Blood of Mystery (42 page)

Vani rested her hands on her hips. “Wait a moment. As you said, we’ve seen Travis Wilder work great deeds with the Stone in his possession. What did you name it? The Stone of Twilight?”

“It’s called Sinfathisar,” Falken said.

“But Travis is lost.”

A cold hand seemed to grip Beltan’s heart. He understood what Vani was getting at. “That’s right. Travis has the Stone of Twilight. As long as he stays lost, there’s no way Mohg can get it.” Which meant it was better if Travis never came back to Eldh. He saw pain flicker across Vani’s face, and he knew she had come to the same realization.

“How do you know?” Grace said, her eyes haunted. “How do you know Mohg can’t get to Travis where he is? Maybe Mohg has already gotten Sinfathisar. And Krondisar, too. Maybe that’s why Tira’s star has vanished.”

Falken laid a hand on her arm. “No, Grace. Whatever’s happened, that’s not it. Because if it had, we’d have already lost. Remember the words in the book—somehow Travis wrote that message. We know he didn’t do that before he was lost, so somehow it had to be after. And you still have the iron key Sky gave you. We’re going to get the shards of Fellring, and then we’re going to the Black Tower. We’ll find Travis there.” He tightened his grip on her arm. “I promise you.”

Grace pressed her lips into a thin line and said nothing.

And what about you, Beltan? Do you think Falken’s right?

He didn’t know. On the one hand, it seemed a grave peril for Travis to return to Eldh with Sinfathisar. They had to do everything they could to keep the Stone out of the Pale King’s hands. Then again, Beltan knew that he would risk any danger, no matter how dire, to see Travis again, to tell him how he felt.

Really, Beltan? Even if it meant hearing him tell you that it’s
another he wants, not you?

Feelings rose in him: a muddied torrent of fear, need, and anger. He glanced at Vani. She was looking at him. He could feel his lip curling back from his teeth and couldn’t stop it. Her eyes narrowed, then she stalked away into the mist.

They spent the rest of the day pacing, restless. Time slipped past silently, like the white ship as it ghosted through the Winter Sea. For a time Beltan leaned over the rail, watching chunks of ice go by. As the day wore on, the pieces of ice grew larger and more frequent. However, none of them so much as grazed the hull.

The mist cleared with the coming of night, and once again stars glinted in the sky like chips of crystal. The pitcher on the table was refilled with the clear liquid, of which they again partook—although Sindar continued to remain apart. It seemed to Beltan that the man’s green-gold eyes were troubled, and occasionally a spasm would pass across his face, usually when he was gazing at Grace. Were his fragmented memories coming back to him?

Once again the clear, sweet liquid lifted Beltan’s spirits, although it couldn’t entirely calm the pain in his chest. It felt like a splinter of ice had lodged in his heart, and it was working its way deeper. He was glad when, after setting down her cup, Vani stalked away, vanishing like one of the shadowy figures that slunk about the boat, working at tasks Beltan could neither name nor imagine.

After that, Beltan again stood at the rail, looking for dark silhouettes reaching up from the horizon to blot out the stars— a sign that land was close at hand. According to Falken, no one had been to Toringarth in centuries. What would they find there? However, despite straining his eyes, Beltan saw nothing but the dim shapes of icebergs drifting like ghostly islands.

“What do you think happened to her?” Grace said.

Beltan nearly jumped. He had been concentrating so hard he hadn’t seen her approach. She was gazing at the sky. Not the north, but the south. He understood. She was gazing at the place where the red star had shone.

“I don’t know.”

Grace shivered, although it couldn’t be from cold, not there on the ship. “Do you think Tira’s all right?”

“She’s a goddess, Grace. I’m sure she’s fine.”

Except they knew now that gods weren’t invulnerable, that they could be killed. The demon had taught them that.

Grace sighed and looked down. There was something in her hand. Beltan moved closer; it was the iron key Sky had given her in Tarras, the key to the Black Tower of the Runebreakers. She must have heard Beltan’s sharp intake of breath, because she looked up at him.

“We’ll find him, Beltan.” Her words were quiet but strong. “We’ll find him for the world. And for you.”

He clenched his jaw; the splinter of ice dug a fraction deeper into his heart. “I’m not so certain it’s for me that he wants to be found.”

“He loves you,” Grace said simply.

“What’s love against fate?”

Grace closed her hand over the key. “If the Mournish are right, he doesn’t have a fate.”

In the night, two glints of gold shone for a moment, then were gone.

“No,” Beltan said, voice gruff. “But she does have a fate. And maybe I do, too.”

One of the queer shadows passed nearby, and he shuddered.

Grace touched his shoulder. “You can feel them, can’t you?”

“I’ve been feeling them ever since Omberfell. But the feeling is stronger here. It’s like snow.” He shook his head. “No, it’s like cold fire. I can feel it in my blood.”

Grace touched her necklace. “Maybe we all have something in our blood. Like a mystery waiting to be discovered. Something we can’t escape no matter how hard we try.” She lowered her gaze, and her words seemed for herself rather than him. “No, I won’t believe that. I won’t believe everything is planned out, that there’s no way to avoid destiny. All of this, all we’ve done—it can’t be for nothing.”

“Grace?”

“Promise me, Beltan.” She looked at him. “Don’t let fate decide what happens to you. Or to Travis. Promise me you’ll be the one to decide in the end.”

Beltan wasn’t sure he understood. How could he decide something if it wasn’t in his power? However, there was an urgency in her eyes, so he nodded and promised he would do his best. This seemed to satisfy her, and she left him to go look for Falken.

Beltan had no wish for more conversation himself. Some said misery favored companionship, but Beltan knew it flourished best in solitude. Sindar was at the prow of the ship again, and Grace and Falken would likely be at its center, so Beltan headed toward the ship’s stern.

He tripped over something that made a bright
clang
. Beltan let out a curse, then bent down to see what it was that had caught his boot.

It was an iron ring fitted into the deck. In the dim light he saw the outline of a square—a trapdoor. He knew it hadn’t been there before; he had gone over every inch of the ship.

“You should go fetch Falken,” Beltan whispered. He knew the bard would want to see this. However, even as he thought this, Beltan gripped the ring and pulled. The hatch lifted easily, making no sound. Beyond was darkness. Beltan reached into the opening and felt the first rung of a wooden ladder. He held his breath a moment, then swung himself through the opening and climbed down the ladder.

He wasn’t certain when he first became aware of the light. It was soft at first but grew stronger as he descended. The light was not the smoky red of a torch, but rather a gentle green-gold that made him think of Grace’s eyes. A scent rose on the air, fresh as water, and he realized that he had been climbing for some time, that he must have gone several fathoms down, impossible since no ship had so deep a hold. He glanced up, and he could see the ladder leading up to the black square of the trapdoor, and beyond that the faint pinpricks of stars. Somewhat reassured, he continued his descent.

The ladder ended. His boots landed on, not hard wood, but spongy turf. Beltan turned around, and wonder filled him.

He was in a garden. Slender trees grew in a circle all around, their arching branches entwining into a canopy overhead, their leaves fluttering in a warm breeze. Drops of sunlight dappled the mossy ground like scattered coins. Daisies gazed at him with moist eyes; somewhere birds sang.

“This is impossible,” Beltan said, but the words were merely a habit, like blinking. Everything about this ship and this journey was impossible; all the same, here he was. He drew in a breath, and a feeling of peace filled him. Whatever this place was, surely no evil could come here.

He walked deeper into the garden, brushing flowers with his fingertips. There was a path, leading off through a grove of trees; he followed it, and the sound of water grew louder. A curtain of ferns draped over the path. Beltan parted the fronds. Beyond was a grotto where a brook tumbled over stones into a pool. Lilies floated on the water. A thirst rose in him, and he knelt to drink from the pool.

Just as he brought his cupped hands to his mouth, there came a soft sound behind him: footsteps against the mossy ground. He froze. Perhaps there was danger in this garden after all. Beltan waited, ready to spring into action. The footsteps stopped. In the mirror of the pool, a face appeared over his shoulder, next to the reflection of his own.

His heart ceased to beat. Water poured between his fingers, and ripples spread out over the pool, obscuring the image. Beltan rose and turned around.

He looked just as he had in Tarras, that night they met beyond the circle of the Mournish campfire: all in black, his head smooth-shaven, wearing a reddish goatee and silver earrings. Different than he looked when they first met—paler, older— but still
him
. His gray eyes were solemn, only then he smiled, and with a sharp jolt Beltan’s heart started beating again, faster than before.

“Travis?” The word was barely a whisper. He swallowed. “By the Blood of Vathris, is that really you?”

Travis kept smiling as he moved closer. He smelled clean, alive, like the forest. A wave of dizziness crashed over Beltan, and he staggered. Travis gripped his arm with a steadying hand. His touch was warm and solid.

Beltan was trembling, trying to comprehend. “We thought we had lost you in the Etherion—I thought I had lost you. Only you weren’t there. We learned that when they cleared away the rubble, and we’ve been searching ever since, for you and the others. But we didn’t know where you’d gone. And now you’re here. Except how can that be? How can you—?”

Travis lifted a finger to his lips and shook his head. He was right; there was no point trying to understand. Wasn’t this ship impossible, this garden? Why shouldn’t Travis be there? How he had come to be in that place, where the others were—those were questions that could wait. At that moment Beltan had to tell him what he had been wanting to say for the past year, and this time no one could possibly interrupt them.

Beltan’s voice grew fiercer. “I didn’t give up looking for you. I would never give up, no matter how far away you were, no matter how many worlds were between us. I knew the day I met you in Kelcior that I was going to love you, that I would never be able to stop myself. You’re the one thing in my life that makes me feel like a better man.” Beltan dared to press a hand to his cheek, stroking the roughness of his beard with a thumb. Still Travis did not speak.

“It’s all right. You don’t have to say anything. I know you’re as far above me as the stars above the stones. You’re a runelord, after all, and I’m just a bastard. And I know...” The words were bitter, but Beltan forced himself to speak them. “...I know that you love Vani, and that she loves you. I haven’t been very kind to her on this journey, but she’s strong and brave and good. You deserve someone like her. And I’ll keep away from you both, if that’s what you wish. I just wanted to tell you what’s been in my heart all these months, and now I have.” Beltan felt a strange resolve; it was sorrowful, yes, but comforting as well. He knew what he had to do. “So if you want me to go away, I will. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

Travis smiled again, then kissed him.

Beltan was stunned for only a moment, then he returned the embrace. It felt easy, natural, for Travis was nearly as tall as he. They pressed against one another, as if making up for the distance that had separated them before. A tingling welled up in Beltan, warmer and more urgent than what he felt when the fairies passed nearby. This was not the answer he had expected, but by all the gods he would accept it.

A soft sound of dismay escaped him as Travis stepped back, but delight returned as Travis pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it down. He was leaner than that day when they had bathed together in a frigid stream in Eredane, talking about scars; his body had been hardened by his travails on two worlds. Dark red hair traced a line down his stomach. Beltan shrugged off his tunic and they stood close again, chest to chest.

So many times Beltan had imagined this moment, but his foolish fantasies were nothing to this. It was neither awkward nor overpowering. Instead it felt simple, true. Not as if they were meant for one another, as if it were fate. Instead it was like stumbling upon a key lying in the road and finding that, against all odds, it fit the lock to his heart. Whether he would turn the key was up to him. Grace was right—it wasn’t destiny. It was his choice. Their choice.

“I love you, Travis Wilder.” Beltan said the words like a vow, circling his arms around Travis, meeting his gray eyes. “No matter what may be, no matter where we are, I will always love you.”

Travis laughed, then sank to the mossy ground, pulling Beltan down after him.

48.

Vani woke to gold light filtering through her lashes.

She lay on the mossy ground, naked, but she was not cold. His arms still encircled her, holding her close against the hard warmth of his body. She opened her eyes a fraction more and saw the lilies floating in the pool beside which she had found him. She must have dozed off. How long had she been asleep? It seemed as if they had lain here together for hours, but the angle of the light had not changed.

You should return to the ship above. You should find the others and tell them of this place, of what you’ve found.

No, not yet. She wanted this moment to last just a little longer. After all, she had been waiting all her life for it.

Vani still remembered the first time her al-Mama had read her fate. She had been five summers old—there was no use reading the
T’hot
cards for one who was younger, for an infant’s Fate was not yet fully formed—and they sat together in the cramped, cozy space of their family wagon. Her al-Mama shuffled the cards, then made Vani cut them—a difficult task, for her hands were small. Then she had watched as al-Mama laid the cards out one by one, clucking and humming under her breath.

“Does it say whom I’m to marry?” Vani had asked, for one of her older cousins had just wed, and ever since her mind had been consumed with fantasies of marriage.

“It is as I suspected, and as your father and mother fear,” al-Mama said, tapping two cards: a citadel crossed by a woman holding a sword. “You are to be wed to steel, married to knives.” She pointed to three cards arranged beneath the two: One showed a pair of lovers, one the moon, and one a grinning skull. “No man will have you for a lover. Death will be your only consort in the fortress of Golgoru.”

That was the first time Vani heard the name Golgoru, the Silent Fortress where she would spend nine years of her life training to become
T’gol
. But that day, when she was five, she thought nothing of the name.

“But I have to marry someone, al-Mama,” she had said, frowning.

“It is not the fate of those who enter Golgoru to wed,” her al-Mama replied. “Their destiny is to—what’s this?” The old woman’s fingers fluttered to another trio of cards, lying above the crossed two. “The Empress, the City, the Magician. But no, it cannot be. Or can it?” She had looked up, her gold eyes thoughtful.

Her al-Mama had not told her what the cards meant, not that day. However, she had spoken to Vani’s mother and father, and Vani had crept into the shadows—skilled at keeping silent even as a child—and had listened as they spoke.

“She is our only daughter,” her father had said, his face ruddy with anger. “I will not send her away to the vultures of the Silent Fortress.”

“You have no choice,” al-Mama snapped at him. “It is her fate.”

“What of the other cards, Mother?” Vani’s own mother asked, her eyes shadowed.

The older woman passed a hand before her eyes. “It is a mystery, yet the cards cannot lie. One day she will bear a child to him.”

“To whom?” her father demanded.

“To the sorcerer who will raise Morindu the Dark from the sands of time,” al-Mama said. And neither of Vani’s parents had had an answer to that.

Her father had resisted and delayed for many years, but in the end—tired and gray and broken—he had relented to the will of the Mournish elders and sent Vani to Golgoru in the autumn of her twelfth year. Vani had not wanted to leave her mother and brother. And she had known, if she left, she would never see her father alive again. But she had had as little choice as he, and she had ridden on a pony alone into the Mountains of the Shroud without looking back. She had cursed fate all the way.

However, as the years passed, she grew to like her training, then to love it. There was a joy to giving in to fate, to being what one was destined to be, and she excelled at her studies. Many entered the Silent Fortress; few left as
T’gol
, or in so few years as Vani. Many took thirteen or more. She passed the ordeals in nine.

Joyous, she had returned to her people, only to find that in her absence her mother had followed her father to the grave. But she still had Sareth and her al-Mama. And she still had her other fate, which had not changed. The cards were the same on her twenty-first birthday as on her fifth. The Empress. The City. The Magician.
One day she will bear a child to him.

The cards could not lie, that much Vani had learned. She would be wed after all—to the one who would restore all of the secrets lost to her people two eons ago. Ten more years had passed. And then...

Vani shifted, pressing her back against his naked chest, and he sighed in his sleep. She had dared to use the gate artifact to cross the Void between worlds and find him on his Earth. Often over the years, she had wondered what he would be like. He was a powerful sorcerer, that much she had known. Would he be old and cruel, his face disfigured by scars? If so, she would still have given herself to him; such was destiny. Then she found him, and he was gentle and kind and pleasing of aspect, and that only made her fate seem more true than ever. Everything had seemed exactly as it should be——then they had rescued the blond knight Beltan from the prisons of Duratek.

You should have known, Vani. You’ve read the cards for others
often enough. Fate is always true, yet it is often cruel as well.

She had believed they would fall in love as soon as they met. And they had; the cards had not lied about that. The moment she saw Travis Wilder, she had felt a weakness in her such as she had never experienced in all her years in Golgoru, but it had not been a troubling sensation; rather, she had reveled in it, as if she had craved it all her life. She wanted to give herself to him. And in his eyes, she could see he felt the same. What the cards had not told her was that he already loved another.

Whatever Beltan might think of her, it had never been her desire to steal Travis from him, to cause him hurt.

And is that not what you do? Did not your training make
you skilled in the art of inflicting pain and death?

Yes, but Beltan was every bit as skilled in that craft as she was. If he had been weak, or foolish, or selfish, it would have been easy to disregard him; she would have felt no shame in taking Travis from him. But he was courageous, full of laughter, and possessed of boundless loyalty, and it was precisely for those reasons that she had been so vicious to him on the journey. Beltan had earned Travis Wilder’s love; she had simply been granted it by the shuffle of the cards. If someone had asked her a year earlier if love was more important than fate, she would have laughed at the idea. But now...

He stirred again; he was waking up. His lips nuzzled against the nape of her neck, soft, tender. She smiled, placing her hand atop his, pressing it against her stomach. Perhaps it wasn’t just fate. Maybe she had earned his love as well.

How he came to be in this garden, she didn’t know. She wasn’t certain herself how she had gotten there. It had grown cramped and stifling on the ship; she had been wishing she could get away from the others somehow, to get away from Beltan. Then she had seen the trapdoor in the deck—a trapdoor she was certain had not been there before. Strange as it was, she had opened it, and had followed it down to the garden.

She supposed some magic of the Little People had created this place within the ship, although the garden was certainly too large to be contained within the ship’s hold. It didn’t matter; it was not her nature to question the workings of magic. Some believed the craft of the
T’gol
was worked with sorcery, but all of it—even the skill of making matter phase in and out of being—was worked by focusing the mind.

For a time she had wandered, enjoying the peace and solitude of the garden. Then she had seen him, kneeling next to the pool of water. Whatever magic had created her surrounding, somehow it must have brought him there as well. She had gone to him, and he had stood, smiling at her. He did not speak, and in her shock the truth had bubbled out of her. She told him that it was not simply due to fate that she loved him; she loved him for who he was as a man, and would have even if he were not the one who would someday raise Morindu the Dark from the desert.

He had only smiled at her, stroking her hair with gentle fingers, and words that were more bitter—but still true—spilled from her.

“I do not care what the cards say, what fate demands,” she had said. “I will not cause love to be broken. I know you love the knight Beltan, and that he loves you, that the bond between you is strong and deep. I would not come between you. If you wish me to leave you alone, I will do so. Forever.”

The words were like knives in her heart, but she meant them, and she had stood proud and straight. However, he had touched her cheek, wiping away the moistness there, and without words he had leaned down to kiss her.

In that moment, fear and uncertainty melted. The green scent of the garden intoxicated her like wine. Their clothes had fallen away, and they had sunk together to the soft ground.

Vani had never known the full touch of a man before. She had been sent to Golgoru as a girl, and in those walls men and women were kept in seclusion from one another. In her nine years there, she saw men but once, at her final testing. In the time since, she had known the caresses of admirers, but always she had forced them away before they could have their will with her. They were not her fated. One was forever bound to one’s first lover—whether one wed that lover or not—and it was to him, to the Magician, she wished to be tied.

Now there was no need to resist. After a lifetime of waiting, she wanted him as much as he wanted her; more, even. When first he entered her, she felt a tearing, and there was pain and some blood. However, he was gentle, and he took her from behind, which made the pain less. Soon the pain ceased altogether, and there had been only joy, and finally a sensation she had never experienced before, passing through her in shuddering waves. She heard his cry—the first sound he had made— and felt his warmth coursing deep inside of her.

After that they had lain together, spent, damp with the dew of sweat, content with small caresses. She whispered some things to him—of fate and love and pleasure—and he answered with kisses. Then, at last, naked on the ground in the impossible garden, they had slept.

Behind her, a soft groan escaped him. He released her, straightening his arms as he stretched. So her fated was finally awake. Smiling, she rolled over to face him.

He stared back at her with green eyes, not gray.

For a moment, both of them were too stunned to move. He was naked, as she was. Leaves were tangled in his blond hair, and bits of moss clung to his lean, rangy body. She could see the red marks on his neck where she had nibbled his flesh. Then, as one, they were moving.

It took a moment to untangle her legs from his, then she leaped to her feet, clutching the bundle of her leathers in front of her. He rolled away, snatched up his breeches, then stood with his back to her, hastily tugging them on. By the time he turned around, she had swiftly managed to don her leathers, although there had not been time to fasten the straps and buckles.

“What are you doing here?” Beltan growled. He brushed the moss from his bare chest and arms.

Vani eyed him, wary. “I might ask the same of you.”

“You have to ruin every good thing I have, don’t you? You can’t help yourself.” He advanced on her, his cheeks bright with anger. “Where is he now? I was here with him, then we fell asleep. What have you done with him?”

Indignation rose within her. Why was he always accusing her of wrongdoing? “I have done nothing with him. And it was I who was here with Travis Wilder. I don’t know how or when you got to this place.”

He shook his head, his green eyes clouded with confusion. “What are you talking about? I came down the ladder. I found him here in the garden, and we—”

“No,
I
came down the ladder.” Vani held a hand to her throbbing head. There was moss in her own hair. “It was I who found him here, and together we...”

Despite the balmy air of the garden, a coldness swept over her. Both she and Beltan gazed at the hollowed place on the ground between them, then at one another.

His eyes went wide, and he took a step back, holding up a hand. “By all the Seven...”

A spasm passed through her, and she knew her eyes were every bit as wide as his own. “No, it cannot be.”

Except it was.

“It wasn’t Travis,” he said in a choking voice. “It wasn’t Travis I...it was you. It was you who I...”

She clamped her arms tight over her stomach, fighting an urge to be sick. “It was I to whom you made love. And I to you.” She should have been furious, she should have flown at him in a rage, striking him for what he had done to her, for this disgrace, this humiliation. But she felt only a gray emptiness inside, and a dull ache between her legs. She had thought it was he, her fated, her Magician. And instead it had been Beltan. She had been betrayed. But by whom?

“Blast them,” Beltan snarled, circling around, shaking his fists at the trees. “It was them—the Little People. They did this to us. They tricked us with their enchantments.”

“Yes, but why?”

“I don’t know. But they’ll pay for this. Do you hear me? You’ll be sorry!” He lashed out at one of the trees, striking it. The slender trunk bent under his wrath, then gracefully straightened, unharmed. Leaves shook with a sound like soft, smug laughter.

Vani’s words were weary, resigned. “It’s no use. We can do nothing against their magic. And for whatever reason they wished it, the trick is done.”

Beltan turned on her. “How can you be like this? How can you be so calm? Aren’t you angry at what they did to us, what they did to you?”

“I am well aware of what has been done to me,” she said, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks, but she kept her chin up. “More than you can possibly know. All my life, I have saved myself for him.”

The color drained from his cheeks. He stood still, his hands limp at his side. “Blood and ashes, Vani. I’m sorry. By the gods, I truly am. I shouldn’t have been the one to take that from you, to take your...”