Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “What if Karitha’s demon shows up?”

  Zerra sighed. “We’ll see.”

  “When it’s all over, what would you charge to take Marek and me to Melitha?”

  Zerra cocked her head. “You don’t have any money, do you? You’ve just been healing people for food and lodging and clothes, haven’t you?”

  “So far, yes.”

  “In fact, I’ve already loaned you two a couple of rounds on the way north.”

  “That’s true. And if you ever expect us to repay it, we’ll need to get to Melitha.”

  “Fine. I’ll take you for one round of silver.”

  Darissa started to protest that that was far too much, then caught herself as she remembered the day she had first met Marek, when he had dismissed two rounds of silver as nothing. If he was recognized as Melitha’s prince, he would be able to pay Zerra’s fee easily.

  And if he was not, well…things would be complicated in that case, and another debt might not matter.

  “All right. Though it may take us a little time.”

  “I’ll add it to your bill, along with the two rounds of copper. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough.” She looked around. “Now, shall we see if anyone else needs healing or transportation?”

  Chapter Forty

  Morvash of the Shadows

  3rd of Newfrost, YS 5238

  By sunset, Hindfoot Village had been evacuated and Tarker had still not arrived. After some discussion, the Ethsharites—Hakin, Karitha, and the two wizards—had decided to stay where they were, in town, rather than risk leading the demon to the townsfolk. Darissa and Marek stayed, as well, if only to have someone to talk to; between them they could hold a conversation in Melithan, Ethsharitic, Trader’s Tongue, Trafoan, or Ressamoric, but even after Darissa’s witchcraft-enhanced studying neither of them knew enough Sardironese to be comfortable.

  Besides, Darissa did not want to get too far from Zerra, who was to provide their ride home.

  Pender’s family had left their house open for the visitors, but all of them, including Pender himself, had fled. Pender had told the foreigners, before his departure, that Forefoot Village was also being abandoned, at least for the present. The general belief was that if and when the spell worked, Erdrik would send the dragon out into the wastes to the east that had once been the heart of the Northern Empire, and when it was safely gone the locals would reemerge and reclaim their homes, rebuilding anything that had been smashed.

  Morvash thought that was probably over-optimistic, that the community could not survive for long without Erdrik’s support, and that Erdrik would probably not continue that support now that his insane project was complete, but he did not say so. He saw Darissa’s expression and guessed that she shared his doubts.

  Once Pender and the rest were gone the little group settled into their borrowed home, with Zerra’s carpet rolled up just inside the front door and ready to be hauled out into the street on a moment’s notice. A guard rotation was arranged to warn them if Tarker showed up, though Karitha, due to her fragile emotional state, was not assigned a turn. A suitable post was found up the street from the house, near the dragon’s talon, where one could see across the rubble-filled valley to the trail coming down from the crest of the far ridge, and it was agreed that if the guard saw any movement anywhere on that trail, or along the ridge-top, he would wake everyone immediately. A false alarm would be preferable to being caught sleeping when the demon arrived.

  It was decided that if the dragon started to move, or if Erdrik appeared, that would also mean everyone should be roused. The spell was not due to be completed until an hour or two after the first light of dawn, but wizardry did not always operate on an exact schedule.

  Prince Marek took the first shift, which passed uneventfully. Darissa had the next, and Hakin the third.

  Morvash’s turn followed Hakin’s, and he was accordingly awakened by Hakin shaking his shoulder—and dripping on his face. Startled, Morvash sat up and wiped his cheek.

  “Your turn,” Hakin said. He was leaning over Morvash, holding a very dim lantern. “It’s raining.”

  “Raining?” Morvash said, not entirely awake yet.

  “Yes. It started during Darissa’s watch.”

  “But…” Morvash blinked, then rubbed his eyes. “So it’s cloudy?”

  “It generally is when it’s been pissing down rain for several hours, yes.”

  “But then there’s no moonslight; how can you see anything?”

  “That’s a very good question,” Hakin said. “You can’t see much. But once your eyes adjust you can make out shapes, and I doubt Tarker is making any attempt at stealth, so you should hear it coming. I hope.”

  “Hear it? In the rain?”

  “Yes, I know. Not very cheering, I’m afraid. Do you maybe have a spell you could use to let you see in the dark?”

  “No,” Morvash said, sitting up in his borrowed bed. “If I’d thought of it sooner maybe I could have set up some kind of warning, but at this point I don’t know if it’s worth it, or whether I could manage it in the dark.”

  “You’ll have the lantern,” Hakin said, offering it.

  Morvash accepted it. “But what…”

  “Whatever you like,” Hakin said. “It’s up to you now, and I need some sleep.” He waved over a shoulder, then vanished into the gloom as he headed for his assigned bed.

  Morvash sighed, and set the lantern down. He had packed hurriedly back at Erdrik’s house in Ethshar, not thinking to fetch a change of clothing or a decent coat, but he had brought a hat—not because he had been clever enough to prepare for inclement weather, but because it had been sitting there with some of his spell ingredients and he had thrown it in without thinking. Now he dug it out, straightened it up, and set it on his head. He looked at the magical supplies, ran quickly through the various warnings and protections he knew, then closed the bag up; nothing he could do safely in darkness and rain would be worth the trouble. He got up and headed for the door, almost tripping over Zerra’s carpet on the way.

  He could hear the rain even before he opened the door, and he knew it was not going to be pleasant walking up the street to their chosen vantage point—though at least the street was paved, and he wouldn’t get his feet seriously muddy. Then he lifted the latch and swung the door inward.

  Cold rain blew into his face and across his chest, and he stared out into nearly total blackness. With a sigh, he lifted the lantern and stepped out.

  Hakin had not mentioned the wind, which was blowing steadily from the east. It was not a full gale, by any means, but it was enough to make his hat almost useless—in fact, he needed the hand that wasn’t holding the lantern simply to keep the hat on his head. Taking a few seconds to close the door behind him meant catching the hat as it tilted precariously backward and tried to fall off.

  The lantern was not really all that helpful; it mostly illuminated fat, shiny raindrops, rather than anything that would tell him where he was. Still, it was better than nothing, and once he turned north, rather than looking directly into the wind, the hat’s brim kept the rain out of his eyes. He trudged up the street, dodging streams that ran down every joint and seam in the pavement, and finally arrived at his designated post. There the dragon’s belly, hundreds of feet above him, provided a little shelter, though plenty of rain still blew in. He set down the lantern, then turned and stared into the darkness to the south, trying to make out the ridge.

  He couldn’t see a thing. He couldn’t hear anything but the rain. He was wasting his time out here.

  But rain and darkness would not stop a demon, and Tarker was coming. It could easily have already crossed the ridge. The best Morvash could do was hope to glimpse movement as it approached.

  And given that he could not even make out the ridge, let alone something
not much bigger than a man moving on it, staying where he was seemed ridiculous. Tarker would be coming from the south, and would presumably come straight up the path to the village, and then up the street to Pender’s home, where Karitha was asleep on a blanket by the hearth. It would make far more sense, Morvash thought, to walk down to the southern edge of town, where Tarker would have to pass; then he could turn and run and hope he got to the house before the demon did.

  Hakin had said Tarker was tired from having spent so long in the human world; it had not looked tired when it was pounding on Erdrik’s protective spells. Morvash frowned. He remembered that the stone fence on the south slope of the ridge had some sort of magic on it to keep out trespassers; was that why Tarker had not already appeared? But given that the demon had eventually found its way into Erdrik’s house despite all the protections, Morvash had no doubt that it could get across the barrier on the ridge in time. The carpet had flown over it easily, and Tarker might be able to leap it; if not, it could probably tunnel under it.

  But it might be tired. He might be able to stay ahead of it long enough.

  Down at the south end of the street he would not have the modest shelter provided by the dragon’s body, but perhaps he could find a porch or overhang of some sort, or a shed door someone had left open.

  This was not anything he had ever expected to be doing, he thought as he picked up the lantern. Standing guard in the rain to warn people about an approaching demon while waiting for the largest statue ever created to be brought to life—how had he wound up here? All he had ever wanted to do was to use his magic to help people. He had apprenticed to a wizard…well, mostly because apprenticing to a wizard and learning magic was about the most marvelous thing ever, and he had desperately wanted it and had begged his father to arrange it, but he had also wanted to help his family. He had thought that he would be able to use wizardry to help the family business.

  At twelve, he had not given much thought to the fact that the family business involved selling supplies to both sides in an ongoing war. He had not thought about what that meant, had not realized that his father would want to use his wizardry as a weapon, and had not immediately realized that to do so might violate Guild rules. He had learned all those stupid curses when he never wanted to hurt anyone, when he would have preferred to learn love spells and scrying spells and the like—not that love spells were exactly harmless, but at twelve he had not thought about that, either.

  His reluctance to hurt people, even indirectly, and his refusal to break Guild rules even for the sake of his family, had gotten him exiled to his uncle’s estate, and he had thought of that as a new beginning, a chance to help Uncle Gror in his business—Gror wasn’t smuggling weapons to the Tintallionese armies. He was a respectable merchant, dealing in a variety of luxury goods, not just in weapons. Yes, he provided the arms that Morvash’s father and Uncle Kargan sold to the smugglers, but that was not technically illegal.

  And then Morvash had found those statues in Lord Landessin’s collection, and had tried to rescue all those poor people, and how did that get him here, standing in cold rain in the middle of the night, waiting for an enraged demon and a mountain-sized monster? A monster that a deranged wizard, a wizard Morvash had accidentally freed from imprisonment, apparently intended to use to wreak vengeance and destruction on his enemies, which seemed to include pretty much everyone Erdrik had ever dealt with.

  That was not how it was supposed to work. Doing good things for people might not always turn out perfectly, but this was a disaster. It wasn’t fair.

  He glanced up at the blackness above that he knew was the dragon’s belly, and wondered how Erdrik was doing up there. The huge stone ear would presumably provide some shelter from the rain, but the wind was blowing from the east, almost directly into that ear. Would the animation spell’s aura keep out any of the wind and rain? Would the rain get into the cauldrons, and unbalance the ingredients, and disrupt the spell? Erdrik would have been at least three-fourths of the way through the process by the time the rain arrived, but that didn’t mean the rain did not interfere.

  Would the spell still work?

  He wanted to ask Zerra what she thought; she was a far older and more experienced wizard than he was.

  But waking her before her assigned watch would not be fair. She needed her sleep. She had been flying that carpet almost constantly for more than a sixnight, trying to do the right thing for Morvash and the Guild.

  Of course, she was being paid, which he was not.

  Morvash sighed, shook the water off his hat, then set it back on his head and started walking down to the south end of the street, rather than continuing to pretend he had any chance of seeing the southern ridge through the darkness and rain.

  He was almost tempted to just keep walking, all the way home to Ethshar. He did not really need to be here. He had done his part—Karitha and Darissa and Marek were human again, Pender was safely back home, and Zerra had found Erdrik. The rest of it was not really his problem.

  But it would take a month or so to walk the whole way, and it was raining, and he still wanted to help, even if he was not sure what he could or should be doing.

  He reached the end of the pavement; the street continued another fifty yards or so from here, but he hesitated. He set the lantern down on the ground, to get a better look at the surface, and as he feared, he saw a mix of rocks and mud. He straightened up, leaving the lantern where it was, and stared into the darkness.

  Now that the lantern was farther from his eyes, he realized he could see the southern ridge from here, just barely—a darker shade of black against the overhanging clouds. Making out an approaching figure still seemed unlikely, but perhaps not completely impossible.

  He picked up the lantern, opened it, and blew out the flame. He could relight it easily enough with the Finger of Flame, but for now he thought he would do better to let his eyes adjust. Maybe this standing watch idea was not completely useless. He leaned forward, peering into the gloom—and the brim of his hat tipped, sending cold water down the back of his neck.

  “Blood and death!” he hissed, as he snatched the hat from his head and shook it, before clapping it back in place. He straightened up and stared into the night.

  He waited, and his eyes gradually grew more accustomed to the darkness. Extinguishing the lantern had made a real difference. He could make out the shape of the ridge, the gap where the trail came through—but not much more than that.

  He leaned back against the wall of the nearest building, a small stone house, and stared.

  Every so often the rain would lessen, and after what he estimated to be an hour or so it thinned to little more than a faint drizzle. His eyesight had adjusted as far as humanly possible, and he could still only see the outline of the ridge, none of the details—but then something changed. In places, black turned to deep dark gray; looking up, he could see dark, dark clouds, rather than an unbroken blanket of black.

  The eastern sky, beyond the end of the valley, was lightening rapidly.

  None of them had had any way to tell time, not with the skies overcast; apparently the earlier watchers had stayed at their post longer than necessary, so that the first faint glimmer of dawn was beginning while he was still on duty, before he woke Zerra to take the final nighttime shift.

  That was good. He had not liked the idea of possibly facing Tarker in the dark. He did not like the idea of facing it at all, really, but the darkness made it worse. He turned his attention back to the south—and something moved. Something on top of the ridge was moving, something bigger than a man.

  And it was moving toward him—there was just barely enough light now to see it racing down the ridge, into the valley below, coming straight toward Hindfoot Village.

  “Gods!” Morvash said. He turned, leaving the unlit lantern where it was, and sprinted up the street, shouting, “It’s here!
It’s coming!”

  He burst into the house still shouting, and grabbed one end of the rolled-up carpet. “Zerra! Karitha! You need to get airborne!”

  Neither woman emerged immediately, but Hakin staggered into the room. “It’s Tarker?” he asked.

  Morvash nodded. “If it had come a few minutes earlier I don’t think I’d have seen it in the dark, but the sun is almost up. It’s on its way across the valley. Go get Zerra!”

  “You get her—you’re a wizard. I’ll get Karitha.”

  That did seem to make sense, so Morvash dropped the carpet so that it held the front door open, then dashed to the upstairs room where Zerra had been sleeping.

  He found her awake, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling on her shoes in the soft gray light of early dawn. “How close is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I lost sight of it once it was across the ridge. It was moving fast, though.”

  “Where’s Karitha?”

  “Hakin is getting her.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Still asleep, so far as I know. They don’t need to go anywhere.”

  Zerra nodded and got to her feet. The two wizards hurried down the stairs, and a moment later they were hauling the carpet out into the street.

  “It’s wet,” Zerra said, trying to maneuver the carpet onto the driest possible stretch of pavement.

  “It rained,” Morvash replied. “You’re lucky it’s stopped.”

  “This will do. Let’s unroll it.”

  Together the two wizards spread the carpet on the street; when it was entirely unrolled Morvash set about smoothing the edges, trying to flatten it as much as possible. Zerra didn’t bother; she sat in the middle and looked down the street.

  “Gods, it’s coming fast,” she said. She muttered a word that was not Ethsharitic, and quite possibly not any human language, then spread her hands. “Where’s Karitha?” she asked.