The Waterstone

by Rebecca Rupp

  “Better that than behaving like the Hunters, care-for-nothings, eating pillbugs —”

  “I could do with a juicy pillbug right now! Better than your earthworms, furface!”

  Scuffles. Laughter.

  Unexpected pain lanced through Tad. I saw them die.

  He tore himself away from the Remember, thrusting it behind him, wincing away from it.

  “Look,” Birdie whispered fearfully.

  Behind the armed marchers came a row of larger shapes, small eyes glittering and long necks swaying snakelike in the light cast by the torches.

  “Weasels!” Tad whispered.

  There were eight of the great black weasels. Each wore a harness of gleaming oiled leather set with nuggets of raw gold and rough-cut chunks of turquoise. Grimfaced riders perched on their shoulders, each armed with a metal-tipped leather whip.

  The company took no notice of Tad, Birdie, and Pippit crouching silently in the underbrush. One by one, legs and arms swinging in unison, eyes resolutely forward, they turned onto the path and proceeded in the direction the children had been going, swiftly marching east. Tad uttered a long relieved sigh.

  “We’ll have to follow them,” he said. “They’re going in the same direction we are. We’ll stay far enough behind so that they won’t see us. We’ll just have to be careful that we don’t fall over them suddenly in the dark.”

  Birdie nodded.

  “And try to be quiet,” Tad added. “You too, Pippit.”

  Cautiously they set off along the path. Around them the evening deepened steadily into darkness. Soon they could barely make out the pale track of the path before them.

  “I can hardly see anything anymore,” Birdie complained. “And I’m hungry. Can’t we stop, Tad? We’ll never be able to find Witherwood’s house like this.”

  She was right, Tad realized. It was getting darker by the minute. Then, in the distance in front of them, he saw a wavering beam of light.

  “There’s something up ahead,” he whispered over his shoulder.

  “Witherwood?” Birdie whispered back hopefully.

  “I don’t think so,” Tad said.

  The light seemed to be coming from a clearing to the left of the path, a short distance into the forest. Tad and Birdie, with Pippit hopping anxiously behind them, moved softly toward it, setting their bare feet down carefully, trying not to make any sound. Then they heard a high wailing voice, chanting. It seemed to be repeating one word over and over. “La-dy! La-dy! La-dy!” Tad’s heart began to pound uncomfortably in his chest. His skin felt cold. Behind him, he heard Pippit croak once, to be promptly hushed by Birdie.

  Other voices took up the chant.

  “La-dy! La-dy! La-dy!”

  Booted feet began to stamp in rhythm.

  “La-dy! La-dy! La-dy!”

  “Let’s get away from here, Tad!” Birdie was tugging at his tunic, urging him backward.

  Tad stubbornly shook his head. “I need to see what’s happening,” he said.

  He crept closer, Birdie reluctantly following, Pippit even more reluctantly bringing up the rear. At the edge of the clearing, they hid at the foot of a massive oak tree and cautiously raised their heads to see over the top of one long twisted root.

  In the center of the clearing was a stone circle. The stones were roughly hewn upright slabs, black in the flickering torch light, towering high over Tad’s and Birdie’s heads. There were twelve of the slabs, set in a wide ring, with a thirteenth laid down flat like an immense table at the circle’s center. Within the stone ring the Grellers stood in rows around the flat central stone. They were silent now, all faces turned toward a single Greller in a long black robe, who stood on top of it. The hood of his robe was thrown back, and beneath it the Greller wore a mask made of fish scales, with round holes cut out for eyes. The flat white mask and the black eyeholes made the Greller’s face look like a bony skull. Tad heard Birdie, at his elbow, give a little gasp. The Greller had his arms stretched high over his head, and he was shouting.

  “La-dy! La-dy! Come to us! La-dy!”

  “What lady?” Birdie whispered.

  Tad shook his head. He didn’t know either.

  Then the Greller’s arms dropped to his sides. For a long moment he stood perfectly still. No one in the stone circle made a sound. When he spoke next, it was in a new voice. A cold silver voice, as clear and cruel as winter ice.

  “I am come,” it said.

  An awed murmur arose from the waiting Grellers.

  “The Lady!”

  “The Lady comes to us!”

  “The Lady speaks!”

  Tad’s fingers clenched on the rough woody surface of the tree root. It’s not possible, he thought. It can’t be . . .

  Within the circle, the Grellers had all fallen to their knees. A few in the very front rows had toppled forward, put their foreheads to the ground, and wrapped their arms around their heads.

  “All shall be as I have promised,” the silvery voice continued. A thin strain of music crept into it, a high sweet whine like the very highest notes coaxed from a lutegourd with a willow-twig bow. Tad could feel it in his teeth. “All the burrows of the Stone Mountains will be yours once more. We will defeat the False Diggers and drive them forth. You will have wealth and slaves and power beyond all your greatest dreams. But first you must find the boy.”

  “What boy?” a bass voice shouted.

  “A brown boy,” the voice belled coldly. “A brown boy of twelve sun turns, who swims through the water like an eel. I have told you of him, children. Why have you not found the boy?”

  “We do send out searchers,” someone else cried, “but we have heard no rumors of a boy such as you have described.”

  “Perhaps there be no such boy!” shouted a third.

  The voice shot out in a silvery hiss, so angry and menacing that the Grellers in the front row shrank back. “There is a boy.” The music began again, faintly at first, then louder. “There is a boy,” the voice caroled enticingly. “There is a boy. And he is near. He is . . .”

  The face in the fish-scale mask lifted and turned from one side to the other, seeming to peer out between the tall black stones. Then the Greller lifted an arm and pointed across the circle, directly toward the tree root where Tad and Birdie crouched.

  “He is there!” the voice cried. “He is there!”

  The Grellers, moving as one, all turned in the direction of the black pointing finger.

  Tad and Birdie, staring at each other in horror, ducked behind the concealing tree root.

  “They can’t possibly see us,” Birdie said incredulously. “All the way out here. It’s too dark.”

  Tad, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, thought that they probably could. Or at least one of them could.

  “We’ve got to get away from here, Birdie,” he whispered urgently. “I don’t know how they know we’re here, but they do. At least they know I’m here. That voice . . . the Greller that was doing all the talking? That was the same voice I heard in the pond. It’s the Nixie talking — talking through him. And she can feel me somehow. She knows where I am.”

  “How?” Birdie asked. Then, before Tad had a chance to answer, “Are you sure?”

  Tad nodded. “But she doesn’t know about you. Or Pippit. If they find me . . .” He gulped and went on. “If they find me, all you have to do is hide and keep very still. They’re not looking for you, so they won’t even know you’re here. Just stay hidden until it’s safe, and then go for help. Go back to Treeglyn’s tree.”

  He paused, thinking. “We should split up right now. If you and Pippit go in one direction and I go in another —”

  Birdie stuck out her lower lip and stubbornly shook her head. “We’re not going to leave you here,” she said. “With those weasels.“

  Pippit gave an equally stubborn-sounding croak.

  Tad sighed. It was just as Pondleweed always said: Birdie, when she made up her mind about something, was as stubborn as a snapping turtle.
r />   “All right,” he said after a moment. “We’ll all stick together. Go very carefully now. Let’s crawl back around to the other side of the tree. Don’t let them catch so much as a hint of anything moving. That means you, too, Pippit. No hopping. Stay down!”

  Behind them a babble of voices rose from the stone circle, growing louder and finally joining in a single rallying roar.

  Bent low, Tad and Birdie stumbled over the uneven ground, clambering over the wall-like roots extending from the great tree.

  “Faster!” Tad said. “They’re coming!”

  He risked a quick look behind them.

  The Grellers were running toward them, pouring out of the stone circle in a dark tide. Some held flaming torches aloft. The flames threw glimmering gold reflections across the bristling points of spears, the blades of upraised swords, the polished tips of long black-feathered arrows.

  Tad, Birdie, and Pippit threw themselves over the last obstructing root, landing in a confused tangle on the ground. Tad leaped up, dragging Birdie to her feet.

  “Faster!” he said again. “Once we get deeper into the woods, they’ll never find us. Not at nighttime like this.”

  Unless they bring their fish-faced friend along to help, he thought.

  Then Birdie screamed.

  A massive dark shadow had reared up before them, looming higher and higher. Its long front paws reached out, and its neck stretched upward and arched like some ancient monster — like the dragons Pondleweed said had once walked the Earth. It opened its mouth and hissed at the children, showing a double row of pointed yellow teeth.

  It was a black weasel.

  Tad and Birdie cowered back, while Pippit, croaking frantically, tried to hide behind their legs. The weasel lowered itself once more, front paws dropping to the ground, so that the children could see the rider on its back: a Greller armored in leather and bronze, with a black feather thrust in his silver-banded cap. He held a black leather whip in one gloved hand. The tips of the whip thongs were capped with wicked little metal points.

  When Tad whirled to look about him, he found that all avenues of escape were cut off. A ring of spearmen had silently closed in behind them, their weapons leveled and poised. For a moment no one spoke.

  Then one of the spear carriers lowered his weapon to point curiously at Tad’s webbed toes. “Be this the boy, Captain? The swimming boy the Lady do be seeking?”

  “Mayhap, Ulrid,” the weasel-rider said. “We will take him to Hagguld and he will tell us.” He raised his whip and gestured toward the circle of dark stones. “Bring him into the circle. Bring these others with him.”

  A spearman stepped forward and prodded Tad between his shoulder blades. Another poked threateningly at Birdie. Tad stood his ground. He felt as if his stomach were boiling hot. He felt tingly all over, as if he had come instantly and intensely awake and alive. He seemed to have extra senses popping out everywhere. He could see and hear more acutely than ever before. It was as if he had extra nerves in his skin. The hot feeling rose higher and higher, boiling up into his chest. Tad realized in astonishment that he was furiously angry.

  You are the Sagamore!

  It was as if a voice had spoken sharply in his ear.

  Me? Tad tried to thrust the Remember — was it a Remember? — away. But the voice came again, angrily now, a voice sounding not quite, but almost, familiar.

  You are the Sagamore! Stand, Fisher, and show them what you’re made of!

  Tad folded his arms across his chest. Something strange was happening. The hot feeling kept growing, spreading into his toe- and fingertips, crackling across his skin. Something was waking inside him, struggling to break free. He felt like a butterfly straining to wriggle out of its cocoon.

  “You have no right to take us prisoner here in the Open Forest,” he said. “The paths here are free to all. It is against the Law.”

  Is this me? he wondered. Did I know this?

  Birdie, trembling beside him, gave a start of surprise.

  The black weasel pulled against its leather harness, and the rider tightened his grip on the reins.

  “I don’t know of no law,” he said. “All I know is that High Priest Hagguld — and the Lady, worshipful her name — do be wanting you. A boy who swims, she said, and if my eyes do not fail me, you do be a Fisher boy.”

  The weasel bucked and tugged, and the captain slashed at it with his whip, struggling to bring it under control.

  “Take them into the circle!” he shouted. “Right up to the altar stone! We will show the Lady who her faithful servants are! Go! Swiftly now!”

  The weasel pawed the air and danced, then plunged off into the forest. Tad and Birdie followed it, driven by the jabbing spears. They were thrust between the dark stone slabs into the very center of the circle and forced to halt before the tablelike altar stone.

  The soldier named Ulrid stepped up beside them and tugged off his round leather cap. “We do bring him, Hagguld,” he said. “There do be three of them.”

  “I can count, Ulrid,” the fish-scale-masked figure said. It was a different voice now, Tad noted, a deep irascible elderly voice. The awful mask with its empty-seeming eyeholes turned toward Tad.

  “What be your name?” the High Priest said. Then he drew himself up taller and spread his black-draped arms out wide. The fish-scale mask glittered silver in the torch light. “What is your name?”

  Behind the children, the gathered Grellers gave a long low moan.

  “The Lady,” voices muttered.

  “It be the Lady.”

  “The Lady comes again.”

  And Tad suddenly felt something change.

  It was as if something tiny and tight inside him suddenly opened and changed shape — as if a flower had suddenly burst into blossom or a butterfly had torn free of its wrappings and spread its glorious new wings. It felt incredibly, wonderfully different — but natural, too, and infinitely comfortable, like wearing an old, soft, and much-loved suit of clothes.

  This is the way I’m supposed to be, Tad thought.

  “What is your name?” The silver voice rose to a shriek.

  Before Ulrid could stop him, Tad sprang to stand beside the High Priest on the altar stone.

  “I am the one you seek, Witch!” he shouted. “I am Tadpole of the Fisher Tribe!”

  The Grellers were staring at him in astonishment, as if they’d set out to catch a docile minner but had hooked an angry rockbiter by mistake. Tad clenched his hands into fists.

  “I am Tadpole of the Fisher Tribe! I am the Sagamore!”

  The black-robed High Priest lunged toward him, his furred fingers curled like claws.

  “Kill the boy!” The cold voice echoed off the tall stones, bouncing from one to the other until it seemed that there were hundreds of voices singing in chorus, each louder than the one before. “Kill the boy! Kill the boy! Kill the boy!”

  The Grellers, moving as one, lifted their spears.

  A terrible calm came over Tad. Time, for an endless moment, seemed to stand still. He felt a power gathering inside him, swelling, filling him up. And then, astonishingly, the night was full of voices. Some were no more than distant whispers, too faint and muddled to understand; some were clear as crystal, as if the speakers’ lips were pressed close to Tad’s ears.

  “. . . slaves and power, she said we’d have, and riches, too, red gold, mayhap, and fire opals big as huggle-berries . . .”

  “. . . high time and more I were captain in his place, and now I do have the Lady’s promise of help . . .”

  “. . . Lady, guide my aim, as I be your faithful servant . . .”

  It wasn’t voices, Tad realized. He was listening to people’s minds. No, not just people. From the edge of the clearing, just beyond the towering stones, came a high inhuman jabber of mind voices that twisted slyly around one another, coiling together like snakes in a nest. The voices rose and fell and overlapped, filled with anger, fear, pain, and despair. Slaves now, they were slaves, the voices mourned
, taken from the kinship circles in the warm earth-smelling warrens, dragged with chains and bands of leather, forced to carry the Masters who held the stinging whips. One mind was black with misery; another, a red ember of fury and hatred; a third, a confused jumble of cravings for escape, to run and run, back to the deep of the forest, where the only blood spilled was in honest kill, where family waited, welcoming, curled together in the narrow tunnels. But that could never be, never, because one must obey the Masters. There was no other way. Slaves, they were slaves; obey, they must obey . . .

  It was the weasels. They clustered together in the shadows, tethered to polished stakes driven deeply into the ground. Tad cautiously reached toward them. No. Not slaves. Pull free.

  The sinuous coil of minds fell silent, alertly listening. Simple minds really, Tad thought, moving gently among them — little earth-soft minds filled with thoughts of hunger and hunt, home and kindred, field and forest and deep long sleep.

  Slaves. Obey. The weasels’ minds murmured, but Tad, prodding, could feel them beginning to question.

  No, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut with the effort to make himself heard. No. Not slaves. Pull free.

  One weasel mind — the angry red one — joined him. He could feel the weasel bracing its front paws, tugging wildly at its leather rope.

  Home. Free. Hate Masters hate.

  Another weasel joined in. One tremendous heave, and a tethering stake yanked out of the ground.

  Slaves? Obey?

  No! Pull free!

  Another weasel followed, and another. A Greller on the outskirts of the circle shouted an alarm. Another weasel tore itself loose, and then another and another. They sprang forward, hissing, pointed teeth bared.

  Hate Masters hate! Hate Masters hate!

  Those Grellers nearest the weasel rush were flung violently off their feet. Some managed to stagger up again, to be dragged away by terrified companions; others lay where they fell. Hagguld the High Priest took a horrified step backward, tottered, and crumpled to his knees. In the center of the scattering crowd of Grellers, a weasel reared up on its hind legs, screamed, and struck. Tad saw it raise its head, its eyes glaring, blood on its muzzle. It screamed and struck again. Grellers, shrieking, fled in all directions, stumbling and shoving in their rush to escape, forcing their way past one another, out of the stone circle, away into the forest. Birdie and Pippit scrambled up to stand beside Tad on the altar stone. Around them, weasels darted and pounced, their minds bright with astonishment and joy.