The Last Rune 6: The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  “I imagine you can see the whole world from up there,” Alis said, eyes shining, as I helped her down from the carriage.

  I laughed. “Perhaps not the whole world, but certainly much of London at least.”

  “No, it cannot be so. It is far too lofty to afford such a mundane view. It would show one the whole world.” She gazed up at the dome. “Though I suppose I shall never know.”

  A solemnity came over me, and I took her hand in mine. “Yes you will, Miss Faraday. You shall see it with your own eyes.”

  We found the man who was directing the construction that day, and after a small amount of persuasion and a sizable private donation we were allowed in for a tour of the cathedral. Even in its incomplete state, it impressed us with its grace and grandeur. It was as light and airy inside as Westminster was heavy and dim.

  “I cannot imagine I shall ever get all the way up there,” Alis said, craning her slender neck to gaze at the dome high above.

  “There is no need to imagine it,” I said, “for we are going now.” And I whisked her toward a side door before she had any chance to protest.

  The steps up to the dome numbered in the hundreds, and she walked only a dozen or two on her own. I carried her the rest of the way, and though my arms soon ached, as did my head, my burden was not so great, for she seemed to weigh even less than the last time I had carried her. We soon reached the first way station, the Stone Gallery, where we were able to exit onto a narrow balcony and gaze out over the city.

  “You’re right,” she said, laughing, cheeks flushed with excitement. “It’s only London I see, though it’s a marvelous sight.”

  I clucked my tongue. “Nonsense, my lady. It is you who were correct. For there, to the north, just beside that foggy patch, I can see my manor in Scotland. And there to the west, if you squint just so, you can make out a glint of light. That’s the glass isle where King Arthur is buried. And beyond that, you can look all the way to the colonies in America. It’s the whole world, just as you said, right there before you.”

  “The whole world,” she murmured, clutching my arm. “I do see it, Marius, I do.”

  We stayed there until the cool spring wind chilled her, then went back in through a little door and resumed our climb. After one last effort, we came to an inner balcony, ringed by a stone balustrade, nestled within the base of the dome itself. There we could look down at the workmen far below, moving about like ants.

  “Forgive me, but I must rest,” Alis said, though she had walked but a few steps herself from the Stone Gallery.

  I sat her on a bench, then moved around the gallery to the far side. If what I had heard was true, this was the gallery where, if one murmured against the wall, a listener a hundred feet across the gallery would hear even the softest words.

  I sat on the bench and turned my face to the wall, so she could not see my lips. “I love you, Lady Alis Faraday,” I whispered against the curved stones. “Be with me. Always.”

  Across the gallery, she leaned against the wall. I moved my ear close to the stones. Had it worked? I waited for her reply, but I heard nothing save a whirring of air. So it was only a story, then. She had not heard me after all. And perhaps it was just as well. Perhaps it was best if—

  Soft but clear, as if she were whispering right into my ear, I heard her voice. “Marius . . . help me.”

  I pulled my ear from the wall and stood. She gazed at me from across the gallery, her blue eyes wide. The front of her white gown was dotted with crimson.

  I careened around the gallery to her. Blood gushed from her nose, and she had been unable to staunch it with her handkerchief, which was soaked red. I pulled a cloth from my coat—the silvery one I had taken from my mother, and which I had carried with me all these years—and it seemed to draw the blood into itself, while somehow remaining unstained. She held it to her nose, and the flow of blood soon ceased. However, she had lost much, and her cheeks where white as marble.

  “Forgive me, Marius.”

  “Hush,” I said, and took her into my arms.

  I felt no ache, no weariness despite the hundreds of steps I carried her down. I had to get her to the Faraday estate as quickly as possible. When we reached the coach, I was startled to see one of Lord Faraday’s men, Albert, standing there and talking to the driver, who pointed in our direction. Had he heard what had happened? Except that was impossible. It was well over an hour by carriage to the Faraday estate.

  “Miss Faraday,” Albert said, astonishment on his face, “are you well?”

  She waved a hand. “It is nothing, Albert. I’m very well.” Indeed, she was standing on her own now, and did seem a bit stronger.

  “Why have you come?” I asked the servant.

  His face was grim. “I bear ill news, I fear. Lord Faraday would have spared your learning of it until you arrived home, Miss Faraday, but Lady Faraday insisted you must know at once, seeing as how you loved her so dearly.”

  Alis’s expression was hazed with pain and confusion. “What do you mean, Albert? What should I know?”

  “It’s Sadie, Miss Faraday,” the man said. “I’m sorry to tell you, but she passed away this morning.”

  “Oh,” Alis said softly, and fainted.

  That night I continued my search for those like Alis with redoubled urgency, for Sadie’s death had struck her both in body and spirit.

  It had been sudden. The old servingwoman had collapsed in the garden while gathering herbs; by the time others reached her she was already gone. Alis was in great distress. Her nose began to bleed again. The doctor was sent for, and she was confined to her bed.

  I doubted the doctor could do anything for her, save to leech her of more blood, so I spoke to the servants, seeing if one of them could brew a tea for Alis as Sadie always had. Only none of them knew what Sadie had put in her teas. Fear struck me, but I willed myself to think clearly. Were there not others who knew how to fashion restoratives for those of otherworldly nature? And indeed, how had Sadie known to make such brews herself? Surely she had been familiar with the folk of the tavern I had read about in the letters.

  Taking my leave of the Faradays, I rode hard back to London, to the Seeker Charterhouse. I went directly to the door to the vaults, and though the headache came upon me again as soon as I fit the iron key in the lock, I ignored the pain and dashed down the stairs. I had to read the letters again, to see if they held any clues I had overlooked. Burning as if with fever, I went to the corner where I had found them and had hidden them again.

  The letters were gone.

  I searched for a frantic hour, overturning boxes and shelves, but it was no use. I had tucked the box of letters into a niche in the wall, behind the shelf where I had first come upon them. The corner was dim; there was no way another could have known the letters were there.

  Unless, of course, they had been watching me.

  But why would someone remove the letters? Without them, how was I to find the tavern they described, and the folk who could help Alis? A despair came over me, black and depthless, and I staggered up the stairs. I had to go back to her. It was all I could think to do.

  “Where are you off to so late, Marius?”

  I reeled around. The front hall of the Charterhouse was dim, lit only by a few candles; I had not seen her there, sitting in a chair near the door.

  “Rebecca,” I said, and could think of nothing more to add.

  She coiled a hand beneath her chin. “You look all in a hurry. Is it her you’re off to see, then? This woman you so adore?”

  I could only stare at her.

  “Are you well, Marius?” A light shone in her eyes; it wasn’t quite concern. “I say, you look positively ill. You haven’t had a lover’s quarrel, now have you?”

  I staggered, a hand to my brow, and she rose swiftly, catching my arm, steadying me.

  “I’m sorry, Rebecca,” I gasped. “I must go to her.”

  She did not let go of my arm. “So it is indeed the one you love whom you go to. But
you have yet to tell me who she is. Come—give me her name. We shared a bed once, Marius. Surely you owe me that at least.”

  Her eyes were hard, her fingers dug into my flesh, and a low sound of suffering escaped me. “No,” I whispered. “Please. I must not . . .”

  “By the gods, it’s her, isn’t it?” Rebecca’s face drew close to mine, white and cold as a moon. Her mouth twisted in disgust, and in triumph. “I had suspected it, only I didn’t wish to believe it was true, but it is. You love her, Marius, don’t you? The woman you were sent to watch and observe—Lady Alis Faraday.”

  Now it was I who clutched at her. “Please, Rebecca. Do not tell them, I beg you. Do not tell the Philosophers.”

  She disengaged herself from me. “You pitiable fool.”

  I staggered back, gaping at her.

  “It is over, Marius,” she said, her voice cool with detachment. “Do not return to the vaults. You will not find what you seek there.”

  “You,” I gasped, but horror constricted my throat, and I could say no more. I pushed past her, running out the door and into the night, weaving the darkness around me with my old, familiar skill.

  Only it did not matter. I could not hide from them. Their golden eyes pierced any gloom. Rebecca would tell them what I had done, if she had not already. She had been watching me; she had taken the letters. But she had not taken my will to help Alis. I would find a way, with or without the Seekers.

  However, that proved harder than even I imagined. They would not allow me near the Faraday estate. I went the next morning, just after dawn, and a trio of Seekers accosted me before I could approach the gate. Richard Mayburn was among them, and Byron.

  “Go back, Marius,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “You are not to try coming here again.” Then, in a lower voice, he said, “Please, Marius, listen to me. I know you cannot see it now, but this is for the best. Truly it is.”

  “What do you know of what’s best?” I spat, breaking free of their grip and vanishing into the morning fog.

  That evening I attempted stealth, thinking I could easily creep past them. I had performed similar feats countless times as a boy in Edinburgh. However, either my powers of concealment had fled me, or the Seekers possessed some uncanny ability to see through the shadows I wove about myself. I could not get past them.

  Defeated, I returned to my house in the city, reasoning that the Faradays would soon come looking for me. However, days passed without any sign of them, and in time I learned that Byron had gone to Lord Faraday, posing as my representative and saying that I had been recalled to Scotland on sudden business, and would not be returning in the foreseeable future. I cursed the Seekers; they thought of everything.

  However, I could be resourceful as well, and though I was being kept from Alis, I could help her yet. I began to make inquiries, venturing into the darkest neighborhoods of the city, asking about taverns that folk frequented, and if there were any that were unusual in some way. This line of investigation revealed nothing, save the locations of some of the most sordid drinking houses in all of London.

  Just when hope began to fail, chance renewed my quest. One morning, after another night of fruitless searching, as I walked through one of the city’s poorer neighborhoods, I was recognized by a plain-faced young woman who dared to approach me. Although I did not recognize her, she knew me from the Faraday estate, where she had labored as a servant until a month ago, when she had returned home to care for her ailing mother.

  An idea came to me, and I asked the young woman if she knew the families of any of the other servants who worked at the Faraday estate, specifically of the old woman Sadie. She did not, but she knew someone who might—an old aunt who lived a few streets over.

  I thanked her and hurried to the house of this aunt. The old woman was suspicious, but a few coins loosened her toothless jaw well enough, and I soon learned the name and dwelling place of a certain niece of the old woman, Sadie, whose last name was Greenfellow.

  A visit was paid that afternoon to the niece, who spun wool in a cottage on the fringes of the city. Jenny Greenfellow was pretty despite her middling years and the burdens of a hard life, and after a long look she invited me in. Introducing myself as an acquaintance of the Faradays, I gave her my condolences regarding Sadie’s passing.

  “It is kind of you to think of my aunt,” Jenny said, pouring me a cup of tea.

  I took a sip. It was fragrant, and tasted like nothing I had drunk before. My pain and weariness receded a fraction.

  “You have her look,” I said without really thinking. But it was true. Her eyes were green and bright, as the old woman’s had been.

  “Nay,” she said, smiling, “ ’Tis my brother who takes after her. Everyone says he has her spirit.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Aye. His name is John. He works at our uncle’s tavern.”

  My cup clattered to the table, spilling tea. She stared at me.

  “Your uncle’s tavern?” I fought to keep my words controlled. “You mean to say the proprietor of this establishment was Sadie’s husband?”

  “Nay, sir. He is her brother. Neither of them ever married. Only their youngest brother, my father, ever did. But he passed away some years ago. Now Sadie has followed, and Uncle is getting on himself. I believe he means to leave the place to John when he’s gone.”

  I hardly heard these words. It seemed impossible, yet it could only be so. According to the letters, the folk of the tavern knew how to brew elixirs to restore those of fairy blood, and so had Sadie Greenfellow. Feigning no more than polite interest, I inquired after the location of the tavern, then took my leave of Jenny, though not before giving her several coins for her trouble, which were not refused.

  I walked fast through the streets of the city, back toward the river, and for the first time in days, hope—real hope—welled up in my heart.

  “Be strong, Alis,” I murmured under my breath. “Endure it only a little while more, dearest. I am coming.”

  As dusk drifted like soot from the sky, I turned onto the street Jenny had described and craned my neck, peering at the signs hanging over the various establishments, looking for one painted green.

  There was none. The street was dirty and empty, save for a stray dog that slunk away into the shadows. No laughter spilled out of doorways, no cheerful clinking of cups. Night fell.

  Perhaps I had passed the tavern in my haste. I turned to go back the way I had come, and that was when I saw him. He tried to leap into the shadows, but he had not my skill. I raced after him, catching his arm, and dragged him into the light of a torch.

  “Marius,” Byron said. There was fear in his eyes. What must I have looked like at that moment? Fey and perilous, I can only imagine now, my eyes blazing green as my mother’s had years ago.

  “Rebecca sent you, didn’t she?” I said through clenched teeth. “Are you her lapdog then, that you’ll do whatever she bids you? Gods, man, have you no pride at all?”

  Anger registered on his usually jovial face, then he shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Marius, but you must stop now. Go back to the Seekers. Beg forgiveness. They’ll take you back if they know you’re sincere. It’s not too late.”

  “No.” I turned away from him.

  He caught my shoulder. “Please, Marius, listen to me. I know you love her, but you have to let her go. It’s for your own good.”

  Rage boiled within me, and I whirled around. “My own good? What can any of you possibly know of my own good, Byron?”

  I had thought he would lash back at me, but instead he only sighed. “Marius, my friend, would that I was not the one to give you this news. But there is something you must know. I have just come from—”

  “Do not trouble yourself,” I said, “for there is nothing you can say that I would wish to hear.” And before he could protest, I wrapped the shadows around myself and was gone.

  As I moved down the street I saw it immediately, and I wondered how I c
ould have missed it before. At the far end of the lane, above a red door, hung a sign painted vivid green. The sign seemed to shine in the gloom, and as I drew closer I read the word inscribed on it: GREENFELLOW’S. Gold light seeped through the crack beneath the door. I reached out, but before I could touch the door it swung open.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” said a growling voice.

  It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw him. He was a dwarf, standing no higher than my waist, but well formed. His youthful face was handsome, and he peered up at me with keen blue eyes.

  “I’m Marius,” I said, too startled to speak anything but the truth.

  “And what’s your business here?” the doorman—for clearly he was such—demanded, hands on his hips. “Don’t think I can’t see through your little shadow trick.”

  Despite his diminutive size, there was something perilous about the doorman. I let the shadows slip away from me. “I’ve come seeking help. Not for myself, but for Alis Faraday.”

  The doorman’s eyes went wide. “Blood and stone! Why didn’t you say so?” He grabbed my hand and tugged me forward. “This way. Come along, now, no time to waste. She said you would come, and as usual she was right. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you right off. It was your pesky shadows, I suppose. A pretty little glamour that is! Pretty indeed, though it would fool few enough here for long, mind you, so don’t get any ideas. . . .”

  So the doorman went on, his words making little sense to me, as he dragged me down a hallway, through an archway of grimy stone, and into the heart of Greenfellow’s Tavern.

  I will not describe the tavern at length, for you have seen it with your own eyes and know it is—that it was—a place beyond words. It was different in that time, of course. Smoke coiled among the sooty beams, straw covered the floor, and the music that filled the air was that of harp and lute, drone and tambour. Yet you would not have found it so very changed. It was, after all, a place outside of time.