Weight of Stone (6 page)

The beast screamed, rearing back, taking the spear with it as it went, and then slid back down into the water, length by length of that sinewy neck, until the head itself followed. The bright, wave-lapped waters closed over it; the
Green Wave
sailed on through magic-powered winds; and Kaïnam lay on the deck, on his back, his shoulder and spine aching and his hands cramped from the memory of that grip, and tried to remember how to breathe again.

“Sin Washer and Deep Proeden, what
was
that?”

Not even the calling of seabirds answered him, much less the silent god of the tides, the
Wave
moving too quickly still for the usual winged scavengers to be wheeling overhead. His memory, unbidden, showed him flashes of what he had seen: the great scaled head, the long narrow muzzle with the double rows of small, sharp teeth; the great white eye with its thin lid overhanging …

A serpent, risen from the depths of story and legend. Every child knew that Master Vineart Bradhai had destroyed the last of them generations ago, clearing the seas of their lethal presence. Since then, every few years a merchant ship would claim to have seen something that might perhaps have been a serpent’s head, or the slip of its tail in the distance, but there were no attacks, no bodies, no confirmed sightings. The great serpents were gone from the seas, turned into things you might frighten a child with, or tease an old sea hand about.

Had they been out here all this time, lurking? The one that attacked him … as his heart slowed slightly and his breath calmed, Kaïnam realized that it had been relatively small—not quite the length of his ship,
only four or five fathoms long. A young one? Or had they gotten smaller since the days of legend?

Or, a practical part of his mind asked, had the reports of those larger beasts been exaggerated, in the days when superstition and fear traveled with sailors once they passed out of sight of land, and every encounter was greater the longer it took to reach safe harbor?

Either way, small as it had been, the beast could easily have knocked the
Wave
over, or swamped her with a determined wave, or snatched him right up off the deck, spear or no spear. Whatever it had been, it had come not out of hunger or fear, but … curiosity? Could you accuse such a beast of emotions? Of the intellect to have such an emotion? And if so, what had brought it …?

“The spell,” Kaïnam said, realizing, his gut clenching at the thought of how he might have put himself directly into such danger. “The aetherspell.”

Somehow his request had summoned that beast, roused it from the depths. How, he did not know—could a beast such as that intercept magic, or scent it on the air, the way a dog might a hare or lamb? Or was he overreacting? Had it merely sensed the ship slipping through the waters overhead, and risen to the surface to investigate?

Either way, it was gone, and he was still alive, if with one less weapon to his name. From what he had read of encounters with great serpents, he had done well indeed.

Still on his back, he placed his hands together over his belly and cupped them together, forming the ritual cup. “Sin Washer, we thank you for your mercy and loving forgiveness. We praise your wisdom and wash our lives in the blood of your bones, that we, too, may be clean of malice and fear.”

Malice, he had none. Fear … it still shivered on his skin and caused his stomach to tighten. Just the thought of the beast returning, or bringing more—or larger—of its kind was enough to make Kaïnam blanch.

“Enough.” He sat up, flexing his fingers to make sure they had not been injured when the serpent wrested the spear from his hands. “You
are no bay swimmer, to fear the unknown. There are dangers behind and ahead; why did you think there might not be dangers alongside, as well?”

The speech sounded silly, spoken into the quiet air around him, but they settled his nerves and allowed him to step forward into the helm, checking the compass-piece set into the mast.

Stop.

You must stop.

He did not question the familiar voice in his ear, but moved toward the wheel set at the crest of the mast house and placed both hands on the wheel, curling his fingers around the brass fixtures and feeling their cool smoothness under his flesh. For a dry second the words to end the windspell would not come back to him, and then they returned in a flood. “Wind, calm. Ship, slow. Go.”

He felt it through the soles of his feet first, the change in the rhythm of the ship. Still moving forward, but not as swiftly, not as surely; more subject now to the rocking of the natural waves, the push of the sun-warmed winds. His ears picked up the distant scream of a seabird, then the whisking of the wind against his sails, and the hundred tiny sounds that made up the normal music of shipboard life.

The haze around him cleared, and he could see rocky outcroppings to the starboard, large enough to be called an island, although he did not think anything lived there save seabirds and seals resting during their journeys. No sign of any creature of menace, slipping below the waves; he must have left it behind. Not far behind the first outcropping there was a larger island, this one with trees, and farther behind that the outline of a larger mass, fading into the distance. Kaïnam reached below the wheel and pulled an oilskin case from the cabinet, withdrawing a smaller, waterproofed version of the maps he had been studying belowdeck. The map was old, but the land had not changed since the day it was inked. He looked up to confirm his impressions, then back down at the map, letting one finger trace the path his
Wave
was taking. Yes, he had estimated correctly. Starboard was the distant mass of Corguruth,
where he had no interest. To port side, the dry cliffs of Tursin. He had relatives there, a distant family connection. If he were to pull into port there, they would welcome him….

And he would be no further along on his quest. Tursin was not where his answers lay.

Ahead.

The whisper was a soft curl of air around his ear, subtle and warm. The fact that he could not possibly be hearing the voice of a woman now dead for months did not stop him from following it. She had warned him of danger before, had saved him, had set him on this journey … if this was madness or the answer to his whispered spell he did not care; he would follow her counsel until the end.

Ahead,
she told him again.
Your answers wait directly ahead.

Not Caul, then. He checked the compass rose, then looked at the sea. Iaja? The wind shifted slightly, sending the
Wave
off to the starboard as though in answer. No, not the Vin Land of Iaja. Sardegna.

H
OUSE OF
M
ALECH
, T
HE
B
ERENGIA

Spring

The great wooden
doors shuddered as someone thumped on them with a heavy fist, demanding entrance, even though the doors themselves stood open, as always.

“Master Malech! Master Vineart Malech!”

Malech had known they were coming the moment their horses’ hooves had crossed the border into The Berengia. There was no magic to it, merely the common means of tongue and ear, and the willingness of the villagers around him to bring such news to his attention. In other lands, they might fear their Vineart, or ignore him unless they had a specific need, but Malech would forever be the healer who had kept the rose plague from devastating the villages and farms, and the folk here
did not forget, not even a generation after. When Washers came riding, asking after him, word spread.

The timing could have been worse—they might have appeared during the Harvest—but Malech was annoyed nonetheless. It was spring, the second busiest time at the vintnery. There were things that needed doing, without delay, and without Jerzy’s assistance it all fell upon his shoulders.

He had managed to take care of the most pressing work, mainly by driving his slaves and Household staff into exhaustion, and their unwanted visitors were now quite literally at his front door. And rather irritated, from the sound of it.

In his study on the first floor of his House, the Vineart turned in his chair and looked up at the stone dragon the size of a large dog, perched atop the doorframe.

“And so it begins.” Malech’s lips pressed together in a grim smile, and he touched his fingertips together. “But no”—he shook his head, the smile fading—“no, it began long before, long before I sent the boy out, long before I woke to the dangers in our land. This is but the next cycle, old friend. The next cycle, inevitable as flowering and Harvest, and we must be ready to reap what has been sown—and make of it a vintage of our own.”

The dragon looked at him, its blind, unblinking eyes nonetheless finding exactly where the Vineart sat. Its exquisitely carved face showed no change in expression at its master’s speech, no blink or frown, but a sense of heavy disapproval radiated from it.

You are too confident.

“You worried that the boy was lacking in confidence, and now warn that I am too confident? Would you blend us together, Guardian?”

Yes.

When his House-keeper, Detta, escorted the Washers in, Malech was still chuckling.

There were three of them in the impatient delegation, wearing the
dark red robes of the Washers, the heirs of Sin Washer’s Legacy. Two of them had the double belt around their waists, similar to his own, only where he carried the tools of his trade—the tasting spoon, the wax knife, and the waterskin, they carried only a shallow wooden cup. The third had only a single belt and a smaller cup, indicating that he was yet a novice. Behind them, at a respectful distance, there were two others, dressed in leather trou and sleeveless tunics bearing the cup-and-root emblem of the Brotherhood. Not Washers, but hired men. The sort who protected valuable cargo—or high-ranking members of the Brotherhood. They carried no weapons—Detta would not allow that, inside her House—but their arms were corded with enough muscle to break an old man’s back without trouble.

Malech did not believe it would come to that.

“Come in, please,” he said, standing and gesturing to the chairs placed in front of his desk. He had forgone the usual dressings that might impress visitors—no grand display of his bottled wealth, no ornate tapestries on the walls, no embroidered robes adorning his person. Instead, they saw him as he was: an old man in brown trou and white collared shirt, the lacings worn and his left sleeve stained from an incident with a wine cask months before. The study was likewise plain, if comfortable, the only impressive thing within the great wooden table he worked at, glossy brown and sturdy enough to support a horse. The sole tapestry on the wall, a map of the
Lands Vin,
was so worn with age that only a master weaver might discern that it was in fact priceless.

The Washer who came in first, tall and balding, with a curly brown beard, scowled at Malech. “Something amuses you?” Malech recognized the voice: he had been the man calling out, at the front door.

“Brion.” The second Washer, an older, shorter man, laid a hand on his companion’s arm the way one might calm a skittish horse. “We are uninvited visitors. Our mission does not negate the requirement of manners in another man’s House.”

He stepped forward and made Washer’s blessing, his palms cupped
in front of his chest in the shape of a bowl, then pouring it outward toward Malech. “Solace to you, Master Vineart Malech of the House of Malech.”

Malech nodded, standing to accept the gesture. There was, indeed, no need to be impolite. This would end badly enough without starting in ill will.

“You have the advantage of me, gentle Washers.”

“Our apologies.” The clean-shaven man smiled, but the expression was nothing more than a polite mask. “I am Neth, and these are my brothers Brion and Oren.” The guards remained nameless.

Washers gave up their
nomen familia,
their birthlines, when they joined the Collegium, and by the time they were sent back into the land, it was doubtful they identified themselves as anything other than Washers. In that, they were much akin to the Vinearts, who came from the ranks of slaves in the field, taking on the name of their Master’s House. Only the brothers’ intentions—and their training—were rarely as single-minded. Malech did not trust them: unlike Vinearts they were not enjoined from political power, and unlike land-lords fell under no restrictions on how they might use magic to further their goals. The populace trusted Washers to be the benign inheritors of Sin Washer’s Legacy. Malech had been taught how easily Sin Washer broke the First Vine, of the demigod’s anger at the mage-princes’ perceived insolence, and made no such assumptions as to his human interpreters’ beneficence.

The Vineart showed none of his distrust in voice or manner, however, merely a blandly curious façade. “And you have come to my lands … why?”

He knew why, of course. Just as word of their coming had outpaced them, he had already learned of the disaster in Aleppan, of the mockery of a trial that had resulted in the death of a promising Vineart, and his own student, equally promising, accused of apostasy, of rejecting Sin Washer’s Commands and taking power he was not entitled to, and of meddling with the rights given to secular lords. Malech believed none of
it. But he was curious how these men might phrase it, how they saw the situation, and what they expected to achieve here.

He believed in being prepared, before he took his own direction.

“You are the master of the young man known as Jerzy.” It was not a question, but rather a statement, so Malech merely reseated himself and steeped his hands under his chin, feeling the hairs of his neatly trimmed beard against his fingers. The Washers remained standing despite the chairs waiting for them, while the two bullyboys waited in the hallway. Detta, as per his earlier instructions, had already returned to the main part of the House, taking with her all the kitchen-children.

“Is he here?” Neth asked.

“He is not.” In point of fact, Malech had no idea where the boy was, and that worried him. The mirror he had sent with Jerzy, enspelled so that they could communicate if there was need, had been broken, the spell rebounding back to his primary mirror and making it shiver hard enough that he worried for its safety as well. Violence. Violence, and then silence.