Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Darissa knew that wars could drag on for months or years, even in the Small Kingdoms, and of course the Great War had lasted centuries, but here on the open plains of the northwestern Small Kingdoms, most wars were over in a few days—the armies would march out, alliances would be revealed, battles would be fought, one side would have a clear advantage, and it would all be over quickly. She had never before been in a war herself, but neighboring countries had fought in her lifetime, and often the wars were over before she had even heard they were begun. She had assumed this war would follow the same pattern.

  But Abran would not surrender.

  Melitha’s army had laid siege to Eknera Castle; the Ekneran army was largely dispersed, captured, wounded, or dead. Bhella had made terms with Melitha, Tal, and Trothluria—the Bhellans had gotten better terms than they expected, thanks to Melitha being busy elsewhere and wanting a quick settlement, and King Derath seemed more relieved than upset at the defeat. A regiment of Talite and Trothlurian volunteers was serving under Melitha’s General Tobul in the siege, and two of Eknera’s other neighbors, Yolder and Mezgalon, had joined in as well, all of them clearly wanting a share of the eventual booty. The town of Eknera was occupied, and the townspeople were fairly cooperative—Abran had not been popular with his own people. Bribed locals had shown the invaders where the hidden tunnels into the castle were, so that the siege was more complete than usual.

  But Abran would not surrender.

  Prince Evreth had still not come home, but it was commonly believed that he had been responsible for bringing Yolder and Mezgalon into the fight, and keeping Eknera’s traditional ally, Kanthoa, out. King Terren had made several visits to the besieging army, as well as performing his usual duties at home. Princess Hinda had taken charge of logistics, making sure that all the combined armies were fed and equipped, and that the wounded were attended to quickly.

  And Prince Marek was given the unhappy duty of planning his brother’s funeral, which took place five days after the battle. The pyre was built in the castle courtyard—not from ordinary firewood, but from exotic perfumed woods brought from Vectamon, or Lumeth of the Forest, or even Sardiron. Six theurgists were present, gathered from six different kingdoms, as well as a troupe of ritual dancers from Kushin, to ensure that the dead prince’s spirit would be guided safely and painlessly to the afterlife. Melitha’s own court musicians were joined by the famous Falea the Sweet-Voiced, brought all the way from Pethmor, in performing the customary threnodies.

  General Tobul was only able to put in a brief appearance before returning to Eknera, and Evreth was not there, but the rest of the royal family was present for the entire spectacle. Poor Princess Indamara was too overcome to speak, but the others all said their piece, acclaiming Prince Terren as a hero.

  The crowd in attendance included virtually every important person in Melitha, and many Darissa did not think were from Melitha at all. She recognized a few as people she had seen arriving in the kingdom when the war first began, but she still did not who they were or why they were there.

  Darissa found the whole event somewhat excessive, but did not admit that to anyone, most particularly not to Marek.

  She had been assigned a guest chamber on the third floor, but by the night before the funeral she and Marek had abandoned any pretense that she would actually use it; she had moved into Marek’s own apartments. Other than that she tried to stay out of sight as much as possible, and when Marek insisted she accompany him she did her best to stay in the background, using her magic to further discourage unwanted attention.

  She was not there to participate in the castle’s normal life—if anything in wartime could be called normal—but only to be with Marek, to comfort him over the loss of his brother and over the ongoing disaster of King Abran’s war. Melitha was winning, there was no question about that, and would eventually annex more Ekneran land and collect reparations from the Eknerans, but in the meantime men were fighting and even dying, men and women had been called away from their normal labors to support the army, and the royal treasury was being depleted rapidly to pay for it all, and Marek felt himself partially responsible. Darissa could feel it—somehow, irrationally, a part of him felt that because he had been the one to first see the Ekneran invaders the war was his fault.

  He knew that was nonsense—Darissa could feel that, too—but that did not make the guilt go away. He could not control his unconscious beliefs; even witches had trouble with that, and ordinary people rarely attempted it.

  And then there were his feelings toward his dead brother. He had loved Terren, but he had not always liked him; they had been so very different. Terren had devoted himself to the role of king-to-be, to seeing the broad landscape, the entire kingdom, while Marek had never worried about the grand outlook, preferring to see the people of Melitha as individuals—friends, not subjects. The two brothers had spent little time together, and when they did it had usually been with other members of the family around; they had both gotten along better with Evreth than with each other.

  Especially after the death of their mother, Queen Larsi, three years earlier, the brothers had drifted apart, and Marek felt guilty about letting that happen.

  Darissa had not known any of this a sixnight earlier; it all came from staying with Marek as he prepared to say goodbye to Terren forever. Not all of what she learned came from her magic, by any means; on half a dozen occasions she found herself listening as Marek let his feelings pour out in words. She gave him someone he could speak to freely, a luxury he had never really had before. He had sometimes been able to share his emotions with friends or even his siblings, but always with a certain caution, a certain reserve; with Darissa he held nothing back, and half these private conversations ended with him weeping in her arms. He himself, she sensed, had not known how much he was holding back.

  And Prince Evreth’s absence hurt Marek, as well. He did not say that aloud even to Darissa, but she could feel it whenever Evreth’s name came up. He thought Evreth should be there, that he should have abandoned his endless diplomatic schemes to come home for the funeral.

  All through the long afternoon of Terren’s cremation, Marek was secretly hoping Evreth would show up; from her corner at the back, behind the courtiers, Darissa could feel that, could see Marek looking at the entry port, wanting to see Evreth there.

  Prince Evreth did not come. The long ceremony dragged on and on until the pyre was nothing but coals gleaming in the twilight, and at last the mourners scattered. Marek refused to follow his father and sister to supper in the great hall, preferring to retire to his chambers and continue his mourning fast.

  Darissa saw that, and made a detour before following him upstairs, making sure that the kitchen staff would always have something that could be readied quickly and delivered promptly should Marek change his mind. She had a footman post himself outside the prince’s door, ready to take a message to the kitchens—or anywhere else—should the need arise.

  And she also made sure that she had plenty of food—boiled sausage and bread and cheese and stout beer—that she could take up with her to Marek’s apartment. She thought she might need her witchcraft, and witchcraft required energy. She might, if the need arose, use her magic to literally lend Marek strength, but only if she had strength to lend, and for that she needed to eat.

  These preparations made, she climbed the stairs and made her way to the rooms she and Marek shared. She slipped in quietly, and found him sitting at his desk, his head in his hands.

  She left him there and carried her supplies back to her own dressing room—the apartment had been laid out with the assumption that the prince would have a woman sleeping with him sometimes, whether wife or mistress, so there were two dressing rooms, one equipped appropriately for a man, the other for a woman.

  She settled on the stool at her vanity table and began eating, wrapping cheese and sausage in chunks of bread
and washing it down with beer. When she had eaten her fill she tucked the rest away in a drawer for later; she did not want to stuff herself. Then she found a hairbrush and sat there, staring into the mirrors, as she brushed her hair.

  She did not know why Marek wanted her so. She knew he did—that was an advantage a witch had over ordinary women, that she could see through any pretense a man might put up—but she did not understand why, even after spending so much time wrapped up in his emotions. She was not tall or strong, and while she could see that her face might be considered pretty in a rather ordinary way despite her long nose, Marek was a prince, who could have his pick of the beauties who came to the king’s court looking for husbands. She was not the doting, devoted, submissive sort that many men seemed to prefer; she could not bring herself to give up that much of herself. Her current careful attention to Marek’s emotional state was as far as she could go in putting another’s needs ahead of her own, and even that she knew she could not keep up for long—but she also knew she would not need to; once Marek had weathered the immediate crisis and fully absorbed the shock of his brother’s death, she was sure he would regain his own strength and independence.

  She knew that some men wanted her because they had various lurid fantasies about what it would be like to make love to a witch—fantasies that actually had a bit of truth to them, though of course they were wildly exaggerated. Some wanted a witch because they imagined themselves exploiting her magic in other ways, as well, making themselves wealthy or powerful, avenging various slights; that, at least for Darissa, was even less likely than the supposed sexual ecstasies. She would never use magic like that. Vengeance was not much fun when one could feel the victim’s pain, and power lost much of its appeal, as well.

  Marek, though, did not seem to be interested in her witchcraft at all except as a part of her that he could learn more about. He had no more desire to exploit it for his own ends than he did to exploit his advantages as a prince. He just wanted her, not for her magic or her beauty, but for herself.

  “Darissa?”

  She put down the hairbrush. “Yes?”

  “Are you all right?”

  She got up and returned to the sitting room. “Of course I am,” she said. “Are you?”

  He did not answer in words, but by rising from his chair and throwing his arms around her.

  She returned his embrace, and after a moment led the way to the bedchamber.

  Afterward he slept through the night, emotionally exhausted; Darissa did not. She rose to eat more of her bread and cheese and finish the beer before it got too warm, and took a moment to gaze out the bedroom window at the night sky and the glow of a hundred windows scattered across the kingdom below.

  It was perhaps not surprising, therefore, that when she awoke in the morning she found that Marek had already risen, dressed, and departed. The guard at the door of the apartment had a message for her.

  “He’s talking to the king, Mistress,” the guard said. “He may be there all morning. We can have breakfast sent up, if you like.”

  Darissa remembered that she still had two sausages and a heel of bread left, and that she could use witchcraft to warm the sausages. “Just tea, please,” she said.

  After her breakfast she spent what was left of the morning practicing some of her more physical magic—heating and cooling things, moving small objects from across the room, and so on. Just because she was living in the castle did not mean she was finished with her apprenticeship; she wanted to be able to meet any test Nondel might give her, to demonstrate that she was ready to move on to journeyman. After all, Marek might send her away at any time, though so far he showed no sign of any diminution in interest.

  She was beginning to wonder what she should do about lunch when the door opened and Marek stepped in. “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning,” he replied. “I hope you haven’t been too bored here.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “It gave me a chance to practice my witchcraft a little. And if I’d been really bored, I would have left.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure you would.”

  “How is your father, the king?”

  “He is bearing up. It’s hard, though—I think even harder than when he lost our mother.”

  “What did he want to speak to you about? Or did you want to speak to him?”

  “Both,” Marek replied. “We were discussing the war.”

  “Is there any news? Has Abran come to his senses?”

  Marek shook his head. “He has not surrendered, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I suppose it is. What did you discuss, then?”

  “Well, we have…we have ways to send messages back and forth to King Abran privately. Unofficial methods. And he has been using them to threaten us, and make demands.”

  “He is making demands?”

  “Honestly, I think he may have gone mad. He’s certainly desperate. He’s convinced he’ll be assassinated if he surrenders.”

  “He’s probably right.”

  “He might be. We offered to give him asylum, and see him safely into exile, if he surrenders and abdicates, but he refused. Then we even offered to keep him on his throne, just to put an end to all this misery, but he refused that, too—said he didn’t believe we would keep our word and protect him from his own people.”

  “Then what is he proposing?”

  “That we surrender. He says he’ll give us generous terms, almost anything we want so long as Eknera loses no territory and regains Northangle, and he stays on the throne. We refused, of course—we can’t let them have Northangle, not after all this. People have died for this, dozens of them, including my brother the crown prince. And since we turned that down, all we get is incoherent threats.”

  “That does not sound good.”

  “It’s not—but we’re getting other reports from inside Eknera Castle, as well, and apparently many Eknerans are not happy with their king. It does not sound as if Abran will ever surrender, no matter what, but there are others who might remove him for us if they have assurances of an acceptable peace.”

  “That would probably be best for everyone,” Darissa said. “Even Abran, if he’s sent into exile rather than killed.”

  “It’s just so stupid,” Marek said. “Did Abran really think we would be caught completely off-guard, and that we wouldn’t have a counter for Bhella’s attack? If he did, he’s not very good at this.”

  “He probably isn’t,” Darissa said. “Who are his advisors? If he’s a usurper, he may not know who to listen to.”

  “I’m not sure he listens to anyone.”

  “Well, that would explain it, wouldn’t it?”

  Marek sighed. “I just wish it was all over, so we could go back to normal. Or as normal as it can be with Terren gone, anyway.”

  Darissa stepped over and hugged him. “It will be better someday,” she said. “Prince Evreth will come home, and maybe he’ll bring a princess who will put more heirs between you and the throne, and you can go back to being yourself.”

  “I hope so,” Marek said, as he hugged her back. “I really hope so.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Morvash of the Shadows

  28th of Greengrowth, YS 5238

  The theurgist several people had recommended, Corinal by name, had been much less helpful than Morvash had hoped. Apparently the gods had a very peculiar way of looking at enchantments, and would not, or perhaps could not, advise wizards on what spells would be appropriate for a given purpose, or how a spell had been cast. The goddess Unniel could see no connection between anything a wizard might have done and how or why a person transformed from flesh to stone, and knew nothing at all about what wizardry might be useful in restoring those people. She had no advice on finding any glass vessels used in Fendel’s Superior Petrifaction. Even learn
ing where and when each of his statues had gone from being a normal human being to suddenly remaining motionless would require the victim’s name or other specifics Morvash did not have.

  As for Blukros, the god of healing, he did not see being turned to stone as an injury or disease and would not or could not turn anyone back.

  By the end of those two summonings Corinal appeared somewhat dazed and was suffering from a severe nosebleed, so Morvash did not pursue any further inquiries.

  Morvash had also been reminded by more than one person that it was technically a violation of Wizards’ Guild rules to use any other sort of magic to assist in working wizardry. It was not one of the offenses that normally carried really severe penalties such as death or exile, but it was definitely not approved procedure—and of course, if the Guild decided it was serious enough, any offense could result in death or exile. Some of the wizards he approached had therefore refused to discuss anything about witchcraft or theurgy with him, and it had taken some prodding to get Corinal’s name, or any recommendations regarding witches who might help.

  Even Corinal himself had made some mild protests at being approached, but had gone ahead and asked Unniel and Blukros some of the questions Morvash wanted answered. Not that their answers had been useful.

  Advice on wizardry, on the other hand, had been plentiful; while some wizards were overly fond of secrecy, others were only too glad to have an excuse to talk shop. Vorzeth the Mage had explained why trying Lirrim’s Rectification might prove a disastrous mistake—the spell transformed things into what they should be, not necessarily what they had been, and there was a significant chance that whatever force determined that effect might decide that rather than turning the subject back into a person, a statue should be just a statue, without any lingering trace of humanity.

  Such a mistake could be undone with the Spell of Reversal, but that was at least a ninth- or tenth-order spell with the unfortunate feature that performing the necessary ritual generally took a little over two hours, and it would only reverse things that had had happened within perhaps half an hour of its completion. This rendered it almost completely useless except as a prepared and suspended spell—stored in a powder or elixir, perhaps. Putting a tenth-order spell into a potion would be a challenge for even the most powerful wizards in Ethshar, and a mere journeyman like Morvash had no hope of doing it.