“Is that why they needed Nim to open the door?” Grace asked, the words cool, curious: a scientist’s inquiry. “Because she’s a nexus?”
“Yes,” Farr said, approaching the door. “A spell of warding, like the one cast on this doorway, is drawn in lines of fate. Passing through the portal is one possibility, one fate. The passage can be blocked by removing the chance of that fate ever coming to pass.”
Travis thought he understood. “But because Nim is a nexus, she changed fate. New possibilities came into being, others vanished, and the spell unraveled.”
“Then, once inside, the sorcerers blocked the doorway,” Larad said. “But what did they use to bring down the door? Surely not a spell, with the way magic has weakened.”
Travis could guess. In the past, the Scirathi had brought guns from Earth. Why not explosives as well?
Avhir stalked toward Farr. “Maybe you are not strong enough to open the doorway, dervish, but what about him?” He turned and pointed at Travis. “Is he not a great sorcerer?”
Travis tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in his mouth. “Larad,” he croaked. “The Stones.”
Larad held out the iron box, and Travis took the three Imsari. Whatever was affecting magic had not weakened the Stones; he could feel power radiating from them. He gripped them in his left hand, then pointed his right hand at the doorway.
“ Urath!”
There was a clap of thunder and a blinding flash. When his vision cleared he saw that the doorway remained closed. He clenched the stones, his knuckles whitening. “ Urath!” he shouted again, and a hundred voices chanted in his mind, a chorus of all the Runelords that had gone before him. Again thunder rent the air. The ground trembled.
Travis opened his eyes. The doorway was still blocked.
It was no use. He had felt the power of his runespell roll outward like a wave–then part around the tower, flowing to either side of it, repelled by the slick onyx walls.
“I can’t do it,” he said, giving the Stones back to Larad.
“Perhaps not with northern magic,” Avhir said, his bronze gaze on Travis. “But what about sorcery? Does not the blood of Orъ himself run in your veins?”
“He can try,” Farr said, his face covered with sweat and sand. “But it’s no use. If blood sorcery still worked as it should, the Scirathi would have left a trap for us. Only it doesn’t. The morndariwill not come. Or perhaps they cannot come. Whatever has weakened magic prevents them from responding to our calls. There is . . . there is no hope.”
They all gazed at one another, faces ashen, eyes dull. The heat was punishing now, even in the shadow of the spire. Grace could not maintain her spell for long. She and Larad and Farr would perish. Nor could the T’golsurvive in these conditions, and while the heat did not affect Travis, even he needed water. They would all die.
Grace touched his arm. “You tried, Travis. I think . . . I think in the end that counts for something. It has to.”
Travis bowed his head, his brow touching hers. He wanted to weep, only he couldn’t. It felt as if there was a darkness in him, a rift like that in the sky, growing, consuming him from the inside out. He had failed to save Nim from the sorcerers. What would Beltan think of him? Travis didn’t know, but he did know one thing: Grace was wrong. Trying didn’t count, not for anything. In the end, trying and failing was no different than doing nothing at all. The darkness ate at his heart, his spirit. In a moment all would be gone. He would feel nothing. . . .
No. That wasn’t right. Travis resisted the darkness. He wouldfeel something. And if not sorrow, then something else.
Grace gasped, pushing away from him. “Travis–you’re hot.”
He held out his arms and saw shimmering waves radiating from his skin. Fire surged through his veins, burning away the darkness inside him, fueled by a new power: rage. The Scirathi had taken Vani’s daughter. Beltan’s daughter. Hisdaughter.
With a cry, Travis turned and flung himself against the wall of the tower, beating at it with bare fists. He felt a strange resistance each time his fist approached the stone, as if his hands were moving through some viscous fluid. However, he gritted his teeth and was able to punch through it, his blows landing against the tower. His fists glanced off without effect, but he didn’t care. Again he struck the onyx wall, again, again. Distantly, he felt pain in his hands, and wetness.
“Stop, Travis!”
It was Vani, her words sharp, but Travis hardly heard her. Fury boiled in his head, burning away thought and reason. He wanted only to beat down the tower with his bare hands, or to die trying.
“He’s hurting himself. Avhir, help me!”
Strong hands gripped Travis, pulling him away. He howled at them, snarled like a wild animal, trying to break free.
Travis, please.
The words were cool as bells in his mind. He went limp in the arms of the T’gol, the rage pouring out of him, leaving him empty, consumed. His hands hurt; they were smeared with blood. He gazed up, into Grace’s green‑gold eyes. I’m sorry, he wanted to say.
The words were drowned out by a groan from beneath their feet.
Vani and Avhir let go of Travis, whirling around, hands raised, eyes searching.
“What was that?” Larad said.
Farr pointed at the black wall of the spire. “Look.”
Blood dripped down the wall where Travis had flailed against the stones. Then, with a wisp of steam, the fluid vanished, as if drunk in by the dark stones. The ground lurched. Grace stumbled against Travis, and both would have fallen if Vani had not held them upright.
Larad let out a breath. “By all the gods.”
It took Travis a long moment to understand what was happening. A gap had appeared between the wall of the tower and the ground. Even as he watched, sand poured into the gap and it widened, reaching a foot from the tower. Two feet. Three. The ground shook again. Then, at the same instant as the others, he understood.
“Run!” Vani shouted. “Away from the spire. Now!”
The tower began to thrust upward from the ground, and the sand bulged beneath their feet, as if a great bubble was forming deep beneath them. Vani pulled Travis into a run. Avhir was pushing Grace and Larad, and Farr careened after them. The flat surface of the plain became a steep slope, rising behind them and falling away before them.
Travis glanced over his shoulder and saw the black spire soaring toward the sky. He caught other shapes as well–more spires, and onyx domes–then Vani jerked his arm.
“Don’t look back. Keep running!”
He could hardly hear her over the rumbling. A hot, metallic odor permeated the air. They were sliding now more than running, skidding down the slope on their heels. Sand began to sheet past them in waves, carrying them along with it. If he went down, Travis knew he would be buried in a heartbeat.
Just before them and to the left was a flat expanse of gray, wind‑scoured stone, like an island in the sea of sand. The slab looked natural, not man‑made. Vani veered toward it, pulling him along; they were nearly there. Then Travis felt his feet go out from under him. He fell and rolled down the slope, sand pouring over him, filling his mouth so he couldn’t scream. Not again. . . .
A strong hand caught him, hauling him forward, and he rolled onto something hard. He groped and felt rock beneath him.
“Look!” a voice shouted. It was Farr.