Beyond the Pale (31 page)

They turned their attention to readying things for the journey tomorrow. Beltan sharpened the edge of his sword with a stone, while Falken polished the rich wood of his lute with a cloth, and Melia hummed a faint song while she sorted through the remaining foodstuffs in their packs. Only Travis was without a task.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked Falken.

“Just stay out of the way, Travis,” the bard muttered.

Travis slouched in a corner. He sat for a time and fidgeted with the Malachorian dagger Jack had given him, but only succeeded in nicking his finger. At that moment he felt utterly and irrevocably useless. He stood up.

“I’m going to go for a walk,” he said.

Melia spoke without looking up from her work. “Just don’t wander too far, Travis.”

Melia’s quiet comment was too much. Being in this strange world was hard enough without everyone always telling him what to do. Anger blossomed in Travis’s chest. He clenched his hands into fists.

“I’m not stupid, you know.” His voice was more hurtful than he intended, but he didn’t care.

Melia looked up from her work. Her expression was neither shocked nor outraged, but merely thoughtful. “I never said you were, dear.”

Travis hardly heard her words. He turned and pushed through the doorway. Another voice murmured something behind him. Falken, most likely. Melia’s voice countered. Then the door shut, and he was alone.

His anger cooled on the dank air. He peered into the dimness all around, and he wasn’t certain if this was the lord’s manor in Eredane, or if it was the farmhouse in Illinois
where he had grown up. Maybe it didn’t make a difference. He would have felt the same, whichever place it was.

Just stay out of the way, Travis
. He had heard those words before. Only it was his father’s voice that had spoken them years ago, not the bard’s.
That’s the only job morons are good at. Leave the real work to people who can tell left from right
.

Travis shook his head. The memories of Illinois melted like shadows on the dim air. He was in Eredane once more.

“Wherever that is,” he said with a bitter laugh.

Travis knew he should go back into the chamber, but he was restless, and he wandered down the corridor instead, past closed doors and clumps of cobweb. After a few dozen paces, the corridor ended. A shuttered window was set into the stone wall. He pushed against the shutters, but they were stuck tight. He gritted his teeth and pushed harder. There was a groan of straining wood, then all at once the shutters flew outward.

Travis leaned through the window and breathed in rain-sweet air. He found himself gazing at what must have once been a garden behind the manor house. Now it was a profusion of nettles and witchgrass. Falken was right. The storm had blown over. Night had fallen, and only a few tatters of cloud drifted against the sky. They glowed in the light of the moon.

The night air was frosty, but Travis did not mind. The cold cleared his head. For a time he was content to stare into the moonlit garden. Sometimes life was as tangled as the nettles, and just as stinging.

His breath clouded on the air. It was past time to be getting back to the others. He reached out to draw the shutters closed.

Movement caught his eye. Travis froze. Deep in the garden, a patch of shadow stirred. It flowed toward the far wing of the manor, opposite Travis’s window, and there it joined with another, thinner shadow that had clung close to the wall of the manor. A sound drifted on the air, like the moan of the wind. Or like the whisper of voices.

The moon passed behind a cloud, and the garden was plunged into darkness. Travis held his breath, afraid to move. He counted a dozen heartbeats. The cloud drifted on,
and the light of the moon spilled into the neglected garden once more.

The shadows were gone.

Travis breathed out. He scanned the garden but saw nothing. Most likely the shadows had been tricks of the moonlight. A jaw-cracking yawn escaped him, and only then did he realize how tired he was. He pulled the shutters closed and turned back down the hallway.

He paused when he reached the door to their chamber. No sounds came from the other side. The others would be asleep by now. Travis did not want to wake them—he had caused enough trouble with his outburst. There was a small alcove set into the wall a few paces away. It was not exactly a proper bed, but at least it would protect him from the worst drafts, so he wrapped himself in his mistcloak and curled up inside. Travis would have thought sleep difficult, but weariness stole over him, and he sank into dreamless slumber.

A sizzling sound woke him. With it came an uncomfortable heat against his face. Travis opened his eyes. At once he sat up in terror, his back against the wall of the alcove. He could not tear his eyes away from the glowing iron brand that hovered before him, inches from his forehead.

Lord Sebaris clucked his tongue. His glassy eyes reflected the red-hot glow of the brand. “Better you had not awakened, my friend,” he said in a whisper. “The pain is worse when you know it is coming.” The brand moved an inch closer.

Travis tried to speak through the fear that constricted his throat. The stench of hot metal was sharp in his lungs. “Why?” he said. “Why are you doing this?”

Now the look in the lord’s eyes was one of regret. “I must mark you. I must mark all of you. It is the only way to be safe.” He licked thin lips. “Don’t you see? They will not kill you if they think you are one of them!”

Sweat rolled down Travis’s forehead and stung his eyes.
He tried to back away but could retreat no farther. He gasped the words. “Who are they?”

“Who else?” Sebaris said. “The dark ones! The followers of the Raven!”

The lord hesitated, then lifted his free hand to push the lank hair away from his forehead. Two puckered lines marked the flesh of his brow. The ragged scars formed a symbol—a symbol Travis knew well. It could almost be an eye, but it wasn’t. Instead it was meant to be the wing of a raven. Only at that moment did Travis realize the end of the brand had been wrought into the mirror image of that shape. He stared, his horror renewed.

“Ah, you understand!” Sebaris’s voice was a croak of triumph. “You have seen the dark ones before. You know I must do this.” He tightened his thin fingers around the grip of the iron brand. The end glowed like a coal. “If you do not struggle, the pain will be a little less.”

Travis knew he should cry out, that he should resist, but fear paralyzed him. With a mad grin, Sebaris tensed, ready to press the brand against Travis’s flesh. Just then the muffled sound of shouts came from behind the door where the others were. Travis heard the dull ring of a sword being drawn. There was a low thump, and a bubbling cry of pain.

Sebaris glanced toward the door.

Travis knew this was his only chance. The paralysis of fear shattered. He grabbed Sebaris’s arm, thrust the glowing brand aside, and knocked the lord backward. The two rolled into the corridor, and the brand clattered against the stone floor. Travis tried to disengage from his foe, but Sebaris fought back with a shocking strength Travis had not expected, given his emaciated body. With a grunt of pain, Travis found himself on his back. Sebaris dug sharp knees into his chest and wrapped clammy hands around his throat. Travis choked for breath. Sebaris grinned and tightened his cruel grip. Now stars exploded before Travis’s eyes. That was when the voice spoke.

The word, Travis. Remember the word I spoke to you
.

Travis supposed the voice was a figment of his oxygen-starved brain. Yet it sounded so much like Jack’s—just like the voice that had spoken when he touched the broken rune in Kelcior. The world spun around him. It would be so easy
to sink down into darkness. All he had to do was close his eyes, then peace would come.

No, Travis! Don’t close your eyes
!

He fought to remain conscious. Sebaris frothed at the mouth now. The sounds of fighting behind the closed door had ended.

You must speak it, Travis. Speak the word
!

Travis was tired, so terribly tired. But he couldn’t let Jack down. He lifted a hand and rested it against the lord’s sunken chest. The sound that issued from his lips was a barely audible croak.

“
Krond.
”

Flame burst into being around Travis’s hand. Crimson tongues licked at Sebaris’s robe, and the threadbare cloth ignited like tinder. With a shriek, Sebaris threw himself back, away from Travis. He beat at the flames with gnarled hands, but the effort was futile. In moments the lord blazed like a torch. He raised bony arms above his head in a gesture of exultation.

“I come to you, my dark king!”

He stumbled backward, into a tapestry that hung upon the wall. Flames raced up the rotten weaving to lick the wooden beams above. Sebaris pitched forward. By the time the lord struck the floor, there was nothing left of him besides a charred husk.

Travis gagged, clutched his bruised throat, and pulled himself to his knees. He looked up to see Falken in the open doorway. Melia and Beltan were just behind him. The big knight gripped his sword, the blade dark with blood. All of them wore looks of astonishment.

“How, Travis?” Falken asked softly. “How did you do that?”

Travis looked at his hand, but the skin was smooth and undamaged. The flames that had incinerated Sebaris had not so much as touched him. He opened his mouth but could not speak.

“There’s no time for that now,” Melia said.

Flames raced along the wooden beams of the ceiling. Falken gave Travis one last hard look, then nodded. Beltan pulled Travis to his feet. Together the four stumbled down the corridor. Thick smoke filled their lungs, and blazing
beams crashed down on their heels. Travis wondered what had become of the serving girl, Kirtha. Then he remembered the bandage that had covered her forehead and knew that, wherever she was, it was already too late to save her.

Gasping for air, the four burst into the night outside. They did not stop running until they reached the stable. Then they turned just in time to see the entire roof of the manor house collapse. The stone walls cracked with a sound like thunder and sank inward. Sparks rose into the onyx sky, winking like crimson eyes.

Travis drew a cooling breath into his seared lungs. It was painful to speak, but the words were audible. “What happened in the chamber?”

“Two men slipped through the window,” Falken said. “They were Raven cultists. I think they would have slain us had Beltan not been keeping watch.”

“No.” Travis shook his head. “They didn’t come to kill.”

Melia gave him a sharp look, but his throat hurt too much to explain any further. Later he would tell them about the iron brand and Sebaris’s terrible words.

Beltan wiped his sword against the grass and thrust it back into the scabbard at his hip. “Whatever the cultists wanted, they weren’t easy to kill. I ran one through the gut, and he still kept coming. He didn’t stop until I lopped his head off. But that was nothing compared to what you did to old Sebaris, Travis. How by Vathris did you—”

Melia laid a gentle but firm hand upon the knight’s arm. “Enough, Beltan. Such things can wait.”

Travis shivered. He wondered the same thing as Beltan. He closed his eyes and saw Sebaris again, writhing as the flames consumed him, cackling in mad glee.

“There’s enough moonlight to ride by,” Falken said. “Let’s get the horses.”

The Lady Grace of Beckett’s education in courtly manners and feudal politics began promptly at dawn the day after her conversation with King Boreas.

She woke to a chiming sound. On instinct her hand went to her hip and fumbled in search of her beeper. The hospital was calling her. Probably Morty Underwood, damn the little worm. She groped, but her blind fingers found only soft cloth. Then the chiming came again, and it was not the electronic whine emitted by a silicon chip, but the bright sound of metal on metal. She threw back the bedcovers and sat bolt upright. Memory of the previous day flooded back to her. Denver Memorial Hospital was a world away now. The thought should have caused her alarm. Instead a feeling like relief washed through her.

Aryn stood at the foot of the high, four-poster bed, a cheerful expression on her pretty face. Her gown today was a lighter shade of blue, the color of the wintry dawn sky outside the chamber’s window. In her left hand she held a silver bell.

“I’m glad you’re finally awake, Grace.” The baroness set the bell on a sideboard. “I was afraid I had chosen far too small a tool for the task, and that I was going to have to call for the king’s trumpeters instead.”

“Mrumph,” Grace said. It was far too early in the morning for humor.

With stiff motions she climbed down from the bed, still clad in yesterday’s rumpled tunic and hose. Though a great deal had happened to her in the meantime, it still had been only a day since the knight Durge had found her lying in a snowdrift. Her bones ached, and she was shivering again.

Now the mirth in Aryn’s large eyes was replaced by concern. “Are you well, Grace?”

Was she well? Grace bit her tongue to stifle a mad laugh. She had left her apartment, her job, her life, had fled men with hearts made of metal, and had found herself in an entirely different world. Was she
well
?

“I’m fine,” she said.

Aryn smiled.

Grace forced her teeth to stop chattering. “Now, this is my first morning in Calavere, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do. What’s first?”

“Bath,” Aryn said, and the word was music to Grace’s ears.

Grace had always thought, in medieval periods, people
bathed once a year whether they needed it or not. Two baths in two days seemed to disprove that theory. On Aryn’s order, a pair of serving maids—the same two young women in dove-gray dresses whom Grace had glimpsed yesterday—brought in a wooden tub and pitchers of steaming water. She noted the serving maids seemed less fearful than the day before. But then, yesterday she had been half-frozen, found on the borders of a mysterious forest, and dressed in what were—for here, at least—outlandish clothes. She supposed it was a little harder to mistake a bony woman shivering in a tunic for a fairy queen.