The Last Rune 6: The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  They listened, amazed, as al-Mama told the tale she had pieced together by gazing at the T’hot cards and speaking to elders among the various bands of Mournish. Twenty-seven years ago, a band of Mournish from the farthest south were run out of the Free City of Gendarra by an angry guildmaster. He had purchased a love potion from one of the Mournish women, and it had worked as she said it would, granting him the love he deserved. However, this had not been the love of the beautiful lady he admired, but rather that of a sow who merrily trotted after him everywhere in the city. For as a selfish man he deserved no better.

  Enraged, the guildmaster sent his mercenaries after the Mournish, and they were waylaid. Most escaped, but not all. One wagon was caught and burned, and the young Mournish couple within died. They had had a baby, an infant girl, and it was believed she perished with her parents. Only it was not so, and al-Mama’s cards had revealed the rest of the tale, which no one had known until then: how the infant had been thrown into a thicket of bushes when the wagon toppled, and how a day later she was found by a tradesman on his way home to southern Toloria. He took the baby with him, for his wife had always wanted a child.

  Thus Fate had taken Lirith away from the Mournish, and Fate had brought her back—to her people, and to Sareth.

  When the Mournish departed Gravenfist Keep, Lirith had traveled south with her people and her husband, and life had seemed joyous beyond imagining. Then, one night a little over a year ago, as the two of them lay together, they had discovered one more wonder wrought by Lady Aryn’s spell. Their bodies had become one, and they had laughed and wept with a pleasure neither had thought themselves capable of. Over the moons that followed Lirith’s belly had swelled, and here now in her arms was the greatest wonder of all: little Taneth, dark and sweet and perfect.

  Lirith sighed, turning her gaze toward the east.

  Sareth touched her shoulder. “Are you sure it was because of Taneth you came out here, beshala? Is there not another reason?”

  She gazed at him, her eyes bright with tears. “I don’t want you to go.”

  So that was what this was about. Last night, a young man from another Mournish band had ridden hard into the circle of their wagons, bearing ill news.

  “I do not wish to leave,” Sareth said. “But you heard the message just as I did. A dervish has come out of the desert, or at least one who claims he is a dervish. He must be seen.”

  “Yes, someone must go see him. But why must it be you?”

  “I am descended of the royal line of Morindu.”

  Lirith’s dark eyes flashed. “So is your sister, Vani. She is the one who was trained at Golgoru. She is the T’gol. It is she who should be doing this thing, not you.”

  Sareth pressed his lips together; he could not argue that point. Three thousand years ago, the sorcerers of Morindu the Dark had destroyed their own city lest its secrets fall into the hands of their foe, the city of Scirath. The Morindai became wanderers and vagabonds, known in the north as the Mournish.

  After their exile, the Morindai forbade the practice of blood sorcery until Morindu was found again. However, there were those who defied that law. Dervishes, they were called. They were renegades, anathema. The silent fortress of Golgoru had been founded to train assassins who could hunt down the dervishes and destroy them with means other than magic.

  Sareth moved to the edge of the grove. “My sister is gone, and the cards reveal not where, though al-Mama has gazed at them time after time. I know of no way to find her—unless you think Queen Grace may have heard some news.”

  Lirith shook her head. “You know I have not Aryn’s strength in the Touch. I cannot reach her over the Weirding, let alone Grace. They are too far away.” She frowned. “Indeed, it seems my ability to reach out over the leagues grows less these days, not more. I can hardly weave the simplest spell of late. The Weirding feels . . . it feels tired, somehow.”

  “Perhaps it’s you that’s a little tired, beshala,” Sareth said, touching Taneth’s tiny hand.

  She smiled. “Perhaps so. Still, it is strange. I will have to ask Aryn about it the next time she contacts me.”

  While Sareth did not doubt Lirith was happy living among the Mournish, he knew she missed her friends. The Mournish had journeyed to Calavere—where Aryn and Teravian ruled as king and queen over both Calavan and Toloria—only once in the last three years, and they had not returned at all to Gravenfist Keep, where Queen Grace dwelled. Still, the three witches could speak from time to time, using magic, and that was a comfort.

  An idea occurred to Sareth. “Why don’t you and Taneth go to Calavere, beshala? It will not take you long to journey there, and the roads are safe. Aryn is to have her own child soon, is she not? I am certain she will enjoy seeing our little one. And when I am finished with my work in the south, I will send word.”

  “I believe you are trying to distract me,” Lirith said, giving him a stern look. However, she could not keep it up, and she laughed as she hugged Taneth to her. “I confess, I long to see Aryn with my eyes, not just hear her voice over the Weirding. And if I stayed here, I imagine I would do nothing but fret and worry about you.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Sareth said. “You will go to Calavere at once. I will ask Damari to accompany you.” He scratched his chin. “Or maybe I’d better make that Jahiel. He’s much less handsome.”

  “Damari will do just fine,” Lirith said. Then her mirth ceased, and she leaned her head against his bare chest, Taneth between them. He circled his arms around them both.

  “Promise me you won’t worry, beshala.”

  “I will be waiting,” was all she said, and they stayed that way, the three of them together, as dawn turned the sky to gold.

  3.

  Sareth left that day, taking only one other—a broad-shouldered young man named Fahir—with him. Word had been sent to the fastness of Golgoru, in the Mountains of the Shroud, but there were few T’gol these days. Nor was it likely one would reach Al-Amún sooner than Sareth; from here it was only a half day’s ride to the port city of Kalos, on the southern tip of Falengarth, at the point where the Summer Sea was narrowest. Sareth hoped to reach the city by nightfall and book passage on a ship tomorrow.

  Before he left, his al-Mama called him into her dragon-shaped wagon and made him draw a card from her T’hot deck. His fingertips tingled as they brushed one of the well-worn cards, and he drew it out. As he turned it over, a hiss escaped her.

  “The Void,” she rasped.

  There was no picture on the card. It was painted solid black.

  “What does it mean? Do I have no fate, then?”

  “Only a dead man has no fate.”

  He swallowed the lump in his throat. “What of the A’narai , the Fateless Ones who tended the god-king Orú long ago?”

  She snatched the card from his hand. “As I said, only a dead man has no fate.”

  His al-Mama said no more, but as Sareth left the wagon he glanced over his shoulder. The old woman huddled beneath her blankets, muttering as she turned the card over and over. Whatever it portended, it troubled her. However, he put it out of his mind. Perhaps the dead had no fate, but he was very much alive, and his destiny was to return to Lirith and Taneth as soon as possible.

  They reached Kalos that evening as planned and set sail the next morning on the swiftest ship they could find—a small spice trader. Fahir, who had never been at sea before, was violently ill during the entire two-day passage, and even Sareth found himself getting queasy, for the Summer Sea was rough, tossing the little ship on the waves. The ship’s captain remarked that he had never seen such ill winds this time of year.

  Fortunately, the voyage was soon over, and they disembarked in the port city of Qaradas, on the north coast of the continent of Moringarth, in the land of city-states known as Al-Amún. Sareth had traveled to Al-Amún several times in his youth; it was a custom among the Mournish of the north that young men and women should visit the southern continent, where most of the Morindai dwelled.
Qaradas was just as he remembered it: a city of white-domed buildings and crowded, dusty streets shaded by date palms.

  “I thought the cities of the south were made of gold,” Fahir said, a look of disappointment on his face.

  Sareth grinned. “In the light of sunset, the white buildings do look gold. But it is only illusion—as is much in Al-Amún. So beware. And if a beautiful woman in red scarves claims she wishes to marry you, don’t follow her! You’ll lose your gold as well as your innocence.”

  “Of the first I have little enough,” Fahir said with a laugh. “And the second I would be happy to dispense with. This is my first trip to the south, after all.”

  They headed to the traders’ quarter, and Sareth examined the front door of every inn and hostel until he found what he was looking for.

  “We will be welcome here.”

  In answer to Fahir’s puzzled look, Sareth pointed to a small symbol scratched in the upper corner of the door: a crescent moon inscribed in a triangle. This place was run by Morindai.

  Inside, Sareth and Fahir were welcomed as family. After they shared drink and food, the hostel’s proprietor suggested a place where camels and supplies for a journey could be bought at a good price. Sareth went to investigate, leaving Fahir with orders to rest, and to not even think about approaching the innkeeper’s black-haired daughter.

  “By her looks, I think she favors me,” Fahir said. “Why shouldn’t I approach her?”

  “Because by her al-Mama’s looks, if you do, the old woman will put a va’ksha on you that will give you the private parts of a mouse.”

  The young man’s face blanched. “I’ll get some rest. Come back soon.”

  They set out before dawn the next day, riding on the swaying backs of two camels as the domes of Qaradas faded like a mirage behind them. At first the air was cool, but once the sun rose heat radiated from the ground in dusty waves. All the same, they drank sparingly; it was a journey of six days to the village of Hadassa, where the rumors of the dervish had originated.

  During the middle part of each day, when the sun grew too fierce to keep riding, they crouched in whatever shade they could find beneath a rock or cliff. They were always vigilant, and one would keep watch while the other dozed. Thieves were common on the roads of Al-Amún.

  Nor was it only thieves they kept watch for. While the sorcerers of Scirath had suffered a great blow in the destruction of the Etherion over three years ago, recently the Mournish had heard whispers that their old enemy had been gathering again. Even after three thousand years, the Scirathi still sought the secrets lost when Morindu the Dark was buried beneath the sands of the Morgolthi. Because the dervishes sought those same secrets, where one was found the other could not be far off.

  The days wore on, and water became a hardship. The first two springs they came to had offered some to drink, though less than Sareth had been led to believe. However, after that, every spring they reached was dry. They found no water, only white bones and withered trees. Doing their best to swallow the sand in their throats, they continued on.

  Fahir and he never spoke of it, but by the fifth day of their journey Sareth knew they were in grave danger. There were but two swallows for each of them left in their flasks. It was said that Hadassa was built around an oasis. However, if its spring had gone dry like the others, they would not make it back to Qaradas alive.

  You could cast a spell, Sareth thought that night as he huddled beneath a blanket next to Fahir. Once the sun went down the desert air grew chill, and both men shuddered as with a fever. You could call the spirits and bid them to lead you to water.

  Could he really? The working of blood sorcery was forbidden among the Morindai; only the dervishes broke that law. True, the elders of the clan had allowed Sareth to use the gate artifact to communicate with Vani when she journeyed across the Void, to Earth. However, that had been a time of great need, and it was not a true act of blood sorcery. Sareth had spilled his blood to power the artifact, but he had not called the bodiless spirits, the morndari, to him as a true sorcerer would.

  Besides, Sareth asked himself, what makes you believe you could control the spirits if they did answer your call? They would likely consume all your blood and unleash havoc.

  Yet if he and Fahir did not find water tomorrow, what choice did he have but to try?

  The next day dawned hotter than any that came before. The white sun beat down on them, and the wind scoured any bit of exposed flesh with hard sand. They were on the very edge of habitable lands now. To the south stretched the endless wastes of the Morgolthi, the Hungering Land, where no man had dwelled in eons—not since the land was broken and poisoned in the War of the Sorcerers.

  The horizon wavered before Sareth. Shapes materialized amid the shimmering air. He fancied he could almost see the high towers of the first great cities of ancient Amún: Usyr, Scirath, and the onyx spires of Morindu the Dark. . . .

  Sareth jolted from his waking dream. He lay sprawled on the sand as his camel plodded away from him. Fahir slumped over the neck of his own camel as the beast followed its partner toward a cluster of square shapes. That was no mirage; it was a village.

  Sareth tried to call out, but his throat was too dry. A moment later shadows appeared above him, blocking the sun. Voices jabbered in a dialect he couldn’t understand, though he made out one word, repeated over and over: Morindai, Morindai. Hands lifted him from the ground.

  He drifted in a void—as dark and featureless as the card drawn from his al-Mama’s deck—then came to himself as something cool touched his lips. Water poured into his mouth. He choked, then gulped it down.

  “More,” he croaked.

  “No, that’s enough for now,” said a low, strangely accented voice. “You have to drink slowly or you’ll become sick.”

  Sareth’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. He was inside a hut, lying on a rug, propped up against filthy cushions. A man knelt beside him, holding a cup. He was swathed from head to foot in black; only his dark eyes were visible.

  Fear sliced away the dullness in Sareth’s mind. Was this one of the Scirathi? They always wore black. He remembered how he had been tortured by the sorcerer who had followed them through the gate to Castle City. That one had enjoyed causing Sareth pain.

  No, they always wear masks of gold. The masks are the key to their power. This is no Scirathi.

  Fresh dread replaced the old. Sareth pushed himself up against the cushions, knowing he was too weak to flee.

  “What have you done with Fahir?”

  “Your friend is being cared for in another hut,” the dervish said. “You need not fear for him.”

  Sareth licked his cracked lips. This was not how he had intended for things to unfold. He had planned to come upon the dervish unaware, so the other could not cast a spell, only it had been the opposite, and now he was in the other’s power. He tried to think what to say.

  The dervish spoke first. “You’re her brother, aren’t you? Vani, the assassin. We knew she was in communication with her brother through the gate artifact, and the resemblance is clear enough.”

  Confusion replaced fear. How could the dervish know these things? And why did his accent, strange as it was, seem familiar?

  “Who are you?”

  The dervish laughed. “That’s a good question. Who am I indeed? Not who I was before, that much is certain.” The dervish pushed back his hood. His pale skin had been burnt and blistered, and was now beginning to heal. “However, I used to be a man called Hadrian Farr.”

  Sareth clutched at the cushions. “I know who you are. Vani told me of you. You’re from the world across the Void. How can you be here?”

  The other made a dismissive gesture. “That’s not important now. All that matters is that you take word back to your people.”

  “Word of what?” Sareth did not care for the other’s proud manner of speech. “Why don’t you tell them yourself?”

  The dervish moved to a window; a thin beam of sunlight slipped through a cr
ack in the shutters, illuminating his sun-ravaged face. “Because, once I am done here, I must go back. Back into the Morgolthi. After all these ages, it has finally been found.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sareth said, rising up, angry at not understanding, angry at his fear. “What has been found?”

  The dervish—the Earth man named Hadrian Farr—turned and gazed at him with eyes as sharp and gray as knives.

  “The lost city of Morindu the Dark,” he said.

  Outside the hut, the wind rose like a jackal’s howl.

  4.

  Beltan knew there was no way out of a fight this time.

  Not that he minded, he had to admit, baring his teeth in a grin. After all, during the course of his five-and-thirty years, he had been a knight of Calavan, a commander in Queen Grace’s army, a master swordsman, and a disciple of the war god Vathris Bullslayer. It went without saying that he enjoyed a good battle.

  The monster hulked before him: gleaming red, belching heat and smoke, blaring a shrill cry to signal its aggression. Beltan’s fingers tightened around a shaft of cold steel, green eyes narrowing to slits, nostrils flaring. He sized up his enemy, and each of them tensed, waiting for the other to make the first move. Both of them knew there could only be one victor in a duel like this. And by Vathris, Beltan vowed it was going to be he.

  The traffic light changed. Beltan floored the gas pedal, double-shifted into third, and spun the steering wheel. The black taxicab roared in front of a red sports car, cutting it off, and whipped around the traffic circle.

  “Hey there!” came an annoyed voice from the backseat of the cab. “I told you to be careful. I’ve got a tart on my lap.”

  It was one of the magics of the fairy blood that ran in Beltan’s veins that it helped him to understand the language of this world. Even without it, he probably could have made do, for he had learned much about the world Earth in the last three years. All the same, some words—like tart—still had the ability to confound him. He glanced in the rearview mirror, not certain if he would see a pie on the man’s lap, or a saucy-smiled wench like one might find in King Kel’s hall.