The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  Talk turned then to the matter of the stone arch—the gate— that had been discovered on the island of Crete. Vani was convinced it was a sign of Fate that the arch had been uncovered just when Travis needed to return to Eldh in order to fulfill his destiny.

  “I don’t know if it’s Fate,” Travis said, gazing down at his hands. “But I’m willing to bet it’s not a coincidence that gate came to light on this world just when Morindu has been found on Eldh. There has to be a connection. Only what is it?”

  Vani reached across the table, gripping his hands. “You are the connection, Travis Wilder. Don’t you see? The gate has come to light because Morindu has been found. It wants to take you there.”

  He snatched his hands back. “What it if I don’t want to go?”

  “You will go, because it is Fate.”

  “I don’t have a fate,” Travis snapped, and Beltan cast him a worried look.

  Vani seemed undisturbed. “Perhaps not. But my people do, and that fate is bound up with you. You will go to Morindu. We must go to this gate at once. Your blood will awaken it.”

  “Blood,” Deirdre murmured, her mind humming. She glanced at the sofa and Nim’s sleeping form. “It’s what you and Nim have in common, Travis. That’s what connects you. Blood of power.”

  Beltan cast a startled look at Nim. “A jewel, a spider, a key. Those things she said—all those words could be used to describe a scarab.”

  “And the scarabs contain Orú’s blood.” Deirdre felt hot, a sheen of sweat breaking out on her skin. “That’s why the Scirathi want both of you. Either one of you could be used to open a gate.”

  “Or perhaps open something else,” Vani said, her coppery face turning ashen. “Why did I not see it before?”

  Anders refilled her empty coffee cup. “Sometimes it’s hard to see the truth when you’re too close to it.”

  Deirdre had to agree with that. And there was one truth the others couldn’t see yet. “The gate on Crete won’t do you any good. You won’t be able to open it.”

  Vani scowled at her. “Why is that?”

  “Because the arch isn’t complete. The archaeologists won’t find the center keystone with it.”

  “This is madness,” Vani said, clenching her hands into fists. “You only say this to keep Travis here. How can you know the keystone will not be found?”

  “Because it’s in the vaults of the Philosophers.”

  Deirdre couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied as they all stared at her. It was good to be the one with the astonishing revelation for a change.

  “You remember the Philosopher who was helping me?”

  Anders cocked his head. “He hasn’t contacted you again, has he, partner?”

  Deirdre thought of the message on her computer screen, just before Travis had called. “Actually, I think maybe he has. But he first helped me to learn about the keystone over three years ago.”

  It had been almost that long since she had gone over her notes on the case, but it didn’t matter; she remembered every detail of the mystery as if she had just uncovered it. Anders knew all of this already—she had vowed not to keep any secrets from him, and she had kept that promise—but to the others it would all be new.

  She began by explaining how her shadowy helper—the one who she was convinced was a Philosopher—had first contacted her, just after she had stumbled upon a computer file with her new Echelon 7 clearance. A file that was deleted from the system the moment she found it.

  Deirdre had never learned what was in that file, but soon after she made another breakthrough with the help of the unknown Philosopher. She explained how she had stumbled across a reference to the keystone in the archives of the Seekers while researching an old case, one concerning a Seeker named Thomas Atwater. In the early seventeenth century, Atwater was forbidden to return to a tavern where he had worked prior to joining the Seekers. The tavern had stood on the same spot where the Seekers would later discover the keystone, and which, three centuries after that, would house the nightclub Surrender Dorothy.

  Talking about Glinda was still difficult, even after this long. Deirdre gripped the silver ring Glinda had given her as she described the nightclub and its half-fairy denizens. Duratek had been using them, hoping to learn from the experiments they performed on the folk of the nightclub, then had destroyed the tavern once they gained access to a true fairy.

  “Are you all right, Deirdre?” Anders asked, his voice husky. As always, he pronounced her name DEER-dree, but she no longer found it quite so annoying as she used to.

  She did her best to smile. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “You said there was writing on the keystone,” Travis said, his gray eyes curious. “Were you ever able to read it?”

  Deirdre nodded. “My mysterious helper gave me a photograph of a clay tablet that bore the inscription on the keystone, as well as the same passage written in Linear A. Back then, I wondered at the connection, but now it’s fairly obvious.”

  “To you, maybe,” Beltan said with a grunt.

  She grinned at the blond man. “Linear A is the writing system used by the Minoan civilization on ancient Crete.”

  Vani’s expression was guarded. “So what does the inscription on the keystone say?”

  “It says, ‘Forget not the Sleeping Ones. In their blood lies the key.”

  “The key,” Travis murmured, looking at Nim. However, whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.

  There was one last thing she had to tell them. Deirdre took off the silver ring Glinda had given her and showed them how the same inscription as on the keystone was written inside it. However, there was one thing she did not tell them, and it was the one secret she had allowed herself to keep even from Anders: how, in the moment they had kissed, Deirdre had loved Glinda with all her being.

  “ ‘The Sleeping Ones,’ ” Beltan said, scratching the tuft of blond hair on his chin. “That doesn’t really sound familiar. What does it mean?”

  No one, not even Vani, offered an answer.

  Deirdre slipped the ring back on her finger. “The inscription talks about blood, and traces of blood were found on the keystone—blood with DNA similar to Glinda’s. Whoever they were, these Sleeping Ones were important to the folk at Surrender Dorothy for some reason.” Though why that was, they would never know, thanks to Duratek.

  “This all seems a small complication,” Vani said, standing and stalking around the table. “True, the gate will not be complete without this keystone. However, it could be in a vault in this very building. Cannot this Philosopher ally of yours deliver the keystone to us?”

  Deirdre opened her mouth, not certain how she was going to answer that. Would the unknown Philosopher really respond to a direct request for help? Before she could speak, there was a knock at the door, and the butler entered. On the silver tray he carried was not another pot of coffee but a manila envelope.

  “A message just arrived for you, Miss Falling Hawk,” he said, holding the tray toward Deirdre.

  She stared at the envelope. “Who’s it from?”

  “I have no idea, miss.” The butler looked slightly ruffled, as if she were accusing him of snooping.

  She took the envelope off the tray. “Thank you, Lewis.”

  The butler retreated from the parlor; the door shut.

  “It’s from him, isn’t it?” Travis said. “Your Philosopher friend.”

  Anders thumped the table. “Well, that was right on cue. He’s an eerie fellow, but you can’t fault his timing, now can you?”

  Deirdre was beyond words. She forced her trembling fingers to open the envelope. Inside was a folded up sheet of newsprint. Trying not to tear it, she unfolded the sheet and spread it on the table. It was a page taken from the Times—the coming day’s edition, according to the date. It must have come right off the presses.

  They all leaned over the page. At the top was a large article about Variance X, the growing stellar anomaly that astronomers had observed beyond the boundaries
of the solar system. However, the article didn’t hold Deirdre’s attention. Nor did the headlines about devastating typhoons in India, or the jittery United States stock markets. Instead, her eyes were drawn to the small headline at the bottom of the page: DARING ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEFT ON CRETE.

  Numb, she scanned the article. It described how a stone archway was stolen mere hours after it had been revealed live on the program Archaeology Now! There was no clue as to the perpetrators, but one worker at the site reported seeing men dressed in black and wearing masks.

  Gold masks.

  Vani looked up, her own face becoming a mask: one of fury. “Sacred Mahonadra, they have taken it!”

  Beltan and Travis exchanged a grave look, and Deirdre understood what it meant. Somehow, the Scirathi had taken the gate, and without it there was no way to open a doorway to Eldh. But the gate wouldn’t do the Scirathi any good either, not without—

  A sound like the crackle of electricity permeated the air, along with the metallic scent of ozone. Deirdre turned, and her heart became stone. On the other side of the parlor, a circle of darkness hung in midair, rimmed by blue fire. Nim was no longer on the sofa. Instead the girl padded across the carpet on bare feet, approaching the mouth of the portal.

  Vani sprang forward. “Nim, get away from that!”

  Fast as she was, Beltan was ahead of her, leaping over the back of the sofa. Travis scrambled after them.

  Nim stopped before the dark circle and gazed into it. After a moment she nodded, the way a child might when obeying an adult’s instructions. She held her chubby arms out.

  “No!” Beltan shouted.

  A pair of black-gloved hands reached out of the circle of blue sparks, snatching up Nim. The girl screamed.

  “Mother!” she cried, twisting in the gloved hands that gripped her, looking back, her eyes large with fear.

  Beltan dived forward, lunging for the girl. His arms closed around empty air, and he crashed against an end table. The hands pulled Nim into the blazing iris of the portal, and both they and the girl vanished. At once the gate began to shrink in on itself, a blue eye winking shut.

  Travis thrust a hand into the rapidly dwindling circle. Azure magic crackled around his wrist, biting his hand like a hungry maw.

  “You must not let the gate close,” Vani said, her voice hard as steel. “There is no other way we can follow her.”

  Travis nodded, his face lined with pain. However, the blue circle constricted more tightly about his wrist. Beltan lay on the floor. He wasn’t moving.

  “Anders, help me,” Deirdre said as she knelt beside the blond man. Anders helped her roll him over. He was breathing, but his eyes were shut, and there was a bruise forming on his forehead. Anders helped her haul his limp body onto the sofa.

  “Vani,” Travis gritted between clenched teeth. “My bandage. Take it off. I think it was my blood they used to open this gate. They must have gotten it from the stomach of the dead gorleth.”

  Her eyes blazed. “What fools we are! We should have known they would do this.”

  Travis flinched as she jerked the bandage off his wound. Blood began to ooze forth.

  “More,” he said.

  She dug her fingers into the wound, and a moan escaped him. Blood flowed freely from the gorleth’s bite marks, running down his arm. When it reached his wrist, the circle of blue sparks flared, then began to expand outward. Travis stuck his other hand into the opening, gripping its blazing edges, straining as he forced it wider. More blood flowed down his arm, and it vanished as it reached his wrist. The gate was consuming it.

  Travis staggered. His face was white, and alarm coursed through Deirdre. He’s lost too much blood. He’s going to pass out.

  “Do not stop!” Vani said, her voice a cruel slap.

  Again Travis strained. The gate expanded a fraction; it was as wide as his shoulders now.

  “Hello there, mate,” Anders said as Beltan drew in a shuddering breath and sat up on the sofa.

  “What’s going—?” The blond man’s eyes went wide. “Travis!”

  Travis cast a look of pain, sorrow, and love over his shoulder, his eyes locking on Beltan’s.

  “Now, Vani. Help me.”

  In a single motion, the T’gol gripped his shoulders and pushed him forward, into the mouth of the gate. However, she did not loosen her grasp on him, and his momentum carried her forward as she dived into the circle after him. Travis’s feet vanished, then Vani’s, as the ring of azure magic rapidly contracted.

  “No!” Beltan shouted, pushing himself free of Deirdre and Anders, throwing himself forward. However, before he could reach it, the blue circle collapsed into a single point, then disappeared.

  The gate had closed.

  PART TWO

  MASKS

  15.

  “So, dear,” Melia said, regarding Grace over the rim of a steaming cup of maddok, “I hear you had a chat with a dragon.”

  The amber-eyed lady sat beside the window in the chamber she and Falken shared. The chamber was small, but it was the sunniest in the keep, and that was why Melia had chosen it over grander rooms. She had been born long ago in a land far warmer than this, and her bronze skin seemed to absorb the morning light that streamed through the window.

  Daylight had diminished Grace’s dread a fraction—the rift was invisible against the flawless blue sky—and she gave Melia a crooked smile. “News travels fast.”

  “No, dragons travel fast,” Falken said, his hair disheveled from sleep. He poured a cup of maddok and handed it to her.

  Grace sighed as she breathed in the rich, slightly bitter aroma, then sat in a chair opposite Melia while Falken perched on the windowsill.

  “You’re blocking my sunshine, dear one,” Melia said in the kind of pleasant tone that demanded immediate attention.

  “I thought I was your sunshine,” Falken said dryly, though he hastily hopped off the windowsill and retired to another chair.

  A black cat sprawled on the carpet, licking a paw as it regarded Grace with moon-gold eyes. It had finally outgrown its seemingly eternal kittenhood over two years ago. Grace should have realized then that Melia was no longer immortal.

  “So what did the dragon speak to you about?” Melia said, her amber eyes as curious as the cat’s.

  Grace gripped the hot cup. “Nothing.”

  A frown shadowed the lady’s brow. “If you’d rather not tell us, that’s your prerogative, but please don’t speak a falsehood, Ralena. Sfithrisir is not one for idle conversation. I doubt the dragon flew all the way here from the Fal Erenn simply to tell you about nothing.”

  “But that’s it,” Grace said, struggling to find a place she could begin. “That’s exactly what the problem is. It’s nothing at all.”

  Falken raised an eyebrow, glancing at Melia. “I think the dragon addled her wits.”

  “They’ve been known to have that effect,” the lady agreed.

  Grace set down her cup and stood. “It’s the rift in the sky,” she said, shaking with frustration and fear. “It’s growing. It’s going to annihilate this world, and Earth, and any other world that lies close to them, and when it’s done, there won’t be anything left. There’ll be nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Melia and Falken were no longer smiling. As precisely as she could, Grace recounted her conversation with Sfithrisir. When she was done, both the bard and the lady stared, their faces ashen.

  “This cannot be true,” Melia said, shivering. The sun had gone behind a cloud. “Things cannot simply . . . cease to be.”

  Grace looked at Falken. “You’re the one who told me dragons can only speak the truth.”

  “That’s so,” Falken said, doubt in his faded blue eyes. “But you have to be wary of what a dragon says. They speak the truth, but they also twist that truth to their own ends.”

  Grace thought about this, then shook her head. “He was afraid, Falken. I know that seems impossible, that a creature that existed before the world was even created could feel fear
, but he did, I’m sure of it. Whatever the rift really is, Sfithrisir is terrified of it, and he can’t stop it.”

  “And you believe Travis can?” Melia said.

  “I have to.”

  Falken rose from his chair. “What will you do, Ralena?”

  She gripped the bard’s hand. “I am making you regents of Malachor, you and Melia both. I want you to keep things running. It won’t be hard—Sir Tarus pretty much does everything. All you have to do is put my stamp on things once in a while.”

  Sorrow shone in Falken’s faded blue eyes. “So you’re leaving us.”

  She nodded, unable to speak for the tightness in her throat.

  Melia stood, her blue gown fluttering as she drew close. Tears streamed from her amber eyes, but she smiled. “Do tell Travis hello for us when you find him, dear.”

  Then Grace was weeping, too, as she hugged them both.

  Preparations for her departure began at once. Horses were readied, supplies packed, and a proclamation granting regent power to Falken and Melia penned, though Sir Tarus handled the majority of this, and mostly what Grace did was tell people they couldn’t come with her.

  Aldeth and Samatha were the first, though the two Spiders were squabbling so intently over which of them should be the one to go south with Grace that they hardly heard her say that both of them were staying there, and she finally had to shout.

  “But you’ll need a spy with you, Your Majesty,” Aldeth said, looking as if he had been slapped.

  “The idea is to find Travis, not hide from him. Besides, Malachor needs you both. I won’t be able to focus on my task if I have to worry about what’s going on here.” Grace lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ll sleep much better if I know you two are keeping an eye on . . . well, I dare not say, but you know exactly who I mean.”