Melting Stones

by Tamora Pierce

  “It was the heat fever.” Luvo shifted on his feet. “The excitement of magma and the earth’s strength, so close to the air. I felt it in the closed-off sources of the power you had once used, Jayatin, but I did not recognize it, at first, because it was so faint. I knew it a little better in the dead trees canyon, because it was so fresh there. By then it had moved into Evumeimei’s blood. When I saw it in her, my fear overtook me.”

  “But the ghost of power like that can’t hurt you, Master Luvo. Can it?” Jayat levered me into my horse’s saddle with a grunt. I nearly slid off the other side. Then I tangled one arm in the reins and grabbed the saddle horn with the other. The horse looked back at me. I saw white around its eye in the dim lamplight.

  “I’m sorry.” I patted the animal’s neck clumsily. “I don’t blame you for being angry, either.”

  Jayat didn’t trust my control over my body. He walked around the horse to make sure my feet were in the stirrups. Under the circumstances, I was kind of grateful. My feet seemed far away and not exactly connected to me. Once I was settled, he set Luvo’s pack on his own saddle, then put Luvo on it.

  “Oh.” I felt like an idiot. “That’s how you got here.”

  “Actually, I found him halfway down the road.” Jayat secured the pack to his saddle. “He ran after you. I was held up because I had to ready my horse and bring your gear.” He took down the lantern.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And how did you know we’d need a light?”

  “I didn’t. Your Rosethorn sent it with one of the boys from the inn. Is she going to beat you?”

  We rode out onto the road as I goggled at his back. “Does your master beat you?”

  “She did when I was younger and wouldn’t mind her,” Jayat explained, “or snuck off to go fishing. That’s what masters do.”

  I sat back. I cringed as my hips told me I might think they had forgiven me for that afternoon, but they hadn’t. Jayat was right. My owner had beaten me when I was a slave, after all. Jooba-Hooba, who was going to be my first master in stone magic, would have beaten me. I bet he would have smiled as he did it. The lady, who tried to buy me for her house and her pet gang, would have beaten me. No, she would have had me beaten. She wouldn’t have soiled her hands with me. But Briar, who never hit me, kept me away from the lady and Jooba-Hooba.

  And Rosethorn?

  “She’ll set me to weeding acres of gardens for weeks.” I tried to sit more comfortably and failed. “Or put me in a small, hot room to cook up nasty messes that have to be stirred all the time. Or cook nasty messes part of the time, and dip candles part of the time. But she would never ever beat anybody.”

  “But she seems so fierce,” Jayat said with awe.

  “Have you ever made soap?” I asked. “Let me tell you, a temple needs a lot of soap. She’s quite happy to tell them you’ll make it all. You watch. I’ll be on my way to Winding Circle tomorrow, with orders to make soap and dip candles forever.”

  9

  How to Get Out of Trouble

  The ground floor of the inn was lit up. I didn’t wait for Jayat to help me dismount. There was no point in trying to put it off. I slid out of the saddle, hung on for a moment until my body stopped cramping, then lurched inside. I ignored Jayat’s shout for me to wait while he saw to the horses. I didn’t want him to witness Rosethorn’s laying down the law to me. He was bound to hear some of it, but it would be nice if he wasn’t there for it all.

  Inside, the important folk were seated near the hearth fire, as they had been the night before: Rosethorn, Fusspot, Oswin, Azaze. Other grown-ups from the town were there, too. Splendid. More witnesses for my disgrace.

  “Well. Her Highness graces us with her presence.” Myrrhtide looked as if he’d just swallowed the Midsummer goose whole. “I suppose you’re just bubbling over with excuses, aren’t you? They won’t do you any good this time.”

  Rosethorn looked at me and folded her hands on the table. There was no way to tell what she was thinking.

  “I’ll go pack.” I headed for the stair, trying not to stumble. If she wasn’t even going to speak, I was in worse trouble than I thought. There was no point trying to explain when she was that angry. I may be silly and I may be reckless, but I know better than to make excuses. Sometimes I have to keep my mouth shut and take what’s coming.

  And maybe, just maybe, she didn’t want to humiliate me in front of Myrrhtide. Perhaps she would task me in private, when she came up to bed.

  “It appeared to me as if she were under some kind of compulsion,” Oswin said thoughtfully.

  I froze with my foot on the stair, holding on to the rail. Why did Oswin stick his neb in, as Briar would say? If Rosethorn despised people who were supposed to obey and didn’t, she hated mages who couldn’t control their magic even more. I turned my aching head to glare at Oswin.

  “Look at her.” Oswin talked as if I wasn’t trying to burn holes in his face with my eyes. “She’s pale and sweating. She was that way at midday. She was fidgeting then, too—unable to sit still. She gnawed her nails to the quick by noon today. They weren’t chewed at all on the way here from Sustree. Her lips are dry and cracked. She looks as if she had been taking poppy or was under a spell of compulsion—”

  “Nonsense,” Rosethorn told him coldly.

  Jayat came in. He put a hand under my elbow to help me stay on my feet. I tried not to lean on him too much. I have my pride.

  “You told Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide Evvy’s behavior is highly unlike her. Surely you’ll let her explain before you send her packing.” Oswin was mad-brained stubborn, to keep hammering with Rosethorn, Fusspot, and me glaring at him.

  “He’s right.” Now Jayat had to pitch in. “I was with Evvy on the road up from the seaport. She’s been different today, and it only started after we left Oswin’s pond. On the road she acted like any girl—all right, one who’s really fond of sparkly rocks, but she was fun. She wasn’t short-tempered or, or strange. Dedicate Rosethorn, you acted yesterday as if she behaves that way all the time, as far as I could tell. If she was normal then, today she was someone else.”

  If I ever got on my knees for anyone, I would have knelt right there. I would have knelt and begged these two not to help. I didn’t want Rosethorn angrier with me than she already was. I’d messed up. They were complicating it.

  “She was seized by the earth’s power.” Because Luvo stood on the floor beside Jayat, it seemed as though his voice came from nowhere. Everyone but Rosethorn glanced around, startled. Rosethorn looked straight at Luvo. “She traced the remains of the earth lines that Jayatin spoke of, seeking their remnants in the soil. Then she found new, greater lines.” With a grunt Jayat set Luvo up on the steps so he could be seen.

  I didn’t dare move. Luvo scares me when he’s like this, when he speaks with the age of his mountain within him. In Yanjing, his mountain supports huge glaciers. There are villages and forests on his flanks, and deep, ice-cold caverns in his depths. People worship him as a god.

  Luvo didn’t look at me. He was talking to the others. “She followed the earth lines into the heart of this island. She used their power to go far deeper than she could venture with only her own strength. In a chamber full of magma, she met the creatures that inhabit it, the children of the earth’s heart. They captured her. They kept her for hours until Evumeimei escaped. She did so not only with her magic, but with all of the power she had collected over the course of the day, power that had clung to her as she examined the failed earth lines. She did it with the power that made her act so strangely. If she had not had it, she would have perished alone under the earth. I could not help her. I would have been devoured, had I followed her. You mages would not have survived the first thirty feet, even traveling as pure magic, as Evumeimei and I do. The force of this magic would have crushed you. It nearly crushed my young friend.”

  Something he had said itched my brain. He said the power clung to me. I sat on the step closest to my rump. My knees didn’t want to keep me uprig
ht anymore. What was the idea that had caught my attention? Something about power clinging, and sticking?

  I looked up. “I know why the plants and water have been going bad.”

  “I don’t believe this!” Fusspot slammed his cup down, slopping tea on the table. “She gets her animate rock to plead her case, she plays the tottering invalid to get our sympathy—”

  “Be still.” Azaze spoke with a voice like ice. “Unlike you, she has an idea. You have only tests you wish to perform.” She looked at me and twitched her fingers in a “come on” gesture.

  I glanced at Rosethorn. She nodded.

  I opened my mouth. Words, an avalanche of them, spilled onto my tongue. “In the gorge with all the dead trees, I felt the skin of the rocks was touched by bad air. There was poisonous stuff in it, chemicals that stuck to the rocks after it passed. Under the ground, the poison was all around the rocks on either side of the crack in the earth—it was left behind when the bad air passed through the crack.” I started to cough. My throat was dry as chalk. Jayat went to the kitchen and brought me a cup of mint tea. I sipped it until my coughs stopped, while Jayat went to stand with the kitchen maids. “When I was in the big chamber with all the magma and the rock spirits, I got adopted by two. I named one Flare, and the other was Carnelian. They didn’t have names of their own. They wanted me to play with them. They dragged me all over the place. Everywhere they went, Flare and Carnelian yanked me up into these cracks. They couldn’t make themselves as thin as me because they were solid magma. They could melt part of the cracks, but they could only force them open so far. They want out of that chamber really bad. They keep saying it like it’s their prayers—they want out. And they keep trying. In the chamber they were surrounded by wavy lines, like you see coming off of cobblestones on really hot days. I think those wavy lines were the poisoned air, and the poisoned air is the only part of them that can escape through the cracks.” I finished my tea. “The last thing they did with me, I think they tried to jam all three of us straight through the top of Mount Grace.”

  My hands started to shake. I put my teacup next to Luvo so they wouldn’t see, and tucked my hands in my armpits. “That was…bad. I got away, finally, and escaped through one of the cracks we had tried before. The stones in it were coated with poison. The stuff that’s killing the water and plants comes out ahead of Flare and Carnelian. The rest of the magma spirits can’t get out, not yet, but the poisons in their air can. If they followed Carnelian and Flare, they could kill this whole island.” I opened my mouth to tell them more, but the word avalanche was over. Trembling, I waited for Myrrhtide to start on me again. I could feel sweat trickle down my back. My head pounded.

  Fusspot didn’t say a word. I looked up. He was pouring water into a bowl. Once it was full, he wet his finger and wrote signs all around its rim. Then he stared into the water, his pale eyes fixed. He was scrying in the bowl. He’d done so every night on the ship, communicating with Winding Circle, or trying to see what was going on around us. What was he trying to see now—Flare and Carnelian?

  Rosethorn came to sit on the step next to me. She put an arm around my shoulders and held me close. She spoke in a whisper. “Are you sure of all this? No, never mind that. You are an appallingly truthful girl. Do you understand the meaning in what you have said?”

  I shook my head. My poor stomach lurched.

  “You describe the beginnings of a volcano. It makes sense of what’s happening with the plants and water here,” she explained. “Your friends looking for a way out—they will bring lava and gas with them in an explosion that may kill everyone on Mount Grace. Perhaps even all of Starns.”

  I shivered. Flare and Carnelian had such dreadful strength. Then there were the other spirits behind them, waiting. They might not search for a way out, but they would follow Carnelian and Flare. I was sure of it. “They would kill everyone, Rosethorn. That underground chamber is bigger than the lake. I don’t know how deep it is. The power of them all…” I twisted to look at Luvo, though it hurt my bones to do it. “Why didn’t you say we’re looking at a volcano? I wouldn’t have gone down there!” I kept my voice as quiet as Rosethorn’s.

  “I did not know.” Luvo hung his head knob, not looking at us.

  “But you were born in one!” I poked him with a finger.

  “And I told you, who remembers his birth?” he asked. “I have not encountered a volcano in our travels. I did not know the early signs of an eruption. Rosethorn, are you certain that these signs pertain to such an occurrence?”

  I put my hands to my head. Luvo asking Rosethorn to explain things a mountain should know—I felt as if my world had been upended.

  “To pass the initiate’s examinations, we’re taught the basics of all the Living Circle disciplines, even when they don’t match our powers. Evvy’s story fits the facts. So does the spot die-off of plants, the acid water, and the vibrations and earth shocks. I had my suspicions—so did Myrrhtide—but this confirms it.” As Rosethorn whispered, she laid a cool wrist on my forehead. Then she checked my heartbeat with the other. She frowned. “Not good. You’re clammy, and your pulse is thin and rapid.” She looked at Jayat. “She has the symptoms of shock. Has she eaten?”

  “She couldn’t, Dedicate Initiate.” Jayat came over. No one else seemed to want to. It was as if we had something catching. “She threw up a lot, but she didn’t eat anything first.”

  “I see. Thank you, Jayat.” Rosethorn looked at me. “For those studies I mentioned, we had to read classic writings. In The Book of Earth Magic, a handful of mages wrote of spirits of molten stone found deep in the earth. They described what happened when they found a route to the surface. It was much like what you told us.” She stood and shook out her robes. “I’m going to brew you some tea. Then you’ll eat something. Then you’ll tell us all about your explorations and discoveries with the stones here. We need to see how much time we have before this island blows up under us.” She went upstairs.

  “What can she possibly do?” Luvo stepped clumsily into my lap. “I do not understand why she rushes off in this manner. The new mountain will come. We will be consumed in molten lava. That is the cycle of birth and death in stone. There is nothing to be done.”

  His behavior today now made a lot more sense to me. I cuddled him close in my aching hands and kept my voice down. For some reason, Rosethorn didn’t want everyone in the room to hear what we were talking about. “You thought you were going to die, didn’t you? That’s why you curled up in a ball and didn’t talk to Jayat. You just figured, uh-oh! Here comes the lava, I’m going to die, nothing to be done. Luvo, you bleater, you’re not some rock stuck in the path of an avalanche, you know! We’ll get on a ship and sail away from this!” I gripped him and tried to stand, only to have my knees go to jelly. I sat again. “All right, it may take us a while before we get to the ship.”

  Before I knew what he was up to, Oswin came over and picked us both up. Like Jayat the night before, he wasn’t ready for Luvo. His knees bent under us. He grunted with the strain. His face turned a nice, dark ruby. As he staggered to carry us to the table where Azaze and Fusspot sat, I tried to distract him. “The emperor of Yanjing gave me a coat made of silk that was the same color as your face right now. You forgot about Luvo’s weight, didn’t you? You’re very strong for an old man.”

  “I’m forty-five! That’s not old!” Oswin slid us onto the bench at the elders’ table.

  “It certainly is not.” Luvo almost sounded huffy as I put him on the table.

  Azaze had been talking to Fusspot. Now she got up and looked at the people who had been witness to all this. “The rest of you, off to your homes. The council must gather immediately. Master Miller, Mistress Weaver, Master Carpenter, will you remain? I’ll send an hostler for the smith, the chief herder, and the chief miner. Jayat. Fetch your mistress. Tell her I insist.”

  Jayat gulped. “Yes, Headwoman Azaze.” He ran out of the inn.

  Azaze went outside for a moment. When she came ba
ck, she sat down across the table from me, and looked me in the eyes. I don’t think I flinched. It was hard. This tall, stern-looking old lady would do better as a queen than as the headwoman of an armpit little village snuggled to a mountain that was about to blow up.

  “What do you think you saw down there, girl? Or did you just invent a tale to keep yourself out of trouble?” Azaze demanded.

  If she spoke to everyone like that, I’d bet her children died of fear when they were small. “If I was doing that, I’d have said I got a face full of bad air, and it made me do strange stuff,” I told her. “When I lie, I’m smart enough to keep it simple. That’s where liars always go wrong. They get fancy. Then they forget the details. It’s best to have a simple, basic lie that you don’t have to worry about remembering.”

  Azaze’s thin mouth twitched. I think she maybe smiled. “Your career to this point has made you an expert in lying, I take it.”

  I nodded, though it made my head spin. “Yes, Headwoman Azaze. But I never lie to Rosethorn. She, um, discourages it.”

  “Evvy and I have an understanding.” Rosethorn had returned with packets of herbs and a mug. She grabbed the teakettle and poured hot water into the mug. “She tells me the truth, and I don’t hang her in the first well we come to. It’s a solution that works tolerably well for both of us.”

  I watched sadly as she tipped powders into the mug. It didn’t help to know she was adding her magic with them. Her power just made the brew taste that much nastier.

  “Is this Evvy such a handful? She seemed well enough last night.” Azaze had a real smile on her face now. The village’s miller, weaver, and carpenter, who sat with us, were out-and-out chuckling.

  “As much as my student—her former teacher—Briar was a handful,” said Rosethorn. “He and I had a similar understanding. Evvy, stop making faces. You will need a clear head tonight. You are drinking this, whether you like it or not.”