The Keep of Fire (12 page)

It was
Alth
, the rune of shadows. As always, his right hand tingled when he spoke the rune, and a rushing noise filled his ears. But the sound was distant and hollow, and it ended too quickly. The air seemed to dim a shade around him, but that was all. However, even this minor result had left him weak and shaking from effort. Clearly his power here was but a fraction of what it was on Eldh.

He supposed he should have been relieved—he had never wanted this in the first place. In the end, power could only harm. But he had to admit, his abilities as a runelord might have come in handy right now.

Whether the weakly spoken rune was enough, or whether any eyes had noticed his progress, Travis couldn’t say, but he had made it to Max’s apartment
without getting accosted. However, before he even reached the door, he knew his partner wasn’t there. He forced himself to peer through the window, dreading what he might see, but this time the curtains were closed. A sigh of relief escaped him, then he swore at himself. Max was fine, he had to be.

Travis turned to go, and it was only then that he noticed the paper tucked next to the doorknob. For the dozenth time, there in the alley, Travis unfolded the sheet torn from a yellow legal pad and read the words printed in Max’s neat, ambidextrous handwriting:

Travis grinned—like a corpse in the desert grinned as the heat and dry shrank the flesh from its skull.
Meet me at the saloon at sundown
. It sounded like a line from a late-night Western: some sort of apocalyptic showdown at the You-Name-It Corral. But it was just a note, and Max couldn’t have known what had happened to Travis in the last less-than-a-day. Max had been sick, only now he was getting better, and he was just trying to get back to work.

But maybe, in a way, it would be like a showdown. After all,
they
would be watching the saloon, waiting for him. Duratek and the Seekers. Travis folded the note and slipped it back into his pocket.

He jerked his head up at the sound of an engine. A dark vehicle cruised down Elk Street. He tensed to run, although he didn’t know where he would run to.

The vehicle rolled past: a navy blue pickup. He
sighed, then clutched a hand to his gut. It was hard to tell where dread ended and hunger began. He hadn’t eaten all day. And he was tired of hiding in shadows.

Travis made a decision. Maybe it was stupid, maybe he would get himself caught, but it was still three hours to sunset, and he couldn’t stay in this place any longer. Besides, all that mattered was finding out that Max was all right. If they caught him, he still wouldn’t help, he still wouldn’t tell them anything about Grace or Eldh.

And you think they don’t have ways of making people talk, Travis? In the end they get what they want. That’s what he said, and you know it’s true
.

But no, he couldn’t believe that. If he had thought that way on Eldh, the Pale King would have frozen all of the Dominions in ice by now. Then again, the Pale King hadn’t had slick television ads, personal area networks, and microchip transmitters. How could magic compete with power like that?

Travis stepped from the alley and glanced in both directions. Elk Street was deserted. The afternoon swelter had driven people indoors—into the dimness, at least, if not the cool. He moved along the boardwalk as quickly as he could without looking like he was running. The Mosquito Café was only a block away. He stuck his hands in his pockets and crunched his broad shoulders in, expecting at any second to hear the squeal of tires, the
chunk
of a car door, and the sound of an angry voice shouting his name. He counted the remaining steps to the Mosquito Café and ducked inside.

The comforting din of conversation and clanking dishes rolled over him, and Travis’s fear receded. In some ways, this was safer than hiding. At least he knew these people.

Or did he? Here and there someone nodded or lifted a hand in greeting. Travis started to wave back, then hesitated. These people were his neighbors, his
customers. But did he really know any of them? Last night, one he had thought he knew had slipped Duratek’s transmitter into his pocket. Maybe she was here now.

“Just yourself, hon?”

Travis blinked. Delores Meeker cocked her head to look at him, chomping on a piece of gum, a menu in her hand. He gave a jerky nod, then followed her toward the back of the café. They were halfway there when he saw Deputy Jace Windom seated at the café’s counter. He hesitated, then reached out and touched her arm.

Jace snapped around on the stool, hand on the revolver at her hip. Her eyes were flat and hard. Travis took a startled step back. Jace blinked, and her gaze softened to warm brown.

“Travis—I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m sorry, Jace. I didn’t mean … I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The deputy rose from her stool. Her brown Smokey-the-Bear hat sat next to a mostly uneaten blue plate special. There was something odd about the deputy. Usually she was sharp and precise in the way she moved, in the things she said. Today she seemed slower, that edge dulled.

Delores snapped her gum. “Travis, hon, did you need to ask the deputy something?”

“I’ll be just a second,” he said.

Delores nodded. “I’ll put your menu at the booth back there. Just sit down when you’re ready.”

Travis managed a smile, and Delores moved away. He turned back to the deputy, and the smile faded.

“What is it, Travis? Is something wrong?”

He swallowed, then forced the question to sound casual. “I was just … I was just wondering if you’d seen Max today.”

It was subtle but noticeable: Jace stiffened, and the focus of her gaze moved past Travis. “I’m afraid I
haven’t spoken to Mr. Bayfield in the last seventy-two hours. You’re his business partner, Travis. I’m sure you know more about his condition than I do. Besides, I’m a law officer, not a doctor. There’s nothing I can do for him.”

Travis winced at the harshness in her voice, then realized it wasn’t for him or for Max. He glanced down and saw the newspaper next to her plate. With a pen, she had circled the photo of the half-charred corpse.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it, Jace?”

“Nothing makes much sense these days,” she murmured.

Travis searched for a reply. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t find the words. “If I see Max, I’ll tell him you were thinking of him, Jace.”

She nodded without meeting his eyes, then turned back to her cold plate of food. Travis headed to his booth, sank into a slick vinyl seat, and lifted the menu Delores had left for him—more to hide than to decide what to order.

After all that had happened, he thought eating would be difficult, but it was the opposite: The mundane task of putting food into his body was reassuring and familiar. No matter what happened to you, no matter where you went, you still had to eat. Delores brought him meat loaf, mashed potatoes, vegetables, rolls, and apple pie. Travis ate them all.

A shadow hovered over him.

“Travis?”

He pushed back the pie plate. “That’s enough, Delores. Really. Just leave the check and—”

She sat in the opposite side of the booth and folded her hands on the spangled Formica.

A lump of fear slid into Travis’s stomach, and he wished he hadn’t eaten so much. He flicked his eyes from side to side, but no one in the café so much as
glanced in his direction. But then, why should they? Everyone in Castle City knew that Travis Wilder and Deirdre Falling Hawk were friends.

“I’m glad I found you, Travis.”

“I bet you must get a lot of extra credit points for cornering an otherworldly traveler. I’m sure Farr will give you an A.”

Color touched Deirdre’s high cheekbones, but she did not flinch. “I probably deserve that. You’re right—sometimes scholars can get too caught up in their studies and forget that their subjects are people, too. But that’s not what I meant. I’m glad they … I’m glad you’re all right, Travis.” Her hand edged toward his across the Formica. “I’ve been afraid for you.”

He pulled his hand back. “I can take care of myself,” he said, but the words were hollow. At that moment he felt as alone as he had those first days on Eldh, traveling through the forlorn silence of the Winter Wood and away from the world he had always known.

Deirdre shook her head. “I want to believe that, Travis. And I know you’re smart, and that you have a strong spirit. But you don’t know what you’re dealing with. You can’t.”

Travis looked down and ran his thumb across the palm of his right hand. “But maybe I do, Deirdre.” He looked up. “Maybe I know better than any of you.”

She pressed her lips together, her smoky jade eyes serious. “Please, Travis. You’ve got to listen to me.”

Her voice was low, touched by a quaver he hadn’t expected. Maybe she really was afraid for him. He let her eyes draw him in.

Deirdre leaned forward, her voice an urgent whisper. “We blew it, Travis.
I
blew it. I know I did. I should have trusted you with the truth. But you’ve got to understand. Duratek will talk to you if they think talking will get them what they want. But they’ll do whatever it takes to get the information
they need. For their book-balancers, one human life is a small price to pay for an entire new world.”

She reached into a nylon pouch slung over her shoulder, drew out a plane ticket, and pushed it across the table.

“This is a ticket to London. Parked in front of the café is a white sedan. Go out, get inside, and the driver will take you to Denver International Airport. She’ll see that you make it to the plane. When you get to London, Hadrian Farr will be there to meet you. He’ll take you to the London Charterhouse, and we’ll all talk again there.”

Travis stared at the ticket. “Why?”

“It’s not safe for you here, Travis. In London the Seekers can help protect you. You can stay at the Charterhouse as long as you like—and you can leave anytime you want to, I swear it. We won’t keep you, not like they would.” She shook her head. “I know it’s hard to understand. But just come to London, get away from them, and give yourself time to think.”

Travis reached out a hand and brushed the corner of the ticket. It would be so easy. He could get away from here, away from the hot, dusty streets of Castle City, and go to London—cool, moist, ancient London. Would it be so bad? After all, the Seekers had helped Grace escape the ironhearts. Travis drew in a breath, then started to pick up the ticket.

Deirdre licked her lips. “There’s more, Travis, things we haven’t had the chance to tell you yet. About Jack Graystone, and about the immolations. If you come, we can show you what we’ve found, things Duratek would never give you.”

He looked up at her, his gray eyes narrowing behind his spectacles. So there was more Deirdre hadn’t trusted him with. He let go of the ticket. What else had the Seekers neglected to tell him? What other information would they dispense in precise doses calculated to make him behave exactly the way they
wanted? There was a Travis once who would have let himself be used like this. But he had left that Travis behind on Eldh, in the frozen wastes of Shadowsdeep.

He grinned, a feral expression. “So, is that
your
shadow self, Deirdre? The one that can lie?”

Her eyes went wide, and her jaw worked as she searched for words. “Travis, I had to—”

“No.” His voice was quiet but hard. “We choose what we become. That’s what you told me. So why should I trust you and not Duratek? They didn’t lie to me, Deirdre. You did.”

Her face was pale. “Travis, you can’t go to them.”

“I’m not going to anybody.” He rose from the booth.

Deirdre leaped to her feet and reached for him. “Travis, wait. You can’t just go. You have to share what you’ve learned. You have to tell us.”

He turned and stared at her. “Why?”

She took a deep breath, then nodded and spoke with calm conviction. “Before you go, answer one thing for me. Just one thing. If you were hiking in the mountains, and you stumbled upon a fabulous Spanish treasure—a chest filled with wonders, lost for centuries—who would you call? A museum dedicated to studying and preserving precious objects? Or a company that would take the gold and melt it all down? Tell me—what would you do?”

Travis met her eyes. “I’d take a shovel, and I’d bury it.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

“Good-bye, Deirdre,” he said and walked away.

He was almost to the rear exit of the café when he saw Deirdre start moving toward him. Except at that moment Delores Meeker ran after her, waving the check for Travis’s food. Deirdre kept going, but Jace Windom stepped in her path, and Delores caught up. The last image Travis saw was Deirdre digging in her
pockets, scrambling for money. She shot one last look in his direction: desperate, imploring.

Travis turned and stepped into the fiery light outside.

The sun was still two handspans above the shoulder of Castle Peak, but Travis couldn’t wait any longer.

For the last hour he had hidden amid the heaps of junk behind Castle City’s old assay office. Kneeling in the dirt, he had passed the time fidgeting with a corroded brass scale he had picked from one of the piles. Once prospectors had used the scale to weigh out their dreams in sacks of gold dust. Now he could not get the arms to swing. Rocks, glass, metal: Nothing tipped the old scale anymore. Everything he had once thought to be solid and real was without weight, without effect. There was nothing left for the device but to melt it down.

He cast the scale back into the dirt, then stood and brushed off his hands. It was time to step into his own crucible.

It wasn’t far to the Mine Shaft. He kept to an alley that ran parallel to Elk Street, moving between trash bins, empty crates, and the remains of cars that had rolled off assembly lines when Hitler was still that peculiar little man in Germany. Several times, between buildings, he glimpsed the street beyond, but the few vehicles that drove past were neither black nor white. Then he was there.