Stonewiser

by Dora Machado

  Indeed, they had left Ars over one-and-a-half months ago. Incredibly, a shimmering opacity had crept over the first of the bracelet's crystals, a silvery glow which didn't preclude the bracelet's radiance but made it different from the other crystals. The opaque glaze was pouring into the next crystal over, streaming from its center to fill it up about halfway, a slow spiraling silver trail marking the all-too-quick passage of time.

  She stirred the blue ink mixture in the inkwell she had improvised. The pebbles she had dumped in the ink-filled cup rattled pleasantly. She had carved tiny holes in the middle of the pebbles before imprinting them. She really hoped her work would pay off.

  She turned her attention back to Leandro's game. She selected her favorite game piece, a tiny scorpion that was different from all the others. It had a blunt tail and a missing claw. She pressed it to her palm. She groped for the little trance, which felt like the faintest tug of the thinnest thread pulling through a wide-eyed needle. The image of Leandro formed in her mind, a thin, tall, stubbly-faced man, never too tidy or well-kept even before his madness.

  He sat by a wood burning fire, repeating the same cryptic words. “The truth keepers. The pure's guardians. Every game trumps well before the end is played. Victory is a tale and trail.”

  It wasn't a straightforward corroboration of their existence, but at least there was a mention of the pure in Leandro's muddled riddle. It was very odd. When she pressed the little stones, in all forty-eight pieces, she hit a strange blankness at the end of the wising. It wasn't something she had encountered before, but today she had a new plan to address the strange occurrence.

  She dropped the little scorpion in the pot of dead water boiling over her blazing brazier. She watched it sink, buffeted by the roiling bubbles, clinking a muted protest against the copper bottom. Meliahs would have to forgive her. She had never tortured a stone so. But she had heard that the Hall of Masons often used such methods to coax a stone to yield a stubborn tale. A stone grew tender as it remembered its fiery birth, the masons taught. With wisdom, care, and barring its destruction, the use of the elemental forces that shaped stones—heat, erosion, corrosion—could sometimes soften access to the tightest links. Sariah waited until the sulfuric stench matched the vehemence of the brew's steam to fish out the little scorpion.

  It hissed when she dunked it in a cup of fresh water. It was still hot when she pressed it against her palm. Leandro's simple tale flowed like a steady downpour in her mind. But she wanted more than Leandro. She grabbed on to the ragged edges she had detected beneath Leandro's imprint and lunged for the mysterious link unraveling from the plane of his tale. Before her mind's eye, Leandro's face transformed, overtaken by another face. The image of a portly, toad-faced, balding man emerged, frayed and none too stable, but clear enough. He spoke the same words Leandro had recited. Fascinating. An original imprint lurked under Leandro's newer imprint, as if one tale had been imprinted to mask the other.

  A shadow wising. It had to be. It was a little known technique by which a new wising was imprinted on top of an older, more established wising. It was sometimes done to reuse wised stones. She didn't think that was the case now. She probed deeper. Leandro's imprinting skills were not as good as the other man's, whoever he was. She concentrated on his tale. The scent of a very sophisticated wising rose in the back of her throat. The acrid taste grated on her tongue and flavored her mouth with the primeval taste of an ancient wising. She reached out to the old tale and pressed it gently. The darkness that flashed in her mind was so sudden and terrifying that she cried out. How by the rot could anyone wise an obstruction as absolute as this one?

  She tried to get beyond it. She tried boiling several other snakes and scorpions in the caustic brew of dead water, all for naught. With the links softened, the old wiser delivered his message every time, steadily, reliably, and unchanged. But nothing else.

  Curse her luck. Sariah had expected more from Leandro's game, a clue about her final destination, a set of directives, something more than just an opaque riddle. She had to get a jump start while she figured out the game. Leandro had said he had encountered the pure while roaming, so she decided to set a course toward the closest crossing into the Goodlands. She had to go slowly at the moment, because Kael wasn't well enough to pull yet and she couldn't leave Mia behind. She had to wait for the child to catch up to her using her sense for Sariah, or risk harming Mia fatally. Hurry up, child. She had the stones. She had to find the pure.

  Kael shot up from his pallet all of a sudden, startling Sariah from her work. He scurried to the bucket on his hands and knees. His belly heaved compulsively. He gagged an awful croak, but somehow, he squelched his stomach's uproar and kept his breakfast, thank Meliahs.

  He stood there, on all fours, taking small shallow breaths. “Wicked goddess,” he rasped. “Will I ever feel right again? I wake up craving the accursed thing. My stomach, as revolted as it is, wants to be hot with it. How long can I last like this? How long can you last?”

  “I'm hearty and properly made for the job and you're getting better.” Sariah reached out to knead his shoulder's knotted muscles. “It hasn't been so many times today.”

  He shook her off. “Say it. I'm a wretched beast. You ought to stone me out of my misery. I take it you've seen this before?”

  “She got well, if that's what you want to know, and she was on hepa for weeks rather than hours. Water?”

  His hand was shaking when he took the ladle Sariah offered and drank in small sips. He dragged himself back to the pallet and collapsed with his customary lack of modesty, although these days, his nakedness was more of a practical choice.

  “Are you sure I'm thinking clearly?”

  Delusion. Confusion. Disorientation. The loss of the self. Those were Kael's worst fears.

  “You're thinking well enough.”

  “So all these crazy things I remember—Are they true?”

  “Like what?”

  “At Orgos's quarters, I fainted after the… mess, but you got me dressed and managed to drag me to the rope.”

  “You did your part.”

  “We climbed down. From a high level, I think.”

  “Third.”

  “We waded in the dark. Alabara's basement? All I wanted to do was… well, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “You stole poles from other decks as we went. You needed them, to guide the deck across the rot flow. The deck. The slime. The frogs. Was all of that true?” His eyes swept the space beyond the threshold.

  “They're gone. They didn't come back last night. Remember?” Sariah was glad she had managed to milk and store a good measure of frog slime before the creatures disappeared. One never knew when one might need a little extra protection from the rot.

  “You crossed the rot flow,” he said. “Thrice. Meliahs strike me. You're unbelievable.”

  “Can you remember what we did yesterday?” She tested his short-term memory.

  “You've been busy, reassembling the deck and wising your stones. I've been little help, sleeping off the hepa and bedding you like a rutting beast. Mind you, just thinking about it makes me hard.”

  “Stand strong, my mighty stallion, a little restraint helps you overcome the cravings. You're doing just fine.”

  “Great news. I can spare a toe and a finger here and there, but I don't think I want to live like a witless idiot. What are these for?” He stirred the pebbles soaking in the cup.

  “These are the smallest stones I've been able to imprint. Are you well enough to get them out of the cup for me? If you are, set them to dry on that old cloth over there, please.”

  His hands were not as steady as usual, but Kael resisted his compulsive cravings and forced himself to focus. He acted almost grateful for the distraction. He picked up a strand of similarly colored beads already strung on a leather string. “And these?”

  “Let me show you.” She weaved the string through her plait. “What do you think?”

  “You look like
those Sadonian women who decorate their hair with strung beads.”

  “That's exactly how they should look, a harmless trinket to indulge my vanity.”

  “But they aren't harmless, are they? And by your pout, I'm guessing you're not happy about it either.”

  Kael got up, a little wobbly on his legs, but made it fine to the bucket. A creak and a clack sounded behind Sariah as he opened the lid. The strong spurt of his water struck the bottom with healthy force. The acerbic scent of hepa mixed with concentrated ammonia rose from the bucket and drifted through the small shelter, the familiar whiff of the last few days.

  “Are you still passing hepa?”

  “It's blood red, if that's what you're asking.” He finished, shut the bucket's lid and returned to sit next to her. “So you've made these little pebbles helpful?”

  “I don't like making abominations. But I need to be better prepared.”

  “I thought you did rather well.”

  “Did I?”

  Silence. He didn't want to talk about it. Knowing Kael, he would never mention the matter again. Well, it was his right. Sariah didn't need long explanations to know how he felt. The anguish, the despair, the helpless rage, they were as familiar to her as the stones, courtesy of a heartless Guild. She knew the pain that hurt beyond the body's soreness, beyond the day's wounds. The human body was built to take the abuse, Mistress Ilian used to say. But what about the human mind?

  Her heart ached for him, but pity would only destroy him. Courage. She fingered the crossed swords etched on the bracelet's link. She knew Kael had plenty of it. What she needed was Faith. She turned the bracelet and spotted the link's winged birds in flight. She had to trust Kael to heal himself.

  “I wonder,” he said all of a sudden. “Which emotion did you use to make bursting stones out of these very nicely colored pebbles?”

  “Never mind.” Sariah plucked one of the small scorpions from the neat rows of Leandro's game set. “Who would have thought about hiding a wising in a game?”

  “You've got to admit. There's brilliance to the notion. But I'm curious, Sariah. Which emotion did you use? It has to be a rather violent one, for these pebbles are tiny, and they must burst very hard if they are to work.”

  His mind was far from wallowing or idling. In fact, he was responding very much as only Kael would. His mind was moving and on the prowl, much to her disadvantage.

  “Well?”

  He wasn't going to let up.

  “It wasn't anger or frustration, you wouldn't mind talking about those—” His expression transformed from puzzlement to surprise. “Jealousy?”

  “No, nay, no.”

  Indignation flared in his eyes. “Of him?”

  “No, not him, of course not.”

  “Who then?” His mind was sprinting free of the hepa and unstoppable. His eyes lit up with the sudden knowledge. “The forester? Did Eda go after you?”

  If only he knew how.

  “You don't think I—?”

  He had a right to his silence and she had a right to hers. “Pay attention, Kael. The riddle.”

  “Did the wench tell you she had rights over me?”

  “Every game triumphs well before the end is played.”

  “She did tell you, didn't she?”

  “Victory is a tale and trail.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “Somehow, winning the game should give us something.”

  “Granted, I took the hepa,” he said. “But you're the one acting strange.”

  “A map maybe?”

  “Don't pretend this doesn't bother you. You wouldn't be avoiding me if it didn't.”

  “A map would be Meliahs’ best gift. But I've been playing this game at every opportunity I get and nothing happens.”

  “Do you think something happened between Eda and me?”

  There it was. Stated bluntly and earnestly as only Kael could. Her heart was pounding like a dozen sets of hooves. She didn't think she could muster the courage to say it, but she had to.

  She took a deep breath. “Why would you choose me when you could have her?”

  He stared at her for the longest moment. “That doesn't even merit a response.”

  “She would be the perfect mother for those children you want.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it. “You want me to have children with the forester?”

  What could she say to that?

  “Because you think she would be a better mother to my children?”

  Infinitely better than a soulless orphan raised by a heartless Guild.

  “And you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Ah.” The infuriating sound announced he had reached his own conclusions and now understood whatever he thought he understood. “You two wenches talked about this?”

  Sariah had made an oath, so she focused on Leandro's game. “Do you want to give it a try?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Well, I have to keep at it, so if you don't mind—”

  “I do mind. What I really want to do is thrash you right now and I don't think that's the hepa talking.”

  The hair on the back of Sariah's neck stood on end when she met his glower. He looked poised to thrash her indeed. Instead, he landed a furious, lip-numbing kiss on her mouth.

  “The hepa again?”

  “Sorry,” he whispered between clenched teeth.

  “Hush,” Sariah said. “I never want you to be sorry for making love to me.”

  Malord, Mia, and Delis arrived the next day, together with a swift change in the weather.

  “Cursed winds, I'm freezing.” Malord stomped his hands together. “We would've been here yesterday, but we had to lose the mob.”

  “They know you travel with us?” Sariah asked.

  “No, they wanted us to join with them.”

  “Did they recognize Delis?”

  “We didn't let them get that close, my donnis. Are you well? Have you been eating enough? You're a bit short of flesh in the rear, I see—”

  “Delis,” Kael said, “keep your eyes off Sariah's rear. I'm asking you nicely. Aye?”

  Delis rolled her eyes. “I've brought you a present, my donnis, something I think you'll like.” She retrieved a jar from her shoulder bag and opened the lid. The fragrance of pure honey filled Sariah's senses. Delis swiped her finger in the jar and offered a taste. “I traded it. It's from Ars's own apiaries. They say it's the finest in the world.”

  Sariah suckled the honey with the greatest appreciation. The sweet flowery taste draped her lips, coated her mouth and flowed in a slow caress down her throat. When she opened her eyes, Kael and Delis were staring at her wide-eyed.

  “I didn't know you like honey so much,” Kael said sullenly.

  “It's delicious. Taste it.”

  “No thanks. I've had enough exhilaration lately.”

  “And you?” She offered Delis.

  “No, my donnis. It's for you.”

  Sariah realized with a start that Delis had been holding her breath with the expectation of pleasing her.

  “I've been very anxious about your safety,” Delis said, “but the child assured me that you lived.”

  Mia admired Leandro's gaming pieces, neatly set up for the next game. “They're beautiful. Can I play?”

  “Try your Uncle Kael. He's easy to beat.”

  “Your auntie is gloating again.”

  “The pieces are wised.”

  “Wised?” Malord scooted to the board faster than a rolling wagon.

  “I have news, my donnis. From Alabara.”

  “You didn't go back in there after we sent you off, did you?”

  “No need, my donnis, I heard the stories wherever we went.”

  “You mean about Orgos's death?”

  “Death? No, my donnis. Orgos isn't dead. He's alive, although his forehead is said to bear a hole deeper than a sunken cave. Orgos is alive and pissed. He's looking for you.”

  “He nearly killed us fo
r no good reason.”

  “The channel's stones gave way a few days after we left,” Delis said. “Alabara is dying and Orgos says it's your fault.”

  Nineteen

  PLAYING SNAKES AND scorpions with Malord was futile. The old man always won. The repetitive defeat was an exercise in wiser discipline to Sariah, intended to shed light on the riddle's mysterious words: Every game triumphs well before the end is played.

  “You are unbeatable,” Sariah said, after losing again. “Was there a point in this game when you knew you had won even before you won?”

  “It was a struggle to the end,” Malord said. “At every play, you could have thwarted my victory.”

  “Not a compliment to my brilliancy. I thought I had lost long ago.”

  A burst of wind howled outside and rattled the deck on its claws.

  “I can't sleep.” Mia's tremulous voice came from under her blankets.

  “Come sit with us, Mianina. It's just a bit of rough weather.”

  “But those people, yesterday, they said that doom was coming to the Domain.”

  “They were just a bunch of babbling idiots making a run for the wall.”

  “What about the blood-drinking rot monsters they talked about?”

  “Overactive imaginations, if you get what I mean.” Sariah twirled a finger around her ear and was gratified by the little girl's grin. “Don't worry, Mianina. There are no monsters about.”

  Well, maybe there were monsters around, not the kind Mia feared but rather the ones Sariah dreaded. Where were Kael and Delis? When would they return? What if they didn't return?

  She had to stop thinking like that. Neither Kael nor Delis had stayed on the decks that night. In rare agreement, armed and weaved from head to toe, they had slipped into the dead waters earlier and lost themselves in the night. They had gone to investigate a cluster of suspicious decks they had spotted earlier in the day. They had been gone a long time.