Beyond the Pale (16 page)

The stone was small enough to fit easily in the palm of one’s hand and perfectly round, like an oversize marble. It was a mottled gray-green in color.

Travis groaned in amazement. “A rock? I went through all of this for a
rock
?”

He reached out and picked up the stone. Instantly he sensed there was something more to it than he had guessed. It was slick, almost oily, although it left no residue on his skin. He turned it around and noticed a fleeting iridescence to its otherwise dull surface as it caught the morning light. The longer he looked at the stone, the more he realized how beautiful it was. He held the stone out toward Falken.

“Here, take a look at it.”

The bard shook his head and thrust his hands behind his back, as if to avoid temptation. “No, I do not think I will, Travis Wilder. Your friend Graystone gave it to you and you alone. I do not believe it is meant for other hands, at least not hands such as mine.”

Travis didn’t quite know what to make of Falken’s words. He gazed at the stone a moment more, then placed it back in its box. With reluctance he shut the lid. Now that he had seen the stone and how beautiful it was, it seemed a shame to hide it away again. Already he missed the smoothness of it against his skin, the weight of it in his hand. He started to open the box once more, but Falken’s movement halted him. The bard scattered a handful of dirt over the remains of the fire to extinguish it, then he placed the clay cups and the kettle in his pack, tied it shut, and stood.

“Well, I think we have wasted quite enough of this day.” Falken squinted up through the treetops at the hard blue sky. “It is best to get moving while the weather is fair, for storms can blow out of the Ironfang Mountains without warning this time of year.” He lowered his gaze toward Travis. “At
present I am journeying southward, to the petty kingdom of Kelcior, where I hope to meet an acquaintance or two of mine. It is a trek of some days on foot, but you are welcome to join me as I travel. In fact, I would rather recommend it, for there is not another fortress or village to be found in many leagues of this place. At least, not one in which folk have dwelled in a thousand years.” He slung his pack over his shoulders.

Travis grabbed the box and leaped to his feet in renewed panic. It was one thing to sit in this strange forest and have coffee—or whatever the stuff was—with Falken. It had been almost pleasant. But to go tramping after the bard, farther and deeper into this … this world … was something else altogether. This place was where the billboard had brought him. If he left it behind, he didn’t see how he could ever hope to find it again.

“Wait a minute, Falken,” he said. “You still haven’t answered my question. What am I doing here? And how am I supposed to get back home?”

The bard shook his head. “I am afraid I have answers to neither of your questions, Travis. Though as we journey, it is my hope we might discover some. At any rate, I am beginning to think it was not chance I met you here.”

Some of Travis’s panic was replaced by puzzlement. “What do you mean?”

Falken’s faded eyes grew distant. “Fate is an efficient spinster. She wastes no thread needlessly, and it is fair to say she will weave as many destinies into one happening as possible.” Now a mysterious smile played across the bard’s lips. “So we will just have to keep our eyes open for those answers of yours, friend.”

With that, Falken turned and marched off through the leafless trees. Travis stared after him. What should he do? But even as he wondered, he knew he didn’t really have a choice. Once again in his life he had simply drifted with the tides of circumstance, and this was where they had stranded him. With a heavy sigh, Travis stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and trudged after the bard.

All that day, Travis followed Falken through the frozen silence of the Winter Wood.

As they went, Travis was filled with questions—How far away
was
this Kelcior place? Who exactly
were
these people Falken was meeting? Would any of
them
be able to help him find a way home?—but he was forced to forgo asking them in favor of gasping for breath. The bard set a stiff pace over the uneven forest floor, up steep slopes, and down snow-dusted ravines. Despite his long legs, Travis was hard-pressed to keep up. The forest changed little during that first day, and consisted mostly of pale
not-aspens
dotted here and there by stands of purplish
not-pines
. Before long Travis noticed a third sort of tree, or rather shrub. This was a bluish evergreen, its feathery boughs speckled with pearlescent berries. Striving for consistency, Travis decided to call it
not-juniper
.

Soon the sun rose above the bare trees into the cobalt dome of the sky. Like everything else here, there was something peculiar about the sun. It loomed a little too large in the sky, and it cast a glowing yet dusky patina over everything, like the shellac on a Renaissance painting. Finally Travis remembered when he had seen daylight such as this before. It had been a few years ago in Castle City, during a partial solar eclipse. For a short time, the moon had taken a small bite out of the circle of the sun, and a gloom had descended over the valley, dim yet somehow rich, like tarnish on copper. The half-light had made everything look curiously old, and so it did in this world as well.

From time to time, when they crested a low hill, Travis caught a glimpse through the trees of mountains that thrust upward from the horizon like a dark wall. Although the rest of the sky was clear, clouds brooded behind the knife-edged line of peaks. He wasn’t certain why, but gazing at them filled Travis with a nameless foreboding, and he was glad they were heading away from the mountains rather than toward them.

It was late afternoon when he lost Falken.

With a grunt, Travis pulled himself up a rocky slope. At the top he bent over, hands on knees, to catch his breath. His stomach rumbled in complaint—the stew eaten beside Falken’s campfire seemed woefully long ago now—and he wondered how long it would be before they stopped to rest and, he hoped, have a bite to eat. He lifted his head to see how far ahead the bard had gotten.

Falken was nowhere in sight. Travis looked around, but all he saw was empty forest. Dread rose in his chest, and he cupped his hands to his mouth.

“Falken! Where are—?”

“Don’t shout, you fool!” a voice hissed in his ear.

Travis clamped his mouth shut and nearly shed his skin in fright. He whirled around, then terror gave way to relief when he saw Falken before him. The bard wore a disapproving frown on his face. The echo of Travis’s cry died on the air, as if suffocated by the preternatural quiet.

“I’m sorry, Falken.” Travis whispered the words, loath to break the oppressive silence of the forest again, for it reminded him of another silence, one that had hung over the Illinois farmhouse where he had grown up.

He had been thirteen. Day after day his father had lurched around the house, like some robot from a late-night space movie, while his mother had faded as steadily as the gingham curtains that drooped over the kitchen window. The air in the house was so brittle Travis had hardly dared say anything, let alone the one word that meant something, anything.
Alice
. As if now that she was gone, lowered in her small coffin into the ground, they had to pretend she had never existed.

“Travis?”

He shook his head. Falken still glared at him.

“I thought I had lost you,” Travis said.

“And lost me you had,” the bard said. “Though I certainly had not lost you.” His expression softened. “It is my fault, of course. I should have warned you earlier. So let me warn you now—it is not a good idea to shout or even raise your voice in a place such as this. This is not an evil land, and yet it is not so far from evil, either. It is best not to draw attention to one’s self when there is no telling who might be listening.”

As if to punctuate Falken’s admonition, a shadow flew
overhead and let out a harsh croak that rang out through the forest. The two men looked up in time to see a raven wing swiftly over the treetops and vanish into the distance.

Falken shook his head. “It appears my warning comes too late. Yet I suppose we can hope it was simply an ordinary raven, disturbed from its roost by the sound of your call. If it was something else, then it is too late to trouble ourselves about it now.”

Travis wondered what the
something else
might possibly have been, but he was unsettled enough as it was, and he did not ask. Yet he could not help noticing that the raven had flown in the direction of the jagged peaks.

“It would be best to be as far from the mountains as possible by sundown,” Falken said.

With that, the bard hefted his pack and started off again through the forest. Despite his weariness, Travis found he had no desire to linger in this place. He mustered his strength and hurried after Falken.

They made camp that evening beneath the shelter of a stand of
not-pines
, and soon twilight mantled the forest. Falken started a small fire with flint and tinder and heated the remainder of the morning’s stew. They ate in silence, hungry after the day’s long march. However, when the dinner things were stowed once again in Falken’s pack, they sat close to the warmth of the fire and talked in low voices.

Travis would have asked questions, but he had no idea where to start. Fortunately, Falken seemed in a mood to talk, and for a time he spoke of things he thought a stranger to this world might be interested to know. He started with the names of the trees around them. The purplish pines were called
sintaren
, which meant duskneedle. The juniperlike shrubs were
melindis
, or moonberry. And the ghostly trees that reminded Travis of aspens had the most beautiful name:
valsindar
, which meant king’s silver. But, as Falken explained, they were more commonly called quicksilver trees for the manner in which they quickened, or trembled, under the slightest breath of wind.

Later Falken discussed something of Eldh’s geography, so Travis might know where in this world he was. At present they walked the far north of the continent of Falengarth. Kelcior, to which they journeyed, lay to the south, and beyond
that were the seven Dominions, where many folk dwelled.

Travis gazed into the forest, and a question struck him. “What about this place, Falken? Doesn’t anyone live here?”

A shadow that might have been sorrow flickered over Falken’s visage. “Long ago, they did. We tread now in lands that once lay within the boundaries of the kingdom of Malachor. Then, all the north of Falengarth lay under the crown of that realm. But Malachor fell seven centuries ago and is no more.”

Travis frowned at this. Hadn’t the bard introduced himself that morning as Falken of Malachor? Of course, it was possible that Falken traced his ancestry to the ancient kingdom. That might explain what the bard was doing tramping around this desolate forest.

Falken went on. “I would hazard that knife of yours is of Malachorian make.”

Travis looked down in surprise at the stiletto tucked into his belt. Until that moment he had forgotten about the knife. At the Magician’s Attic—and again on the highway north of Castle City—it had shone crimson, but now the ruby embedded in the hilt was cool and dark. Travis looked up at Falken. “My friend Jack Graystone gave this to me. But what would Jack be doing with a knife from this world?” Even as he voiced the question he knew the answer. His eyes widened in shock.

Falken gave a sober nod. “Yes, Travis, I believe your friend Graystone came from Eldh. Though they are rare enough here, it seems wizards are more common in my world than yours. So you see, it is not chance at all that brought you to this place, though what the real reason might be I still cannot begin to guess.” He gestured to the stiletto. “At least your friend gave you a precious gift in parting. A Malachorian blade is a treasure few kings possess. Finer smiths have never worked metal in this world, unless one counts the dwarfs in their mountain forges—but the dark elfs are only a legend, and one barely remembered, like all the Little People.”

Travis traced a finger over the knife, as if he could feel the long years that lay upon it. Another question occurred to
him, but even as he voiced it he wished he had not, for the fire seemed to dim, and the cold pressed in hungrily.

“Is there a country beyond the dark mountains?” he whispered.

Falken gave him a piercing look. “It is best not to speak in the dark of what lies beyond the Fal Threndur.”

With that, their conversation was finished. Falken banked the coals of the fire in the ashes, it was time for sleep. A half-moon had risen into the sky. Like the sun, it was larger than the moon Travis was accustomed to, only far more so. It seemed to hang only just beyond the treetops. And, as if to erase any doubt that might have lingered in Travis’s mind that this was truly another world, even the stars were too near and too brilliant and traced unfamiliar constellations against the heavens.

His shivering did not go unnoticed.

“Here, take this.” Falken pulled a bundle from his pack and handed it to Travis. “It is old, and a bit frayed around the edges, but the weave is still warm.”

Travis unfolded the bundle. It was a cloak. The pearl-gray cloth was thick and soft, and it seemed to absorb the moonlight.

“There are no finer garments than the mistcloaks woven in Perridon,” Falken said. “It will keep you warm, even in the deepest, dampest chill.”

Travis regarded his curious traveling companion, amazed at his kindness, but grateful for it all the same. “Thank you, Falken,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”

When at last the bard spoke, his eyes glittered in the gloom. “You may not wish to thank me yet, Travis Wilder.” But what those words meant, he did not say.

Travis lay down on a bed of pine needles and moss near the remains of the fire, then wrapped himself in the cloak. Soon his shivering stopped. He thought of all the strange and incredible things that had happened to him in the last two days, and was certain sleep would be impossible. However, exhaustion from the day’s labor soon won out over worries, and before long, slumber stole over Travis.