Weight of Stone (5 page)

The moment he realized it, his body started to fall back down into the water. Only reflexes kept him from splashing back down into the gaping maw of whatever had nibbled at him, grabbing the rope up with both hands and swinging his body toward the boat. The hard slam against the hull was almost a relief, compared to falling back into the water, and he scrambled up the rope and threw himself onto the deck, panting with the effort.

Logic told him that it had probably been one of the small fish he had seen, or even one of the larger ones they had caught for dinner, or even maybe a curious spinner coming to play with this strange, two-legged swimming creature, as Ao claimed they were known to do. But he couldn’t banish the image of a great-toothed maw rising up from the depth, the milky-white eyes and tremendous muscled neck of a sea serpent coming up after him….

He braced himself, but nothing knocked against the boat, nothing rose from the water to attack and devour him, and slowly his heart stopped racing, and the roaring in his ears subsided.

Only then did he realize what he had done.

He had used quiet-magic to escape. More quiet-magic than he should have been able to summon, even as panicked as he was, in a way he had never before encountered. He had …

“I lifted into the air,” Jerzy told the sky, blinking at the sunlight. “And I didn’t mean to. I didn’t prepare, or try to decant a spell … I just did it.” That shouldn’t have been possible: magic required conscious thought, the drawing of moisture from within to mimic spellwine, the uttering of a decantation to force the magic into action.

Still. He had done it, and therefore in his panic he must have blanked out, the salt water masking the spittle in his mouth, the words uttered and forgotten in his fear. It was the only answer that made sense … and it terrified him even more than the idea of a sea monster below him.
Not the fact that he had forgotten, but that he had been able to do it at all. Where had it come from?

Once his breathing calmed down a bit, Jerzy was able to look over his actions with the dispassionate evaluation a Vineart needed. With any taste washed away by seawater, he could only evaluate the spell by its results. A windspell. It had to have been a windspell, to lift him that way.

His body shuddered involuntarily as the realization hit him. A windspell should not have been part of his quiet-magic. The House of Malech did not grow weathervines; he had none of that legacy within him. Vineart Giordan grew those vines, but the time Jerzy spent in Aleppan could not have been enough, should not have been enough….

The shudder turned to a cold dread in his stomach. There was more quiet-magic within him than he recognized—a legacy he had not felt within his veins. Now, though, it had woken; he could taste it in his throat, feel the thrum of it in his blood. That pocket of magic, if he had taken that much from working with those vines, that wine … then the Washers were right, and he had broken Sin Washer’s Command, all unknowing.

He was, in truth, apostate.

K
AÏNAM, ONCE
N
AMED
-H
EIR
of the island Principality of Atakus, now a homeless, nameless sailor with only his honor to recommend him, stared at the maps spread out in front of him and felt a burning in his stomach that had nothing to do with the meal he had just finished. According to his charting, he should be nearing the coast of Tursin. The thought left him dizzy. A normal voyage would have taken three times as long, but a normal voyager would not have had access to the magics he could command.

It was those magics that left him feeling queasy, discomforted, and not sure if it were he rocking back and forth, or his ship. He, who had been born on a swiftship, who had spent his entire life as much in the water as on land … there could be no other cause of this illness. Kaïnam smoothed out a tiny wrinkle in the topmost map and brought the
spell-lit lamp closer in, refusing to give in to the toss of his stomach, no matter how it complained.

Kaïnam plotted his position on the chart and frowned, then replotted it, getting the same result. He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. Incredible, and yet it was exactly as he had hoped.

It should have taken him months to cross this distance with a larger ship and a full crew of men. Alone, it would have been impossible.

Knowing that had driven him to desperate measures. The night before his departure he had taken aside Master Edon’s student, asking him what spellwines of Master Edon’s were best suited to speeding a vessel along. The student had unthinkingly, unhesitatingly pointed them out. Why should he not? Kaïnam was the son of Erebuh, the Principal of Atakus, and as such had every right to ask about the magics that kept his island home safe and wealthy.

Later that night, Kaïnam entered the cellar where those spellwines were stored and took what he thought he might need, then another two flagons more. In their place he left his marker, a silver coin with the icon of his rank engraved upon it. When they came to question him … he would already be gone.

It was not the action of a Named-Heir, but the disgrace that would follow his theft and disappearance was outweighed by what he needed to accomplish with this mad journey. In the past sixmonth, his sister had been murdered within the safety of their own lands, and ships under their Vineart’s protection had been destroyed. Those acts had driven his father—aided by the Vineart Edon—to a mad plan masking their island home with spells, hiding the once-welcoming harbor from all outsiders. Edon and his father thought it would protect them against further assault by enemies who brought magic and men against the island.

Kaïnam had warned them against such an act—warned, and been ignored. As he had feared, that protection had turned into a spear at their heart when Caulic ships attempted to find the now-invisible harbor. It would have been bad enough, had the Caulic ships gone away
unscathed—but they were instead set upon by firespouts in the night and destroyed, down to the last.

Firespouts: a work of magic only a Master Vineart might accomplish. A Master like Vineart Edon, who had advised Kaïnam’s father, Erebuh, to close off Atakus from the rest of the world, and given him the means to do so.

Kaïnam did not suspect Edon; the man had been devoted to Atakus more years than Kaïnam had been alive, and if he said that he did not cast that spell,
could not
cast that spell, then Kaïnam believed him. But it had been done, and none would believe Atakus’s innocence, now.

His sister had been known as the Wise Lady for the quality of her advice. Kaïnam had learned much, listening to her—enough that when she had been killed, his father had named him, out of all his sons, the Heir on the strength of her regard. It had been the whisper of her voice in his ear that had told him not all was well, that the events were not coincidence, were not attacks, but rather prods designed to herd them like fish into a net, to cast them not as victims, but dangers. To destroy Atakus’s reputation as a safe haven, and make them a target instead of suspicion and fear.

His sister’s murder had been the bait, and Edon and his father had taken it. Circles closing in on circles, locking them inside, apart from the rest of the world, while Sin Washer alone knew what might happen next.

He could not convince his father to relent, and he could not remain and stay silent. Instead, Kaïnam took the spellwines and the sleek little
Green Wave,
and set out to find the villain who had set the trap, ordered ships under Atakus’s protection attacked, his sister foully murdered. Only by exposing him could Atakus’s honor be regained.

His sister’s whispers, and his own knowledge and training, told him what he must do.

The obvious place to begin was the far-distant island of Caul, origin of the ships that had had come searching. Normally, his little
Green Wave
would never be able to manage it, built more for races between
islands than for any long journey. But Master Edon’s spellwine had conjured a wind that encased them and lifted them, carrying both ship and sailor distances impossible on their own.

All it had cost him was several days of utter exhaustion and gut-sickness, a sense that he had somehow overslept, or not slept enough, watching the white-capped waters as the
Green Wave
slipped through them on her way to their final destination. When the spellwine wore off, he would need to put a hand to the rudder again, but for now, he needed only sit and wait.

And think.

Kaïnam lifted one of the wine sacks and stared at it. The sigil of Master Edon was clear on the side: the stylized olive tree of Atakus against the outline of a wine leaf. Rare, for a Vineart and a land’s ruler to coexist so well, rarer even for them to cooperate the way those two had, for so many years.

Before all this, they had been equals but not partners, not a single combined force. Every child in the Lands Vin knew that, in the mists of time and legend, Sin Washer had broken the First Vine to prevent exactly that; had Commanded that never again should a leader of men work magic, and men of magic never lead men.

And yet, that was exactly what Edon and his father were doing; two men, yes, but combining their powers to a single goal. That they did it to protect Atakus was noble, but it would not save them when the Washers came to demand an answer for their actions. Spells, even a master like Edon’s spellwork, even with the aid of his students and lesser Vinearts who owed their loyalty to him, would not be enough to protect Atakus from Sin Washer’s judgment, then. And the Washers would come; Kaïnam had no doubt of that. The Brotherhood would not let such a thing pass unmarked.

Their only hope was to discover who had set them up in such a manner. And Kaïnam was the only one who was searching.

He considered the wine sack in front of him again. Master Edon crafted windspells, primarily. But he also had a small vineyard on the
leeward edge of Atakus, where he grew grapes that were never shipped off island. Those grapes produced only small amounts of wine every year, and most of it became not spellwine but
vin ordinaire,
served at his father’s table when special guests came to visit. In rare Harvests, however, when the conditions were ideal, a spellwine was made from these delicate fruits. The decantation of that spell carried messages through the air, whispering from one ear to the next. Aetherspells: rare and valuable.

He had never seen such a spell used, did not know if they would carry the distance needed. He did not know, either, if this was a wise thing he was doing. But he needed to try.

Uncorking the skin, he took a careful sip, letting the wine rest on his tongue in proper decanting fashion. He had never learned to enjoy the taste of spellwines, finding them acrid and hard to swallow, but he did not need to understand how spellwines worked, only what he needed to do to make it happen.

Once he felt that the wine had soaked into the flesh of his tongue and mouth, the words of the decantation came to him, a long-ago, never utilized lesson:

“Thought to words. Words to ears. Go.”

The air itself seemed to pause around him, waiting. Not daring to breathe, Kaïnam let his lips form his most heartfelt message. “Wise Lady. Thaïs. Can you hear me? Can you help me?”

He felt the words leave his mouth more than he heard them, and then an invisible gust of air flashed past his mouth, snatching the query up and disappearing with it.

He stoppered the wine sack and set it back into the especially constructed cabinet with the other skins normally stored there. His mouth felt puckered and tight inside, as though he had not drunk water in days. Did that mean the spell had worked?

His sister was dead. No spell could reach her now. And yet, after her death, he had been woken by her whispered warning, had felt her counsel one last time, setting him on this path. If she could reach him, might
he not reach her as well? Or had he, in his grief, imagined her touch, her wisdom? Was this all a fool’s quest, and he the fool?

He had no sooner thought that than a hard wave slapped the side of the
Green Wave,
rocking it violently, even as she flew forward through the water. Kaïnam steadied himself with a hand on the table, keeping the maps from sliding to the floor despite the weights on them. He swallowed hard; no son of Atakus would disgrace himself by being ill, not when the sea was calm and the winds fair….

Another slam against the side of the ship, and this time Kaïnam realized it was no wave hitting so violently. He left the cabin, bare feet touching the polished wooden steps so lightly he might almost be flying in his speed. As he reached the deck, he, without thought, lifted a long spear off the hooks where it rested. It had enough range to fend off even the most determined toothfish or shark without endangering the thrower, and could be used to knock aside closer opponents as well. Kaïnam had been using fish spears since he was a youth, and the feel of the shaft in his hands renewed his confidence and settled his stomach.

The hatch to the lower deck was shielded by an alcove made of the same watertight wood as the stairs, meant to protect anyone using the steps from wind or rain. That meant that he did not see the creature until he was already on the deck itself, and within range.

The first and only warning he had was the sense of a shadow falling over the back of his neck. He turned, bringing the spear up instinctively. It crashed against something heavy and unyielding, even as the wind brought him the heavy scent of brine and dead flesh and the faint hint of overripe fruit.

He looked up, following the path of the spear, and staggered back in shock at the huge, scaled muzzle that was turned away from him, a jagged rip in the side above its gaping maw of a mouth from where he had struck it. The black flesh underneath did not bleed, the flesh showing no signs of injury beyond that surface tear. Above it, a handspan higher, a great white eye the size of his head glared down at him, and then the muzzle swung back, knocking the spear out of his hands. Kaïnam went
down on the deck in a controlled collapse, even as the mouth opened and countless sharp teeth snapped at him, like a deep-sea snake grown impossibly huge. His hands reached out and he found the spear, rolling onto his back even as he grasped it, and as the great head darted down off an impossibly long neck, he jammed the spear point up, into the creature’s mouth. The point slammed home, and the shock went through Kaïnam’s entire body, the butt end of the spear pinning him to the deck with the force of the blow.