The Godstone

by Violette Malan

  “You know, Xandra, you didn’t used to be so much of a shit. I used to like you.”

  “I could make you like me again, don’t think I can’t.”

  Elva’s face lost color and his lips pressed into a thin line.

  “He does not mean what he appears to mean,” I assured him. I hated to see even the touch of fear on Elva’s face. I had not hated the Godstone before now. “This temper and nastiness is part of the lowness,” I said. I helped the Godstone to its feet. “Come, sit here and let us begin.”

  I lowered him into one of the armchairs and moved the other closer, facing it squarely. When I was settled, I held out my hands. He hesitated, watching me through slitted eyelids, but finally put his hands in mine.

  “Relax,” I said. “I am the one doing all the work.”

  At first I could not concentrate. I hoped he could not feel my rapid pulse. My hands felt like ice. I hoped he would think that normal. I thought I heard Elva speak again, felt his hand on my shoulder. I wanted him to stand well back from us, beyond the effect of the transition. I wished I had been able to warn him without alerting the Godstone.

  Once I began, the familiarity of what I did relaxed me. In the blink of an eye, we were standing on the beach, surrounded by fog.

  “Relax,” I told the Godstone again. “This is how I level him. Ask if you do not believe me.” It must have done so, as I felt the tension in its hands release. I began by feeding him a little trickle of power, enough to convince the Godstone that I was doing what he expected me to do, not so much as to make him doubt I was a third class. Under the mask of this little outgoing stream of power, however, I began to pull a larger stream back to me, further hiding what I did with images of the tide, and the wind in the trees. The fog began to clear just around us and I relaxed even further, until I realized that we were in the wrong place. This was not the beach of pebbles where I had met with the World, but the sandy beach where I usually found Arlyn. Which meant that our physical bodies were still in the sitting room of the inn. Had I used too much of my own power when I had healed Arlyn’s bullet wound?

  Dismayed, I clenched my hands, unable to stifle the movement before the Godstone noticed it.

  “What are you doing?” He dragged me to my feet by my upper arms and shook me. His chair fell backward to the floor. We were still touching, and so the power continued to drain from him to me, but now the covering, outgoing trickle had stopped. The Godstone raised his practitioner’s hand into the air above my head, fingers stiffened, ready to strike me with a forran.

  Suddenly Elva seized the thing’s wrist, pulling its arm down and twisting the hand to one side. I swept aside my horror that he touched the thing and took advantage of the Godstone’s distraction to pull more power from him, faster than I had before. Good, I was one step closer, but I had no time to rejoice. As much as I had taken, there was still more, perhaps even enough to overwhelm me. Xandra Albainil was much stronger than I had guessed—unless what I felt now was the Godstone itself.

  “Hang on, Fenra!”

  I wanted Elva to be somewhere, anywhere, else, but his voice, his touch, his presence, anchored me. I clenched my teeth and forced an image of my pattern into my mind, making it brighter, stronger, drawing as much power out of the Godstone as I could. In the space of a breath I felt lighter, larger, steadier. I had reached the turning point, and while the Godstone was still dangerous, our power levels were almost even.

  I felt his sudden surge of triumph as he pulled at me. Had he tricked me? I saw the shadowy image of the inn room, felt the warmth of the fire. I remembered something Medlyn had taught me, early in my apprenticeship. Use your opponent’s strength against him. I stopped resisting the pull of the Godstone’s power and instead thrust mine at him like a spear, using his own exertion to stab deeper than I could have on my own. I dragged my pattern with me, felt him falter and waver under my surprise attack.

  Suddenly the beach rose up around us again and this time I saw the pebbled sand, the rock, smelled the sea and the faint air of rot. The image stabilized, the inn room disappeared, and we stood alone on the beach. Or, not exactly alone. Elva was there, one hand still clinging to the Godstone’s wrist, the other hand wrapped around mine.

  But there was no sign of the World. It needed more time to form, I thought, remembering how long it had taken before. Hurry. I was afraid I would not be able to keep the Godstone distracted very much longer.

  “What were you hoping to accomplish with this?” The Godstone tore itself free of me and I rubbed my hands together, preparing for his attack. Instead, he turned on Elva, swinging his clenched fist and striking him like a hammer on the side of the head. Elva dropped like a bird shot from the sky and my heart stopped beating. There was no blood, but I could see a dent in his skull.

  “What are you going to do now, little practitioner? You’ve siphoned off enough of my power to put up a good fight—too bad you don’t know how. And even if you did, your friend will be dead by the time you finish with me. Or maybe you’d like to leave me be, and save your friend instead? Which shall it be?”

  The image of Hal falling away from me flashed across my mind. I could not have saved him, but I had wanted to. What had Elva said? There are no larger things. If I let my friend die to save the World, could I live with myself? The World had told me that every part was important to the whole. I laid my fingers along the ridge of bone in Elva’s skull. It was not too late. Limp as he was, there was still life here.

  The Godstone’s laughter had triumph in it, but I blocked it away. I forced myself to concentrate on Elva, on the way the bones of his skull felt, and how they should truly be. On the nerves and fibers and sinews of his neck, shoulders, and spine. How each and every part of him formed the body that both was and was not Elvanyn Karamisk.

  The World was like this, I thought, as I straightened pieces of bone, smoothed muscles in the scalp and face. This is what it had meant.

  The Godstone had stopped laughing, but I did not turn toward him until I felt that Elva was out of danger. I straightened to my feet, hands trembling.

  “So, that’s it for you then, little practitioner. Look at your hands! It’s like you’ve got a palsy. I’ll bet if you tried to walk you’d be lame. And for what? For a mundane, someone of no importance whatsoever.”

  Behind him, a wave had collected into a pool and began to take form. The Godstone had kept its attention on me as I healed Elva, and the World had taken advantage. I kept the Godstone’s focus on me, as the avatar of the World took shape behind him. I took a step forward, holding my trembling hands in front of me, as if reaching for his help. I looked into eyes that held nothing of Arlyn Albainil in them. Nothing of the furniture maker, the craftsman, the man the children liked.

  “You are wrong,” I said. I did not step closer, but I knew that I could. And without limping either. “Each and every part of the World is important. The loss of any piece out of its time diminishes it. Even so small a piece as Elva. Or me. Or you.” My fingers shook with the need to seize him and suck away his power, to kill this thing.

  Perhaps something in my face alerted him, for it spun around, freezing into stillness when he saw the World. His expression spoke of arrogance and frustration, but there was no fear. No awe and no wonder. Not even when the World held out its massive hand.

  “What’s this? Am I supposed to be frightened?”

  It was then I understood that the World could not re-absorb him automatically. Perhaps they had been separated too long. Perhaps I had not drained enough of its power.

  “Fenra.”

  Elva looked up at me with a pale face. He let me pull him to his feet. “What happened?”

  “No time,” I said.

  “Go,” he said, pushing me away.

  I ran to where the World and the Godstone were reaching out to one another. Even though the World was so much larger, I felt with horror that th
e contest might be an even one. It was damaged and hurting—perhaps more so due to the activity of the Godstone in recent days. It had been injured for so long, and this might very well be its last chance to heal.

  I held back, waiting for some sign. They touched, and the beach around us shimmered, the colors fading and deepening several times and then stabilizing once again. I would have been reassured, but I thought the World looked smaller. A moment later I was sure of it. The Godstone wasn’t being absorbed. The World was not winning. The part was too diseased to rejoin the whole—it would only poison it.

  * * *

  Elvanyn

  Fenra ran from him toward the Godstone and the creature that could only be the World, but he stayed where he was, swaying just a little, a little off balance. There wasn’t anything he could do to help. His mouth was dry, but he blinked back what felt like tears. He was no practitioner, but he could see the cloud of sand and pebbles and shells and air whirling around the Godstone—sometimes clearly a human shape, sometimes just a dizzying swirl of movement—and he could feel power as if the air was saturated with it. He had an itchy spot on his scalp just above his left ear and he rubbed at it, wincing at what felt like a bad bruise. Something must have knocked him on the head. Gritting his teeth against the unexpected pain, he pulled both guns free of their holsters. He’d always felt more relaxed with them in his hands.

  Fenra had reached the combatants and grabbed the Godstone by the shoulders from behind. It shrugged her off and she staggered back, lunged at it again, this time managing to get an arm around its neck. She couldn’t bring up her other hand; it was too tall for her to get leverage for a chokehold. Elva moved until he flanked them, looking for the best angle to take a shot without hitting Fenra. That was the most important thing. He wasn’t worried about hitting the World, he was sure the bullets would pass right through.

  He wished that Fenra hadn’t saved Arlyn, though he knew why she thought she had to. He knew all about the big picture; it just wasn’t the picture he cared about right now.

  Fenra was growing pale, her breath coming short. She looked like she might faint, and while the Godstone was pretty shaky looking itself, Elva figured it was by no means down for the count. He edged closer. Fenra must have caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye, because she turned and looked straight at him. She smiled, pulling stiff lips away from clenched teeth, and moved her head sharply up and down.

  Elva thought he understood, and lifted his guns.

  In the last moment the thing moved and he missed the head shot, catching Fenra under the right armpit instead. The missile must have passed right through her—the Godstone cried out and its hands dropped from their grip on her forearm. Elva holstered one gun to have a hand free and ran to where Fenra lay on the pebbles, biting her lower lip in pain.

  “Wait, wait,” she gasped. The wound in her side had stopped bleeding. The Godstone dropped to its knees beside her, and reached for her. Elva took aim. He couldn’t read the look on its face. The World stretched out and took hold of the thing with its hand of pebbles and water and sand and air and the Godstone began to scream.

  Elva took Fenra into his arms, pressing as hard as he could against her wounds. The screaming continued as the Godstone was torn free of its host and reabsorbed by the World. The towering image brightened unbearably, light making every scrap of stone and shell stand out sharp and clear. Elva curled over Fenra, raising his arm to shield his eyes. One of the great hands reached down toward him and he turned Fenra away. The back of his neck stung with sand and he shivered.

  Abruptly everything stopped. He could hear the movement of the water as the waves ran up the beach, but that was all. He opened his eyes and without looking behind him felt for Fenra’s wound.

  “I am not hurt,” she said, but she clung to him all the same. Her hair smelled of clean salt spray.

  “Arlyn,” she said. Elva helped her to her feet and together they staggered over to the body. Blood trailed from its eyes and ears.

  “Is he there?”

  Still holding tight to his arm, Fenra lowered herself to her knees, cradled Arlyn’s head in her lap, and wiped off the blood with the edge of her hand. “Arlyn,” she said, but not as if she was asking. Elva sank to his haunches and took hold of his old friend’s right hand.

  “He’s gone?” Just a whisper of sound out of barely parted lips, almost drowned out by the wind and the waves.

  “He is, Arlyn, he is gone.”

  “Fenra, can you . . .” Elva had to ask, even though he was sure he knew the answer.

  She shook her head, her face looking just like the World’s did, calm and impassive.

  “Elva.” Arlyn changed the angle of his eyes so that he was looking at Elva, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he tried to smile. “A person gets too far gone,” he said, “until they can’t be saved. Not even if Fenra uses all her strength, and then you’d be stuck here, wouldn’t you?” This time the smile formed, showing blood on his teeth. “Leave me. I’m part of the World now, just like him. Just like you.”

  * * *

  Fenra

  Of course we did not leave him.

  “He is part of the World now,” I said, repeating his words as I brushed Arlyn’s hair back from his face, watching the tiny movements that showed he still breathed. “He was not before, but he is now.”

  “Sure, but he was a part of us, too. Both of us.” Elva slipped his arm around my shoulders and I leaned against him. “Turned out I didn’t like Xandra very much after all. But I kind of liked Arlyn. I think we could have been friends.”

  I nodded. “You would have liked watching him work. He will be a great loss to the village, in more ways than one.” I smiled, remembering Ione Miller’s last words to me. “The children liked him.”

  We stayed until we knew that our friend was gone, and then we stayed some more, unable to tear ourselves away. Twice I touched the locket under my shirt. I was sure that it would work, now that the World no longer needed me.

  “The tide is coming in,” Elva said finally, lifting me to my feet. “What about Arlyn?”

  “We’ll leave him here,” I said, still looking down. “Where he belongs.”

  * * *

  • • •

  After the beach, Medlyn’s vault—mine now, I supposed—felt like home, warm, comfortable, smelling of wood polish, fresh-baked biscuits, wine and cheese. I was pleased to learn that the forran I had used on Elva to allow him to see the contents of the vault still worked. A small victory compared with what we had done, but I felt it pointed us forward, telling me we had somewhere to go from here.

  “What will you do now?” Elva asked. He picked up the pitcher and refilled our wineglasses. He was trying not to look at me.

  “I will have to go back to the village,” I said. “At least for a while, once I have collected Terith. I left unfinished business there, and now, without Arlyn, I may need to do something more for the place, to make sure it doesn’t fade away.”

  “And then?”

  I shrugged. “Now that the World is healed, there will be great changes—possibly even the creation of new Modes. I would love to see how that happens.” I picked up a cherry, turned it over in my fingers, and popped it into my mouth. I spat the seed back into my hand. “First, however, I should go to the White Court. I have a great deal to tell them, and they will have changes to make once they understand what the World requires of them.”

  Elva took a swallow of wine and set down his glass. Turning it in his fingers, he finally looked up and met my eyes. “Why don’t I come with you? Always good to have a witness.”

  I was momentarily speechless, my mouth dry. “You said you would go back to the New Zone. You would live longer there,” I added when he did not respond.

  “Maybe.” His smile warmed me right through. “I’d go back if you came with me.”

  For a
moment I could see the lives we would lead. Elva would be the High Sheriff again, I would be the town doctor. We would live together in the same house. But it was only a dream. “I must stay here.”

  Elva reached across the table and took my hand. “If you stay, I stay.”

  About the Author

  Violette Malan is the author of the epic fantasy Dhulyn and Parno novels. Born in Canada, Violette's cultural background is half Spanish and half Polish, which makes it interesting at meal times. She has worked as a teacher of creative writing, English as a second language, Spanish, and beginner's French. On occasion she's been an administrative assistant and a carpenter's helper.

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