The First Stone

While the objects had not changed, I had, and I knew better what they were. The diary was written by my master before he became a Philosopher, when he was simply Martin Adalbrecht, one of the young alchemists who had frequented Greenfellow’s Tavern with John Dee. Then, with his cronies, he had gone to Knossos, and there they had been . . . transformed. However, the journal had been written before that time; it could not help me.

I lifted the vial, and I thought I knew what it was as well. It was blood, taken from those they called the Sleeping Ones. Who these beings were–whence they came and why they slumbered–I did not know. All I knew was that drinking their blood had changed the Philosophers, giving them eyes of gold. And it continued to give them life.

The vial seemed hot in my hand. I shut it back in the box with the journal and locked them back in the cabinet.

I continued my search of the manor, looking for anything that might help me–any letters he wrote, any records he kept, any notes he might have scribbled in the margins of books. Soon I had the servants frantic, for they would no sooner clean a room than I would tear it apart, looking for some clue that could help me. Only there was nothing.

Days became a week, then a fortnight. I did not sleep, did not eat, and I began to crave whiskey again. The servants fled at the mere sight of my coming. The manor had become a ruin. I had punched holes in the walls and torn up floorboards in my search, but still had found nothing of my master’s. The only writing of his in the house was his old journal. . . .

The journal. Midnight found me sitting in his library, staring at the journal. I read through it again, but it was the same as before: the foolish hopes and dreams of a man who believed magic was real.

Yet he had been right, hadn’t he? It wasreal.

I picked up the vial. The gold spider on the stopper shone in the candlelight, the ruby set into its abdomen winking at me. Then, before I could reconsider, I unstopped the vial, held it to my lips, and tilted my head back. The fluid coursed down my throat, hot and thick. I knew fiery pain, then only blackness.

It was morning when one of the servingwomen found me, sprawled on the floor of the library. She shook my shoulder, begging me to wake, but when I finally opened my eyes she clasped her hand to her mouth, stifling a scream, and fled.

I pulled myself up and caught my reflection in the glass doors of a cabinet. Startled eyes stared back at me, gold as coins. By all that was holy, what had I done?

A strange sensation came over me. I felt, not stronger, but horribly weak, as if for the first time in my life I sensed the encroaching decrepitude, the constant rotting of my body, that was a correlate of mortality. And I also sensed that, for the moment, that mortal progress had ceased.

I called for the servants to help me, but no one answered my call. Shaking, I pulled myself up to the desk and sat. My eyes fell upon the open journal, and a breath of wonder escaped me, for I saw words upon the pages I had not seen before.

A palimpsest–I had heard of such things. They were twice‑written books, created when a monk or scribe took an old book, rubbed its pages clean with sand, and cut and sewed them anew to make a fresh book to write in. However, sometimes, in the right light, the old words might yet be seen, bleeding through behind the new.

The journal was like a palimpsest. Only it was the old words that had been easily read, and the newer words that could only be seen in the right conditions. However, it was not light that showed these other words, but rather new, golden eyes. The writing seemed to dance upon the page, bright and shining, as if written with molten metal.

As I have begun a new life, so I begin this journal anew. We are di ferent now. The Philosophers, we call ourselves, as though all mysteries are ours to understand. But I know, as perhaps the others do not, that there is far more for us yet to learn, that this is only the beginning. . . .

I clutched the journal and read. The house was silent; no servants disturbed me. At last the light outside the windows failed. I shut the little book and buried my face in my hands. What a fool I was. I had been wrong about everything.

“It wasn’t you, Alis,” I murmured. Anguish burned in me, hotter than the blood I had consumed. “It wasn’t you at all. It was I.”

“What are you talking about, Marius?”

I looked up. In my despair, I had not heard her footsteps on the carpet. She stood in the door of library, dressed in red, a smirk on her lips.

“Rebecca,” I croaked. “What are you doing here?”

She sauntered in. “I might ask the same of you. This is hardly a cave in the Highlands. I had a feeling you might be up to something, Marius. You had a secretive air about you when you left, so I decided I would follow you and see what you were up to. I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in, but there’s no sign of your servants anywhere, so I–”

A gasp escaped her. She had moved farther into the room and was staring at me.

“Gods, Marius, your eyes. What’s happened to you?”

Despite my fear, I smiled. “I think you know now why the servants fled.”

She only shook her head, taking a step back. I rose.

“I’m like them now, Rebecca.”

“Like who?” she said, shaking her head, only then a moment later she said, “The Philosophers.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh, Marius,” she breathed, reaching a hand toward me. I thought perhaps it was a gesture of supplication, of forgiveness. There was a softness on her face I had not seen since we were lovers.

Rebecca’s eyes rolled up, her arm went limp, and she slumped to the floor. The hilt of a dagger jutted from her back. Even as I stared, trying to comprehend, three figures clad in black drifted into the room.

“Why?” I choked on the word.

The two men pushed back the hoods of their cloaks, and the woman lifted the veil from her face. They gazed at me with serene gold eyes.

“Our kind must never be seen,” the woman said.

I knelt beside Rebecca, feeling for the beat of her heart, but there was none. I looked up at them. “But she didn’t see you.”

“No,” the woman said. “She saw you, Marius.” She glanced at the men. “Leave me, Gabriel, Arthur–I would do this, if I may.”

The men nodded and left. She approached the desk, brushing the journal with a gloved hand.

“Ah,” she said. “Albrecht’s journal.”

I stood and turned away from Rebecca’s body. I wanted to weep for her but could not. “You sent them here to fetch it all those years ago, didn’t you? Rebecca and Byron. Only I hid it from them.”

“No, we sent them here to fetch you.” She laughed at my shocked expression. “Do not be so surprised, Marius. There is nothing you have read in this journal that we do not already know. As he grew weak, Adalbrecht confided everything to us. Much as he wished to betray us, in the end he could not. We are bound to one another by the blood we have drunk. It sees itself in each of us, and knows its kind, and prevents us from doing harm to any other in whose veins it flows. So you see, much as I’ve been tempted to throttle one of the others from time to time, I cannot.”

Her words horrified me, for I sensed they were true. “But what are you really?”

Her eyes fixed on me. “Do you not know what we are? And what you are, Marius?” She tapped the journal. “I believe you do.”

I thought of the headaches that had afflicted me with growing frequency over the years. From my coat I pulled out the silver cloth I had carried with me for so many years. It glimmered softly in the gray light. “I’m like them. The folk of the tavern. I’m like Thomas Atwater. Like Alis.”

“You were.” She picked up the empty vial. “You are like us now.”

I shut my eyes, thinking of all I had read in my master’s journal, trying to understand. He had described his journey to Crete with the others, how they had found the forgotten passage leading beneath the ruins of Knossos, and there had stumbled upon a tomb containing seven stone sarcophagi. They opened the sarcophagi and found within seven figures masked in gold, jewels of lapis and jade adorning their burnished skin.

Impossibly, the beings seemed alive, for they were warm to the touch, and their bodies were not corrupt. However, if they were alive, then they slept, for nothing could cause them to stir, not even when one of the alchemists cut them.

It was she who had done it–the one woman among them. Her name was Phoebe. What instinct had caused her to bend her head, to drink the blood that flowed forth, my master did not know, but they had watched the transformation come upon her. Then they had all drunk of the blood of the Sleeping Ones.

All but one, that was. Eight alchemists had gone to Crete, but when one of them tried to flee, afraid to drink the blood, Phoebe had murdered him with a knife to the heart. For no one who was not one of their own must ever be allowed to know their secret.

With one dead, the alchemists were seven in number just like the sarcophagi, and so each drank from a different being– though Adalbrecht was the last. And all of them were transformed.

The Philosophers had found other things in the tomb besides the Sleeping Ones. They had found tablets with writing they could not fathom, and the remains of a stone doorway, now fallen to ruin. Some of these things they brought with them back to London, though the Sleeping Ones they left beneath Knossos, and they concealed the passage so that no one else might ever find it.

After that, the journal told of my master’s years as a Philosopher. He had not taken part in the attempts to restore the doorway, to open it. Instead he had sought to decipher the writings from the tomb. After many years he had made little progress, but he had learned enough to know that the Sleeping Ones came from another world, that they had come to escape some great conflagration, and that they were waiting for something–some ultimate act of transmutation. As always, transformation required the proper catalyst. Only what that catalyst might be, he did not know, though he had suspicions. Nor did he know the nature of the transformation the Sleeping Ones sought–only that it would come when their world drew closer to this one.

In time, Adalbrecht grew weary–weary of enduring, weary of making the trek to Knossos once every decade to drink another sip of their blood. He had begun to fade. The other Philosophers had known it, and they did not protest when he retired to Scotland. Then, one night in Edinburgh, he saw a boy on the street. He had known the folk of the tavern, and in an instant he knew this boy was like them. The silver cloth could only have been made by one of their kind. And it shone in the boy’s eyes.

The boy was me. Why he took me in, the journal did not say. Perhaps it was pity, or perhaps it was some desire to make amends for what had been done to the folk of the tavern. No matter, the result was the same.

“It wasn’t her,” I said. “You gave me the mission of watching Alis Faraday to see if she would discover her true heritage. But she wasn’t the real subject of the study. It was me. You wanted to see if I would discover what I really was.”

The woman–Phoebe–nodded. “And so you have, Marius. I confess, we began to grow a trifle impatient toward the end. Hence our words spoken beneath the Charterhouse, and our giving you an assignment in Scotland, close to your home.”

I hung my head. So they had known I was there in the locked room, listening.

“No, Marius, it matters not. These were only nudges. You have learned everything on your own. This experiment is over.”

Experiment? So that was all this was to her. We were simply things to be used to satisfy their curiosity. Myself. Alis. They had made me watch her die for their little experiment.

I glared at her now, rage filling me. “Why didn’t you simply tell me these things?”

“Because you loved Adalbrecht too much. You would have done as he asked out of loyalty to him. You would have lived a quiet life here in the north. We could not allow that. And so you had to find out on your own.”

My rage subsided. I was too weary, too full of sorrow. They had used Alis just like the folk in the tavern. Just as they had used me.

“I know you are angry, Marius,” she said. “But it will soon pass, you shall see. Your old life is behind you now. The pain you had started to feel–the headaches, the weariness–I think you will feel no more. You have been remade.” She held out her hand. “It is time for you to join us.”

Astonishment replaced anger. “Join you? You mean become a Philosopher?”

“Yes. A Philosopher.”

I struggled to comprehend. “But what do you need me for?”

“Adalbrecht is gone. Our number is diminished. We would be seven again.” She studied me with her golden eyes. “And it is too late for you to undo what has been done. You are like us, Marius, whether you will it or not. It is better for you to be with your own kind.”

“And if I refuse to join you?”

She smiled. “You will join us. You are too curious not to. After all, how can you hope to continue Adalbrecht’s work in translating the writings from the tomb?”

I cursed her, even as I knew she was right, and we left that night in a carriage bound for London.

That is how I was the first and only Seeker ever to become a Philosopher. In the centuries that followed, I did just as Phoebe had said I would–I continued the work begun by my master, seeking to translate the writings from the tomb of the Sleeping Ones, trying to understand what it was they were waiting for.

However, as the carriage rolled away from Madstone Hall that night, I knew there was one thing Phoebe and the others did not know–a secret they would never uncover. I thought of Queen Dido, and how she had thrown herself on the pyre when she had lost all that she loved. In a way, I had done the same. For the Marius I had been was dead.

Yet like a ghost that lingered on, I remained, and always I craved revenge. Only I was bound to them by my transformation. As the centuries passed, Phoebe’s words were proven true. The blood of the Sleeping Ones connected us. I could not harm them–at least not directly. But I schemed, I waited, and I knew the day would come when the time would be right, and when another would help me achieve what I sought.

That time is now. And that other is you.

Now you know what no other besides our own kind has ever known. Now you know the truth of the origin of the Philosophers.

And now, I beg of you, help me bring about their end.

PART FOUR

CATALYST

33.

Aryn stood at the window of her bedchamber, watching distant fires burn in the night.

Teravian lay in the bed behind her, asleep by the slow rhythm of his breathing. There was no point in waking him; she always saw the fires now. In the morning, Teravian would send his men–those that remained, at any rate–out beyond the castle, and they would find more houses burned, or perhaps even an entire village.

A week ago, Aryn herself had ridden to a village not a league from Calavere, and she had spoken to a man who had burned his family alive in their cottage.

“There was no hope for them,” he had said when she asked him why he had done it, eyes blank in his sooty face. “No hope at all.”

“What do you mean?” she had said, trying to comprehend. “Were they ill with plague?”

But the man hadn’t answered. He had sat on the ground, drawing empty circles in the dirt with a stick, until the king’s men came to haul him away to the castle’s dungeon. Later, from another villager, Aryn had learned that the man’s wife and children had been healthy and happy, and that he had been the proudest farmer in the village.

Aryn lifted her gaze from the fires to the heavens. She didn’t need to look to the north to see it anymore; the rift had grown rapidly over these last days, spreading out across half the sky like a blight, blotting out the stars. It was visible even by day now as a shadow against the blue of the sky, and it made the sunlight feel pale and wan.

The night breeze wafted in through the window, and her nose wrinkled at the foul odor rising from the bailey. The whole castle smelled putrid. Most of the servants had left, and those that remained did so little work they might as well have departed with the others. Aryn had taken to emptying chamber pots herself, and she was forced to scrounge in the kitchens with everyone else for what foodstuffs had not spoiled. No goods had come to the castle in days, and carts stood abandoned on the road that led up to the gates. She had gotten a little milk two days before by convincing a boy to milk a cow that had been bellowing in the lower bailey, neglected, its udder swollen.

On her way back into the castle, she had passed an old woman lying dead in the mud of the courtyard. People had shuffled past her without so much as looking. Aryn had to call for guards three times before someone came to take the body away.

That same day, Teravian had ventured out for a ride. When he returned to the castle, his face had been grim. He had seen entire villages abandoned, and crops–ready for harvesting–left to rot in the fields.

“Where have all the people gone?” Aryn had asked.

“I’m not sure, but more than once I heard stories of people in white robes. They gather on hilltops where they stand and raise their arms to the sky, waiting. Waiting for something. I saw some of them, walking along the road. At first they made me think of Raven Cultists. But they were dressed in white, not black, and they were silent. I called to them, but they only stared, mouths open. I looked into the eyes of a woman who marched with them, and I saw nothing, Aryn. Nothing at all.”

He had trembled as she held him, and she had wished she could brew something to calm him. However, she seemed to have forgotten how to concoct the simplest potion. Her mind was addled; she could not think. Flustered, Aryn had tried to contact Lirith over the Weirding, to ask the other witch how to make a soothing draught. However, she had managed to touch Lirith’s thread only for a moment.

The stars go out, Lirith had said. She is not coming back.

That was all. Aryn had called out again and again with her mind, and even with her voice, but she could not reach Lirith. All the same, she had understood whom Lirith had meant, who was not coming back.

Grace. It was Grace whom Lirith had pictured in her mind.

Aryn rested a hand on her belly, but she could not feel the child move within. She tried to use the Touch to sense the little life, but the threads were too fragile, too tangled. Or maybe there was no life there to sense. Maybe the man who had burned his home, his family was right. Maybe there was no hope after all.

Behind her, Teravian let out a soft moan in his sleep. The nightmares again. Aryn knew she should go to bed. Instead she stayed at the window, gazing into the night, and watched the fires burn.

34.

The sun sank toward the horizon, its light spilling across the desert like blood. Grace knelt on the edge of the patch of slipsand, staring at the place where Travis had vanished. This couldn’t be happening; he couldn’t be gone.

Farr bound a rag around his right arm. “The bloodspell that created the sand creatures must have been keyed to Travis. I think he knew that. I think he knew, if he perished, the sand creatures would as well.”

Larad’s shadow fell upon Grace. “He saved us, Your Majesty.”

“Then let us save him!” Vani said, pushing Larad aside. She knelt beside Grace. “You sensed him, didn’t you? Where is he?”

Grace shook her head. It didn’t matter. She had felt his thread go dark. Travis was dead. Truly dead.

Vani gripped her shoulder. The T’gol’s fingers dug into her flesh. “I said where is he, Grace?”

The pain cut through the dullness in Grace’s mind. “There.” She pointed in front of her. “Down there. Six feet. Maybe more. I’m not sure. He could have been drawn farther down after he . . . after his thread . . .” She couldn’t speak the words.

Farr moved forward. “Six feet of slipsand is not enough to have crushed him. I will call the morndari. If I can summon enough of the spirits, they will be able to pull him out.” He started to undo the bandage on his arm, then staggered.

Vani leaped up, keeping him from falling. “No. You have lost too much blood already. You will perish as well.”

“I have to try.” He tried to pull away from her, but he was too weak to break her grip. He gazed at her, dark eyes imploring. “Please, Vani. You know what he is fated to do. Let me go!”

Vani clenched her jaw, then released Farr. However, before he could remove the bandage Larad spoke.

“Wait–there is another way.” The Runelord held the iron box that contained the Imsari. He opened it and took out the three Stones. “I am not so skilled with the Imsari as Master Wilder, but I may be able to use them.”

“If you’re going to use them, do it now!” Farr said, his voice edging into a snarl. “He’s been down there over a minute already.”

Vani’s gold eyes locked on the Runelord. “You said you did not know the rune for sand.”

“Then I will speak the rune of opening.” Larad gripped all three Stones in one hand. “ Urath,” he intoned, and with his free hand he made a cutting motion.

It was as if the ground had been struck by a gigantic hand. A golden wave rose up, spilling outward in either direction as the sand parted.

“ Urath!” Larad shouted, sweat pouring down his brow, and again he thrust with his hand. More sand flew up and out, and a trough formed in the sand, deeper and deeper.

“Cease!” Vani cried.

Larad lowered his hand and staggered back, clutching the Stones to his chest. The Runelord’s spell had formed a trench in the sand a dozen feet deep. At the bottom of it lay a crumpled figure.

Avhir had been standing a short distance away, observing everything with bronze eyes. Now the T’golstalked forward. “The walls of the trench are not stable. The sand is going to collapse back in.”

“I will get him,” Vani said, and before anyone could move she jumped down into the trough. The T’gollanded lightly, but the vibrations from the impact were enough to cause sand to begin sheeting down the walls, pouring into the trough. She crouched and lifted Travis. His body was limp in her arms.

“Take him!”

Vani was even stronger than Grace had imagined, for with a grunt she stood and lifted Travis’s body above her head, though her face was lined with effort. Braced by Farr, Avhir reached down a long arm and grabbed Travis’s wrist. He pulled back, heaving Travis’s body out of the trough.

The edges of the trench gave way with a groan, and sand flooded in just as a dark streak shot upward in a cloud of dust. The air shimmered, then Vani was there. The T’goldrew close as Avhir laid Travis’s body on stable ground.

“Is he . . . ?”

“Yes,” Avhir said. “He is dead. The slipsand suffocated him.”

Vani looked at Grace, her gold eyes brilliant in the last of the daylight. “You are a witch. You can revive him.”

No. Travis wasn’t dying, he was dead. All the same, Grace reached out with the Touch. Two years ago, she had failed to save a dear friend–Sir Garf–by connecting his life thread to hers; she had been held back by the dark blot on her own strand. Since then, she had learned to move beyond the shadow of her past; there was nothing to hinder her magic. However, magic itself was too weak now, and even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter. His life thread had been extinguished. She searched, but there was nothing for her to connect her own strand to.

Larad touched her shoulder. “You can do it, Your Majesty. You have the power.”

“Witchcraft is the magic of life,” she said, the words bitter as poison on her tongue. “It can do nothing for the dead.”

“I do not mean magic, Your Majesty. Were you not a skilled healer before you became a witch? Have you not revived others who were gone? I know you have–I have heard you speak of it.”

These words jolted Grace, like the electric surge from the paddles of a defibrillator, causing her own heart to begin beating rapidly. For so long she had a been a witch, a queen; she had almost forgotten what she had been far longer, what she really was. But Travis hadn’t forgotten.

Don’t worry, Grace. You’ll save me. I know you will. . . .

He had known sacrificing himself would stop the sand creatures. Just as he had known Grace could bring him back. She was a doctor; she could do this. Except she didn’t have the equipment she needed: a crash cart, epinephrine, and a staff of nurses.

What about magic, Grace?

No, the Weirding was too weak, too easily tangled. For a moment she wondered if Larad might be able to speak the rune of lightning, to give his heart a jolt. But the amps had to be precisely tuned. Too much, and all hope was lost. There was only one way to do this.

She knelt beside Travis, letting instinct and experience take over. How long had it been since he had stopped breathing? Two minutes, maybe more. They had to begin CPR immediately. She turned Travis’s head, and with two fingers she removed sand from his mouth and trachea, clearing his airway.

“Vani,” she said, “kneel down beside him.”

The T’goldid not question Grace’s orders.

“Place your hands here, just above the base of his breastbone. When I tell you, perform fifteen chest compressions. Like this–press firmly with the heel of your hand, but not so hard as to fracture his ribs.”

Grace moved around Travis, aware of his gray skin, his blue‑tinged lips. She tilted his head back, pinched his nose shut, placed her mouth over his, forming a tight seal, and breathed. His chest rose, then fell. She breathed again, then leaned back.

“Now, Vani. Fifteen compressions.”

When the T’golwas done, Grace breathed twice into his mouth. She tasted sand and blood.

“Come on, Travis,” she said, her voice strict: a doctor’s command. “You’re strong. Stronger than anyone. I know you can do this.”

He didn’t move. As Vani continued compressions, Grace raised his eyelids. His pupils were fixed and dilated.

No, she refused to accept this. He couldn’t be dead, not after everything that had happened to them, not after everything they had survived together. She breathed into him two more times.

Vani performed another set of compressions, and again Grace breathed air into his lungs. Five times they repeated the pattern, ten. Grace grew dizzy; sweat streamed down Vani’s face. The others gathered around in the failing light, faces intent. Still Travis remained motionless.

It’s no use, Grace. He’s been down too long. CPR can stave o f brain death only for so long. It’s time to call it . . .

“No!” she shouted, furious at the doctor’s voice in her, at its dry, emotionless tone. This was not just another patient. This was Travis. Sweet, brave, foolish Travis whom she loved more than any other person on this or any world.

“Move,” she said, pushing Vani out of the way.

Grace straddled Travis. She raised a fist, then slammed it down against Travis’s chest. His body flopped with the force of her blow, then lay still. She checked, but there was still no pulse. She balled her fist and struck him again, in the center of the sternum. Again. And again.

Farr’s hand closed around her wrist as she raised her hand one more time. “Stop, Grace. It’s over. Let him go.”

A coldness came over Grace, as well as a steely certainty that could be forged only from purest rage. She looked up at Farr, and she saw her eyes reflected in his. They blazed with emerald sparks.

“Let go of my hand now, or I will kill you.”

Farr staggered back, his mouth open. Grace forgot him in an instant. She gazed down at Travis. It was almost as if his voice whispered again in her mind. I believe in you. . . .

She believed in him, too. And she would not let him go. Grace brought her fist down against his chest. Hard.

Travis’s eyes snapped open.

His back arched as he drew in a rasping breath. He clutched her arms–hard, hurting her–but she didn’t care. She pulled him into a sitting position, and he leaned against her, his body shaking as he coughed up sand. After a minute his breathing eased. She checked his pulse; it was rapid but steady. Then she probed with other senses. His life thread shone: a brilliant amalgam of blue silver and molten gold.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Welcome back, Travis.”

He cupped her cheek in a hand, and despite the pain on his face, he grinned. “I knew you’d come to get me.”

“I would never leave you behind,” Grace said, tears evaporating from her cheeks. “Not for anything.”

She looked up, but Farr had already turned his back, walking away.

35.

They returned to their campsite at the dead oasis. Vani and Avhir offered to carry Travis, but he was able to walk on his own power with some help from Grace and Larad.

They found the camels dead, but they had expected that. The beasts lay sprawled on the ground, their corpses drained of blood. Already the wind scoured at them, and soon their bones would join the others that scattered the oasis. They rested for a time, drinking and eating a little, though Travis would take only water. Night fell, and while they made no fire, it seemed to Grace that Travis’s skin gleamed in the dimness.

“I believed you were dead, Travis, when you stepped into the slipsand,” Vani said, her golden eyes glinting like a cat’s in the darkness. “But you live. Truly it is Fate.”

“I think Fate had a little help in the matter,” Travis said, holding up Sinfathisar. The Stone of Twilight shimmered in the moonlight. He set it in the box with the other two Imsari and closed the lid. “Thank you, Larad.”

Larad said nothing, though it seemed the corners of his mouth twitched, curving upward.

Travis took Grace’s hand in his “Fate was right about one thing, Grace. I would never have gotten this far without you.”

Grace squeezed his hand. The joy she felt was too powerful to express in words.

The darkness unfolded, and Avhir stepped into their circle. He crouched. “I gathered what supplies remained in the packs on each of the camels. There was little enough. This is the last of the water.” He set a waterskin on the ground. It was less than half‑full.

Larad eyed the skin. “That will not last us long.”

“It will not have to,” Avhir said. “The dervish says we will reach Morindu tomorrow.” He gazed at a dark figure that stood on the other side of the dead oasis.

“Why wait for tomorrow?” Travis said, standing.

Surprise finally compelled Grace to speak. “You mean go tonight? What about the slipsand?”

“It’s no easier to see in daylight than moonlight,” Travis said. “And the Scirathi could already be on the other side with Nim.”

He was right, of course. They had to try. But Grace couldn’t help wondering who would retrieve them from the slipsand once all of them went under.

“I’ll get the dervish,” Avhir said.

Grace followed the tall man with her gaze, and a sigh escaped her. “He hasn’t so much as mentioned Kylees or Rafid.”

“Our kind do not speak of T’golwho are no more,” Vani said, the words quiet but hard.

Grace stared at her. “Why not?”

“Because a T’goldoes not think of death, or of others who have perished. When a T’goldies, it is as if he or she never was. Their name is never mentioned among our kind again. That way we can fight with abandon, without fearing our own ends.”

Grace thought she had never heard such sad words spoken in her life. She touched Vani’s hand. “I would still speak your name.”

“You are not T’gol,” Vani said, and looked away.

They were silent until Avhir and Farr stepped into their circle.

“It’s no use,” the former Seeker said. “We cannot pass through the slipsand. Not this night, not tomorrow, not ever.” He swayed on his feet.

Vani leaped up, steadying him. “You are bleeding.”

There was a fresh cut on his left arm. Hand shaking, he drew out a cloth and pressed it over the wound. “For the last hour, I’ve been trying to call the morndari, but they won’t come. Either I don’t have enough blood left to sacrifice, or magic has grown too weak.”

“Your magic, maybe,” Travis said. He stood. “Larad, give me Sinfathisar again.”

Travis took the Stone of Twilight, and it seemed to pulse in the moonlight. Grace couldn’t help letting out a sigh. Magic was failing, but the Imsari seemed to have lost none of their luster or beauty. Why were they untouched?

Travis bent his head, murmuring a word over Sinfathisar, then let go of the Stone. It did not fall to the ground, but instead hovered in midair.

“ Aro,” Travis said. “Go, seek out the way.”

The Stone began to drift through the air, southward, away from the camp, hovering five feet off the ground.

“Come on,” Travis said, walking after the floating Stone. The others exchanged looks, then followed.

“Are you strong enough to walk?” Grace said to Farr.

His face twisted in a look of disgust. “Don’t show kindness to me, not now. If I had kept you from doing your work, he would be–you would have been right to kill me.”

She winced. “I wouldn’t have done that.”

He gazed at her with dark eyes. “Yes, you would have.” He quickened his pace, moving ahead of her, and Grace could only stare after him.

He’s right, Grace. You would have done it. Given a choice between Travis and Hadrian, you would have chosen Travis.

Until that moment, something had been growing inside Grace when she was with Hadrian, something strange and beautiful, like a flower whose nature she couldn’t know until it unfurled. But now she realized it had been cut: a bud nipped from the stem before it could bloom.

They passed over the ridge and came to a halt at the edge of the expanse of slipsand–to the place where Travis had died. Sinfathisar held its position, hovering in midair.

“Guide us,” Travis said. “ Aro.”

And the Stone floated out over the slipsand.

“This way,” Travis said, and stepped forward. The others came after him, following in his footsteps. They moved in single file, for there was no telling how narrow were the strips of solid ground between the patches of slipsand. Nor was there any way to discern with the eye where one ended and the other began.

The moon rose higher into the sky. Its brilliance made the jagged rift in the southern heavens all the darker. The rift seemed to grow even as Grace watched, blotting out more stars. She felt sick, and did her best to keep her eyes on the ground.

Their progress was slow, and many times the Stone of Twilight halted, suspended in place, until Travis spoke the rune of guiding and the Stone floated forward once more. As the moon passed its zenith, Grace and Larad began to stumble with weariness, and at one point Grace’s foot strayed from the path.

Her foot sank, and instantly she felt the pull of the slipsand. However, Avhir was behind her, and was able to grab her shoulders, plucking her up and placing her back on the safe path.

“Thank you, my friend,” she said, touching his cheek.

He gave her a stern look. “I am not your friend, Sai’ana Grace. Do not care for me, as I cannot care for you.”

“Why?” she said, too stunned to say anything else.

“Because to do his task, a T’golmust have a heart of stone. To care for another is to open oneself to weakness.”

He stalked away, and Grace gazed after him.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. It was caring for another, opening oneself to that pain, that vulnerability, that made one truly strong. Strength was knowing you could be wounded, that you could lose. Her gaze drifted to a figure in a black robe, walking ahead. A sigh escaped her lips, and she continued on, careful to keep to the path Travis made.

At last the moon sank toward the horizon. Farr shuffled his feet, as if unable to pick them up, and even the T’golmoved with heavy steps. They had gone only a half mile southwards, but they had walked many more miles as they wound their way through the patches of slipsand. Of them all, only Travis still seemed fresh. He kept murmuring the rune of guiding, and he would wait for the others to catch up if he got too far ahead. Finally, as the eastern horizon lightened from jasper to rose quartz, Travis halted. He held out his hand, and Sinfathisar settled against his palm.

“What’s wrong?” Grace said, too weary to feel panic. “Are we lost?”

Travis shook his head. “We’re here.”

Vani and Avhir probed carefully; the ground was stable. Travis held out the Stone, and Larad took it, nestling it back in the iron box with the other Imsari.

“Your power is greater than ever, Master Wilder,” Larad said, raising a fractured eyebrow. “I could never have done what you did–commanding the power of a Great Stone for so long.”

Vani’s eyes were locked on Travis, and so were Farr’s. Had they seen what Grace had, the way he had shone in the night? Long ago, in the city of Morindu, the god‑king Orъ was chained by his own people because of his terrible power. What would happen if Travis kept growing stronger?

Only he can’t, Grace. Not if magic keeps weakening.

Or could he? What if Travis was like the Great Stones? What if whatever was affecting magic had no effect on him?

They ate a little as the horizon grew brighter and drank the rest of their water. It would do more good to carry it in their bodies, Avhir said, rather than in a skin. However, moments after drinking her share, Grace was thirsty again, her throat dry.

She noticed Travis standing a short distance off. Again he had drunk a little water but had taken no food. She moved to him, and he smiled as she approached.

“I was going to ask how you are,” she said. “Only you look wonderful. Better than I’ve ever seen you.”

He drew in a breath. “I feel good, Grace. I don’t know why. I should be tired, and hungry, and thirsty, but I’m not.”

Grace managed a grim smile. “I wish I could say the same.”

They were silent for a moment, gazing toward the east, then he looked at her. “I saw things, Grace. Down there, when I died.”

She nodded. “That’s common. People who’ve been revived often report seeing various phenomena–light, a tunnel, the images of loved ones. As far as we can tell, it’s simply the brain trying to make sense of what’s happening to it as it’s deprived of oxygen.”

“I suppose you’re right. Only I didn’t see those things. I saw the two twins, the ones from the story Hadrian told us. One was shining, as if he was outlined in stars, and the other was dark– so dark I could only see him like a silhouette against the night. They were struggling, destroying each other.”

Grace looked up at the sky. It was too light now to see it, but the rift was still there, still growing. “The end is close, isn’t it, Travis? But even an end would be something. This will be even worse. It will be like when one of the T’goldies. It will be as if none of this–Earth, Eldh, and everything on them– ever were, or ever could have been.”

Travis opened his mouth, but before he could speak a shout rose from the others. Grace and Travis ran toward the rest of the group.

“There,” Farr said, pointing. “Look.”

The sun had just crested the horizon, and to the south something glinted with a spark of red fire. Grace shaded her eyes. Then she saw it, jutting up from the horizon like a splinter of black ice: a stone spire.

“The sorcerer was right,” Farr said.

Vani let out a hiss. “Mahonadra’s Blood. Look!”

It took Grace a moment to see them, then her heart lurched. A dozen specks moved across the desert, black against the gold sand, heading toward the spire. It was hard to be certain of distances here, but she guessed the specks were less than a mile away.

“The Scirathi,” Farr said. “They must have been forced to travel around the slipsand. They are not far ahead of us.”

“And we’re not letting them get any farther,” Travis said.

He started into a run, but Vani was already moving, racing across the sand, along with Avhir.

“Come on!” Farr said, pushing Grace and Larad, and together they broke into a run.

36.

The sand pulled at Travis’s feet like invisible hands. He lowered his head and pumped his arms, forcing himself to run faster. The sorcerers were just ahead. And so was Nim.

The sun parted from the horizon, lofting into the sky, and the coolness of night evaporated. Waves of heat rippled up from the desert floor. A sweat sprang out on Travis’s skin and the air parched his lungs. They were deep in the Morgolthi now, in the heart of the Hungering Land. Without water or shelter, exposed to the full anger of the sun, they could not hope to survive for more than a few minutes.

But minutes were all they needed. Like insects, the dark specks of the Scirathi swarmed up the side of a dune a half mile ahead, then vanished over the crest.

“Did you see Nim?” Vani shouted. “Do they have her?” She coursed across the sand like a black gazelle, Avhir at her heels.

“I cannot be sure,” Avhir called back. “I saw one carrying something on its back–a small bundle–but what it was I cannot say.”

“We must go faster. They must not enter Morindu before we reach them.”

The two T’golquickened their pace, speeding like arrows over the sand. Travis and the others could not keep up.

“The sand,” Larad hissed, his scarred face twisting in a grimace. “By Olrig, it burns right through the soles of my boots.”

Farr shoved the Runelord on the back. “Keep moving. It’s only going to get worse. If we don’t get off the sand soon, we’ll be roasted alive.”

They started up the slope of the dune. The T’golwere already halfway to the crest.

Go, Vani, Travis thought. Go as fast as you can. Save her.

Next to him, Grace stumbled. She would have gone rolling down the slope, but he caught her in time, hauling her back to her feet.

“The sun . . . I don’t think . . . I can’t do this, Travis.” Her face was pale except for two bright spots of color on her cheeks.

“Yes, you can, Grace.” Speaking was too hard; his mouth was dry as leather. Instead, he spoke in his mind, knowing she would hear. You didn’t leave me underneath the slipsand, and I’m not going to leave you out here. Hold on to my thread.

But even if I can, that would drain your . . .

Do it!

He sensed her presence draw close to his. There was a flash in his mind of green‑gold light melding with gold‑silver. Then he felt it: his life force draining from him, pouring into Grace. She gasped, and her eyes fluttered open. They were brilliant: emeralds flecked with gold dust.

Travis staggered, then steadied himself. It didn’t matter that some of the essence of his own life was now flowing into Grace; he had more than enough to spare. Since the moment he had awakened, after dying in the slipsand, he had felt power burning in him. He was sweating, but not from the heat rising up from the sand. Instead, the heat came from inside him, as if there were a molten sun in his chest mirroring the one in the sky. No mundane heat could harm him now; he was certain of that.

However, that was not true for the others. Farr had lost too much blood, and Larad was accustomed to cool northern climes. Both slumped to their knees.

Grace, you have to connect to Larad’s thread, and Farr’s as well. Bridge their strands to mine, give them some of my power. They won’t make it if you don’t.

He sensed Grace’s understanding, then a moment later he felt it rush from him: hot, gold power. Farr’s back arched, and Larad clutched a hand to his chest, then both were on their feet again.

“Come on!” Travis called, and they ran with new swiftness up the side of the dune. The T’golhad already vanished over the crest.

“That spell,” Larad said, voice hoarse, as they climbed. “I feel as if I could run for days, even in this heat. What did you do to give us strength, Your Majesty?”

Grace didn’t answer, and Travis felt Farr’s eyes on him.

They kept climbing, and after several more minutes they reached the crest of the dune. Travis halted, and the fire in his veins receded under a flood of cold fear. Below stretched a lifeless, wind‑scoured plain. Like a beckoning finger, a spire jutted up from the plain. The spire was forged of onyx stone, polished so smooth it glistened as if wet. Perhaps thirty feet of the tower was visible, but its proportions suggested that many times that height lay beneath the sand. As for the rest of the lost city of Morindu, there was no trace.

Vani and Avhir were still running, now halfway between the foot of the dune and the spire. A dozen figures clustered like black beetles next to the tower. Travis caught several glints of gold.

Larad shaded his eyes with a hand. “What are the sorcerers doing?”

“Trying to get in,” Farr said through clenched teeth.

Even as he spoke, a darker circle appeared against the dark wall of the tower: a doorway. The Scirathi streamed into the spire. The T’golhad moved with impossible speed; they had nearly closed the gap.

Only they were too late. The last of the sorcerers vanished inside the tower. There was a puff of black smoke, and the opening vanished. Seconds later came a low sound, like thunder that quickly faded. The T’golthrew themselves against the wall of the spire and bounced off like pebbles. Travis grabbed Grace’s hand and went half‑running, half‑sliding down the lee side of the dune.

By the time they reached the spire, they found the T’golalready working to clear the doorway. But Travis saw it was no use. The doorway was a perfect circle as wide across as his splayed arms, its edges so sharp they looked as if they had been carved into the wall with a knife–one that passed through stone as if it were cheese. The top of the circle had collapsed, and a pile of rubble filled the doorway. The rubble was half‑melted, fused into a solid mass. The T’golpried at the stones, but neither Vani’s fingers nor Avhir’s scimitar could loosen them. Around the doorway the walls were perfectly smooth, without crack or crevice, as if the tower had not been built from individual stones, but was instead molded from a single mass.

“You cannot gain entrance to Morindu with hands or blades,” Farr said. “Physical objects are useless.”

Vani whirled around, stalking toward the dervish, eyes molten. “Then use your magic to open the way!”

Farr stood his ground. “Even if I had blood enough, I could not open this door. The walls of Morindu were bound with wards and spells fashioned by Orъ’s sorcerer‑priests. Legend holds that the stones were laved with the blood of the god‑king himself.” His eyes narrowed as he gazed at Vani. “But you know that, Princess of Morindu.” The words were soft rather than mocking; all the same, Vani turned away.

Travis drew close to the tower. Heat blazed within him, so hot that the air radiating up from the sand felt cool in comparison. The wall of the tower gleamed with a faint iridescence, like an oil slick on black water.

“So how did the Scirathi open the doorway?” Larad said, studying the edges of the portal.

Grace pushed her damp hair from her brow. “Nim. She was the key.” She glanced at Vani. “But how?”

Vani shook her head, her face tight with anguish. “All I know is that my daughter’s blood is powerful, and that lines of fate weave strangely around her.”

“That’s it,” Farr said, his dark eyes going distant. “That’s why the sorcerers wanted her. She’s a nexus.”

The others stared at him.

“A nexus?” Vani said, frowning.

Farr’s gaze snapped back into focus. “I should have realized it right away from everything you told me, Vani. Only a nexus is such a rare thing, almost mythical. I never . . .” He shook his head. “But it’s the only answer. That’s why lines of fate are drawn to her and tangle in her presence.”

“Is that why they needed Nim to open the door?” Grace asked, the words cool, curious: a scientist’s inquiry. “Because she’s a nexus?”

“Yes,” Farr said, approaching the door. “A spell of warding, like the one cast on this doorway, is drawn in lines of fate. Passing through the portal is one possibility, one fate. The passage can be blocked by removing the chance of that fate ever coming to pass.”

Travis thought he understood. “But because Nim is a nexus, she changed fate. New possibilities came into being, others vanished, and the spell unraveled.”

“Then, once inside, the sorcerers blocked the doorway,” Larad said. “But what did they use to bring down the door? Surely not a spell, with the way magic has weakened.”

Travis could guess. In the past, the Scirathi had brought guns from Earth. Why not explosives as well?

Avhir stalked toward Farr. “Maybe you are not strong enough to open the doorway, dervish, but what about him?” He turned and pointed at Travis. “Is he not a great sorcerer?”

Travis tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in his mouth. “Larad,” he croaked. “The Stones.”

Larad held out the iron box, and Travis took the three Imsari. Whatever was affecting magic had not weakened the Stones; he could feel power radiating from them. He gripped them in his left hand, then pointed his right hand at the doorway.

“ Urath!”

There was a clap of thunder and a blinding flash. When his vision cleared he saw that the doorway remained closed. He clenched the stones, his knuckles whitening. “ Urath!” he shouted again, and a hundred voices chanted in his mind, a chorus of all the Runelords that had gone before him. Again thunder rent the air. The ground trembled.

Travis opened his eyes. The doorway was still blocked.

It was no use. He had felt the power of his runespell roll outward like a wave–then part around the tower, flowing to either side of it, repelled by the slick onyx walls.

“I can’t do it,” he said, giving the Stones back to Larad.

“Perhaps not with northern magic,” Avhir said, his bronze gaze on Travis. “But what about sorcery? Does not the blood of Orъ himself run in your veins?”

“He can try,” Farr said, his face covered with sweat and sand. “But it’s no use. If blood sorcery still worked as it should, the Scirathi would have left a trap for us. Only it doesn’t. The morndariwill not come. Or perhaps they cannot come. Whatever has weakened magic prevents them from responding to our calls. There is . . . there is no hope.”

They all gazed at one another, faces ashen, eyes dull. The heat was punishing now, even in the shadow of the spire. Grace could not maintain her spell for long. She and Larad and Farr would perish. Nor could the T’golsurvive in these conditions, and while the heat did not affect Travis, even he needed water. They would all die.

Grace touched his arm. “You tried, Travis. I think . . . I think in the end that counts for something. It has to.”

Travis bowed his head, his brow touching hers. He wanted to weep, only he couldn’t. It felt as if there was a darkness in him, a rift like that in the sky, growing, consuming him from the inside out. He had failed to save Nim from the sorcerers. What would Beltan think of him? Travis didn’t know, but he did know one thing: Grace was wrong. Trying didn’t count, not for anything. In the end, trying and failing was no different than doing nothing at all. The darkness ate at his heart, his spirit. In a moment all would be gone. He would feel nothing. . . .

No. That wasn’t right. Travis resisted the darkness. He wouldfeel something. And if not sorrow, then something else.

Grace gasped, pushing away from him. “Travis–you’re hot.”

He held out his arms and saw shimmering waves radiating from his skin. Fire surged through his veins, burning away the darkness inside him, fueled by a new power: rage. The Scirathi had taken Vani’s daughter. Beltan’s daughter. Hisdaughter.

With a cry, Travis turned and flung himself against the wall of the tower, beating at it with bare fists. He felt a strange resistance each time his fist approached the stone, as if his hands were moving through some viscous fluid. However, he gritted his teeth and was able to punch through it, his blows landing against the tower. His fists glanced off without effect, but he didn’t care. Again he struck the onyx wall, again, again. Distantly, he felt pain in his hands, and wetness.

“Stop, Travis!”

It was Vani, her words sharp, but Travis hardly heard her. Fury boiled in his head, burning away thought and reason. He wanted only to beat down the tower with his bare hands, or to die trying.

“He’s hurting himself. Avhir, help me!”

Strong hands gripped Travis, pulling him away. He howled at them, snarled like a wild animal, trying to break free.

Travis, please.

The words were cool as bells in his mind. He went limp in the arms of the T’gol, the rage pouring out of him, leaving him empty, consumed. His hands hurt; they were smeared with blood. He gazed up, into Grace’s green‑gold eyes. I’m sorry, he wanted to say.

The words were drowned out by a groan from beneath their feet.

Vani and Avhir let go of Travis, whirling around, hands raised, eyes searching.

“What was that?” Larad said.

Farr pointed at the black wall of the spire. “Look.”

Blood dripped down the wall where Travis had flailed against the stones. Then, with a wisp of steam, the fluid vanished, as if drunk in by the dark stones. The ground lurched. Grace stumbled against Travis, and both would have fallen if Vani had not held them upright.

Larad let out a breath. “By all the gods.”

It took Travis a long moment to understand what was happening. A gap had appeared between the wall of the tower and the ground. Even as he watched, sand poured into the gap and it widened, reaching a foot from the tower. Two feet. Three. The ground shook again. Then, at the same instant as the others, he understood.

“Run!” Vani shouted. “Away from the spire. Now!”

The tower began to thrust upward from the ground, and the sand bulged beneath their feet, as if a great bubble was forming deep beneath them. Vani pulled Travis into a run. Avhir was pushing Grace and Larad, and Farr careened after them. The flat surface of the plain became a steep slope, rising behind them and falling away before them.

Travis glanced over his shoulder and saw the black spire soaring toward the sky. He caught other shapes as well–more spires, and onyx domes–then Vani jerked his arm.

“Don’t look back. Keep running!”

He could hardly hear her over the rumbling. A hot, metallic odor permeated the air. They were sliding now more than running, skidding down the slope on their heels. Sand began to sheet past them in waves, carrying them along with it. If he went down, Travis knew he would be buried in a heartbeat.

Just before them and to the left was a flat expanse of gray, wind‑scoured stone, like an island in the sea of sand. The slab looked natural, not man‑made. Vani veered toward it, pulling him along; they were nearly there. Then Travis felt his feet go out from under him. He fell and rolled down the slope, sand pouring over him, filling his mouth so he couldn’t scream. Not again. . . .

A strong hand caught him, hauling him forward, and he rolled onto something hard. He groped and felt rock beneath him.

“Look!” a voice shouted. It was Farr.

Travis struggled to his feet. He stood on the expanse of rough rock; the others were there as well. However, the surface was no longer level with the desert floor. Instead, they were on top of a pinnacle. The ground had fallen away to either side, and a torrent of sand rushed around the pinnacle. Before them loomed a dark mountain. Travis craned his neck, looking up. Sand poured like gold waterfalls between lofty spires and broad domes, tumbling down past sheer walls of onyx stone. Then he drew in a breath, and a feeling of awe came over him.

It wasn’t a mountain. It was a city.

The sound of thunder rolled away across the desert. The torrent of sand flowing to either side of the rock pinnacle ebbed, then ceased. Black domes and spires no longer thrust upward, but stood still and stark against the yellow sky. A few streams of sand trickled from the walls, then even they dwindled and were gone.

Travis stared at the onyx city, unable to move or speak. Over three thousand years ago, the sorcerers of Morindu had chosen to destroy their home rather than let it be taken. With a bloodspell of terrible power, they had buried Morindu deep beneath the sands of the desert. Now, the touch of his own blood had reversed that spell, awakening the city again.

Just like Travis, Morindu had died beneath the sands of the Morgolthi. And had been resurrected.

“Your blood,” Grace murmured. She took one of his hands in hers; his scraped knuckles were crusted with sand. “Your blood did this, Travis.”

No, not his blood. It was the blood of Orъ that flowed in his veins. The city had known the blood of its god‑king. And it had answered.

Vani stepped to the edge of the pinnacle, her black leathers dusted with sand. “This is why the Scirathi feared you, Travis, why they wanted to kill you. They knew you could command the city. They knew you were fated to raise Morindu from the sands of the Morgolthi, just as the Mournish knew. And now you have.” She turned to look at him, her gold eyes shining.

Travis sensed all their gazes on him; it wasn’t a good feeling. “So how do the Scirathi plan to control the city?” he said, trying to deflect attention from himself. “If they intended for me to be dead when they reached it, they must have had some other plan for raising Morindu.”

“Nim?” Larad said.

Farr shook his head. “Powerful blood runs in her veins, but it is not the blood of Orъ. They could not use her to raise the city.”

“Yet, if what you say is true, if she is a nexus,” Vani said, “then fate is changed by her very presence.”

“The throne room,” Avhir said. The tall assassin approached Vani. “Where Orъ was shackled, and where he slept. Was it not said that only the Seven Fateless could enter?”

Vani nodded. “For anyone but the A’narai, entering the throne room was certain death. Orъ’s power was so terrible that the very threads of fate were twisted in his presence.”

“You mean like a nexus?” Grace said, her regal visage pale with dust.

Travis gazed at the city. “Nim.”

“They mean to use her to enter the throne room,” Farr said. “To find the god‑king Orъ. And to take his blood.”

Larad stopped shaking sand from his robe. “But Orъ cannot possibly still be alive after three thousand years.”

“Perhaps not,” Farr said, his dark eyes on the city. “But it may not matter. If even a small amount of his blood remains, in scarabs or vials . . .”

The others gazed again at Travis. He knew what they were thinking; they had all seen the transformation that a single drop of Orъ’s blood had wrought in him. What would the Scirathi do with such blood?

Maybe not anything, Travis. Magic is weakening. Maybe the Scirathi are too late.

Or maybe they weren’t. Magic was losing its strenth, yes, but not the Imsari; they seemed as powerful as ever. And so did Travis’s blood–how else could it have reversed the spell of destruction cast upon Morindu the Dark over three eons ago? Orъ’s blood might yet have power the Scirathi could wield.

And even if it didn’t, the Scirathi still had Nim.

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 Orъ, 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.

Orъ’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 Orъ 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 Orъ’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 Orъ,” Vani said.

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

38.

Thunder rattled the panes of the library’s windows as Deirdre shut the journal and leaned back in the chair. What time was it? How long had she spent reading and rereading the pages covered with Albrecht’s elegant handwriting? The day had seemed to grow darker as it went on, and the light of the tin lantern had receded to a flickering circle around the desk. By the cramp in her neck and the pounding between her temples, hours had passed. However, the gnawing in her gut was not from hunger.

“It’s all a lie,” she murmured to the gloom.

Everything she had been taught about the Seekers, everything she had believed in–the Motto, the Book and the Vow, the Nine Desiderata–all of it was an elaborate deception, perpetuated over centuries, and wrought so that the Seekers would diligently perform the work of the Philosophers without ever knowing–or even guessing at–the truth about their nature.

We’re puppets, Deirdre. For four centuries they’ve been pulling our strings. We’ve been doing their work, helping themget closer to their magic elixir–a potion that will grant them true immortality. And now they’ve nearly got it.

Anger rose in her, but it was drowned by a wave of sickness. To be betrayed in this way–it was like discovering the world was flat after all, and the sun was a hot coal no more than five hundred miles away. The lie had made so much more sense than the reality that had been revealed to her, yet much as she craved to go back to not knowing, it was impossible. She could not go back. Knowledge was a knife that cut deeply, and whose wounds never healed. The Philosophers were charlatans, nothing more.

Except he was different than the others. Marius.

Deirdre reached out a shaking hand and brushed the cover of the journal. She had read the final few lines so many times she did not need to turn to that page to see them; they were burned into her brain.

Now you know what no other besides our own kind has ever known. Now you know the truth of the origin of the Philosophers.

And now, I beg of you, help me bring about their end. . . .

In over three centuries of existence, he had not forgiven the Philosophers for the way they had used him, had used Alis Faraday, and had used the half‑fairy folk of Greenfellow’s Tavern. Only, by becoming one of the Philosophers, he had unwittingly bound himself to them, and had been unable to gain vengeance against them. Until now. He had led Deirdre there because he believed she could help him. But why her? And why now?

Deirdre didn’t know. All she knew was that the Philosophers were no better than Duratek. No, they were worse. They used the tavern’s denizens, and when they were done with them, the Philosophers abandoned the folk of Greenfellow’s, rewarding them for their help and for their blood with poverty and suffering.

She touched the silver ring on her hand, then brushed hot tears from her cheeks. There was so much in the journal to try to absorb and understand. The Philosophers were immortal–at least so long as they periodically returned to Crete and drank the blood of the Sleeping Ones. That the Sleeping Ones were one and the same with the seven sorcerer‑priests of Orъ, Deirdre had no doubt; it all fit too perfectly with what she had learned from Vani.

Only now Deirdre could add to that story. The Seven of Orъ had not perished with Morindu the Dark. Instead they had fled through a gate, traveling across the Void to the world Earth. They had come to Crete over three thousand years ago and made contact with the civilization there. Then they had sealed themselves in their sarcophagi beneath the palace of Knossos, falling into endless slumber just like Orъ had, and there they had lain, forgotten. Until the Philosophers stumbled upon them over four centuries ago.

But why had the Seven come to Earth? That was one question the journal didn’t ask. Maybe because Marius didn’t know the answer. And maybe that was something the writing on the arch would reveal if they were ever able to translate all of it. She had to go back to London, to talk to Paul Jacoby, to see if he had been able to decipher any more of the–

No. How could she return to the Charterhouse knowing what she did? The Seekers were a sham. The Philosophers didn’t seek to discover other worlds out of scholarly interest. All this time they had been searching for the world the Sleeping Ones came from, hoping to find a way to reach it, to discover what it was that had granted the Seven true, endless, perfect immortality– their Philosopher’s Stone. Now the Philosophers were terribly close. The world they sought was Eldh, and a gate had come to light. All the Philosophers had to do was use the blood of the Sleeping Ones to open the gate and . . .

Deirdre went cold. The pieces clicked together in her brain with mechanical precision. She wanted to deny the result, only she couldn’t. The dying sorcerer in Beltan and Travis’s flat had said the Scirathi stole the stone arch from Crete for someone else, someone they had delivered it to.

“It was the Philosophers,” she said to the gray air. “They hired the Scirathi and used them to retrieve the arch.”

Once the earthquake uncovered the arch, they would have done anything to get it. They had probably been searching for it for centuries, trying to find the means by which the Sleeping Ones had traveled to Earth. Only now perihelion was approaching; the two worlds, Earth and Eldh, were drawing close. One way or another, the Philosophers were going to get what they desired; they were going to reach Eldh.

Unless he gets his revenge on them first.

Before Deirdre could consider what that meant, a chiming noise drifted through the door of the library: the unmistakable sound of a teaspoon stirring in a china cup. Had Eleanor returned with another thermos? She pushed herself up from the chair, walked to the door, and stepped into the manor’s front hall.

A man sat in a chair next to the fireplace, where a cheerful blaze crackled. He wore a sleek, modern black suit, and even sitting he was tall, his long legs crossed before him. His skin was pale, his features fine and aristocratic, his wide mouth framed by sharp lines. Luxurious blond hair tumbled over broad shoulders. On first glance she would have thought him no more than thirty.

“There you are Miss Falling Hawk,” he said in a rich voice she knew from their few conversations over the phone. “I had begun to fear my writing was so boring it had put you to sleep. I suppose then I’ll dismiss the idea of becoming a novelist. No matter–it’s not nearly so glamorous a career as I first imagined. Would you like a cup of tea? Please, sit with me.”

He gestured to an empty wing‑backed chair near his. Between the chairs was a tea table bearing a pot, two cups, a pitcher of cream, and a plate of lemon wedges. He smiled, an act that rendered him more handsome yet. The irises of his eyes were a brilliant gold that matched the spider‑shaped ring on his left hand.

Deirdre moved to the chair and sat. She was so numb she hardly felt the teacup when he placed it in her hands. The cup rattled against the saucer, and it occurred to her she should take a sip to keep it from spilling, but she could not seem to make the muscles of her arms obey. She could only stare at him. At his gold eyes.

He took a sip of his tea, a languid motion, then gazed around at the dim hall. “It’s been a long time since I’ve returned here, to my old home. The last occasion was nearly a century ago. Often I’ve longed to come back, but I didn’t dare. It would not do to have the others think I cared so much about the past. That I had never forgotten.” He breathed a sigh. “It’s a bit shabbier these days, but otherwise just as I remembered it. The docents and caretakers have done well.”

Deirdre’s teacup clattered against the saucer. “You,” she managed to croak. “You’re part of the consortium Eleanor talked about.”

Marius gave a soft laugh. “I’m afraid I amthe consortium, Miss Falling Hawk. I set up Madstone Hall as a private museum and created the facade of a governing board so the Philosophers would believe the manor had passed out of my hands.”

“And did it work?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I believe Phoebe still watches me. Of them all, she was always the cleverest, and the last to treat me as an equal. But the Philosophers think of little more than themselves these days, and of their ultimate transformation. Nothing else concerns them. Not even the dark spots in the sky.”

“No one seems concerned about them,” Deirdre murmured. “No one seems to care that they keep growing. It’s as if everyone has already given up.”

“You haven’t given up, Miss Falling Hawk.” Marius sipped his tea. “I doubt even Phoebe remembers Madstone Hall exists. Still, caution is always the wisest counsel. That’s why I’ve kept my communications with you limited and secret.”

The warmth of the fire had done Deirdre good, and her trembling–as much from sitting so long in the chilly manor as from shock–had eased. She finally managed to take a sip of her tea.

“Why now?” she said, her voice stronger. “For more than three years you’ve kept to the shadows, never offering me so much as a glimpse of who you are. Now here you sit, offering me tea. Something has changed. What is it?”

This time his laughter was louder, richer. “That’s why I chose you, Deirdre–may I call you Deirdre? Miss Falling Hawkseems so formal, now that we’re speaking face‑to‑face, and you must call me Marius. That’s why I selected you out of all the other journeymen whose files I examined. You’re intelligent of course–the tests demonstrated that. But it’s your instincts that impressed me, your ability to know what’s right even when there’s no logical way you shouldknow.”

The tea churned in her stomach. “How long have you been watching me?”

“Almost from your first day with the Seekers. I have good instincts as well, you see.” He set down his cup and rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. “After I detected the first signs that perihelion between Earth and the otherworld approached, I searched in earnest for one in whom I might place my trust. After a time I began to fear the search was in vain. Then you entered the Seekers, and I knew I had found what I was looking for. You were clever, curious, and willing to bend rules in the pursuit of knowledge–all traits I required. Yet you were also honest, loyal, and possessed of a highly developed sense of rightfulness. You are not simply a good person, Deirdre. You are a justperson. In the end, you will place the greater good above all else, above all other desires and obligations.”

Here he was at last, her mysterious helper, and Deirdre had absolutely no idea what to say. Perhaps his belief in her intelligence was overrated.

“No, Deirdre,” he said, as if sensing her doubts. “Your behavior these last years has only confirmed all my beliefs in you. That I had made the right choice was apparent from the moment you began working on the James Sarsin case.”

She started in the chair, and tea sloshed out of her cup, onto her slacks. “It wasn’t chance, was it? I always believed it was simple luck that I stumbled on that letter from James Sarsin. No one else in the Seekers could have known it referred to Castle City. But you made sure I came upon that letter.”

She set down the cup, sagged back in the chair, and halfheartedly dabbed at her wet slacks with a napkin. Her discovery that the immortal London bookseller James Sarsin and Castle City antique dealer Jack Graystone were the same man had been a major breakthrough–one that had caused her to rise swiftly in the Seekers, and to be assigned as Hadrian Farr’s partner. She had always believed the discovery had been her own, and somehow she felt disappointed now, as if she was far less special than she had believed.

Again he seemed to hear her thoughts, though it was more likely he had simply read her expression. “Don’t be so glum, Deirdre. The fact that I put that letter in the stack of papers on your desk doesn’t change the fact that you recognized it for what it was.”

“But you already knew,” she said, feeling hollow inside. “You already knew Jack Graystone was James Sarsin.”

“Yes, I did. As you know from my journal, it was I who first identified Sarsin’s otherworldly nature. After I became a Philosopher, I continued to keep an eye on him, even though he would have nothing to do with the Seekers. Once he vanished from London, I kept searching for him, and eventually I uncovered evidence that he had traveled to America, to Colorado. After I learned you had a connection to Colorado yourself, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to introduce you to the case without anyone suspecting I was involved. It looked like you made the connection yourself because you didmake the connection yourself, Deirdre. The same was true with the Thomas Atwater case.”

“So you gave me that as well,” she said bitterly. Had she done anything on her own these last five years?

“I did, though it was a bit trickier. More tea?” He filled both their cups, then picked his up in a long‑fingered hand. “I wanted to draw your attention to Thomas Atwater, but I couldn’t do so in a direct manner, lest the others realize what I was up to. That’s why, when you were reinstated in the Seekers, I dreamed up the task of researching historical violations of the Desiderata and had Nakamura give it to you. I knew your researching skills well enough to be confident you would eventually be drawn to Atwater’s case. And you were, more swiftly than I had hoped.”

She frowned; something was wrong with what he had just said. Then she had it. “But that wasn’t my first assignment after I was reinstated. I was supposed to do a cross‑cataloging project. Only Anders took the assignment before I could start.”

“Just as I had suspected he would. Which is why I waited until he had done so to pass the second assignment to Nakamura.”

These words thrust a cold spike into Deirdre’s heart. “Anders,” she said, licking her lips. “That first night you contacted me, you warned me that he was coming. What did you know about him?”

“Only what you soon knew yourself: that he was overly eager and less than truthful.”

She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket, touching the crumpled photo Sasha had taken. “I think he’s working for the Philosophers. At first I thought he was in league with the Scirathi, but now I know that the Philosophers used the sorcerers to get the gate from Crete. Which means Anders is working directly for them.”

Marius nodded. “I have long suspected that some among my cohort maintain special and secret contacts among the Seekers.”

“Like you’ve maintained me?”

“Just so,” he said and sipped his tea, as if he had not discerned the venom in her words. “That’s why secrecy was imperative in my dealings with you, Deirdre. I could not hide from the Philosophers the fact that you were in contact with one of us. But as long as you didn’t know which of us it was you were communicating with, then they couldn’t know either. And since Phoebe–and no doubt most if not all of the others–have such illicit helpers within the Seekers, none would dare press too hard to learn who you were in contact with, lest their own minions be exposed.”

“What a trusting bunch you are,” Deirdre said, making no effort to disguise the irony in her voice.

Marius laughed. “Oh, we’re a perfect family all right. We all loathe one another, and we’d each have murdered the others outright centuries ago if we were not all of us bound to one another.”

“Only now you have me to do your dirty work.”

He did not look at her, instead gazing out the window at the failing day. “They’re close, Deirdre. For centuries they’ve searched for the Philosopher’s Stone. They crave it above all else. And now it’s within their reach.”

“Immortality,” Deirdre breathed. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? Philosopher’s Stoneis just a name alchemists give to a substance that can bestow perfection and immortality.”

“Yes, true immortality–like that possessed by the Sleeping Ones.” His lip curled in disgust. “Now, if we did not drink a sip of their blood at least once a decade, we would grow decrepit and die. Nor are we truly safe from death. Illness and age cannot harm us, but we might still be slain. However, the Sleeping Ones themselves are perfect. They do not decay, but remain ever beautiful. And when they are wounded, their golden bodies heal instantly. That’s what the others desire for themselves.”

“And you don’t?” Deirdre couldn’t keep her voice from edging into a sneer.

“No,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I don’t.”

There was no reason to believe him. He had shrouded himself in mystery for more than three years, manipulating her to suit his ends. All the same, she did believe him.

“You want to keep them from reaching it,” she said. “You want to stop them from getting to Eldh and finding what it was that made the Sleeping Ones immortal. From finding Orъ.”

The change was sudden. The smooth demeanor, the languid motions were gone. He slammed down his cup and clenched a fist, banging it on the arm of the chair. “They do not deserve it! They are fools and devils, and they are not worthy of everlasting life. No one on this Earth is. And if anyone could possibly be worthy of such a thing, then it was–”

He didn’t speak the name, but it sounded in her mind all the same. Alis.

After a long moment she spoke. “That was Travis’s sister’s name, you know. Alice. He loved her more than anything. She was only a girl when she died. He believed it was his fault. For the longest time, he didn’t forgive himself. Only then . . .” She smiled, thinking of Travis. “He did.”

Marius leaned back in the chair, the rage gone, those gold eyes haunted. “I know,” he said, his voice soft. “I know.”

Deirdre was no longer full of awe. Marius was a Philosopher; he was over three hundred years old. However, he was still a man, and after reading the journal she felt, at least in some small way, that she knew him.

“You’re still not telling me the whole truth about why you’ve kept your identity a secret,” she said, and she knew that once again it was her Wise Self speaking. “I can understand you needed to be certain none of the Philosophers knew which one of their number I was in contact with, but that wouldn’t have prevented you from letting me read that journal. I think by now you know I can keep a secret, and you could have given it to me without their knowledge. So why didn’t you tell me the truth about the Seekers sooner?”

His eyes were intent upon her. “But don’t you see? I couldn’t simply give you the answers to all these mysteries. You’re clever, Deirdre, and you have deep powers of intuition. I knew, if given just a few crumbs, you would discover the answers yourself. And in so doing, I hoped you would solve the mysteries I myself have not been able to answer all these years.”

Deirdre clutched the arms of her chair. “You mean just like the way you watched Alis Faraday, wondering if she would discover her otherworldly nature on her own?”

The words were sharp, and she could see how they stung him, but she did not soften her tone. “You’ve used me, Marius. You used me just like they used Alis–just like they used you. And it could have killed me. It nearly did, several times over. Only you still kept the truth from me. Why?” Her voice rose into a snarl. “What did you hope I’d learn?”

“The answer to everything.”

All the anger rushed out of her in a soft gasp. “ What?”

He learned forward in his chair, a fervent light in his gold eyes. “They’re waiting for something, Deirdre. The Sleeping Ones. For over three thousand years they’ve lain there in their stone sarcophagi in peaceful repose, their eyes shut, arms folded over their breasts, their skin as smooth as polished gold.”

As he spoke, it was as if she could see them reflected in his eyes. She leaned forward herself, her face drawing near his.

“Phoebe and the others, they believe the slumber of the Seven is eternal. But I don’t. I believe they’re simply waiting for the moment when they will awake. And I think that moment will soon come.”

“Perihelion,” Deirdre said, once again understanding when perhaps she shouldn’t. “You think they’re waiting for perihelion.”

An eager light illuminated his face. “Yes. For centuries I’ve studied the symbols written on the walls of the tomb where we found them. It was in their tomb that we found the clay tablet, the one whose photo I gave you. The others left the task of translating the symbols to me, for it had been my master’s work, and the rest of them were too bored by such a tedious chore. Through the tomb writings, I learned much of the story of the Sleeping Ones. And I rejoiced when what I learned was confirmed by your own reports, the ones in which you described the history of Morindu as told by the woman Vani. I knew my theory was correct–that the Sleeping Ones indeed came from the otherworld, and that they are waiting for a time when they can return.”

Deirdre tried to absorb this. Marius’s story made sense. The Seven of Orъ had been forced to flee Morindu after interring it beneath the desert sands; surely they had intended to return to their home someday. And now that day was coming. Perihelion approached; things long buried were coming to light. “But they don’t have to wait for perihelion to return to Morindu,” she said aloud. “They could use the arch–the gate.”

Marius shook his head. “I don’t think they’re waiting just to return home. From what I deciphered in the tomb, I believe that when the worlds draw near enough the Sleeping Ones will awaken.”

“And then what will they do?”

“My master believed they sought some sort of transmutation.”

“You mean like alchemy?”

“Yes, like alchemy in a way. I believe the Sleeping Ones seek to transmute something. Only what it is, and what they wish to transform it into, the tomb writings did not tell me. Nor did the symbols indicate what catalyst the Seven will use to bring about the transformation.”

Deirdre had studied alchemy in her first days as a Seeker; given the origins of the order, it was something of a prerequisite. She thought back to everything she had learned. “The catalyst–that’s something that permits a base substance to be evolved into a state of perfection. Except the catalyst itself isn’t changed by the transformation. It’s like the–”

“Like the fabled Philosopher’s Stone, yes. The catalyst is that which will grant the Philosophers true and perfect immortality. But in so doing, the catalyst itself will remain unchanged.”

Deirdre considered this. Orъ’s blood could cause transformation; a single drop had changed Travis into a sorcerer. Only how much of it had the Seven of Orъ drunk? Surely they had consumed great quantities. What transformations might be worked with it? For some reason, she found herself murmuring the final words to a song. “ ‘Then after fire and wonder, we end where we began.”

Marius stood up. “What’s that?”

She looked up. “It’s a song that originated on the otherworld. A copy of it was found among James Sarsin’s–”

“Yes, yes, I know the song. I’ve read it many times over.” His gaze seemed to cut her like a gold knife. “But why do you sing it now?”

The back of her neck prickled. Her subconscious had made a connection, one her conscious mind had not yet grasped. What was it? She leaned back in the chair, thinking aloud. “It was the phrase fire and wonderthat made me stumble onto that computer file. The girl in black–Child Samanda–told me to seek them as I journeyed. So once I received Echelon 7 clearance, I performed a search on those words, and a file came up, an archive from the year you died.” She winced. “Or became a Philosopher, I suppose. Only the file was deleted before I could read it.” She glanced up at him. “So what was in that file?”

“My final report as a Seeker,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “Everything it contained was in the journal, and more.”

She nodded. No wonder the Philosophers had not wanted her to read it. “Paul Jacoby was able to translate the words fire and wonderon the stone arch. That reminded me of the missing file, and it was studying the name of the file that led me to you, and to this place.”

Marius was pacing before the fire now, shaking his tawny hair like a lion’s mane. “I know all that. By why did you sing the song now? It’s those instincts of yours. You’ve made a connection, haven’t you?” He stopped, gripped the arms of her chair, and leaned down, his face inches from her own. He smelled sharp, like lightning. “What is it? What has your clever mind put together?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I–”

“You doknow, Deirdre. What is it? What were you thinking?”

The words tumbled out of her. “The song–it’s just that in a way it’s like what you said about the catalyst. How in the end it’s the same, unchanged.”

He pushed away from the chair. “Sing it,” he said. “All of it.”

She was afraid she wouldn’t remember the words. Only they came to her lips easily, and she sang in a quavering voice:

“We live our lives a circle,

And wander where we can.

Then after fire and wonder,

We end where we began.

“I have traveled southward,

And in the south I wept.

Then I journeyed northward,

And laughter there I kept.

“Then for a time I lingered,

In eastern lands of light,

Until I moved on westward,

Alone in shadowed night.

“I was born of springtime,

In summer I grew strong.

But autumn dimmed my eyes,

To sleep the winter long.

“We live our lives a circle,

And wander where we can.

Then after fire and wonder,

We end where we began.”

The last verse faded into silence. Marius was pacing again, a fist clenched to his chest, murmuring the words of the song. At last he stopped, looking at her. “What does it mean?”

Understanding tickled in the back of her brain, but it fluttered out of reach every time she tried to grasp it. “I suppose it’s about beginnings, and about endings. And how maybe they’re the same thing.”

Only they wouldn’t be the same thing anymore, would they? Not if the rifts in the cosmos continued to grow. Not if scientists like Sara Voorhees were right, and the rifts signified the end of the universe–of all possible universes. Then there would be no ending or beginnings. There would be only . . . nothing. Didn’t the Philosophers understand? If the rifts kept growing, there would be no world left for them to dwell in as immortals.

But Marius had said they were blinded by their quest; they could think of nothing else. Or did they believe that by going to Eldh they could escape Earth and destruction? She shuddered and reached for her teacup, taking a sip to warm her, only it had gone cold.

Marius sank back into his chair. “I had hoped we’d have more time to try to understand what it is the Sleeping Ones are waiting for, what it is they mean to do. But perihelion comes, and it has brought the gate to light. The Philosophers mean to use it to travel to the otherworld. That’s why I led you here, Deirdre, why I let you read the journal. It’s why I’m speaking to you now, despite the peril. There’s no more use in secrecy. At this very moment, in London, the Philosophers await the delivery of seven crates that have been shipped from Crete. I think you can guess what those crates contain.”

She could. “How did they get the sarcophagi out of the archaeological site? It has to be guarded, and I can’t believe the authorities on Crete would simply let priceless artifacts be shipped out of the country.”

He gave her a scornful look. “Honestly, Deirdre, do you think such things are difficult for us? Our wealth and resources are beyond your imagining, amassed over centuries. And the Seekers are hardly the only servants of the Philosophers. We have contacts in nearly every government in the world–contacts who can be directed to do as we wish with a single letter, phone call, or electronic message. How do you think we’ve so easily arranged passports and new identities in the past?”

Deirdre shuddered. In that moment she remembered that he was a Philosopher. “And do they know how to operate the gate?”

“Yes, they do. That much they learned from their experiments with the folk at Greenfellow’s Tavern.”

His words made Deirdre sick. “How long?” she said.

“The crates are to arrive in London tomorrow. The location is here.”

He handed her a slip of paper. She stared as if he had handed her a kipper. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“You know what I want.”

Slowly she folded the paper, then stood and held it out to him. “I’m not your minion. If you want revenge against the Philosophers so badly, you can get it yourself.”

He drew himself up to his full height, towering over her, his face as beautiful and terrible as an angel’s. It was clear he wanted to rage at her. Instead he drew in a deep breath, then spoke in controlled words.

“Yes, I want vengeance. I have wanted it for centuries, and all the while I’ve been unable to so much as raise a finger against them, lest the blood in my veins burn me to ashes. I waited until I finally found a Seeker I believed could help me– I waited for you, Deirdre. But there’s another reason I’ve waited so long. You see, the more I studied the Sleeping Ones, the more I wondered at their purpose, and what would happen when perihelion came. And the more I came to believe that they must not be prevented from fulfilling that purpose, whatever it might be.”

Marius gave a rueful smile. “Perhaps it’s a result of my being a Seeker before a Philosopher, but the First Desideratum is ingrained in me: A Seeker shall not interfere with the actions of those of otherworldly nature. I still hold to that vow. And now, more than ever, I am certain that the Philosophers must not be allowed to interfere with the Sleeping Ones, or prevent them from doing what it is they seek to do when perihelion comes.” He picked up a piece of paper from the table with the teapot and held it out.

She glared at it, suspicious. “What is that?”

“It is the result of Paul Jacoby’s efforts at translating the writing on the stone arch. He achieved a major breakthrough yesterday when he . . . stumbled upon a lexicon of symbols from the tomb.”

“You mean when you gave it to him.”

He gave a dismissive wave and held the paper toward her. It was too dim in the hall, and her hand was shaking too badly, for her to read the words on the computer printout.

“What does it say?”

“Many things pertaining to the journey of the Sleeping Ones to Earth. But perhaps the most interesting are these two lines, written on the stones on either side of the keystone.”

He brought a tin lantern closer to her and pointed at the top of the page. There was a line of angular, alien symbols. Below was a translation in English: When the twins draw near, all shall come to nothing unless hope changes everything.

She looked up, her heart pounding. “ ‘When the twins draw near.’ It means Earth and Eldh, doesn’t it? Whatever the Sleeping Ones are waiting for, it’s related to perihelion. And to the rifts.” But what did that last part mean? How could simply hoping change anything?

He took the paper from her. “Do you see now? This is not about vengeance anymore. I still do not know what the Sleeping Ones intend to do, what transformation they seek. But I believe it is imperative they be allowed to complete it. The fate of two worlds may well depend on it. And what the Philosophers intend to do could destroy any chance of that happening. The Sleeping Ones came to this world for a purpose, Deirdre. They were never meant to be found. After all these centuries, that is the only thing I know for certain!”

His final words rose in volume, melding with a roll of thunder. Deirdre met his eyes. “How do I know I can trust you?”

He shrugged, his expression cold. “You can’t know. In the end, you can only believe.” He folded her fingers around the paper with the London address written on it. She gazed at her hand a long moment, then took the paper and slipped it into her pocket.

“Now what?” she said, meeting his golden eyes. “What should I do?”

Marius opened his mouth, but it was another voice that spoke: deep, gravelly, and familiar.

“I recommend you take a big step back.”

Both Deirdre and Marius turned their heads. A man stood at the far end of the front hall, in the opening that led to the foyer, his bulky form clad as always in a sleek designer suit. Deirdre staggered.

“Hello there, mate,” Anders said, and pointed his gun at her.

39.

Again thunder rattled the tall windows. Deirdre was so startled she took a step forward, an antelope drawn by fear toward the lion.

Anders tightened his big hand around the gun, holding it at arm’s length. “I need you to move away, Deirdre.”

As always, he pronounced her name DEER‑dree. However, his voice was no longer preternaturally cheery. Instead it was sharp and grim, and his eyes had undergone their own transmutation from vivid blue to hard steel. A wave of regret crashed over Deirdre. Then the wave ebbed, draining away, leaving her cold. How long had he been there, just outside the hall, listening?

You have to assume he’s heard everything.

Which meant he knew who Marius was. Knew whathe was.

“Come on, Deirdre,” he said, motioning with the gun. “You need to get out of the way. Now.”

“No,” she said, her own voice going hard. “Tell me what you’re doing here and how you followed me.”

“There isn’t time for that now, mate. You’ve got to listen to me.”

“No. You’ve lied to me.”

He flinched, and a husky note crept into his voice. “I know I have, mate. And I’m sorry about that, I really am. But if you’ve ever cared one whit about me–and I think you have–then I need you to do this for me. I need you to step aside.”

“Don’t do it, honey,” a smooth voice said behind her. “He’s trying to trick you.”

Fresh shock sizzled through Deirdre as lightning flickered outside the windows. She jerked her head around. Standing in a narrow opening Deirdre had not seen before was a tall, dusky‑skinned woman clad in a turtleneck sweater and tweed slacks.

“Sasha,” Deirdre said, her mind trying to comprehend what was happening. Sasha’s presence was an incongruity, like a polar bear in a desert.

Sasha took a step forward, and a door swung shut behind her, melding with the dark wood paneling. It was a servant’s entrance, designed to be invisible.

“Stop right there, Sasha,” Anders growled, taking a step forward, gun before him. So it was not at Deirdre or Marius that Anders had been aiming the weapon.

Sasha did as he commanded, resting her hands on her slender hips. She kept her dark eyes on Deirdre. “Everything he’s told you is a lie, Deirdre. It’s just like you suspected. Since that day we chatted, I’ve checked out the story he gave you, and it doesn’t match up with the facts I was able to uncover. Anders is not what he says he is. I went to talk to you, and that’s when I saw him rummaging through your desk and snapped his picture. Since then, I’ve been tailing him.”

“That’s not true!” Anders tried to get a bead on her with the gun, but Deirdre was still in the way.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Sasha said coolly. “Go on, Deirdre. Ask him yourself. See if he can look you in the face and deny it.”

Deirdre glanced at Marius, but he only gazed at her, silent. She turned, looking at Anders. “Did you tell me the truth about why you joined the Seekers? Did you tell me about the truth about your gun? Did you tell me that you had gone through my desk, my papers?”

Again he grimaced, but Deirdre didn’t fool herself into thinking it was because he regretted what he had done. He was chagrined that he had been caught, that was all.

“See, Deirdre?” Sasha cooed, taking another step forward. “He can’t deny it, because it’s all true.”

“Please, mate,” Anders said, adjusting his grip on the gun. “Step aside. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Deirdre couldn’t say the same. “Do something,” she said softly to Marius. “Stop him. I know you can.”

He raised a golden eyebrow. “Are you certain?”

“Yes!” she hissed.

“Very well, then.” He raised a hand.

“No!” Anders shouted, stretching out his arm.

Deirdre tensed, waiting for the fatal sound of a gunshot, but it never came. Anders continued to stand rigid, teeth bared, the muscles of his jaw bulging, his fingers tight around the gun. She kept her eyes on him; he did not move, not even to blink.

It was just like Marius had described in the journal, when Adalbrecht had rescued him in Advocate’s Close. She looked at Marius as he lowered his hand. For a second green sparks shone in his gold eyes, then they faded. He took a staggering step back, and his face was suddenly ashen.

“Thanks, darling,” Sasha purred, sauntering forward. “I had wondered how I was going to get rid of the big lug. How nice of you to do it for me.”

Deirdre shook her head. What was Sasha talking about?

“I see,” Marius breathed, his expression thoughtful.

And Sasha pulled a small pistol from the pocket of her slacks, aiming it directly at Marius’s heart.

Deirdre’s knees went weak, and if she had not gripped the back of the chair she had been sitting in earlier, she would have fallen. A feeling beyond words came over her. It was not pain, not exactly. Nor was it horror. It was as if a hole had opened up inside her–a void in which nothing existed, like the rifts in the heavens.

Sasha clucked her tongue. “Really, Deirdre, after all you’ve been through, I expected you to put up more of a fight than that. You’re not quite the legend you’ve been made out to be.” Her dark gaze flicked toward Marius. “But then, I suppose legends never are.”

Deirdre shuddered. Marius had lauded her, telling her that her instincts were deep and powerful. But that was laughable. Her instincts had been wrong. Dead wrong.

Only that’s not true, Deirdre. You wanted to trust Anders despite everything that had happened. Deep down, you believed in him, but your stupid brain convinced you otherwise. It was Sasha he was aiming the gun at, not you or Marius. He was trying to make you get out of the way so he could shoot her.

Only Deirdre had stopped him.

Another crash of thunder shook the windows. “Oh, this is going to be fun,” Sasha said, moving closer, gun resting easily in her slender hand.

Deirdre cast a glance at Marius. Couldn’t he . . . ?

He shook his head. “I do not have the strength to perform another spell,” he said, understanding what she had wanted him to do. “The first took far more out of me than usual. And I am not at my full power. It has been over a decade since I’ve journeyed to Crete.”

Sasha’s deep red lips parted in a grin. “She told me that was the case. Everyone else had returned to Knossos, to renew their strength in preparation for what’s to come. But not you. That’s one reason she’s been suspicious of you, Marius.”

“Phoebe,” he said softly.

Sasha shrugged. “Names aren’t important.”

“So she hasn’t revealed herself to you,” Marius said. “I wonder what else she has failed to reveal.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “I’m hardly going to start doubting my benefactor now. Not after she’s been so very kind to me. I know whom to trust, Marius, unlike poor Deirdre here. It seems the little shaman has lost her magic vision.” Her lips curled in a sneer. “Assuming she ever had it, of course.”

Those words stung, but Deirdre welcomed the pain, letting it fill the emptiness inside her. “So you’ve been working for the Philosophers all this time,” Deirdre said. “I suppose you were the one who gave Travis’s photo to the sorcerers and told them where to find him.”

Sasha pantomimed a yawn. “Of course I did. Shall I confess everything, Deirdre? Isn’t that what a good villain does at the end–gloats over her victory? But really, what’s the point? It’s not as if you’ll be around for long to lament it.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose I couldthrow you a morsel for old time’s sake. Yes, I communicated the desires of the Philosophers to the sorcerers. I told them where to find Wilder, and even mapped out the location in the Charterhouse for them, so they could open a gate there. The Philosophers didn’t want Wilder to interfere with their plans. They wanted to get him out of the way, and the sorcerers were all too easily used to that end. There–happy now?”

Deirdre’s mind raced. How long would the spell Marius placed on Anders last? She had to say something to buy them more time. “What if the Scirathi turn on you?”

“Not bloody likely,” Sasha said with a laugh, “seeing as they’re all dead. The Philosophers gave the few of them that were left little gold vials of blood. The sorcerers gobbled it up like the greedy things they are. Too bad for them it was tainted with something nasty. The sorcerers curled up like poor dead spiders.”

Deirdre tried to cast another surreptitious look at Anders. He still wasn’t moving. “How did you get that photo of Anders? Did you fake it?”

“I didn’t need to, Deirdre. It was a wonderful stroke of luck, catching him in the act of going through your things.”

“So what you said about Anders was true,” Deirdre said, her gut clenching.

Sasha gave a satisfied smirk. “Every word of it, darling. Anders has lied to you about who he is from day one. He’s been keeping tabs on you, never letting you get too far out of his sight, the loyal, pathetic git. He followed you up here to protect you.”

That didn’t make sense. “To protect me?”

Now Sasha’s expression edged into a look of disgust. “Everyone’s always saying what a brilliant Seeker you are, Deirdre, but no offense, you seem a bit thick to me. Maybe they’re right; maybe you’re good at spotting the footprints in the dirt. Problem is, you don’t notice the elephant walking by. Why do you think Nakamura assigned a former security guard to be your partner, then let him keep his gun? It’s been Anders’s job all along to protect Nakamura’s precious star agent. Only the lovable lump has failed, hasn’t he?” The gun moved from Marius to Deirdre.

Deirdre cast an anguished look at Anders’s still‑frozen form. He hadn’t told her the truth because he was protecting her. Only that deception had caused her to mistrust him, and now . . .

Lightning flashed, and thunder crashed outside. Deirdre thought she heard a sharp sound along with the thunder, but before she could think what it was, Marius raised a hand. Had he regained enough of his strength to try another spell?

It didn’t matter.

“No you don’t,” Sasha said, pointing the gun at him. “You may be three hundred years old, but I can still blow your head off. And in fact, that’s what they sent me here to do.”

“So what have they promised you?” Marius said, gazing at Sasha. “Immortality? I know them far better than you ever possibly can. Even if they find what they seek, they will not give that to you.”

For the first time the smooth mask of Sasha’s calm cracked, and anger twisted her face, ruining its loveliness. “You lie, Marius, just as they warned me you would. Even at this moment, they’re preparing the way for those who have been faithful. We True Seekers will be rewarded. And traitors–they will die.”

It happened in an instant. Sasha swung her arm to one side, pointed the gun beyond Marius and Deirdre, and fired.

Deirdre turned. Like a statue tipped on its side, Anders had fallen over, his rigid body still in the shape it had been, arm outstretched, gun in hand. As she watched, a bloom of red appeared on his white shirt, spreading outward.

“The bigger they are,” Sasha said, her smirk returning. “Now it’s your turn. DEER‑dree.”

She pointed the pistol at Deirdre and squeezed the trigger. At the same moment, Marius took a single step forward. Thunder split the air.

The thunder rolled away into silence. Smoke curled up from the barrel of Sasha’s gun.

“Oh,” Marius said. He stumbled back, sitting in one of the wing‑backed chairs by the embers of the fire. He looked tired, and it seemed for all the world as if he had sat down to rest. Then a spasm passed through him, and blood gushed out his mouth. He reached a hand inside his suit coat, then pulled it out, staring at his reddened fingers as if in fascination.

“Great Spirit,” Deirdre whispered. She knelt beside the chair and gripped his arm. “Marius!”

He did not answer her. She looked up, her voice a snarl of anguish and rage. “What have you done?”

“Nothing more than a minor mistake,” Sasha said. “After I eliminated you, I was to offer him one last chance to rejoin the Philosophers. But they doubted he would accept, and once he refused I was to destroy him. So it’s no great loss. And neither is this.”

Sasha moved forward and leveled the gun at Deirdre’s head. Deirdre shut her eyes. One more clap of thunder shattered the dusty air.

The thunder faded. There was a dull thud as something struck the floor. Not understanding how she could, Deirdre opened her eyes.

Sasha sprawled on the floor before the fireplace, staring upward, an expression of astonishment on her lovely face. There was a hole in the center of her forehead, oozing blood.

Deirdre looked up. A rangy figure stepped into view. Rain had darkened his blond hair, plastering it to his brow, and his eyes glinted like emeralds. There was a gash on his cheek, trickling blood. He held a gun in his hand.

“That is a wicked thing,” Beltan said, then threw the gun to the floor next to Sasha’s body.

Deirdre’s mind was numb. Did he mean the gun or Sasha? And how was he here? But none of that mattered. Fear flooded her, clearing her mind. Albrecht and Anders had both been shot.

“Beltan, go see to Anders. I’ll–”

A bloody hand clamped around her wrist. She gasped and found herself gazing into gold eyes. Only they were dull now, more like tarnished bronze.

Marius licked red‑stained lips. “Your partner is . . . still in stasis. There is time. Call for help. Use the phone in . . . the carriage house.”

She groped inside his coat; she had to stop the flow of blood. Her hands met a wet, gaping hole. Oh, by the gods. “Beltan, help me!” she cried, her voice shaking with panic.

She heard quick footsteps, then sensed Beltan standing behind her, but she could not take her eyes off Marius. Even in anguish, his face was beautiful, his golden hair like an angel’s. To her astonishment, he was smiling at her.

“Do not be sad for me,” he said, the words gentle. “Three and a half centuries is far too long. I’ve endured only so I could find someone to tell my tale to, and now I have. I found you, Deirdre. I am ready to join her now. I am ready to sleep.”

“No,” she said, but the word was soft: a lament rather than a command.

Another spasm passed through him. “It seems I am not meant to understand the . . . final mystery. I confess, I never believed I would. But you still can, Deirdre. Go to them for me. Go to . . . the Sleeping Ones.”

She could only shake her head, beyond words now.

“Please!” Marius’s eyes flickered like the flames of twin candles. His grip on her arm tightened. “Find the catalyst. Find it and . . . bring it to them. No matter what else happens, they must–”

His hand slipped away from her wrist. The twin candles flickered one last time, then went out. His head lolled back against the chair. Deirdre stared, unable to move.

“He looks at peace,” Beltan said gruffly, breaking the silence. “He was the one who was helping you, wasn’t he?”

Peace. The word was foreign to her. Deirdre looked up at the blond man, trying to make her brain function. “Beltan–how?”

“That little flea Eustace shot at us with his gun. He fought more fiercely than I would have thought once I cornered him.” Beltan touched his wounded cheek. “But I was able to engage him so Anders could reach the manor. I followed as soon as I finished my work.”

These words registered on Deirdre only for a moment. Then sudden energy crackled through her.

“Anders,” she said, standing and rushing across the front hall to where her partner lay on the floor.

He was still motionless, staring blankly. Blood had seeped from the wound in his chest, making a puddle on the floor, but not nearly as much as she had feared. She touched a finger to his neck and detected, faint but steady, a pulse. He was still in stasis. But for how long?

Her mind grew clear, crystallizing around a single purpose. She leaped to her feet. “Stay with him, Beltan!”

Without waiting for an answer, she dashed across the hall, into the foyer, and out the front door. Rain pelted her as she skidded down the stone steps and ran down the gravel drive. She saw a small form crumpled on the ground. Eustace. He had brought her the photo of Anders; he had been working with Sasha. Now he was dead.

“Hold on, Anders,” she said through clenched teeth as she pushed open the door of the carriage house. “Please, you’ve got to hold on.”

She grabbed the phone from the wall, dialed, then forced herself to speak in a clear voice. Once she was finished, she hung up. For a moment she shut her eyes, gripping her bear claw necklace, murmuring a prayer for the dead as well as the living.

Then she went outside and stood in the cold rain until she heard the distant sounds of sirens.

40.

Travis watched, transfixed, as the golden woman walked toward them over the slender span of the bridge. He was aware of the others speaking and moving behind him, but only dimly. To his eyes, the woman shone like a sun. Beneath his serafi, sweat trickled down his sides, over the flat of his stomach.

A pale moon eclipsed the sun, blocking it from sight. Hot anger surged in him. . . .

“. . . to go, Travis!”

Anger melted into confusion, and the moon resolved into a familiar face. “Grace?”

She gripped his arm, her green eyes bright. “Now, Travis– come on. Farr says we can’t let her get close.”

Her touch seemed to break the torpor that had come over him. Travis grabbed her hand, and together they ran from the bridge, catching up with the others at the arch that led back into the hall of statues.

“She did that,” Nim said, pointing to the crumpled body of a sorcerer at the top of the stone steps. “The gold lady. She’ll do it to us, too.” She buried her face against Vani’s shoulder.

“No, daughter, no harm will come to us,” Vani said, hugging the girl tight. However, her gaze was not as confident as her voice. “Never did I think Ti’an might still remain in Morindu. I always believed she died soon after her marriage to Orъ. After she became his bride, the stories of my people do not speak of her.”

“But the stories of the dervishes do,” Farr said, wiping sweat from his brow. “From what I’ve learned, she was her husband’s guardian. She drank of his blood, becoming immortal just like the Fateless. It was said she would destroy any besides the Seven who attempted to draw near the throne room. We must not let her draw close to us.”

Travis glanced over his shoulder. Ti’an had reached the end of the bridge. Her beaded garment swayed and glittered as she moved, and the ruby in the center of her forehead gleamed like a third eye. She did not run, but rather walked slowly, her feet bare against the stone floor. Travis met her onyx gaze, and once again he felt heat rise within him. . . .

A hard jerk on his arm brought him back to himself. He turned and stumbled after Grace down the long flight of steps, past the dismembered corpses of the Scirathi. At least now they knew what–or rather who–had slain the Scirathi. But how? Surely, if Ti’an were close, she would not stand taller than Grace’s shoulder. How had one tiny woman torn apart a small army of sorcerers?

They reached the bottom of the steps. The hall stretched before them, the gigantic statues of spider‑eyed women and falcon‑beaked men standing sentinel on either side. At the far end, the crack in the door through which they had slipped glowed white hot. It seemed terribly far away. Grace ran toward it, and Travis followed.

“Avhir, stop!” cried a sharp voice. It was Vani.

Travis halted, turning around. Avhir was walking up the steps they had all just descended, back toward the arch that led into the dome. The T’golwas more than halfway to the top, moving slowly, mechanically, without his usual sleek stealth.

Vani took a step toward the arch, Nim in her arms. “Avhir, what are you doing? Get back here now!”

However, the T’golseemed not to hear her and kept climbing. A golden figure appeared at the top of the stairs. She raised a delicate hand, making a beckoning gesture. Avhir obeyed, moving toward her. Only a few steps remained. . . .

Larad fumbled in his robes as if to draw out the box with the Imsari. “We have to stop him.”

“It’s too late,” Farr said.

Avhir reached the final step. Ti’an’s onyx eyes flashed, and her arms reached up, coiling around his neck, drawing his face down as her own tilted upward. Their lips touched in a kiss.

The T’gol’s body went rigid, as if a spike had been driven through him, and his arms shot out to either side. He struggled, trying to pull away, but Ti’an’s small hands clamped on either side of his head, holding him in place so that their mouths remained locked. Like cracks in sun‑baked mud, black lines snaked up Avhir’s neck, over his face and hands.

It happened in a moment. Avhir gave a single jerk, then his skin changed from bronze to gray. His cheeks sank inward, and his hands curled into claws. He no longer struggled, but stood stiff and still as Ti’an continued her kiss. Her golden skin seemed to glow brighter, as if burnished with oil.

Then it was done. She released Avhir, stepping away. He toppled over, rolling down the steps, coming to a halt at Vani’s feet. The T’gol’s withered face gazed blindly, eyes like gray raisins in their sockets. Inside his black leathers, his body was a shriveled husk.

“I think we had best consider leaving,” Larad said, his voice hoarse. “Now.”

Travis managed to tear his gaze away from the mummy that moments ago had been Avhir. Ti’an was slowly, steadily descending the steps. Her skin shone so brightly it was painful to look at her, though all the same Travis now found it hard to look away. She had drawn Avhir’s blood, his life into her. And now she was going to do the same to them.

Nim screamed. The sound helped Travis to tear his gaze away from Ti’an. Vani clutched the girl and started running. Travis followed along with the others. However, they had only gone a dozen steps when he heard a groaning sound.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. Ti’an stood at the base of the steps, her arms raised before her, palms outward. The ruby on her brow shone as if on fire.

“Oh,” he heard Grace say as she and the others came to a halt.

Why had they stopped? Then Travis turned around, and he understood. At the far end of the hall, the two statues closest to the doorway were moving. Sand fell from their shoulders as they stepped from their pedestals; the stone floor cracked under the pressure of their feet.

Farr was closest to them. The statue of the spider‑eyed woman towered over him, twenty feet tall. Red light flashed in its multifaceted eyes as it brought a fist whistling down toward his head.

The dervish dived at the last minute, rolling to one side. The statue’s fist crashed into the floor with a sound like thunder, creating a gaping pit three feet across. The figure of the falcon‑beaked man lumbered forward, swifter than seemed possible for such an enormous thing, and Farr was forced to roll to one side as a stone foot kicked at him. He jumped to his feet and tried to lunge toward the crack in the door, but both statues stepped in front of it, blocking the line of white light. Farr backed away.

“If anyone has any ideas how else to get out of here,” Grace said, her face pale, “now would be the time to speak up.”

However, the only other way out of the hall was the arch that led back to the dome. And that would mean going past Ti’an. She was walking toward them now, the ruby on her brow blazing.

“We’ve got to get past those statues,” Farr said.

“How?” Larad said. “I doubt they will step aside from the doors if we ask them.”

Farr looked at Travis. “They might, if he asked them.”

Travis shook his head. How could he control the statues?

“This city rose out of the sand at the touch of your blood,” Farr said, drawing close to Travis. “And these statues are part of this city. Use your blood to command them.”

Travis wanted to argue, but he felt the eyes of the others on him, and he knew without looking that Ti’an was getting closer; he could feel her like a heat.

“I’ll try,” he said, then moved toward the statues blocking the door.

The statues’ eyes glowed crimson. They reached toward him with massive stone hands, moving faster than he had expected. Travis raked his fingernails over the knuckles of his right hand, prying away the scabs, so that blood flowed.

“Get back,” he shouted, thrusting his hand toward the statues.

They kept coming. The floor shook under their feet; their hands reached for him.

“I said get back!”

Again Travis thrust out with his hand, and this time red droplets flew from his bleeding knuckles, spattering the outstretched arm of the spider‑eyed woman.

The statue stopped moving. The droplets of blood glittered on its arm–then vanished, as if absorbed by the stone. The light in the statue’s eyes changed from crimson to gold. It had worked. . . .

“Travis, look out!”

Grace’s shout propelled him into action. He ducked barely in time to avoid the crushing swing of a stone fist. He looked up to see the statue of the falcon‑beaked man bearing down on him. Its eyes still shone crimson. Travis’s knuckles were already scabbing over in the dry air; he clawed at them again, trying to open them up, to make the blood flow.

There was no time. The male statue brought its fist down toward Travis’s head. He tensed, waiting to be crushed to a pulp. The stone fist whistled down–

–and struck the floor next to Travis with a deafening crash. The force of it threw him to one side. When he looked up, awe filled him. The statue of the spider‑eyed woman was grappling with the male statue. The colossi rocked back and forth, arms entangled, one’s eyes blazing crimson, the other gold. The male statue opened its beak in a silent cry. It shoved hard against the other statue, knocking it back. However, their stone limbs were still entangled. As the one statue toppled, it dragged the other with it.

They struck the doors of the palace, slamming them shut with a boom!Then the statues crashed against the floor, breaking apart into a heap of rubble. The head of the female statue shattered, while that of the male rolled to a halt against the door. The light in its eyes flickered, then went out.

“You did it, Master Wilder,” Larad said, gazing at the fallen statues in fascination. “You stopped them.”

“And us as well,” Farr said, face haggard. “The doors are blocked.”

Travis stared as elation gave way to new fear. Farr was right. The debris from the statues was piled in front of the doors. And the doors opened inward; they could not be opened without clearing away the rubble. Farr pushed against the falcon‑beaked head, but it was no use; it had to weigh two tons.

Grace was looking at him, her green eyes overbright. “Now what do we do, Travis?”

Nothing, he wanted to say. However, before he could speak, a high, keening wail filled the hall.

The sound was like a siren, only higher, louder, threatening to split Travis’s skull. He thrust his hands against his ears, but it was no use. The sound kept building. He turned to see Ti’an no more than a dozen paces away. Her mouth was open; she was making the noise. It was a scream of fury.

Just when Travis was sure the keening would drive him mad, Ti’an’s mouth shut, and the sound ceased. Farr slumped to his knees with a moan, and Nim was sobbing as Vani clutched her tight. Travis knew they had to do something, but the piercing wail had addled his mind; he couldn’t think.

Before he could react, Ti’an thrust her hands out before her, and the gem on her forehead blazed with renewed flame. A sound like an earthquake filled the hall.

Larad stared up, his shattered face going white.

“No,” Grace murmured. “Oh, no.”

All along the length of the hall, on either side, crimson light flickered to life in the eyes of the statues–not two of them this time, but all–twenty or more. Dust clouded the air as the statues stirred, swinging stone arms and legs, turning ancient faces toward the intruders. The floor shook as they stepped down from their pedestals.

Travis pushed Grace aside as one of the male statues bore down on him, falcon beak clicking. It opened its gigantic hand, grabbing for Travis. Stone fingers, each as thick as a tree trunk, began to close around him. He rubbed his hand against them, smearing them with blood. The blood vanished, and the stone fingers ceased moving. With a grunt, he pushed himself up and out of the hand, then leaped away, hitting the floor and rolling.

He lay stunned for a moment, listening to the crash of breaking stone behind him. Had the statue turned to fight the others? A high‑pitched scream jolted him out of his stupor. It was Nim. He lurched to his feet, and pain sparkled in his ribs. He turned around to see what was happening.

Then he froze. Ti’an stood before him. Her golden body shone through her beaded garment, as if she were clad only in light. He could see the curve of her hips, the fullness of her breasts, and the darker bronze of her nipples. Again fire surged in him, and he could not move. The shouts and noise of breaking stone faded to a dull roar in his ears.

Ti’an tilted her head–he was by far the taller–to look at him. Her face was expressionless, a thing of flawless beauty forged of gold. However, in her eyes smoldered an ancient fury. She reached for him, to draw his head down close to hers . . .

With the last shred of his will, Travis flung his hand up in a warding gesture and stepped back. Blood flew from his wounded knuckles, spattering her outstretched hand. Ti’an paused, gazing at the red droplets on her finger. Then, languorously, she brought her finger to her mouth, touching the drop of Travis’s blood to her lips.

Ti’an’s onyx eyes went wide. A shudder passed through her, rippling her garment. Then a new light shone in her gaze–not fury but something fiercer, hungrier. Her full lips parted to reveal white, pointed teeth.

“My husband,” she said, and before he could move, Ti’an reached out and pressed a hand against Travis’s chest.

Her hand seemed to burn through the cloth of his serafi, and through skin, muscle, and bone as well, so that it felt as if she was touching his heart, wrapping her fingers around it, setting it afire. The sounds of the struggle behind Travis faded, replaced by a rhythmic drone. He was aware of shadows moving on the edge of his vision, some large, some small. It almost seemed he recognized one of them.

Grace?he tried to say. He started to glance toward a woman who had stumbled to the floor while a massive shape loomed above her.

A hot finger touched his chin, turning his head with inexorable strength. Ti’an’s face filled his gaze, and he could see nothing else. Her finger traced a smoldering line down his throat, his chest, his stomach.

The heat burned in him now like a sun in his chest. A sweat of desire slicked his skin, and a metallic taste filled his mouth. Her beads shifted as she moved, and he caught a glimpse of the triangle between her legs, dark with mystery. He felt his body stir, wishing nothing else than to become one with her. All other thoughts fled him. He moved close to her, bending his head, wanting to join his mouth to hers.

“Not yet,” she said, her voice like sharp music, pushing him back with irresistible strength.

For a moment Travis felt an anguish such as he had never known. How could she spurn him? He would rather die than not have her. Then his pain was forgotten as she took his hand in her own, her slender fingers closing around his in a viselike grip.

“Come,” Ti’an said.

And forgetting the dim, struggling shadows behind him, Travis followed.

41.

The floor heaved as one of the gigantic statues struck with its fists, and Grace fell hard to her knees. The taste of blood filled her mouth; her teeth had clamped down on her tongue. She tried to get up, but the floor kept bucking and rolling like an angry sea.

“Travis, stop!” a voice cried out. It was Vani.

Grace managed to look up. Ti’an stood before Travis, gold skin gleaming. He was making no effort to run from her, but was instead staring with a rapt expression. As Grace watched, he took her hand, and together they began to walk toward the steps at the far end of the hall. The statues, many of them just stepping off their pedestals as they awoke, lumbered out of the pair’s way as if in deference to their mistress–or was it their master–then moved to join the others in the attack.

Grace stared after them. Why hasn’t she kissed him like she did Avhir? What’s she doing with him?Then, with a jolt of dread, she realized where it was Ti’an must be leading him. She’s taking him to the throne room.

Before she could consider what that meant, a shadow fell over Grace. She looked up, and rational thought fled her. A statue loomed above her, its multifaceted eyes glowing crimson. It bent down, reaching for her . . .

Strong hands grabbed Grace’s serafi, dragging her to her feet, pulling her out of the way. The statue’s fingers closed on thin air. It rose up, opening its mouth to let out a soundless cry of fury. Grace turned around and gazed into Farr’s grim, handsome face. He opened his mouth as if to say something.

Grace’s eyes grew large. “Run!” she shouted, grabbing his hand and pulling him to one side as another statue reached for them. They sidestepped a blow from the female statue that had tried to crush Grace, then ducked between the legs of one of the falcon‑beaked men. They made it to the wall and pressed their backs against it, panting.

They’re big and slow, Grace. If we just keep moving, they won’t be able to get us.

Certainly they could not touch Vani. Holding Nim tight, the T’golmoved so quickly her outline blurred, slipping in and out among the statues. She paused a moment, deliberately drawing one of the statues toward her. Then, as it bore down on her, she seemed to vanish; the statue collided with another. Stone arms broke off at the shoulder; a head toppled to the floor, cracking open like a melon. The statues collapsed in a jumble of stone, and a cloud of dust rose into the air, illuminated by shafts of sunlight from above.

“Larad!” Farr shouted. “Use the Imsari!”

The Runelord could not move as swiftly as Vani, and he had been caught between two approaching statues. He fumbled with the iron box that contained the Stones, but then his gray robe tangled around his ankles and he fell to his knees. The box tumbled to the floor.

Operating on instinct, Grace reached out with the Touch. However, there was nothing to reach out to. The statues were not alive; they had no threads. And the strands of the others were only the faintest wisps shining in her mind, far too delicate to grasp. Her magic was no use. She looked at Farr, but he shook his head. Blood sorcery was as weak as witchcraft; he was powerless as well. She gripped Farr’s arm as the two statues bent over, reaching for Larad.

With a loud crack, the heads of the two statues collided with one another. The colossi stumbled back, away from Larad. The Runelord gaped for a moment, perhaps astonished he was still alive, then he scrambled on his hands and knees, reaching for the box. He opened it, drew out one of the Stones, and held it high.

“Sar!”

A gray‑green flash. The two statues stiffened and went still. For a moment they rocked back and forth, then they toppled over, crashing against one of the spider‑eyed females. All three smashed against the floor.

You did it, Master Larad!she tried to send the words across the Weirding to him.

Grace wasn’t certain he had gotten the message, but he staggered to his feet and looked at her, a satisfied expression on his scarred face. However, the reprieve was brief. More statues had lumbered toward them. There were still over a dozen of them, and they were coming all at once. One seemed to notice Grace and Farr leaning against the wall. It lurched toward them, falcon beak clicking, and they were forced to run.

“We must flee back into the dome!” Vani shouted. She seemed to blink out of existence as one of the statues swiped at her, then reappeared behind it. “If we retreat over one of the bridges, they will not be able to follow. The spans are too slender.”

Energy surged in Grace. Yes, that was where they had to go. That was where Ti’an had taken Travis.

“Come on,” she hissed to Farr and started running.

Though not as swift as the T’gol, they were able to dodge past the statues that lumbered toward them. In moments, both Grace and Farr were past the statues, as was Vani.

“ Sar!” Larad chanted again, his voice ragged, holding Sinfathisar aloft. The Stone flared with gray‑green light, and another statue ceased moving. It fell with a boom!

Why do the Imsari still work when other magic doesn’t?Grace wondered, her logical mind operating despite her fear. She didn’t know, but she was glad Larad was still able to wield the Great Stones. The Weirding had faded to a wisp of what it had been, an old cobweb in a corner, and Farr was no longer able to call the morndarito him; blood sorcery had ceased functioning as well.

Then why was Ti’an able to animate the statues?the scientist in her asked, still pressing for answers. She didn’t know, except . . .

Ti’an drank directly of Orъ’s blood, and Orъ was the most powerful sorcerer who ever lived. The Imsari are incredibly powerful as well, and incredibly ancient.

It made sense that the oldest magics would be the last to go: those powers that were deepest, and closest to the source of all magic. Except they would still fade, wouldn’t they? The rifts in the heavens would keep growing, and soon even the eldest magics would cease functioning.

There was no time to think about it. Larad turned and ran, catching up to them. The statues reacted slowly to this change in tactics. They milled about in a tight knot, colliding with one another, knocking chips of stone off their bodies. Then, one by one, they turned around, eyes flaring crimson, and started after their prey.

Vani led the way across the hall, Grace and Farr just behind, followed by Larad. When they reached the foot of the steps that led up to the arch, Vani hesitated. Avhir’s shriveled body still lay there on the floor.

Grace thought of his bronze eyes and how they would never shine again. Avhir had feared kindness, and in the end a kiss had killed him. “He’s dead,” she said. “Just like Ky–”

“Do not speak them!” Vani flung the words at Grace like knives. “Do not dare to speak those names!”

Grace bit down on her tongue. Vani’s face was hard and ashen, but her gold eyes were dry. She started up the steps, Nim in her arms. The others followed.

Vani was right, Grace thought. Kyleesand Avhirwere words that no longer had meaning. But Travisstill meant something; Grace had to believe that. Because if Travis was gone, then there would be no one to speak the Last Rune. There would be no one to stop all words, all names–and all the things they stood for–from ceasing to be.

Panting, they bounded up the last of the steps. The arch flashed by, the dome soared above them. The beams that shafted down from the high windows were red as copper, like rays from a dying sun.

Larad glanced over his shoulder. “The statues are still coming. They’re right behind us.”

“The bridge!” Vani shouted.

They had reached the nearest of the slender spans that arched over the void, toward the tetrahedron of gold that seemed to float in the darkness. Vani led the way, holding Nim. Larad started to pull back, to let Grace go first, but this was no time for courtly deference. She pushed him forward, then followed on his heels. The void yawned to either side; it seemed to suck at her. She forced herself to gaze at the center of Larad’s back.

“Hurry!” Farr shouted behind her. “If the statues reach the bridge while we’re still in the middle–”

The span trembled beneath Grace’s feet, vibrating like a piano wire. She didn’t look back, but she could picture what was happening: the first of the colossi setting foot on the bridge.

Vani had reached the platform on the far side. She turned around, and Nim’s eyes became circles of fear. The bridge shook again, and Grace’s foot skidded off one edge. She would have fallen if Farr hadn’t grabbed her from behind. Larad tripped on his robe, but he had reached the end of the span and fell to his knees next to Vani. Grace clenched her teeth. Just a few more feet . . .

The bridge gave a violent jerk. Grace no longer felt stone beneath her feet. She was going to fall.

A weight struck her from behind–hard. Farr’s arms wrapped around her. They flew through space, then tumbled onto the platform.

Grace rolled to a stop on her side, cheek against stone. Her jarred vision cleared in time to see the two halves of the bridge tilt downward. With a loud crack!they broke free. Three statues toppled like tin soldiers, arms waving stiffly as they plunged into the void. The pieces of the bridge followed. There was one last flicker of crimson, then blackness swallowed them all.

Ten statues milled about on the far edge of the abyss, eyes flickering, their stone minds too dull to determine how to follow their prey. One of them strayed too close to the edge and toppled over. The others seemed not to notice.

Grace realized that Farr was still holding her tight in his arms. She did not resist. It felt good to believe she could be held that way by him, if only for a moment. Then, slowly, she pulled away. He let her go.

“Is everyone all right?” she said, standing. It was a ridiculous question. None of them were all right, not after that. However, Farr and Larad picked themselves up, and Vani nodded.

“Statues shouldn’t be able to move,” Nim said, her round face solemn.

Grace couldn’t disagree. She turned around. Now that they were close to it, she could see that the golden tetrahedron was indeed large, over fifty feet on a side. The triangular door seemed to be open, but she could see only darkness within. It took her fragmented thoughts a moment to re‑form, then she remembered what they had to do. She started toward the door.

Farr grabbed her arm. “You can’t go in there.”

She did not speak. Instead, she simply looked at him. He jerked his hand back as if stung.

“All the stories say it’s death for us to enter,” he added weakly.

Grace took another step toward the door. “We have to. That’s where she took Travis.”

Nim wriggled from Vani’s arms, slipping to the floor. “He is Fateless,” the T’golsaid. “His kind may enter there.”

“What about her?” Larad nodded toward Nim. “Can’t she enter there as well? Can’t she open the way for us?”

Vani shot the Runelord a black look. “She is a child, not a tool. You cannot simply use her!”

“Like you used her to return to Earth?” Grace said, her voice scalpel‑cool. She had not meant the words to cut, but by the way Vani flinched they had, and deeply.

“It’s all right, Mother,” Nim said. There was no longer fear in her small voice. “I want to go in. I want to find my father.”

Vani seemed beyond speech. She made no effort to stop Nim as the girl moved past Grace, to the door.

Farr made a sharp motion with his hand. “Stay close to her. It’s our only chance. If she is truly a nexus, then the threads of fate will untangle in her presence.”

“And if she’s not?” Larad said, raising an eyebrow.

“Then our own fates will be crushed, and cease to be.”

Grace tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. Only a dead man has no fate, Vani’s al‑Mama had said to her. Two times Travis had died and been reborn: once in the fires of Krondisar, and again in the desert outside Morindu. That was why he was A’narai.

And what about you, Grace? Will you be reborn if you die in there?

She doubted it.

Nim stepped into the triangle of darkness. The others followed in a tight knot: first Grace, then Farr and Larad, and finally Vani. For a moment Grace feared she was lost. The darkness closed around her. She could see nothing, feel nothing. A scream rose in her throat, but she had no mouth with which to give it voice. She was the flame on a candle. The darkness constricted around her, a dark hand to snuff her out.

“This way,” said a small voice in the darkness. Nim.

Grace felt herself being pulled as if by a string tied around her middle. Then the darkness vanished, replaced by a golden radiance. A shuddering breath filled her lungs. She was alive.

So were the others. Larad stood next to her, looking astonished and vaguely ill. Farr was gazing around them with a look of fascination on his face, but Vani’s eyes were locked on something straight ahead. Nim took a step forward, holding out her small hands.

“Father!”

It took Grace’s dizzied mind a long moment to take everything in. They stood along one wall of a large, three‑sided room. Triangular doors were cut into each of the other walls; the other two bridges were visible beyond them. The chamber’s walls were carved with countless symbols, and they tilted in as they soared upward, meeting overhead in a single point from which the red‑gold radiance emanated. The room was capped by a crystalline prism. The prism must catch some of the beams of light that spilled through the windows in the dome outside, Grace thought, focusing them and bringing them inside.

In the center of the chamber was a dais: three‑sided like the room with several steps leading up to it. On the dais rested a chair made of gold, its back shaped like a gigantic spider. In the chair sat a figure. Iron shackles bound his arms and feet to the chair, but there was no point to them.

The man on the throne was dead.

The body had shriveled to a desiccated husk eons ago. The arms and legs were no more than bones held together by dried tendons like old twine. Papery skin peeled away from bare ribs. What might once have been a royal robe of crimson was reduced to a few shreds dangling from sharp shoulders. The skull leaned back against the throne, yellowed teeth bared in a fleshless grin, empty sockets staring.

A hiss, like that of an angry cat, drew Grace’s gaze downward. Ti’an knelt on one of the broad steps before the dais. Below her, lying on the dark stone, was Travis. His serafilay crumpled on a lower step, and he was naked save for a short linen kilt. She had anointed him with oil, and his skin gleamed in the metallic light, taut over sculpted muscle. He was beautiful–far more so than when Grace had first met him years ago–as if he was a statue himself, formed of gold.

His eyes were closed, but his chest rose and fell; he was still alive. Only not for long. Ti’an bent over him, one hand cradled beneath his head, turning it to one side, the other wrapped around a curved knife. A golden bowl sat on the next lowest step, ready to catch the flow of his blood once she opened his throat.

Ti’an hissed again, a look of anger on her lovely, eternal face, glaring at the intruders. Then she bent again over Travis. She lifted the knife, ready to strike. They were too far away to stop her. Even Vani would not be able to reach the dais in time.

The knife flashed, descending.

And Nim screamed.

The girl had screamed before, but not like this. Her cry did not cease after a moment, but continued to rise in volume and pitch, careening off the walls, doubling, trebling, until the very air seemed on the verge of shattering. Nim’s hands clenched into fists at her side; her spine went rigid. Still she screamed, her head thrown back and eyes clenched tight. Larad pressed his hands to his ears. Farr staggered. Grace felt as if her skull was going to explode.

Ti’an stood, her dark eyes smoldering like coals. She opened her own mouth, and a second scream sounded, rising on the air. It was not a human sound, but rather a piercing siren, as shrill as Nim’s. Farr grunted, sinking to his knees. Larad staggered back against the wall. Vani’s eyes were shut, and her arms were crossed before her in a warding gesture. Spikes of pain stabbed at Grace’s ears, driving deep into her brain. She could feel the very structure of her being weakening, as if she was a thing made of glass, crazed with cracks. Another moment, and this would destroy her.

Nim’s scream ceased. The girl collapsed to the floor in a small heap. Ti’an closed her mouth. She gazed at the motionless girl, then turned and bent back over Travis.

Vani was the first to recover. “Nim!” she cried, running toward the girl.

Farr started moving a moment later. Ti’an glared at him, thrusting a hand in his direction. The dervish ceased moving. He stood still, staring forward, and a thin line of spittle trickled from the corner of his mouth. Grace looked at Larad. Could he do something with the Great Stones? No, he was staring like Farr, motionless, a blank expression on his face.

Ti’an seemed to concentrate on the two men for a moment, then she turned her head. For a moment she gazed at Grace, but her expression was dismissive. Then she bent again over Travis, turning his head, exposing the gleaming skin of his neck. She raised the knife.

Vani had just reached Nim and was picking her up. Larad and Farr weren’t moving. No one could do anything. No one but Grace. The power of the Weirding was all but gone; she had no magic. However, she had something better.

Fury.

“Get your bloody hands off of him, bitch!” spoke a hard voice, and Grace knew it for her own.

Ti’an’s nose wrinkled as she bared pointed teeth. She opened her mouth to scream again. However, Grace was already running. As the first siren‑like wail rose on the air, Grace gritted her teeth, ignoring the pain, and threw herself forward, up the steps of the dais.

The wail ceased as she crashed into Ti’an. The knife flew through the air, then skittered to a stop on the lowest step. Grace’s momentum carried her forward, so that she landed on top of the golden woman. It was like embracing a bronze statue that had just been broken out of its mold, still glowing with forge heat. Grace tried to pull away.

Slender arms and legs coiled around her. In an easy motion, Ti’an flipped her over. Air whooshed out of Grace as she landed hard, the sharp edge of a step cutting into her back. Ti’an straddled her, thighs squeezing Grace’s rib cage. Her delicate hands closed around Grace’s throat, crushing her windpipe. Ti’an’s face was impassive, like that of a golden sculpture; her breath was hot and metallic. Stars exploded in front of Grace’s eyes as Ti’an’s fingers tightened around her neck. . . .

Ti’an froze, her dark eyes going wide. Her mouth opened, but this time no siren call came out. Instead, dark fluid stained her lips.

“My love . . .” she gasped.

Then she slumped to one side and rolled down the steps of the dais.

Air rushed into Grace’s lungs, delicious and painful. After several ragged breaths, she managed to push herself up on one elbow. Ti’an’s body lay at the foot of the dais. The knife jutted from the center of her back. Already her golden skin was beginning to go dull.

“Are you all right, Grace?” said a gentle, familiar voice.

Grace looked up. Travis stood above her, his gray eyes concerned. Pain filled her–the good kind, the ache that let her know she was still alive.

Travis, she tried to say, but the word couldn’t escape her bruised throat.

“Don’t speak,” he said, as if she had the power to do so. He knelt, touching her cheek. “Thanks for coming after me again.”

She smiled and made a gesture with her hands, one that spoke as eloquently as any the mute man Sky had ever made. That’s what I do.

Then she wept as he held her in his arms.

42.

Travis cradled Grace gently as she pressed her face against his chest, sobbing. Strangely, he did not feel like weeping himself. Instead he felt alive, exhilarated.

By Olrig, you showed her!Jack Graystone’s voice crowed in his mind. Thought she could use your blood for her own ends. Well, she found herself on the other end of the knife!

“Shut up, Jack,” Travis growled under his breath.

“What?” Grace said, pushing back and wiping her cheeks.

Travis helped her up. “I said, ‘How’s Nim?’ ”

“She is well,” Vani said, approaching the dais, holding Nim by the hand. The girl walked beside the T’gol, pale‑faced, but apparently unharmed by whatever Ti’an’s scream had done to her.

Though unable to move, even to see, when he was lying on the dais, Travis had been aware of everything that had been taking place around him. The air of this place seemed to hum, transmitting everything that happened within its walls and carrying it to him in a way light and sound could not. He had his back to the two of them; all the same he knew Farr and Larad approached, faces haggard.

“She was sad,” Nim said, gazing down at Ti’an’s motionless body. “She was so sad, she wanted to hurt everybody.”

Grace knelt before the girl and brushed a dark curl from her face. “Why was she sad, Nim?”

The girl pointed to the shriveled mummy chained to the throne.

“Orъ,” Farr said, taking a step up the dais. “So he’s dead after all.”

“For a good long time, by the look of him,” Larad said, giving Ti’an’s body a wide berth.

Travis picked up his fallen serafiand shrugged it on. “She wanted to resurrect him.”

Grace stood, her expression startled. “Could she have?”

“She believed she could,” Vani said, gesturing to the golden bowl. “She would have caught your blood in that, and taken it to him.”

Travis moved up the dais, toward the mummy on the throne. When Ti’an had seduced him, he had fallen not only under her power, but under her thoughts as well. He had glimpsed her mind, as well as the single purpose that had consumed it.

“She recognized his blood flowing in me. She believed it had the power to restore him. I’m not certain if she was right.” He started to reach out toward one of the skeletal hands curled on the arm of the throne, then pulled back. “I’m not sure the single drop in me would have been enough. I think it would take far more to do it. But she was determined to try. She loved him. For three thousand years, ever since the fall of Morindu, she’s been waiting to bring him back to life. And now . . .”

“Now they are together,” Vani said, the words rueful. She knelt beside Ti’an’s body. The once‑golden skin was chalky now. “She was my ancestor. I am of the royal line of Morindu. I am descended of her and Orъ.”

“Perhaps that explains it then,” Farr said. He had been examining the mummy on the throne.

Vani looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“She was a nexus, just like Nim. That was how she could enter this place and guard Orъ in his slumber. I think when she screamed, when she was angry or alarmed enough, it . . . affected the flow of events. And I think it’s the same for Nim.”

Grace held a hand to her throat, wincing. “When they were both screaming like that, it felt like I was falling apart.”

“That’s because you were,” Farr said. Travis noticed he did not gaze at Grace. Instead, his dark eyes were on Vani. “We all were. We were being torn apart by the pull of infinite possibilities, of infinite fates. Each of us might have lived our lives in countless other ways. I think what we felt were those different lives intersecting, overlapping. And canceling one another out, like sound waves can cancel each other out if aligned properly.”

“Is that why they were both screaming?” Grace said. “To neutralize the other?” She looked at Nim, but the girl seemed suddenly shy and hung her head, letting her hair cover her face.

Travis wasn’t certain he completely understood all this, yet Farr’s words feltright. Only when Ti’an and Nim had screamed, it hadn’t affected him as it had the others. With Ti’an’s attention focused on Nim, her spell of seduction had lost its hold on Travis. He had been able to stand, take the knife in his hands, and use it against her. But why hadn’t he been affected by her scream like the rest of them?

“Only a dead man has no fate,” Grace murmured.

Had she heard his thoughts? No, the Weirding was too weak for that now. All the same, she had understood what he was thinking. He felt Farr’s eyes on him. However, before he could say anything, Larad’s excited voice came from across the chamber.

“Look at these markings. They’re fascinating–more like pictures than writing. I feel I should almost be able to understand them.”

“Do not stray too far from Nim!” Vani called out to the Runelord.

The girl raised her head and touched Vani’s arm. “It’s all right, Mother. It’s safe here now.”

Travis shut his eyes, again feeling the hum all around him. “I think she’s right. I think what she and Ti’an did together . . . I think it pulled the threads of fate, untangling them.” He opened his eyes. “And now that Orъ is dead, they won’t tangle again. What have you found, Master Larad?”

The Runelord was running his hands over the wall. “It’s a story.”

“A story of what?” Farr said, approaching.

Vani, Nim, Grace, and Travis followed. Then Travis saw the markings, and in an instant he understood.

“Everything,” he said softly. “It’s the story of everything.”

He moved past Larad, to the wall, tracing the carvings in the stone with a finger.

“They’re like the pictographs we saw in the cave beneath Tarras,” Grace said, turning around. “Only there are so many of them. It would take ages to try to translate them all.”

She was right about the first part. These were indeed like the carvings they had found beneath Tarras: stylized symbols that were not quite art, not quite writing, but something in between. Only it wouldn’t take time to translate them, because Travis understood the symbols as clearly as if they were moving before him like stick figure actors pantomiming a play. Ti’an had granted him more than he thought when she put him under her spell. Or was it something else? Was it the very air of this place that transmitted the meaning of the symbols to him, just as it transmitted the actions, even the feelings, of the others? He could sense Grace’s sharp curiosity behind him, and Farr’s more urgent craving for knowledge.

“Travis?” Grace said, and he sensed rather than saw her take a step toward him.

“I can read them, Grace.” His hands felt hot, and the carvings seemed to shimmer when he passed his fingers over them. He touched two stick figures standing side by side. Small dots fell from the arm of one of them, while the other held a curved knife. “Somehow I can read them all.”

“Maybe because he wrote them,” Larad said, and though Travis’s back was turned he knew the Runelord had pointed toward the throne.

No, that wasn’t it. Here were more symbols. The one stick figure sat on a chair. The other stood behind, still holding the knife. “It was she,” Travis said. “Ti’an. She’s the one who made these.”

He moved left, running his hands over the wall, going back to the beginning.

“Here he is–King Orъ. Only he wasn’t a king then. Morindu hadn’t been built yet. It was just him and his tribe in the desert. And then . . .” A fever seemed to grip Travis. His eyes drank in the meaning of the symbols faster than seemed possible. He was racing along the wall, moving to the right now, his fingers skimming over the stones. “Then theycame. There were thirteen of them. They answered his call, and they were powerful. More powerful than any that came before. He took them . . . took them into him, and . . .” Travis stopped, then turned and gazed at the rest of the symbols that ringed the room. “Oh,” he said.

Farr’s expression was eager, hungry. “What is it? What do the symbols mean? I can’t read them.”

On shaking legs, Travis returned to the mummy chained to the throne. “He understood. King Orъ. He understood the answer.”

“The answer to what?” Vani said, hands resting on Nim’s shoulders.

Travis’s mind buzzed. The heat surged in him. “Remember the story you told us, Farr? The one about the twins, the ones who were born out of nothing at the beginning–one light, the other dark? Well, they’re coming together again, struggling with each other. That’s what’s causing the rifts in the sky. Only the twins aren’t trying to kill each other.”

Farr’s gaze was fixed on him. “Then what are they trying to do?”

“They’re trying to save each other.”

The others stared at him. Travis turned around. Standing here, in the center of the chamber, he could see the story unfold in its entirety.

It began not long after the dawn of Amъn. Angular symbols suggested towers and ziggurats rising up from the desert beside the waters of the River Emyr. The great city of Usyr stood among them, as well as other city‑states–but not Morindu. In that time, Orъ was neither god nor king, but instead was the leader of the nomadic tribe that had first discovered the presence of the bodiless spirits known as the morndari, and that had first made blood offerings to entice the spirits into doing their bidding. Over time, other tribes grew more adept at commanding the spirits; they were the ones who raised cities. In turn, the tribe that had first discovered the morndariseemed doomed to die out.

Then Orъ was born. A seer proclaimed he was destined to be a great sorcerer, and so as an infant his mother fed him with her blood rather than her milk. The seer spoke truly, and even as a child he was skilled beyond the eldest sorcerers at the art of summoning the morndari. One series of symbols showed him bringing a vast herd of cattle under his command. Others suggested trees rising out of bare ground and bearing fruit while small droplets fell from his arm.

Orъ was only twenty when he became the leader of his tribe, and under his rule his people prospered–so much so that the rulers of a nearby city grew jealous of their wealth in gold and cattle.

That city was Scirath.

The god‑king of Scirath launched an assault on Orъ’s tribe, sending a great army of warriors and sorcerers. Orъ’s people were far outnumbered. Death was certain–unless Orъ made a great gamble.