Weight of Stone
Authors: Laura Anne Gilman
W
EIGHT OF
S
TONE
Also by Laura Anne Gilman from Gallery Books
Flesh and Fire
| Gallery Books |
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Laura Anne Gilman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books hardcover edition October 2010
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Designed by Renata Di Biase
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gilman, Laura Anne.
Weight of stone / Laura Anne Gilman. — 1st Gallery Books hardcover ed.
p. cm.—(The Vineart war ; bk. 2)
1. Vineyards—Fictions. 2. Magic—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3557.I4545W45 2010
813′54—dc22
2010021180
ISBN 978-1-4391-0145-2
ISBN 978-1-4391-2688-2 (ebook)
For my editor, Jennifer Heddle,
for reasons dating back to 1997 and still counting
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The list of people who contributed their knowledge, their wisdom, and their occasionally strained sanity to this project is long. Specific to this book, I need to single out Bill Ricker, Walter Zilonis, Patricia “Pooks” Burroughs, and the entire madhouse crew of the Word Wars chat room, who kept me company at all sorts of odd hours. And, as always, my folks, Janet and Aaron Gilman, who were with me, draft after draft after draft….
W
EIGHT OF
S
TONE
The Washers tell us, over and over again, that Sin Washer came to save us from destruction
. They speak of the distant Emperor in far-off Ettion, and how he cared not for his subjects, only the wealth and power they might accrue to him. Too, the Washers say that the prince-mages who ruled the Lands Vin in the Emperor’s name in those distant days were cruel and unjust, hoarding the power which the magic of the Vine gave them, and that the people cried out for someone to save them from overwork and despair. I, sitting in my library, surrounded by the documents of a dozen generations of land-lords, might argue otherwise: that the people were protected by the prince-mages, that the magic of the Vine was what kept their lands fertile, their borders safe, their health secured.
The veracity of these stories can never be judged. Truth is overrated; what matters is what people believe.
In the Washers’ stories, the people cried out and the gods, who then were active in the affairs of man, heard those cries, and came down and delivered unto them Zatim, the son of Baphos Harvest King, and Charif, patron of the farmer. And this Zatim, in his anger and pride, took the First Growth, the Vine that bore the fruit of magic, and cast
it down, shattering it to the root. The prince-mages could no longer cultivate the magic, and their power waned and faded in a single season.
The Brotherhood of Sin Washer say this was salvation, and praise the name of Zatim Sin Washer.
Those of us who bear the burden of power, who see the long view, know differently.
Far from saving the people, the Breaking of the Vine cast the Lands Vin into such chaos as had never been seen. Without the spellwines to protect them, the people died of cold, of hunger, of diseases that swept across the lands where no such illness had been seen before. The Emperor died, and his successor had no care for lands without the riches of the Vine to harvest. Without that wealth, the far-flung Empire crumbled, and the once-mighty princes could not maintain control, leaving lesser princelings and land-lords warring over who might control this village, that town, while the once-mighty vineyards were abandoned. Culture and prosperity faded, knowledge was lost, and we were left little more than savages.
This was the “salvation” Zatim Sin Washer brought us.
All was not lost, however. Slowly, gradually, those slaves who had maintained the vineyards during that chaos learned the ways of the lesser magics, even as the princelings and land-lords settled their differences with blood and fire, claiming their lands and defending them, slowly rebuilding what was lost. They came to an accommodation, these lords and vine-mages, to save what was left of our wisdom and knowledge; that the Lands Vin might yet survive.
And yet, all that time the Washers roamed among us as though
they
had saved the people, proclaiming the Commands of Zatim Sin Washer and demanding that all adhere; that the men of power refrain from magic, and the slaves of magic refrain from power, that Sin Washer have no cause to come down and smite us once again.
F
IFTEEN HUNDRED YEARS
have passed since the Breaking of the Vine, since the Lands Vin were cast down and shattered as well. Fifteen
hundred years of reclaiming what was lost, of relearning what was forgotten during the darkest years of chaos. Fifteen hundred years of searching for the wisdom and glory that was denied us. Ever harried by the words of the Brotherhood of Sin Washer, watched and scolded as though we were children, Lords and Vinearts nonetheless made good that which was laid to waste, protected what was given to us to serve.
The land-lords, we lesser inheritors of the prince-mages of old, have come to terms with the restrictions laid upon us. If the magic is less powerful now, and we must buy or barter for it like tradesmen, still it comes to our hands and responds to our decantations. The land itself thrives, our people live and prosper, and the Vin Lands are still known and respected throughout the greater world. It should have been enough.
And yet, among many of the lords, those with access to the histories as I have, and who were not bound as were the Vinearts to a life of soil and seasons, there has always been the hunger, the desire to be more than we are, to reclaim the glory Sin Washer took from us….
I was one such man. I was a fool.
THE GROUNDING
Autumn
We are running
out of time.”
The other occupant of the room seemed not to hear—or heed—this gloomy prediction, continuing to sip from his cup and read over the journal open on the table in front of him, every so often moving the leather strip to mark another page.
The speaker turned his back on his companion and leaned against the stone windowsill, looking down on the scene in the plaza spread out below him. The view from the window was unpleasant, but he watched without flinching. It was his responsibility to witness and be seen
witnessing the sacrifice, even if he, by tradition, was not allowed down among them.
The families of the chosen watched as well, clutching wreaths of crimson-leafed vines, their sleeves fluttering with dark green ribbands pinned there for the occasion. The crisp air was scented with the smell of woodsmoke and the distant, more acrid stench of a blacksmith working in the outer ring of the Holding, away from the Praepositus’s House, and the center of the city.
The
praedicator
finished his chant, and the voices of those gathered rose in response to the call to serve, and then fell silent again.
It was almost done, now. The watcher no longer held his breath as the names were called; he watched, dry-eyed and calm-hearted, sorrowing only as much as was required and no more. Six for the autumn harvesting. Six to feed the soil and appease the gods of this harsh land. Six, to protect so many more.
The
praedicator
raised his hands in a benediction, his voice rising clearly up from the plaza. “The faith of our children sustains us. The love of our parents protects us. The strength of our strength defends us.”
The sacrifice was swift, the Harvester’s blade moving without hesitation, and none struggled or fought—a good sign. His people understood the need for what was done, and few argued against the lottery’s results.
Prisoners or the mortally ill might have been a less wasteful choice, but the results, they had learned over long years, were not as effective. The vines responded to vitality.
The Praepositus turned from the window even as the lifeblood was being collected from the channels carved in the stone, his gaze unfocused as though looking at some inner landscape and not the austerely appointed chamber he stood in.
Six for the Harvest. Six at the Pruning. Another six to feed the Planting. Eighteen lives, each year, to protect the greater population. It was not so high a price, in truth…. There had been so much knowledge lost since the Grounding, in the decades of struggle that followed …
were there any way to pay but the blood and sorrow of his people, he would have grabbed it with both hands, but there was not. Without the sacrifices, the vine-mages told them, the magic would have failed, and the Grounding destroyed long ago.