Stonewiser (39 page)

“Don't speak to me in decrees. You've been to the dome every day. You even said that you gained the sages’ approval yesterday and the day before yesterday.”

“I've made the same argument to different domes of sages.”

“The sages are different every day?”

“What is wisdom but clarity of thought and continuity of purpose?”

“Where do you find different sages every day?”

“Everyone shall know the Wisdom and everyone shall serve to speak it—”

“You mean every citizen serves as a sage in the dome?”

“Everyone serves. In both domes.”

Sariah reeled. If she understood correctly, the keeper had to persuade three different groups of sages in each dome to obtain approval. She looked at the faces around her—carpenters, traders, smiths, herders, farmers, weavers, artists, people of unlimited occupations. There were young and old, cultured and uncouth, smart and in some cases obtuse. The keeper had to find consensus amidst such differences. No wonder it was taking so long.

She clasped the keeper's rugged hands. “I wish I had the time to know you, to learn your ways, to understand your purpose. But I must go, with or without the sages’ approval. Do you understand?”

“The meek will be called to be strong. The unworthy will be redeemed from their fate.
I go again to the domes and won't rest until you are on your way.” The keeper turned and disappeared into the multitudes.

Sariah watched him go. She took in the sights around her and let out a slow breath. To think that just a few days ago Mara had thought that the Bastions, guarded by Meliahs’ Hounds, marked the end of the world.

The Hounds she had found, all right, but Mara had been wrong about the rest. The world didn't end at the Bastions. It went on for as far as the eye could see, like a promise in progress, like a wild tale unraveling before its maker. For reasons she couldn't quite understand, Sariah was loath to let go of the legend.

Sariah donned her clean blue breeches and tunic, politely declining the robes that the nameless woman who called herself the servant had laid out for her. Sariah didn't like the notion of having a servant, but in the absence of a name, what else could she do but call the woman as she asked?

Her sense of comfort was enhanced by the luxurious bath she had just taken. After a long soak in hot rose water, a thorough scrubbing of lavender soap and perfumed sand, and a delicious eucalyptus oil rub, she felt cleansed beyond clean, warm and soothed beyond promise. She thanked the servant profusely, the gifted author of such wonderfully wicked delight. If only her soul was so easily appeased.

She accepted the brand new boots that the servant insisted on lacing for her, but only because it was cold and she had mended her old boots beyond repair. She also wore the mantle she offered, a warm fur cloak that tied at the neck and matched her boots. She drew a few coins from her purse and tried to pay the woman for her troubles, but she wouldn't have it.

“What's kindness but generosity in all things?”

“The teacher,” Sariah said. “Eneis.”

“In caring, all things bloom, including the soul.”

“The dreamer?”

“Tirsis.”

“Ah, yes, sweet, sweet Tirsis.”

The woman smiled. Her soft hand landed on Sariah's belly.
“May the seed grow in the fields. May the goddess protect both, field and harvest.”

It was a simple prayer and yet it left Sariah sucking for breath, as if the woman had punched her in the gut. She snatched her tunic out of the way and stared. Her belly had changed. She cupped the incipient curve. It felt hard, and perhaps a little round? She had noticed the snugness in her clothes but she had also been eating like a famished bear.

“Are you saying I'm—”

A gentle swell rippled against her palm, a faint reply to her firmer touch.

The teacher spoke through the servant.
“What are we but Meliahs’ vessels of life?”

Twenty-nine

 

S
ARIAH WALKED BESIDE
the keeper lost in her own thoughts. Could it be true? She had no warning, no signs, other than her monstrous appetite and her craving for honey. She had been so sure Mistress Grimly's potion hadn't worked.

Exhilaration. Worry. Terror. The emotions took quick turns dominating her mood. She didn't know what to think. Timing. What dismal timing. Considering the strain of the last few months, it was a wonder that anything but bile could thrive in her body. Sariah caught herself stroking her belly, searching for a sign of the life that had taken root in her, longing for a repeat of that extraordinary moment when the child had rippled through her body like a wave through the sea.

Poor baby. It must have happened right after Alabara, because Alfred's vicious kick would have surely destroyed any life in her. The hepa might have had something to do with it. If nothing else, the frequency must have raised the odds.

She twisted the bracelet around her wrist. The opaque crystals reminded her that her troubles had begun a good five months ago. Alabara had happened—when? Three and a half months ago? Her baby was most likely that far along.

A sense of wonder overcame the fear. She wasn't barren. She was more than her craft, more than a servant to the stones. This is what Kael wanted. He would know what do to next, how to protect it… Him? Her? How would she manage a pregnancy in the middle of her dangerous search?

Well, there was no way she could favor one over the other, not with so much at stake. She would just have to manage both. Surely, Kael had arrived at the Bastions by now. She anticipated the look on his face when she told him. Her lips quivered with a repressed smile. She craved his arms more than honey.

“Watch your step,” the keeper said. “It's foul smelling.”

The stink of manure recalled her to the trail. Under the moonlight, silvery vapors rose from fresh piles of dung. In the cold, clear night, thousands of huge beasts grazed on the gently rising fields for as far as Sariah could see.

“Meliahs’ gift,” the keeper said. “Coiled-horned ox, of the musk variety.”

It all made sense now, the warriors’ terrifying disguises, the sprawling prosperous town, the populous world beyond the Bastions. Meat, milk, wool, leather, horn, bone, manure. Who knows what other life-giving treats the massive beasts yielded? The land was plentiful above the Bastions, a wide, fertile plateau contained between precipitous cliffs. These people were safe here, away from the Goodlands’ bloodshed, protected by lethal warriors outfitted with the Hounds’ horrible disguise.

“Why do you go down there?” Sariah asked. “Why do you put yourselves in danger when you are safe here?”

“Who will listen and watch if not the Hounds?”
the keeper said. “Who will fetch the likes of you?”

“Had you been looking for me?”

“Wise are those who mind Meliahs’ business beyond their own boundaries, for they shall hear the call.
We've been following your progress, wondering if you could be the one. We even sent Hounds into the Domain to fetch you.”

Hounds in the Domain? No wonder those rumors about monsters had spread like the belch through the Barren Flats. During these times of fear and doom, what else could a Domainer see in a Hound but a monster?

Movement ahead diverted Sariah's attention. Sets of huge wheel-and-pulley contraptions emerged beneath the last rise. They were powered by teams of oxen pulling around horizontal wheels. She realized the contraptions’ purpose. They served to pull the lifts that transported people and, presumably, things up and down the cliffs.

A group of no fewer than fifteen Hounds came up on a wood platform holding on to rope railings strung above them. Frankly, the lift looked rickety and a bit unsafe, but it worked. At long last and thank Meliahs, Kael was coming.

Two by two, the Hounds stepped onto the stairs carved in the rock, murmuring a prayer of thanks for their safe return to the Bastions. Delis was among them.

“My donnis, finally, I find you.” To Sariah's mortification, Delis knelt at her feet, kissing her boots, her knees, her hands. “These beasts tried to keep me away.” She glowered at the warriors.

Sariah was looking behind Delis, sorting through the faces stepping down from the next lift. He wasn't there. Or in the next lift over. Had something happened to him? She drew Delis to her feet.

“Where is Kael? Where is Mia?”

“Don't be alarmed, my donnis, but they haven't come. I'm sure there's a good reason. The forest down there has been a maze of death since you left.”

It wasn't like Kael to stay behind or cause delay. Either something very important had detained him or something terrible had happened. It all bode badly for him, for her, for her hopes of holding him in her arms tonight and in the near future. The disappointment must have been evident on her face.

“Don't worry, my donnis. I'm sure he's just being careful.”

Meliahs help and protect him. It was the only favor she asked of the goddess. Sariah had to believe he was alive and well. How else could she find the strength to go on?

“I was rather vocal demanding to see you,” Delis admitted. “But your friend helped much.”

“My friend?”

“He insisted on coming up with me.”

The latest load of warriors stepped out of the hoisted lift. A wall of Hounds parted to let their ward pass. Sariah blinked, once, twice, three times. Surely it was a trick of her eyes. She had not expected to see him again. Ever. The reality of his presence struck her like the chill's cold wind. For reasons she couldn't begin to fathom, Horatio Maliver had found her again.

“Why are you here?” Sariah broke the silence of the smallish chamber where they waited for her audience with the sages. She didn't disguise the hostility in her voice. She didn't need to. Horatio Maliver knew very well how she felt about him.

“He said he had to find you.” Delis circled the man like a famished raptor. “He said he had to warn you, that finding you would save great hardship and much blood.”

“I can assure you, whatever reason brings him here isn't related to my welfare.” Sariah met Horatio Maliver's cold gray eyes, as empty of life as always. The stubble on his square jaw hinted at a day or two without shaving, a major break in his compulsive neatness. He remained lean and strong, with a full head of curls meticulously oiled away from his face. He wasn't wearing the Shield's uniform, but that was to be expected—he was a deposed Main Shield now. As to his soul, it had been in frank putrefaction a long time before they met. She didn't think the damage was reversible.

“Still cynical, my little wiser?” Horatio Maliver said. “You don't believe I'm a changed man?”

Nothing was capable of melting the iron encasing his heart.

“Tell me why you came,” she said. “Answer my question or I'll have you returned to the Goodlands, without the lift's assistance.”

“So you have gained a little authority up here,” he said. “I haven't found him yet.”

His son. He was still looking for the boy he had fathered years ago by raping Kael's blind sister, Alista. To find the boy, he had deserted his post as Main Shield during the breaking of the wall. That was after he hunted Sariah and Kael throughout the Goodlands and the Domain; after he tried to kill Kael on the quartering block, and after he forced Sariah to trade more than just information with him in order to save Kael's life.