Blood of Mystery (57 page)

“Travis, you’re hurt,” Lirith said. “Your jaw. And your hand...”

“It’s nothing. We’ve got to get to the Bluebell. Now.”

Durge knelt, circled his arms around Sareth, and picked up the Mournish man as easily as if he were a child. It was testament to Sareth’s state that he did not protest. Lirith gave Tanner her arm to lean on, and Travis led the way as they hurried back down the road to the wagon.

It seemed to take forever. By the time they reached the wagon it was full dark. They laid Sareth in the back, and Lirith cradled his head in her lap. Tanner sat beside her, shoulders slumped, face gaunt.

They were a mess, Travis realized. All of them. Even Durge. He was bleeding from a shallow wound in his side; a bullet must have grazed him. A few inches farther in and it would have hit his heart.

“Why, Travis?” Durge said as he climbed into the driver’s bench. “Why would the sorcerer care about Lord Graystone?”

Travis clambered up next to him. “I don’t know, Durge, I—”

The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, trickled down his throat, filled his stomach with dread.

“What is it, Travis?”

He was wrong; he did know what the sorcerer wanted with Jack. Jack himself had said it earlier when they were leaving the Bluebell; that was why his words had bothered Travis.

I find I rather like you, and I’m looking forward to our future friendship. I’d hate very much if that didn’t come to
pass....

“Oh, God,” Travis said softly. He was shivering. “That’s what he’s wanted all along. The sorcerer. Not to go back, but to keep from coming in the first place.”

“You’re not making sense, Travis.”

But he was. “Don’t you see, Durge? He’s going to try to stop it from happening.”

The knight shook his head. “To stop what from happening?”

“The future.”

63.

Durge gripped the reins in tight fists as the wagon hurtled through the night. Travis knew it was reckless to go so fast in the dark. If they hit a deep rut, an axle could break, sending the wagon careening down a slope or into a gully. All the same, he only adjusted his grip on the bench as Durge slapped the reins, urging the horses to gallop faster.

A moan of pain emanated from the back of the wagon as they rattled over a section of road that had been turned to washboard by the passage of countless wheels. Travis looked back over his shoulder. The moon had just eked its way over Signal Ridge, and in the wan light he saw Lirith bending over Sareth’s head, her hands on his temples.

“How is he?” Travis asked above the rattle of the wheels.

“He drifts in and out from moment to moment,” Lirith said. “He’s weak from thirst and hunger. But that’s not what concerns me. It’s his illness. It grows...worse.”

Travis understood. It was as if the demon was continuing the work it had begun two years earlier when it took his leg, and was now consuming him bit by bit.

Lirith looked up, her eyes dark as the night. “We must return to Eldh. The Weirding is far stronger there than it is here. I believe I can sustain his thread while he heals. But not in this world.”

Travis couldn’t find words to answer her. He glanced at Tanner. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” the sheriff said, although he looked anything but. He leaned against the wall of the wagon, his face sharply lined in the moonlight. “Don’t you worry about me, Mr. Wilder. Just go and help your friend, Mr. Graystone.”

Travis turned around on the bench. Gold sparks danced in the distance. Castle City. “How much longer?”

“Not long.” The knight glanced at him. “You believe the sorcerer is going to try to kill Lord Graystone.”

“I know he is. That’s why the Scirathi went to London. We were wrong—he’s not interested in returning to the future. He wants to stop it from happening. Or at least from happening the way it did.”

“And how would killing Lord Graystone achieve this?”

“If he kills Jack in 1883, then more than a century from now Jack won’t be here in Castle City to give me Sinfathisar. And if I didn’t have the Great Stone, there’s no way I would have been able to defeat the demon in the Etherion. The Scirathi would have won.”

Durge let out a snort. “But they would not have won regardless. Xemeth betrayed the sorcerers. The only reason this sorcerer survived to follow us was because you destroyed the demon Xemeth unleashed.”

“That’s true.” Travis put the pieces together in his mind. “But there’s no way the sorcerer could know about Xemeth’s betrayal. In the Etherion, he was under the spell of the demon. And we never talked about Xemeth those times he was listening to us.”

Durge tugged on the reins, and the wagon veered around a bend. “I see it now. The sorcerer believes you are the reason things went wrong with his brethren in the Etherion. He thinks it was because of you and the Great Stone that he and the other Scirathi were defeated.”

“But now he wants to change that,” Travis said, “by making sure it never happens at all.”

They had reached the outskirts of town; the streets were deserted. The wagon clattered around a corner onto Grant Street, and Durge pulled hard on the reins. The wagon lurched to a stop.

“It looks quiet,” Travis said. No lights shone in the windows of the boardinghouse. The front door was shut.

“I would prefer noise,” Durge said, as they climbed down from the bench.

“I need to stay with him,” Lirith said, her hands still pressed to Sareth’s temples, her face haunted in the moonlight. The Mournish man’s eyes were closed.

Travis glanced at Tanner. “Sheriff, can you keep watch over them?”

Tanner patted the shotgun resting across his knees. “I’ll make sure no one comes near the wagon. Here, you’d better take this. I’ve reloaded it.” He held out the Peacemaker.

The gun shone like liquid silver in the moonlight. He started to reach out, then pulled his hand back. This duel wouldn’t be won with a six-shooter.

“Take care, Sheriff,” Travis said, and started toward the boardinghouse. Durge jogged up beside him, his greatsword in his hands. Travis knew better than to tell the knight to stay in the wagon.

“Durge, I want you to find Maudie and Liza and make sure they’re safe. And all of the boarders, too.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to find Jack.”

“And will not the sorcerer be with him?”

Travis took a deep breath. “That’s what I’m counting on.”

Together, they walked up the steps to the front porch. Travis was keenly aware of every squeak of the boards beneath his boots. Did the sorcerer know he was there?

No, he thinks you’re still at the Bar L Ranch. That was his
plan all along. The sorcerer probably didn’t believe for a
minute that Locke and the Crusade could get the scarab from
you. He was just using them to distract you, to get you away
from Jack so he could make his move. Getting the scarab
doesn’t matter to him. He only stole the gate to make sure we
didn’t leave. Once he kills Jack, the future will change, and
none of you will even be here anymore.

Travis moved his hand to his pocket, feeling the warmth of the living jewel within. Then he opened the door. There was only darkness beyond. He met Durge’s eyes, then he and the knight moved into the hallway.

Something white shot through the dark like a ghost, hurtling toward Durge’s chest. Durge swore, transferring his sword to one hand, using the other to fend off the attacker.

The ghost let out a
meow
of protest. Travis’s heart started beating again. Durge let out a sigh and coiled his arm around the little calico cat. She must have jumped from the landing of the stairs above.

“You stay here, Miss Guenivere,” Durge whispered, setting the cat on the floor. She purred, rubbing against his leg.

They stood in the hallway for a minute. Travis could see clearly in the gloom, but he knew Durge’s eyes would need to adjust to the dim light of the moon spilling through the windows. Durge nodded, and they moved through the parlor door, then into the dining room, the kitchen, and Maudie’s bedroom. All were empty. In moments they were back at the foot of the stairs. Miss Guenivere had vanished.

Durge gestured with his sword. Up. Travis started up the stairs, Durge right behind him. His hand started to move to his pocket—not the left where he kept the scarab, but the right, which contained Sinfathisar. By force of will he pulled his hand back; it was still bleeding from the shallow gunshot wound.

They met only shadows as they ascended the stairs. When they reached the second-floor landing, they halted. Silence. They moved down the hallway, opening doors, peering into the bedrooms on either side. All were empty. They reached the last door. Durge tried the knob. It was locked.

Durge knelt to peer through the keyhole. The knight sucked in a breath. “Lady Maudie!”

“What do you see?” Travis whispered.
Is she all right?
he started to ask, but then he heard a small, frightened sound come through the door.

“Lady Maudie,” Durge called softly through the keyhole.

There was a scrabbling sound, then a weak cough. “Mr. Dirk? Is that really you?”

“It is. And Travis is with me.”

A sobbing noise. “Oh, Mr. Caine. You have to stop him. He’s going to do something horrible to Mr. Graystone.”

“Who, Maudie?” Travis whispered, but he already knew.

“The man in the gold mask,” Maudie’s voice came wavering through the keyhole. “Is he a member of the Crusade for Purity?”

Travis didn’t know how to answer that one. “Maudie, can you unlock the door?”

“It won’t open,” said her muffled voice. “I think he did something to it, something that keeps it from budging.”

A spell. The sorcerer had bound it with magic.

“Maudie,” Durge said, “what happened? And where are the others?”

“Liza and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up after supper. The boarders had all headed out to the saloons. Then we heard the front door bang open. I thought maybe it was the wind. Only when I went into the hallway, I saw him instead. He spoke in the most terrible voice—just like a snake—and he said, ‘Where is Graystone?’ I shouted for Liza to run out the back, then I turned and headed upstairs, thinking he’d follow me and stay away from Liza, and he did.”

Another fit of coughing sounded through the door, harsher this time. She shouldn’t have been climbing stairs.

“I ran into this room and shut the door,” Maudie said.

“I thought for sure the door would burst to splinters, but it didn’t. The place got real quiet after that, and I decided to try to come out, only I couldn’t open the door. Nor the window.”

Travis swallowed. “Maudie, do you know where Jack is?”

“He went to his room after supper. That was the last I saw him.”

Jack’s room was there on the second floor, and all of the rooms were empty except the one Maudie was hiding in. There was only one more floor of the boardinghouse: the attic floor.

Another sob drifted through the keyhole. “Oh, Mr. Caine, Mr. Dirk, he was so horrible. That mask—it looked like the face of death. I thought he had come for me, that my time was up. I feel so weak. My heart is beating all wrong. And I haven’t gotten to tell Bart...and I’m so frightened I won’t—” Her words were lost in another fit of coughing.

Travis put a hand on Durge’s shoulder. “Get this door open, Durge. Be with her.”

“What of you?” the knight said.

“I’m going up.”

Travis couldn’t get out any more words, so he turned and headed for the stairs. Behind him, he heard Durge say, “Move away from the door, Lady Maudie.” Then Travis was climbing the stairs.

He reached the landing. The third floor was as quiet as the rest of the boardinghouse.
Maybe you’re too late. Maybe the
sorcerer has finished his work and Jack is already dead.

Except if Jack were dead, then Travis couldn’t still be here because the path of the future would have changed. Somehow there must still be time.

Travis started down the hallway. He looked in the first door: an empty storeroom. Next was the door to Lirith’s room, but there was nothing inside. Another empty room, and then there was only one more door, to the room Travis had shared with Durge these past weeks. Travis gripped the knob, supposing it would be locked by a spell.

It wasn’t. He turned the knob, the door opened. Travis stepped inside, and terror gripped him.

“Jack!” he shouted.

Jack was on his knees on the floor, his left hand clutched to his chest. His skin was gray, his hair tangled, his face lined with anguish. Above him stood the sorcerer. The Scirathi’s gold mask was wrought into the serene smile of death; his black robe sucked in the moonlight. The sorcerer’s hand—the skin covered with a webwork of scars—stretched toward Jack’s chest. Travis had felt the terrible effects of that spell once before. The sorcerer was stopping Jack’s heart.

“No,” Travis cried out. He didn’t know what to do, only that he had to distract the sorcerer, that he had to break his spell. “Get away! It’s me you want, not him!”

The sorcerer didn’t move. His body was rigid, his arm stiff, as if his whole body—and not just the gold mask—were wrought of metal. Jack wasn’t moving either. His eyes stared without blinking, his mouth hung open in a silent cry of pain.

“I said get away from him!” Travis lunged, grabbing for the sorcerer.

It was a queer sensation, like moving through thick syrup. The closer Travis’s hand got to the sorcerer, the harder it was to move. He clenched his teeth, struggling, but when his right hand was an inch from the Scirathi’s robe, he could move it no farther. At last, with a grunt, Travis pulled his hand back. It tingled fiercely, and for a moment the rune of runes shone on his palm.

Still neither Jack nor the sorcerer moved. Something was wrong. The Scirathi’s black robe seemed to billow out behind him, as it would if he were in the act of striding swiftly across the room. Only he was standing still. And Jack was in a precarious position. There was no way he should be able to remain on his knees, not leaning back at the angle he was. He should have been falling.

Then Travis understood. Jack
was
falling. The sorcerer
was
striding across the room, hand outstretched, killing Jack. Only somehow the two of them had been frozen in the act.

Fresh fear replaced old. Travis circled around the two motionless figures, gazing at them from all angles. He tried to touch Jack, but it was just as impossible as trying to lay a hand on the sorcerer. Whatever had caused them to cease moving, it affected Travis if he got too close. Only what was it? Some spell cast by the Scirathi?

A spell, yes. But not one of blood sorcery.

On the bed lay an open book. Travis recognized it; it was the book Jack had given him to read. Travis picked up the book, careful not to turn the page. He scanned the lines in the dim light, forcing the words to arrange themselves in an order that made sense.

Only they didn’t make sense. It was something about a runelord, and how he had fought a dragon alone in the Barrens. In the end, the runelord had realized it was impossible, that there was no way he could win the battle.

This wasn’t helping; Travis needed to know how he
could
win an impossible battle. He started to put down the book— then halted as the last few lines on the page caught his eye.

...and knowing he could not win, Handerul spoke the rune
of time, and time was his to command, and he told it,
‘Cease!’ And it is said, if one could but discover the secret
vale in which the two struggled long ago, he would discover
the wizard Handerul and the dragon Grash still locked in
mortal combat, just as they were a thousand—

Travis dropped the book on the bed and turned around. Jack and the sorcerer still hadn’t moved, as if they were caught in a moment of time.

And that was the message Jack had left for him. Jack was weak; he had known he couldn’t win a battle, that the sorcerer was going to kill him. But he must have had just enough strength left to speak the rune of time, and he had left the book for Travis as a clue. That gave Travis a chance.