Grey Stone

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Grey Stone Page 32

by Jean Knight Pace


  As he said it, the great body of dogs crested the hill. Hearing the last part of the argument, they stopped, staring at the two powerful wolves alone on the foothill in front of them. Wolrijk bit at Zinder’s muzzle, dots of blood pricking up along Zinder’s white face.

  Zinder did not seem to notice the dogs or any pain. “I heard decrees as they came forth from the king—food withheld from the miners, tightened security to the human villages, the Greysmith to be hanged. Even before then I have smelled blood when humans screamed in darkened forests, caught whispers of rhymed prophecy with misty endings, and sensed uprisings at every corner of the land.”

  Slowly the dogs formed a wide circle around the two wolves. Wolrijk growled, but did not move.

  “Ever since I was a pup,” Zinder said, his face so close to Wolrijk’s that he could feel his breath as though it was his own, “I have heard each and every edict to kill the half-breeds created in this land. You have only encouraged them. Yes, I have watched you, my friend, watched you better than any others have thought to do.”

  At Markhi’s command the dogs stepped two paces forward, the circle tightening.

  “I have seen,” Zinder continued, “how you took out the prior general, Grender, by poisoning the minds of those ignorant, jealous wolves. And I heard you tell the king about the innocent pups of the she-hound Hannah.”

  The dogs stood shoulder to shoulder now, not even leaving enough air for a breeze to blow through the wall of muscle and fur. Markhi growled with a deep, steady hum.

  Zinder continued, “I have watched you abandon your own, attack all others, and plot against the king you formed a band to protect. I know the hut in which you keep the human boy’s parents drugged and barely alive. I know you were hoping he would come for them, so you could trap him, too.” The blood-soaked white wolf laughed in Wolrijk’s face. “And most importantly, I know why there is so little of the powerful Pallium remaining in the River Rylen and I know what you have used that metal for.” Wolrijk jumped forward, landing on the wolf’s chest, pinning him to the earth.

  Zinder gasped and then laughed again. “It is difficult, General Wolrijk, to wear a skin that is not your own.” Wolrijk growled so low the ground beneath them trembled and then he struck into Zinder’s belly with his paws. “You may remove my skin if you wish,” Zinder said. “I have no desire to see, hear, or smell more than I already have in this world. But others do desire it. They will want their families back, their lands renewed. I daresay the boy Pietre longs for his mother’s embrace, as do the pups you have taken. I often longed for my own mother. But she was one-eighth dog and went missing one day when I was quite young. Strange how that happens in this land of the great red sun.”

  Wolrijk stabbed Zinder’s neck with three nails of his forepaw and Zinder’s head fell back. The dogs let out a war cry—shrill and united and terrifying.

  Zinder turned to them, his head in a pool of blood on the ground. “You will find the boy’s parents in a shack on the south-western edge of the River Rylen. There you’ll find answers to many riddles. As for your own young—you’ll find many of them in a room adjacent to the north ballroom, though if you don’t join in the battle that is sure to come, you can count on never finding them at all.”

  Wolrijk struck Zinder one final time in the jugular, and the blood burst forth as quickly as the dogs lurched forward—a mass of teeth, hair, and revenge. The general barreled through the dogs, tossing them aside like dolls. Others moved in and Wolrijk stood on his hind legs—his front paws daggered, his eyes wild. He slashed and hit and crushed them. Kicking three dogs to the side and grabbing the scythe in his mouth, he jumped over the last line of dogs and ran back to the head city, faster than any creature the dogs had ever seen.

  Markhi ran to the nearly dead wolf and stood at his side. Pointing to a band of heavy-set dogs he said, “Go to the place by the river; find the boy’s parents. And you,” he said to one of the sweetest singers. “Try to find the room that contains our young; send word as soon as you do.” He turned from them back to the crowd. “Leaders of the packs, come. We cast now our final vote. Do we stand by and watch? Or do we run forth to avenge?”

  Chapter 53

  The sun widened as it began its descent. The moon was just now peeking up over the bottom of the horizon.

  Wittendon didn’t wait for Sarak to shake off his shock. He ran for the spot that jutted out of the mountain like a tiny nose on a too wide face. Hawks had roosted there and Wittendon suspected many couples had made their way over the rocks to sit on the overhang and watch the sun set and the moon rise. Here it felt like you were dangling off the edge of the earth, the valley darkening, soon to be quilted in stars.

  The sun dipped lower and the moon rose—two fraternal twins about to switch places. Wittendon put his hand in his pouch and touched the stone. A warm pulse beat through him, like a small electrical current charging his muscles and blood.

  It was his mother’s gem. He had known it as soon as the boy had dropped it in his lap. How it had gotten from her to him was luck or destiny or some weird combination of the two. Wittendon’s only guess was that the queen had found some unlikely place to hide it. Or rather, some ridiculously logical place—like a mine filled with solidified trickles of the metal the stone had once created.

  Wittendon walked to the place of empowerment—the Steenmacht. It looked like nothing more than a small cairn at the end of a rocky goat path, a small cairn with its top stone missing. Here the light of the sun and moon would meet. Here the stone would be given power so that a human could place it in the Sacred Tablet in order to change the suns. The Sacred Tablet was a national monument. But this spot was nothing. The tiny cairn sat on the left side of the overhang, looking like you could kick it over if you were in the mood. Yet it was this little tower of stone, this place where lizards had slept, where birds had pooped. It was this place that would start to change the world.

  Wittendon pulled the stone from the pouch, its smooth surface fire to his blood. The evening sun touched the back of his neck, level almost with his chest. He turned to check the position of the moon and there, standing less than twelve inches from him, stood Sarak.

  “So your dad’s a loon,” Sarak said, kicking off a boot and dropping a rock out before putting it back on.

  “You know you could have won just now,” Wittendon said. “I had no idea you were there.”

  “Which is why I was the trainer, and you the student. But you’re right,” Sarak said. “The son of Tomar would have straight up stabbed the son of Crespin in the back. Which just goes to show what I’ve been thinking.”

  “Which is?” Wittendon asked, watching the moon as it rose, and trying to sound casual.

  “That your old man has lost it. I’m not the son of Tomar anymore than you’re the son of the winter fairy.”

  “My father isn’t crazy,” Wittendon said abruptly. “He’s dangerous.”

  “Which can be the same thing.”

  “Which are much too much the same thing,” Wittendon concluded. “Sarak, you should go.”

  Sarak gave him a funny look. “I thought we were supposed to battle. I didn’t realize this was a brunch I hadn’t dressed for.”

  “It’s not a brunch,” Wittendon said looking away, but not quite in time. The bottom of the sun had reached the point on the horizon where the top of the moon touched. Wittendon felt it even before he saw it—the light that burst through him.

  Sarak took a step back and stared. “No,” he finally said, looking at Wittendon’s eyes—eyes that had begun, just barely, to glow. “No.”

  “Yes,” Wittendon said. “It is my duty and destiny.”

  “No,” Sarak said. “They were just stories, bedtime tales, crony talk.” He reached down and touched the hilt of his blade—and Wittendon could see that he was clicking together memories like pieces of a puzzle that suddenly made sense. The way the weapons room had buzzed with Wittendon in it, the hilt broken to petals, the day on the hill when every light
ning bolt that had weakened Sarak seemed to ignite Wittendon.

  “My old nanny,” Sarak said stammering. “She knew all the old songs, told tale after tale. The human slaves used to laugh at her and say she was crazy.” Sarak stopped and looked at Wittendon. The sun and moon hung almost equal on the horizon, the light from both moving toward Wittendon. “But she wasn’t,” Sarak concluded. “I am the son of Tomar. My father gave her to me to fill me with our history and our secrets without arousing any suspicion. And so I would know who I was when the right time came.” Sarak paused. “Which I guess is now.”

  “You should go,” Wittendon repeated. His power began to surge into the stone.

  “You will destroy our kind,” Sarak said. “That is what is written and sung of the lords of the Grey.”

  “I will only grant strength to other kinds.”

  “Who will crush us.”

  Wittendon held the stone over the Steenmacht.

  “Stop!” Sarak said in a voice Wittendon had never heard him use before. “The stone will grant power that will go too far—tip the balance of the world in the favor of men.”

  “It will only bring them to equal ground.”

  “Equal ground is a myth. Soon enough they will rise up in power. They can create and command tools. Friend, they can subdue and use the Grey. Please listen—the balance will tip in the favor of men.”

  “Well, perhaps they will do more with it than we have. Perhaps they will not hunt innocents in the night. Or pit brother against brother. Or send friends to destroy each other.”

  Sarak laughed. “Perhaps you have lived too long in a palace. Do you know what the humans are capable of? Some abandon their weak or malformed purposefully in the woods to be consumed. Others drink liquids that alter their minds to the point of confusion or sickness. They turn beggars away, leave widows to work and sweat out their days, mock and jeer at those they perceive as weaker than themselves.”

  “Only because we have pushed them to it—given them lands devoid of growth, torn families apart without warning, forced them to pay for these robes and blades while they sit in piles of mud and feces until their skin rots off.” Wittendon paused looking at his friend. “I am sorry, Sarak, but I trust men more than wolves.”

  “Supposing they are as good as you imagine—what if in the course of centuries, men turn to beasts and hunt our kind?”

  “If that should happen then all is lost.”

  “No,” Sarak said. “If that should happen, then we are lost. Only us, Wittendon. Control the magic, my prince. Protect us.”

  “I cannot control it,” Wittendon said. “It takes from me what it wishes to have. That is the fate of the Greylord. That is why I am here.”

  “No, you cannot control it because you have not the desire.”

  Wittendon turned back to the stone, his eyes glowing brighter. “Go,” he said.

  “No,” Sarak whispered. “I am Sarak, son of the surviving elder Tomar, and I will not let you bind us captive to another race.” Sarak lifted his blade, holding the top of the shaft and bringing down the blunt end of the hilt on Wittendon’s head.

  Normally such a hit would have brought Wittendon to the ground. Now with the power of the stone, it was like a raindrop on his scalp—Wittendon barely bothered to shake it off.

  The sun and moon sat almost level now. Sarak couldn’t use the Grey blade—it would only make Wittendon stronger. He sheathed his scythe and pulled out the small knife Wittendon had given him as a gift and said, “It is good to know you have finally found your magic.”

  Wittendon looked at him, his body shimmering.

  “It is unfortunate you haven’t had the last twenty years to play with it.” Sarak took the dagger, muttered an incantation, and stabbed the short, strong blade into the mountain. “Tricky stuff, magic.”

  From above rocks began to crumble, falling on Wittendon’s body and all around him.

  Wittendon turned to his friend and said, “Sarak, please just go.” But Sarak was concentrating and heating the rocks. Quickly, they began to steam, ignite, and melt.

  Wittendon cradled the stone. He had to keep it intact; it could not melt. He held his body stiff, yet calm. He gave the stone every thought of every winter day he could remember. To Sarak he sent other feelings of cold—each memory of his father’s rejection, the feeling in his stomach the day his mother fell ill, the cool of her skin the day she died. There were plenty of icy, sad days in between. He used each and every one against his friend. Then he raised his hand to the mountain and froze it. Sarak pushed back with the heat of the anger he had felt at never knowing his parents, at hearing his nanny mocked by the nobles and townspeople, at losing his aunt after his nanny died. Sarak melted through Wittendon’s icy barrier until each Verander was pushing with a wall of energy—one hot, one cold—against the other.

  Sarak’s skill was greater. He stepped forward slowly, inch by inch, moving the heat closer to Wittendon and the stone. He was close enough to feel the warmth in Wittendon’s veins and lungs—warmth Wittendon had to maintain to survive. Sarak smiled. With his brain and body he pushed into that heat and Wittendon looked at him, panicked.

  Wittendon felt his body burn—his own fingers softening the metal of the gem in his hand. Quickly, before it could melt, he placed the stone on the Steenmacht. As he did, the centers of the sun and moon fell into perfect alignment. Light streaked over Wittendon’s face and then—at once—he exploded.

  Sarak was thrown back against the side of the mountain—his shoulder crushed, the side of his face and arm torn open and bruised.

  When Sarak staggered to his feet, Wittendon stood unharmed in front of him—light pouring from his eyes, his skin, his mouth. “You cannot stop me now,” Wittendon said calmly.

  Sarak stood for a moment, shivering from the pain in his side. “You’re right,” he said. “I am lord of nothing, much less the Grey.” He stepped beside Wittendon, blinded from the light. “I am not as powerful as you, but I, too, can give this stone a touch of my essence, my desires. You would make this change permanent. I can take that permanence from you, from this stone. If and when our kind cower in fear, this stone will have the power to return the red sun and, with it, the strength of our race.” Sarak took a deep breath and reached toward the stone.

  At once, Wittendon felt a different sort of power—a small surge. His friend had placed a finger upon the stone.

  “No,” screamed Wittendon, pushing at Sarak. “It is too much; it will kill you.”

  “But it will not kill us all. If the time should come that man becomes beast, we are not lost; the power of the suns can again be reversed.” Sarak’s finger grew white.

  The sun sank down a breath as the moon rose. Sarak trembled and collapsed. The light pulled back into Wittendon, leaving just a glimmer in his eyes. “Sarak,” he whispered, bending down. “Sarak,” he repeated, shaking him. The body of his friend—the one who had taught him to catch a frog, trained him in his first use of a sword, walked with him to his mother’s grave, the man he had planned to ask for Sadora’s hand—lay cold and still.

  Wittendon knelt on the cliff as the first star broke open the fading sky. The Septugant waited for him, the stone hummed, his father expected him. But Wittendon, lord of the Grey and now Chancellor to the king—bent forward, held Sarak’s dead fingers, and cried.

  Chapter 54

  Wittendon slowly carried Sarak down the hill. Below him, he could hear the murmur of the crowd as it rose up to meet him. He had not sent up a flare, nor did he intend to until what he planned to do was done. Laying Sarak on the ground beside a thick, red-barked tree, Wittendon stood still, pulling into himself all of the ice he had thrown at Sarak in their last battle and recalling all the fire Sarak had thrown at him. These elements he let swirl and collide inside of him. Then, holding both arms out over the ground, he raised up four walls of earth surrounding his friend and quickly shot out the heat, followed by a burst of cold. He did this several times in a row until the ground around hi
s friend had melted and hardened, melted and hardened into walls stronger than any metal or rock their land had known. With one final burst of energy he sealed the top of the tomb and, pushing with all his magic, he forced the sanctuary beneath the dirt. Wittendon sat on the ground panting. After a few more moments, he raised his right arm and sent a simple black plume into the air. The crowd gasped. It had been many centuries since they had seen the flare signaling that a competitor had died.

  The king stood in his box and the three bugles called out a mournful wail followed by the howls of wolves and Veranderen. Wittendon turned his back on his father’s box and began to walk to the eastern slope. As Crespin watched his son he caught a glimpse of an animal that looked like a cat slipping over the hill in the distance. The cat was deeply black, though its coat shimmered purple when the rays of the sinking sun hit it and the cat’s eyes flashed as blue as the skies in Crespin’s dreams. Crespin shook off a shudder as Wolrijk slipped quietly into the king’s box, released the other guards, and stood patiently at the door.

  “He has conquered,” Crespin whispered. “My destiny is secure.” Raising his staff to declare Wittendon the winner, the king opened his mouth, but Wolrijk stopped him.

  “No, my lord,” the wolf said quietly. “It is not.”

  Crespin turned to look at his general. Wolrijk’s fur was bloodied, his face torn. “What happened to you?” the king asked.

  Wolrijk stood in front of the king, looking him directly in the eyes and holding the stare for several long seconds. “Do you not know me?” he asked. “I who played for years at your side. I who fashioned the staff you now hold. I who marked you for a great leader yet to come—a leader who would not compromise. I was right. When you destroyed the elders, you spared none—not even my brother. And when you took him, you murdered me too. In my grief, I fled to the hills by the gorge, discovered a place to hide. I ate fish, stole eggs, and foraged for berries. You rose to power. You defeated any who crossed you, made treaties, found love. I panned for gold in the lonely stream, hoping to sell it and hide myself in a distant land. But I found something better—traces of the same metal Tomar had studied all his life. An ore strong enough to defy an unconquerable king. I found that it could not only repel the Grey, but bind flesh and vein together. I found that it could transform a lonely crazed creature. I killed a wolf, and remade myself.” Wolrijk laughed and, holding Kaxon’s scythe with his paw in a way that seemed unnatural for a wolf, he stepped closer to the king. “All these months, when you looked into my eyes, I thought you would know me. It brings me some satisfaction that you could not see past the scars.” With a deft turn, Wolrijk struck the king in the shoulder with the three-inch blade.

 

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