The Last Rune 6: The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  “Slipsand,” Larad said, glancing over his shoulder at the flat expanse behind them. “We can’t go any farther.”

  Nor could they go forward. The T’gol stood between them and the sand creatures, battling furiously, their arms and legs blurring. Sand filled the air as heads and torsos exploded under the fury of the assassins. However, the sand creatures continually re-formed themselves, and already the T’gol were beginning to slow down. Sweat poured down Vani’s brow; Avhir’s breath came in ragged gasps. They could not keep this up.

  A low chant sounded, and Grace looked up to see Farr’s dagger flash in the light of the dying sun. Blood spilled from a gash in his arm, and a buzzing filled the air like a swarm of unseen insects. The buzzing swarmed around one of the sand creatures. The thing stood still for a moment, as if frozen, then ruptured in a cascade of sand. This time it did not coalesce again. Farr had destroyed it.

  Grace glanced at the former Seeker. He had fallen to his knees, and his face was gray. She reached out with the Touch and at once saw that he had lost a large amount of blood. If he lost any more, he could go into shock. All the same Farr gripped the dagger and, moving weakly, began to lengthen the gash in his arm.

  No! Grace spun the words over the Weirding. You can’t afford to lose more blood.

  She felt his surprise, and he looked at her. Then, faint but clear, she heard his reply. There is no other way. . . .

  Grace wouldn’t believe that. “Travis, you’re a sorcerer. Can you do what Hadrian just did?”

  Travis didn’t answer. He gazed at the sand creatures, less than ten paces away. The T’gol were losing ground. There were seven of the creatures by then—no, eight. Avhir fell to his knees. Vani jerked him back up. Only it didn’t matter. Even the T’gol could not win this fight. They would fall, and Farr would die from loss of blood. In moments it would be over.

  Larad gripped Travis’s shoulders, shaking him. “Rune magic is no use against them. But you are a sorcerer, Master Wilder. You can do something!”

  “Yes,” Travis murmured. “It’s the only way. It’s me these things want. Once I’m gone, they’ll go, too.”

  Grace stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  There was a fey light in his eyes; he touched her cheek. “Don’t worry, Grace. You’ll bring me back. I know you will.”

  Vani let out a cry of pain. Two of the sand creatures had flanked her, and they were crushing her between them. Avhir staggered, trying to defend himself and failing as three of the creatures pummeled him with fists of sand. Beyond, Farr sprawled on the ground, motionless, a dark stain spreading out from his arm. Three of the sand creatures broke through the line of the assassins. They shambled forward, arms out before them.

  Travis drew in a breath. “I believe in you, Grace.”

  Then he took a step backward.

  Instantly, the slipsand gave way beneath his boots. One moment he was there, gazing at her with his gray eyes, and the next he was gone. There was a low moan as the sand shifted. It poured back into the hole where he had vanished, filling it, and in the space of a heartbeat all traces of it, and of Travis, were gone.

  The sand creatures hesitated, as if uncertain what to do, and the T’gol took the chance to free themselves.

  “No!” Grace screamed, flinging herself to the ground. She would have been sucked into the slipsand herself but for Larad’s hands pulling her back. She reached out with the Touch, probing deep into the sand, willing the magic to work. All was dark. She groped, searching blindly, flinging her spirit after him. There—she felt a glimmer of life. It was him, it had to be. . . .

  The glimmer of light went dark.

  “No!” Grace shouted again, but it was no use.

  Master Larad pulled her away from the edge of the slipsand. Through her tears she barely saw the sand creatures collapse into heaps of motionless dust; she hardly noticed as the T’gol approached, or as Farr slowly pulled himself up from the ground. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

  Travis was dead.

  PART THREE

  MARIUS

  31.

  It was early when Deirdre reached the Charterhouse. Behind the reception counter, Madeleine’s chair was empty, the computer screen blank. Only a single fluorescent light flickered overhead.

  Eschewing the elevator, Deirdre headed down a shadowed corridor, descended a flight of stairs to the basement, and made her way to the door of her office. It was locked; he wasn’t there yet. That had been her hope, and the reason she had left her flat before dawn. She needed time to think before he showed up, time to decide what to do.

  Time to figure out whose side Anders was really on.

  The office was dim—only a faint gray illumination oozed through the office’s one small window—but she left the overhead lights off. Her head hurt, and her stomach churned, and like a sick animal she wanted nothing except to curl up in a safe, dark spot.

  But you’re not safe here, Deirdre. Not if you’re right.

  She switched on the desk lamp, squinting against even that modest glare. The throbbing in her head rose a notch in magnitude, and belatedly she realized she should have picked up some coffee on the way. Now she would have to wait until Anders showed up.

  That’s nice, Deirdre. You can’t convince yourself he’s not a traitor, but you’re still willing to let him fix you a cup of co fee. If he was smart, he’d put rat poison in it and get you out of the way.

  Like he got the sorcerer out of the way?

  She reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out an empty syringe. It was the syringe Anders had used the previous night on the sorcerer. The drug had been intended to both allow and compel the sorcerer to speak; instead it had killed her.

  Deirdre rolled the syringe back and forth on the desk. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe Scirathi physiology was dissimilar to human physiology after all. Maybe the woman sorcerer had suffered an allergic reaction, going into anaphylactic shock.

  Or maybe Anders had given her the wrong dose on purpose.

  One way or another, Deirdre would find out. Last night, a special Seeker task team had been dispatched to Beltan’s and Travis’s flat, and at that moment the sorcerer’s body rested in a refrigerated drawer in a laboratory beneath the Charterhouse. An autopsy would be done, and tests performed. The cause of death would be determined, along with the levels of the drugs in the sorcerer’s blood. Once the report came back, she would know whether Anders had deliberately killed the Scirathi. But that would take a few days. What should she do in the meantime?

  Keep working, Deirdre. It’ll get your mind off things. Besides, Beltan isn’t about to rest. He’s going to continue looking for the arch.

  Only where was it? The Scirathi had stolen the arch from Crete, but not for themselves. Instead, they had given it to someone else—someone who, in exchange, had led them to Travis Wilder. But who was it? Who had hired the sorcerers to steal the arch, and why?

  Maybe going over everything that had happened would help her understand. Deirdre opened her computer and started to type, writing a report of their operation last night while the details were still fresh in her mind. When that was done, she pulled a digital voice recorder from her pocket. She had carried it on her last night to record their conversation with the sorcerer. At the touch of a button words emanated from the recorder, spoken in a dry, hissing voice. Deirdre’s fingers trembled on the keyboard as she transcribed the conversation.

  There wasn’t much. She typed the final words. The arch . . . blood so near . . . the seven cannot . . . be far.

  Her own voice came then: louder, desperate. The seven what?

  A long pause, then one last sibilant whisper. Sleep . . . sleep . . .

  That was all. Deirdre stopped typing and switched off the recorder. She clicked the SAVE button on her computer, then leaned back, rubbing her temples. There were so many questions she had wanted to ask the sorcerer. Only the sorcerer had died, and Deirdre doubted they would capture
another. The Scirathi would be more wary than ever now. And if Anders was working for them, he was bound to warn them of another ambush. Or was Anders allied not with the Scirathi, but with the same people for whom the sorcerers had stolen the arch?

  Stop it, Deirdre. You don’t know Anders is working for anyone except the Seekers. You need a lot more evidence before you can say for sure he’s a traitor.

  Or before she could say for sure that he wasn’t. Sighing, she picked up the copy of the Times she had bought out of habit from a newsstand outside the Tube station. She needed to give her mind a break.

  In which case she shouldn’t have read the paper. The news was more troubling than ever. Variance X continued to expand; it was now over twice the diameter of the moon as seen from Earth. And it was no longer the only blot in the sky. Another anomaly had appeared, visible from the southern hemisphere and growing at a rapid rate. Like the first, astronomers had determined it to be outside the solar system, a bit more than twice as distant from the sun as Pluto.

  There was bad news here on Earth as well. Violent earthquakes had struck Turkey again, dormant volcanoes in South America were erupting, typhoons were flooding much of India, and another hurricane was battering the east coast of the United States. With all that was going on, it was no surprise the world stock markets were crashing.

  All the same, people kept going on with their lives. That morning, the Tube station had been filled with the usual throng of weekday commuters and tourists dragging crying children. It was the same as any day—at least if one didn’t look closely.

  But Deirdre had looked closely, and what she had seen disturbed her. The commuters had stared with blank faces, not bothering to read the newspapers they held in their hands. The tourists had seemed deaf to the shrieks of their children, trudging as if on a death march rather than a vacation. There was no joy, no urgency in their expressions or actions. Not even annoyance or anger as people jostled into one another, or a train’s doors shut before someone could climb aboard.

  Deirdre had watched a man standing, staring, his briefcase hanging open and papers swirling about the platform. She picked up some of the papers, but before she could give them back to him he dropped the briefcase and walked over to a group of Mouthers in the center of the platform. One of them put a white sheet around his shoulders, draping it over his business suit. Another gave him a sign to hold. I Have Been Eaten, it read.

  Maybe people weren’t going about their normal lives. Maybe, instead, they had already given up. For what was there to fear from the dark blots in the sky when one was already defeated—already consumed?

  Deirdre sighed. She had read enough of the news. She folded the paper to toss it in the trash bin.

  A small white envelope fell from between two sections of the paper, landing on her desk.

  She stared for several seconds, then set down the newspaper and picked up the envelope. Her name was written on the front in elegant script. Hands shaking, she opened the envelope and unfolded the single crisp sheet of notepaper within. It bore a message written in the same elegant hand as on the front of the envelope.

  You are closer than you think to the answers you seek. However, you have forgotten something—a mystery from before this mystery began. It is time to remember it now. And to find an answer, don’t forget that it is always best to go directly to the source.

  That was all. Deirdre turned the notepaper over, but there was no more writing, and no signature. What did it mean? What mystery had she forgotten about? She had no idea. However, there was one thing she did know: The note was from her mysterious Philosopher. Only how had he gotten it inside the newspaper?

  Deirdre thought back. It had been dark still, and she had hardly looked at the attendant at the newsstand when she handed him a pound coin and took the newspaper. She remembered he had been tall, wrapped in an overcoat, a hat shadowing his face . . .

  A chill coursed up her spine. It had been he. It had to be. Her hand had brushed his, and she hadn’t even known it. She bent her head over the note to read it again.

  The overhead lights switched on, and another gasp escaped her.

  “You shouldn’t read in the dark, mate,” said a cheery, gravelly voice. “You’ll ruin your eyes.”

  “Anders,” she said, breathless.

  As usual, he was dressed in a sleek designer suit. His hair looked freshly bleached, and as he set a paper cup on her desk she noticed that his fingernails were perfectly buffed and trimmed.

  How can he be a spy, Deirdre? Clearly he spends all of his free time grooming.

  Despite her dread, the thought actually made her laugh, but she swallowed it, and it came out more as a gagging sound.

  “Are you all right, mate?”

  Deirdre answered with the truth. There was no reason not to. “Not exactly. I just got this in my morning paper.” She handed him the note, then took a deep, restorative swig of the coffee.

  When he finished reading the note, Anders let out a low whistle. “Crikey, you were right next to him this time. He’s been taking bigger and bigger risks to communicate with you. Seems to me like he’s getting a little edgy. Things must be desperate for him.”

  Deirdre hadn’t thought of that, but Anders was probably right. As usual, he had seen things in a way she hadn’t. And that was why she hated being suspicious of him. She needed Anders—she needed his sharp wit and his absurd good cheer and his coffee.

  Only you can’t have them, Deirdre. Not if you can’t trust him.

  But maybe she could; maybe there was still a chance. If he would answer one question for her, then she would know for certain that he was still on her side.

  “Anders,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Anders, there’s something I’ve been wondering. And it’s important to me. Very important. I need you to answer a question.”

  He shrugged his big shoulders. “You got it, partner. Anything.”

  She met his vivid blue eyes. “Why do you still carry a hand-gun? I’ve never received any orders regarding it, but I know Nakamura is aware you still have it and hasn’t done anything about it. Why?”

  For a moment he didn’t move. His eyes stayed locked on hers. Hope surged in her chest.

  Then he winked at her and grinned. “Not that old chestnut again,” he said, his voice big and affectionately mocking. “I swear, you’re like a dog with a bone, mate. Only there’s no meat left on this one. Like you said, Nakamura knows all about it. Now, how’s your coffee?”

  The hope burned to ash in her chest. She clutched the paper cup. “Great,” she said, and she took a sip, though she didn’t taste it.

  Beltan showed up at the door then, and Deirdre was grateful for his interruption. Deirdre offered the blond man a sip of her coffee, and he slugged it down in one long gulp, returning the cup and the last dregs to her with a sheepish look.

  “You seem raring to go this morning,” Anders observed.

  “We spoke to one of the Scirathi like you said we should,” Beltan answered, looking at Deirdre. “Now it’s time to get the keystone and use it to lure the thieves who stole the arch.”

  Deirdre wished Beltan hadn’t drunk all the coffee. She could have used a sip to gather herself. “You heard what the sorcerer said. The Scirathi don’t have the arch.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Beltan’s green eyes were overly bright. “Whoever it is the Scirathi were working for, surely they will be lured out of hiding when we dangle the keystone before them. Else they might send more Scirathi to fetch it for them. Either way, the thieves will lead us to their hiding place.”

  Deirdre wanted to tell him that it was too risky, that they didn’t know enough yet about those whom the Scirathi were allied with. However, she knew by the set of his jaw that Beltan was going to get the keystone if he had to tear up the Charterhouse with his bare hands. She opened her mouth, unsure what she was going to say.

  “Good morning!” said a voice every bit as cheerful as Anders’s, only higher-pitched and far more grating.<
br />
  “Hello, Eustace,” Anders said with a wave.

  The diminutive apprentice bounded into the office. He grinned at Deirdre, then looked up at Beltan with an expression of awe. “Do you think . . . do you think maybe I could touch him?”

  “Only if you want to lose a hand,” Deirdre said, noticing the look of annoyance on the big warrior’s face. She stepped in front of Eustace just in case the young man tried to make a dash for it. “So what’s going on?”

  The apprentice managed to tear his gaze away from Beltan. “Sasha told me to give you this.” He handed a manila envelope to Deirdre.

  She took it, wondering what it might be, but set it on her desk. Now was not the time to open it.

  “So how do you like Earth?” Eustace said to Beltan once Deirdre stepped out of the way.

  Beltan didn’t answer.

  “Can you understand me?” Eustace spoke the words slowly and loudly, with exaggerated enunciation.

  Beltan snorted, then looked at Deirdre. “Is he simple?”

  Before Deirdre could reply to that, a knock sounded at the door. They all looked up to see a middle-aged man standing in the open doorway. He was balding, and his mustache was as crooked as his bow tie. A threadbare cardigan sweater and thick glasses lent him a professorial air.

  “Paul,” Deirdre said with a sigh of relief. “What can I help you with?”

  Paul Jacoby hurried into the room, his small eyes excited behind his glasses. He held a folder in his hands. “I have something for you, Deirdre. It’s not much, but I was able to—”

  “Sorry, mate,” Anders said, laying a hand on Eustace’s shoulder. “This is where you step out.”

  Eustace let out a groan. “I’m never going to be a higher Echelon.”

  “Not with that attitude,” Anders said. “Now off you go.”

  Anders gave him a firm push, and Eustace scooted out the door. Deirdre shut it behind him.

  “So, is everyone in the room cleared to see this?” Jacoby said to Deirdre, patting the folder.