Gram Alder's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

By the second dusk, Gram and Soph broke camp and started for the gate. Soph carried her folded map, one finger tracing the winding path to the X at the top. The dark moon would rise soon. Gram set the pace, quick and sure, until the wind turned. Clouds swallowed the ridge. A cold gust hit them first, then rain, hard and sudden. The trail turned to mud under their boots. Soph pulled the map close to shield it. "We have less than an hour," she said. "After that the seal breaks. Seven years." Gram wiped rain from his eyes. The marked path on her map ran the long way, curling wide around the rocks. "Your map takes us around," he said. "Too slow in this storm. I know a faster line." Soph looked up from the paper. "The sources agree on this route." "Your sources never walked it in a storm." Gram pointed into the dark timber, where the trees stood thick and black. "There's a deer trail through the hollow. Cuts straight. I've hunted it for years." She studied him. Water ran off her chin. She gave only a short nod. "Then go. Fast." Gram led her off the marked path and into the trees. He did not slow to look at the map again. His feet knew the roots and the low branches. He held one arm back to guide Soph past a fallen trunk. Thunder cracked overhead. She stayed on his heels, breathing hard, saying nothing. The deer trail dropped through a gully, then climbed. Gram's boots found the old game path even under the mud. Twice Soph slipped, and twice he caught her wrist and pulled her up. The rain drummed the leaves so loud they could not speak. He counted the turns in his head, each one exactly where he remembered. They came out of the timber into a small clearing. There stood the dead oak. Its bare branches clawed the sky. A door was cut into the trunk, and a dull red light glowed around its edges. The void at its center was black as a well. Soph stopped short. Her breath caught. "That's it," she said. "That's the gate." A thin seam of red pulsed along the door frame, growing brighter. The dark moon had risen behind the clouds. Soph stepped forward and pressed her palm flat against the wood. The door held firm, sealed, but open to the touch. "We made it," she said. She turned to Gram, rain streaming down her face, and for the first time she almost smiled. "You cut ten minutes off. We made it." Gram nodded, chest heaving. He had kept his promise. But the red light spilled across the clearing now, bright and steady, and he knew that glow would carry far through the timber. Far enough to reach a mountain. Far enough for a waiting tiger to see.