Into the Stone Land

by Robert Stanek

  Each time this happened, Tall’d stare after them for a few long breaths before starting. Then he’d hurry off.

  He was hurrying to catch up with the smoot when he got a good scare. A thick mound began to writhe and loop. He caught a quick glimpse of sliding scales and a large, black eye, and maybe a fang. Then an enormous slither appeared.

  The slither’s lashing tongue just missed Tall’s face as it shot out at him hissing. The last thing Tall saw was the great hood on its head opening, the body thick as a tree, snapping into a coil. He raised his staff instinctively to protect himself, but too late. Fortunately, the smoot and old bull intervened. The smoot was at Tall’s side pulling him away to the left while old bull came on strong from the right. One rake from old bull’s claws sent the slither hissing in retreat.

  “I see now why Keene interfered when I forbade it,” the smoot muttered. He pulled Tall onward. “You’ve the skill, not the application. Of all the 12-winter boys to put our hopes in. If only Ray’d returned by now, it’d all be so less dire.”

  The only thing Tall heard of any of it was the name. “Ray?” he said. “What’s he have to do with anything?”

  “Never mind,” the smoot said. “Mind your step. It’s gone, only wanted to protect its patch. There’s worse around, though, so I’d keep my hands on my staff if I was you.”

  “Okay, okay,” Tall said. The smoot stifled a rare smile. Tall felt certain the smoot had no high opinion of his skills, and he hadn’t done anything to change the smoot’s mind.

  They were underway again, Tall keeping a sharp eye on the weed-grass and nearby scatter bush. He was recovering from his embarrassment, and the smoot was racing along the bank. One moment the smoot was muttering on and on about the loss of hope, or something to that affect; the next the smoot was wading out into the shallows and standing on an outcropping of rocks. The rocks were dangerously wet and slippery, though the smoot fixed his small feet as firmly to them as the slimy covering allowed.

  He paused to reach down into the water, snatching up something long and sinewy. Afterward, glancing briefly into the murky wet, he plunged in and plucked up another wiry creature with his other hand. Both hands full of what Tall now realized were squirming bulls—hatchlings by the look of them—the smoot made his way back to Tall. He was weaving to keep his balance.

  Behind him, something broke the surface—some things, Tall corrected, and they were all racing after the smoot, whipping tails and generally writhing.

  Tall thought of the old queen’s hatchlings immediately, but these were bigger than he remembered and more plentiful. Mad as buzzers, they seemed to be drawn by the smoot’s abduction of their brethren.

  A mob of hungry hatchlings was an ugly thing, and even the old bull drew back at their approach. The smoot kept at it, bending double to offer the two captured hatchlings something from his pack. When all the hatchlings were falling over one another at Tall’s feet, the smoot took more offerings out of his pack—something dried, smelly and pressed into long sticks.

  “How did you know where they were?” Tall said amazed. “You couldn’t see them, but you snagged them right off.”

  “Been following us all day.” Then, pointing back to something, Tall didn’t know what, the smoot add, “And so has that one.”

  “These are the old queen’s. They’ve grown, but it’s them.”

  “Bullnip,” the smoot said briefly. Tall knew what bullnip was. He’d never seen it pressed and dried into little logs though. He suspected there was a reason for this. He wasn’t going to ask, but then he said, “Bullnip is against our laws.”

  “Never the apt student,” the smoot chastised. “Always with your paintings when you should’ve been learning your father’s trade.”

  “I am my father’s son. I know the crafter’s trade.”

  “You know it but don’t feel it in your heart. Never have, never will, because in your heart, you, Tall, are a caller with the mind of a seer.”

  “Caller? Seer? Me?”

  “Ray’s path and your path must cross, I’ve seen this. I’ve known this. Just as you may start to see.” The great arbors of the loch were starting to cast long shadows. The smoot eyed the biggest and oldest of the three. “My path will one day be yours, but first you must rid yourself of the caller in your heart.”

  Tall’s brain buzzed. His father was a crafter. He knew little of other village trades. Gathering, growing, building, speaking, weaving—these were trades for others, not him. His mother had once called him a seer—to his father’s utter dismay. “How else would he get these visions of these, these— things,” she had said. The pictures he had drawn were of mountains floating in the clouds with wide rivers flowing from their lofty heights.

  “Tall, listen to me, and listen closely. It’s your time to rise above. You must leave our world now to rid your heart of the calling. Just as Ray’s path took him out into the beyond, so does yours. Ray is in danger; great, grave danger. I’m afraid you may not be able to save him, but try you must. Within him, he carries the key to saving our people. He can end your calling as well, so that you may return a seer and take my place.”

  “Take your place? And where will—” Tall noticed old bull’s eyes on him. The bull was watching him around the smoot’s arm. The smoot was pointing to something dark in the distance that was moving rapidly toward them. Though he wanted to flee, Tall stilled himself. It seemed to him that he ought to follow the smoot’s lead. But when he heard a low cry and another and another, he almost jumped into the loch.

  It had felt as if they were isolated temporarily from everything else. Now the soft cries rose up from all around, like there were extra voices chiming in to some unknown chorus.

  Old bull slipped into the loch just at the wet’s edge. Through the undergrowth Tall saw flaring nostrils first and then large, black eyes. Above this ears and a dark, shaggy mane.

  It was the yearling and he’d brought his mother. Tall started to reach out to stroke the mother’s head. The smoot said, “No, don’t. You’ve already bonded too many to you. Too many attachments weaken the connections.”

  “Smoot?” Tall said, turning and looking at the elder as if for the first time. He seemed to lose control of his legs. He drooped to his haunches, then collapsed to the ground. His mouth fell open in shock. “Smoot, what’s happening? What’s—”

  Tall tried to stand, found he couldn’t. The smoot moved to steady Tall. “Too late, much too late…” The smoot muttered. “True enough, the connection doesn’t need a touch, only a yearning, and your heart is filled with yearning.”

  As if summoned, the hatchlings came to Tall. Scrambling to see which could get closest, some crawled over his legs and lap, others his hands and arms, but every single one looked up at him with its head raised and a hunger in its eyes. The smoot seemed to be speechless for the moment as his gaze passed over the scene.

  The sun was beating down now, a hot, orange-red ball just above the top of the towering stone wall. The focused rays brought odd shadows. The oddest of them all was the shadow mountain cast by the tangle of Tall and the hatchlings.

  It was a silent scene until the smoot found his voice. “Foolish, foolish. You’ve bonded too many. As the hatchlings grow so does their feeding on the bond. As if that wasn’t enough to break you, you bonded a yearling and now a full grown mare.” More quietly, he added, “If these bonds break, you’re doomed, doomed. They’ll turn on you sure as the sun rises and sets. I warned Keene not to interfere. I warned him. His father’s meddling no doubt.”

  Tall felt a numbness move up his toes. He looked down and saw his legs weren’t there. “Smoot, smoot! What’s happening? What’s happening? Smoot? Smoot?”

  The smoot look as scandalized as anyone could. “It’s pulling you to the other side.”

  “The other side of what?”

  The smoot reached out quickly, grabbing both of Tall’s hands in his own. The grip was so tight Tall thought surely his fingers must snap. “Quiet. Focus… Dre
am it back to life or you’ll be swept away.”

  “Away to where?”

  “Look down!” The smoot commanded. Tall did. To his horror he saw that his legs, waist and chest were gone now and that only his arms, neck and head remained. His head spun with the impossibility of it all while the smoot spoke quickly of what he must do. “Dream it back now, boy. See it in your mind’s eye. Imagine it to life.”

  “Imagine what to life?”

  “The connection. The connection. I didn’t mean to scare you before with thoughts of them turning on you, but it may happen someday. You’ve bonded too many, much too many. But believe me now when I say that if you don’t reconnect with them, you will disappear with it—lost to the other side for all time.”

  The ball of the sun disappeared behind the wall, allowing shadows to envelop the land. Tall was paralyzed with fear. He stretched out his arms to the smoot as his head started to slip into the other place. “I—I don’t know what to do.”

  “The yearning!” The smoot bellowed. “Reach out to them with it! Find the missing and weak linkages… Make them whole!”

  Tall thought he might faint. His chest burned with fire even though the air in the lost place was chilly.

  “Breathe!” Tall hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he suddenly exhaled. He breathed in, looked inward. “You’ve the yearning in you—in your heart! Find it!”

  Tall tried to find the yearning. He was in bad shape. But he took a breath, then another and another. With each exhale, he felt the pressure release a little and when he looked down, he saw his chest—though everything below that was still somewhere else.

  “That’s it,” the smoot coached. “You must learn to see the yearning as any other sees with his eyes. Can you see the connecting lines—the white fire stretching from you to them?”

  Tall felt faint again, but he did see something that shouldn’t be there. Many somethings. Glowing lines. Tethers really. And all of them reaching back to him.

  A sudden urge to touch the tethers overtook Tall. When he reached out, the lines disappeared, and he instead saw his legs, felt the toes in his right boot as he wiggled them. His left leg from the knee down was elsewhere, however, lost in the chilly other place. “Smoot?” Tall said. By then he knew he was in for something, and there was clear panic in his voice. He started thrashing, pulling his missing leg and moaning.

  There was still some evening left, but the light was fading. The smoot reached out, gripped Tall’s shoulders with both hands. “Your movement will attract the othersiders. We don’t want that… Calm yourself.”

  Tall’s eyes widened. “Othersiders?”

  The smoot held Tall firmly. Air that had been unusually cool turned icy. “Not a word or movement now,” The smoot whispered. “He’s near, mustn’t let him use this doorway.”

  An overcast sky hid the moon and stars. When it got so dark Tall couldn’t see, he reached out to the Smoot.

  “Foolish, boy!” The smoot screamed, as he crushed and fed Tall five seeds from a scatter bush pod.

  The foul taste of the seeds filled Tall’s mouth. All he could think was that he surely was going to die and that the smoot only wanted to speed up the process.

  In a matter of a breath, Tall’s heart was beating so fast he thought it would explode. His throat and nose burned. He started coughing and his lungs ached. But somehow he felt certain this discomfort wasn’t entirely from the seeds.

  His body was being pulled into the lost place by unseen hands. A shimmering specter clad in a tattered, but-once-fine robe waited there for him. Tall felt drawn to the glowing eyes and the weathered face with its hollow, sunken cheeks. The head was adorned with an ancient crown fashioned not of gold and jewels but of carved bones and wood.

  The burning. The pain. The cold of that other place. Watching as the specter reached and pulled. It was a lot to handle. He didn’t want to think about the specter. Its disfigured body. Its desiccated fingers gripping his legs.

  His legs! Somewhere in his befuddled mind one thought connected to another and he started kicking, fighting back. The crown. The bones. He must get them. He saw now in both worlds, so perhaps the smoot was telling him to do this.

  He reached for the crown, just as the specter realized what he was doing. The specter vanished. A man, so striking in his golden robes, appeared. Then his features withered, his limbs reduced to half their normal girth, and he became once more unrecognizable as a man. Tall’s legs began to ache because the specter had them. He pulled as hard as he could to free himself. His knees exploded, spewing bright red blood around him. He had to grope for what used to be his calves and feet, but the flesh disintegrated in his hands.

  Was this real? Or had he started hallucinating? He squeezed his eyes tight and tried to breathe thought his mouth, telling himself not to become sick. Ringing in his ears blocked everything and his world fell to silence. He lurched back, tried to free what was left of himself.

  “In the time between time I wait,” the specter said. His words, spoken rapidly, were almost incoherent. Tall felt compelled to listen and was almost disappointed when the smoot pulled him back from the other side. All he could think about was whether he was whole.

  Panic. He reached down, tried to force his hands to move past his thighs.

  “Do this!” He commanded himself. Clenching his jaw, he dug his fingers into his flesh and inched downward. He got a hold on what must be his knee, and forced himself to continue. He couldn’t help it, he could scarcely breath now, the whole thing was like a nightmare and he seemed to have lost his grasp on what was real. His fingers found his calves, his feet, his toes. He realized he was back, whole.

  Now the smoot and Tall were only outlines in the dark land. Close by, Tall sensed Old Bull and the hatchlings. A little further off, he felt the yearling and the mare. But something else was out there in the night. Tall sensed that too. He edged toward the smoot. The smoot’s body was warm; his, cold. Half an hour passed. Then the smoot spoke, “So much you don’t know. So much you must learn.”

  “Then teach me,” Tall heard himself say.

  “Not tonight,” the smoot said in a small voice. “Tonight I must tell you something of even more import and you must listen.”

  Tall wiggled the toes on his left foot. The numbing cold was leaving. He felt warmth returning.

  Later, much later, when Tall had almost given up on the smoot saying anything more, the smoot said, “Ray and the high wizard will meet. When they do, the fate of our lands and people will be decided. That path I see very clearly, as I saw that your path and Ray’s might intersect if a fate dealt to you could be averted…”

  “This is about Keene and Ray, isn’t it?” Tall barely saw the smoot’s hand come up to rest on top of Old Bull’s head. He had not heard Old Bull approach, but he had felt it. Just as he had seen the momentary fire created when the two connected.

  The smoot said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “I felt you. You saw the yearning as Old Bull and I connected. Careful now… Others should not know that you can see in that way.”

  Tall couldn’t breathe for listening. All around him the world was aglow with fiery connections. The strongest and most brilliant was the connection between Old Bull and the smoot. It was true that other weaker connections linked himself and the hatchlings, himself and the horses. But that was just the beginning of it.

  It was as if he was seeing for the first time. The world was alive with white fire. Connections were everywhere. In the air. In the loch. In the very earth at his feet. There were connections between the arbors and the loch. Connections between nesting creatures and their broods. Connections between a queen and her mated bull. And on and on and on.

  A hand closed over Tall’s. “Careful. You’ll burn yourself out. Second sight is not a trifle. Never reach so fully… or so…” With a gesture, the smoot sent Old Bull to prowl. Tall heard a little scampering, sawing sound as the bull made his way through the weed-grass. From the scatter bush the yearl
ing and his mother made some tiny, terrified sound.

  Tall stood, strapped on his backpack. Then he picked up his container and staff.

  The smoot looked away, then turned back to Tall. “Not to worry. Old Bull will take care of it. They’ll be safe.”

  Tall heard a scuffle in the grass, gripped his staff more firmly. He wanted to race the wind through the grass to the scatter bush. Seconds passed. Then once more the smoot spoke. “What I must say affects you as much as it does the other 12-winter boys. Didn’t you think it strange that suddenly none of your friends were around?”

  Tall turned back to the smoot. Even before he realized what he’d just heard, his eyes showed his uncertainty.

  “Isaac’s father busied him with winning a bride. Ephramme’s, with the speaker’s trade. Keene and his father would have nothing of it, however. As a man, his voice counted as much as his father’s. It’s the real reason he was exiled.” The smooth leaned forward, flicked Tall’s forehead hard enough to make a hollow thump. “Think! Banished for stepping on nestlings and lying. Bah!”

  “Smoot, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I saw and knew your fate before you left the village. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have shared this. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes. But this time—this time is different. Your path converges with Ray’s and when it does, there is hope against all possible odds. It’s why I had to tell the others…”

  The smoot paused, and though Tall couldn’t see the other’s face clearly, he knew the smoot’s face was wet with tears. “…I shouldn’t have; I know this now. His death should have been yours and all this would be settled. Hope would be lost, but the one who was meant to live would.”

  It was Tall’s turn to grip the smoot’s shoulders. “What are you telling me?”

  The smoot turned away, breathing heavy. “The boy meant to live is not you. It is Keene… I’m telling you that you were meant to die out here in the deep. But I was selfish… I told the elders what a smoot never should. I told them of the convergence because I feared for the future of our people. Only Ray can bring back hope, but without you, Ray would never return.”