The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [214]
“Yes,” Sareth said. “How a scarab came to be sealed in the tomb of the demon I do not know—only that the fa’deth told of it being there. However, there is no relic of Morindu the Dark that is more powerful. Or more dangerous.”
A piece of dark wood hissed and fell apart, consumed by fire. At last Vani spoke.
“Sareth, there is a part of this story you have not told us. You were … whole when I saw you last.” She gazed, not at his face, but at his wooden leg.
He looked down at his hands. “There is no blood more powerful than that of the god-king Orú. The blood of five hundred sorcerers could not equal that contained in one scarab. With a single drop, wonders could be worked. Or …”
“The artifact,” Grace said. “You wanted to find the scarab so you could use the blood of Orú in the gate artifact and get Vani back from Earth.”
Sareth gave a stiff nod. “It was earlier this year, after we had learned that Travis Wilder was here on Eldh, but before he returned to his Earth. I could not … I could not bear the thought of you stranded there, Vani, with no hope of …”
Tears shone in Sareth’s eyes. Vani reached for his hand, held it tight. “I am here now, brother. But you must tell me. What happened to you?”
Roughly, he wiped away his tears. “The elders forbade it, of course, but I defied them and went anyway. Only I did not go alone. Xemeth came with me.” Sareth glanced at the others. “As children, Xemeth and Vani and I were impossible to separate. We did everything together. He was like my brother. Only, when we were older, the cards—”
Vani looked away. Whatever Sareth had been about to say, he swallowed the words.
“So Xemeth went with me to Tarras. From the followers of the Rat God we learned of a crack that ran from one of the sewers deep into the rock beneath the city, one which even they had never dared follow to its end. We descended the crevice, until at last we came to a great cavern. And there …”
Sareth’s hands began to tremble. He clenched them together but could not stop the shaking. “I cannot tell you exactly what happened in that cavern. Like a nightmare, it is both dim and horribly clear. I saw the scarab, shining like a golden star, resting on an altar. Xemeth started to move toward it. And then … a shadow fell over us. A shadow whose center we could not see.
“I think … I think the demon was still bound by the old magic. Otherwise I would never have escaped. I felt only a great coldness in my leg, and then I could not walk. But Xemeth … he was closer. One moment I saw him, then the shadow grew. There was a great noise, and the ground shook. Then he was … gone.”
Lirith clamped a hand to her mouth.
“I fled then, like a coward,” Sareth rasped. “I dragged myself up the crevice by my hands. How I returned to the sewers beneath Tarras, I do not know. It was only when the people of Geb found me and lifted me up that I realized what I had lost.” He brushed his wooden leg. “Our people came for me then, and returned with me to the caravan. I thought they would punish me for my foolishness, but they did not.”
“They believed you had been punished enough,” Falken said, flexing his black-gloved hand.
Vani folded her arms. “Poor Xemeth. I never got to …”
Her words trailed into silence, and Travis thought maybe he understood. As the childhood friends had grown older, he guessed Xemeth had fallen in love with Vani. But it was a love she had not been able to return. Something had prevented her … something she had seen in the cards.
“So you think the Scirathi want the scarab,” Grace said.
Sareth looked up, the line of his jaw hard. “I know that they do. Even as we have always worked against them, so they have always sought relics of Morindu—and there is none so powerful as a scarab. With it, there is no telling what sort of foul sorceries they might work.”
“Like raising Morindu the Dark?” Travis said.
Sareth gave a stiff nod. “Somehow, the Scirathi learned of the demon and the scarab beneath Tarras. Two months ago, one