The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [102]
Power condensed out of thin air, striking him, racing along bone and flesh, as if his body was a lightning rod. He went rigid, unable to blink, to breathe, as the magic coursed through him—down his arm, into his hand, crackling around the two Stones like the vengeful blue fires of heaven.
The flames burned themselves out. Sweating, trembling, Travis slumped against a cement column and looked down. He expected to see a charred stump, but his hand was whole, unmarked save for the thin white scar on its back. Stiffly, he turned his hand over and unclenched his fingers.
The Stones glistened on his palm, smooth and perfect. Krondisar seemed small and dull in the gloom beneath the bridge, while Sinfathisar shone with soft gray-green light. For a time he simply stared. At last a laugh rose within him, only when it reached his lips it emerged as a sob. Nothing had happened. The Stones weren't so much as scratched.
“Maybe it's because I'm on Earth,” he said. A passing bicyclist glanced at him, then pedaled hard down the path. “Rune magic is weak here. That has to be it.”
You're wrong, Travis.
Travis tried to shut out Jack's angry voice. “Magic doesn't work right in Denver. It's dangerous, but I'll have to risk going back to Eldh to destroy the Stones.”
But you can't destroy them. That's what I was trying to tell you, only you were too hardheaded to listen.
“I won't believe that. There's got to be a way.”
There isn't. The Stones cannot be destroyed.
Travis felt his own anger rising. “And how would you know?”
Because we already tried long ago to destroy them.
Travis's anger sublimated into a soft breath, white on the cold air, and melted away. “What?”
It was in the years following the War of the Stones, Jack spoke in his mind. In the first days of Malachor. After Ulther wrested them from the Pale King, the Great Stones were given to the Runelords.
“For safekeeping,” Travis managed to croak.
No, not for safekeeping. With the Stones, the Pale King might have gained dominion over all of Eldh, and his master, Mohg, would have used them to break the First Rune. It was decided that it was best for the world if the Stones were no more, so the first mission of the Runelords—the very purpose for which the order came into being—was to destroy the Great Stones so that they could never again be used for evil.
Travis couldn't believe what he was hearing. The Great Stones made the wonders of runic magic possible. Would the Runelords really have given that power up so readily?
There was some dissent, Jack's voice said in answer to these thoughts. A few said that rather than destroy the Stones, we should use them for good. Kelephon was chief among them. I imagine even then he was scheming a way to gain the Stones for himself. However, though he was the most powerful among us, even he dared not stand against the will of King Ulther and Empress Elsara. For years we labored, exerting all our skill and effort in an attempt to destroy the Great Stones. But no matter how many of us came together, no matter what runes we chanted or sundered, we could do no harm to the Stones.
In the end, the only way we were able to damage the Stones was by seeking out blood sorcerers in the far south. Three came back with us to Malachor, enticed by gold, and working together they were able to remove a single grain from Gelthisar. However, in the process, all three were slain. And when the grain they had removed came in contact with Gelthisar, it bound itself to the Stone, becoming one with it again.
Travis squeezed his fingers around the Stones. So that was how Dakarreth had managed to remove two grains from Krondisar. The Necromancer's magic—like the magic of all the New Gods—was of the south, and born ultimately of blood sorcery.
Do you see it's no use, Travis? The Stones are greater than any of us. There is nothing you can do to destroy them.
Could that really be true? Travis remembered a story he had read long ago, about terrible rings of power that only a dragon's breath could destroy.
No, Travis—the dragons ever loathed to come near the Great