The Gates of Winter

by Mark Anthony

  Travis was beyond astonishment. “Trifkin Mossberry.”

  The little man stood on the log, doffed his feathered cap, and bowed.

  Travis took a step forward—slowly, afraid that if he moved suddenly the little man might vanish. He had first encountered Trifkin Mossberry and his troupe of curious actors in King Kel’s keep. Then, on that fateful Midwinter’s Eve more than a year ago, Trifkin had helped Travis and Grace to uncover the conspiracy of murder in Calavere. The next day, the little man had been gone. Travis had not seen him since.

  Until now.

  “Who are you?” Travis said. “Who are the Little People, really?”

  “A wordless song no longer sung. A memory of a time long lost except in the minds of forgotten gods. A dream.” Trifkin shrugged small shoulders. “Even we don’t know who we are, and the world could not tell us, for when it came into being, we were already here. Just as we are here at its end.”

  Travis felt so heavy. The Stones seemed to weigh him down, as if they had grown larger. However, they still fit snugly in his right hand.

  “Does it have to end?”

  The tall trees swayed, as if a wind stirred their tops, though the balmy air of the forest was still.

  Trifkin sighed. “It has already ended. More times than there are trees, the world has been made and unmade and made anew. Always there is a Worldsmith. And always there is a Worldbreaker. Just as night follows day. You cannot change that. You can only choose what the world will be.”

  The trees danced in slow circles. Travis felt the first stirring of a cold wind. Always before, facing into the wind had brought a sense of limitless possibility to him. However, now it brought . . . fear. A low rumble shook the air, like the sound of thunder. The gold light dimmed.

  Travis’s hand sweated around the Imsari. “What do I do?”

  “You know what you must do. Go to the Dawning Stone.”

  “But I don’t know where it is.”

  Despite the sorrow in his eyes, Trifkin clapped his small hands and laughed. “Why, it’s right beneath your boots.”

  This was too much for Travis. “What?” he croaked.

  Trifkin hopped down from the log. “Think, mortal man. You already know the answer. What happened at the making of the world?”

  It was hard, but Travis thought back to the stories the runespeakers had told him. “The Worldsmith spoke the First Rune, the rune Eldh, and the world came into being. Then he bound the First Rune into the Dawning Stone, so that the world would know permanence and endure.”

  “Yes,” Trifkin said. “Permanence.” He knelt and pressed his hands against the ground, digging his fingers into the soil.

  For a moment Travis stared, not comprehending. Then it struck him like a bolt of lightning. All this time he had been picturing the Dawning Stone as a piece of rock with a rune in it, like one of the creations of the Runebinders of old. But that was ludicrous. The Worldsmith was far more than a mere mortal wizard, and Eldh far more than a simple disk of stone.

  “The world,” Travis said softly. “The whole world Eldh is the Dawning Stone.”

  Trifkin held up his dirty hands and smiled.

  Travis staggered. “That doesn’t make sense. Falken said the Dawning Stone was hidden in the Twilight Realm.”

  Trifkin cocked his head. “And have you not found it here?”

  Travis knelt and pressed his left hand to the ground. He felt it—the force of the rune Eldh, binding the world, holding it and everything on it together.

  And so the First Rune shall also be the Last Rune, spoke Jack’s voice in his mind, for when it breaks, the world shall end, and in that instant all things will cease to be.

  The gold light dimmed. Dusk stole among the trees, as if carried on the wind.

  “Night comes,” Trifkin said.

  Then the little man was gone, and Travis was alone.

  No, not alone. He could feel it drawing closer. A shadow—a thing forged of fury and hate, its heart consumed by a dragon and replaced by cold, hard iron.

  Mohg, Lord of Nightfall.

  The forest was dark now; the only light came from the Imsari. Travis laid them on the ground.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said simply.

  Yes you do, Travis, Jack’s voice spoke in his mind. You are the Runebreaker. There is but one thing you can do.

  “No, Jack.” He clasped his hands together. “I don’t want to destroy the world. I want to save it.”

  By the Lost Hand of Olrig, don’t be so dim! Haven’t you figured it out by now? Worldmaker and Worldbreaker—they’re the same thing. You can’t be one without being the other. Mohg knows that—that’s why he wants to break the First Rune. Not to destroy the world, but to remake it in his own image.

  The trees rocked wildly under the force of the wind. Their trunks cracked and splintered as they fell over. One tree came crashing down beside Travis. A few feet more to one side, and it would have crushed him. He stared at the three Stones and dug his fingers into the dirt beside them. Jack was wrong, he had to be. Creation and destruction—they couldn’t really be the same thing, could they?

  Except they were, and Beltan was right. Sometimes the only way to save something was to destroy it first.

  A shadow streaked toward Travis: vast, malevolent, unstoppable. The wind verged into a shriek. Trees burst apart in deafening explosions. The darkness was complete, save for the glow of the Stones. Silhouetted by their light, Travis saw a figure: tall and powerful beyond mortal imagining, a single, blazing eye staring from a face both beautiful and terrible. A maw opened, revealing fangs like daggers. Hands reached out, extending talons toward the Imsari.

  Mine, intoned a voice as deep as a midnight ocean.

  Travis looked up, into the one fiery eye, and a sharp smile cut across his lips.

  “Too late,” he said.

  The blazing eye widened. The talons lashed out, only too slow. Larad was right. Despite an eon of exile, this moment had come sooner than Mohg had expected; he was not prepared.

  Travis was. He lifted his muddy hands from the ground, pressed them on top of the three Stones, and cried out the word with all his being.

  Reth!

  Travis braced himself for terrible thunder, for a blinding flash. He waited to feel the ground buckle and crack beneath him, for fire to rain down from above, to feel his body being ripped to shreds. Instead there was . . .

  . . . nothing. Nothing at all.

  It didn’t work, Jack, he called out in his mind. You were wrong—I’m not the Runebreaker after all. It didn’t work.

  He tried to laugh, only he could make no sound.

  Jack?

  Travis heard nothing, not even the beat of his own heart. All was silence. The forest was gone, and he drifted in some sort of fog. Was this the mist that bordered the Twilight Realm?

  No, it was different. Even then, he had been able to see different shades of gray swirling in the mist. Here, everything was the same color, though exactly what color it was, he couldn’t say. It was neither white nor black, neither light nor dark, neither warm nor cold. It was nothing.

  And it was everything at once.

  He had always feared the end of the world because he had imagined it as a violent happening: a time of boiling seas and crumbling stone, of screams cried out in pain and fear, of blood and mayhem. Of death. But he had been so absurdly wrong.

  For when it breaks, the world shall end, and in that instant all things will cease to be. . . .

  The words were a whisper in his mind, though whether they were spoken by a voice or a memory of a voice, he couldn’t be sure.

  Jack?

  Again there was no reply. He was alone. Truly alone. The world was gone. Eldh was no more. He was the very last being in all of existence.

  Or the very first.

  That was when he sensed it, like the first whisper of a wind in the stillness. It made him think of Castle City, of standing on the boardwalk outside the Mine Shaft Saloon and turning
to face the wind as it raced down from the mountains. Waiting to see what it would blow his way.

  He felt it now—the sweet ache of endless possibilities. The old world was no more. The new world was yet to be. And it could be anything he chose to make it. Joy filled him, and power. Like a billion doors, the possibilities opened before him—a different world beyond each one. What should he choose? A world without hatred, without fear, without violence?

  Yes, there was such a world. He reached toward it . . . then recoiled. The people in that world huddled in mud huts, staring with listless eyes at smoky fires, their bodies filthy and covered with sores. They spoke no stories, sang no songs, made no music. They had no fears, no cares, no worries. And no hopes, no desires, no dreams.

  Did such things have to go hand in hand? He had chosen the wrong door, that was all. Travis moved toward another, toward a world without hunger, without pain, without sorrow.

  He saw a modern city, not unlike Denver, but its lines cleaner, sharper. In it, a mother walked down a street. She stared at the dead child in her arms, then let it fall to the gutter as she continued on. Nearby, a man had been struck by a car. He flopped in the street, confusion on his face, not agony. No one stopped to help him. He dragged himself to the edge of the street, trailing shattered legs, then died. A street sweeping truck drove by, scooped up the bodies, and drove on. The sky was dark with soot; no one looked up.

  No, that wasn’t what he had meant. Travis turned away and flung open another door. In this world, there was no such thing as death. He saw a village like that below Castle Calavere, its dirt streets littered with bundles of sticks.

  Horror blossomed in him. They weren’t sticks, but people—withered, decrepit people. They raised desiccated arms, staring with milky eyes, opening toothless mouths in moans of suffering, begging for release. Passersby stared at them with hate, then hurried past.

  Travis fled. That wasn’t it. A world of peace, of joy, of beauty, that was what he wanted. He found a door beyond which people danced and laughed, smiles on their simple faces. Yes, this was right. Then he drew closer and saw more. At night, monsters dragged the children from their beds and ate them. The people made it a game; they never spoke of the ones who went missing. They simply danced and clapped their hands as shadows prowled just beyond the lights of their small, happy towns.

  A thousand doors he opened, and Travis glimpsed a thousand terrible worlds beyond them. He cried out into the nothingness, but there was no one to listen to him. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There had been such sorrow in the old world. War and hatred and violence. What was the use of being the Worldsmith if he couldn’t create a world without these things? He wanted a world without pain and suffering, without despair. A world where Beltan and Vani’s daughter had a hope of growing up . . .

  Travis stopped, letting himself drift in the fog. He reached up to touch the bone talisman at his throat, but of course, like all things, it did not exist.

  Yet it could.

  He knew a world where there had been pain, and sadness, and death, and where all the same people kept on going, kept on fighting, kept on living. Because they had hope. Hope that they and the ones they loved could someday be happy. Hope that, after night, another day would come.

  Yes, he knew a world where there was hope.

  Travis searched, and he saw it at once among all of the other possibilities. It seemed so dim and imperfect. No wonder he hadn’t noticed it before; surely there were far better worlds to choose than this. Maybe, if he had been a god, he could have found those worlds. But Travis wasn’t a god. He was a man. A man who loved and hated. Who laughed and wept. Who feared. And who hoped.

  Even as he wondered how to make his choice, he did.

  Eldh, he whispered to the mist. For the world to be, I choose the world that was.

  Somewhere, there was a sound like a door shutting.

  And then.

  60.

  Beneath a flawless cerulean sky, Grace Beckett, Queen of Malachor, opened her eyes.

  For a time she simply lay there without moving, nestled in the embrace of the ground, content to gaze upward. The sunlight was like a warm caress on her cheeks, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. She couldn’t remember ever seeing anything so beautiful as this sky in all her life.

  “Over here!” a man’s voice shouted, breaking the silence. “I’ve found her—over here!”

  More shouts came in reply, though too distant for Grace to make out what was said. She heard the thud of boots draw closer, followed by the jingle of chain mail as someone knelt beside her. She couldn’t see who it was; the sky filled her gaze.

  “Your Majesty, can you hear me?” said a man, the same one who had shouted. “Are you well?”

  What a strange question! She felt no pain, no fear, no sorrow. Why shouldn’t she be well? Nothing could possibly be wrong when you were already dead. She would lie here in the embrace of the ground and watch the sky forever.

  The sound of more boots, as well as lighter footsteps and the soft swish of wool. This time it was a woman’s voice who spoke. “What is it, Sir Tarus? Oh, by Sia, she’s not . . . ?”

  “No, her eyes are open, thank the Seven, but she won’t answer me. Your Majesty—lend me a hand.”

  Strong hands reached down, gripping her, pulling her upward, and the sky tilted. Black shapes hove into view, jagged as teeth. Mountains. She gasped as the hands sat her upright, and cold air rushed into her lungs.

  “Lay me back in the ground,” she murmured. “I’m dead. Lay me back down.”

  “I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, Your Majesty,” the man said with a laugh, “but you’re very much alive.” Amazement stole into his voice. “Somehow we all are, though I don’t have the foggiest idea how that can be.”

  Grace blinked, and three faces came into focus before her. Tarus and Teravian held her shoulders, and Aryn knelt before her, relief in her sapphire eyes.

  “Thank Sia you’re alive,” the young witch said. “We’ve been searching the battlefield for hours, but we couldn’t find you, and night comes soon. Only we didn’t give up hope.”

  “We must have walked right past this place a dozen times,” Teravian said. The wind blew his dark hair from his brow. “We were certain you fell somewhere near here, Your Majesty, only we couldn’t sense your thread. The Weirding is a tangle of life and death here.”

  “It was this blasted crack in the ground,” Tarus said. “She was wedged down inside of it. There was no way to see her unless you were three paces away.” The red-haired knight grinned at her. “And I still wouldn’t have found you, Your Majesty, if it hadn’t been for your breath. It’s getting colder, and I saw a white puff rise up from the ground.”

  Aryn threw her left arm around Grace. “We were near you when it all happened, only we lost track of you in the chaos. We saw you strike down the Pale King. Then everything went mad.”

  Piece by piece, the shards of memories came together in Grace’s mind. She remembered ancient eyes, burning with hatred in a face as pale as frost. “He was about to strike me down with his scepter. I couldn’t stop him. Only then the sky . . . there was a terrible sound, and something happened to the sky. Berash looked up, and I saw a gap in his armor. I thrust at it with my sword.” She looked around. “My sword . . .”

  “There, Your Majesty,” Teravian said, pointing into the narrow pit in the ground from which they had pulled her. “I’m afraid you won’t be wielding Fellring again.”

  She must have fallen on top of them in the pit: several shards of steel. The sword ended in a broken stump just above the hilt. It had done what it had been forged to do; she would not need it again.

  Thank you, Sindar, she whispered in her mind.

  The shadows of the mountains stretched out over the vale, and Grace shivered. Somehow the world was still here, and she wasn’t dead after all.

  “I think I’d like to stand up now,” she said.

  Wanting and doing were two different things, but wit
h the help of the two men Grace got her feet beneath her. The feeling of wellness was gone. Her sword arm ached, and she couldn’t feel her right hand at all.

  “It’s cold as ice,” Aryn said, touching Grace’s hand.

  She murmured a spell, and Grace felt the warmth of the Weirding flow into her. The pain in her arm receded, and her hand burned with a thousand hot pinpricks. She concentrated and found she could move her fingers.

  Turning, Grace gazed out over the vale toward the Rune Gate, which yawned like a dark maw. The Gate stood open, but she saw no sign of the enemy—only the abandoned siege engines, which hulked like gigantic scarecrows over the battlefield. The floor of the vale was white in the gloaming. Had it snowed while she was asleep?

  Another shiver passed through her. It wasn’t snow that covered the ground. It was a layer of bones, stretching all the way to the foot of the mountains.

  “The Pale King’s army,” she said, clutching Tarus’s arm. “What happened to them?”

  “They’re dead,” the knight said.

  “But how?”

  Together, Tarus, Aryn, and Teravian did their best to describe what had happened, though it was hard for them to put into words exactly what they had seen. What they told her fused with what she recalled herself, and an amalgam of the truth began to form in her mind. It was dim and incomplete, but she thought perhaps she understood.

  The feydrim, the wraithlings, the ironheart wizards and witches—even, it seemed, the trolls of the Icewold—all had been created by the dark magic of the Necromancers, who themselves had been forged by the will of the Pale King. When Berash perished, so did everything he had created.

  A thousand years ago, in this same vale, when King Ulther plunged Fellring into Berash’s chest, shattering the Pale King’s iron heart, the Necromancers had been there; they had managed to pour some of their essence back into Berash, sustaining him until his heart could be reforged.

  This time, there were no Necromancers to save the Pale King. Shemal was the last of her kind, and wherever she might be, she had not shown herself in this place. When Fellring shattered his heart, Berash had died—truly, finally—and so did everything he had brought into being with his dark enchantments. Only the bones remained.