by Zoe Chant
"Yeah, so how does the medallion fit into all of this?" Thea asked. "You were talking about medieval alchemists, but that's centuries removed from Norse voyages of exploration to the New World."
"I don't think the secret of transmuting flesh to stone was discovered only once," Mace said. "I think the Vikings discovered it too. Perhaps they were the first. Or maybe it goes back even farther than that."
"And you believe the medallion is in the New World somewhere?"
"I have to believe that. If we can't at least narrow down the search area somewhat, then we have no hope of finding it. And Gio has no hope at all."
He thought, but didn't add, that with her by his side, he felt more optimistic about being able to find it than he had for a long while.
He let her out in the passenger drop-off at the airport in Rome. Thea climbed down from the truck, patting her pockets and murmuring to herself. "Passport, check. Reading glasses, wallet, phone—oh, I'm going to need to charge it soon. I guess my charger is also back in Toronto."
"Unfortunately. Sorry." Mace jumped down from the driver's side; it seemed rude to just kick her out at the curb. "I could go back and—"
"No!" she said sharply. "No more excursions to pick up things for me. No one else is getting hurt bringing me things I don't need anyway. They have stores in Newfoundland, I presume. I'll get what I need there, and meantime I can pick up a book to read in an airport kiosk." She smiled at him. "I'm a seasoned traveler, Mace, remember? I've been running all over the world since I was a kid. It won't even be the first time I've showed up at an airport in a foreign country with no luggage and nothing but my passport."
"That sounds like a story."
"For another time," she said, and stood looking at him. She was reluctant to end the conversation, he thought—as much as he was.
"I'll be there when you land in St. John's," Mace said.
He leaned forward, and Thea's eyes went very wide as he brushed the corner of her full mouth with something that was not quite a kiss.
Mace stepped back. Thea brought up a hand and touched the corner of her lips with wondering fingertips.
"Yes, goodbye then," she said abruptly, and turned and walked briskly into the airport.
Too much too soon? Mace wondered. He knew he wasn't imagining the signals back from her. On the other hand, she was completely out of her depth, in a foreign country where he had landed her, about to get started on a magic artifact hunt.
One thing at a time.
He looked up and saw Gio's stone face poking out from under the tarp, watching him with what could only be described as a smug expression. He hadn't even realized it was possible for a lion to look like that, let alone one made of stone.
His chest unclenched a little. Everything else was going wrong, but it seemed that at least some of Gio had survived inside the animated lion.
"Get back under there," Mace said with mostly feigned annoyance. He pushed Gio down and pulled the tarp over him. "Let's park this truck and get home. I need to check on things there."
Urgency was starting to claw at him. He'd left his pregnant niece and her mate back in Stonegarden. He was reasonably confident that they were safe there—certainly safer than they would be anywhere else. But Stonegarden was his, and the nearby fishing town was under his protection as well.
He couldn't help it. It was an innate part of him. He needed to make sure that everyone he cared about, everything that belonged to him, was okay.
He got the truck settled in long-term airport parking, as far out in the most remote part of the lot as he could find. Leaning against the truck, he waited until there was no one nearby. Then he pulled the tarp off the back.
"Okay, let's go."
Gio climbed down carefully, one paw at a time, like the big cat he appeared to be. He looked around with blank stone eyes.
"Can you understand me?" Mace asked. "Come on, man, I know you're in there somewhere. Give me a sign here. Nod, shake your head, something."
There was no response. Maybe he had only been imagining things earlier, seeing what he wanted to see. Mace sighed and put his hand on Gio's carved stone mane.
"Let's go to Stonegarden and see if we can fix this."
The pavement swallowed them, a cool and welcome embrace closing around him and taking him home.
Thea
Flying into St. John's, Newfoundland, in late afternoon was a gorgeous experience. Thea's flight had beaten the sunset west, flying through what seemed like a long, endless golden afternoon over the Atlantic. She changed flights in New York, and in a much smaller jet, she flew up the coast, over inlets and bays, forests freckled with lakes, and outthrust spurs of exposed gray stone softly furred with evergreens. She spent a lot of time staring out the window, focused on not thinking about the small metal box she was currently trapped in.
It was interesting to see it all from the air after she had so recently been looking at maps of the coast. The small two-engine jet flew lower than the trans-Atlantic flight, and it felt as if she could see the map unrolling beneath her in living color. The farther north they went, the fewer towns and roads broke up the landscape, and the closer she felt to those long-ago seafarers who had ventured into the vast, cold northern oceans without benefit of modern instruments, GPS, or search-and-rescue helicopters.
When they finally circled low over the city, the buildings of St. John's were a patchwork quilt of bright colors, splashed around a sapphire-blue harbor. She had seen pictures of the small, colorful houses of Newfoundland, but had not expected them to be so bright and beautiful. The city was like a jeweled neckpiece from some ancient monarch's treasure trove, cradling the harbor in sun-splashed glory.
She wished Mace was there to share that gorgeous view with her. It surprised her how much she was looking forward to seeing him again.
It had only been a few hours, and yet she already was building up a small collection of things she wanted to talk to him about, little observations and comments to share.
She went by habit to the bag claim, then remembered she had no luggage to pick up, and headed outside to the curb. Although she had slept a little on the flight across the Atlantic, by now she had passed into a state of wide-awake, vibrating energy. The evening sun seemed almost too bright, adding a sharp edge to the world. The wind was stiff and cool, and it made her realize that she was still dressed for a warm summer night, not the North Atlantic chill of the islands. She had no jacket, and the breeze cut through her borrowed silk shirt.
"Thea!"
She spun around at the sound of Mace's voice. He was standing just a short ways away on the sidewalk. He had changed again, and was now wearing a sand-colored sweater with a dark gray jacket over the top of it. The wind ruffled his dark, silver-shot hair.
The strength of her emotional reaction startled her, and her own actions even more so. Before she really had time to think about it, she ran forward and hugged him.
There was a moment when he didn't move, and she would have let go, but then he brought up his arms and wrapped her in a tight, secure hug.
It was nothing unusual at an airport, two people hugging at the curb. No one paid them any attention.
She relaxed slowly against him. It just felt good, having someone familiar to meet her here.
"Are you warm enough?" he asked as they untangled. "I brought you a jacket. It belongs to my niece, and she's wider in the shoulders, but otherwise built similarly to you, so it should fit."
"Thank you," she said, surprised and pleased, and pulled it over the silk shirt. It was a thick, windproof jacket, the sort that she would have appreciated back home on a cool, windy Toronto fall day. Actually, it felt a little like early fall to her, although technically it was the middle of summer. It must never get that warm this close to the ocean.
Mace looked around quickly, reminding her that there was still the potential for cultists to show up. The only people visible on the sidewalk were other travelers getting into cars and cabs.
"Do
you need to pick up anything in town?" Mace asked. "I was thinking we'd head straight out, otherwise. There are toiletries at the house, and you ought to be able to borrow anything you need for now."
"No, that's fine."
She raised her eyebrows when she saw the vehicle he was heading for. It was a battered farm truck, with the paint so obscured with rust and mud that it was impossible to tell what color it was. There was a bale of hay in the back.
Mace laughed at the look on her face.
"So are we undercover, or do you drive this all the time?" she asked, climbing up into the passenger side. In order to sit down, she had to move some crumpled receipts and a large warm bag that smelled like grease and fried meat.
"It's borrowed." Mace swung up into the driver's seat. He nodded to the bag. "You can eat in the truck if you like, but we're only going as far as the harbor, so we could also eat on the boat."
"Boat?" she asked, surprised, as she felt around for her seat belt. "Aren't we driving there?"
"No, there's only one road in and out of town, and the drive takes hours." He pulled away from the curb, driving with casual confidence, one big hand resting on the steering wheel. "I thought it would be safest if we weren't trapped on the road. We'd be sitting ducks if someone attacked us. There's nowhere to go."
"And we're not sitting ducks on a boat?"
The corner of his mouth twitched up. "The ocean is a lot wider. And it's hard to hit a moving target."
St. John's was a small city, so the drive to the harbor didn't take long, through steep streets lined with colorful townhouses. They parked in a wide lot above the harbor, and by the time Thea got her seatbelt undone and picked up the bag of what she presumed were burgers, Mace had already jogged around to open the door for her.
"Are you taking your hay bale?" she asked, stepping down in the fresh ocean breeze. The wind off the harbor was even chillier than it had been at the airport. She snugged the jacket around herself.
"It's not mine. It came with the truck." He popped the locks down—it didn't even have power locks; it was old enough to have the upright knob kind—and they walked down to the harbor.
Mace angled toward a small fishing boat bobbing at one of the docks. It had a blue-painted hull and a gleaming white cabin, and there was a bristling array of masts above it with dangling lines and nets. The boat's name was painted on the hull, and Thea laughed in delight when she saw that it was called The Codfather.
"Hello the boat!" Mace called.
There was movement on the back, and a large man in a fisherman's jacket with a blond crew cut straightened up, a coil of line in his gloved hands. "I see Betsy got you back in one piece," he called.
"Betsy?" Thea murmured.
"The truck," Mace said. He tossed the keys in a graceful arc; the fisherman caught them easily out of the air. "Thanks for the loan, Tor. This is Thea."
"Hi there!" The fisherman jumped down to the dock. He was startlingly big; Thea had recognized that he was tall, but she now realized he was at least as tall as Mace, muscular shoulders straining against his canvas work coat. The hand that he offered her to shake was so large that her hand vanished entirely into it. "I'm Tor Nilsson, out here giving this guy a ride home. Need a hand up?"
"I've got it, but thanks," she said, and reached up to grab the boat's railing, then swung herself up to the deck.
"I thought you were bringing me a lubber, Mace, but she looks right at home up there," Tor said, laughing. He had an easy smile and eyes that crinkled in laugh lines, and Thea liked him immediately. He untied a thick rope that was wrapped around one of the dock's pilings and threw the heavy coil onto the deck. "Come on up and let's get moving. I'd like to get back before it's completely dark."
"I thought you claimed you could navigate in and out of the harbor blindfolded," Mace remarked. He went to the rear of the boat and began untying another rope.
"I'd rather not test that, if it's all the same to you."
They both had the light, slightly Irish-sounding Newfoundland accent, which intensified when they were talking to each other. She had hardly noticed Mace's accent at all on the mainland or in Italy, but here, talking to other people from the island, it came out more strongly.
"Can I do anything to help?" Thea asked. The boat rocked slightly under her. She spread out her legs, trying to remember how to get her balance on the gentle bobbing of the slow waves rolling in and out of the harbor. It had been a while since she'd been on a boat.
"There's not much to do." Tor stepped up to the deck and went over to the pilot's cabin. "We don't exactly have a lot of passenger comforts here, but pick a nice stretch of deck, and come inside if you get cold. Have you been on the ocean before?"
"A few times." She zipped up the jacket and tucked her hands into the pockets. "Mostly on digs around Norway and Sweden." She clammed up then, aware that she was skirting close to things she didn't want to talk about. But the boat itself brought back no bad memories. Actually, this boat made her think nostalgically of the colorful Scandinavian fishing fleets clustered in small harbors along the fjord-riddled coastline.
"The ancestral homeland for me," Tor said cheerfully. "Dad's from Norway, though us kids grew up here. Where are you from? I think Mace said Toronto?"
"Toronto, that's right."
"Well, I won't hold against you." He grinned and started whistling as he went into the pilot's cabin.
The boat's engine started up with a low cough and then a thrumming rumble that she felt through the soles of her feet. Its movement became less drifting and more purposeful, turning around slowly. Through the glassed-in windows of the small cabin, she could see Tor looking out, guiding them on a course for the mouth of the harbor.
Thea went to the forward railing to get a better look. The St. John's harbor was enclosed by hills, but she could see open sea through the gap between them, and they were motoring toward it.
Mace joined her at the railing. "I hope you don't get seasick. I forgot to ask."
Thea shook her head. "I don't know how I'd hold up through an actual storm, but just for running around the island, I'll be fine."
They motored slowly out of the harbor, past colorful houses dotting the green hills, and through the rugged gap between two cliffs that led out to the sea. The sun wasn't down yet, but the sky was turning pink with sunset colors. Thea squinted up at the hills.
"There's a fort up there on the headland," Mace said, pointing. "You can just see it from down here. With such a narrow entrance to the harbor, there have been fortifications around it since the seventeenth century."
"Signal Hill," Thea said, dredging up the details from long-ago, half-forgotten Canadian history seminars. "Site of a major battle between the British and French during the Seven Years' War."
Mace looked impressed. "That's right. Have you ever been there? There's a visitor center on the site, and old fortifications, including a rather imposing stone tower."
"I've never been to the island at all." She leaned on the railing, squinting at the rugged hill face as it passed slowly by. It was rough and wild, most of it too steep to build on. The few houses seemed to be clinging to a nearly vertical surface. There were only a few trees; it was mostly bushes and rocks.
Then the hill passed by, and the ocean spread out around them.
Mace opened the paper bag. "Here, I'm going to take half of this to Tor. I promised to buy him dinner. You can have your pick while I'm gone."
He came back in a few minutes and they ate burgers and fries out of greasy wrappers, standing at the railing. After a while, Thea's legs got tired and she sat down, with her shoulder against the rail. Mace settled down beside her.
The boat stayed near enough to keep in sight of the coast, but not close enough to get caught up in the ruffled surf breaking against the island. To their right, the ocean spread out impossibly huge and wide. The sun was setting behind the island, but as they circled the ins and outs of the undulating coast, it was sometimes beside them and sometimes ahead
. As they traveled, the sun lowered until it touched the ocean, in a gleaming path of water so bright that Thea thought the waves ought to chime like bells where they rolled against the sides of Tor's boat.
"Are we really safe out here, do you think?" she asked quietly. The wind snatched their voices away. Tor, back at the cabin, couldn't possibly hear them.
"We're probably safer on the water than anywhere else. The cultists can open portals, but it's hard to hit a moving target, and they can't make stoneskins where there's no stone."
"Stoneskins?"
"Sorry. They're moving statues, like what I did with the stone lion before I bound Gio to it. They're mindless, but effective. The cultists can raise them, but not here on the open ocean."
It seemed so strange to talk so casually of impossible things.
"Where's Gio?" she asked. "Did he stay in Italy?"
Mace shook his head. "He's at Stonegarden, the family estate, which you'll see shortly. I thought it would be best to keep him close until we can figure out a solution to his problem."
"Is he, er ..." She didn't quite know what question she wanted to ask. Fine was clearly not the case.
"He seems cheerful enough," Mace said. "I'm honestly not sure how much he understands of what's happened to him."
The conversation trailed off. Thea was very tired, and even the chill wind and sea spray flowing over the boat's bow was barely enough to keep her awake.
Mace touched her shoulder. "Look," he said quietly, and pointed.
The sun was down behind the island now, but it still touched the highest parts of the island with fading pinkish gold. There was a lighthouse visible, one of several that they had passed. It looked exactly like a picture from a calendar, white with red trim, poking up from a hilltop like the beacon that it was. The last rays of the fading sun seemed to set it on fire.
"Home," Mace said softly.
The boat was coming around now, angling in a long wide turn that brought them around until the bow was pointed directly at the island. She could now see that the lighthouse was on a long, high ridge of stone that thrust out into the sea. The town, which she was now beginning to glimpse, was behind it, ranged along a sheltered bay similar to the St. John's harbor but much smaller.