The Crimson Vault (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (9 page)

Kai drew on the rest of his steel, drinking it all up in a burst. As long as he won in the next few seconds, he’d be fine. Any longer than that, and he would be facing a fifteen-foot stone golem with no superhuman strength.

Well, then. He’d just have to win.

The golem swept an arm at him, trying to knock him off the pedestal. Mithra sliced through the solid rock of its arm. The second arm swept down at him, trying to crush him, and he jumped. He was stronger than he had expected; his enhanced jump actually took him into the ceiling. He had to flip around in midair and catch himself with his feet. For an instant, he was looking down at the golem from above.

Then he pushed off the ceiling and launched himself down, flashing out with Mithra as he did.

He spun around again just before he hit the floor, landing in a crouch with such force that the tile around him cracked. He held Mithra off and to one side, so that it didn’t drive down into the ground so far that he couldn’t retrieve it.

His steel ran out, and Kai almost collapsed from the sudden surge of weakness. It didn’t matter, though.

He had sliced through the middle of the golem’s heartstone.

The golem collapsed in a rockslide, and Kai had to hurry away to avoid the falling stones. The Eldest Nye, standing on the far end of the room, bowed and slowly clapped.

“Welcome back, Kai,” the Eldest said. “You’re just in time.”

Kai ignored him, already drawing Mithra down in the beginnings of a Valinhall Gate. He thought about inviting the Eldest inside, but decided against it. The Nye had gotten himself here without a Gate; he could get himself back.

After about a minute, Kai had sliced open a tear in reality, which widened to show Valinhall’s entry hall: a large, carpeted room, filled with comfortably padded chairs and couches. Wooden tables were scattered here and there, covered with old, yellowed paper. Gilt-edged stand mirrors hung every few feet, and from the walls hung wooden sword racks, numbered one to thirteen.

The smell of home—old wood, polish, and paper—drifted into the ancient temple. It had been far too long since Kai had been home. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

“You have done good work, Kai,” the Eldest called. Kai let the Gate keep closing.

“When the time comes, the Wanderer will need his sword.”

Ice crawled down Kai’s back, and he spun around, but the Gate had vanished. He stared at the blank wall of the Valinhall entry room.

The Eldest had only mentioned Valin in order to provoke Kai, he knew that. Valin was safely asleep, sealed away, as he had been for the last twenty-five years.

Kai hesitated for a moment, and then began to walk deeper into the House. He hated to let the Eldest’s words have any effect on him, but he needed to check on the Wanderer’s grave.

It couldn’t hurt if he only checked.

***

Valinhall had something of a reputation as a Territory that was useless for actually getting from one place to another quickly, and Kai had to admit that—in most cases—the reputation was deserved. If he opened a Gate from the real world to Valinhall, then any Gate he opened from Valinhall would open back up onto that exact spot. The generally accepted rule was that you could enter Valinhall from anywhere, as long as you were willing to return to the same place. If he opened a Gate now, he would return to the stone temple at the center of the Badari Desert.

But, like all rules, this one had something of a loophole.

Kai stood deep in the house, at the top of a spiral staircase. Each stair was made out of a substance that looked like a cloud of black smoke somehow frozen in time. The steps felt solid enough, though.
 

He held Benson’s steel every second in this room, because even the air weighed heavily upon him here. His body was at least three times its normal weight, but climbing the staircase under these conditions was only the first of the room’s challenges. When he had first reached this far into the House, he had been forced to fight a guardian at the top of the stairs. He almost hadn’t made it.

Now that he thought of it, Indirial had been the one to drag Kai’s broken and bleeding body out of here and back to the healing pool. Oh, how long ago that was.

At the top of the stairs was a black stone platform, seemingly floating unsupported at the top of the room. The center of the pedestal sported a chink in the rock that glowed faintly.

It looked like the beginnings of a crack, but it was really a keyhole.

Kai reversed Mithra, holding it point-down over the keyhole. He gathered up his concentration, reaching
through
the Dragon’s Fang as he did when opening a Gate. Then he plunged the blade down.

The world vanished in a swirl of colors, and Kai felt as though his insides were being wrenched in six directions at once. Using this Gate was much less pleasant than the normal process, but it was necessary. Kai forced himself to ignore the pain.

Minutes or seconds later, grass formed under Kai’s feet. The spinning lights and colors resolved into a line of trees, and the heavy air of the black staircase lightened into a fresh summer breeze.
 

When the world stopped spinning, Kai found himself standing in a clearing at the center of Latari Forest. He still held both hands on Mithra’s hilt, and its tip dug two inches into the forest soil.

As soon as he recognized his surroundings, Kai wrenched his blade free of the ground and leaped forward. Once, this Gate had opened onto the center of an empty clearing. But that had been more than twenty-five years ago.

Since midsummer in the last year of Zakareth the Fifth’s reign, the Gate had come out only paces away from a Hanging Tree.

Kai landed facing back the way he came, Mithra angled across his body, ready to face the savage roots and branches of the blood-red Ragnarus tree. Each time he had used this Gate in the past, he had been attacked in seconds.

This time, the Tree was eerily still. Sure, its red leaves whispered in the wind of another world, and its thorny branches clawed at the air in Simon’s direction. But the Tree’s attack was lazy and listless, not the savage assault Kai usually experienced. Even the rustling voice of the leaves was agonized, not hungry.

Kai’s shaggy hair fell into his face again, but he didn’t bother to brush it away. He stared at the bloody Tree, and a shiver of fear ran down his spine.

The Hanging Tree was wounded.

A chunk of the Tree’s trunk looked brown and dry, as if part of it had simply died. The leaves and roots on that side had shriveled, and were starting to blacken on the edges. Kai crept closer, still wary of an attack. But the Tree seemed blind on that side, letting Kai approach its scar without a whisper of protest.

He was no Ragnarus Traveler, but he had extensive experience with this particular Tree. He had been present at its birth, and he had spent most of his life in these woods. He had never seen it anything but violently healthy.

Other than a direct attack—which Kai would have detected long before it reached this deep into the Forest—only one thing could weaken a Hanging Tree. Starvation. The Tree must be feeding on itself.

Oh, Simon,
Kai thought.
What have you done?
 

Part of him knew he couldn’t blame Simon, no matter how much he wanted to. He hadn’t told the boy the full story, after all, and Kai had even prepared him to succeed. He had known the potential consequences, and his conscience had driven him to act anyway. But this possibility had always remained just that: a possibility. A slim, dark chance. He had never thought Simon could
actually
weaken this living prison enough to make a difference.

The earth shook.

Kai stumbled a step and had to catch himself before he fell. The crimson Tree trembled even more violently than the rest of the forest, waving its branches through the air in wild, silent protest.
 

“Master?” Kai whispered.

The ground shook again, ringing like a bell.

A crack bloomed on the scarred side of the Hanging Tree, splitting it from the ground up. It screamed silently, a sound like nails drilling into Kai’s brain.

He decided that right then would be an excellent time to be back in the House. Even if the Wanderer did escape his prison, Valinhall was the one place he would never choose to enter.

Kai raised Mithra’s tip to a point just above his head, reaching through the sword to his Territory. Maintaining his concentration—but keeping an eye on the wounded Tree—Kai carefully drew his blade down, sawing through the barrier between worlds.

Slowly, a tear formed, revealing the House’s entry hall on the other side. Kai kept focused, but a seed of hope put down roots in his heart. It looked like he would make it after all.

A shadow detached itself from the darkness under the canopy of Latari Forest, drifting over to where Kai stood.

In his raspy voice, the Eldest spoke: “At last, we will have our master back.”

Kai ignored him, continuing to open the Gate. He had to make it large enough, or it wouldn’t stabilize. The ground rumbled again, shaking his concentration.

The Eldest drifted forward, standing just to the side of Kai’s Gate. His black hood stared into Kai’s face. “Once you refused me, a quarter-century gone. If you had taken up the sword then, all this could have been avoided.”

Kai nodded toward his sword, with its line of gold gleaming down the center of the blade. “I have it now,” he said. “Perhaps, for once, we can be friends.” He had to stall just a few more seconds, so that he could finish the Gate. Already he could see the handful of gleaming blades hanging on their racks in the entry hall. Azura was among them.

The Eldest shook his hood. “I would have, once. But you are a coward. I will serve only a more worthy master.”

Kai reached the grass, and drew his sword away. The Gate remained, a portal into Valinhall wide enough for him to walk through. Kai stepped forward.

Then he felt a sensation on his neck that he had almost forgotten: the feel of icy chains.

The chains jerked, hauling Kai backwards, off his feet. He landed several paces away on his back. If he had not been holding Benson’s steel, his throat would have collapsed.

The Eldest withdrew his black iron chain, flowing away to stand between Kai and the Tree. “The Wanderer feels his sword,” he said. “I will not allow you to steal it once more.”

The Gate hung open, behind the Eldest’s shoulder, but it had already begun to shrink. Kai hopped to his feet, angling Mithra in front of him. He didn’t have to beat the Eldest, he just had to make it to the House. Once there, he could alert Simon, Denner, Indirial…even Kathrin, if she would consent to return. Even the King would want to hear this news. Maybe he could even heal the Tree’s wounds.

No matter what, Kai had to reach the Gate.

Kai called more steel, drawing so deeply that he actually had a vision of Benson on his black throne. The skeleton, seemingly made entirely of steel, lounged as usual with one bony leg tossed over the arm of his seat. His wide-brimmed hat was tilted to cover one eye, though the other blazed with rough blue flame. He was apparently chatting with one of the nearby suits of armor, one of which stepped forward and did a little pirouette as Kai watched.

Benson angled his fiery eye toward Kai and frowned. Kai was never clear on how he did that, without lips. The skeleton said something, adjusting his hat as he did, but Kai couldn’t hear it.

Steel thundered through his veins. When his vision returned, he launched himself at the Gate. The force of his jump tore the soil where he stood, and he hurtled through the air.

Links of black chain whipped up to meet him, but Kai was prepared. He twisted in midair, meeting the chain with Mithra’s blade.
 

The chain wrapped around Kai’s sword, and the Nye pulled tight. Mithra was wrenched from Kai’s grasp.

Even though he had only had the Dragon’s Fang back for an hour, Kai already felt the pang of loss. Still, the sword was not his first priority. He had to reach the Gate. Kai fell, feet-first, toward the open portal.

Then the Eldest let out a low, keening whistle.

Two Nye emerged from the Gate in a river of flowing black cloth. They flared with light the color of the moon.

Suddenly, they moved too fast for Kai to follow.

The Nye leaped into the air, each one grabbing one of Kai’s arms. Kai punched one of them away, but the second pulled him straight down to the ground.

He slammed into the grass hard enough to send a tremor running through the soil, though the Nye fell lightly enough. With so much steel running through him, Kai barely felt the impact.

The Gate had continued to shrink, but Kai could still fit himself through it. He was only a foot away. He threw himself forward.

Nye flowed out from Valinhall like a black river.

Kai’s face smacked into a wall of black cloth. Two Nye grabbed his feet, two his arms, trying to twist his hands behind his back. Others caught him up under the ribs or by the neck, twisting their chains around him.

But he had been defeating Nye in combat since he was a child, and he did not intend to go easily. He used raw strength to force his arms back around into position, and called knives from the Valinhall armory. He stabbed one of the Nye in the heart, thrusting his second knife into another Nye’s hood. They took his knives away, but he kept calling weapons, struggling and knocking Nye away like a child swatting bees. Then his steel ran out.

Kai sagged, the sudden feeling of weakness running through his body, and the black robes had him trussed and tied in seconds. He felt as though they had wrapped him in a cocoon of cold, biting, black chains.

Craning his neck, Kai could just barely see the Gate still shrinking. If he were to escape now, he would have to crawl through.

Ah, if only Caela were here.
He had never expected to die without one of his lovely little ones at his side.

The wall of Nye parted, and their Eldest stepped through. He kept one of his arms behind his back, though in the other he held Mithra. His pace-long sleeve fell all the way to the ground.