Stonewiser

by Dora Machado

  “Sariah's unprecedented wisings showed that we didn't commit the crimes for which we were execrated to the Rotten Domain,” Malord said. “Her wisings freed us from the accusation that we brought the rot to the land.”

  “Perhaps she proved us innocent of that, but only to prove us guilty of worse crimes. Ask anybody in the Domain and they'll tell you they would prefer to remain guilty but proud, execrated but separate from the filth of the Goodlands.”

  And that was the very reason why she had to die. Because to these beleaguered Domainers, the redemption she had discovered had turned out to be a more hideous charge than they could bear.

  “It will take time to sort out matters,” Malord said. “What we need is a way for all the Blood to come together.”

  “Goodlanders and us?” Petrid laughed. “You're mad if you think they'll share the land with us.”

  “We can't give up hope. It's our purpose. Perhaps they can be persuaded. If there's a tale out there that can help bring us together, if she could find it—”

  “You think she can do that?”

  “It's our only hope.”

  Meliahs only knew how hard she had been trying to find such a tale, quietly, unbeknownst to those who wouldn't want her to find it under any circumstances. Now it was out in the open, an impossible undertaking revealed to a mostly hostile crowd.

  “Her claims have given us a chance,” Malord said, “a shot at a better future.”

  “Her claims are disputed by many,” Petrid said.

  “Precisely. Will you kill the only person in the Domain who can affirm our rights?”

  The executioner flinched. The Domainers were far from convinced of Sariah's claims but after centuries of oppression living in the Barren Flats, they craved a better life as much as they wanted good land and uncorrupted water. The executioners were a people unto themselves, but they also lived in the harshness of the Domain and shared in the Domainers’ hopes. Perhaps they understood what was at stake. On the other hand, with matters as they were, with the hatred of the Bloods simmering to a raging boil, who in the Domain would really favor the truth?

  The chief executioner huddled with his peers in whispered discussion. Petrid listened, petting his left arm absentmindedly. Sariah noticed movement along his sleeve. The face of a brown-spotted miniature monkey darted from his ruffled cuff, a quick show of black eyes and tiny fangs, along with a chattering bark.

  Lazar flashed Sariah one of his brilliant, reassuring smiles. Metelaus nodded, cautioning her for patience with a stern purse of lips from the depths of his salt-and-pepper beard. Kael kept his back to her, his eyes on the executioners and his hands poised on his loaded weapons belt.

  “Will the justice gathering support atonement?” Petrid asked.

  “That's why I'm here,” Malord said. “They will be pleased by a reprieve.”

  Sariah understood Kael's complicated maneuvering now. He hadn't just been biding his time and waiting for the outcome of the gathering throughout the last few months after all. He had been engaged in a convoluted effort to preserve her life. It explained some of his sudden absences and journeys. It certainly explained this last trip as well. He hadn't gone to check on Ars's demesnes, as she had believed. He had gone to the gathering himself. She should have seen it sooner, but she had been too busy plotting on her own. Aye. Leave it to Kael to take his oath of protection before the justice gathering and beyond.

  As her advocate, Malord hadn't been able to convince the justice gathering of her innocence. No one could have. But even after she had been found guilty, Kael and Malord had conspired to find a way in which the gathering could support the executioners' decision to sell atonement. It was no small accomplishment when considering her situation.

  “Even if we were willing to sell atonement, other issues must be addressed,” Petrid said. “It's unprecedented. She's a Goodlander with matching eyes. She's not of the Domain.”

  “She's my kin by the way of the blanket,” Kael said. “She's my blood now.”

  It was shocking to hear their forbidden union proclaimed brazenly aloud, but it was also liberating, gratifying and thrilling, like the nights spent together in bodily conversations brimming with passion. She blinked away a rush of old fear.

  The executioner still hesitated. “Will you stand for her if necessary?”

  “I'll serve atonement with her.”

  The crowd murmured. Some familiar faces from Ars jeered. Sariah didn't know how exactly, but she knew Kael was giving beyond his own rights. She started to protest. Kael's hand was already in the air, forbidding her to speak.

  “Are you sure the woman has the coin to purchase atonement?” the executioner asked.

  Kael patted his pack. “I have the coin right here with me.”

  A whole pack full of coin? Sariah gaped. Kael had never measured wealth in coin and although she never lacked anything she needed in the Domain, she had never seen much coin among Kael's wares. Poverty was rampant in the Domain. Her wising profit was barely enough to purchase vellum and ink. Where had Kael found so much money?

  It had to come from his lifelong roaming and land-healing earnings. It had to be next to everything he had. She couldn't let Kael do it. She couldn't let him spend all his coin on the likes of her. She got up, but before she could protest, a heavy hand landed on her shoulder.

  “Don't you dare spoil Kael's negotiations,” Metelaus whispered. He had materialized next to her, no doubt at Kael's silent behest. The brothers had an irritating way of working wordlessly in complete tandem. Sariah swore to herself that she would make it right. She would find a way to repay Kael her price.

  The sight of the ready coin seemed to be the most persuasive argument thus far.

  “Who will avow for the woman's compliance?” Petrid asked.

  “I avow with my wiser's authority,” Malord said.

  “I avow with my marcher's right,” Metelaus said.

  “I avow with my runner's lead,” Lazar said.

  “The woman is lucky to have eminent friends and kin such as you,” the executioner said. “What assurances will you grant?”

  Malord's swarthy features darkened. “Is our eminence not good enough to grant you plenty of assurances?”

  “Atonement is only granted for profit,” Petrid said. “Death, on the other hand, is free for the woman.”

  Malord grimaced as if he had tasted sour limes. “I pledge the stone of Iluim to her cause.”

  Was the old stonewiser losing his wits?

  “I pledge my runner's deck,” Lazar said.

  “And you?” the executioner asked Metelaus.

  He hesitated. He had a wife and a host of children who could be rendered homeless by such an oath. Sariah didn't think he should imperil his family. She tried to say so, but he jumbled her protests with a stern hand over her mouth. “I pledge too.”

  Sariah groaned. It would do Metelaus good if Torana beat him senseless for the deed. They were all recklessly crazy, kin-sworn, noble and steadfast to her cause, but clearly mad. Anyone could see that.

  “Will you be quiet now?” Metelaus withdrew his hand, testing her, knowing she was capable of betraying herself easily.

  Sariah slumped down next to him in grudging concession.

  “We're willing to grant atonement,” the executioner said. “One month for each of Meliahs’ nine sisters as is customary. The wiser must find this tale which can unite the Bloods. And she must bring it before us or she forfeits her life as decreed.”

  Too little time for too great a task. Sariah knew a bad deal when she heard one. She had been looking for just such proof for the last year. Yet she saw Kael's wisdom in the proposal. It had to be done. Nothing less would satisfy the executioners, the justice gathering, and ultimately, the Bloods.

  “If she defaults, you forfeit your pledges,” Petrid said. “We take great risk on this venture. Therefore we need further assurances to protect ourselves from default, potential losses and probable death. You are Sons of Ars. No other hou
se is as praised or admired in the Domain. If the wiser defaults, we require Ars's earnings for three years and the Crags.”

  The crowd gasped. Metelaus growled like a wounded beast. Lazar paled, and even Malord, who was not of Ars, looked aggrieved. Sariah loathed the executioner. His smile was as chilling as his monkey's snarl. She understood he had a job to do, but did he really need to unleash his greed blindly on her kin?

  “Fine.” Kael spat the word as if it were poisonous.

  Her life wasn't worth Ars's earnings, let alone the settlement's unique and profitable placement as guardians of the Crags, the best good water source around. It was also one of the few ranges of solid stone that remained unconsumed by the rot in the Domain, populated with valuable herds of goats which made life sustainable for Ars's people.

  “I won't have it,” she said.

  Kael's first look at her was an incinerating glower that could have melted her bones as effectively as the rot. “Pay no heed to her,” he said between clenched teeth. “She has no voice in the Domain. I speak for the woman.”

  The damn fool. But he was right. A Goodlander by birth, she had no rights in the Domain and was a mere spectator in the matter of her own life and death.

  “Kael knows what he's doing,” Metelaus whispered.

  “I won't be the cause of Ars's ruin,” Sariah whispered back.

  “Then listen, so you can meet your obligations and we can all get out of here alive.”

  “The executioners are setting up this deal so that I'll fail. Can't you see? Why would they want me to return with the tale when they stand to make huge profits from my failure?”

  “Don't you think Kael knows that?”

  “It's not right, Metelaus. Give me a few moments of distraction and I'll be gone.”

  “Look around. You'll be dead before you blink. What good will you be then?”

  “Kael is mad putting out Ars like that.”

  “If I were he, and Torana were you, I'd do the same thing.”

  Sariah sunk her face in her hands. She had made her share of bad deals before, but this one promised to be the most costly of all. It was just a fast way for the executioners to enrich themselves, of trumping prosperous Ars and overtaking its prominence. No matter how kind they were, people in Ars were going to be furious with her for putting their livelihoods at risk, for threatening to destroy what they had built since the execration. Sariah couldn't bear the thought of ruining the only kin she had ever known, the very people who had granted her a home.

  “It's done then.” The executioner accepted Kael's pack. “Remember. Nine months to the sunrise. One last thing. A sentence for a sentence. We require an irrevocable condition to the entire agreement in the form of an edict.”

  “An edict. Of course.” Rage burned in Kael's gaze and simmered in Sariah's soul like a twin.

  The executioner smiled in naked triumph. “I hereby decree the wiser banished from the Domain.”

  Four

  PETRID WIELDED THE banishment bracelet with a snake charmer's deliberate care. At first sight, it seemed to be no more than an intricately ornamented band adorned with precious stones, the type of ancient trinket the wealthy and the powerful liked to flaunt to each other in the Goodlands. Nine square links connected to each other by smaller round hinges made up the sinuous gold bracelet. Each link was filigreed and decorated with different and elaborate designs. Stunning opalescent red crystals of a kind Sariah had never seen before were expertly inlaid on each link.

  Sariah had never worn anything like it. She had never fancied rich dress or ornamental jewels. She was a stonewiser, for Meliahs’ sake, pledged to the stones’ austere ways. But she had to admit to the bracelet's outstanding workmanship, to its exuberant if gaudy beauty, to the shock that the mere sight of it provoked. It evoked the Blood's sumptuous past, the luxury and prosperity of the Old World, the catastrophic losses to the rot. The bracelet was not only incongruent with herself. Like a knife to the heart, it struck a painful contrast between the promising past and the barren present.

  When Petrid laid it carefully on her arm, Sariah realized she had allowed herself to be misled by the bracelet's striking appearance. It was by no means a harmless trinket. It was an object of treachery. It didn't feel like any metal Sariah knew. On the contrary, if felt warm and malleable, oddly resolved to cling to her skin and peculiarly heavy.

  Whispering a ritual prayer in the old language, Petrid brought her wrist close to his mouth. His lips hovered over the bracelet's ornate clasp, a tenth link, smaller than the rest, shaped like a striking red-pupiled eye. He kissed the golden pin dangling from the little chain with a lover's passion, with a believer's zealous faith. Then he slid the pin into the clasp's hinges and pressed it into place.

  What happened next was more than strange. It was astounding. In one subtle pulse, the eye on the clasp disappeared under a silvery lid. The bracelet's round hinges contracted and vanished. Like a coiled serpent settling to feed on its kill, the bracelet fit itself snugly around her wrist.

  What mysterious force fueled the remarkable bracelet? Sariah couldn't begin to guess. She didn't believe in magic. Instead, she believed in ignorance, a condition which rendered people vulnerable to the unexplained. Could there be a wising on the bracelet? Where stones lurked, wisings could easily hide. Aye. It had to be. She couldn't wait to discover how the bracelet worked.

  The chief executioner exhaled a long breath, all too glad to finish the job. “Nine months to honor Meliahs’ nine sisters,” he said. “Nine months to find and submit the tale you seek. Pray thus for their gifts to Pride, Courage, Strength, Hope, Shrewdness, Loyalty, Generosity and Faith. But never trust on the last of the nine, Mercy, for she squanders her gifts on others and has little compassion for her bearer. When the time comes, she will not hesitate. She'll suck you dry of your essence before abandoning you to your sworn fate.”

  Sariah couldn't repress the shiver that ran the length of her spine. She didn't understand Petrid's strange words, but she remembered every one of them. She would have to think more on that later. The gaudy bracelet felt too heavy on her arm. It was a mark of her banishment, a warning to all Domainers that she was nonexistent in their world and that a meeting with her, however brief, was liable to cause great losses.

  “My brothers will complete the transaction,” Kael said in a flat tone, as if he was vying for a sack of flour or a load of potatoes. “We'll be taking our leave now.”

  “Not just yet.” The broad-nosed, bearded man who had shot at Sariah stood on the executioner's deck blocking their path. “I want my turn at her.”

  “If I recall correctly,” Kael said, “you shot your last stone and killed the other woman.”

  “I paid to shoot at this woman.”

  Kael's eyes narrowed on the man's face. “I know you.”

  “What if you do?” The man squared his bulky shoulders.

  “You're Josfan. You used to be a roamer, until Leah ran you out.”

  “That was a while back,” Josfan said. “I follow the executioners now.”

  “I can't imagine you had many options after the roamers’ gathering upheld Leah's view.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? I demand my shot.”

  “I'm afraid it can't be. I have no quarrel with you, but we've struck a settlement with the executioners. The execution is off. Stand aside.”

  “I paid good coin for four shots at her. I'm still owed one.”

  “My brothers will refund your coin.”

  “Do you think coin will buy her way out of this?” The man's spiked club bounced against his palm. “Think again, Son of Ars. Princes and lords are a thing of the past in the Domain. I'm afraid they're all dead.”

  It happened too fast. A blur of half-moon swords exploded from Kael's weapons belt. The clash of steel prevailed over the crowd's cries. The man's club flew from his bleeding hand. His belt dropped to the ground in lieu of his guts. When it was over, he writhed at Kael's feet with twin swords angling
at his throat.

  “Next time, take the coin,” Kael said. “Princes and lords are a thing of the past, but I am here to stay.”

  He wiped his swords on the man's tunic and returned the weapons to his scabbards. Before Sariah could say a word, he plucked her from the executioners' deck and, heaving her over his shoulder, carried her through the grumbling crowd. Without a weave to protect her legs from the dead water, Sariah had no option but to accept the favor.

  The rabble was even more incensed than before. Some were bitter because they had been denied the spectacle of her death. Some were mad because they had lost their bets or their chance for profit. Some were friends of the defeated shooter and some were simply angry at the injustice. Yet they didn't dare pelt her openly as they had done before, mostly because they respected and feared Kael.

  Kael's traveling deck was just arriving, pulled by some of his fastest runners, loaded and ready to go. Kael dumped her feet-first on the deck and pointed toward the shelter. “Don't come out unless I say so.” He turned and huddled with the runners, whispering muted orders.

  Sariah swallowed an angry retort and did what she was told, only because she realized the situation was precarious. She didn't have to wait long. Kael wore his pulling harness when he entered. He ignored her thoroughly, going about the shelter with his usual methodical efficiency, inspecting the goods stored there with a measure of haste.

  He must have known that the executioners didn't feed their wards, because he dropped a skin full of the strong drink Domainers favored on her lap. The spicy brew soothed her parched throat and warmed her empty stomach. He also produced a huge chunk of dark bread and a wedge of buttery cheese from his pack. Sariah didn't realize how hungry she was until she bit down on the glorious offering.

  He poured water from the barrel in a bucket and parked it in front of her. “Clean those eel bites. They like to fester. Eat and rest. We have hard going ahead.”

  He was gone from the shelter right away. The deck began to move, first slowly and then increasingly faster, until it ran at a good clip. Daft man, not overly expressive either. No sense in complaining, though. He had come.