Stonemaster

by C. E. Murphy

  Oh. Rasim's face wrinkled. That was what they wanted Kisia and him for, then. Bringing water up—there had to be some reachable by witchery—to sluice the tunnels clear. That way they could use all their miners to dig out new ore, save for those few who would need to watch over Milu and Telun as they worked.

  If there was a renegade band of Ilyaran witches somewhere on the continent, Rasim hoped they were having more luck than he was, because every non-guild encounter he'd had with foreigners put him in chains or the threat of them. He knew other people used slaves, and knew as well that Ilyara's vast witching talent allowed them not to. He just hadn't realized how appealing Ilyaran witches were as slaves until he'd left the safety of the guild. Now that he did know, it was hard to imagine rogue witches surviving the outside world in safety.

  His head was much clearer, if he could think about such things.

  He sat up stiffly and wished he dared prod the lump on his head again. But he didn't want to draw attention to it, in case he might later be able to heal it somewhat. It would never do for these Northerners to learn seawitchery could help the body to heal.

  "Where do you think you're going?" The big man, the original captor, growled.

  Rasim swallowed down pain and fear, trying to sound clear-headed and calm. "I want to see my friends. I need to know they're all right."

  The woman muttered, "Told you," but the man eyed first her, then Rasim before growling, “And what’ll you do if you don’t see them?” in a deep mocking tone.

  Cold anger filled Rasim's chest, though he tried not to let it show. There would be a way out of this soon enough. Sunmaster Endat would disapprove of him getting into fights with opportunistic Northerners, even if these particular Northerners were definitely at fault. Rasim had not, after all, captured

  himself. But Queen Jaana was making peace overtures after rebel Northerners had attacked Ilyara, and Rasim was not going to make that worse. He almost stomped his foot, as if the physical emphasis would help him keep his temper. "I certainly won't work for you."

  "Everyone works, when it's work or death." The woman spoke again, voice deep and grim.

  Rasim lifted his chin and met her eyes, wishing the throbbing in his head would stop making his vision swim. He wasn't sure where he should focus, and chose the middle-most of the three blurred female forms he could see. "Killing me would be a mistake. First, we witches are useful to you, if we're agreeable. You said that yourself. But second, and maybe more importantly, we're here at Queen Jaana's request."

  "In the mines?" The woman guffawed, her laughter bouncing off the walls.

  The echoes pierced Rasim's head, making him dizzy again, but he drew a careful breath and kept speaking in an even tone. "In the North. You're isolated here, aren't you? But you're probably not entirely alone, even in winter. Send a message. Ask if there are Ilyarans in the North, visiting the queen. Then decide for yourselves what to do with us."

  "And in the meantime?"

  Kisia was going to kill him. Rasim's hands shook and his head hurt terribly, but he remembered the endless dry, dull pages he'd read while studying with the Sunmasters, and spoke with careful confidence. "Take the chains off, and we'll work for you until word comes from the capitol."

  "Willingly," the woman scoffed.

  Rasim turned his palms up long enough to suggest a shrug. Then he put them down again, hoping the pair he negotiated with hadn't noticed their trembling. "We're sea and stone witches. We can't fly away, so until someone comes, we may as well be helpful."

  The man's eyes bugged. "Can witches fly?"

  Only the most absurdly powerful Skymasters even dared attempt riding the wind. No one had tried even in Isidri's lifetime, much less Rasim's, so he shook his head gingerly, trying not to make it hurt more, and tried for a faint smile. "No. So we're all the less likely to fly away."

  Rumblings sounded from the others, who had faded far enough into the shadows that Rasim had almost forgotten they were there. The speakers frowned between Rasim and the others, then stepped away to talk quietly and quickly enough that Rasim couldn't follow

  their conversations. Finally someone—not the two who had been talking—spoke up. "How are we to know you won't witch us to death if we take the iron off you?"

  "How are you to know that anyway?" It wasn't the diplomatic answer Master Endat would have wanted, but Rasim's head hurt and he was becoming exasperated. "What does iron have to do with it?"

  A silence rippled around the cavern. "Everybody knows witchery don't work with iron," someone else said as if it was obvious.

  Rasim stared at them in the dim light, then looked at his bound ankles. In his thirteen years with the Seamasters, he'd never heard any such thing, but the Sunmasters had drilled enough sense into him to not admit that , at least. Instead he looked up, trying to keep his expression mild. "Then how do you expect us to do slave labor for you, if we can't work our witchery while bound by iron?"

  Another more uncomfortable silence rose up, and in that instant, Rasim recognized his mistake. He'd been too clever, he'd made someone important look foolish, and—

  —a fist came at him, and for the second time that day the world went dark.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The chains around his ankles were different when he awakened.

  Heavier, with a different sound when he moved, and gleaming when light caught them. No one was watching over him this time, and though his head still hurt, the dizziness had passed. He examined the chains and almost laughed. Silver. It had to be a rare slave who was worthy of wrought silver chains. Of course, Ilyaran witches were rare slaves, almost unheard of.

  Almost. Somewhere, at least some of Nasira's crew had survived as slaves, and now Rasim and the other journeymen had joined them in spirit, if not in body. Anger finally flared in Rasim's belly. He had genuinely meant the offer he'd made to the big-bearded miner.

  There was no reason for them to be at odds, and no reason for the Ilyarans not to help mine the mountain while they waited for rescue. Or there hadn't been, anyway. What could have been washed away as a misunderstanding had reached a tide mark now, a line they couldn't go beyond.

  At least they were still alive. Rasim felt confident they all were. Their captors wouldn't have bothered replacing iron with silver if they were going to kill him, and if they didn't kill him , they weren't going to kill the others. Not right away, at least, and in the meantime Rasim couldn't imagine how they thought they would make the journeymen work for them.

  "On your feet, Ilyaran." The woman again, her voice low and commanding as she stepped into the chamber he lay in. The same one he'd been in before, probably. Now that he noticed, there was a bloodstain on the thin pillow where his head had pressed against it. Usia would never allow them to sleep in muck like that. Rasim began a defiant protest, but the woman said, "On your feet," again, and this time Rasim got up.

  He didn't mean to. He had no intention of doing so. But his legs swung over the edge of the hard bed, chains rattling, and he stood as if it had always been his plan. The woman curled her lip in satisfaction. "Get water from the stone."

  That was an old saying in Ilyara, that not even a seamaster could get water from a stone, but Rasim walked to the nearest wall and put his hand on it anyway. Astonishment bubbled through him as he did. He still didn't mean to, didn't want to, but his body acted without his mind's consent. He put a palm on the cool stone, feeling dampness there. Condensation from temperature differences, maybe from runoff within the mountain itself. There was a lot of it, running all through the mountain. He could probably find his way out by following it, except he couldn't make his body respond to the idea. Instead he pulled water off the wall until his palm was full, then turned to the woman like a puppy eager for praise.

  "Good. Can you do more than that?"

  Rasim shouted No! inside his head, but nodded. Horror wrapped around his guts, chilling them, and his eyes widened.

  The woman laughed. "Not so cocky now, are you? You're on mindk
iller, boy. You can't even use your water witchery unless someone tells you to, so there's no escaping now. You'll work until our—" She used an unfamiliar phrase again, but his incomprehension must have shown in his eyes, because she tried a second time: "We're debt slaves, lad, in debt to Radolf of the Southern Wide because our own master was a fool."

  Radolf. The Southern Wide. Rasim knew there were noble families and fiefdoms within the Northlands, because unlike Ilyara, the Northlands were too large for a single monarch to hold without help. Queen Jaana held rank over them, but only met with their council once a year. Disappointment flashed through Rasim. He had imagined the Northern monarchs to be more civilized than to allow slavery, though there was no reason to believe that except he liked Inga and Lorens. Head aching, he tried to remember where the Southern Wide was, on the Northlands maps. Farther east than its name implied, on the outer reaches of the Northlands territories. Even through his headache, Rasim was fairly certain the Southern Wide was mostly a mountain range sweeping south through the ocean, making it the Northlands' most southerly holdings.

  "Get to clearing tunnels, boy. We have a lot of gold to find before we're clear of debt."

  Rasim's feet carried him down the tunnels, following where the woman led. Deeper in the mountain he felt water more strongly, and the moment a crack let him reach for it, he did. He still didn't mean to, but he extended his hands, calling water to rise from the mountain's depths. It seeped, then spilled, through the fissured wall. The woman's jaw dropped, though she tried to hide it. He saw a flash of fear in her face as she realized how much power he might command, followed hard by relief at the knowledge that he couldn't command it without her permission.

  Because despite everything he wanted, water poured out, pooled without making a mess of the floor, then swept down the tunnels, gathering dust and small stones as it went. A sense of the damp walls told him where a bottomless natural chasm lay, and the water ran that way, cleaning up as it went. It was master-level witchery, and his heart would sing if he had chosen to use it this way. Instead it felt like a violation. Magic wasn't supposed to be forced, or worked by others through a witch as the conduit, and that was what the woman was doing. She was commanding his power, even if she couldn't work it herself.

  Rasim shuddered at the idea of an army of Ilyaran witches all fed the mindkiller drug, all unable to call witchery except in the ways they were told to. He had to escape, had to rescue his friends, and then they had to find Nasira and warn her. If other slavers used mindkiller, then the very sailors she intended to save might unwillingly turn against her. He bowed his head, pretending resignation and obedience, but his thoughts tore down every stream and rivulet of hope he could imagine.

  There weren't many. He was too hungry to refuse food when it was finally given to him, and though he stared grimly at the cup of thick fortifying drink, he couldn't make the liquid respond any more than he might have made stone itself respond. The woman stood over him and chortled while he tried, then ordered him to drink, and he could no more refuse that than any other demand she'd placed on him.

  He slept twice, the throbbing in his head lessened each time he woke. After the second sleep—he had no idea if days were passing or not—he felt a touch of water witchery from elsewhere in the mine. Kisia, no doubt doing the same tasks he was set to. If Kisia was alive, the Stonemaster journeymen certainly were.

  Stonewitchery was far more useful to miners than water witchery.

  Rasim held that idea close, taking comfort from it. He'd have been more comforted still if his own witchery was as weak as it had been before Siliaria's intervention, because if they kept him alive and busy with so little power, Kisia would be in no danger at all. Now, though, he was afraid he was stronger than she, and that she might be exhausted or killed through being forced to keep up with him.

  The third morning, after a tasteless breakfast under the woman's sneering watch, an argument rose up from somewhere in the mine's depths. One voice was the big-bearded captor's, coming clearer as the woman hauled Rasim with her when she went to find out what the problem was.

  Rock had slipped. A huge chunk, weighing more than Rasim could even imagine, was wedged into the mouth of a tunnel, blocking access. The miners who needed into the passage wanted the stone witches to fix it, but Big Beard was using them elsewhere. Good news, as far as Rasim was concerned: it verified his friends were still alive. He stood passively as the woman waded into the argument too, though he saw an easy solution.

  They were near one of the deep water vents in the mountain, and water could move anything, even stone. It wouldn't even take that much to slick the surfaces get the wedge moving, though it would require careful handling because the fallen rock was easily big enough to crush people. But the woman hadn't commanded him to help, and he couldn't use witchery without an order. Siliaria herself would have Rasim's ears before he volunteered.

  His mind fogged, spinning around something he'd thought, but unable to quite touch on it. Something about forbidden witchery.

  That was it. The woman had said he couldn't use his water witchery without being commanded to.

  Kisia was certain Rasim had set fire to the Waifia 's ropes.

  Rasim's stomach dropped and he stared at the wedge like he might set it on fire by scowling hard enough. Kisia was wrong, he knew she was wrong, but...he'd known she was wrong when she'd believed his magic had saved her when the serpent attacked, too. And he had been wrong then. Maybe she was right. Maybe the two magics complemented each other. Maybe he'd mastered seawitchery because he'd touched sunmastery.

  Not that sun witchery would do him any good down here. He needed stone witchery, this time, and the idea that he could master a third magic was absurd. But it was something to try. It couldn't hurt, and it would keep him occupied and less resentful of his captivity while they awaited rescue.

  If rescue was even coming. Rasim barely saw the Northerners anymore, his gaze entirely focused on the wedged stone, like it was what lay between himself and freedom. The miners obviously had no intention of letting the Ilyarans go free until they'd worked off their debts. There was no reason, then, for them to have sent word to see if the Ilyarans might truly be there at Queen Jaana's request. And as far as anyone inboard the Waifia was concerned, Rasim and the others had been lost at sea. Someone

  —Rasim truly had no idea who—would be held accountable for that, but dead was dead: Nasira had no reason to search for them.

  "There are people in there! Get your cursed stone shapers and get them out!" The shout brought Rasim out of his thoughts. A chill swept over him. Big Beard refusing to use the Stonemasters for a laborious but menial task like moving the wedge was one thing, but risking lives was another.

  Big Beard gave Rasim a canny glance, as if trying to hide something, and shook his head at the shouting man. "Too far. If they've got water back there—"

  "They don't! They were ending their shift, Hans!"

  Too far. Rasim worried at that, trying to understand what it meant. Telun and Milu were of the most use in the mine.

  No. They were of the most use in mines , but not necessarily this one. And it was clear Big Beard—Hans—would use them in any way he could to lighten his own load. Like offering them to his lord Radolf, maybe, or selling them on to real slavers instead of opportunistic miners. Rasim's jaw set, as stony as the walls around him. If Kisia had been sent away or sold, he would tear the North apart to find her.

  "You." The woman thrust a finger at him. "You use your witchery to get them out. Don't tell me you can't. I see it in your eyes."

  Rasim met her eyes with all the fury in his own. She flinched, then snarled like they were desert dogs fighting for dominance.

  But his feet were already moving, his magic stirring despite himself. The mindkiller was a terrible drug, leaving him free to think but unable to act without a command. There were so many ways to abuse it, not least the way it was being used on him. He went to the wedge, crouched, and examined the broken bottom o
f stone against the rough floor.

  There were enough rough edges that water could seep under. That was good. Without them, even a seamaster would have real difficulty moving the vast chunk of rock. It could be done, but eroding stone took a long time even if water moved witch-fast.

  Rasim cleared a few shards away, pressing his fingertips against the wedged rock. "How big is it?"

  He was startled at his voice: rough, dry, unused for days. The Northerners seemed equally surprised. One finally responded:

  "Three feet deep, and maybe eight wide at the top. You can see how it narrows a little."

  "Is there enough room for it to fall backward if the tip is moved forward far enough?"

  Hesitation preceded this answer, too. "Maybe."

  It would be worse if he tried pushing it that way and it stuck even more thoroughly. Rasim stood up, studying the tunnel they

  stood in. It was neither tall nor wide itself, but it was larger than the tunnel mouth in which the stone had wedged. "This is dangerous," he said, more to himself than the Northerners. "You need Stonemasters. Do you have a way to communicate with the people trapped on the other side?"

  The one who'd appointed himself speaker shuffled forward and nodded. "We tap out messages to each other."

  "Then tell them to get to high ground, if they can." Rasim, hands clenched with anger, turned to Big Beard. "Empty the mine. Get everyone to high ground."

  Belligerence split the big beard. "I can't do that!"

  "Then bring the Stonemasters." Rasim stared Big Beard down, unrelenting until the large man snarled defeat. Rasim's gaze fogged with anger. "Where are they?"

  "Sold."

  " What ?" Someone else—the man who'd wanted to use Milu and Telun to clear the tunnel—spoke the word that leaped into Rasim's throat. Rasim crushed his eyes shut, trying to contain the rage that built in him as his suspicions were confirmed. He was deep inside a mountain, well away from the sea, but he felt it rising in his blood along with his anger. It would be as easy to draw water all the way up from the inlet as it would be to pull it from the depths of the mountain. Maybe easier. Probably safer , because raising it from the inside the mountain would mean the stone itself would crack from the pressure of the rising water.