Weight of Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  His body shuddered involuntarily as the realization hit him. A windspell should not have been part of his quiet-magic. The House of Malech did not grow weathervines; he had none of that legacy within him. Vineart Giordan grew those vines, but the time Jerzy spent in Aleppan could not have been enough, should not have been enough….

  The shudder turned to a cold dread in his stomach. There was more quiet-magic within him than he recognized—a legacy he had not felt within his veins. Now, though, it had woken; he could taste it in his throat, feel the thrum of it in his blood. That pocket of magic, if he had taken that much from working with those vines, that wine … then the Washers were right, and he had broken Sin Washer’s Command, all unknowing.

  He was, in truth, apostate.

  KAÏNAM, ONCE NAMED-HEIR of the island Principality of Atakus, now a homeless, nameless sailor with only his honor to recommend him, stared at the maps spread out in front of him and felt a burning in his stomach that had nothing to do with the meal he had just finished. According to his charting, he should be nearing the coast of Tursin. The thought left him dizzy. A normal voyage would have taken three times as long, but a normal voyager would not have had access to the magics he could command.

  It was those magics that left him feeling queasy, discomforted, and not sure if it were he rocking back and forth, or his ship. He, who had been born on a swiftship, who had spent his entire life as much in the water as on land … there could be no other cause of this illness. Kaïnam smoothed out a tiny wrinkle in the topmost map and brought the spell-lit lamp closer in, refusing to give in to the toss of his stomach, no matter how it complained.

  Kaïnam plotted his position on the chart and frowned, then replotted it, getting the same result. He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. Incredible, and yet it was exactly as he had hoped.

  It should have taken him months to cross this distance with a larger ship and a full crew of men. Alone, it would have been impossible.

  Knowing that had driven him to desperate measures. The night before his departure he had taken aside Master Edon’s student, asking him what spellwines of Master Edon’s were best suited to speeding a vessel along. The student had unthinkingly, unhesitatingly pointed them out. Why should he not? Kaïnam was the son of Erebuh, the Principal of Atakus, and as such had every right to ask about the magics that kept his island home safe and wealthy.

  Later that night, Kaïnam entered the cellar where those spellwines were stored and took what he thought he might need, then another two flagons more. In their place he left his marker, a silver coin with the icon of his rank engraved upon it. When they came to question him … he would already be gone.

  It was not the action of a Named-Heir, but the disgrace that would follow his theft and disappearance was outweighed by what he needed to accomplish with this mad journey. In the past sixmonth, his sister had been murdered within the safety of their own lands, and ships under their Vineart’s protection had been destroyed. Those acts had driven his father—aided by the Vineart Edon—to a mad plan masking their island home with spells, hiding the once-welcoming harbor from all outsiders. Edon and his father thought it would protect them against further assault by enemies who brought magic and men against the island.

  Kaïnam had warned them against such an act—warned, and been ignored. As he had feared, that protection had turned into a spear at their heart when Caulic ships attempted to find the now-invisible harbor. It would have been bad enough, had the Caulic ships gone away unscathed—but they were instead set upon by firespouts in the night and destroyed, down to the last.

  Firespouts: a work of magic only a Master Vineart might accomplish. A Master like Vineart Edon, who had advised Kaïnam’s father, Erebuh, to close off Atakus from the rest of the world, and given him the means to do so.

  Kaïnam did not suspect Edon; the man had been devoted to Atakus more years than Kaïnam had been alive, and if he said that he did not cast that spell, could not cast that spell, then Kaïnam believed him. But it had been done, and none would believe Atakus’s innocence, now.

  His sister had been known as the Wise Lady for the quality of her advice. Kaïnam had learned much, listening to her—enough that when she had been killed, his father had named him, out of all his sons, the Heir on the strength of her regard. It had been the whisper of her voice in his ear that had told him not all was well, that the events were not coincidence, were not attacks, but rather prods designed to herd them like fish into a net, to cast them not as victims, but dangers. To destroy Atakus’s reputation as a safe haven, and make them a target instead of suspicion and fear.

  His sister’s murder had been the bait, and Edon and his father had taken it. Circles closing in on circles, locking them inside, apart from the rest of the world, while Sin Washer alone knew what might happen next.

  He could not convince his father to relent, and he could not remain and stay silent. Instead, Kaïnam took the spellwines and the sleek little Green Wave, and set out to find the villain who had set the trap, ordered ships under Atakus’s protection attacked, his sister foully murdered. Only by exposing him could Atakus’s honor be regained.

  His sister’s whispers, and his own knowledge and training, told him what he must do.

  The obvious place to begin was the far-distant island of Caul, origin of the ships that had had come searching. Normally, his little Green Wave would never be able to manage it, built more for races between islands than for any long journey. But Master Edon’s spellwine had conjured a wind that encased them and lifted them, carrying both ship and sailor distances impossible on their own.

  All it had cost him was several days of utter exhaustion and gut-sickness, a sense that he had somehow overslept, or not slept enough, watching the white-capped waters as the Green Wave slipped through them on her way to their final destination. When the spellwine wore off, he would need to put a hand to the rudder again, but for now, he needed only sit and wait.

  And think.

  Kaïnam lifted one of the wine sacks and stared at it. The sigil of Master Edon was clear on the side: the stylized olive tree of Atakus against the outline of a wine leaf. Rare, for a Vineart and a land’s ruler to coexist so well, rarer even for them to cooperate the way those two had, for so many years.

  Before all this, they had been equals but not partners, not a single combined force. Every child in the Lands Vin knew that, in the mists of time and legend, Sin Washer had broken the First Vine to prevent exactly that; had Commanded that never again should a leader of men work magic, and men of magic never lead men.

  And yet, that was exactly what Edon and his father were doing; two men, yes, but combining their powers to a single goal. That they did it to protect Atakus was noble, but it would not save them when the Washers came to demand an answer for their actions. Spells, even a master like Edon’s spellwork, even with the aid of his students and lesser Vinearts who owed their loyalty to him, would not be enough to protect Atakus from Sin Washer’s judgment, then. And the Washers would come; Kaïnam had no doubt of that. The Brotherhood would not let such a thing pass unmarked.

  Their only hope was to discover who had set them up in such a manner. And Kaïnam was the only one who was searching.

  He considered the wine sack in front of him again. Master Edon crafted windspells, primarily. But he also had a small vineyard on the leeward edge of Atakus, where he grew grapes that were never shipped off island. Those grapes produced only small amounts of wine every year, and most of it became not spellwine but vin ordinaire, served at his father’s table when special guests came to visit. In rare Harvests, however, when the conditions were ideal, a spellwine was made from these delicate fruits. The decantation of that spell carried messages through the air, whispering from one ear to the next. Aetherspells: rare and valuable.

  He had never seen such a spell used, did not know if they would carry the distance needed. He did not know, either, if this was a wise thing he was doing. But he needed to try.

  Unc
orking the skin, he took a careful sip, letting the wine rest on his tongue in proper decanting fashion. He had never learned to enjoy the taste of spellwines, finding them acrid and hard to swallow, but he did not need to understand how spellwines worked, only what he needed to do to make it happen.

  Once he felt that the wine had soaked into the flesh of his tongue and mouth, the words of the decantation came to him, a long-ago, never utilized lesson:

  “Thought to words. Words to ears. Go.”

  The air itself seemed to pause around him, waiting. Not daring to breathe, Kaïnam let his lips form his most heartfelt message. “Wise Lady. Thaïs. Can you hear me? Can you help me?”

  He felt the words leave his mouth more than he heard them, and then an invisible gust of air flashed past his mouth, snatching the query up and disappearing with it.

  He stoppered the wine sack and set it back into the especially constructed cabinet with the other skins normally stored there. His mouth felt puckered and tight inside, as though he had not drunk water in days. Did that mean the spell had worked?

  His sister was dead. No spell could reach her now. And yet, after her death, he had been woken by her whispered warning, had felt her counsel one last time, setting him on this path. If she could reach him, might he not reach her as well? Or had he, in his grief, imagined her touch, her wisdom? Was this all a fool’s quest, and he the fool?

  He had no sooner thought that than a hard wave slapped the side of the Green Wave, rocking it violently, even as she flew forward through the water. Kaïnam steadied himself with a hand on the table, keeping the maps from sliding to the floor despite the weights on them. He swallowed hard; no son of Atakus would disgrace himself by being ill, not when the sea was calm and the winds fair….

  Another slam against the side of the ship, and this time Kaïnam realized it was no wave hitting so violently. He left the cabin, bare feet touching the polished wooden steps so lightly he might almost be flying in his speed. As he reached the deck, he, without thought, lifted a long spear off the hooks where it rested. It had enough range to fend off even the most determined toothfish or shark without endangering the thrower, and could be used to knock aside closer opponents as well. Kaïnam had been using fish spears since he was a youth, and the feel of the shaft in his hands renewed his confidence and settled his stomach.

  The hatch to the lower deck was shielded by an alcove made of the same watertight wood as the stairs, meant to protect anyone using the steps from wind or rain. That meant that he did not see the creature until he was already on the deck itself, and within range.

  The first and only warning he had was the sense of a shadow falling over the back of his neck. He turned, bringing the spear up instinctively. It crashed against something heavy and unyielding, even as the wind brought him the heavy scent of brine and dead flesh and the faint hint of overripe fruit.

  He looked up, following the path of the spear, and staggered back in shock at the huge, scaled muzzle that was turned away from him, a jagged rip in the side above its gaping maw of a mouth from where he had struck it. The black flesh underneath did not bleed, the flesh showing no signs of injury beyond that surface tear. Above it, a handspan higher, a great white eye the size of his head glared down at him, and then the muzzle swung back, knocking the spear out of his hands. Kaïnam went down on the deck in a controlled collapse, even as the mouth opened and countless sharp teeth snapped at him, like a deep-sea snake grown impossibly huge. His hands reached out and he found the spear, rolling onto his back even as he grasped it, and as the great head darted down off an impossibly long neck, he jammed the spear point up, into the creature’s mouth. The point slammed home, and the shock went through Kaïnam’s entire body, the butt end of the spear pinning him to the deck with the force of the blow.

  The beast screamed, rearing back, taking the spear with it as it went, and then slid back down into the water, length by length of that sinewy neck, until the head itself followed. The bright, wave-lapped waters closed over it; the Green Wave sailed on through magic-powered winds; and Kaïnam lay on the deck, on his back, his shoulder and spine aching and his hands cramped from the memory of that grip, and tried to remember how to breathe again.

  “Sin Washer and Deep Proeden, what was that?”

  Not even the calling of seabirds answered him, much less the silent god of the tides, the Wave moving too quickly still for the usual winged scavengers to be wheeling overhead. His memory, unbidden, showed him flashes of what he had seen: the great scaled head, the long narrow muzzle with the double rows of small, sharp teeth; the great white eye with its thin lid overhanging …

  A serpent, risen from the depths of story and legend. Every child knew that Master Vineart Bradhai had destroyed the last of them generations ago, clearing the seas of their lethal presence. Since then, every few years a merchant ship would claim to have seen something that might perhaps have been a serpent’s head, or the slip of its tail in the distance, but there were no attacks, no bodies, no confirmed sightings. The great serpents were gone from the seas, turned into things you might frighten a child with, or tease an old sea hand about.

  Had they been out here all this time, lurking? The one that attacked him … as his heart slowed slightly and his breath calmed, Kaïnam realized that it had been relatively small—not quite the length of his ship, only four or five fathoms long. A young one? Or had they gotten smaller since the days of legend?

  Or, a practical part of his mind asked, had the reports of those larger beasts been exaggerated, in the days when superstition and fear traveled with sailors once they passed out of sight of land, and every encounter was greater the longer it took to reach safe harbor?

  Either way, small as it had been, the beast could easily have knocked the Wave over, or swamped her with a determined wave, or snatched him right up off the deck, spear or no spear. Whatever it had been, it had come not out of hunger or fear, but … curiosity? Could you accuse such a beast of emotions? Of the intellect to have such an emotion? And if so, what had brought it …?

  “The spell,” Kaïnam said, realizing, his gut clenching at the thought of how he might have put himself directly into such danger. “The aetherspell.”

  Somehow his request had summoned that beast, roused it from the depths. How, he did not know—could a beast such as that intercept magic, or scent it on the air, the way a dog might a hare or lamb? Or was he overreacting? Had it merely sensed the ship slipping through the waters overhead, and risen to the surface to investigate?

  Either way, it was gone, and he was still alive, if with one less weapon to his name. From what he had read of encounters with great serpents, he had done well indeed.

  Still on his back, he placed his hands together over his belly and cupped them together, forming the ritual cup. “Sin Washer, we thank you for your mercy and loving forgiveness. We praise your wisdom and wash our lives in the blood of your bones, that we, too, may be clean of malice and fear.”

  Malice, he had none. Fear … it still shivered on his skin and caused his stomach to tighten. Just the thought of the beast returning, or bringing more—or larger—of its kind was enough to make Kaïnam blanch.

  “Enough.” He sat up, flexing his fingers to make sure they had not been injured when the serpent wrested the spear from his hands. “You are no bay swimmer, to fear the unknown. There are dangers behind and ahead; why did you think there might not be dangers alongside, as well?”

  The speech sounded silly, spoken into the quiet air around him, but they settled his nerves and allowed him to step forward into the helm, checking the compass-piece set into the mast.

  Stop.

  You must stop.

  He did not question the familiar voice in his ear, but moved toward the wheel set at the crest of the mast house and placed both hands on the wheel, curling his fingers around the brass fixtures and feeling their cool smoothness under his flesh. For a dry second the words to end the windspell would not come back to him, and then they returned in a
flood. “Wind, calm. Ship, slow. Go.”

  He felt it through the soles of his feet first, the change in the rhythm of the ship. Still moving forward, but not as swiftly, not as surely; more subject now to the rocking of the natural waves, the push of the sun-warmed winds. His ears picked up the distant scream of a seabird, then the whisking of the wind against his sails, and the hundred tiny sounds that made up the normal music of shipboard life.

  The haze around him cleared, and he could see rocky outcroppings to the starboard, large enough to be called an island, although he did not think anything lived there save seabirds and seals resting during their journeys. No sign of any creature of menace, slipping below the waves; he must have left it behind. Not far behind the first outcropping there was a larger island, this one with trees, and farther behind that the outline of a larger mass, fading into the distance. Kaïnam reached below the wheel and pulled an oilskin case from the cabinet, withdrawing a smaller, waterproofed version of the maps he had been studying belowdeck. The map was old, but the land had not changed since the day it was inked. He looked up to confirm his impressions, then back down at the map, letting one finger trace the path his Wave was taking. Yes, he had estimated correctly. Starboard was the distant mass of Corguruth, where he had no interest. To port side, the dry cliffs of Tursin. He had relatives there, a distant family connection. If he were to pull into port there, they would welcome him….

  And he would be no further along on his quest. Tursin was not where his answers lay.

  Ahead.

  The whisper was a soft curl of air around his ear, subtle and warm. The fact that he could not possibly be hearing the voice of a woman now dead for months did not stop him from following it. She had warned him of danger before, had saved him, had set him on this journey … if this was madness or the answer to his whispered spell he did not care; he would follow her counsel until the end.