The Godstone

by Violette Malan

  “Fenra, you sit up front.”

  I do not know if I would have been able to climb onto the seat next to the carter if Arlyn had not been there to shove me from behind. Where he found the strength to hop into the back I will never know.

  Once he had turned the horses around, the carter pointed to the bed of the cart with one bony thumb. “Water.”

  Arlyn searched a bit—there were burlap sacks filled with what smelled, of all things, like rock—before he found a water skin and passed it to me. I helped myself to two long swallows before offering it to our host.

  “No need.” He glanced at me with approval. I had done something right. I wondered what it was.

  I passed the skin back to Arlyn. I knew I should not drink any more just now, but I carefully watched Arlyn take his own two swallows, keeping my eye on the water skin until he put it away behind the sack where he had found it.

  “I’m Fenra Lowens,” I said to the carter. “Thank you for picking us up.”

  “John,” he said. He twitched the reins and the horses stopped looking over their shoulders at me and walked forward. “Coming this way. Felt you.”

  I knew that couldn’t be the strict truth, but perhaps it felt that way to John. “This is Arlyn Albainil.” I tilted my head behind me. John nodded, but did not turn around. We had turned into what it took me a while to recognize as a track—it certainly couldn’t be called anything grander. I started to rub some of the tension out of my face. I could feel fine dust on my skin under my fingertips.

  “Do you have a family name, or is it just John?” Arlyn asked from the back of the cart.

  “John for work, Bearclaw for family.”

  “You mean Bearclaw is what your family calls you.”

  At this he turned his head to look at me. His smile showed even white teeth. “I like your hat,” he said, glancing upward at the cravat rolled around my hair.

  I could not help it, I started to laugh. Unfortunately it turned into a cough, and Arlyn had to pass the water forward again.

  While I was drinking John looked upward, narrowing his eyes.

  “Eagles,” I said. “Not vultures.”

  I thought John would smile again. “I know.”

  Conversation, such as it was, died away after that. It was just too hot and too dry, even with frequent returns to the water skin. I kept offering it to John, but he always refused it. He held the reins loosely in his hands; clearly the horses knew where they were going. I began to worry how much farther they could go without water when I saw smudges on the horizon that eventually turned into a line of trees, and bushes, and flowers, and houses for them to surround. The track we had been using turned into something more like a road as we drove closer to town. There was gravel, there were gutters lined with rock, which meant the road was shaped to let rainfall run off—though as far as I could tell, there couldn’t be enough rain here to warrant it.

  “What is this town doing here in the middle of nowhere?” Arlyn’s voice drifted from behind me.

  “Water underground,” John said. “Have wells.”

  “Who does?”

  “Town people,” he said, the word “idiot” in his tone, though his eyes still sparkled with warmth.

  “You are not from there?” I asked.

  He pointed back toward where he had picked us up, back and to the right.

  “There’s another town?”

  “Mine.”

  A mine, he meant, not that the town was his. “You work there?”

  “I own there.” No doubt about it, he was laughing at me. I did not mind. He had rescued us, watered us, and brought us to town. He could laugh all he wanted. Luckily Arlyn seemed to feel the same way. He had settled back onto the sacks again, his hat tipped over his face.

  We finally left the desert behind entirely. All the trees helped even the edges of town feel cooler. There were people on the streets, including a double-line of what were obviously school children. Several people raised a hand in greeting when they saw John, some even calling him by name, though they called him by his profession, “Carter,” not his family name. The town people were dressed similarly to John, if cleaner and fresher. The men wore trousers, shirts and jackets, wide-brimmed hats with a variety of crowns, some trimmed with feathers or with the furry tails of animals. As for the women, some were dressed similarly to the men, though their suits were more formal looking somehow, closer fitting, and in a wider variety of colors. Others wore skirts, cut full to make them easier to walk in—and to ride in, as I soon saw. They wore a similar style of hat clearly meant to shade the face from the fierce sun.

  Men and women both wore their hair long, though many pinned it up under their hats. Many of the men had elaborate beards and mustaches, which I had to admit gave them a very rakish air. Beards hadn’t been in fashion in my lifetime.

  “Does it rain much here?”

  “Doesn’t rain, until it does. When it does, drown you if you’re not careful.”

  “How many people live in this town?”

  “Don’t know. Ask the sheriff.” We turned off the tree-shaded lane that brought us to town and started down what was evidently the main street. Here raised wooden platforms to either side of the road allowed people to walk above the dirt in front of several stores, a stable, a smithy, and an inn with a taproom. Second stories tended to overhang the first, creating deep shadows cooler than the streets. Halfway down the road John Bearclaw stopped the wagon and climbed down in front of a building standing by itself. He circled in front of the horses, giving each of them a stroke on the flank as he passed. When he got to my side he reached up his hands to help me down from my seat. I was grateful for this unusual attention, stiff and tired as I was.

  Arlyn met us on the building side of the cart. For the first time I saw two people standing deep in the shadows, one to each side of the building’s door. One wore a pistol of an unusual shape on his hip, the other carried two pistols in holsters across his chest and what could only be a sword hanging from his right hip, as if for his practitioner’s hand.

  “Newcomers to see the sheriff,” John Bearclaw said. “Found them up along the trail toward the salt flat.”

  “Thanks, John,” the man on the left said. “I’ll see if he’s receiving.” With that he opened the door just enough to slide through and shut it again. The remaining guard stood in that seemingly relaxed way that killers have. The first man came back, this time opening the door wide.

  “If you will, ma’am, ladies first.”

  “We would prefer to come in together,” I said.

  “Nevertheless, ma’am, it’s the sheriff’s preferences have the weight here.”

  A curiously formal way for soldiers to speak. I found myself more interested in meeting the sheriff.

  The practitioner-handed swordsman led me through an anteroom several degrees cooler than the outside. I could barely make out the shapes of two desks and chairs in the gloom left by shuttered windows. The room smelled of wax and honey-scented candles.

  “May I tell the sheriff your name, ma’am?”

  “Fenra Lowens,” I said.

  “Any title?”

  “Practitioner.”

  “You a doctor or a lawyer then, ma’am?”

  “Not exactly.” Though I supposed I was more a doctor than anything else.

  My escort opened a door on the left in the rear wall and held it open for me. “Practitioner Fenra Lowens, sheriff.”

  The man behind the desk stood up as I entered, the paper he had been reading still in his hand. “A practitioner, what do you know.” His smile spread his mustaches wide. “Just exactly what I need.” He realized he still held the paper, and tossed it down as he came round the desk, his hand outstretched. His right hand. We were almost exactly the same height. Dark hair hung in loose curls just past his shoulders, though neither as dark nor as curly
as mine. His mustache, full over his upper lip, narrowed to stiff points. The tuft of hair on his chin made his whole face appear longer. His leather trousers were beaded on the front, and tucked into boots that came just above the knee. He wore a short jacket, with the ornate cuffs of his shirt showing at the end of his sleeves. Altogether his clothing was more elaborate than that of his men, but I thought I had seen similar styles in old paintings.

  “Practitioner, a pleasure.” I could see from the sparkle in his eye that it was. “You’re from Ibania,” he said as he took my hand in both of his. He used the old pronunciation, eeBaynia. “A girl from Ibania broke my heart once. Are all the women from there so beautiful?”

  “Yes,” I said, too surprised not to answer with a smile of my own. “How did you know where I am from?” How strange it was to meet someone for the first time and feel so immediately at ease, as if I had known him my whole life. I felt my smile fade. I had a feeling I knew the answer.

  He laughed then, drawing me to the seat in front of his desk by the hand he still held.

  “I’d be pleased to tell you the tale, but sit, sit. What can I have brought? Wine? Tea?” He settled one hip on the edge of his desk. “It’s a long while since I’ve met with a . . . compatriot, shall we say. I couldn’t be more delighted.”

  “Whatever you have ready.”

  “Of course, of course. Lugg!” An older man I had not seen before stuck his head through the door behind me.

  “Sir?”

  “A jug of cold tea for my guest, and some biscuits if we have any left.”

  “And if we don’t have any left,” the old man said, lifting his eyebrows.

  “Then get some.”

  “Yes sir, certainly sir,” he muttered as he closed the door. “Like I’ve got nothing else to do.”

  The sheriff laughed again. “It’s tea flavored with what we call lemongrass, a nice bite and very thirst quenching.”

  “Thank you, that sounds wonderful.” I hoped there were biscuits. “How is it that—I am sorry, I do not know your name?”

  He leapt again to his feet, first bowing deeply with his hand over his heart, and then offering me his hand again as he straightened. “I beg your pardon, madame, I am Elvanyn Karamisk, once Guard Lieutenant of the White Court, and now High Sheriff for the Dundalk Territory.” He sat again. “There are people here, in the Territory and elsewhere, who might interest you. Now that etiquette has been properly served, what were you about to ask?”

  The White Court? Guard Lieutenant? That answered several questions, and posed several more.

  “May my companion join us? I’m sure he would appreciate some tea as well.”

  Just at that moment the tea entered, carried on a tray with three glasses and a plate of biscuits by the old man who was still muttering under his breath. Elvanyn Karamisk watched him with a fond smile. “Here on the desk please, Lugg.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to put it on the floor.” The old man shook his head as he set the tray down on top of the papers covering the desk. He very pointedly poured me a glass, which he presented with a smile full of crooked teeth that would frighten a child. “Here you go, miss, nice and cool.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Which is more than he ever does,” Lugg muttered on his way out the door.

  “Thank you, Lugg,” Elvanyn called after him. He lowered his eyes to me. “We’ve been together a very long time,” he said.

  “He helped raise you?”

  “Something like that.” He poured himself a glass of tea and raised it to me. “To the beautiful women of Ibania.” He tossed back half the glass. I took a more careful swallow of my own, and then another. He was right, this was refreshing.

  “And my companion?”

  “Of course, of course. I’m afraid I don’t know his name.”

  “Arlyn Albainil.”

  I am not sure I would have seen it if I had not been watching him so closely. The sheriff had gone perfectly still, just for a moment, before his features moved again, and his mouth smiled. But now his eyes were shuttered in a way they hadn’t been before. In that moment I had seen a colder, harder man. A man who could kill. He is a sheriff, I told myself. He was a guard. Of course he can kill. I had a sinking feeling that I knew why he had reacted that way to Arlyn’s name.

  “I am sorry, what has upset you?” I might as well get it into the open.

  “You saw that? Astonishing. The name startled me, that’s all. I haven’t heard that name in a long time. Knew someone with that family name once, but as I say, it was very long ago.” The clouds in his eyes grew darker.

  I shut my own eyes. It had to be Arlyn he remembered, or more properly Xandra, that much was clear. How had Elvanyn Karamisk kept himself alive all these years? Did time pass differently here? Whatever had happened between them, I hoped they would be able to set it aside. We had to find a way back, and Karamisk, though not a practitioner himself, might know of one.

  “I think you had better have Arlyn come in,” I said.

  “Wyeth!” he called. The man who had escorted me opened the door and looked in. “Bring in our other guest, would you?”

  “Sure thing, Sheriff.”

  The door opened again and Elvanyn was on his feet so fast I did not see him move. He touched his left hip with his right hand as if reaching for the sword that wasn’t there. The shock on Arlyn’s face slowly dissolved into a look of deep sorrow and, yes, I could see shame as well.

  Elvanyn’s hands relaxed. He took in a deep breath and let it out. He looked from Arlyn to me and back again. His face was ever so slightly flushed, though whether it was anger or something else I could not say. He sat down behind his desk, suddenly a tired man at the end of his day.

  “Well, well, Xandra Albainil.” His smile was empty, his eyes cold. “Better late than never, I suppose.” His tone was light, but there was steel under it. My stomach plummeted.

  “Elva, I—”

  The sheriff held up his right index finger and pointed to the other chair. “What do you want?”

  Arlyn sat down. It was somehow a surrender. He stayed silent for a few more heartbeats. “I need a way back, Elva. I need a gate.”

  “Don’t we all.” The sheriff nodded. “Will she be going back with you?”

  I began to speak, but Arlyn answered first.

  “She has to. The gate won’t work without her.”

  Again Karamisk looked at me. Whatever he saw in my face relaxed him. “Lucky for you,” he said before shifting his gaze once more to Arlyn. “I know the spot I came in. I know it exactly.” For a moment something like resignation colored his voice. “You never used it, so it might work.”

  Arlyn opened his mouth, shut it, and swallowed. “If you could have someone show us the way?”

  Karamisk shook his head. “I’ll have to do it.” He got to his feet and glanced around, as if looking for something that should have been close at hand. “Wait a bit.” He turned to me and said, “Practitioner, would you like to bathe and rest first?”

  I was tempted. Very tempted. “I’m afraid if there is a way back, we should use it at once.”

  He nodded, and smiled at me a little sadly. “Help yourself to more tea and biscuits,” he said finally. He then circled around my side of the desk and headed for the door. Arlyn stood and intercepted him, laying his fingers on Karamisk’s arm. The sheriff froze, the paleness of his face making his beard and mustache stand out.

  “Please don’t touch me,” he said in an even voice.

  Arlyn lifted his hand, and Karamisk went out.

  I put my glass of tea down on the tray very slowly, very deliberately. I turned toward Arlyn and took a firm grip on the arms of my chair with both hands.

  “You left him here. I can see it in your face.” And I could; it was there as plain to read as one of my own forrans.

  �
�I told you. I had no power.” His voice was low, but firm. “You don’t understand. He was my best friend—the only person who ever looked at me and just saw me. Not something dangerous, or valuable, or awful. Just me. Do you think I would have left him here if I’d had any other option?”

  I stood up. “And there was no other practitioner with power you could use—as you are now using mine? You could not have given someone else the forran? Not even to save your ‘best friend’?”

  The most horrible thing about the look on his face was that this had obviously never occurred to him.

  * * *

  “Are you questioning my authority?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. The Red Court is very clear on my requirements on this point.” Ginglen spoke as calmly as he could. No point in showing even an apprentice practitioner how angry he was. “You must know that I can’t release the personal property of a guest in my hotel without authorization either from the guest, or some civil authority. Written authorization,” he added when it seemed the young man was about to argue his point.

  “Very well. I’ll report your lack of cooperation.”

  “I’d expect nothing less.” Easy to see what must have happened. A new apprentice, full of zeal and eager to impress his mentor, thought he could take a few shortcuts.

  So Ginglen wasn’t surprised when the boy, now with an entirely different air and dots of pink in his embarrassed cheeks, returned almost an hour later with the properly issued authority, from Practitioner Santaron Metenari no less, for the effects of Practitioner Fenra Lowens and her companion, Arlyn Albainil. Ginglen took as long as he could reading over what was really a very short document.

  Doesn’t mention the horse, he noted. It’s like she knew. Good thing he’d hidden her saddlebags as well.

  “And my payment,” he asked, looking up from the document. “There’s the room for two extra days.”

  “That has nothing to do with me.” And how happy the silly boy was to be able to say that. “You’ll have to make application to the White Court yourself.”

  Ginglen took his time packing up the few things his guests had left behind in a small, shabby trunk, abandoned by another guest. He wanted the apprentice gone, but not at the expense of doing things properly.