The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [196]
These words sent another shiver through Travis. So there were sorcerers here.
“Do not fear, Travis, the effects of the gate will wear off soon enough.”
Vani must have mistaken the source of his shaking. She reached down with a strong hand and helped him up. Then, with a gentle motion, she brushed the frost from his cheek.
A low grunt came from behind Travis. Grace had helped Beltan to his feet. The knight stood, broad shoulders hunched, grasping the wall with a bony hand for support. His green eyes were fixed on Travis and Vani, his gaunt face a grimace of pain. Travis stepped away from her, suddenly warm, although he had not moved into the sun. He searched for something to say.
Light welled forth—not from the street outside the alley, but from deeper in. The light brightened, and a crystalline sound floated on the air. All at once the light coalesced into a tall, slender, shimmering form.
Travis forgot the aching and stiffness in his joints, forgot the fear inside him. He gazed into ancient, depthless eyes and found, for a moment, peace.
The thin, gray being they had freed from the steel crate was still there—Travis could see it amid the radiance—but it stood tall and straight now, taller than Travis or Beltan, like a willowy tree. It was no longer naked, but rather clad in light, so that it seemed it wore a coruscating robe and a crown of white fire.
“You,” Travis whispered. “It was you who showed me where the gate was in the void.”
The fairy nodded, although the gesture bespoke not a mere yes, but a thousand words that could not be uttered in any language. Again Travis gazed down at the Stone of Twilight in his hand. It seemed to catch the fairyglow, spinning it into a gray-green gauze.
Beltan took a staggering step toward the fairy. “You are well now. I am glad to see it.”
The fairy drifted toward Beltan. With a slender finger it touched a small, round wound on the knight’s arm, then it turned its own arm over. They were faint and almost lost amid the radiance, but Travis could still see them: long, white scars.
A choking sound escaped Beltan. “By Vathris, that’s what they did. They put your blood in me, didn’t they?”
Again the fairy nodded. Beltan swayed, started to fall. The knight was still so terribly thin. Both Grace and Travis reached for him, but they were too slow.
With slender arms, the fairy caught Beltan, holding him in a gentle embrace. The knight looked up, eyes wide. Then tendrils of white light spun outward from the fairy, coiling around him.
Now Beltan did stagger back, but he did not fall. He stood stiff, arms thrust at his sides, as the light spun faster and faster around him. The light grew more brilliant. It seemed Beltan’s skin was translucent as glass. Travis could see muscles undulating beneath, then the knight’s beating heart. Then even flesh was transparent, and his bones were silhouetted against the glare. The light flared, turning everything to white—
—then dimmed.
Shadows closed back in on the alley, and a breath of wonder escaped Travis.
Beltan held his hands out before him, mouth open. The lab coat had evaporated like the frost under the force of the light, and Beltan was naked. Travis knew he should not stare, but he could not turn away. The knight was no longer emaciated, but rather lean and rangy like a tawny lion. Sheets of muscles flexed beneath his pale skin. His thinning, white-blond hair tumbled over broad shoulders, and his scruffy beard was as gold as the sunlight outside the alley. On his left side, where the Necromancer Dakarreth had reopened his wound, there was only a pale line.
Beltan gazed at the fairy, astonishment on his face. It was hard to see for the radiance, but it seemed to Travis that the fairy smiled.
The last tendrils of light vanished