The most annoying thing was that they were finished by mid day. All the time she’d spent sitting in the storeroom at the mining camp or waiting for that trip to be provisioned could have been used productively. This was a war, wasn’t it? Did they have to waste time just so one old man could feel important?
Apparently so. Once Cazia felt ready to make a few kinzchu stones on her own, she abandoned the old fellow to sulking on his pallet and returned to the bottom of the cliff. The villagers had lowered the black rocks into a pile near the cliff’s edge. Ghoron had been taking them, one at a time, to the table, then enchanting them.
It was a strange spell. The motions her hands had to do were eccentric—broad, sweeping movements with almost no finger positions—but it was the mental preparations that were most difficult. It was relatively easy to go through a set number of thoughts and sense impressions, but the First Plunder required a steady gray nothingness. It was almost like non-thought. She found it extremely difficult to manage until Ghoron finally admitted that he achieved that state by imagining he was still hollowed and the unliving intelligence was projecting the void onto him.
Why that worked, she couldn’t imagine, but it did.
Still, it was tiring work and went slowly. Villagers would periodically appear at the top of the cliff with a basket of black stones and dump them onto the growing pile. She began to feel guilty that she couldn’t keep up.
Late in the afternoon, she realized they had stopped bringing new stones. Her stomach began to grumble, and after miscasting twice in a row, she decided it was time to eat. Ghoron lay on his pallet with a blanket over him, his back to her. She climbed up to the cliff above.
Winstul stood in the center of the green, gathering people into groups and talking to them in a low voice. He was smiling, his body language humble and conciliatory, and the people he spoke with seemed a bit embarrassed. Esselba stood off to the side, her arms folded.
Tejohn sat on a tree stump, eating a bowl of rice. Cazia moved toward him.
“What’s happening?”
He gestured toward the groups of people as the old merchant moved among them. “Winstul is proving himself useful after all. The village folk have not had a strong hand to organize them in a long time, and they’re inefficient beyond describing.”
“Do you mean the stones?”
“I do. The stones were close and easy to get, so most people decided to help with that project. The trees for the spear shafts and mace handles are much farther and the way is more difficult, so only a few are collecting wood. As a result—”
“As a result, we have a bunch of finished stones on the table down below with no shafts to mount them on, and more stones than Ghoron and I could enchant in the next month.”
“We’ll be fixing that soon!” Winstul said as he bustled toward them. “The young lads are going to set up a work station at the tree copse up at the cliff. That way, they can work the wood at the site. It’s much easier to carry wooden shafts than raw lumber. And there is a clever old fellow who is sure he can set up a snare for an alligaunt or two. We need the leather. But they have been working for nearly a quarter of a month, and look at all they have managed.”
He pointed toward a tent near the winch. There were about a dozen decent-looking spears with blunt kinzchu stone points. It didn’t seem like much.
Winstul sighed, then nodded confidently. “If I have my way, we’ll have three times that many tomorrow.”
Cazia was astonished. The man was actually useful. It wasn’t nearly enough to make up for passing The Blessing to Ivy, but it was a start. “You seem to be in your element.”
“Being a successful merchant isn’t about barking orders and flicking lashes. Great Way help us all if it was. You have to know how to make people want what you want. Speaking of which”--he glanced over at Esselba, who had begun talking quietly to one of the groups Winstul had cajoled. She hadn’t uncrossed her arms. “I believe I need to smooth things over with the local authority. My dear girl, would you bring this to the princess? I believe she would find it lovely.”
He pressed a copper object into her hand before hurrying over to the village head. It was old, having turned green long ago, but the metal had been hammered into the shape of a clamshell. It even had a clever hinge on one side.
Cazia opened it and, when she saw what was inside, nearly dropped it. Winstul had mounted one of the kinzchu stones on a leather bracer. And Cazia was holding it in her hand.
But her magic had not been torn from her.
Tejohn noticed her shudder of surprise and stood to look into the clamshell. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s fancy enough for a princess, but in these fallen times…”
Cazia gaped at him. “He handed me a kinzchu stone.”
“Encased in metal,” Tejohn said. “The effect won’t go through metal or stone. Just don’t touch it with your bare hand. Ah, but you were with Ghoron when Dhe explained that. Er, do you want me to take that to her?”
Cazia snapped the lid shut. “I’ll do it. Where is she?”
“With Dhe.” He pointed to a cave that was set several dozen feet above the others. A narrow staircase led to it. It occurred to her that it would be quieter and more private than the one they’d been given, and she wondered if it had been reserved for more prestigious guests than her, Ivy, and Tyr Treygar.
“She went up just before you came up from the courtyard,” Tejohn said. “She’s seemed out of sorts all day. Actually, for even longer—”
“She’s been out of sorts since she woke up on the sleepstone,” Cazia interrupted. “She’s quiet. She stares. Personally, I think it’s a perfectly sensible way to react to being cursed. She’ll come to terms with it.”
Tejohn nodded. “I wonder if you would be willing to do me a favor, too,” Tejohn said. He removed a slender knife, sheath and all, from his belt. “The princess was quite upset that I used this on your hand and wouldn’t accept it when I tried to give it back. Apparently, I violated an Indregai tradition. Perhaps if it came from you…”
“Of course.” Cazia accepted it and started toward the stairs. She had to pass Winstul and Esselba, but all she could make out of their hushed conversation was that Winstul was asking her advice. The wind made it impossible to hear more, but the tone of Esselba’s answer suggested the merchant was winning her over.
Fire pass them by, she should not have come up from the courtyard. Even if they didn’t have enough spear shafts, she should not have stopped making the stones. Eventually, the dozens of people working in the village were going to finish making shafts for the kinzchu stones they had. Head start or not, the part she and Ghoron played in this work was the slowest, and she had the sudden urge to race further ahead.
After visiting with Ivy, of course. They’d had a falling-out after she had stowed away, but it was time to put that behind them. She cared about that little girl too much to hold onto her anger.
The steps leading to the Evening Person’s extremely private cave were narrow and shallow. Cazia took them two at a time. It felt good to be moving again after spending most of the day working on spells.
Then she came around the edge of the cave and saw Ivy and Dhe standing near the back, facing each other. Ivy had a heavy kitchen knife in her hand.
Chapter 19
“I have failed,” Ivy said. “Finally, I had a chance to avenge the deaths of so many of my people, and I find I can not land the stroke.”
Dhe looked at the girl, then turned to Cazia. His face was bland and still in the dim light at the back of the cave. He looked to be passively awaiting the decision of whether he should live or die. His skin also seemed to have acquired a slight golden glow, and the weird disproportionate features of his face were less pronounced. Was that a trick of the light or was he changing somehow?
“Little sister,” Cazia said. “We need this man.”
“Do not call him a man,” Ivy snapped. She tightened her grip on her knife. “He is not. He’
s one of them, one of the patrons that taught Peradaini shepherds to do magic. Because of him and his people, the Peradaini marched across the face of Kal-Maddum, killing and conquering.”
“I’ve never been to this world before,” Dhe said.
“Shut up,” Ivy said harshly.
He didn’t. “You would call me a farmer. I’m not the lowest caste, but I am close. I’ve heard the stories about human art, of course, but I’ve never experienced it in person.”
His voice was a little droning and vaguely annoying. “Little sister,” Cazia interrupted before Dhe talked himself into a knifing. “Would you hang a farmer for a decision a king has made?”
The princess didn’t answer right away. “I thought I was the sort of person who would kill every Evening Person I ever met, without hesitation, until they were nothing but a memory.” She tossed the knife into a crevice in the wall. It clattered against the stone. “But I am not. Boskorul may never forgive me, but I am not prepared to pass judgement here. I find myself heartsick at the thought of it.”
Cazia moved closer to her. “I have gifts for you. The first is from Winstul.” Dhe was utterly still.
Ivy accepted the metal clamshell, then opened it. As soon as she saw the stone set inside the bracer, her eyes began to tear up. Without a word, she put it on her left wrist and fumbled with the ties.
Cazia took hold of the little leather ties and knotted them, checking with the princess that they were not too tight. It occurred to her that the girl might have to wear these her whole life, re-knotting them every year as she grew, and the idea made her heartsick.
It suddenly occurred to Cazia that the stone should have stolen her magic but hadn’t. There was no metal between the leather and the stone, but…
Fire take it all. She’d have to puzzle it all out later. “Comfortable?”
Ivy wiggled her wrist back and forth, then sighed. “Yes.” She looked up at Cazia. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I am afraid.”
Cazia embraced the girl, and a distant part of her mind registered that the kinzchu stone still hadn’t affected her. Was it a fake? Had the potency worn off? “Did you feel the stone when it touched you?”
“I did.” Ivy leaned back and wiped tears from her face. “I can feel it working right now. Cazia, what if the potency fades? What if I lose it, or if my people make me an outcast? What if I change anyway and begin killing people?” She held up the bracer and glared at it. “It is like a frightening campfire story, but it is happening to me! I don’t want it! I want it to go away! Can you take this curse off with a spell? Can you create that kind of magic?”
Cazia laid her hand on the princess’s cheek. “I don’t think I can. Maybe someday, but I don’t know enough yet. This”--she touched her finger to the leather bracer—“will to have to do for a while. But after we win this war, you and I both know what I’ll be working on.”
“I understand,” the princess said, sniffling.
Cazia took out the princess’s slender knife. “The other gift is from me.”
“I do not want it,” the girl said quickly.
“I’m returning it to you out of gratitude,” Cazia said. She lifted her left hand and flexed it easily. “See? It feels so good, I don’t even have to think about it any more. And it wouldn’t have happened without your knife.”
The princess took the knife from her. “Thank you. You do not know how much this means to me, especially after I have been such a burden to you.”
“Stop that,” Cazia said. “Wait until you see all the work we plan to give you.”
The girl laughed. Great Way, it was nice to hear her laugh again. Cazia offered a silent prayer to the Little Spinner that she had come around.
Tyr Treygar appeared at the entrance to the cave. He carried a bowl of rice with some sort of pink berries in it. “Dhe,” he said, “you have to eat. Have this meal, and then we are going to talk about you, about the land you come from, and about the way The Blessing destroyed your people and mine.”
Ivy clutched the knife and the clamshell to her chest, then ran past Tejohn toward the stone stairs. For a moment, Cazia expected to be shooed from the cave, but after he handed the bowl to Dhe, he gestured for her to join him on a wooden bench wedged between two rocks.
Dhe sat opposite them, his eyes downcast as he calmly spooned rice into his mouth. Once again, he seemed ready to accept without complaint whatever was offered, whether it was food or the point of a knife. Cazia wanted to snap at him to hurry up, but her heart wasn’t in it. Yes, she needed to be working on the kinzchu stones, but this was important, too. Besides, the resentment she felt toward the Evening Person was fading; Dhe seemed to have changed quite a bit since he first woke on the floor of that store room.
His magic was growing stronger. She could feel it coming from him like heat from a fire. The kinzchu stone, when it stripped away The Blessing, must have stolen part of his magic, too. Not enough to kill him, but enough to weaken him.
For his part, Old Stoneface simply sat and waited patiently, as though he had nothing better to do.
When Dhe finished, he lowered the bowl into his lap and looked at them, as if he was unable to set it on the bench beside him or to make any sort of decision on his own.
Tejohn cleared his throat. “Do you know what a tyr is?”
Dhe looked at them blankly. “No.”
“It’s a rank of honor,” Tejohn said, “just below the rank of king. You know what a king is, don’t you?”
“Yes. Are you a tyr?”
“I am,” Tejohn said calmly. “And I just served food to you from my own hand, as a sign of respect.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s time for us to talk a while. Are you ready for that?”
The Evening Person looked from Tejohn’s face to Cazia’s. He still had his dead-fish expression, but the glowing glamour around him made it seem regal, somehow. Haughty. “I don’t think I have a choice.”
“That’s not true,” Stoneface said. “You can refuse to answer any of my questions. I won’t beat you for it. However, you have shelter here, and food, and clean water, and what protection we can provide from The Blessing. I don’t see any reason to continue to provide that for you if you will not cooperate.”
“You would send me out into the wilderness?”
“I would.”
Dhe glanced at Cazia as if hoping she might retract that threat. She shrugged. “I’m sure we could find more of you out there if we looked.”
The Evening Person looked down at his empty bowl. “We have sometimes had visitors from other worlds. Not humans, but other beings who have ascended to the point where they show the proper cultural markers: an end to violence, living in balance with their landscape, making things with their hands rather than with the power of their will. These lesser beings are given tours, and their experience of our culture is always carefully controlled.” He paused. Cazia wanted him to get to the point, but Tejohn was doing the questioning and she was glad to let him. “My people value their privacy very much.”
“If these were ordinary circumstances, we could respect that.”
Dhe looked at the bowl in his lap again, as though wishing someone would take it from him or tell him what to do with it. “It would be better to talk with someone higher. One of the sages, maybe. Or a diplomat. Maybe a planner. They’ve been chosen for important roles for a reason.”
Tejohn didn’t move. “I’m sure I will talk to them as we rescue them from The Blessing. Right now, I’m talking to you. Are you going to answer my questions?”
“I will,” Dhe said. “I will earn my place here.”
“Fine.” Tejohn took a deep breath. “These anti-magic stones take The Blessing from us, but only temporarily. Will you revert to a monster again?”
“No,” he answered. “I have been thoroughly purged of the curse.”
“Is there a way to make them permanent for us, too?”
“I don’t think so. They weren’t made fo
r you.”
“They were made for you?” Dhe nodded. “Were they made to cure you of The Blessing or as weapons to kill you?”
Dhe did not hesitate. “The latter.”
“Who made them?”
“I wish I could answer that, but I can not.”
Cazia almost jumped off the bench to pressure an answer out of him, but Tejohn had already changed his approach. “Describe your home for me. Not in depth; if your lands are anything like ours, you could talk about them for days. But for me, now, tell me what you think I should know about your homeland, so I can get a sense of it.”
Dhe took a deep breath. “It is not like yours. The daylight is not so burning bright. The night time is not so pitch dark. There are more moons, milder weather, and all of the land has been made, by us, to be natural.” Tejohn tilted his head at this, so Dhe continued. “I am a grower. It’s not like a farmer; I do not clear land and grow specific foods in specific places. Do you understand? There is a more natural way for our food to be created. Also, it is easy to harvest. Nothing is for sale as you have here. If you are hungry, you pick something and eat it.”
Cazia didn’t like that idea at all. “What if someone fears an upcoming famine and harvests everything for themselves?”
It was Dhe’s turn to tilt his head. “Sick people are cared for until they are well.”
“What about cities?” Tejohn prompted.
The Evening Person wrinkled his nose in distaste. “None. We come together for prayer, counsel, and ritual, but we live apart as much as possible. Otherwise…”
Tejohn leaned forward, obviously intrigued by the pause. “Otherwise what?”
“Otherwise, we face influence. We tell stories or sing songs. We affect each other, changing each others’ minds. Becoming too alike. It would be dangerous.”
Cazia was not entirely sure what he was talking about, but she believed him.
The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way Page 22
