The Burning Stone

by Kate Elliott

  Cousin. Julien was his cousin no longer. He truly understood it now as Lavastine told Julien that in the morning he would ride back to his mistress and let her know that all would be ready for her arrival. Julien did not hesitate as he returned to the lower end of the hall, where men-at-arms and servingwomen gathered cheerfully around him to hear news of far-off regions. It was not a place Alain belonged any longer. He would only be in their way, should he try to speak to Julien again.

  “So it begins,” said Lavastine softly. He wore his thinnest smile. “Now the jackals will gather round, because we have the prize.”

  The prize.

  It had never meant anything to Alain before, prizes, alliances, the ties of blood. But now it came clear: Tallia’s blood and rank would draw them to Lavas like flies to honey. Tallia had called herself a pawn because more powerful hands moved her where she did not want to go, but he had learned the rules of the game called chess this past year. The pieces called Lions were also called pawns because they were men-at-arms, common-born and expendable—like Julien. But Tallia was not a pawn. She was the granddaughter of kings and queens.

  In the game of chess, that made her a Regnant.

  3

  THE journey on roads fallen into ruin was hard on the horses. Anne directed them down the wrong fork in a maze of woodland paths and they had to retrace their steps only to find after much confusion that the pavement of the old Dariyan road had lain hidden by debris and moss. A chance-met forester, surprised to see them, told them that the village of Krona lay some miles ahead, and Anne nodded, seeming to expect this. Not four miles after, as twilight lengthened, one of the pack mules collapsed and died, worn beyond endurance.

  They camped that night out of sight of the corpse, but Anne set a servant to watch over it. They had been dogged by miserable weather, and it drizzled now. Liath had twisted her ankle when she’d slipped while dismounting, but she dealt with her misery by becoming increasingly silent. In truth, Sanglant was glad of it. He’d known soldiers who suffered loudly and those who suffered silently, and although he knew God enjoined humankind to feel compassion, he preferred the silent sufferers.

  Right now he crouched over a fire that he coaxed to stay alive despite the rain. Earlier he’d gathered comfrey along the banks of a stream. Now it steeped in boiled water. Anne came up behind him. She had an odd step, decided, as if she knew where she was going, but not at all heavy, as if she meant to tread lightly so no footprint would be left behind. Her robes smelled of rose oil. “You are learned in herb lore, Prince Sanglant? I thought you merely a fighting man.”

  “I know a little,” he said cautiously. “It’s always wise to observe, to learn what’s useful. I can treat wounds and a few illnesses, such things as we see on campaign.”

  She asked him a few questions, and he was astonished to discover that he knew more than she did about herbs. Her knowledge of them seemed all secondhand, as if she had spent time with someone who knew herblore but had in that time never truly listened to that wisdom. It did not interest her. If anything, what interested her was the extent of his knowledge, not the lore itself, which he had gleaned over many years by watching, listening, and asking questions of wisewomen and conjuremen and such healers as traveled in the train of armies.

  Later, when Liath sniffed at the poultice, she said “comfrey” in a choked voice, then shut her eyes and sucked in air as he pressed it gently over her ankle. He settled down behind her so that, back against back, they braced each other. It had stopped raining but now and again drops sprayed his face, spilled on a gust of wind. The dog snuffled along the ground, then flopped down beside him. It was so thin, and it never seemed to get any stronger. Sometimes he felt as if he were the thread drawing it forward, that otherwise it would simply lie down and die.

  “Da always said comfrey for sprains and aches,” murmured Liath. “People would come to him when they were sick. I never paid attention to how much he knew.”

  Sanglant shut his eyes. He was comfortable with her as counterbalance against his back. His fingertips brushed the dog’s ears Its hide had such an odd texture, not at all comforting like a real dog’s coat but dry and rough. Still. It grunted and whined, tail thumping as he scratched its head. He felt himself dozing off, his awareness like the thread that bound the dog to him just as he was bound to his father by an intangible cord that gleamed as softly as starlight. Yet that connecting thread wound farther back, beyond, to a place unremembered but felt in the pulse on his heart, so faint that he had to smell it and hear it more than see it, a binding made by the pull of blood.

  A woman walks along a forest path. Shadow and light make her clothing appear strange, unearthly: a jacket like that worn by the Quman, a ragged skin skirt made of a thin, pale leather. Feathers and beads decorate her hair. A rough-looking man walks behind her, leading a horse. She pauses as if taking a scent, then lifts her stone-pointed spear, shakes it once, twice.

  He grunted, coming awake to see a fire snapping brightly a body’s length from them.

  “I’m better at controlling fire,” she said. “It helps that it’s wet. The damp is like a shield—”

  Such a bitter regret washed over him at the thought of the soldiers he’d left behind at Werlida that he winced, then struggled up to his feet.

  “What is it?”

  “I have to walk.”

  He walked back to where the dead mule lay at the side of the old road. Its gear had been stripped and taken forward to the campsite. It had collapsed beside a mile marker, a small granite post barely poking out above the litter of forest fall. With a finger he traced the number carved there. Lichen had grown into the chiseled lines. Moss made a little hat on the flat top of the marker, damp and soft. The dead animal had a faint putrescence, and the sheen of light that marked the presence of one of the servants hovered round it, inquisitive, as if it had never seen death before and did not know what to make of it.

  In the morning Anne had the servants transfer the baggage from the dead mule to her own, and she insisted on walking even when Sanglant offered her Resuelto.

  It was hard going. Roots had torn up portions of the old pavement; water and ice had shattered others. Liath stayed on her horse and didn’t complain. Eventually the woodland opened out, and beyond a river they saw a thread of smoke marking a village. The old bridge had fallen to pieces, planks lost or gaping. Sanglant scouted the shore but could find no boat, and in the end he volunteered to lead the horses and mules across one by one. In some places he had to shove planks together. In others, he simply laid his shield down over the gaps so they could get across. In this way they made it to the other side. Of the servants he saw no sign, but one of them blew in his ear teasingly.

  The old road forked one last time before the village, and here Anne took the fork that led away from the first strip of fields.

  “We are not going to the village,” said Anne when he objected. He was tired, damp, hungry, and wanting a fire. But they pitched back into woodland again, trudged up through rugged country torn by rock falls. The old road thrust gamely along, finding purchase through a series of switchbacks and supporting arches. Long after midday they reached a ridge. Wind blew incessantly and broke the cloud cover into a patchwork, ragged clots of blue among the gray-white clouds. They struggled along the exposed road for what seemed hours. The footing was terrible, loose rock, pebbles, slick moss. To the right lay a deep and narrow valley, thick with trees. At last the road skirted a hollow sunk into the ridge, and there, in the hollow below, stood nine stones, one of them listing badly. The other eight were squat and square, dark-grained, colored by lichen. It had long since stopped raining, and most of the cloud cover had blown on to the northwest, but the wind cut wickedly here on the height. Anne slipped back her hood and started down where a path cut away from the road and curved down the slope to end as a dirt ring around the stones.

  They made camp outside the crown of stones, somewhat out of the wind. Liath winced as she put weight on her foot, but she
could walk on it now. Sanglant diligently applied another poultice. He loved touching her, even if it was just rubbing ointment on her swollen ankle. It was quiet except for the wind. Too quiet.

  He looked up suddenly, stood, and listened. “The servants are gone.”

  “They cannot enter the halls of iron,” replied Anne. “They will return by a different road. We must wait for night. That is the measure of the darkness which taints us as long as we exist on this earth: that we can only see into the world above when night lies over us.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “The arts of the mathematici,” said Liath abruptly. She had barely spoken to her mother since the incident at the crossroads. She closed her eyes and got that look on her face that meant she was remembering, “seeking in the city of memory,” she called it. “‘The geometry of the stars,’” she said slowly, as if quoting. “‘Through their shifting alignments the mathematicus can draw power from the highest spheres down below the sphere of the moon.’ The stone circles are gateways that were built long ago, even before the Dariyan Empire. Da spoke of such pathways. But we never used them.”

  “He did not have the knowledge, or the strength,” said Anne. “He was not patient enough.” She seemed about to say something else, but did not.

  “They were too dangerous,” retorted Liath. “They can find you there, just as in the vision seen through fire.”

  “Who can find you?”

  “Anything that’s looking for you. If there is a gate, then anyone who can see it can also pass through it. Isn’t that right?”

  “Many creatures walk for a time upon the earth, it is true, and some have the ability to pass through into places where humans cannot wander. These crowns are gateways, but not just for creatures who are made of a different substance than we are, and not just for those of humankind who have struggled to master the arts of the mathematici. There are yet others who know sorcery and practice its secrets for their own gain, because these gateways open into places far distant from here, even beyond what we understand of earth itself. Did Bernard never tell you of what else has sought to use these gateways for their own ends?”

  “I found out for myself when I saw a daimone,” she said bitterly. “I heard its voice calling me—” Then, abruptly, her expression changed; she had thought of something else, not daimones at all, something she did not want to speak of. She had never mastered concealing her thoughts; to him, she was transparent. It was one of the things about her that he found so attractive, the impulsive way she had, as if she could never help herself.

  “The Lost Ones,” said Anne. “They seek the gateways.” She turned away from Liath. “So, Prince Sanglant. Will you walk with us when night comes and we open the gate?”

  “The Lost Ones,” he repeated, dumbfounded, and knowing he sounded like a fool. “But they’re gone. They vanished long ago, even before the old Empire. The old Dariyans, the empresses and emperors, they weren’t even true elves, they were only half-breeds.”

  “Like you.”

  “Like me,” he said harshly. “But nevertheless the Aoi went away so long ago that maybe they’re just a story.”

  “Except for your mother?”

  He closed his mouth on an angry retort. On such a field, she would rout him. He knew when to shut up.

  “Where did they go, then?” asked Liath. Abruptly Sanglant understood what she concealed with her expression: She didn’t want her mother to know that she had spoken with an Aoi sorcerer, that she had passed through one of the gates and returned. Where had she traveled on that journey?

  “Where, indeed,” said Anne, echoing Liath’s question. “In Verna, where we have some measure of protection, you will see what answers we have come to.”

  Twilight came and, with it, stars, like exclamations, each one unseen, unspoken, and then suddenly popping into view. Ann rose, shook out her robes, and took the reins of her mule. Sanglant made haste to get Resuelto and the other mule while Liath brought up the rear. Just before entering the stones Anne knelt and began to diagram in the dirt, using her staff to draw angles and lines. After a bit she rose and considered first him and then Liath.

  “This may damage your eyes,” she said at last, and she found cloth with which to blindfold them.

  “But I want to learn—!”

  “In due time, Liath. You would not want to go blind, would you?”

  Liath fumed, but Anne waited until it became obvious that they would go no farther this night unless they acquiesced. Sanglant had to crouch for Anne to reach him, to tie the cloth over his eyes. The procession made a complicated skein: one pack mule at the front where Anne could reach it, he behind holding Resuelto with Liath mounted on the gelding, holding in her hands the lead for the other mule and the reins of the mare. In this way he waited. He heard Anne’s staff scratching in the dirt. A thrumming rose from the ground. The dog whined, ears flattening. The horses stirred nervously, although the mule merely stood with stubborn patience, waiting it out. Even through the cloth he thought he saw light flickering.

  Without warning, the mule started forward. He kept one hand on its girth and the other on Resuelto’s reins and managed to move forward into the stones without stumbling. The ground shifted under his feet, disorienting him. The night air had a gentle touch, like spring. His ears buzzed, and it took him a moment to realize that he was hearing voices, like the servants’ voice, but many more and all in a jumble.

  Shapes brushed past him. Fingers pinched his body. At once, he tore off the blindfold. The night sky shone clearly with no trace of cloud except for huge dark shapes that were not cloud at all but mountain. Three figures were walking up a path to greet them, but he could not see their faces. Anne walked down to speak with the people below, who had halted on the path. He saw now the shimmer and dance of aery spirits flocking around him, and shying away from Liath.

  “She drew down the power, from what she read in the heavens, and opened a pathway,” breathed Liath. She had also pulled down her blindfold. “Da spoke of it, but he never attempted it. Sometimes I thought it was just a story he made up. But it is true. There are threads woven between the souls of the stars. The sage Pythia said that if you listen closely enough, you can hear the song made by the spheres as they turn. Each one striking a different note in relation to the other, always changing. An endless melody.”

  “Hush,” he said softly. “I hear them.”

  “The music of the spheres?” She strained, listening, but obviously heard nothing, probably only faint sounds of wind and small animals rustling in the leaves.

  “The servants.”

  She had dropped the reins of her horse, leaving it to explore the luxuriant grass, and now she touched his elbow, began to speak as she peered around her, trying to see them. But he touched a finger to her lips to still her.

  And he listened.

  Slowly their voices came clear, or perhaps only the ones that had traveled with them had modulated their tone enough that he could now begin to understand them.

  “Where are we?” he whispered.

  But they only answered. “Spring.”

  They were very excited, clustering close, shying off, always coming back. They circled round in a dance that was not a dance, half seen against night and blazing stars.

  Suddenly it all became clear, not in words precisely but in the way they fluttered in and out, venturing to touch Liath but frightened of something about her, cautious, yet curious, pulled by that curiosity in the same way that the servant had hovered around the dead mule. They were attracted to something never before experienced and strange to them, who were not formed of earth.

  He laughed with a sudden wild happiness and pulled Liath against him to whisper in her ear.

  “They say you’re carrying a child.”

  4

  ZACHARIAS poked at the skinned and spitted squirrels and watched clear fluid dribble down. “We can eat.”

  This night they had made camp beside a stream, within t
he shelter of trees grown up among a tumble of boulders: shelter, defense, and water. For the first time in days, she had allowed Zacharias to make a fire while she snared squirrels. They had seen no sign of Quman raiders since the burned village, uncounted days ago. Once, as a churchman, he had kept track of the days and always known which saint’s praise to sing at Prime and Vespers. Now he watched the sun rise and set, that was all. Today had been a day like any other summer’s day, made more pleasant because he had not yet been killed and beheaded by his enemies.

  She crouched beside him and took the larger portion of the first squirrel, as she always did. He did not begrudge it to her. “You are always looking over your back,” she observed. “Are you a prince among your people that the Quman should pursue you so? You do not seem like a prince to me.”

  “I am a freeholder’s son and grandson,” he said proudly, “not a lord.”

  “Then why do the Quman want you?”

  “Among the Quman I was a slave, but I publicly mocked the war leader of the clan who owned me, the one called Bulkezu. I mocked him in front of the begh—the chieftain—of a neighboring tribe, in front of his wives and daughters. Bad enough for a man to do it, but for me—Bulkezu cannot let the insult go unavenged.”

  She licked her fingers and sat back on her haunches. “You are not a man?” Fat dripped from the cooking meat and sizzled on the coals beneath. He did not answer, “Ah,” she said suddenly. “You are missing the man-thing. The man part. I do not know what it is called in this language.”

  Was that the heat of the fire searing his face, or his own shame?