Stonemaster

by C. E. Murphy

  "The serpent swallows the rising sun in Northern winters, so that's east and our nearest land from the ship's north-east course was..."

  He closed his eyes, trying to be certain before he spoke, but Milu said, "Due west," with absolute conviction. When the others looked at him, he gave them a wan, grim smile. "I'm a Stonemaster journeyman stuck on a ship. I don't care how sick I am. If there's land within twenty miles, I know where it is."

  "Twenty miles isn't so far," Kisia whispered.

  "Not in a ship with sails," Rasim agreed flatly. "In a bowl of water, though?" And they were in a bowl of water now. Kisia had shaped it while he studied the sky, and the three conscious members of their group sat cross-legged and leaning on each other within it. Telun was sprawled over their laps, lumpy and uncomfortable-looking but not drowned. That, Rasim thought, was quite a lot, given the circumstances.

  He looked up from the unconscious stone witch to find Kisia's haggard gaze on him. He was supposed to be the clever one, after all. He was the one who thought his way out of terrible situations. Except Milu had suggested both the bowl and recognized the building fog that hid the Waifia from its castaways, which made Rasim not so clever after all. "There are too many things to do. Hold the bowl, keep the sky clear enough at least above us so we can see the stars and navigate, propel the bowl through the water...Kisia, don't drown me, but we could probably do it with Desimi. But with just you and me? It's too much. It'll fall apart."

  Kisia set her jaw. "No. I can hold the bowl. All you have to do is navigate and create the currents to push us along. I know it was your idea to do that with the Waifia, so don't tell me you hadn't thought of it."

  "Thinking of it is one thing! Doing it is something else! It took the whole crew to keep the Waifia going, and I wasn't even part of that!"

  "You saved me from the serpent. You threw witchery miles . You have to do it again now. You have to find that power in yourself, Rasim, or we're all going to die out here."

  "But I didn't ! I wish I had, Kisia, I wish you were right with your crazy idea about how much magic I have, but I didn't ! I can't just make power roar out of me when I'm desperate. It doesn't work that way!" He thrust a finger at the sky, frustration pouring out of him in heavy waves. "I can't just say,

  "Begone, fog!" and have the skies clear! I can't—!"

  "Rasim." His name was a low scratchy sound from Kisia's throat as she followed the line of his finger toward the sky. "Rasim, look."

  Furious, discouraged, he glared skyward. " What ? Wh—oh."

  Clear skies shone above them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rasim gaped upward, heart hammering in his chest. The weight of witchery was everywhere, throbbing in his blood. Fog spun away from them in a tunnel, clear path reaching all the way to the stars. He felt the fog's swirl, felt each drop of water in the air, felt its lightness and its weight all at once. He blew a soft breath through pursed lips, and the fog eddied away from that breath, though it was much too far away to actually be affected by it. Magic. Witchery. Sea witchery. Rasim's own seawitchery. His head spun at the idea, dizzier than it had been even when he'd been drugged.

  "I am not doing that." Kisia's voice remained low, even dangerous. "Now take that magic, Rasim al Ilialio, and turn it to the currents around this bowl so we can save ourselves."

  He turned his gaze from the sky to Kisia, whose face was set in unforgiving lines. "You sound like Isidri."

  "Then listen to me like I am Isidri," she snapped. "Push the fog behind us. Imagine pulling it into the sea and propelling us forward with it. Turn it into the current, Rasim, and get us out of here."

  "I—"

  "Don't you dare say you can't! I feel the magic in you, Rasim.

  It's enough to crush my breath. Now use it!"

  Rasim caught his own breath, then swallowed his arguments and turned his face to the sky again. It was true, anyway. He felt the weight of witchery within himself, even though it was impossible. And the fog seemed willing to do his bidding, so he exhaled again, like he was pushing more of it away with the breath. Then, his hands clenched, he brought the fog down, back into the sea it had sprung from. Its droplets became one with the greater ocean, but he still felt them each individually, as if they'd built a friendly acquaintance. He encourage them to catch Kisia's water bowl and carry it forward under his guidance, as he navigated by the stars.

  After a few minutes, wind caught his hair, a breeze strong enough to make him falter. He turned his attention back to the sea instead of the sky.

  Whitecap water spun around the edges of Kisia's bowl. She held her lower lip in her teeth, concentrating on keeping the waves from falling into the bowl, but it wasn't rough seas creating them. It was speed, the strength of Rasim's current great enough to create a wake. He gasped and Milu's gaze flew from Kisia to

  Rasim. "Stop thinking," the Stonemaster journeyman ordered. "Just feel it, Seamaster. Become the water."

  Every guild told their apprentices the same thing: become the water, become the stone, become the sun, become the sky. That, too, was part of the song Daka had sung to him while they were in the island cave. Rasim had never been able to become the water, though. Becoming the water sounded like somebody should actually turn in to water, and that sounded terrifying. He was afraid of the very idea, afraid of losing himself to the oceans.

  But now for the first time, he felt it. The rush of blood in his body was the same as the water in the sea, carried by tides and turns. That was what they meant, when they said become the water.

  Rasim let go of thought and embraced the water's steady motion, a power that was the same the world over. At the bottom of his soul, it felt familiar: he had experienced it before, after all.

  The ocean had surged to life, responding to his will, because the fear of losing Kisia to the sea serpent had been greater than his fear of becoming the water. He had accepted Siliaria into himself in that moment, seizing everything the sea goddess offered and throwing it farther than he could imagine. He had saved Kisia, and then he had gone deep into the sea himself with the serpent and become reborn.

  Rasim's eyes flew open, though he saw nothing. To become the water, to be reborn in the heart of the sea: that was to become a Seamaster. Not an apprentice, not a journeyman, but a master, beloved of Siliaria. That was every dream Rasim al Ilialio had ever had, and it awakened in his chest with a roar. Joy exploded within him, so profound that tears streamed down his face. He lifted his arms, shouting to the sky, to the sea and to the stars.

  Starlight struck the sea, and from it rose a goddess.

  She was everything and nothing Rasim had imagined. Seamasters swore by Siliaria's fins, and fins she had: a dolphin's tail, skin smooth and soft like a human's, not scaled like a fish. Her forearms were finned as well, sleek points that swept off her elbows and looked as dangerous as they did functional.

  But she was a woman as well, half of what held up the world. Her watery torso seethed with power, wild hair rushing around a face too wild to be called beautiful. She carried a trident in one hand, favored tool of the Seamasters, and it, like she, changed size with each surge of the waves. Never smaller than inhumanly large, with one breath she took up all of the sky, a sea-silver face staring down at a watery boat full of journeymen, the next, foaming before them as a whale might, standing on its tail in the sea. She dove around them, disappearing and surging up time and again, though it seemed to Rasim he never lost sight of her, either. But then, how could he: she was the sea itself, and he was in the heart of her domain.

  Once, in her enormity, she pressed her face deep into their fragile bowl, and came back with her lips peeled away from shockingly pointed teeth. Her mouth opened, sea spray expelling from her throat. She reminded Rasim of nothing so much as a cat encountering something appalling, and after a moment he realized that the Stonemaster journeymen disgusted the sea goddess.

  "Your brother Coluth chose these two as his own, lady. They're gifted with his earth-shaping powers, and ar
e needed beyond our borders. They only ask safe travels over your waters. Believe me, they're not trying to...invade." Rasim swallowed on the last word, overwhelmed and embarrassed to be trying to explain things to his goddess. She extended her tongue—long, thin, far too flexible—like she tasted the air, tasted his very words on it, and then opened her mouth further yet. Nothing human—nothing animal, even—could open their mouth that far, but she was a thing of water, constantly shaping and re-forming. Her distaste faded as she inhaled his explanation, and when she looked a second time at Milu and Telun, it was with more interest. Her tongue flickered out again, lashing first Telun, then Milu, on the foreheads.

  Milu, sick and miserable as he'd been, shivered with rapture at the goddess's touch. But he ducked his head under her scrutiny, and Telun never opened his eyes at all. After an eternal moment, Siliaria withdrew, her expression pensive. She met Rasim's eyes with her own depthless silver gaze, and he thought he almost recognized the emotion in her wild, stunning features.

  Not disappointment. Siliaria was far beyond anything that could feel disappointment, and humans much, much too small to be able to disappoint her. Something else. Humor, if the sea itself could laugh, and a sense of deep, unforgiving... pity , Rasim thought.

  Not a human kind of pity, not the feeling of sorrow for a wretched fellow creature, but pity that a challenge had not been met.

  Kisia shoved Telun off her lap and staggered awkwardly to her feet, struggling to maintain the water bowl while she moved.

  Without a thought, Rasim strengthened the witchery holding the bowl's shape. The strain in Kisia's face lessened, blissful awe replacing it. "Siliaria. Goddess." She extended a hand toward Siliaria, not quite pleading. Trembling with hope, but not begging. She was, Rasim thought, absurdly brave.

  That time Siliaria did laugh, a roaring rush of water that sprayed warmth—warmth!—over the four journeymen. Rasim tried to capture that warmth, to make a bubble of water around them that would hold the warmer air in, but Siliaria's presence was too vast and too changeable. She broke through his attempts without noticing they were there, and bent close to Kisia.

  Goddess and girl stood nose to nose for the space of a heartbeat, Siliaria as small and contained as she could perhaps ever be.

  Water whispered, blowing into Kisia's hair and drenching her.

  Like it amused her, Siliaria lifted a webbed hand and touched Kisia's outstretched hand, fingertip to fingertip.

  Water shocked over Kisia, ice-colored and sharp. She dropped into the bowl, wide-eyed, stunned, with her lips parted in wonder.

  Siliaria laughed again and finally turned her attention back to Rasim.

  He had faced the serpent in its element. Its eyes had been black and cold, without emotion. Elemental Siliaria had emotion: Rasim had seen that already, though her fathomless gaze was no kinder than the serpent's. It was, she was, he was: there was little more to it than that, except perhaps that he had come into his power there, in the heart of her realm, and it was the only thing he had ever truly wanted. Helpless, Rasim whispered, "Thank you, goddess," and felt it was a silly thing to say.

  She changed again, becoming enormous. Becoming the whole of the world, her changeable form splashing around them as falling rain.

  With only starlight to shine through it, the rain became rainbows, soft and silvery in the night. Beneath them, the sea surged, lifting the water bowl, and threw it forward on a wave that built endlessly as it traveled across the sea. Siliaria danced through the wave, breaking from it in shapes great and small, but through it all her gaze remained fixed on Rasim. His heart beat wildly, joy so great he thought he might go to pieces with it. The power was astounding, but it was the belonging, finally belonging, finally having a place, that took his breath away. Siliaria had taken him during the Great Fire and given him to the Seamasters, but not until tonight had he felt like one of them. Like one of Siliaria's children. Like not only had he found where he wanted to be, but where he was also wanted, there in Siliaria's embrace. There was nothing to ask of his goddess, when she had given him everything he could ever dream of.

  The tidal wave crashed to a stop, water roaring over itself in endless splashes. The water boat's headlong rush stopped cold too, sea sloshing over it, filling it. Siliaria leaped from the sea in front of them, suddenly human in size. Suddenly beautiful as well, not just overwhelming but in her every aspect stunning.

  She came to Rasim as she had come to Kisia, but without the laughter. Her webbed fingers slipped into his hair, cold and soft as lapping water. Rasim's heart stopped, his breath a solid thing in his throat, unable to be drawn. Siliaria studied him, her lips so close to his could taste their salt.

  She had asked something of Milu with her touch, and Milu had backed away from that question. It was in her eyes again, in the cool wet fingers in his hair and in the eternal breathlessness of a goddess waiting.

  Rasim, dizzy with nervousness, lifted his own hands into Siliaria's endless flowing watery hair, and met her lips with his

  own. She tasted of sweet fresh water and drew his locked breath into herself, exchanging that breath for one of her own. His heart stuttered and started again, given life by a goddess.

  Siliaria, goddess of the ocean, breathed, " Ssssea-massster, "

  against Rasim's mouth, and then, in the space of an instant, was gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Everything—journeymen, tidal wave, water bowl, fog, everything —

  crashed back into the ocean. Rasim's feet hit bottom and his knees buckled, surprise striking him harder than earth. Kisia went completely underwater and came up again coughing and panicking until she realized Rasim was standing. She got her feet under herself and stood, thigh-deep in surf and gaping.

  Dawn burned pale gold on the eastern horizon, sending faint blue shadows against a muddy, rocky shore only a dozen feet away.

  White-coated mountains swooped up from the shore, riddled with black holes that suggested safe passage, or at least protection from the elements. The air was so cold it felt scrubbed, and Rasim's breath turned to billows of steam on it.

  Behind Rasim, Milu struggled to his feet and wheezed. Rasim startled and turned from the view to search for Telun. The big Stonemaster boy was a few yards farther out, also coughing. Rasim waded over, caught his collar, and dragged him in to shore. Kisia followed, water draining from her hair and skin. Milu came last, his long limbs awkward in the water. He dropped to his knees when he reached the muddy beach, squelching his fingers in the muck.

  It crept up his arms in welcome, the weight of stonewitchery hanging in the air.

  Rasim squeezed Telun's collar, sending rivulets of water streaming off him, and shed the wet from his own clothes as well.

  Before Milu stood, Kisia touched his hair too, sending the last of their damp adventure back into the ocean. All of them were shivering. It was warmer to be dry, but not nearly warm enough.

  "Get up," Rasim told the Stonemaster lads. "We have to get out of the wind, into one of those caves, before we're too thick-limbed to move."

  Kisia swayed, her skin taking on a burnished gleam in the slow-rising sunlight. "Don't you want to talk about..." She waved a hand at the ocean. "About that ?"

  "What happened?" For such a big boy, Telun's voice was thin and very small. Rasim helped him up, but even with help he was clumsy, and his weight sank him deeper into the mud than any of the others.

  Milu barked a laugh. "You slept through it, my love, so you're never going to believe it." He shoved himself to his feet,

  stumbled to Telun, and hugged him hard. "The good news is we're alive and no longer on that wretched ship."

  Rasim smiled faintly. "Tsha, Milu, the Waifia is a very fine ship. Yes," he said to Kisia, "I want to talk about it. But we won't talk long if we die of exposure, and I'm starting to feel warm."

  "Me too," Telun mumbled into Milu's shoulder. "Thank Coluth."

  "Thank Siliaria," Rasim and Kisia both said under their breath, and exchanged the
briefest smile at that correction. Then Rasim shook his head. "Warm is bad. We're losing feeling. We have to get into those caves now. "

  Milu, without letting go of Telun, extended one hand, palm downward. Mud popped and splorched, making a huge sucking sound as it began quivering beneath their feet. "Come closer," he ordered, sounding nothing like the exhausted, sick youth he'd been for weeks. Kisia and Rasim skittered closer, neither of them fully trusting the shaking muck. "This mud goes down forever,"

  Milu said dreamily. "There's no bedrock for at least half a mile."

  "Milu, it's mud," Telun warned, but the gangly boy smiled, hugged Telun tighter, and said, "Hang on."

  Mud ripped away from the shore, rising upward like a sea witch water spout. Kisia screamed and collapsed, lying on her belly.

  Every muscle in Rasim's body clenched. He forced himself to bend his knees, trying desperately to imagine the wobbling mud was nothing more than a rolling ship deck, but a glance down made a lie of that.

  They rose on a column of grey clay. It bent toward the mountain faces, more mud rising to support it. The weight of witchery was terrific, and the sea ran to fill the gaping holes left by such massive stonemastery. Clumps of mud fell away, splattering to the ground, but the great bulk lifted them upward at remarkable speed. By the time Rasim remembered to breathe again, the clay slide had carried them to a cave mouth dozens of yards above the beach. Telun grabbed Kisia and pulled her into the cave, and Milu nodded at Rasim, who forced himself forward to join the other two. Milu came after him, his witchery fading away. Mud collapsed down the mountainside and slid back toward the ocean.

  Before they could take a single step into the cave's depths, Telun whacked Milu's shoulder. " Mud , Milu?"

  Milu laughed. "It worked, didn't it?"

  "But mud ! It's not stone, it's not—"