The First Stone

by Mark Anthony

  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 am the 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 Hawk seems 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 should know.”

  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 just person. 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 did make 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 Stone is 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 Orú.”

  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 Orú 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 somethi
ng 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. Orú’s blood could cause transformation; a single drop had changed Travis into a sorcerer. Only how much of it had the Seven of Orú 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 wonder that 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 wonder on 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.”