Melting Stones

The Quartz Trap

I took me a long time to track the traces of their magic until I ran into Flare and Carnelian. When I had noticed those bubbles in the pond, then seen their power under it, I had been afraid they were close to the surface.

Both of them had kept their humanlike shape and seeming. I hoped that was a good thing.

Where were you? Flare circled me so fast I began to spin like a top. We looked all over the chamber but you were gone! We thought you had left us with everyone old.

Why did you go? We know you did. We didn't like it. Carnelian stared at me. The stone around us softened and dripped down the sides of the crack where we drifted.

You almost crushed me up there. Although we were deep underground, I somehow knew where Mount Grace was. I pointed to it. I'm not like you. You have to see that. You nearly killed me. Of course I ran away. If you start trying to crush me against this roof here, I'll leave again, I promise.

You're big and strong. I'm not. I have a right to preserve my life.

We couldn't crush anybody here. The roof is weak, can't you tell? There's more bounce. Flare pushed the stone over us with his arms. It didn't bounce, though parts of it melted away. I think it bounces. If we push…

The shimmering waves around him streamed into the thin crack in the stone. That was the poisoned air, I knew. It would speed to the surface far in advance of him, bubbling into the pond. Could it widen the crack and open the way for Carnelian and Flare?

I didn't think Nory would like it if a volcano, or even a slowly leaking lava flow, came up out of Oswin's pond.

Maybe if I help. Carnelian rose to put her shoulders against the crack. It widened under her pressure. More poisoned air rose into it.

I felt heat rise below us. I looked down. At the far end of the crack, where it entered the underground chamber, the others had noticed something was going on. A handful of them had swum up to stare at us. I had to get Flare and Carnelian out of here. The others might not follow if we moved quick enough. They weren't as curious as these two. I wished I could get Luvo down here with his big noise. Luvo could teach them!

Luvo. Teaching. I thought of the crystals I had seen, the ones whose strength I had borrowed. Something about Luvo teaching crystals…

That morning on the mountain, above the canyon of the dead trees. Luvo was telling Jayat about the new line of power. He was saying it might be a trap for a mage, because of all the quartz crystals around it. The crystals would grab power and reflect it inside themselves. They would be a maze for magic. I might have a trap for my new friends. Of course, it would only work if pride wasn't something common only to humans. Still, Luvo had pride. It was worth a try.

I know a game you might like. I looked back at the other lava spirits. But it's a small game. The place to play it isn't very big. The three of us could play, but there isn't enough room for them.

They won't follow. Flare didn't even look at them. They only follow if it looks like we're getting out. Will this game let us get out?

Flare and Carnelian stared at me, their black-rimmed eyes wide around the orange fire inside. If I'd had skin on, it would have crawled. They looked hungry.

It was so much easier to lie without a real face or body. I could see myself reflected in those flaming eye openings. I was a shimmering silver ghost shape of a girl, with nothing to give away what I thought.

No, it won't let you out! I don't know any game that does that! This game makes you stronger, so maybe you can break through the peak one day, if you can't find another way out. But the way this game is played is a little scary. I hesitated for a moment, then did the thing that Briar always called "setting the hook." You gave the person you lied to one last shove, so they would do what you wanted them to. Its probably too hard.

It's not too hard! Carnelian might be a spirit of a young volcano, but in some ways she wasn't much different from a human. You'll see! Just tell us how it's played!

I drifted toward Mount Grace. Flare came on one side of me, Carnelian on the other. The game has one tricky part. See, I notice that when you touch the cold hard parts of the ground, it starts to melt.

So? Flare sounded just like any other boy. If it melts, it gets out of our way.

Except you need to work with that stuff for this game, I explained. There's a special form of it, called crystal. It's got flat sides all at angles to each other. Within the crystal, things bounce from side to side, and they get bigger as they bounce. Say you put power in the crystal, like the kind you two have. If you bounce around inside the crystal long enough, it'll make you stronger.

Why didn't you say so? Flare swarmed ahead of me. What's this crystal look like? Here we go shoving ourselves into cracks, when we could have been in these crystal things…

I was stupid then. I grabbed his fiery legs. For a moment my arms sank into him, becoming part of him. I felt myself start to melt into Flare. His body started to become mine. My heart roared like a furnace: I wanted to soar up through the earth and shoot straight into the sky. I panicked and struggled, fighting against his pull. Finally I yanked free.

That hadn't happened before. They had grabbed me and towed me all over Starns, and it hadn't bothered me.

Carnelian looked at me. I swear I saw her smirk. We're stronger, aren't we? Not strong enough to break out, but soon.

I glared at her. Without my game you'll never break out. Flare! I kept my hands to myself. If you go into a batch of crystal like you are now, you'll melt it. You'll never get stronger that way!

Flare came back. Then how does it work?

Wait. I sent my magic out, until it began to come back to me in chimes. It had struck that great bed of quartz under the canyon. This way. I led them toward it, then stopped far below the quartz, so they wouldn't melt the crystals. The trick is, you have to break yourself up into tiny, tiny bits no bigger than this. I showed them just a scrap of my finger. I had been calculating all the way. I had to scatter Flare and Carnelian in hundreds of tiny pieces throughout the bed of stones. Broken up, small, they wouldn't be hot enough to melt them. They would bounce inside each piece constantly. And they would get too dizzy to pull themselves together into whole creatures again. They would be occupied for a while, maybe forever.

It wasn't foolproof, but it was the best I could think of, in a hurry.

How will we get strong if we're all in pieces? Carnelian seemed to be the thinker.

Each piece gets stronger, reflecting from the faces of the crystal. I used my "everyone knows that, bleater" voice. So all of you is strong, not just part. Then, when you find the way out, you're better than when you went in.

I'm not sure. Flare darted back and forth. Break ourselves up? It took me forever to become one separate person in the deep down under.

In the core. Carnelian whispered it like it was the name of a temple. In the core, where all of us are born.

Well, we were in pieces there, and had to come together to make one person, before we came up to the pool, Flare said. What if I stay in pieces this time? What if Carnelian stays in pieces?

I thought of a core that was all volcano spirit, and shuddered so hard I nearly broke into pieces myself. You won't stay apart, you two. How can it be a game if you stay apart? The game is that you get stronger. The winner is the one who puts herself together quickest, Carnelian or Flare. I wasn't about to tell them the trick: that if they broke themselves up, and jumped into each piece of quartz, they wouldn't be strong enough to escape and put themselves back together.

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 I 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."