Wizards: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy

by Gardner Dozois

  Demwor glowered. “Why would he want to talk to you about it? You’ll do what you’re told.”

  “He doesn’t know me that well, but I’m…well, quicker than Ebb. Or at least he wanted to make sure of it. Maybe there are things he needs that Ebb has never been able to do. I don’t know, sir. I just do what I’m told.”

  “What did they talk about last night?” demanded Demwor.

  Suddenly Lord Brickel was in the doorway behind Runnel. “What did you just ask my servant?”

  Demwor clamped his mouth shut.

  “Are you spying on me, Demwor?”

  What, thought Runnel, was that a secret? No, it was a pretense that he was just a steward. Now the pretense is broken.

  “Is this how the Mithermages treat me? Have I not performed every service and kept faith with every term of our agreement?”

  “You have these visitors,” said Demwor.

  “I’m allowed to have friends come to see me,” said Lord Brickel. “It’s in the terms.”

  While they talked, Runnel was continuing Lord Brickel’s work, separating the stones in the hearth, in the hearthroot, on the cellar floor. He did it more quickly than Lord Brickel had, and he didn’t have to be touching the very stone he was working on. An hour ago he wouldn’t even have known to try what he was doing, but having seen Lord Brickel do it he now knew what it felt like, and how to show the stone, how to flow through it and make the separation.

  And Lord Brickel was right. The stone did not groan; it accepted the separation. It knew that Runnel was doing right, protecting it by this separation. It had loved him for joining them together, but it did not hate him for separating them now.

  “You’re not allowed to bring stonemages here,” said Demwor.

  “Exactly,” said Lord Brickel. “But who do you think my friends are? All pebblesons, at least, worshippers of Tewstan.”

  “A worship that’s forbidden here.”

  “And we don’t worship here,” said Lord Brickel patiently. “But you know that just as puddlesons have a bit of power clinging to them because of their service to Yeggut, so do pebblesons because of their service to Tewstan. If you’ve detected some sort of power in them, that’s why. But no mages.”

  “I’ve seen the links between you and them,” said Demwor.

  So he was key—not really a mage, but able to find magical links.

  “Of course,” said Lord Brickel. “But never when I’m working. I do no magery for the city when such links are present. If you’re what I think you are, then you know that. You know I’ve never bound myself to stone except when the Mithermages ask me to.”

  Runnel realized that was a warning. If Demwor really was a key, he would sense Runnel’s connection to the stone beneath his feet the moment he looked for it. So he stepped back up over the wooden sill and onto the wooden floor, and held the wooden doorframe.

  In case Lord Brickel had not heard what he said earlier, Runnel chimed in. “I told you he wanted to speak to me about what we’d do tomorrow,” he said. “Now can I go pee?”

  “What will you do tomorrow?” Demwor asked Lord Brickel.

  “My duty,” said Lord Brickel. “As of this moment you are not my steward. If you stay here, then it’s as a spy, and as long as they have a spy with me, they’re in breach of the contract.”

  As Runnel headed into the bushes where he routinely peed—he saved the private house for other uses—he could still hear the argument.

  “Well, then, you know I was using the boy as a spy,” said Demwor. “So is he going as well?”

  “If you aren’t here to ask him, whom will he tell? He works hard and he’s ignorant. You’re the one who’s leaving. Now. We’ll put your things out the front gate in the morning.”

  “Where am I supposed to go at this time of the morning?” asked Demwor.

  “To your masters, to report on me,” said Lord Brickel. “Tell them that their bridges and arches can all fall down, now that I know I’ve been serving oathbreakers.”

  “You knew I was a spy.”

  “I wondered,” said Lord Brickel. “Now I know. Get out.”

  What have I done? thought Runnel. I never meant for any of this to happen.

  When he got back to the house, Lord Brickel and Demwor were both gone—presumably to the gate.

  Runnel ran down into the cellar and quickly finished the work of separating the stones. He tried not to think of it as killing them. Someday I’ll make you whole again, he thought over and over, promising Tewstan, the stone god.

  If you think of it as stone, how can you talk to it? But if it’s Tewstan, a god, then you can pray, and hope to be heard.

  Yet he felt a twinge of guilt, for he had grown up with the worship of Yeggut, the god of water, the master of all things, who brings life to the desert and tears down mountains.

  How did I become a stonemage, when all my thought was of Yeggut?

  It is not the rituals of worship that please the gods, he realized. I worshipped Yeggut, but I climbed the stone, I put my fingers into the rock. There in the mountains, it was the stone heart of the world that made me who I am, no matter who or what I prayed to.

  THE wetwizards of Mitherhome came for Brickel when the sun was halfway to noon. The day was cool and bright, so many of the people of Hetterferry came out to watch the procession. Lord Brickel wore an elaborate costume that Runnel thought looked ridiculous, but it seemed to impress everyone else. What does clothing have to do with magery? But the watermages were also in fancy headdresses and bright-colored robes, and there were boys carrying banners and pipes and drums being played as they walked down to the dock.

  There was a raft there waiting for them. It reminded Runnel of the raft he had once helped to load, his first day in Hetterferry. If the raft had carried him to Mitherhome that day, would he ever have discovered his ability? Then again, if he had never discovered his power, would he be more or less happy?

  Of course, as far as anyone knew he was only the stonemage’s boy, carrying on his back a heavy load of many different kinds of rock—small samples of each, but in the aggregate, it felt like he was carrying a wall. Yet he could carry it, and he wondered if it was because the stone was somehow lighter for him than for other people. Or perhaps there was enough stone in him that he was sturdier and could bear more of a burden. That would explain why he could carry a full waterjar, even though he was not a full-grown man. Maybe everything about him that mattered came back to the stone in his heart.

  They were poled across the water to Mitherhome, and then began the long trek up the endless stairways to the upper level of the city. Their course wound around the steep slopes of Mitherjut, and as Runnel’s bare feet trod the stone steps he could feel a throbbing inside the mountain, not like a heartbeat, but rather like the slow fluttering of a huge bird that was trapped and could not get free. He thought of trying to find the source of it, but Lord Brickel had warned him to do nothing, seek nothing, think nothing about stone. “It’s too dangerous,” said Brickel. “Look what you did to the stones of this house—in your sleep, without even meaning to.”

  So Runnel did not explore the stone. Instead, he trod the steps upward, upward, with the well-maintained city wall on one hand and the buildings clinging to the steep slope on the other.

  They came to a gate in the wall and went through it. In only a few steps they were at the brink of a cliff—not the steep drop-off of the Stonemages’ Ditch that he had seen on his first day, but a natural channel cut by water. A stone bridge with a single arch led across the water. It was this bridge that Lord Brickel had been brought to strengthen. And without even trying to, Runnel could see why. All the vibration of carts and pedestrians crossing the bridge had vibrated the stones, making them rub against each other, shrinking them. The arch was sagging, putting outward pressure on the stones near the edges. They were going to break free, and the whole bridge would come down as the loss of a few stones weakened the rest. Maybe in a year. Maybe in a month. But the bridge was not
strong.

  Lord Brickel walked out onto the bridge and knelt, then lay on it, face-down, as if he were staring into the stone. Runnel stood by him, the bag at the ready. Brickel raised a hand from the surface, and Runnel brought the mouth of the bag to his hand. Brickel rummaged through it and came out with a cobble of granite and another of quartz. These he now held in each hand and pressed them into the stone.

  He’s not doing a thing, thought Runnel. This bridge is failing, and he’s doing nothing but making a show. It’s fakery.

  When it falls, people will die.

  But if Runnel fused a few of the stones together, right in the center of the bridge, so they were one piece, no one could see from the outside, but the stones would no longer rub against each other, and the pressures would return to being vertical instead of horizontal, as the bridge was designed. As long as he was careful not to let the fusing go right to the living rock at the ends of the bridge, the stone would not come to life.

  It was so simple, so subtle, to link stone to stone.

  But it got away from him. Runnel hadn’t the skill or self-control to stop himself in time. The fusing went beyond his intention. The bridge linked to the living stone at both ends of the bridge.

  Lord Brickel raised himself up on his elbows, and cried out, “No!”

  Underneath the bridge, the water suddenly roiled and splashed, as if it were angry.

  “What have you done!” cried one of the watermages.

  “He’s tunneled the stream!” shouted another.

  At once they reached down and dragged Brickel to his feet. One of them made as if to drag him to the edge of the bridge and cast him off, but the others held firm and did not let him do it.

  “You’re no cobblefriend!” said the leader of the watermages. “You roofed the stream with living rock! You made a tunnel of it! Sacrilege! All along you’ve lied to us. You’re a stonefather!”

  Lord Brickel looked long into Runnel’s eyes. But he did not say, It wasn’t me, it was this boy. He said nothing at all as they dragged him from the bridge, back through the gate, and on up the stairs into the city.

  Runnel followed, carrying the bag of stones, cursing himself for a fool. It did not help Lord Brickel that Runnel had made the fatal error by accident. Nor was it an excuse that he did not know that water hates to be roofed and tunneled, that it constantly struggles to break free. And how, above all, could he have known that the watermages would sense the moment the bridge became living rock?

  It would do no good to declare himself to be the stonefather, Runnel knew. For then Lord Brickel would be charged with knowingly allowing another stonemage to practice in the city, and the penalty would be the same. They would both be punished then.

  I have to free him, thought Runnel. I did this to him by disobeying him. It’s my responsibility now to get him out of it.

  Runnel followed until they came into the main city, which clung to the southwest shore of the Mitherlough. Most of the city was outside of the walls, which ran much higher up the slope of Mitherjut. They took Lord Brickel to a single tower that stood at the far point of a stubby peninsula that projected into the lake. When Runnel tried to follow them inside, one of the watermages stopped him.

  “I belong with my master,” said Runnel.

  “Where he’s going, you don’t wish to go,” said the watermage.

  “What will you do to him?”

  “What he agreed to by the contract he signed when he first came here,” said the watermage. “He knew the penalty.”

  Runnel wanted to shout that Lord Brickel was not a stonefather, that he had only discovered Runnel’s abilities last night, that there was no way he could have known or prevented Runnel’s foolishness. I’ll undo it, Runnel wanted to say, I’ll make it back the way it was. But that would accomplish nothing—except to get Runnel inside the tower, subject to the same penalty that Lord Brickel was now facing.

  He thought of going back to the stonemage’s house and asking Lark’s advice. But what would that accomplish except to take him farther from Lord Brickel? Lark wouldn’t know what a stonefather could do, or ought to do.

  He thought back to her story of the stonemages in the great war. What had she said? “They bared again the rocks of the holy place, and lay naked upon the stone, and the rockbrothers sank into it as the cobblefriends sang.” He had no cobblefriends to sing for him, nor did he have any notion what their songs might have been. But he was a stonefather—if the rockbrothers could sink into the rock, so could he. Sink into the rock of the tower wall, and come out the other side—the inside, where Lord Brickel is held. I can bring him out again the same way, or tear open a door if I want to.

  He walked around the tower to a spot that was not observed and pressed his hands against the stone. But this was not living rock. He could climb it, and gaps would open for his fingers and toes, but he could not merge with it, as he could with living rock.

  Just as well that he had failed, for as he leaned against the wall, someone walked around the tower into view. Demwor.

  “I wondered where you’d got to,” said the former steward. “See what your fool of a master has done now?”

  “I don’t know what he did,” said Runnel.

  “He revealed himself,” said Demwor. “And he’ll die for it. Now come with me—I’m to dispose of all the stonemage’s property.”

  “I’m not his property,” said Runnel. “I’m a free man.”

  “Man?” said Demwor. “You’re a boy, and barely that. But a free one? That’s your choice. A free boy will have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. You can eat the stones in that bag, for all I care. Come with me now, and you still have a place; stay here, and I’ll have you ejected from the city under the vagabond laws, for you have no place here, neither a master nor kin.” Demwor reached to take Runnel by the shoulder.

  Runnel dodged away, then reached into the bag and pulled out a cobble of sandstone. “Don’t make me throw this at your head,” said Runnel. “I don’t miss.”

  “Are you threatening a citizen?”

  “I’m protecting myself from a man who wants to lay hands on me,” said Runnel.

  Demwor backed off one step. “Is that how you’ll have it, then? Fine. When I return, it’ll be with soldiers, and you’ll be ejected from the city by them. I don’t have to lay a hand on you.”

  As soon as Demwor walked away, Runnel dropped the bag and began to run. Back the way he had come, till he was through the walls and up to the highest point of the road that led around Mitherjut. But instead of continuing down to where the bridge was, Runnel scrambled up the steep slope, away from the road, up toward the peak.

  It might not have been the smartest move. For he soon discovered that near the peak, a spring gave birth to a stream, and it must have been a place very holy to Yeggut, because the stream was lined with the huts of sacred hermits, who would come out several times a day and immerse themselves in the stream, letting it flow over them until they were so cold they could barely move. And around the spring there were the houses of priests, and several temples, and a constant stream of visitors coming and going.

  But it was the very peak that Runnel wanted, not the spring or the stream. And at the peak, there was just the ruined stone circle that had once been a dome of living rock, in Lark’s story. Here it was that the bodies of the stonemages were burned alive inside that stone oven, as their payment for saving the city. A place of treachery. Mitherhome had first been built by stonemages; the watermages dispossessed them and ruled over them, then, when the stonemages might have thought they’d earned the right to be brought back into equality in their own city, they were murdered.

  There was no one here in these ruins. It was not holy ground, as far as the watermages were concerned.

  But it was to Runnel. He could feel the throbbing again here, stronger than ever. I have found the heart of the mountain. Maybe the heart of the world.

  Following the words of Lark’s story, Runnel took off all his clothes and
lay down upon the living rock, right where one of the rockbrothers must have lain, back when the battle was raging, and there was no hope for the city.

  The sun shone down on him—it was afternoon now, and despite the coolness of the air, the sun was bakingly warm. Runnel realized, now that he was lying still, that his own body was trembling. What have I done? Brickel told me to do nothing, and I thought I knew better. I thought I was saving a bridge, and instead I’ve cost him his life.

  The throbbing under him grew stronger.

  He began to sink into the stone.

  I’m not doing this, he thought. I’m not pushing myself into the stone. I’m just lying here, and the stone is welcoming me.

  He sank; the stone closed over him. He lay in darkness, but he could still feel the sun beating on his skin. No, not on his skin—on the stone above him. The stone of Mitherjut, that was his skin now. He sank into the stone, but the stone also sank into him. He could feel the whole Mitherjut as if it were part of his body.

  And he was not alone.

  “Stonefather,” came a whisper. It was repeated, again and again, until two dozen at least had called to him.

  “Who are you?” he asked. Only he did not move his lips—could not move them. Yet he heard his own voice as if he had spoken aloud.

  “You know who we are,” said one of them. “We have waited long for you.”

  “Are you the rockbrothers who created Stonemages’ Ditch? The ones who won the battle and then were burned?”

  “They burned our bodies,” said one of them. And another, and another. “Our inselves died. But our outselves were wandering in the stone, shaping it. That is all that lives, and we are fading. We have waited for a stonefather to come. Now you are here. Save the city, Stonefather!”

  Save the city? What was that about? “You saved the city,” he said. “From the Verylludden.”

  “Long ago,” said the voices. “And they were only men. It is from the flowing stone we save the city. Feel how it wants to rise.”

  It was as if they led him, for even though his body did not move, he was traveling through the rock. “Is this my outself that you lead through the stone?” he asked them, and they said, “Yes.”