The Waters Rising (5 page)

Perhaps the stone even knew who Xulai was, or what she was, which would be a good sign, almost an omen, for it would mean Xulai wasn’t really alone out here.

The sound of water had grown louder. Ahead of her a streamlet came chattering from the left, bickered its way around a mossy boulder, and continued alongside the pathway, still fussing with itself.

“
Nan subi dimbalic, Poxiba. E’biti choxilan, landolan,
” Xulai murmured to herself in Tingawan before restating the idea in the language of Norland. “No bad creatures, elder kinswoman. Just the company of the water as it talks to itself.” Imagining herself accompanied by a group of elders was a way she had invented of keeping herself from feeling too lonely. Over the years, she had created a whole family of elders in her head, some of them quite ancient and wise. They all had names and histories and sayings, their considerable wisdom accumulated from many sources, some of them unlikely. It suddenly occurred to her that having all that wisdom in her mind might have helped more if she’d paid more attention to it! Why was she such a baby?

A dozen paces ahead of her, the brook squabbled with another boulder that forced it to turn right under the stone bridge that led onto the paved forecourt of the temple itself. All of it—bridge, forecourt, and temple—was swaddled in moss velvets and liverwort lace with ferny frills around the edges, having become, so Xulai told herself in sudden surprise, as much a living being as it was dead stone. Why, at any moment, it might creak up from its foundations and stumble off into the trees, its dappled hide dissolving into the fabric of the forest.

The thought stopped her only for a moment, and she was actually smiling as she hurried the dozen long steps that took her across the arched bridge. From the forecourt, two hollowed granite steps ascended to the temple floor. Several paces within the temple, a few more steps would gain the altar platform, which Xulai circled carefully while keeping her eyes away from the carvings around its edge. Even veiled in moss, they could catch hold of one’s eyes, captivate one, melt a person down into the stone to become one with it, or so the Woman Upstairs had said, though that threat had not greatly bothered Xulai. Things one was instructed
not
to look at were far less fearful than things that forced themselves upon unwilling eyes.

From the far side of the bridge, Abasio, who had followed her closely each trembling step of the way, heard a sound behind him. He slipped between two trees into a web of darkness, leapt over the quarrelsome streamlet, and circled the temple with a few long, careful strides. From among the trees behind the temple, he saw Xulai drop to her knees. Now what? She was trembling, her eyes shut, thinking. “Good for you, girl,” he murmured to himself
.
“Good for you, little maiden!”

The Woman Upstairs had said, “
In the floor behind the altar. A triangular stone, small, not heavy, but you’ll need something sharp to pry it up with.
”

Her fingers closed on the awl in her pocket. She had taken it from the shoemaker’s stall just as he had been closing his booth for the night. Just before suppertime the castle yard bustled and echoed in a confusion of men shouting, wagon wheels grinding on the stones, horses clopping toward the stables, women screeching for their children. The shoemaker, dressed all in shiny leather like a cricket, had been eager to get home to his new wife. He wouldn’t look for the awl until morning, and by then, Xulai would have pushed it back through a hole in the shutter. If she ever got back to the castle. If she could find the right stone, one triangular stone among a great many stones that looked more or less triangular.

“Oh where?” she whispered. “Where?”

“Think!”
said the voice of the wagon driver, as though from beside her ear.
“Think!”

She thought,
Stone,
and there it was: one that glowed and trembled, almost calling her by name! Xulai inserted the awl at one edge and pried it up. The cavity below held a small wooden box. She thrust it into her pocket, at the same instant hearing voices! People! At least two of them on the path and coming quickly toward the temple.

She replaced the stone and quickly scuffed dirt into the cracks around it, scattered a few pine needles over it, and moved away from the altar. She could not go back the way she had come. She had been told not to leave the path. There was no path! The only shelter was among the shadows she had been so frightened of . . .

The voices came closer. She tried not to breathe, suddenly realizing the awl was not in her hand, not in her pocket. Then, suddenly, an arm was around her, a voice in her ear.

“Shh. Here’s your awl. Slip under my cloak. Be still.”

Abasio! She scrambled against him, burrowing into the darkness of his cloak, letting him cover her like a cloud as he crouched, then lay in the darkness between the trees, among the leaves, ferns before their faces, her body between his side and his cloak, his arm holding her gently there, invisible. She sighed, drawing closer to him, feeling his warmth.

“What was that?” demanded a high, imperious voice.

“Some beastie.” This was a deeper voice, smooth and oily, like the slosh of pig slop in the bucket. “That’s what woods are full of, lovely lady. Lots of little beastie creatures hunting their dinner.”

Xulai felt a dark-sleeved arm cover her face, felt Abasio’s head close beside hers, his slitted eyes peering at the newcomers from a face he had painted dark with mud. Something moved on her hand. She opened one eye to see two tiny black eyes, a wriggly nose, two fragile ears like new leaves, a striped back beneath a curved tail: a chipmunklet, scarcely bigger than her thumb. It sat on the edge of her sleeve and peered intently at the noisy intruders beyond the temple.

“So, where is this night wanderer?” the high voice queried, a voice of ice and knives and shattered glass. “Where is she, Jenger?”

The man answered soothingly, “Duchess, lovely one, I think your informant is mistaken. There’s no reason for children to come out here at night. Orphaned children wander during wars or famines, of course, but there’s no war or famine at Woldsgard. As we have been told”—he chuckled, a thick, glutinous sound that was not really one of amusement—“Justinian, Duke of Wold, houses and cares for his people well. There are none without a roof over their heads and a hearth to warm themselves by.”

The woman sneered. “So the duke is a fool, wasting his substance on nobodies. Well, he should be more careful about the people he puts beneath his roof! One of them is mine, and she tells me she has seen a child come out of the castle at night and enter the woods.”

“How old is this roaming child supposed to be?”

“I don’t know,” the woman answered angrily. “That’s what I’d like to find out. My spy looks down from a great height. She says it’s a child, could be any age at all. Perhaps a ward or by-blow of the duke’s?”

“And you care about this for some reason?”

“My own reason, Jenger. If she’s only a toddler, I care little. She’d be a pawn at best. But I would care greatly if she were a game piece held in reserve, someone much older than that.”

Xulai trembled, the words echoing in her ears
. Much older than that . . . I would care greatly.
The couple approached, climbing the stairs to the altar.

“How strange,” said the man. “Look at the patterns carved here . . .”

As he spoke, the altar stones began to glow, faintly, like coals kept from a long-spent fire.

The woman growled, “Dolt! Fool! Pull your eyes away and keep them so. This is a shrine of Varga-Grag, hag goddess of all earthly desolations. You have no business being here, looking at it.” She gave a croaking rasp of barely suppressed laughter. “For that matter, considering my allegiances, neither have I. Neither my mother, the queen, nor I would be welcome.”

The man laughed, unembarrassed. Neither of the intruders seemed to notice how the glow from the stones brightened as they turned away and walked around the altar to stand behind it, staring directly toward Xulai. “Your pardon, ma’am. Our being in this particular place is the result of following a path, but . . . this is where all paths end.”

Xulai almost stopped breathing. She could feel the speaker, feel his presence oozing toward her as he peered into the darkness. The chipmunk had crept beneath her curled hand and was looking out between her fingers at the man, a dark silhouette against the bloody glow from the temple stones, brighter now. Xulai’s companion closed his arm about her, only a bit, just enough to reassure her. Something hard lay along his side, and she realized he wore a sword. He was armed! Mere peddlers were not usually armed.

The man near the altar went on: “There’s not even a game trail among the trees back here. Wherever your child may be, he or she is not here. If you want me to bring some men and search the woods around here in daylight, I’ll be happy to lead them, though we would need the duke’s permission since we’d be trespassing.”

“Which is why we’ve been camped down the road and have come alone,” the woman snarled, raising her hand to thrust aside one of the low branches that overhung the platform. “The Duke of Wold won’t know we’re trespassing. Never mind. I’ll have my grubby little spy, Ammalyn, follow the child next time she ventures here.”

The man asked, “Why do you think this thing you want is here at all? Why do you think she ever had it? Or are you really seeking the miraculous device that Huold is said to have left in these lands? Wasn’t that somewhere in Marish, on the other side of the Icefang range?”

The woman said impatiently, “Huold’s device was something else entirely. Everyone has a story about that thing. It is even rumored that Justinian found Huold’s device and gave it to that woman as a betrothal gift, but that’s merely another old tale grafted onto a new occasion. No, the thing I seek is a more recent thing, a powerful device of some kind that was in that woman’s keeping! She must have brought it with her from Tingawa.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because she isn’t dead, Jenger! I would have succeeded in killing her long ago if she did not have some powerful protection! She must have brought it with her!”

Abasio’s arm tightened around Xulai to prevent her moving, for she had trembled in both horror and anger at the woman’s words.

The man said, “But neither her protection nor Huold’s talisman is as old as this shrine.”

“No. These desolation shrines were built by the Forgal people who survived the end of the Before Time, well before Huold was born.”

“Then what made you think the thing you want could be here?”

“Only the rumor of a child sneaking about. I have a man loitering near the castle to learn what’s happening, what’s being said. He knew we were nearby. Ammalyn told him to tell me about this child. It occurred to me the woman might have sent a child to hide something, and the something might be what I’m looking for.”

“It doesn’t sound very likely.”

“The woman I’m killing all too slowly has done many unlikely things, Jenger. Besides, I have a talent. I can smell the heat of power, smell it like the smoke of a distant campfire. Whoever holds it, my nose will find them and they will lead me to it. No matter how many men and how much time it takes.”

“Why does it matter to you?” he said, again soothingly.

Her voice was furious. “Because the Sea King’s ambassador told me the Sea King will buy Huold’s device. The Sea King will buy
anything
of value to Tingawa. The reward is very great. A very great payment indeed.”

“And what is that?”

She turned to face him, her eyes glinting red, reflecting the glow of the stones, or perhaps, Xulai thought suddenly, they were lit by the same fire that lit the altar stones, ancient evil, heaped like eternal coals, ready to spring into flame if they were fed.

“The Sea People have taken the Edgeworld Isles, Jenger! What they found there is beyond imagination. They found ease machines! Ease machines in vaults below the great library, and books that tell about them and how to use them!”

The tall man’s face betrayed something very like fear. “From the Before Time? How could things like that have stayed hidden?”

“The Sea People’s hearing is different from ours. They hear with echoes. They heard the vault, the hollowness! They knew it was there and needed only to find the way to it. There was much delving, Jenger, much exploration, but they found the vault full of machines!”

“But I thought you already had machines. You said—”

“There are a few little ones at the Old Dark House. Enough to kill that woman of Woldsgard, if used correctly. I confess to a mistake with that one . . .”

“You? I don’t believe that,” he said caressingly.

“Yes. I did. It was decades ago, I was much younger, and I cursed her hastily, badly. However, when I sent the curse, I made copies of the sending, many of them, and eventually they’ll do the job. She can’t go on fighting them forever! Ammalyn tells me she can’t even speak anymore.”

“And that’s the only machine you have?”

“I have three others: one to find people, one to send sounds and sights, one to make speaking mirrors—as you well know—but nothing really powerful.”

“I thought it was your magic that’s killing her.”

She laughed, genuinely amused. “Don’t be silly, Jenger. There’s no such thing as magic. No. My favorite machine makes lovely curses, invisible clouds of very small, powerful killers. I can make the cloud and keep it alive in a special kind of vial. Then, if I get close enough to the person and release the cloud, the cloud will find that person among all the peoples who may be near, no matter where the person is hidden, so long as I release it nearby!”