Weight of Stone (7 page)

“You expect him back.” Another nonquestion.

“Gentle Washers, please, sit. You make me tired, craning my neck to look at you. Please.”

They had a choice: be seated, and lose some of their physical authority, or remain standing, and risk antagonizing their host.

They sat.

“I do indeed expect the boy back. Word has come to me of the tragedy in Aleppan, of Vineart Giordan’s sad end. The boy is doubtless confused and frightened, and in need of guidance. He will return.”

Eventually. But if he had not returned already, then he was staying away intentionally. That was Malech’s hope, anyway; that he was hiding, and not harmed, or, the silent gods forefend, dead.

No. If the boy were dead, he would know. Certainly, the Guardian, linked to all members of the Household, would know, no matter where the boy was hidden.

Malech risked glancing up at the Guardian, still as the stone it was
carved from. No, there was only a calm waiting in the dragon. Jerzy was alive.

“When he returns, Master Vineart, we will be taking him back with us, to the Collegium.” Neth was polite but firm, as though expecting Malech to give way before his authority.

Malech had no intention of giving so much as a slave to these men. But he was wise enough to keep that fact to himself. For now.

“Indeed, Washer Neth. I understand your concerns that the boy might have taken some injury by his association with Giordan, and for that I assume responsibility; I sent the boy to him in ignorance of any taint about the other man.”

True, and true, mainly because there had been no taint to be found. Giordan had been flawed, yes; arrogant and too willing to break tradition, but not apostate. The charges were false, or trumped in such a fashion to make harmless actions reviled. He had sent Jerzy to Aleppan to discover if that city-state was infected with the rot that was spreading across the Vin Lands, the danger that had caused Vinearts to disappear, crops to fail, innocent villages to be attacked….

Apparently, it was indeed infected, if he read these events correctly. But how, and by whom … and to what purpose? Those questions were yet unanswered.

Jerzy might have the answers. But were he to arrive with them now he would be taken by the Washers and, in their vital ignorance, silenced forever. Malech could not allow that. These men must be gone by the time Jerzy returned.

“You would take my student into your hold … for the mere association with Giordan, a few weeks’ time?”

“The boy was accused first of apostasy,” the second man, Brion, said. Anger simmered under his words, most un-Washer-like. They were trained to take pain and sorrow from people, not to inflict it. Neth must have seen Malech’s surprised reaction to Brion’s tone, because he sighed and leaned back in the chair, giving the impression of one old friend about to confide in another.

“Master Malech. The boy was charged and the charges supported by a man of good standing, who had no cause to wish the boy harm. In fact, Sar Anton protected the boy when another servant would have attacked and killed him.”

That was new information to Malech. The violence he had sensed through the mirror, when the smaller spell-cast mirror broke? Perhaps.

“Then Sar Anton has my deepest thanks,” Malech said, not letting his concern show: a Vineart did not form attachments, and the Washers would note if he seemed unduly worried. “But I do not believe his claims about Jerzy. The boy is talented—very talented—but young and easily influenced. I am sure that it is all a terrible misunderstanding.”

The impression of old friends disappeared as though it had never been. “He has been accused and tried, Master Malech. Your thoughts in this matter are no longer relevant. Be thankful that the Collegium has not turned its attention to you, as his master.”

The threat was clear, even though it was issued in mild tones. Interfere, and he, too, would be named apostate, his lands seized, his spellwines destroyed, and his name blackened to history. It had not been done since the memories of the prince-mages finally faded and Vinearts accepted their role more than a thousand years before, but the Washers, by Sin Washer’s grace, still had the power to do so.

Malech was a man of patience. You could not become a Master Vineart without patience in your very bones: years as a slave, to teach the importance of waiting and listening; years working the vineyards, to teach calm readiness; years tasting and crafting, to teach the art of sensing the proper moment—and how to resist moving too soon.

“You should not threaten me,” he said now, his tone as cool as the earth in morning, his face still and composed. His dark blue eyes, usually heavy-lidded, were open and staring directly at Neth the way a cat would watch another predator; cautious, but unafraid. “Not here, and not now.”

The novice stirred, picking up on the undercurrents rising fast to the surface, and Neth straightened in his chair. “Indeed? We are—”

“You are Washers,” Malech said. “You are the caretakers of the people, the watchdogs of the Vin Lands, the inheritors of Sin Washer’s Legacy, sworn to comfort and protect us, as Sin Washer did.” His voice grew harder, all pretense of agreeableness shedding from him now. “And yet you have allowed evil to grow in the land, at your very doorstep. You have allowed a wicked magic to rise, to threaten what Sin Washer created. Or have you not heard of the attacks along the coastlines, the missing souls torn from their homes, their ships? The whispers of illness out of season, and infestations that should not have happened … have you heard none of this, O gentle Heirs of Sin Washer?”

He heard his voice grow too harsh and modulated it, but did not allow the anger to fade, waiting for their response.

“We have heard of these things,” Neth said, refusing to be cowed. “And we have investigated. It was thus that we heard of your actions in sending the boy, and were there to investigate when—”

“When what? What happened, exactly? This you have not told me, this none of my sources can tell me. The boy was seen … working in a vineyard? Working some magic the observer knew not of? And your response is to accuse an innocent boy—a boy!—of a terrible crime, on the basis of … What? One man’s word? Is he himself free of taint? Has he no cause, no agenda, no priority he would forward at the expense of another?”

Malech shook his head, his anger controlled but visible, the strands of hair normally tied back at the base of his neck falling free, loosened by the vigor of his movement. “No, gentle Washers, no. There is more here that you are not telling me. If you come into my home, my study, and raise threats, then you must support them, as a vine must be supported to reach the sun.”

Neth stared at Malech, dark brown eyes meeting darker blue ones, and neither of the men blinked, or looked away.

“Oren.” The novice looked up, startled and expectant and, if Malech read the boy aright, torn between wanting to stay hidden in the storm and feeling proud of being called on. “Take the guards and, with your
permission, Master Malech, settle the horses and set up our encampment for the evening.”

He addressed the next directly to Malech. “I presume the yard behind your House will be acceptable for our use?”

The Vineart accepted the fact that he would not be rid of them just yet with scant grace. “Indeed. The patch just beyond the icehouse is level ground suitable for your tents, and there is a stream that flows beyond the far side of the building where you may draw fresh water for your needs.” Fortunately, the early spring weather was mild enough for comfort, and the ground was not unduly muddy. He would not have them within his House, not even for a night.

The boy—older than Jerzy, but barely—stood and bowed to the three men, then escaped the study with almost unseemly haste.

“And so,” Malech said, once the door closed behind the novice, “what is it you wish to tell me, that your student should not hear?”

“You have heard of the disappearance of the island-nation of Atakus?”

Malech kept himself still, not giving any sign of surprise—or knowledge. “Rumors, yes.”

“More than rumors,” Brion said, leaning forward, pulling at his robe with the displeasure of a man still more used to the trousers and surcoat of a fighting man. Not all Washers came to the cup as children, and suddenly the bullyboys accompanying the Washers made more sense. The Collegium had expected Malech—or Jerzy—to give them trouble. Giordan must have … resisted.

“Recently,” Brion continued, “ships sailing in that area tried to make port, to exchange news and take on new stores, as usual. The island could not be found. Attempting to reach the island blind resulted in ships being pushed off course, finding themselves leagues from where they should be.”

“You think it caused by magic,” Malech said, but his tone made it a question.

“Nothing else could accomplish such an event,” Neth said. “Not
unless you would believe that the silent gods have once again taken an interest in the doings of men.”

The gods had not intervened since Baphos and Charif sent their son, Zatim who became Sin Washer, to remonstrate with the prince-mages, and in his anger the First Vine had been broken. Almost two thousand years of silence … no, Malech did not think that would suddenly change, now. The gods had washed their hands of mortals when Zatim died.

“I know of no spellwine that could hide an entire island so,” he said. “That does not mean it cannot be done, merely that it is beyond my ken.”

“Or you could be lying to us,” Brion said.

“I could. But I am not. I have no need to lie.” He simply would avoid telling them the truth, if it did not suit his purposes. But in this, he could be honest. “On my vines, I did not work that magic, nor could I. Master Edon”—the Vineart of Atakus, a Master Vineart already when he, Malech, was still a slave—“he might, perhaps. It would be a thing of weather and wind, not fire and healing, as are my vines.” Vineart Giordan, who had worked those vines, might have known—he did not think he would point that out to these men.

Neth nodded, and even Brion seemed satisfied by Malech’s denial.

“It is not the fact of the magic which disturbs us,” Neth said, “so much as it is the way it was used. Atakus was a major port and kept itself neutral to maintain its status, making no alliances save those of trade and parley. Now it has not only drawn a cloak over itself, but attacked those who venture too near where it once was.”

“Attacked?” That, Malech had not heard, and the not-hearing disturbed him greatly. “How, if the island itself is not to be seen?” Months ago, they had received an order of bloodstaunch, a very particular spellwine of his crafting, from Atakus. He had dismissed it at the time as being none of his concern, but now he wondered at the timing. Had their cloaking in fact been a prelude to something more fierce? Was the
menace he sent Jerzy to find coming from Atakus? He would not have thought it of Edon, but he had admitted that he did not know the man personally.

No. A man of Edon’s years would not suddenly break Commandment so brutally, not without some pressure brought to bear on him. Who was the princeling there? Naïos? No, his son Erebuh. What was Erebuh up to?

“A fleet of Caulic ships approached, during a storm,” Neth said, picking up the thread of the story.

“Approached?” Malech felt one eyebrow rise at that.

“Attacked,” Brion admitted, less reluctant to use the word than his elder companion. “The Cauls have always been on the hunt for any crack in Atakus’s neutrality. They take offense at anyone telling them how they must behave while on the seas, even beyond their own island.”

Caul boasted of the greatest fleet, their rocky, cold island growing not spellwines, but sailors. Unlike the Iajans, they were not known as explorers, but as warriors and merchants.

“And they feel that Atakus’s disappearance … is an act of aggression?”

Neth sighed. “Master Malech, do not play the fool; it does you no service and merely wastes our time. For magic to be used in such a matter … Principal Erebuh and Master Vineart Edon have long held too close a relationship for the comfort of many. And they are not alone. Your Vineart Giordan and lord-maiar Niccolo of Aleppan, Vineart Conna and his town council, they overstep the Command to keep the vines separate from men of power. We have overlooked these transgressions in the past, thinking them distant enough, bonds of temporary convenience. But in recent years there are signs that they have become stronger, more significant—and then this, on Atakus.

“Master Malech, your oath clears you, but it does not address the fact that you yourself suspect that Edon might be capable of such an act. And so I ask you, on your oath: If a spellwine of such power did
exist, could any soul who knew the decantation be able to control it? Or would the magic overwhelm them?”

Malech narrowed his eyes but did not immediately speak. On the surface it was a simple matter: Should the Washers look to a Vineart, specifically, or might anyone have used such a spell? However, the question brushed against knowledge Vinearts held as close—closer, even—as the intricacies of vinecraft itself.

Any spellwine properly incanted, no matter how powerful, could be decanted if the speaker knew the proper words. But a spell that could adapt and expand to such a task as this? That spellwine had not been incanted, had remained a
vin magica,
which meant that it required quiet-magic to command it.

Quiet-magic, the physical expression of the ability that turned a slave into a Vineart. More than the small aid he had described to Jerzy; quiet-magic, blood-magic, meant that no Vineart was ever tied to a specific decantation so long as the magic recognized his authority.

If Sin Washer had sought to neuter magic-users entirely, he had failed. And that was what no Washer could ever know. No Washer could ever know of the quiet-magic. No one could ever know that Vinearts were more than they appeared. The moment that truth escaped, fear of the prince-mages would return, and all hands would turn against the Vinearts.

“If such a spell were to exist …,” he said, holding Neth’s gaze steadily, aware of both Brion looking intent and the presence of the Guardian overhead. If he gave the word, the Guardian would kill both men, its stone talons crushing their spines without hesitation. It would be a simple matter, after that, to dispose of the bodies….