Shattered Stone

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  Tra. Hoppa had them out the door before they could catch their breaths, the candle flame nearly invisible in the daylight. “Quick, Zephy, pivot the stone back. Hurry!”

  The stone, a small pivoting boulder surrounded by humped gray rocks, moved with the pressure of Zephy’s shoulder. The tunnel would lead them, as it had those others, beneath Burgdeeth into the hollow base of the statue. When darkness had come, those Children had pushed back the bronze panel and fled Burgdeeth forever. Now Zephy and Meatha slipped down into darkness as, above them, Tra. Hoppa shouldered the stone back into place.

  Beyond the light that the candle threw on dirt-mortared walls, the tunnel was utterly black. It smelled damp. They could just see the first supporting timber, a thick tree trunk sunk between the stones.

  The weight of the earth above them seemed to press down intolerably as they made their way in the darkness, the candlelight dodging and shifting.

  “I never liked it,” Meatha whispered.

  “It’s better than getting caught.”

  Why did they whisper? The tunnel made them do it. As if, if they spoke aloud, they might—what? Stir awake something alive in the tunnel walls themselves? Zephy snorted at herself and tried to concentrate on the little sphere of candlelight as Meatha pressed close behind, bumping her now and then in her impatience to get on.

  The ceiling curved down into the walls, making the head room higher in the middle; but too low, still, to be pleasant. The candle guttered once, as if a breath had touched it—maybe Zephy’s own, though. Then it steadied, picking out the niche where the relics of Owdneet had once lain. The niche was empty, of course; they had long since ceased to explore it. But now suddenly Zephy wanted to reach in. She held the light up and felt into the hollow. The first Children of Ynell had put their hands in just so, had felt the rough dirt walls, had . . . she found herself scraping and working at something, some protrusion in the hard dirt . . . something smooth . . . something . . . It came away suddenly and fell into her hand, so heavy she dropped it. She fished it out and held it to the light.

  It was a bit of green stone as long as her finger, sharp-pointed at one end and rounded at the other, with jagged sides. It looked like jade. On the round end were carvings—runes! The girls stood staring. The stone gleamed, stirring Zephy in a way she could not understand. It looked as if perhaps it had been part of a round and much larger stone that had somehow shattered. It had been completely buried in the dirt of the niche, though now it seemed to be shining more brightly, as if . . . Zephy looked up toward the end of the tunnel, where a cold light burned suddenly . . .

  Where no light should have been!

  The light reflected on the green stone: a light where a moment before there had been only blackness, a light that was growing brighter still, had grown into a brilliance so penetrating Zephy could hardly look. The tunnel walls had disappeared; the light glowed in an immense space ahead of them, an unbounded space.

  They stepped forward into the vastness with no thought that they should not.

  It was like a cavern of light, a cavern without walls, if such a thing could be imagined. The space seemed to cant and tilt to create the feeling of walls across the emptiness. There was no sound, no stir of air.

  Then gradually they became aware of something else.

  The space seemed to be expanding. It was growing lighter and rising; it was luminous, as if mists drifted; and though there was no color, all colors seemed to swirl around them as if colors had voices that could penetrate the soul. The spaces pulled at them, beckoned to them until at last Zephy thought she could see far distant walls. Then she realized they were mountains, mountains rising in a space that was larger than the world she knew, larger than the sky, as if the sky had swelled suddenly higher and everything was farther off. The sense of light behind the mists was of a terrible brilliance; she could feel the shadows moving, and yet they were not shadows, they were . . . Oh! the figures moving toward them had great, spreading wings; figures that hovered above them, around them—half-horse, half-man, with shining wings. You are come, they seemed to whisper, and laughed with voices filled with joy. You must reach out, you will reach outward—if you are the chosen, you must extend yourselves, you three—and three—and more. You will reach out . . .

  Then they were gone; there was only blackness; and Zephy had dropped the stone.

  If she found it and picked it up, the vision would return, and she wanted that desperately—yet she trembled with fear as she knelt and began to feel for the stone in the darkness. The candle, its light strangely snuffed, lay abandoned.

  After a long while she had almost given up. Had the stone rolled completely away? She was frantic to find it now; then when she did at last, it was far from where it had fallen. She touched it and light flared around her so she drew her hand away as if it had been burned. She longed for the vision—and she was terrified of it.

  Finally she took the stone up in her handkerchief. Again she was surprised at its weight She felt along the wall for the niche and laid it quickly inside.

  Meatha said nothing. If she wanted the vision to return, she did not ask for it. They groped ahead, the walls pressing close around them; they did not talk, the vision still held them utterly. They were quenched with it, as if one moment of wonder, of such brilliance, was all they could manage without blinding themselves. It encompassed them completely.

  When they reached the lighter hollow beneath the statue, Zephy felt she had come back from an infinite distance. Tiny points of light like little stars shone through the peepholes in the bronze base of the statue. Zephy peered out on one side, Meatha on the other, but they were reluctant to go. They stood silently holding the vision, yearning for it, nearly turning back into the tunnel. What had Zephy held; what was the stone? Had they seen a vision, or had they touched a reality they could not comprehend?

  At last Meatha pushed open the bronze door in the base, and they slipped through. Voices brought them up short; they pushed the door back under cover of their bodies then knelt hastily before the statue, their arms crossed over their chests in servility, heads bowed, as two men came across the square.

  Zephy stared at the ground and moved her lips in prayer. The shadow of a hoof cut across her hand as if the Luff’Eresi touched her in benediction; and it was in true prayer that she knelt, for she had stood on the brink of a world whose dimensions made her own world flat and colorless, a world outside of everything she knew, where the gods had drifted the way sunlight drifts through water—yet had been real beyond anything she had ever known.

  When at last they rose to go, they walked close together, shivering. And once they looked back at the bronze Luff’Eresi sweeping above the square with his consorts leaping beside him. I have seen them, Zephy thought. I have seen the true gods. Then she thought suddenly, numb with surprise, and frightened: I am like Ynell. I, too, am a Child of Ynell.

  For days afterward she would wake in the darkness of the loft knowing this and feeling terrified. Then she would come fully awake and remember the vision vividly, would lie staring out at the changing sky and seeing that other world instead. Ephemeral as gauze it had been, yet as real as stone. I am like Ynell, she would think again, amazed. I am a Child of Ynell.

  Then one morning two small boys were drowned, and everything else was driven from Zephy’s head.

  An older boy found them and ran at once to the Deacons. The two little bodies had been washed onto the bank of the river, and were mud-covered and icy cold. Zephy did not run with the crowd to see, and when she heard how the children had looked, she was glad she hadn’t. The horror of the ceremonial viewing was quite enough to turn her sick; sick at the deaths, sick with a fear she could not even name. And one of the boys was little Graged Orden. She and Meatha could only think of the game of search-and-seek and of the barrel with the red rag hidden and little Graged Orden running from Kearb-Mattus in terror. They sat together in Temple while the red robed Deacons said the Prayers and Covenants and the Ritual Mourni
ngs and held the burning chalice above the little coffins; while the citizens of Cloffi bent, one by one, before the coffins with their hands crossed over their shoulders and their heads lowered in submission to the will of the Luff’Eresi.

  The coffins would be placed in the burial wall and covered with sacred mortar and stone. This funeral, so soon after Nia’s, was horrible.

  Late on the night of the funeral, Zephy heard hoofbeats in the street, but when she rose to look there was nothing. She sat in the window for a long time, the fear of death clinging to her.

  EIGHT

  “Shanner, wake up. Shanner!” Zephy shook his shoulder, jostled him, but he continued to snore. She lit the candle and held it close to his face. “Shanner! It’s Market Day!”

  “Mphh.”

  “Come on! You know I can’t lift the barrels myself.” He would snore like a lump. She snatched the covers back and jerked his shoulder, pummeling him until he opened his eyes.

  “Market Day,” She repeated.

  “Last night. Could have done it last night Zephy . . .”

  “You weren’t here.” She glowered until he sat up. The nearly full moons had gone, the only light was the sputtering glow from the candle. Even Waytheer could not be seen. The wind came in, and Shanner shivered. She pulled the shutters closed and latched them. “That’ll be warmer, it’ll be light soon.”

  “It’ll never be light.” He reached for his pants and boots. “Cold!”

  She snorted with disgust.

  On the street they walked beneath the sound of banners snapping on the dark wind, Fire Scourge banners hung out last night from the windows and rooftops of Burgdeeth, flapping in the fitful gusts to mark the beginning of the five day celebration. And special banners, too, to mark this year of Waytheer. The star would not be so close again for ten years; the Luff’Eresi would not come again so strong or speak so clearly to man for ten years. Every prayer, every supplication put forth now would have more meaning.

  They went in darkness to get Nida and her creaking wagon. Zephy could tell Nida from Dess only when Dess kicked her absently as she tried to pull the bridle on. Nida never would. She cursed Dess and let her loose, smarting and cross and cold; almost wishing she were back in bed and Market Day was past.

  “Brewmaster’ll be livid,” Shanner said. “Couldn’t you have remembered last night?”

  “I couldn’t find you. You were off with a girl, I suppose.” The whole town had been seething with wagons last night, waiting to get settled in the square. The Inn had been packed full. She had looked for Shanner everywhere when she should have been cleaning up in the late hours, washing mugs. “They emptied every barrel. You might have remembered; you might have known they would!”

  He grumbled something unintelligible as they rounded the corner by the Brewmaster’s. A tiny light burned in the window. “He’s up,” Zephy breathed thankfully.

  But the old man growled worse than Shanner and heaved the honeyrot casks onto the wagon so brutally that Zephy thought they would have it all spilled, the casks caved in, and the honeyrot flowing in the street.

  The sky had begun to gray above the rooftops. At the sculler, Zephy held the door while Shanner hoisted the barrels through, seven barrels of honeyrot to set side by side for the noon meal. When she took Nida back to the fields, the sky was as yellow as mawzee mush, and the banners bright and blowing so Nida flicked her ears at them and snorted against Zephy’s cheek. In the shed, as Zephy hung up the harness, she paused to examine the rent in Nida’s packsaddle where the donkey had shied stupidly against a building. The straw was coming out. It should be mended. Zephy couldn’t get her mind properly on mending with Market Day at hand.

  Thorn would be coming down the mountain this morning to trade hides and blankets at Market. Well, at least he always had. She glanced up at the mountain. Will he come to find me? Will he want to?

  Will he even think of it?

  Would she be bold enough to search him out? What, and stand staring like a sick calf? Wait for him to thank her for risking her stupid neck in the Set? Oh, Great Eresu, she thought. What’s the matter with me?

  And, would Thorn stay for the Singing?

  In Burgdeeth, public singing was sanctioned only at festival time, at Fire Scourge and Planting and Solstice. She glanced in the direction of the river where the road came down from Dunoon and felt her spirits lift. Thorn always stayed for the Singing. Later in the sculler, she reached down her gaylute from atop the cupboard, and stood carefully polishing it.

  *

  It was well before dawn when Thorn and Loke finished packing their hides and blankets across the backs of their four best bucks. The moons had already set. They worked by the light of the cookfire from the open door, for their mother had risen to lay a hot meal for them. The bucks were restless, wanting to be off but looking over their shoulders, too, toward their herds, nervy and light-footed and shifting about as they were saddled. The bucks stood as tall as Thorn when their heads were raised. Their spiralling horns were ridged intricately and sharp pointed as spears, rising as high as Thorn could reach; deadly if they pierced a man. Thorn glanced at Loke as the younger boy fastened a basket of cheese and mountain meat on top a pack, then looked up one last time at the mountain: they had patrolled it constantly since Urobb fell. Thorn spoke to the bucks at last, and they started down the dark slope.

  Not until the morning sky began to grow light, so the boulders loomed clearly around them, did they feel easier. As the sky began to yellow, they sang a little, the old marching songs—songs of the Herebian tribes, songs forbidden in Cloffi. And well they might be, for the Herebian were father to the Kubal. But lusty songs and bold they were and the two sang them now with changed words, in rude defiance of Kubalese might

  “What would they do to us?” Loke asked suddenly. “What would the Kubalese do if they conquered Cloffi?” The boy gazed at Thorn with trust The talk of attack must have upset Loke more than he had shown. Thorn studied his brother’s freckled face with a feeling of tenderness—and of fear. It was not for nothing that Tra. Hoppa had taught him Ere’s history; he knew what could happen to them. But there was something else, too, something on the side of Dunoon. ‘They could kill us all,” he said evenly. “Except for one thing.” He looked into Loke’s eyes and saw his own fears there. “We’re too valuable to destroy. The Kubalese could never herd our goats and make them produce, and they’re the only decent meat in Cloffi. Crude as the Kubalese are, I expect they are not foolish. They would likely keep Dunoon as slave, for food, for goat meat and milk and wool. They would keep us slave, Loke, slave to tend our own herds.”

  “But we never would! I’d kill my herd first before I’d be slave to Kubal!”

  Thorn said no more. The plans he had made with the Goatmaster were best kept just to the two of them. The more who knew, even his little brother, the more who could be forced to talk.

  “Is that why . . .” Loke looked at him steadily. “Is that why Burgdeeth has tolerated us all these generations? Because of the meat and the wool?”

  “What else? You know the Landmasters have always hated us. But even they know our herds would die under the bungling hands of Burgdeeth. Our mountain goats are not like the donkeys and the poor steeds of Cloffi, to be rough handled or to tolerate cruelty and indifference. You know as well as I they were never meant to be fenced or to live in the confines of the valley. And no Landmaster would permit his people to live on the mountain to herd them; there is too much of freedom there, to much of space, too much of sky to woo away Burgdeeth’s fettered manhood.”

  ‘Tolerated for our goat meat!” Loke said furiously.

  “Well, we don’t have to stay on these pastures; though they are by far the richest. Maybe the Landmaster dreams that one day we’ll be brought to our knees and made as docile as the Cloffa. Anyhow, it all may come to nothing, this talk of attack.” He cuffed Loke across the shoulders. “It’s Market Day, boy! Good food and new sights, and a pocket full of silver.”

&nbs
p; They stopped to water the bucks before leaving the river, the goats sloshing playfully, then took the narrow trail that crossed the lower whitebarley field and came into Burgdeeth by a side street. They could see the square ahead overflowing with bright wagons and banners, with horses and men milling about underneath the great bronze statue. Did the Landmaster ever really look at the grandeur and gentleness of the god towering there? What kind of twisted spirit could live with the pictures that were painted on the Landmaster’s walls?

  Thorn took the black goat’s halter and led him forward to where Loke had found a spot to his liking just beside the hedge. The younger boy had already begun to spread out his wares on an old blanket, brown hides and rust, cream and black, and the blankets woven in the same tones, their patterns of song and myth catching a slash of light from between the feet of the statue. Thorn grinned at Loke; the boy could hardly wait to begin trading. Thorn left him to it, as his brother preferred, and began to walk among the wagons, wondering at the richness of the wares. He moved alternately in sun and in shadow, where canvas roofs had been spread to shelter the displays of silks and linens and copper pots, of enamelled brassware and carved chairs and fancy harness and bright-dyed leather goods, and of sweets—soursugar and saffron drops, bars of honeywax from Doonas, and even dates and onyrood pods from Moramia, dipped in crystalized sugar. Thorn’s mouth watered at the sight of them; he slipped two coins from his belt and bought soursugar and onyrood and took them to share with Loke, coming away again to prowl at more length among the crowds—a rare holiday, this, and the sun warm on his back. He felt an unaccustomed satisfaction with the color and the noise and the crowds, he who was usually happiest alone.