Melting Stones

Telling the Council

J ayat came in with the oldest woman I had ever seen. Maybe she was as old as Luvo. Her skin could have been smoked and stretched over her bones, it was so brown and tight. Her eyes were like black jet beads. She wore a small turban of a nasty, bright orange cloth. It didn't even match her pink and yellow plaid dress. That was tied at the waist with a brown sash, and she wore a ratty green shawl over the whole mess. She went barefoot, her toes more like roots than human feet. Her hands were knobby, too. She clung to Jayat with one and clutched a cane with the other. She looked right at me.

"Lakik help you if you lie, girl." Her scowl would frighten street dogs. Her voice crackled like grease in the pan. "If you do, every louse and flea I have taken off others will become your new friend." She glared at Azaze. "You summoned all the council for the rantings of a disobedient child? You sent Jayat to drag me out of my nice warm bed?"

"And over to the nice warm seat by the fire, Master." Jayat handled her as if she were made of eggs. Gently he helped the old crosspatch to a padded seat the kitchen girls had brought out. It was set beside the hearth. He didn't seem like he was dragging her.

If Azaze was frightened, she didn't look it. "Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn of Winding Circle, Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide, this is our mage, Tahar Catwalker. Tahar, sit down before you fall down. The tea is made just as you like it. The girl whose tale has alarmed us is Evvy. Her companion—the little fellow, the green and purple crystal one—is Master Luvo. He is the heart of a mountain, but not locally, as I understand it."

Mage Tahar snorted. "Our mountains know better than to get up to such mischief." She squinted up at Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, who were bowing to her. "Stop that. Both of you have more power in your thumbs than I have in my whole body. We all know it. I can't say much for the temple's way of raising a child, if Jayat speaks true. Stealing horses, running all over without leave—"

"Oh, she's done worse." Rosethorn's face was straight when she said it. "Spying, fighting, stealing, insulting people of great rank… But how can you manage young girls these days? In this case, Mage Tahar, Evvy has done us a favor. Without her warning, we die. We might yet if this council does not act quickly."

"We'll see. Don't gawp like a girl at her first dance, Azaze. Let's get on with this." Tahar thumped her cane on the floor.

Jayat sat on a bench near Tahar's elbow. Azaze looked at the maids, who left, closing the door behind them. Now it was just us and the town council. Oswin propped the slates where everyone could see them when the time came.

Rosethorn stood in front of them to speak. "Myrrhtide and I came in response to your complaints with regard to the poisoning of your plants, streams, and ponds." She looked calm and beautiful, her hands clasped in front of her. These people wouldn't know she had been riding all day. "Evvy and her friend Luvo came by chance, except that the gods seldom leave these things to chance. Luvo is the heart of a mountain, traveling with us for a time. Evvy is my friend, a young stone mage, presently in training at Winding Circle."

I hung my head so she wouldn't see me blush at her calling me her friend.

Rosethorn told them what had happened that day, up to me riding off. Jayat took over, explaining how he caught up and stayed with me. Then I told my story to the council. I described the underground chamber, Flare and Carnelian, and the spirits underground. I explained the poisons on the stones under the dead spots, and my idea that the poisons were borne on air that escaped volcano spirits as they pushed toward the surface. About how the shocks were their attempts to escape that chamber. About how they were going to succeed, somewhere around Mount Grace, very soon.

Using the maps I had made, I showed them where Carnelian and Flare had come closest to the open air. Luvo told them where the chamber was while Rosethorn made me drink a second cup of her medicine tea. By then I was very tired. Even after I had the tea, the room seemed a little spin-y. I took a step away from the slates and lurched. I caught myself on the table. I had never had to talk to people like this before, drained of magic and my bones aching from exhaustion. I searched the grown-up faces for Rosethorn, but either I was too tired to pick her out, or she wasn't there.

"The volcano spirits will come out sooner or later," I told the village council. "It'll go better if they break through one of Mount Grace's sides facing the open sea. But the thickest stone they have to push through is that way. If they come through the top, or through the cracks, they'll dump lava and poisons on any villages around Mount Grace, maybe on the whole island. Maybe on the neighboring islands."

"That makes sense." Oswin looked up from his tea. "If we confine something that moves, like a stream, then give it a small path to escape, like a hole in a pipe or a dam, you know yourselves it's a lot stronger. And remember the volcano on Levit Island three years back? We could see the blast from here—that went through the top of the mountain. There wasn't a tree left standing on the whole island."

Softness settled around my shoulders. Rosethorn tucked a knitted blanket around me. Even as I grabbed it I recognized its opal colors. Lark had made it special for Rosethorn, knitting in signs of strength and healing and warmth for her.

"But she meant this for you." I tried to take it off. Rosethorn settled it back around my arms.

"She meant it for anyone who needs it. Right now you need it," she whispered very quietly in my ear. "You still need to convince these people, all right?"

The smith got up. "Azaze, you and these learned dedicates are paying heed to this nonsense? She makes up this faradiddle and expects us to swallow it? The wench is trying to duck a beating at her master's hands. I don't know how she worked the magic to get the rock to look as if it talks. Plainly she's talented if she can fool Winding Circle mages. That still doesn't mean honest country folk like us have to scramble for her nonsense." He looked at Myrrhtide and Rosethorn. "Forgive me, Dedicates. Your minds are plain addled with all that magical learning if you swallow this chit's tale."

Myrrhtide glared up at him. "I am not addled. I am no more likely to swallow anyone's 'tale,' as you call it, than I am likely to fly. I am a Dedicate Initiate of the Water temple of Winding Circle. I have studied at Lightsbridge university and at Swanswing university in Hatar. In that time I have studied the writings of some of the greatest earth, water, and fire mages ever born. What they record of the days before a volcano's eruption sounds very much like what Evvy and Luvo have told us since their return to this inn tonight."

So that was why Fusspot hadn't started yapping at me the first chance he got. He really did believe me. He even said he believed me.

Maybe I ought to try to be nicer to him.

Fusspot wasn't done with the smith. He thrust his teacup over in front of the man. "What do you see in my cup?"

The smith gave him a glare that would start a fire. "Tea, you pompous—"

"Master Smith!" Azaze's voice cracked like a whip.

Fusspot acted like he hadn't even heard. He'd never acted that way when I'd insulted him. If he had, I would have stopped. "What is my tea doing, Master Smith? Please note that I am not touching the cup."

The smith jammed his hands in his pockets. "It's shivering."

"As was my wash water," Myrrhtide said. "As is the well water. As is the water in the pots used for cooking and laundry. Before volcanoes loose their heavy fire, Master Smith, the ground can tremble for days, constantly. This is why we addled mages keep written records from the past. So we can learn from the experience of others who have gone before."

For a moment, even though he's little and skinny, Fusspot seemed majestic. Like he was cloaked in the wisdom of those long-ago mages. Like he was worthy of respect, even as they had been.

"I don't understand this at all." The Master Herder was a woman. She was wringing her hands. "I know the herds have been odd for days, skittish, panicky—I thought it was so many earthquakes. I just don't understand, why us, why our mountain? Have we offended some god? We try to pay respect to all the ones we know of, but perhaps we missed one? Our mountains have always been so quiet."

"Nonsense." Luvo actually sounded cross. "I know that you meat creatures are exceedingly short-lived, but you are supposed to have minds, and memories, and eyes. You are supposed to use these things." He looked at me. "Are some breeds of human more stupid than others?"

"Luvo, it's been a long time since I've heard you be actually rude." Rosethorn kept her voice quiet but direct. "I don't understand what has upset you."

Luvo turned his head knob so his invisible eyes were on hers. "I have known you for three or so of your mortal years, Rosethorn. I have seen what happens in these situations in which you involve yourself and Evumeimei. For reasons which are unclear to me, you will insist on remaining in this place to reason with people who will not heed you. They will delay your departure until you, and thus Evumeimei, are in peril of your lives. How long until these volcano children find a way out, and lead all their kindred through it? A week? That is very little time. It may not give you enough chance to get out of range. If these meat creatures argue and deny and quibble as I saw those others do, back in Gyongxe, I am certain it is not enough time. Now that I see there is a chance that I—we—will survive this volcano, I do not wish the bleatings of human sheep to delay our escape. Perhaps I am a bad mountain. Perhaps I should resign myself and wait for the earth's cycle to take me. But I have grown attached to Evumeimei, and to you. I would like to see more of your world. I would like to see Lark and Briar again."

"We don't have to sit here and be insulted." This time it was the Master Miner who spoke. I knew he was the miner. Though his clothes were clean and his face well washed, grains of stone were worked into his wrinkles. I reached out to see what the stone grains were. It was like trying to take a deep breath, only to find your lungs won't open up. I hugged Lark's blanket around my shoulders, trying not to cry. How long would it take my power to come back?

"I have sons at home who will insult me for nothing." The miner was still talking. "Forgive my saying so, Master Luvo, though I don't mind telling you I feel funny, calling a little fellow like you 'Master.' But I've been in the mines all week. Nobody enjoys the ground-shakes, but we've weathered them. It just seems like Mount Grace is missing her lover more than usual. But she isn't the volcano sort. I've seen two of the volcanoes we have in these islands, Sharyno and Kieta. Our Mount Grace has never been that sort."

That made me perk up. "Never? Never?" I looked at Jayat and Tahar. "You know the spell for looking at a thing, right? The one where you tell it to show its nature? My book mage friends say it's like your ABCs, you all learn something like that."

"I know a curst sight more than my letters, you pepper-mouthed minx." Tahar glared at me for good measure. "My Jayat, too."

With Lark's strengthening blanket around me I could walk. "I'll be right back."

As I was climbing the stairs I heard Luvo say, "All of these islands are volcano-born. How can you not know that? The lines of power that your mages called on, they are but tributaries to great faults in the earth. Those faults lead to the furnaces in which everything was made."

In my room I got the rocks I had collected the day before: mica, obsidian, quartz, and feldspars. All had been shaped far below the earth, where they should have stayed. I carried them downstairs, my knees wobbling.

"It is a small undersea volcano, seven miles off your shore and one mile deep." Luvo was telling them about the vent we had found under the ocean. I could see the village councilors didn't believe him. I wasn't surprised. One thing I had noticed in my travels with Briar and Rosethorn. People took to them because their magic was ordinary. So Briar and Rosethorn talked to plants and played with them like pets. At the end of the day, they had dirt under their nails, stickers in their clothes, and a crop to show, like everyone else. Unless people witnessed it when they did some great magic, calling out huge thorny vines from a gravel slope, or turning a tiny tree into a giant one, they seemed like everyday people. They were the kind who got invited to meet daughters or say the blessing over the new grandbaby.

But Luvo was not like that. Luvo was not everyday. I wasn't everyday. I was Luvo's friend, and I had no liking for people. They were fine as long as they left me alone, of course. I preferred cats and rocks.

I put my stones on the table next to those I had gathered that day. Azaze and the carpenter moved aside so Tahar and Jayat could see them. "Ask the stones, Mage Tahar, Jayat. Stones don't lie or make up pretty stories. Ask them what their nature is, where they came from. What they came from. Don't ask me, I'm a lying chit trying to get out of being in trouble. Ask the stones how they got made."

I sat at the table where Luvo stood. Even with Lark's blanket around me, I guessed I had overdone things. I was feeling cranky. I'd been up at dawn to traipse all over their silly island. I had tried to see where their precious source of mage-strength had gone. Then look what had happened to me! Catch me warning people their stupid home was going to blow up again.

Now that Rosethorn and Myrrhtide knew the problem was nothing to do with plants or water, we could go home. Against volcano spirits, my magic and theirs was helpless. Our ship was waiting for us in Sustree. I didn't even care that it meant another week at sea. I'd have the new rocks I'd gathered here to entertain me. And maybe a view of the volcano when it finally exploded. That would be really interesting.

Jayat and Tahar drew spell designs on the floor. Their lips moved as they called on the rocks to show where they came from. I sighed. It was taking forever.

Then I had to smile at myself. I was spoiled. In the old days, in Chammur, magic never happened at a snap of the fingers. We waited for the mage to dance, shake rattles, burn herbs, or spin a prayer wheel a hundred times, until the mage was ready and the magic was done or failed.

It wasn't until I knew Rosethorn and Briar that magic turned into something at the speed of, "Here you go."

I smelled heating stone first. It's a dry smell, like the sun in the desert. Grains of dirt and dried leaf from the rocks I hadn't cleaned were baking. Then the leaves burned outright. I shook my head. In a good spell, the heat that the stones remembered would never escape the spell. If the leaf bits were burning, there would be scorch marks on the table, too. Azaze had better not blame me.

My pieces of mica started to crack. I wasn't bothered. I'd collect more on the way back to the ship.

A little volcano image appeared over each rock. Jayat looked up from the design on the floor. He was sweating. He made a swirling motion with his hand. The little volcanoes formed one big image, one big volcano that stood over six feet tall. Just as the single image came together, a blast of smoke and stones blew the mountain's side out. Everyone flinched, though the blast—the eruption, my books back home called it—went through them like a ghost, and vanished.

Tahar sighed. The image disappeared. The room seemed darker, though the lamps and the fire still burned. I went over and picked up a beautiful pink granite chunk I had found that morning. It would have burned anyone else. Just as I thought, it left a scorch mark on the table. My lovely mica was just ruined. They might have to scrape that off the wood.

The nervous herder gulped her tea before she spoke. "But—I don't understand. Where was the lake? Where was Mount Grace?"

"This happened thousands of centuries ago." Rosethorn rubbed her eyes. "Didn't you look at the trees? The only time you'll ever see leaves like that is captured in stone, just as you'll find animal and fish skeletons. They're the ancestors of your trees. The distant ancestors."

"But our lake." Just like her goats, the Herd Mistress wouldn't let go of something she had her teeth into.

"The place where the volcano erupted…" Tahar was hoarse.

Jayat poured her a cup of tea.

Once she finished drinking, Tahar went on. "Where the volcano blew out its side, that became our lake. The remains of the volcano became the spine of our Mount Grace." She looked at me. "The child found countless rocks here which were born in a volcano. If Dedicate Rosethorn is right, that volcano last erupted in the dawn of time. We sit on top of its sealed grave. That seal is about to come right off."

Rosethorn got to her feet and put an arm around me. "Well done, getting their own mages to show them. Very well done. Time for you to go to bed. There's more talking to do, but you're about to collapse. Don't even try to carry Luvo. I'll bring him when I come up. It's not as if he sleeps."

"Are you sure?" I know I was swaying where I stood. "I can go for a bit longer."

"Of course you can." I knew better than to believe her when she spoke all syrupy sweet like that. "Why, you can last just as long as it takes to go back up those steps. I'll bring the rest of your stones, too. Go on, Evvy. You know it will just annoy you to hear us negotiate with the locals. It usually does."

"It annoys you, too."

"Yes, but my vows say I have to be nice to people sometimes, for the good of my soul. You haven't taken vows. Scat."

Every now and then I like to do as I'm told, just to confuse people. This was one of those times. I climbed the stairs and fell into my bed. I don't think I even took off my sandals.