The Last Rune 6: The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  By the look in their eyes, they didn’t have the foggiest idea who she meant, which was precisely Grace’s intention. Trying to figure out who she was referring to ought to keep them occupied while she was gone. Although, as the two Spiders vanished, she supposed she had just doomed everyone in the keep to weeks of constant spying.

  Master Graedin came next, then King Kel, and even the witch Lursa. Grace thanked them but told each that they could not come on the journey, that this was something she had to do alone. She was taking a small retinue of knights with her for security on the road, but that was all. Both Graedin and Lursa were disappointed but wished her well, and while Grace feared King Kel would maul her after she refused his offer of company, instead he caught her in a bear hug.

  “My little Queenie is all grown-up now.” He released her, then sniffed, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Go on, then, fly from the nest. Have your adventure out in the world. But don’t you forget me, lass.”

  Grace winced, probing her aching ribs. “I honestly don’t think that’s possible, Your Majesty.”

  By late morning everything was ready for her departure, and the good thing about having to tell everyone they couldn’t come with her was that she had already taken care of all her good-byes. Or make that almost all, for there was one person who hadn’t come to her. She found him in the highest chamber of his tower, his face close to the runestone; both face and stone were covered with a webwork of thin lines.

  “Your Majesty,” Master Larad said, looking up. “Forgive me—I did not see you there.”

  She approached the runestone. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

  “I found another piece sundered from it this morning.”

  So the power of magic was continuing to deteriorate. “I think maybe I know what’s happening,” Grace said. “What’s affecting magic.”

  “You mean the rift in the heavens.”

  She stared at him. “You know about it?”

  It almost seemed a smile touched his lips. “You were not the only one looking at the sky last night, Your Majesty.”

  “I suppose this means,” she said, moderately perturbed, “that you’re not going to be at all surprised when I tell you I spoke to a dragon?”

  He shook his head.

  Giving up all hope of ever astonishing Master Larad, Grace told him everything Sfithrisir had said, and what she had decided to do. When she was done, his scarred face was expressionless. However, a light shone in his eyes, though it seemed more curious than alarmed.

  “I am not certain how this knowledge helps me, Your Majesty. However, it cannot be chance that the rift has appeared just as the power of magic is faltering. I will focus my studies on it.”

  She touched his arm. “If anyone can find a way to keep magic from getting any weaker, it’s you, Master Larad.”

  He pulled away. “Dragons cannot lie, Your Majesty. You must find Travis Wilder. Is it not time for you to depart?”

  She moved to a narrow window. From there she could see the keep, blue banners bearing the white star of Malachor snapping above. “Yes,” she murmured. “It is time.”

  “You sound as if you’ve decided something, Your Majesty.”

  Grace hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but she longed to tell someone what she had been thinking. She looked down at the people moving in the bailey below. They were her subjects, yet at that moment she felt so distant from them. They were like patients who had been discharged from Denver Memorial Hospital; they didn’t need her anymore.

  “Melia and Falken will be good regents,” she said, “but in time I think the people of Malachor should elect a leader.”

  “Elect?” Larad said, a note of scorn in his voice. “You mean let the people choose who their ruler will be?”

  “Yes.” She turned to face him.

  His eyes narrowed. “And whom do you think they would choose?”

  “You, perhaps.”

  Almost never had she seen Larad laugh, but he did now, a sound at once ironic and genuinely mirthful. “I think not, Your Majesty. Yours is a keen mind, but I think in this matter reason has eluded you. I have heard what you speak of before—the absurd notion that common people are capable of choosing their own ruler wisely.”

  “It isn’t absurd,” Grace said, a little angry now. “People can make wise choices for themselves, if they’re given the chance.”

  “Perhaps,” Larad said, though he did not sound convinced. “But even if the people of Malachor did choose their leader, whom do you think they would select? A man who spends all day studying runes in a tower? The people do not follow you because they have to, Your Majesty, but because they wish to. They have already made their choice. There is no need for them to elect a—”

  The Runelord staggered back, gripping the window ledge for support. “You’re not coming back. You’re leaving, and you don’t intend to return to Malachor, do you?”

  So he had seen the truth—the truth which, like a dragon, she had concealed in a fog even from herself. She crossed her arms over her chest, her heart beating with anguish. Or was it excitement?

  “I don’t know if I’ll come back, Larad,” she said softly. “I honestly don’t know.”

  He said nothing. She had finally managed to astonish Larad, but already his shock was gone, or at least concealed, and his eyes were hard and unreadable once again.

  “Farewell then, Your Majesty,” he said.

  Grace found she had no words to reply. She nodded, then descended the stairs, leaving the tower of the Runelords.

  A short while later she mounted Shandis beside the gates of the keep. Four stern-faced knights sat ready on their chargers. There was no wagon for supplies, only a packhorse that carried the absolute minimum, for Grace intended to ride fast. She arranged her riding gown over the saddle, then sighed. Now came the hardest good-bye of all.

  “No, Sir Tarus,” she said as the red-haired knight placed his foot in a stirrup, ready to mount his charger.

  He turned around. “Your Majesty?”

  She could not bring herself to speak the words, but by his stricken look he understood her. He drew close, clutching the hem of her gown, and shook his head.

  “No, Your Majesty.” His voice was ragged with despair. “Please do not do this thing to me. Do not command me to stay.”

  She had to keep her voice hard, or she would not be able to speak at all. “You must, Sir Tarus. Melia and Falken cannot run this kingdom without your help.”

  His face grew red, but from grief this time, not frustration. “I am your seneschal. I serve you, Your Majesty.”

  “And so you must do what I bid,” she said, hating how cruel the words sounded.

  “Have I served you so ill, then, that you must leave me behind?” He was weeping now, and Grace nearly lost her resolve, for in that moment she finally understood why he had been so stern these last three years, so grim and determined.

  He had been trying to be Durge.

  “No, Tarus,” she said, on the verge of weeping herself. “You have served me better than any other. And that’s why I must ask you to do this. For me. And for Malachor.”

  “But I have every reason to go with you.”

  She thought of the young Runelord Alfin, and despite her sorrow she smiled. “I believe you have a better reason to stay, Sir Tarus.”

  She bent over and kissed the top of his head. Then she urged Shandis toward the gates, the four knights behind her, and without fanfare or further farewells, Grace, Queen of Malachor, left her kingdom.

  16.

  She spoke little with the knights who accompanied her as they rode south from Gravenfist Keep along the Queen’s Way. When she gave Tarus the names of the warriors she wished for her retinue, she had deliberately chosen the most reticent and taciturn in the keep; she had no desire for idle conversation on this journey.

  Her only purpose now was to ride as swiftly as possible, to reach Sareth, and have him lead her to Hadrian Farr. Not because she wished to see t
he Seeker—though, she was forced to confess, the thought of seeing him again did give her a strange thrill she couldn’t quite analyze. For a reason she couldn’t name, she kept trying to picture him, though all she could seem to see were his eyes: dark, mysterious, compelling. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that Farr could lead her to Morindu the Dark. And if she found Morindu, then she would find Travis—she was certain of it.

  The weather was fine and clear, and they made good time that first day. Over the last few years, the Embarran engineers had labored on the Queen’s Way, clearing away fallen trees, replacing cracked paving stones, and shoring up bridges. By nightfall they had covered nearly all the ten leagues of the Queen’s Way the Embarrans had repaired. They were deep in the Winter Wood now, and they made camp in a grove of valsindar trees as the last sunlight filtered between silver-barked trunks.

  They ate a supper of the foodstuffs that would not keep— bread, a clay pot of butter, fruit, and some roasted chicken, which was already a little questionable after a full day riding in their saddlebags—then readied for sleep as purple dusk crept among the trees. The summer night was balmy, and the four men spread blankets on beds of old leaves, while Grace slipped into a small tent they had set up for her. She wouldn’t have minded sleeping out in the open like the men, but maybe it was better not to. This way she wouldn’t try to peer through the leafy branches of the valsindar to see if the dark hole in the sky had grown.

  Grace had just shut her eyes when she heard the ringing of steel. She threw back the flap and scrambled out of the tent. All four of the knights stood with their swords drawn. As Grace’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, fear stabbed at her heart. A figure stood on the edge of the clearing where they had made camp, hooded and robed in black.

  “Move, and you will be slain,” said one of the knights—a stout, gray-bearded man named Brael.

  “How about if I simply speak?” the figure said in a sardonic voice, and before the knights could move, the one cloaked in black uttered a word in a commanding tone. “Lir!”

  There was a flash of blue light, and the knights staggered back. However, the light quickly shrank to a ball hovering above the man’s palm, and in its soft glow Grace saw that the man’s garb was not black, but rather deep blue. There was a look of satisfaction on his scarred face.

  The knights recovered, and looked more ready than ever to use their swords. However, Grace hurried forward.

  “That wasn’t particularly wise, Master Larad,” she said in a sharp whisper. “These men might have killed you.”

  The Runelord simply shrugged, as if to say he was less certain of that outcome than she.

  Brael regarded Larad with suspicion. “This one must have been skulking after us all day, Your Majesty. I’d like to find out why. I’ve always thought he had a crafty look about him.”

  “You can put that sword away,” Grace said to Brael. She gave the other knights what she hoped was a commanding glance. “All of you. I’ve been expecting Master Larad. Though he’s a little late.”

  Brael gave her a startled look. He began to speak, but she turned her back on him, and she knew the knight would not dare to question her. Being a queen did have certain advantages. She heard the men grumble as they sheathed their swords. Taking Larad’s arm, she steered him to the other side of the grove. The ball of blue light bobbed after them.

  “You can thank me later for saving you from getting your head lopped off,” she said quietly. “Right now, I want you to tell me what you think you’re doing. And I had better be mightily entertained by the story, or I’m handing you back over to Brael.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Master Larad said.

  It was a statement, not a request. Grace knew it was neither useful nor queenly, but she could only gape at him.

  “I must speak with Master Wilder,” the Runelord went on. “After you left my tower, I considered all that you told me. I can only believe the rift and the weakening of magic are linked somehow. Perhaps both arise from the same cause. In which case, my recent studies regarding magic may prove useful to Master Wilder in his search for the Last Rune.”

  Grace finally found her tongue. “And it didn’t occur to you this morning to ask if you could come with me?”

  “It did, and I rejected that idea, for I knew you were refusing all who asked.”

  “So you decided to follow me without my permission.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. “What’s to stop me from sending you back to Gravenfist?”

  “You won’t, Your Majesty.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because yours is a logical mind, and you’ve already realized that I must come with you on this journey.” He nodded to the ball of light. “Even this simple runespell is proving a challenge to maintain. Something must be done before all magic ceases to be, and our chances of finding a solution are greater if Master Wilder and I can work together.”

  Grace was angry enough to disagree out of spite, but before she could, the dry doctor’s voice spoke in her mind.

  He’s right. You didn’t refuse the o fers of the others because you didn’t want their company, but because you knew that this time they couldn’t help you. However, Larad is a Runelord. There’s a significant probability he can help Travis discover what the Last Rune is.

  Even so, she had the feeling Larad was not telling her all his reasons for following her. The Runelord had a history of keeping his true motivations secret. However, he also had a history of doing what he believed was for the greater good, without regard to the cost to himself.

  She looked him in the eye. “No more tricks, Master Larad. From now on, if you want something, then you ask me for it. Do you understand?”

  His scarred face was as unreadable as ever. “Yes, Your Majesty.” He closed his hand around the ball of blue light, snuffing it out, and night closed back in over the forest.

  Dawn found them already riding down the Queen’s Way. Larad had ridden after them on one of the trusty mules the Runelords favored. With a rider, the mule would not be able to travel as fast as the horses, so they had transferred the foodstuffs and gear to it, and now Larad bounced in the saddle of the former packhorse. The Runelord was every bit as poor a horseman as Travis. Grace was beginning to think a talent for wizardry precluded any ability whatsoever for riding. Luckily, the horse was a placid beast, and it bore Larad with a resigned look on its long face.

  They moved at a steady pace over those next days, though their progress seemed maddeningly slow to Grace. On the second day they left behind the section of the Queen’s Way the Embarran engineers had repaired. While the road continued to cut unswervingly over the landscape, its stones were cracked and weathered, or in some places gone altogether, replaced by grass or trees, so that the way could be discerned only as a flat space between two sloping banks. However, all of the bridges they came to still stood, arching over stream or gorge, a testament to the skill of the ancient builders who had erected them.

  On their fourth day they left the silvery trees of the Winter Wood behind and found themselves riding over plains that had been baked gold by the summer sun. To their left rose the Fal Erenn, the Dawning Fells: a purple-gray range of mountains, their tumbled brows crowned by circlets of white clouds. For the first time in a long time, Grace found herself thinking of Colorado. The Beckett-Strange Home for Children—the orphanage where she had spent most of her childhood—had been built on a high plain not so different from this. Except its windows had all been boarded up, shutting out the beauty of the mountains.

  “What is it, Your Majesty?” Master Larad said as his horse veered close to Shandis. “Is something amiss?”

  She smiled, not taking her gaze from the mountains. “No, I was just looking out the window.”

  The next afternoon they came to a crossroads. A timeworn statue stood watch over the meeting of ways, a nameless goddess who gazed with moss-filled eyes. The main road continued on straight, while a smaller path led off to the left, winding u
p a steep embankment. Grace had never been that way—despite many invitations over the last three years—but she knew that if she followed the path she would come to a valley and a half-ruined keep on the shores of a lake.

  She had long wanted to visit Kelcior, though she was always afraid doing so would convince King Kel she had at last acquiesced to his proposals of marriage. Now it was but an hour’s ride away. However, Kel was not at his keep; he had remained in Malachor to give Melia and Falken advice on ruling in her absence.

  “The bard has more experience at wrecking kingdoms than running them, in case you didn’t know,” Kel had told Grace in a gruff attempt at a whisper that half the keep could hear.

  Besides, she didn’t have even an hour to spare. Now that they had left the forest behind, Grace had been able to see the rift again at night. It was still there, and she was certain it was larger than when she first saw it—a dark hole twice the size of Eldh’s enormous moon.

  They left the silent goddess at the crossroads and rode on.

  Three days later they came to the town of Glennen’s Stand. The town stood on the banks of a stream a few furlongs from the Queen’s Way: a hundred or so slate-roofed houses clustered beneath a hill with a modest stone keep. As they drew near, Grace noticed that here and there a section of a pale stone wall still stood on the perimeter of the town, though in most places it had been knocked down and its stones hauled away. A lot of walls had been torn down since the war, Grace thought as they rode closer. And not just those around towns.

  They found Glennen’s Stand crowded, dirty, and thronging with life. There were at least as many animals as people, and all of them were talking, laughing, or braying loudly. The Dominion of Eredane had suffered longest under the oppression of the Onyx Knights, and its people were perhaps the most grateful to be freed from it. As they rode through a market in the heart of the city, Grace saw folk selling mysteries—small figures carved of wood, representing the gods of the seven Mystery Cults— and hedgewives hawking potions. Such acts would have been punishable by death under the rule of the Onyx Knights. Now they were practiced in broad daylight.