The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [249]
Travis swallowed mad laughter. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve donated blood.”
“No, Travis,” Sareth said. “Your rune magic is strong, but it is of the north. It has nothing to do with the sorceries of Morindu the Dark.”
A frown crossed Durge’s craggy face. “Is there not something else you can do, Travis?”
“I wish there was, Durge. But I don’t know any runes that can get us out of here.”
“And what of the Great Stone?”
Travis drew out the Stone of Twilight. It glittered in the green glow of the witchlight: quiescent, a mystery. Travis barely understood its powers. It could make things whole, that was all he knew. He had used it to heal wraithlings in Calavere, and to bind the Rune Gate. And the fairy seemed to believe he could use it to bind the demon. But as for how the Stone could get them out of this cavern …
He held Sinfathisar out toward the knight. “Have you got any ideas how to use it?”
Durge took a step back. So much for Embarran logic. Travis slipped the Stone into his pocket. “We’re not going to be able to help them, are we?”
Sareth’s visage was grim. “There is no way out of this place.”
“Actually,” Lirith said in a rising voice, “I believe that there is.”
The three men turned to look at the witch. She stood beside the altar, leaning over it.
“What is it, Lirith?” Travis said.
“I think you had better come see.”
“What is it, my lady?” Durge said as they drew near.
“Look here.” Lirith touched the shallow depression on one side of the top of the altar.
“That’s where the scarab was resting before Xemeth took it,” Travis said. “But I don’t see how that helps us.”
“It doesn’t,” Lirith murmured. “But I think perhaps this does.” With her fingers she brushed dust from the section of the altar top that had rippled and warped.
If it hadn’t been for the witchlight hovering above them, Travis would never have seen it. As it was, it was no more than a tiny spark of gold embedded in the half-melted surface of the pedestal.
Sareth looked up. “We have to break away the stone!”
“Why?” Durge said, glowering.
“Because,” Lirith said, “it might be—”
Travis was already working. He laid a hand on the altar and spoke a word.
“Reth!”
There was a bright sound as rock cracked, then the surface of the altar shattered into small fragments. Travis drew his hand back.
“Look,” Lirith murmured.
The four of them held their breath as a few of the fragments shifted. Filaments like slender wires reached up, searching for a hold. Then they pushed a flake of stone aside, and it crawled up onto the scattering of shards: gold, shining, and utterly perfect.
A scarab.
“How—?” Travis said, but he could get no further.
Soft gold light played across Sareth’s face as he knelt beside the altar. He swore softly. “We are fools. Here it was right before us.”
Travis and the others bent down beside him. Sareth passed his finger over one of the pictographs, brushing away millennia of grime. In one of the sorcerer’s hands was a circle with eight lines. And in the other hand was … the same.
Sareth rose. “There must have been two scarabs set into the altar as part of the binding, not one. But as the demon grew stronger from consuming the gods, it began to reshape the stone in this place. The altar began to melt, and one of the jewels was all but covered.”
“So Xemeth missed it,” Durge said.
“As we would have,” Sareth said, “were it not for your sharp eyes, beshala.”
He was grinning now; she smiled back at him.
Travis held out a hand. With slow, delicate motions, the scarab crawled onto his fingers, then curled up in his palm. It was warm to the touch.
“So how do we use it?”
“According to the tales,” Sareth said, “each of the scarabs was made to contain three drops of the blood of Orú.”
Lirith touched the jewel with a gentle finger. “Blood of power.…”
In a minute they were ready. Sareth had set the gate artifact on the altar and had removed the prism, exposing the empty reservoir within.
“What of the purification spell?” Lirith said.
“There is no time,” Sareth said. “And its purpose