by Kali Wallace
“I see. Go on.”
“The sister wanted the emissary to ask the founders to stop fighting, because the churning whirlpools and lashing waves they were stirring up with their magical storms were hurting so many people. But the emissary said no. She was too afraid of getting caught in the middle of the battle. She refused to help, all because she wanted to save her own skin.”
Ahead Mara saw a gap in the night, a slice of darkness where water and fog ought to be. The Winter Blade was completely dark. If the Lord of the Muck needed light to see, he kept it well shuttered.
“What did the sister do?” Professor Kosta asked.
Mara pulled her gaze away from the dark island. “She stole one of the emissary’s great glass globes for traveling underwater, and she went down to the founders’ city herself.”
“Did they stop fighting?” Professor Kosta asked.
Mara had asked the same thing, the first time Bindy had told her this story. Bindy had tapped Mara’s nose and said, “It’s not that kind of story, little fish. Best you learn now that begging for help rarely gets you what you want.” Mara hadn’t really understood what she meant, not then. She’d understood a lot better after Bindy was dead and Mara had pleaded, to no avail, for anybody to believe that the Muck was responsible.
“It was too late,” Mara said. “The founders were gone. The different families had set their storms brewing in hopes of driving each other away, but the storms tore up so much of their underwater city they both fled. By the time the storms ran out of magic, the founders were gone. They’d run scared from their own battle.” Bindy had told that part of the story with a derisive snort, but Mara couldn’t bring herself to do that. “The storm destroyed a lot of ships and a lot of the city. Whole quarters had to be rebuilt. A lot of people drowned—including the two sisters who had sailed out to try to help. Nobody saw the founders ever again.”
“How long have they been gone?” Professor Kosta asked.
Mara shrugged uncertainly. That was a question for historians in the dusty Citadel libraries, not a fish girl telling an old story. “A long time. Hundreds and hundreds of years.”
“How far they must have fled to vanish into mystery.”
Mara’s mother had said much the same thing, whenever fireside conversation turned to the fate of the founders. We should never have taken their songs, she would say, and with a sigh she would add: I wonder if they remember us as we remember them. And the other adults gathered that night for food or company would laugh, charmed by her old-fashioned Gravetown superstitions, but Mara had never laughed with them.
The bait-catching song across the water had quieted, leaving only the slow, low notes of the calming song to carry. Mara listened to it for a moment, trying to let its melody soothe her. Bindy had been one of those people who missed the founders and their magic. That was another reason the Three Sisters had never been among Mara’s favorite stories; she hadn’t liked the way Bindy spoke with admiration and awe about those last raging storms.
Mara’s story was almost over. She wondered if it was too late to go back. To tell Professor Kosta she wasn’t ready for this after all. To tell the Lady she would have to find somebody else. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go into the Winter Blade.
She felt sick to her stomach, so she made herself take a breath and finish the story. “The emissary was so angry the last sister had disobeyed her that she banished her to an island at the edge of the city. She stayed there for the rest of her life, still singing to the storms. When she was very, very old, and most people had forgotten that she hadn’t always lived on that island, they began calling her the Lady of the Gales.”
“Ah.” Professor Kosta gave a satisfied little nod. “We passed her island as we sailed into the city.”
“Nobody remembers what it was called before,” Mara said. She had no idea if that was true, but neither did Professor Kosta. “Storm-mages still go there to learn their songs.”
“That’s a lovely story, Mara. Thank you for telling me.”
Mara shrugged awkwardly. “You’re welcome, Professor. I’m happy to be of service.”
Even in the darkness Mara could see the professor frown. “It’s a story, Mara, not a service. I am not your master.”
“Yes, Professor.”
They fell quiet. Across the water the calming song ended, leaving the night quiet beneath the muffling blanket of fog. Mara ducked lower into her blanket and watched the Winter Blade draw closer. She bounced her leg, and stopped. Bit the inside of her cheek, and stopped. It was too late to turn away now. They were almost there.
She had the brief, outrageous thought of diving into the water and swimming as fast as she could in the opposite direction, swimming and swimming and not stopping until the island was no more than a black smudge behind her.
The fortress was as thin as a razor and impossibly black. Not even the tiniest spark of flame escaped that darkness.
7
The Winter Blade
The face of the Winter Blade was as black as the night sea surrounding it.
When Gerrant of Greenwood had been the island’s master, there had been tall windows looking down on the city, balconies above the crashing waves, and a sea cave protecting the docks.
But now all the entrances were so well hidden nobody could even remember what it had looked like before. In the first days after the Lord of the Muck seized the fortress two years ago, sailors who ventured near the island heard songs ringing from it day and night, spell after mysterious spell, until one day the sun rose and the Winter Blade had been transformed. Even merchants who had traded with Gerrant could no longer find the cave they had entered countless times. Some people insisted the Muck must have cast those spells, but others claimed the island changed to suit its master—even if the master did not ask it to.
Nobody even knew how the Lord of the Muck went in and out of his island. Some said he had grown wings to fly like a gull or learned to swim under the sea like the founders. They always said it with a nervous chuckle.
“We’ll need to get a bit closer,” Professor Kosta whispered. “Let’s hope Renata’s cousin was telling the truth about these tunnels.”
There was one part of the island that had not changed, and indeed never changed when new masters seized the fortress. All around the base of the island, just above the high-tide line, there were a hundred or more stone statues set in tall niches, all carved from the same black stone as the island. Some stories claimed they had been placed there by the founders, before the fortress’s first human master, but nobody knew if that was true. The people in the statues weren’t founders, after all. They were human, more or less.
Some more, some less. As Driftwood brought the boat to the base of the island, Mara stared up at the statues with a knot of fear in her throat.
Professor Kosta held up a small mage-lit candle to study each statue. They passed a woman with wings on her back, a man with two heads, a youth with the body of a horse. The black stone was wet with sea spray and gleamed faintly in the candlelight. Each statue had words in the Old Sumanti alphabet carved beneath its niche; Professor Kosta muttered under her breath as she read. This was why the professor had come along: Mara and Driftwood couldn’t read a single word of Old Sumanti.
“What do they say?” Mara asked when she couldn’t bear the silence any longer.
“That one,” Professor Kosta said, pointing to the man with two heads, “it’s a very old dialect. I can’t be sure of the translation, but I believe it says for disloyalty. This fellow says for betrayal. And here is for invasion. Curious names for statues.”
“Some people think these statues were a warning to people to stay away,” Mara said. “Or punishment for people who didn’t.”
“That does seem like a solid hypothesis. Ah, and this one—that woman with horns—she’s the one we’re looking for.” She spoke a jumble of syllables, rising and falling in a musical way. It sounded like she was saying “Oooo-okee-o-ka.” Then she translated for M
ara’s benefit: “For conspiracy. This is the spot. Are you ready?”
Mara had brought two murk-lights with her. She hid one under the blanket to light it, then blinked to chase the spots from her eyes. She stripped off her shirt and trousers and rolled them into the oilskin sack. When she was wearing nothing but her swim clothes, the fog slinking over the water felt even colder. The water was inky and black. The statue of the horned woman loomed over them, more shadow than stone. Mara breathed deeply. She was having a hard time finding her calm.
She was only nervous because she rarely dove at night. Because the Winter Blade was unfamiliar territory. Because she didn’t often swim in underwater caves—they were quite dangerous, even for the best divers. Because the Lady had given her a secret, dangerous task. Because the songs of the founders were too powerful to be trusted to a man like the Muck. Because Bindy deserved to have the truth of her death revealed.
She wasn’t scared. It was only that she had such an important mission before her. She wasn’t scared.
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Remember, it’s more important for you to stay safe than it is for you to find anything,” Professor Kosta said. “Don’t do anything reckless. If it’s dangerous, come back out.”
Mara glanced at the professor. That was easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one with everything she had ever wanted dependent on doing this one thing right. Professor Kosta wasn’t the one who had lost Bindy because of the Lord of the Muck.
She wasn’t the one going into the fortress.
“I’m ready,” Mara said again.
“Luck, little one,” said Professor Kosta.
Mara jumped into the water. The murk-light flashed momentarily before she pushed it beneath the surface; she hoped nobody was watching from above. She swam to the base of the tower. When she was right below the horned woman, she took a deep breath, and she dove.
Five fathoms down, and more, and she found no tunnel.
She had been expecting a rough, wave-carved face of rock beneath the surface, but instead she found a flat wall of large stone blocks. There were barnacles and mussels, small darting fish and clinging clumps of seaweed. The living things of the sea didn’t care that this was the Winter Blade or that the mage within was a murderer. To them it was a stone wall like any other. Mara found that a tiny bit comforting.
But she didn’t find a tunnel. She returned to the surface for air and dove again.
Three more dives and she began to worry. She treaded water for a few moments, catching her breath and thinking. Maybe the tunnels had been found and filled generations ago. Or maybe the Lady’s minor cousin had made it all up. Mara did not want to have to go back to Tidewater Isle and tell the Lady her cousin had been a liar and a braggart.
She ducked her head underwater, came up for another breath.
Not just a cousin. A mage. A mage fascinated by the underwater city and the magic of the founders.
If he had found the tunnels, he might have used magic to find them, or to hide them after he did. Any of the Winter Blade’s masters or mistresses might have done the same. Mara had been looking with her eyes in the darkness, but that wasn’t the only sense she could use.
She took a breath, not too deep, and ducked her head under. The murk-light cast a wavering light; the water was clear and free of silt. It was quiet but for the sound of the sea lapping at the tower.
She tried a few words of her mother’s old song—“Over the sea and under the sky”—but there was no response. She took another breath and dove, and this time she waited until she was farther beneath the surface to sing. She was getting a bit better at singing underwater. It was hard to carry a melody, and even harder to make the words sound anything like they were supposed to, but she could at least do it now without gulping seawater. But still there was no response.
She resurfaced and treaded water, thinking about what else she could do. She didn’t know any songs for illusions or concealing. She didn’t even know what kind of song a mage would sing to reveal something hidden—those songs were closely guarded secrets, for good reason. Bindy had always sent Mara out of the shop when she cast a hiding or obscuring spell.
Mara looked up at the horned statue and the carved Old Sumanti words beneath it.
She turned slowly, peering across the water. She could just see the silhouette of Driftwood’s boat in the distance. Professor Kosta had extinguished the mage-candle. Mara whispered the sounds Professor Kosta had spoken beneath the horned woman’s statue. For conspiracy, the professor had translated, that rolling sequence of syllables. Mara was good at memorizing words precisely, even ones she didn’t know; stumbling over simple instructions had been enough to earn her a sharp pinch in Bindy’s workshop.
It was a stupid idea. Mara could imagine Bindy snorting and saying, “What do you think you know about magic?” But at the same time she heard Professor Kosta, not an hour ago, looking over the city and admiring how they adapted and innovated to use magic that had never been meant for them. She wasn’t a mage. She wasn’t even an apprentice. You can’t make the world by wishing, Bindy used to say. It was as true in magic as it was in anything else.
But it wouldn’t hurt to try.
She dove again. This time when she sang underwater, it was a little melody made up of the professor’s Old Sumanti words: “Oooo-okee-o-ka, Oooo-okee-o-ka.” She turned the words into a song that rose and fell, gentle but insistent, mimicking the rhythm of waves pushing against rock, with a soft k sound for the slap of water on stone.
And this time there was a response: a whisper.
Mara’s heart skipped in surprise and excitement. The whisper was quiet; it vanished when she returned to the surface. But she had heard something. She had to try again. What other choice did she have? Give up and go back to the Lady with nothing?
She dove again. Sang again. Listened again.
There it was: the answering song.
She wanted to shout with joy when she heard it, but she forced herself to listen. It sounded like many voices joined together, singing the language of the founders. Mara didn’t know of any mages alive today who sang in choruses to cast spells. It had to be very old, from a time before mages became so secretive.
Once she knew what to listen for, her search was a lot easier. Through a few more short dives, Mara sang, and she listened, and she felt for the changes in the water temperature, until finally she found it.
The entrance was a round hole in the black stone, but it was hidden by a spell so perfect Mara could only locate it by feeling along with her hands until there was a space where her eyes told her no space should be. Even when she knew she was looking right at it, she saw unbroken stone.
She returned to the surface, excited by her discovery. The Lady’s hidden passage was real! Part of her wanted to call Driftwood and Professor Kosta over to tell them at once, but she didn’t want to waste time. Finding the tunnel was only the first step. Getting through it and into the fortress came next. She would have to swim into that magical mirage—blindly, without any way of seeing what was on the other side. She didn’t know where the tunnel led. She didn’t know what was waiting behind the entrance. Her mind filled with images of a tunnel lined with sharks’ teeth, or spikes, or eels. She shook those thoughts away.
Mara lifted the murk-light above the water for a brief flash. Driftwood raised an arm in acknowledgment. He would take the boat and Professor Kosta to wait at a safe distance until Mara returned.
On her final dive, Mara descended as quickly as possible, kicking hard and fast toward the mouth of the tunnel. Every instinct in her body was telling her to flinch away before she swam straight into solid rock, but she pushed her racing fear aside.
When she passed the obscuring spell she felt nothing but a feathering buzz of spell-song all over her skin, and the chorus of mages hummed briefly in her ears. The tunnel was so narrow stone scraped her knees. Small blue fish darted in the glow of the murk-light, tickling Mara’s face and hands as they fled
before her.
Her lungs began to ache. She needed to breathe. She couldn’t see the end of the tunnel. There was no room to turn around; she would get stuck if she tried. How long could it possibly be? She really, really needed to breathe.
When the tunnel opened above her, Mara surged upward, kicking so fast the oilskin sack dragged behind her like a weight. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it for another second, she burst through the surface and sucked cold air into her lungs.
When she was breathing steadily again, she lifted the murk-light to look around.
She was in a narrow cylinder of stone bricks: a well. The water was less salty than the open sea; there had to be a freshwater spring nearby. The top of the well was only a few feet above the water’s surface. Mara’s light barely reached an arched ceiling high above. Water trickled somewhere, a slow steady rhythm. Otherwise it was quiet.
Mara jammed her toes into the wall and lifted herself to peer over the rim. The room was empty. There was a pile of buckets and salt-crusted rope against one wall, the remains of a crank mechanism against another. Water from the spring seeped lazily into a leaking trough. The room had been abandoned for a long time. There was only one door.
She climbed out of the well and dressed quickly, then picked up the murk-light and slung the oilskin sack over her shoulder. She shivered in the cold. It was so quiet every drop of water on stone sounded like a drumbeat.
Mara ran over to the door and pressed the latch with her thumb. It was unlocked.
She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
8
Weeping Stone
The first thing Mara noticed was the smell.
She noticed because there wasn’t any. She couldn’t smell any wood or smoke or frying fish. There was no hint of damp wool or pungent cigars, no cooking fires or scraps of fish, no roasting meat and spices. There wasn’t the faintest suggestion of sweet candles or incense.
