Melting Stones (4 page)

"Another day you may admire the pretty rocks, my dear." Someone wrapped a hand in my collar, then dragged me from the water to land on my bum.

If it had been Myrrhtide, I would have dumped an avalanche on him. Seeing that it was Rosethorn, I behaved. "I'm sorry. I'll walk now," I said. "I was just admiring the obsidian. There's rainbow obsidian. And gold streaked, and translucent…"

I wasn't arguing with Rosethorn, mind. Just before he left, Briar had told me, "Evvy, you have to watch out for her. She won't care for herself, you know it as well as I do. Don't let people work her too hard, all right?"

And because I was being brave, pretending that it was fine by me if he went off for months and months with his sisters, I had said yes. Rosethorn was mine, too, after Yanjing and Gyongxe. If the emperor and all his armies hadn't made trouble between Rosethorn and me, then this sleepy island in its sleepy ocean would never do it.

I got to my feet, but Rosethorn still held on. "You can walk only if you stop slowing us down, Evvy." She towed me along. "Otherwise I'll tie you to your horse. Why are you acting like a child who got into the honey jar? I know you missed stone while you were at sea, but usually you calm down once you're on land. It's not like you to make visible displays like those farm walls or that rock slide."

I didn't think she had noticed that I made the granite walls sparkle. "But it's all right if I play." I said it, rather than asking. I was afraid that if I asked, she might say no. I never ask a question if I don't think I'll like the answer. "It's not as if the woods are full of enemies waiting to pounce."

"No, but usually you aren't so, so prodigal."

"Prod—hunh?" Educated mages like Rosethorn and Fusspot always talk as if you know every long word they use.

"Prodigal. In this case, it means profligate—no. Giddy. Reckless. Tossing your magic around, as if you shouldn't save it for an emergency. Spending it without regard for the future." She let me go.

"
I
would have just said that I don't go around wasting magic." I stowed my obsidian pieces in the front of my shirt. One of them had cut me. I hid the cut before she noticed it. As I followed Rosethorn onto the road, I explained, "It's
these
rocks. So many of them are fire-born."

She looked around at me. "Fire-born?"

I shrugged. "From volcanoes. I keep finding the kind of rock that my stone teachers say is made in fire. I've never seen so much in one place, not so close to the surface. There's some at Winding Circle, but all underground, mostly. There's granite here, and feldspars, and obsidian—obsidian is
really
hard to find. And they're all volcano rocks. Starns is one big basket of treats for the likes of me."

We reached the road. Dedicate Fusspot looked as if he was about to complain. He changed his mind when Rosethorn and I both glared at him.

"Play with your obsidian treats in the saddle, please," said Rosethorn. "No more delays."

She leaned against my horse's shoulder as I climbed onto its back. I felt guilty as I looked at her. Coming home from Gyongxe, Briar and I had made her rest. She had relaxed after we got to Winding Circle, but she still got tired easily. Rosethorn had ordered Briar and me not to talk about all she had done to fight the emperor's armies. She had put so much strain on her body and heart. Seeing her lean on my horse, hidden from the people who rode with us, I wished Briar and I had disobeyed her. I wish we'd told the Winding Circle council that she was in no shape to go saving villages, not so soon.

"Did you drink your medicine tea?" I asked her. "The kind that smells like boiled mule urine?"

My horse was nervous, pawing the ground. Rosethorn pushed away from it. "I will have it in the village, if we can get there with no more—"

The other horses snorted and stamped. Birds flew out of the trees, shrieking.

"Evumeimei…" Luvo said in warning.

I felt it coming, too, from under my feet—liquid stone on the move, rich and heavy. Now was the time to use tricks I had learned from the riders of Gyongxe. I wrapped the reins tight around my right arm, locked my legs around my horse, grabbed Rosethorn's arm, and hung on. I muttered prayers to Heibei, god of luck. This time the weight of the earth's power drove straight up through the ground underneath us. It boomed under the horses' hooves and rattled down the road, away from the island's heart. On the far side of the river, stones dropped from the cliff to hit the water with huge splashes. Behind me I heard the sound of tearing wood and the crash of a big tree as it fell. I clutched Rosethorn with both arms and the horse with my legs, to keep Rosethorn from tumbling down the riverbank. She clung to me, her lips tight and her eyes all business.

Then we had silence. We listened for a time, waiting for a second shock. The horses quieted down. Finally, the birds began their usual chatter.

"You may let go now, Evvy." Rosethorn gave me a little push.

I let go. People tell me sometimes I have a grip like stone. I think I must have used it. Rosethorn's wrist was marked where I grabbed her. The cloth of her habit was as wrinkled as if I'd ironed it that way.

Rosethorn rubbed her white fingers to get the blood flowing into them, then looked at Oswin. "If I had wanted to bounce like this, I would have stayed aboard ship. Is your island normally so lively?"

"We've had a lot of tremors in the last couple of months. Times like this come and go, Dedicate Initiate. You—
we
become accustomed, anyway."

"Charming." Rosethorn went to grab her horse's reins. "I can't wait to become accustomed."

We stopped for a cold lunch Oswin had brought, then rode on—and up. Moharrin was high on the side of Mount Grace. As it got later, and the river and the road entered forested mountainsides, things turned cooler. I dug out Rosethorn's coat and rode over to her.

"Evumeimei, she dislikes it when you try to put warmer clothing on her." Luvo had seen me do this dance with Rosethorn before.

"You just have to wait until she isn't paying attention," I whispered to him. "Hush."

"Stop." Rosethorn climbed off her horse and walked away from the road. With her eyebrows together and her forehead crinkled, it was clear she was in a thinking mood. Myrrhtide reined up his horse and grumbled. He didn't like to ride, I could tell, but he wouldn't say so. Oswin and Jayat dismounted. Jayat went to refill their water bottles.

"Perfect, Luvo. If I move fast, I'll get Rosethorn's coat on her before she even notices." I slid to the ground and caught up to her. She was busy inspecting two dead trees. I danced around her back and sides, working her arms into the sleeves, while she ignored me. Of course, I made sure not to get between her and the dead trees.

"I can get my own coat, Evvy." She looked at a big patch of dead plants behind the trees. In the dim woods light, that spot looked as if it was filled with plant ghosts, the dead leaves pale against the living shadows of the forest beyond. At the heart of the ghost space, dead birds lay beside a slab of basalt that jutted from the earth.

Do
birds and trees have ghosts? I wondered. In Yanjing and Gyongxe, everything human has ghosts. That's what I was raised to believe. Were there bird ghosts here? And wouldn't Rosethorn believe that plants have ghosts? Plants are her people, just as stones are Luvo's people, and mine.

"Briar told me to look after you. I could see you were shivering." I answered her in a whisper. I didn't want the attention of bird
or
plant ghosts. "What killed them, Rosethorn?"

She gathered some dead limbs and leaves, gently cutting them from bushes and saplings with her belt knife.
I
wasn't going to say that if they were dead, they couldn't feel the cutting. "If I knew that, we might be able to go home." Raising her voice, she said, "Stop rolling your eyes and sighing, Myrrhtide. If there's anything I hate, it's a person who rolls his eyes and sighs when he's impatient. It just makes me move that much slower." Under her breath she added, "Twitterwitted Water temple bleat-brain."

I grinned. She learned "bleat-brain" from Briar.

I put the dead stuff in her workbasket while she mounted up again. Then I got on my own horse. "I'm sorry about all this getting on and off," I told the horse. "It seems to be that kind of day."

"You are always hopping about, Evumeimei." Luvo was still in his sling, hung from my horse's saddle horn. "I was telling Jayatin and Oswin about our travels in the East."

I wrinkled my nose as we rode on. "Not the nasty parts, I hope. Nobody needs to remember those."

"Only that there was fighting, and that we were caught in it."

"He was describing the temple of the Great Green Man," Jayat explained. "I can't even imagine a solid jade statue over a hundred feet tall."

"It was
wonderful"
I said. "The jade was the color of that grass over there. It sang to my magic. Alabaster the color of the moon. Some rubies, though they weren't very good. It was hung with ropes of pearls, too. They're well enough in their way. Briar really liked the blue and pink pearls, the ones as big as his thumb. He said you could get very good prices for those in the markets in Sotat and Emelan."

"But you weren't impressed." Jayat sounded like he was laughing at me.

"Well, they're pearls. They're just fake stones, you know. Cheats. They're dirt an oyster puts around grit to keep it from itching. You'd think there'd be a law against trying to cheat people with fake stones like that. Now, jade—the Green Man statue had it carved all kinds of ways, so it sang back to you in different tones."

We talked about my travels as we rode onto the shores of Lake Hobin. We'd finally reached Moharrin, just as dark was setting in. Torches were lit on the road along the lake, to guide us past farms and orchards to the village.

"Jayat, go let Azaze know we're here." As Jayat rode ahead, Oswin told Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, "I know you're too tired for a big reception, but Azaze—our headwoman—also owns the inn. People tend to gather there as a matter of course. There will be some of them to greet you."

"As long as there is a decent meal, they may greet me as they choose." Myrrhtide snapped his horse's reins and moved ahead of us.

"I don't think you have to worry." Oswin sounded very innocent in the dark. "Azaze gives a decent meal to almost everyone."

I saw Rosethorn slap Oswin lightly. "Naughty."

I don't
think
Myrrhtide could hear. Or if he did, he pretended he didn't.

I hung back as the grown-ups rode on. People rushed out of the houses as we reached the outskirts of the village. They surrounded Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, giving me the shivers. "Evumeimei, you are unhappy," Luvo remarked.

"Are you so weary from your journey?"

Luvo sees in the dark. I
think
he sees, anyway.

"People," I grumbled. "Look at them. They swarm around Rosethorn and Myrrhtide like ants at a feast. They do everything but wag their tails—"

"Ants do not have tails, Evumeimei."

He couldn't distract me so easily, not when I was cranky at seeing the old game begin again. "Don't play logic games, please. Just listen to them for me, will you?" I asked. Luvo could hear at great distances. It was very useful.

"They say it is an honor for their village and their island, that two dedicate initiates of Winding Circle temple are here. They say they could not have hoped for such blessings. They are happy, Evumeimei."

"They're happy
now
, Luvo. People always
start
out being grateful," I reminded him. "But under the gratitude? They're already telling themselves that Rosethorn owes—"

"Not Myrrhtide?"

Luvo was learning too many human tricks, including trying to distract me. It wasn't at all becoming for a rock to be so sly. I ignored him. "Fusspot, too, if you
insist
. That our people
owe
them work and magic. That they should half-kill themselves in the service of this, this beetle-spit village next to its chicken-piddle lake on its donkey-dung island. You watch. Fast enough their requests will turn into demands and orders. That's what people are like. If you do things for them? You turn from friend, or even helpful stranger, into a slave."

I hadn't noticed that Jayat had returned on foot. He'd come through the trees on my right. That was why I hadn't noticed him getting close to me. He'd heard some of what I told Luvo. "Evvy, how can you say that? Surely you don't believe people are so cruel."

I slumped in my saddle. I
hated
having this argument with others, even more so when they seemed like they might be sensible. I squinted so I could see Jayat's face better in the shadows. "I
know
they are that cruel. See here. My mother sold me as a slave when I was six. It was because I was one mouth too many, and only a girl. I understood that. The part I minded was
where
they sold me. They brought me all the way from Yanjing to Chammur. Why didn't they just sell me in Yanjing? At least I was born there, and I knew the language."

"You would have
liked
it if they sold you before they left?" Jayat sounded shocked.

"It would have made more sense," I answered. "In Chammur I was a stupid slave who could barely talk. I had to run away, my master beat me so much. Then I lived on the street. You
really
see the good side of people that way. They chase you from their garbage heaps with brooms and rakes. They dump chamber pots on your head. They scream 'thief!' when you walk by, they steal what little you have, they kick you when they pass… For every person who did me a kindness, I knew twenty who left bruises on me."

Jayat took my horse's reins. "I'm sorry, Evvy I must have sounded like an idiot." He looked up at me. "But people are different here. We won't take advantage of either of your dedicates. You have to trust me on that. She'll see, won't she, Master Luvo?"

Luvo was as silent as clay.

Jayat glared at him. "Master Luvo?"

Luvo clicked and said, "My knowledge of humanity is most incomplete, Jayatin. The samples of it that I have encountered until today have been of a mixed kind."