The Keep of Fire (11 page)

“She gazed into the fire, to see what lay within.”

Travis shook his head. “She’s blind, then?”

Now it was Child Samanda who smiled, the pink bud of her mouth turning upward in a knowing curve. “Fear not for Sister Mirrim. She has other vision, other eyes.”

It felt as if Travis stood on a carousel, the world slowly spinning around him. “I don’t understand.”

The girl held out a hand. A black shape rested on her small palm: a raven folded of crisp paper.

Travis staggered back and caught himself against the wall. This couldn’t be happening, not again.

“I see it,” Sister Mirrim whispered. “The birds of night have fallen, their wings have been burned. New dark ones come, and all the land shrivels under their touch.” Her hands curled into claws at her sides, and her voice rose into a shrill chant. “The Dead One who was forgotten walks again. He has locked the heart of fire in his prison, and—no! It must not be! He holds a flaming sword in his hand. He will cut a wound in the sky, to grasp the stars, and all the world will drown in a rain of blood!”

Travis stared at Sister Mirrim, and wet horror filled his lungs. Red tears streamed from the bandage that covered her eyes and ran down her cheeks.

“You must go,” the girl said.

Travis tore his gaze from Sister Mirrim and looked down at the child. The paper raven was gone. Her small hand held only ashes, and even as he watched the wind blew these away.

“But where?” His mouth was a desert, his voice a croak. “Where am I supposed to go?”

Wise purple eyes glinted. Her voice was a faint whisper, as if she were already fading. “You must die to be transformed.”

He held out a hand. “No, wait—”

Light struck Travis’s face, blinding him. He turned from the glare of the sun. It was only a second, maybe two, but by the time he turned back the fire-baked ground where both child and woman had stood was empty.

Laughter bubbled in his throat, but he knew it would be a mad sound, and he swallowed it back down. It was easy for them, easy for the ones who went away. But what about him? What about the ones who stayed behind? What were they supposed to do? Then he thought of Sister Mirrim’s eyes, and he knew that it wasn’t easy for any of them.

Travis stepped away from the broken wall, then halted. He still didn’t know where to go. If Child Samanda’s words had held an answer, then he could not grasp it. He considered going back to the saloon, then forced himself to forget the idea. Duratek knew to find him there. And so did Deirdre and the Seekers. He turned his back toward Castle City and started walking across an empty field. Maybe it didn’t matter where he went, just so they didn’t find him.

He reached the highway that led out of town and kept on going. Sometimes the act of walking was purpose enough. Then something caught his eye.

Travis approached the dented newspaper box that rested beside the road, next to a row of mailboxes. He squatted down and, through the scratched plastic panel, read the headline:

Beneath the headline was a photo: a dark, twisted shape like those in the photos Hadrian Farr had
shown him. He sucked in a breath between his teeth, then scanned down the article.

The article broke off, continued on an inside page. The column below held only a small story about the increasing use of Electria among young people, compared to other drugs. Travis dug into the pocket of his jeans, but his hand came up with only a scant collection of pennies. Not that it mattered. He didn’t need to read any more; he knew now where he had to go. Maybe this really was like the Black Death. Maybe it was a disease—a disease transmitted by touch.

He shoved the coins back into his pocket, lurched to his feet, and glanced at the horizon. “Hang on, Max,” he whispered. “You’ve got to hang on.”

Travis thought about getting his truck, but it was still parked at the saloon. It would be quicker to walk to Max’s place than to go back and retrieve the vehicle. He scrambled over a slumped wire fence and headed across the empty field south of the road. Minutes later he crested a rise and saw the Castle City railyard ahead. The road to Max’s apartment was just on the other side.

He skidded down a gravel slope to the flats around the railyard. A hundred years ago, trains had passed through Castle City three times a week, carrying people, dry goods, tools, and coal. However, the last train had rolled out of this place two decades ago. Now the
railyard was a silent place: a cemetery where dreams of wealth had died, and boxcars lay strewn about like the corpses no one had bothered to bury.

Travis picked his way over rusted tracks, passed the caved-in remains of the old station house, and crossed to the farside of the railyard. From here it was just over a mile to Max’s place.

He came up short against a twelve-foot chain-link fence.

Travis stared at the fence, not comprehending. Then he remembered. They had raised this fence a few years ago. A boy playing in one of the boxcars had shut the door, locking himself in. They hadn’t found his body for weeks.

Travis took a step back and looked up. The fence was topped with coils of razor wire. Rust tinged its edges, but it looked like blood, and he knew the wire would still slice through skin like butter. The only way out was to return the way he had come, then circle around the yard. Except that would take him farther out of his way than heading back to town and his truck.

He gripped the chain link, but he didn’t bother tugging on it. There was nothing to do but go back and hope he hadn’t wasted too much time. Besides, maybe he was wrong. Maybe all Max had gotten when he touched the man in black was the burn on his hand. At that moment Max was probably in his apartment, resting like he was supposed to be, and he would laugh when Travis knocked on his door.

Or maybe Travis would look through the window of Max’s apartment again, only this time he would see a picture like the one in the paper. He shook his head, forced the image from his mind, and turned away from the fence.

“Hello, Travis.”

Travis spun and stared back through the fence, jaw open. The man stood where, a moment ago, there had
been only dead weeds and empty air. Then Travis saw the curve of black metal just protruding from behind a boxcar. But how had the man known to come to the railyard?

“Look in your pocket,” the other said.

The man was still clad all in black, and, with his neatly trimmed goatee and shorn blond hair, he looked ready for a New York art opening. But shadows touched the pale skin beneath his eyes, and stubble darkened his cheeks. This night had taken its toll on him as well.

“Your pocket, Travis. I can see the question on your face. Go on—you’ll find the answer there.”

Travis hesitated, then slipped a hand into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out the same few pennies he had at the newspaper box. “I don’t understand.”

The man smiled—a compelling expression. Travis had always envied men like him: short, compact, brightly handsome. Sometimes it felt ridiculous to be tall.

“That one,” the other said. “The Denver 1966. Look at it—bring it in close.”

Travis held up the coin. At first he saw nothing unusual. Then he noticed it was thicker than the other pennies, and a seam ran along the edge. He worked a thumbnail into the seam. The penny split in half. Inside the thin, copper shell a silicon chip shone like a diamond in the morning light.

Travis looked up, eyes wide. “But you were never close enough.”

“To plant it on you? No, I wasn’t. But a customer in your saloon would have been, don’t you think? In fact, I bet you’d probably never even notice if she slipped it into your pocket while you delivered a round of drinks to her table.”

Travis shook his head. It didn’t make sense—everyone at the saloon last night had been a local.

“It’s like I said, Travis.” The man spread his hands. “You can never really know another.”

So that was the answer. Someone else he knew had used him. Travis turned and heaved the transmitter deep into the railyard. There was a
ping
, then silence. He turned back, and his words edged into a sneer.

“So what took you so long to find me?”

“The mountains have a strange effect on radio signals, especially after dark. We couldn’t pick you up until sunrise. Then we came as quickly as we could.”

Now Travis grinned—it was not an expression of humor—and rattled the fence. “It looks like something got in your way.”

The man shrugged, his expression sheepish. “We try to account for everything we can. This mission took several months of planning. But even we can’t predict all factors. I’m afraid our map of Castle City was somewhat out of date.”

Travis’s grin faded. “I’ll be gone by the time you drive around, you know.”

“What makes you think I don’t have wire cutters in the car?”

“You would have used them already if you had.”

The man laughed. “Very good, Travis. You’re a smart man. A fascinating man.” He gripped the chain link, his blue eyes bright behind his glasses. “I so want to speak to you. Do you know that, Travis? Do you have any idea how much I want to listen to you, to hear about everything you’ve done, every place you’ve gone, all the sights you’ve seen?”

“Why?” Travis said. “So you can know which mountain range to start mining first?”

“Is that what the Seekers told you I wanted?”

“Isn’t it?”

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the fence. “The Seekers are as blind as they are arrogant. They think they’re so open-minded, but they’re not.” He let go of the fence, took a breath. “Listen, Travis. The
Seekers say they’re scholars, and they are, but they’re the worst kind. They’re not trying to learn and understand. They already think they have everything figured out. All they want are a few specimens they can stick in a case to prove it.”

“How do you know so much about the Seekers?”

He fixed his eyes on Travis. “Because I was one once.”

Travis opened his mouth, but he had no response.

“It comes down to this,” the other said. “The Seekers think they have ownership of any new world that’s discovered—that only the elite should be able to see it, study it, catalog it. Duratek is different. That’s why I joined. We think that a new world should belong to everybody, not just a few academics in their high towers. We want to give this world to everyone.”

“You want to exploit, you mean. To sell it.”

“Words, Travis. Those are just words. And the Seekers’ words at that, I’d guess.”

Travis took a step back from the fence.

“Listen,” the man said, his voice hushed with urgency. “I know I don’t have much time with you. So let me just say one last thing. Two worlds are drawing near, ours and another. You know that better than anyone. That connection is going to be made—you can’t stop it. But what you
can
do is help us manage it, control it, to make it happen the right way, not the wrong way.”

Travis hesitated. “What do you mean?”

The other shook his head. “What are you asking? Are we going to harvest its resources, mine its ground, farm its soil? Is that the question? If so, the answer’s yes. I’m not going to lie to you, Travis, I’ve told you that. This isn’t some park we’re talking about. We’re not going to put a fence around it, not like this.” He brushed a hand across the chain link. “But the exchange doesn’t have to be one-sided.
Think of the things we have to offer. Jobs. Technology. Medicine. This isn’t the first time we’ve discovered new worlds, Travis. But this can be the first time we do it right. Except we need your help.” He stepped back from the fence. “It’s your choice.”

Travis didn’t move. The wind moaned around the abandoned boxcars. Wasn’t that what this place had been once? A jumping-off point to a new world of prosperity? They had pushed out the Indians, killed off the buffalo, and pulled the guts from the mountains looking for wealth to cart to the world back East. Now the silver and gold were gone, but the mountains still bore the open, oozing wounds. Yes, he did have a choice. He always had a choice.

“No.” Travis’s voice was hard. “No, I won’t help you. What you want to do is wrong. No matter how hard you try to make it right, it’s still wrong. There’s no price you can pay to balance what you want to take.”

The other’s eyes were regretful behind his glasses. “I’m sorry to hear you say that, Travis. You see, now that I’ve met you, I had hoped that we could be friends. But, it doesn’t matter. With or without your help, we’ll get what we want. We always do. Because we’re on the side of right, the side of history.” He lifted a hand, almost like a salute. “Good luck, Travis. But you can’t stop us.”

Travis hissed the words between clenched teeth. “If you really want to find a new world, then go to hell.”

He turned before the other could reply, picked his way across the railyard, and waited until the fence was out of sight before he broke into a dead run.

Travis skulked inside the hot shadows of an alley on the eastern end of Elk Street. He almost laughed at himself. Was this what it felt like to be an outlaw? Or a fugitive on the run? Except he wasn’t the one who intended to do wrong.

Beyond the mouth of the alley, the air danced and shimmered above the weathered asphalt. Afternoon had draped its stifling golden gauze over the valley, binding the sun in the sky. It seemed like this day would never find an end. But one way or another, it had to.

From his shirt pocket, Travis pulled a crumpled paper. He had finally made it to Max’s place around midday, after hours of picking his way through town, doing his best to make sure no one saw him. It was an indication of his fear of being seen that he did something he had not attempted since his return to Earth. Travis spoke a rune.