The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  “If the Seven escaped, where did they go?” Larad said.

  It was Farr who answered. “Earth. Look at the way the gate is drawn. It is like a tunnel through a great darkness. That must be the Void. Which means the Seven went to Earth.”

  “Can we go now, Mother?” Nim said.

  Vani stood. She had covered Ti’an’s body with a cloth. “Yes, daughter. There is nothing left for us here.”

  “And where will we go?” Master Larad said. “There is water in this city, but we have no camels. We need to find the Last Rune, Master Wilder. But I don’t know how we’ll do that now. Not before the end comes. I doubt we’ll find it lying around here.”

  Larad was right, the end was close. But the answer was there, Travis was sure of it. Only he couldn’t quite grasp it.

  “What about the rest of the story?” Farr said, pointing to a large section of the wall. “You skipped all this. What did it say?”

  Yes, that was where the answer was. Travis licked his lips. “When the thirteen morndari entered him, Orú understood the truth. The truth about the origin of the world. Of all the worlds.”

  Grace touched his shoulder. “You mean like the story of the twins?”

  “Yes, the twins.” Travis drew in a deep breath, then read the symbols he had skipped, speaking as he did, describing what Orú had understood as the thirteen entered him.

  “It’s like Farr’s story. For an eternity, there was only nothing. Then, suddenly, the nothing gave birth to two things, two entities—one of being, and the other of . . .” Travis struggled for a word. “. . . of unbeing. Earth and Eldh, they were worlds of being. And there were more. Hundreds of them, millions. But there was only one world of unbeing, and that was the Void. It was like a sea between the other worlds, bridging them, binding them together.”

  He was no longer aware of talking now. Instead, he was seeing it, understanding it without words, even as Orú had three thousand years before when the morndari entered him, becoming one with him.

  It was all in perfect equilibrium, the worlds of being balanced by the Void. Or at least it was meant to be perfect. Only it wasn’t. For from the very beginning, there was something wrong.

  Travis studied the symbols. A deep line was carved into the wall. On one side of the line were myriad small specks, as well as thirteen larger dots that emanated concentric lines of power. On the other side of the line were three circles.

  No, not circles. Stones.

  Travis could almost see it as it had happened. A mistake was made in the creation of the worlds and the Void. Somehow, in the chaos of those first moments of formation, fragments of unbeing were caught on the wrong side of the line. They found themselves drawn in and captured by the force of one of the worlds of being. The world Eldh. There, in a later age, those fragments of unbeing became known as the morndari, or Those Who Thirst.

  Still striving for balance, for perfection, the multiverse spontaneously attempted to heal itself. Fragments of primordial being were sent to Eldh to counteract the morndari, to cancel them out and remove the flaw, so that the worlds of being would be perfect like the Void. These fragments of primordial matter were the Imsari.

  Although they became known as the Great Stones after the dwarf Alcendifar found them and wrought into them the power of the runes Gelth, Krond, and Sinfath, the Imsari were not truly things of stone. They were something older, deeper—pieces of the very first stuff of being that sprang out of the nothingness. If they were to be called Stones, then this thing they came from was the First Stone. It was the first pebble tossed into an ocean to create a continent. It was the very beginning of everything.

  The thirteen most powerful morndari were similar, but opposite. They were fragments of the most primordial substance of unbeing. When the Imsari came in contact with the morndari, they would cancel one another out, returning to the nothingness that once spawned them. Thus the balance would be restored and the instability healed.

  Only it didn’t happen that way.

  In the south, on the continent of Moringarth, the thirteen most powerful morndari were dazzled by blood and were trapped within Orú, merging with him so completely they could never be released again. And in the north, on the continent of Falengarth, where the Imsari fell, the three Great Stones were changed by the craft of Alcendifar, then were seized by the forces of the Pale King, and finally were scattered across the world, and even beyond, to the world that drifted closest to Eldh in the sea of the Void. To the world Earth.

  Thus history conspired to keep the Imsari and the morndari from uniting as intended. And so the instability grew. Slowly at first. And then, as the end drew nearer, more swiftly.

  The final symbols showed gashes opening in the fabric of creation. The line grew blurred, then vanished. And after that . . . nothing at all. Or less than nothing, for this was an emptiness that could never give birth, that never had given birth, that was without possibility. Without hope.

  Travis stopped reading. He was dimly aware of his own voice fading to silence.

  “She wasn’t trying to kill the Seven,” Vani said.

  He turned. The T’gol stood over Ti’an’s covered form. She looked at him, and sorrow shone in her gold eyes.

  “I think you’re right. I think she helped them open the gate.” Travis studied the symbols. Fury sparked in her eyes as the Seven stepped through the gate—fury for the army that approached Morindu. “I think she knew it was crucial that Orú’s blood be guarded, protected, so that one day it could be used to heal the rifts in creation.”

  Only she was mad in the end. Eons of dwelling here alone, deep beneath the desert, with only her husband’s mummy as companion, had destroyed her mind. She had wanted only to kill the intruders, to use them, to get her husband back.

  I’m sorry, Travis said silently, gazing at her still form.

  “What about the other morndari?” Grace said. She had been studying the symbols on the wall, and now she turned around, her expression sharp with curiosity. “If the thirteen that entered Orú were part of the primordial stuff of unbeing, what were the other morndari?”

  Travis glanced again at the symbols. There was so much he could understand, but it was hard to put it into words. “The thirteen were part of the stuff that first came into being. Or into unbeing, I mean. And in turn, that substance—”

  “That first substance caused all the rest of unbeing, the Void, to precipitate out of the nothingness,” Grace said, nodding. “I understand now. It was like a chain reaction. The same would have been true of the worlds of being. The First Stone appeared out of nothingness, then it caused everything else to come into being.”

  Despite all that had happened, Travis grinned. That scientific mind of hers.

  “So the lesser morndari on Eldh are similar to those that dwell in the Void between worlds,” Farr said, touching his arm, perhaps unconsciously tracing the scars there. “They were not so powerful that their presence on Eldh caused a great instability.”

  “More than that, they were balanced, too,” Travis said. He studied the drawing. If he looked close, around the shapes of the three Great Stones, he could see tiny flecks etched into the wall. “Smaller grains of the First Stone were sent to Eldh along with the Imsari—enough to balance out the other morndari. Only they . . . they were taken in by . . .” Again he struggled to describe what had happened.

  It was Larad who gave the thought voice. “Runes. They became runes, didn’t they?” The Runelord didn’t wait for an answer. He paced, his gray robe swishing. “There was no Worldsmith, not in the very beginning, not in the first iteration of Eldh. It was the very flecks of the First Stone that brought it into being, trapping the morndari even as they tried to counter them. Each fleck became a thing, a rune—sea or sky or stone— and was bound into it. The same was true for the Old Gods, and the Little People, and the dragons. There are runes for all of them.”

  “Even Sia,” Grace said, wonder on her face now. “There’s a rune for Sia, isn’t there?” She
shook her head. “But if morndari brought blood sorcery into the world, and the flecks of the Great Stone brought rune magic, where did witch magic come from?”

  Larad stroked his chin. “Granted, I know little about the magic of witches, even less than Master Graedin. But from what we have recently learned, I imagine the Weirding was an effect of the creation of Eldh. We know from our studies that witchcraft is related to runes. So runes created the world, and—”

  “And then the world created witchcraft,” Grace said, tucking her blond hair behind her ears, as if it was in the way of her thinking. “Life gave rise to the Weirding. Just as the blood of the sorcerers, once it was dispersed through the world, gave rise to the New Gods.”

  Larad nodded. “It would seem so.”

  Travis should have felt amazement at all this. It was as if a curtain had been lifted, revealing mysteries that had existed since the beginning of time. However, his mind hummed, and it was hard to concentrate on what the others were saying.

  What does it matter if we know how everything began if it’s all going to be snu fed out of existence? Magic is almost gone. Everything that bound the world together, and what the world itself brought to life, is fading.

  Only the Imsari still functioned, and the blood of Orú—the very oldest of things. But how long did they have until even these things ceased? And when they did, any chance of healing the rifts would vanish.

  “There are a few symbols here I do not believe you translated, Travis.”

  Farr’s voice jerked Travis out of his thoughts. Farr stood close to the wall, gesturing to a group of symbols contained within an oval shape, like a cartouche. They were the only symbols carved into the wall that Travis didn’t completely understand. He supposed they had not been part of Orú’s own knowledge. Instead, they must have represented the thoughts of Ti’an, or perhaps the thoughts of the Seven Fateless Ones. The symbols showed the Three coming in contact with the Seven, and jagged rays of power shooting outward. Only there was something else, something between the Three and the Seven. Travis didn’t understand what the symbol meant. It looked like a triangle and nothing more.

  “I think those symbols show how the Imsari and the Seven A’narai need to be brought together,” Travis said. “Only I don’t understand what that third symbol means.”

  Or did he? The buzzing in his mind grew louder. He gripped the bone talisman—the one given to him so long ago by Grisla—that hung at his neck, thinking. It seemed he should know what the third symbol was. Could it somehow be related to the Last Rune? The dragon Sfithrisir had said it was the Last Rune that would heal the rifts. Surely that meant bringing the Seven in contact with the Imsari. But Travis didn’t know any rune that was denoted by a simple triangle. Maybe Larad . . .

  No. When he glanced in that direction, the Runelord shook his head. He didn’t know what the symbol meant either.

  Maybe it didn’t matter. The Imsari were here on Eldh, and the Seven were somewhere on Earth. There was no way to get to them, to bring them together. . . .

  By Olrig, Travis, that’s not true! Jack’s voice said in his mind. You’ve quite forgotten. There is a way.

  Hope surged in Travis. The answer was here after all. He reached into his serafi and drew out a silver coin.

  The others gazed at him, startled, but Farr nodded, drawing out his own coin. Yes, he understood.

  “You want to take the Imsari to Earth,” the former Seeker said. It was not a question. “You want to find the Seven of Orú, to heal the rifts.”

  Yes, Travis tried to say. However, the word was lost in a clap of thunder. Beneath their feet, the floor gave a violent lurch. Larad stumbled against Grace, and both fell sprawling. Nim clutched Vani as the T’gol braced her feet. Farr gripped the wall for support, and Travis fell to his knees. Like a candle being snuffed out, the glowing crystal high above went dark, plunging the room into stifling shadow. Travis, with his preternatural eyes, still possessed dim vision, but he could see the others flailing blindly.

  “What’s happening?” Grace called out.

  Before anyone could answer, the air burst asunder as a circle of blue fire crackled into being on the center of the dais, just behind the golden throne, a window rimmed by sapphire lightning.

  It was a gate.

  43.

  Deirdre paced across the white floor of the hospital’s waiting area, willing herself not to glance at the clock on the wall. How long had it been since the nurse had come to tell her he was out of surgery? She wasn’t sure, but in the meantime night had fallen outside the windows, and the waiting area had steadily cleared out until she and Beltan were alone.

  At the moment, the blond man’s rangy form lay sprawled across a bank of plastic chairs. He was snoring. The day’s activities—a mad dash from London to Edinburgh, the struggle at the manor, the ambulance ride to the hospital—had exhausted him more than the warrior in him would willingly admit. Every time Deirdre had told him to get some rest, he had steadfastly refused. However, a short while ago she had gone to get them some coffee. When she returned, he had been out cold.

  His face was peaceful in sleep; gone were the lines of worry that had creased his brow ever since Travis, Vani, and Nim fell through the gate. A butterfly bandage covered the gash on his cheek though it hardly seemed necessary. Already the wound had scabbed over; it was healing rapidly.

  You should rest as well, Deirdre, a calm voice spoke within her. Her Wise Self. Much work lies ahead. You will need strength to face it.

  Only she couldn’t sleep, not now, not when she knew what was going to happen tomorrow in a warehouse south of London. As soon as she could, she would go there. But first she had to see him, to see with her own eyes that he would live.

  If you had just listened to your instincts, Deirdre—if you had trusted Anders as your heart wanted to—he wouldn’t have been shot, and Marius would still be alive. This is all your fault.

  No. That was her Shadow Self speaking now, and she wouldn’t listen to its bitter voice. It would not help her do what she had to. Besides, Anders and Beltan had made their own decisions. She had not asked them to follow her from London.

  Although she should have known—perhaps, deep down, did know—that they would. Only she hadn’t believed they would be working in tandem. She had thought Anders a traitor, and had assumed he would follow her to stop her. Instead it had been just the opposite. He had been trying to protect her. Just like he had been doing for the last three years.

  Again she thought about what would have happened if Anders and Beltan hadn’t shown up at the manor. Marius would still be dead, and so would she. No one would know what the Philosophers really were, or what they really desired. And what they were going to do tomorrow. Only she was alive, and she did know, and she had Anders to thank for that.

  Why didn’t he tell me the truth about who he was?

  But she knew the answer. If Nakamura had told her he was assigning her a full-time security guard, she would have rebelled. So Nakamura had tricked her, assigning Anders as her new partner. As it was, early on, Deirdre had suspected the truth, but eventually convinced herself to believe Anders. Once again, her instincts had been right, and she hadn’t listened to them. But maybe it wasn’t her brain that had gotten in the way. Maybe it had been her heart. She had wanted to believe Anders, and so she had. Only all this time he had been lying to her, and even though he had been doing it to protect her, that didn’t change the fact that he had been dishonest.

  What about you, Deirdre? You haven’t exactly kept up your vow to tell him everything.

  And that was why she couldn’t be angry with him. Nakamura, however, was another matter. Sasha had been a traitor, but she had been right about one thing: the Seekers did keep secrets. All this time, Nakamura had been deceiving her. But why? Why was it so important to protect her that he was willing to lie to her to do it?

  Maybe she knew the answer to that. Hadrian Farr was gone. She was the only Seeker left who had direct connections to Travis W
ilder and Grace Beckett, one of the most important—if not the most important—case in the history of the Seekers. He was hardly going to put a prize like that at risk.

  Or was it more than that? Why was protecting you so important, Deirdre? What does Nakamura really know?

  Somehow she didn’t believe he had been in direct contact with Marius. Then again, Nakamura had given Deirdre the assignments that Marius had wanted her to have, so maybe there was some connection after all. Whatever Nakamura knew, it was enough to make him want to keep her safe. Even now, he was still doing it.

  When the ambulance arrived at the manor, she had expected police cars to come with it. They hadn’t. The ambulance had been from a private company. They did their work efficiently, stabilizing Anders and loading him into the ambulance, but made no move to call the police, even when they discovered the three dead bodies: Marius, Sasha, and Eustace. Nor did they ask Deirdre any questions.

  It was the same at the hospital. Normally a gunshot wound should involve the police, but no officers were called in, and no one asked Deirdre anything except if Deirdre knew whether Anders was taking any medications or had any existing medical conditions. She and Beltan had been shown to the waiting area. A short while later, a telegram had come for her. It was from Nakamura.

  Do not leave the hospital. Do not speak to the police. More instructions to follow.

  So the Seekers were taking care of everything. They had connections Deirdre couldn’t even guess at. Somehow, at least for the moment, they had been able to keep all of this a private matter. And whether it was because they were too distracted to either know or care what Nakamura had done for her, or because they feared they would reveal themselves, the Philosophers had not interfered

  So far, at least. But though Sasha and Eustace were dead, Deirdre didn’t dare let herself believe the Philosophers would not soon learn what had transpired at the manor. And while she was glad for Nakamura’s help, his orders meant nothing to her now. She was not going to stay here and wait for the Philosophers to come get her.