Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “I never heard anything about this,” Darissa said.

  “Well, one of the three didn’t even exist when you were petrified,” Hakin said.

  “I don’t understand,” Marek said.

  “There is a spell—I don’t know what it’s called or how it works, or who knows it, or much of anything about it—that makes a place dead to wizards’ magic. Permanently. It sucks up all the magic in that place, forever.”

  “How can it do that?” Darissa asked.

  “How should I know? But it does. I don’t know whether it affects other magic, or just wizardry. It’s completely forbidden; the Guild will kill anyone who attempts it. But it’s been used three times. Once was when it was first discovered, early in the Great War, and I don’t know who did it, or how, or why, or where; if anyone knows where that dead area is, I never heard about it, and Zerra swore she never had, either.

  “The second place is a Guild secret, Zerra says. Some of them do know where it is, but Zerra isn’t one of them. She’s pretty sure it’s a long way away, and hidden, and it’s been there for centuries, but that’s all she knows—or at least, that’s what she told me. She’s heard rumors it resulted from a feud between wizards, but she doesn’t really know.

  “But the third one, the newest one, is in the overlord’s palace in Ethshar of the Sands. The magic they used to defeat Empress Tabaea went wrong, and they used this other spell to stop it, so now wizardry doesn’t work in the middle of the Palace.

  “If you drag pieces of the dragon there, they’ll die.”

  “The middle of the overlord’s palace in Ethshar of the Sands?” Darissa asked. “Are you mad?”

  “That’s what I heard,” Hakin said. “We worked together for years, Tarker—we trusted each other. If you don’t find a way to kill that thing you’ll be trapped in the World for eternity, and I don’t think that’s right, so I’m telling you the only way I know that you can kill it. Chip it apart, and haul each piece to the palace in Ethshar of the Sands.”

  “That will still probably take a hundred years,” Marek said. “Think of the size of that thing!”

  “And Karitha will probably die of old age before it’s finished,” Darissa said.

  “That does not concern me,” Tarker said. “My task now is to kill the dragon. If this is how it must be done, then this is what I will do.” It held out a hand. “Give me the hammer.”

  Hakin obliged.

  “If you carve handholds, it won’t be able to throw you off so easily,” Marek suggested, stepping forward and offering the demon the iron bar.

  “And if you break its wings, it won’t be able to fly,” Darissa added, as Tarker accepted this second implement.

  “I understand,” Tarker said. It turned and started eastward, but then it stopped again. It turned back, hesitating, as if struggling to say something.

  The three humans waited, and at last the words came.

  “Thank you, Hakin of the Hundred-Foot Field,” Tarker said. “You have been a friend.”

  Then it turned, and began bounding eastward across the rubble-strewn surface that had once been the base of a mountain.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Morvash of the Shadows

  4th of Newfrost, YS 5238

  “I don’t know whether we can outfly it,” Zerra said, as she sent the carpet into swooping curves over the forested slopes of the mountains below. The dragon was not far behind them, and gaining steadily despite her attempts to dodge.

  “Don’t try,” Morvash said. “Go somewhere it can’t—somewhere it won’t fit.”

  “Right,” Zerra said. “I should have thought of that. I’m not used to dealing with flying monsters.” She sent the carpet into a dive so steep that Morvash feared he would fall forward, and a moment later they were swooping between huge pine trees, the rug’s selvage rippling as it brushed against the trunks on either side. Then she veered left, tilting the carpet up on edge for an instant.

  Morvash looked up through the tree branches and saw the dragon weaving back and forth, looking for them.

  “I think you lost it,” he said.

  Zerra did not reply as she dove the carpet again, down into a narrow tree-lined ravine. She turned left again along a stream at the bottom, swerved to the right, and then brought the carpet to a halt so abrupt that the cross-legged Morvash and squatting Karitha tumbled over. Morvash caught himself against a tree limb and pushed himself back onto the carpet; Karitha slammed into a tree trunk and let out a cry of pain as she tumbled to the needle-covered ground below.

  “Sorry,” Zerra said, but she was looking up, not at her fallen companion. Morvash looked up as well, and realized why she had chosen this spot. They were underneath a stone overhang, behind a small waterfall, where the dragon would not easily find them, and where it could not possibly fit without smashing the ledge. It was only fifty or sixty feet between the overhang and the ground where Karitha lay; the dragon would be unable to squeeze even its immense head into such a space.

  The limb that Morvash had caught was on a pine that had somehow managed to grow in this confined and shadowy space, but was stunted by the barrier above, its topmost branches twisted out of shape as they scraped against the stone; Karitha had bounced off the same tree’s trunk.

  Morvash slid off the carpet and made his way down to Karitha’s side, moving carefully; the footing was treacherous, as the thick layer of pine needles was slippery and hid gaps in the stone beneath. When he reached her he knelt down and gave her a hand, helping her sit up.

  She rubbed her head and asked, “Where are we?” Her breath was a faint puff of fog; the air around them was cool and damp.

  “We’re in a ravine in the mountains, somewhere west of the villages,” Morvash told her.

  Just then the daylight, not very bright to begin with, vanished for a moment; both of them looked up.

  The dragon was flying overhead, but gave no sign it had seen them.

  Then it moved on, and the light returned. Morvash thought the clouds above were thinning; the sky that had been mostly gray was now blue and white.

  He turned his attention back to the demonologist. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she said. She got slowly to her feet, discovering for herself how unstable the bed of needles could be but eventually standing upright. Together, the two of them climbed back up the stony slope toward the hovering carpet.

  “I think it’s giving up,” Zerra said, as they drew near. “It turned back east.”

  “Good,” Morvash replied.

  “It’s a good thing it doesn’t breathe fire,” Karitha said.

  “Oh, it’s not a real dragon,” Zerra assured her. “It’s just stone. A mountain brought to life.”

  “It’s still a good thing,” Karitha mumbled. She started climbing back onto the carpet, and as she did the dragon’s voice echoed down the ravine.

  “Get off me, foul demon!”

  “Apparently Tarker’s still holding on,” Morvash remarked, as he gave Karitha a boost.

  “That’s impressive,” Zerra said.

  “I doubt it can keep it up forever,” Morvash said.

  “But…it has to kill the dragon!” Karitha said. “I ordered it to!”

  “And it will keep trying,” Morvash said, “but what can it do, really? It will chase the dragon forever, but they’re both sleepless, undying creatures, and the dragon is huge and made of solid stone. I doubt Tarker will ever be able to kill it.”

  “But it’ll keep trying,” Zerra said, “which will keep them both busy.”

  Morvash hopped up onto the carpet, and the three of them arranged themselves near the center once again. “Now what?” he asked.

  Just then there was a tremendous crash; the earth shook, and a shower of pine needles scatte
red across the carpet. The patter of the waterfall changed its rhythm for a moment before returning to its usual steady beat.

  “What was that?” Karitha asked.

  “I’d guess the dragon miscalculated and ran into something,” Morvash said.

  “Or maybe Tarker found a way to knock it out of the sky after all,” Zerra suggested.

  “Seems unlikely. More likely it was stamping on Tarker, trying to squash it the way it squashed Erdrik.”

  “Things weren’t that loud when it squashed Erdrik,” Zerra objected.

  “Tarker is bigger and tougher.”

  Then the dragon’s voice spoke again. “Trouble me no more, fools! Send no more demons, or I shall crush them as I have crushed this one!”

  “All right, maybe it stepped on Tarker,” Zerra acknowledged. “But it still seemed too loud for that.”

  “Do you think it really crushed Tarker?” Karitha asked.

  “You’re the demonologist,” Zerra answered. “You tell us.”

  “I don’t think it could have,” Karitha said. “But it could have trapped it—driven it into the stone, maybe.”

  For a moment the three of them sat listening, but all Morvash heard was the drumming of the waterfall, and the wind whistling through the pines.

  “Now what?” he asked again.

  No one replied, and after a moment he said, “Really, what should we do now? We don’t have any food or other supplies—we left them in Pender’s house, which is probably smashed to bits by now. We can’t stay here indefinitely.”

  “We have to go back for the others,” Karitha said.

  “No, we don’t,” Zerra said. “We can go back to Ethshar and leave them to fend for themselves. I’ve done what the Guild sent me to do, and I want to go home.”

  “You can’t just leave them!” Karitha protested.

  “Yes, I can,” Zerra said.

  “But you won’t,” Morvash said. “Because you’re a better person than that, and besides, you want to find out what’s going on with that mysterious person looking for Marek and Darissa.”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Zerra sighed. “You obviously want to find that out,” she said. “Will you pay me to fly you to Melitha?”

  “I don’t have any money with me.”

  “I can wait. Shall we say, five rounds of silver within a year?”

  That was more money than Morvash expected to net in half a year, even given that he had finished his statue-rescuing project and could now get serious about earning his keep; he was just a journeyman with no reputation. “Shall we say we’ll negotiate a price after we talk to Prince Marek?”

  “He is a prince, isn’t he? All right, we’ll go see if any of the others are still alive, and go from there. If that’s all right with the demonologist.”

  Karitha nodded vigorously. “It’s fine!” she said.

  Zerra raised a hand, and the carpet moved slowly out from under the ledge; all three of its occupants eyed the sky nervously, but there was no sign of the dragon.

  Cautiously, Zerra took the carpet up above the trees, then up the side of the ravine. Taking her bearings from the sun she turned east, across a mountaintop, skimming just a few feet above the pines.

  Looking at the bright spot in the clouds where the sun should be, Morvash was startled to realize it was still only mid-morning; the dragon had been alive for no more than an hour or two.

  It was not long before they spotted the dragon strolling eastward onto the barren plain. “I wonder where it’s going?” Karitha said.

  “Probably nowhere in particular,” Zerra said, as she kept the carpet moving east just above the trees. “It has no purpose, no goal—at least, not if it’s like most of the other Ellran’s animations I’ve seen. If you mix the spell right you can make them obedient, but if Erdrik intended to do that it obviously didn’t work. A different mix makes them playful, or loving, but I don’t think that happened, either.”

  “I think the rain may have diluted something,” Morvash suggested.

  “That could be it,” Zerra said. “Or maybe the size of it dispersed the magic.”

  “The first thing it ever experienced was someone tickling its ear,” Karitha said. “And right after that, everyone else agreed it should be killed. You can’t expect it to feel especially loving after that!”

  “I’m just glad it hasn’t decided to stamp out the entire human race,” Morvash said.

  “Yet,” Zerra answered. “Or maybe it thinks all our cities are to the east, for some reason.”

  “Maybe it will keep going until it falls off the edge of the World,” Karitha said.

  “The poisonous air wouldn’t bother it,” Zerra said. “It could just fly back.”

  “Or maybe it went that way because there’s flat ground to walk on, and when it gets bored it will come back,” Morvash said.

  “Maybe,” Zerra acknowledged.

  Then they were out of the pines, into the cleared land that had once surrounded the gigantic carving, and Zerra took them down lower, trying to stay below the dragon’s line of sight. The ruins of Hindfoot Village lay ahead, and she directed the carpet toward them.

  They were still perhaps half a mile away when Karitha pointed. “There!” she said.

  “I see them.”

  A moment later they glided up beside the trio, who had seen their approach and stood waiting.

  “It’s good to see you!” Morvash called. “I was afraid you might have been stepped on.”

  “We almost got hit by its tail,” Hakin said. “I have the worst bruise of my life on my back. But we’re all right.”

  “Good,” Zerra said. “Climb aboard, and we’ll get out of here before it comes back.”

  “Wait a minute,” Morvash said. “Shouldn’t we see if we can find your luggage, or other things we want to keep?”

  Zerra hesitated.

  “Pender’s house was over there,” Hakin said, pointing.

  “Oh, all right,” Zerra said. “Some of my things might be hard to replace.”

  “Climb on,” Morvash said, holding out a hand. “No reason to risk tripping over something.”

  “Thank you,” Marek said, as he climbed onto the carpet. As soon as he was aboard he turned to help Darissa.

  Hakin managed without assistance, his bruise notwithstanding.

  A moment later five of them were picking through the wreckage of Pender’s family home. Morvash found it deeply saddening to see familiar objects smashed and scattered, but at least, he told himself, everyone had gotten out safely.

  As they picked through the rubble Karitha asked Hakin, “Did you see what happened to Tarker?”

  “Oh, we meant to tell you about that,” Hakin replied. “That’s why we were up by the workshop. We gave it some tools to use against the dragon, a sledgehammer and a…a mining drill, maybe? I’m not sure what it’s called. And I told it something Zerra had said that might be a way to kill the pieces after the dragon’s broken up.”

  Morvash turned to look at Zerra. “I thought you said there wasn’t any way.”

  “Well, I’m not sure whether there is or not,” she replied. “And if there is, it doesn’t seem very practical.”

  “What is it?”

  “Have you heard about the Palace in Ethshar of the Sands?”

  “Oh.” Morvash did not need any further explanation; his master had told him about that particular fiasco midway through his apprenticeship, when once more drumming the dangerous and unpredictable nature of wizardry into his head.

  “I didn’t think dragging something that big into the middle of a city was practical,” Zerra explained.

  “Well, not all at once,” Hakin said. “But Tarker can break pieces off and take
them there. It’ll take years, but eventually he should be able to kill it.”

  “That’s pretty clever,” Morvash said. “That, and the tools.”

  “Found it!” Zerra said, pulling her familiar bundle out from beneath the remains of a bed canopy. She tossed it onto the carpet, then said, “We can go any time, so far as I’m concerned.”

  Morvash had gathered some useful kitchen items, and found his own much smaller pack. “I’m all set,” he said.

  Karitha had never even gotten off the carpet. “Me, too,” she said.

  Darissa had found a sack somewhere and collected several items, though Morvash did not know what they were; now she took a look around, and said, “Was there anything in particular anyone wanted? Witchcraft is good at finding things.”

  Hakin shook his head. “I’m not a thief,” he said, “and I have everything I brought. Not that I had much to begin with.”

  “I’m fine,” Marek said.

  With that, everyone clambered aboard. The added people and baggage made the carpet more crowded than Morvash liked, but it wasn’t any worse than when they had flown up the river from Ethshar.

  “Should we find Pender, and let him know we’re leaving?” Hakin asked.

  “I think he can figure…” Morvash began.

  “What have you done, you unbearable pest?” The words roared down on them without warning.

  “I think we should go,” Hakin said. “Right now.”

  “Absolutely,” Zerra said. “Everyone secure?”

  “At least we know Tarker got to the dragon,” Darissa said, as the carpet began rising.

  They were halfway across the valley when Marek asked, “Where are we going? Back to Ethshar?”

  “Actually,” Morvash said, “we’re bound for Melitha. You may need to help Zerra find it.”

  “Oh,” Marek said.

  Darissa added, “Thank you.”

  “Ithinia told me that someone named Hinda is queen there now,” Zerra said, as the carpet picked up speed. “She didn’t know much more.”