In Stone's Clasp

by Christie Golden

  Her laughter surprised her. “I guess I did need to move,” she admitted, rubbing life back into her numb limbs. Her bladder was full and her belly empty, and she had to acknowledge the wisdom of her friend. She might be a powerful woman, but her body was no more and no less than human, and it had its own needs.

  The Dragon had set them down near a small stream. Kevla stood for a moment, marveling at the casual ease with which this land bestowed water. In Arukan, water was more precious than gold. Her clan, the Clan of Four Waters, held much of its power because it controlled a key position at the juncture of the country’s two largest rivers. But here, the grass was green and the water flowed freely, unaware of how rare and special it seemed to her.

  She knelt and splashed her face. It revived her, and made her think of her daily baths in the caverns at the House of Four Waters. She had left an Arukan where the clans had united against the Emperor’s army instead of fighting one another, where many of the old, crippling ways were being discarded. She hoped this progress would continue.

  Kevla drank deeply, and refilled the waterskins her old friend Sahlik had packed for her. Her throat closed up tightly as memories washed over her, memories of the elderly head servant who had done what she could to make Kevla’s existence at the House of Four Waters bearable. Sahlik had even seen to it that Kevla and—

  No. I mustn’t think of him. I don’t know the extent of the Emperor’s powers and he might sense it.

  Quickly, she got to her feet and headed back to where the Dragon lay. He had stretched out to his full length, and not for the first time, Kevla marveled at him. She had feared him once. He had haunted her dreams and terrorized her, but only because she didn’t understand who and what she was. Now she did, and the Dragon seemed to her the most devoted of creatures despite his enormous bulk and powerful teeth and claws. Not to mention the sheets of flame he could breathe at a thought.

  That did not frighten her, for she, too, could summon fire at will.

  Kevla plopped down beside her friend and opened her pack. She reached in and pulled out a loaf of bread wrapped in cloth and inhaled the scent deeply. Her mouth watered.

  “You were right,” she said, “I’m famished. It was so good of Sahlik to pack some food for me. I didn’t even think about it, and I’d—”

  The words died in her throat. Curious, the Dragon inclined his massive head to see what had silenced her so abruptly.

  “What is it, Kevla?” he asked.

  Kevla held a wooden board. It had been painted with interlocking circles of white and black, with the overlapping areas painted gray. There was a large pouch still sitting in the pack. Her heart raced and she had difficulty breathing.

  Shamizan. Sahlik had packed a Shamizan set. She had known how much Kevla and the young lord of the House of Four Waters had enjoyed playing it when they were children, and no doubt, the old woman had likely thought that a set would comfort Kevla. She was suddenly plunged back in time as she stared at the board, remembering her first encounter with the game.

  “Can you play Shamizan?” he had asked.

  “What is Shamizan?” His eyes lit up. For the first time since she had known him, Kevla thought that he looked like a boy her own age, not a small adult. “Oh, it’s so much fun! Let me go get my set—”

  He rose and ran out of the hut, returning only a few moments later, flushed and out of breath. Kevla suspected he had run the entire way. Hardly proper behavior for a future khashim, but it was good to see him so happy.

  “It’s easy to learn.”

  Easy to learn, hard to stop, Kevla thought. At one point, she looked up from the board and saw the khashimu regarding her with an intent gaze. His face dissolved into delight as she ducked her head and smiled.

  “You like the game, then?”

  “Oh, yes, very much.”

  “I am so glad. I hoped you would.”

  Kevla could no longer hold the memories at bay: the memories of what they had been to one another, how they had loved…how he had died.

  Even then, even when we were too young to understand it, we loved each other.

  Kevla clutched the board to her breasts for a long moment. She wanted to scream, to rage, but somehow held on to sufficient sense to deny the almost overwhelming urge. They were in danger every moment they were in this land, and shrieking and shouting her grief could attract unwanted attention.

  Kevla got to her feet. She hurled the wooden board as far away from her as she could, grunting with the effort. Fumbling with the drawstring, she reached into the pouch. Her shaking fingers closed on dozens of small, round, polished pieces of glass. She threw them into the distance as well, tears pouring in stony silence down her face. Then she collapsed against the strong side of the Dragon, burying her face in her hands as her shoulders shook.

  He said nothing to try to comfort her; he knew well enough that nothing would. Time stretched endlessly, the pain not subsiding, the memories raw and fresh. She did not have many of them; the time a Bai-sha servant girl and the heir of the Clan could steal together was limited. Each memory was precious. Each touch, each word, from her first startled encounter with him as their eyes locked at a feast to those ecstatic yet horrifying last moments together, from their whispered conversations and dreams of dragons and shadowed other lives—

  Something soft and dark as a shadow brushed her mind. Yes, that’s right. Think of your Lorekeeper. What did he tell you?

  Kevla gasped. The bittersweet memories shattered like a glass goblet falling upon stone. The Emperor was in her thoughts, crawling and scratching like a mouse in the granaries, digging busily for what he wanted to know—

  “Don’t let him in, Kevla!” cried the Dragon, startling her out of her stunned horror. “Think of something useless to him! Quickly, tell me how you would treat an insect sting!”

  “Rub it with garlic, and then apply a white clay poultice.” The mundane information calmed her, and she felt the mental probing lessen slightly.

  “Good, good. How would you prepare eusho?”

  Kevla dutifully recited the elaborate steps that went into preparing the hot, bitter drink.

  No! I have you. You’re in my land now.

  The attack changed. The Emperor was no longer burrowing into her mind, but her heart. She clawed between her own breasts, as if she could get to her heart and keep it safe before—

  “Fire!” cried the Dragon.

  Still pressing her hands on her chest, Kevla envisioned her heart surrounded by walls of flame. Warmth flooded back into her being. There was a harsh, searing pain in her temples. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, she was free, and she sucked air into her lungs in a great gasp.

  She sighed deeply and slumped forward. She felt the sides of the Dragon heave with relief as well.

  “That was close,” he said. “We are lucky he did not expect to encounter you again so soon. He would have been better prepared.”

  Kevla’s voice shook as she spoke. “I should not have thought of him.” She could not bring herself to speak the name, but knew the Dragon would know whom she meant. “I could have revealed everything he had told me. He would be so disappointed in me if he—if he were still alive.”

  “I think not,” said the Dragon, in as gentle a voice as so powerful a being could manage. “I think he would be very proud of you.”

  Kevla’s stomach growled. She laughed shakily, wiping at her wet face. Clearly, her body didn’t care about Emperors or Lorekeepers or love or duty, it just wanted food. Almost everything Sahlik had packed was dried and would travel well. Kevla would not need a fire to cook, and after what had happened, she wasn’t about to light one. She thought it would be like setting up a beacon.

  She chewed on a strip of dried meat and washed it down with water. It tasted like sand in her mouth, but she forced herself to choke it down. The bread was a little easier, still soft and fresh. After she had eaten, she felt better; calmer, more in control. She sighed, then stood.

  “Where are you going?�
�� asked the Dragon.

  “To collect the Shamizan pieces,” she replied.

  “It’s dark.”

  “I don’t care. It’s all I have left of him.”

  “In the morning. When there is light.”

  She could not argue the logic of that, although she ached to have all the pieces once again safely in their bag. It had been foolish of her to hurl them away in a fit of anger; foolish, too, to want to keep them so badly. She leaned against the Dragon’s warm, gently moving side. As the waning moon began its path across a sky crowded with stars, Kevla realized this was the first night she had spent away from her homeland. The thought was at once exciting, sorrowful, and frightening.

  She had put both them and their quest in jeopardy by surrendering to her emotions. She would not make that mistake again.

  She looked at the stars, her eyelids growing heavy. She would be like the stars, she thought; doing what they needed to do, shining above the world, above its cares and sorrows and trials. Kevla-sha-Tahmu flew on the back of the great red Dragon. She would do what she needed to do from that lofty perch. The earth and its pains would have no hold on her. She and the Dragon were flying north, to join with another like her, one with more experience, who could lead from now on. She knew what he looked like, had seen the blend of strength and kindness in his strong, milk-pale face.

  She slept at last, and had no dreams.

  7

  Kevla winced as she moved stiff limbs and sat upright. Her hand came down on something wet and she jerked it back.

  “What…” She looked at her hand, covered with small droplets, and realized her rhia was damp as well. “Dragon, there is water on the grass.”

  As Kevla got to her feet, the Dragon too, rose and stretched, extending one leg and then the other like a gigantic cat. He chuckled slightly and Kevla blushed, embarrassed.

  “I do not laugh at your ignorance, dear one, only your endearing inexperience. That is called dew. At night, water collects on the ground, and in the morning, with the heat of the day, it disappears.”

  Kevla rubbed the little miracle between her fingers. Water, just manifesting on the ground like that. “Is this part of the Emperor’s magic?”

  “No, it is simply how the world works here. You have just begun to experience how different things will seem to you. Arukan was cut off from others by the mountains, and unlike some lands, there was no trade with those from foreign places. Arukan doesn’t even have tales of anywhere else.”

  Kevla gingerly touched her tongue to her finger. The Dragon was right—it was water. She felt her lips curve in a smile of delight.

  The Dragon looked around, his golden eyes scanning the horizon. “I’m not sensing him, are you?”

  Kevla’s delight vanished, much as the Dragon predicted the dew would vanish with the arrival of the sun. Her childlike enjoyment of the water that seemed to bead on every single blade of grass was forgotten as she, too, became alert. Nervously, she opened her thoughts, trying to sense the enemy in whose realm they were trespassing.

  “No,” she said, aware that her voice sounded tense and heavy. “But I’m not sure what I should be trying to sense.”

  His mighty head turned this way and that. His nostrils flared and a thin stream of smoke issued forth. “There is no mistaking it if you had sensed him. Nonetheless, we had best not linger.”

  Kevla swallowed hard. “I suppose there isn’t time for me to gather the pieces, then.” I deserve it for being so foolish, she thought.

  “Of course there is time,” he said. “And I will help you.”

  Kevla reached up and hugged his neck.

  Fortunately, the small glass pieces caught the early morning light and were not as difficult to find as she had feared. Still, it took time. The Dragon’s eyes were sharper than hers by far, but there was no way his mammoth claws could close over so tiny an item. He told her where to look and she picked up the pieces. Each time her fingers closed about the cool, smooth glass, she felt a pang of loss and remembered joy. It would have been sweet to abandon the pain associated with this game, but that would be to abandon the memory of the one she had loved with all her heart. And it was simply not possible for her to do that.

  The sun rose higher in the sky, but at last, all of the pieces, nearly a hundred of them, were safely in the leather sack. Kevla looked longingly at the stream, wanting to step into its depths for a quick bath, but she knew they had tarried here too long as it was. Tearing off a hunk of bread to eat on the way, she climbed atop the Dragon’s back.

  The two companions of Fire fell into a rhythm. During the day, the Dragon would make great progress, flying with only occasional stops so Kevla could stretch and grab a quick bite of food, and at night, they would come to earth so that she might seize a few hours of sleep. With each day that passed, Kevla wrestled with a new tumult of emotions. She was happy to be embarking on a journey; she missed the life she had known. She was calm and free, soaring above it all; she grieved for the man who had called her his soul. She looked forward to surrendering the burden of the quest to this stranger from the North; she shrank from meeting someone so alien to her.

  The land changed as they traveled. Though Kevla never truly felt cold, it was easy to tell that the climate of the Emperor’s land was not that of the desert. The yellowed, grassy plains of the first night gave way to rich green meadows starred with flowers that looked to Kevla’s eyes like scattered jewels. Two nights after that, the Dragon landed in the only clearing in the midst of an uncountable number of trees.

  Kevla dismounted, noticing that her feet landed on a soft carpet of discarded leaves. “I have never seen so many trees in a single place before, not even the groves.”

  “The term used to describe such a large amount of trees is forest,” the Dragon explained.

  Slightly dazed by the size and health of the trees—in Arukan, only fruit trees were cultivated and therefore flourished; all others were stunted, twisted things—she walked among them and touched their trunks. There were many different varieties, and their leaves were a riot of colors. Gold, red, orange, yellow—

  “And I suppose you will tell me that this wonder, too, is not part of the Emperor’s magic?” she challenged the Dragon.

  “No magic. Arukan is a desert country. The changes are infrequent—a rainstorm now and then, or times when it is hotter or cooler than others. Here, and in places like this, change is much more vigorous. Most places have four seasons—spring, when growth is new, summer, when growth flourishes, autumn, when there is a harvest of summer’s bounty, and winter, a time when everything lies dormant and still.”

  Kevla shook her head in wonderment as she plucked a golden leaf and twirled it between her fingers. “It is hard for my head to hold all this, but my eyes do not lie.” She frowned as she mulled over something the Dragon had said.

  “I can see how people would flourish in a place that has so much growth,” she said. “But this last season—this winter. It is not good, is it?”

  “It’s not necessarily bad, but it is not a fruitful time. Everything goes to sleep. No crops grow, nor does fruit ripen on the tree. The animals have a difficult time finding food, as do people. Some animals fatten themselves up and sleep away the winter in a cave rather than face its harshness.”

  “How does anyone survive this winter?”

  “They know it is coming, and they plan for it. They harvest and store food.”

  “Like we do when the men go on raids,” said Kevla.

  “Exactly. Then, when the spring comes, they plant new crops, and the cycle begins again.”

  Kevla smiled a little. There was something about this cycle, this sense of rhythm and steadiness, that she found comforting. Her land knew only the desert. As the Dragon had said, there were periods of flooding, cooler and warmer times, and the occasional sandstorm, but overall there was a sameness about the days and months that she only now realized was…dull.

  She walked among the trees, touching the thick, soft gre
en growth that the Dragon told her was moss, trying to reach her arms around a tree only to find that it was too big and therefore very old indeed. Some of the trees did not have leaves that turned color; instead their leaves took the form of needles and their scent was intoxicating, almost overwhelming.

  “If the Arukani oilcrafters could capture this scent,” Kevla told the Dragon, bringing a branch to her nose and inhaling deeply, “their fortunes would be assured.”

  That night, she dreamed. She was at a feast, in the hall of the Clan of Four Waters. Kevla had witnessed many such feasts in her life, but always before, she had sat behind the khashima she served, veiled and silent, eating only after her mistress had eaten, lifting bites of food under the veil for delicate nibbles no matter how hungry she might be.

  This time, she sat in the center of the low table of dark, polished wood in a place of honor. She had no veil, and realized that this meant she was the highest-ranking female present. She reclined upon embroidered silk cushions, and knew without looking that she had her own servants sitting silently behind her. The fare was lavish—roasted meat and fowl rubbed with aromatic herbs and glazed with honey, fresh bread to sop up the juices, succulent fruits with flesh that was ripe and red, dates and olives and all manner of other delicacies.

  Kevla ate and ate, laughing and talking with ease and grace, as if this was the life she had been born to live, not that of a Bai-sha child, illegitimate and unwanted. In the background she heard music, as noisy and vibrant as the feasters.

  On her right was the khashim of the Clan, Tahmu-kha-Rakyn. Tall and strong, with aquiline features and curly black hair that still bore no touch of gray, he looked upon her with affection, and now and then reached to touch her face in a paternal gesture. There was an ease between them that had never existed in the waking world, and somehow Kevla knew that she was living the life she would have if Tahmu, her father, had claimed her as his daughter when she was a child.