“Not even honey?” I had to ask, though I could see she hadn’t looked at the honeypot.
“Honey would just make the experience pleasant. I haven’t forgiven you for racing off without a word.” Rosethorn looked at me and her face softened, a little. “Honey would also give this tea nasty side effects. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Drink it all, Evvy.”
I took the mug. “You could try harder to make them taste good, you know.”
She gave me a mocking smile. “Now, where would the fun be in that?” She turned to the maid who had been serving the elders. “Is there any egg-and-lemon soup left?”
The girl nodded.
“She’ll need a cup of that to start, then a cup of the white bean soup. If she can eat more, the artichokes in oil,” Rosethorn ordered.
I held my nose and gulped a mouthful of the tea. Even that way, I thought it would be a miracle if I kept the stuff down. It had the musty, greenish taste of cellar mold. Before I met Briar I had eaten vegetables stolen from cellars. I knew what that taste was. Wherever did she find the herbs for these drinks? I was always afraid to ask. She would tell me.
And yet the sweat on my face began to dry. My stomach settled after three more gulps of the stuff. My ears stopped ringing. My knees, ankles, elbows, and wrists felt like they were made of bone, not green twigs. My brain decided I was not on rocking ground, but a solid bench. My heart stopped hammering.
I put the mug down. “Not the sludge.” With my eyes I begged Rosethorn not to say the dreaded words.
She looked into the mug, where soggy herb paste waited. Then she checked my forehead, and my pulse. “Much better.” She threw the sludge on the open hearth fire. It roared up in flames. Everyone flinched with a gasp. I looked at Rosethorn with admiration. What had she put in that tea?
The maid set artichokes and both soups in front of me. Remembering what had happened when Jayat showed me those dumplings, I ate slowly and carefully.
“How could you go under the earth if your body did not go?” While she had waited for Rosethorn to finish doctoring me, Azaze still had questions. “Can all mages do this?”
I shook my head. “Some can, some can’t.” I felt good enough to take out the rocks I had gathered that day and put them on the table. When I’d first come in, the smallest of them had felt too heavy for me to lift.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Evvy.” Rosethorn sat next to me, accepting a cup of normal tea from the maid. “My young friend will have water.” Two of the other people Azaze had sent for arrived. The maids rushed to serve them.
I swallowed my beans so I could answer Azaze. “It’s useful if you can do it, the traveling in your magic. It’s how Luvo could see things on his mountain. It’d take him forever to walk over all of it. His mountain’s huge.” I grinned at Luvo. “So he just goes around as his magic self.”
“But how does his mountain do things with Luvo gone?” That was Myrrhtide, asking a normal question, for a change. He looked at my small pile of rocks and didn’t even sniff.
“My mountain rejoices.” Luvo walked over to stand in front of Myrrhtide, so that Myrrhtide would have to watch him as he spoke. “I do not rearrange its crystals and pillars, or redirect its streams and glaciers. I do not reshape it with avalanches, floods, or tremors. It can slumber in the sun and cold in peace. My mountain finds me too active a heart for its liking, Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide.”
“No wonder you get on so well with Evvy.” Myrrhtide leaned back, though he kept his eyes on Luvo. “Being so wise, Master Luvo, I’m surprised you didn’t warn us of what is happening under this mountain.”
“Warn you? As I have said, I did not know.” Luvo sat on his rounded stone rump, his head knob pointed up at Myrrhtide. “And what is the point of a warning? The volcano will be born, devouring all in its path. It will continue to destroy, or it will become land, and a mountain. The new eats the old. It is always so.”
“But we’re humans,” said Myrrhtide. “We can flee. Provided we have time.” He nodded to yet another village notable who came in the door.
“That’s what we’re going to work out, once the entire village council is here.” We had forgotten that Azaze was listening. “Evvy—it is Evvy?”
I nodded. I was fishing stones from my other pocket and setting them on the table. Here was an odd, interesting bit of obsidian, like pumice in texture. Here was a fine-grained gray rock that had begun life far below the earth. There were other kinds of volcano rocks that had been high on Mount Grace.
Azaze snapped bony fingers under my nose to get my attention. I think she did it several times before Rosethorn kicked me gently.
“I could have kicked her myself, Dedicate Rosethorn,” Azaze said. “Evvy, if we give you slate and chalk, can you draw maps? Where this chamber is compared to the village, and the lake, and the mountain? Where these cracks are?” Azaze turned a beaded ring on one of her fingers. “It will be easier for the council to follow what you’re saying if you have even a crude map.” She pointed to the table behind us.
I hadn’t seen the big slate and the tray of colored chalks that lay on it. Someone must have brought them out while I was eating. I took some flatbread and walked over to the slate, thinking while I chewed. Drawing maps of places I had gone in my magic was something I had studied at Winding Circle. I sketched a view of the mountain and the lake from the side, as if I’d cut Starns in two.
I was concentrating so hard I didn’t hear Oswin go out and return. I did notice when he plopped his saddlebag on the table next to me. “Here. Maybe this will help.” He undid the straps and took out a leather tube. He pulled a roll of papers from the tube. He thumbed through them, muttering to himself. “Margret Island, no, Lore Island, Karl Island, Sustree, Sotat—ah!”
He selected a paper and spread it next to my slate. It was a really good map of all Starns. I whistled my respect. It had the usual things, like roads, towns, and rivers, but it also showed the old lines of power that Jayat and Tahar once used. There was even a trick of coloring that showed ridges and gorges.
“Will that help?” Oswin weighted the corners with plates and cups.
“A lot, thanks!” I said. “Where did you get this?”
“Oh, I did it. It’s useful.” Oswin told me.
I smiled at him as he put Luvo on the table next to me. “Useful for somebody who goes around fixing things?”
“And I guide people over the island for coin. If they pay me extra, I try not to get them lost.”
“Did you draw all those maps?” I asked him.
“No, only the ones for this island and a handful of our neighbors. The others I bought. I wish I were traveled enough to have done the others myself.” Oswin put the other maps away.
I had a feeling I’d touched a sore spot. I looked at Luvo. “How far under the mountain was I? I figure three and a half miles, but you’d know better than me.”
“Three and three-quarter miles straight down, Evumeimei.”
“But you weren’t there, Master Luvo,” commented Oswin. “You said you weren’t.”
“But I am in her mind now, Oswin. I can feel as she felt then. Having learned this measurement of yards, miles, and feet, I am better able to tell than she how far she has traveled under the earth. She is better at it than she was, but it is harder for meat creatures.”
“Meat creatures?” Oswin asked.
“He means living things like people and animals. I am trying to think, you two.” I worked carefully to finish the half-view of the chamber.
“Now a map of the area around the mountain?” Luvo suggested as I picked up another slate.
I nodded. “The one with the cracks in the earth. I don’t know if Flare and Carnelian can split one wide enough for many of the spirits to escape. Even one could do a lot of damage.” I felt a draft on my back and turned around.
10
Telling the Council
Jayat came in with the oldest woman I had ever seen. Maybe she was as old as Luvo. Her skin cou
ld have been smoked and stretched over her bones, it was so brown and tight. Her eyes were like black jet beads. She wore a small turban of a nasty, bright orange cloth. It didn’t even match her pink and yellow plaid dress. That was tied at the waist with a brown sash, and she wore a ratty green shawl over the whole mess. She went barefoot, her toes more like roots than human feet. Her hands were knobby, too. She clung to Jayat with one and clutched a cane with the other. She looked right at me.
“Lakik help you if you lie, girl.” Her scowl would frighten street dogs. Her voice crackled like grease in the pan. “If you do, every louse and flea I have taken off others will become your new friend.” She glared at Azaze. “You summoned all the council for the rantings of a disobedient child? You sent Jayat to drag me out of my nice warm bed?”
“And over to the nice warm seat by the fire, Master.” Jayat handled her as if she were made of eggs. Gently he helped the old crosspatch to a padded seat the kitchen girls had brought out. It was set beside the hearth. He didn’t seem like he was dragging her.
If Azaze was frightened, she didn’t look it. “Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn of Winding Circle, Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide, this is our mage, Tahar Catwalker. Tahar, sit down before you fall down. The tea is made just as you like it. The girl whose tale has alarmed us is Evvy. Her companion—the little fellow, the green and purple crystal one—is Master Luvo. He is the heart of a mountain, but not locally, as I understand it.”
Mage Tahar snorted. “Our mountains know better than to get up to such mischief.” She squinted up at Rosethorn and Myrrhtide, who were bowing to her. “Stop that. Both of you have more power in your thumbs than I have in my whole body. We all know it. I can’t say much for the temple’s way of raising a child, if Jayat speaks true. Stealing horses, running all over without leave—”
“Oh, she’s done worse.” Rosethorn’s face was straight when she said it. “Spying, fighting, stealing, insulting people of great rank…But how can you manage young girls these days? In this case, Mage Tahar, Evvy has done us a favor. Without her warning, we die. We might yet if this council does not act quickly.”
“We’ll see. Don’t gawp like a girl at her first dance, Azaze. Let’s get on with this.” Tahar thumped her cane on the floor.
Jayat sat on a bench near Tahar’s elbow. Azaze looked at the maids, who left, closing the door behind them. Now it was just us and the town council. Oswin propped the slates where everyone could see them when the time came.
Rosethorn stood in front of them to speak. “Myrrhtide and I came in response to your complaints with regard to the poisoning of your plants, streams, and ponds.” She looked calm and beautiful, her hands clasped in front of her. These people wouldn’t know she had been riding all day. “Evvy and her friend Luvo came by chance, except that the gods seldom leave these things to chance. Luvo is the heart of a mountain, traveling with us for a time. Evvy is my friend, a young stone mage, presently in training at Winding Circle.”
I hung my head so she wouldn’t see me blush at her calling me her friend.
Rosethorn told them what had happened that day, up to me riding off. Jayat took over, explaining how he caught up and stayed with me. Then I told my story to the council. I described the underground chamber, Flare and Carnelian, and the spirits underground. I explained the poisons on the stones under the dead spots, and my idea that the poisons were borne on air that escaped volcano spirits as they pushed toward the surface. About how the shocks were their attempts to escape that chamber. About how they were going to succeed, somewhere around Mount Grace, very soon.
Using the maps I had made, I showed them where Carnelian and Flare had come closest to the open air. Luvo told them where the chamber was while Rosethorn made me drink a second cup of her medicine tea. By then I was very tired. Even after I had the tea, the room seemed a little spin-y. I took a step away from the slates and lurched. I caught myself on the table. I had never had to talk to people like this before, drained of magic and my bones aching from exhaustion. I searched the grown-up faces for Rosethorn, but either I was too tired to pick her out, or she wasn’t there.
“The volcano spirits will come out sooner or later,” I told the village council. “It’ll go better if they break through one of Mount Grace’s sides facing the open sea. But the thickest stone they have to push through is that way. If they come through the top, or through the cracks, they’ll dump lava and poisons on any villages around Mount Grace, maybe on the whole island. Maybe on the neighboring islands.”
“That makes sense.” Oswin looked up from his tea. “If we confine something that moves, like a stream, then give it a small path to escape, like a hole in a pipe or a dam, you know yourselves it’s a lot stronger. And remember the volcano on Levit Island three years back? We could see the blast from here—that went through the top of the mountain. There wasn’t a tree left standing on the whole island.”
Softness settled around my shoulders. Rosethorn tucked a knitted blanket around me. Even as I grabbed it I recognized its opal colors. Lark had made it special for Rosethorn, knitting in signs of strength and healing and warmth for her.
“But she meant this for you.” I tried to take it off. Rosethorn settled it back around my arms.
“She meant it for anyone who needs it. Right now you need it,” she whispered very quietly in my ear. “You still need to convince these people, all right?”
The smith got up. “Azaze, you and these learned dedicates are paying heed to this nonsense? She makes up this faradiddle and expects us to swallow it? The wench is trying to duck a beating at her master’s hands. I don’t know how she worked the magic to get the rock to look as if it talks. Plainly she’s talented if she can fool Winding Circle mages. That still doesn’t mean honest country folk like us have to scramble for her nonsense.” He looked at Myrrhtide and Rosethorn. “Forgive me, Dedicates. Your minds are plain addled with all that magical learning if you swallow this chit’s tale.”
Myrrhtide glared up at him. “I am not addled. I am no more likely to swallow anyone’s ‘tale,’ as you call it, than I am likely to fly. I am a Dedicate Initiate of the Water temple of Winding Circle. I have studied at Lightsbridge university and at Swanswing university in Hatar. In that time I have studied the writings of some of the greatest earth, water, and fire mages ever born. What they record of the days before a volcano’s eruption sounds very much like what Evvy and Luvo have told us since their return to this inn tonight.”
So that was why Fusspot hadn’t started yapping at me the first chance he got. He really did believe me. He even said he believed me.
Maybe I ought to try to be nicer to him.
Fusspot wasn’t done with the smith. He thrust his teacup over in front of the man. “What do you see in my cup?”
The smith gave him a glare that would start a fire. “Tea, you pompous—”
“Master Smith!” Azaze’s voice cracked like a whip.
Fusspot acted like he hadn’t even heard. He’d never acted that way when I’d insulted him. If he had, I would have stopped. “What is my tea doing, Master Smith? Please note that I am not touching the cup.”
The smith jammed his hands in his pockets. “It’s shivering.”
“As was my wash water,” Myrrhtide said. “As is the well water. As is the water in the pots used for cooking and laundry. Before volcanoes loose their heavy fire, Master Smith, the ground can tremble for days, constantly. This is why we addled mages keep written records from the past. So we can learn from the experience of others who have gone before.”
For a moment, even though he’s little and skinny, Fusspot seemed majestic. Like he was cloaked in the wisdom of those long-ago mages. Like he was worthy of respect, even as they had been.
“I don’t understand this at all.” The Master Herder was a woman. She was wringing her hands. “I know the herds have been odd for days, skittish, panicky—I thought it was so many earthquakes. I just don’t understand, why us, why our mountain? Have we offended some god? We try
to pay respect to all the ones we know of, but perhaps we missed one? Our mountains have always been so quiet.”
“Nonsense.” Luvo actually sounded cross. “I know that you meat creatures are exceedingly short-lived, but you are supposed to have minds, and memories, and eyes. You are supposed to use these things.” He looked at me. “Are some breeds of human more stupid than others?”
“Luvo, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard you be actually rude.” Rosethorn kept her voice quiet but direct. “I don’t understand what has upset you.”
Luvo turned his head knob so his invisible eyes were on hers. “I have known you for three or so of your mortal years, Rosethorn. I have seen what happens in these situations in which you involve yourself and Evumeimei. For reasons which are unclear to me, you will insist on remaining in this place to reason with people who will not heed you. They will delay your departure until you, and thus Evumeimei, are in peril of your lives. How long until these volcano children find a way out, and lead all their kindred through it? A week? That is very little time. It may not give you enough chance to get out of range. If these meat creatures argue and deny and quibble as I saw those others do, back in Gyongxe, I am certain it is not enough time. Now that I see there is a chance that I—we—will survive this volcano, I do not wish the bleatings of human sheep to delay our escape. Perhaps I am a bad mountain. Perhaps I should resign myself and wait for the earth’s cycle to take me. But I have grown attached to Evumeimei, and to you. I would like to see more of your world. I would like to see Lark and Briar again.”
“We don’t have to sit here and be insulted.” This time it was the Master Miner who spoke. I knew he was the miner. Though his clothes were clean and his face well washed, grains of stone were worked into his wrinkles. I reached out to see what the stone grains were. It was like trying to take a deep breath, only to find your lungs won’t open up. I hugged Lark’s blanket around my shoulders, trying not to cry. How long would it take my power to come back?