Mark Anthony - The First Stone: Book Six of The Last Rune

Table of Contents

And again,
For Chris

ON DARK WINGS

The dragon folded its wings against its sleek body; the stones of the keep shuddered under its weight. Four years ago, when they had first encountered Sfithrisir in a high valley in the Fal Erenn, Grace thought the dragon looked like an enormous sooty swan. Now it seemed more like a vulture. Its featherless hide absorbed the starlight, and its eyes glowed like coals. The small saurian head wove slowly at the end of a ropelike neck, and a constant hiss of steam escaped the bony hook of its beak.

Fear and smoke choked her, and Grace fought for breath and to keep her wits. She had to have both if she was going to survive.

Answer... answer me this, and an answer you shall have, she said in a trembling voice, speaking the ancient greeting which she had learned from Falken. One secret for one secret in trade. Why have you

Mist and misery! the dragon snorted, the words emanating from deep in its gullet. There is no time for foolish rituals concocted by mortals whose bones have long since turned to dust. I did not come here to barter with you for secrets, Blademender. The end of all things comes. Have you not seen the rift in the sky? Surely it has grown large enough that even your mortal eyes can see it now. And it will keep growing. Now it conceals the stars, but soon it will swallow them, and worlds as well. It will not cease until it has consumed everything there is to consume, until all that remains is nothing....

We live our lives a circle,
And wander where we can.
Then after fire and wonder,
We end where we began.

Forget not the Sleeping Ones.
In their blood lies the key.

PART ONE

RIFT

The dervish stepped from a swirl of sand, appearing on the edge of the village like a mirage taking form.

A boy herding goats was the first to see him. The boy clucked his tongue, using a switch to prod the animals back to their pens. All at once the animals began to bleat, their eyes rolling as if they had caught the scent of a lion. Usually a lion would not prowl so near the dwellings of men, but the springs that scattered the desertwhich had never gone dry in living memorywere failing, and creatures of all kinds came in search of water and food. It was said that, in one village, a lion had crept into a hut and stolen a baby from the arms of its sleeping mother.

The boy turned around, and the switch fell from his fingers. It was not a lion before him, but a man covered from head to toe in a black serafi. Only his eyes were visible through a slit in the garment, dark and smoldering like coals. The man raised a hand; its palm was tattooed with red lines. Tales told by the villages elders came back to the boytales about men who ventured into the deepest desert in search of forbidden magics.

Obey your father and your mother, the old ones used to tell him when he was small, else a dervish will fly into your houseon a night zephyr and steal you away. For they require the bloodof wicked children to work their darkest spells.

I need... the dervish said, his voice harsh with a strange accent.

The boy let out a cry, then turned and ran toward a cluster of hovels, leaving the goats behind.

... water, the dervish croaked, but the boy was already gone.

The dervish staggered, then caught himself. How long had he been in the Morgolthi? He did not know. Day after day the sun of the Hungering Land had beaten down on him, burning away thought and memory, leaving him as dry as a scattering of bones. He should be dead. However, something had drawn him on through that forsaken land. What was it? There was no use trying to remember. He needed water. Of the last two oases he had gone to, one had been dry, and the waters of the other had been poisoned, the bloated corpses of antelope floating in its stagnant pool.

He moved through the herd of goats. The animals bleated until the dervish touched them, then fell silent. He ran his hands over their hides and could feel the blood surging beneath, quickened by fear. One swift flash of a knife, and hot blood would flow, thicker and sweeter than water. He could slake his thirst, and when he was finished he would let the blood spill on the ground as an offering, and with it he would call them to him. They would be only lesser spirits, enticed by the blood of an animalno more than enough to work petty magics. All the same, he was tempted....

Nothat was not why he was here. He remembered now; he needed water, then to send word, to tell them he was here. He staggered toward the circle of huts. Behind him, the goats began bleating again, lost without the boy to herd them.

This place was called Hadassa, and though the people who dwelled here now had forgotten, it had once been a prosperous trading center built around a verdant oasis. Over the decades the flow of Hadassas spring had dwindled to a trickle. The merchants and traders had left long ago and had not returned; the citys grand buildings were swallowed by the encroaching sand. Now all that remained was this mean collection of huts.

When he reached the center of the village, the dervish stopped. The oasis, once a place of sparkling pools and shaded grottos, was now a salt flat crazed with cracks. Dead trees, scoured of leaf and branch, pointed at the sky like burnt fingers. In their midst was a patch of mud, churned into a mire by men and goats. Oily water oozed up through the sludge, gathering in the hoofprints. The dervish knelt, his throat aching.

You are not welcome here, spoke a coarse voice.

The dervish looked up. The water he had cupped dribbled through his fingers. A sigh escaped his blistered lips, and with effort he rose again.

A man stood on the other edge of the mud patch. His yellowed beard spilled down his chest, and he wore the white robe of a village elder. Behind him stood a pair of younger men. They were stunted from a poor diet, but their eyes were hard, and they gripped curved swords. Next to the man was a woman who wore the red serafi of a seeress. In youth she had been beautiful, but the dry air had parched her cheeks, cracking them like the soil of the oasis. She gazed forward with milky eyes.

The cards spoke truly, Saiel Yarish, the woman said in a hissing voice. Evil flies into Hadassa on dark wings.

I cannot fly, the dervish said.

Then you must walk from this place, the bearded man said. And you must not come back.

I come only in search of water.

One of the young men brandished his sword. We have no water to spare for the likes of you.

It is so, the old man said. A change has come over the land. All that is good dwindles and fades. One by one, the springs of the desert have gone dry. Now ours is failing as well. You will not find what you seek here.

The dervish laughed, and the queer sound of it made the others take a step back. You are wrong. There is yet water to be found in this place. From the folds of his serafi, he drew out a curved knife. It flashed in the sun.

Do not let him draw blood! the blind woman shrieked.

The young men started forward, but the mud sucked at their sandals, slowing them. The dervish held out his left arm. The knife flicked, quick as a serpent. Red blood welled from a gash just above his wrist.