The Empire Stone (31 page)

Peirol untied the painter, pushed himself into the current, felt the chop rock the boat, tried to steer it away, downstream, toward the open sea. He looked at Restormel, still flaming, smoke blanketing the sky, a city still writhing in its death agonies, and sat down carefully, worried about tipping the boat.

• • •

The village had not been touched by the sea wave at all. Peirol’s boat still sat on its rollers, and there were men around the village who’d help him launch it. He couldn’t remember if he’d slept or eaten. He must have, for he felt healthy, even if everything seemed somewhat distant, as if he were looking through a smoked glass.

There were people staring at him, at his tattered clothes, his ready weapons, concerned, friendly, asking things, wondering. But he would have little to say, other than to buy whatever foodstuffs and drink they would sell, to have them launch his boat, and give him a course west through the straits, toward Sennen. Once through the straits, once beyond the island of Restormel, then he’d drop sail, wash the stink of fire, smoke, and death off his body. Then he’d sleep.

When he was safe.

The tiny, battered sailboat tacked into Sennen’s inner harbor, making for a finger dock to one side of the bustling commercial wharves. Peirol dropped the sail, let the boat drift silently to touch the dock, stepped ashore, and tied the craft to a bollard.

“Handily done, sir,” a lounger said.

Peirol nodded thanks, dropped down into the boat’s small cabin. He put on his sword belt, wriggled at the now-unfamiliar weight, belted on the pouch that held the Empire Stone, and went up the dock. He felt as if the ground was still moving, like the deck that been his world for four Times.

He should have been handy with the boat after this time. Peirol had sailed south and west from the fishing village, hugging the coast. He’d put into small ports four times for supplies, quickly returned to the sea.

The ocean wasn’t his friend, just the least hostile place he could think of. He’d almost been dismasted in a sudden blow, nearly pitchpoled, and twice he’d seen sails of the galleys of Beshkirs, once a small formation of the Sarissans’ ships. But either they hadn’t seen him or, more likely, thought him scanty prey, and they had sailed on.

Peirol hadn’t touched or even looked at the Empire Stone since leaving the ruins of Restormel, afraid of what it might bring.

He’d sailed down the Manoleon Peninsula, remembering his travails as an escaped slave, passing Isfahan, Tybee, through the straits between Parasso and the peninsula. Rather than follow the route of the
Petrel
, he’d chanced sailing due west, across the Sea of Cotehl. Here he’d almost lost his boat, but the storm was short-lived. He passed through the Straits of Susa by night, lying up in the shelter of uninhabited islands by day, and the pirate villagers hadn’t seen him.

Then, in calm early spring weather, he’d managed the Ismai’n Sea, seen the ruins of Thyone, and sailed upriver to Sennen.

Peirol thought briefly of stopping for a glass of the bitter beer of Sennen he’d never much savored, but now sang happily of home, of buying new finery, of a meal.

He considered finding a shop that might carry a green silk scarf like the one Kima had given him, the one that’d been taken by that Beshkirian pirate years ago, but it wouldn’t look as battered as the original should. Besides, she was no doubt happily with another by now.

He set all that aside. He’d been gone for, what, three years? First was the ending of the quest.

• • •

The gate to Abbas’s tower was shut, and the two small cannon were wheeled into position, facing through holes in the grating, powder kets and balls ready beside them.

“Ahoy the house,” Peirol called. There was no response. He shouted again.

A tiny casement opened. “Peirol of the Moorlands? Is that you?”

“It is, wizard, and I’ve returned with what you sent me for.”

“Wait.”

Peirol stood obediently for a very long time. He was growing angry when the door swung open and Abbas rushed out. The sorcerer had changed somewhat. His black beard and hair were streaked with gray, and his belly had grown much larger. But his eyes still burned, and he moved with the swiftness of a young man.

But then, Peirol had changed, too. He noticed a pistol stuck in the waistband of Abbas’s gown. The sorcerer stopped about ten feet away. “I call you once, I call you twice, I call you three times, as Peirol of the Moorlands,” he intoned. “If you are a false image, a demon, a spirit, I summon you to battle against me or to dissolution.”

“I’m just Peirol. No demon. What’s the matter, Abbas?”

The wizard examined him carefully, lips moving in another incantation. “Yes,” he finally said. “Yes, you are Peirol. Welcome home, lad. Welcome home!” He pressed certain studs on the gate, it clicked open, and Abbas clasped Peirol in his arms.

• • •

“Now,” Abbas said. “Now, I’ve fulfilled my duties as a host, yes?”

Peirol drained his second beer, pushed aside the empty plate. He wondered where Kima was, wondered if he wanted to know. “You have.”

“Then may I see it?”

Peirol, a bit reluctantly, unbuckled the belt, passed the pouch to the magician. Fingers trembling, Abbas unbuckled the ties, opened it, took out the Empire Stone. It sprang to life, feeling his touch, and Peirol flinched inadvertently as all colors flashed around the wizard’s study. Abbas turned it in his hands, holding it as if it weighed nothing. Once he laughed, almost a miser’s cackle, staring into it, lips moving. He caught himself, looked up.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, you have brought me my dream. For this, Peirol of the Moorlands, I shall make you as rich and powerful as any man on this earth, second only to me!”

“I think,” Peirol said, starting to feel at ease, “I damn well deserve it.” He poured another glass of beer, sipped at it.

“I owe you an apology,” Abbas said, trying to be polite, though his eyes kept straying to the Stone.

“For what?”

“Times ago, I came to you in a dream, the last time I was able to communicate with you, telling you about a great spell, great magic, that was building.”

“I remember.”

“I lost you, and couldn’t manage to find you, using all the devices I had, including the one that had worked before.” Peirol remembered Kima naked in a green vale. “But nothing came. I didn’t know what had happened to you. But that great spell lived on, and then I sensed it moving west, and I thought perhaps you’d failed, and whoever cast that spell had managed to sense me, and the doom was coming for me, since I’d sent you out to steal it. It came closer, and closer, and so I prepared defenses, such as those loaded cannon, and certain … servitors of mine being armed for any eventuality, corporeal or spiritual. I also had that pistol, loaded with a ball given magical powers, at hand.

“That was why I challenged you at the gate. But you proved yourself real, Peirol, and I no longer feel the presence of any spell.”

Quite suddenly it came to Peirol. The great spell Abbas had sensed hadn’t been cast at all but was the Empire Stone itself. He remembered Yasin’s warning about the Stone, filling with evil, perhaps overfilling, as a soap bubble before it bursts.

“I know not what happened to the spell, but it does not matter,” Abbas went on. “Such is the nature of the spirit world, not operating on our standards or by our rules. I’ve learned to not question the unquestionable.”

Peirol almost told Abbas what he’d realized, of Yasin’s, or rather an unknown dead priest’s, theory. But he said nothing.

“Forgive me, Peirol,” Abbas said. “I have difficulty talking about other things than the Empire Stone. I wish you would leave me for a time, let me examine my treasure. Besides, there is someone below stairs who wishes you to take her to a certain place.”

• • •

Peirol turned the horses off the narrow path at the tree he remembered that twisted like a man’s hand, and went downhill slowly, through green brush, grass growing knee-high on either side of them.

“I see why no one ever found your vale,” Kima said. “I’m quite lost, myself.”

Peirol allowed himself another look back. She was very beautiful indeed; in the years since he’d seen her last, she’d blossomed. She wore a riding outfit of green, almost the shade of her eyes, and there was a green scarf around her neck like the one she’d given him years ago.

They rode through a screen of brush, and the tiny vale spread before them. The pool bubbled from the spring, and wildflowers had already sprouted here and there on the moss. Peirol heard a splash, and a fish jumped into the air, away from the hunting otter. It was silent, except for the singing of birds.

“Oh, my,” Kima breathed. “Oh, my. It’s as I dreamed — no, better. It’s magic. Real magic, not like the sort my grandfather casts.”

She slid from the saddle, walked to the pond, looked down into it. “Even the fish are magical,” she said. “There’s one that’s striped red and white. I’ve never seen one like that.”

Peirol dismounted, walked up behind her, chanced putting his arms around her waist, kissing her back. She put her hands over his, slid them up, over her breasts, larger than he remembered.

“This is something else I’ve dreamed of,” she whispered, guiding his fingers to the buttons. They unfastened easily, and she slid out of the blouse, letting it fall on the bank of the pool. “Now,” she said. “You sit over there, on that moss.”

Peirol obeyed. Kima sat on a rock, pulled off her thigh-length boots, unfastened her breeches, slid out of them. As in the dream, she was shaven, oiled, wearing only the scarf. “Am I as pretty as you hoped?”

“More so,” Peirol said hoarsely.

“Do you want me?”

“More than anything.”

“More than the Empire Stone?”

“I never wanted that.”

“Good,” she said, and came to him. “Now, your sandals … yes, and those horrible sailor’s breeks … your shirt. We’ll have them burned. Oh, Peirol. You’re … more than
I’d
dreamed. How long have you been without?”

“Since … since forever.”

“Stand up. Yes, and take my hand. Over here, by this tree. We want this to last, my love.”

Peirol leaned back, closed his eyes, and her lips, hands, caressed his chest, moved lower.

“Now,” she said. “Let us lie together.”

She curled like a cat, back on the moss. Peirol went to her, knelt, and kissed her, tongue going deep into her mouth. Kima sighed, put her arms around him, lay back, with Peirol half across her chest. He smelled jasmine, roses. “Now, love me.”

• • •

They lay naked, side by side, on the moss.

“There is a picnic in our saddlebags,” Peirol said.

“I can have food anytime,” Kima said.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, you can have me anytime, too.”

She laughed, stroked him. “How many women were you with since I met you? I sensed one, maybe another.”

“I don’t remember. No more than I had to.”

“I don’t mind,” Kima said. “One of us has to be experienced.” She sat up. “You laughed.”

“I snorted.”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I
always
believe you,” Peirol said.

“I could get very angry!”

“Why? I said I believed you.”

Kima lay back down. “Well,” she said, poutily, “there were only … four, maybe five. None after I met you. Well, none but one, two, and I’d had too much wine then. Does it matter?”

“No,” Peirol said honestly. “No, it doesn’t.”

“There won’t be any more,” Kima said. “I’ll be the most faithful wife you’ve ever known.”

Peirol covered his reaction.

“How many children do you want?” she asked. “Three? Four?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Peirol said, blanching a little.

“Can you imagine the power our children will have? I found out they won’t necessarily be like you, although if that happens I’m sure I’ll try to love them as much as the others. I know you’ll probably scoff, but the sons and daughters of a wizard’s offspring and a dwarf — I know, and I don’t know how I know, they’ll have great powers, maybe as wizards, maybe as kings!”

“Roll on your stomach now,” Peirol said, desperately wanting to change the subject. “I have a certain power I want to show you.”

Kima obeyed. “Oh, you do, don’t you,” and she squealed.

• • •

“Uh,” Peirol asked, “is your grandfather going to object to what we did?”

“Why should he? He’s as interested in an heir as I am.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, you’re living with us now, and in my bedroom, so how do you think we could keep it a secret?”

“Oh.”

She rode closer. They were entering Sennen’s outskirts. “Something, oh husband-to-be, I wonder. What do you want to do after we’re married?”

Peirol picked a safe answer. “Screw all day and all night.”

“Ha ha. I mean, are you still wanting to open that silly store, like some kind of merchant?”

“I
am
a merchant.”

“Not anymore, you aren’t. You’re the husband of Kima, granddaughter of Abbas, the ruler of Sennen.”

“Pardon me?”

“Now that Grandfather has that Stone, don’t you think he’ll use it? Oh, Peirol, it’ll be so exciting, seeing how he’ll remake the city into perfection, into something the gods will think is a dream.”

“Yes,” Peirol said slowly. “Exciting.” He remembered the dream the Men of Lysyth had made of Restormel, and what had happened.

“So of course you don’t want to be a stupid shopkeeper,” Kima said. “Perhaps you can do your designs, with any kind of stone you want, and those I get tired of wearing you can turn over to merchants and let them sell them. Not under your own name, of course.”

“Of course not,” Peirol said, a bit numbly. Then he asked, “What about travel?”

“Oh, I think that’d be wonderful,” Kima said. “We could build a villa somewhere, perhaps not far from Thyone, and maybe have an upcountry house as well, for when the city gets too hot in the summer. A place where we can raise horses, and our children can ride for leagues and leagues. I have it. We’ll put up the smallest little cabin, back at our pond, where just the two of us, and maybe a single servant, can go when we want to get away.”

Peirol thought of the vale, of the trees being cut for lumber, the mosses leveled for the cabin’s foundation, a workman shooting the otter for his skin.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, remembering a conversation with Zaimis. “I meant
real
travel. Going somewhere we’ve never been, just the two of us, wondering what’s over the next rise. Maybe looking for new, different jewels that I can work, for you to wear.” He realized there’d been a hard note in his last sentence, hoped Kima hadn’t noticed.

“Now why,” Kima said in shock, “would anyone want to do that? That sounds dangerous!”

“Yes,” Peirol said. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it.”