry. She has placed a curse on the world.”
The crone took another bottle and poured out its contents. The emerald fluid blended with the sludge in the gutter. Grace opened her mouth, but then she saw Brael motioning for her to follow. The old woman kept muttering as she emptied out her potions. Grace turned Shandis around and followed after the others.
They rode on, to an inn near the town’s center. After a discussion with the proprietor, who was as jovial and red-faced as an innkeeper should be, they were led to rooms on the upper floor. Now that they were in Eredane, Grace should have presented herself to King Evren to request permission to ride through his Dominion. However, there wasn’t time for such formalities; the king’s castle of Erendel lay fifty leagues to the west. She told the innkeeper she was the daughter of a Calavaner merchant traveling on business for her father. No one would question her story. There were many travelers on the roads these days—another benefit of freedom.
They took their supper in a private dining chamber and retired early to their rooms. As night fell, music and laughter rose from the common room below, but Grace felt no temptation to go down and join in the merriment.
It was after midnight when she woke. The inn was silent, and starlight filtered through a crack in the shutters, slicing across the chamber like a silver knife. Grace tried to will herself back to sleep, but it was no use; her bladder would not be denied. She rose and used the chamber pot, then started back to bed.
Halfway there, she halted and moved to the window. She hesitated, then opened one of the shutters. The window faced north, and she wondered if she might be able to see it: the rift.
No. A haze of smoke hung over Glennen’s Stand. She doubted if the folk in this town even knew it existed. How could they, if they had been so willing to sing and clap and laugh in the common room below? Only perhaps some did know. Grace thought of the old woman in the market, pouring out her potions. Sighing, she reached to close the shutter.
And froze. A shadow moved in the narrow street below. It slunk toward the inn, keeping low to the ground, avoiding any stray beams of light that spilled from nearby windows.
It’s just a dog looking for scraps
, Grace told herself, even though she knew it was too large to be one, that it moved nothing like a dog.
A night breeze wafted down the street, and the shadow’s outlines appeared to ripple. The thing’s motions were slow and purposeful, almost languid; it seemed to ooze rather than creep as it drew closer to the inn, heading straight for the wall below her window.
A door opened across the lane, and a beam of firelight fell onto the street. In an eyeblink the shadow slipped into the alley between the inn and the stable, vanishing as if absorbed by the darkness. Grace snatched the shutter back and locked it with an iron bar, her heart thudding.