The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [191]
He turned around, started to move one of the fallen boxes, then staggered.
Travis steadied him. “Beltan …”
The knight pulled away. “You don’t understand, Travis. We have to free him. We—”
Silvery light welled forth. It was faint and flickering, and it quickly dimmed again, but there was no mistaking where it had come from. Travis felt a tingling in his right hand. He stared at Beltan. Then he was moving.
Vani reached the crate the same time he did. Together, they pushed it over, righting it. There was a small door on the crate made of wire mesh. Something moved inside. Again pale illumination flickered within, like the light of a dying, silvery firefly.
“Hurry,” Beltan said. “I’m not sure, but I think … I think it’s ill somehow.”
Travis knelt beside the crate and peered inside. Large, tilted eyes gazed back at him. An ancient sorrow filled them, and deep pain, and something else as well. It might have been … joy. Like a wind, recognition passed through him. Yes, he understood.
“Iron,” he said. “It can’t bear the touch of iron. Or steel, I suppose. None of them can. That’s why it can’t escape.”
“What can’t stand iron?” Grace said. “What are you talking about, Travis?”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, for the third time that day, he spoke the rune of opening.
“Urath.”
Yes, this was the source of his suddenly renewed power. The lock fell off, the wire door swung open.
With a sound like distant chimes, the fairy floated out of the crate. The four humans watched, breath suspended.
Last Midwinter, in Calavere, Travis had used the power of Sinfathisar, the Stone of Twilight, to heal a band of wraithlings, to make them again the fairies they had been. They had followed him to Shadowsdeep, and there they had saved Beltan’s life.
Those fairies had been tall, luminous beings, so radiant he had hardly been able to gaze upon them. But the fairy before them was a shadow of those beings. It was so thin—far thinner than Beltan, as if it were made of twigs—and its skin was a dull gray. Its head seemed far too large for its spindly neck, and it was naked, so that he could see it was neither male nor female.
All the same, it was beautiful. He started to sink to his knees before it.
The fairy reached out spidery arms, brushed him with cool fingers, and he found himself standing once again. But the fear was gone. Instead, a cool peace filled him.
“How—?” Grace pressed her hands to her heart. “How can it be here?”
“They were holding it captive,” Beltan said. “Like me. They were doing experiments on it.”
Even as the knight said this, Travis saw the thin, white scars on the fairy’s delicate arms.
Vani’s golden eyes were thoughtful. “It must have come through the gate with the Scirathi.”
At her words, the fairy nodded. Then a tremor shook its form, like a gale shaking the bough of a tree. It was so dim here, its radiance quelled. Being on Earth caused it pain—terrible pain.
The fairy reached a trembling hand toward the crate, then snatched it back when it brushed the metal edge. There was a high, soundless cry of pain. It wanted something—something in the crate.
Grace knelt, reached inside, then leaned back. In her hand was a plastic bottle. In the bottle were purple pills, each one marked with a white lightning bolt.
Grace looked up at the fairy, then she gave a stiff nod, twisted off the lid, and held the bottle out. With long, trembling fingers, the fairy took three of the pills. It seemed to hesitate, then it brought them to the thin, lip-less line of its mouth and swallowed them. It passed its hand over its jewel-like eyes. When it lowered its hand again, the pain was gone from its gaze.
Grace looked down at the pills. “Those bastards—that’s why they developed it. It’s for them, to keep them alive here on Earth.” She looked up at Travis, her green-gold eyes stricken. “Electria is for fairies.”
The light elf reached out and cupped her cheek with a willowy hand. Grace gasped, eyes going wide. Slowly, she lifted her own hand and touched it to the fairy’s dull gray cheek.
A call came from the