Deep Water (41 page)

“I think I should practice before I try a paying customer,” Ash said, as nonchalantly as he could. “Do you want me to read
for you?”

Flax smiled with pleasure. “Oh, yes.” He wriggled around until he was facing Ash and then spat in his left hand and held it
out expectantly.

Ash put the pouch on the ground in front of him, spread out his own napkin, and spat in his own palm. They clasped hands.

“Ask your question,” he said.

“Um… will Zel ever get married?”

Ash didn’t let his surprise show, because that was also part of being a stonecaster, keeping your face blank. But he was suddenly
curious about Flax; about whether he wanted the answer to be yes, or no. Was he so dependent on Zel that he couldn’t bear
the thought of her leaving? Or was he chafing under his big sister’s competent management?

The stones in the bag were both strange and familiar to his fingers. It was a different feeling from just touching them, as
he had earlier. Some seemed to slide past his fingertips as though waxed, others clung to his hand. It was easy, the work
of only a moment, to gather the five that wanted to be drawn out. Ash breathed deeply to control his astonishment. He had
always thought it was just chance — well, chance controlled by the gods — which stones were chosen. He’d had no idea that
the stones chose themselves. The choice was so
clear.
It was so easy to tell which ones to grasp and which to let go. He felt euphoria building in him. This was something he could
do, after all, something respected far more than safeguarding, something that — something that could take him back on the
Road. With his parents, if they wanted.

A whole bright future rolled out in his mind in the moments that his hand drew the five stones out of the bag and cast them
on the napkin of undyed linen. The stones stood out clearly against the pale fabric, but Ash didn’t need the fading light
to know which stones lay there. It was easy.

Then, as the stones spoke to him, it stopped being easy. He touched them, one by one, as he had seen Martine do, and they
reached up into his mind and spoke, in sounds and music and images and smells. The smell of blood. The flight of an arrow.
The sound of the sea.

“Time,” he said with difficulty, and was appalled at the sound. The words came out harsh, grating, the unmistakable voice
of the dead.

Flax recoiled, paling, and let go of Ash’s hand. Then, slowly, he took it again, ignoring the fact that Ash was shaking.

“That’s the voice of the Well of Secrets,” he said slowly. “That’s how she heals. With that voice.”

Ash looked down at their hands, not sure what to say. Not wanting to admit to speaking with the voice of the dead. He shrugged,
trying to imply that it was a surprise to him, too. But Flax had seen that already.

“You weren’t trying to use that voice?” he asked warily.

Ash shook his head, afraid to speak. Afraid, oh gods, that his normal voice had gone completely.

“Has it happened before?”

“Only when I sing.” The admission burst out before he could stop it, and it was his own voice, although a little higher than
normal because he was frightened. But it was his voice. Turning back to the stones lying on the napkin was one of the hardest
things he had ever done. He took a very deep breath, and touched one.

“Parting,” he said, in the voice of the dead, and as he spoke the images, like memories, washed over him, full of treachery
and blood. “Woman. Change. The blank stone.”

He sat breathing heavily, glad it was over, not meeting Flax’s eyes. But Flax was a Traveler born and bred, and the Sight,
whatever form it took, was a part of his world. He accepted Ash’s voice without further comment and looked at the blank stone
consideringly.

“So. That means anything can happen, yes?”

Ash paused. The blank stone
did
mean that, but the stones were telling him something else; death, they said, murder. Yet those stones were not on the napkin.
So what should he say to Flax? How much should he say? It might not be Zel’s death, he told himself, although he was sure
it was. But if the death stone wasn’t there… perhaps Flax wasn’t meant to know… Ash could have screamed from frustration.
This was supposed to be a practice run, not an impossible choice! Then he remembered Martine’s voice, “Answer the question.
Don’t make my mistake… don’t give them more than they ask for.”

“I don’t . . .” Thank the gods, it was his own voice again. Perhaps the other voice only came when he was touching the stones,
or naming them. “I don’t see a wedding,” he said and tried not to laugh hysterically at the understatement. “But there is
a parting of the ways.” A big parting, but perhaps not the final one. Perhaps that was what the blank stone meant.

Flax scratched his chin, a curiously old movement. “Time,” he said.

“Yes,” Ash replied, sure of that. “Months, at least.”

Flax let go of his hand. “Months,” he said, in a tone which meant that months might as well have been years. “I thought… there
was a cobbler who wanted to marry her a while back. I just wondered… but I guess not, huh?”

Ash shrugged and swept the stones up into the pouch. They were once again just pieces of rock with carvings on them. That
was all. The surge of feeling, of sight and smell and what had seemed like memory, was gone. He felt empty and tired.

“You know, I don’t think your average stonecaster talks like that,” Flax said. “Might cause a bit of a stir.”

He was right. No one would want to consult a stonecaster who grated an answer like stone on stone. Like Death herself. They
certainly didn’t want to attract attention while they were on their way to the Deep.

“Dung and pissmire!” Ash cursed. All his bright plans crashed around him. Even this talent was useless to him. “Go to sleep!”
he snarled at Flax, as though it were all his fault. Flax grinned and rolled himself into his blanket as though nothing were
wrong.

The next day, they were more circumspect on the Road, because they were closer to Gabriston. Although Flax complained, they
camped that night instead of going to one of the village inns.

“We don’t need more silver. Best not to draw attention,” Ash said. “That’s the way of it, going to the Deep. Don’t draw attention.”

Or someone, sometime, would notice the trickle of Traveler men heading through Gabriston into the wilds, and ask questions.
That would mean death, for someone — the questioner or the questioned. So the demons said.

They bought small amounts of food in each village they passed the day after, until their saddlebags were swollen, so they
could skirt Gabriston and go onto the wilds without being noticed.

They were out of grain country now and into North Domain’s vineyards, famous from cliff to cove for their fine vintages. Flax
eyed the inns with some wistfulness, but Ash was firm.

“On the way out, maybe. Maybe, if all goes well. But no sane man goes to the Deep with drink in him.”

The vines were planted on hillsides, so steep that in some places they were terraced to make more flat ground. The hills grew
rougher, and the vines less abundant as they approached the wilds. Finally, they found their way to a bluff which overlooked
the wilds: a network of canyons and chasms, stream-cut gorges and dead ends, all formed of the red sandstone that was quarried
further downstream and sent all over the Domains. In Turvite, in rich merchants’ houses, Ash had seen intricately carved mantelpieces
and balustrades in the fine stone, streaked golden and blood red in intertwining layers. The sandstone was very beautiful,
but the sight of it had always made him nervous — it reminded him of the Deep, and the Spring Equinox.

The canyons of the wilds had been worn away by water over thousands of years, many more thousands than Acton’s people had
been in the Domains. Every spring, his father had said, the singers and the poets had made their way here. Spring was the
time for music and stories, he said, when things began to flow again. Summer was the time for those in the living trades:
horse trainers and animal healers and drovers. Autumn for the dead trades: tinkers and painters and drystone wallers. Winter
for the wood trades: carvers and carpenters and turners, chair-makers and basketweavers. Every craft had its time, its gods-chosen
time, for the Deep. Except, Ash thought now, looking down at the stream below the bluff as it leapt and danced over the red
rocks, except safeguarders. Perhaps he belonged with the shepherds. He laughed, shortly, and nudged Mud with his heels. The
sun was setting. It was time for the Deep.

S
AKER HAD DECIDED
to get well away from Carlion before he searched for more bones. Yet no matter where he went, people were afraid. They gathered
in inns, talking agitatedly, calling each other over to confirm some part of the story, worrying, fretting. Or else they shut
themselves up in their houses.

Whenever he passed a black rock altar there were people making sacrifices to the gods, praying hard. Useless, he wanted to
tell them. The gods have sent me. Once, there was a Traveler family at the altar, and he wanted to stop and say, “You don’t
need to worry. If you stay out of the way, you won’t be hurt.” But of course he couldn’t, without revealing himself.

In each village he passed, men and women were out nailing shutters firmly to the windows, or installing bars for the doors.
Carpenters had notices pinned to their workshop doors: Too busy!

Smiths were making weapons instead of horseshoes. The local officers, who held large sections of the land in the warlord’s
name, had sent their sergeants out to collect their oath men, and hauled them away, complaining, from barricading their cottages.

All the activity should have made him feel triumphant. He had done this.
He
, Saker, had scared all these people. Part of him wished his father could be here to witness it. But… he didn’t want
it to be like this. The anxiety — oddly, he’d never imagined his actions leading to worry. Terror, yes. Terror in the night,
death cleanly delivered a moment afterward, he had been expecting that. The killing was necessary, to retrieve the land from
its usurpers. But worry, even this extraordinary worry, he hadn’t expected that, and it felt wrong.

He knew what his father would say: you just didn’t think it through, boy! He’d said it often to Saker in his childhood, when
Saker rushed impetuously into some scheme. Like the time he’d wanted to raise snails to eat, as he’d heard the Wind Cities
people did, and the box overturned. The snails got into the vegetable garden and ate all his father’s plants. He winced at
the memory of that beating, and of his father’s voice saying, “You just didn’t think it through, did you, boy? Well, think
this through!” Down came the cane.

When he stopped for the night at an inn where he had been once before in his wanderings, he was besieged for castings. But
he shook his head.

“Even the gods do not know the outcome,” he said portentously. The innkeeper’s wife burst into tears and his son paled, but
the man himself sniffed.

“Good. You remember that, boy. Our fate is in our own hands.”

Saker disliked him intensely in that moment, and it was only later that he realized the man reminded him of his father. But
he didn’t think about that. By that time he was occupied in finding bones.

T
HE NEXT FEW
days were a whirl of messages and reports. Leof sent recruiting parties to towns in the Domain furthest from Carlion. There
was no use trying to get masons in closer towns to go to Carlion; refugees from the slaughter had already spread the story
of the ghosts and the nearest towns were busy fortifying themselves.

The stories reached Sendat. Hodge came to Leof in the officers’ workroom, where he was sorting through reports from two recruiting
parties who had managed to scrape up some apprentice masons eager for adventure and a couple of older men who didn’t work
much these days but were prepared to take a trip to the coast at the warlord’s expense. There was no door to the officers’
workroom — it was an annex between the room where Thegan held his meetings and Thegan’s workroom. Hodge stood a little uncomfortably
in the doorway and cleared his throat.

“Yes?” Leof said, looking up. “Oh, it’s you, Hodge. What’s the problem?”

“We’ve got some people from Carlion come to town, my lord. Paying for their drinks at the inn with stories.”

Leof put down the papers he had been reading. “Well, it had to come sometime. Call a muster and send to the town to say I’ll
address everyone in the square an hour before sunset.”

Hodge nodded and left. A moment later Leof heard the bell that called the men to muster. He went out of the barracks building
and stood in front of the hall. Should he tell Sorn? Hodge was waiting by the muster point.

“Sergeant, go and tell the Lady Sorn that she and her ladies and the rest of the household are invited to this muster. And
get me a halberd.”

Sorn had been waiting for this moment, it was clear. The maids had probably brought back the news from the town as well — maybe
that was how Hodge had found out. She swept out of the hall with her ladies and maids in tow, Fortune hiding in her skirts,
and behind them came the cooks and the kitchen boys and the fire tender; and from around the side of the hall came the gardeners
and the dairymaid and the woodman and the lads who looked after the chickens and the ducks and the pigs. The brewer came out
from her oast-house, the cheese-maker from her loft, the carpenter from his workshop. Leof hadn’t reflected before on how
big and complex the staff was that Sorn managed.

They waited to the side of the assembled troops. Knowing that it was bound to come, Leof had worried over what to say in this
moment. But it was a lovely day, spring edging into summer, and all their own people were safe for the moment. His natural
optimism asserted itself so that he smiled at the assembly with real reassurance.

“You’ve all heard the stories,” he said simply. “Evil bloodsucking ghosts rising from the dead to slaughter us, yes?” Men
in the ranks nodded, a little shamefacedly, expecting to be told none of it was true, that they were fools for listening to
fireside tales. They shuffled their feet, a soft susurration in the dust.