The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [3]
The voice was a croak, harsh and commanding, yet not without kindness. Light encapsulated him, too soft and golden to be that of the moon. A delicious warmth seeped into his flesh and bones, making his joints ache. He was lying on the ground; he must have fallen into the snow to die. Only he hadn't. Shivering, he pushed himself up to his knees.
An ancient woman stood above him. Her body was a shapeless lump inside myriad layers of rags, and her humped back was nearly bent double.
“Is that the best you can do?” she said, a sour expression on her withered face. “Some Runebreaker you are.”
Clenching his jaw, he gained his feet. He was still stiff, but his hands and feet tingled with pinpricks of fire. He was going to live.
“I'm not a Runebreaker.” He wasn't certain why he told her this; if Shemal knew the truth, he would be dead in an instant, his neck twisted just like the dove's. However, there was something queer about the old hag. The golden light welled forth from somewhere behind her. It was tinged with green and made him think of a forest in summer.
She let out a snort and peered at him with her one bulbous eye. “Well, if you're not a Runebreaker, you should be. You have the face for it.”
Without thinking, he reached up and touched the fine scars that crisscrossed his visage. He had gotten them as a boy, after he had shown a talent for runespeaking. As a reward, his father had tried to cut out his tongue.
“So,” she said, jabbing a bony finger at his chest, “are you keeping him safe?”
He moved his hand to the bundle of the rune, and as he touched it, he understood. The light, the warmth—it had to be. “You're the one he served, aren't you? Sky. You're the one who created him.”
“You mean the Ones,” she said, and for a moment it wasn't a crone who stood before him, but a gray-bearded man. He was tall and powerful, with a storm in his eyes and wisdom on his brow. On his right hand shone O'rn, the rune of runes. His left wrist ended in a stump.
Before he could speak, the hag stood before him once more.
“Do you truly mean to break it?” she said.
Despite the warmth, he could not stop shivering. He felt weak, sick, and stupid. All the same, he nodded. “It's the only answer.”
The old woman clucked her tongue, but there was sorrow in her lone eye. “I suppose it is, lad. I suppose it is at that. But you'll never do it, you know. Not as you are now.”
“I have to,” he said, trying to sound confident. “I'll find a way.”
She let out a cackling laugh. “I think the way's found you, lad.”
As she reached out, he saw the symbol shining on her bony hand: three crossed lines. O'rn.
“Go, runelord,” she said. “Break the sky.”
Before he could pull away from her, she gripped his right hand in her own. Light split the darkness, pain sizzled up his arm, and Master Larad—runespeaker, outcast, traitor—threw his head back and screamed as power coursed into him.
2.
On another world, Deirdre Falling Hawk sat in a claw-footed chair that was older than she by a good four centuries and stared at the closed mahogany door across the hallway.
All right, Deirdre—blink already. You don't have X-ray vision. And even if you did, the room is probably encased with lead shielding. Gods know, the Philosophers always think of everything.
With a sigh, she leaned her head back against glossy wood paneling. She wasn't certain she believed in fate. All the same, she had a feeling hers was being decided on the other side of that door right now. She reached up and touched the polished bear claw that hung around her neck, wishing she could muster some kind of true vision. Wishing she knew what Hadrian Farr was telling them.
She wasn't surprised they had asked to see her and Farr separately. That was standard procedure in interrogation, wasn't it? Divide and conquer. Nor was she surprised the Philosophers themselves had wished to conduct this final interview, as they termed it. The fact was, compared to what she had witnessed on the weathered asphalt of Highway 121 outside of Boulder, Colorado, nothing in the three months since—the