A Cast of Stones (11 page)

Errol felt Martin's gaze on him. He lifted his sword instead of answering.

Liam nodded. “Try to go faster.”

By the time they finished, Errol had lost count of how often Liam uttered that refrain.

And when he woke the next morning and tried to roll over in his blanket, he groaned. Every part of his body felt as though it had been beaten with a sword. He thought back and realized most of them had. Even those places that miraculously escaped chastisement ached. He gave serious thought to running away and letting Cruk and the rest of them continue to Erinon without him. He discarded the idea when he shifted his legs. Running was out of the question. He doubted if he could even manage a crawl. If he could have moved, he would have dragged himself
across the ground to where Cruk lay, grabbed those evil practice swords, and thrown them in the river. At that moment all he wanted was sleep.

A boot thumped him on his backside. “Get up, boy. We've got company.”

Errol opened his eyes to chaos.

 8 
Windridge

B
LANKETS,
cooking utensils, and every other loose object, including Errol, was thrown onto the back of the nearest horse as they scrambled to get away from the telltale signs of their camp. Cruk threw water on the remains of their campfire, then kicked apart the ashes. “There's no way to keep them from knowing we were here, but it might keep them from knowing when we left.”

Errol tossed away the empty skin of ale he'd filched during the night. He mounted, then bit his lips against a sob as his groin muscles screamed in protest. Horace followed Cruk, Martin, and Luis from the clearing. Errol scrubbed the sleep from his eyes as he ducked a low-hanging branch. They were nearly a mile out from camp, cutting back and forth among the pines, when a thought struck him.

“Where's Liam?”

Cruk frowned at him. “Keep your voice down, boy. Sound travels too well when the air is still.” He twitched the reins, and they moved off to the left to ride through a stand of cedars. “I sent him to lay down a false trail. Luis says we need time.”

Errol shook his head in confusion. Why didn't they just run? “Time? Time for what?”

Luis dismounted and pulled a knife and two blocks of wood from his pack. “Time for this. Come here, Errol. It's time to begin your real education.”

Martin dismounted and held his hands over the knife and wood. The priest intoned a prayer that sounded as though he'd done it many times before. Even before he finished, Luis began whittling chunks from a block of pine he held in his hands. He turned the blank in precise increments, chips of the soft wood flying. Martin drifted away to speak with Cruk. Errol gaped as the block smoothed and its contours melted until it no longer resembled an obelisk, but a sphere.

As he worked, Luis swayed over his work, his brows knitted in concentration, his voice crooning. “A reader's work is to fashion lots, Errol. These lots represent the choices before us, in this case to turn south and make for Escadrill, or take the road north and ride for Windridge.”

Errol stood transfixed as the grain seemed to flow under Luis's hands. “But how does it work?”

A smile split his face, though his eyes never wavered from his craft. “Readers must know the choices that they spin. Otherwise the result is mere random chance. Some are born with the ability to imbue the lot with some essence of what we know. Much of our craft lies in our ability to ask the right question.” His hands stilled, pausing long enough to look Errol in the eye. “I want you to go to my saddle. In the left bag you'll find several pieces of rubbing cloth. Bring them here.” He put the wooden sphere on his lap and started carving the next block of pine.

When Errol returned, carrying the various grits of cloth, Luis favored him with a smile. “I don't suppose you've ever been to Escadrill or Windridge?” he asked.

Errol shook his head. “I've never been anywhere except for Callowford and Berea.”

Luis nodded. “That's too bad. This would go more quickly if you could assist.”

A thrill coursed through him. “Me? I don't know anything about making lots. How could I help?”

Laughter answered him. “Casting lots is at once more difficult and easier than you realize. Only a reader can cast a lot, and we've already established that you have the talent.”

With a flash of resentment, Errol thought of the compulsion that had been laid upon him, but Luis's knife and hands wove a spell that captivated him, and he pushed his irritation to the back of his mind.

“As for the rest of it, it's a simple matter of concentrating on each choice as you fashion the lot that matches it.” The reader frowned at the wood as he turned it. “Pine's not the best. The grain is too loose. Walnut would have been better and maple best of all.” He sighed. “But we don't have time, and softwoods are the quickest.”

He set the second sphere in his lap, retrieved the first and then took up the roughest cloth and attacked the lot with brisk strokes. A mist of sawdust floated up to Errol's nose, and he sneezed.

“Sorry,” Luis said. “That's one of the hazards of the craft, I'm afraid.”

Ten minutes later, his brow damp with effort, Luis held two identical spheres to Errol for his inspection.

Errol reached out to take them, then stopped. “Shouldn't we be wearing gloves or something?”

Luis nodded in approval. “Good. That's very good, but we only have two choices here and we don't have time for such exactitude. Now, take the lots and close your eyes.”

Errol did so, held one in each hand.

“Can you tell any difference between them?”

He hefted the lots, felt their weight and grain against the ridges of his skin. Unsure, he swapped hands. The difference between the two spheres resting in his palms was so slight he might have been imagining it. He changed his grip, held them
with his fingertips and rolled them back and forth, searched for any variance in the grain. He opened his eyes.

“They feel identical.”

Luis dipped his head as if Errol had just paid him a compliment. “Thank you. We're lucky that I've been to both of those cities often enough that I can hold a picture of them in my head as I work.” He stood. “Wait here.” The reader walked with purposeful strides over to his horse and pulled a plain burlap sack from one of the saddlebags. With a smile, he returned.

Luis opened the sack and extended it to him. “Put them in here, gently. We don't want them to get chipped.”

Errol reached to the bottom of the bag before he released the wooden balls. After he'd withdrawn his hand, Luis took the bag and rolled it along the ground. Soft clacking sounds came from inside.

“Why are you doing that?”

Luis nodded in seeming approval. “When drawing a lot, it's important to make sure the process is as random as possible. I'm trying to guarantee that you can't determine which ball is which when you draw.”

Errol recoiled in surprise. “Me? You want me to draw? I don't know anything about being a reader yet.”

Soft laughter rippled across Errol's hearing. “It doesn't matter who draws them, Errol. The craft is in the wisdom to ask the correct question and our ability to concentrate with single-minded intensity on each answer as we fashion the lots.

“Martin,” Luis called. “We're ready.” He lifted the bag from the ground and extended it toward Errol with an air of formality as he opened it. The smell of pine floated on the air.

Martin raised his hand in supplication. “Choose, Errol Stone,” he intoned. “Choose and let the will of Deas be known.”

Errol's pulse quickened as he put his hand in the bag, felt the smoothed grain of Luis's handiwork brush the ridges of his skin, and pulled out a lot. He held it out for inspection, but Luis shook his head.

“You know enough of reading to recognize the difference
between a W and an E.” His eyes brightened above his smile. “Tell me, Errol. Which way do we go?”

Errol turned the wood against the light just as he had done with the stone orb in Martin's cabin days ago. The process felt almost familiar to him now, but his heartbeat sounded in his ears nonetheless. And then he saw it.

“It's a W.”

Luis leaned forward, cupped Errol's hand, and turned the wooden lot before he nodded in confirmation. “Place the lot back in the bag. We'll have to draw again.”

Again?
“Why?”

The reader rolled the bag along the ground again as he answered. “The lots are less than perfect, which introduces error into the cast, but even were they sculpted from the hardest substance available to us, durastone, we would draw again to confirm the choice.” The olive skin of his face crinkled around his brown eyes as he smiled. “The conclave has striven for centuries to create the perfect lot, but it seems that skill is still beyond us.” He extended the bag again. “Draw.”

Errol drew and held the wood to the morning light. “It says W.”

Luis nodded. “Very well. It's not what I expected, but we're going to Windridge.” He turned toward the horses.

A thought struck Errol, rooting him to the patch of earth where he stood. “What if I had picked the other one?”

Luis smiled with a light of mischief in his eyes. “Every reader asks that. As a matter of fact, there are very few occasions when we don't ask that.”

“Then how do you know we're supposed to go to Windridge? You said yourself it was a surprise.”

Luis stepped back to him with the bag open. “Put it back in.”

Errol did so and watched as Luis shook the bag, less gently than before. The clatter of wood against wood sounded again in the clearing.

The reader held the bag out to him again. “Draw and choose, Errol.”

Errol repeated the process, but as his hand entered the bag a sense of pointlessness swept over him. As he pulled out one of the lots and cupped it against the light of the morning, he knew what he would find before he looked. “It's a W,” he said.

Luis nodded, took the ball from him, dropped it into the bag, shook it, and commanded him once more, “Draw.”

He put his hand in, grabbed a ball. At the last instant, he let go and dove for the other one. Smiling triumphantly, he held it against the light. There, in plain view was the W he had seen before. Shocked, he looked to Luis for an explanation.

“Would I always draw the same lot if I continue?” he asked.

“With wood you might draw the same lot seven out of ten times. With stone, even more often,” Luis said. “I commend you. When I first took my orders as a reader I spent a night and a day with the same lots trying everything I could think of to change the outcome. For a week afterward, I wouldn't go near the conclave where the other readers worked. I was convinced they'd seduced me into some sorcery.”

He took the lots and threw them into the thick underbrush. “Come. We need to be leaving. Windridge awaits.”

They mounted their horses and set off to the north. Liam's absence weighed on Errol. Though the two of them were hardly friends, he didn't want anyone else to drop out of his life. That train of thought awoke a craving for ale inside him. “How is Liam going to find us?”

Cruk smirked. “He'll find us. I'm going to leave him a trail.”

“Won't Merodach be able to follow it?”

The big man shook his head. “Not much chance of that. Liam knows what to look for, and he is a better tracker than he is a horseman.”

Errol rolled his eyes. “Is there anything Liam doesn't do better than anyone else?” he muttered under his breath.

He hadn't spoken quietly enough. Martin gazed at him until he squirmed.

Cruk only laughed. “No, boy, there isn't. With a couple more
years training, there won't be a man in the kingdom he can't best with a sword, Merodach included.” He paused, pulling at his jaw muscles. “He may be close to it already. If he drew on me, it's not a sure bet I would win.”

Errol digested that before he spoke. Surely, there was something Liam didn't do well. “What if they catch him?”

Cruk snorted. “Not likely. Whoever is tracking us is going to be at least a day behind by the time he gets done with them, maybe two.” He twitched the reins, and they cut back to the west following the remains of an old track.

Errol pushed away a stab of jealousy. Liam's perfection grated on him. “Why don't we just ride in a straight line, then?”

“It's nice to see you can think if you want to.” Cruk gave him a nod of approval. “The chances of Liam getting caught are slim, but just in case he does, I don't want to make it easy for them to find us.”

“Who's them?” Errol asked. “Merodach?”

Cruk shrugged, his massive shoulders rolling underneath his tunic. “It could be Merodach. It could be bandits. At this point it doesn't matter. I'll rest a lot easier when we're safely inside Windridge.”

They continued riding in switchbacks for the rest of the morning, and Errol found his mind wandering. Horace followed after the other horses without encouragement, which left Errol time to think about his ultimate destination. Luis's pronouncement that Errol possessed the talent to be a reader forced his life into an unfamiliar route—like water diverted by a change in the riverbed. Radere's admonishment still hung in his ears, but how did one learn to be a reader? Would he have to learn to carve as well as read? How did anyone learn what questions to ask? In spite of Luis's demonstration back in the clearing, Errol had nothing on which to base his expectations.