The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  Blood spilled down her shirt.

  “Oh,” Deirdre said, and slumped to her knees.

  “This case is closed, Seeker,” Phoebe said, and pointed the gun at Deirdre’s head.

  Again came a rumbling sound. Only it was different this time: lower, deeper, a moan rising from below. In moments it built to a stentorian roar. The floor shook beneath Deirdre. One of the statues toppled over, smashing an urn. Phoebe stumbled back against the railing of the mezzanine. The gun flew from her hand, falling to the chamber below.

  The floor continued to shake. Above, a crack snaked across the surface of the dome. The light flickered. It took Deirdre’s astonished brain an instant to realize what was happening.

  It’s an earthquake. An earthquake in London.

  But that was impossible. There was no active fault line beneath London. Unless . . .

  The fault line is here, Deirdre. Her mind was strangely clear. It’s centered around them—the Seven. Perihelion is close now. Very close . . .

  “Phoebe!” another man’s voice shouted from below. “Get down here now. We must open the way!”

  Below, one of the men had pushed back his hood. His gold eyes shone in an ageless face.

  “I have to finish with this one first, Gabriel!” Phoebe called out.

  “There’s no time for that,” the man called back. “It comes sooner than we believed. If we want to escape this world before it’s too late, we must complete the spell now.”

  Phoebe gave Deirdre one last hateful glance. “You’ll bleed to death soon enough. Perhaps it’s fitting that you watch as we achieve perfect immortality.” She descended a staircase to the chamber below, joining the others around the arch. The man, Gabriel, raised his hood.

  The building no longer shook; the earthquake had ended. Deirdre still felt no pain. She crawled forward, using her left hand for support. Only dimly did she notice the blood smearing the marble beneath her. She passed Beltan’s prone form. It seemed his green eyes followed her motion, but that couldn’t be.

  She reached the top of the stairs. Although crystalline, her gaze seemed strangely fractured, so that what she saw below were fragments only. Here, one of the hooded figures pulled back the cloth that covered one of the long shapes around the perimeter of the room. It was a sarcophagus of black stone, its lid gone. Within lay a man with lustrous gold skin and jet-black hair, clad only in a linen kilt. His eyes were shut, his arms folded over his naked chest. On his brow was a circlet of gold and a bloodred jewel shaped like a spider.

  In another shard of sight, Deirdre watched as one of the black-robed figures bent over another sarcophagus, knife in hand. The blade flashed, and blood flowed from the Sleeping One’s arm, spilling into a golden bowl.

  More knives flashed and six figures walked toward the stone arch, each bearing a bowl of blood, and one of them—the sole woman among them—carrying two.

  Deirdre tried to move down the stairs—she had to stop them—but she couldn’t stand; her legs wouldn’t work right. The chanting rose again on the air, echoing up into the dome. The robed figures closed in around the arch. Seven golden bowls tilted, blood spilled.

  The blood vanished.

  Blue fire enveloped the stones.

  46.

  “Lir!” a commanding voice intoned.

  Silver radiance flickered into existence, pushing back the darkness that filled the throne room. Master Larad stood at the center of the light. Sinfathisar shimmered in his hands.

  Grace’s eyes adjusted to the new illumination. The floor had stopped shaking beneath her, and she managed to gain her feet, though she was still trembling herself.

  “Was that an earthquake?” she called out over the groan of settling stone.

  “More than that, I think,” Farr said, standing up and untangling his serafi. “Perihelion must nearly be here.”

  Grace looked up. The crystal that had channeled beams of sunlight from the outer chamber into the throne room had gone dark. Had the sun ceased shining? If so, then surely Farr was right.

  “Look,” Vani said. The T’gol stood nearby, holding Nim. Grace followed her gaze. On the dais, the gate still crackled like a door rimmed with sapphire lightning. Grace saw dark-robed figures moving beyond, and many glints of gold.

  “Who are they?” she said, half in wonder, half in dread. “Are they Scirathi?” She couldn’t see masks in the shadowed recesses of their hoods.

  Travis was the closest to the dais. “I don’t know who they are,” he said, his voice hard, “but I’d bet the Great Stones those are the Seven of Orú.”

  Past the robed figures, Grace made out several long, rectangular shapes. They were stone sarcophagi. The gate seemed to be positioned slightly higher than the room on the other side, as if there—just like here—it stood on some sort of dais. Grace could just see inside one of the sarcophagi, glimpsing the gold-skinned man who lay there, eyes shut as if asleep.

  A sheen of sweat sprang out on Grace’s flesh. If those were the Fateless Ones, then the room on the other side of the gate was on . . .

  “Earth,” she said. “It’s Earth on the other side.”

  But where on Earth? And who were the black-robed ones if they were not Scirathi?

  “We’ve got to go through the gate,” Travis said. “Larad, bring the Great Stones. I think Farr’s right. Perihelion is almost here. We’ve got to bring the Stones in contact with the Seven.”

  Yes, that was it, Grace thought, her cool doctor’s logic superseding the fevered chaos in her brain. She considered the knowledge they had gained from the symbols on the walls of the throne room. The universe had a fatal disease, of which the rifts were a symptom, and the only way to cure the patient was to reverse the imbalance that had caused the affliction in the first place. The Imsari had to be joined with the blood of the Seven.

  Only what does that have to do with the Last Rune, Grace? Sfithrisir said only the Last Rune could heal the rifts.

  Larad stared at the gate, wonder on his scarred face, then he was moving. Travis was already bounding up the steps of the dais.

  “We must not allow ourselves to be separated,” Vani said, springing forward with Nim in her arms.

  Farr followed after the T’gol, but Grace hesitated. Just a short while ago, for a few moments, she had returned to Earth by means of Farr’s silver coin. When they jumped into the abyss, there had been no time to consider where to direct the coin to take them; there had been only a split second to think of a place they both knew, they both could envision. One had flashed into Grace’s mind; with their hands clasped together, she had managed to transmit it to Farr over the last scraps of the Weirding. And that was where they had gone.

  The Beckett-Strange Home for Children.

  They two of them had stood there beneath the blue Colorado sky for only a few seconds. Grace had stared at the burnt-out ruin, unable to move or speak. The wind had hissed through dry witchgrass. This was where it had all begun. This was where she had first learned what it meant to be wounded. . . .

  And where she had first learned the power of healing.

  With that thought, the fear, the dread, and the sorrow within her evaporated. It hadn’t been a mistake to come to this place. Instead, it had reminded her of who she really was. Not a queen, not a witch, and not an heir to prophecy, but simply—finally—a healer. She had taken the silver coin from Farr, and with a thought they had returned to Eldh, to the bridge outside the throne room.

  Grace left hesitation behind and raced after the others toward the dais. For a moment she had been terrified that if she stepped through the gate to Earth, she might never return to Eldh—to her fortress and her people. But it didn’t matter; she knew that now.

  Grace had never meant to return to them in the first place.

  She willed her legs to move faster. Travis had reached the top of the dais. He drew close to the throne.

  A hand reached through the gate, groping.

  Travis skidded to a halt short of the gate. The hand re
ached toward him, slender fingers extended. A woman’s hand. Several of the robed figures were clustered close to the gate, just on the other side. At their fore was the woman, a veil concealing her face rather than a hood. She was reaching through the gate. For Travis?

  No. Her hand moved past him, toward the throne. The woman’s fingertips just brushed the arm of the golden chair.

  Travis took another step toward the gate. The woman snatched her hand back through the blue-rimmed portal, and while Grace couldn’t hear it, she was sure the other had gasped in surprise. The woman had just seen Travis. But why hadn’t she and the others seen him before?

  This room is dim, Grace, and the room on their side is much brighter. It’s like being in a brightly lit house and looking out a window into the night; you can’t see anything.

  The woman threw her veil back. Her face was too sharp to be lovely, but it was regal, commanding. Blond hair was pulled back in a severe knot. Her eyes were gold as coins.

  Those eyes had widened, and her mouth was a silent circle of surprise. She stumbled back, away from the gate, along with the others in black robes.

  “Who are those people?” Larad called out.

  “I don’t care,” Travis called back. “Now, Larad.”

  And he jumped through the gate.

  “Father!” Nim cried, reaching out a small hand.

  But Vani was already moving, leaping through the gate a fraction of a second after Larad. Farr went next; Grace was the last. She did not hesitate, did not look back over her shoulder as she passed into the circle of blue fire.

  She braced herself for the cold of the Void, and for a fall through darkness. Instead she felt a tingling sensation, like the touch of leaves brushing past her skin, and a moment later she was through, standing beside the others on a dais beneath a golden dome, in a building that, classical as its design was, bore countless, immediately detectable signs—from the electric lights glowing around the perimeter of the room to the switches on the walls and the muted whir of a ventilation system—that it had been built by modern, Earth hands.

  Grace glanced back. Behind her, supported by thin arcs of steel, was an archway of stone blocks carved with angular symbols. Strands of blue energy coiled around the stones. Beyond she could just make out the dim outlines of the throne room in Morindu. Why hadn’t they fallen through the Void?

  Because the worlds are close now, Grace. Very close.

  She turned from the gate, facing the six figures in black robes. Their hoods were pushed back now, like the woman’s veil, and the faces of the five men—all as sharp and ageless as the woman’s—bore looks of mingled astonishment and fear. The woman’s look of shock, however, had changed to another expression: narrow-eyed rage.

  “How can this be?” She pointed a finger at Travis. “How can you be here? We made certain you would not get in our way.”

  Travis cocked his head, a puzzled look on his face. Then, slowly, he nodded, and Grace knew he had understood something, something the rest of them had not. She wished she could speak to him over the Weirding. Standing there, close to the gate, and the Imsari, and the Seven of Orú—who slept in their sarcophagi around the perimeter of the chamber—it almost felt as if she could sense the Weirding’s glimmering strands. But they were too faint, too fragile to grasp.

  “Haven’t you read the reports?” Travis said. “I have a way of getting around.”

  Never, in all they had been through together, had Grace been afraid of Travis, but she was at that moment. He wore a grin like a jackal’s, and in the golden light his skin seemed hot and metallic, like that of the beings in the sarcophagi. He stalked to the edge of the dais. The woman and the black-robed men all took a step back.

  “You,” Vani said, and she was almost as fearsome as Travis, her gold eyes blazing. She held Nim tight in one arm, and with her free hand pointed at the woman. “You sent the Scirathi after us. You told them where to find my daughter.”

  The woman’s hand darted inside her robe. She said nothing. The five men exchanged uncomfortable looks.

  “You aren’t Scirathi,” Farr said, eyes narrowing. “So why were they working for you. Who are you?”

  “What?” the woman said, her voice mocking now. “The great Seeker Hadrian Farr doesn’t know the answer when it’s right in front of his face? Your reputation must have been overly inflated in the reports we received.” She inclined her head toward Travis. “He knows who we are. Though I confess, I do not know how he can. All the same, he does. Go on, Mr. Wilder. Tell them.”

  Travis opened his mouth, but before he could speak, another voice answered. “They’re the Philosophers, Hadrian! We can’t let them go through the gate.”

  The voice was weak, ragged, but it echoed around the dome. Grace turned. To her right, a staircase led up to a mezzanine that ringed the chamber. A dark-haired woman stood halfway down the staircase, hunched over the rail. Behind her, a streak of red smeared the white marble steps.

  The woman on the staircase was Deirdre Falling Hawk.

  Everyone in the chamber stared, silenced by shock. Farr actually staggered, a hand to his chest. Joy shone on Travis’s face. However, after a second the joy flickered and vanished; he had seen the trail of blood on the stairs. The Philosophers, too, appeared surprised to see Deirdre standing there.

  “Why aren’t you dead?” the woman snapped, her tone what a rich woman might use with a servant who had not performed some task swiftly enough.

  Deirdre gave a pained smile. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” She limped down several more steps. “The woman is Phoebe. She’s their leader, Hadrian. Stop her.”

  Farr’s eyes were on the bloody stairs. “Deirdre, you’re—”

  The sound of booted feet against marble rang out. A trio of men in black uniforms rushed through a doorway into the room. They held guns in their hands.

  The gold-eyed woman, Phoebe, smiled. “Now this distraction will be removed.” She glanced at the security guards. “Dispose of these intruders. Use whatever force is required.”

  The guards—all of them large, thick-necked men—leveled their weapons at the interlopers. “Walk forward slowly,” one of them said. “Come one at a time with your hands out in front of you.”

  Travis was still grinning like a jackal. “That’s funny.” He glanced at Master Larad. “I’m thinking the rune of iron.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Larad said, and held Sinfathisar before him.

  “Whatever that is, put it down or we’ll shoot!” The guard targeted Larad with the gun.

  “No,” Travis said. “You won’t.”

  “Dur!” Larad shouted.

  The three men cried out as the guns flew from their hands, arced across the room, and struck the far wall. The weapons fell to the floor as shapeless lumps of metal. The guards staggered back, clutching stinging hands.

  Grace staggered herself. For a moment, as Larad spoke the rune and the Stone flashed in his hands, she had heard a rushing noise, and she had glimpsed silvery threads all around her. It was the Weirding. She reached out to Touch it. However, even as the Stone faded, so did the shimmering strands around her.

  “Now, Vani!” Travis shouted. He was already moving toward the guards. Farr was on his heels.

  “Take Nim,” Vani said, pressing the girl into Grace’s arms. “Protect her.”

  Before Grace could speak, Vani’s form blurred, and she was gone. A moment later she reappeared in midair above the guard closest to the door. Her boot flew out, contacting his skull, and he toppled to the floor as she landed without sound next to him. The other guards tried to back away from her, toward the center of room, but Travis and Farr were between them and the dais, cutting off their retreat.

  Two more guards appeared at the door. Again Vani’s form seemed to blur as she attacked them. Travis and Farr grappled with the other two guards. However, Grace saw this only dimly, as if through a shimmering veil.

  Once again, the silvery threads of the Weirding shone around her. She
reveled in the sensation of life. How she had missed the Touch! She let her consciousness follow the glittering web.

  The threads ended at the edge of the chamber.

  What was going on? The Weirding had returned, but only here in this room; Grace could not follow it beyond.

  Think, Grace.

  The silver web had momentarily reappeared when Larad had invoked the power of the Imsari. In a way that made sense; the power of the Weirding sprang ultimately from the runes that had brought Eldh and everything on it into being. But why was she seeing the Weirding again now?

  “I’m afraid, Aunt Grace,” Nim said, tightening her arms around Grace’s neck.

  The silvery threads grew brighter.

  Grace clutched the girl. Contacting Nim was what allowed her to see the Weirding. Only how could that be? Her mind fought to comprehend. The Imsari were part of the First Stone. Like the thirteen morndari that entered Orú, they were the most primordial of magics; they were the first enchantments, and the last to remain while all other faded. It made sense that the Imsari helped her see the Weirding. But why did Nim do the same?

  Grace didn’t know, but she was not going to waste this chance. The Weirding could fade again in an instant.

  Deirdre? she called out, sending her presence along the shimmering threads.

  Across the chamber, near the door, Travis, Farr, and Vani were still struggling with the security guards. The men had learned to keep away from Vani, but Travis and Farr kept herding them back within the T’gol ’s reach. The Philosophers had retreated, standing near several of the sarcophagi where the gold-skinned beings still slept.

  “Stop them!” Phoebe shouted, her voice shrill, hands clenched into fists.

  Grace didn’t know much about the Philosophers, other than that they were the mysterious leaders of the Seekers. One thing was certain. Whatever power they possessed, they did not like to do their own dirty work.

  Deirdre, Grace called again. Can you hear me?