The Keep of Fire (56 page)

The blond knight glared up at the dragon. “What have you done to her?”

The dragon flexed its wings. “I have done nothing more than speak the truth for her, Sir Knight, as I will speak for you. The one you love is destined to turn from you at the moment your feelings are made clear.”

Beltan’s jaw dropped, but he said nothing as he held on to Melia.

“You speak lies, not truths,” Falken said, his voice bitter.

“That is not so,” the dragon said.

Falken clenched his jaw and was silent.

The dragon cocked its head. “Now, who is next?
How about you, Falken? You, who will never forget his hand in the death of a kingdom. Or what of the stout Embarran there?” The dragon swung its head toward Durge. “Strong as stone, you present yourself, Sir Knight, and yet your heart is tender and weak with feelings for another, is that not so? If only you were young and handsome enough to deserve her.”

Durge stood stiffly, gazing at the horizon.

“And here are two Daughters of Sia,” the dragon crooned, turning its eyes on Lirith and Aryn, “both doomed to betray their sisters and their mistress.”

The women clasped hands but did not speak, and the dragon sidled toward Grace, stone cracking beneath its taloned feet. Grace wanted to flee, but her legs were columns of ice.

“And what secrets shall I speak for you?” the dragon said. “Shall I tell you of the girl? Do you not wonder how she spoke the name of a runelord?”

Grace ground the words like glass between her teeth. “Leave … her … alone.”

Again laughter rumbled in the dragon’s throat. “No, it is the girl who will leave you before the end—I promise you that, Your Majesty. You should let me take her now. It would be so much easier for you all.”

Grace held on to Tira. The girl was still, gazing at the dragon with tranquil eyes.

“Very well,” the dragon said, rearing back. “One last secret I will speak. For you, Blademender.” Its head flicked from Grace to Travis. “And for you, Runebreaker. Both of you seek the Keep of Fire, where Krondisar is imprisoned. Know that you will find it. And know also that both of you will die there.”

Beltan pulled himself away from Melia, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword, his face solemn. “No they won’t—not if I have anything to do with it.”

The dragon’s eyes glittered. “Oh, you will, Sir Knight. You will.”

Beltan’s jaw worked, but no words came out. The wind howled over stone, and the sky deepened to slate. The dragon spread its wings: a bank of fog expanding.

“Go now, Runebreaker. Soon this vile world will end—this horrible, finite rock to which we have been chained—and we will return to the beautiful twilight of before. And it is you who shall bring this end about.”

Travis bowed his head, then he looked up, and Grace gasped. The expression on his face was one of sorrow, but one of strength as well. He gripped the small piece of bone that hung at his throat: the rune of hope.

“I think you’re wrong, Sfithrisir,” Travis said quietly. “Secrets aren’t power. I think they’re like fire. And if you keep them long enough, they’ll burn you.”

The dragon spoke again, and this time its voice smoldered with hate. “Go before I change my mind and destroy you all.” The creature pumped its wings and sprang into the air, soaring into the fading sky. One last cry drifted from above. “Go, Runebreaker! Go destroy the world by saving it!”

For a time they stood as the wind moaned over bare stone. Finally, Grace looked at the others, their faces stricken. She met Travis’s eyes, and he nodded. Then, together, they left the valley to the falling night.

The nine travelers did not speak as they rode into the hot mists of dawn, leaving behind the door, the valley, and the dark temple.

Grace understood their silence. Each of them had something to think about now—a secret the dragon Sfithrisir had revealed to them. As the sheer cliffs of the Fal Erenn vanished in the fog behind them, she cast a glance to her left. Travis bounced in the saddle aback his shaggy gelding. Behind his spectacles, his gray eyes reflected the hazy horizon.

Both of you seek the Keep of Fire … both of you will die there.…

Despite the already-rising heat, Grace shivered. Her gaze moved down to the too-thin girl in the ragged smock perched before her on Shandis’s withers.

It is the girl who will leave you before the end—I promise you that.…

As if sensing eyes on her, Tira looked up, her crimson hair tumbling away from her half-scarred face. She grinned, then bent her head to continue playing a game with the burnt doll.

Shall I tell you of the girl? Do you not wonder how she spoke the name of a runelord? …

The word still echoed in Grace’s mind, spoken in a clear, perfect voice.
Mindroth
. But how
had
Tira known that name—a name that of them all only Travis, Falken, and Melia had ever heard before? And how was it that Tira had never spoken before that moment? Nor had she last night, despite Grace’s repeated attempts to coax her into speaking.

Grace lifted a hand, hesitated, then let herself stroke Tira’s brilliant, tangled hair. She wanted to tell herself that everything the dragon had said was a lie, even as she knew with that terrible certainty she sometimes experienced that all of it had been truth.

It was late morning when Grace finally dared to break the silence, guiding Shandis close to Falken’s black stallion to ask the bard about the dragon.

“I know little enough of the Gordrim to tell you, he said, tightening his gloved hand around the reins. “As Sfithrisir said, the dragons are great acquirers of secrets, but they seldom part with anything contained in their hoards of knowledge.”

Grace’s brow crinkled. “They. You mean there are more of them?”

“There were, yes. Agamar was the first dragon, and she dwelled in Sinfathmal, the Sea of Twilight which existed before the Worldsmith spoke the First Rune, separating the gray into light and dark, and forging the world Eldh to spin between them. When she saw what the Worldsmith had done, this—” With a sweeping gesture Falken took in the world around them. “—this creation, Agamar was enraged. In her fury, she gave birth to a great brood, which she sent to Eldh to war with the children of the Worldsmith, the Old Gods and the Little People. Most of Agamar’s spawn were lesser creatures, small serpents of shadow. But there were a dozen nearly as powerful as herself. Osthrasa, whom Sfithrisir claimed as his
dam, was perhaps the most dread and terrible of them all.”

Grace thought of the dragon’s hissing words. “And do you think he was telling the truth?”

Falken shrugged. “It is said that dragons do not lie, for the truth serves their purposes better. Certainly there are none more wise and ancient than the Gordrim.”

“And none more cruel,” Melia said. The lady had guided her pale mount close to Grace and Falken. “The dragons speak truth. But they do not speak all of it, and what they do they utter in a way intended to taint, to poison, and to gnaw at the heart. The dragons want nothing more than to bring to ruin all of creation, and to return to the shapeless mists before time. Do not forget that when you think on what Sfithrisir told you.”

Falken sighed. “And you as well, Melia.”

The lady pressed her lips together, then turned her gaze away and said nothing more.

It was nearing dusk on that first day after leaving the valley when they came upon the first signs of the Burning Plague. While scouting, Beltan espied a village beneath a hill. However, when they reached the track that led to the village, they saw something that brought them all to a halt.

It was a scarecrow fashioned of sticks and rags, lashed to a pole thrust into the dirt. The crude effigy had been set on fire, then deliberately extinguished before the flames could consume it entirely. Even without words, the message of the scarecrow was clear:
The Burning Plague is here
.

They snatched cloaks to their faces against the gritty, ash-filled wind, then steered their horses wide of the silent village below.

The next day dawned hotter than the last. The sun oozed through the mist but did not burn it off, instead
transforming it into a ruddy miasma that pulsed on the air as they rode.

The heat made Grace feel dull and weak, and she was always thirsty, no matter how often they stopped to scoop water from a brackish stream or pool. The flies were particularly bad; the insects descended from the hazy sky in black clouds, alighting on every bit of exposed skin. Dozens of times Grace was forced to lean forward and brush the flies from Shandis’s oozing eyes. In minutes they were back, thicker than ever.

Twice that day they came upon the half-charred scarecrows that warned of plague, once at a crossing of two tracks, and again in front of the burnt-out husk of a lone farm. At times, when the fog lightened a fraction, they saw columns of smoke rising in the distance, melding with the leaden sky. As dusk gathered, they glimpsed sparks of fire to the north, and they rode long into the night to leave the lights behind.

The next morning they came upon a village that bore no warning sign outside of it because there was no one left alive to raise one.

The others gave the village a wide berth, but despite Falken’s protests Grace insisted on riding among the houses. She needed to examine the victims, to see how the pandemic was progressing. She had to know what they were up against.

“I’ll go with you, my lady,” Durge said, and Grace gave his hand a grateful squeeze.

However, once in the village she wondered if Falken was right, if she should have ridden around it with the others.

Death had come swiftly there, that much was clear. Grace and Durge walked among the rude hovels with wine-soaked rags tied around their mouths and noses. Bodies lay strewn everywhere. It seemed that many of them had dropped in the midst of action—drawing
water from a well, carrying a companion, digging a grave for an infant wrapped in a filthy shroud.

“My lady,” Durge said in a choking voice, “we should not be in this place.”

Grace swallowed her gorge. “I’ll only be a minute or two, Durge. You can wait for me outside the village.”

However, the knight planted his feet firmly on the ground as she bent to examine the bodies.

It was the Burning Plague, of that there could be no doubt. All the symptoms were in evidence: the blisters, the darkening of the eyes, the hardening of the flesh. However, in none of the victims was the metamorphosis as complete as she had seen before. All had died before reaching at most the intermediate stages of the transformation.

“We must be getting closer,” she murmured.

Durge stepped toward her. “My lady?”

“It’s killing them faster,” she said, standing and wiping her hands against her gown. “Much faster. But that makes sense. Virulence and mortality are always higher at the center of a pandemic region than at the fringes.”

“What does it mean, my lady?”

Grace met his somber brown eyes. “It means we’re getting closer to the origin of the contagion.”

They returned to the others outside the village, and Grace described what she and Durge had found. As they mounted their horses, Lirith glanced at Grace.

“Do you remember what Daynen said at Falanor?” The witch brushed ashes from her black hair. “About how Eddoc found Tira on his return from a journey to Perridon?”

“What is it?” Beltan said. “Do you think we might be able to find her home here?”

Grace stared at the witch and the knight. What
were they saying? Dread spilled into her chest, and she tightened her arms around the girl on the saddle before her.

Aryn cast a haunted look over her shoulder, at the silent gathering of hovels behind them. “What if
this
village was her home?”

Lirith and Beltan did not reply.

“I believe,” Melia said, her amber eyes glowing, “that Tira wishes to stay with Lady Grace.”

At these words the girl threw her arms out to either side, tilted her head back, and laughed. Grace cast a startled glance at Melia, but the lady had already nudged her white mare into a trot. The others followed. And after that they spoke no more of finding Tira’s home.

It was late afternoon when Melia raised a small hand, bringing the party to a halt.

“Let us stop here for the evening,” she said.

Lirith eyed the horizon. “There is yet an hour of daylight left, Lady Melia.”

“True,” Falken said, nudging his horse forward. “But I think we could all do with a bit of rest in this place.”

Curious, Grace gazed past Melia and Falken and saw a ring of tall, narrow trees. The circle of foliage was dense and complete, save for an arch formed of intertwined branches, which provided entrance to a dim space beyond. Grace drew in a breath, and while she could still detect the faint, acrid stench of smoke, a new scent overpowered it, one as sharp, fresh, and invigorating as witch hazel.

“What is this place?” she said to no one in particular.

Travis guided his horse toward hers. “It’s a
talathrin.”

Aryn glanced at him. “A
talathrin
. But what is that?”

“It’s a Way Circle, dear,” Melia said. “The
Tarrasians created many of them of old, to offer a haven to those traveling through inhospitable lands.”