A Cast of Stones

by Patrick W. Carr

Water. Instinct guided him toward the sound of rushing water, and he followed it until it roared in his ears. Errol entered an intersection and stopped in the midst of a broad street with the comforting rush of a river coming from his right. He’d done it; he’d put himself in the middle of the largest street in the city, the one that led to the bridge over the river—the Keralwash, if he remembered Luis’s mention correctly.

  And the street was deserted.

  Almost.

  A figure stood at the far end, cloaked in black and beckoning him.

  The river raged in the height of the spring rains, pounding around the pillars that supported the bridge. He ran toward the figure, his breath rasping through his throat with a plea for help. Halfway across, he stopped. In the lamplight, beneath silver hair, he recognized a pair of light-blue eyes, eyes he had seen at another river.

  It couldn’t be. How? “No,” he breathed. “It’s not possible.”

  Merodach ran forward, his bow in one hand and a black arrow nocked. “Come with me, boy, if you want to live.”

  Errol reversed, took two strides, and stopped. A dozen paces away Karma waited. Savage glee twisted her face, turned her mouth into a rictus of hate. Behind her, his eyes burning, stood Captain Balina.

  “Come, boy. If you make me chase you, I can promise your end will be uncomfortable.” The possessed Merakhi’s voice rasped; it no longer held the seductive tones he’d heard in the prison. Her eyes glowed as if lit from within.

  Merodach called to him from behind. “Boy, I could have killed you any time I wanted. If you want to live, stay out of her reach. Look at her, boy. She’s possessed by the malus, and the guard is under her spell.”

  Errol, trying to look in two directions at once, backed away from Merodach and the Merakhi until the stone rail of the bridge pressed against his back, stopping him. Below, the floodwaters of the Keralwash thundered.

  The woman took another slow step toward him, her smile stretching the cuts and bruises on her face. “I don’t care who kills you, boy, but do you really want to die by the borale?” She laughed. “Do you relish feeling it rip and tear its way out of your flesh, leaving you to die from blood loss, screaming in pain?” She nodded back toward Balina. “The captain has a sword, freshly sharpened. He can make your end quick and painless.”

  “Don’t believe her, boy,” Merodach said. He pitched his voice to carry over the flood below. “A malus never kills quickly. They feed on pain. Come with me. I can take you to safety.” He took a step.

  Errol tried in vain to watch everyone. The pounding of his heart merged with the floodwaters. He cast the briefest of looks down, fought to keep from sobbing. The roiling depths were too far away for him to survive a jump.

  He was going to die. All that remained was to choose between the arrow, the sword, and the water.

  Without turning his back to Merodach or the malus-possessed woman, he climbed the railing.

  The three of them inched forward.

  “Come, boy,” the woman crooned. “There’s no need for such a death.” Her voice grew mocking. “Don’t you want to be buried in your faith? Don’t you want the priest to bless your grave?”

  “Errol, don’t.” Merodach’s voice cut across the woman’s.

  For a moment, something in the assassin’s voice penetrated the fear that clouded his thinking. Could he be telling the truth? If he’d wanted Errol dead, he could have simply fired. It would be impossible to miss at such short range—but shooting at Errol would leave Merodach open to counterattack by the Karma and her guard.

  He didn’t want to die. Errol took a tentative step toward the assassin, tried at once to ignore the arrow aimed at him and brace for the impact that would kill him.

  An animal-like snarl erupted from behind him. Merodach raised the bow, drew . . .

  Errol launched himself into space, heard the whine of the arrow merge with a cry of rage and pain. The water rushed up to meet him.

  11

  THE KERALWASH

  ERROL FELL, accelerating through the mist off the river until the wind roared in his ears. He closed his eyes and pulled his arms up to protect his chin and face.

  When the impact came, it pounded against his feet as though he’d landed on stone instead of water. His knees buckled, twisted to the side with a tearing pain. He drew breath to scream. The blow of the water against his ribs forced the air from his lungs. Deeper into the water he moved, slowing, but without air in his lungs to buoy him, still sinking.

  At last he stopped, somewhere above the riverbed but far below the surface. Deep beneath the pain that painted his thoughts red, he knew the river must be sweeping him downstream. But he felt nothing of such motion. He kicked, ignoring the pain in his knees and tried to surface, but it was dark and the river’s currents tumbled him. Which way was up?

  His lungs protested, and his muscles ached with the need for air. Errol put both hands over his head, cupped them, and brought them down to his side, pulling for what he hoped was the surface. Again. He felt sleepy now, and though his knees still ached, they didn’t seem to hurt so much. Spots swam in his vision, then merged into a soft light, comforting him.

  As consciousness faded, his hands bumped something hard and rough.

  Noise. At first Errol didn’t recognize the sound. He opened his eyes, exchanged one blackness for another. Clinging to a piece of wood as big around as his waist, he bobbed in the flood like a twig. And the roar grew.

  With a sense of resignation, he placed the sound, knew where he’d heard it before. Falls. Somewhere ahead of him the river dropped, spilling over a precipice high enough to carry the sound back to him. He searched for some glint of light, but the darkness was complete. Laughter bubbled up in him at his plight. For all he knew he might be right next to the riverbank, with safety no more than a few kicks away.

  He would never know. Without warning, he rose in the water, then plunged as the river pitched him through a series of rapids. Air exploded from him before he realized he’d smashed into a boulder. He reached out, groped for some handhold, but the current tore him away, washing him toward the falls. Twice more it threw him against rocks jutting from the riverbed. Each time he was too slow to grab on and climb to safety.

  The noise of the falls intensified at the same time the water calmed. He floated faster now, picking up speed. And then he fell again. At the last second, he thought to push the log away to avoid being crushed by it.

  Time passed in disconnected segments. Sensations mixed, and he moved from chills to fever. Hands, sometimes gentle, moved him, held his arms as chills thrashed him, or beat his chest. It hurt to breathe. Errol no longer battled the river, but his lungs protested at each breath. Fits of coughing took him, ripped through his chest with tearing pains severe enough to make him vomit.

  In the brief interludes between bouts of coughing and unconsciousness, someone spooned broth into him. Most of it dripped down his chin. Why couldn’t they just let him rest? In stages too slow to be measured, he became able to discern that three people managed his care: two women and a man. The women’s hands were gentle, one pair soft with age and warm and the other pair cool and firm. The man’s hands held him when his fever shook him. Then they would restrain him until the fit passed. Once, calluses like bark ran across his bare skin before the hands stripped him of sweat-soaked garments.

  Errol woke to sunlight, so weak he couldn’t lift his head from his pillow. He tried his arm instead and discovered he possessed just enough strength to lift it from his side before it collapsed on his stomach. A hand, one of the warm soft ones, took his.

  “Here now,” a woman’s voice said. “You just lie still. The soup will be ready in a moment.”

  He made to speak, wet his lips in preparation. “Wh-ere . . .” His voice croaked with disuse. His keeper placed a waterskin between his teeth, allowing him two swallows before taking it away.

  “Where . . . am I?” The sound of his voice barely reached his own ears. He tried to pull enough breath to m
ake himself heard and succeeded in producing a fit of coughing that brought spots of exhaustion to his eyes.

  A hand stroked his forehead for a moment before it withdrew. “If you promise not to do that again, I’ll tell you everything I think you want to know.”

  He nodded. The hand belonged to a middle-aged woman, her long brown hair tied back, accentuating the deep blue of her eyes. Full lips parted in a smile. A network of fine wrinkles ran to her temples.

  “I’m Anomar Reven. My husband, Rale, found you washed up on the riverbank like a piece of driftwood.” She brushed back a stray lock of hair, tinged with gray. “He thought you were dead, so he threw you over his horse and brought you back here.” The voice turned wry. “Rale figured to bury you. Said he didn’t want you rotting on the bank and drawing vultures to his favorite fishing spot. The ride back to the farm may have bounced some of the water out of your lungs. I don’t know, but you coughed once as we took you off Chester’s back, so we knew you still had some life in you. Right now you’re flat on your back in our home, which is about five miles outside the village of Rivenwash.”

  Without fighting or drawing too much, Errol inhaled until he held enough air to phrase a question. “Windridge?”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Is that where you fell into the river?”

  Errol tried to nod but was unsure if he succeeded.

  When the woman began again, an edge of uncertainty had crept into her tone. “Curse me, boy. I don’t know how you survived. That’s more than thirty miles upstream. You’ve had the worst case of pneumonia I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen more than a few. Rale says you’re touched.” She gave a short laugh. “Touched or not, you’ve been on the edge of crossing over for the past two weeks.”

  He let his surprise show.

  “Oh yes. For a fortnight now, Rale and my daughter, Myrrha, have helped me tend you. Your fever broke again this morning. It might keep this time, but it’ll be some while yet before you can get out of bed, much less travel.”

  Travel. How long would he be able to stay in one place before the compulsion overtook him and forced him to Erinon? At the thought, he felt a tug deep within his chest. Or was he just imagining it?

  Under Anomar’s watchful eye Errol regained his strength. Four days after he first woke, he left his bed and tottered past the fireplace of the cabin, its two bedrooms, and through the door into unexpected sunshine. He leaned, trembling against the rough oak frame of the house and lifted his head to the late afternoon light.

  The sound of displaced air to his left caught his attention. There, silhouetted on a low rise, Rale moved, spinning a staff that blurred and hummed. The farmer slipped from one stance to another, flowing as though in a dance, the staff in constant motion. To Errol, it looked at once more beautiful and deadly than anything Cruk had ever shown him with the sword.

  Anomar stirred behind him, arms crossed and wearing a grin made all of pride. “Rale says he hasn’t got much use for a sword, but I’d wager he’s one of the most dangerous men alive, even so.” She sighed, shifted to lean against the other side of the door from Errol. “I do love to watch him move.” Her smile turned dreamy.

  Errol nodded and continued to watch her husband in his private dance. “Do you think he’d teach me?”

  Anomar breathed a soft laugh that he felt as a featherlight touch on his neck. “Are you sure you want him to? Rale doesn’t do anything by half measures, he doesn’t. The young men from the village come out sometimes to learn the staff from him. Most of them tire of the bruises after a week or two.”

  To Errol, Rale sounded a lot like Cruk. Maybe collecting bruises was the only way to learn how to fight. “He sounds like someone I know.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “And who would that be?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “A man from my village named Cruk. He used to be in the watch. He was teaching me how to use a sword.”

  “The watch?” Anomar’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Boy, I haven’t asked for explanations. I usually don’t when I tend someone who’s closer to dying than living, but if you’re bringing danger on my house, I better know about it.”

  She gave him a look made of sparks and tinder, ready to blaze into anger in an instant. He took a step back, stumbled from sudden weakness, and lurched. Anomar grabbed him, threw his arm around her shoulders, and hauled him inside, where she deposited him in a chair.

  “I think you need some real food.” Her gaze bored into him. “I’m going to get Rale.” She paused. “And Myrrha as well. After you eat, I think we need to hear how you came to be drifting down to us on the river.”

  Minutes later, Errol got his first good look at the man who’d saved his life. Rale topped him by several inches. Gray eyes glinted over a broad nose that had been broken at least once. He moved with a step light enough to belong to a man twenty years younger, despite brown hair shot with gray.

  Errol related his story, starting with the message from the nuntius. Anomar, but more often, Rale, stopped him and bade him go back and explain some part. At the mention of Merodach’s name, Rale’s eyebrows moved up his forehead.

  Errol stopped. “You’ve heard of him?”

  Rale nodded, laughed without humor. “We’re closer to the island city here. News comes to us that probably never makes it to your village. Merodach is one of the captains of the watch. It’s the highest rank they have and there are only ten. Men who talk of such things say he is the best of them.” His lean body edged forward in the chair, his eyes intense under his dark brows. “You say he missed you not once but four times?”

  Errol nodded.

  “What does it mean?” Anomar asked.

  Rale shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the reputation of the watch is overstated.” His eyes narrowed. “Boy, you’re caught up in something bigger than you can understand. Rodran is the last of his line. One of the thirty-three benefices may come out of the Grand Judica as not only the next king, but the founder of the next dynasty.”

  “Won’t they decide the next king by lot?” Errol asked.

  Rale shrugged. “If they were all immune to the temptation power offers they would. The rumors coming out of Erinon tell me someone is trying very hard to prevent the conclave from choosing the next king.”

  He looked at Errol and took a deep breath, as if hesitant to give voice to his thoughts. “Any of them might want you dead.”

  Errol started. Him? They didn’t want him; they wanted Liam. “Me?”

  Rale thumped him on the head with one blunt finger. “Think, boy. Three times now you’ve escaped people who wanted you dead. Three.”

  Errol shook his head in denial. “But those were just coincidence. Merodach was just trying to keep me from delivering a message to Pater Martin.”

  “Then why did he shoot at you after you’d come out of the water?” Anomar asked. “He had to have known the message was ruined by then.”

  Errol ignored the question. “Dirk was following our whole group. I just happened to be trailing the others.”

  Rale gave a grudging nod. “It could be coincidence, but that word always sends a chill down my back, boy. The church has power and resources you can’t imagine. Why did the Merakhi chase you?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.” Why had she been there? It was Liam the abbot had wanted.

  Rale snorted. “That’s the problem, boy. There’s too much you don’t know, but you need to find out. Someone is hunting you.” He paused. “Humph. And maybe more than just one someone. If you don’t find out why, you’re going to wind up dead.”

  “And just how is he supposed to do that, Da?” Myrrha asked, her voice tight and angry. “All he’s known is his village.”

  Errol looked over to see Anomar’s daughter gazing at him with liquid brown eyes—eyes like a fawn. He broke the gaze and raised another spoonful of soup to his lips. Myrrha made him nervous. He wasn’t stupid. Hanging around the inns of Callowford and Berea had afforded him a certain education when it came to men and women, and he r
ecognized the look Myrrha bestowed on him. He’d seen it hundreds of times whenever a woman set her eyes on a man.

  He’d just never seen the look directed at him.

  Rale’s gaze ran over him, his mouth pursed in a way that reminded Errol of a farmer looking at a scrawny calf. “So your friend Cruk has been teaching you the sword?”

  Errol nodded.

  That brought a snort. “Fool thing to do, trying to teach someone as small as you how to use a sword.” The man shook his head in disgust. “That’s the thing about most men of the watch—they can’t seem to understand that not everyone’s built like a legend. The sword’s no good for you, boy. You haven’t got the reach for it. What you really need is a good bow.” He gave a wolfish grin. “Actually, what you need is a less troubled destiny, but don’t we all.

  “I don’t have a spare bow to give you, but I can teach you the staff if you’re willing to learn. It’s not as pretty as a sword, but for you it’s probably better.” He nodded. “Yes. And it attracts less attention.”

  Errol nodded his assent. “I’d like to learn. I don’t really like swords.”

  Rale stood. “Good. We’ve got another two hours of daylight. Let’s go.”

  Anomar put a hand on Errol’s shoulder before he’d half risen out of his seat. “Are you crazy, Rale? The boy’s barely out of the grave.”

  Her husband smiled, the expression lightening the countenance of his heavy features. “Is he in any danger?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Fine,” Rale said. “I’ll try not to hurt him too much. He doesn’t have time to be coddled, Anomar. If what the boy says is true about the compulsion, he may leave us at any time.”

  Rale’s wife gave a thin-lipped nod at this.

  “Have some bandages and some of that soothe-hurt tea ready.” He turned to Errol. “Let’s go, boy.”

  Errol swallowed. Bandages?

  He followed Rale across the yard to a low-ceilinged barn. Rale bade him wait while he went inside. When he returned he carried two staffs, each somewhat longer than Errol was tall. Rale tossed one of the staffs to him. The wood slapped into his palm, the grain smooth against his skin.