Travis cleared his throat. “The way you describe them, the Scirathi make the Pale King sound like a chap who just wanted to come out of his kingdom and play.”
Vani raised an eyebrow. “Compared to what the Scirathi might become, he was.”
“Wait just a minute,” Beltan said, a handful of popcorn halfway to his mouth. “Weren’t all of the Scirathi killed when the demon destroyed the Etherion in Tarras?”
“All of the Scirathi in Falengarth, yes,” Vani said. “But far more yet dwell on Moringarth. If each of them was to drink of the blood of Orú, they would become an army such as you cannot imagine.”
“She’s right,” Travis said, slipping from the sofa to the floor and sitting across the coffee table from Beltan. “Remember what happened to Xemeth after he drank from the scarab? He would have destroyed us if it hadn’t been for the demon. And he was only one man, and not even a sorcerer at that. The blood made him . . .”
Travis gripped his right hand inside the left, and Beltan gave him a look of concern. Deirdre wondered what he had been about to say.
“All right,” she said, trying to get all of this straight in her mind. “I understand that Orú’s blood is powerful, and that the Scirathi would do anything to get their hands on it. But Morindu has been lost for ages. Why is this so important now? And what does any of this have to do with me?”
“I believe this will answer both of your questions,” Vani said, setting a tetrahedron of black stone on the coffee table. “Travis?”
Travis hesitated, then reached out and touched the stone. Deirdre sucked in a breath as the image of a man appeared above the tetrahedron. She had never seen him before, but their kinship was clear in his striking, angular features, and she knew he was Vani’s brother. This was a message from Eldh.
The message was brief, and it changed everything. By the time the image of Vani’s brother vanished, Deirdre’s heart was racing.
“You bastard, Hadrian,” she murmured. “You fabulous bastard. You actually did it.”
“Did what?” Beltan said, brow furrowing.
She hugged a throw pillow to her chest. “He had a Class Zero Encounter. Translocation to another world. Something every Seeker has worked for, and something none of them has ever achieved.”
Until now.
“Maybe I should be a Seeker,” Beltan said brightly. “I’ve been to another world. This one.”
Despite the buzzing in her head, Deirdre grinned at the blond man. “Don’t be such a show-off.”
She reminded herself that she was having multiple Class One Encounters herself at this very moment—something rare enough in the history of the Seekers. Resting her chin on a hand, she gazed at the onyx tetrahedron. What did it all mean? How had Farr gotten to Eldh? And why was he the one who had told the Mournish that Morindu had been found?
You always were a fast learner, Hadrian. They said you’re a
dervish, which I gather is some sort of sorcerer. I wish I could
talk to you now. I know I should do something, but I have no
idea what.
The only thing she knew for certain was that this case wasn’t over. In fact, she had the feeling that—despite everything that had happened—it had only just begun.
“So now what?” Deirdre said.
“Now Travis must fulfill his fate,” Vani said as if everything had already been decided.
Beltan’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Travis must return to Eldh,” Vani said, standing. “He must journey into the Morgolthi and reach Morindu before the Scirathi.”
Beltan jumped to his feet. “Why don’t you go find it yourself, you and the Mournish? It’s your bloody city.”
Vani kept her eyes on Travis. “It is his fate to do it.”
“Why?” Beltan said, cheeks ruddy. “Because you want it to be?”
Vani’s face was hard. “No, because it is. Our oracles saw it long ago: The wizard who came to Eldh to defeat a great evil in the north would also be the one to raise Morindu. This task is his.”
“Don’t you think he’s done enough already? He gave up everything to fight the Necromancer, and the Pale King, and Mohg. He’s done enough for the world. For both worlds. This is his time now. Our time. And you can’t just walk in here and take it from him. By all the gods, I won’t let you!”
Deirdre felt she should turn her head, that she shouldn’t be seeing this, only she couldn’t look away. She had never seen Beltan cry before, but he was weeping now, tears running down his cheeks, and the big man’s anguish made her own heart ache. Even Vani did not appear unmoved. The
T’gol
cast her eyes downward, but again she said, her voice low this time, “It is his fate.”
Travis laughed, and all of them stared. It was a bitter sound. He was gazing down at his hands. “I still can’t figure out how it can be my fate to find Morindu if I’m supposed to be one of the Fateless.”
“What you say is true,” Vani said, kneeling beside him. “But it is the fate of my people to find Morindu through you.”
Beltan wiped the tears from his face with a rough gesture. “Then you have no idea what his fate really is. For all you know, you’re telling him the wrong thing. Maybe it’s because he refuses to go to Eldh that you find the city yourselves.”
Vani started a hot reply, but Travis held up a hand.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if I wanted to try to find Morindu—” he gave Vani a sharp look “—and I’m not saying I do, but even if I did, I couldn’t. There’s no way for me to get back to Eldh.”
Deirdre ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. “What about the artifact?” However, even as she spoke, she remembered what she had learned before about the way the gate artifacts functioned.
“This is only part of the artifact,” Vani said. “With it, I can receive messages from my brother. But he has the greater part, and without it we cannot open a gate.” She gave Travis a piercing look. “But do you not have other means to travel between the worlds?”
Beltan let out a loud guffaw. “You mean you just assumed he could go back to Eldh?”
Vani gave him a dark look but said nothing, and it was clear this was exactly what she had believed.
“It’s not like he can just snap his fingers,” Beltan said, grinning, though it was a fierce expression. “By Vathris, even I know that much. True, he could use the Great Stones to travel between worlds, but he left them in Master Larad’s care. And the silver coin he has only works in one direction, to bring him to his home—and that’s here.”
Vani gave Travis a stricken look. “Is this true?”
“You doubt Beltan?” he said simply.
She hunched her shoulders and looked away.
“What about Brother Cy?” Deirdre said.
She was as surprised as the others that she had spoken—after all, they were the otherworldly travelers, not she—but now that their eyes were on her, she felt braver. In his reports, Travis had spoken of the mysterious preacher Brother Cy, and Deirdre had encountered one of his cohort, the purple-eyed Child Samanda. According to Travis, Cy, Mirrim, and Samanda were Old Gods. A thousand years ago, they had helped to banish Mohg beyond the circle of Eldh, only in the process they were exiled with him. Then, when Travis inadvertently created a crack between the worlds by journeying back in time, Mohg was able to slip through the gap into Earth—and so were Cy and the others.
“Brother Cy helped you get to Eldh more than once,” Deirdre said. “Couldn’t he help you again?”
Travis’s face was thoughtful. “I don’t think Brother Cy is here anymore. When Larad broke the rune of Sky, Mohg was able to return to Eldh. I think Cy and Mirrim and Samanda went as well. It’s their home, after all. I don’t think we’ll be getting any help from them this time around.”
“There must be another way,” Vani said, her words imploring.
Travis laid a hand on the
T’gol
’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Vani. But even if I wanted to help, I can’t. You have to face the fact that there’s no way for any of us to get back to—”
The telephone rang.
They all gazed blankly at one another for a moment, as if the sound had jarred them out of a spell, then Beltan picked up the cordless phone and held it to his ear.
He cocked his head, then held the phone out toward Deirdre. “It’s for you.”
Deirdre fumbled as she took the phone. Who could be calling her here? She hadn’t told anyone where she was going—not the Seekers, not even her partner Anders. However, as soon as she heard the rich, accentless voice emanating from the phone, she knew who it was.
“Turn on the television,” the nameless Philosopher said. “I think you’ll be interested in what you see.”
There was a click, and a dial tone replaced his voice. Deirdre set down the phone, her heart pounding.
“Who was it?” Travis said.
She licked her lips. “Where’s the remote control?”
A minute later, they gathered around the television. In quick words, Deirdre had described the message she had received on her computer just before Travis called and what he had said just now on the phone.
“You say this Philosopher friend of yours hasn’t contacted you in over three years.” Travis said. “I wonder why now?”
“Let’s find out,” Beltan said, and clicked a button on the remote.
The television glowed to life, displaying a scene of a blue ocean breaking against white rocks. The camera panned, focusing on weathered columns—what looked like the remains of an ancient Greek temple—rising toward an azure sky. A small graphic image in the corner of the screen advertised the name of the program: Archaeology Now!
“Wait a minute,” Beltan said. “I was watching this show hours ago. How can it still be on?”
He punched the remote, trying to change the channel, but it no longer seemed to function. The volume came up.
“I didn’t do that. What’s wrong with this thing?” Beltan banged the remote against the table.
Travis grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Listen,” he said.
Now the television showed a man dressed in khakis standing next to one of the columns. “—and which were opened by a recent earthquake here on the Mediterranean island of Crete,” he was saying. “Tonight, we’re taking our cameras and you into one of those caves, not far from the ancient palace of Knossos, to an excavation where Dr. Niko Karali is hoping to uncover evidence that could further our understanding of ancient Minoan culture, and perhaps provide new clues to an age-old mystery: why the thriving Minoan civilization vanished almost overnight three thousand years ago. As always on our program, we have no idea what we’ll find, because everything you see is live. So let’s head—”
The sound cut out, and the video began to move rapidly.
“Don’t look at me,” Beltan said, pointing to the remote control, which sat on the coffee table.
Despite the announcer’s statement, Deirdre was certain this show was anything but live. It had been recorded earlier that night, and now it was being played back for their benefit. The video became a blur of images too fast for the eye to decipher. Then the video froze, and a single image filled the screen.
It was a stone arch, or part of one at least, set against rougher rock. A hand held a brush, clearing away dust and debris from one of the stones of the arch. Beneath the brush, Deirdre could just make out a series of angular marks.
She clapped a hand to her mouth at the same moment Travis swore.
“By the Blood,” Vani whispered, her gold eyes wide.
Beltan cast them an annoyed look. “Great. Am I the only one who doesn’t know what that writing says?” His expression grew thoughtful, and he rubbed his arm. “Although I feel like I should know.”
Deirdre gripped the silver ring on her right hand. The ring Glinda had given her. She didn’t need to look to know that the angular characters etched inside it were shaped just like those on the television screen.
Travis drew closer to the TV. “I’ve seen writing like that before.”
“It is the ancient writing of Amún,” Vani said. “Few know it now. Even I cannot read what it says, though there are some among my clan who could. And there are others . . .”
“You mean sorcerers,” Travis said. “There was writing sort of like that on the stone box that one Scirathi created to hold the gate artifact.”
“Not sort of,” Vani said. “The writing is identical.”
All of them seemed to understand at once, as if a jolt of electricity had passed between them, carrying the knowledge.
“A gate,” Deirdre said. “That arch is a gate, isn’t it?”
Or part of one, anyway. She didn’t need to wait for the archaeologists to uncover the entire thing to know that they wouldn’t find the arch’s keystone—that it was missing.
Only it wasn’t missing. Deirdre knew exactly where it was: in the vaults of the Seekers. The Seekers had discovered it in the tavern that sat on the same spot that centuries later would house Surrender Dorothy. It was in researching Glinda’s ring that Deirdre had discovered the existence of the keystone, for the writing on the ring and the keystone were identical.
Travis pressed his hand against the television screen. “Maybe there is a way back,” he murmured.
Vani’s eyes shone, and Beltan gave her a dark look. However, before the blond man could speak, the sound of small feet broke the silence. Deirdre tore her gaze from the TV. A girl stood at the end of the sofa. Her hair was dark, but her skin was moon-pale.
“You must be Deirdre,” the girl said, her words articulate, though
must
came out as
muth
.
“Nim,” Vani said, kneeling beside the girl. “What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be in bed.”
Nim. Deirdre didn’t recognize the name. However, she knew who this girl was. It was Vani and Beltan’s daughter.
“I can’t sleep,” Nim said.
Vani brushed her hair from her face. “And why is that,
beshala
?”
“Because there’s a gold face outside my window,” the girl said yawning. “It keeps watching me.”
Vani held the girl tight. “It was a bad dream, dearest one. That was all.”
However, there was doubt in the
T’gol
’s eyes, and a terrible certainty that the girl hadn’t been dreaming came over Deirdre. Fear cleared her mind, and at last she understood what it was that had been troubling her all evening, what it was she had forgotten.