The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [240]
“Please, Sareth, you know perfectly well I’m going to kill you. Just as the demon will slay all of the Scirathi.”
“You mean you’re betraying them?”
Xemeth sighed. “Now you’re just being dull. Of course I’m betraying them. Just as you betrayed me.”
Grace sucked in a breath. The T’hot card Sareth had drawn that morning—the Three of Blades. Didn’t he say it had foretold betrayal that day?
Sareth struggled for words. “I don’t understand.”
“Must I spell it out for you? Very well, but only briefly. Time is running out now, for you and the sorcerers of Scirath.” Xemeth held up the gate artifact. “When I found this in the hole where I lay dying, I knew I had found my salvation. Why it had been put in this place so long ago, I am not certain. Perhaps the sorcerer who bound the demon thought he might use it to escape after working his magic. If so, he perished before he had the chance.
“Regardless, my blood awakened the artifact, and when I opened it I saw there was yet blood of power within it. I used it to create a gate to the surface and crawled through. I was dying, and I had given the gate only a vague idea of where it should take me, but it seemed fate was on my side, for I came through in the countryside west of Tarras, and I was found by a shepherd. He was a kind and lonely man, and he nursed me back to health. Too bad. Once I was strong again, I was forced to repay his kindness by killing him. But he had seen the artifact, and I could not let word of it get back to the Mournish. Not then, before I had my allies.”
“The Scirathi,” Sareth said through clenched teeth.
“Now you’re catching on.” Xemeth set the artifact down on the altar. “I was determined to come back here and gain the scarab for myself, only I knew I had to find a way to get the demon out of the way. That was where the Scirathi became of use. I approached them, revealed the artifact to them, and told them of the scarab.
“As you can imagine, the sorcerers of Scirath were quite interested. Long have they searched for artifacts such as this. It is because they seek something in the other place beyond the void, the place which only the artifacts can reach. They have allies of some sort there.”
Grace glanced at Travis. He mouthed the word that burned across her brain. Duratek.
“I confess,” Xemeth went on, “I didn’t pay much attention to these distant friends of the Scirathi. I’m not even sure how the sorcerers came in contact with these people of the other world without the benefit of an artifact. I believe there is someone here in Falengarth who the sorcerers are in league with, someone who approached them and told them what the Morindai learned long ago, that there is another world across the void. All I know is that these people across the void seek a way to Eldh, and that the Scirathi have agreed to help them get here in return for some unknown favor or payment.
“Not that any of this really matters to me. All I care is that, to indebt them to me, I let the sorcerers use the artifact to communicate with their allies in the other world. Such is their skill at blood sorcery that they were able to send messages back and forth across the void. They even managed to draw forth a few objects from the other world, including some kind of weapon made by their allies across the void—metal sticks that can slay at a distance.” Xemeth chuckled. “Of course, the sorcerers who attempted to pass through were consumed by the morndari in the void. To open a gate through which living men could pass, they needed blood far more powerful than that of a mere sorcerer of Scirath.”
“You mean like the blood of Orú,” Sareth said.
Xemeth drew the scarab forth again. “Exactly. I told the Scirathi about it, and I helped them forge a plan—the plan you are now aware of. Using the artifact and the blood of many sorcerers, we opened gates to the temples of the gods and fed them to the demon in order to sate it, so that we could get past it and gain the scarab.”
Sareth raised a fist. “But you cannot sate a demon! Once free, it will never stop consuming.