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Authors: Mark Anthony
Tags: Fiction
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last drop of blood contained within? Would the scarab die?
“I don’t think the gate can move us through time on its own power,” Travis went on. “I think it was only because of the demon that we traveled across time as well as worlds.”
Lirith combed her black, curling hair with her fingers. “Which means if we used the gate, we’d arrive in Tarras a hundred years before any of us were born.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad as it sounds,” Sareth said, flicking a bit of dirt from the wooden peg at the end of his right leg. “I used to dream sometimes about going back to the past.”
“So there is nothing in the present to keep you?” Lirith said, her words sharp.
Sareth looked up at her, coppery eyes startled, but she had turned her gaze to the fire.
“It seems we are lost,” Durge rumbled. In his jeans and calico shirt, the knight looked exactly like nineteenth-century miners Travis had seen in old photographs. The Embarran’s mustaches and longish hair, swept back from his somber brow, only added to the effect. “If a demon is required to move through time, then your fancy has come to be, Sareth, and we have no hope but to remain in the past—on this world or our own.”
“No,” Travis said, standing up to pace back and forth. “I don’t think we have to give up yet. I think there’s someone who might be able to help us—the one who got me mixed up in all of this in the first place. Only I don’t know if he’s here yet.”
Lirith looked up from the fire. “Who are you talking about?”
“The man who gave me this.” Travis pulled the Stone of Twilight out of his pocket. It gleamed silver-green in the palm of his hand. “Jack Graystone.”
Travis had never spoken a great deal about Jack Graystone with anyone but Falken and Melia, so he started at the beginning: how a year ago, on a windswept October night, his old friend Jack had called him to the antique shop just outside of town, and everything in Travis’s life had changed forever. Jack had given him Sinfathisar and had told him to run from perilous beings that came in light—beings Travis only later learned were wraithlings. Travis had run, and somehow, impossibly, he had stepped through a billboard into the world of Eldh. It was only later, when Travis returned to Earth, that he learned that what he had feared was true: Jack Graystone had died in the fire that consumed his antique shop that wild October night.
Durge stroked his mustaches. “So, like Mindroth, this wizard Graystone was one of the three runelords who fled with the Great Stones after the Fall of Malachor. Only he found his way to your Earth. And you believe he might be able to help us get back to the time in which we belong.”
“That’s right,” Travis said.
“And it was because of Graystone that you gained the Stone Sinfathisar and sealed the Pale King behind the Rune Gate last Midwinter’s Eve. And stopped the Necromancer last summer.”
“And defeated the demon,” Lirith said. “As well as the sorcerers of Scirath.”
Sareth let out a low whistle. “It seems a lucky thing that you met this Jack Graystone.”
Travis gripped the Stone. “I suppose you could call it that.” After all, it couldn’t have been fate. Not if he was
A’narai
, one of the Fateless, as Sareth’s grandmother had said.
“So you think there is a chance the wizard Graystone is here in this time?” Durge said.
Travis sat back down and flicked at a sardine head in one of the opened cans. “I’m not sure. He might be. I’m trying to remember how it all happened. You see, Jack had lived for several centuries in London—that’s a great city far from here, across an ocean. He owned a bookshop there called the Queen’s Shelf. Only then the bookshop burned, and after that he came here, to Castle City. I know the Queen’s Shelf burned down in 1883—that’s this year. But I don’t know exactly when in 1883 it happened.”
“So this Jack Graystone could already be
“I don’t think the gate can move us through time on its own power,” Travis went on. “I think it was only because of the demon that we traveled across time as well as worlds.”
Lirith combed her black, curling hair with her fingers. “Which means if we used the gate, we’d arrive in Tarras a hundred years before any of us were born.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad as it sounds,” Sareth said, flicking a bit of dirt from the wooden peg at the end of his right leg. “I used to dream sometimes about going back to the past.”
“So there is nothing in the present to keep you?” Lirith said, her words sharp.
Sareth looked up at her, coppery eyes startled, but she had turned her gaze to the fire.
“It seems we are lost,” Durge rumbled. In his jeans and calico shirt, the knight looked exactly like nineteenth-century miners Travis had seen in old photographs. The Embarran’s mustaches and longish hair, swept back from his somber brow, only added to the effect. “If a demon is required to move through time, then your fancy has come to be, Sareth, and we have no hope but to remain in the past—on this world or our own.”
“No,” Travis said, standing up to pace back and forth. “I don’t think we have to give up yet. I think there’s someone who might be able to help us—the one who got me mixed up in all of this in the first place. Only I don’t know if he’s here yet.”
Lirith looked up from the fire. “Who are you talking about?”
“The man who gave me this.” Travis pulled the Stone of Twilight out of his pocket. It gleamed silver-green in the palm of his hand. “Jack Graystone.”
Travis had never spoken a great deal about Jack Graystone with anyone but Falken and Melia, so he started at the beginning: how a year ago, on a windswept October night, his old friend Jack had called him to the antique shop just outside of town, and everything in Travis’s life had changed forever. Jack had given him Sinfathisar and had told him to run from perilous beings that came in light—beings Travis only later learned were wraithlings. Travis had run, and somehow, impossibly, he had stepped through a billboard into the world of Eldh. It was only later, when Travis returned to Earth, that he learned that what he had feared was true: Jack Graystone had died in the fire that consumed his antique shop that wild October night.
Durge stroked his mustaches. “So, like Mindroth, this wizard Graystone was one of the three runelords who fled with the Great Stones after the Fall of Malachor. Only he found his way to your Earth. And you believe he might be able to help us get back to the time in which we belong.”
“That’s right,” Travis said.
“And it was because of Graystone that you gained the Stone Sinfathisar and sealed the Pale King behind the Rune Gate last Midwinter’s Eve. And stopped the Necromancer last summer.”
“And defeated the demon,” Lirith said. “As well as the sorcerers of Scirath.”
Sareth let out a low whistle. “It seems a lucky thing that you met this Jack Graystone.”
Travis gripped the Stone. “I suppose you could call it that.” After all, it couldn’t have been fate. Not if he was
A’narai
, one of the Fateless, as Sareth’s grandmother had said.
“So you think there is a chance the wizard Graystone is here in this time?” Durge said.
Travis sat back down and flicked at a sardine head in one of the opened cans. “I’m not sure. He might be. I’m trying to remember how it all happened. You see, Jack had lived for several centuries in London—that’s a great city far from here, across an ocean. He owned a bookshop there called the Queen’s Shelf. Only then the bookshop burned, and after that he came here, to Castle City. I know the Queen’s Shelf burned down in 1883—that’s this year. But I don’t know exactly when in 1883 it happened.”
“So this Jack Graystone could already be
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