The Gates Of Winter Part 43

Together they started up Seventeenth Street. They had covered much of downtown on foot, and while they hadn't seen any sign of Travis, they had discovered some things of interest all the same. Beltan was right about the shadow growing in the city. The clues were everywhere. The newspaper headlines warned of the crashing economy, the rising crime rate. The televisions blared the same bleak news. People moved about their everyday lives, only furtively, with fear in their eyes. And everywhere-stapled to every telephone pole, taped to the side of every fence-were the posters bearing the faces of the missing.

Deirdre had read about it on the plane, but she hadn't realized how serious it was. At first the disappearances had been limited to the homeless-the neglected, the ill, the forgotten. However, over the last few days, others had begun to vanish. The posters that covered the city now showed the smiling faces of well-dressed, healthy people: husbands and wives, sons and daughters. Loved. Missed.

They turned the corner onto Court Street, and Deirdre saw a woman taping a photocopied flyer to the side of a mailbox. The flyer showed the picture of a teenage girl with gla.s.ses, smiling. A high school yearbook picture. The woman looked up, her face exhausted, her eyes red and dry.

"I'm sorry," Deirdre murmured, but the woman had already turned away to shuffle down the street, flyers and tape in hand.

When they stepped into their suite at the Brown Palace, they found Vani and Anders already there. The two had driven through downtown and the surrounding industrial areas, and what they had seen confirmed Deirdre's observations: The fear in the city was growing, and that was only helping Duratek to strengthen its hold on Denver.

"I don't know what they're up to," Anders said, "but it's got to be something big. We couldn't turn a corner without running into someone working for Duratek."

"Did you see anything that might give us a clue as to what they're doing?" Deirdre said, shucking off her jacket.

"Perhaps," Vani said, her leathers creaking softly as she paced. "They are careful not to allow anyone to observe their actions, and people are unwilling to speak about anything they might know concerning the men of Duratek. However, it is clear they are ama.s.sing a large amount of resources. We saw many vehicles, including transport trucks, moving in and out of warehouse complexes."

"They're getting ready for a war," Beltan said, rummaging through the minibar. He pulled out a canister of cheese puffs. "If you're going to invade a foreign land, you've got to make sure you have an adequate supply chain to fortify your army as it advances."

Deirdre gave Beltan a sharp look. Not stupid indeed.

"How do you open this thing?" he said, turning the canister around and around.

All right, so maybe he still had a few things to learn. Deirdre took the canister from him, popped the top, and handed it back. He grunted, then carefully removed a cheese puff and put it in his mouth.

He looked up. "Is this food?"

"Technically, yes," Deirdre said.

"Just checking." He swallowed a handful of cheese puffs.

A knock sounded at the door. Deirdre turned around, but Vani was already moving. She opened the door in a swift motion.

It was only a bellhop. He carried an envelope for Deirdre. She rose, signed for it, then turned the envelope over in her hands as Vani shut the door.

"What is it?" Beltan said.

"I don't know. Except for my name, it's not marked."

Vani's eyes narrowed to slits. "Be careful."

"She's right, mate," Anders said. "There's no telling who sent that."

Deirdre moved to the window, holding the envelope up to the gla.s.s, letting the illumination of a nearby streetlight shine through. However, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Here goes nothing," she said, and opened the envelope.

There was only a single large sheet of paper, folded into eighths. She unfolded it, then frowned.

"What is it?" Anders said, moving closer.

Deirdre turned the paper in her hands. "I'm not sure. It looks like architectural plans for some building. A big building, by the look of it."

"Anything you recognize?"

"No, there's no outside elevation. It's just floor plans. A theater, maybe?" She turned the paper over. "There's nothing else. No message, no explanation."

"That's strange," Beltan said. His lips and fingers were orange. "Any idea who might have sent it to you?"

A shiver pa.s.sed through Deirdre. It had come in the same kind of envelope as the IDs and the plane tickets. It was from him, her mysterious Philosopher.

You've got to tell them, Deirdre. They deserve to know he's been helping you all along.

Before she could speak, something outside the window caught her eyes. She glanced down. Moments ago the street beneath the window had been filled with people on their way home. Now it was completely deserted.

No, not completely. A single figure stood in the pool of sepia-colored light beneath a streetlamp. For a second Deirdre wondered if it was he he. Only it couldn't be. The figure was small-a girl in a dark dress.

The girl looked up, gazing at Deirdre with wise purple eyes, her face an ivory cameo framed by hair like shadows.

The paper slipped from Deirdre's hands, fluttering to the floor.

"What's out there?" she heard Anders say behind her.

Deirdre could only shake her head. Below, the girl moved her lips. It was impossible; there was no way Deirdre could possibly have heard her. All the same, the girl's lisping voice whispered in her mind.

Follow me.

For the first time in his life, at thirty-five years of age, Travis felt old. His body ached, and he longed to lay down his head. However, there was to be no rest for him that night. The bowl of soup was empty; it was time to go.

Sister Mirrim and Child Samanda had both retreated through a doorway, leaving Travis alone at the table with Brother Cy.

"I'm so tired," Travis said softly, still watching the pictures of the Steel Cathedral flicker across the TV. "I don't know how much longer I can keep going."

The preacher squeezed his shoulder with a bony hand. "You'd be surprised, son. You're a whole lot stronger than you think. But take heart. If what Sister Mirrim has seen is true-and I have never known her vision to be false-then your journey is nearly at an end."

Travis didn't know whether to be relieved by those words or terrified. He gazed around the commissary and found that if he concentrated, he could see them as they really were now. Not the men and women who had come to the mission seeking refuge, but the others-the ones who always traveled with Brother Cy, who helped him in his mystery work: goat-men and tree-women, scampering greenmen and ugly little creatures that flitted about the room on b.u.t.terfly wings.

Who was Travis to talk of being weary? Brother Cy and his followers been traveling on their own journey for over a thousand years now, ever since they helped banish Mohg from Eldh and found themselves trapped beyond the circle of the world. How long had they drifted in the darkness-not merely homeless, but wordless-until Travis went back in time and inadvertently opened the crack in the world Earth with Sinfathisar? That mistake had allowed Mohg to enter this world. But like the box Pandora foolishly opened long ago, it had allowed hope to steal into the world as well, in the form of Cy and his companions.

"Will you ever go home?" Travis looked up into Brother Cy's black marble eyes. "You and Mirrim and Samanda and the others? When this is all over, will you finally get to go home?"

For a moment a light shone in Cy's gaze-a sorrow so vast and deep it was beyond fathoming.

"Home," he whispered in his rasping voice. "You don't know, son. You can't possibly know how sorely tempted I have been to dig my fingers into the crack you made in this world, to strain with all my might and pry it wide open."

He stood, his voice rising into the exultant rhythms of a sermon. "I can envision it now, as clearly as Sister Mirrim might see it. I would march through the gap with my followers behind me. I would stand before the Nightlord and wrestle with him in a battle that would boil seas and shatter mountains to dust. I would wrest the Great Stones from him. And when I arose victorious from the devastation, all the world would kneel before me, and I would tower above, the master of all!"

People in the commissary had stopped to stare, spoons frozen halfway to their lips. Brother Cy was rigid, white and frozen as a statue, staring blindly. Then the preacher sighed, pa.s.sing a hand before his face, and the moment was over. While he had spoken, Travis had caught a fleeting glimpse of the being he truly was. Majestic, powerful, and terrible: a G.o.d. Now he was simply Brother Cy again, gaunt and hunched in his dusty black suit.

"No," he said, his voice a whisper. "I will not destroy my brother only to become him. Such was my choice long ago. Such was all of ours-Ysani, Durnach, and the others. I will help how I can, but that task is not mine."

The preacher looked down at Travis. "There's someone I believe you need to talk to before you go, son." He pointed across the commissary, at the thirtysomething woman in the upscale clothes. Then he walked to the doorway where Mirrim and Samanda had vanished and pa.s.sed beyond.

A low murmur of noise filled the commissary again as people returned to their soup and their conversations. Travis gazed at the woman in the corner of the commissary, the one Brother Cy had pointed at. Her head was bowed over her hands. Was she praying?

Travis pushed himself to his feet, then headed across the commissary. "h.e.l.lo."

The woman looked up. She wasn't beautiful-her features were too hard-edged for beauty-but intelligence shone in her eyes, and even grim and frightened as she looked now, there was a wryness to the set of her mouth that bespoke a keen wit.

She looked him up and down, then nodded. "You're the one he said I have to talk to. The preacher."

He sat down across from her. "What are you supposed to talk to me about?"

"About this, I suppose." She opened her hands, revealing a silver computer disk. So she had been hiding the disk, not praying. "G.o.d, I hope this was the right thing to do." Or maybe she had been praying after all.

"You hope what was the right thing to do?"

A laugh escaped her, a slightly mad sound. "I suppose it won't hurt to tell one person. After all, I want to tell everyone in the world about what's on this disk. Besides, I think I can trust him." She glanced at the door where Brother Cy had vanished. "I think I have to."

"Did he bring you here?"

"Yes." She frowned, shaking her head. "No, not exactly. He helped me escape the . . . he helped me to get out. And he gave me a card with this address on it. Only the cab driver couldn't find it, he said the address didn't exist, so I got out and walked, and then I saw the light shining in the dark."

Two of the mission's workers pa.s.sed nearby-the young man with the bleached goatee and the young woman with the green hair.

"Who are they?" she said, shivering. "They're all so strange, and him him most of all. Who are they really?" most of all. Who are they really?"

"Here," he said, reaching out and gripping her hand. "Let me show you."

Before she could pull away, he whispered Halas Halas, the rune of vision. It was a weak magic; he was tired, and he had not opened the box to touch the Stones. However, it was enough.

She pulled her hand away and gazed at him with wide eyes. "My G.o.d, what what are they?" are they?"

Travis sighed. "That's a good question. And one I don't think we'll ever really know the answer to. But some call them the Little People."

"Little People," she murmured. Already her shocked expression was trans.m.u.ting to one of sharp curiosity. "But what do they want with us?"

"I think they want to help us."

She brushed tangled brown bangs from her eyes. "Maybe. Or maybe they want us to help them."

"I'm Travis Wilder," he said.

She clutched the computer disk. "I know. You see I work . . . that is, I used to work for Duratek."

He lurched to his feet, sending his chair clattering to the floor as he backed away from the table.

"No." She reached a hand toward him. "Don't go. I told you, I don't work for those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds anymore. Please, you've got to help me. They'll be looking for me-looking for this." She gripped the disk. "And if they find it, there's no hope of ever stopping them."

The expression in her eyes was earnest, anguished, but it could be she was a good actress. All the same, his heart slowed in his chest. Brother Cy wouldn't have let her in here if she was evil, would he?

He picked up the chair and sat back down. "Who are you? Tell me everything. Now."

"My name is Ananda La.r.s.en. Doctor Ananda La.r.s.en. I used to work at a high-security Duratek facility in Denver. It was the one you and your a.s.sociates-"

"The one we broke into last fall."

She nodded.

"So what did you do there?"

She fingered the disk. "I was working on a research project investigating the use of gene therapy as a means to enhance animal intelligence. My main work involved a chimpanzee. Ellie. Her progress was amazing. Only then they brought another subject they wanted me to work on. It was . . ." Her voice caught. "It was a human subject. A male."

A sickness spread through Travis, quickly burned away by rage. Until that moment, he had thought he knew what anger felt like. He was wrong. "You were the one who held Beltan prisoner. You were the one who did . . . who did those things to him." He reached a hand toward her. Runes blazed in his mind: spells of mayhem and death.

She clutched the edge of the table, but she did not flinch. "I don't think I'd blame you if you killed me. What I did was wrong. Wrong on so many levels." She shook her head, and her gaze grew distant. "It happens so gradually you don't even notice it. Each step is so small, you think it's just a little slip down the slope, that you're not compromising yourself, that you can always back out later. Only then one day you wake up and realize it's too late-that day by day, bit by bit, they've turned you into a monster, and you let them do it."

Rage burned to ash in Travis's chest, leaving him cold and empty. His hand fell to the table, useless. He knew what it was like to be made into a monster. No rune he could speak, no vengeful magic he might work, could have destroyed her; she was already shattered.

"Why?" he said. "Why did you work for them?"

She laughed as she wiped tears from her eyes. "To help people. At least, that's what I told myself. But deep down, I knew that wasn't the truth. What I really wanted was to prove that I was right, to show everyone who had ever doubted me they were wrong, that my research really could work."

Travis made a decision. He could hate this woman for what she did to Beltan; it would be all too easy. But wasn't that what Mohg and the Pale King stood for? Those who served them gave up their hearts. If Travis gave up his own, if he let hate consume him, he would be no better than they were.

He reached across the table and placed his hand on hers. "I don't believe that, Dr. La.r.s.en. If all you had really wanted to do was to prove you were right, then you wouldn't be here now talking to me."

She stared, astonishment on her face. Then, slowly, she nodded. "All these years, I kept telling myself they would use my research for good. But I know now it is-that it always was-a lie. That's why I stole this." She touched the disk.

Travis leaned closer. "What is it?"

"Everything I need to expose the truth behind Duratek, to show the world what they're really doing." She looked up, her fear gone, her face hard as porcelain. "Everything we need to bring them down."

A shiver danced up Travis's spine, and he cast a glance out of the corner of his eye. The light inside the mission seemed dimmer than before, the walls and floor dingier. Several people in the commissary stared in their direction, and there was no sign of Brother Cy or his followers. Something told Travis it was no longer safe here.

"I think we should leave."

"Why?" La.r.s.en said, eyes startled. "Where will we go?"

Travis stood and shrugged his coat on. "I don't know. Anywhere. Come on."

La.r.s.en rose and put on her coat. They headed down the corridor to the lobby. No one stood behind the counter; the ivy that coiled up the post was brown and shriveled.

"What's going on?" La.r.s.en said.

There was no time to explain. Brother Cy was gone, and so was whatever protection his presence had brought to this place. What if Mohg's slaves had known Cy was here? What if they had been watching, waiting for him to leave?

Travis opened the door, and the cold hit them like fists as they stumbled into the darkness. It seemed like hours had pa.s.sed inside the mission, but it was still night. They walked quickly down the deserted street, past darkened storefronts. Footsteps echoed behind them.