The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [70]
Travis felt a tightness in his chest. “Who is this Sparky person?”
“A smart man,” Marty said before Jay could say anything. “He's usually in Civic Center Park in the morning. Although if it snows tonight, he might not be there. His chair gets stuck in the drifts. We can take you to him in the morning, if you'd like.”
“What do you mean we?” Jay snapped. “I'm not going near that freak. He makes me feel . . . weird.”
“Why is that?” Travis said.
Jay shook his head. “Lots of reasons. All the junk he says. Like the universe is so freaking big, and we're just stupid little specks. But mostly it's his eyes. It's like he's seen things nobody else has. Things maybe no one shouldn't see.” Jay licked his lips. “Kind of like your eyes.”
Travis opened his mouth, but he had no reply.
“We should get some more wood for the fire,” Marty said, standing. “We don't want it to go out on a night like this.”
They returned to the viaduct with two pilfered loading pallets to break up for wood—Travis helped Jay with one, while Marty carried the other by himself—and spent a cold but bearable night huddled close to the fire. For a while they spoke in low voices, and Travis learned that Marty and Jay had both come to Denver that summer on a train from Topeka. The two men had met a couple of years ago in Ohio and had been traveling together ever since, slowly making their way west. Travis asked them how long they would keep traveling.
“Until we run out of country to cross,” Jay said, firelight shining in his eyes. “Then we'll spend our days on a California beach lying in the sand, eating oysters, and watching the ladies walk by. That's our plan, isn't it, Marty?”
Marty said nothing and used his big hands to break off more wood from one of the pallets. Finally, it grew too late and too cold for talking. At Jay's suggestion, each took a turn keeping watch while the others dozed.
“No creep is going to get us like those other guys who disappeared,” Jay said. “That's why Marty and I travel together. It's safer that way.” He thrust a finger at Travis. “It's a bad idea to try to go it alone in this world. If that's what you were thinking, then you need to think again.”
“I'll take the first watch,” Travis said.
While the two men slept on ragged blankets by the fire, Travis pressed a hand to the cement viaduct and whispered Krond over and over, until waves of heat radiated from the retaining wall, pushing back the frigid air a few more inches.
After midnight he woke Marty, whose turn it was to keep watch, then he curled up next to the fire, wishing he hadn't sold his old mistcloak in Tarras over a century ago.
The world was filled with gray light when Travis opened his eyes.
“Well, well, it looks like the wizard is finally awake,” said a sardonic voice.
For a moment Travis was confused. Everything was the soft color of fog. Was he back in the Gray Tower of the Runespeakers? Master Larad was always mocking him and his power, his scarred face at once disgusted and amused. Except that couldn't be right. All-master Oragien had banished Larad from the Gray Tower for his treachery, and Travis hadn't seen the sharp-tongued runespeaker since.
The sound of thunder rumbled above. Travis sat up and rubbed his eyes, and the world smeared into focus. Marty was rolling up the blankets, and Jay poked at the ashes of the fire with a stick. Sunlight turned the icy-clogged water of the Platte a soft pink, and flakes of cement fell like snow as another truck hurtled over the viaduct above.
“I don't suppose you could get the fire started again, Mr. Wizard,” Jay said.
Travis shook his head. “The wood's all gone.” It was hard to speak; his jaw was stiff as a rusty hinge.
“What about what you did to the cement wall?” Marty said.
Travis winced. The tall man must not have been asleep after all when Travis worked that magic.
“What do you mean, what he did to the