Weight of Stone

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Nothing, after that moment, would stand in his way, holding the secret close to him, keeping him company during the long hard days and nights until it was time to strike, until he had the power to do what needed be done.

  Now, twenty years later, he could sense the power in the grapes even before they were ripe. They had always been strong, the wild spellvines his cursed forefathers had found when they came to these shores, but now they were massive, almost beyond control. The incanting was like breaking wild dogs to leash—difficult and dangerous, but once it was done, you had a tool well honed and worth using.

  But there were only five vineyards planted and maintained: in all that time, only five.

  The old world might be able to fritter away their magic on petty spells and casual drinking. Here, where the Praepositus dared not send his men to hunt beyond the foothills, much less beyond them to the inland regions from where not a single exploration party had ever returned, in a land where even men who did not believe in gods huddled by their fire and hid when ice storms or blazes of lightning hurled down from wrath-filled skies, possession of spellwines was equal to survival.

  Common folk might starve or be used as tools by those above them, but a vine-slave was protected for what he might become, and the vine-mage … the vine-mage was the only god his people needed.

  Only magic kept them safe. And only he controlled access to the magic.

  Ximen might look to the past, to reclaiming his position, his family name, and abandoning this rot-blasted coastline. He had larger plans.

  Turning away from the yard, he continued with a steady stride across the courtyard, away from the main building. His workroom was a low stone structure set into the hillside: to outsiders it might look more like an animal shelter, with its double door, barred from the outside, and its single window set up high for ventilation rather than view. But inside, the floor was smooth-planed planks, and the walls were plastered and lined with shelves that were filled with pots and flagons made of dark green clay. Here the true secrets of power hid. He ignored the waiting spellwines and vina, going to the far wall, set against the earth of the hill. There, a manikin was chained to the plaster, its face roughly carved out of that same green clay, its body dressed in a length of brightly colored cloth. A scrap of dark skin was fixed to the left cheek, and a hank of hair was worked into the scalp. There was a leather collar around its neck, and two more, smaller, around its wrists. From each band, a length of copper tubing ran, connected to three different flasks of the same metal, green-dappled with age and use.

  In poor light, a newcomer might at first think it was a human form that hung there, its life’s essence being drained. In fact, it was much the reverse.

  The vine-mage studied the manikin, then turned to choose three new flasks from a shelf, carefully replacing each one, one at a time. He made sure that the seal on each new flask was tight to the tubing, at no time allowing the flow to more than one band be interrupted.

  The spellwine flowed into the manikin. Far away, the owner of that skin and hair coughed up blood each morning, the spellwine replacing it, drop by drop.

  An incantation of his own devising and perfected over the years, over a dozen different subjects. Difficult, time-consuming … but through it, he had hands where he could not be, reaching places even his spells could not, managing indirectly what could not be done directly.

  Sea beasts and storms were the least of his tools, despite what Ximen thought. He was far more subtle … and more dangerous.

  “And how are you today, poppet?” he asked, his tone gentler, softer than any around him had ever heard. “Are you ready?”

  There was no response, and yet he nodded as though he had heard something. “Excellent. You have served me so well; today, I will give you something in return. The day you have been waiting for, poppet. The day your dream is handed to you … so long as you, in turn, do this for me …”

  “Vine-mage.”

  The voice came from outside the workroom, a cautious distance from the door. He turned to confront the slave, who bowed quickly, averting his gaze as they were trained. “The Praepositus has arrived, Master Magus.”

  The vine-mage nodded once, and the slave turned and ran back to the main building.

  The mage touched the poppet once. Ximen could wait. This was a moment he had worked for his entire life, the moment five generations of vine-mages had worked for. And it was due to his magic, his Harvests, his incantations.

  “Your instructions, poppet,” he said, and leaned forward to whisper into the clay ears.

  Vine-mages were not meant to feel pride. They carried no names for that very reason; their entire existence bent toward the crafting of spellwines to keep their people alive. And yet, pride swelled within him as the poppet carried his words to his tool in that distance place, like juice scarce contained within the skin of his fruit. Vinearts dead or disabled, the tendrils of paranoia pricking at the souls of land-lords and Washers alike …

  Soon, the old world would remember those they had forgotten. Remember … and beg for mercy that would never come.

  Chapter 7

  Caul was a cold and bitter place, even in the warmer months; the buildings huddled in on themselves as though perpetually miserable, and Kaïnam would have traded everything on his person to be back on Mount Parpur, in the gardens of the royal residence, with green grass under his feet, blue sky spread out overhead, and sweet-scented air like silk, not this harsh, biting wind.

  “It’s not that bad,” his companion said, when Kaï commented on that desire—not complain, he refused to complain, merely mentioning the wish to be home. Easy for the trader to say such a thing; his skin was thicker, his body built to withstand temperature extremes. Kaï did not think he would ever truly be warm again, even wrapped in a thick woven wrap, and with newly fitted boots on his feet.

  “No wonder these people are such fierce voyagers,” he said instead. “I, too, would take every chance to leave.”

  They were in the city of Áth Cliath, the main city of Greater Caul and, according to those in the harbor where the Green Lady rested, the only truly civilized city in all of Caul, Greater and Lesser.

  The bay itself was too shallow for the greater war vessels of Caul, which sailed from port a day’s journey south, but the Lady had sailed in as though she owned the waters, sliding up the river into the city proper and finding dockage among the flat-bottomed barges and shallow-water pleasure boats of these mad northmen, who thought it great sport to test themselves in winter seas, to find and plunder, arrogant beyond all belief.

  No, Kaïnam had no fondness for this land or its rough-dressed, harsh-spoken people. But they were here, for now, for a reason. He watched the others on the street with a cautious eye: ruddy-skinned and fair-haired, for the most part, their locks plaited with beads and their clothing trimmed with ribbons and fur, as though to brighten the dreary stones of their city. He did not underestimate those he saw, but he could not bring himself to admire them, either. Even Jerzy, with his odd ways and secretive manners, had seemed more comprehensible to him than these people.

  “Next street over,” Ao said, checking something against a sheet in his hand, then looking around at the curving, unmarked street they were on as though disbelieving his own notes.

  “You are sure this man will help us?”

  “I’m never sure of anything,” the trader admitted with annoying cheerfulness. “It is a calculated risk. He may turn around and hand us over to his king, who may in turn reward us with great riches, or have us for dinner. It’s the not-knowing that makes the negotiations so interesting. If we know how every journey would turn out, why bother taking it?”

  “For profit?” Kaïnam had always assumed that was why traders did everything.

  “Of course for profit,” Ao said, dismissing that as a given. “But any fool can make a profit.” He was counting off buildings as they passed, the cold stone and timber fronts as dreary and forbidding to Kaïnam’s gaze as the heavy gra
y sky overhead. “But if all you worry about is the counting-up at the end of the day, you might as well stay home and send others to do your work for you.”

  “The travel?” Kaï assayed. “The learning?”

  “The experiences,” Ao said, as though it should have been obvious. “To learn, to see, to understand … and, by understanding, make better bargains. And learning, unlike a thing, can be passed down to every child, not only one.”

  Kaïnam tucked his chilled and damp fingers more tightly into the wool wrap and almost smiled, despite the weather and his greater concerns. “I would that my sister might have met you,” he said. “I think you two would have had much to speak of, together.”

  “Ah, here we are.” Ao did not respond to Kaïnam’s comment, but the princeling thought that perhaps his companion’s shoulders pulled back a little more, conveying a quiet pleasure. Or it might merely have been the fact that they had finally arrived at their destination.

  A small wooden sign by the door read: MIL’AR ATAN, SHIPPING & SERVICES.

  “Services?”

  “A simple word that covers a multitude of meanings,” Ao said. “What, you expected him to say ‘spymaster’ for all to see?”

  Kaïnam would not have been surprised, in truth. This land seemed to know little of subtlety.

  Inside the stone and timber building, there was a fire in the hearth that warmed the air, and Kaïnam let the plaid fall away from his shoulders gratefully. A huge shaggy dog, lean and golden like the sands of Atakus, raised its head from its paws and observed them with patient brown eyes, even as a young man came forward to greet them.

  “I am Ao of the Eastern Wind trading clan,” Ao said, making a formal bow to their host. “This is my patron, Kaïnam son of Eerebus.” They had agreed not to use his formal title; if any recognized the name and connected it to the hidden island of Atakus, then that would be significant information. Otherwise, Kaïnam was simply to play a wealthy son looking to invest in something with enough risk to tempt his jaded appetites.

  “Of course, good masters,” the man said, giving the impression that he had been waiting all day, indeed all his life, for the chance to take their wraps and usher them into the inner rooms where his master waited. “If you would follow me, please?”

  Kaïnam let Ao go first, shifting slightly to ensure that his longknife was still comfortably set at his back. On Ao’s advice he had left his blade on the Lady, not wanting to risk any hothead Caulic warrior seeing the weapon and deciding he would make a good challenge, but he refused to go into the unknown unarmed.

  Especially not as he entered the offices of the man who might tell him who had sent the Caulic fleet to his home land.

  HOUSE OF MALECH

  Late Spring

  DESPITE THE WORRIES that rode him, the awareness of the taint still winding its way through the world beyond, the vineyard reclaimed Jerzy quickly, and a month later he could barely remember what riding the sea had felt like, now up to his wrists in mud. Although the sun was not yet at summer warmth, his shirt was abandoned over a nearby bush, sweat gleaming on his skin and running down the line of his spine, dripping under the waistband of his trou. His bare toes flexed, feeling the soil underneath him, even as his fingers dipped deeper, searching for the roots stretching far below.

  “A little to the left,” he instructed one of the slaves holding the canes upright, and they shifted obligingly. They wore straw hats to keep the afternoon sun off their heads, and Jerzy wondered briefly what insanity had possessed him not to have taken one for himself. The red kerchief around his neck chafed the skin raw, and he could already feel the burn on the tips of his ears and between his shoulder blades. But all that faded to insignificance when his fingers came into contact with the first tendril of root.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said to it, his attention entirely focused. “Now where’s the trouble?”

  The vine they were working on was from Master Malech’s first planting-year, a small plot on the upper ridge, near where the ancient trees grew. The vines there were a firevine legacy, slower to return from winter’s dormancy than most, but the flowers had begun to drop, and there was scarce fruit to be seen.

  In Aleppan, Giordan’s weathervines had already fruited, green nubs the size of his fingernails. He wondered if anyone had thought to protect them from the early spring frosts, at that altitude, or if they had frozen and died without Giordan there. If the vines yet lived.

  Here and now.

  The Guardian’s touch brought him back to what he was doing. The dragon was right; he could do nothing for those vines, but the ones here required his touch. This vine, and all its cluster-kin, looked more like the spelled vine covering the entrance to the House, all dark leaf and no fruit, than a working vine. It was Jerzy’s duty to discover why.

  There was a balance to be kept between a vine that produced too much fruit, diluting the magic within the vines and requiring more work for less result, and a vine that produced too few to make a vintage at all. A vine that did not produce would be pulled up and replaced … but they needed to be sure, first.

  Master Malech was cautious these days. They both were, waiting to see if another attack would come, if the Washers would return, or some dark news would arrive bearing the tale of another Vineart dead, or a harbor closed to outsiders, or …

  Once, Jerzy had no knowledge of the world beyond the vines, no sense of the tangles and knots that bound civilization to its own follies. He wished, some mornings, he still did not know.

  Once you learned, you could not unlearn. Once tangled, forever entwined.

  His fingers, coated liberally with his own spittle, closed around the root, inching along to take hold of a thicker strand, trying to sense if anything was awry.

  The first planting-year was a tradition and a test: a Vineart-student’s ability to transplant his master’s vines, and have them root in the soil of his preparing, to grow to his command and not his master’s. There was no judgment as the guilds had it; the vines were the sole judge of his worth to be considered a Vineart, just as the mustus had judged his readiness to move from slave to student. Mastery was not conferred, but established.

  Without the tests, one remained a student forever.

  “Talk to me,” he coaxed the vine, the way a farrier might a skittish horse. “Tell me what’s disturbing you.”

  Oddly, he got no sense of distress, no tinge of rot or pest. He thought at first that the vines were ignoring him, but that wasn’t it, either. The vines were … content.

  He sat back on his heels, his hands coming free of the soil, dirt deep under his close-trimmed nails.

  Content?

  Vines were not meant to be content. That was the first thing he learned: stressing the vine, making it work a little harder to survive, made the fruit more intense, the magic stronger, just as a slave, forced to survive each day by the quickness of his wits and the sharpness of his mind, developed the magic within him, enough to recognize the magic within the vines, within the mustus, and become a Vineart.

  Still, a content vine was not a vine under attack. That had been the fear, that whatever power they were seeking had turned its attention to them once again. A year before, the rot known as root-glow had appeared out of season, attacking the oldest of the vines near the house. Malech had suspected intent in that attack, had started connecting events, seeing a pattern in the waves of disruption moving through the Vin Land.

  What Jerzy had seen since then … he did not think the root-glow had been directed at the House of Malech specifically, but rather loosed upon any vines it could find. Bad luck they had been in its way.

  Bad luck for their enemy, as well. Had it not struck Malech’s vineyards, his master might never have been pushed to investigate, and in investigating, become suspicious, and in his suspicions, be driven to break tradition and send Jerzy off to another Vineart’s lands.

  The memory of Giordan’s vineyard returned to him, the taste of the spellwines he crafted: deep green, cl
ean, with an underlying tone of bitterness, like rain on the sea, or wind in the morning. Jerzy shook his head, focusing again on the sense of firewines. The memory of the sea, the mountain air of Aleppan, the look of Mahault, so serious even when pleased, the sound of Ao’s laugh or the touch of Kaï’s hand on his shoulder, solid and warm—they should not haunt his thoughts, nor fill his dreams. And yet they did, distracting him from what was real and true and important. The treacherous thought—that this was not important—wormed its way in and would not be plucked, no matter how he tried.

  You could not untangle, once bound.

  “All right. Let it down,” he told the slaves. “Replace the soil that we disturbed, and …” He paused. How would one stress a content vine?

  “Add more crackstone to the soil,” he said. “And mark this entire row to be left untouched.”

  “Master?” the oldest slave, a bald man with sun-kissed skin and a bulbous nose, asked hesitantly, clearly speaking for the other two with him as well.

  “No weeding,” he told the slaves, exasperated at having to spell it out. “No ashing, after Harvest.” Ashing was compost made of pruned canes, collected pigeon shit, and debris from the crushing, sifted together and left until it was a thick black mass used to feed the soil.

  He left them to it, reclaiming his shirt and tying the sleeves over his shoulders as he stalked down the narrow furrow, the pale green leaves of the vines brushing at him like a kitten’s questing paws. They were too close together. He would have planted the vines farther apart, the way Giordan had, giving the slaves more room to work. It wasn’t as though Master Malech had any lack of land to work in….

  Not now, a cool voice came, and Jerzy sighed, letting his annoyance and irritation slide over the implacable sense of the Guardian, and fade into the air. Giordan’s ways were Giordan’s ways, and what had that earned him? The dragon was right—again. Now was not the time to bring anything new into the yards. The Washers had left, but their suspicions were assuaged, not put entirely to rest, and the enemy they still could not name lurked, his plans unknown, his means undetected. Master Malech spent his days following on news and rumor, while he … he did what he was meant to do. More, he kept suspicion from falling back on them, presenting the façade of everyday activities.