The Godstone

by Violette Malan

  “It’s time, I think.”

  She pulled the locket out.

  * * *

  Fenra

  I tucked the locket back into my shirt and shifted the chain until it settled in place. My heart felt unexpectedly light. I thought I had lost him, but it seemed I could visit Medlyn whenever I wanted. As long as the world didn’t end first.

  “So, how does it work? Can we access the seal from here?” I found myself reluctant to leave; Medlyn’s old office, even without him in it, felt so much like home.

  “There’s too much of your old professor left in this room.” Arlyn frowned, the muscles in his face standing out under the skin. “Too much of him, and too many layers,” he said finally. “The pattern is designed for me, or rather, as it’s my pattern, it is me. I can—I could—access my seal from anywhere. But from my mind to the paper, from the paper filtered through you—”

  “Too many layers,” I finished for him. “Too much between me and the workshop. As though we were searching for a room on the wrong floor,” I added, remembering an analogy Medlyn had used once in class. “So what now?”

  “Now we remove a layer,” he said. I raised my left eyebrow. I knew that irritated him. “We go to the right floor—or rather, dropping the metaphor, the right tower. Follow me.”

  More decisive, I thought, which had to be a good thing. It had been a while since I had leveled him, and indecision is a symptom of lowness.

  Arlyn led me out of the building, heading down the narrow alley that ran along the eastern wall. I could hear the soft sound of the Denil River on the other side of the stone. Following the wall brought us to the rear entrance of the Singing Tower, the oldest building on White Court grounds. The wall in this rear section of the building was made up of blocks of stone as large as a riding horse. According to what we had been told as apprentices, this was all that remained of the outer wall of a watchtower, used as part of the original White Court buildings. There were other such remnants throughout the City, but none so large as this.

  The stone staircase, solid despite showing the wear of centuries of passing feet, climbed up the inner side of this outer wall. Halfway to the next floor, between landings, Arlyn stopped, placing the palms of his hands flat against the stone.

  “Lost?” I said.

  “There’s a door here.” Arlyn frowned at the mortar between the fitted stones as if he saw mold.

  “Arlyn.” I heard the rise in the pitch of my voice and cleared my throat. “This is an exterior wall. There’s nothing on the other side but air, and thick as the wall is, there’s no room for a hidden passage.”

  “I tell you there is a door here.” Arlyn’s tone was gentler than his words. “See for yourself.” He gestured with an open hand.

  A door appeared in the wall. Not as though it had just been conjured into existence, but as though it had always been there. Not a secret door, made up of the stones themselves, but an ordinary, sturdy, raised-paneled door with enormous hammered hinges and decorative brass bosses gone dark with age. I touched it with the tips of my fingers and felt wood, not stone. I shut my mouth.

  “It’s not there unless you know it’s there,” Arlyn said.

  “So I see.” I swallowed and squared my shoulders. “Is it locked?”

  “It doesn’t need to be. It’s not there unless—”

  “You know it’s there. Yes, I understood you. But once you had told someone, did you not have to lock it?”

  “I’ve only—I’ve never told anyone before,” he said. I pretended not to notice the hesitation.

  Weeks ago even this attempt to compliment me would have made me smile with pleasure, but now the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach only spread a little more. The latch felt as real as the door, cold, heavy iron, turned, bent, and smoothed by an expert hand. When I lifted it, the door swung inward of its own accord, as though counterweighted. I gasped before I could stop myself. I had thought this workroom would be like Arlyn’s woodworking shop. Sawdust. Tools. Signs of work abandoned half finished.

  Instead, this room was more like a library. Polished wooden floors, paneled walls, even a multi-colored, inlaid, coffered ceiling. Chests, cabinets, tables, chairs, benches to sit on and to work at. There were even bare bookshelves along one wall. I should not have been surprised; the Albainil family were woodworkers and furniture builders, and Arlyn certainly had the skill.

  Astonishing as the look of the room was, the first thing I noticed on entering was how it felt. Medlyn Tierell’s office, his workroom, even his vault had felt like him, his essence of calm and patience. His steadiness and warmth welcomed me from the moment of entry. This place felt harsh and cold, for all that it was so beautiful. I could not imagine anyone feeling welcome here.

  “Do you feel it?” Arlyn was looking around the room with narrowed eyes. He stood stiff and upright, hands clenched into fists as though ready to defend himself against something only he could see. Finally he relaxed and turned to me. “What a terrible man Xandra Albainil must have been.” I had never heard his voice so flat. “Do you feel it?”

  “I feel a chill, and . . . impatience. That is you?” I also felt a sterile emptiness, but I could not say that to my friend.

  “It’s the man I was.” Arlyn did not look at me when he said this. I am not sure what he would have seen on my face. True, I had never felt this from Arlyn himself, this impatience with lesser minds, this feeling that he could not be troubled to explain. The Arlyn I knew might have been withdrawn on occasion, but that was the lowness more than anything else. Children liked him, dogs liked him, even cats liked him. Could a person change so much as this?

  Still, I felt nothing evil in this room, unless the coldness itself was some form of it.

  * * *

  “My dear boy, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be following Practitioner Lowens.”

  It wasn’t often that Metenari felt like a fool. In fact, the last time had happened so long ago he wasn’t sure he could date it. She hadn’t been in his class long, he told himself. They’d both been apprenticed early. Too bad her promise had faded so quickly. Made it to second class by the skin of her teeth. Metenari himself always thought Lorist Tierell had pulled some strings. Not that it mattered in the larger scheme of things. She’d taken herself off to work as a healer. There were always a few apprentices who preferred the Road and the outer Modes to working in the City. Metenari shivered at the thought. Necessary, of course, and if she had no better ambition, perhaps it was a good thing her power leveled off so early.

  As soon as he remembered who she was, he’d sent out an alert. She wasn’t so powerful in herself, perhaps, but for her to show up with Arlyn Albainil at such a crucial juncture could be more than coincidence. She knew something, that much was clear, or she would have introduced herself. He’d had them followed back to their inn, and his caution was doubly justified when they were observed re-entering White Court grounds. They’d paid a second visit to Medlyn Tierell—they obviously didn’t know the old man had faded—but there was no telling what they’d learned from the Lorist in the first place.

  And now here was Noxyn standing in front of him, panting from his run up the stairs.

  Metenari set his cup of orange ginger tea on the purple hexagonal tile meant to keep his drinks from marking the top of the desk. “Well, explain yourself, man, why aren’t you following them as ordered?”

  “I’ve left Predax watching. I thought you’d need to know . . . they went through a door in the south stairwell of the Singing Tower.”

  Metenari sat up and leaned forward, feeling his spirits lift. “There is no door in the south stairwell.” He spoke as evenly as if he were merely lecturing to a class of apprentices.

  Noxyn looked triumphant. “No sir, there isn’t. But the Albainil man told her there was, and then there was. I could see it, clear as sunlight.”

  Metenari fell ba
ck in his chair. He’d heard of this forran, he’d read about it in the same collection of old journals where he’d first found mention of the Godstone. “Tell me exactly what he said. As closely as you can to his own words.”

  Noxyn frowned. “He told her to see it, or asked her if she saw it, something like that. And then the door was there.”

  “And you saw it also. No, you needn’t answer.” Of course the boy had seen it. He’d been close enough to hear the words, so he was close enough to be within the influence of the forran triggered by those words. Just as Metenari had thought, the knowledge of the door and its secret must have been passed down through the Albainil family for generations, until it reached this Arlyn person. Some resonance, some remnant of the pattern common to the whole family would be enough to set the forran in motion, once Albainil was in the right place, and the right words were spoken. Metenari shivered. Imagine if the man had died without passing it along. Where would the world be then? As it was, there might now be a chance to save everything.

  “What is it, Practitioner?”

  “It’s ingenious, is what it is,” he said now. No use in frightening the boy. “Think of it, Noxyn. The ultimate security. No one can even see the door unless they are told it’s there. No need for special locking forrans, no guards physical or practical. Just never tell anyone about the door and no one will ever know to look for it.” Genius, misguided certainly, but the man had been a real genius.

  “I’ve never heard of such a forran.” Noxyn was visibly searching through his memories.

  “You wouldn’t have, my boy. This particular forran would be older than all of us. Perhaps it’s in a book of deep lore we haven’t found yet, though come to think of it . . .” Medlyn Tierell might have found it, and explained it to his favorite pupil when she came to ask him about it. When the summons had come to him, Arlyn Albainil must have confided in his friend the practitioner, and Fenra Lowens had come to the City to find out what she could get for herself. Maybe Fenra’s tired of the outer Modes and grown ambitious.

  “Those two know much more than they’re telling.” Metenari drummed his fingers on the tabletop, slowing as a chill cloud of horror fell over him. “Did you still see the door once they’d gone through?”

  “Yes, Practitioner.”

  He closed his eyes in relief, pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “We must hurry; it may not be too late. They’ve no idea of the danger they’re in.” Fenra Lowens was barely a second-class practitioner. What had the lorist been thinking, sending her in there alone? The Godstone would eat her alive if he didn’t get there in time.

  * * *

  Arlyn

  “The vault is like the door,” I told her. “You have to be told where it is.”

  “How on earth did Santy think he was going to open it?”

  “Santy?”

  “Santaron.” Fenra lifted both eyebrows and shoulders. “It’s what we used to call Metenari. He was such a fussy man. He reminded me so much of my older sister . . .”

  “Even fussy men know valuable objects when they see them. Perhaps especially them.” I couldn’t stop looking around me. Everything was familiar, yet everything felt as though it belonged to someone else. Which was true, in a way. “If he discovered enough to know that I—that Xandra had left something valuable in his vault, then he might have deduced why no one knew where the vault was.”

  “If he doesn’t know where, how could he use a relative?”

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, but she wasn’t looking at me, so my piercing glance was wasted. “He must have thought that I knew, or, failing that, that he could extract the location from the pattern.”

  “The pattern he assumes you have in common with your supposed cousin because of your pretended kinship?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Uh-huh.” She turned slowly, hands on hips, scanning the walls. “Where’s this vault, then? The sooner we start, the sooner we can leave this place.”

  I turned slowly around, completely at a loss. “I don’t know,” I admitted finally. “I can’t see it anymore. Here, take the pattern.” I handed it to her. “Hold it up in front of your eyes and turn until you see it appear on one of the walls.”

  Fenra went to the section of wall closest to her, loosened the muscles in her shoulders, and held up my pattern. I realized watching her that she was bareheaded, as well as empty-handed. She must have left her hat, stick, and gloves in her old mentor’s vault. I hadn’t noticed until now. There was dust on the sleeve of her jacket, though I knew there was none in the room. Her boots were scuffed, her hair beginning to escape its braiding.

  She had examined three-quarters of the room when she finally stopped.

  “I see it,” she said. A larger version of my pattern had appeared on the wall, as though projected. I knew Fenra would see the same colors she’d added to the paper version; again, all I saw were fuzzy lines like smeared charcoal.

  “Odd,” I said. “That’s not where I thought it was.”

  “Good thing you did not tell me, then.” She didn’t take her eyes away from the pattern, but her voice hardened.

  “Do you know you get sarcastic when you’re angry?”

  “I am not angry, I am afraid.”

  That silenced me for a minute. “I’m sorry, there’s no other way.”

  “Which doesn’t stop me from being frightened.” She breathed out slowly through her nose, spread her feet a more comfortable distance apart. “Now what?”

  “Reach through the pattern, use it as a template, touch the pattern on the wall, but as lightly as you possibly can. Careful that you don’t push through it. Once you feel comfortable, draw a section of your own pattern on mine. Start in one of the spots where the lavender line crosses over the gold. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just enough to change what’s there.”

  She swallowed, loosened her cravat with her free hand. “I wish I had thought to take my jacket off.”

  “Do you need to? I could cut or perhaps tear—”

  “No, I can manage. It’s just now I feel too warm.” The arm holding up the paper trembled slightly, but the hand Fenra reached through did not. I felt my muscles tense as the tip of her left index finger came closer and closer to the gray smudges that were all I could see. Fenra leaned forward, just a few degrees, and I caught myself just before speaking to her. She wasn’t overbalancing, it was the sheet of paper that pulled her forward, as if it reached toward the larger pattern on the wall. There was nothing I could do now to help her, and plenty that could cause her harm.

  I found I was leaning forward in sympathy. I straightened only to find I was leaning once again, my hand reaching out as if to take the paper. I could see her moving her finger ever so delicately, as if she lightly tickled the eyebrows of a cat. Her tongue came out of her mouth, pressed against her upper lip. Suddenly I saw the little girl Fenra had once been. She shifted her feet. I just had time to wonder whether her leg hurt her when the door to my workroom slammed open.

  Before I could react, Metenari was in the room, calling to Fenra to stop, to be careful, that she didn’t know what opening the seal would do. I jumped to intercept him just as he reached her and set his hands on her shoulders, inadvertently giving her the smallest and shallowest of pushes.

  But it was enough. Pushed from her weaker side, Fenra stumbled forward, her outstretched practitioner’s hand passed through the pattern she had been drawing on, the paper in her right hand swept into the larger version of itself, and the lock unsealed.

  “Run!” Metenari called to someone over his shoulder, his hands wrapped around Fenra’s upper arm, holding her back against the force that threatened to pull her through the opening. Two men I hadn’t noticed were out the door and running before I could react. I reached Fenra just as she passed the length of her arm into the opening.

  “Hold her! Tight as you can.” Met
enari freed his practitioner’s hand and began making passes in the air. At first the forward pressure lessened, but instead of continuing to fade, we started being pulled to one side.

  “No!” I shouted. “Back!”

  “Can’t.” Metenari spoke through clenched teeth, sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Not all of us.”

  Of course not. “Gate,” I shouted, jerking my head toward the right-hand side of the opening.

  He looked at me startled, glanced above my shoulder, nodded, and changed the symbols he was drawing. Suddenly all sound stopped, the wind died down, and Fenra and I were standing on a small rise, overlooking a rocky plain. Fenra fell to her knees in front of me, gasping for air, coughing. I helped her sit up.

  “He didn’t see the gate until I told him it was there.” I think I was giggling.

  Fenra panted, her face gray, lips trembling. “You know where we are?”

  I looked around me with a sinking heart. “I’ve been here before.”

  Four

  Fenra

  I DID NOT SENSE him at all until he grabbed me.” I rubbed the palms of my hands dry on my trousers before Arlyn could see them trembling. No one had ever been able to take me unaware, not even as a child. I sat on hot dry ground, left foot tucked under my right knee. Arlyn had his arm around my shoulders.

  “You were focused on what you were doing, and rightly so.” Arlyn withdrew his arm, moving his hand to my shoulder. “A mistake could have killed everyone—as you saw. I didn’t notice him myself until it was too late.”

  “You could not expect to sense him,” I said. His mouth twisted and he looked away. I regretted speaking. I shifted to get my legs under me and Arlyn stood up to offer me a hand. A slight dizziness, a sparkle to the air, and I felt balanced again, and able to look around me.

  “Where are we?”

  I had never seen country like this. Boulders as tall as two people, dry, sunbaked ground, little more than rocks and hard earth interspersed with the occasional stiff growth that might have been heather in a damper climate. This place hadn’t seen rain in months, possibly years. I shrugged off my jacket, following it with my vest. My cravat I untied, using it to wrap up my hair in a loose turban—anything to get it off my neck. Scrub desert, I thought. I had read of it, though reading couldn’t give you the feeling of air so dry your body’s sweat evaporated as it formed. Still, there was life here. I could feel the presence of tiny and sensible beings sleeping until evening, when cooler air would bring them out.