Текст книги "The First Stone"

Автор книги: Mark Anthony

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Текущая страница: 29 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

When the city had risen, great clouds of dust had billowed into the sky, masking the glare of the sun. Now the dust had begun to settle, and the sun broke through. Once again heat rose in a choking miasma from the desert floor.

“Come on,” Travis said. “One way or another, we have to go in there.”

Avhir found steps hewn into the side of the pinnacle. People from Morindu must have climbed to this place thousands of years ago, perhaps to gaze at their dark city. Or perhaps to watch for the armies of their enemies approaching. In minutes they reached the bottom.

“The gate must be there,” Vani said, pointing to a pair of delicate spires set into the wall that ringed the city.

Master Larad turned his shattered face toward her. “Will we be able to open them?”

No one answered the Runelord. It was a half mile from the base of the pinnacle to the city, and there was no shade or shelter anywhere in between. A parched wind dispersed the last of the haze on the air, and the sun glared down from the sky like a furious eye.

They ran. The T’golsurged ahead, hardly leaving prints in the sand. The others lumbered behind. In moments they were sweating, and after a minute Grace, Larad, and Farr all began to grimace in pain.

You can’t feel it, Travis, but the sand is burning them. Any hotter, and it would melt into glass. If you don’t do something, they won’t make it.

“Larad, the Stones.”

The Runelord could not manage words, but he held out the iron box in trembling hands. This time Travis took only Gelthisar, the Stone of Ice.

“ Hadath,” he murmured. Again he spoke the rune of frost, and again.

The sand remained cool only for moments before the sun baked it again, but each time he spoke the rune of frost Travis directed the force of the runespell just ahead of them. Grace, Farr, and Larad were no longer limping, and they were able to make rapid progress. They reached the wall of the city. Vani and Avhir were already there.

Travis looked up, awestruck again. The wall was a hundred feet high, fashioned of the same glassy black stone as the spire. No crack or crevice marred it, and there was no sign of any gate or doorway.

He glanced at Vani. “I thought you said the gate would be here.”

“It is here.” She reached toward the wall, but her hand seemed to spring back before she could touch it.

Travis understood. It was like the door in the tower. It was a spell woven in lines of fate. One fate was that there was no gate in the wall; that was the possibility they saw now. But there was another possibility. . . .

Travis approached the wall and reached out a hand. As it drew close to the black stone he felt resistance. He gathered his will, pushing his hand forward, as if through thick mud.

The resistance parted. His hand touched smooth stone.

The surface of the wall rippled, like dark water disturbed by a cast pebble. Then the ripples vanished, and Travis was no longer touching solid stone. He looked up. Where before there had been only blank wall, there was now an arched opening wide enough for five men to pass.

“Interesting,” Larad said. “How did you do that?”

Travis lowered his arm. He was not a nexus, a center around which threads of fate spun; not like Nim. He was the opposite of that. Lines of fate were not drawn to him, but rather repulsed. Twice he had died, and twice he had been reborn.

“ A’narai,” Vani murmured.

“Fateless,” Travis said, and stepped through the gate.

37.

It was like a garden.

Travis walked down a broad avenue, shaded from the sun by date palms arching overhead. Lindaravines, lush with yellow blooms, cascaded down walls and coiled above arched gates through which the music of falling water drifted. Beyond they glimpsed cool, dim, green spaces.

“This is impossible,” Grace said, gazing around. “This place has been buried for three thousand years. How can there be trees?”

Larad reached out, brushing an orange flower that grew from a niche in a wall. “I half expect the people to start coming out of their doors. It’s as if the city is just as they left it eons ago.”

“Just as they left it,” Farr repeated the words, casting back the hood of his robe. “You may be right, Runelord. This may indeed be how Morindu looked when it was abandoned.”

As Grace had said, that was impossible. All the same, Travis was certain Farr was right. He had expected to find a desolate ruin; instead, here was Morindu at the height of its power and splendor.

Except its people are gone. They turned to dust three thousand years ago, while these walls, even these flowers, remain.

A sleek black form moved past Travis, gold eyes seeking, hands at the ready. He was wrong; Morindu’s people weren’t gone. They had endured over the years in exile, their blood passing from father to daughter, from mother to son. And now, after all this time, they had returned.

“I will scout ahead,” Vani said to Avhir. “Watch behind us, but do not stray far. There is no telling what remains here.”

Travis studied Vani’s face, trying to see what she was feeling. All the Mournish were descended from the exiled people of Morindu the Dark. But she was a scion of the royal line of Morindu, heir to its ruling class of sorcerer-priests. This was her city.

He touched her shoulder, meeting her eyes. “You’re home, Vani.”

For a moment, it seemed her gold eyes shone with wonder. Then they narrowed. “Be on your guard,” she said, and kept moving.

They came to a square where two broad avenues intersected. In the center of the square, water droplets sprayed up from a fountain, bright as jewels, and fell back into a pool green with water lilies.

“Water,” Larad said, hurrying forward and dipping his hands into the fountain. He looked up, surprise on his face. “It’s cool.”

“Be careful,” Vani said, circling around the fountain.

Grace opened her eyes. “No, this water is pure. It won’t harm us.”

Larad brought cupped hands to his mouth, drinking deeply, then splashed water on his face and neck. All of them followed suit. Travis had never tasted such sweet water before. It soothed his parched tongue and throat, and it seemed to cool the fire in his veins a few degrees. At last he lifted his head, pushed his dripping hair from his face.

“Where do we go now?” he said, looking at Vani.

She gazed at Farr. “If Nim truly is a nexus, they will be taking her to the throne room.”

Grace turned around. “But where is it? This city is huge. It would take us days to explore it. Weeks.”

Buildings rose in all directions around the square: low, rectangular dwellings, stair-stepped ziggurats, spires, and burnished domes that called to mind the sheltered sanctuary of temples. All were fashioned of the same glassy black stone as the outer walls of the city.

“There,” Farr said, pointing toward a dome that soared above all others. Unlike any other building, it was gilded with intersecting lines and circles of gold filigree, shining as if molten in the sunlight. “Gold was a sign of power and royalty in ancient Morindu.”

That was good enough for Travis. “Let’s go.”

They followed a wide avenue into the heart of the city, toward the dome traced with gold. The buildings to either side grew grander the farther they went, and each plaza they traversed contained ever more elaborate statuary: gigantic stone lions with the wings of eagles, or obelisks inscribed with angular symbols. Above them, tall spires reached toward the sky. Which of them was the one the Scirathi had entered? Had they already reached the throne room?

No, Travis. If the sorcerers had discovered the blood of Orú, you wouldn’t still be here, walking, breathing. There’s still time.

They reached a grand arch dripping with lindaravines. Beyond was a garden moister and more lush than anything they had passed so far. Water tumbled over stone, pooling in dim grottoes. Statues peered between green fronds with lapis eyes. The scent of flowers made the air thick and sweet.

“Beware,” Vani said as Larad bent his face toward a large, bloodred bloom. “There are flowers here that take their color from blood.”

The Runelord quickly backed away, giving any flower that was even the slightest bit red a wide berth.

“Vani,” Avhir said. “Look.”

The T’golknelt to one side of the lane, where a smaller side path intersected. Vani moved to him, and he brushed the plants growing in a stone urn.

“These stems are bent,” Avhir said. “All in the same direction. Several people came from this side path and turned onto the main way. They cut the corner tightly, which means they were moving quickly.”

Vani glanced at Travis.

“We’ve got to hurry,” he said.

They ran along the lane that led straight through the gardens, and each time the fronds parted overhead Travis saw that the black dome was closer. Although the T’golwere ready for an attack, they met no resistance as they went. There were no sounds save for the rasp of their breathing and the music of falling water. Not even the trilling of birds disturbed the silence of the gardens.

The path ended, and the garden gave way to a vast plaza. A row of thirteen obelisks dominated the center of the plaza, mirrored in a reflecting pool, while on the far side a massive bank of stairs swept up toward a rectangular structure that seemed proportioned for giants. Pyramids capped the wings to either side, while the center of the edifice was crowned by the great dome they had seen earlier, its black stone lined with gold.

Larad craned his neck. “Astonishing. Nothing created in the history of the north can compare to this.”

“You can study the architecture later, Runelord,” Farr said sharply. “Keep moving.”

They raced across the plaza, passed between the obelisks, and reached the base of the steps.

“They came this way,” Avhir said, kneeling and touching the lowest step. He rose and held out his hand; his fingers were stained red.

They started up the steps. Avhir went first, stretching his lean legs to take the steps three at a time. Vani swept her gaze from side to side as they ascended, hands raised before her.

However, no attack came. Breathing hard, they reached the top. A pair of columns framed doors five times as tall as Travis. The columns were decorated with bas-relief figures, their long, delicate limbs intertwined with the shapes of enormous spiders. One of the massive doors stood ajar, leaving a gap just wide enough for a person to squeeze through.

Together, Vani and Avhir pushed against the door. It opened another inch, then stopped.

“That’s enough,” Vani said. “We can slip through one by—”

Travis touched the door and it swung silently inward. He looked at his hand. His knuckles were bleeding again.

Keeping close to one another, they entered a hall lined with titanic statues hewn of ruddy stone. On the right were figures of men with the hooked beaks of falcons, while on the left were women who gazed with the multifaceted eyes of spiders—eyes that seemed to follow Travis as he moved deeper into the hall. White light shafted down from circular windows high above, the beams weaving a glowing web on the dim air.

Halfway across the hall they came upon the dead Scirathi. There were five of them. At least Travis thought so; it was hard to be sure. Their mutilated bodies littered the floor in many pieces. Black robes lay in shreds; gold masks were crumpled balls. There was no blood.

Larad studied the corpses, his expression at once repulsed and curious. “What could have done this?”

“Maybe it was gorleths,” Grace said, lifting a hand to her throat.

Vani squatted beside one of the mutilated bodies. “No. There are no claw or teeth marks. These sorcerers were torn apart. I do not know what manner of beast did this.”

“We may find out firsthand any moment,” Farr said, gazing around. “We should be—”

A scream echoed down the hall, floating through an arch at the far end. It was high-pitched, and forlorn—the scream of a child.

“Nim,” Travis said, looking at Vani.

She was already running.

Travis pounded after her, with Grace, Larad, and Farr just behind him. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a dark blur speed past: Avhir. Vani moved so swiftly she seemed not to run, but rather to blink out of existence one moment only to reappear the next, twenty paces ahead of where she had been.

As they ran, they passed the bodies of more sorcerers. Like the first group, all were mutilated, their bodies torn limb from limb, and there was no blood. What had done this? Whatever it was, the sorcerers had been unable to defend themselves; the power of magic had grown too weak.

“Keep your eyes open,” Farr called out from behind. “Whatever killed these sorcerers is probably still here.”

Travis agreed. However, at that moment another scream echoed through the high arch at the end of the hall. It was weaker than the last, quavering with terror. The sound tore at his heart. He saw Vani disappear through the archway, followed by Avhir. Travis raced after them through the arch—

–and tried to halt, skidding on the smooth floor. A strong arm struck his chest, halting him just in time to keep him from sliding over a sheer edge and falling into endless darkness.

Travis looked down. Past his toes he saw nothing except an emptiness so black it made him think of the Void between worlds. Vani gripped his serafi, pulling him back. He started to ask her what was happening, then he heard Grace gasp and looked up.

They stood under the palace’s dome. The circular space housed by the dome was as vast as the Etherion in Tarras. And, before its destruction, that had been able to accommodate thousands of priests.

Far above, round windows pierced the ceiling, glowing like suns in a midnight sky. A narrow strip of stone ringed the cavernous space, forming a ledge. It was on this ledge that they stood. As Travis had discovered, the ledge had no railing to prevent one from falling into the depths.

Ahead, in the center of the chamber, was a golden tetrahedron. Given the lack of reference, it was hard to be certain of the tetrahedron’s size, but surely it was as large as a house, or larger yet. It seemed to float in the middle of the emptiness, like an island on a dark sea. However, Travis’s eyes—remade in the fires of Krondisar—pierced shadow, and he glimpsed rock beneath it; the golden structure was supported by a column of natural stone that rose from the depths.

Travis could see two bridges, one to each side of him. The spans were slender and delicate, like creations of black spun glass, no more than two feet wide and without rails. Each bridge sprang from the stone ledge and arched across the chasm to a triangular doorway in one of the gold tetrahedron’s three walls. While he could not see it, he guessed there would be a third bridge on the far side of the chasm.

“Mother!”

The cry, quickly muffled, snapped Travis’s attention to the bridge to his left. There were two figures there. One was Nim. Even at a distance, Travis could see fear on the pale oval of her face. She was dressed in a robe of gold cloth. Her cheeks were smudged with something dark.

The other figure was a sorcerer. He held Nim in one arm, crushing her against his chest, his wrist clamped over her mouth. The sorcerer’s gold mask was dented, sitting crookedly on his face, and his black robe was torn. He took a limping step backward along the bridge.

Vani surged toward the span, but Avhir caught her before she could step onto it.

“Stop!”

Vani gave him an anguished look but did not break free of his grasp. As Travis drew closer, he saw why. The sorcerer held a bronze dagger in his free hand. He brought it down, resting the point against Nim’s cheek. Her eyes went wide, and she squirmed in his arms. Such was her strength that the sorcerer stumbled, and one of his feet slipped off the edge of the narrow span. He stumbled, then managed to recover.

“Nim, don’t move!” Vani shouted. At once Nim went limp in the sorcerer’s arm.

Good girl, Travis thought. Good, brave girl, to be able to listen to her mother even now. There’s still a chance.

However, what it was, Travis wasn’t certain. The sorcerer took another limping step back. He was halfway across the bridge. There was no way they could reach him before he had the time to use that dagger.

What about a runespell, Travis?Jack’s voice suggested in his mind. Blast him off the bridge with a spell! Oh, dear. Wait a moment. . . .

That was the problem. If Travis killed the sorcerer with a spell, the Scirathi would fall from the bridge—taking Nim with him. The others must have sensed the same truth. All strained, as if wishing to move, but remained still, eyes locked on Nim and the Scirathi. The sorcerer took three more limping steps along the bridge.

Orú’s throne room must be inside that tetrahedron. Nim will open the way for him. But you can’t let him get in there, Travis. If he does, you’re the only one who can follow him. And if he finds the blood of Orú in there, even you won’t be able to stop him. Xemeth was destroyed when he drank from the scarab, but he wasn’t an experienced sorcerer. If that Scirathi drinks Orú’s blood, he’ll kill us all.

Larad gave Grace a sharp look. “Can you break his life thread, Your Majesty?”

“No!” Vani hissed. “If the sorcerer perishes, Nim falls!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Grace said, face ashen. “The Weirding is too weak. I can’t even see his thread from here, let alone break it.”

Vani looked at Travis, her gold eyes imploring. “Please, you have to save her.”

Travis opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what he would say, what he could possibly do. “Vani, I—”

“Let me through,” Farr said, pushing past Travis and Vani.

Vani gripped his arm. “What do you think you’re doing? If you try to approach, he’ll kill her.”

Farr shook off her hand. He didn’t look at the T’gol. Instead, he turned his dark gaze on Grace. Travis saw her eyes go wide, then after a moment she nodded. She moved past Larad and Avhir.

“Let’s go then,” Farr said, holding out one hand, the other tucked inside his robe.

What did Farr think they were going to do? Before Travis could ask, Grace drew in a deep breath, then reached out and took Farr’s hand. The two of them turned around—

–then ran forward, jumping off the ledge and vanishing into the impenetrable darkness below.

Travis was so stunned that he could only stare into the void. For a moment he thought he glimpsed a flicker of silver-blue light, then all he saw was blackness.

“Your Majesty!” Larad cried, rushing forward, and he would have gone over the edge himself if Vani hadn’t held him back.

This wasn’t happening; Grace and Farr couldn’t have just leaped to their deaths. Only they had. Travis had seen them vanish into the endless dark below. A weakness came over him, a watery feeling, and his legs shook as if they were going to buckle. Avhir stood motionless at the place where Grace and the former Seeker had vanished. The sorcerer on the bridge had halted, his gold mask tilted at what seemed a quizzical angle, as if even he could not fathom what had just taken place. Then, before any of them could move, a strange thing happened.

Nim laughed.

The sorcerer’s grip on her had weakened, but he tightened his arm around her, stifling her mirth. Vani took a step onto the bridge, but the Scirathi raised the dagger, warning her back. She let out a low moan, a sound of both anguish and fury. Holding Nim, the sorcerer took another step along the bridge.

A ball of silver light burst into being just behind him.

The ball of light collapsed into a point, vanishing, and in its place, standing on the bridge, were two figures: a man in black robes and a woman with pale hair. Their appearance was so utterly unexpected that it took Travis a moment simply to recognize who they were.

“By the Blood!” Vani said, staggering back a step.

The two figures on the bridge were Grace and Hadrian Farr. They were no more than five steps from the sorcerer, with Farr the closest. Grace was fighting to keep her balance, but Farr was already moving, lunging for the Scirathi. The sorcerer whirled around, dagger flashing . . .

Travis didn’t know whom the sorcerer was trying to stab– Nim or Farr—but Farr was faster, grabbing the sorcerer’s wrist and wrenching it hard. The dagger spun into the chasm, and the Scirathi lost his balance. His right foot slipped over the edge of the bridge, and he fell onto his right knee. Nim slipped halfway from his grasp and screamed. If he let go of her, she would tumble into the void.

Only when he saw a dark blur moving along the bridge did Travis realize Vani was running. However, swift as she was, there wasn’t time to reach the Scirathi. Farr lunged again, reaching for Nim. The sorcerer twisted away. However, doing so caused him to lose what remained of his balance. The Scirathi tried to recover, but his foot snagged on his robe, and he tumbled off the bridge.

Farr threw himself forward, onto his belly, arms flung outward. His fingers brushed against Nim’s golden robe. And latched on.

Nim screamed again, a sound that echoed throughout the dome. The sorcerer was holding on to her legs. Their combined weight dragged at Farr, his body sliding across the bridge. Grace threw herself to her knees, gripping his ankles. However, she was only able to slow his progress toward the edge of the bridge, not stop it.

“Nim!” Farr shouted. “The mask. Take his mask!”

“Mother?” came Nim’s quavering voice.

The sorcerer looked up, trying to paw his way farther up Nim’s legs to reach the edge of the bridge. There was a sound of cloth rending as Nim’s robe tore in Farr’s grip.

Vani was halfway across the bridge. “Do as he says, daughter!”

Hanging by the back of her robe, Nim reached down and pulled at the sorcerer’s mask. It was loose, and came away easily in her hands, revealing the scarred ruin of the sorcerer’s face.

“Let go of me!” she shouted, and hit the sorcerer in the face with the mask.

The Scirathi let out a cry of pain. His hands gave an involuntary spasm, then tried to regain their grip on Nim. Too late. Weakened, slicked with blood, the sorcerer’s fingers slipped free. His robe billowed out like black wings, and with a gurgling cry the Scirathi vanished into the chasm.

“I can’t hold on!” Grace cried as Farr’s body started to slide over the edge. However, the dimness unfolded, and Vani was there; she pulled Farr up with one hand, hauling him to his feet.

“Mother!” Nim cried, holding out her hands.

“My daughter,” Vani said, taking the girl and holding her tight. Nim’s arms wrapped around her neck, and the girl, so brave a moment before, began to sob. Carefully, Vani, Grace, and Farr made their way back over the bridge to the others. A quick examination revealed that most of the blood on Nim was likely the sorcerer’s. There was a small cut on the girl’s arm, but it was already scabbed over.

Vani held Nim tightly, her own face—usually so stoic– streaked with tears. “I promise no one will ever harm you again.”

“I know,” the girl murmured, calm now, though her cheeks were still wet. She leaned her head on Vani’s shoulder and turned her gray-gold eyes toward Travis.

Travis started to reach toward Nim, then changed his motion and took Grace’s hand in his. “How?” he said simply.

Grace held up her free hand. In it was a silver coin, a symbol engraved on each side. Even without looking closely, Travis knew what the two runes were; one was the rune Eldh, and the other was the rune Earth.

“How did you get that?” he said, reaching into the pocket of his serafi. However, his fingers found the silver coin he always carried with him.

“It’s Hadrian’s,” Grace said in answer to Travis’s confused look, handing the coin to Farr.

Then Travis understood. Brother Cy must have given the silver coin to Farr before transporting him to Eldh, just as the strange preacher once gave the two halves of the coin Travis now carried to him and Grace. The coins were bound runes– ones of unusual power. They had the ability to return the bearer to his home world, to the place envisioned. When Farr and Grace leaped into the abyss, Farr must have used the coin to transport them to Earth as they fell. Then, just as quickly, Grace had used the coin to bring them back to Eldh, only this time on the bridge just behind the sorcerer. It was brilliant.

And Farr had thought of it, not Travis. A strange, hollow feeling gnawed at his chest.

“Magic is getting weaker,” Travis said, looking at Farr. “When you jumped, how did you know the coin would still work?”

“I didn’t,” Farr said, the words crisp. “Though I had an idea it would. The Imsari still function, and the coins seem to be forged of a magic, if not so deep, then deep all the same. It was an educated guess.”

Travis squeezed Grace’s hand. “That was incredibly foolish.” Despite the gnawing feeling in his chest, he smiled. “And incredibly brave.”

“More the first one than the second,” she said. “I wasn’t sure Farr’s coin would work for me. But it did. I suppose because I had been granted one once.”

Where did you go, Grace?Travis leaned in close to her. You were on Earth for a few seconds. Where were you?

By the expression on her face she had heard his thoughts, but she looked away.

Vani moved to Farr. She laid a hand on his arm; her gold eyes shone like moons. “I can never repay you.”

He shrugged. “I don’t want payment. A simple thank you will suffice. For Grace as well as for me.”

Vani nodded. “Will all my heart, I thank you both.” However, as she spoke, her eyes were fixed only on Farr.

“So now what?” Larad said to Travis. “Do we leave, or will you enter the throne room?”

His words shocked Travis. He had been so focused on getting to Morindu to retrieve Nim that he had not considered what might happen if they succeeded. Three thousand years ago, secrets of sorcery had been buried with Morindu. Now the city had been uncovered again. What might he find if he entered the throne room? What wondrous powers might he gain?

None of that matters, Travis. You didn’t come to Morindu for magic, but to find Nim. Now you have, and only one thing is important—finding the Last Rune and binding the rifts in the sky. If it’s not too late.

He opened his mouth to say this, but before he could Nim let out a gasp, her eyes widening into circles of fear.

Vani gave Nim a worried look. “What is it, daughter?”

“She’s here,” the girl whispered.

“Who do you mean? Who’s here?”

“The gold lady.”

Nim pointed, and all of them turned around. On the far side of the bridge, a woman stepped from the triangular door in the side of the gilded tetrahedron. She appeared young—no more than twenty-five. A shift made of glittering beads dripped over the curves of her luscious body, and a red gem adorned her brow. Her hair and eyes were both black as onyx, and her skin was a deep, burnished gold.

Avhir breathed an oath in an ancient tongue, and a sweat broke out on Travis’s skin, as if the temperature inside the dome had suddenly shot up.

“It cannot be,” Vani said, her voice thick with awe. “Yet there is only one woman who could have entered there. Ti’an.”

Farr gave her a piercing look. “Who is Ti’an?”

“The wife of the god-king Orú,” Vani said.

The gold-skinned woman sauntered toward them across the bridge.