Melting Stones

Out of the Ashes

L uvo and the island spirits carried me back to Starns. I couldn't have reached it on my own. I had used up everything in that last fight with Carnelian and Flare. The islands even gave me some strength, after Luvo nudged them.

I will tell Rosethorn you are alive, Evumeimei. We will come for you as soon as we can find a ship to bring us, Luvo promised. You know she will manage it. I did know that.

The strength the islands gave me was enough so I could crawl into a barn uphill from the place where I had left my body. I needed to be under cover. Ash still fell from the cracks that had opened on Mount Grace. I had no way to know if there would be any gadolgas from the volcano sprouting out to sea. I barely noticed the earthquake that shook the hill just as I began to climb it. My sense of everything was dull and distant. I wasn't too far from being a cinder.

A s soon as I could do more than bleat like a sheep, I searched for food. Sooner or later I had to see if Meryem, Jayat, and Nory were alive. If I had only been unconscious for a day, they might be partway to Moharrin, if they lived. That day when I woke up in the barn, though, I could do little more than stagger. The bit of light that came through the clouds of ash was fading. In my present shape, I wouldn't make it as far as the river without food or a horse.

I had to find food before the light was gone. My feet—then my knees and my hands—crunched as I headed for a nearby farm.

In their rush to escape, the farmers had left plenty behind. I ate my food cold for two days. The house's fires were out. I couldn't bear so much as the heat from a candle flame, anyway. Even the touch of my own breath on my skin was too hot. I hoped that effect of being nearly scorched by volcano spirits would wear off soon. Normally I like fire.

That second day, the farm's goats came back. They were hungry. I fed them and milked a few. What milk I didn't drink I gave to the other animals that returned. I learned to walk like a sailor when little earthquakes shook us all. Those were more gifts from the Carnelian and Flare volcano, growing out to sea.

On the second day, I lurched around, sweeping ash off of grass, hay, troughs. I brought up water from the well until it was clean. I opened the doors of the house and brought the washtubs and barrels inside, to protect them from the worst of the ash. Then, slowly, I filled anything that would hold water for the animals, inside and out. I dumped grain out of sacks in the barns and sheds. Until rain came to rinse the ash away, they'd be able to survive. I hoped.

The ash stopped falling by the third day. From rumblings in the ground, I guessed a lot of volcano spirits had abandoned the chamber under Mount Grace entirely, going to try their luck under the sea. No one remained to try to escape the mountain. The skies were hazy, but it was clear, except in the southeast, where a black cloud hung. That would be the new volcano. Flare and Carnelian had led enough of their kind out that they had built a mountain on the ocean floor. They were coming into the open air.

I couldn't wait any longer. I needed to find my friends, if they were alive. They had to be alive. After everything—melting, the sea's meanness, fighting with young volcanoes… Meryem, Nory, and Jayat had to be here. They had to be breathing and walking around. I didn't know how I could bear it if, after everything, I found their bodies on the way to Moharrin.

I wasn't sure how easy it would be to reach them. The earthquakes would have knocked the road to pieces. Lucky for me, two of the animals who had come to the farm were mules. You can't beat mules for taking on bad terrain. I sweet-talked them into wearing saddles and packs I had stuffed with food and mule treats. I knew that nobody tells a mule to do anything. It's better to negotiate.

So what if I hobbled like an old woman? It was time to go. Otherwise, like the ferret in the old stories, curiosity would kill me. Or worry. Or fear.

Off we went, slowly. Each step sent up a puff of ash. Tree limbs sagged with more ash. It blanketed the grass and hid the stones. I had to wrap a scarf over my face to keep from breathing it. I even ripped up two shirts and gave the mules scarves for their noses. I envied them their long eyelashes. Every little breeze blew grit right into my face. My eyes watered all the time.

The mules warned me when a fresh shake was coming. That was good. My magic was still limp, so I didn't know. When the mules halted, their eyes rolling, I'd slide from the saddle. I'd talk soft to them until the ground settled again. I gave them apples and carrots and paid them compliments in every language I knew. They liked the compliments even more than the treats. Mules are pretty vain.

There's no good speaking of that journey. It lasted two and a half days. The road was just sad. In three places rockslides had wiped it away. Lucky for me that I had mules. Lucky, too, that the Makray River was changed, knocked into a new course by the bouncing earth. We picked our way along the old riverbed. The whole time I prayed to Kanzan the Merciful, to Heibei, and to the gods of the Living Circle. I wanted to see no tumbles of clothes, no bodies half buried by rock or ash. I wanted no sign that the people I searched for had died making this journey. Either the gods listened and they were safe, or they were under so much rock that I never saw them.

I wore out the three brooms I brought, sweeping ash from the mules' grazing and my campsite. I went through every spare bit of cloth. We couldn't drink the Makray's water. It was acid from the damage done by the volcano spirits. The mules grumbled as I measured out water from my canteens, but they could smell the river. They wouldn't touch that water. If I came back after death as anything, it would be as a mule.

It was like a journey through the hell of those who defy the Yanjing will of heaven. I thought I'd stopped believing in those hells, but they hadn't stopped believing in me. They had followed me all the way here. This one had, anyway.

Around noon that third day, we came down the crumbling road into Moharrin. I took one glance at the lake. That was enough. It was filled with dead fish. More acid from Mount Grace.

The village was a mess. The earthquakes had made a hash of it. Some wooden houses had collapsed. A lot of the rickety wooden barns and sheds were destroyed. Nothing moved anywhere. My heart dropped to my belly.

The ash was a lot worse up here, too. "It's like the town is a ghost," I told the mules. I'd been talking to them for a while. "Without people it's a ghost of itself, you know? No farmers, no kids. Everything's all gray. No smoke from the chimneys, no sounds. It's dead." My eyes were sulfur dry and bitter. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered in this world.

The mules just flipped their ears at me. They aren't good conversationalists.

I looked at the sun and choked. Smoke came from the inn's kitchen chimney.

Of course. The inn was stone. Its barns were mostly stone. People might come there for safety.

Quiet as a mouse, I dismounted. All this way I had named rocks and their shapes to myself so I would not think. I had plenty not to think about. I couldn't think that Meryem, Nory, and Jayat were dead. I couldn't think that rough types who had stayed behind might have gotten them. The problem was, rough types might be at the inn right now.

What to do? I didn't have any weapons. Talk about bleat-brained! I had always had my magic before. A little of it was coming back, but it wasn't enough to turn a crystal into a night lamp. As a weapon, my power was useless.

I took off my headscarf, though I kept the one over my nose and mouth. I didn't want to give myself away by sneezing. There were fist-sized rocks beside the road, smooth ones. A girl with a headscarf and stones always had the makings of a sling.

I tethered the mules in what was left of an orchard. With rocks in my pockets, I crept up on the inn. Instead of going through the main door, I went the long way around, to the kitchen garden.

Meryem sat on a clean bench in the swept-out kitchen yard. Chickens pecked all around her, looking for food. She'd been grinding chickpeas. The Dreadful Doll sat beside her for company. She was singing to it. She hadn't seen me.

I tried to breathe and blinked a lot, my eyes stinging fiercely. Only six years old, but like me, she had survived all the world threw at her. My foolish words hadn't gotten her killed. I had a second chance. I'd believed I would wear her death as a chain around my neck all my life.

I walked slowly to her, because I was afraid I would stumble. "I was wrong to say what I did." My voice was muffled by the scarf over my mouth. I pulled it down.

She dropped her chickpeas. "Evvy! You came! I thought you left!" She grabbed me and hugged me and started crying.

I hugged her back. So maybe I was crying, too.

"Wait. Stay there—don't run away!" Meryem ran inside the kitchen.

I heard barking. Dogs ran out, growling, their hackles up. They were a mixed crew of animals, but they all looked serious. I backed up, hands in the air to show I meant no harm. Behind them came Nory and Jayat. Nory was armed with a huge pot in one hand, a knife in the other. Jayat had an iron spit that he held like a staff. Both of them relaxed when they saw me. And I couldn't help it—I grinned. They looked good and alive.

Jayat gave a couple of tricky whistles. The dogs growled, circled around me, sniffing, then went back inside. I was glad to see them, not just because they were animals, but because they were protecting my friends. "Nice dogs," I said.

"They come from the farms around here. Nory collected them in case anyone nasty came along. She taught me the whistles. What happened to your volcano? We noticed when the mountain stopped smoking." Jayat pointed to Mount Grace. Clouds hid the peak. The outline I could see looked different, but I saw no plumes of ash and steam.

"It's poking up offshore," I told him. "You can see it if you go down to Sustree. Flare and Carnelian have all the glory they could want."

Nory is more practical, like me. "How bad is the road?"

"Impossible," I said. "I had mules and it took me two and a half days. We're stuck here for a while." As if the land itself agreed, it shuddered, making us stagger.

Nory looked at Jayat. "We keep foraging. Evvy can help. She owes us some hard work."

I glared at her, but she was right. It was my fault Meryem had left the group. "I brought two mules," I told them. "I'll bet there's plenty more livestock around if we can feed them. We'd better hurry, though. If they can't dig through the ash or find water, they'll start to starve."

Jayat leaned on his iron spit. "How will you get home? Is Rosethorn still in Sustree? Did you bring Luvo?"

I shook my head. "They sailed. But they'll return, eventually. Luvo will tell Rosethorn I'm alive—we're alive. As soon as she can bully someone into sailing here, she'll come. Once I get my magic back, I'll be able to tell Luvo you're alive, too. I'll bet you coppers to diamonds Oswin will come with her. He was half-crazy when he found out you weren't on the ship."

"You sound pretty sure of your Rosethorn." Nory's face was as sour as her voice.

I shrugged. I knew Rosethorn, and she didn't.

Nory shook her head. "Meryem! Where is that girl? Look at this!" Nory crouched and began to pick chickpeas out of the dirt. "It's not like we can afford to waste food!" She put them in the bowl that Meryem had dropped. "Evvy, make yourself useful here. Jayat, why don't you—"

"I'll go check the pot," Jayat said quickly. "All we need is for it to burn." He vanished inside the kitchen.

"Why are you so sharp with him?" I crouched beside Nory and started to gather peas. "He came to look after you two. He could have been safely away."

"I didn't ask him to come," Nory said, her voice clipped. "Now he's stuck. Maybe living with me for a few months will teach him that he doesn't want to marry me after all."

"You think the others will come home by then?"

"They always do," replied Nory. "Pirates, earthquakes, big storms… they always return once the people on the other islands start to get on their nerves. We're proud folk here on Starns. We prefer to do for ourselves. Keep gathering those." She got up and went into the house, her eyes sharp. Inside, I heard her scold Jayat. I did as I was told, thinking.

It was good to hear her, and good to hear Jayat as he argued with her about something. Staying here for a while wouldn't be so bad. Hard work would keep my mind off how little magic I had. I could be useful. Rounding up animals and getting them fed, collecting food… More people would come once they felt safer. They would need to eat. I could help with the cooking, too.

As my power came back, I could summon the big rocks from under the fields. They could turn the ground over so the ash would get mixed in with fresh dirt. And maybe I could clear the rockfalls on the road to the sea.

Sooner or later, though, Rosethorn and Luvo would come for me. We'd go home, to Winding Circle and a different life. I'd need a new direction then. It was as clear as the plink of the dried peas as they struck the bowl.

I'd lived two ways. I'd been one with Luvo, the islands, Flare, Carnelian, and the volcano spirits. All that fire and glory was splendid, but… It was nothing like the hot rush of feeling that swamped me when I saw that Meryem, Nory, and Jayat were alive. Being a creature of melting stone was powerful. It was as powerful as the earthquakes. Being with these meat creatures again was as warm and complete as my own blood.

I was a meat creature who had come close to being a monster. I had almost surrendered being human without knowing what I was giving up. Maybe only Rosethorn, Luvo, and Myrrhtide would know I had helped to save lives and this island. That made me feel good. Useful. As if I had earned my place among my fellow meat creatures.

I liked that feeling. I wanted to earn more of it. I could start here, with the fields, and the roads. In the end, though, I would have to take Rosethorn's path. Battling Carnelian and Flare had worked because I'd had Luvo, and because I'd been lucky. Left to myself, finding the way on my own, I might put my feet wrong, like I did with Meryem. Being useful doesn't come naturally to me. I'd have to study it, like Rosethorn did. Winding Circle could teach me to help on purpose. They could teach me to do it because I'd planned to do it all along.

So I'd go back. I'd tell them it was time for me to learn. I'd put on the white robe, and thank the gods of the Earth for letting me wake up in time.

"Here." Meryem poked me in the shoulder. "I came back so I could give you this." She handed me a chunk of amethyst the size of her fist. "To make up for the one me'n Treak broke."

"Nothing would make up for you dying. No stone is worth a person's life." Mostly I even believed that. I meant it about her life, anyway. Some people aren't worth a grain of sand on the beach.

I suppose Winding Circle will teach me not to think that way. Maybe it will be an improvement.

"Do you like it?" Meryem looked really worried.

"It's beautiful. I'm keeping it always. It'll make me think of you." I meant that completely. "Come on. You can help me bring in my mules. I have more dried chickpeas in my saddlebags."

Meryem ran across the yard and grabbed a cat. She carried her back to me. "This is Squeak. She had kittens in Azaze's room. Nory says I can have one. Do you want one?"

I swallowed a lump in my throat. Maybe it was time to have a cat, too. The temple's novices are allowed to have pets. Lark says it makes them more responsible. I think it makes them less annoying. "Maybe." I had to clear my throat and say it twice, because it came out a little funny the first time. "Maybe. Mules first. Kittens later."

Meryem ran ahead of me, skipping. Her feet kicked up puffs of ash and dust. At least this part of my being a better meat creature was off to a good start.

The End.