Melting Stones

The Mountain Is a Restless Sleeper

T he 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.

"Another day you may admire the pretty rocks, my dear." Someone wrapped a hand in my collar, then dragged me from the water to land on my bum.

If it had been Myrrhtide, I would have dumped an avalanche on him. Seeing that it was Rosethorn, I behaved. "I'm sorry. I'll walk now," I said. "I was just admiring the obsidian. There's rainbow obsidian. And gold streaked, and translucent…"

I wasn't arguing with Rosethorn, mind. Just before he left, Briar had told me, "Evvy, you have to watch out for her. She won't care for herself, you know it as well as I do. Don't let people work her too hard, all right?"

And because I was being brave, pretending that it was fine by me if he went off for months and months with his sisters, I had said yes. Rosethorn was mine, too, after Yanjing and Gyongxe. If the emperor and all his armies hadn't made trouble between Rosethorn and me, then this sleepy island in its sleepy ocean would never do it.

I got to my feet, but Rosethorn still held on. "You can walk only if you stop slowing us down, Evvy." She towed me along. "Otherwise I'll tie you to your horse. Why are you acting like a child who got into the honey jar? I know you missed stone while you were at sea, but usually you calm down once you're on land. It's not like you to make visible displays like those farm walls or that rock slide."

I didn't think she had noticed that I made the granite walls sparkle. "But it's all right if I play." I said it, rather than asking. I was afraid that if I asked, she might say no. I never ask a question if I don't think I'll like the answer. "It's not as if the woods are full of enemies waiting to pounce."

"No, but usually you aren't so, so prodigal."

"Prod—hunh?" Educated mages like Rosethorn and Fusspot always talk as if you know every long word they use.

"Prodigal. In this case, it means profligate—no. Giddy. Reckless. Tossing your magic around, as if you shouldn't save it for an emergency. Spending it without regard for the future." She let me go.

"I would have just said that I don't go around wasting magic." I stowed my obsidian pieces in the front of my shirt. One of them had cut me. I hid the cut before she noticed it. As I followed Rosethorn onto the road, I explained, "It's these rocks. So many of them are fire-born."

She looked around at me. "Fire-born?"

I shrugged. "From volcanoes. I keep finding the kind of rock that my stone teachers say is made in fire. I've never seen so much in one place, not so close to the surface. There's some at Winding Circle, but all underground, mostly. There's granite here, and feldspars, and obsidian—obsidian is really hard to find. And they're all volcano rocks. Starns is one big basket of treats for the likes of me."

We reached the road. Dedicate Fusspot looked as if he was about to complain. He changed his mind when Rosethorn and I both glared at him.

"Play with your obsidian treats in the saddle, please," said Rosethorn. "No more delays."

She leaned against my horse's shoulder as I climbed onto its back. I felt guilty as I looked at her. Coming home from Gyongxe, Briar and I had made her rest. She had relaxed after we got to Winding Circle, but she still got tired easily. Rosethorn had ordered Briar and me not to talk about all she had done to fight the emperor's armies. She had put so much strain on her body and heart. Seeing her lean on my horse, hidden from the people who rode with us, I wished Briar and I had disobeyed her. I wish we'd told the Winding Circle council that she was in no shape to go saving villages, not so soon.

"Did you drink your medicine tea?" I asked her. "The kind that smells like boiled mule urine?"

My horse was nervous, pawing the ground. Rosethorn pushed away from it. "I will have it in the village, if we can get there with no more—"

The other horses snorted and stamped. Birds flew out of the trees, shrieking.

"Evumeimei…" Luvo said in warning.

I felt it coming, too, from under my feet—liquid stone on the move, rich and heavy. Now was the time to use tricks I had learned from the riders of Gyongxe. I wrapped the reins tight around my right arm, locked my legs around my horse, grabbed Rosethorn's arm, and hung on. I muttered prayers to Heibei, god of luck. This time the weight of the earth's power drove straight up through the ground underneath us. It boomed under the horses' hooves and rattled down the road, away from the island's heart. On the far side of the river, stones dropped from the cliff to hit the water with huge splashes. Behind me I heard the sound of tearing wood and the crash of a big tree as it fell. I clutched Rosethorn with both arms and the horse with my legs, to keep Rosethorn from tumbling down the riverbank. She clung to me, her lips tight and her eyes all business.

Then we had silence. We listened for a time, waiting for a second shock. The horses quieted down. Finally, the birds began their usual chatter.

"You may let go now, Evvy." Rosethorn gave me a little push.

I let go. People tell me sometimes I have a grip like stone. I think I must have used it. Rosethorn's wrist was marked where I grabbed her. The cloth of her habit was as wrinkled as if I'd ironed it that way.

Rosethorn rubbed her white fingers to get the blood flowing into them, then looked at Oswin. "If I had wanted to bounce like this, I would have stayed aboard ship. Is your island normally so lively?"

"We've had a lot of tremors in the last couple of months. Times like this come and go, Dedicate Initiate. You—we become accustomed, anyway."

"Charming." Rosethorn went to grab her horse's reins. "I can't wait to become accustomed."

We stopped for a cold lunch Oswin had brought, then rode on—and up. Moharrin was high on the side of Mount Grace. As it got later, and the river and the road entered forested mountainsides, things turned cooler. I dug out Rosethorn's coat and rode over to her.

"Evumeimei, she dislikes it when you try to put warmer clothing on her." Luvo had seen me do this dance with Rosethorn before.

"You just have to wait until she isn't paying attention," I whispered to him. "Hush."

"Stop." Rosethorn climbed off her horse and walked away from the road. With her eyebrows together and her forehead crinkled, it was clear she was in a thinking mood. Myrrhtide reined up his horse and grumbled. He didn't like to ride, I could tell, but he wouldn't say so. Oswin and Jayat dismounted. Jayat went to refill their water bottles.

"Perfect, Luvo. If I move fast, I'll get Rosethorn's coat on her before she even notices." I slid to the ground and caught up to her. She was busy inspecting two dead trees.

I danced around her back and sides, working her arms into the sleeves, while she ignored me. Of course, I made sure not to get between her and the dead trees.

"I can get my own coat, Evvy." She looked at a big patch of dead plants behind the trees. In the dim woods light, that spot looked as if it was filled with plant ghosts, the dead leaves pale against the living shadows of the forest beyond. At the heart of the ghost space, dead birds lay beside a slab of basalt that jutted from the earth.

Do birds and trees have ghosts? I wondered. In Yanjing and Gyongxe, everything human has ghosts. That's what I was raised to believe. Were there bird ghosts here? And wouldn't Rosethorn believe that plants have ghosts? Plants are her people, just as stones are Luvo's people, and mine.

"Briar told me to look after you. I could see you were shivering." I answered her in a whisper. I didn't want the attention of bird or plant ghosts. "What killed them, Rosethorn?"

She gathered some dead limbs and leaves, gently cutting them from bushes and saplings with her belt knife. I wasn't going to say that if they were dead, they couldn't feel the cutting. "If I knew that, we might be able to go home." Raising her voice, she said, "Stop rolling your eyes and sighing, Myrrhtide. If there's anything I hate, it's a person who rolls his eyes and sighs when he's impatient. It just makes me move that much slower." Under her breath she added, "Twitterwitted Water temple bleat-brain."

I grinned. She learned "bleat-brain" from Briar.

I put the dead stuff in her workbasket while she mounted up again. Then I got on my own horse. "I'm sorry about all this getting on and off," I told the horse. "It seems to be that kind of day."

"You are always hopping about, Evumeimei." Luvo was still in his sling, hung from my horse's saddle horn. "I was telling Jayatin and Oswin about our travels in the East."

I wrinkled my nose as we rode on. "Not the nasty parts, I hope. Nobody needs to remember those."

"Only that there was fighting, and that we were caught in it."

"He was describing the temple of the Great Green Man," Jayat explained. "I can't even imagine a solid jade statue over a hundred feet tall."

"It was wonderful" I said. "The jade was the color of that grass over there. It sang to my magic. Alabaster the color of the moon. Some rubies, though they weren't very good. It was hung with ropes of pearls, too. They're well enough in their way. Briar really liked the blue and pink pearls, the ones as big as his thumb. He said you could get very good prices for those in the markets in Sotat and Emelan."

"But you weren't impressed." Jayat sounded like he was laughing at me.

"Well, they're pearls. They're just fake stones, you know. Cheats. They're dirt an oyster puts around grit to keep it from itching. You'd think there'd be a law against trying to cheat people with fake stones like that. Now, jade—the Green Man statue had it carved all kinds of ways, so it sang back to you in different tones."

We talked about my travels as we rode onto the shores of Lake Hobin. We'd finally reached Moharrin, just as dark was setting in. Torches were lit on the road along the lake, to guide us past farms and orchards to the village.

"Jayat, go let Azaze know we're here." As Jayat rode ahead, Oswin told Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, "I know you're too tired for a big reception, but Azaze—our headwoman—also owns the inn. People tend to gather there as a matter of course. There will be some of them to greet you."

"As long as there is a decent meal, they may greet me as they choose." Myrrhtide snapped his horse's reins and moved ahead of us.

"I don't think you have to worry." Oswin sounded very innocent in the dark. "Azaze gives a decent meal to almost everyone."

I saw Rosethorn slap Oswin lightly. "Naughty."

I don't think Myrrhtide could hear. Or if he did, he pretended he didn't.