The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

“All right,” Deirdre said, setting the empty glass on the coffee table. “Who’s going to tell me why I’m here?”

  Vani and Beltan both cast glances at Travis. He sat down on the sofa next to her and took her hand in his.

  “I supposed I always let myself believe it was just a story, that there was nothing behind it.” His gray eyes were solemn. “I thought it would never come. Only now it finally has.”

  Deirdre shook her head. “I don’t understand. What’s come?”

  “Fate,” Travis said.

  Before Deirdre could ask what he was talking about, Vani spoke, and for the next several minutes Deirdre listened as the T’gol explained how and why she had come to Earth, and of her last three years fleeing from the Scirathi. Vani’s words were terrible and fascinating, but Deirdre found it hard to focus on them. A droning noise filled her skull; there was something she needed to tell them, but what was it?

  She stared at the T’gol. Vani’s face was sharper than before, but still lovely, even delicate. Tattoos like vines accentuated the exquisite lines of her neck; thirteen gold rings glittered in her left ear. However, Deirdre knew it would be a mistake to let that beauty lull her. Vani was an assassin, trained since girlhood in the arts of stealth, infiltration, and killing in swift silence.

  There was much Vani alluded to that Deirdre already knew, things she had learned when she first met the T’gol and which Deirdre had included in her reports to the Seekers: how Vani’s people believed Travis Wilder was the one destined to raise Morindu the Dark from the sands that had swallowed it long ago, and how the gold-masked sorcerers, the Scirathi, hoped to reach it first, to steal the magics entombed within for their own purposes.

  “Only what exactly is buried in Morindu?” Deirdre said as she rubbed her temples, voicing her thought without meaning to.

  “Good question,” Beltan rumbled. The big man sat on the floor, making steady progress through an enormous bowl of popcorn.

  “My people cannot say for certain,” the T’gol said, prowling back and forth before the curtained window. “No records survive from the last days of the War of the Sorcerers. We have only what our storytellers have passed down. Nor were any of the Morindai there at the very end, for the people of Morindu were ordered to flee the city as the army of Scirath approached. Only the Seven A’narai, the Fateless Ones who ruled in the name of the god-king Orú, remained behind. They and the Shackled God, Orú, himself.”

  The War of the Sorcerers. Deirdre had heard Vani speak those words before. In Denver, the T’gol had told them of the great conflagration that, three thousand years ago, had engulfed the ancient city-states of Amún on Eldh’s southern continent. The sorcerers, powerful and angry, had risen up against the arrogant god-kings of the city-states, seeking to cast them down and take their place. However, Morindu was unique, for it was a city of sorcerers, ruled by the most potent among them. In fear and mistrust, the other city-states named it Morindu the Dark.

  Near the end of the War of the Sorcerers, a great army led by the sorcerers of Scirath had marched toward the city. Rather than fall to its foes and let its secrets be plundered, Morindu had chosen to destroy itself. When the army arrived, they found only empty desert.

  Soon after that, the War of the Sorcerers ended in a violent cataclysm that destroyed the city-states and blasted all of Amún, transforming it into a wasteland. What few people survived fled north to the shores of the Summer Sea, to begin civilization anew in Al-Amún. Eventually, some of the Morindai found their way across the sea, to the northern continent of Falengarth, and there became a wandering folk known as the Mournish. These were Vani’s people. However, Vani was no mere gypsy. Deirdre knew the T’gol could trace her lineage all the way back to the royal line of Morindu the Dark.

  “All right,” Beltan said around a mouthful of popcorn. “If the Mournish don’t know what’s buried in Morindu, then tell me this: What do the Scirathi think is buried there? What are they so eager to get their paws on?”

  Vani rested her hands on her hips. “Many things, I imagine. Books of spells. Artifacts of power. Treasures of gold and gems. Or perhaps—”

  “Blood,” Travis said. “They want blood.”

  Deirdre shivered. At one time Travis had possessed an artifact shaped like a gold spider, a living jewel called a scarab. The scarab had contained three drops of blood taken from the god-king Orú. With it, Travis had been able to activate the gate artifact, opening a crackling doorway to Eldh.

  “You think they want blood of power,” Deirdre said. “Blood from the god-king Orú.”

  Travis shook his head. “No. I think they want Orú himself.” He turned his gaze on Vani. “He’s still there, isn’t he? The Seven stayed with him to the end, and they buried him with the city.”

  Vani knelt on the floor. Beltan gave her a suspicious look and edged the bowl of popcorn out of her reach.

  “We suppose he is still there,” the T’gol said. “But we do not know.”

  “You mean his body,” Deirdre said. “It’s been three thousand years. It’s not like Orú can still be alive.”

  Vani shrugged. “Who is to say what can and cannot be? It is said Orú was five hundred years old at the time Morindu was destroyed. He was the most powerful sorcerer ever known. So powerful that Fate itself tangled around him, its strands unraveling, so that only the Seven A’narai could stand in his presence. Yet in time that power consumed him. He fell into a deep slumber, and so it was that the Fateless Ones drank of his blood, becoming sorcerers of dreadful might themselves, and ruled in his name.”

  “Okay,” Deirdre said, hoping logic might make all of this seem less terrifying. “Let’s pretend for a moment Orú is somehow still alive, buried beneath the desert. What would happen if the Scirathi found him?”

  “That must not be allowed to happen!” Vani said, her eyes flashing. “With Orú’s blood, there is no limit to the evils the Scirathi might work. I have no doubt that they would first hunt my people, slaying the Morindai down to the last man, woman, and child.” Vani stood, pacing again. “But that would only be the beginning. With Orú’s blood at their command, they might enslave all of Moringarth—all of Eldh. They would dominate its people with all the hatred, all the cruelty, they have fostered in their hearts all these ages. Nothing could stand before them. That is what the Seven understood. That was why they destroyed their own city.”

  Travis cleared his throat. “The way you describe them, the Scirathi make the Pale King sound like a chap who just wanted to come out of his kingdom and play.”

  Vani raised an eyebrow. “Compared to what the Scirathi might become, he was.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Beltan said, a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. “Weren’t all of the Scirathi killed when the demon destroyed the Etherion in Tarras?”

  “All of the Scirathi in Falengarth, yes,” Vani said. “But far more yet dwell on Moringarth. If each of them was to drink of the blood of Orú, they would become an army such as you cannot imagine.”

  “She’s right,” Travis said, slipping from the sofa to the floor and sitting across the coffee table from Beltan. “Remember what happened to Xemeth after he drank from the scarab? He would have destroyed us if it hadn’t been for the demon. And he was only one man, and not even a sorcerer at that. The blood made him . . .”

  Travis gripped his right hand inside the left, and Beltan gave him a look of concern. Deirdre wondered what he had been about to say.

  “All right,” she said, trying to get all of this straight in her mind. “I understand that Orú’s blood is powerful, and that the Scirathi would do anything to get their hands on it. But Morindu has been lost for ages. Why is this so important now? And what does any of this have to do with me?”

  “I believe this will answer both of your questions,” Vani said, setting a tetrahedron of black stone on the coffee table. “Travis?”

  Travis hesitated, then reached out and touched the stone. Deirdre sucked in a breath as the image of a man appeared
above the tetrahedron. She had never seen him before, but their kinship was clear in his striking, angular features, and she knew he was Vani’s brother. This was a message from Eldh.

  The message was brief, and it changed everything. By the time the image of Vani’s brother vanished, Deirdre’s heart was racing.

  “You bastard, Hadrian,” she murmured. “You fabulous bastard. You actually did it.”

  “Did what?” Beltan said, brow furrowing.

  She hugged a throw pillow to her chest. “He had a Class Zero Encounter. Translocation to another world. Something every Seeker has worked for, and something none of them has ever achieved.”

  Until now.

  “Maybe I should be a Seeker,” Beltan said brightly. “I’ve been to another world. This one.”

  Despite the buzzing in her head, Deirdre grinned at the blond man. “Don’t be such a show-off.”

  She reminded herself that she was having multiple Class One Encounters herself at this very moment—something rare enough in the history of the Seekers. Resting her chin on a hand, she gazed at the onyx tetrahedron. What did it all mean? How had Farr gotten to Eldh? And why was he the one who had told the Mournish that Morindu had been found?

  You always were a fast learner, Hadrian. They said you’re a dervish, which I gather is some sort of sorcerer. I wish I could talk to you now. I know I should do something, but I have no idea what.

  The only thing she knew for certain was that this case wasn’t over. In fact, she had the feeling that—despite everything that had happened—it had only just begun.

  “So now what?” Deirdre said.

  “Now Travis must fulfill his fate,” Vani said as if everything had already been decided.

  Beltan’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  “Travis must return to Eldh,” Vani said, standing. “He must journey into the Morgolthi and reach Morindu before the Scirathi.”

  Beltan jumped to his feet. “Why don’t you go find it yourself, you and the Mournish? It’s your bloody city.”

  Vani kept her eyes on Travis. “It is his fate to do it.”

  “Why?” Beltan said, cheeks ruddy. “Because you want it to be?”

  Vani’s face was hard. “No, because it is. Our oracles saw it long ago: The wizard who came to Eldh to defeat a great evil in the north would also be the one to raise Morindu. This task is his.”

  “Don’t you think he’s done enough already? He gave up everything to fight the Necromancer, and the Pale King, and Mohg. He’s done enough for the world. For both worlds. This is his time now. Our time. And you can’t just walk in here and take it from him. By all the gods, I won’t let you!”

  Deirdre felt she should turn her head, that she shouldn’t be seeing this, only she couldn’t look away. She had never seen Beltan cry before, but he was weeping now, tears running down his cheeks, and the big man’s anguish made her own heart ache. Even Vani did not appear unmoved. The T’gol cast her eyes downward, but again she said, her voice low this time, “It is his fate.”

  Travis laughed, and all of them stared. It was a bitter sound. He was gazing down at his hands. “I still can’t figure out how it can be my fate to find Morindu if I’m supposed to be one of the Fateless.”

  “What you say is true,” Vani said, kneeling beside him. “But it is the fate of my people to find Morindu through you.”

  Beltan wiped the tears from his face with a rough gesture. “Then you have no idea what his fate really is. For all you know, you’re telling him the wrong thing. Maybe it’s because he refuses to go to Eldh that you find the city yourselves.”

  Vani started a hot reply, but Travis held up a hand.

  “It doesn’t matter. Even if I wanted to try to find Morindu—” he gave Vani a sharp look “—and I’m not saying I do, but even if I did, I couldn’t. There’s no way for me to get back to Eldh.”

  Deirdre ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. “What about the artifact?” However, even as she spoke, she remembered what she had learned before about the way the gate artifacts functioned.

  “This is only part of the artifact,” Vani said. “With it, I can receive messages from my brother. But he has the greater part, and without it we cannot open a gate.” She gave Travis a piercing look. “But do you not have other means to travel between the worlds?”

  Beltan let out a loud guffaw. “You mean you just assumed he could go back to Eldh?”

  Vani gave him a dark look but said nothing, and it was clear this was exactly what she had believed.

  “It’s not like he can just snap his fingers,” Beltan said, grinning, though it was a fierce expression. “By Vathris, even I know that much. True, he could use the Great Stones to travel between worlds, but he left them in Master Larad’s care. And the silver coin he has only works in one direction, to bring him to his home—and that’s here.”

  Vani gave Travis a stricken look. “Is this true?”

  “You doubt Beltan?” he said simply.

  She hunched her shoulders and looked away.

  “What about Brother Cy?” Deirdre said.

  She was as surprised as the others that she had spoken—after all, they were the otherworldly travelers, not she—but now that their eyes were on her, she felt braver. In his reports, Travis had spoken of the mysterious preacher Brother Cy, and Deirdre had encountered one of his cohort, the purple-eyed Child Samanda. According to Travis, Cy, Mirrim, and Samanda were Old Gods. A thousand years ago, they had helped to banish Mohg beyond the circle of Eldh, only in the process they were exiled with him. Then, when Travis inadvertently created a crack between the worlds by journeying back in time, Mohg was able to slip through the gap into Earth—and so were Cy and the others.

  “Brother Cy helped you get to Eldh more than once,” Deirdre said. “Couldn’t he help you again?”

  Travis’s face was thoughtful. “I don’t think Brother Cy is here anymore. When Larad broke the rune of Sky, Mohg was able to return to Eldh. I think Cy and Mirrim and Samanda went as well. It’s their home, after all. I don’t think we’ll be getting any help from them this time around.”

  “There must be another way,” Vani said, her words imploring.

  Travis laid a hand on the T’gol’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Vani. But even if I wanted to help, I can’t. You have to face the fact that there’s no way for any of us to get back to—”

  The telephone rang.

  They all gazed blankly at one another for a moment, as if the sound had jarred them out of a spell, then Beltan picked up the cordless phone and held it to his ear.

  He cocked his head, then held the phone out toward Deirdre. “It’s for you.”

  Deirdre fumbled as she took the phone. Who could be calling her here? She hadn’t told anyone where she was going—not the Seekers, not even her partner Anders. However, as soon as she heard the rich, accentless voice emanating from the phone, she knew who it was.

  “Turn on the television,” the nameless Philosopher said. “I think you’ll be interested in what you see.”

  There was a click, and a dial tone replaced his voice. Deirdre set down the phone, her heart pounding.

  “Who was it?” Travis said.

  She licked her lips. “Where’s the remote control?”

  A minute later, they gathered around the television. In quick words, Deirdre had described the message she had received on her computer just before Travis called and what he had said just now on the phone.

  “You say this Philosopher friend of yours hasn’t contacted you in over three years.” Travis said. “I wonder why now?”

  “Let’s find out,” Beltan said, and clicked a button on the remote.

  The television glowed to life, displaying a scene of a blue ocean breaking against white rocks. The camera panned, focusing on weathered columns—what looked like the remains of an ancient Greek temple—rising toward an azure sky. A small graphic image in the corner of the screen advertised the name of the program: Archaeology Now!

/>   “Wait a minute,” Beltan said. “I was watching this show hours ago. How can it still be on?”

  He punched the remote, trying to change the channel, but it no longer seemed to function. The volume came up.

  “I didn’t do that. What’s wrong with this thing?” Beltan banged the remote against the table.

  Travis grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Listen,” he said.

  Now the television showed a man dressed in khakis standing next to one of the columns. “—and which were opened by a recent earthquake here on the Mediterranean island of Crete,” he was saying. “Tonight, we’re taking our cameras and you into one of those caves, not far from the ancient palace of Knossos, to an excavation where Dr. Niko Karali is hoping to uncover evidence that could further our understanding of ancient Minoan culture, and perhaps provide new clues to an age-old mystery: why the thriving Minoan civilization vanished almost overnight three thousand years ago. As always on our program, we have no idea what we’ll find, because everything you see is live. So let’s head—”

  The sound cut out, and the video began to move rapidly.

  “Don’t look at me,” Beltan said, pointing to the remote control, which sat on the coffee table.

  Despite the announcer’s statement, Deirdre was certain this show was anything but live. It had been recorded earlier that night, and now it was being played back for their benefit. The video became a blur of images too fast for the eye to decipher. Then the video froze, and a single image filled the screen.

  It was a stone arch, or part of one at least, set against rougher rock. A hand held a brush, clearing away dust and debris from one of the stones of the arch. Beneath the brush, Deirdre could just make out a series of angular marks.

  She clapped a hand to her mouth at the same moment Travis swore.

  “By the Blood,” Vani whispered, her gold eyes wide.

  Beltan cast them an annoyed look. “Great. Am I the only one who doesn’t know what that writing says?” His expression grew thoughtful, and he rubbed his arm. “Although I feel like I should know.”

  Deirdre gripped the silver ring on her right hand. The ring Glinda had given her. She didn’t need to look to know that the angular characters etched inside it were shaped just like those on the television screen.