The Keep of Fire (50 page)

This is dangerous, Grace. You know it is. You’re letting yourself get used to Tira being here. You’re letting yourself get too close
.

But suddenly it was hard to remember exactly what her reasons were for keeping others at a distance. She tightened her arms around the girl, and Tira did not resist.

Melia fashioned the fresh venison, along with herbs collected by Aryn and Lirith, into a fragrant stew, and once bowls were passed out Lirith lowered her gaze and spoke in a reverent voice.

“Joy from pain, life from death. In endings are beginnings born. May Yrsaia bless the gains of this hunt.”

When she looked up, Lirith’s gaze fell on Melia.

“What a lovely prayer, dear,” the regal lady said with a smile, then ate her stew.

After supper, Beltan began to tell another joke, this one involving a hapless knight who couldn’t manage to remove his armor in time when the fair maiden he had rescued wished to express her gratitude. Then Falken spoke, and while his voice was not loud, it silenced the mirth all the same.

“It’s the Stone of Fire that’s creating them somehow.”

“The Burnt Ones,” Grace said without thinking.

Firelight glinted off Travis’s spectacles. “Of course, it makes sense.
Krondrim
. Krondisar. I should have guessed it sooner.”

“What is it you have learned, Falken?” Durge said. “It is not so apparent to some of us as it is to others.”

“It was Melia’s friend who told us,” the bard said.

Melia smoothed the folds of her kirtle. “The Great Stone Krondisar has been found. And it is in the possession of one who would use it for evil. Who does so even now.”

“But who is it?” Grace said.

Falken met her gaze. “That’s what we have to find out.”

“All right,” Beltan said, speaking the question on everyone’s mind, “so where are we going?”

Firelight played across Melia’s visage. “To the place from which Krondisar was stolen.”

All of them stared at the amber-eyed lady—all except
for Tira, who stretched small hands toward the fire and laughed.

They woke before dawn the next day to continue their journey. Now that they knew something of their destination, the holiday air of yesterday’s ride had given way to a more somber mood. However, the rugged landscape about them was beautiful, and while a shadow had touched Grace’s thoughts, they were far from dark.

It was only when Beltan mentioned that they were nearly to the southern border of Perridon that Grace remembered the mission King Boreas had given her. She had been so focused on reaching the Gray Tower and saving Travis that she had forgotten entirely about her orders. But one did not dismiss the commands of a king on this world. Not and live long to regret it.

Grace moved Shandis closer to Falken’s jet stallion. “We’re riding into Perridon, aren’t we, Falken?”

The bard frowned. “Is something wrong, Grace?”

There will be if Boreas finds out I’ve gone AWOL on him
.

“I was just wondering if we’re going to Castle Spardis. King Boreas gave me a task to do there, and I’d like to finish it.”

Falken turned his faded blue eyes north. “I’ve been hearing some dark news out of Spardis lately, ever since old King Persard died. Queen Inara is only sixteen, and her son, Perseth—Persard’s heir—is still at her breast. It’s not a good position to be in. At least not in a Dominion where every five-year-old peasant has a dagger and a plan.” He glanced at her. “I take it you agreed to survey the situation for Boreas?”

Grace nodded, lifting an unconscious hand to her neck.

“Don’t worry.” The bard grinned now. “You’ll get to keep your head attached to your shoulders, Your
Radiance. After we make this one stop, we’ll be heading straight for Spardis. We’re supposed to meet Melia’s friend again there. I think we’ll each be very curious to hear what the other has learned.”

That evening they camped inside a broken circle of stones that tilted like a crown atop a hill. As they ate leftover stew, Falken explained that these were the remains of a watchtower built by explorers from Toringarth over a thousand years earlier.

Durge stroked his mustaches. “I did not know men of Toringarth ever sailed this far south.”

“And farther,” the bard said. “They were the greatest mariners ever to navigate the four seas. Many towers they raised near the sea, all up and down the coasts of Falengarth.”

Grace thought back to her lessons in politics. She remembered seeing Toringarth on Aryn’s map—a jagged finger of land north of Falengarth, across the Winter Sea—but she recalled no other reference to the kingdom, save in Falken’s stories when he told how long ago King Ulther of Toringarth helped defeat the Pale King with the help of Elsara, Empress of Tarras.

She glanced at Falken. “Why didn’t anyone from Toringarth attend the Council of Kings at Calavere?”

“No word has come across the Winter Sea from the kingdom of Toringarth in many centuries, and no ship made in Falengarth can navigate the churning ice that fills the Winter Sea, not as the ships of the Toringarders could of old, bound with runes of strength and swiftness.”

Grace chewed her lip. The bard’s answer was wholly unsatisfying. An entire kingdom couldn’t simply vanish. What had happened to Toringarth after Ulther slew the Pale King and helped found Malachor?

Maybe you’ll just have to go there yourself someday and find out, Grace
.

Night fell, and one by one the travelers lay down
inside the ruined tower, but sleep eluded Grace. Instead she watched meteors streak across the star-strewn disk circumscribed by the ruined walls of the tower.

She must have drifted off at some point, because she blinked, and the stars jerked across the circle. Now a crimson spark had joined them: the red star. Something pressed uncomfortably against Grace’s bladder. She sat up. Black fur blended with night, but amber eyes shone in the gloom.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Grace whispered.

The kitten only purred as it continued to knead with small paws at her stomach.

Grace removed the kitten, considered what to do with it, then placed it in the crook of Tira’s elbow. The kitten turned three times, then lay down, resting its head against the girl’s arm. Tira sighed in her sleep.

Lying back down, Grace shut her eyes, but she opened them again a moment later. The kitten’s cruel paws had done their work, and there would be no chance of sleep if she didn’t pay a visit to a conveniently located bush.

As quietly as she could, she rose and picked her way among the sleepers, then passed through a gap in the wall. She circled around the ruined tower until she finally found her bush. Once finished, she kept circling in the same direction, since she was already more than halfway around the tower.

“I should never have left you.”

Grace froze at the sound of the soft, tenor voice.

“I’ve been fine,” another, cooler voice whispered. “Besides, we talked about this, and we both agreed it was for the best.”

Grace edged around a jumble of mossy rocks. In the starlight a half-dozen paces away two figures sat
on stones. One was small and slender, her dark hair merging with the night. The other was tall and rangy, his mail shirt and fair hair glowing in the shine of the just-rising moon.

“Well, regardless, I’m here now,” Beltan said. “And I’m still your knight protector.”

Melia touched his hand. “I hardly wish to turn you away, dear. I don’t know what I would have done without you these last years. When I met you, Falken was lost in a dark pit into which I could not reach. Without you, I might never have done so. You will always be my protector.” She drew her hand back. “But, in time, you might find that you wish to be other things as well.”

“My duty is to you, Melindora Nightsilver.”

“Your duty is to your heart, Beltan of Calavan. And you must never forget that.”

Beltan grinned, but it was a sad expression. “In this case, I don’t think it’s my heart that’s requested of me.”

“And how do you know that? Have you asked?”

Beltan said nothing, but Grace knew she had already heard much more than she should have. She moved back a step.

Beltan’s hand started toward the hilt of his sword. “I heard something.”

Melia stayed his hand with a light touch. “It is nothing, Beltan. A startled animal, that’s all.”

“You’re sure?”

Amber eyes flickered in Grace’s direction. “Yes, I’m quite certain of it.”

Snatching up her skirts, Grace turned and stumbled back the way she had come. Once in the tower, she found her place and lay down. She started to close her eyes, then stopped. Two golden sparks watched her; the kitten still rested against Tira’s arm, eyes open and gazing in her direction.

“She saw me, didn’t she?” Grace whispered. “Just like you do now.”

The kitten licked a paw. With a shiver, Grace turned on her blanket and curled up. And all that night she dreamed of amber moons watching her from an onyx sky.

On their third day of traveling from the Gray Tower, the tumbled line of the Dawning Fells made a sharp bend to the north, and the riders turned to follow it.

Travis sighed as he gazed from his vantage atop Patch’s swaying back. The land they traveled through was beautiful and utterly empty. Before, Travis had seen the occasional daub-and-wattle hovel, or the ruins of an old wall. But now there were no such signs of civilization, abandoned or not.

“It has been many more than a thousand years since people dwelled in this place,” Falken said over the
clop
of hooves when Travis nudged Patch close to the bard’s mount and asked about the history of this land. “We have passed beyond the marches of Toloria, and we are near the Dawn Sea and the southern reaches of what is now called the Wild Coast. But the folk who once walked this place called it DunDordurun, which in their tongue was the In-Between-Land. To them, it was a place of magic.”

Travis looked at the mist-shrouded mountains and at the rugged plains below. A single hawk wheeled against the endless blue sky as a wind sprang up, carrying on it, faint but sharp, the scent of salt and the ocean.

“Who were they, Falken? The ones who lived here?”

The bard gazed at the low, distant line of a ridge
that was too straight and too long to be entirely natural. Lirith and Beltan had guided their horses closer to listen to the bard’s story.

The wind blew Falken’s silver-shot hair from his brow. “Those who remember them call them Maugrim, which means
the Wild Ones
. But in their tongue they were the Gul-Hin-Gul, which as far as I know meant
the True People
. I’m afraid little is known of the Maugrim.”

Beltan laughed. “But I’d be willing to bet my sword that every bit that
is
known is locked up inside your skull, Falken.”

“You’d likely win that bet,” Melia said, drifting closer on her pale mare. Aryn rode just behind, as did Grace and Tira. Only Durge, who scouted the land ahead, was not in earshot of the bard.

“What happened to them?” Travis said. “The Maugrim.”

Falken grinned at their expectant faces. “I’m sorry to disappoint you all, but I’m afraid I don’t know. By the time the folk of Tarras ventured into the north of Falengarth, the Maugrim were already just a fading memory. Some believe they vanished into the Twilight Realm along with the Little People. But I fear it’s more likely they simply dwindled and died out, as many peoples have throughout history.”

Travis frowned. “That’s it?”

“Not every tale makes a good telling.” The bard gazed again at the straight line of the ridge. “Of course, there were always stories whispered in ancient days, about shadows glimpsed in forests or on high hills at twilight. Goblins, the Tarrasians called them. But I’ve met some who thought these shadows and spirits were a remnant of the Maugrim, lingering still in the deepest woods, and atop forlorn hills that were said to be vast and hollow inside, with secret entrances only the Wild Ones could find and open.”

Above, the hawk let out a lonely cry, and the treeless hill slipped away behind them.

It was just after midday when Travis saw the giant. His stomach was growling, and he was beginning to think that complaining to Melia and Falken was almost worth the stark glares he knew such action would win him, when the riders crested a rise, and found themselves gazing into a shallow valley. The land angled down to the thin line of a stream, then rose again on the far side. It was on the green, facing them, that the giant rested. Travis’s jaw dropped open, and he heard gasps to either side.

The giant stretched the entire height of the opposite ridge, his outlines traced in white stone that shone brightly against the jade background. The lines that formed the figure were crude, but powerful and wildly expressive, and the whole made Travis think of drawings he had seen of Paleolithic cave paintings.

Although the giant was manlike in form, his crooked legs and clawed feet reminded Travis of a bird’s. His face was featureless save for the sharp line of a mouth and a single huge eye. Lower down the slope, his barbed phallus jutted above a pair of boldly drawn circles. Despite the enormous organ, there was something about the drawing that kept Travis from thinking it was some ancient symbol of fertility. Maybe it was the two triangles that stuck out from the smiling line of the giant’s mouth like teeth. Or maybe it was the shapes protruding from one of the giant’s clenched hands. Shapes which, if Travis squinted, looked almost like the small, broken forms of people.

Travis glanced to his left at a hissing sound. Melia sat stiffly aback her horse. She clutched the black kitten, fur standing up on the back of its neck, to her chest. Which of them had made the sound, Travis couldn’t say.

“What is it, Melia?” he said.

“I had not thought I would ever see your likeness again,” the lady said, not to Travis. “We destroyed all such images. Or so I thought.”

Falken moved his horse beside Melia’s and laid a hand on her arm. “Calm yourself, Melia. It’s just a drawing. Lines in the dirt, that’s all.”

Her eyes flashed. “And do not lines have power, Falken? Is that not what you always tell me when you speak of your precious runes?”