Weight of Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “My master had also heard,” Jerzy admitted. “As you said, word traveled quickly.”

  “The entire island?” Mahault, clearly, had not heard. “Gone?”

  “Hidden,” Kaïnam said. He shifted, finally addressing Ao’s comment directly. “Yes. Word spread, as it does. As was inevitable. And … perhaps you are correct, Trader, that we brought it upon ourselves. The decision to mask our whereabouts was … made against my advisement.” Oh, how it hurt him to admit that, Jerzy could tell. “The ships … the Caulic ships came near to our harbor, though we were hidden, under the cover of night, in a storm much as the one last night—and were destroyed by firespouts.”

  “There are no firespouts in the Atakua Sea.” Ao shook his head, trying to puzzle it out, then his face cleared with comprehension. “Magic?”

  Kaïnam’s sharp-nosed features tightened, as though fighting an internal battle. “Not by our Vineart. He swears that, and I must believe him. It injured him to admit that such a thing was beyond his abilities.”

  “A Vineart who could make an entire island disappear, and yet can’t cause a firespout?” Ao looked at Jerzy as though seeking confirmation.

  “A firespout may occasionally occur naturally,” Jerzy said, trying to remember his lessons. “Islands with active volcanoes are prone to them, as are shorelines where there are frequent quakes or great tides. To cause one to occur elsewhere requires two different spells, twined together to force contradictory elements, fire and water, to blend. It could only be done with two Vinearts working together, and that is …” Jerzy paused, remembering his own attempt to amend a spell in progress, cast by another, and the scolding he received from his master, after. “That can be very dangerous.”

  “So you are going to Caul to discover … what? To find this master Vineart with a grudge against you? To ask why someone might destroy their fleet to protect you? That makes no sense at all. Caul has no magic; they despise Vinearts.” Mahault sounded disgusted. Jerzy had quickly learned that she had no tolerance for things that did not make sense.

  “I want to know who sent the fleet,” Kaïnam said, still looking at Jerzy, although the sideways tilt to his head when Mahl spoke told Jerzy that the princeling was quite aware of her, at least, even if he would not respond directly. “Someone sent them against us, gave them some sort of magic to find us, for only an aetherspell could have done so. It had to be someone they trusted, someone who convinced them they were in danger, to break their bias against magic. I cannot identify such a person—but a Vineart could.

  “Finding you, in your moment of need …” He paused, and Jerzy had the feeling that he was reconsidering his words even as he spoke them. “I cannot believe that is coincidence.”

  “And if I were to go with you, and I could do this thing … what then?”

  The two stared at each other, sizing each other up. “I believe that if I can identify that person, I will be able to trace back to whoever ordered my sister’s murder and, with that knowledge, put right all that her death sent awry.”

  That silenced the others for a moment. Kaïnam took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh, the arrogance he had been displaying now tempered with a rueful charm that Jerzy felt himself, unwillingly, respond to.

  “And I bring you into the middle of a longer story. My apologies. It has been … a difficult voyage. Let me begin from the beginning. Please, all of you. Sit down. This may take some time, and you have been through much in the past few hours.”

  Ao pulled forward a small, ornately carved stool from under a desk and sat down on it, looking up at Kaïnam expectantly. Jerzy recognized that look; the trader had shown the exact same expression when he tried pumping Jerzy for information, early in their friendship. Clearly, Ao was less swayed by the princeling’s charm than Jerzy.

  Kaïnam stared at the far wall, then began to speak, not focusing on any one of them, as though they might distract him from his words. “Earlier this year, we received under flag of parley a Negotiator from Ekai. He had come to my father’s court asking for assistance with a matter … several ships under our protection had been destroyed, and they wished our aid in discovering the cause.”

  Kaïnam spoke so carefully, Jerzy suspected that there was more to the story than that. A quick glance at Ao showed only the same rapt expression, and Mahl’s face was perfectly still, giving nothing away, but her gaze was intent on Kaïnam’s face, like a raptor watching a snake.

  “The day the Negotiator was due to leave, we discovered him dead, by his own hand, in his quarters. With him was my sister, our most trusted, most beloved voice of wisdom and caution, his blade hilt deep in her chest.”

  Kaïnam’s tone was matter-of-fact, refusing any sympathy before it was offered.

  “My father … went mad. There is no other way to explain it. A madness born of grief and displayed in cunning, but madness nonetheless. He saw danger and treachery in every step, and not even our Washer could talk sense back into his eyes. When Master Vineart Edon offered him a way to protect our home from further betrayal, he took it, without thinking through the repercussions. Or, perhaps, without caring.”

  He looked at Jerzy then with clear eyes. “Like spells, politics often have swells that reach far beyond that of the original casting.

  “As the trader said, our island disappeared from the eyes and ears of the rest of the world. We could come and go as we pleased, but none might enter our harbors or sight our cliffs, and the magic worked to push ships away from us, keeping them from crashing upon our shores.” His lips firmed, and his face could have been carved from stone as he said, “We had no desire to harm others, only to protect ourselves.”

  “And what of the ships that used your harbor as a waystop on their journey?” Ao asked, his own voice tight after hearing that dry recital of events. “My people trade regularly with the desert lands. Without safe-harbor along the way, the safe-harbor only Atakus could provide, that journey becomes more dangerous, and to go over land would triple the time such a journey would take and cut our profits near to nothing.” He stood up as he spoke, moving forward so that Kaïnam had no choice but to answer him directly.

  To his credit, Kaïnam looked at Ao without flinching. “I do not defend my father’s actions,” he said. “Merely explain the reasoning behind it.”

  “But you left,” Mahault said. She had seated herself next to Jerzy on the bunk, as though either to take comfort—or to protect him from Kaïnam’s importuning. Unlike Ao, her voice was soft, almost consoling. If Jerzy had not known that she had sipped intrigue with her dinner spoon from birth, from both her mother’s and her father’s lives, he might have been fooled into thinking she was displaying a womanly concern for the princeling’s well-being, rather than challenging his words.

  “I …” For the first time, the Atakian looked nonplussed. “I had my reasons to believe that this was an ill-chosen direction for my people, one that would reflect badly on them.”

  “You were afraid, once the entire island disappeared, that people would think that you were responsible for …” Mahault hesitated, not sure how much she should say, how much this stranger knew of the events that had brought them out into the sea.

  “That we were responsible for the attacks on other nations? Yes.” Kaïnam nodded. He looked at Mahl directly at that, with a dawning respect. “It may be that Caul came for that reason … or it may simply be that they were outraged at being denied our ports. Or … Caul is not of the Lands Vin. Their ways of doing things, their views of the world, are not always as ours.”

  “My weapons master was Caulic,” Jerzy said, finally taking part in the conversation. “He was proud of the fact that they did not need spellwines to make their way.”

  “Oh, aye, they’re a proud people,” Ao said. “Proud and arrogant.”

  “You would recognize that,” Mahl said, unable to resist the barb.

  “We’re not arrogant,” Ao retorted, falling into their usual back-and-forth. “Arrogance is bad bargaining.
We’re just naturally competent.”

  Kaïnam looked puzzled but then, when Jerzy indicated he should continue his story, went on. “I felt that, as my father’s representative, I could make a case for our reasons for our actions, and perhaps discover who had set that first assassin against us.”

  “You, alone?” That surprised Jerzy.

  “I am not alone.” He drew himself up, his stare cold once again. “I am Kaïnam, Named-Heir of Erebus, Principal of Atakus. When I speak, I speak for my father and the island itself.”

  “Even if he didn’t authorize your words?” Mahault looked scornful. “If you were speaking for your father, you would travel with a full guard and retinue. Or he would have sent a Negotiator, rather than sending his heir, who might be held hostage, into the potential home of enemies.”

  Jerzy hadn’t even thought of that. But then, Mahl had lived her entire life in a political nest; the sleep house was a tangle of petty fears and rules, but a slave did not need to think about things beyond his own survival, and a Vineart concerned himself only with his vines and his wines. Even Ao thought not in terms of a dozen yards to be cultivated and harvested, but of a hundred different markets, all connected. They could spot the flaws in what the princeling said, catch him out in lies and omissions.

  Once again, Jerzy longed to feel solid, fertile earth under his feet instead of restless water, to be surrounded by the quiet murmur of living vines and taste the shimmer of magic in the air.

  If he could not be Vineart, though, Jerzy thought, he could still be his master’s ears and eyes. He would watch, and listen, and learn. But even as Jerzy made that determination, Ao’s face nearly broke apart with a huge yawn, and then Mahault followed, unsuccessfully trying to hide it behind both her hands, and Jerzy felt his eyelids begin to weigh down, until it was a struggle to keep his gaze focused.

  The princeling laughed, a low, surprisingly gentle sound. “Near-drowning, I’m told, is an exhausting thing. There are blankets in that cupboard,” he said, indicating a delicately carved fixture against the far wall. “We will continue this discussion in the morning.”

  “But—”

  “Sleep,” the princeling said to Mahault, when she would have protested. “I’ve trimmed the sails; we won’t go far off anyone’s course until morning.”

  Ao was already pulling blankets out, and Jerzy slid over on the bunk to make room for Mahault to curl up next to him. They had slept side by side on the trail, shared the close space on their now-drowned ship; it seemed perfectly natural to share the bed.

  Ao, though, took two of the blankets and one of the pillows and curled up on the floor in a makeshift bunk.

  The last thing any of them were aware of was the princeling extinguishing the spell-light and closing the door softly behind him, taking up the long night’s watch.

  AO WOKE as the first touches of dawn came through the cabin’s sole window, and had his blankets rolled up and stowed before the others managed to pry their eyes open. Mahault stretched, kicking Jerzy in the process. There was a brief scuffle, and she shoved him off the bunk, taking his blanket and huddling under both it and her own.

  “Still tired,” she said, muffled. “Ache.”

  “Best to move, then,” Jerzy said without sympathy. His muscles were sore, too, but nothing compared to mid-Harvest, when every inch of his body had felt as though the overseer had beaten him with a heavy stick. He stood and stretched, his hands lifting to the ceiling, and heard something crack back into place. “Where is our host?” he asked Ao.

  “He shoved his head in a little while ago, said there would be food and water to wash in, when we were ready.”

  That got Mahault moving, sliding off the bunk, still wrapped in a blanket, and out the door.

  “Best follow, or there won’t be anything left for breakfast,” Ao said.

  There was, as it turned out, enough, plus the inevitable tai, although sweetened to make it palatable to Jerzy’s tastes.

  “He kept to his word,” Ao said quietly. He and Jerzy were sitting on a low, carved bench running the length of the cabin, looking out across the waters as they moved swiftly to the north. “We haven’t gone too far, to refuse to go along with his plans. But I still don’t trust him.”

  The sun was bright, the sky was a clear, almost blinding blue, and Jerzy hadn’t felt even a twinge of seasickness. He wasn’t sure if he had indeed finally adjusted to the feel of the water beneath him, or if the bloodstaunch he had consumed was responsible, but despite their situation he felt better, more optimistic, than he had since …

  Ever, actually. It was an odd feeling, like expecting a bruise and touching healthy skin, instead.

  “Well, he doesn’t trust us,” Jerzy said in response. “He thinks he needs me to help him find the Vineart who cast the firespouts, and who enspelled the Negotiator to murder his sister and then kill himself. But he does not trust me … or any Vineart, I would suspect.” Not even the one hand in glove with his lord-father. Perhaps not especially him, for all that Kaïnam claimed he did not blame the man. There was a bitterness in the princeling, a sorrow that had festered. Jerzy could almost taste it, the way he could taste the ripeness of a grape.

  “And yet, you are willing to go to Caul with him?” Ao said “you,” but Jerzy heard “we.” Whatever Jerzy decided, Ao—and Mahault—would agree to. The loss of their ship had not changed that.

  “I’m not about to leap over the side and try to swim for home,” Jerzy said. “Are you?”

  Ao stared out across the water and didn’t answer, not directly. If the trader could barter up a new ship for them, he would. But they were caught.

  “I don’t like the way he speaks to Mahl.”

  Jerzy glanced at him, then turned around to look at where the other two were standing near the bow, Mahl with a map unrolled in her hands, fighting against the wind to keep it open long enough to read from it.

  “She seems fine.”

  “First he ignored her as a mere female, and now—”

  “And now he discovered that she has thoughts in her head, and he enjoys hearing them,” Jerzy said. “And she likes that.”

  The Vineart felt the urge to take his mug of tai and beat Ao over the head with it. Mahault might be interested in him, or she might be interested in the princeling, but even now she had her eye on the solitaire’s star-brand, and a life of the road. In that, the two were well matched; Jerzy couldn’t imagine Ao staying in one place for long, either. But they would have to work that out for themselves, if at all, and whatever Kaïnam added to the mix….

  Just then, something made him whip his attention back around to the seascape. The wind had changed, or a current of the sea had twisted. His nostrils flared, and his mouth opened as though trying to drink from the air.

  “What is it?” All other thoughts were forgotten as Ao stepped back, as though trying to give the Vineart room to work.

  “There. The tang, the taint … I found it again.”

  KAÏNAM SET his temper, forcing his fingers to rest lightly on the wheel, not clench it. “I am going to Caul.”

  The Vineart’s tone was cool as the breeze, and just as salted. “If you do, you lose your best chance to discover who is behind all of this. You lose your chance for revenge.”

  “Caul is—”

  “Caul is not where the answers are.”

  Kaïnam glared down at Jerzy, still vaguely disconcerted that this youth was a Vineart. Master Edon’s students had always seemed … older. He might almost have thought his three rescuees were lying, save the way the boy handled the flask—and the way the other two deferred to him, even when they argued. Kaïnam was the son of the Principal of Atakus, trained and set against his brothers to constantly prove his worth, and he was accustomed to reading the manners and voices of those around him. Mahault and Ao gave way before Jerzy, even though he was younger and weaker. Therefore, they believed that he was indeed a Vineart.

  And now this Vineart was telling him to abandon his plans.
r />   Only a fool asked for help, and then disregarded the advice from that quarter. Kaïnam did not wish to be a fool. Yet he had placed so much on Caul being the source of answers that to abandon it now left him feeling hollow and lost. He waited, hoping that the Wise Lady’s voice would whisper into his ear again, telling him what path to take. But she was still and silent as the gods themselves, and he felt the loss keenly.

  “And you know where the answers are,” he challenged Jerzy, to cover his hesitation.

  “I think so.” This Vineart might be young, but his voice had a tone of command that made Kaïnam listen, even if he was not yet ready to agree. “My master,” and there was a faint hesitation, as though he were about to say one thing, and then changed his mind, “sent me on a mission to find answers. I am still on that mission.”

  Truth, but not the full truth? No way to tell, and certainly the Vineart would not tell him. Vinearts did not meddle in politics, but his companions would surely have advised him well; they, too, were young, but not fools. Kaïnam did not press. “And your thoughts say we should go … where?”

  The Vineart’s dark gaze flickered from one companion to the other, then back to Kaïnam. “I don’t know our destination. Only the trail I follow.”

  Mahault came forward with one of the maps she had taken from his chart case, and placed it down on the map desk, securing the edges of the map with the ivory clips set into the tablet for that purpose.

  “We are here,” she said, her voice cool and soft, but determined.

  Her voice reminded Kaïnam of his sister’s voice, and he steeled himself against it, against reacting to the memory rather than the reality. The girl was quick, and brave, but she was not his sister—her goals and means were not bent toward Atakus, but her own purposes.