Lodestone

by Katherine Forrister

  Dread filled her heart. A spell—a dark spell—consumed her. It told her to turn back or suffer death. Whispers, whispers in her ears, cold fingers around her throat, claws rending the soles of her feet, goading her to run, run….

  But then the gate shuddered. The ground shook and rocked the carriage as the groan of mighty gears rumbled from under the gate’s threshold. The horses reared, and Melaine’s shoulder hit the door, hard. It sprang open, and she tumbled to the ground, barely rolling out of the way in time as the horses bolted, dragging the rattling carriage behind them.

  Melaine lay on her stomach, panting against the dry leaves and heather that covered a bed of granite. She braced her hands against the ground and looked up. The great iron bars were opening vertically, every other bar rising while the interlocking rows lowered into a trench in the ground. The black gate yawned like the maw of a dangerous beast. The harsh squeal of metal tingled Melaine’s teeth as if she were crunching on iron shavings. She squinted her eyes shut, but the noise morphed into strange, echoing screams, and bombardments of siege trebuchets battered her senses. It was as if the monster of a gate remembered all of the battles it had seen and was moaning in agony at its forced opening.

  Finally, with a last great clang, the shaking ground settled. Everything was quiet.

  Melaine opened her eyes. The gate was open, reduced to a thick beam of iron that stretched from the top of the stone wall to a grated iron trench in the ground. The magical barrier, so oppressive moments ago, had lifted as well. Melaine took a freeing breath of cool air and summoned the courage to heave herself off the hard earth.

  She dusted her gloved hands on her dress out of habit, then attempted to brush the dust off her dress onto the ground. She huffed through her nostrils. Scroupe was right—nothing she did could make her presentable enough for the Overlord. He would have to judge her as she was.

  She grabbed handfuls of her dress to keep the ratty hem from collecting dried leaves and thistles and then walked forward. She halted when she reached the iron trench. She entertained the horrible idea that the gate would roar to life and spear her with its iron teeth from above and below, crushing her to a pulp. Perhaps the Overlord had only brought her here for his macabre amusement and watched from some tower, waiting for her to cross the threshold.

  Melaine lifted her boot an inch. She had told Salma she would rather die than sell lodestones in Stakeside, and if there was one vice Melaine didn’t have, it was lying.

  She jumped over the trench and stumbled to the other side. The ground shook again. She spun around as the insidious gate shrieked upward and downward to clasp its iron jaws much faster than its reluctant opening. It locked into place. The only way in or out shut as the high, seamless rock wall dissolved into the fog.

  Melaine was used to walls. Walls surrounding Centara. Walls segregating its inhabitants by class. A wall penning her into Stakeside. Walls didn’t make Melaine feel trapped nor protected. They were just there, a part of her life like every other obstacle she faced.

  Still, Melaine was grateful that no harsh defensive magic crawled toward her from this side of the massive gate. There was no question that she would feel claustrophobia like she never had before if she experienced that dark dread from inside the wall. At least at this point, she felt she had a way out if necessary.

  “Melaine.”

  Melaine startled and turned around. A woman stood before her, tall and rigid. She was old but did not hunch or possess arthritic fingers like Melaine was used to seeing in people even younger. Gray wisps from her grand bun floated around her head like bees around a cone-hive, the wrinkles in her face as structured as honeycombs. Her black dress collared her neck, and a neat column of pearl buttons ran down her bosom. The hidden corset underneath was tied to force her perfect posture, and the crepe overlay on her skirt matched the poufy sleeves that billowed around her arms before they were suddenly restricted by tight cuffs around her wrists, more pearl buttons glinting at each side.

  The sharp-featured woman did a single visual sweep of Melaine, her eyes the only part of her that moved, but her disapproval was apparent.

  “Come,” she said, her voice as firm and austere as her appearance. She turned around as if she had no feet at all, her strides so smooth she could have been hovering over the black, stone flags of the courtyard.

  Melaine looked past the woman, and her eyes widened.

  Highstrong Keep rose from the stone flags as though it, too, had been excavated from the granite plateau. The ancient building was enormous, with sheer cliffs for walls that looked unscalable. Only slits for windows scratched its edifice, just wide enough for an archer to shoot an arrow or a targeted bolt of magic through. Two tall, hexagonal towers rose into sharp points like stakes. One loomed to Melaine’s right, and the other’s roof was just visible on the rear side of the keep that overlooked the cliffside.

  Parapets protected the long, straight walls of the building’s roof. They were lined with wrought-iron spikes that looked like studded maces, modern additions that contrasted with the First Era edifice. Only the towers had real windows. They were all near the rooftops and paned with old, green glaze and were no doubt shielded with magic.

  Crows decked the battlements as living gargoyles. Their caws sounded like they were exchanging gargled words of warning.

  Melaine was too enamored by the sight to consider following the woman, but then a blast of icy wind stole her breath, and a spike of magic kicked her on the backside. She fled from the compelling gate the same way she used to run from Salma whenever she’d nicked a stale scone from the pub as a child.

  There was no center door leading into the massive building, adding to its looming, impenetrable presence. Melaine followed the old woman through the courtyard to the left of the keep. Brown grass and withered weeds crept through the flags at her feet, conjuring images of prisoners’ fingers trying to escape from underground dungeons she was sure existed in a place like this. A few weeds were long enough to snatch at her dress, begging her to rescue them from the oppressive stone.

  A large stable house was ahead, perpendicular to the keep. Its doors were open, the stalls empty of horses and no carriage in sight. If Melaine planned on leaving at any time, it looked like the only way was on foot.

  Lean-tos and temporary barracks clustered around the stable. The drab brick and unpolished timber of the open-ended buildings made it clear they were not original to the ancient stone ruins. Remains of thin mattresses, soiled with blood, were inside, and one structure shadowed an old smithy and forge. Melaine suppressed a thrilled shiver. It was all proof that twenty years ago, the Overlord’s soldiers and renowned Followers had prepared for battle against the White City within Highstrong’s walls.

  The strange woman cleared her throat. Melaine turned and saw she was already standing atop a short flight of stairs that led into a small side entrance of the keep. Melaine shivered her goosebumps away as best she could and climbed the stairs. The woman pushed open a dark, wooden door with iron hinges that reverberated from another magical ward. She disappeared into the shadowed, arched doorway, the ward dispelling behind her.

  Melaine stopped at the top of the stairs, fidgeted with her skirt between her fingers, and took a steeling breath. She puffed it out and strode across the threshold into Highstrong Keep.

  The short, stone passage was cold. Melaine followed its curve to the right. It opened up into a small, paved courtyard, surrounded by four walls pocketed with more arched doorways. Some were shut off with wooden doors, but others gaped open. Most had wicked cobwebs stretching across them or climbing up the walls from the corners. A couple of short flights of stairs ran up two walls, and the old woman ascended one of these, lifting her skirts a small amount as she approached a door bereft of cobwebs.

  Melaine followed, wincing at the dirty bootprints she left behind with each step. Normally, she wouldn’t give a damn, but this wasn’t Stakeside. Highstrong might not have been kept up like she imagined the palace in the ce
nter of Centara was, but it was still a home of the Overlord.

  She stamped her feet a few times on the top stair to shed dirt. At least that was better than tracking it inside. She ignored the raised eyebrow of the old woman and followed her through the dim doorway.

  Once again, the passage was brief. It was lit by a single torch, set into a sconce in the wall. The torch blazed green with everflame, a sign of the Overlord’s wealth, even if it did seem strange that he was holed up in a place as dilapidated as Highstrong. Melaine kept her eyes on it, mesmerized even as she walked away. When she looked back ahead of her, she was surprised to find herself inside a large, open room, one that still bore the trappings of a First Era great hall, including stone columns on either side and rotted tapestries of landscapes. A shadowed throne sat upon a dais at the head of the room. Both features were hewn from solid granite that looked to have been raised by ancient hands from the crags below the keep.

  Every breath and every footstep echoed in the grand hall. A few iron candelabras were lit between the stone columns, casting Melaine’s scrawny shadow onto the wall. Magic seeped through the cracks in the aged stone, but it was old and tired. Melaine’s magic contrasted sharply, leaping and crackling with every heartbeat and every step she took toward the stone dais. She was a living and breathing soul while the castle around her decayed.

  The woman paced ahead of her, but then she paused and stepped to the side, leaving Melaine in the center of the room. She watched the woman, unsure if she should remain where she was.

  Her fingers twitched against the coarse brown fabric at her sides. She met the woman’s eyes. “Is he…?”

  The woman clicked her tongue sharply, startling Melaine in the quiet surroundings. The woman nodded at the front of the room.

  Melaine froze, her stomach somersaulting like the festival entertainers she’d heard sometimes toured through Centara. She had thought the throne was empty, but when she looked closer, she saw the thin shape of a man, dressed and cloaked in black, masked by the shadows. He sat still upon the eroded granite throne.

  The man looked infinitely older and more immovable than the stone. Melaine couldn’t even see his face, but her impression was wrought from the way he hunched over his knees as if his own shadow, cast upon the high back of his throne in the eerie green candlelight, was crushing him. His long black hair was a death shroud over his bowed head. His shoulders sagged, and his arms rested limply across his thighs, his pale hands dangling like two hanged men. His body rose and fell with each slow, haggard breath that rattled in the silence.

  Melaine’s lips parted. Was this…?

  “M-my lord?” she whispered, her voice meek and unsure, far from its usual force. There had to be some mistake. It was a trick. She knew she shouldn’t have trusted Scroupe, and now she was trapped.

  “You’re the stonegirl.”

  Melaine frowned and strained her ears. The voice had been no more than a murmur. Its orator hadn’t moved. Yet somehow, he must have sensed her flare of anger.

  “You don’t like the name,” he said. He took another rattling breath. His words were short and forced, as if he had to push against a great weight to speak them, keeping them few to save his strength.

  Melaine felt betrayed. This was not the man she had come to see. The Overlord she had heard tales of was powerful and magnificent, a sorcerer-warrior who had conquered a kingdom by the age of twenty. This decrepit figure was not that man.

  “I am more than a simple stonegirl, my lord,” she said, her solid voice returning, rising far above the heavy, strained words of the man upon the throne.

  “You are here to prove yourself to me,” he replied. He took a breath as if he wanted to say more, but he sighed it out instead.

  “Aye, my lord,” Melaine responded, but she was beginning to wonder if this weak shadow of a man was worth having to prove herself at all.

  “Make me a stone,” the Overlord said.

  Melaine glowered, furious resentment at the damned overseer sparking the magic in her bones. “My lord,” she bit out, “I don’t know what Overseer Scroupe may have told you, but I have other talents. It was my hope that—”

  “I cannot teach you further if I am not aware of what you can do now,” he said with more commanding force in his swift retort than she had yet heard. She shivered as an icy chill drizzled down her spine, but an exciting warmth pulsed in opposition. That was a glimpse of the Overlord she was looking for, and he had just said he would teach her.

  “Aye—yes, my lord,” she said, excitement bubbling forth into her hands as she tore off her gloves. She dropped them to the floor. A stone, a stone, she had to make a perfect stone, the best she had ever made, for this was the Overlord who requested it of her, and she had but one chance to prove herself, to show him her power.

  A deep magic, rooted farther down than she had ever drawn from before, pulsed from the core of her marrow through the minute pores in her bones and into her every muscle. It broke through into her veins and rushed through her blood as breathtaking fire. The skin of her palm blazed, and she held her hand aloft, drawing a brilliant, living crystal from her flesh. She ignored the pain and concentrated on hardening the lodestone into a glinting diamond, sharper than any she’d crafted before. Its clear facets reflected the green candlelight, and then the stone began to pulse from within with the deep purple-black magic that always filled her stones—how people on the street knew they were authentically hers.

  Then the stone flashed with a powerful surge of magic, and she averted her eyes from the glaring light.

  She glanced back up, and her breath hitched in her chest as she saw two bright blue eyes peering at her through strands of black hair from the shadows of the throne. The lodestone in her hands sparkled with an almost audible ring, and suddenly it brightened to as vivid a sheen as the Overlord’s striking eyes.

  Melaine exhaled a final breath and stumbled forward, wavering on thin legs to stop herself from falling. She took more breaths, slowing them with each exhale, closing her eyes to stave off dizziness. When her head stopped spinning and the stars and squiggles beneath her eyelids stilled, she opened her eyes and lifted them from the now dormant stone to meet the eyes of the man who watched her with a vibrant intensity that did not match his ragged posture.

  He twitched the fingers of his right hand, a single movement that beckoned her toward him. She hesitated, her fear of meeting the most powerful man in all the five kingdoms returning full force, but he was waiting. She took a step, and then another, forcing herself to stay steady. When she was only feet away from the throne, her legs trembled so much from exhaustion and fear that she fell to her knees. She hoped it would come across as reverence.

  The Overlord turned his hand palm up but did not move farther. Melaine was terrified to go closer, but it was clear he wanted the stone and clear he was not going to waste the energy to go to her. She crawled forward on her knees, clutching the stone in both hands. She reached his elegantly tailored leather boots, hardly used, as if he had not stepped outside in them for a long time. She swallowed and carefully looked up.

  She couldn’t breathe. He was watching her, his bowed head right over her now. His blue eyes hid in the hollows of his sunken sockets, surrounded by black hair that hung so low it nearly touched Melaine’s face. She lifted a shaking hand and placed the precious lodestone into his waiting palm. Her hand darted to her chest as soon as she released it. His skin was cold and clammy, like the sick children Melaine avoided in winter streets. She scrambled back but then stopped and bowed her head with respect, trying to cover her fear that he carried some kind of catching disease.

  He ignored her. The Overlord lifted his hand against an invisible, heavy weight and brought the stone to his lips. He whispered something Melaine could not make out, and she raised her eyes as he inhaled against the stone’s heated surface.

  She always hated watching customers use her stones. She felt violated, used, and envious that they could use her magic, and she could not.
She tried to avoid being in their company immediately following a sale, but as she watched the Overlord breathe in her magic, she felt a thrill of power and pride. His shoulders lifted, his back straightened, his head raised, and the stone dissipated into dust in his hand.

  “You are powerful,” he said, his eyes burning coals over her features. A little color returned to his gaunt cheeks as he rubbed his fingers against his palm, feeling her magic in his bones.

  Then, with a sudden thrust of his arm to the side, a door at the back of the room slammed open. Melaine jumped, and she nearly stood but remembered that perhaps she should wait for permission. She stayed on the floor as she watched a man trudge into the room. Iron chains clanked around his wrists and ankles, humming with restraining magic.

  Thick black ropes snaked from the Overlord’s outstretched fingers and whipped around the man, creating a painful-sounding crack against his skin. Then the Overlord twisted the magical ropes into his fist and yanked the man viciously across the room. The man grunted as he came to a halt not ten feet from where Melaine knelt. Red rivulets poured down his dark skin from each lash, fresh liquid streaming down dried, crusted trenches of blood from who knew how many past tortures.

  The Overlord’s face twitched with rage. He released the ropes from his grasp and jerked his hand into the shape of a skeletal claw. The ropes ripped away from the man’s skin, spinning him with an echoing scream of agony. The magical bindings shot back into the Overlord’s fingers and disappeared, diffusing into the magic racing through his veins—Melaine’s magic, blended with his, to create the powerful display like she had never seen before.

  Melaine stared, mouth agape, marveling at the Overlord’s sudden strength and the bloody, gangrenous flesh of the victim before her as he struggled to remain standing. His hair looked like straw tufts from prolonged dehydration, crusted from matted blood. His brown skin had become ashen, his face gaunt, his nails cracked and flimsy with necrotic flesh beneath. The stench was unbearable now that he stood closer, and Melaine nearly retched.