The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [248]
Grace forced her eyes open. Before her, Beltan’s head lolled on his shoulders.
“Beltan! You’ve got to stay awake.”
She started to shake him, but his arm was ripped from her grasp as he rose into the air to float in the wake of Melia and Aryn. Vani rose up after him. The assassin’s limbs were still, her eyes shut.
The shadow pulsed all around Grace. Everything seemed to grow dim. The call of owls sounded in her mind.
Falken, she tried to shout, but she couldn’t form words. Nor was there any use. Through the fog she could just make out the shape of the bard drifting up to meet the others. She clutched the stone column.
Don’t close your eyes, Grace. Don’t give in to it. The past can’t harm you. It can’t—
But even words were too much effort. The column seemed to melt under her fingers. She felt her body grow unbearably heavy, and she could not resist the gravity of the shadow. Grace shut her eyes, and the past swallowed her whole.
81.
“It is no use,” Sareth said, turning from the edge of the precipice and holding a hand to his eyes.
The Mournish man’s words echoed throughout the vastness of the cavern. Lirith gazed at him with worried eyes.
“So there is no sign of the passage,” Durge said.
Sareth shook his head. “Nothing here is as it was. If the passage to the city yet remains, then I can see no trace of it. In truth, I fear the passage is no more.”
“So we’re trapped here,” Travis said.
It wasn’t accusation, merely realization. All the same, Sareth flinched.
“I am sorry.”
Lirith moved to the Mournish man. “This is not your fault.”
“No, you are wrong. It is entirely my fault.” He turned away from her.
The four of them were still gathered on the finger of stone that thrust into the void, near the altar where Xemeth had found the scarab. For minutes that seemed like hours, Sareth had searched the darkness for signs of the passage he had once used to escape the demon. The green glow of Lirith’s witchlight was comforting, but it pushed back the shadows only for a dozen paces all around them, so Travis had sent his silver ball of rune-light darting through the emptiness, moving it into cracks and crevices to illuminate them.
As Sareth had said, it was no use. One hole in the stone looked like another, and there was no telling where any of them might lead—if anywhere at all.
Lirith gazed at Sareth, her eyes filled with sorrow. Then the witch folded her arms across her chest and moved away, toward the altar.
Travis sighed. Sareth shouldn’t blame himself. It had been Travis’s idea to stop the demon; he should have come down here alone. But it didn’t matter now—blame was not going to help them find a way out. And it wasn’t going to help Grace and the others.
If it’s not already too late.
He peered into the darkness above, and a clammy sweat broke out on his skin. Was the demon still up there? Or the Etherion for that matter? And what of Melia, Falken, and Aryn?
But it was not on the lady, the bard, or the young baroness that Travis’s thoughts dwelled. Instead he found himself thinking of Beltan … and Vani.
And if you could save only one of them, Travis, which one would it be?
He didn’t know where the question came from, only that it was as cold and cruel as a needle in his heart. Nor was there any point in answering it. Right now he couldn’t help either of them.
“Can we not use the gate artifact to reach the Etherion?” Durge said.
Sareth hefted the black stone pyramid. “We cannot, good cloud. The magic of the artifact requires blood of power, and all of the fairy’s blood was consumed when we opened the gate to this place. Xemeth had drunk from the scarab, and the blood of Orú had mingled with his own blood—that was how he was able to open a gate.”
“But were not the Scirathi also able to open gates within the city using the second artifact?”
“They are workers of blood magic,” Sareth said. “The blood of a sorcerer is enough to open a gate within the city, although not across worlds.”
Durge seemed to think a long moment, then suddenly he looked up. “Goodman Travis is