Melting Stones (3 page)

Oswin came over to collect Rosethorn's and Myrrhtide's horses. Once he'd settled the dedicates' saddlebags on their horses' backs, he helped Jayat and me finish loading the packs. From the way he and Jayat worked, they had almost as much experience as I did. It was nice to deal with people who knew what they were doing.

They weren't chatterers, either. In fact, they were so quiet, we could hear Rosethorn talking to Myrrhtide, even though she kept her voice down.

"I should have left you at Winding Circle. We can't demand the royal treatment here! If they could afford all the luxuries, they would have gotten a mage for pay. They wouldn't have sent all the way to Winding Circle in the hope that we could spare someone!"

"It's important to demand respect," Myrrhtide snapped. "Otherwise, people think they can get the world of you. I have no intention of sleeping in a hovel. This place they have prepared for us—I'm sure it has fleas."

"I brought fleabane," Rosethorn told him.

"And rats."

"I brought ratbane, you idiot."

"Have you brought foolsbane?" demanded Myrrhtide. "I don't doubt this matter of poisoned water is simply one of sewage draining into their water table. I have experience of these Battle Island peasants. I know whereof I speak!"

"Should we let them know we peasants can hear?" Oswin spoke softly as he finished tying the last packs into place.

"No," I replied. "I'd say put rats and fleas in his bed, but Rosethorn's ratbane and fleabane are really strong."

"They can
hear
you, Puffbrain!" Rosethorn gave Myrrhtide a shove. "Mount up, and be quiet. I am six months fresh from a war. You have me a sesame seed away from declaring a new one on
you
." She looked at Oswin. "Forgive Dedicate Myrrhtide. He was dropped on his head as a child. Often."

Myrrhtide turned garnet red.

"May I?" Jayat offered Rosethorn his hands so she could use them to mount her horse.

I held my breath. She actually let him help her into the saddle. I guess she was trying to be nice. "Tell me—Jayat, right? What is your place in Moharrin?"

As I scrambled onto the little mare Oswin held for me, I heard Jayat say, "I'm apprenticed to Tahar Catwalker. She's our mage and healer. Me and Oswin will be the ones to show you all the sick places. He knows where they are, and I know where the lines of the island's magic are. I—I guess Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide will let me know what you need, apart from what you brought?"

"No," growled Myrrhtide as he checked the third saddled horse. "She's the great mage, after all. She's in charge."

"A great mage?" Oswin, who was starting to mount his own horse, missed the stirrup and stumbled. He stared at Rosethorn. "They sent a
great mage
to us?" Jayat gaped at Rosethorn, too.

"I am a
green
mage. That's the important thing, and all you have to worry about, Oswin. You too, Jayat." Rosethorn doesn't like it when people fuss over her being a great mage. She cures diseases and destroys castles with plants, but if you ask her what she does, she'll tell you she gardens and makes medicines and jellies. The green habit with the black stripe on the cuffs and hem that says she's an initiate? She hardly wears it. She keeps her mage's medallion, the one marked so people know she has power at the great mage schools, under her habit most of the time. Myrrhtide
always
wears the blue initiate robe for Water temple. If he could make his mage medallion glow on his chest, he would. To Myrrhtide, Rosethorn is a cat who insists on acting like a dog.

Rosethorn gathered her reins in her hand. "I
would
like to reach our destination and have that night's rest before we look into your problem. May we get moving?"

The road to Moharrin followed a nice river called the Makray. As roads went, it was all right. There were farms on the side that wasn't a river. The farms had lots of cows, sheep, olive trees, orange trees, and grape vines, just as the sailors had said. It was very pretty, if you like that sort of thing. I was more interested in the stones all around us.

There was plenty of basalt, but that wasn't special. There was lots of basalt on the ocean floor. As soon as I touched it, I sent my magic on for something new. The stone walls that hemmed the farms and orchards sparkled in my magic. The rocks were granite, specked with quartz and feldspar. I was so glad to see crystal that I let it soak a bit of my power in. The granite shimmered like heaps of jewels in the sun when I finished.

"Evumeimei." I think Luvo had been trying to get my attention for a while, because he was making his voice boom in my bones. He knows I don't like that. "This young man wishes to speak to you."

Jayat was riding on my left. His eyeballs were bulging in his head. "Your rock made a mouth and it
talked
? He said it as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

Well, maybe he hadn't.
I
hadn't heard of any others like Luvo.

"He's not my rock. His name is Luvo. He's the heart of a mountain. Only I suppose the mountain can go on living, because it's still standing, back there in Yanjing." I looked down at Luvo in his sling on my chest. "Isn't it?"

"My mountain is quite well, thank you, Evumeimei." Luvo turned his head-lump to Jayat. "You may call me Luvo."

Jayat swallowed hard. Being addressed by a rock does take getting used to.

"I'm Jayatin Holly. Mostly people call me Jayat." He bowed to Luvo. I knew it was to Luvo because I'm not the sort of person people bow to. If they think I am, I discourage it quickly.

"I will call you Jayatin, then. That is more fitting," Luvo said.

"Luvo doesn't usually like short names." I explain things so Luvo won't try to. Sometimes his explanations are on the long side. "He always calls me Evumeimei, which is the full form of my first name."

"So, Evvy, which dedicate are you apprenticed to?" Jayat asked. "Rosethorn, or Myrrhtide?"

I shook my head. "I'm a student
stone
mage. Rosethorn brought me because they don't feel kindly about me at Winding Circle just now. She and I are used to long trips together. What kind of magic do
you
have?"

"Just the kind that's done with charms and spells. It's good enough for Starns, but that's all. You won't see the likes of me at Winding Circle. I could no more hear the voices in nature than I can fly. I don't know how you natural mages do it." Jayat grinned. "Hearing stones or plants or water talking to me would make me half-crazy."

"Well, for one thing, it's not natural magic, it's ambient magic." I had to show off my Winding Circle learning. "Not everyone's magic goes through things in nature, you know. My foster-mother Lark has hers with thread and weaving. And there are ambient mages who work with carpentry and cooking and metalwork. That's all things that are made."

Jayat chuckled. "Excuse my error, O wise woman from across the water."

I stuck my tongue out at him, feeling better about this trip. It looked like I had a new friend who wasn't all serious and temperamental, like the grown-ups I traveled with. Rosethorn is fun in her crackly way, but dealing with strangers makes her cross. And I knew Myrrhtide was a fusspot before we weighed anchor. Meeting Jayat was a big relief. Oswin seemed all right, too. He actually had Myrrhtide smiling as they rode together.

"What were you doing in Yanjing?" Jayat asked.

Luvo was explaining about Rosethorn's and Briar's trips to see new plants when I felt a wave coming. It was just like the one at sea. The problem was that we were on solid ground. It wouldn't adjust to moving power so well.

"Tremor!" I yelled.

For something with a tiny mouth, Luvo can sound like a landslide in a small canyon. "Off your horses."

My body was on the ground. I clung to my reins. My mind and magic darted into the earth to ride the wave in the stone as it raced toward us. The wave roared under our feet, making everything shake. The horses whinnied and reared. A gap opened beside the road, swallowing a few trees before it closed. Our people staggered, clutching their mounts' reins, as the frightened animals tried to escape. Then the tremor was over.

"Evvy?" Rosethorn meant, did I feel any more coming?

Luvo
? I put my hand on his smooth, cool surface.

"There will be no more waves for now," he said. "It is safe to ride on."

"Amazing." Oswin shook his head as Rosethorn and her horse trotted back to us. "Can—who is that? What is that? Can you tell tremors are coming all of the time?"

I let Rosethorn explain Luvo to Oswin. I took Luvo out of his sling so Oswin and Jayat could have a better look at him. Luvo looked at them, too, turning his head knob this way and that. Oswin asked a dozen questions: Where Luvo was from, how he'd left his mountain, when he could first remember walking, things like that.

He might have asked a dozen more, except Myrrhtide interrupted. "We
would
like to reach our destination before next week."

"Probably we should get moving, then." If Oswin knew Myrrhtide was scolding him, he didn't act like it. "It's wonderful to meet you, Luvo. Dedicate Rosethorn, it must be quite useful, in these parts, to have your own earthquake-warning creature."

Rosethorn rolled her eyes, but didn't speak. Luvo never minded things that
I
would take as insults. Unless Rosethorn or I explained that Luvo was more than an earthquake-warning thing, Luvo wouldn't set Oswin straight.

As we rode on, Oswin said, "The tremors are the cost of life here. See our mountain? That's Mount Grace. The wisewomen say that the goddess Grace was deserted by her lover on their wedding day. She sleeps restlessly, waiting for him to come back. Her tossing and turning causes the tremors. Our rich fields and forests are the home she made to lure him back to her."

Rosethorn pursed her lips. I looked down so nobody saw me grin. I would have bet any coin I had that Rosethorn was thinking unkindly of a goddess who waited around for a man who treated her so badly.

Suddenly I felt a shimmer in my magic, like sunlight glancing off water. This time I didn't care if Rosethorn rode on without me. "Mica!" I yelled and jumped off my horse. "There's sheet mica here!"

Mica lay scattered over a heap of rocks that had tumbled from a cliff face. It lay to the right of the road in sheets of a single thickness, delicate amber-colored glass that would chip away at a breath, and in clumps of different sizes, some of a hundred sheets or more. I picked up a few thick clumps to keep.

"You like this stuff?" Jayat had followed me. "What's it good for?"

"Scrying, if you need to have a
use
for everything." I showed him glittering flakes that fell from my hand like snow. "But mostly it's just wonderful—so delicate, and yet it's stone."

I flicked a tiny burst of magic up the slope. Flakes, sheets, and clumps of mica flashed, thousands of flat crystals in the sun. Everyone who rode by would now see the stone as I did, glittering in the light.

"
Beautiful
." Jayat liked what I had done. "I never thought of it like that. It was always just glassy stuff, laying around."

Luvo looked at Jayat. "That is what magic is for, Jayatin. To help us to think of the world in new ways."

I went back to my horse, though I didn't mount up. I hung Luvo in his sling from my mare's saddle horn. That way I wouldn't bounce him around as I searched for rocks. Then I carefully wrapped the mica I had gathered, before I stowed it in one of my packs. After that I walked beside the road's edge. Jayat stayed with Luvo and the horse. I meant to find some excellent new stones for my collection. Briar would be sorry he went to boring old Namorn with his sisters, instead of coming to Starns with Rosethorn and me.

It was a mistake to think of Briar just then. I started missing him, and brooding as I walked along. Briar was my first true friend. He saw the stone magic in me. He taught me how to use it. I learned other things from him, too, like reading and writing and table manners. We saved each other's lives constantly, from our meeting in Chammur through our time in Yanjing and Gyongxe. The problems came at Winding Circle. Briar could barely stay there for more than an hour or two. Being inside a temple city just reminded him too much of Gyongxe. I didn't understand. I had been in Gyongxe, and I was just fine at Winding Circle. Rosethorn told me that everyone recovers differently from war, and not to blame Briar.

I did visit Briar practically every day after he moved in with his sisters. Then they took him to Namorn. Just four months home, and he's off on the road again!
I
didn't want to go on some journey that might last all summer. I had a stone mage at Winding Circle who could teach me new and tricky things. So off Briar went, while I smiled and waved. I thought, I'll bet he's glad to leave me. Of course. I'm finished business to Briar now.

"Evumeimei," Luvo said, "will you mope, or will you regard the obsidian to your left?"

Obsidian?

I stopped feeling sorry for myself. Standing beside the road, I cast my magic out until I could feel it slide over
pure
obsidian. Before Rosethorn could say anything, I scrambled down the riverbank. It lay just offshore, not too far under the tumbling water. Here the river was somewhat wilder than it was closer to Sustree. On the far bank the ground rose into the air as if it had been shoved straight up. Its bare rock face was colored in pale sidelong stripes. They were made up of quartz layers and cemented with glasslike sand. Through the centuries the sand had been pressed into a mortar that could fight the river's long rubbing. That rock face was a marvel all by itself. Then there was the river bottom. It was covered in fine white sand, the kind glassmakers praised to the skies. The obsidian shoved up through it in shelves.

I slid into the shallows to reach it. Feeling underwater, I gathered a handful of small pieces that had broken from the larger ones. I didn't care if I made a mess of my clothes. Obsidian chipped in curved surfaces. It sent my magic swooping back to me like gliding seabirds. My power chimed off colored bands and sang from clear ones. It hummed on obsidian flecked with gold, then slid sharply from clean edges. I bathed in fiery magic and music.