Stonewiser (25 page)

She took a deep breath. “Why would you choose me when you could have her?”

He stared at her for the longest moment. “That doesn't even merit a response.”

“She would be the perfect mother for those children you want.”

He opened his mouth and closed it. “You want me to have children with the forester?”

What could she say to that?

“Because you think she would be a better mother to my children?”

Infinitely better than a soulless orphan raised by a heartless Guild.

“And you?”

She shrugged.

“Ah.” The infuriating sound announced he had reached his own conclusions and now understood whatever he thought he understood. “You two wenches talked about this?”

Sariah had made an oath, so she focused on Leandro's game. “Do you want to give it a try?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, I have to keep at it, so if you don't mind—”

“I do mind. What I really want to do is thrash you right now and I don't think that's the hepa talking.”

The hair on the back of Sariah's neck stood on end when she met his glower. He looked poised to thrash her indeed. Instead, he landed a furious, lip-numbing kiss on her mouth.

“The hepa again?”

“Sorry,” he whispered between clenched teeth.

“Hush,” Sariah said. “I never want you to be sorry for making love to me.”

Malord, Mia, and Delis arrived the next day, together with a swift change in the weather.

“Cursed winds, I'm freezing.” Malord stomped his hands together. “We would've been here yesterday, but we had to lose the mob.”

“They know you travel with us?” Sariah asked.

“No, they wanted us to join with them.”

“Did they recognize Delis?”

“We didn't let them get that close, my donnis. Are you well? Have you been eating enough? You're a bit short of flesh in the rear, I see—”

“Delis,” Kael said, “keep your eyes off Sariah's rear. I'm asking you nicely. Aye?”

Delis rolled her eyes. “I've brought you a present, my donnis, something I think you'll like.” She retrieved a jar from her shoulder bag and opened the lid. The fragrance of pure honey filled Sariah's senses. Delis swiped her finger in the jar and offered a taste. “I traded it. It's from Ars's own apiaries. They say it's the finest in the world.”

Sariah suckled the honey with the greatest appreciation. The sweet flowery taste draped her lips, coated her mouth and flowed in a slow caress down her throat. When she opened her eyes, Kael and Delis were staring at her wide-eyed.

“I didn't know you like honey so much,” Kael said sullenly.

“It's delicious. Taste it.”

“No thanks. I've had enough exhilaration lately.”

“And you?” She offered Delis.

“No, my donnis. It's for you.”

Sariah realized with a start that Delis had been holding her breath with the expectation of pleasing her.

“I've been very anxious about your safety,” Delis said, “but the child assured me that you lived.”

Mia admired Leandro's gaming pieces, neatly set up for the next game. “They're beautiful. Can I play?”

“Try your Uncle Kael. He's easy to beat.”

“Your auntie is gloating again.”

“The pieces are wised.”

“Wised?” Malord scooted to the board faster than a rolling wagon.

“I have news, my donnis. From Alabara.”

“You didn't go back in there after we sent you off, did you?”

“No need, my donnis, I heard the stories wherever we went.”

“You mean about Orgos's death?”

“Death? No, my donnis. Orgos isn't dead. He's alive, although his forehead is said to bear a hole deeper than a sunken cave. Orgos is alive and pissed. He's looking for you.”

“He nearly killed us for no good reason.”

“The channel's stones gave way a few days after we left,” Delis said. “Alabara is dying and Orgos says it's your fault.”

Nineteen

 

P
LAYING SNAKES AND
scorpions with Malord was futile. The old man always won. The repetitive defeat was an exercise in wiser discipline to Sariah, intended to shed light on the riddle's mysterious words:
Every game triumphs well before the end is played
.

“You are unbeatable,” Sariah said, after losing again. “Was there a point in this game when you knew you had won even before you won?”

“It was a struggle to the end,” Malord said. “At every play, you could have thwarted my victory.”

“Not a compliment to my brilliancy. I thought I had lost long ago.”

A burst of wind howled outside and rattled the deck on its claws.

“I can't sleep.” Mia's tremulous voice came from under her blankets.

“Come sit with us, Mianina. It's just a bit of rough weather.”

“But those people, yesterday, they said that doom was coming to the Domain.”

“They were just a bunch of babbling idiots making a run for the wall.”

“What about the blood-drinking rot monsters they talked about?”

“Overactive imaginations, if you get what I mean.” Sariah twirled a finger around her ear and was gratified by the little girl's grin. “Don't worry, Mianina. There are no monsters about.”

Well, maybe there were monsters around, not the kind Mia feared but rather the ones Sariah dreaded. Where were Kael and Delis? When would they return? What if they didn't return?

She had to stop thinking like that. Neither Kael nor Delis had stayed on the decks that night. In rare agreement, armed and weaved from head to toe, they had slipped into the dead waters earlier and lost themselves in the night. They had gone to investigate a cluster of suspicious decks they had spotted earlier in the day. They had been gone a long time.

“Blood,” Mia said. “You're bleeding from your bracelet.”

“Oh.” Sariah stopped twirling the bracelet and blotted the bloody scrapes. “It's nothing.”

“Does the bracelet hurt?”

Only in her heart. “Not really.”

Malord finished resetting the game. “Your move.”

Sariah threw the dice and considered her options. “This is giving me a headache.”

“My mommy gives me persimmon water with honey when my head hurts.”

“Sounds delicious. We have no persimmon but I happen to have very good honey.”

“Not again.” Mia giggled. “You're going to go wide at the hips, that's what my mommy would say. And you're going to lose to Malord if you don't pay attention to your game.”

Malord winked. “She's going to lose to old Malord even if she pays attention.”

“Are you that good?” Mia asked.

“I'm unbeatable.”

“I bet you Thaddeus could beat you.”

“You mean that scoundrel brother of yours? Never.”

“Oh, yes, he could. With his lucky dice. A double three, a three and five, a four and three, a double five, and a double two. Ten plays and he can't lose.”

“Surely good Thaddeus doesn't cheat?” Sariah said. “Your mother would never allow him to have a pair of loaded dice.”

“Mamma doesn't know. I'm the only one who knows. He always beats me. I told him I'd tell Mamma. That's how I got his secret winning numbers.”

Something fluttered in the back of Sariah's mind.
Beware of the one who always wins
, the old crone had said in Alabara.

“The secret winning numbers? Do you know about this, Malord?”

“Never heard of it, but then I'm not a seventeen-year-old apprentice trying to force my luck for the sake of coin.”

“You won't tell Mamma, will you?”

“Of course not,” Sariah said. “Tell me again. If you throw those numbers, do you always win?”

“If you follow the right order, you'll win no matter what.”

Beware of the one who always wins. And every game triumphs well before the end is played
. The fluttering feeling coalesced into a concrete thought. Could it be?

“Put it back.” Sariah repositioned her scorpions quickly. “Put it all back.”

“What?” Malord asked. “Why?”

“Humor me.” She played a double three. “Does it matter what the other person plays, Mia?”

“For you to win, Malord's got to play the reverse.”

“That would be a double two, right?” Malord moved his snakes.

“Now me,” Sariah said. “Three and five.”

“This can't possibly work.” Malord played the double five. “It doesn't make any sense. How can a person ensure the dice will throw the right numbers?”

Mia leaned over to Malord and whispered. “That's the cheating part.”

“You must use loaded dice,” Sariah said. Maybe even wised dice?

It all began to make sense. Wised dice would assure the required throws. Did Leandro know this? Sariah doubted it. He would have been a much richer man if he had owned wised dice. And he would have needed a prohibitive amount of coin to procure something as rare and forbidden. Just to make sure, Sariah pressed the dice against her palm. They weren't wised. They weren't even a loaded set.

“Four and three for both of us,” Sariah said. “Is it possible, Malord? Do you see a trend? Something?”

Dark brows clashed above Malord's sharp nose. “It's very strange. Since we started playing these numbers, the board has become blocked, eliminating any choices to the moves. To play the numbers, the pieces can only move into certain spaces. Remarkable.”

“Auntie's gonna win!”

“Five and five.” Sariah moved. “Three and five, you. Can any kid figure this out?”

“This is the scam of a brilliant mind,” Malord said, “a mathematician perhaps, one who I've never met in the Domain.”

It struck Sariah like a hammer to the knee. “Someone from the Hall of Numbers spent a lot of time figuring this out.”

Malord gaped.

“Who else?” Only the Guild, and only a wiser trained in the Hall of Numbers could manage a feat of this kind. “The secret numbers may be out in the back alleys among betting players, but the original maker of this scam belonged to the Guild.”

But something else was bothering Sariah. “Even if Leandro had wised dice—which I doubt—how did he, or any other cheating player who knew the winning numbers for that matter, manage to win the game without triggering whatever trick was wised into these snakes and scorpions?”

“A fair question,” Malord said. “Whoever went through the intricate process of creating this game would have safeguarded the trick from the casual player.”

“And that safeguard must be something else, something not available to the typical player, something that only a stonewiser would have and readily recognize as rare and valuable.”

Malord frowned. “Are you thinking about the missing wised dice?”

“I'm thinking about what the missing wised dice
represent
once the winning numbers are known.”

They both said it at the same time. “Wised stone.”

Sariah fumbled through her pockets and took out a handful of stones. “Any wised stone?”

“Not a memory stone,” Malord said. “Those would have been all too common, at least among Domainers.”

“What then?” She thumbed through the stones. “A bursting stone? Too risky. A festival tale stone? Too diluted.”

“An ancient tale,” Malord said. “The oldest tale you have in your collection.”

“Maybe even a forbidden tale?” She held out the stone where she had imprinted the tale of her wising of the seven stones.

Malord grinned. “Ideal.”

Sariah placed her stone on the middle of the checkered cloth board, on a square which had always puzzled her because it was the only one painted black among the red and white ones. Hers wasn't an original stone, but it was worth a try.

She played a double two. “Your turn.”

A tremor betrayed Malord's hand as he played a double three and moved the last of his snakes into place.

Nothing happened.

“You win!” Mia jumped up and down, hugging Sariah. “Auntie, you finally beat Malord.”

Sariah wasn't thrilled. Beating Malord had become decidedly unimportant in the great scheme of things. “Maybe we need the wised dice after all. Maybe we didn't do it right.”

Malord was no less disappointed than she was. “Do you want to try it again?”

“Wait. Do you hear that?”

Pop. Pop. Blast.
She knew those sounds. Somewhere out in the night, Kael was using his bursting stones, small and large. Sariah ran out to the deck. The night was dark and the wind was ferocious, but if she had doubts, a burst of fire in the distance revealed the dire extent of their trouble.