by Karen MacRae
“But how?”
The old woman smiled. “I gave them away when Samuel and I came here. I knew they would find the next bearer. They were made for me when I was just a girl. I gave my aura to them as they were made so they were keyed to me. They can only be used by one of my kin and one of my kind. A Healer Shaper. She may well be the first since me.”
“One of your kin?”
“A Desmarais.”
“Not a Northcott?”
The Shaper shrugged. “Names change over the centuries, assassin.”
Seleste didn’t know why she was shocked at the woman’s Reading, but she was. There had been no mention of her work for the King.
Evaline took a small sip of water and waved her hand over Anna. Again, the white seemed to glow and strengthen. “Things she might want to know about Shaping that I have long forgotten she will find in the book on the desk. I wrote it many years ago, but it still holds true today. She may want to add to it as her knowledge outstrips mine.”
Seleste went over to the desk. She knew what she would find. It could be no other given the strangeness of this meeting so far. “It’s her favourite book,” she told the hermit. “She carried it in her rucksack, but I don’t think it survived the fireballs. She’ll be glad to have this.”
“That makes me truly happy,” the old woman smiled. “But I can see she went further than my suggested code of honour. Her oath is a beautiful work of art. Her mother was extraordinary.”
“We had a few problems with Valteira, the volcano.”
Evaline smiled. “She is a handful, but the solution seems overkill. A firm hand and a strong mind are all it takes.”
Seleste defended her friend. “Would you have learned much about Shaping if you’d grown up here? Straton may as well be Shae for all the natural crystal there is and Anna only left there a month ago. She might lack experience, but she more than makes up for it with guts and determination.”
“I am glad to hear it. Samuel would have been so disappointed to have been wrong. But, forgive an old woman, I have forgotten the most important thing of all. My white stone. I have held onto it for her.”
“White peristone?”
“Hmm, yes. It is in my hair. She may take it when she awakes. The other stones too. She will know how to use them. Samuel told me she would come. One of my own. The jewellery is her inheritance by right of birth and gift.” The Shaper sighed and shook her head. “I am a silly, judgmental, old woman. I never faced Valteira without the white stone. Perhaps I would have needed such a net about my heart without it. You are a good friend, Seleste. I wish I had known you longer.”
The Shaper closed her eyes, her body tiring. “You must tell her to always carry spare beads and spare crystal. I did not put it in my book but, if she has no other option, she can use her own light. Tell her I give her mine freely. Tell her to always stay strong, but to listen to her friends. Tell her she can win.”
The old woman’s face stilled and Seleste saw her aura begin to flood into Anna’s. The head wound Healed first, then Anna’s bad arm, the ribs that had broken when the safety line jerked taut and the scrapes and bruises Seleste had been unable to protect her from during the slide. Last was her hair and her skin. For a moment, her face was blemish-free, her birthmark gone, and Seleste saw what might have been: an innocent, pretty child who didn’t have to worry about the evils in the world. But then the final thread of white from Evaline seemed to ignite the core that ran through Anna’s body. From the soles of her left foot, around her legs, across her torso then to her neck and face and down to the fingertips of her right hand, it blazed with near-blinding brilliance, branding its mark wherever it touched the surface. The King’s Shaper was renewed.
Jimmy heard the murmuring stop and popped his head around the room divider. “Is she asleep?” he asked quietly, nodding at the old woman.
Seleste shook her head. “She passed into the light. She gave herself for Anna.”
“Sweet light. Her Healer’s well ran over?”
“No, Jimmy. This was no ordinary Healer. This was Evaline Desmarais, the White Aura Shaper, the Healer Shaper, the author of The Art of Shaping and partner to Samuel the Seer and Breac the Stone Elder. If I never get the chance to tell him, tell Luciado for me. She deserves a song in her honour and I know no one better to write it for her.”
Cailtin could understand only a little of what Seleste had said, but she heard the awe and respect in the Dancer’s tone and could see with her own eyes the wonders the old woman had performed before her death. She felt her gift prod her to open the large, stone chest against the side wall. Buried inside a neat pile of white linen, she found a small, soft, leather bag containing an intricate metal brooch and a beautifully matched necklace and bracelet of tiny peristone beads. She recognised the stamp on the leatherwork. She’d heard the name already mentioned: Breac, Stone Elder before Gillian before Kendrick, her great great great grandfather and one of the finest Stone Crafters ever born on Shae. This jewellery was priceless. She was tempted to hide it away but couldn’t bring herself to. She turned to find Anna’s eyes open and upon her. Just as she’d knelt in the town square without knowing why, she crossed the room and presented the beads to the Shaper on bended knee.
“Tapadha leatra,” the Shaper said quietly. “Thae iaden a ciallachact tour domh.”
“Thae firos agaed trair Shaen?” Caitlin asked, confused by the girl’s sudden knowledge of her language.
Anna stopped, silenced by the realisation that, yes, she did know Shaen. How the light had that happened? And why had she told Euan’s sister these beads were important to her? Why were they important to her? It was more than them being peristone. And why was the crest on the metalwork so familiar? She wracked her brain for information, but all she could remember were fireballs and the smell of burning flesh, the horse rearing and falling and the awful pain in her arm. She sat up to look around the small room she’d woken in. An old woman sat in the armchair by the bed, her face at peace, her aura gone. Seleste sat on a stool at the end of the bed, a relieved smile on her face, her aura glowingly healthily despite the holes in her leathers. Jimmy stood behind the assassin, his uncomplicated aura and face showing his delight at seeing the Shaper open her eyes.
“I think you better fill me in,” Anna said.
CHAPTER 29
E uan and the others had arrived at the crest of the hills while Anna was still being carried across the valley floor. There was no sign of a Hall. In fact, there were no buildings whatsoever. Finn looked around, puzzled. There were no caves and he couldn’t even make out a door. The plateau was an expanse of roughly fifty feet in diameter that looked like it had been scooped out of a mountain peak. Thirty-foot-high walls of smooth greyish brown stone surrounded them. The only breaks in the walls were the four trails leading downhill. They’d arrived on the southern trail. The others pointed west, north and south east. If his geography was correct, Sy would be arriving by the western trail with the final three sets of beads.
Euan walked his horse to the east of the plateau and dismounted. “Give me a minute to open the door.”
“There’s a door?” asked Spider, looking at the apparently solid wall.
“How else would we get in?” Euan replied, not seeing the funny side of the situation, his mind distracted by how weak his link to Anna had become. He told himself she must be nearly at the hermit’s and tried not to dwell on the fact he’d been a child when he’d last laid eyes on the old woman. He prayed for the thousandth time that she would still be alive and every bit as good a Healer as o’papa had said.
He was reluctant to open the door to the Hall and go inside, worried that the tons of stone closing him in would cut off the link. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to focus on the job at hand.
“What do you see that we don’t?”
Euan realised Beitris had asked him a question. “Sorry, what?”
“You’re looking for something. What do you see that we don’t?”
“Colour,” replied the Shaen, waving a hand to encompass all around them. “Everywhere. The hill is made up of millions of seams of peristone and Stone Crafters can see the different colours. Very occasionally, all eight come together to form a patch of natural white peristone. Before you get excited, it can’t be worked. It crumbles before it’s reduced to even quarter size whereas the best beads are twenty to thirty times smaller than when they start out. I’m looking for a patch of white on this wall. It’s our door handle, for want of a better term. It recognises the Crafter gift and opens the entrance. I don’t know who Crafted the Hall or worked out how to use the stone in this way, but I do wish they hadn’t told it to hide the entrance. The white’s in a different place every time I come and it’s the only way to open the door.”
“How does,” Spider began. He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity. He’d been about to ask how solid rock can move. “Never mind, I should know better. There’s no understanding gifts.”
Euan moved slowly along the wall looking up and down for a convergence of all eight colours. The others peered at the expanse of grey-brown stone, trying to see what Euan could see, but it all looked the same to them. The Stone Crafter stopped fifteen feet away and leaned his hand on the wall at head height. A loud rumbling seemed to begin under their feet then work its way up the wall. Then, without even a whisper of noise, a hole appeared as if someone had opened a pair of curtains. It was big enough for two horses to ride through side by side.
“You’ll find some peat torches on the left. Best light several. It’s dark in there for those who don’t Craft.”
Finn held back to see what was keeping the Shaen. He found him standing with his eyes looking down the south east trail. Looking for Anna.
Euan heard the King’s man’s boots on the shingle. “I don’t want to close the door,” he admitted. “I don’t want to risk losing the link. I couldn’t bear it if she passed and I wasn’t there for her.”
“How long does it take to close the door?”
“Seconds, if someone’s nearby.”
“So try it first. If you lose her, keep it open. Spider can stay outside, warn us if anyone’s coming.”
The Stone Crafter gave a firm nod then marched inside the hillside to join the others. He waited for the final torch to be lit before placing his hand on the wall by the ten-foot-thick entrance tunnel.
“Another white patch?” asked Finn.
“Aye, but this one’s always in the same place,” the Shaen replied as the low rumbling warned them the door was about to close. “If you need out and I can’t open the door for you, you need to smear fresh blood on these ripples on the wall here. It takes about a pint.”
Four shocked faces stared at the Stone Crafter. “You’re joking,” said Beitris, her voice uncertain.
“Of course I am,” laughed Euan.
The others laughed and Beitris slapped Euan on the arm. “Not nice, Shaen!”
“It’s a tradition,” he shrugged, smiling.
“I take it you can still sense Anna?” Finn asked quietly.
“Aye, I can feel her. She’s hanging on.”
“So how do we get out if we need to?” asked Spider.
“Just kick this bump here a few times. Non-Crafters used to visit regularly centuries ago so someone Crafted a backup mechanism for those who couldn’t see the white.”
“A few times isn’t very specific.”
“Everyone kicks at a different strength. It’d probably take just one of Sy or Jimmy’s.”
“And Anna would be there all morning?” Spider asked with a smile.
“At least,” laughed Euan, “but she’d not give up!”
The Stone Crafter led the others down a steep slope deeper into the hill. He ignored the first three openings before taking a left turn into a circular room.
“A cave with stabling?” asked Spider in wonder.
“Well we can’t leave them outside now, can we?” Euan asked, turning his mount into one of the stone stalls. “Even Shaen horses like to come in from the rain occasionally.”
“Where’s the water come from?” Beitris asked, pointing to the trough that ran the whole way around the wall.
Euan had lifted a huge bag of feed from a shelf by the door and was going around putting a little food into the shallow bowls built into each of the stalls. “The hill’s riddled inside and out with streams and pools. This is a wee diversion from a bigger stream that runs about twenty feet through the wall.”
The horses settled, the group set off on foot. Less than one minute found them entering a huge dome-shaped cavern that sounded like it was gently playing a set of pipes. At first glance, it seemed the room was a wonder of stalactites and stalagmites, but they occurred in much too orderly a fashion for it to be natural. Each grouping contained one full height pillar at least a foot thick and one about half that width, three stalactites of varying diameters that almost reached the ground and two stalagmites that reached between three and four feet in height. A small, overflowing pool of water near the entrance fed a trough that meandered around the cavern, taking water to each group before falling into a pond in the centre of the room.
“They’re workstations,” Euan said in answer to their unasked question. “This is the polishing room. I recommend you stay in here. The rest of the place is a rabbit warren and you’ll soon get lost. I won’t be able to leave to find you once I get started.”
“How long is this going to take?”
“I honestly have no idea, Finn. It depends on how strong the beads are. I’d guess four hours, but I could be well out. It’ll be quicker with an extra pair of hands, if anyone would like to volunteer?”
Finn knew he was the only visitor suited to being idle for four hours. Spider had already wandered to a nearby workstation to peer into its various orifices. “Cherry, Beitris, give the horses a rest then grab Spider and go look for Sy and the others. Mystrim and Elona are probably still searching for the detour, but let’s not risk it.”
“Ailie will be bringing them up the western trail,” Euan added. “It’s straight ahead when you leave the Hall. At the first junction, stay left. At the second and third, go straight on. They should be past there by now, but you never know. Press your hand against the wall anywhere outside to close the door, but make sure everyone’s through. It closes with a slam whether or not a non-Crafter’s still in the tunnel.”
“What do you need me to do?” Finn asked.
“It’ll be best if I don’t take my hands off the tower so I’m going to need you to put the stones in one at a time when I say. Only when I say. The wrong bead at the wrong time and the whole place could explode.”
“Another joke?”
“No, not this time. An exaggeration perhaps, but I’d rather not risk it. It’d be better if Ailie or Caitlin were here, but there’s little point in waiting. It doesn’t take skill to chuck a bead down a hole and I’ll be able to reabsorb most of them without their help.”
“Why can’t you destroy just one or two colours instead of all of them?” asked Malik. “Seems a shame to ruin decades of work if it can be avoided.”
“The only way to generate enough power is to put the whole set in. We could maybe save some of the weaker beads, but it’s not worth it. The new beads would never match properly. That’s why o’papa didn’t bother asking folk to bring anything but full sets. They’re still pretty, but they’re also pretty useless to a Shaper.”
Euan’s replies raised more questions than they answered, but the others remembered Spider’s assertion that there’s no understanding gifts and left it alone. Half an hour later, all but a heavily gloved Finn crept away. The Stone Crafter stood as if in a trance, utterly focused, his hands pressed either side of the tower, his face glowing with the light shining up from its bore.
A sudden surge in power through the link to Anna made the beads stutter and the light dim for a split second. Euan caught the beads before they fell and streamed his Craft into the bore, forcing the spheres
back into their path.
Finn saw the smile and the renewed determination on the Shaen’s face. “Anna’s all right?” he asked, trusting there could be no other reason for this young man to falter.
Euan grinned then laughed in joy. “She’s fine. She’s absolutely fine.”
Finn could hear the furious speed of the beads against the bore increase still further as the Stone Crafter poured more of his gift into their spin. The floor under his feet was vibrating as if the whole hill was answering Euan’s call. Finn closed his eyes as a brilliant flash of light near blinded him and a boom from deep in the tower announced the first three sets had exploded.
Three and a half miles due south, Seleste recounted Evaline’s last words to the others, Anna quietly translating for Caitlin. The Shaper could hardly take it in. What sort of coincidence would bring her here to this woman?
Caitlin promised Evaline’s remains would be collected and given a fitting farewell, but it felt wrong to leave her unbound. The Stone Crafter retrieved the white linen sheets from the chest and Jimmy made himself scarce so the women could wash and bind the body.
Anna reached over to gently undo Evaline Desmarais’ intricate braids. She found the white peristone so deeply embedded in an inner coil that it had to be cut out. She refused to be distracted from preparing the body and laid the tiny stone next to her golden anchor, Lady Braxton’s medallion and Breac’s jewellery. She had felt its power even before she touched it, just as she had with the stones Caitlin had discovered in the chest, but she made herself draw a hairbrush through Evaline’s long hair, forming a shining white halo from head to waist. She found herself weeping. There was so much she wanted to ask this woman, so very much to thank her for.
The three women gently washed then bound the ancient Shaper in the white cloth. As they worked, Seleste told them again what Evaline had said and she and Anna added a few stories from the biography they’d read about the Healer Shaper. Anna repeated it all in Shaen for Caitlin’s benefit, but it was a terribly brief eulogy for a woman who’d lived such a long time. Seleste swore to find out more about Evaline Desmarais and make sure Luciado wrote that song.
