The Stone Mage & the Sea (Books of the Change Book 1)

by Sean Williams

  Sal nodded, despite the fact that he found her response unsatisfying. Of course it mattered what people thought of you. Even if he was only just passing through, he didn’t want to leave anyone with the impression that he was a bad person, however they had arrived at it. It wasn’t fair, and if he had a chance to change it, he felt he should.

  Whether he had the chance or not was the question. He didn’t dare hope that Shilly would be able to help him.

  They left the town behind them and headed up the dry riverbed. The day was steadily getting hotter. The air was thick and heavy, like an oven. Sal could feel sweat dripping down his back and the sun boring into his skin. He tried to stay in the shadows to prevent being burned.

  When they reached the Ruins and clambered up onto the top, Sal looked longingly down into the shadowy depths where the fern-trees grew. The air was buzzing softly to itself, setting his nerves tingling in a vaguely pleasant way. As soon as they were at the bottom of the rope ladder, he removed the anklet charm and let the background potential wash through him.

  They began as before, with Shilly lighting the carved stone using Sal’s talent. Together they explored the many niches in the cave, staring at the skulls and wondering what animals they had come from. Some seemed to be very old, blackened as though burned, or crumbling in the light; some had holes or cracks in them, possibly where their owners had been injured. Sal found himself drawn to one with a split from top to bottom, as if it had been cracked in half. What would do something like that? And why had it been preserved in the cave?

  No matter how close he and Shilly came to the skulls, though, they didn’t touch them. Even the ones within easy reach radiated a sense of distance, as if they didn’t quite belong in the light.

  Then it was Sal’s turn with the stone. He held it in the dark, after she had extinguished it, and tried his best to ignore the feel of it in his hand--the alternating smoothness and roughness of its carvings, its solid weight. Instead he concentrated on its presence in his mind. He could sense the promise of light deep within it, like a star at the bottom of a well. All he had to do was lure that star toward him, out of the well and into the world. He wanted to see how much he could do on his own before he asked Shilly for her help with Kemp.

  It wasn’t as easy as he had hoped, and it took him over an hour to coax a weak glow from the stone, even with Shilly’s encouragement and guidance. By then he had a headache. As the glow flickered and went out, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the altar stone in the center of the cave, exhausted.

  “Well,” said Shilly, squatting down next to him, “you’re getting somewhere. How are the visualizations coming along?”

  He shrugged in the darkness. “Okay, I guess, although I don’t see what good they’ll do.”

  “Don’t you?” She exhaled sharply once, like an aborted laugh. “They’re the whole point. Without them, you won’t be able to use the Change properly.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” He felt her gesticulate but couldn’t see. “Because … Oh, it’s hard to explain. Lodo says it’s all to do with tools and why people need them.”

  “How?”

  “Humans are pretty good at doing lots of things, right? But we can’t do everything the best. If we want to dig a hole, we could use our hands, and our ancestors probably did, years ago. But today we can use a shovel, and that’s better. The difference is the tool--the shovel. And it’s the same with most things. You could tear vegetables apart with your hands before you eat them, but a knife makes it easier. You could walk from town to town, but your dad’s buggy is quicker. Where there’s a will to do something, there’s usually a way to do it better--and with people, that way usually involves a tool. Are you following me?”

  “I think so.”

  “Tools don’t have to be physical things, of course. They can be like fire, which makes vegetables taste better. Words can be tools, too; they communicate ideas, and ideas can change the way people see the world. That can make some things easier in the long run. So Lodo says, anyway.”

  Sal wasn’t sure he followed that. “What does this have to do with the Change?”

  “Well, the Change requires tools just like anything else. This stone is made to call light. Using it is easier than summoning light from nothing. You could do it, if you were powerful enough and trained properly, but the stone is simpler and better. There’s no reason to take the hard way if you don’t have to. It’s the same with Lodo’s globes, or the Scourge of Aneshti.

  “Some things, though, require a different sort of tool. There’s nothing to hold on to; there’s no shovel. It’s all in the head. A lot of the Change is like that. The symbols you’re learning are the tools you’ll need to do more than just call up light and heat. If that’s all you want to do, then you just need the stone. It’ll do what it’s made to do well enough, and you’ll master it eventually. But if you want to make your own stone, or change the way this one works, you need to think properly. You need to see into things. That’s what you’re learning, even if you don’t know it.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. That’s all I can really do. I learn the shapes and use them through you or Lodo, when you’ll let me. They may seem meaningless at the moment, but there is a kind of pattern to them. Some are purely symbolic and have to be memorized, others are sounds that aren’t really words and are tricky to get right, but there’s a whole class of imitative patterns that are easy to learn. They’re the older ones, usually, and can be a little clumsy.”

  They were drifting again from the subject Sal was interested in. “Such as?”

  “Well…” She thought for a moment. “Remember how I did the illusions, last time we were here? It all begins with something representing the thing I want to call up: a picture of the thing, say, or the sound it makes. If I can’t get that, I have to use a visualization based on what it looks like or sounds like. So, the secret lies in imitation, however you do it. You pretend it’s there, and then it is, after a fashion.”

  “What else can you do?”

  She hesitated again. “Nothing much, really. Just tricks.”

  “That Lodo taught you?”

  “Some. I talk to Aunty Merinda, the old woman at the markets. She tells me things, too. Some of her charms work better than others, she says. She can find something that is lost if she knows you well enough, and she can purify water. Small scale stuff.”

  “Can she read the future?”

  “I don’t think so. She says that telling the future is as hard as telling the past. Telling the present is easier.”

  “Has she told you how to do it?”

  Shilly nodded. “It’s not hard. You focus on a particular person and you can see what they’re doing.”

  “So you could use it to spy on someone.”

  “Exactly. In theory, anyway.”

  “Maybe that’s how Lodo keeps an eye on the workshop while he’s not there.”

  “Maybe. I’ve never been game to try it around Lodo, or ask him about it. I don’t think he’d like me learning this sort of stuff before I’m ready. Aunty Merinda did tell me that it doesn’t work well through rock, so I’m not sure if that was what he’s doing. He might have a better way.”

  Sal mulled all this over for a moment, then said: “Do you think it would work down here?”

  He heard the smile in her voice. “I thought you were fishing for something. It might. Who do you want to spy on? Your father?”

  “No. Kemp.” He told her what he had seen the night before. She listened closely, fascinated, as he described how he had seen Kemp sneaking through the streets of Fundelry after midnight.

  “That’s his home, all right,” she said, when he described the big stone house by the beach where Kemp had gone inside. “I haven’t spoken to anyone this morning, so I don’t know if there was a theft last night--but it wouldn’t surprise me. Th
ere has been at least one every night for over a week now. You and your father are the main suspects, of course. Everyone has pretty much made up their minds about that.”

  Sal’s stomach sank to hear it confirmed to his face; no wonder people were looking at him suspiciously.

  “Kemp wasn’t carrying anything that I could see,” he said. He could only act on the assumption that Shilly, at least, thought he was innocent and would need all the information he could give her.

  “That doesn’t matter. Big things aren’t being stolen. It’s more like money or trinkets, stuff that could fit easily into a pocket. Stuff that Kemp might actually steal. It’s not as if he’s poor and needs food or tools or anything obvious.”

  “So it could be him.”

  “Theoretically. Ignoring the problem of motive…” It was Shilly’s turn to think it through.

  “We could try spying on him,” said Sal.

  “Wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” She sounded uncertain but determined to press ahead. “Aunty Merinda didn’t warn me not to do it.”

  “There you go, then. What do you need?”

  She looked around. “A picture of the person we want to watch--I can draw one in the dirt--and something he has touched recently. I’m not sure what we can use for that.”

  “What about me?” Sal suggested, thinking of the day on the jetty.

  “That was a while ago now.” She frowned. “But we don’t have much choice, I guess.”

  She stood up and, by the light of the glowing stone, began sketching in a soft patch of the cave floor. Sal watched over her shoulder, amazed at how well she could draw. With an economy of lines, she managed to capture everything about Kemp that made him who he was: the large brow and chin, the wide-spaced eyes, the thin lips. When she had finished, she dusted pale ash across the drawing to make it stand out from the brown earth.

  “Not bad,” she said, dusting her hands. “Right. Stand on the picture, and give me your hand. And remember: I’ve never done this before, so it might not work. Even if it does, we might not learn anything. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. He was more excited simply to be trying something new with the Change. The prospect of seeing someone from afar was much more interesting than making a rock glow.

  Shilly closed her eyes and concentrated. Her fingers tightened around his, and he felt once again the odd sensation of something shifting inside him--something his normal senses couldn’t interpret.

  At first it had seemed both hot and cold at once; now it seemed simultaneously hard and soft, or sharp and blunt. There was no defining it, except that it was there.

  Then, through the link between them, Sal caught a glimpse of what Shilly was visualizing. He saw a tunnel of glowing, crimson rings snaking into the distance. The end was invisible at first but, as Shilly imagined herself moving down the tunnel, it slowly came into view. Sal saw the picture she had drawn of Kemp growing nearer.

  Faster and faster they moved, until they were falling down a red-hot pipe. The rings blurred. Kemp’s face grew larger. For an instant, Sal felt like they were about to crash into it--

  Suddenly, it was gone. The tunnel was gone. A rush of images washed over and through him, disconnected and confusing, but vividly real. Kemp’s images.

  School. Mrs Milka mouthing words in front of her blackboard. Not really paying attention to what she was saying, though. Gaze drifting across the backs of heads in front of him. Thinking.

  (the face of a girl Sal had seen in Kemp’s gang but whose name he didn’t know)

  …BEWARE…

  Yawning.

  (a dark corridor, an unlocked door)

  Someone nudging him in the arm. Shrugging it off with a grunt of annoyance.

  …THE GOLDEN TOWER …

  (a slim, silver chain coiled in the palm of one hand, as light as a feather)

  Remembering.

  (Sal’s face up close)

  Dreaming.

  …BEWARE …

  (a slim, wooden box with a dragon carving on the lid, hidden in a drawer)

  (a jewel as clear as a diamond and as tiny as a fish egg)

  …THE GOLDEN TOWER …

  Planning.

  (“You’ll get yours.”)

  Smiling.

  …BEWARE THE GOLDEN TOWER!

  Then, just as suddenly, Sal was pulled backward, out of Kemp’s mind and along the red tunnel. Rapidly at first, gradually slowing, he felt himself ease back into his body, through Shilly. It was the most peculiar sensation he had ever felt.

  When he could feel himself again, his hand was clutching Shilly’s for support, and she was clutching him back just as hard. Both of them were breathing heavily.

  “Wow,” she said. “That was amazing!”

  “You saw it? You saw what he was thinking?”

  “I sure did. He’s definitely up to something.”

  “Something to do with me?”

  “He hates you. Did you get that?”

  Sal was startled by the intensity in her voice. “No, not exactly.”

  “He does. It was frightening.” She let go of him and ran a hand through her hair. Her eyes avoided his. Sal wondered if some of Kemp’s feeling had rubbed off on her.

  “What was all that about a golden tower?” he asked.

  She frowned. “I didn’t get that.”

  “It was really strong, but from a long way off. Just a feeling to stay away from it--from a golden tower. No images or thoughts came with it.” An idea struck him. “It seemed to come from outside him.”

  “Maybe it was the future. His future.” She did meet his eyes, then. “The only golden tower I know of is in the Haunted City.”

  “Do you think that’s what it means?”

  “I don’t know, Sal.” She looked nervous then. “He’s out to get you. That’s all I know for certain.”

  She slumped down to the floor, and he sat next to her. They thought in silence for a long while, each examining what they had experienced in Kemp’s head. Sal wasn’t at all reassured. They had seen some suggestive images, but nothing actually confirming that Kemp was the thief. Similarly, they knew Kemp was plotting something, but they didn’t know what it was. Without knowing what it was, they couldn’t do anything to avoid it. If anything, Sal was feeling more frustrated than before.

  “Maybe Tom knows what’s going on,” Sal eventually suggested.

  “You can ask him if you like, though I doubt he will. He lives in his own little world.”

  “We could break into Kemp’s house, then, see if we can find anything we saw. They must’ve been some of the stolen goods: the necklace, the jewel, the dragon box. If he has them, that’ll prove he’s the thief.”

  “And what if we’re caught doing it? Everyone will think we’re the thieves!”

  “Well, there must be something we can do!”

  “Maybe.” Shilly put her head in her hands. “At the moment, I don’t care. I just want to get the taste of him out of my mind.”

  He realized then that pushing her wasn’t going to help. He hadn’t understood just how deeply being inside Kemp’s mind had affected her. It would be better to wait for her to recover from the experience before discussing what to do about it.

  He leaned against her, and she leaned back into him. Putting his arm around her seemed the most natural thing in the world. In the gloom of the cave under the Ruins, he held her in silence and waited for her to come back to herself.

  Chapter 11. “The Consequences of Desire”

  When they emerged from the shelter of the Ruins, the heat hit Sal like a sledgehammer. They retreated to Lodo’s workshop, where even the usual stifling warmth seemed cool in comparison to outside.

  The old man had them work together on more visualizations while he kept busy with his own projects. He seemed distracted
and unaware that they had done anything untoward. Perhaps they hadn’t. Sal wasn’t about to ask Lodo about it. He had enough to worry about already.

  Shilly was distracted, too. Even challenging her to a game of Double Blind didn’t elicit much of a response. She still won, but not by as great a margin as Sal had expected.

  Eventually, Lodo threw what he was working on down onto the bench and straightened with a snort.

  “It’s no good! I can’t concentrate. Something is distracting me, and I’m not going to find it here.” His gaze swept the room, settled on Shilly and Sal. “How would my two apprentices like to dine on the beach this evening?”

  “Ah…” Sal didn’t know what to say.

  “What’s the matter?” Lodo’s eyes held a mischievous twinkle. “Nervous of falling in again?”

  “Yes,” supplied Shilly.

  “Well, then. This will be a good test of your concentration. Come on.”

  The old man struck a long, brass cylinder hanging from the ceiling with a small hammer, making it ring with a deep, vibrant note. As Lodo gathered up Sal and Shilly and led them out of the workshop, it was still humming.

  The afternoon was fading. Sal was surprised, as he often was, by how much time had passed in the workshop. The day was only a little cooler, though, if at all. The air lay heavy and thick over the dunes, sucking up sound. The sun hung low in the sky, fattening as it descended toward the horizon. There was little respite in the shadows it cast.

  The town seemed dead when they arrived. Everyone was either inside or still out on the fishing boats. Red dust puffed up under their feet as Lodo marched up to the hostel and banged loudly on the door.

  It was opened immediately. “So,” said Von from the relative cool within, her voice as ragged as ever. “You’re putting in an appearance, are you?”

  “Aye. If you’ll take me.”

  “Would that I wouldn’t, old man.”

  “Not so old, hag, and you know it.”

  Von smiled at that; her rough voice softened slightly. “You’re a bitch as well as a witch, “she said.” That’s good. At least I know you’re not a golem. Come in, come in.”