Stonewiser

by Dora Machado

  They huddled in the dark while Sariah gave him a quick account of her night. “That group from the mob found me only because Delis broke through the window and allowed the light to escape,” Sariah finished.

  “They sent Delis?”

  “You know Delis?”

  “I know of Delis. Where is she now?”

  Sariah guided Kael to the abandoned deck where the woman lay.

  “Wicked goddess, Sariah, the things you do.” Kael considered the unconscious woman. “We have no time for this. We've got to go.”

  “We can't leave her to die.”

  “She tried to kill you.”

  “But then she smuggled me a stone. I can't leave her here. They hate her.” Just like they hated her.

  Kael shook his head. “All right. Let's see what we can do.”

  “I've got your medicine pouch.”

  “Good thinking. Pass me the vinegar and the saffron salve.”

  Sariah helped Kael to rip Delis's weave around the wound. “Did you find him? Did you find Leandro?”

  “I found out about Leandro,” Kael said, “but he no longer dwells here.”

  “Curse my luck. Where is he?”

  “They weren't sure.”

  “What do you mean? Who's ‘they’ and why weren't they sure?”

  “They are his family, his daughters, to be sure.” Kael moistened a rag with water from his skin and groped about Delis's back, wiping off the crusted blood. “Leandro was taken.”

  “Taken? By whom?”

  “By a traveling healer, they said.”

  Sariah's belly went to ice. “Was he ill? No. Don't tell me. Is he dead?”

  “Not as far as his daughters know, but they haven't heard from him in a while.” Kael squinted in the darkness. “Damn, it's dark tonight.”

  Sariah had an idea. She held her arm over the woman's back and peeled off some of the fabric covering the bracelet. The red glow illuminated the wound.

  “That's better,” Kael said.

  Sariah could barely contain her anxiety. If they couldn't find Leandro, if he was dead, her incipient search was over. “Where did this traveling healer take Leandro?”

  “To the atorium, his daughters said. For a curative rest.”

  “The what?”

  “The atorium. A kinder name for the sanatorium, just as the term ‘curative rest’ is a discreet description of his malady.”

  “Is he sick?”

  “Apparently, Leandro had problems for many years. He failed as a roamer. He was a wagering man, a back alley player whose antics almost bankrupted his family. But that wasn't his only problem. It seems that your Leandro may be missing a twine or two from his deck, if you know what I mean. Would you hold the light steady?”

  “Oh.” Sariah held out her arm stiffly. Leandro was crazy? Still, she had no other clues. “Do you know where this atorium is?”

  “Sort of. There aren't too many of those in the Domain.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  “Either I take you there or I mend this wound,” he said. “Can't do both at the same time. The light, Sariah. You've taken your arm away again.”

  “Sorry.” She turned her attention to Delis's wound. What was left of the broken shaft protruded at an angle above the woman's shoulder blade. The arrowhead was burrowed in the flesh.

  “What say you?” Kael said. “Do you want it out?”

  Sariah hadn't realized that Delis was conscious, but now she noticed the subtle change in the woman's respiration.

  Delis rumbled. “What is it to you, whoreson?”

  “It's nothing to me.” Kael sounded deceivingly placid. “To be truthful, I prefer you dead and out of the way, but she bids me to help you and I heed her wishes.”

  Delis's blue and violet eyes shifted to Sariah. Sweat drenched the woman's narrow forehead. It dripped along the crooked bone of a long meandering nose and pooled above a narrow mouth and a set of naturally puckered lips.

  “Is she yours then?”

  A strange question.

  “In or out?” Kael asked testily. “We don't have all night.”

  “Out,” Delis said.

  “‘Out, please' will do.”

  How many hundreds of arrows had Kael extracted from runners and friends over a lifetime of hardship in the Domain? Evidently many. He wiggled the barb and, pressing down at either side of the wound, extracted the point with expert ease. Delis moaned like a calving ox. Sariah wiped the flow of new blood and smeared the salve over the wound.

  “Who's there?”

  Sariah recognized the voice calling in the dark. It belonged to the man from the deck where she had tried to find help for Delis. No doubt he was back to check on the woman's demise. Sariah readjusted the cloak to cover the bracelet's glow.

  “We have to go.” Kael began to tie his harness's ropes to the old deck.

  “In this?” Delis said. “Are you mad?”

  “Have you any better idea?”

  “Not at the moment, no.”

  “You ought to, since you managed to burn our deck, wench.”

  “Madame Executioner to you.”

  Kael snorted. “Not a chance.”

  “He's coming back,” Sariah whispered. “He's got friends.”

  “She burned our deck and tried to kill you,” Kael said. “Are you sure you want to take this miserable waste of a rot spawn with us?”

  “We can't leave her here to die.”

  “This ought to make for an interesting trip.” Kael hacked the mooring ropes and took to the water, pulling the rickety deck into the vast darkness of a moonless night.

  Eight

  “HOW DO YOU know where we are?” Sariah's voice echoed in a hollow landscape erased by a fog that clogged the lungs, stung the eyes and obscured any semblance of a view. The fog swirled around her almost as thick as the dead water. It felt as if it were permeating her bones and rusting her tired joints.

  “I don't know where we are.” Kael stopped pulling. “Not exactly, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” Kael's precise sense of direction was his roamer's gift, keen, unequivocal and reliable no matter where they went, and even more acute in the Domain. “We aren't lost, are we?”

  “Lost? No.” He peered into the dense whiteness. “We're where we are supposed to be and yet we are not. Something's wrong. Very wrong.”

  The chill in Sariah's belly matched the fog's icy cold. A thin crust of ice cracked under her feet. “I didn't think the dead water could freeze. I thought the rot's brew is too warm for that.”

  “It is.” Kael punched through the ice crust and dipped his gloved fingers in the lukewarm water. “Look. The ice is forming over the water's quickly cooling emissions, a layer of ice above a layer of air and vapor. I've never seen this before.”

  “At least my feet are warm, even though the rest of me is freezing.”

  “Let me warm you.” He took her into his embrace, rubbing her numb arms, forcing her frozen blood to flow. His breath was a comfortable blast of warmth seeping through his face wrap.

  “Strange,” he said. “The chill has turned months ahead of its time. It's too cold for this time of the year. I doubt the mob would venture to travel in this weather.”

  “You said we would arrive at the Enduring Woods today.”

  Kael gave her a last hearty body rub and released her. “I don't understand. By my reckoning, we should be there now. And the time, look at the light. It should be close to midday and yet it's more like twilight.”

  “So we're lost.”

  “We're not lost. We're where we should be. It's more like the Barren Flats and the weather are wrong.”

  Blame the weather for the mess. Couldn't he just admit he was wrong? They pulled a decrepit old deck, a moldy, rotting piece of junk with no shelter, abandoned because of its uselessness. Despite their efforts to re-knot the twines and repair the breaks, it threatened to come apart anytime. They had very few supplies, only what Sariah had managed to save from their
burning deck, what Kael had carried in his shoulder bag, and what Delis had in her pouch, all of which included two skins of ale, a few old bannocks and some cheese, not enough food to last the three of them for another day.

  Delis had been no help. She lay on her back, pressing her wound against the wood in some kind of masochist feat, mumbling angry, unintelligible words to herself. Sariah and Kael had pulled for three days and nights straight. They needed to find a sturdier deck and food, and they needed to rest.

  “There's no shame in admitting we're lost,” she said.

  The black eye dominated his glare. “I'm telling you, I've guided us true. Something feels funny.”

  “Feels funny?” Feelings were something she drew from Kael occasionally, with much difficulty and only with the help of her craft. “Perhaps we should retrace our steps back to the loop and start anew.”

  “We don't have a few days to waste. Do we? And if it gets any colder, we don't want to be stranded on the open flats. We go this way.” He started to pull again.

  “But—”

  “We go this way.”

  The cold wind sliced through Sariah's wet weave as if she were naked, setting her teeth to chatter. Better to talk than to dwell on the misery of pulling.

  “Why do they hate her thus?”

  “Delis?” Kael shrugged. “It's not just her, although her reputation is among the worst. On account of her deeds. If you kill enough sheep, you'll be called a wolf even if you're something else. But I don't think she's something else. She's the original wolf.”

  “That bad, eh?” Sariah stole a look at the woman lying on the deck. “She doesn't look that fierce to me.”

  “She's the best murderess the executioners have put out this generation,” Kael said. “She has never missed an assigned kill, or so say the wagging tongues. They say she collects noses and ears— her victims’, mind you.”

  Sariah repressed a shiver. “She's so strong.”

  “So you like her?” Kael winked.

  “No, nay, no. I wish I was as strong as her, that's all. And fearless, too. I wish I didn't mind doing whatever it was I needed to do.”

  Kael's chuckles carried a definite ring of amusement. “You may lack the bitch's muscles, wiser, but you're no coward.”

  “She doesn't seem to mind that nobody likes her, that everybody hates her.”

  “Ah. That might be because she's an executioner.”

  “You treated the executioners with respect.”

  “That doesn't mean I like them.”

  “You said they were within their rights.”

  “They were. They are a queer people. They have a right to kill by the nets and to thrive by killing. Domainers know someone has to do it, but I won't lie to you, I'm wary of killers in all forms.”

  “Are executioners born into their tribes?”

  “I suppose some are, but the bulk of the executioners are outcasts from the different tribes, men and women who have been run out of their settlements and are not welcomed elsewhere.”

  Sariah pondered the idea. “I guess it's better than being banished or alone.”

  “Are you thinking of joining?”

  “You never know.”

  “There.” Kael spied something between fast-moving patches of fog. “Do you see them?”

  Sariah narrowed her eyes and saw a row of ghastly shadows. Slowly, as if in a dream, enormous shapes began to emerge looming over them like Meliahs’ stone giants.

  “What are these?”

  “We're at the edge of the Enduring Woods.”

  Against the fog's background, the amorphous shape of a massive set of vaulted roots protruded from the dead water. The roots twisted and blended to form a tuberous swelling the size of a small house. Atop the roots, a single trunk grew to amazing girth and height. Gnarled branches weaved in and out of the fog, twisting like knotted fingers.

  Kael made for the colossal tree. “We can rest here.”

  Sariah was sorely relieved. She was cold and exhausted, and she didn't trust the deck they pulled to last much longer. Kael had said the forester was an old friend. The need to replace their crumbling deck had necessitated the detour. Sariah was hoping Kael's contacts would help them find a decent, affordable deck, something light to pull but sturdy, with a shelter maybe, so they didn't have to suffer the weather's inclemency. She wasn't one to complain, but she was looking forward to a tiny break in their fortunes.

  The enormous buttress roots clawed at the Barren Flats like crooked tentacles. A measure of coarse wet mud lay between the roots, creating a few protected coves. Kael chose the most expansive of the lot, only a few paces wide but enough to beach their decrepit deck. After so many days trekking through water, the feel of solid ground under her feet tricked Sariah's senses. Her legs struggled to adjust to the absence of the water's gravity.

  “From the rot we rose and to the stone we shall return by way of hallowed land.” This little bit of mud under her feet made her appreciate the Domainers’ oath even more. She willed her weary bones not to collapse just yet. While Kael scooped some of the flat's flammable mud and made a fire, Sariah examined Delis's back.

  “Much better.” She spread a new layer of salve on the cleansed wound. “You're healing beautifully.”

  Delis grunted something incomprehensible under her breath. The woman's foul mood seemed to be the worst of her ills. She was as friendly as a cross-eyed mule. She had trapped her unkempt dark hair in a bushy tail at the base of her skull, a rumpled style which accentuated the contrast between her long nose and her small mouth. She didn't want to speak to Sariah, yet her blue and violet eyes stalked her viciously. Perhaps because of that, Kael insisted on keeping Delis's hatchet on his belt and her hands tied. Sariah was too tired to argue and too cold to think.

  The fire thawed Sariah's hands. The bannocks, stale and tasteless as they were, felt like a banquet to her empty stomach. The deck was hard on her back, but she didn't care. She lay down next to Kael. He kept his weapons belt strapped to his waist, a most uncomfortable way to sleep, daring Delis to harm them with a sullen glower which promised to end her troubles and theirs at the first sign of danger. Delis turned around, dismissing him with a loud tsk. Despite her attitude, Sariah covered Delis with her executioner's red mantle. No one was going to freeze today.

  Sariah slept fretfully. She dreamed she was wising icebergs. A thin layer of dew turned to ice and frosted the mantle covering them, waking her up with a loud crunch every time she moved. She opened her eyes to find her head tucked in the curve of Delis's breast, a generous pillow for her sleep-numbed cheek. The scent of Delis filled her senses, sweet, unlike the woman, a hint of molasses and wild cloves.

  Kael's possessive clutch anchored Sariah to him. His leg was thrown over her thighs. His hand was heavy on her breast. Both Kael and Delis were awake and trading hard stares.

  “Kael?” His body was strung like a bow.

  “Sleep, love, no sense in all of us being awake.” He gathered her close to him.

  Sariah turned and cuddled against his chest, lodging her face against the crook of his neck. She murmured something about him needing to rest too. Safe in his arms, she drifted back to sleep. Nothing could keep her awake this night.

  “I have to kill you, you know,” Delis said.

  Apparently, these cheerful words were Delis's best attempt at casual talk. Well, the woman was not very skilled at conversation then—that was freshly proven.

  Sariah stopped stitching the rent in her weave and leveled an even stare on Delis. “I still have the bruises from your beating the other day. If those are any indication, you killing me would be rather painful. Is there anything I could say to dissuade you from your purpose?”

  Blue and violet eyes narrowed, but the corner of Delis's mouth twitched, a tiny curve up. “You speak your mind,” she said. “I like that.”

  “That's progress, I suppose. Why would you kill someone you like, I wonder?”

  “’Cause I swore to.”

&
nbsp; “Makes sense.” Sariah resumed her stitching. “Oaths I understand.”

  “You do?” The woman seemed perplexed.

  “Of course I do. I'm a stonewiser. Do cheer up, Delis. At least you're alive. It's something to celebrate, isn't it?”

  The woman dismissed her with a muted tsk.

  “Here's something I don't understand. If you were sent to kill me, why did you give me that stone to use against the mob the other day?”

  “’Cause I'm supposed to kill you,” Delis said.

  She was an odd one, earnest in an impalpable way, yet grim. Sariah was glad Kael had checked the knots on Delis's ties before he left to find the forester's post. She calculated the time. It was early afternoon. He had left at first light, if one could call the green grayness of this day such. Sariah worried, especially because he had left without a deck, claiming he was well weaved and could take refuge on the woods’ buttress roots if necessary. The Domain was an unforgiving place even when you wandered it with a deck. If something happened to him…

  He would be fine. He had promised. He should be there by now, hopefully safe and talking to his friend, warming himself against a real wood fire, with a cup of hot spiced wine between his hands and a generous bowl steaming in front of him. She found herself salivating at the thought. Delis interrupted her pleasant musings.

  “There's a way,” she said.

  “A way to do what?”

  “A way for me not to kill you.”

  Sariah was curious. “And what would that be?”

  “An oath over an oath.”

  “Would that be like a nail taking out another nail?”

  She wouldn't call it quite a smile, but the twitch on Delis's lips was the next best thing.

  “I'm of the Inkes. You know the Inkes?”

  Not really, but Sariah nodded politely.

  “We live by the three oaths. First oath, kin. Second, more important, craft. I'm an executioner. If I had to kill my father I would, because second oath trumps first oath.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Third oath is over second oath. Third oath is to…” she struggled to find the right word.

  “To a lease maybe?” Sariah tried to help.