Melting Stones (26 page)

I thought it would be easy to get back to my real body. It was, what? Four miles as the goose flew? One mile from the shore.

But I was so tired.

You are half the size you were when you crossed my borders, silvery worm
, the sea taunted.
Why bother going back? You wished to melt. Stay and be ground to a speck instead
.

Don't you ever tire of the sound of your own voice?
I whispered. It wasn't very good, but it was the best I could manage. I felt as small as a pebble when I found land that wasn't under salt water. Instantly I leaped to the earth's surface. It was wonderful to shed the weight of water and earth together.

Once there, Luvo's magic was a huge beacon in my eyes. I flew to him, drawing on his strength. He wrapped me around like a good father, taking me into his depths. If my magical body could have cried, I would have wept. I felt so safe in his heart. I was surrounded by his power. He was layered like a tree with centuries of stone life. Here was fire, water, sun, patience, resolve, wrath, wisdom, anything I could ever want.

I knew then that I wanted to be Luvo someday. I don't know how, but I can strive to be more like him.

The patience will need a lot of work.

Evumeimei, there is a thing
, Luvo said in my mind.
I fear you will not like it
.

Something about his tone worried me. I didn't want to leave the good place he had made, but I did. I popped into the body I had left and fought to open my eyes. From the sun's position, I'd been gone three hours. I was in Sustree, tied to my horse with ropes. Obviously Rosethorn had found me.

From the look of things, we had just arrived. The docks were a mess. People were trying to get onto the ships. Men and women with weapons were making the refugees leave things: wagons and animals, mostly. Children screamed for their pets. Adults argued and shouted at the guards, who told them there wasn't enough room. The animals just looked confused. Rosethorn, Myrrhtide, Azaze, Oswin, and the other village leaders were trying to get people aboard the vessels. Tahar was aboard one small ship. I could see her seated by the rail, grim-faced. Jayat was still on the dock, helping Azaze.

Nory was right beside me. She hung on to my knee so tight it hurt. She'd already pulled me half out of the saddle.

"Stop that!" I smacked at her, or tried to. My arm was too numb to work. "What's the matter? Why aren't you helping?"

She glared at me. She had pulled me down so far our eyes were on the same level. One more tug and I'd be hanging off the saddle. "Awake, are you? I'm here because I wanted to be around when you opened your eyes."

"Why?" I asked.

"So I could do this."

Even if I could have moved, I wouldn't have been fast enough to escape the hard slap she landed on my cheek. Then she slapped me again. She was crying. "While you were playing mage, Meryem decided you would like her again if she gave you a pretty rock she left at home. She went back. I'm not allowed to find her. I'm needed to look after the others. So she's dead in all these shakes, or she's hurt, or she's going to starve. All because you're a pig who's mean to little girls!"

Then she punched me in the eye and walked off.

Meryem. Meryem had gone back to Oswin's house. And the volcano was going to come through the ocean floor only three miles out. That wasn't good enough if a small girl was left on the island. She would be out there while ash and rock bombs fell and set the forests afire.

I was struggling to get free of my ropes when I heard Rosethorn say, "Hold still, Evvy." My ropes were hemp, of course. At Rosethorn's command, they came untied. Azaze caught me before I fell off Spark. 

"Oswin isn't to know one of his children is missing," Azaze told me quietly. "Understand, girl? We can't go back for her, and Oswin has twelve others who need him. It's a sorrowful thing but true. In the rush he won't be able to count them. Not a word, or I swear, you'll travel in the bilge—or not at all."

"She won't talk. Evvy understands reality." Rosethorn looked as bleak as slate. "We have been here before, haven't we, Evvy?"

I nodded and sat on the ground. Puffs of ash rose around me. We
had
been here before. I hadn't wanted to be in this position ever again.

"We've work to do. Try to get yourself moving, girl." Azaze bustled off.

"Myrrhtide put our packs on that ship over there, the
Brown Gull
. Try to be aboard when the captain weighs anchor. For now, when you can walk, start helping to get some of these people seen to." Rosethorn looked at me. "Did you do it, at least? Lead them away?"

"I don't know." My voice cracked. Rosethorn passed a water bottle to me. I think I drank half of it. I sounded better when I spoke again. "I got them away, but only three miles out. I was exhausted. I couldn't drag them any farther. They got bored. They're trying to smash their way through the ocean floor." I hung my head. "Maybe they'll stay there, or move on. Or maybe they'll come back, to the places they know."

Rosethorn rested her hand on my head. "Evvy, you were foolish to take on volcanoes in the first place. It was like wrestling Luvo."

I was going to cry, I just knew it. "Rosethorn, it's my fault Meryem ran away. I said mean things to her."

"I know. She told Nory, who told me." Rosethorn's voice was quiet. If she condemned me, I didn't hear it. I couldn't look at her, so I couldn't see it in her face if she felt that way.

"If she dies here, it'll be my fault," I said.

"And you will have to learn to live with that, Evvy," Rosethorn told me. "I never said the first steps on the road to becoming a destroyer wouldn't hurt. I would imagine it would bother you less, over time."

I broke down and cried, then. Rosethorn sighed. "Perhaps that was hard. I am, sometimes. But Evvy, six-year-olds are tender plants. The slightest frost kills them. I cannot blame you, not really. In the years when you should have learned to be with people, you were scrabbling to survive all alone. But you haven't learned to go easy with the defenseless, something I'd hoped Briar and I would have taught you by now. I can only pray you will remember this, and not get worse. Oh, Mila save us—I have to go break that up. Come help me when you can." She strode off along one of the docks. Two men were fighting over a bag of something. It ripped in two. The seed in it sprouted and fell to the dock as living plants.

"Now you have nothing to quarrel about!" Rosethorn informed them angrily. "Get on that ship!"

I massaged my cramped leg muscles, trying to get my body moving. Ash drifted onto everything from the crack that had opened on Mount Grace. It lay in a light powder over people's faces, the animals, the ships. It made me sneeze constantly.

"Do you need a hand up?" Oswin had come over. He helped me to my feet. "Listen, Evvy, don't blame yourself about Meryem. I should have kept an eye on her." His face was pale and strained. "I knew what had happened. When Meryem's upset, she heads for home."

So much for not telling him. "You're not angry with me?" I couldn't look at him.

"You didn't order Meryem to go back." He steadied me. "Nory's blaming herself. She's wrong, too. This is a mess." He looked around. He was right—it
was
a mess. One ship was riding low in the water at the dock. It was overloaded. Sailors tossed goods overboard, while passengers screamed in rage. Didn't they see that furniture would do no good if they drowned?

"Where
is
Nory?" I looked around. I didn't want to get punched again. I also wasn't sure what Nory might do to me next. Kill me, maybe.

"Helping Treak get the children aboard our ship. That one over there, with the sun on its prow." Oswin walked over to a family with a wagon. He helped them take bundles out of it. "You should get aboard your ship, Evvy. Myrrhtide wants to set sail. He says the shakes are setting up strong currents in the sea. Once we're out there, he can use his magic and those currents to help us move quicker. And the captains have winds tied up in knots. They're going to set them free to get us away from here."

"Not southeast." I unsaddled my horse, Spark, who had been waiting for me all this time. We were going to have to leave my patient little mare. Would she be clever enough to get away from the shore? Would she go far enough? I slapped her on the rump when I had all of her tack off and watched her run. "Oswin, did you hear me?"

Oswin turned to look at me. "Huh? What did you say?"

"I said, tell them not to go southeast," I called. "A volcano is coming up underwater there. That's what caused the quake a little while ago."

"Southeast—got it." Oswin stared at the ship where Tahar sat. Treak stood beside her, jumping up and down. He waved to Oswin. The other children were with him. Some of them were crying. The others looked miserable, furious, or both. The boy who had ridden with me on Spark was hanging on to two of them, who fought his grip. Oswin walked toward the ship, his eyes searching the faces at the rail. "Treak, where's Nory?"

My belly flip-flopped. I knew where she was. And if
Nory
had gone missing… I looked around for Jayat. A moment ago he'd been standing with Azaze. Now Azaze and the guards were moving the last of the villagers onto the ships. I couldn't see Jayat anywhere.

Oswin turned and strode down the dock, his face grim. Ash streaks made him look like a Qidao shaman had painted him for war. His eyes blazed turquoise, blind with the ideas in his head. He looked half crazy.

Azaze moved in to cut him off. "Where are you going?"

"Nory's out there," he said hurriedly. "She went after Meryem. They—"

"
And what of your other eleven children?
" she demanded. Once again I thought Azaze should have been born as a queen. Right now Moharrin needed a queen, not a head-woman. Only a queen could stop Oswin if they wanted to keep him. "You are all they have, Oswin Forest. You saved them from starvation yourself.
You
stepped in and interfered with the destiny the gods chose for them. If you abandon them now, the gods will surely strike all of you down as payment for your abandonment of your duty."

"You can't know that." Oswin's voice was as hard as diamond and as soft as chalk.

"I know that the gods watch when you replace their plans with one of your own," Azaze's voice was sure. "You had best make good on your new plan if you interfere in theirs. You can't just decide you're tired of your new plan, or that one part of it is more important than the rest. What will happen to those children when we get to wherever we're going? I'll do my best, but I can't control them. The only one who could ever do that is
you."

"Azaze—" Oswin reached out to Azaze. His hand shook. "They're my children, too."

Azaze's face was iron hard. "But they are only two of your children, and they are out of your reach. Treak obeys only
you
, Oswin. You're the only person I know who can grind lenses so that Jesy can see. Deva calls you 'Papa.'And—"

A boy's voice rang out clear over a sudden quiet at the docks. "Oswin, are you leaving us?"

Oswin's shoulders drooped. He looked back at the ship where the other children waited. "No. It's all right, Natan. I'll be there in a moment."

Azaze took one of his hands. "I am sorry, my boy."

"They have my idiot Jayat with them, or Norya does, at least!" Tahar screeched from the ship. "That's more luck than they deserve!" She looked and sounded furious, but there were wet streaks under her eyes.

I'm wasting time, I thought as Oswin got back to work. I need Luvo.

He stood with Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, on the dock. Enough of the refugees were on the ships that they had decided it was time to do magic. Rosethorn twisted and knotted strands of hemp. She was using spells to strengthen the ropes and sails of the ships. Myrrhtide whispered over chains set with water-magic stones: jade, pearls, beryl, aquamarines. They were too busy to notice anything else, including me.

I knelt beside Luvo. Through our magic I told him,
Take care of Rosethorn. Make sure she gets home safe. I have to go back into the fault
.

Luvo reared up onto his hindquarters. I couldn't see his eyes bulge. If he'd had them, though, they'd have popped from his head.
You will do no such thing. What would it accomplish? You are as weak as a flake of mica. Three miles is enough if these meat creatures hurry
.

I didn't have time to say it fast. I gave it to him all in a rush, as pictures and feelings. I showed him Meryem, Jayat, and Nory all headed inland. That three miles weren't enough, if the volcano was a big one. That the volcano spirits could get bored or frustrated. They could return to the cracks under Starns if they couldn't break out where they were. That if the volcano was big enough, it would set the forests on fire.

How it was my fault for losing my temper with Meryem, and with Carnelian and Flare under the sea. How I should have been patient, and made the volcano spirits keep going. How after Gyongxe, I just couldn't bear for more animals or people to die if I had a chance to save them.

How the great fault under our feet was slipping little by little. Sooner or later it would slip a lot.

I know all this
. Luvo sounded testy.
Evumeimei, I have never done so much rushing in all my days as I have done in my time with you. Now I must rush some more. I do not welcome it
.

I don't want you to rush!
I cried.
I want you to leave with Rosethorn and tell her what happened to me!

For a moment he was as silent as only a stone can be. Then he said,
Take this part of my strength
. He set a
huge
ball of magical fire inside me. For a moment I thought
I
might explode like a volcano.
Find the diamonds ten miles down. Gather their power. Then try to deal with Flare and Carnelian again.

That was all he said. I struggled with what he'd given me, trying to arrange it so it stopped choking me. When I could speak, I asked,
Luvo? Luvo
?