Weight of Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  They were an odd crew, the three of them—noblewoman, trader, and Vineart-student. Apostate, and fugitives by choice. Jerzy still did not understand the comfort he found in their presence, but he was thankful for it.

  Mahault stood next to him, watching the prow cut through the waves. He waited for her to collect her thoughts, for this one moment at peace.

  “Ao and I, we think …,” she said finally, in the tone of voice he was learning to recognize, the one that said she didn’t like what she was saying but had to say it anyway, because if she didn’t nobody else would. “We think that you should stay on the ship when we go in for supplies. If someone sees you …”

  It made sense. He was hardly memorable—taller than Ao, shorter than Mahault, with a sturdy build more suited to a horseman than a farmer—but the shaggy red hair and pale skin would make him easy to identify among the darker-skinned folk Ao said were common in the southern islands. Mahl’s golden hair would stand out, but the Washers should not be looking for a woman, and Ao was of a trader clan, and so had reason to be in strange lands.

  No, if word had made it here from Aleppan, they would be looking for a male his age, with dark red hair and brows not even a hat could hide. It was doubtful word had spread this way—that was why they had come south, not gone directly north toward The Berengia—but it was a risk they could not take.

  “It’s all right. I’m fine. I’ll guard the ship.”

  Mahl’s posture eased a little with his acceptance. “Truth, having a Vineart onboard should be a useful deterrent. No would-be shipwraith would be foolish enough to attack, once you announced yourself.”

  Jerzy let her think that. The truth was that, although he had been able to start fire to warm them on their flight, and keep their ship lights lit, he was too young, too green to have much more magic than that. He had no spellwines to decant, and the quiet-magic in his veins was barely a whisper, fading faster the longer he was away from the touch of the vines.

  He was near-useless.

  As though hearing his thoughts, Mahault reached out to touch his arm. “How are you doing, in truth? I mean, I’ve never heard of a Vineart going to sea, and you’re always sick….”

  Jerzy bent forward, away from her touch, resting his hands against the railing, and wished, again, for the waves to take him overboard. “Ao would have believed me when I said I was fine.”

  Mahault made an indelicate noise that would have horrified her lady-mother. “Ao wants to believe you’re fine. He also doesn’t know a thing about Vinearts, or magic. I lived with Giordan in my father’s house long enough … and I pay attention.”

  True enough. The trader folk didn’t use spellwines, and they drank the dark ale or the hot spirits of Caul rather than vin ordinaire to ease a long day. When Jerzy had created fire for them on the trail, when he eased their sore muscles, or illuminated their night shifts … Ao in his ignorance took it for granted that a Vineart could do these things, even without a spellwine at hand.

  But it wasn’t that simple. Anyone could work a spellwine, if it was properly incanted. That was the basis of magic: the Vineart incanted the spell onto the vin magica, allowing anyone who knew the decantation to release the magic on command.

  All that Jerzy had done since they fled the maiar’s palazzo, he had done without access to spellwine. It came from inside him, what his master called the quiet-magic. And the quiet-magic was the one thing that was never spoken of, outside master and student.

  Sin Washer had broken the First Vine, and made Vinearts to be crafters, not masters … but in the process of crafting magic, of working so intently with it, the residue remained within them. Enough, over years, so that they themselves carried magic itself inside their blood and bones.

  A Vineart, trained and experienced, could work a spell merely by calling on the quiet-magic within him. But it took time, and exposure, and Jerzy had only recently been an ignorant slave, only the past year accepted by the mustus; his quiet-magic was still weak.

  Quiet-magic was never spoken of. And yet Mahault had seen him work magic without spellwines, and she used her mind, thought quickly and wisely. She must suspect something.

  “I’ll be all right.” He hesitated. “But if you happen to find any spellwines, when you’re bargaining for water …?”

  He knew that they didn’t have money for spellwines, not even a rough sort that a small village might have—and that without him, they could easily be sold a vin ordinare instead, and never know. Forged spellwines were not common—the penalty for any selling such, when caught, was death—but it happened. But if there was even a chance of a vin magica …

  “If they have any, we’ll bring it back,” Mahl said, and her hand covered his on the railing, as though to seal the promise. Touching still made him uneasy, too many memories of nights when he was smaller, too appealing to the slavers, and then to the older slaves who had craved some kind of physical release—another thing he did not understand, was not comfortable with.

  Jerzy could sense the movement of magic within the roots and fruit, but other people, their desires and fears, mystified him. He wanted to move away again, but at the same time was afraid of insulting Mahault, if his reluctance was obvious. So he let her hand rest there and didn’t say anything.

  NEAR THE END of Ao’s shift, the trader called the sighting of shore. The other two, roused from their rope-tied hammocks, joined him to watch as the mass of gray on the horizon slowly turned into the clear silhouette of land: sloping beaches, thick trees, and craggy rocks reaching high into the air. If there were any settlements larger than a village, they were not visible from this edge.

  “Sardegna,” Mahault confirmed, after glancing at the map and checking the position of the sun overhead. “Good. There should be a small cove to shelter, over there.”

  While Jerzy stayed out of the way—past experience having taught them that he was more a hazard than a help—Ao and Mahault did a flurry of things required to lower the sails and slow their progress enough to drift carefully into a sheltered bay between a midsized rock outcropping and the island itself. The cove was barely large and deep enough for their own craft, but the outcrop would keep them hidden from any ships passing in the open water while still far enough from the shore to be safe from intrusions from that direction.

  They dropped the weigh-anchor to keep the boat from drifting off, and Jerzy felt the boat bob and weave more distressingly than it had when they were moving, but managed to keep his stomach from rebelling. He took a long drink of warm water—almost the last of that barrel—and used the kerchief holding his hair back to wipe his forehead. Once again he was reminded that the sun was far more intense here than he had ever experienced in The Berengia, especially now that the breeze off the water had been stilled.

  “You should be safe here,” Ao said, stripping down to his bare skin without the slightest hint of embarrassment, and stuffing his clothing and the small items he thought might be useful for trading into an oiled sack. Off to the side, Mahault, wearing a short shift for modesty, waited, her sack already filled and sealed tight with wax. Jerzy took Ao’s sack from him and wrapped the coil of wax around the closed mouth of the sack, then pressed his fingers around it, calling on the smallest flicker of quiet-magic, creating a seal stronger than ordinary flame could, to protect the contents from becoming water-soaked.

  “Just … keep your voice down and your head low,” Ao said, accepting the sack back with a nod of thanks. “We’ll be back before nightfall.”

  First Mahault, then Ao slipped over the side of the ship and into the water, swimming the distance to the cove’s shore. Jerzy watched them go, his forehead creasing in worry until he saw them reach the sandy beach, unmolested by any beast under the blue-green waves.

  He had told them about the sea serpents, how they had ravaged the coastline of The Berengia, but not how close up to shore the beasts came—or how they looked as they swallowed men whole. That nightmare, he kept for himself.

  Once they were
gone from sight, Jerzy turned back to survey the ship. The three of them had not made much noise that it should feel so much quieter now, and yet within minutes Jerzy was acutely aware of the creaking of the wood, the slight sawing of the now-slack sail, and the watery sounds of the waves sliding against the hull of the boat, those noises far louder now than they had been before.

  It struck him suddenly that this was the first time in his entire life he had ever been alone.

  Jerzy had no true memories from before the slavers came. As a slave, he had slept with dozens of others in the sleep house; had worked in the fields every day, one of many nameless bodies. Once Master Malech found him, he had moved to the House, but even there, Malech and the House-keeper, Detta, and the kitchen children had surrounded him every day. In Aleppan, although he had a bedchamber to himself, he had shared the wing with Giordan, and the palazzo itself had housed hundreds of people going about their routines, from servants to courtiers to the visitors like Ao and his clan members. The fact of their presence always surrounded him, the hum of bees in their nests, constant and comforting.

  Even when they fled Aleppan, the three of them had stayed close together—he had shared a horse with Mahl, hearing her heartbeat as closely as his own at times, and there was no way to avoid one another in these close quarters.

  Now …

  Now there was no sound save the ship’s creaking, the relentless waves, the occasional cry of a bird overhead, and his own breathing, too loud. His heart raced, and he could feel blood surging under his skin, the warm sweat of the sunshine battling with a cold sweat of fear.

  The last time he had been so wracked, he had been waiting for the overseer to kill him, for failing in his responsibilities, allowing the precious mustus to spill to the ground. Then, Master Malech had saved him with a single word.

  Master Malech was not here. The overseer was no longer a threat to him. There was no danger here in this cove, to make his piss loose or his skin prickle.

  “Enough. This is … enough. I am a Vineart. I am not afraid of being alone!”

  The echoing silence that greeted his announcement was like a scornful laugh, and Jerzy felt himself flush. The sun was directly overhead; he was hot and sweaty, and his head was beginning to ache again, despite the kerchief over his head and the seawater he kept splashing on his face. He needed to do something to cool off, but the thought of going belowdeck, to the close, dark sleeping area, did not appeal; the sway of the boat was even more noticeable there. He went down there only to sleep, after Ao insisted it was too dangerous to doze above deck.

  Up here at least, there was fresh air, although with the weighted line keeping them moored, that terrible side-to-side movement made him feel even more ill than before.

  Jerzy pulled off the kerchief again and walked over to the open barrel of seawater they had been using to clean themselves. The water left them feeling sticky and smelling of salt, but it was better than the sweat and stink that would have accumulated otherwise. Plus, the act of washing often made the dizziness fade away.

  He paused as the cloth dipped into the water, reminded of the clean strokes of his companions as they swam to shore.

  Jerzy could not swim—or rather, he could, but only enough to keep from drowning. He never had cause to learn more than that; the river Ivy that bordered Master Malech’s lands was wide but not deep, and if his childhood before the slavers involved bodies of water, those memories were lost forever. The first time he had ever seen the ocean was only a few months past, when Malech sent him with a spellwine to cure a bout of melancholia that had struck a town, in the aftermath of a sea serpent’s attack. He remembered again the sight of that monster, and yet … there had been no more serpents reported since that second one, and he had no reason to believe that any were to be found this far south.

  All of his thoughts of being washed overboard had ended there; he had not allowed himself to consider what might happen after, be it from drowning, or being eaten, or anything else that could happen to a fool Vineart caught in the deep waters so far from his home. Now, left alone with only his thoughts and the hot sun for company, surrounded by water, he had time to think of it, and his fears were soon overpowered by how much better the fresh water might feel against his skin than water from a barrel, stagnant and stale.

  Before he could stop himself, or think again of the sea serpent’s massive form rising up from the deep waters, villagers caught in its gaping maw—this water was too still, too shallow, he would have seen sign of it, and there was no reason to believe another was here anyway—Jerzy dropped his trou and pulled his tunic over his head, leaving them in a pile on the deck. Taking one of the coiled ropes in his hand, he tied it to the railing with a secure knot, jerking at it twice to make sure, and then he climbed over, carefully letting himself down the side of the ship and into the water.

  The moment his toe touched the surprisingly cold water, Jerzy flinched and paused, the memory of his initiation from slave to student forever vivid in his memory.

  Drown. Drown yourself. Breathe in and breathe out and let the liquid enter your lungs. And then the feel of the mustus around him, supporting him—filling him, until there was no difference between his flesh and the soft, ripe liquid …

  His master had thrown him, unprepared, into the deep barrel of mustus, only his own instincts to guide him. After the initial panic, he had followed that instinct and let the liquid into his body, but not drowned.

  This was salt water, not wine, but he would not drown here, either, with the rope to keep him safe. He would not be afraid.

  Taking a deep breath of the salty air, Jerzy played out a little more of the rope, closed his eyes, and let his entire body drop the remaining distance into the water.

  The comparison to mustus was fulfilled in another way: the moment he was immersed, his skin came alive, every bruise and scrape on his body reacting sharply to the water, tingling and aching as though brand new. At the same time, he felt invigorated through the pain, the exhaustion that had been on him since this entire mad race began suddenly falling away as though the sea had washed him clean.

  His eyes opened once he was fully submerged, and the seawater stung them, but he stared, fascinated at how very different things looked through the glaze of water. A large pale blue fish swam by, incurious about this strange interloper, and a long wriggly creature passed below him, equally unconcerned.

  His lungs started to burn, warning him of the need for air. The rope still wrapped around his left fist, Jerzy kicked experimentally with his legs, pushing himself toward the water’s surface. He popped out of the water much like a cork on a spoiled bottle of vina, gasping for breath even as the water streamed off him. He had moved farther out from the ship than he’d planned, but the rope was still his tether. He tugged at it gently, and then drew himself back, hand over hand along the length, until the side of the boat was within reach once again.

  The fish below might have ignored him, but he wanted easy access to the relative safety of the deck, in case something larger and more hungry came along. The thought made his toes curl, and the water seemed colder suddenly.

  Taking a deep breath, determined not to let fear win, Jerzy used his free hand to push against the ship, forcing himself back underwater again. His hair floated in his face, and he luxuriated in the strange feeling of being suspended, without any support. It was surprisingly soothing.

  Then something touched the bottom of his foot, a gentle but unmistakable pressure, and he shot out of the sea, rising clear out of the water and into the air. Jerzy hung there, almost even with the ship’s railings, for a long shocked second, his mind too busy trying not to think about whatever had touched him to realize what he had done.

  The moment he realized it, his body started to fall back down into the water. Only reflexes kept him from splashing back down into the gaping maw of whatever had nibbled at him, grabbing the rope up with both hands and swinging his body toward the boat. The hard slam against the hull was almost a rel
ief, compared to falling back into the water, and he scrambled up the rope and threw himself onto the deck, panting with the effort.

  Logic told him that it had probably been one of the small fish he had seen, or even one of the larger ones they had caught for dinner, or even maybe a curious spinner coming to play with this strange, two-legged swimming creature, as Ao claimed they were known to do. But he couldn’t banish the image of a great-toothed maw rising up from the depth, the milky-white eyes and tremendous muscled neck of a sea serpent coming up after him….

  He braced himself, but nothing knocked against the boat, nothing rose from the water to attack and devour him, and slowly his heart stopped racing, and the roaring in his ears subsided.

  Only then did he realize what he had done.

  He had used quiet-magic to escape. More quiet-magic than he should have been able to summon, even as panicked as he was, in a way he had never before encountered. He had …

  “I lifted into the air,” Jerzy told the sky, blinking at the sunlight. “And I didn’t mean to. I didn’t prepare, or try to decant a spell … I just did it.” That shouldn’t have been possible: magic required conscious thought, the drawing of moisture from within to mimic spellwine, the uttering of a decantation to force the magic into action.

  Still. He had done it, and therefore in his panic he must have blanked out, the salt water masking the spittle in his mouth, the words uttered and forgotten in his fear. It was the only answer that made sense … and it terrified him even more than the idea of a sea monster below him. Not the fact that he had forgotten, but that he had been able to do it at all. Where had it come from?

  Once his breathing calmed down a bit, Jerzy was able to look over his actions with the dispassionate evaluation a Vineart needed. With any taste washed away by seawater, he could only evaluate the spell by its results. A windspell. It had to have been a windspell, to lift him that way.