The Godstone

by Violette Malan

  “We may be too late.” Her voice was hardly more than a shifting of air. If they hadn’t still been arm in arm, Elva doubted he would have heard her. “The Godstone has already tried something.”

  “What’s gone wrong?”

  For an answer she ran her fingers lightly over his cartridge belts, finally resting them on his revolvers. Her breath caught as she drew it in.

  “Something wrong with my guns?”

  “No, not that.” She sounded relieved, but not as relieved as he felt.

  “What, then?”

  “In the moonlight I could see our clothing. It’s changed. We are both wearing knee breeches now, not fitted trousers, and you have clogs where you had boots.”

  At first Elva had no idea what she was talking about. What was wrong with knee breeches and clogs? Then the significance of her words sank in, and cold shivered his skin.

  “But we haven’t left the City,” he said. “You’re saying the Mode is different, but we haven’t left . . .”

  “The Modes are tied together. If one changes, they all change.”

  “I know that.” Fear made him impatient. “But change comes from the City. And it doesn’t move backward, does it?” he added when she didn’t respond right away.

  “Never before, that I know of. Last time the Godstone was used, things jumped forward, at least that’s what Arlyn said.”

  “What now?” Would this change her mind? Evidently the Godstone had tried changing things, and the world hadn’t been destroyed.

  “Without checking another Mode, we don’t know exactly what’s happened. Is it just the White Court precincts? The whole City? The world?”

  The guard at the East Bridge merely saluted them as they passed. Their job wasn’t to keep mundanes in. The gate itself stood open, another change. They hesitated in the face of the unexpected darkness of the streets.

  “Light your way, good sirs? Oh, sorry, Dom, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  A rasp, a spark, and they shielded their eyes.

  The lampee proved to be a boy of about thirteen, his grin more confident than his voice. He leaned against his lamp pole, neatly dressed but plainly, open collar showing under a short jacket, neat breeches, worn but decent-looking clogs. The stocking on his right leg sagged, but he didn’t seem aware of it. Not so well dressed as someone’s private servant would be, not livery. The boy clearly made his living by picking up customers on the streets. He must have just brought someone this way.

  “Do you know the way to Ginglen’s Inn?”

  “Lady,” the tone chided her. “It’s my job to know that, don’t you worry.”

  “Which wasn’t a ‘yes,’ ” Elva murmured in her ear as they set off after the boy.

  Fourteen

  Fenra

  I DUG THROUGH MY pockets and finally found a coin for the lampee. He tossed it into the air so that it passed through the golden light of his torch before he caught it, gave me a shallow bow, and saluted us both with a finger to his forehead.

  “Any time you need me, ask for Oleander,” he said, whistling as he walked away.

  Elva had instructed Oleander to drop us at the corner where our street entered the square. It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the relative obscurity of the newly risen moon. We were finally able to make out the outline of roofs against the night sky. The trees and plantings along the walkway were rough masses of darkness, indistinguishable except for their scent, and the whispering of their leaves moving in the breeze.

  I stepped toward the circle of lamplight around the hotel’s front door and Elva grabbed me by the arm.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he murmured.

  Before I could ask him what he meant, he had backed me around into a darker niche between a wall and a yew hedge and taken me in his arms, pressing his cheek against mine. “We’re hiding,” he breathed against my ear.

  “We have done this before,” I said.

  “And it worked.”

  For a moment all I could hear was his heart beating in time with mine. Then I heard what had startled Elva in the first place, the opening of the inn’s door, and voices. But what had we to be afraid of, here in the street? It wasn’t as though we were still in the White Court, and likely to be questioned. And then I realized that we could hear two sets of voices walking down the street toward us, and only one set of footsteps.

  This alone would not have been enough to spook a veteran like Elvanyn Karamisk, nor me, for that matter. People have been talking to themselves for the entire history of humankind. However, they do not usually use two different voices. Nor does one of the voices usually belong to Arlyn Albainil.

  So I hugged Elva close, burying my face against his neck, trying not to tremble as his breathing moved the hair around my face. The man we had been listening to walked past us without even glancing in our direction. Proof we had disguised ourselves well? Or that he, or they, simply had no interest in others? That would certainly fit what we knew of Xandra. We remained holding one another until we heard the footsteps stop. I peeked around Elva and saw Arlyn’s familiar silhouette standing between us and the door lamp.

  Arlyn turned slightly, and I froze. “Do not move,” I whispered to Elva.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispered back.

  But Arlyn only looked up to the lamp, as if examining the color of the flame. I had seen that expression on his face before, the muscles slack, the lips hanging just barely open, mouth turning down at the corners. Everyone has a “resting face,” an expression their face falls into in moments of abstraction, or when one believes oneself alone. Arlyn had two such faces. One when he was level: alert, interested, and on the verge of a smile, and one when he was low. It was his low face I saw turned up toward the light.

  Once more he turned toward us, and this time I thought he would see us, recognize us. Now there was no time for the forran that would make us invisible. Too bad I cannot call the fog here, I thought. Just as it seemed he had to see us, a cat ran across the road, tagged Arlyn on the ankle, and dashed off down the sidewalk. His head turned to follow it, and he forgot he was going to look in our direction. Instead, he set off once again down the street.

  “That was a lucky cat. What are the odds he’d go to the same inn we’re heading for?” Elva loosened his grip but kept one arm around me.

  “Good, I would have thought,” I said. I did not move away from him either. “It’s the only hotel he knows. A better question is how long were we in the chaos, that Arlyn is here before us.”

  We both straightened, but still neither of us let go of the other, as if we needed the human warmth. “Do you know of any other place?” I asked.

  “Well.” I saw by the light that Elva was smiling. “I know of a place he’d never think to look for us—if ever he doubts we’re dead.” He turned to me, lifting his eyebrows and tilting his head toward Ginglen’s Hotel.

  “You are insane,” I said.

  “Insane, or ingenious?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “All right, all right, I admit I was joking. Where else can we go?”

  “Wait.” I looked into the dark around us. Nothing. I could have sworn I had heard something more than the wind in the hedges. I glanced at the oil lamp at the hotel’s entrance. It looked to be burning brighter. Like a beacon. “We need to go in.” I set off before Elva could stop me.

  “Hang on.” He caught up and was beside me by the time I reached the front door. “I was joking, I didn’t mean we should go in.”

  “We are not going to stay,” I said. I had never seen the door closed, and it worried me. I hoped it wasn’t locked. Catching my mood, Elva pulled out one of his revolvers. When he nodded I turned the handle, the latch clicked, and the door swung slowly open.

  At first I saw nothing wrong in the entry hall. Dom Gingl
en Locast stood behind the desk, and the footman—Itzen—just off to one side. I waited several seconds before I realized they were not going to acknowledge us. Elva cleared his throat and advanced into the hall, drawing his second gun. Still, the two men did not move.

  “Watch the door,” I said to Elva. “Let no one in.”

  “Teach your grandmother,” he said under his breath. He swung the door almost completely closed, leaving himself a crack just wide enough to let him see the street outside, and leaned his shoulder against the wall.

  As I approached the two men, I could see they were breathing, but shallowly. Though the hall had an oil lamp matching the one outside, both Ginglen and Itzen appeared pale—no, not pale, I decided as I looked more closely, faded. In fact, now that I looked around me, the whole hall had the same washed-out look, even the lamplight.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Elva whispered, without taking his eyes from the door.

  “Something has sucked most of the energy from the room and everything in it.”

  “Can you help them?”

  “I can try,” I said, rubbing the palms of my hands together. “It’s more or less what I do when I’m healing people.”

  I braced my feet, pulled my hands apart, and smiled when I saw the rose pink lines of light between my fingertips. I twisted and stretched them as though they were taffy, finally breaking my hands apart and flicking the net of light at the two faded men. At first there was no change, and then I saw their faces flush lightly with color.

  “That’s it?” I could tell Elva was not much impressed.

  “From here they should be able to recover on their own, but it would take time they may not have. And you should be watching the door, not me.” I examined them more closely. Lips and eyes were just barely open. I often put people into a deep sleep to allow their bodies time and energy to heal before I woke them again. Ginglen and Itzen had that same look. I had given them energy, but they were still asleep.

  I repeated my preparation and called a wakening forran, humming the sound of bees, and of birdsong at daylight. The light between my fingertips was gold this time, with an undercurrent of green. When I flung the light, Itzen blinked and took a deep breath. He immediately crossed behind the desk and put his arms around the other man. Ginglen took a few minutes more to come completely awake, but this time I waited for nature to finish what I had started.

  Finally both men were awake, and breathing normally, though they kept their arms around one another. They looked around as if not sure exactly where they were, but once they saw me Itzen at least relaxed and turned to face me. Ginglen’s face remained stiff.

  “Your friend was just here,” he said, his tone only a little more neutral than his face.

  “Not my friend any longer, I’m afraid.” I kept my own tone as warm as possible. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elva holster his guns.

  “Not anyone’s friend, if it comes to that,” Elva said. His calm tone and ready smile did more to relax Ginglen and Itzen than anything I had said. I had the feeling they were giving me the benefit of the doubt only because I had helped the little girl.

  “Are they coming back, do you know? Is there somewhere you can go?”

  Ginglen shook his head. He turned away from Itzen, but kept one arm around the other man’s waist. “I don’t remember,” he said. “Why is that?”

  “He practiced you,” I said. “It’s hardly ever done on mundanes, but he must have been running low on energy, and he took some of yours. Not all of it, luckily,” I added when they both paled again. “If there is any chance he is coming back, you must leave now, and tell any guests you have to go as well. He will not trouble to look for you if you are not here.”

  The two men exchanged glances and both nodded at the same time. “Shall we take your horse with us?”

  “Terith? Is he here?” Could that be why I had felt compelled to enter the hotel?

  “In the stable, where we had him before. Just turned up by himself the day before yesterday.”

  I hesitated. More than anything in the world I wanted to go and see him, but . . . No. I had to clear my throat to speak. “Please, keep him with you. You will keep each other safe.” I had no idea where we might go from here, and if there was a chance to keep Terith safe from the Godstone, I had to take it.

  “Can you recommend somewhere out of the way?” Elva said from his position at the door. “Preferably where a high-level practitioner wouldn’t think to look?”

  “You won’t be coming with us?”

  I shook my head, wishing my answer was different. “We have something we must do.”

  “There are always rooms to be found closer to the docks,” Itzen said. “You’ll find plenty of inns among the warehouses. Only apprentices on assignment go there now, and probably not at this time of night.”

  “Try the Seamaiden’s Tail,” Ginglen said. He began opening drawers in the desk, taking out papers and small leather bags that chinked faintly as he set them down on the top.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Go quickly.”

  * * *

  • • •

  If anything, the lighting down by the docks was worse than in the rest of the city, with only riding lights on the tops of masts and here and there candle lanterns in front of shops or ale houses. The place was busy, with a ship at every pier, but there were few people to be seen. Practitioners do not need a great deal of light to see by, but even I was stumbling over uneven cobbles in the streets as we turned away from the water. Finally we reached the area of streets behind the warehouses, where more light spilled out of open doorways, along with warmth, the smell of frying onions and, from one door, singing.

  “There, in the next block.”

  I looked where Elva pointed and saw a sign hanging over the street. The Seamaiden’s Tale. Tale. There was a story there, I thought. It was a decent enough place, if a little shabbier than I expected.

  As soon as we were inside, I saw why Ginglen had recommended it. For the most part the tables held couples, not solitary drinkers. In one corner five students shared a table, a jug of beer, and a bowl of fried potatoes. The couple behind the bar were obviously partners in more than one sense. The place showed wear, certainly, but was scrupulously clean. And there weren’t many places that would have welcomed poor students, and allowed them to take up a table for so little custom.

  The innkeepers gave us friendly, interested glances, but without excessive warmth, acknowledging that we were strangers, but looked respectable. In their way, they were just like Ginglen and Itzen. They had the same look of being able to size us up quickly and without judgment. Elva led me directly to the bar counter and waited his turn to be served. After setting a bowl of what smelled like oxtail stew down in front of an elderly man not very well balanced on a barstool, the male of the pair turned to us.

  “How can I serve you?”

  “That stew smells awfully good,” Elva said, returning the man’s smile with a carefully calculated one of his own. While the man ladled out two bowls of stew from the pot simmering on the side of the fireplace, Elva asked the woman whether they had any rooms available, and stood dickering with her while I carried our bowls to a table as far as possible from everyone else, especially the group of noisy students. I hoped he had money to pay them. I had given Oleander my last coin.

  A couple of people examined me out of the corners of their eyes as I settled down in front of my stew, but no one spoke to me. I realized that except for the people who were here together, no one paid any attention to anyone else.

  “I do not remember this place from when I was apprenticing,” I said to Elva as he sat down across from me, setting a plate of thick slices of coarse bread on the table between us. The innkeeper followed him with two big mugs of ale and Elva waited until the man left us before responding.

  “Judging by the way Predax was treated when I e
scorted him to the Red Court, I’m surprised they let you wander around down here.” He tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it into his stew.

  “We weren’t in any danger then,” I said, picking up my spoon.

  We chatted about unimportant things, even though no one paid us any attention. Elva asked me about my now-nonexistent limp, and I told him the same story I had told Arlyn, all those weeks ago when we were first on the Road to the City.

  “So your leg is not really injured?” he said. Which is more than Arlyn had guessed.

  “No,” I admitted. “But I learned early that I preferred to be underestimated.”

  “So what class of practitioner are you really?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to say. Medlyn advised me not to take any more of the exams. He could tell I was not happy, and he wanted me to have the option of leaving the City—something that’s easier the less important you are.”

  Elva waited, spoon in hand, until he saw that I had said all I meant to say for now. This small handful of minutes felt like we sat in the eye of a hurricane, knowing that soon the winds would come. Finally we carried a teapot and two cups up to our room, where I could use the leaves—along with two mice I found in the walls—to set wards. For a piece of biscuit each they were happy to wait in the dark corners outside our door. Any practitioner would know the wards were there, but they would not know why, nor would they be able to cross them. Mundanes would avoid our door without being aware of it, and could not hear us speaking.

  “Now that we’re safely behind wards, what was it that occurred to you while we were hiding outside the hotel?” Elva sprawled with a sigh on the small room’s only bed. Big enough for two, but only just. I sat on a low wooden stool, its hard oak seat softened by a worn embroidered cushion.