Beyond the Pale (49 page)

They had not stayed long in the vale of the White Tower. The morning after the attack of the wraithlings, Melia still had been wan and chilled, but she least of all had not wished
to linger in that place. They had packed their things in the steely light before dawn and had ridden from the vale. Travis had cast one last glance over his shoulder at the ruin. It had shone like bones in the half-light: a tomb to bury the folly of those already centuries dead. He had shivered, then they had rounded the spur of a ridge, and the remains of the tower had been lost from view.

They had ridden hard through southern Eredane. For speed’s sake they had kept to the Queen’s Way, but not without caution. Beltan continually scouted ahead, and more than once the knight had come pounding back toward them on his roan charger to warn that a group of Raven cultists approached. Each time they had fled the road to hide in a bramble thicket, or behind a knoll, or under the arch of an old Tarrasian bridge.

One time the cultists had been mere moments away, and there had been nowhere to seek cover, only bare plains for a league in either direction. In sharp words they dared not question, Melia had instructed them to stand perfectly still beside the road and to hold tight to the bridles of their horses. She had made a series of odd motions with her hands, splaying them out flat, and moving them in a single plane before her.

The Raven cultists had come into view, marching down the Queen’s Way. It was the largest such procession they had seen, nearly a hundred, all clad in robes of black, the wing of the Raven drawn in ash on their foreheads. Queer words tumbled from their lips, and Travis had realized it was a prayer.

As the cultists passed, Travis had clenched his jaw to keep from screaming. He was sure that one of them would turn to stare at him at any moment. The mask of dull-eyed complacence
would twist into one of madness and rage, and the cultist would shriek, pointing an accusing finger at him, marking him as the man who had burned one of their own.

And what will you do then, Travis? Set that one on fire, too? Why stop there? Why not burn up the whole lot of them
?

However, the cultists had marched by with their strange, lurching cadence, gazes blank and fixed ahead. Whatever Melia had done with her hands, it had worked.

That was the last they had seen of the Raven Cult. The next morning a great plateau had thrust up before them. The Fal Erenn, the Dawning Fells, bordered the highlands to the east, and to the west and south Travis had glimpsed a line of mist-gray peaks, which Falken named the Fal Sinfath, the Gloaming Fells. With no other route available, the Queen’s Way had cut into the steep side of the plateau. The horses had labored to carry the travelers up the incline, and Travis had marveled at the way the ancient Tarrasian engineers had carved the narrow road from sheer rock. It might have been a thousand years old, but it had looked as solid as any paved mountain pass in Colorado.

While the others had ridden cautiously here, Travis had pushed his shaggy gelding ahead despite Falken’s admonitions. Mountains didn’t frighten Travis. They were dangerous, yes, and he had known people who had died on them. If you tried to fight a mountain, you would surely lose, but if you gave yourself to it, sacrificed some of your own blood and sweat, then the mountain would bear you to the sky.

When they had reached the top, the land they found was not much like Colorado. This was the Dominion of Galt, situated in the highlands between Eredane and Calavan. It was a small and stark land, all sharp edges and treacherous crevices. As they rode south they had passed few villages, and these had been as hard and uninviting as the stone from which they were hewn. Few crops grew in this land, and the main livestock was a kind of wiry goat. What the animals found to eat among the tumbled boulders Travis didn’t know.

Although the landscape of Galt was harsh, its people could not have been more different. The travelers did not camp—the night wind would have scoured them from the ground if
they hadn’t frozen first—so they had stayed in taverns three nights in a row. At each one the people had been kind, red-faced, and of good humor. The food they had served had been scant and simple, but it was served generously and alongside large tankards of ale. Travis had sipped his tentatively at first, then had joined Beltan in taking large gulps. Unlike the not-quite-oatmeal he had drunk elsewhere, the brews of Galt were brown, rich, and smooth as molasses.

They were also of a strength he had never encountered before, as he had discovered upon waking that first morning in Galt.

“I remember my first tankard of Galtish ale,” Beltan had said with a grin, standing over his bed. “Feels like dark elfs are digging their newest mine inside your skull, doesn’t it?”

“Mmmph,” Travis had said. It was the only word he could manage.

Melia had cast a smug glance at Falken. “I told you Galtish ale would addle his wits.”

The bard had handed her a gold coin. “I should know better than to wager against you, Melia.”

Fortunately, the ale had not actually addled Travis’s wits, only dulled them temporarily. By that evening, at the next tavern, he had felt better and had taken smaller sips from his tankard.

For two more days they had made their way across Galt. Then the highlands had ended, and the Queen’s Way had plunged down to gentler, foggier lands. These were the northern marches of the Dominion of Calavan. Though the air was still toothed with the bite of a premature winter, it seemed balmy compared to the dry, frigid air of Galt. At last they had crossed a Tarrasian bridge over a swift river—the Dimduorn, Falken called it—and Travis had taken in his first sight of Calavere.

It had been a week since they left the White Tower of the Runebinders. The Council of Kings was to convene tomorrow. They had made it with less than one day to spare.

“I’ve heard King Boreas keeps runespeakers at his castle,” Falken said.

Travis paused in his unpacking and looked up.

Beltan nodded. “He did, last I knew. One of them was named Jemis, I think.”

From her chair Melia raised an eyebrow in Falken’s direction. The bard met her gaze. Somehow those two could hold entire conversations without ever speaking a word.

“Good idea,” Falken said. “I’ll see if I can find this Jemis tonight and ask if he can take over Travis’s tutoring. I’m afraid Travis has learned about all he can from me.”

Melia’s eyes glinted. “Excellent.”

Travis held his tongue—there was no point in complaining. He gazed down at his hands and remembered the power that had flowed through them at the heart of the White Tower. He could not see the silver rune, but he could feel it there, beneath the skin of his palm.

I
don’t care what Melia wants. I’ll never use this power again, Jack. I’ll learn about it, but only so I can control it. Only so I don’t hurt anyone again
.

“Do you think King Boreas will let you address the council?” Melia asked the bard.

“He’d better,” Falken said. “Besides, even if I can’t count Boreas among my best friends, he
is
the one who called the Council of Kings. He wouldn’t have forced the rulers of all the Dominions to journey here had the troubles stirring in Falengarth not concerned him.”

“Then again, kings can have many reasons for their actions.” She glanced at the knight. “Beltan, what do you think of your uncle?”

Travis winced. It was still hard to think of Beltan as royalty. It seemed everyone he knew here was a person of importance—except for himself.

Beltan scratched the golden fluff on his chin. “Boreas is a good man, but he’s a good disciple of Vathris as well. I’ve heard it said he’s gained the Inner Circle of the Mysteries of Vathris. Whether that’s the case or not, he’s certainly not afraid of war.”

“Might he even crave it?” Melia said in careful tones.

Beltan shook his head. “I can’t say. I’d be lying if I said Boreas and I were all that close, and it
has
been three years since I last saw him.” He snorted. “Besides, I’m hardly the person you want to ask about court politics.”

Despite the knight’s words, Travis thought Beltan had summed things up rather well. A thought occurred to him. “You could have been king, couldn’t you, Beltan?”

Beltan turned on Travis. His voice was as sharp and flat as his sword. “No,” he said. “I could not.”

With that the knight stalked from the room.

Travis recoiled as if struck a blow. What had he done? “I only meant he was the last king’s son.”

Falken nodded but said nothing.

“Don’t worry, Travis,” Melia said, her voice gentler now. “You said nothing wrong.”

Then why had Beltan stormed from the room? However, he only went back to unpacking while Melia and Falken continued discussing their plan for addressing the council.

Then the room fell quiet, and Travis looked up. Falken and Melia had taken their conversation into the side chamber, leaving him alone. His eyes moved to the door. He knew it was wrong, but no one had told him he couldn’t. Besides, he felt restless and trapped. He had to move, had to walk somewhere, anywhere.

Before his common sense could convince him otherwise, Travis stood up, opened the door, and slipped into the corridor beyond.

Grace walked down the dim corridor, accompanied only by the soft sigh of her violet gown. It had been more than an hour since she had left the great hall, and she still had not made her way back to her chamber.

Not that she was lost. It had been nearly a month since the day she came to Calavere, and with time the castle’s myriad halls and galleries had become familiar to her. There were still many parts of Calavere she had yet to explore, and things grew hazier once she left the main keep, but she could now traverse from the keep’s west wing to the east with confidence. If she closed her eyes she could navigate the twists and turns in her mind, just as she could the branching patterns of nerves and arteries inside the human body.

If only the labyrinth of human interaction were so easy a thing to master as hallways or medicine. However, that was a maze she doubted she would ever be able to traverse without
error. As if her scientific mind needed any more evidence, the incident in the great hall was one more case study she could add to her research. How could she have mistaken the bard’s companion for a servant?

She brushed the fabric of her gown.
You’ve almost let yourself believe this is real, Grace. But it’s easier to be royalty, isn’t it? You don’t actually have to speak to other people. You can simply order them around
.

Grace cringed as she remembered the wounded look on the man’s face. How many other people had she hurt with her errors of perception, her inability to understand what others were feeling or thinking? How many more people would she? The man in the great hall, the man with the spectacles, was only one in a long line of casualties, caught like the others in the flying shrapnel of what once had been her heart.

She lifted a hand to her chest and almost expected to feel the same bitter cold she had felt when she reached inside the dead man’s thoracic cavity at Denver Memorial, but her heart fluttered warm and weak beneath the bodice of her gown. She drew in a shuddering breath. Maybe it would be better if she did have a heart of iron. Maybe then she wouldn’t always have to try to feel, and fail. It was all so absurd she almost laughed. She could dissect its four chambers with steel-scalpeled precision, but the human heart was a labyrinth she would never comprehend. Just like the maze in the castle’s garden, it led her inevitably to places she could not escape and sights she did not want to witness.

As she walked, Grace’s thoughts turned to Kyrene. She had studiously avoided the green-eyed countess these last days. Now she felt a peculiar desire to see Kyrene, to speak to her, to ask her questions about Ivalaine and the Witches. Kyrene would tell her, she was certain of it. The countess of Selesia would delight in showing Grace how much more knowledgeable she was. Nor did Grace care, not now.

A few herbs, the proper words …

A shiver coursed through her, and it was not only from the castle chill. She pictured him in her mind: lean, dark, elegant.
Yes, perhaps next time Logren of Eredane will walk in the garden with me
.

That was ridiculous. On Earth Grace had shunned intimacy.
She could never let another get close to her. Because if they were close, then they might see everything about her. Everything. She couldn’t let that happen. Not in this world—not in any world.

Grace came to a halt and shook her head, like a sleepwalker waking. She knew this corridor. It led toward the sleeping chambers of many of Calavere’s nobles. One more turn and she would find herself standing before Kyrene’s door. She stared, frozen. Then she snatched up the hem of her gown, not caring one whit how unnoble the action was, and ran back down the corridor.

Grace rounded a corner—and collided with something tall and green that let out a low
oof
! She caught a flash of silver out of the corner of her eye, then heard a chime, as of metal striking stone. Grace stumbled back, caught herself against the wall, blinked to clear her rattled vision, and at last saw what—no,
whom
—she had run into.

Her heart sank in her chest. It was a sandy-haired man with wire-rimmed spectacles. His arms were folded across his ill-fitting tunic, and he hunched over his stomach. It was clear she had knocked the wind out of him.
Too bad you didn’t break a few of his ribs, Grace. At least then you would know what to say
.

She winced at this thought, then cleared her throat and forced herself to speak. “Are you all right?”

He craned his neck up. “Oh. It’s you.”

She took a tentative step forward and held out a hand. “Can I help?”

With a grimace he unhunched his shoulders and stood straight—or at least as straight as she had seen him stand in the great hall earlier. Grace could never understand why some tall men were afraid of their own height.