The Keep of Fire (32 page)

Finally he understood: the proximity to the town, the tables, the freemen, the woman who brought him beer. This place was an inn of some sort. A tavern.

No, a saloon.…

Sharp knives of remembrance laid open his brain. He stiffened. How had he possibly forgotten? Travis didn’t know, but now it came back to him in flashes hotter and brighter than lightning: the Mine Shaft, Max, the fire.

Oh, Max.…

The pain in his chest was fresh, as if it had only just happened, as if he had only just seen his friend taken by flames. He shut his eyes, probing his mind, and found he remembered everything now. Deirdre, the Seekers, Duratek. Child Samanda and Sister Mirrim with her blind eyes. But none of this explained what had happened. Why had Brother Cy sent him here?

One last memory oozed from the wound in his mind.

The key … Yes, it is you to whom I must give the key
.

This time it was another Travis saw in the flames, black robe billowing, curling like burnt paper.

Beware—it will consume you.…

Travis shuddered. This memory was important, maybe more important than all the others. He
searched for a reason, but it was impossible to concentrate. The shaking was worse now, his hands flopping against the table like dying fish, leaving damp trails. His tongue was a lump of lead in his mouth, and it felt as if someone had jammed hot, hard stones into his armpits.

His thoughts were drowned out by a scraping sound, followed by the thuds of heavy, booted feet. Travis opened his eyes and forced his head up. He gazed into a pair of small, suspicious eyes.

“Get you away from here,” the man said.

His accent was so thick and slurred that even the magic of the silver coin rendered it barely comprehensible. Travis tried to speak, but no sound came out. He ran a sandpapery tongue over dry lips and tried again.

“I just … I just need to sit for a little while.”

The man’s thick-fingered hand moved to the eating knife at his belt. A reek poured off of him, and hate and anger played across his lumpy, bearded face. Shadows hovered on the edges of Travis’s blurred vision. His gaze flickered to the curtain in the wall, and he saw frightened green eyes peering out at him. Then the curtain was jerked closed, and the eyes were gone.

“Your kind aren’t wanted here,” the villein said.

Travis looked back at the man. He knew he should be afraid, but it was hard to feel anything other than the heat rising within him. How long would it be before the fire took him like the man in black? Like it took Max?

Travis forced the words out. “What … kind?”

“Gray man,” the villein spat.

Travis started to shake his head. Then he looked down at the soft gray robe he wore, and he remembered the cast-down statue in the cemetery. Maybe he understood after all.

Speak a rune, Travis
.

Shadows became men as two more of the villeins stepped into his field of vision. Their eyes were flat with loathing.

“Get out of here, gray man,” one of them snarled.

The air was melting, turning colors to smoke. Travis clutched the edge of the table to keep from falling.

Now, Travis! Speak a rune. These men mean to kill you
.

It was so terribly hard, like moving through molten rock. But Travis forced himself to obey. He started to open his mouth, started to reach a hand toward the men, started to form his lips into a single word.

Krond
.

Then, before he could give the word voice, he pulled his hand back. Something was wrong, awfully wrong. There was a reason he didn’t want to do this.

Travis!

It was too late. Travis slumped back. He could not have obeyed the voice now if he wished to. Hard hands grabbed his shoulders, pawed at his robe, pulled him back away from the bench, and shoved him up against a wall. There was a crunching sound, and pain sparked through his body, although he hardly noticed it through the heat and fire. Any moment now, and it would come. He opened his eyes and saw a clenched fist poised before his face.

Crack!

At first Travis thought it was the sound of the fist striking his face. Then, through his wavering sight, he saw the tavern’s door fly apart in a discharge of splinters.

“Hold!” a voice commanded.

The men froze, the hate on their faces transmuting to dread. They cowered, no longer fierce attack dogs but mangy curs.

“Unhand him this instant!”

The voice was noble and clear as a horn, and the sound of it made Travis’s heart leap. He tried to make out the speaker, but a veil had descended before his eyes, and all he could see was a tall figure standing amid a corona of fey light. The figure approached, and the farmers fell back. A cool hand touched Travis’s arm.

“Do not fear,” the shining man said in a musical voice. “I am here now.”

Travis smiled and tried to tell the shining man it was all right, that the fire would take him now. However, before he could speak, the last remaining strength drained from his legs, and the dirty floor rushed up to meet him.

I’m coming, Max
.

Then the world was lost, not in fire, but in darkness.

It was very late. Or very early.

From her makeshift bed on the ground, Grace stared up at the dome of the sky and watched the moon sink toward the black line of the horizon. She supposed Earth’s own satellite would seem odd to her now—so small, so cold, so terribly distant. In her time here she had grown used to the gigantic, honey-gold moon of Eldh.

Grace counted carefully in her mind—she had almost lost track of the days—but the moon confirmed her conclusion. The orb was waxing, and nearly a perfect quarter.

Today will be the seventh since we left Calavere, Grace. That means just eight more days until the moon is full. Eight more until—

Grace gasped. To the south, a silvery wisp of cloud
dissolved, revealing a pulsing red spark in the sky. Crimson light tinged the moon like blood.

A faint jingling drifted on the air. Grace caught a flash out of the corner of her eye, then came the low, comforting sound of a familiar voice.

“My lady, are you well?”

She spoke the word like a prayer. “Durge.”

The knight squatted beside her where she sat. In the dimness his face looked as craggy as that of the moon, but she caught the concern shining in his deep-set eyes. As often, Grace was struck by his solidness. Durge was not a large man, but even in the dark she could make out the thickness of his stooped shoulders, the depth of his chest, the hardness of his arms and legs. At forty-five years of age the knight might have considered himself old, but to Grace he was like a wind-worn stone which seemed only stronger for having stood so long against the fury of the elements.

He cocked his head. “My lady?”

“I was just looking at the moon.”

Durge nodded. She did not need to explain further.

“You should return to sleep, my lady. Dawn is yet two hours off.”

“Yes,” she said, but she did not move, and nor did he.

“Will we reach Ar-tolor today?” she said after a time.

“That was my hope, my lady. However, we were … delayed at Falanor. My wish now is, at the least, to make the bridge over the Dimduorn before nightfall, and to cross into Toloria. From thence it is but five more leagues to the queen’s castle.”

Grace took these words in, then she looked past Durge. In the dim glow of the fire’s remains she could just make out five sleeping forms. Two curled close to one another: Daynen and Tira. Lirith and Aryn slept
nearby. However, the last figure huddled some distance apart. Grace’s eyes flicked up to meet Durge’s in the darkness.

“How is Meridar?”

“He … rests now, my lady. The wine you gave him appears to have calmed him.”

Grace almost grinned in the darkness, but her face was so brittle she feared it would crack. It was not mere wine she had given Meridar after dinner, and Durge knew it. Grace did not feel good about slipping the herbs into the knight’s cup. Drugging a man seemed more the methods of a witch like Kyrene rather than a Lirith or an Ivalaine.

However, all day yesterday as they rode from Falanor, Meridar had seemed increasingly troubled. He had not talked to the others, but instead hunched in his saddle, riding apart, and often muttering and shaking his head. At first Grace thought it to be remorse for Kalleth’s death. Perhaps Meridar blamed himself for not saving his companion. However, as their shadows stretched out toward evening, she became less certain of that diagnosis. She dared to bring Shandis near to Meridar’s charger, and to ask the knight if he was well. To her shock, he laughed.

“Fury makes a fine armor of fear, my lady,” he had said in a hard voice. “And hate does forge a sharp sword of cowardice.”

Grace had had no answer for that, and had let Meridar spur his warhorse ahead.

After a mirthless supper, during which Meridar had not eaten, Durge had drawn Grace aside and had whispered to her.
Sleep would be a good balm for his spirit, my lady, if it could be made to come
.

These words had stunned her. In the past, Durge had studiously avoided all things related to witches. But she had nodded, and had gone to her pack to retrieve the herbs.

Now Grace shivered, drawing her arms around her
shoulders. Strange how the days could be so muggy while the nights turned so chill.

“Will you return to sleep now, my lady?”

She nodded, not wanting to tell Durge that sleep was an impossibility. “What about you?”

“I will keep watch. That is rest enough for me.”

Grace gazed at Durge and once again marveled at the man. She wished she could find a way to make him see what a wonder he was. But even an X-ray machine, had she had one there, could not have captured on film the depth, strength, and kindness of his soul. Instead, without really thinking, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his rough cheek. His eyes went wide.

Grace yawned as a heaviness stole over her, and suddenly she wondered if perhaps she could sleep after all. She lay back down on her bedroll. “Will you be near, Durge?”

She heard the creak of leather as he stood. “I am ever here, my lady.”

Grace drew in a deep breath. Maybe she would never love another. Maybe that kind of closeness was beyond her. But maybe, in a way, this was better. How could love ever offer a safeness like this?

Above her, a shooting star streaked across the sky, but Grace did not make a wish. Instead she closed her eyes and slept.

When she woke the eastern horizon was ablaze, and everyone else was already up. Grace rose, joined the others in a breakfast of hard bread, currants, and water—no one seemed to have the desire to stir the coals into a fire—then helped break camp. They set off just as the red ball of the sun heaved itself into the sky.

Sir Meridar seemed better for his sleep. At breakfast he spoke with control, and once on the road he followed Durge’s lead without question. Perhaps he was over the worst of it. Then Grace happened to
catch his gaze for a moment, and in his once-kindly brown eyes was a look so haunted that she quickly turned away. Whatever was wrong with Meridar, it would not be cured with a few dried leaves or a few hours of sleep.

As they rode, both Durge and Meridar spurred their horses ahead often, or dropped far back only to come pounding up from behind to meet the others. Grace did not need to ask them to know what they were doing, to know what they were keeping watch for.

I will wait in my house
.

Wait for what?

For them to come, my lady. And for all the world to burn
.

Grace clutched Shandis’s reins. She was not ready to give up and hide. Not yet, not while Travis still needed her help. And not while there was still hope of a cure.

Sometime the day before the road had veered southward, away from the Dimduorn. Grace knew it was cutting the corner made by the river and now angled southeast toward the bridge that would let them cross into Toloria. The road wound through low valleys and over long ridges.

Aryn rode nearby Grace, gazing forward with sapphire eyes. What was the young woman thinking about? However, Grace couldn’t guess. The baroness had been subdued since Falanor, but not distraught, not as she had been after Garf’s death. Yet somehow her calmness troubled Grace more than tears.

Just behind the baroness came Lirith, and riding before her on the withers of her horse was Daynen. He swung skinny legs inside tattered knee pants as they rode, face turned up to the sun, chatting blithely, often asking Lirith about the land they rode through. When he did, the witch would bend her head toward his, as if her answers were for him only, and each time a smile would cross his face.

In many ways Lirith was still a mystery to Grace. What she thought of any of this—their journey, the Burning Plague, Sir Kalleth’s death—she had not said. All the same, Grace was glad for her presence. No matter what happened, Lirith seemed to have the power to remember what was really important. It was she who had first spoken the obvious truth: They could not leave Daynen and Tira in Falanor.

Grace glanced down at the slight form perched in the saddle in front of her. So light and so quiet, sometimes Grace almost forgot Tira was there. Her bones were as thin as a bird’s beneath the fabric of her smock. Only her hair seemed to have real substance: thick, curling, and bright as fire.

As if sensing Grace’s gaze, the girl glanced up. As always Grace was struck by the contrasts of Tira’s face: one side soft, dimpled, and exquisite, the other a shiny mask of scar tissue. A fleeting smile touched the corner of Tira’s mouth, then she hung her head again, letting her hair tumble forward to conceal her face. However, her little body scooted back in the saddle, pressing against Grace’s stomach. Grace stiffened, then forced herself to relax and accept this closeness. After all, what did she have to fear from a broken child?

Grace’s examinations last night had confirmed her earlier suspicions; large areas of the right side of Tira’s body were covered with scar tissue. How she had survived the burns was as much a mystery as how she had gotten them. Before they left Falanor, Grace had tried once again to encourage Tira to speak. The girl had not seemed particularly bothered by Grace’s questions, but nor had she made a sound in response. Instead she hunched over, playing with a small object Grace could not see, cradled in her lap.