Melting Stones (16 page)

What makes you think it will be Carnelian
? Flare demanded.
I'm faster. I'm the one who wants to win and get out the most!

You are not faster!
Carnelian exclaimed.
And whose idea was it to break out in the first place? Mine!

It was your idea, but
I
found the first crack
. Flare broke into hundreds of tiny flames. All of them asked with his voice,
Where are these crystals'
?

We'll see who wins this game
!
For someone who worried about breaking apart, Carnelian sure managed it in a hurry.

I led the way through the ground until we came up into the cold, hard bed of quartz crystals. Two fiery clouds shot past me. They split up like flocks of birds to dart into the stones. Bits of blue and orange fire tangled and sprang apart: pieces of Flare fighting over a particular crystal with pieces of Carnelian.

I watched for a time. I needed to see if they overheated the quartz. Thankfully, I hadn't been asleep the day I studied heat and stones at Winding Circle. A candle flame would not burn the stuff. Inside hundreds of crystals I saw flecks of Carnelian and Flare. First, they would have to see that I'd tricked them. Then, they'd have to find a way to escape each small mirror maze, where the only thing they could see on the inside was themselves. They might be trapped for weeks. Just to be sure, I wandered over that seam of quartz at least three times. They were bouncing inside.

It's
hard
! Feel how hard! And cold! And it doesn't melt or burn like the walls of the chamber!
Carnelian's voices whispered, shivery with excitement.

It feels so different from the others! Remember the straight edges we could see, before they melted? This is what straight feels like, and flat
!
Flare's whispers actually sounded happy.

I hadn't thought of that. It never occurred to me this would be wonderful for them. Flare and Carnelian had only known the lava pool and the spirits, or the melting stone and earth that kept them from breaking free. They hadn't realized yet the quartz bed was a prison. Maybe it would keep them happy for a long time. Then I wouldn't have to feel bad about sticking them there. They were only kids like me, after all. It wasn't their fault they could destroy so much.

I finally began my swim up through the ground. It was hard. I was getting tired. It was more like a climb than a swim, actually, with me grabbing power from every stone I passed. Even after I'd drawn on my stone alphabet and the stones I'd found coming here, I wasn't as strong as I was normally. Borrowed magic or stored magic is never as good as what you have from day to day.

I slowed to look at a cluster of sunstones. How did they get the name sunstone? They hardly shone, and only glittered in spots. They
were
mostly orange.

Evumeimei, you are dazzled
. Luvo's voice spilled over me like icy water. It woke me from my dazed state. He poured his strength into me as I dragged myself into my cold, real body.

No, I'm all right
!
Turning his power aside was like trying to kick an elephant.

Where have you been
?
Luvo wanted to know.
Norya is quite pleased that you frightened Meryem into taking her bath, but she says that you should have stayed with her
.

If I had stayed with Meryem, Nory might have had Flare and Carnelian eating the house
. I opened my eyes and sat up, safe in my body. Luvo had come down to the pond to find me. I put a hand on his back. It was quicker to show Luvo what had happened than to tell him in words. I let him see it all as I had seen it.

For a long time he said not a word. I began to fear I had made him angry. Perhaps he thought it could have been him trapped in the quartz under the dead tree canyon. Then he began to glow, his crystals shining. Warmth spilled out of him. It was real
and
magical. The creakiness in my joints and the fog in my head vanished. I felt as if I could take Mount Grace apart stone by stone.

Delightful, Evumeimei
, Luvo told me.
Most
splendid.
To divert them with the quartz bed is ingenious. They have not known crystal before. Whole, they would have destroyed it. In small pieces, they will be able to enjoy its facets, its resistance to heat. They can learn that it is the firstborn mineral of lava. They may even see that quartz crystals are the children of one of their kind. As such, they will want to get to know all of that bed of crystals.

"Too bad the bed isn't larger." I could hardly breathe. "I wish it ran the length of the island and back. My biggest worry is that they might reach the end of the crystals somehow and break out."

Luvo got up and paced for a moment. The glow flowed after him like a scarf that connected us, still wrapping me in his approval. "I have an idea." He said it out loud, instead of in our magic. "It will take me a time, however. If you will remain to watch over me? I vexed the boys enough that I know they would consider tossing me in the water."

"Let them try," I assured him.

Luvo sat. His approving glow vanished, but I still felt all that wonderful warmth. I hugged it to me. Did Luvo's mountain feel like this when he lived inside it? He said the mountain was happy when he was gone, but I couldn't believe it really was.

I heard someone approach. It was one of Nory's boys. "Please tell 'im"—the boy pointed at Luvo, who had curled into a purple and green lump—"that we packed all our things and put 'em in the cart, and then we helped Nory and the little ones, and we carried what Nory told us to, all to the cart. If'n he asks. If'n he don't ask, don't tell him we're even alive. If he forgets us, that's fine. But we done like he bid. And Nory says if you want soup you ought to come, 'cause we're leavin' at sun high." He turned to go, then looked back at me. "He ever done you like that? With the noise, and the house shakin'?"

I nodded and tried not to giggle. "Several times."

"And you still be with 'im? You mages is god-touched. I aims to get as far from him as the sea'll put me!" He trotted back to the house.

I watched Luvo, thinking about those times in Yanjing that he had used his mountain voice on Briar and me. We had been awed and curious, not terrified. Well, maybe we had been a little terrified, the first few times. Or just
deeply
impressed. It's hard to tell the difference between so much awe and fear.

Luvo uncurled. "I have done a thing." He wobbled as he sat up. I felt pulses like earth shocks travel through me. They didn't pass through the ground, though they somehow moved in the
stones
in the ground. A long, groaning shock dragged at me. Another shock followed. It dumped Luvo and me on our sides. Another dragging shock came next, and a last bump that threw me and Luvo in the air. We landed with a thump.

The strange part was, we were the only two things that moved. Nothing else did. Not one piece of grit or stick.

What did you do?
I cried in our magic as I grabbed on to a nearby tree and stared at Luvo. Aloud I said, "That was like an earthquake, but in the magic! And it bounced you, too!"

"Sooner or later Flare and Carnelian would have found the end of the quartz bed," he told me. "You said it yourself. So… I arranged for them never to find it."

I just stared at him. "How can you
arrange
that?"

Luvo stood on all fours and shook himself. His crystals jumped and settled inside his clear stone skin. It was enough to make a person ill. "I took one end of the bed and pulled it toward the other. Before I joined the ends, I gave one a half twist. I had the idea from a puzzle shown to me by a Gyongxe monk. Try it with a piece of paper. Once the two ends are joined, if one traces the paper's edge, one will find the circle has only one edge throughout its length. The circle is infinite. Flare and Carnelian will never find an end to it. They will pursue their reflections in each bit of quartz forever." Luvo hesitated. "Evumeimei, when you tricked them into entering the quartz bed, did you realize, that if they reassemble themselves, they would be far stronger? I do not absolve myself of blame. It will be worse if they escape my variation on your trap."

I hugged my tree. "It was the only thing I could think of in a hurry," I growled.

Luvo made a sound that was scarily like a sigh. "That is my excuse, too. We shall pray we are off Starns when—if—they do manage to free themselves. I fear they will destroy much more than this island should they escape."

I looked at him. "We didn't
mean
to make it worse."

"We bought time, Evumeimei," Luvo said. "We must warn the people of the neighboring islands to flee in any case. The measure of how great these children will be as a volcano is beyond our skills. We must hope that we have done enough, and go. Before Flare and Carnelian are too strong for our trap to hold them."

Nory waited for us at the back door when we reached the house. "Do you believe I'll thank you for inspiring Meryem to bathe and dress? You were supposed to be
with
her."

I gave her my best glare. With my head spinning, I doubt it was very good. "I had something important to do, all right? If I hadn't, maybe none of us could have left here at all. And your darling Meryem might have gotten her toesies boiled."

The darling Meryem peered at me from behind Nory's skirts and giggled. I scowled at her, but not very hard. She was as cute as an amethyst once she was clean.

"There's nothing around here to boil her toes." Nory didn't look convinced.

"There would have been, had not Evumeimei acted quickly." Luvo walked over to Nory and sat on his rump so he could look up at her. "How are the boys?"

She had to back up and kneel to talk to him politely. It was interesting to see that she
wanted
to talk to him politely. "They're packed and in the cart. We're all ready to go." She glared over Luvo at me. "You can forget anything to eat."

My head ached and my hands shook. Her mention of food explained my wobbliness. I had overdone things, even with Luvo's approval magic to bolster me. I needed food. I'd hitch a ride in the wagon back to the inn, and get something there.

"If you're ready, why are we gabbling?" I picked up Luvo. "We're wasting time." This was the problem with meat people. They had to be talked into everything. I made myself forget the time I spent arguing Flare and Carnelian into doing things. Anyway, it was stones I was thinking of, calm and quiet stones.

"So I'm to believe you found some huge magic thing to do out by our pond." Nory led the way back through the house. "A pond so useless we can't even get decent-sized fish out of it."

"We can play in the water when the weather's hot." Meryem decided to hold on to my hand. I don't know why, but it made me feel funny. She kept looking up at me, too. Was there mud on my face? I had plenty of it on my clothes.

"Yes, Meryem, you play in it when you're hot." Nory stopped to shoulder a pack and pick up two carry sacks left in the hall. "Then you walk back here and track dirt in the house. And
you're
coated in pond mud and I have to give you a bath."

Meryem just grinned. "Treak gives us a bath sometimes. And Lexa and Jesy and Deva. You aren't the only one. And they mop the floors sometimes. It isn't just you."

"Sometimes." Nory checked the pack's straps. "And sometimes they get silly and pour water all on the floors and get mud all over everything." She pushed the front door open. "Some help. Urda save me, did you kids pack up the entire
house?"

Just like Nory, I was staring at the cart. It was piled with boxes and bags. I saw a crate with chickens and another with puppy noses sticking out of it. A dog was tied to the cart by a length of rope. From the look of her, she was the puppies' mother. Eleven people, boys and girls of different ages, stood around it, waiting for us. A pair of sorry-looking cart horses sagged in the shafts. They looked as if they expected nothing but bad out of life.

"You aren't taking
all
this with you?" Nory demanded. She had told the boys to pack only what would fit a
small
bag. I had even seen the small bags.

"You let
us
worry about what we take, Nory. You and the little ones can ride right here." The boy giving the orders was Treak, the one whose hair went every which-way. Now he patted a spot on the cart where Nory and the littlest children could sit. "Jesy can drive."

"Thanks, Treak." A wiry blonde girl with the thickest spectacles I had ever seen — Jesy — clambered onto the driver's seat. Nory settled Meryem and a small boy, then climbed up beside them. Another boy offered me the reins to the horse I had left with Treak earlier that morning. It was freshly combed and saddled. The boy held out his free hand, palm up.

He wanted
payment
? I asked, "What's your price? I don't have any money."

"A ride to the inn." He was a cheerful fellow, black as shadows, with ribs that showed against his skin. None of these kids was what I'd call plump. "I'll save myself a few blisters that way."

I slapped his open palm with mine to show we had a bargain. Then I mounted and pulled him up behind me. Once in the saddle, I rearranged Luvo in his sling and rode out ahead of the cart.

Traveling on horseback, I tend to forget the bumps in the road. I was halfway to the village when I heard a nasty-sounding rumble and thump behind me. I glanced back. The cart's front wheel had gone into a deep rut. There was another bump as it came out, followed by the crunch of breaking wood. The little ones screamed. The other kids shouted. The dog barked; the puppies replied. The chickens shrieked. I turned my horse so my rider and I could look.

"Oh, ringworms," the boy whispered. He dismounted to help. The cart leaned to one side, the rear left wheel bent in under the box. The left front wheel was also bent. The axle was broken. The cart was going nowhere.

"Hog puke, dog dung, and navy snot!" Treak jumped up and down in the road.
Now
he looked like someone who could break furniture in a rage. "Lakik's curses twelve times on the scum swiller who fixed this last!"