Stonewielder

by Ian Cameron Esslemont

  Hiam met Stimins’ gaze. Poor man. Driven mad by the Lady. Yet … the old predictions. The land throwing off the wall, and the old Lord Protector Ruel’s vision: the wall collapsing in a great shuddering of the earth, the Riders pouring through to cover the land …

  ‘Calm yourself, Adviser—’ he began.

  ‘Calm myself?’ the man fairly choked. ‘The end is coming. I go to prepare for it. I suggest you do as well.’ And he lurched away.

  The Chosen guards looked to Hiam for orders to pursue him, but he shook his head.

  ‘I don’t like this mention of the west,’ Stimins breathed, his voice low. ‘I’d have preferred it if he’d claimed it was here – overtopping. But not out there, to the west. Not an undermining … Send a message,’ he suggested. ‘Status report.’

  Hiam gave a thoughtful nod. ‘Yes. There’s been a tremor, after all.’ His nod gathered conviction. ‘Yes. I’ll be up top. See to the repairs.’

  Stimins snorted. ‘Wouldn’t be anywhere else, would I?’

  CHAPTER XII

  We cannot learn without pain.

  Wisdom of the Ancients

  Kreshen Reel, compiler

  THE FIRST SIGN STALL HAD OF TROUBLE WAS MEMBERS OF THE WORK gang standing up from their hammering to stare southwards. Stall pushed himself from the rock he’d been leaning against and, taking up his spear, drew his cloak tighter about himself. Evessa straightened as well, sent him a questioning look. He motioned to the rock field far below, where a lone figure climbed the rugged slope that sprawled down from the rear of the Stormwall. Taking up her spear, Evessa waved to Stall and the two took their time picking their way down to the man.

  Closer, Stall saw him to be a bull of a fellow, apparently unarmed, full helm under an arm. Against the cold he wore a plain cloak and thick robes in layers over his armour. He and Evessa spread out to stand ahead of the fellow, to either side.

  Stall planted his spear, called, ‘Who are you? Name yourself!’

  The man did not answer immediately. He peered up past them to the slope where the rear of this section of the curved curtain wall soared like a fortress. The gang peered down from among the rocks where they worked on the buttressing ordered by Master Engineer Stimins.

  The stranger nodded to himself, took a deep breath, and drew on his helm. ‘I suggest you go now,’ he told them in accented Korelri.

  Stall lowered his spear. ‘You’ll have to come with us for questioning …’

  Kneeling, the man pressed a gauntleted hand to the bare stony ground. Stall and Evessa shared a look – was the fellow touched? Stall began: ‘Don’t give us any …’

  The ground shook. Rocks clattered, falling. Grating and roaring, the larger boulders shifted. Evessa cried out and had to jump when the huge rocks she stood upon ground together. The reverberation fanned out around them into the distance, from where the echoes of scraping and shifting returned ever more faintly. The workers cried out, scattering, clambering among the rocks.

  Stall returned his attention to the stranger to see that he now carried a sword: a great two-handed length of dull grey. The man’s eyes glared a bright pale blue from the darkness of his helm. ‘Go now!’ he commanded. ‘Warn everyone to flee!’

  Stall looked to Evessa, cocked a brow. The Jourilan woman inclined her head; Stall nodded. The two backed away. The man was clearing stones from the ground before him. Stall and Evessa picked up their pace, waving away the remaining workers watching them, uncertain.

  ‘Run, you damned fools!’ Stall yelled.

  *

  So which would it be? Greymane wondered while he stood waiting to give everyone time to put more room between he and they. The greatest mass-murderer of the region? Or a semi-mythical deliverer?

  Both, I imagine. It could not be avoided. Many would die. And rightly or wrongly he would be blamed. Yet was he not just one link in an unbroken chain of causality stretching back who knew how far? Albeit the final one.

  Devaleth’s argument returned to haunt him – not that he didn’t know the same doubts: what guarantee did he have that the Riders would not overrun all the lands? Objectively, that much water didn’t exist in the world. Subjectively, every observation, action, and account supported his conclusion.

  They would strike for the Lady.

  Just as he should have when he had his chance. Regrets choked him now. He hoped Kyle would not be too angry with him – he’d had to keep everyone at arm’s length. The fool probably would have tried to follow him!

  And were the troops free of the coast? Certainly they should be by now – especially with Devaleth forewarned. And she should reach Banith as well, through Ruse. Yet what of every other coastal settlement of the region? Were they not all threatened? Yes, many would die. But at least after that it would be over. It would not go on eternally, year after year, as it had for centuries.

  Or so he told himself.

  Enough! Enough self-flagellation. It was too late then; it is even later now. What he should have done long ago awaited him still. Time to act.

  A short thrust first, I think. To warn everyone what is to come.

  He knelt, raised the stone sword, point down. Burn, accept this offering and answer. Bless my intent. Right this ancient wrong. Heal this wound upon the world.

  He slammed the blade down into the earth.

  At first nothing happened. The blade slid easily through the exposed stone. A kind of silence grew around him. Then came a vibration, the ground uneasy, shuddering. Up the slope boulders slid, subsiding. Rocks tumbled to either side. Far above, where the wall met the overcast sky with its embrasures, lift-houses, and quarters, clouds of birds erupted from their perches to take flight in dark swaths. Enormous hanging accumulations of ice, some longer than a man, snapped away, plunging down the rear to smash to the rocks below. Tiny figures raced madly back and forth.

  Run while you can. Greymane yanked the blade free. Setting his left foot back firmly, he raised the sword straight up overhead to its fullest extension. Tensing his body, he snapped the blade down as if to gouge a slice from the earth. The rough stone blade struck the granite in an eruption of force that shuddered straight up to his grip. A crack split the rounded worn bedrock, shooting off ahead to disappear beneath the jumbled scree slope. Kneeling, he kept his death’s grip on the length of carved stone. Water appeared from among the jumbled rocks. It shot down over his knees in a frigid sheen.

  Oh shit. I’m under the wall.

  Well, he chided himself, you didn’t really think you’d survive this, did you?

  A bell-like booming resounded from the towering wall. Two lift-houses built up over the rear fell away in a litter of fractured stone to tumble like doll’s houses down the curved face and explode in shards of wood and stone at the base. Cut blocks of the curtain wall, each perhaps as large as a man, shifted, dirt and moss cascading down. Water shot from the lowest in a jetting spray, darkening the rocks of the slope.

  Greymane yanked the blade free. Enough? Well, best make sure of it.

  He raised the sword again. One more. Then run like a madman.

  This time he swept the blade down as if he were sinking it into water. The naked time-gnawed bedrock parted in a gap that took even his grip. The very ground around him seemed to sink then flex upwards like a struck drum. Boulders the size of houses heaved aside to crash and tumble like catapult stones. A grinding screech as of a death-shriek sounded from the distance where the rearing curtain wall wavered as if struck by a giant’s battering ram. Then it bulged outward at its base, stones shifting, and water burst forth in a gushing, heaving rush.

  Time to go. Greymane yanked but his hands, sunk in past his wrists, would not give.

  He yanked again, pushing off with his legs, but his hands and wrists were caught in the exposed granite bedrock.

  He snapped a gaze to the flood rushing down the retaining field. Far along the curve of the curtain wall a watchtower, some five storeys tall, toppled achingly slowly, looking like a child’s toy so far
in the distance. The top courses of the curtain, undermined, now gave way in a series of puzzle-pieces. They tumbled, an avalanche of gargantuan stones, into the exposed gap beneath. He had a momentary glimpse of the Stormwall’s interior architecture as the fallen walls revealed its outer casework of dressed stone blocks on either side of a driven fill of rubble.

  The wall was breached entirely now, through to the bay beyond.

  Greymane yanked again, frantic, but his limbs would not budge. He stared down at his hands, trapped in the raw living stone, and only then did the beautiful poetry of it dawn upon him and he threw back his head to laugh aloud. Oh ye gods, you have outdone yourselves! Laugh at the fool mortal, for only now do I see it. Stonewielder indeed! Yes. You scheming bastards and bitches!

  ‘Damn you all to Hood’s deepest pits!’

  The foaming flood struck him. His feet were swept from under him; he was trapped under the raging flow. Branches and other driven trash smashed into him and he could hold his breath no longer. The air burst from his searing lungs in a froth of bubbles.

  He never drew another.

  As his consciousness faded he thought he felt hands grasp him there beneath the surface. He did not know if it was his delirious fancy or not, or what it might mean, for all went to dark then and he allowed himself release without regret, without anger, without expectation of anything.

  *

  The waters of the Ocean of Storms, risen far above ancient levels, tide-swollen, driven by the sorceries of the Stormriders, poured through the gap in a burgeoning flood. The course gouged its way south, always seeking low ground. Entire swaths of forest were swept aside as the flash flood raced downhill, gathering ever greater momentum as it went. Farmhouses, fields, roads, stone walls, all disappeared as this sudden new river scoured a widening channel down to the bedrock of the island.

  A chance subtle rise in the landscape spared the fortress city of Storm. Its citizens had just picked themselves up from a rare earth tremor. Many had walked out into the streets to peer at the new cracks in the cobbled roads and arcing-down walls. They heard the distant roar and went to the walls to watch astonished as to the east a new channel thundered past as a true waterfall. And, for a time, the city was entirely cut off from the rest of Korel. These citizens later swore to catching glimpses amid the flow of brilliant sapphire flashes and gliding ominous dark shapes.

  Racing far more swiftly than the fastest charger, the churning waters crashed through the last forested reach of land to pour over, then entirely grind away, the shore beaches and sand cliffs down into Crooked Strait. Here the waters melded into the narrow strait, ever rising, forming from shore to shore a great swelling hump of water coursing to the east and to the west. The wavefront climbed higher than the topgallant of the tallest vessel. Entire fishing hamlets disappeared without a ripple beneath this heaving peak more than five fathoms deep. It raced faster than any ship or messenger. It overtook fleeing vessels, submerged low-lying forested islands. Left behind in its passing lay an entirely new coastline, resculpted and washed clean.

  *

  Deep in thought, Hiam climbed the narrow circular stairs of Ice Tower. Chosen hurried up and down, pausing to salute, which he answered absently. This tremor; could it really be as bad as the Malazan seems to think? Every mage who practises his or her witchery eventually goes mad – that is the most obvious explanation. Everyone, he imagined, must be thinking of those mystical prophecies: the earth cracking open to swallow the wall. But this was no supernatural event; it was just an earth tremor, common enough in many regions of the world. Unprecedented events were unfolding, yes, but that was no reason for panic.

  Reaching the communication chamber he adjusted the flame to burn its highest then bashed open the west shutters. The frigid wind sliced into the chamber again but this time it did not snuff the flame. He lowered the metal sleeve, dug up a scoopful of the flaring dust and tossed it on to the flame. The dust burst into a hissing white glare that made him flinch away, covering his face. Hunched, head turned away, he worked the sleeve up and down, signalling the tower on top of the western pass.

  Wind Tower: report.

  Wind Tower was the westernmost of the main fortresses.

  He waited. The request had to travel the entire length of the wall then back again. The answer came much more swiftly than he had anticipated; it seemed this tremor had put everyone on edge.

  Wind Tower not responding.

  That was the Tower of Ruel’s Tears, its eastern neighbour.

  Tossing more dust on to the flame, Hiam signed: Status?

  After a time the answer came: Ruel’s Tears not responding.

  That was the Great Tower north of Elri, their main fortress on the Stormwall.

  Disbelieving, Hiam threw more dust on to the flame, signed: Status! Status!

  A long silence during which the wind moaned and gusted, seeming to mock him. Then, mystifyingly, from the neighbouring tower, the Tower of Stars: Pray!

  Hiam threw himself to the western window, stared through the eternal blowing snow to the high pass where the glow of the guard tower shone like a beacon in the overcast gloom. While he watched, it was snuffed into darkness, and something billowed around it: something like a blizzard cascading down the pass along the wall, driving for this last reach of the wall and Ice Tower. Hiam clenched the window: Lady, what was this? A true catastrophe such as struck ages ago? Was this truly the end? Lady, what have we done that you should turn your face from us so?

  Lady, forgive us …

  The avalanche struck like a wall of white. Hiam was thrown to the floor, which bucked and hammered him. Enormous crackling fractured his hearing and he understood that the gargantuan shelves of blue-black ice that sheathed the tower were breaking off its sides. Further blows rocked and shuddered the tower as these shards, the size of wagons, came thundering down to slam bursting on to the top of the wall.

  The quake passed quickly, the last of the shudders reverberating off into the distance like a passing storm, or rockfall. Unwilling to believe it was actually over, Hiam gingerly picked himself from the floor. He went to the window and peered out, half expecting a vista of ruination, but what he saw filled him with admiration and awe.

  We still stand! The wall is intact!

  Magnificent ancestors, you have not striven in vain! Lady, we have taken the worst and endured! Is this your message? If so, I am ashamed. How pathetic my faith.

  Certainly, the damage was horrific. The worst of his imaginings … but nothing like a fracture or failure. Outer machicolations had fallen away; rear buildings had collapsed, coursework along the upper reaches appeared misaligned; cracks worked down the wall of the tower. But this was all merely cosmetic: the basic structural curve of the curtain wall appeared sound. Beyond that curve, however, the waters of the bay appeared unusually disturbed: great counter-waves slammed back and forth, and froth and spume jetted straight up in a clash of forces far out in the bay.

  I’ll need to inspect the damage. He ran for the stairs, but before he got two full turns down he found the way jammed by fallen rubble. He stared at the barrier, almost uncomprehending. No! Not now! Not when I’m needed most! He threw himself at the great stone blocks, heaving, pulling.

  Lady, no! Please! I beg you to forgive me!

  *

  Deep under Ice Tower in the holding cells Shell stood pressed up hard against a glacial wall. That first tremor had terrified her. Here she was far below a stone tower on an ancient crumbling wall perched above a cliff over a sea! And now, though she dared not raise her Warren, she could feel it twitching, pulling at her. Something was happening. Something shattering.

  A contingent came filing down from standing the wall. Shell saw Blues among them. The man had a hand to his forehead, wincing. A regular guardsman urged him on with a poke of his sword. Seemingly without effort Blues yanked the blade from the man’s hand then clouted him on the side of his head and he fell senseless. The file of prisoners shuffled to a halt, completely uncert
ain what to do. Blues leaned against a wall, blinking and shaking his shaggy head.

  ‘You sense it?’ Shell called.

  ‘Sense it!’ the man groaned. ‘Gods! My head’s gonna explode. I’ve not felt this since Genabackis when we faced the Warlord … In fact, I would’ve sworn it was impossible …’

  ‘What?’

  The man stared about, suddenly panicked. ‘Everyone, take cover! Get into doorways!

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Quiet! Listen!’ The man backed into a cell doorway, gripped the edges.

  Shell tried to still her breathing. She felt her Warren crackling with energy at her fingertips – just as during the worst magery engagements! Enormous power has been unleashed!

  Then she heard it: a rumbling seeming to arise from beneath her feet. The wall struck her, slamming her across the cell into the sleeping ledge. Stone shrieked, grinding and hammering. Dust and dirt rained down, choking her breath and blinding her while the floor bashed her. She was going to die crushed like a beetle!

  Eventually, though it seemed to last an eternity, the rumbling and up-and-down shaking passed away. Ominous groanings, creakings, and the cries of wounded filled the silence. The door to her cell burst into the chamber, iron bars rattling.

  ‘Shell!’ Hands pulled her up: it was Blues, the side of his head a dust-coated smear of blood. ‘Are you all right?’

  She brushed at the pulverized rock dusting her clothes. ‘Yes … yes! I think so. Who else is here? Lazar?’