She switched on the desk lamp, squinting against even that modest glare. The throbbing in her head rose a notch in magnitude, and belatedly she realized she should have picked up some coffee on the way. Now she would have to wait until Anders showed up.
That’s nice, Deirdre. You can’t convince yourself he’s not a traitor, but you’re still willing to let him fix you a cup of co fee. If he was smart, he’d put rat poison in it and get you out of the way.
Like he got the sorcerer out of the way?
She reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out an empty syringe. It was the syringe Anders had used the previous night on the sorcerer. The drug had been intended to both allow and compel the sorcerer to speak; instead it had killed her.
Deirdre rolled the syringe back and forth on the desk. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe Scirathi physiology was dissimilar to human physiology after all. Maybe the woman sorcerer had suffered an allergic reaction, going into anaphylactic shock.
Or maybe Anders had given her the wrong dose on purpose.
One way or another, Deirdre would find out. Last night, a special Seeker task team had been dispatched to Beltan’s and Travis’s flat, and at that moment the sorcerer’s body rested in a refrigerated drawer in a laboratory beneath the Charterhouse. An autopsy would be done, and tests performed. The cause of death would be determined, along with the levels of the drugs in the sorcerer’s blood. Once the report came back, she would know whether Anders had deliberately killed the Scirathi. But that would take a few days. What should she do in the meantime?
Keep working, Deirdre. It’ll get your mind off things. Besides, Beltan isn’t about to rest. He’s going to continue looking for the arch.
Only where was it? The Scirathi had stolen the arch from Crete, but not for themselves. Instead, they had given it to someone else–someone who, in exchange, had led them to Travis Wilder. But who was it? Who had hired the sorcerers to steal the arch, and why?
Maybe going over everything that had happened would help her understand. Deirdre opened her computer and started to type, writing a report of their operation last night while the details were still fresh in her mind. When that was done, she pulled a digital voice recorder from her pocket. She had carried it on her last night to record their conversation with the sorcerer. At the touch of a button words emanated from the recorder, spoken in a dry, hissing voice. Deirdre’s fingers trembled on the keyboard as she transcribed the conversation.
There wasn’t much. She typed the final words. The arch . . . blood so near . . . the seven cannot . . . be far.
Her own voice came then: louder, desperate. The seven what?
A long pause, then one last sibilant whisper. Sleep . . . sleep . . .
That was all. Deirdre stopped typing and switched off the recorder. She clicked the SAVE button on her computer, then leaned back, rubbing her temples. There were so many questions she had wanted to ask the sorcerer. Only the sorcerer had died, and Deirdre doubted they would capture another. The Scirathi would be more wary than ever now. And if Anders was working for them, he was bound to warn them of another ambush. Or was Anders allied not with the Scirathi, but with the same people for whom the sorcerers had stolen the arch?
Stop it, Deirdre. You don’t know Anders is working for anyone except the Seekers. You need a lot more evidence before you can say for sure he’s a traitor.
Or before she could say for sure that he wasn’t. Sighing, she picked up the copy of the Timesshe had bought out of habit from a newsstand outside the Tube station. She needed to give her mind a break.
In which case she shouldn’t have read the paper. The news was more troubling than ever. Variance X continued to expand; it was now over twice the diameter of the moon as seen from Earth. And it was no longer the only blot in the sky. Another anomaly had appeared, visible from the southern hemisphere and growing at a rapid rate. Like the first, astronomers had determined it to be outside the solar system, a bit more than twice as distant from the sun as Pluto.
There was bad news here on Earth as well. Violent earthquakes had struck Turkey again, dormant volcanoes in South America were erupting, typhoons were flooding much of India, and another hurricane was battering the east coast of the United States. With all that was going on, it was no surprise the world stock markets were crashing.
All the same, people kept going on with their lives. That morning, the Tube station had been filled with the usual throng of weekday commuters and tourists dragging crying children. It was the same as any day–at least if one didn’t look closely.
But Deirdre hadlooked closely, and what she had seen disturbed her. The commuters had stared with blank faces, not bothering to read the newspapers they held in their hands. The tourists had seemed deaf to the shrieks of their children, trudging as if on a death march rather than a vacation. There was no joy, no urgency in their expressions or actions. Not even annoyance or anger as people jostled into one another, or a train’s doors shut before someone could climb aboard.
Deirdre had watched a man standing, staring, his briefcase hanging open and papers swirling about the platform. She picked up some of the papers, but before she could give them back to him he dropped the briefcase and walked over to a group of Mouthers in the center of the platform. One of them put a white sheet around his shoulders, draping it over his business suit. Another gave him a sign to hold. I Have Been Eaten, it read.
Maybe people weren’t going about their normal lives. Maybe, instead, they had already given up. For what was there to fear from the dark blots in the sky when one was already defeated–already consumed?
Deirdre sighed. She had read enough of the news. She folded the paper to toss it in the trash bin.
A small white envelope fell from between two sections of the paper, landing on her desk.
She stared for several seconds, then set down the newspaper and picked up the envelope. Her name was written on the front in elegant script. Hands shaking, she opened the envelope and unfolded the single crisp sheet of notepaper within. It bore a message written in the same elegant hand as on the front of the envelope.
You are closer than you think to the answers you seek. However, you have forgotten something–a mystery from before this mystery began. It is time to remember it now. And to find an answer, don’t forget that it is always best to go directly to the source.
That was all. Deirdre turned the notepaper over, but there was no more writing, and no signature. What did it mean? What mystery had she forgotten about? She had no idea. However, there was one thing she did know: The note was from her mysterious Philosopher. Only how had he gotten it inside the newspaper?
Deirdre thought back. It had been dark still, and she had hardly looked at the attendant at the newsstand when she handed him a pound coin and took the newspaper. She remembered he had been tall, wrapped in an overcoat, a hat shadowing his face . . .
A chill coursed up her spine. It had been he. It had to be. Her hand had brushed his, and she hadn’t even known it. She bent her head over the note to read it again.
The overhead lights switched on, and another gasp escaped her.