The First Stone by Mark Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

Vani said, turning her gold eyes on him. “Before I left. Then, a few weeks ago, I went to my people, to ask if I might have the artifact back. I found them in the far south of Falengarth.”
    Beltan picked up the coffeepot and refilled their mugs. “Were Sareth and Lirith with the Mournish?”
    “I fear I missed them. My brother had taken a ship across the Summer Sea, to Moringarth, a week before I arrived, and Lirith had gone north with their son, Taneth, to visit Aryn at Calavere.”
    Despite everything, Travis couldn’t help smiling. So Lirith and Sareth were parents now. A sudden desire to see them, to see everyone they had left on Eldh, came over him. Only that was impossible, wasn’t it? Even as he thought this, his fingers crept toward the fragment of the gate artifact on the table; he jerked his hand back.
    “Why did you go to your people to get the gate?” Beltan said.
    “For the same reason I left you three years ago and could not return.”
    Travis took a breath. “And what reason is that?”
    “I am fleeing the Scirathi.”
    They listened, too stunned for speech, as Vani described in brief but vivid words why she had left Gravenfist that day three years ago, and where she had been in the time since.
    She hadn’t known the sorcerers of Scirath were pursuing her, at least not at first. After leaving Gravenfist Keep she had journeyed south, sailing across the Summer Sea to Al-Amún, seeking out oracles and seers, trying to understand the fate her al-Mama had seen in the cards.
    Your daughter is not yet born
, the old woman had told Vani,
yet already powerful lines of fate weave themselves around her.
You dare not stay, lest you be trapped in the net.
    It was there, in Moringarth, where the Scirathi first attacked her. Several of the gold-masked sorcerers had surrounded the hostel where she was staying. She was heavy with child then, and she could not have fought them, except that they seemed unwilling to harm her. They only wanted to capture her, to keep her from escaping. One cut himself and began a spell of binding. However, Vani managed to take his knife and cut him deeper, so that more blood flowed than he had intended. Many spirits came in answer to his spell, and they consumed his blood, draining him dry. The other sorcerers were forced to weave their own spells to keep the ravenous
morndari
under control. In the confusion, Vani fled.
    After that, she was vigilant, and they did not catch her unawares again. However, she was forced always to keep moving. By the time she gave birth to Nim she was on a ship sailing north. For the next three years she kept traveling from place to place, never staying in one spot for more than a month or two, and never daring to return to a location where she had been before, for fear they would be waiting for her.
    When she finished, Travis and Beltan could only stare at her. Through the door they heard Nim humming as she drew. At last Travis forced himself to speak.
    “So have you learned what the Scirathi want with you?”
    “They don’t want me.”
    “Nim,” Beltan said, his voice hoarse. He stood, pacing around the table. “It’s Nim the sorcerers want, isn’t it?”
    Vani nodded, her expression haunted.
    Beltan slammed a fist on the countertop. “The filthy Scirathi—I will kill them all with my bare hands.”
    Sparks shone in his green eyes. Alarmed, Travis rose and moved to him, touching his arm. For a moment Beltan was rigid, then he sighed and his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Travis. It’s only . . . we’ve just met her, and now they want to take her away.”
    Travis looked at Vani. “What do they want with her?”
    “I would that I knew,” Vani said, gazing at her hands splayed on the table. “But whatever the reason, the Scirathi have grown more relentless in their pursuit these last weeks. I could not stay anywhere more than a few days before I was forced to flee. That was why I sought out my people and asked for the gate. I knew it was