Lessek's Key Read online

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said out loud, ‘you bought the damned plane ticket, stupid – you might as well be wearing a radar beacon. Anyway, forget the police. Concentrate on Nerak.’ Steven focused: the shutdown of the airports would have delayed him for a day, so he might have driven, or maybe taken a train. Maybe he just waited for the next flight anyway. If he’d driven, he would have made up time when Steven had been forced to sleep. A train would be slower – but that was assuming Nerak had allowed it to run on schedule. He shuddered. Who knew how quickly the dark prince could be in Denver with a runaway Amtrak? If he’d waited one day for the airports to reopen, Nerak would have picked up a two-day lead.

  ‘Shit. Why didn’t I think of that?’ Steven nearly drove into the guardrail in his frustration: this race was so mismatched that there was no way he could win it. Nerak would be there – how could he not? But if he had beaten Steven to Idaho Springs and retrieved Lessek’s key, then surely he would be gone by now. He hadn’t come through the portal to kill Steven – although that might have been a welcome side-effect – he’d come because he was afraid the Ronans would regain possession of the stone. If he had the key and the portal, he wouldn’t hang around. He would skip back to Eldarn, turn his wagon towards Sandcliff Palace and begin working with the spell table.

  Steven made his mind up: he would spend the night in Denver and take the first bus to Idaho Springs in the morning. He pulled a U-turn and headed back towards Hannah Sorenson’s house. It might be a long night, but he would stand vigil. Phoning was not enough; he wanted to see her.

  Around midnight, Steven went to find a drink, smiling wanly to himself when he realised he actually missed Garec’s tecan. How bizarre was that, after spending months pining for good coffee! He yawned despite the caffeine, then took out a piece of notepaper and scratched a letter to Arthur Mikelson.

  Arthur,

  Thank you for the use of your car. I hope you find it in good condition other than the scratch on the side. Although, I did throw your licence plates in the Missouri River. Sorry. It is parked in the stadium lot between 23rd Avenue and Union Station in Denver, Colorado. If you are unable to pick it up soon, I am sure it will be towed, but there are signs in the parking lot telling you how to get in touch with the towing company. I owe you $400, and when my circumstances change, I will get that to you, plus something for your trouble. You will find the contents of your wallet intact. I did not use your ID or attempt to use your credit cards. Your T-shirt and exercise clothes are in the trunk. I have kept your address and will get the money back to you as soon as possible.

  Thanks.

  Steven didn’t sign the note, but folded the paper around the wallet and tucked it into the padded envelope. He’d add the keys once he’d parked the car, then mail it back to Charleston at the bus station.

  That done, Steven turned his attention back to Hannah’s house. He looked at the array of newspapers lying forlornly on the porch. ‘She’s not coming,’ he heard himself say. ‘She’s there. The blackhearted bastard was telling the truth.’ He would wait another two hours, just in case. Two hours – and then he would go back, and he would take up the hickory staff, and he would face Nerak. He had spent three days trying to forget the screaming baby on board Express Airlines flight 182 and the carnage that had unfolded behind him that day, but now he allowed those images back. He could almost feel them seep into his bone marrow and fester there like an infection. He might regret it later, but he wanted to hear that baby screaming when he finally gutted Nerak and sent what passed for his soul in pieces to the furthest corner of Eldarn’s hell.

  THE FJORD

  Mark Jenkins awakened to the sound of a gull squawking at the passing boat. The high-pitched caws reminded him of summers at Jones Beach. For a moment he thought there was something significant he was supposed to remember, something about the beach, or Long Island, then he let the notion fade. There would be time later to dwell on it.

  He lay back in the narrow bow of the sailing vessel he had stolen for their covert attack on the Prince Marek, his head on Brynne’s folded blanket, ignoring everyone else. Above, the single sail was taut, but apart from the salty tang of organic decay drifting out from the inter-tidal zone – he didn’t need to look up to know that they were near the shore – he couldn’t feel the breeze which pushed the boat along. The sun was bright and warm, too warm for autumn, and as it fell across his face, Mark wished that sleep would take him again. There was perhaps no more perfectly innocent time than the few seconds after waking, when, for three or four breaths, there would be no pain, no stress, no nothing. In that brief space of time Mark sometimes forgot where he was, even who he was.

  And today’s awakening would be the worst, for Brynne was gone.

  Mark gazed into the near-cloudless pale-blue sky, staring at nothing, until he was jolted from his introspection by two stony cliffs coming into view. The gigantic granite gateposts stood nearly two hundred feet high, towering over the sailboat as it passed between them. Mark watched the sail flutter and collapse as the light wind was cut off and the boat slowed nearly to a stop. As the cliffs swallowed him up they cropped the expanse of cloudless sky into a thin ribbon, reminding him of an arroyo near Idaho Springs, a narrow canyon – a killing field for Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper or John Wayne in the closing minutes of any one of hundreds of westerns he had watched as a boy. He imagined this view, the stony walls, the powder-blue stripe, was one dozens of C-list actors had enjoyed moments after being thrown from the saddle with the hero’s .45 slugs buried in their chests. But that was home; out here it wasn’t an arroyo, or a box canyon: here, it would be … what? A fjord? Good enough, he supposed, not really caring, a fjord.

  Brynne was dead. Missing, Garec said, but Mark knew better. The explosion as the great ship blew across Orindale Harbour had been devastating. Gilmour hadn’t seen her on the main deck, and Mark knew she was on board – he had let her go. There was nowhere else she could have been except on the quarterdeck, stalking some unsuspecting guard, or throttling the life out of a Malakasian sailor. She would have had no chance as the planks beneath her feet disintegrated into splinters – one of which had become lodged in his own neck. Gilmour had yanked it out later; Mark had it wrapped in a piece of cloth and shoved into his pocket: a grisly souvenir.

  ‘I love you,’ Brynne had whispered in almost comic mimicry of Mark’s clumsy profession only minutes earlier. He had laughed at her accent: she had sounded like a German tourist. But she was perfect, for him, and for his world. They were supposed to be together. Looking down at him from the aft rail, she had looked like any other woman – any other perfect woman, a doctor or teacher, an accountant, even. That was from the shoulders up, away from the bristling array of daggers, dirks and blades she wore across her chest and at her hips, the weapons that marked her as a doomed revolutionary fighting an unbeatable enemy. It would be a long time before Mark recovered.

  He ignored the looming cliffs, wrapped himself in Brynne’s blanket and ran a finger over his cracked lips. He felt his neck, where Gilmour had removed the black splinter. The wound was infected, seeping pus, and as Mark poked the swelling, discoloured fluid spurted out. He found a piece of stained sailcloth and dipped it into the salt water, then dabbed gingerly at the jagged tear. He folded the cloth into a small square, pressed it against the wound and left it there, its coolness comforting.

  His wound attended to, Mark buried his nose in the blanket and inhaled, hoping to catch her aroma, but all he could smell was pungent woodsmoke. He felt tears come again and stared up between the cliffs, Heaven’s granite gate, trying to control himself. Weeping wouldn’t bring her back, and he didn’t want the others to see his weakness. The grey and white gull drifted overhead, cawing a warning. Mark felt as though he had been switched off, paralysed by grief. Would he die here? That question had bothered him for weeks, but now it no longer mattered.

  Listlessness and rage warred inside his head, making him feel nauseous and exhausted. Only by shortening his br
eath, taking gulps of air, could he keep from vomiting all over himself. Finally, as he regained his equilibrium, he sat up and reached for a skin of water. He focused his eyes on Garec and Gilmour, who were talking quietly in the stern.

  ‘I wonder how far in it goes.’ Though still too pale, Garec had been getting stronger since Steven had pulled the arrow from his lung, but his face looked haunted. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes darted nervously from left to right.

  ‘We should continue on.’ Gilmour looked distrustful of the granite gates, as if he feared Eldarn’s own Gary Cooper might be up there, taking aim over the open sights of a lever-action rifle. ‘This fjord will shelter us while we find someplace to put ashore.’

  Garec looked around. ‘There’s nowhere to land here; we’ll have to go further in,’ he said. It was the midday aven, three days since Nerak had blown the Prince Marek out of the water. Now they needed a flat bit of ground before Steven’s watch read five o’clock, for it was almost time to open the portal. ‘But we’ve lost our tail-wind.’ He nodded towards the sail, hanging flaccid from the single spar. ‘We won’t get far at this rate.’

  Humming softly, Gilmour traced a weaving pattern through the air; with a turn of his hand, a gentle breeze snaked into the fjord, caught itself up in the limp sailcloth and began pushing the stolen vessel inland. With a satisfied look he asked, ‘What time is it?’

  Garec looked at Steven’s watch in consternation. ‘Um, three and— let’s see, the rune four represents a twenty, doesn’t it, so three and twenty. We have almost two full revolutions of the long stalk before we have to open the portal.’

  ‘Two hours. Less than an aven,’ Gilmour confirmed. ‘That’s not much time.’ With another gesture he increased the wind thrumming through the narrow canyon. ‘We’ll give it an hour. If we haven’t found level ground by then, I’ll swim the portal over and scale the cliff face. I’m sure I can open it up there.’ The Larion Senator, still using the emaciated body of Caddoc Weston, the Orindale fisherman, pointed towards the top of the fjord.

  ‘All right.’ Garec knew better than to doubt Gilmour’s abilities – he might look like a frail old man, but Garec was quite certain he would scamper up the stone cliffs with all the agility of a mountain goat. ‘I hope we find someplace soon. Mark needs a break, some hot food … gods, Gilmour, he needs any food. Have you seen his neck?’

  ‘He’ll be fine. There are things no sorcery or wisdom can change, and he is in the throes of one such thing right now. Time is the only thing we can give him.’

  ‘And what of Steven? What if he fails to come through again today?’

  Gilmour heard the growing agitation in Garec’s voice. ‘Then we will wait until his watch reads 5.00 again and we will open the portal. Each time we do, we will be closer to Sandcliff Palace, of course.’

  ‘What if he’s not coming back?’

  ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘But you said if the portal in Steven and Mark’s house was closed, he could fall anywhere in their world. Is that right?’ Garec tried to remember what Gilmour had told them about the Larion Senate’s far portal system.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, what if he was dropped someplace … I don’t know … inhospitable?’

  ‘Inhospitable?’

  ‘Right. Someplace frozen solid, or filled with molten rock, or rife with angry marsh adders—you know, inhospitable. You heard them: it’s a place with flying machines and self-propelled car-wagons. Why would it take him this long to get here?’ Garec’s anxiety was almost tangible.

  ‘I’m not sure, Garec, but I do know that it’s too early to give up hope, or to start doubting him.’

  ‘I am not doubting him, Gilmour, I am worried that something has happened to him.’ He sighed, and brought up the subject he knew the old man had been avoiding. ‘And Nerak went through right after him …’

  ‘It was perhaps five or six breaths later.’ Gilmour had obviously been pondering this question himself. ‘About as long as it would take him to get up off the deck, cast his final spell and then leap the three or four paces to the far portal.’ It had been longer than that – not much longer, just a moment or two, but time enough for the dark prince to make eye-contact with his former colleague. ‘Well done, Fantus,’ Nerak had whispered, a concession of one round lost. We’ll play again later, Nerak’s eyes had said, and in them, Gilmour had seen the end. He was not powerful enough, and failing to kill Nerak that night – Nerak could not be killed – had cost him dearly, for now Nerak knew the extent of Gilmour’s power. He had felt it in the mystical blows the old man had landed.

  ‘I barely slowed him down,’ Gilmour muttered.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘What—? Oh, nothing. What were we talking about?’ The man seemed to age before Garec’s eyes. ‘Oh, yes, Steven. It wasn’t much time, but as long as Steven remembered to close the portal as soon as he passed across the Fold, he’ll be fine. There was ample time to shut the other end down before Nerak disappeared.’

  ‘So, in Steven’s prolonged absence, we must assume that the portal in his home was already closed and that wherever he fell is closer to Idahocolorado than wherever Nerak fell. Because if Nerak reaches Steven and Mark’s home first…’ He hesitated.

  ‘Then all here is lost.’

  ‘What about those?’ Garec motioned towards the hickory staff and the wool-wrapped leather-bound book Gilmour had tossed into the sailboat three nights earlier.

  The old man sighed and took out his pipe, then felt through his pockets for a pouch of tobacco. ‘They represent great power; that’s true, but only Steven can wield the hickory staff.’

  Garec reached tentatively for the length of wood; for a moment he looked like a child caught stealing a pastry through an open bakery window. ‘Why?’ He released the tiller and took up the staff in both hands. ‘Why won’t it work for you or—’ He looked over at Mark. ‘Perhaps for him?’ He didn’t even consider that the staff might respond to his own commands.

  ‘That’s a mystery to me, Garec’ Gilmour abandoned his quest for tobacco and took hold of the tiller. ‘I believe Mark is correct in his assumption that Nerak has no idea what force is hidden within it, and that alone has given the dark prince reason to fear it. However, Nerak is not accustomed to fearing very much and he is… I suppose it’s best to say he is out of practice at fearing anything.’

  ‘So, in Nerak’s mind, the staff is something you have constructed for Steven, and therefore it falls within the expectations he has for the limits of your power?’

  ‘Right. Something he supposes is of little threat to him.’ Gilmour looked over at the stark granite cliff. Well done, Fantus. Nerak’s ironic words chilled his skin; he shook his head in an effort to focus on the conversation.

  ‘And the book?’ Garec made no move to reach for the ancient tome. ‘Can you use it?’

  ‘That we’ll find out soon enough.’ Gilmour pressed his lips together in a tight smile. ‘I may have made a grave mistake there.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The night I fled Sandcliff Palace, I left everything – all the writings, books, scrolls, everything. I just fled as fast as I could, with my shoulder hanging useless and my ankle flopping back and forth. I was numb, and far too scared to consider that one day I might need Lessek’s library.’ He adjusted their heading to move the little catboat around a tight bend in the fjord. ‘This book tells me that Nerak has done much more than reflect on his studies.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I have always known that Nerak spends most of his time sequestered in Welstar Palace working through spells, memorising incantations, trying to weave together all the threads he needs to operate the spell table – so he can rend a sizeable gate in the Fold …’

  Garec finished his friend’s thought, ‘But you never imagined he would use Lessek’s journals to speed up the process.’

  ‘I thought it had all been destroyed.’ Gilmour shook his head despondently. ‘I was
there: it was a massive explosion; most everything in the library was reduced to rubble.’

  ‘Yet Lessek himself has sent you back—’

  ‘For the Windscrolls, yes. If Pikan was right that night, we’ll need the third Windscroll.’

  ‘So that one wasn’t destroyed?’

  ‘I don’t know, Garec. I honestly don’t. I thought the entire collection was lost, but when I saw this book on the Prince Marek I realised that Nerak went back and retrieved—’

  ‘At least this one,’ Garec broke in. ‘He went back to get this book.’ He started to point at it with the hickory staff but recoiled at the thought of the two magical artefacts coming in contact with one another.

  Gilmour chuckled wryly. ‘Yes, at least this one, but I have to assume the Windscrolls are still there and that the secret to Nerak’s weakness is in their text.’

  Nerak’s weakness lies elsewhere.’ Garec echoed Lessek’s cryptic statement. ‘It must be in the Windscrolls.’

  ‘It might.’ He spotted a satchel tucked beneath the transom and a real smile crossed his face as he pulled out a leather pouch of tobacco. ‘That’s where we’ll start, anyway.’

  ‘Mark seems to think this has something to do with it.’ Garec returned the hickory staff to its place beside the book.

  ‘We can hope, Garec. And if Steven retrieves Lessek’s key and returns here safely, we will have several very powerful allies.’ Gilmour decided it was time to change the subject. ‘What does the watch say now?’

  Steven’s watch showed both the stalks on the five rune as Garec charted Gilmour’s progress down the precipitous cliff, the curiously small tapestry that was the far portal folded beneath one arm. The sorcerous breeze was stilled to a whisper and Garec had little trouble keeping the boat steady against the fjord’s southern wall. Its bow nestled snugly in a crack between two boulders and the wooden hull thunked gently against the stone in perfect time with the gentle rise and fall of the water. That drum-like beat was the only sound in the fjord and the silence weighed heavily on Garec. He felt uncomfortably warm, despite the sun dropping steadily in the distance.