Into the Stone Land

by Robert Stanek

  A soft crackling behind him caused him to start. He turned to see Avea. She was standing behind him. From her expression, he guessed that she might have been there for some time and purposefully made a noise to get his attention.

  As she stared down at him, there was no hint of tears in her eyes. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, then she said, “You are as clever as I hoped. You see things others don’t. Ray was like that.”

  She offered him her hand, helped him stand.

  “Now if we could just teach you not to broadcast your thoughts so readily.” Her voice trailed off. Half to herself she said, “Or perhaps there simply are too many tethers for a proper closing.”

  To change the subject, Tall asked, “Where’s Rhyliath?”

  Avea said nothing but looked west. For a while they watched the brood, they stood idly, they said little. The spectacle of the setting sun gave way to the half-light of dusk. In hushed tones, Avea began telling him of her people, of the time before the wizard’s reign. She told him also of the gypsies of the wastes, the peoples of the kays. Some time passed before he realized those she spoke of were his people seen through her eyes. This realization came only when she spoke of Nahter, of how the deep amity Nahter’s people shared with hers birthed their deep passion for each other.

  Through her words, Tall came to know her, the woman once a queen, fierce in her constancy, who desired above all else a return to easier times, who died a little each day the wizard lived. He realized she opened herself to gain his trust, for she needed him to trust her fully, just as she needed Grandin and Alkin to put aside any dislike they had for him. Be that as it may, she got much more than his trust; she got his affection. Who would not love such a woman, who when asked put others above herself and who when faced with insurmountable odds continued on.

  Feeling suddenly queasy, Tall stumbled. Avea helped him keep his feet. Convulsions followed and she cradled him in her arms. “Seed,” he croaked, barely getting the word out.

  At her call Grandin and Alkin came running—or at least they must have, for his next conscious thought was of Grandin and Alkin carrying him into a tent. Alkin was angry, carrying on about how they would never catch the soldiers in time if they had to babysit. “He is hope,” was Avea’s reply before she stalked out of the tent. She returned moments later with seed. She tried to fight her way past Grandin to feed it to Tall, but it was Alkin who gave Tall the seed.

  “His death when it comes,” Grandin shouted, “is on you. I nursed him to health once. I wash my hands of it.”

  That was what Grandin said, but it was Grandin who helped Tall through the long night. A night filled with dreams of shadows and white fire and angry crimson.

  Chapter 16: Goals Glimpsed

  Grandin and his were packed and waiting for word to move out by the time Tall washed in the stream and ate breakfast. Avea said a bath was a necessity to rid him of his animal smell. He bathed perhaps a bit too long, as his brood thought he came to play.

  Tall emerged from the cool waters to find someone had taken his clothes and replaced them. He returned to camp wearing the high boots, leathers, and cape put out for him. The clothes were similar to Avea and Alkin’s, but Alkin seemed displeased to see him in them. Alkin said, “Why is he in the seer’s clothes? This does not bode well for the seer’s return.”

  “Not like the seer needs them now,” Grandin said. He shrugged, turned to his men. “North and west again. Avea believes the soldiers will go to the Towers at Ank-Korran for reinforcements before they go east.” With that, Grandin and his started loping away from the camp at an easy jog.

  That left Alkin and Tall. Tall didn’t know where Avea and Rhyliath were but guessed they might be scouting ahead. Unsure what to do, Tall paced in a tight circle while Alkin rubbed the blade of his sword with a stone. Tall knew little of such weapons, but he knew the stone was used to sharpen.

  Alkin looked to the east. “Rhyliath prefers to hunt just before dawn and just after sunset.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if it would answer Tall’s unspoken question. But as Tall only looked more confused, he continued. “Avea usually accompanies to ensure he doesn’t overindulge. Nothing worse than a wivre who’s eaten too much and gotten lethargic.”

  Tall understood then that Alkin was talking about game hunting, and not their hunt for the soldiers. “What does Rhyliath eat?”

  The words came out before Tall realized he really didn’t want to know the answer. Too late, though, as Alkin answered. “Just about anything. Deer, boar, horse. A few sheep or goats sometimes. Cattle, other times. Once, a bear.”

  Most of these creatures Tall had never heard of, though it answered the question about where Rhyliath disappeared to yesterday after they made camp. It also made him wonder and worry. Were his beasts safe? Would Rhyliath feast on bulls and slithers? Would Rhyliath try to eat Lady or Lucky?

  Alkin stood, sheathed his sword. Not long afterward Tall heard a rustle of wind and a thud that announced Rhyliath’s return.

  Avea helped Tall mount Rhyliath. Alkin needed no assistance to ascend. “Grandin and his have a good start on us.”

  “As I intended,” Avea said sharply. To Tall, she said, “Have your brood follow Grandin. Do it at once. Tell them of the urgency to stay close to Grandin, and follow his instructions as if they were yours until your return.”

  Tall looked at her quizzically. “I don’t—”

  “Don’t think. Just do. Tell them now.” Avea waited until he listened, then signaled for Rhyliath to take flight. Rhyliath lumbered into the sky.

  Tall felt like he would lose his breakfast. He fought to keep it down as Rhyliath climbed and climbed. The queasiness only worsened when Rhyliath banked and was buffeted about. He found he had to close his eyes. He sucked at the air, tried to calm himself.

  A hand on his shoulder was heartening. “Best to busy yourself,” Avea said. “Take the right flank. Watch for sign as you learned yesterday.”

  Woozy, Tall held a hand to his mouth.

  “Child,” Alkin hissed under his breath. He handed Tall a water bag, said, “Drink this.”

  Tall listened, turned the bag up and took a deep draught only to choke, sputter and spit as he tried to swallow. “Not water,” Tall gasped. “More like liquid fire.”

  “Alkin, you didn’t?” Avea asked.

  “I did.” Alkin grinned, took the water bag back. “How’s your stomach now?”

  Despite himself, Tall had swallowed some of the liquid. It was warming his belly and the warm glow was spreading. “Better, I think,” he said after a long pause.

  Alkin slapped Tall’s leg, glared at Avea, and turned back to his spotting. “Rhyliath,” he said, “Due west. Something I want a closer look at ahead.”

  Rhyliath stroked his wings through a turn. Afterward, the buffeting worsened and Tall winced.

  “Eddies,” Avea said.

  If it was meant to be an explanation, Tall didn’t understand.

  “The air has currents in it,” Avea said. “Some are great rivers, but of air and not water. Others are small. Think of them as streams. To fly, Rhyliath must navigate these rivers and streams. Sometimes, where these rivers and streams converge there are eddies—places where the air swirls. We feel these especially because of how Rhyliath must move through these with us on his back.”

  Tall understood how water flowed and knew that at times it swirled. Still, he saw no currents when he stared out into the vast expanse around him.

  “We can no more see these currents than Rhyliath can. Rhyliath senses them much as you and I sense a coming rain.”

  Tall nodded and smiled—something he learned to do in his village when his thoughts wandered during a lesson and the elder checked to see if he was listening. Apparently taking this as a cue to change the subject, Avea said, “Ray’s clothes fit you well. I thought they might. You two are of a height.”

  “Ray’s clothes?” Tall asked, half aware of what he was saying. Then abruptly, his full attention on Av
ea, he said, “These are the seer’s clothes… Ray was your seer?”

  “Ray is our seer,” Avea said. “We will retrieve him soon enough.”

  All of a sudden Tall heard the smoot’s voice in his ears. “You must leave our world now to rid your heart of the calling. Ray carries the key to saving our people. He can end your calling.”

  Tall was about to ask Avea to explain seers and callers when she shouted, “Rhyliath, descend. Land now. Before we are seen.”

  Tall got a good view of the lowland hills they were flying over before the sudden impact of the landing. It was all he could do to hold on and keep from falling. Beside him, Avea and Alkin were rolling off Rhyliath and drawing their weapons like they were going to war. He stared wide-eyed until Avea hissed at him and waved him down.

  He rolled off Rhyliath, ran to join the others. He found them squatting down at the top of the rise. Alkin pointed to fields filling the narrow vale that spread out below. Even from this distance, Tall thought he recognized the leafy bush with the long blue pods. “Is that what I think it is?” He asked.

  “It is,” Avea said. “The wizard has scores of these fields, but this is the largest operation I’ve ever seen. It was sheer luck that I spotted it this morning when Rhyliath was hunting. Most don’t know the source of the wizard’s blue water. He guards the secret well.”

  Alkin shifted positions, moving to the other side of Avea and then crawling closer to the edge of the valley’s high wall. “I suspect this is something few on the outside have ever seen. I myself have been through this area many times and have never before seen this. Some type of concealment, I expect.”

  Avea said, “If so, then why isn’t it concealed now.”

  Tall saw a familiar glow from Avea’s pocket. He reached down, snatched up the orb. “Why did you take this?” he shouted.

  Avea turned, clear frustration showing on her face. At first she didn’t seem to understand what he was talking about, then the intermittent flashing caught her eye. She snatched the orb back. “Could it be?” she asked, showing the orb to Alkin.

  “This is mine,” Tall said. He tried to take the orb back.

  Alkin turned on Tall, grabbed him and held him so tight he feared what would happen next. Alkin and Avea said at almost the same time, “Where exactly did you get this?”

  Tall gulped at the air. “Deanna,” he said, his voice breaking. “The girl I met in Adalayia.”

  Alkin’s rough grip hurt as he pulled Tall back to Rhyliath and thrust him into a seated position. Avea stormed off, a hurt look in her eyes.

  “Tell me everything,” Alkin said. “Start at the beginning. Tell me how the wizard turned you. What he holds over you to force you to betray us.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Tall said. He tried to stand. He was thrust back to his haunches so hard he fell over. He righted himself, turned back around, saw the pommel of Alkin’s sword as it swept inward. He put his arms up to block the blow just as Rhyliath snorted, brought his head around and then caught the sword pommel in one of his great hands.

  “Enough,” Rhyliath said. “The boy has proven himself an ally. What is the meaning of this?”

  “This,” Avea said, returning and holding out the orb for all to see. “Tell us everything. Hold nothing back or so help me…” She let her voice trail off. The implied threat didn’t escape Tall. He swallowed hard, turned to each in turn, looking for something that would tell him he was among friends. “Alkin, it’s me, Tall,” he pleaded. “Avea, please. I’ve done nothing… Rhyliath, I’m no more in league with the wizard than you are. I don’t understand. Help me.”

  Rhyliath’s huge eyes were the least imposing. Tall shifted toward the wivre as much as he was allowed. Doing so was a mistake though. Alkin reached out and snatched him up so roughly pain shot through both shoulders.

  Avea interceded, putting herself between Tall and Alkin. “So many have been turned. So many we thought friends and did not know until the moment of betrayal. I pray not you. Finding you just when we lost our seer was too opportune though. I should’ve suspected.”

  Tall said quietly, “Avea, it’s me, Tall. Why would I do anything to hurt you? You’ve done nothing but help me.”

  Alkin said, “You’d do it because the wizard’s hold once fixed is inescapable. Some of weaker will don’t even know what they do until they’ve done whatever was asked of them, and by then it is too late.”

  “I’ve never seen, never met, the wizard,” Tall said in protest, but that wasn’t exactly true. The wizard walked his dreams when he was in his village and he’d drawn many pictures of the wizard over the years.

  Alkin stepped forward, straightened Tall’s shirt. “I see it in your eyes. You know, don’t you? The wizard. He’s come to you, stood before you, told you what you must do. Hasn’t he?”

  “No, no, no,” Tall shouted. “I’ve only ever seen him in dreams and visions.” Alkin pulled back, only slightly, but it was enough for Tall to realize things were about to get really bad. He dropped to a knee, held onto Alkin’s hand balled into a fist. “Please, no, I beg you,” he said. “Whatever you plan, I… I…”

  “Alkin, what if our suspicions are unfounded?” Avea said. “Will we ever forgive ourselves?”

  Avea took Tall’s hand, helped him sit down. With a gentle voice, she spoke to calm him. He heard little of what she said; the world was spinning. He suddenly had no control over anything. Hot tears were in his eyes. “What must I do?” He pleaded. “How must I prove myself?”

  “Tell us, from the beginning, everything about how the orb came to be in your possession. Leave out no detail.”

  Tall started to tell her about leaving his village, journeying into the wilds, but she cut him off, repeating what she’d just said. He told her of his arrival in Adalayia, of the laity named Deanna.

  Avea interrupted. “That’s the name you were saying when you first saw me. Isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Tall admitted. “I thought you were her.”

  “Go on,” Avea said.

  Tall told her how Deanna called the orb a healing sphere and used it to heal his broken ribs, how she helped him escape the city, and how she must’ve slipped the sphere into his pocket. He stopped, regarded Avea and Alkin to gauge their reaction, before looking to Rhyliath for sympathy.

  Avea said, “There’s more, I know there is.”

  Tall said, “Deanna told me she has a sister. When I saw her outside the city, Lady Hravic and another were with her. She said something about her sister. It seemed they’d taken her sister somewhere.”

  Alkin looked incredulous. “You saw Lady Hravic outside the city?”

  “I’m pretty sure,” Tall said. “It was dark. I had settled in for the night when they came. They didn’t know I was there. Not at first at least, but Deanna figured it out somehow. The orb, I think. I think it gave me away to her, but she didn’t betray me. She warned me and told me to flee instead. The other two never saw me, but I’m sure the woman was Lady Hravic. I don’t know who the man was.”

  “They took her sister,” Avea said, half to herself.

  Something gnawing at Tall suddenly became painfully obvious. Avea said she was Kerry’s grandmother and yet it seemed she didn’t know Kerry’s sister, Deanna. How could that be, he wondered, unless Avea wasn’t who she said she was. And if Avea wasn’t who she said she was, neither was Alkin.

  Tall tried to hold in his sudden terror, tried to ensure his thoughts were closed. It was Avea who’d sent his brood with Grandin. She who’d requested he tell them to obey Grandin like they would him. Grandin traveled north while they flew west. How much distance separated him from his brood? Did he dare reach out to them? Could they reach him in time?

  “I’m going to die,” he whispered to himself. He stared at Avea and Alkin, hatred in his eyes. They were talking; he wasn’t listening. His thoughts were spinning. It was as if he was facing the colossus of the loch as it surfaced from the depths again. Only this time he was the yearling trembling
and unsure where to go.

  As the spectral behemoth began to open its maw, he lunged forward, springing over Avea and Alkin as if he’d used his staff as leverage to lift into the air. He landed with both feet, rolled and came back up. His hand clutched a rock as he spun around. He saw only the glistening white teeth in the ebony abyss of the great mouth. How Tall wished for his staff, but the rock would have to suffice.

  He walked backward, the stone readied and raised in his hand. He sucked in a breath, thought it must be his last, for the great maw was descending to swallow him. He raised his arms up over his head, fell to his knees. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking.

  A scream died on his lips. No matter how hard he sought to cry out, there was only silence.

  Shaking. Something was shaking him. Was the behemoth swallowing him?

  A voice. Distant, like an echo. “Tall, Tall, Tall,” it said.

  More shaking. The voice again. “What? What? Tell us. Let us help you.”

  Tall opened his eyes, found that it was Alkin who held him and not the bowels of the beast. The latter was certain death, he knew, but the present circumstances seemed no less grave. “Let me go,” he shouted, or at least he tried to shout, for Avea’s hand across his mouth let not a word escape.

  Avea looked him dead in the eye. “I’m going to remove my hand,” she said. “When I do, you’ll not shout.”

  “But…” Tall started to say, but Avea’s hand went back to his lips as he did so.

  “The magic used to conceal this vale does so by playing tricks on the mind. No doubt the same wizardry plays with our doubts and anxieties. Now, when Alkin releases you, promise you’ll not try to flee.”

  Tall nodded, waited for the moment of his freedom, knowing he would flee no matter what. And that’s exactly what he did when Alkin let him go. He ran, sprinting away down the hill. He heard Avea and Alkin running behind him, then a rush of wind as Rhyliath landed abruptly in front of him.

  Rhyliath said, “Avea speaks the truth. I was unaffected by this magic, but I sensed it once I understood there was something amiss.”