by Mark Anthony
Now it was his turn to blink, astonished at her words. He leaned back, then finally he shrugged. “I don’t know, Grace. I really don’t know.”
She looked away. “I can’t stop them, Travis. The memories. Sometimes I think the past is going to drown me.”
“What’s gone is gone, Grace. The past can’t hurt you.”
“Can’t it?”
He stood. “Come on. Deirdre called for room service. Let’s see if this hotel knows how to brew a decent cup of maddok.”
51.
Deirdre was already pouring from a silver pot when they stepped into the suite’s main room. She handed them steaming cups before speaking a word, and Travis wondered how he had ever doubted she was anything but a friend.
“Thanks,” he said, lowering his cup. It wasn’t maddok. It was the real stuff: rich, dark, perfectly brewed coffee.
“You owe me one,” she said.
Grace curled into a chair and took small sips. Before Travis could say anything, the door to the second bedroom opened, and Farr stepped out. He wore the same rumpled clothes as last night, as well as a frown.
“What did the Philosophers say?” Deirdre asked.
Farr ran a hand through his dark, curling hair. “Nothing. They said absolutely nothing.”
Deirdre frowned. “But that’s not possible. Stewart and Erics are dead, and we’ve broken Desiderata left and right. They have to say something.”
“Evidently they don’t.”
Farr and Deirdre locked eyes, and Travis sighed.
“Excuse me, but in case you’d forgotten, not everyone in this room is fluent in Seeker-speak. Could you translate, please?”
“I’m not certain I can,” Farr said, tucking in a wayward shirttail.
Travis squinted over his cup. “What do you mean? You’re the ones who always speak in mysterious riddles and drive up in black cars at all the right moments. I thought you Seekers had the answers to everything.”
Farr’s gaze was distant. “So did I,” he murmured.
It was Grace who broke the silence. “All right, now what do we do?”
Travis hadn’t really thought beyond coffee. Duratek still had Beltan, only now they had mutant-controlling sorcerers in gold masks as well. What could they do? He didn’t have the slightest clue.
Fortunately, another voice answered in cool, carefully inflected words. “We must find your friend, the knight Beltan. And quickly. We do not have much time.”
It took Travis’s eyes a moment to focus, as if the air unfolded around her. There was a click as the suite’s door swung shut. He didn’t remember hearing it open.
“Vani,” he breathed. “You came back.”
She smiled, the expression sharp as a knife yet not without mirth. “Incorrect, Wilder. I never left. I have been keeping watch over this hotel. It is safe—for the moment.” She cocked her head; her short, tousled hair glittered in the morning sun. “Is that coffee?”
“Let me,” Deirdre said, clearly too stunned to say anything else. She poured.
“Thank you, Seeker.” Vani took the proffered cup.
“It’s not maddok, you know,” Grace said with a grimace.
Vani breathed in the rising steam from the cup. “It will do, Grace Beckett. It’s been … a long night.”
Vani sat on the sofa, and for the first time Travis noticed the shadows beneath her golden eyes. She still wore sleek black-leather pants and boots, but her jacket was gone, and she wore only a black tank top. As she lifted her coffee cup, Travis saw the tattooed symbols that snaked up her arms. More symbols coiled around her neck. He did not know what they were, except that they weren’t runes.
“So you know us,” Farr said. Awe shone on his face, but then Farr had made a career of searching for evidence of other worlds. Now a woman born on another planet was sitting in his hotel room, drinking coffee.
“You’re Seekers,” Vani said.
Farr nodded. “And why have you come here to Earth? Can you tell us?”
Vani set down her cup. “Have not Travis Wilder and Grace Beckett already told you? I have come to bring them back to Eldh.”
Deirdre opened her mouth to speak, but Farr made a small motion with his hand, silencing her. She shot him a questioning look, but Travis thought maybe he understood. Wasn’t that one of their rules? To watch, and to see what those with otherworldly connections did of their own free will?
Grace sat up, her cheeks flushed from caffeine. “How did you get here, Vani? How did you come to Earth? I need … we need to know.”
Vani seemed to think about these words. At last she nodded. “Let me begin my story this way. Long ago, my ancestors dwelled in the far south of Eldh, in the hot lands of Moringarth, in the city of Morindu the Dark. Of all the cities of Amún gathered along the banks of the great River Emyr, only Kor was older. And while Kor was largest of the city-states, none was home to so many sorcerers as Morindu the Dark.”
“Sorcerers,” Travis said. “Last night, didn’t you call the one in the gold mask a sorcerer?”
“Yes,” Vani said, her eyes narrowing.
“So what are sorcerers? Are they like the Runelords?”
“No, sorcerers have nothing to do with the wizards of the north. At least as far as I know. For all that my people remember, much has been lost since our exile from Morindu and the lands of Amún. But simply put, sorcerers are those who can beckon and command the Morndari.”
“The Morndari?” Deirdre said.
Evidently she had forgotten Farr’s instruction as she shifted to the edge of her chair.
Vani nodded. “In the ancient tongue of my people, it means Those Who Thirst. Ever were the Morndari thirsty, from the time the first men of Amún discovered them. They are …” She gazed at the ceiling, as if searching there for words, then lowered her gaze. “They would be called spirits, I think, in your tongue. Although not the spirits of dead men. They are ancient—as old as the world. Or, perhaps, older still. They are aware in their way, but they have no bodies, no form, and they are not truly alive. Yet they have power. And as the first sorcerers found, they could be enticed with blood. And that is how they came to be named.”
“Blood,” Grace said. She shuddered. “You mean the blood of animals?”
Vani shook her head. “If a sorcerer would hope to command them, it was his own blood that had to be offered. Once they had drunk, they grew dull and sated, and the sorcerer could bid them to do things.”
What things? Travis wanted to ask, but his tongue seemed welded to the roof of his mouth.
“The shining cities of Amún fell over two thousand years ago,” Vani said. “The sorcerers rose up against the god-kings, but they were thrown back down and destroyed, and the course of the River Emyr was changed in the last conflict so that Amún became what it is today: the Morgolthi, a desert of dust and bones.”
Grace hugged her knees to her chest. “I like history, Vani, and your story is interesting. But what does it have to do with how you came to Earth?”
Vani smiled. “The present has deep roots, Grace Beckett, and moments are like leaves on a tree. Even a simple happening comes to pass only because a thousand other things came first. My people call this fate.”
“I’d call it chaos theory,” Grace said.
Vani shrugged. “Whatever the words, the result is the same. You see, there were sorcerers who, in the midst of the war against the god-kings, sought to wrest secrets away from Morindu the Dark—secrets of great power. Rather than allow this to come to pass, the sorcerers of Morindu sealed the gates and destroyed their own city from within. Thus was Morindu buried forever beneath the sands of Amún, and its secrets with it.”
Travis clutched his empty cup. “Vani, these sorcerers who wanted to steal the secrets of power from Morindu. Did some of them wear gold masks?”
Vani gave a stiff nod. “There was a city in Amún called Scirath, which from the dawn of the age of the god-kings was a rival to Morindu. It was the men of Scirath who first named the
city of my ancestors the Dark, for they sought to poison the minds of others—to make them fear the Morindai and hate them. Ever did the Scirathi covet the knowledge of Morindu and seek to gain it for themselves. But the Morindai took the name given them in scorn and wore it proudly. And yes.” She met Travis’s eyes. “The sorcerers of Scirath wore masks of gold.”
Grace rose. “Vani, I thought you said all the sorcerers were destroyed in this war.”
“Most. Not all.”
“But it still doesn’t add up. Why would a bunch of two-thousand-year-old sorcerers be interested in me and Travis?”
“For the same reason my people are,” Vani said.
Grace stared, then plopped back down in the chair.
Vani gazed at her wrists; her eyes traced the intricate tattoos. “Even as some of the people of Morindu survived, so did some of the men of Scirath. They have never ceased in their effort to uncover the lost secrets of Morindu. And we have never ceased in our efforts to prevent them from doing so. It was one of the Scirathi who attacked you last night. Even had you not seen him, Wilder, I would have known it. Only they ever used gorleths as their slaves.”
Grace shivered. “What are they, Vani? Gorleths.”
“I know not what shadowed sorcery the Scirathi use to create them. They are made by combining the blood and flesh of different creatures, that I know. But I have never seen gorleths such as these. They were stronger than any I have ever heard of. Faster.”
“And smarter,” Grace said. She looked up. “Aren’t they?”
Vani nodded. “In a way, I am glad the Scirathi showed himself. I have suspected these last months that it was one of his order who came through the gate.”
Now it was Farr who forgot his own rules. “The gate?” His brown eyes were intent on Vani. “You mean to tell me you know of some kind of portal between Eldh and Earth?”
Vani regarded him. “Long my people kept the artifact of Morindu hidden. However, three years ago we risked its use, and that is how I came here, to Earth, in hopes of finding Wilder and Beckett.”
“Three years? But you can’t have been on Earth that long. The Seekers would have heard of it.”
Vani’s lips twisted in a wry expression. “I believe you overestimate the swiftness with which I can learn the language of a new world. And you also underestimate my ability to stay hidden from the eyes of the Seekers.”
Farr seemed to have no answer to that.
Travis’s nerves buzzed like wires. “If you have a gate, Vani, then you can help us take Beltan back to Eldh.”
“No, I cannot.”
The flatness of her voice shocked him. He stared, as did Grace.
“The artifact of Morindu is powerful, but even as we used it, we did not fully understand it. You see, the artifact is hollow, and when my people first discovered it, it was filled with dark fluid.”
“Blood,” Grace said.
“Yes, blood. And after I used the artifact to come to Earth, I learned from my brother that it was empty.”
Travis ran a hand over his smooth head. “But I don’t understand. Can’t your brother just fill the thing up and bring us back?”
“It is not so simple, Wilder. We do not know what sort of blood was in the artifact.”
Grace spoke in a quiet voice. “Human blood?”
“No,” Vani said, turning toward Grace. “The blood of a man does not open the gate. It was another sort of blood in the artifact, blood of great power. And to open the gate again would take the same kind.”
“But doesn’t the artifact tell you what it needs?” Grace picked pieces of fuzz off her baggy sweater. “You know, like the label on cars. ‘Unleaded blood only.’ Something like that?”
“The artifact does have writing upon it, but although we have been able to translate it from the ancient tongue of Morindu, we do not know what it means. It says that to open the way, we must have blood as powerful as the Blood of Light.”
Grace sighed. “And you don’t have any more idea than I do what that means.”
Vani did not answer.
“So you’re stuck here,” Travis said. “We’re stuck here.”
Vani stood and paced before the window, black leather creaking. “We suspected the blood would be consumed in using the artifact. I knew before I came that the journey would be in one direction only. But then, nearly a year ago, my brother sent word to me that the ones we sought had appeared on Eldh—and that their names were Grace Beckett and Travis Wilder.”
Deirdre let out a low whistle. “That must have been a blow, having come here with no way back, then finding out the ones you were searching for were back on Eldh.”
Vani gazed at Deirdre, mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “You have a great gift for understatement, Seeker. However, two months ago, my brother sent me another message, telling me that Wilder and Beckett had returned to Earth.”
Travis fought for understanding. “Wait a minute. If you can’t open the gate, how can your brother send messages to you?”
“With this.”
Vani reached into her pocket and drew out a triangle of black stone.
Farr moved closer, peering. “What is it?”
“It is a piece of the artifact of Morindu,” Vani said. “It allows my brother to speak to me through the artifact—although at some cost to him. Without this, the artifact is not complete. Which is quite fortunate.”
“How so?” Farr said.
Vani tightened her fingers around the triangle. “A month ago, the gateway appeared before me. I thought it another message from my brother. It was not. The gate … opened wider.”
Grace sat up straight. “The Scirathi.”
“I did not know it at the time, not for certain. I was caught off guard and barely managed to keep my life. In the chaos of the moment, I could not see my attacker, but last night confirmed my fears. It was indeed a sorcerer of Scirath who came through the gate. He must have wrested the artifact from my brother. And I believe he brought it with him through the gate.”
“Wait a minute,” Travis said. “I thought you said you couldn’t open the artifact without the right kind of blood.”
“Yes,” Vani said. “I did.”
A thrill coursed through him as he understood the truth. However, Grace was faster. That scientific mind of hers.
“You think the sorcerer has learned the secret. You think he knows what kind of blood you need to enable the artifact.”
“He must,” Vani said. “Else he could not have come through.”
Farr looked at Deirdre, his face grim.
“What?” she said.
He rubbed his stubble-shadowed chin. “This is very bad. The events of last night can only mean one thing: The being Vani calls the Scirathi is working in coordination with Duratek. The news report about the attack at the motel had Duratek written all over it.”
Deirdre sucked in a breath. “Which means there’s nothing to stop Duratek from using the Scirathi’s gate to gain access to Eldh.”
Fear bubbled up inside Travis. If Deirdre was right, it meant the end of everything he had fought for, the end of Eldh as a free and separate world. He looked at Grace, and she returned his gaze with frightened eyes.
“No,” Vani said, “do not despair so easily. All hope is not lost.”
Farr looked at her. “Forgive me, Vani, but you don’t know Duratek. They’ll exploit any chance they have to get to Eldh and claim its resources for their own.”
“You are wrong, Seeker.” Vani’s eyes glittered. “I do know this group of sorcerers you call Duratek. I have watched them, even as I have watched you. And while they have the knight, the gate, and the secret of the blood, there is yet one thing they do not have.”
Even as she unfolded her fingers, Travis remembered.
“The stone triangle. You said the artifact isn’t complete without it.”
“Yes,” Vani said. “When the prism is separated from the artifact, it acts as a focus for the gate. As long as I have this, all gates op
ened by the artifact will lead to the prism. To open a gate back to Eldh, both artifact and prism must be brought together.”
“Then there’s a chance,” Travis said. “If we can get Beltan and the artifact, and if we can learn what the Blood of Light is, then we can get to Eldh.” However, even as Travis said this, he realized how ridiculous it sounded. Even with the help of Vani and the Seekers, how were they going to do that?
“Vani,” Grace said softly, “there’s still one thing you haven’t told us. Why have you and the Scirathi been looking for me and Travis?”
Vani bowed her head, a black silhouette before the window. Then she looked up, her golden eyes brilliant.
“Because, Grace Beckett,” she said, “you and Travis Wilder are fated to raise the lost city of Morindu the Dark from the sands of Moringarth.”
52.
Not for the first time, Beltan swam upward through the dark waters of unconsciousness, broke the viscous surface, and found himself naked and motionless upon a hard, cold slab.
He struggled for comprehension. Was this the crypt beneath Calavere where his father slept, the life stolen from him by murder? It was impossible to be certain; a fog lay before his eyes. How had he gotten there? He remembered the fire burning along his veins. Poison. Yes, she had poisoned him and had brought him here in order to turn him into a thing like herself. Kyrene.
Do not take my heart, witch!
But why did it matter if she cut the organ from his chest, if she placed in its stead a lump of cold iron? What need did he have of a heart?
You love him.
No, that was no reason; that was his usual stupidity. What did love matter? He had loved his father, King Beldreas, and what had it meant in the end? Again Beltan saw the image that had once haunted his dreams and now—because of the Necromancer Dakarreth—his waking mind: a knife sinking deep into a man’s strong, broad back, and a hand pulling away, covered with blood. Beltan’s hand. He had worshiped Beldreas, his father, and he had murdered him—stabbed him when he wasn’t looking. Wasn’t that what love always led to in the end—pain, betrayal, death?