The Keep of Fire (40 page)

Travis slumped in his chair. He had warned Oragien he didn’t know many runes. Despite this, the All-master had given him to Larad and Eriaun, so that the two might make an assessment of his abilities.

Larad crossed his arms, his black eyes hard. “How can he help us decipher the runestone if he can’t even read and write the simplest runes?”

“He is a runelord, Larad.”

“So we’ve been told. But how can we know for certain?”

“He can speak runes, bind them, and break them. One with all three abilities has not been known in Falengarth since the Runelords vanished.” Eriaun spread his pudgy hands. “What more on Eldh do you need, Larad?”

By his grunt he needed something else, but what it was he would not say. Larad turned his cutting gaze on Travis. “Evening chorus begins in an hour. I suggest you rest until then. We will resume our work afterward.” The master turned and left the windowless chamber.

Eriaun gave Travis a sympathetic look. “You must forgive Master Larad. He is … that is to say he …” However, if there was in fact a reason to forgive Larad, then Eriaun could not seem to voice it. He smiled weakly, then moved through the door, leaving Travis alone.

Travis leaned back in his chair and lifted a finger to each of his throbbing temples. For three days now
Larad had railed at him, demanding answers, raking his brain for knowledge.

“Once we have made certain you are ready, you will help us read the runestone,” Oragien had said the morning of Travis’s second day in the tower. “In it you will no doubt see something we have not, some power that will help us work against the
krondrim.”

Travis had almost laughed—he doubted he would ever be ready for
that
—but the seriousness in Oragien’s blue eyes had made him choke his laughter back down.

He pressed his aching eyes shut and thought back to the stories Falken had told him about the runestones. Once there had been nine of the stones, forged by the Runelords, containing the keys to all their knowledge and learning. Most of them were lost in the fall of Malachor seven centuries ago. And Travis knew another lay buried—and most likely shattered—beneath the White Tower of the Runebinders. However, at least one of the runestones still remained, here in the Gray Tower.

“Much knowledge has been lost over the centuries,” Oragien had told him. “For all our studies, we can comprehend only a fraction of what is carved upon the runestone. You, Master Wilder, will help us learn more.”

Travis sighed and opened his eyes. He wished Falken and Melia were here. He was certain they would understand what was happening far better than he did.

Only they’re not here, Travis, and you are
.

He looked down at his right hand. He had grown used to the tingling beneath his palm, but it was still there—the symbol Jack had somehow branded into his flesh that terrible night beneath the Magician’s Attic.

Jakabar of the Gray Stone was a runelord. And so are you
.

Oragien’s words still echoed in his mind. Even now they stunned him. But hadn’t he heard them once before?

It is you who drew me to this place. You are Jakabar’s heir!

Yes, it was the final piece of the puzzle. The burnt man was connected to Eldh—maybe even had come from Eldh. The same was true of Jack Graystone. And it was Jack who, just before Travis’s first journey to Eldh, had given Travis the Great Stone Sinfathisar. The Stone of Twilight.

The gray stone
, Travis said to himself.

Falken’s stories told how the Imsari, the three Great Stones, were scattered after the fall of Malachor seven hundred years ago, taken and hidden by the last three runelords. And Deirdre and Hadrian had said that Jack had been alive for at least several centuries. There was only one answer that fit all the evidence. Jack was one of the three runelords who had fled with the Imsari. Somehow he had found his way to Earth. And somehow, that night beneath the antique shop, when the Pale Ones had attacked, Jack had given his power as a runelord to Travis.

But what did it all really mean? Eriaun was right—Travis had spoken, bound, and broken runes. However, he didn’t really know how he had done any of those things. It had always simply come to him, usually in a moment of panic.

So Oragien spoke truth. Travis was a runelord—or at least a runelord’s heir. He could accept that; he had no choice, given what he knew. But the All-master was wrong in thinking that Travis could help the Runespeakers. It was all he could do to lock up the power inside him, to keep from harming more people as he had in the past.

Maybe Jack gave this power to you, Travis. But that doesn’t mean you have to use it. You’ve got to tell Oragien you can’t help him. Tonight
.

Resolved, he stood up. However, before he could step into action, a knock sounded at the door. It opened, and a stout young man in a brown robe entered the room.

Despite his troubles, Travis smiled. “Hello, Sky.”

The young man’s lumpy face twisted into a grin. He nodded and held out a hand, his meaning clear.
Hello to you, Master Wilder
.

“What is it?” Travis said.

Sky spread his arms in a circle, then made jabbering motions with his hands, opening and closing them.

Travis smiled. “The Runespeakers are meeting downstairs. It’s time for chorus.”

The young man’s grin broadened, and he nodded.

Travis knew there would be no chance to talk to Oragien privately during the chorus. And afterward Master Larad and Master Eriaun would have him in their clutches. He supposed it would have to wait for tomorrow. He let out a sigh, gave Sky a faint smile, then gestured to the door.

“Lead the way, my friend.”

Those next days moved more swiftly than Travis would have thought. The greater part of each was spent in the windowless chamber high in the tower. There he was subjected to the tortures of Master Larad—cruel and repetitive activities ameliorated only slightly by Eriaun’s gentler interruptions.

“This is madness!” Larad erupted during one session, after Travis had mispronounced
Sirith
, the rune of silence, as
Silith
, the rune of stench. “We could better teach a lump of clay to speak runes.”

“Calm yourself, Master Larad.” Master Eriaun’s tone was soothing, although slightly nasal from the way he held his nose against the putrid reek that filled the room. “Take a deep breath and … oh, well, perhaps that’s not a good idea. But remember Olrig then, and how he surrendered his right hand to
the jaws of the dragon Asgarath that he might steal away with the secret of the runes. Knowledge comes only by great sacrifice.”

“And I’d rather have both my hands chewed off than instruct such an imbecile.” Larad stamped from the room.

Eriaun cast a wan smile at Travis. “I’m sure he didn’t mean that like it sounds.”

In contrast, Travis was rather certain Larad had meant it
exactly
as it had sounded. But he nodded all the same, then bent back over his tablet.

Despite the tedium of his work with the two masters, it was hard not to be interested in the Runespeakers. Dwelling in the Gray Tower was like seeing one of Falken’s tales come to life. Travis doubted there was another place on Eldh where the name Olrig—as well as the names of Ysani and Durnach and the other Old Gods—was still spoken in reverence.

Before long, he found himself looking forward to each evening’s chorus. Usually the Runespeakers discussed mundane matters of the tower, but always they ended the chorus by softly speaking a chant of runes. Although he could understand few of the runes, Travis would let himself drift on the tapestry of voices the Runespeakers wove, layer upon layer, voice upon voice, on the thrumming air of the chorus chamber.

While most of his time was spent with Master Eriaun and Master Larad, or in the chorus chamber, Travis did have some time to himself, and this he used to explore the tower. One afternoon he climbed the entire staircase, counting 251 steps—and many more thudding beats of his heart—along the way. At the top he found a triangular platform no more than five paces across, wedged between the three horned minarets that crowned the tower.

After years of driving narrow Rocky Mountain
passes, Travis was used to heights and the feeling of exposure, but the lightness of vertigo filled him all the same as he gazed at the sheer drop below. It was two hundred feet down arrow-straight walls to the spur of rock from which the tower had been carved, and another thousand feet from the crag itself to the tawny plains that swept southward to the horizon.

Travis moved to the other side of the platform. This view was more to his liking, and he looked across a gap to see range after range of knife-edged peaks marching ever more dimly into the north. Those were the Fal Erenn—the Dawning Fells. Below, a narrow ridge connected the tower crag with the nearest mountain, and upon the causeway was carved a narrow, winding track.

With his eyes he followed the path back toward the spire. Just before the tower’s door was the only level space on either ridge or crag, a rough half circle perhaps a hundred feet across. In the center of the plateau was a shape so dark that at first Travis thought it to be a pit. Then he squinted and realized the truth.

It was a standing stone. From this distance there was no way to get a sense of scale, but he knew all the same that, were he to stand beneath it, the stone would tower over him. What was its purpose? It seemed so forlorn, all alone on the plateau.

Several more minutes of peering over the edge yielded no answers—only a pair of eyeballs parched from the hot, dry wind. Travis let it blow him back to the stairs.

He had nearly reached the level of his chamber—at the midpoint of the tower—when he rounded a curve and ran into Master Eriaun. Literally. In fact, had he not reacted quickly and shot out an arm, hooking Eriaun’s robe, the master might have made one last, interesting discovery in his life: how long it took to fall to the bottom of the tower.

“Well, then,” the runespeaker said as he smoothed
his rumpled robe, “that was a most exciting happening. And from it I would gather no one has yet told you the rule of the stairs.”

Travis straightened his spectacles on his nose. “The rule of the stairs?”

“Up on the inside, down on the outside.”

“Oh. I’ll remember next time.”

“I’m certain you will.” Eriaun’s myopic eyes brightened. “But it’s by the hand of Olrig that we have come upon each other. For I was just coming to look for you.”

They started down the staircase—on the outside of the spiral.

“What is it you wanted, Master Eriaun?”

“It’s a small thing, really. Each of us has our own pet subjects, you see. Matters of interest to us. And for many years I have made a study of the Imsari.”

Travis cast a startled look at Eriaun. “The Great Stones?”

“Quite right. Most particularly, I’ve searched many years for knowledge concerning which runes, spoken in what order, might allow one to handle one of the Stones without harm. Not that there will be much cause for doing so, I am sure. But of course, you understand, one most often studies out of curiosity, not need. And I wanted to speak to you because … well, it has been said … that is to say, you have had some contact.…”

“I’ve held it, if that’s what you mean,” Travis said in a quiet voice. “The Stone of Twilight.”

Eriaun halted on the steps, his eyes distant, and spoke the word like a sigh. “Sinfathisar.”

“But I never spoke any runes before I touched it,” Travis said. “I’m sorry.”

The master’s gaze snapped back to Travis. “No? But then, you are a runelord. What else is to be expected? Olrig help me, but I should have thought of that. You need no runes!” Eriaun touched his arm.
“But if thinking back you happen to recall that you
did
in fact speak runes before touching the Great Stone, you will let me know what they were, won’t you?”

Travis fumbled for words. “Sure. Of course.”

The master beamed, then headed down the steps, leaving Travis at the door to his chamber.

“Thank you, Master Wilder.” Eriaun’s reedy voice drifted up the staircase. “I shall see you at chorus.”

Travis shrugged at his encounter with the peculiar little master, then opened the door to his chamber.

It was only as he shut the door that an odd thought struck him. Eriaun had said he was just coming to see Travis. But at the point where they ran into each other, Travis had not yet descended to the level of his chamber.

So how had Eriaun known to look for him higher in the tower?

The next day, Travis woke hoping to venture outside the tower, to breathe air not confined by stone. However, his work with the Runespeakers lasted from just after dawn until the evening chorus, leaving him no time for explorations. All the day after that, another of the violent thunderstorms—such as the one the night Oragien had found him—held the world captive. It was a queer storm: boiling, angry, and shattered by streaks of sickly yellow lightning.

The morning after the storm dawned hot and clear, and at breakfast Travis learned from Sky—through a series of uncannily descriptive hand gestures—that both Masters Larad and Eriaun were to be occupied until noontime. This was his chance. As he approached the high, triangular door of the Gray Tower,
he expected someone to rush up and stop him. Yet no one did.

And why should they? You’re not a prisoner here. Even if it feels like Larad is your personal inquisitor
.

Although huge, and covered with carved runes, the wooden door swung easily when he pushed it open. He slipped through, into the world beyond.

The path that led from the Gray Tower was narrow and worn deep into solid rock by the passage of countless feet. Travis followed it across the plateau, then walked out onto the causeway, enjoying the heady pull of the drop to either side. After walking halfway across the ridge, he turned back, not wanting to cause any master who happened to look out his window a conniption at the sight of the Runespeakers’ last, best hope walking away.

As he moved back onto the plateau, he let his gaze be drawn by the tall shape that dominated the half circle. The standing stone was indeed large, although not so large as he had thought. It was perhaps half again his own height and thick enough that it would take the arms of two good-sized men to encircle it. The stone was nearly black, carved of some volcanic rock that bore little resemblance to the gray stone of the Fal Erenn.