The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [151]
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