The Queen's Quarry

by Frank Morin

“I thought you just said I should remain at a distance.”

  “If you’ll shut up for a minute, I can begin to teach you deeper truths.”

  Shona snapped her mouth shut, and Harley nodded approval. “Standing at my side will likely prove fatal. The queen has expressed interest in keeping you alive, at least for now, so that course is perhaps not wise. I will secure you in position to observe and witness.”

  “How do you propose to do that?” Shona asked cautiously.

  “First, I will loan you the power of quartzite.”

  “That’s impossible. I’m a Solas.” Shona blurted. Unless Harley knew the queen’s secret to helping others establish new affinities.

  “Even before I embraced the long sleep, this secret was known to few.”

  Harley concentrated and lifted a hand to her eyes. She bowed forward into her hand, as if praying, or seriously pained. When she lowered her hand, she held a soft, white powder.

  “Is that lamacal?” Shona asked.

  Harley nodded. “From purging quartzite out of my eyes.”

  Shona grimaced at the thought of purging through her eyes. She hadn’t even known that was possible, or that one could even purge tertiary powers. She’d only ever known anyone to purge primaries. Her frown deepened when Harley extended the handful of waste powder toward her.

  “You want me to dispose of that for you?”

  “Swallow it.”

  “No one uses lamacal,” Shona said, not bothering to hide her disgust.

  “And few who try could make it work.” Harley kept her hand extended, proffering the powder, so Shona took it. Harley added, “I know the secret to purging tertiary powers in a way that allows others to tap that same power, even if they lack the affinity.”

  Shona gasped, astounded by the idea. “You can loan your affinities?”

  “That is an apt description. We discovered the potential in lamacal during the early days when we were still developing the earliest Petralist power stones.”

  “How . . .” Shona began, not sure how to even ask about that. It still amazed her to think there were no Petralists before Queen Dreokt’s and Harley’s generation.

  “That is not today’s lesson. Swallow it, quickly,” Harley barked.

  The thought of swallowing waste powder still disgusted Shona, but if it really could grant her the power of a Pathfinder, even temporarily, she would attempt it.

  The white powder tasted somehow colorful, as if Harley had concentrated the view of a rainbow into it. Shona shoved it into her mouth, but it was rather dry and she nearly coughed and sprayed it away. She bit back the cough and snatched her water canteen. Three long gulps, and she choked it all down.

  “Now, tap it to your eyes,” Harley ordered.

  Shona concentrated. Her familiar granite power radiated through her entire being. Her new limestone affinity sparkled in her mind too, but now there was also something new. A liquid feeling of warmth flowed up from her stomach and pooled in the center of her head, behind her eyes.

  She tapped it.

  It rolled forward and touched her eyes.

  Shona gasped at an unexpected stab of pain and clutched her face. Her eyes felt hard, like faceted crystal.

  She blinked them open and looked around, mouth agape in wonder. The world looked somehow deeper, colors more vibrant, as if painted with a thicker brush. When she looked down at the majestic towers of the Carraig, her vision swooped over them in a stomach-twisting way that nearly plopped her onto her backside.

  She gasped in amazement as her gaze swept over the soaring towers and beautiful palaces, as if she stood mere feet from them instead of miles.

  “How is it possible?” she breathed.

  “With knowledge. All things can be learned, but most lack the will and drive to attain the knowledge that matters most.”

  Shona blinked, snapping her gaze back to Harley. “I have the will. Teach me how to attain greater power.”

  Harley nodded in approval. “Potential indeed. If you survive today, we will begin your education in earnest.”

  The two of them returned to their earthen seats and accelerated down the slope toward the eastern side of the great outer wall. Shona’s nervousness returned and grew with every passing moment.

  She could watch the confrontation with Pathfinder eyes, but she’d die just as dead if Harley or Evander decided to squash her.

  Harley intended to challenge Evander in the heart of his home. An elfonnel had attempted to do that recently, and it had died. Connor might not be there to help fight it again, but somehow she suspected she had not seen the full extent of the powers Evander might be able to bring to bear in a fight for his life.

  She really was not looking forward to experiencing those up close.

  33

  This Relationship Is Doomed

  As Shona and Harley sped toward the outer wall where it looped around the long plain of the ruined Stornoway, the wall simply split like an enormous gate. They sped through without slowing, and it closed behind and sealed perfectly, leaving no trace that it had ever parted.

  Shona expected Harley to head for the inner city, but she maintained course directly for the Stornoway ruins. She didn’t slow until they reached the edge of the pit that held the ruins nestled below the level of the surrounding land.

  The rolling hills of the plain had once concealed the sunken ruin, but had been ripped away by the elfonnel. Now that the secret was revealed, it appeared Evander planned to keep the ruins exposed.

  “Keep watch. You will report all you see to the queen,” Harley ordered.

  “From here?”

  Harley did not answer, did not even look at her, but a powerful wind suddenly plunged down from the heights and seized Shona. She squawked in surprise as it lifted her off her seat. She snatched for the handles to hold on, but they disintegrated back into the ground.

  “Relax. Panicky children annoy me,” Harley snapped.

  Shona forced herself to stop struggling as the air carried her higher, then higher still. Most Pathfinders lacked much control over elemental air, and Harley lacked the effortless finesse of the queen, but the whistling wind carried Shona two hundred feet into the air without dropping her.

  Then it split around her, whistling past, but leaving her standing in a bubble of calm at its center. It lacked the cushioned seats the queen had fashioned on their long flight down to Delabole, but it felt remarkably stable.

  If Harley had also granted her external quartzite power over elemental air, she would have willed her observation bubble higher. She could watch the confrontation just as easily half a mile up.

  Harley accelerated again, sliding right down the wall of the pit, then along one of the ruined boulevards. Shona studied the ruin as Harley rode through it. The broken buildings and disintegrating palaces hinted at a glorious past. Looking at them saddened her. It was like staring at a corpse in a recently opened grave.

  Her bubble drifted slowly after Harley, who rode into the center of the ruin where the devastation seemed less complete. Some paving stones remained in place and some of the buildings retained stronger vestiges of their original purposes. Harley stopped in an enormous, paved plaza near a huge, many-tiered fountain. It had been carved by a master and even though it had languished for centuries underground, with some careful restoration, it could rival the best fountains in the Carraig’s inner city. The levels included fantastic animals and warriors still watching over the plaza in eternal vigil.

  Harley dismounted and her chair melted into the ground. She glanced around, looking unimpressed by the amazing ruin.

  Then Evander rose out of the ground ten feet away from her.

  There was no geyser of earth to dramatize the entrance. The paving stones simply flowed apart, then returned to their previous positions under his feet. He towered over Harley, gigantic in his usual long, leather jacket. His mahogany skin seemed shadowed under his black hair and beard.

  Harley rushed Evander without a word of preamble. Shon
a tensed. The insane, ancient woman really did intend to attack him.

  She didn’t attack.

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

  Shona gaped, more surprised by that than any of the wondrous higher powers she’d glimpsed from Harley and the queen. The giant Evander seemed more like a moving mountain than man. She’d never imagined anyone actually kissing him.

  He returned the embrace, his huge arms swallowing her up. They kissed for a long moment before Harley retreated a step. The ground lifted her enough to stand eye to eye with him. She might care for him, but she didn’t seem to like looking up to anyone.

  Harley spoke, her voice enthusiastic. “I’m back, lover. I can hardly believe you’re still lurking around.”

  Shona still couldn’t read Evander’s expression. She crouched on her cushion of air high above, straining to listen. Her quartzite power responded by flowing into her ears. They elongated and she suppressed a giggle as they flexed and rotated. Sounds rushed in. Wind roared through her head, as if it had gotten trapped between her ears. She forced it out but was momentarily overwhelmed by a flood of sounds.

  Thankfully the school wasn’t packed with loud, chatty students and its regular bustle of activity. She wasn’t sure she could have survived that. Even though the Carraig was all but empty of people, it was not empty of sound. The stone gargoyles perched on every peak of every palace caught the wind and transformed it into hauntingly beautiful music that rang in her ears. She could have listened all day long. If she wasn’t observing such an epic meeting, she’d easily get distracted by the sounds.

  But Evander’s voice cut through it all. “Winds of winter alone touch the peak of the snow-capped mountain under the silver light of the new moon.”

  Poetic, but it didn’t seem equal to his normally indecipherable Sentry speak.

  Harley smiled. “I remember when you first said that to me.”

  Shona shuddered, trying to imagine what a date with the confusing giant must have been like. What would possess Harley to date the man? What would possess him to date her?

  “Time alone wears down unyielding stone, but the determined heart can never be broken.”

  Harley’s smile faltered. “You know your grandmother is back. She has retaken her throne and she summons you to join her. Don’t pretend you don’t understand why I’m here.”

  “The sun rises without fail, despite obscuring storm clouds, but the blind man never sees the light,” Evander said, his expression remaining unreadable, his stance unchanging. Shona had no idea what he meant. She only hoped they kept talking.

  “You know that’s just as annoying as when you were a child.” Harley touched his face with one hand. “Please, Evander. Come with me. Swear fealty to our rightful and only queen and we can unite in love and conquest. Together we can sweep away any opposition from this weak, leaderless world.”

  She was right. With Evander by her side, Harley could lay waste to Granadure and the Arishat League both. Shona doubted Kilian and Connor and all the mechanicals those infernal Builders could devise would more than slow them.

  She held her breath, waiting for Evander to answer. She was surprised to realize she hoped he turned Harley down. Why would she hope that? Those two represented all the army Queen Dreokt would need at her back to secure a granite-hardened hand over the entire continent. She could force peace upon everyone, stop the war.

  Remove any free thought.

  Evander gently reached up and pulled Harley’s hand from his face. He looked a little sad. “Dross is impossible to separate from silver until plunged into the refiner’s fire. And lies, though sweet as honey on the tongue, plunge the fool into darkness.”

  Harley shook her head slowly, looking disappointed, and retreated a step. “You rejected me once, foolish boy. Don’t dare my wrath by doing it again. Drop your annoying rhyme and join me, or face the consequences.” All traces of friendliness had vanished from her tone.

  “The pedra thinks itself invincible until taken by the hunter’s arrow.”

  She sighed, her expression hardening. “Then you will die.”

  He punched her in the sternum.

  The blow came without warning, just a straight jab, erupting outward faster than such an enormous man should be able to move. Anyone else struck like that would have crumpled into little pieces and died.

  Harley rocked back slightly and laughed. “Boy, I’m going to beat you to death.”

  She lunged, driving fists into his giant torso, as if expecting to actually hurt the huge man. With Shona’s enhanced vision, she clearly saw how they struck hard enough to compress his leather jacket into his ribs harder than any punch from a max-tapped Boulder.

  Evander ignored her fists and clobbered her jaw with his left forearm. That actually sent her tumbling. The ground caught her and threw her back at him like a javelin from a ballista.

  She plowed into him and laughed as the two of them crashed to the earth together. They pummeled each other with brutal blows that would have shattered any regular Boulder. They shrugged off the hits as the ground shifted under them, righting them and allowing them to keep fighting without interruption.

  Harley grinned as she fought. Evander looked almost bored. They could have smashed through an entire company of Fast Rollers, but looked like they were still just warming up.

  Shona suddenly felt like she was hovering way too close.

  The ground swayed and bubbled around them, and Shona’s enhanced ears heard the groaning and creaking of the earth. The real contest was transpiring there, beyond her senses.

  After several seconds they both rose onto columns of earth that moved with their fighting, twining around each other. The two combatants continued to hammer unproductively at each other as their earthen columns swayed and twisted. The earth creaked, and it looked like they were trying to strangle each other’s access to earth.

  After a moment, Evander managed it. His earthen column swept him in a full, looping somersault, wrapping Harley’s column and shearing it off.

  She fell, and Evander swept earth around her, clearly trying to envelop her and maybe suffocate her. She burst free and tumbled away, bouncing across the paved plaza. She leaped back to her feet, no longer laughing. She looked annoyed as she ripped the exquisite fountain out of the ground and threw it at Evander, who was already chasing her, still attached to his amazingly flexible, earthen umbilical.

  The fountain shattered in mid-air, the stone splitting around him as if it struck an invisible barrier. He declared, “The proud are blind with eyes wide open, and death stalks those who ignore truth that might save them like a lifeline in turbulent waters.”

  Harley glared. “I told you to stop that. At least honor me with straight talk before you die.”

  “The whisper of wind across the face of the lilies carries more weight than the screaming breath through angry lips.”

  Shona had to admit, that was a pretty good insult. She wondered if he stayed up late at night preparing phrases, or if he just invented them on the fly.

  Harley ripped the facade off of the nearest palace. Shona gaped as a fifty-foot-square section pulled free. It didn’t collapse under its own weight like it should, nor did it squash her, but she heaved it at him like a thrown hammer.

  Evander had dropped to the plaza, and he walked right through the thrown wall, splitting it without even raising a hand. The broken sections crashed to the ground, but did not shatter. Instead they flowed back into position and reattached themselves to the palace they’d just been ripped from. Within seconds, Shona couldn’t see any marks from Harley’s damage.

  Harley laughed. “You actually care about this old ruin?”

  Evander advanced, looking angry for the first time. “The lord of the manor casts aside food without thought, while the beggar yearns only for a kind hand to feed him.”

  Harley looked disgusted. “I bet you even worry about what happens to those squatters who live on the ruins of their be
tters.” Her smile returned, looking predatory. “I think I’ll go say hello.”

  34

  How Far Would You Go to Make a Point?

  Harley shot away across the ground and up onto the solid earth near the Sculpture house. Evander rushed after, but dozens of spears of earth erupted out of the ground all around him, slowing him for a precious second.

  Shona pounded a fist against the soft but unyielding floor of her floating observation post and shouted, “Don’t wreck the city! Not again.”

  Her voice sounded weak, and she doubted they heard. She needed to figure out how to apply the quartzite to her voice. It didn’t flow there as readily as it did to her eyes and ears.

  Harley slid past the Rhiddoroch, where Frazier stood defiantly on the wall, a gleaming sword in hand, shouting curses. She ignored him and swept past toward the inner city.

  Evander ripped out the eastern wall of the Rhiddoroch and hurled it at her. It shattered around her, but she didn’t slow.

  “Not again!” Frazier shrieked and threw down his sword in frustration. “I quit!”

  He stomped away toward the outer stairs. Shona hoped he kept walking. Most of the people had already evacuated, but she was starting to fear they might not have escaped to a safe distance yet.

  Harley was already closing on the eastern formal gardens, just outside the inner-city wall. Evander was sliding after her, closing the distance, but she had too great a lead. Shona didn’t want to watch how much Harley could destroy before Evander intercepted her, but couldn’t look away.

  Then movement on the nearest palace caught her attention and she glanced up, then blinked in surprise.

  The gargoyles that clung to the eaves of the palace were crawling out of their posts. Shona blinked, rubbed her faceted eyes, and looked again. She wasn’t imagining it. Those ornamental heads were attached to huge, monstrous bodies that had crouched concealed under the roofs all those years. They galloped down the walls like horizontal surfaces, gigantic bodies the size of horses flexing like living stone.

  And there were lots of them.