The Dark Remains (45 page)

He laid his right hand on her forehead and felt a tingling beneath his palm. “Grace, it’s time to wake up. You’re in downtown Denver, in a room in the Brown Palace. Yes, I know it’s a little fancy compared to the Blue Sky Motel, but don’t worry. It’s on the Seekers.”

The corners of her mouth pulled downward. Her hands curled into fists, twisting the covers.

The previous night, after the attack at the motel, Vani had driven them there. Neither he nor Grace had known where the Seekers were staying, but somehow Vani had. She had led them to a room on the third floor, knocked. But when the door opened and Deirdre gazed out with surprised eyes, there had been no one in the hall besides him and Grace.

As best they could, they had told Deirdre and Farr what had happened, then they had watched the report on the Channel 4 ten o’clock news. Travis had been only mildly shocked when photos of him and Grace were flashed on the screen.

Police are looking for these two individuals, who they believe are connected to the violence at the Blue Sky Motel
, the robotic news anchorman had said.
They are considered dangerous, so if you see them do not approach. Instead, contact the police immediately
.

Apparently their good friends at Duratek had been busy. Travis was amazed they had the energy to manage a multinational conglomerate what with all the time they spent manipulating his and Grace’s lives. Then again, it seemed they had had help in the matter. Again he thought of the figure in the gold mask, the one Vani had said was the master of the
gorleths
. Somehow, with a motion of his hand, the other had made Travis’s heart stop beating. Had it not been for his dagger enchanted by the Runelords long ago, Travis knew he would be dead now.

Thank you, Jack
, he said silently.

After the news, Grace had not been able to stop yawning and had crawled into bed without even taking her clothes off. But there had been no sleep for Travis. He had stayed up well into the night, sitting in the suite’s main room, talking with Deirdre and Farr, telling them every detail he could remember about the attack. Finally, Farr had gone into his room to contact the Seekers. Deirdre had brewed Travis a cup of what he thought was herbal tea, but which must have contained a few other active ingredients, because the next thing he knew he was lying on the sofa, the red light of dawn creeping between the tall buildings of downtown to set the room’s window afire.

Grace’s eyelids were still shut, but he could see rapid movement beneath them. He bent down and kissed the damp surface of her brow.

“I love you, Grace.”

Her eyelids opened.

Grace pushed herself up and pawed at tangled hair. “Travis. Did you … say something?”

He smiled and placed his hand on hers. “I just said it’s time to wake up.”

“I’m sorry. I was at … I mean, I was only …”

“It’s all right, Grace. I know.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “I was there, in Spardis. I saw the shadow.”

She went stiff and started to pull her hand away, but he didn’t let go.

“You should have told me,” he said softly. “About the regressions. You’ve been having them ever since we got back to Denver, haven’t you?”

Now she did pull back. “You have enough to worry about, Travis. I didn’t want to bother you with a bunch of old memories.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was completely maddening. Why did she always think she had to do everything by herself?

“Bother me, Grace. Please. I mean it.”

She stared at him. Then a thin, fragile smile touched her lips. Slowly, as if she wasn’t certain exactly how to do it, she lifted a hand and pressed it to his cheek. “So when exactly in the course of this complete disaster did you turn into the strong one?”

Now it was his turn to blink, astonished at her words. He leaned back, then finally he shrugged. “I don’t know, Grace. I really don’t know.”

She looked away. “I can’t stop them, Travis. The memories. Sometimes I think the past is going to drown me.”

“What’s gone is gone, Grace. The past can’t hurt you.”

“Can’t it?”

He stood. “Come on. Deirdre called for room service. Let’s see if this hotel knows how to brew a decent cup of
maddok.
”

Deirdre was already pouring from a silver pot when they stepped into the suite’s main room. She handed them steaming cups before speaking a word, and Travis wondered how he had ever doubted she was anything but a friend.

“Thanks,” he said, lowering his cup. It wasn’t
maddok
. It was the real stuff: rich, dark, perfectly brewed coffee.

“You owe me one,” she said.

Grace curled into a chair and took small sips. Before Travis could say anything, the door to the second bedroom opened, and Farr stepped out. He wore the same rumpled clothes as last night, as well as a frown.

“What did the Philosophers say?” Deirdre asked.

Farr ran a hand through his dark, curling hair. “Nothing. They said absolutely nothing.”

Deirdre frowned. “But that’s not possible. Stewart and Erics are dead, and we’ve broken Desiderata left and right. They have to say
something.
”

“Evidently they don’t.”

Farr and Deirdre locked eyes, and Travis sighed.

“Excuse me, but in case you’d forgotten, not everyone in this room is fluent in Seeker-speak. Could you translate, please?”

“I’m not certain I can,” Farr said, tucking in a wayward shirttail.

Travis squinted over his cup. “What do you mean? You’re the ones who always speak in mysterious riddles
and drive up in black cars at all the right moments. I thought you Seekers had the answers to everything.”

Farr’s gaze was distant. “So did I,” he murmured.

It was Grace who broke the silence. “All right, now what do we do?”

Travis hadn’t really thought beyond coffee. Duratek still had Beltan, only now they had mutant-controlling sorcerers in gold masks as well. What could they do? He didn’t have the slightest clue.

Fortunately, another voice answered in cool, carefully inflected words. “We must find your friend, the knight Beltan. And quickly. We do not have much time.”

It took Travis’s eyes a moment to focus, as if the air unfolded around her. There was a
click
as the suite’s door swung shut. He didn’t remember hearing it open.

“Vani,” he breathed. “You came back.”

She smiled, the expression sharp as a knife yet not without mirth. “Incorrect, Wilder. I never left. I have been keeping watch over this hotel. It is safe—for the moment.” She cocked her head; her short, tousled hair glittered in the morning sun. “Is that coffee?”

“Let me,” Deirdre said, clearly too stunned to say anything else. She poured.

“Thank you, Seeker.” Vani took the proffered cup.

“It’s not
maddok
, you know,” Grace said with a grimace.

Vani breathed in the rising steam from the cup. “It will do, Grace Beckett. It’s been … a long night.”

Vani sat on the sofa, and for the first time Travis noticed the shadows beneath her golden eyes. She still wore sleek black-leather pants and boots, but her jacket was gone, and she wore only a black tank top. As she lifted her coffee cup, Travis saw the tattooed symbols that snaked up her arms. More symbols coiled around her neck. He did not know what they were, except that they weren’t runes.

“So you know us,” Farr said. Awe shone on his face,
but then Farr had made a career of searching for evidence of other worlds. Now a woman born on another planet was sitting in his hotel room, drinking coffee.

“You’re Seekers,” Vani said.

Farr nodded. “And why have you come here to Earth? Can you tell us?”

Vani set down her cup. “Have not Travis Wilder and Grace Beckett already told you? I have come to bring them back to Eldh.”

Deirdre opened her mouth to speak, but Farr made a small motion with his hand, silencing her. She shot him a questioning look, but Travis thought maybe he understood. Wasn’t that one of their rules? To watch, and to see what those with otherworldly connections did of their own free will?

Grace sat up, her cheeks flushed from caffeine. “How did you get here, Vani? How did you come to Earth? I need … 
we
need to know.”

Vani seemed to think about these words. At last she nodded. “Let me begin my story this way. Long ago, my ancestors dwelled in the far south of Eldh, in the hot lands of Moringarth, in the city of Morindu the Dark. Of all the cities of Amún gathered along the banks of the great River Emyr, only Kor was older. And while Kor was largest of the city-states, none was home to so many sorcerers as Morindu the Dark.”

“Sorcerers,” Travis said. “Last night, didn’t you call the one in the gold mask a sorcerer?”

“Yes,” Vani said, her eyes narrowing.

“So what are sorcerers? Are they like the Runelords?”

“No, sorcerers have nothing to do with the wizards of the north. At least as far as I know. For all that my people remember, much has been lost since our exile from Morindu and the lands of Amún. But simply put, sorcerers are those who can beckon and command the
Morndari.
”

“The
Morndari
?” Deirdre said.

Evidently she had forgotten Farr’s instruction as she shifted to the edge of her chair.

Vani nodded. “In the ancient tongue of my people, it means
Those Who Thirst
. Ever were the
Morndari
thirsty, from the time the first men of Amún discovered them. They are …” She gazed at the ceiling, as if searching there for words, then lowered her gaze. “They would be called spirits, I think, in your tongue. Although not the spirits of dead men. They are ancient—as old as the world. Or, perhaps, older still. They are aware in their way, but they have no bodies, no form, and they are not truly alive. Yet they have power. And as the first sorcerers found, they could be enticed with blood. And that is how they came to be named.”

“Blood,” Grace said. She shuddered. “You mean the blood of animals?”

Vani shook her head. “If a sorcerer would hope to command them, it was his own blood that had to be offered. Once they had drunk, they grew dull and sated, and the sorcerer could bid them to do things.”

What things?
Travis wanted to ask, but his tongue seemed welded to the roof of his mouth.

“The shining cities of Amún fell over two thousand years ago,” Vani said. “The sorcerers rose up against the god-kings, but they were thrown back down and destroyed, and the course of the River Emyr was changed in the last conflict so that Amún became what it is today: the Morgolthi, a desert of dust and bones.”

Grace hugged her knees to her chest. “I like history, Vani, and your story is interesting. But what does it have to do with how you came to Earth?”

Vani smiled. “The present has deep roots, Grace Beckett, and moments are like leaves on a tree. Even a simple happening comes to pass only because a thousand other things came first. My people call this fate.”

“I’d call it chaos theory,” Grace said.

Vani shrugged. “Whatever the words, the result is the same. You see, there were sorcerers who, in the midst of the war against the god-kings, sought to wrest secrets away from Morindu the Dark—secrets of great power. Rather than allow this to come to pass, the sorcerers of Morindu sealed the gates and destroyed their own city from within. Thus was Morindu buried forever beneath the sands of Amún, and its secrets with it.”

Travis clutched his empty cup. “Vani, these sorcerers who wanted to steal the secrets of power from Morindu. Did some of them wear gold masks?”

Vani gave a stiff nod. “There was a city in Amún called Scirath, which from the dawn of the age of the god-kings was a rival to Morindu. It was the men of Scirath who first named the city of my ancestors
the Dark
, for they sought to poison the minds of others—to make them fear the Morindai and hate them. Ever did the Scirathi covet the knowledge of Morindu and seek to gain it for themselves. But the Morindai took the name given them in scorn and wore it proudly. And yes.” She met Travis’s eyes. “The sorcerers of Scirath wore masks of gold.”

Grace rose. “Vani, I thought you said all the sorcerers were destroyed in this war.”

“Most. Not all.”

“But it still doesn’t add up. Why would a bunch of two-thousand-year-old sorcerers be interested in me and Travis?”

“For the same reason my people are,” Vani said.

Grace stared, then plopped back down in the chair.

Vani gazed at her wrists; her eyes traced the intricate tattoos. “Even as some of the people of Morindu survived, so did some of the men of Scirath. They have never ceased in their effort to uncover the lost secrets of Morindu. And we have never ceased in our efforts to prevent them from doing so. It was one of the Scirathi who attacked you last night. Even had you not seen him,
Wilder, I would have known it. Only they ever used
gorleths
as their slaves.”

Grace shivered. “What are they, Vani?
Gorleths.
”

“I know not what shadowed sorcery the Scirathi use to create them. They are made by combining the blood and flesh of different creatures, that I know. But I have never seen
gorleths
such as these. They were stronger than any I have ever heard of. Faster.”

“And smarter,” Grace said. She looked up. “Aren’t they?”

Vani nodded. “In a way, I am glad the Scirathi showed himself. I have suspected these last months that it was one of his order who came through the gate.”

Now it was Farr who forgot his own rules. “The gate?” His brown eyes were intent on Vani. “You mean to tell me you know of some kind of portal between Eldh and Earth?”

Vani regarded him. “Long my people kept the artifact of Morindu hidden. However, three years ago we risked its use, and that is how I came here, to Earth, in hopes of finding Wilder and Beckett.”

“Three years? But you can’t have been on Earth that long. The Seekers would have heard of it.”

Vani’s lips twisted in a wry expression. “I believe you overestimate the swiftness with which I can learn the language of a new world. And you also underestimate my ability to stay hidden from the eyes of the Seekers.”