The Keep of Fire (63 page)

“No, friend. Over here.”

He spun around and watched a man step away from a patch of wall that he had stared at seconds ago. How had he not seen the other before? Then he noticed the man’s cloak: The fabric was the exact same gray as all the walls in Spardis.

The man was young—younger than Travis’s thirty-one years, that was certain—slightly built and with a face that was more pretty than handsome. A pointed blond beard adorned his chin, and his eyes were a blue-gray so pale they seemed silver. He held up a hand covered by a pearl-gray glove.

“Hail to the queen. May her secrets never be spoken.”

Travis blinked. “Excuse me?”

The man frowned. He hesitated, then made a complicated motion with the fingers of his left hand. Travis shook his head. What was the other doing?

It happened so fast he didn’t have time to react. The man stepped forward and pressed the tip of a small, sharp dagger to the underside of Travis’s jaw.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Travis Wilder,” he said, too shocked to answer with anything but the truth.

The other’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you get the cloak?”

“What?”

“The cloak!” The man flicked Travis’s mistcloak.

Travis swallowed. “Falken gave it to me.”

For the first time, the other seemed to hesitate. “Falken? You mean Falken Blackhand?”

Travis started to nod, then sucked in a breath as the knife pricked his skin. “Yes.”

The stranger studied him, then in one smooth motion lowered the dagger and stepped back. “I see in
your eyes that you speak the truth. You must forgive me. So many of my order are dead now. I feared you stole the cloak from one who had fallen.”

Travis rubbed his throat. “Your order?”

The stranger said nothing. Travis lowered his hand, then he remembered the man they had encountered at the border of Perridon, the man with the Burning Plague—who had worn a gray mistcloak just like Travis’s.

“You’re a Spider!” he said.

The man raised a slender eyebrow. “I would be within the rights granted me by the monarchy of Perridon to kill you for that knowledge.”

For a reason he couldn’t name, Travis felt suddenly bold. “So why don’t you?”

The man bent and slipped the dagger into his boot. “There has been enough death in this castle of late.”

“What do you mean? Has the plague reached the castle?”

“No. Not yet, at least. We know it’s coming, but that’s all. Some of the Spiders ventured from Spardis to investigate. None of them have returned.” The man turned his silvery eyes on Travis. “And they won’t, will they?”

Travis shook his head.

“I thought as much.”

“I saw one of them,” Travis said. “At the border.”

“And did he have it?”

Travis hesitated, then gave a shallow nod. The Spider turned his head away. He was silent. Finally he turned back.

“So you came here with Falken Blackhand’s party.”

“That’s right.”

The Spider gave a rueful smile. “There was a time not long ago when I would not have had to ask for that information, but I fear we have been … disenfranchised. It has made our work a bit more difficult.”
He held out a hand. “Would you take me to see Falken? I would speak with him.”

“I’m afraid he left a few days ago.”

The Spider winced. “And that I did not know either. Well, it’s no matter. You should go as well, you know.”

“I was just on my way out of the castle.”

The Spider laughed. “Not by this route, you weren’t.”

Travis sighed. “I suppose I’m lost.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Come, I’ll take you to the gates. Or at least most of the way, for it would not do if I were seen. Consider it a favor to Falken Blackhand, for the aid he gave us in times past.”

Without further words, the Spider started down the lane. Travis stared, then jerked into a run before the other was lost to sight. He followed as the Spider moved through a dizzying series of twists and turns. Just when Travis was certain the other was just as lost as he was, they rounded a corner and, through an archway a dozen paces ahead, Travis saw a flat expanse of cobbles and a pair of high gates.

The Spider touched his arm. “Give the guard with the eye patch a gold coin and he’ll let you out. Do you have a gold coin?”

Travis nodded. He had a little Eldhish money Beltan had given him. “Thanks,” he said.

The Spider smiled, his teeth dark with decay. “Don’t mention it.”

Travis was almost sorry to say good-bye. He didn’t even know the Spider’s name, but he found that he liked the man.

“I hope you find a way to help your queen.”

The Spider pressed his lips together, then nodded. Travis turned and started toward the archway.

High and clear, trumpets blared.

A hand clamped on Travis’s shoulder, jerking him back. He stared into the Spider’s inscrutable face.

“What is it?”

The Spider shook his head. “You’re too late, friend.”

“What?”

“The regent returns.”

The Spider pointed toward the castle gates. Travis stared through the archway. Even as he watched the gates swung inward and a man on a prancing white horse rode through, followed by a dozen knights on glossy black chargers. At this distance it was hard to get a clear look at the man on the white horse, but he sat tall and proud in the saddle. His golden hair streamed behind him, as did his cloak of the same color. Ruby light glinted off his brow.

Travis turned back toward the Spider. “Who is that?”

“That, friend, is Regent Darrek. I heard this morning that, once he returned to Spardis, the gates would be sealed, and no one would be allowed to enter or leave for fear of plague. I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere.”

Fear pierced Travis, colder and sharper than the Spider’s dagger. “No!”

“It’s true, friend. Just trying to get past the gates now will land you in the dungeon.”

Travis started to protest, then stopped. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew the other was telling the truth. Turning, he watched the man in gold ride by.

“Here he comes,” the Spider said in a poisonous voice. “Just what the people want. A strong leader for dark times.”

Travis shuddered. “You sound as if you hate him.”

“I do, Travis Wilder. And for good reason. You see, it is he who keeps us from our queen. And it is he who ordered the execution of all members of my order.”

Fear gave way to astonishment as Travis stared at the Spider. The man gave a bitter smile.

“Good luck, friend. And take my advice—don’t wear that cloak of yours where the regent can see it.”

The Spider lifted an arm, and gray fabric fluttered before Travis’s eyes. Travis blinked, and by the time his vision cleared the Spider was gone.

Travis knew better than to try looking for the spy. Instead he took off his cloak, wadded it into a tight ball, and stepped through the archway. He let his eyes linger on the gates. Then he sighed and started back toward his chamber, his shadow stretching out before him.

Lirith pressed her body harder against the rough sandstone wall behind her as another streak of hot, yellow energy annealed the metallic sky.

Get ahold of yourself, sister. It’s only a lightning show, nothing more. You ran out in the rain as a girl to watch noisier storms than this
.

However, this was not southern Toloria, where warm showers gently washed the green hillsides while the scent of flowers rose on the air. Nor was it the noise of the storm that drove needles into her skull until she knew she must scream. Thunder would have been a comfort. Instead the lightning whispered across the sky like serpents, the only sound the hiss of wind-driven sand as it scoured stone, flesh, and nerves alike.

She clamped her eyes shut and searched with her mind again, but it was no use. If there was any trace of the Weirding—any trace of
life
—left in this place, then it was beyond her to detect. The area was called the Barrens for a reason.

After three days of riding across empty grasslands, they had come upon the edge of a stark, broken plain
just before sunset last night. Lightning had flickered in the distance, illuminating sharp heaps of slag thrust up from the ground and the edges of chasms. It struck Lirith like a wall: the sensation of death.

She had gasped. “What is this place, Falken?”

It was Durge who answered in his somber voice. “It is the Barrens, my lady.”

Falken gazed out over the badlands. “This was the place where, long before people came into this world, the Gordrim and the Eldhari—the Dragons and the Old Gods—made war upon each other. The Dragons sought to tear the world down, and the Old Gods to build it back up.”

“So who won?” Durge said.

A sigh escaped Lirith’s lips. “It looks like no one did.”

Falken had cast her a piercing glance, then guided his stallion down a treacherous slope and into the Barrens. Lirith and Durge had followed after.

For what seemed like hours they had picked their way across a shattered land where no rain fell, where no water flowed, and where no life had grown in eons. To Lirith—used to the constant presence of the Weirding all around, encapsulating her like a warm, golden cloak—it was like being shut inside a stifling sarcophagus carved of stone.

Then, finally, they had seen it illuminated in a flash of lightning: massive columns carved from the face of a cliff, and beyond them darkness. Neither Lirith nor Durge had needed Falken to tell them this was the place they had come seeking. The Keep of Fire.

“But why is it so dark?” Durge had said. “I see no guards upon the steps. Should not there be defenses to prevent others from entering?”

Falken had shaken his head. “Dakarreth doesn’t need guards. He has … his own defenses.”

Together they had ridden over the last expanse of cracked stone toward the fortress.

Now Lirith shuddered as another bolt of lightning snaked across the sky. Her view of the world was blocked as a figure stepped down into the hollow where they had sought scant shelter from the storm, and where Falken had told them to wait. She looked up into grim brown eyes.

“Any sign of him?”

The Embarran shook his head, and sand fell from his hair. His mustaches were white with dust.

Lirith forced her mind to calm, letting the panic drain from her like water. “But it’s only been an hour since he went in, hasn’t it?”

It was so hard to tell what time it was. Sunset yesterday had been the last time they had glimpsed the sun. There had been no dawn. Night was the same as day in this place.

“Nay, my lady,” Durge said, squatting beneath the rock overhang to get out of the worst of the blast. “It has been four hours at the least by my count.”

Her fingers scrabbled against sandstone, trying to dig in. She made her hands unclench. “Well,” she said in her most calm voice, “that means he’ll likely return soon.”

“If you wish, my lady.”

Softly spoken as they were, Durge’s words slapped her like the wind. She turned her face away. Falken had gone alone into the fortress of the Necromancer, and they had known better than to argue with the bard on this.

“You are here only for one reason,” Falken had said. “To ride back and warn the others if I fail. If Melia wakes, there is yet a chance of defeating Dakarreth. If I do not return after a day, you are to leave. And you are not to enter the fortress yourselves on any condition. Do you understand?”

Lirith had never seen the bard like this before—his
face was as hard as the wind-blasted rocks. She was not one who frightened easily, but at that moment she had feared Falken. Both she and Durge had nodded. Then, without another word, the bard had left them, ascended thirteen stone steps, and disappeared between two gigantic columns into blackness beyond.

Durge sat on the dusty ground. “I will go back to watch for him, my lady. I just need to … to rest for a moment.”

Lirith studied the knight. The lines in his haggard face were caked with dust, and his shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his mail shirt. How long had it been since he had slept?

How long has it been since any of you slept, sister?

Nor were they likely to. Not there, and not then. But of them all Durge had rested the least on the journey, always watching over them, keeping alert for danger.

Lirith moved deeper beneath the overhang, to the horses who stamped and snorted. She pulled a flask from her pack, then returned to Durge. They each drank a scant sip of water—the flask was less than half-full—then sat in silence, listening for the sound of approaching feet.

“Do you think what it said is true, my lady?”

She looked up.

“The dragon,” he said. “Do you think Falken is right, that it spoke truth?”

Lirith thought of the ancient creature and its soft, poisonous words.

Here are two Daughters of Sia, both doomed to betray their sisters and their mistress
.

And what had the dragon spoken about Durge?

Strong as stone, you present yourself, Sir Knight, and yet your heart is tender and weak with thoughts of another, is that not so? If only you were young and handsome enough to deserve her
.

They were bitter words. Was it thinking of them that made the knight’s shoulders droop so?

Lirith gathered her thoughts. “I believe the dragon spoke
a
truth. A truth it wishes to come to pass, and which it seeks to shape. But there are many truths, Durge. After all, Sfithrisir said that Travis and Grace would die if they came to the Keep of Fire. Yet they are not here, are they?”

Durge grunted, but his brown eyes were distant. Lirith sighed. She wished there was something she could do to ease the kindly knight’s troubles. If only she could Touch the Weirding, she could have taken a bit of its warmth and life and granted it to the man.

But there
was
life in this place. There was herself, and she could give the knight a small amount of the Weirding that flowed through her. It wouldn’t be much—she was weary as well—but it might be enough to help the knight weather the storm: that outside, and that within.

Without asking, she reached out and placed her hand atop his. She shut her eyes, and she could see them both shining against the emptiness all around. With a thought she spun a slender thread from the web of her own life, then reached out and brought the strand in contact with Durge.