The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [251]
Vani's eyes were frightened. “Travis, please. Do what she tells you. I do not . . . I do not wish to lose her.”
“You can do it, Travis.” Beltan laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know you can.”
For so long, he had been afraid of what he was, of what he could do. Afraid of hurting others. In that moment—for the first time since that stormy October night when Jack gripped his hand beneath the Magician's Attic and made him a runelord—Travis set fear aside. Power was not evil in and of itself, he knew that now; it was what the wielder chose to do with it that shaped it for good or for ill. He hadn't asked for this power, but it was his to wield, and he was going to use it how he chose. Not to destroy life, but to preserve it.
Travis gripped the Stone of Fire in one hand and pressed the other to Vani's stomach.
“Krond,” he murmured.
He spoke the rune, not in panic or rage or despair as he had in the past, but gently, out of love. There were no flames this time. Instead, a soft red-gold glow sprang into being around his hand, spreading out over Vani's belly—then sinking into it. Vani gasped, her eyes going wide, her back arching. A shudder passed through her, and color crept back into her skin. Then a strange thing happened. It seemed a voice, tiny and innocent, spoke in Travis's mind.
Hello, Father.
Travis snatched his hand back. Vani and Beltan stared at him.
“What happened?” Vani said.
Travis shook his head. The voice had been so clear, so full of joy and love. But that was impossible.
The old woman moved close to Vani, touching her body with probing fingers. At last she let out a grunt.
It is well. The child's roots are stronger now, and it grows again in her womb. Her eyes narrowed as she gazed at Travis. It grows quickly, in fact. Too quickly. But then, this child has not one father, but two.
“What's she saying now?” Beltan said.
Vani looked at him expectantly. Travis opened his mouth, unsure just how to tell them.
A sound pierced the air, like the keening of cold wind over sharp stones. It was a cry of hatred, of fury, of utter despair. The sound was far off, but not so far that all of them didn't shiver as it faded to silence.
“By the Blood of the Bull, what was that?” Beltan said, his face pale.
Before anyone could answer, a column of gold sparks shot up to the roiling sky, plunging into the clouds. It emanated from behind the spine of a low ridge a half league away, near the base of the mountains. The column blazed against the darkness for several heartbeats, then ceased.
A tug on Travis's arm. It was the man with the wise brown eyes—their shaman.
Come now, he said in his hooting language. The end has begun.
Travis looked at Vani and Beltan. “I think we have to go. Toward that light we saw.”
Beltan helped Vani to her feet. “Can you walk?”
“Let's go,” the T'gol said.
57.
They followed the man in the ocher-stained hides as he set out across the valley. The old woman who had told Travis to use the Stone of Fire came with them, but they left the other Maugrim behind. They did not speak as they walked. Ash swirled on the air, stinging their eyes and making their throats ache.
They reached the ridge, which sprawled like the carcass of a dragon at the foot of the mountains, and scrambled up its flanks. Loose stones littered the slope, their edges sharp as knives. Crimson lightning stabbed at the clouds as they climbed. The sky seemed to boil now, like a pot of some vile liquid. A sickness came over Travis every time he looked up; he kept his eyes on his feet.
They had nearly reached the summit of the ridge when a hot bolt of pain shot through Travis's chest. He staggered and would have fallen and gone skidding down the slope were it not for Beltan's strong hands steadying him. A sound thundered in his skull, like a thousand voices speaking a single word in chorus.
Bal.
Death. It was the rune of death.
“Travis, what is it?” Ash made the knight's face a gray mask.
The voices in Travis's mind faded to silence. The pain in his chest was gone, but his right hand itched. “I