The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [259]
Travis winced. He supposed he had just convinced Sareth that he was going to dig up the lost city of Morindu the Dark after all. He opened his mouth to say something—anything—that might discourage the thought, but Lirith spoke first.
“By Yrsaia, what is that thing?”
The witch pointed to an oddly clear space amid the rubble on the floor. In the center of the circle was a lump of black rock the size of Travis’s fist. If he squinted, he could almost see what looked like an inhuman face in the rock, the pit of a mouth open in a soundless scream.
Sareth drew close to Lirith. “It is the demon. Or what remains of it. That is the rock the sorcerers of old bound it into.”
“Rock or nothing,” Travis murmured.
Lirith glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
He slipped his hand in his pocket, drew out the smooth shape of Sinfathisar. “The demon was a rock, and at the same time it was nothing. The Stone let me choose to make it just one.”
“It is a marvel,” Sareth said.
“Actually,” came Melia’s clear voice, “the real marvel is that you were able to act at all, Travis.”
He turned around. The others were close now, picking their way across the rubble toward the center.
“I’m curious, dear,” Melia said. “Even I was not able to resist the spell of the demon. How was it that you were able to use the Stone against it?”
Travis gazed down at the Stone of Twilight, quiescent now, and he thought of the girl who had given it to him in his dream—who had given him what he already had, but what he had been too afraid to accept as his own.
Forgiveness.
I love you, Alice.
But aloud all he said was, “I had a little help from my sister.”
Melia cocked her head, but before the lady could ask more, Falken spoke, eyeing the rock that had contained the demon.
“So it’s dead?”
Melia nodded. “I can still feel a fraction of its power lingering on the air, like ripples in water. But the ripples are already beginning to fade.”
She glanced at Grace and Aryn, both of whom nodded in reply.
“It’s over then,” Travis said with a sigh.
The demon was no more—as were Xemeth and a large number of the Scirathi, he supposed. But somehow he and his friends were still alive. One more mystery to contemplate. Grace met his eyes and smiled at him. He smiled back, then his eyes moved past her to Beltan and Vani. What was he going to say to them? He didn’t know. Maybe he would start with—
A shuddering groan rose on the air. Dust and flakes of stone rained down from the fractured dome.
“I do not like the looks of this,” Durge said. “I believe those cracks have grown since I last checked. We should leave this place at once.”
“This way,” Melia said. “The doors of the Etherion are—”
The sound was like lightning passing inches from Travis’s face. The floor gave a violent lurch, and he stumbled back into Durge, Lirith, and Sareth. Grace, Beltan, and Vani fell in the opposite direction, colliding with Aryn, Melia, and Falken. Just as Travis started to regain his balance there was another deafening crack, and the floor shuddered yet again.
Someone screamed—Aryn, he thought—then Travis watched as the solidified demon, along with several heaps of rubble, vanished into a pit of darkness. For a confused moment he thought the demon was not dead after all—if such a thing had ever been alive. Then the pit elongated into a black line, swallowing more rubble as it grew.
The floor of the Etherion was cracking apart.
“Back!” Durge shouted. “You must get back!”
The knight pulled at Travis with strong hands. Lirith and Sareth were already fleeing from the crack. On the opposite side, the others did the same.
Again the floor convulsed, and with terrible speed the crack grew until it was a rift fifteen feet across, cutting the Etherion in half. The edges crumbled, falling into the chasm. Stones crashed down from above.
“Travis!”
It was Beltan. There was fear in his voice, in his eyes. Then Travis understood why.
“We can’t get to the exit, can we?” Lirith said.
“Not unless you care to leap that.”
“It is far too wide,