Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

‘So you’ll lead us, and while leading us you’ll listen in as we relive the most critical and emotionally impacting moments of our lives? The most devastating or wonderful times we have ever known? Do you really want to hear all that?’

Hoyt turned away, blushing. ‘It might not be those memories, Hannah. It might be something horrible, and I promise you when we make it to the other side, I will drink myself into oblivion, until the whole ordeal is wiped from my memory.’

Suddenly serious once again, Hannah said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be you, Hoyt. I don’t want to be me going through there, but having to haul us along while we fall apart? No thanks.’

‘Come along, everyone,’ Alen said, ‘we’ll never know if we don’t get there.’

Garec gnawed thoughtfully on one of the bars Steven had taken from Howard’s kitchen. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at it sceptically. ‘Why wouldn’t they make them in the shape of something familiar?’ He tried another bite. ‘This doesn’t look like anything that grows naturally – well, almost anything.’

‘People are used to eating things that don’t occur naturally where we come from, so the shape doesn’t bother us.’ Steven paused to consider the cylindrical brown morsel Garec twirled like a miniature baton. ‘Although now that you mention it, it doesn’t look very appetising, does it?’

Despite Garec’s attempt at levity, the mood was grim. Mark told Steven of the Prince Marek’s destruction and of their subsequent failure to find Brynne among the floating wreckage. He had paused several times while telling the tale, but had refused to cry. When he finished, Steven had not known what to say, but looking into his old friend’s eyes, he realised Mark had lost something vital; something had been extinguished inside him, leaving the dry vestiges of Mark Jenkins. No longer the fun-loving sceptic, Mark had shifted into the shadows. For the first time in his life, Steven feared his roommate. There would be no holding him back now; he would be an unchained force, running full-speed into Sandcliff, into Welstar Palace, wherever. Already he looked prepped for battle: his belt tightened snugly against his hips, a hunting knife, a short dagger and a new battle-axe strapped within easy reach of either hand. Mark, who had once joked about hacking off limbs, was ready to do just that. At that moment Steven profoundly regretted ever having found the key to William Higgins’ safe-deposit box.

He passed out a few of the items he had managed to buy or steal on his journey across the country. Garec was especially excited at the idea of Colorado beer and had already placed the cans in the fjord to cool. Gilmour, thrilled to have Howard’s American Civil War book, planned to check into an Orindale inn, bolt the door and steep himself in Gettysburg as soon as the Fold was closed for ever. As he paged through it absentmindedly, he pondered Steven’s story; he was especially interested in how Steven had located the far portal and Lessek’s key.

Pocketing the lighter, he asked Steven, ‘So are you saying you could feel the staff’s magic there in Idaho Springs?’

‘I think it was the portal, or maybe the key,’ Steven answered. ‘I had been going so fast for so long – in such a hurry to get back. When I discovered that our house had burned down-’ Steven glanced over at Mark, ‘sorry about that, by the way-’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mark said, emotionless. ‘Go on, please.’

‘Well, anyway – when I learned that our house had burned down, I figured Nerak had done it. He had beaten me there and had destroyed everything.’ Steven looked across the fjord, allowing the images to take shape in his mind’s eye. ‘But he hadn’t. The house had been gone for a while, long enough for them to come in and bulldoze the lot. There had been time for some real estate agent to put the land up for sale. So I figured the portal and the key must have been hauled up to the city landfill and dumped.’

‘And that’s where you felt the staff?’ Garec pressed.

‘It was more than just there. I guess it happened a few times along the way, but maybe it was my memory, you know, like muscle memory. Maybe I felt I needed the magic, and my body wanted to believe it was there.’

Gilmour nodded.

Steven rubbed his chin. He needed a shave again. Anyway, whatever it was, at the city dump, I felt the magic. It took me. I needed it, and it came in a blast. I think it came from the key. I can’t be sure, but it did knock me down twice.’

‘Why the key?’ Gilmour leaned forward, his brow furrowed.

‘Because the portal was still a good quarter of a mile away.’ Steven saw Garec frown and added, ‘About four hundred paces – and the key was right there, just a few paces away at the time.’

How did it happen?’ Mark joined the interrogation, suddenly interested.

Steven chuckled. ‘I hit a speed bump, the same one, twice.’

Garec tried the words together, ‘Speed bump?’

‘Right. And who would have thought there would be speed bumps at the landfill? I mean, who goes in there but guys in pick-ups and big town dumper-trucks? Are there really enough pedestrians that they need speed bumps?’

‘But it slowed you down just enough?’

‘Knocked me down is more like it, and when I stood up, everything had changed. I knew right where to find the portal – and the key.’

Sensing something, Gilmour asked, ‘But that wasn’t all, was it?’

‘No.’ Steven kept his eyes on the fjord. ‘I saw more than I expected. It was the Fold. It had to be.’

‘And?’

‘And there were rips in it, tears, like you would tear open a paper sack or the wrapping of a present – three tears.’

Gilmour ran a palm across his ribs, a gesture he had repeated several times that morning. He reached inside his tunic, withdrew his pipe and used Mikelson’s lighter to ignite a leafy mound of Falkan tobacco.

‘Great lords, but that’s a handy device.’ Garec was impressed.

Mark said, ‘You should see some of the nonsensical toys we’ve invented, Garec. It would have your head spinning.’

‘Speaking of which-’ Steven tossed Mark the roast beef sandwich from his pocket.

Finally Mark perked up. ‘Ah, thank you,’ he said, heartfelt, and fumbled with the plastic wrapping. ‘What kind is it?’

‘Roast beef with mayo on wheat. It was all Howard had in his kitchen – well, all that looked safe enough to eat.’

‘Thank you,’ Mark repeated, and finally grinned. ‘Try this, Garec.’ He slashed the sandwich in two, offered half to Garec and gestured with the other half towards Gilmour.

‘No thanks, Mark,’ Gilmour indicated his pipe with a shrug. ‘Anyway, Steven, these tears you saw – was anything moving through them?’

‘No, and the funny thing about them is that I think I put them there – at least, at the time I was convinced I put them there.’

‘You?’ Garec took a bite of the sandwich and exclaimed, ‘Great leaping whores! This is the best thing I’ve eaten in ten Twinmoons! Say again what it’s called?’

‘Roast beef with mayo. Mayonnaise.’ Steven was amused.

‘Roast beef with mayo. Gilmour, we have to learn to make mayo.’ Garec wiped off a smear with his finger and licked it. He gave a moan of satisfaction. ‘Great rutters-’

Smiling, Gilmour went back to the subject. ‘How could you have created tears in the Fold?’

‘That’s just it, Gilmour. I don’t know that I did, but I think I could have, or maybe – maybe it was perfectly all right with me that they were there, as if it didn’t matter.’

‘And you say there were three?’

‘Three. Oblong, and standing on end, like narrow entrances to a tunnel or roughly hewn doorways, and when they disappeared – or rather, when I let them go – I knew right where to find the key and the portal.’