Melting Stones

Fizzing

W e returned to the trail. Jayat led us up a few hundred yards, to a broad open space covered with grass and flowers. "This is as high as we will go." he said as we stared at the huge peak of Mount Grace towering over us. "The road circles the mountain but doesn't climb. We can't clear it in the winter. But there are advantages to keeping it open this far." He gestured for us to look toward the north side of the clearing.

From there the mountainside fell away. We had a glorious view of the neighboring Battle Islands. Two of them were smaller than Starns. They looked sunbaked and dusty in the blue-green sea. Behind them rose another island, a big one, with real forests on the ridges that faced us. Cliffs rose out of those forests like castle walls. They seemed to frown down at the tiny fishing boats on the water between the islands.

"If the weather's good, we can see if the neighbors are sending trouble our way." Jayat took a spyglass from his pack. He gave it to Rosethorn and Fusspot, who viewed the islands with it. When they were done, he offered it to me. "Moharrin and the other villages take turns manning a watchtower just a mile from here, to give the alarm if that happens."

Once we had all looked, Jayat put the spyglass away. Rosethorn and I unpacked the lunch. Azaze didn't mean for us to starve: She'd sent bread rolls filled with spinach and lentils, pickled beets, and grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, and currants. While we ate, Jayat, Rosethorn, and Myrrhtide talked about the Battle Islands.

"Jayat, why don't you go study with the mages on the other islands and learn more stuff?" I picked up some chunks of rock to juggle. "I don't know about you, but the more teachers I meet, the more tricks I learn."

He made a face. "I wish I could, but I can't be spared. We're both so busy. Tahar's health isn't good. She—"

"But you said yourself you're stronger than her." I know interrupting is bad manners, but I think I had my bad manners skin on that day. "She has to know you need more education than you'll get here. Doesn't she realize it does more harm than good to keep you ignorant? Just because she's spent her whole life here doesn't mean that helps—"

"Evumeimei Dingzai." This time it wasn't Luvo who used my whole name, but Rosethorn. And unlike Luvo, when she used my whole name, it wasn't a good thing or even a normal one.

I looked at her.

"Since when do you have the right to comment on the way others choose to conduct their lives?" She had her eyebrows raised—a bad sign.

I felt very, very warm, and strange. I looked at Jayat. He stared at the ground. What had I been saying? I thought about it for a moment, and choked. Kanzan the Merciful forgive me, I thought, she's right. "I just—I didn't mean…" I whined, and clapped my hands over my mouth. For a moment I sounded like a street beggar again! What was wrong with me today?

We all heard the voices at the same time."—ridiculous for both of us to come all this way—"

"It won't kill Treak to see how hard it is to manage without us. You might never get a second chance for him to prove he's learned. Oswin, you said you'd leave the management of the house to me. You either meant it or not."

"That's Nory's voice." Jayat stood as Oswin and the girl Nory rode into the clearing.

I sighed in relief. Now everyone would pay attention to them, not me.

"I told her she was to wake me the moment you came, so I could help take you around." Oswin glared at Nory, who tossed her hair. "What have I missed?"

"Evvy stopped an avalanche." Jayat was trying hard not to look at Nory. "Dedicate Rosethorn and Dedicate Myrrhtide have gathered a lot of dead plants and bad water."

I sighed. "Luvo did the hard part with the avalanche."

Rosethorn actually smiled at Oswin. "Once young people get the idea that they're taking care of you, they become perfect tyrants. Besides Evvy, I have four others, so believe me, I know. Sit down and eat something, Oswin. All we did was collect samples from the destroyed areas."

He got off his horse, which didn't look as if it had liked its trip up the mountain road. "Five, Rosethorn? You have five of them doing this to you?" He passed his reins to Jayat, who took over unsaddling his horse. Nory dismounted and cared for her own animal.

Rosethorn patted the ground beside her. "My student Briar and his three foster sisters hover over me whenever they're given the chance. Evvy here makes five young tyrants. Have a spinach roll, Oswin. Tell us when you first saw these dead places. Jayat, I'll need the same information from you." After she passed the food to Oswin and Nory, Rosethorn felt around with her hands.

I stuck my juggling rocks in my pockets, then got her map, notebook, and writing kit from her saddlebag. She opened her map on the grass and anchored it with cups. While she did that, I broke a piece off of her ink stick and ground it to powder, then mixed it with water until her ink was the thickness she liked. Jayat had brought his own notebook and writing kit. He set that up.

I could see that they were settling in for a long, dull meeting. I wandered across the clearing and through the stones that marked its limit. A short walk brought me to the dead canyon, among the sharp-edged granite slabs that made its rim. I squatted on my hunker bones and plucked a stem of grass to chew, looking at the streak of brown that marked the canyon floor.

Under the carpet of dead trees and brush, I felt stone that had been soured, touched with some nasty air. It had tainted the surface of the granite down there. I let my magical body pop free of my real one and slide down those poisoned surfaces, into the distant earth. The touch of bad air covered all the stones beneath that ground, as if the poison had swelled around it before bursting into the free air above.

These stones fizzed. The power that Jayat and the mages before him had drawn on had been there recently, filling them. I plunged deeper, hunting the source of that wonderful feeling. Here was the quartz Luvo had mentioned. It glinted in the crack, throwing the reflection of my power back at me from hundreds of its facets. There was enough white, clear, and smoky quartz to keep Winding Circle and Lightsbridge supplied for centuries. Bits of the fizzing power that had passed through here clung to them like echoes of a lightning storm.

Now I was having fun. Quartz has as many aspects as Rosethorn has medicines, from agates to tiger's-eye, in shades from darkly smoky to colorless. There were agates at the canyon's bottom, as well as amethysts and pure white quartz. I shimmered through the white vein, then bounced along hexagonal rods of amethyst. The faces and chunks told me their stories, about the times this bed had moved up as the earth shifted, then down again. I slid through the long sides, seeing my magical shadow ripple along their surfaces.

Evumeimei. Luvo's voice was thunder in the ground, echoing off of every stone there. I shrieked and shot upward. I opened my body's eyes and looked for him frantically.

He sat next to me, seemingly just a green and purple and crystal bear worn down by water.

"Why did you do that!" I shouted. "That hurt"

"We have company," Luvo said quietly. You would never believe he had made every rock underground within miles bang with the sound of his voice. "You should greet her."

"I was fine! I was minding my own business! I was just—"

Nory stepped into my view. "What are you screaming about? And where did you find the talking rock?" She stood next to us, her arms folded over her chest.

I glared at her. "Why are you here anyway?" My head hurt badly enough from Luvo's voice that I didn't care if I was rude or not. "You're not a mage or a fixing person or a person who looks after her mage."

"Treak's all full of remorse for being bad last night. I am taking advantage and getting free of the house for the day. Not that it's your business, Person Who Looks After Her Mage. As titles go, that's not very impressive. Will you answer my question or not?"

I stared at her. How did someone so pretty get so hot-tongued? "Do your parents worship at the Fire temple every day of their lives?"

"My mother worshipped money. Then her ship got hit by lightning and sank while it attacked Winding Circle eight years ago. My father and older brother worshipped Urda and Lakik like sensible people, praying to Lakik's good-luck side. Pirate chasers mistook them for fierce outlaws and killed them. I'm skeptical on the whole question of gods at the moment." If saying these things bothered Nory, it didn't show on her face. "You still haven't told me where you got the talking rock."

I took out the juggling stones I had stuck in my pockets. Luvo could handle this snapdragon himself.

He walked toward her, his short legs thumping on the dry grass. "I sensed the coming of Evumeimei and her friends when they approached my home in the Heaven Wind Mountains of southern Yanjing. I had never felt the spirit of any human like Evumeimei before, and so I left the inside of my mountain to meet her."

"Stone mages are a copper a pair," Nory told him scornfully. "At least, they are in the real world, not this pile of droppings in the Pebbled Sea."

"But none like Evumeimei. She is alive. The world is hers, or she will make it hers. She sparkles."

I spat on the ground. Luvo is a dear, but being a mountain for thousands of years made him a dreamer.

The fizzing in my veins was bothering me even more. I tossed my juggling stones in the air, but my hands shook too much. I dropped one and smacked a finger with the other. That hot, itchlike tingle made me want to scratch my own skin off. Did I bring it back with me from the stones in the dead canyon? Now that I was up here, I knew that I felt the power that Jayat and his master had used. Luvo was right. It was down below the canyon floor.

I picked up my juggling stones. "The earth strength found new paths. If I reach down far enough, I could maybe touch it." I spoke out loud, forgetting I wasn't by myself. "I could maybe find out what happened to the old lines, what made them shift." The rocks I held were puzzling me. One was pumice, littered with long holes. Another was obsidian. One was feldspar. What were volcano rocks doing up here? I brushed the area around me with my power. More volcano rocks. Mount Grace was covered with them.

Never mind those, I told myself. What of all that power far beneath the canyon? That line went someplace, but where? I sent my magic down to touch it. The line passed out of my reach under the mountain. I wondered if I could pick it up on the far side of the peak.

At our present rate of travel, we'd be another couple of hours riding around the top of Mount Grace, even if the grown-ups were done talking. My body's itch was getting worse, the fizz spreading into my bones. By the time we got down the other side of the mountain, I would be chewing my arms.

I can't explain what I did then. I just did it. I ran back to the clearing and threw the bridle on my horse's head. I got the bit on faster than I had ever managed before. I think I had taken the animal by surprise. Once I had done that, I was in too much of a hurry to bother with a saddle. I simply jumped on the horse's back, grabbed the reins, and kicked it in the sides.

I don't even remember hearing anyone, though I am very sure Rosethorn and Fusspot had things to say. I rode, galloping madly along the rocky, twisty mountain road. At least I knew enough of what I was doing to stop and rest the horse now and then. I would wipe it down with handfuls of grass. I even remembered to give it water from my bottle, since there might be acid in the streams.

I'm surprised I thought of it. Otherwise, my mind was on the cracks and seams of Mount Grace. I let my magic seep into them, searching for the feeling of power. I wanted that sure sense that greatness had touched these stones. I searched far ahead of me and to either side, letting my magic sink deep into the ground. The fizzing grew into the thunder of waterfalls through my veins and bones. I had to stop guiding the horse and trust it knew the road, because I couldn't see anymore. My eyes were filled with magic. I saw only stones.

She says she will drown you in the lake tonight, so say your prayers. Luvo's voice in my mind was a cool bath that softened the roar of the power in the mountain stone. I sighed in relief, it felt so good. She is very, very angry. She cannot defend your actions to the others, and that makes her angrier.

I couldn't answer him. Crystals—moonstone, quartz, garnet, the indigo-in-green gem called black moonstone—sang through the roar. Their power was raised to heart-piercing levels by what had passed through them. I had found the place where the magic was loudest.

Hands helped me off of my horse. My legs crumpled. I wasn't used to riding a grown horse bareback for so long.

"Evvy, here are some rocks." I think that was Jayat. My memory wasn't good for anything but the voice of my magic. "Luvo, she can't walk. Does she have fits like this often?"

"Never. However, I know the nature of what possesses her. If you wish to ride on, Jayatin, I will remain with her. We may be here for some time."

"You said yourself you couldn't run for help and get to it in time for anything. And you can't ride. Oswin can show them the old power trail as well as I could have. I don't like the way you've been acting, either. I mean, our acquaintance hasn't been long, but you've been quiet and tucked into yourself this last bit of the road like you're ailing. Do you even get sick?"

"I do not. Moreover, I cannot tell you what it is that makes me so uneasy. I only know that Evumeimei pursues it."

Jayat helped me onto a tumble of basalt—cool, black, rational basalt. In this shape it was six-sided columns, broken in spots, lying in a pile. He shooed away some lizards and arranged my body so I could sit, then dribbled water between my lips.

"My master goes on spirit quests sometimes, and her body gets like this." After a moment he closed my eyes—I dimly remember they were starting to hurt, they were so dry. He yanked off my headcloth. Soon after that I felt cool wetness on my forehead, cheeks, and eyelids. He had dampened the cloth and laid it over my face.

I pulled my magic in from all around me. Two hundred yards or so under the ground, about fifty yards downslope from the basalt, there was a new crack in the earth that bled strength. It would take me closer to all that wonderful magic. I gathered my power and fell into it.

Evumeimei, you do not know what you are doing. Luvo followed me. He didn't sound like the Luvo who had taken me down into the Pebbled Sea, or the Luvo who had fled with me through Gyongxe mountain canyons. He sounded… old. And frail. The earths molten heart is too close to the surface here. It may overwhelm us.

Don't be silly! It's melted stone! How can melted stone be anything but wonderful for the likes of us? Honestly, Luvo, if you re going to natter and scold, don't come with me!

You are young. You do not understand the great forges below the blanket of rock. None of us do. We are all born in fire, with no memory of that birth but pain.

That's what I mean about nattering and scolding, Luvo! In my magical shape I swooped through a vein of rock-water, the indigo crystal cooling me as I passed. I had reached the depth that was usually as far as I could go. This time, though, I could keep traveling through the earth. I could do the same as Jayat and his master, using the power I had followed here. I wrapped it around me like a shell of fire. It threw off colored flashes to rival the ones from the crystals I passed through: scarlet, violet, flaming orange, amethyst, sea green, midnight blue.

Luvo slowed behind me, then stopped. Do not go further. I will not stay with you. There is no good to be found down there.

My soul was on fire. Luvo, where's your spirit of adventure? The heart of the earth is here!

Finally the crack was starting to open up. Power and heat filled it, welcoming me. I dropped into it, grabbing all the magical protection I could wrap around myself I screamed with victory over the treasure of power I had found. No wonder I had been restless and half-mad, with an abundance like this close by! It was a miracle I didn't split in two. Those first minutes of bathing in that wealth exploded in me. If I hadn't protected myself on the way down, it might have eaten me like a chip of wood.

Floating there, the part of me that still had sense knew I was in danger. It found a mess of spells I had made once to soften, then harden, rock to trap an enemy. I used the spells now, with some changes. I grabbed power, not stone, and turned it into a tough shell of protection around what I already had.

Then I drifted, my magical eyes taking in my surroundings. I had come to the ceiling of an immense chamber under Starns Island. Below me was a huge pool filled with melted stone. Minerals, metals… they all swirled together in different colors of hot. The chamber squeezed them together in a stone vessel that melted even while it kept them underground. The moving colors enchanted me, calling to me. I thought I saw faces in them and hands. They beckoned me to join the fiery spirits that swam in that pool. I could feel myself melting around the edges. What would it be like down there? Maybe it would be like joining one huge lake of melted stone and magic, with no beginning, and no ending. I thought I would like that.