The First Stone Read Free

parents. Only it was not so, and al-Mama’s cards had revealed the rest of the tale, which no one had known until then: how the infant had been thrown into a thicket of bushes when the wagon toppled, and how a day later she was found by a tradesman on his way home to southern Toloria. He took the baby with him, for his wife had always wanted a child.
    Thus Fate had taken Lirith away from the Mournish, and Fate had brought her back—to her people, and to Sareth.
    When the Mournish departed Gravenfist Keep, Lirith had traveled south with her people and her husband, and life had seemed joyous beyond imagining. Then, one night a little over a year ago, as the two of them lay together, they had discovered one more wonder wrought by Lady Aryn’s spell. Their bodies had become one, and they had laughed and wept with a pleasure neither had thought themselves capable of. Over the moons that followed Lirith’s belly had swelled, and here now in her arms was the greatest wonder of all: little Taneth, dark and sweet and perfect.
    Lirith sighed, turning her gaze toward the east.
    Sareth touched her shoulder. “Are you sure it was because of Taneth you came out here,
beshala
? Is there not another reason?”
    She gazed at him, her eyes bright with tears. “I don’t want you to go.”
    So that was what this was about. Last night, a young man from another Mournish band had ridden hard into the circle of their wagons, bearing ill news.
    “I do not wish to leave,” Sareth said. “But you heard the message just as I did. A dervish has come out of the desert, or at least one who claims he is a dervish. He must be seen.”
    “Yes, someone must go see him. But why must it be you?”
    “I am descended of the royal line of Morindu.”
    Lirith’s dark eyes flashed. “So is your sister, Vani. She is the one who was trained at Golgoru. She is the
T’gol
. It is she who should be doing this thing, not you.”
    Sareth pressed his lips together; he could not argue that point. Three thousand years ago, the sorcerers of Morindu the Dark had destroyed their own city lest its secrets fall into the hands of their foe, the city of Scirath. The Morindai became wanderers and vagabonds, known in the north as the Mournish.
    After their exile, the Morindai forbade the practice of blood sorcery until Morindu was found again. However, there were those who defied that law. Dervishes, they were called. They were renegades, anathema. The silent fortress of Golgoru had been founded to train assassins who could hunt down the dervishes and destroy them with means other than magic.
    Sareth moved to the edge of the grove. “My sister is gone, and the cards reveal not where, though al-Mama has gazed at them time after time. I know of no way to find her—unless you think Queen Grace may have heard some news.”
    Lirith shook her head. “You know I have not Aryn’s strength in the Touch. I cannot reach her over the Weirding, let alone Grace. They are too far away.” She frowned. “Indeed, it seems my ability to reach out over the leagues grows less these days, not more. I can hardly weave the simplest spell of late. The Weirding feels . . . it feels tired, somehow.”
    “Perhaps it’s you that’s a little tired,
beshala
,” Sareth said, touching Taneth’s tiny hand.
    She smiled. “Perhaps so. Still, it is strange. I will have to ask Aryn about it the next time she contacts me.”
    While Sareth did not doubt Lirith was happy living among the Mournish, he knew she missed her friends. The Mournish had journeyed to Calavere—where Aryn and Teravian ruled as king and queen over both Calavan and Toloria—only once in the last three years, and they had not returned at all to Gravenfist Keep, where Queen Grace dwelled. Still, the three witches could speak from time to time, using magic, and that was a comfort.
    An idea occurred to Sareth. “Why don’t you and Taneth go to Calavere,
beshala
? It will not take you long to journey there, and the roads are