Free The First Stone by Mark Anthony Page B

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.
    “Vani,” Deirdre said, her mouth dry. “You came to Earth to escape the Scirathi, right?”
    “Yes,” the
T’gol
said, clutching Nim to her. “Why do you ask?”
    Sickness rose in Deirdre’s throat as she recalled the picture
he
had sent her during their final conversation three years ago: an image of two figures in black robes slinking down an alley in a modern Earth city, their faces concealed behind masks. Gold masks.
    Deirdre drew in a breath. “Because I think they’re already—”
    Her voice was drowned out by the sudden sound of shattering glass.

8.
    The bones would always be there.
    Over the last three years, the grass of the vale had grown up around them, lush and dense, and had crept up the sides of the larger mounds, shrouding them in green. Just that spring, on the sides of those mounds, a tiny flower of the palest blue had begun to bloom in profusion. No one—not even the eldest of the witches, and the wisest in herb lore—had ever seen a flower like it before.