The Last Rune 5: The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  “What's going on, Sam?”

  “I found the signs not far from here, and Leris and Aldeth were able to come upon them unaware. However, they reacted swiftly. They had some magic that monitored their hideout. One of them was slain, but we caught the other alive.”

  Grace grabbed the Spider's arm. “What are you talking about? Whom did you capture?”

  The Spider held out her hand. On her palm, a small, black object absorbed the sunlight. A hiss of static issued from the speaker embedded in the plastic device. Grace snatched it from the Spider's hand, then they were both running.

  They came to a tent on the edge of the camp. Leris stood outside. The Spider was so slight Grace would have taken him for a twelve-year-old boy on Earth. That would have been a deadly mistake. Leris nodded, and they slipped inside.

  The tent was dark. Grace concentrated, touching the threads of the Weirding, and a ball of green witchlight sprang into being above her, pushing back the shadows. The man sat on the ground, his hands and legs bound with ropes, blood trickling from a scrape on his cheek. She recognized him. He was dressed in the rags of a peasant, but his skin was clear of disease, and standing he would have been tall.

  “Your mission is over,” Grace said. “Your only purpose now is to answer my questions. You will speak precisely, truthfully, and without hesitation. Do you understand?”

  The man squinted against the glare of the witchlight, and Grace knew he couldn't see her. “Please, my lady.” His voice quavered. “I'm but a simple farmer. I know not what you speak. I ask only that you let me return to my village.”

  The performance was convincing. He was speaking in Eldhish, and his accent was that of a commoner. They had learned more these last months than she would have thought; no wonder they had managed to blend in so well.

  “I know who you are,” she said in English.

  The man snapped his head up, and his eyes went wide—but only for a moment before they narrowed again.

  “And now I know who you are as well,” he said, his voice hoarse but defiant. “It's hopeless, Dr. Beckett. We're close now—closer than you can possibly imagine. There's nothing you can do to stop us from getting what we want.”

  “Really? It seems I've done pretty well so far.”

  He glared at her, straining against the ropes; they creaked but held fast.

  “The pleasantries are over,” Grace said, speaking in Eldhish again. “Now it's time for you to talk. You'll tell me what your mission is, who sent you, and how you got here.”

  He shifted back to Eldhish as well, his accent that of a groveling peasant once more, only mocking this time. “You'll get nothing from me, my lady. Your only choice is to kill me as your slaves killed my partner.”

  Aldeth stepped from the shadowed corner of the tent and knelt, pressing a knife to the man's throat. “I can arrange that, if you'd like.”

  “That's not fair, Aldeth,” Samatha said, moving forward, her own knife drawn. “You and Leris got to kill the last one. This one's mine, and I'm going to savor every moment of it.”

  Grace made a sharp motion with her hand. “No, Sam, Aldeth—no knives. I'll deal with this.”

  The two Spiders reluctantly sheathed their weapons and stepped back.

  Grace stood above the prisoner. “If you won't speak of your own free will, I have other options at my disposal.”

  “Like what?” he sneered.

  She had no time for games. “Like this.”

  Grace reached out with the Touch and gripped his thread. He resisted, but his will quickly crumbled before her own. No doubt his training had inured him to any sort of physical torture, but nothing could have prepared him for this. She probed deep into his mind, searching for whatever knowledge she could excise.

  The prisoner screamed. “Get out! Get out of my head!”

  Grace let go of his thread. The prisoner slumped over, sobbing and shaking. Snot ran from his nose.

  “So that was what Duratek was doing at the facility in Denver,” Grace said, feeling cold and sick. “They were creating a gate. First they found a way to send messages through, then objects. That was how you communicated with the Scirathi, how you got them guns. Now Duratek has finally figured out the last step. They've learned how to send people through the gate. People like you, Agent Hudson.”

  The prisoner rolled back and forth on the ground, speaking shrilly. She knew the hole she had left in his mind would soon drive him mad.

  “The first ones . . . they died. They were ripped to shreds the moment they stepped through the gate. But the scientists kept working, and after that others made it through, and they sent a few reports from the other side, reports about the languages and cultures and geography. Only something went wrong in the process of translocation. The scientists called it cellular disruption. All I know is their bodies . . . they dissolved into sludge in a few days. All the same, I volunteered when I had the chance, along with Meeks and Stocker. We were the first to make it through and survive.” A shudder coursed through him. “Only Meeks caught something a while back—a disease the meds couldn't stop. He died last week. And your men killed Stocker. I'm the only one left. I'm the only one. . . .”

  Grace staggered, and she might have fallen except for Samatha's steadying hand. “Only more are coming. I saw it. They think they can break the gate wide open now.”

  The prisoner's shaking eased, and his lips twisted into a smile. “That's right, Dr. Beckett. We made it through, and we lived. That means the scientists have finally gotten the calibration of the gate right. All they need now is more of whatever fluid it is that powers it, and I hear soon they'll have it by the gallon.”

  “Yes,” Grace said, sifting through the information she had ripped from his mind. “Fairy blood. They're trying to synthesize it in their labs. And they're close. But what's their plan once they have it?”

  The prisoner looked up, his eyes full of hate. “No more answers for you, Dr. Beckett.”

  He clenched down hard on his jaw. Even as Grace heard the sharp sound of porcelain breaking, she knew what he had done. His eyes rolled up into his head, and his body went limp.

  “Dammit, no!” Grace flung herself down beside him.

  “What is it, Your Majesty?” Aldeth said.

  She pried open his mouth. “He had a false tooth. He broke it when he bit down.”

  Samatha nodded. “Often a spy is given poison to use if he is caught by his enemies.”

  His breathing was growing shallow, and his thread grew dim. The poison had already spread through him. His heart rate was slowing. It would be a quick death, and painless.

  Not if I can help it.

  Grace studied the poison flowing through his veins. As if her mind were a microscope, she looked closer, until she could see its molecular structure like a series of colored spheres. It was simpler than she would have thought. A flick of a thought, and the structure was altered. Like a chain reaction, the change spread through his blood.

  Hudson screamed, a bubbling sound of agony. His body went rigid as convulsions wracked him. His back arched, the cords of his neck standing out. Purple blotches mottled his skin, and yellow foam boiled out of his mouth.

  His screaming phased into words. “Help me! Oh, God, it burns!”

  For a moment sympathy pricked Grace's heart. She was a doctor, or at least she had been once. However, she was more than a doctor now. She was a witch, a queen, a woman. And this man had set the bombs that destroyed Calavere's towers.

  “Please!” he raved. “Please help me!”

  She bent over him, touching his hot forehead with a gentle hand. “No,” she murmured.

  He was beyond words now, thrashing on the floor. His tongue, black and swollen, jutted from his mouth. It took several long minutes. Then one last scream ripped itself from him, followed by the sudden stillness of death.

  Grace stood and turned away from the corpse. Samatha's face was pale, and Aldeth stared with wide gray eyes.

  The Spider rubbed his throa
t. “Remind me never to disobey your orders, Your Majesty.”

  “I imagine you'll remember all on your own, Aldeth,” Grace said, then stepped out of the tent into the failing day.

  29.

  By the time she made it out of the Seeker complex, Deirdre craved quiet and solitude rather than the public clamor of a pub. She took the tube back to South Kensington, picked up a bottle of stout at a shop a block from her flat, and holed up for the rest of the evening.

  Midnight found her at the dinette table in front of the phosphorescent screen of the computer. Unfortunately, hours of searching had yielded no more information than she had discovered the night before. Despite its incompleteness, the message on the battered keystone was certainly identical to that inscribed on Glinda's ring. However, what language the message was written in remained a mystery. The Seeker database contained shape and pattern information for all known written languages, modern and ancient, but all of her searches resulted in no matches. Not even the runic language of AU-3—of Eldh—was similar.

  If she had hoped the mysterious Seeker would make his presence known to her again that night, then she was disappointed. The pool of light beneath the streetlamp opposite her window remained empty, and the only text that appeared on the computer screen was what she typed herself. When she finally went to bed, she slept fitfully, dreaming of words that shimmered and danced before her. The words comprised an urgent message, she was sure of it, but she couldn't read what they said.

  The next morning was better than the previous, if only slightly. Her head still ached, but less, and she made it to work by five minutes to nine. Anders was already there. He must have been feeling more at ease, as he had taken off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his silvery shirt.

  He kept pounding away at the keyboard as he glanced up. “Coffee's waiting.”

  Deirdre sighed as she poured a steaming cup. Maybe she could get used to this whole new partner thing.

  She was able to focus better on her task that day, and by noon she had actually started to collect data. According to the official histories, the earliest recorded violation of one of the Desiderata came in 1637, when a Master Seeker was proven to be an opium addict—a clear violation of the Sixth Desideratum: A Seeker shall not allow his judgment to be compromised. However, in an old Seeker journal, Deirdre had come upon an even earlier case that, by today's standards, would almost surely have violated the Seventh Desideratum: The word of the Philosophers is the will of the Seekers.

  It was in 1619, just four years after the founding of the Seekers. A young journeyman by the name of Thomas Atwater was ordered by the Philosophers never to return to the business where he had worked prior to joining the Seekers. Later it was discovered that the young man had indeed visited the forbidden establishment, yet as far as Deirdre could tell, there was no record of reprimand following the incident. Nor was it clear why he had been told not to visit his former place of work.

  The documents she had found so far regarding the case were fragmentary and difficult to read. Modern English was coming into focus by the early seventeenth century, but spelling was still a highly creative art, and there was much in the facsimiles Deirdre couldn't decipher. Still, it was an interesting start, so she decided to celebrate by inviting Anders to lunch.

  “Have you been to the Merry Executioner?” she asked, pulling on her jacket.

  “Never heard of it,” Anders said. “Sounds ominous. What is it?”

  “It's a pub.”

  “It's not the food that does the executing, is it?”

  “There's only one way to find out, partner,” Deirdre said with a smile that surprised her.

  They headed out the door—Anders stopped to lock it, which was probably a smart idea, though Deirdre had never bothered herself—then made for the pub.

  The Merry Executioner was comforting, though it felt strange to be there with someone other than Farr. Deirdre had steak-and-kidney pie, and Anders got a salad. She had never suspected they served green leafy things in this place, but Anders's salad was large and fresh-looking.

  Determined to be a bad influence, she made him get a second pint to keep her company, and as they sipped them she listened to his stories of growing up in Kenya, working in the coffee fields as a boy. Her favorite story was one he told about the day a troupe of monkeys got into one of the warehouses. She could only imagine the chaos wrought by a dozen caffeine-hyped primates.

  “Tell me one thing,” Deirdre said. “If Kenya is so wonderful, why leave it to join the Seekers?”

  Anders quaffed the last of his beer. “We'd better get back to it, hadn't we?”

  He rose and headed out the door, moving so quickly she was forced to jog to keep up. By the time they walked down the corridor to their office, she was panting for breath.

  “I'm in worse shape than I—”

  Anders held up a hand, cutting her off. She gave him a puzzled glance. He nodded toward the door of their office, then she saw it: The door was cracked open an inch.

  Who would have a key to their office? Nakamura, she supposed. And Fergus and Madeleine, of course. Perhaps the receptionist had needed some form or requisition one of them had forgotten about and had let herself in. Deirdre would ask her about it when—

  Anders reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a sleek pistol. He pressed his back to the wall and peered through the gap in the door, the pistol next to his cheek. Deirdre stared. What was Anders doing with a gun? Agents were forbidden by Seeker law to carry weapons. That's why they used security guards on dangerous missions.

  Anders nudged open the door. He slipped through with a fluid motion, sweeping the gun left, toward the room's nearest corner. Then he opened the door wider, turned his back to the corner he had just examined, and moved farther into the office.

  Deirdre watched from her position by the door. Despite his bulk, Anders moved with a leonine stealth, sweeping with the pistol, always keeping his back toward a part of the room he had already cleared. Finally, he lowered the gun.

  “Whoever was in here, he's gone now.”

  Deirdre approached and gave him a critical look. “Not many Seekers I know are that handy with a gun. Or know exactly how to clear a room.”

  Anders tucked the pistol back into his jacket, a guilty light in his blue eyes. “Crikey, I thought I could keep it a secret longer than two days.”

  Deirdre crossed her arms. “Who are you really?”

  “Now, now, Deirdre. They told me that to be a Seeker, I'd have to work on my deductive reasoning skills. Haven't you gotten it yet?”

  Even as he said this, she did. “You're not a Seeker agent. You're a security guard.”

  He put his hands in his pockets, looking suddenly boyish. “Well, you're almost right. For ten years, I did work security for the Seekers. But security doesn't get to ask questions. You're just there to take a bullet if Duratek or some other unfriendly type decides to start shooting. But I did have questions—so many of them. I couldn't just stand by and watch anymore.”

  Anders moved to his desk. “A few months ago, I finally got up the nerve to talk to Nakamura. At first he didn't take me seriously, but I kept after him. He finally gave me an exam—some kind of logic test—and I suppose he thought I'd fail it, and that would be the last of me.”

  He laughed. “It turns out I pretty well aced the test. I guess it takes a bit more brains to work security than most people think. So Nakamura admitted me as a journeyman agent. Only provisionally, though. He said he was going to put me with one of his best agents, and that after three months it was going to be up to her whether I got to stay or not.” He looked at her. “I suppose that's you, mate.”

  Deirdre crossed her arms. It was a good story. Almost too good. It provided a neat way to keep a security guard close to her when normally she would have rejected such an action.

  “What about the gun?” she said.

  Anders gave her a sheepish look. “I was supposed to keep that a secret, too. I told Nakamu
ra that, after carrying one for ten years, I'd feel a little naked without it. Since I've got the training to use it, he's letting me keep it. For the moment, anyway, until final word comes down from the Philosophers.”

  Deirdre searched his face for any hint that he wasn't telling her the truth. She didn't see it, but that could simply mean he was a good liar.

  You can't live like this, Deirdre. Anders's story is completely plausible, and no doubt Nakamura can verify everything. You can't be suspicious of everyone around you. It will drive you mad if you do.

  As it had driven Farr mad? Except the light in his eyes that last time she had seen him had been anything but crazy. No, Farr had been perfectly sane, and that was what terrified her.

  Deirdre made a decision. “You can't keep any more secrets from me, Anders.” She smiled, hoping the expression was more reassuring than it felt. “Not if we're going to be partners. We have to be able to depend on each other. Understood?”

  Astonishment flickered across his face, followed by a broad grin. “You've got it, mate.”

  “So, is there anything else I should know?”

  He scratched his chin, looking uncomfortable. “Well, only that you've still got a bit of your lunch in your teeth. I've been trying not to notice it, but frankly it's driving me bonkers. That was why I rushed us out of the pub.”

  Deirdre slapped a hand to her mouth. “Thanks a lot,” she muttered through her fingers.

  Ten minutes later—after a trip to the rest room, toothbrush in hand—Deirdre sat at her desk. Anders was already typing away on his computer, and she supposed the best way to calm her mind was to try focusing on the task at hand. She picked up a pen and started going over the facsimiles from the 1619 case, reminding herself that, four centuries ago, people had had an annoying habit of writing F's that looked like S's, using Y's instead of I's, and putting E's on the end of pretty much everything.

  It wasn't until hours later that she noticed the folder. Anders had gotten up to brew another pot of coffee. Deirdre leaned back, rubbing her neck. She had made good progress on deciphering the pages from one of the old Seeker journals and was ready for more. She shifted one of the towering stacks of papers on her desk.