The Burning Stone

by Kate Elliott

  “Peace!” he cried, but they gave him no peace. Dirt stung his eyes and coated his tongue and lips. They were in a frenzy, barking so frenetically that he could no longer hear the nuns’ singing over their deafening noise. A tiny body, white against the earth, darted, spun, and leaped.

  Bliss’ jaws snapped shut over it.

  The other four hounds stopped barking instantaneously and formed a circle around Bliss, who swallowed. Then he slewed his great black head up to look at Alain. He pressed a dry nose into Alain’s hand, snuffled there for one moment, and as suddenly turned away and broke into a ground-eating lope toward the woodland that lay beyond the fields.

  Alain chased him, but the other hounds got in his way, mobbing him. Their weight threw him to the ground, and there he lay with Sorrow draped over on his chest, and Fear and Rage sitting on his legs. Steadfast trotted after Bliss but stopped at the wood’s edge, like a watchman. The geese had clustered at the distant end of the field and, settling now, they waggled off to glean between rows of barley and spelt.

  “What is going on, Alain?” Lavastine arrived, sword in hand Four men-at-arms bearing torches and armed with spears at tended him.

  But when Alain tried to describe what he had seen, none of it made sense.

  “Come,” said Lavastine to the men-at-arms. “I’ve had enough of curses and superstition. Get a dozen more of your fellows and we’ll search for the hound.”

  “But, Father—”

  “Peace!” snapped Lavastine. Alain knew better than to protest.

  He walked with Lavastine into the forest, never leaving his side. The good sisters of St. Genovefa Convent had long since cleared out most of the underbrush and dead wood for kindling and charcoal. The open woodland gave sparse cover. There was enough of a moon to guide their feet, and the torches gave Alain heart, as if he could thrust the flame into any curse that tried to fly at him out of the darkness.

  But the five hounds padded quietly along, content to let them search, which they did for half the night at least. They found no sign of Bliss.

  When he stumbled at last into the chamber set aside for himself, Tallia, and their servants, he had to pick his way carefully over their sleeping attendants. It was black in the chamber, and he was too tired to undress, so he simply lay down in his clothes With a hand, he searched the bed, careful not to wake her. But like Bliss, she was gone.

  Faintly, he heard voices singing Vigils, the night office. She had hidden herself away beyond the cloister walls. If only he could heave himself up off this bed and go in search of her who was everything and the only thing he had ever wanted.

  He slept.

  He weaves his standard himself. From two spear hafts bound into a cross-shaft he strings up the bones of his dead brothers—those that can be recovered—and when the wind blows, they make a pleasant sound: the music of victory. Certain items—five hand bells, an ivory-hafted knife made of bronze, needles, a gold cup, iron fishhooks, and a thin rod of iron—he laces in among the bones to give variety to their song. He binds the five braids of his dead rivals at the top, ties strips of silk and linen torn from the bodies of Bloodheart’s enemies below them to make streamers, and weights each dangling line of bone and metal with a pierced round of baked clay.

  The entire tribe has assembled to watch this ceremony on the dancing ground of the SwiftDaughters. He stands facing the long slope that leads down to the beach where the ships are drawn up. Behind him stand the dwellings of his brothers and uncles, marching up the long valley toward the fjall. On his left lie the storehouses held in common by the tribe, and on his right the longhall that belongs to OldMother, built entirely of stone and thatched with sod. The doorway gapes open, but he sees nothing stirring within its depths. SwiftDaughters stand in a semicircle in front of OldMother’s hall. They have finished the long dance whose measures tell the story of Rikin’s tribe all the way back to the dawning of the world.

  That song has been sung, and his victory acknowledged: Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter will become chieftain of Rikin tribe.

  He binds off the last strand of his standard and jams its sharpened base into the dirt so that it stands upright. From the ground he picks up a stone scraper and with it scrapes the residue of paint off his chest—the paint that marked his kinship to Bloodheart, who is now dead. With his fingers, dabbing in tiny pots of ocher and woad, he paints a new pattern on this chest, his pattern: a circle with two lines crossed inside so that they touch four points on the circle, one for each of the winds; north, west, east, and south.

  “On these winds my ships will sail,” he cries. They all listen. They are his tribe now, his to mold and use as a weapon. “On four winds to the far shores of the world, all the regions of the earth that are known to the WiseMothers.”

  A murmur arises among the soldiers, who kneel with that particular combination of patience and tension that mark them as wary of his reign. He has yet to prove himself before them. But they also do not truly understand—not yet—what he intends.

  The chieftain’s chair—which he alone had the foresight to salvage from the disaster at Gent—is brought forward, and he seats himself in it. “Come forward, each one, and bare your throat before me.”

  He extends his claws, and they come forward one by one. First the soldiers who followed him even through his disgrace stride up, confident, proud, ready to serve his will. They believe in his strength. After them the others come forward, some with reluctance, some with curiosity. A few he smells fear on, and those he kills at once. But Rikin’s tribe is a strong one, and few among his uncles, cousins, and brothers have survived Bloodheart’s campaigns by showing weakness.

  It takes most of the day for each soldier to submit, but he minds it not; this is not a ceremony which should be hurried.

  The sun sinks in preparation for a longer night than last night, each night waxing, each day waning, toward the midpoint that Alain Henrisson calls the autumn equinox and the Wise-Mothers call The-Dragon-Has-Turned-Her-Back-On-The-Sun. From the shore he hears the lap of waters stirred by creatures out in the depths. Have the merfolk come to witness? Have they come to pledge themselves to his rule?

  He cannot yet leave his chair. There is other business to transact.

  “Where is the priest?” he asks, and the priest shuffles forward, mumbling and chanting and humming in his reedy flute voice. “Do you have what I need, priest?”

  “Do you hold safe what I most hold dear?” retorts the priest.

  He smiles. “It lies safe in a place you will never find, Uncle. Do you have that which I demand in return for its safekeeping?”

  “Must I not now walk many journeys?” the priest complains. “Must I not now trek on many fell paths? Do you think it will bind itself easily into my power and thus yours?”

  “I will be patient a while longer,” he answers.

  Movement eddies at the back as the SwiftDaughters ready themselves to come forward, to escort him to the chair of OldMother. But he is not done yet. He gestures, and out of the shadows walk his slaves, in tidy lines, obedient to his wishes. They are not beasts, like the other slaves, but even so the tribesmen murmur in surprise and with distrust.

  “What means this?” some of the RockChildren cry. And others: “Will we follow after the one who wears the circle of the Soft Ones and who lets these slaves walk in his train like honored warriors?”

  “Challenge me if you wish,” says Fifth Son, softly to show threat but loudly enough to carry. “But I am far ahead of you on the path, Brothers. I have defeated my rivals and walked without harm on the nesting ground of the WiseMothers. Can any of you say the same? Come forward and challenge me if you dare.” He does not raise his voice or bellow, as Bloodheart would have. He does not rise, to make of his stature a challenge. He does not need to.

  They fear him because he is different.

  And they are not fools. They will wait, and measure him and run in his tracks as long as he walks the path of victory. Only a weak leader needs to look back over
his shoulder; a strong leader need only scan the ground ahead, because he knows that his troops are faithful and that they run eagerly at his heels.

  “Come forward, those who are born of human kin and who serve me.”

  They come hesitantly through the glistening obsidian spears and the gleam of claw, but they come, although he can smell fear on all of them except one. They dare not refuse him, and some have even become bold enough to hold their heads high.

  The chieftain and OldMother among them kneel before him, as he has taught them to do; he has seen this form of obeisance in Alain Henrisson’s dreams.

  The deacon Ursuline, like any OldMother, does not fear him—she alone of her tribe. She lifts her eyes to meet his gaze. “I have done as you asked, and you have no cause to be displeased by my service to you. What of our bargain?”

  Said boldly, among those who could cut her throat in an instant. He bares his teeth to remind her of his power, but she has the serenity that walks with those who themselves walk hand in hand with the gods, even if it is only her circle god, whose footsteps he has never seen mark the earth.

  “You have served me well. In this way I reward you: All the slaves of Rikin fjord may walk free of the pens and build longhalls, as is the custom of your kind. This they may do, as long as they submit to the will of their masters in all other ways. As long as they serve our purpose, they may live, and as long as there is peace among those who walk free of the pens, they may live. If there is not peace, then justice will be swift.” He curls his fists toward his chest so that his unsheathed claws shine bright before him, slender blades of killing sharpness grown into his body. “Do you doubt me?”

  “I do not doubt you,” she answers gravely. “What of the other matter we discussed?”

  The other matter. It takes him a moment to recall it, but it was the one she most desired. She would have left her kinfolk in the pens in exchange for this one thing. That he gave her both in exchange for her service is a mark of the generosity he has learned through his dream: That the chieftains and OldMothers of the human kind use gifts to keep their tribes together.

  “With your own hands and such tools as we allow you, in your own time as long as it does not interfere with the tasks set for you by your masters, you may build a church for your circle-god and worship there.”

  She bows her head. In this gesture he sees both submission and respect.

  But he is not altogether sure whether her submission is for him, her master, or for the circle-god whom she considers God of all Creation.

  Yet, truly, he cares not which it is as long as she serves him on this earth. Where her feet will take her after death is no concern of his.

  At last the SwiftDaughters come forward. Their hair shines in the sharp afternoon light, with gold like that of the sun, with a silver-white as pale as the moon, with the copper and tin and iron veins of the earth. No son of the tribe may enter OldMother’s hall without her invitation, and her invitation comes only to those sons who will lead, breed, or die.

  He might still die. OldMother may find him unworthy. But he doubts it.

  He crosses the threshold and walks into OldMother’s hall, into a darkness dense with the scent of soil and rock, root and worm, the perfume that marks the bones of the earth. The floor turns from beaten dirt to cool rock beneath his feet, a transition so abrupt that his head reels and he has to pause to steady himself. Air breathes onto his face, stirring like a great beast, and from where he now stands he gains the impression of a vast space opening out before him. He feels as though he stands on the edge of a vast abyss. Behind him, although he has made no turn, although no wall has come between his back and the wall of the house, the door has vanished. He stands in utter darkness.

  Above, impossibly, he sees stars.

  And below, too, beyond him and spread out like so many pinprick watch fires, he sees stars, glittering, bright and unattainable.

  “Who are you, Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter?” He cannot see OldMother, but he feels the whisper of her dry breath on his lips, feels her weight, that which makes her formidable, that which reveals her as a child of earth. “By what name will we call you when we dance the measure of our tribe? When we sing of the life of the grass, which dies each winter, and the life of the void, with lives eternal?”

  Long ago, months ago as the human kind measure the passing of days, he met the youngest WiseMother on the path to the fjall. There, she spoke to him: “Let be your guide that which appears first to your eyes.”

  He believed then that she meant the funeral he saw on his way down the valley, because it was the first event he witnessed after leaving her. But he dreams, and in his dreams he listens when Alain Henrisson speaks of his dreams. Like the serpents on the shields carried by his soldiers, he and Alain are interlocked, wound each into the other, with no ending and no beginning.

  In a dream he heard Alain speak: “It wasn’t the funeral at all. It was his own hand.”

  His own hand.

  Bloodheart did not trust his own strength, or his own cunning. In weakness, he sought the aid of magic. But magic is only bought for a price, and it is never something you can truly possess: That is the lesson he learned from his father. He knows better than to rely on magic.

  He can rely only on himself, his own strength, his own cunning.

  He bares his teeth, what the Soft Ones would call a smile. He holds up the hand with which he laid the offering on the palm of the youngest WiseMother. He cannot see it, even so close before his face; that is how dark it is. But he does not doubt that OldMother can see, for her sight is not like that of her children.

  “Call me by this name: Stronghand.”

  He hears her movement on the rock, as heavy as the groaning of the earth beneath the weight of mountains. “Let it be done. Let the WiseMothers speak of it, and let this name be known through all the fjalls.”

  “And farther,” he murmurs. “Let it be known to the four corners of the earth.”

  Her reply, like the knife she wields, is sharp. “Their voices are heard farther away than you can know, my son. Now go. Stronghand will rise or fall through his own efforts.”

  Thus is he dismissed.

  Where rock turns to beaten earth, he pauses, blinking, as the door appears before him out of nothing. Enough light trails in that he can turn and look over his shoulder. The chamber behind him, the long hall of stone and sod, lies empty. He sees no heavy chair, no sign of OldMother at all, only raked dirt, dim corners, and the rough topography of the stone walls.

  Not even his footsteps mark the dirt.

  Alain woke at dawn. In the distance he heard Lauds being sung, and as he lay in the bed with one hand outstretched onto the cold space where Tallia had not lain the night before, the voices celebrating Lauds finished, paused, and began the service of Prime for sunrise. Was that Tallia’s voice among them? He could not make her out among so many. Of her, in this chamber, there was no trace.

  He heaved himself out of the bed and staggered outside to find Lavastine already up. Geoffrey, looking bleary-eyed, gave orders to men-at-arms and servants. Lavastine talked with foresters brought in from the nearby lands which lay under the rule of the convent, and now glanced up. “You are awake, Alain. We’ll go out again. He can’t have vanished utterly.”

  They went out again, lines of men beating the undergrowth and walking in staggered groups so that every stretch of ground near the convent was covered. Alain was exhausted; he stumbled on fallen logs and upthrust roots, saw a heap of houndlike leaves that scattered every which way when he dug through it. By midday they still had found no sign of Bliss.

  Lavastine called them in for their meal, but Alain could not give up, not yet. He stayed out with a handful of servants, Sorrow, and Rage. They backtracked to the field where the geese had first set up the alarm, and he tried again to follow Bliss’ trail into the forest. The hounds were no help at all. They barked at every squirrel and bird that crossed their path, or gulped down beetles, or dug holes in the di
rt.

  At last, by midafternoon, he had mercy on his exhausted servingmen, and they trudged back to the guesthouse. He was so terribly tired, perhaps more from heart’s pain than actual bodily exhaustion. What had Bliss gulped down, out there in the field yesterday? Why had he run off like that afterward? Why hadn’t he returned?

  Sorrow and Rage followed him back to the chamber set aside for Count Lavastine and his servants. Two servingmen crouched outside in the corridor, but they jumped up at once, seeing Alain, and let him in. In the small room he found Lavastine asleep on the bed. The shutters stood open to let in light and air, and the sunlight lay in a bright patch over the lower half of the bed so that the folds of the blanket had two tones. Lavastine’s head lay in shadow still; his sandy-blond hair had slivers of white in it. His eyes were shut and he breathed evenly while Terror, Steadfast, and Fear lay on the flagstone floor around him, his faithful attendants. Terror snored lustily, sprawled on his side, while Steadfast dozed with her head cushioned by her paws. Fear kept watch.

  Alain sat on the bed. Moved by impulse, he reached to brush hair out of Lavastine’s eyes. Sun, wind, and age had taken their toll on the count, chapping his face and hands; tiny wrinkles perched at the corners of his eyes, little crow’s-feet, but in many ways his face had remained smooth. Lavastine was a man who offered both smiles and frowns sparingly, and thus those expressions had not left their tracks on his face.

  He was not a big man, like Prince Sanglant, but although he was slender and not particularly tall, he was made strong by the power of his will and mind. He was a man like most men, better than many: steady, practical, even-tempered, prudent and sharp. He was not formed for the strong emotions he had named his hounds after but rather for the day-to-day work of the world.

  Alain smiled softly, flicking away a fly. Not old yet, not even as old as the king, still he was no longer young. He might be a grandfather soon.

  Alain flushed, hot all through his face and elsewhere. Only the women and men of the church kept themselves pure like the angels. In that way they made of themselves vessels whose purity would bring them closer to the immaculate light of God.