Grey Stone

by Jean Knight Pace

  Without blinking she replied, “It is a stone of perfect roundness. Dull when left to itself, it begins to glimmer and glisten only when handled—polishing to a shine that could rival even the glow of the fullest moon. Originally passed through those known to the werepeople as Greylords, it was lost soon after all known Greylords were thought to have been eliminated. Unlike the Grey, the Sourcestone does not discriminate. It will devour the hand of a human or melt the bones of a shifter. The only ones who can touch it are the Lords of the Grey and those humans with pure motive, kind heart, and deepest love.”

  Pietre stood. He was glad he hadn’t eaten much quiche as now his stomach reeled. “No,” he said. “It is the last gift from my father and you ask me to give it to you.”

  “Oh no,” she replied. “I ask you to do something much harder. I ask you to give it to the one who took your father in the first place.”

  Pietre plunked back down into his chair as though he’d been punched.

  Wittendon walked slowly into the room. “Your walls are thin, prophetess.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  Pietre held his weapon tight in his hand and pushed past Wittendon, toward the door, but before he could leave, Humphrey pounded through, nearly knocking him down and not even noticing. “You must grant her safe haven, my lady, you must.”

  Zinnegael stirred her tea, raising an eyebrow. “Who, good dog?” she said, though something in the lines of her forehead seemed to know the answer.

  “She,” he barked desperately. “She to whom I have been joined. I told no one,” he said. “I considered it a matter between her and me alone. But now—” He stopped to take a breath. “Now she bears our young and she must”—he looked pointedly at Pietre and then at Zinnegael—“she must be granted safe haven.”

  Zinnegael continued to stir. Pietre watched her. When he had first met the witch, all he could see were her disconcerting, mismatched eyes. Now he barely noticed them and saw instead a face that was simply Zinnegael. As she sat stirring her tea, Pietre noticed that stirring was something she always did when strange or troubling news came to light. Stirring was something she did, Pietre realized, when she was nervous.

  “Have you told her of the blood lines from which you descend?” Zinnegael asked.

  Pietre thought it an odd question considering the fact that Humphrey hadn’t even told Zinnegael.

  The dog-wolf looked at her for one long minute. “Yes,” he said. “But only just now.”

  “And how has she taken the news?”

  Humphrey paused again, seeming to think about this for the first time. “With increased concern for the pups. And for me.”

  This seemed to worry Humphrey as he said it. But Zinnegael seemed pleased by the answer. “In that case, she is welcome here. None will or can harm her here. Not yet anyway.”

  Pietre let Alekas have his bed that night. She declined it over and over until Pietre said he would be sleeping on the floor no matter what, so she could waste the soft mattress or not. He lay on the floor near the bed, staring at the stars through the thin ceiling, an opaque blanket of what seemed to be flower petals that served as Zinnegael’s roof. He had known these constellations all his life. Would it hurt so much to know them a few years longer if he did not surrender the stone?

  He fell asleep counting the stars and woke with a burning sensation in his hand. In his sleep he had grasped his weapon and begun to swing it. It soared in the air above his head, but with each whir of the sling, his hand hurt more. He stood quickly, trying to release it from his grip, only to find that he couldn’t. It burned through his hand and up his arm. Soon the bedposts had burst into flame and the room was quickly consumed. Alekas fled, crying from pain of labor. The fire spread to the gardens around the hut. It ate its way through the trees, murdering his countrymen—their shouts rising up like curses to his ears. It tore through the land, finding his father and mother, leaving ashen silhouettes in their wake.

  Humphrey jumped out at once, confronting the fire, looming above it, but even he was not strong enough. In moments Humphrey was gone, as was Alekas. Her tiny pups cried for her and then screamed as the flames engulfed their innocent, blind bodies. Still, Pietre could not release the stone. He looked down at himself and saw a man patched together like the general Wolrijk—with ugly scars that seemed to be all that held him in place.

  Pietre woke sweating. His hands were hot and swollen even though the weapon lay far from him, glowing in its makeshift sheath.

  The next morning Pietre went to Wittendon and dropped the stone in his lap. It didn’t burst into flame or melt the shifter’s bones as Pietre had hoped it would. Wittendon looked up, about to speak, but the boy had turned away, walking toward the woods.

  Chapter 48

  Wolrijk waited near the edge of the wood. Waiting was something he’d mastered long ago. He expected the king would one day be surprised at how well he had learned that forced patience. It had allowed him to trick the foolish Kaxon into opening a book he never should have seen and then to commission a blade Wolrijk hoped to make useful to himself. It had allowed him to see the Veranderen prince set the Greysmith free. It had given him time and the element of surprise in capturing the smith once he returned home.

  The young boy, of course, was the reason the Night Hunter had captured both father and mother. Revenge was not something Wolrijk was willing to shortchange. But after being defeated twice by the boy’s simple weapon, revenge had grown into something more. Wolrijk suspected that after he killed the boy, the stone would be surprisingly useful—perhaps even more than Kaxon’s extra-long blade. And tomorrow—the final day of the Mal—Wolrijk needed strength. The wolf had followed the child’s scent from the village to the verdant wood of the witch, and skirted now near the cliffs at its eastern edge. Wolrijk gritted his teeth. The boy had caused him no little grief, but now the child would be easy. For he often wandered.

  Wolrijk walked to the herb he had discovered years ago. It was a humble little plant that could mask a wolf’s scent perfectly. Now it gave Wolrijk an advantage in this rebel-filled corner of the land. None had detected him and he was sure the boy wouldn’t either. Wolrijk rolled once more in the herb before finding cover in the bushes to wait. Late in the afternoon Wolrijk saw the boy walking alone.

  Pietre passed Wolrijk’s hiding point and stopped to sniff at the air as though a familiar scent had caught him. He turned, looked around, then stooped down to examine the broad-leafed herb that grew near the edge of a steep, rocky drop above the River Rylen. The boy moved the leaves to the side, noticing that the rotherem had been crushed, and looked up in alarm.

  The wolf leapt from the shadows, his energy and teeth directed at the sling at the child’s side. “Empty,” the wolf hissed, circling Pietre. “Where is it hiding, man-pup?”

  “I lost it,” Pietre said.

  “Filthy liar,” Wolrijk growled; yet he could not feel the power of the deadly metal anywhere near the child. “No matter,” Wolrijk said. “That will make my original goal that much easier.” He sprang at Pietre, expecting an instant victory, but the boy leaped to the side more quickly than Wolrijk had thought possible for a human boy.

  “You stand, unarmed, before a cliff,” the Night Hunter said as he ran at Pietre again.

  Pietre stepped backward, picking up several rocks, which he threw at the enormous wolf. The animal shook them off. “Do you expect to wound me with a handful of stones—I who was torn apart from top to bottom long before your time?”

  Pietre picked up another handful and threw them. “Wouldn’t be the first time a pebble disabled you.”

  The wolf growled, wishing to tear him to pieces instead of simply pushing him over a cliff, but he could hear footsteps in the distance and was not inclined to get caught alone by a pack of dogs or even a band of rebel humans. He ran a third time at the boy, plowing into him. Pietre held to the wolf’s ears. Wolrijk bit at his face, tearing the lobe of Pietre’s ear before pushing him backwards and over the
precipice.

  Pietre screamed, tumbling down the steep face of rock. He grabbed at stones and twigs, tasted the dirt and minerals of the dust rising all around him, saw the colors of the earth for the millions of variations they were instead of the simple reds, browns, and greens he usually noticed. Below him he heard a sound like the whizz of an arrow. Seconds later his hand caught on the hilt of a dagger whose tip was embedded miraculously into the side of the cliff. Pietre clung to it, his body cut and bleeding.

  He wondered how long it, or he, could hold. He wasn’t strong enough to pull himself up and, even if he had been, the rocks above him were too loose for foot or hand holds. His fingers ached and the muscles in his hand and forearm began to tremble. Beneath him he could hear the waters of the river hitting the rocky cliffside—like the beating of ancient funeral drums.

  His bicep and shoulder burned and he could feel his grip loosen. For the first time, he was glad he had given the stone to the prince. He was glad his parents were already gone and would not grieve him. He was glad Humphrey had Alekas and a soon-to-be brood of pups.

  Pietre closed his eyes as his trembling fingers slipped when suddenly his wrist and shoulder seared in pain. Pietre hung in the air, held in place by the large prince in wolken form. The prince stood, balanced like a mountain goat, on an impossibly small outcropping of rock.

  “My arm…” Pietre moaned.

  In another minute, Pietre’s body hit the ground above the precipice and he groaned. His arm felt like it hung from the wrong place, his wrist throbbed, and his ear bled. Wittendon climbed the cliff with impossible lightness.

  He took the boy by the arm and held Pietre’s body firmly while, with a sudden movement he jerked and re-placed the boy’s shoulder. Pietre howled at the pain, then sat on the ground, wanting to throw up.

  “Here,” Wittendon said, tossing the blade beside him and wrapping bandages around a few of Pietre’s cuts. “Zinnegael can suture your ear. It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “Suture?” Pietre asked.

  “Put a few stitches in.”

  “With a needle?”

  “Unless you’d rather she used a sword.”

  Pietre would rather she used some painless type of magic, but he didn’t say so in front of the prince.

  “Where did you find this dagger?” Wittendon asked, wiping his hands on a clean rag he’d taken from his cloak.

  “I didn’t,” Pietre said. “It hung from the mountainside and I grabbed it.”

  “You’re delirious.”

  “I am not. It—” Pietre stopped, trying to remember. “It was just there.”

  Wittendon sat beside him and picked it up, weighting it as though it was familiar. “This?” he asked. “This dagger was hanging from the mountainside?”

  “Yes,” Pietre said, finally sitting up to look. In a moment he had grabbed it from the prince. “But how?”

  “You know it then?”

  “It was my father’s—found in my home, left at Zinnegael’s hut. So how…”

  The question hung, just as the blade had—stuck.

  “Come,” Wittendon said.

  They walked together back to the camp near Zinnegael’s hut. Pietre polished the dagger with his dirty shirt, and looked carefully for the very first time to the prince’s face. The Verander had not shifted back to his flesh form; his face was covered in light gray hair and two fangs rested against his lower teeth. But Pietre noticed that his eyes never really shifted—always a bright steel color—sharp and careful, cool and steady, surprisingly kind.

  “Thank you,” Pietre said.

  Wittendon shrugged. “I’m pretty good with the injured. And the dead. Good thing you didn’t fall into that category.” Wittendon sniggered.

  Pietre’s mouth crinkled up. “That is possibly the worst pun I have ever heard.”

  “All in a day’s work for a traitor to the king.”

  “Sounds like a long day,” Pietre said, and then after a pause he asked. “How did you know I was there?”

  “Young boys are not the only creatures who like to wander into the woods without telling anyone. And I have very good ears.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “I heard a scuffle and a voice I have always disliked.”

  “Mine?” Pietre asked.

  “Of course not,” the prince replied.

  At a narrow point of the river, the white wolf Zinder swam across, then followed a jagged, well-concealed deer path up the side of the cliff.

  He rested at the top by the broad-leafed plant before taking a leisurely roll in the rotherem’s oily leaves.

  He could also hear extremely well. He could throw decently too. Years ago his father had taught him to hold an object in his mouth and toss with the strength of his neck. And years ago, his mother had shown him that even the mighty Grey could not harm him if he first took a sip of the sandy waters of that old river. As for taking things that weren’t his—that he had learned after his parents had disappeared. He did it best of all.

  He hadn’t taken anything for many years, but he’d been gripped by the desire to see the surviving sentinel and when he’d crept into the camp, the blade had been left on a table by a pot of tea. The other wolves would call it madness, but Zinder had felt as though the God of the Sun called to him through that blade, and he’d taken it. Of course, maybe it hadn’t been a god at all. Maybe it was simply that he’d known Wolrijk was lurking around these woods as well. Maybe it was not destiny, but a desire calling to him—an increasing urge to undo the things he’d begun to suspect Wolrijk planned to do.

  That evening after supper, Sadora met the troops with Pietre by her side. Zinnegael was right. Pietre was starting to like her. She had a mind that could organize things—even masses of grumpy, hungry humans—into orderly, competent, intimidating groups that became easily loyal to her.

  Tonight as she assembled the troops, twelve spears stood behind her. They stood, Pietre noticed, on their own and seemed to follow Sadora with the same devotion as everyone else.

  Quickly, she separated the groups into eleven equal sections, appointing a leader to each. The men she chose as captains were surprisingly different—several were so old Pietre wasn’t sure they’d even make it to the gates. The oldest remaining elder from Pietre’s village was among them. Some were short, others balding and thin. Only one looked the part of a burly warrior with arms thick as tree branches. But this one had a twitchy eye and stuttered so badly that Pietre wondered how Sadora had ever learned his name.

  Sadora stood at the top of a small scaffold and with one gesture raised the spears aloft. “As many of you know, one of our tunnels has been compromised, the noble keeper Winterby dead. Because of this, we have deemed it unsafe to move any of our troops through this or any other passages into the head city. There is but one ancient mine entrance to the hill now—a tunnel so narrow that only the most agile could fit.” She looked for a moment to a group of cats lying on the lawn. “I trust that it will come to good use.”

  Ellza seemed to nod without moving her head or blinking her eyes.

  “However,” Sadora continued. “The rest of us will have to enter the city in a more usual way. The head city has exactly twelve entrances—remnants from a time when twelve elders ruled this land. The entrances are guarded by twelve Veranderen. On the appointed day and at my signal, each captain will remove the guard from his post with one of these blades.” With a gentle crook of her finger she sent eleven blades through the air like arrows to each captain. Pietre was surprised the old ones didn’t keel over from heart afflictions, and it did seem that the stuttering one trembled a bit.

  “Do not kill the guards if you can help it,” Sadora said. “If the cause of the Septugant is to succeed in the long run, we must learn to offer kindness and compassion in return for the cruelty that has often been shown to you.”

  A few of the men grumbled at that part as Sadora continued, “After the guards have been removed, the gates will open and the troops pou
r through. We will converge at this area.” She pointed to a magical diagram in the air. “Understood?”

  The crowds below her roared until she banged her own spear on the scaffolding for silence.

  “Sleep men, for tomorrow we march.”

  Chapter 49

  Pietre woke as the night tiptoed into morning. Today was the final day of the Motteral Mal. By the time the sun set that evening, they would have converged on the Hill of Motteral, hoping to place a stone and change the world. He and Humphrey would be leading the troops up the hill. If Wittendon could just win, it would be easy, well easier. But Zinnegael was bustling about with teacups and leaves—and when she looked down into the pattern the leaves had formed in her cup, she sighed.

  Pietre pursed his lips.

  “Bad news?” he asked.

  “Depends on your definition,” she said. “Just be prepared for a lot of things.”

  “Could you maybe be a little more specific?”

  “Well,” she said, looking into her tea, “there are madmen. Oh, yes, definitely that. There will be a veritable deluge of crazy werewolves wandering around.”

  “Great,” Pietre muttered.

  “And traitors, of course. You don’t need prophetic tea for that—you can always expect them.”

  “Okay,” Pietre said, feeling like he really wanted to go back to bed.

  “Oh, and Pietre,” she concluded. “Just be sure to get the stone from Wittendon.”

  “Why?”

  “So you can place it, of course.”

  “Why would I place it?” Pietre asked. “What about Wittendon?”

  “Wittendon is to empower it. A human must place it.”

  “Wittendon will be stronger and faster and better positioned for placing it.”

  “If Wittendon places it, then nothing will change.” Zinnegael paused. “Well, perhaps Wittendon himself would change, but not for the better. A werewolf must empower it and a human must place it. You must learn to work together.”