Stonewiser (53 page)

She stepped out of the pool and waited for her turn to be dried. She forced herself to focus on the important things. Why were the bulk of the keep's guards posted on the wall night and day? She donned a clean garment and moved on to the table. She downed the tasteless porridge without enthusiasm. The lukewarm gruel was purported to provide all the nutrition necessary to grow wiserlings. It was the only reason to eat it.

She waited until the guards doused the fires to begin her work. Sariah couldn't stray far from her cot, because her bracelet's glow was too hard to conceal. Instead, one by one, the women came to her cot quietly, cautiously, perhaps even faithfully, so that Sariah could try to awaken dormant links and train clumsy fingers into a semblance of rhythm. It was slow, risky, painstaking work, but at least half the women were able to stone tap now, and the other half showed promise.

“Are you sure about this?” Cara whispered when it was her turn. “You said you'd stolen the prism, but it's back and it hurts as much as ever.”

Courage,
Sariah tapped the emotion against Cara's icy fingertips. The next time, they wouldn't get it back.

Trea was in a nostalgic mood. “Will I ever birth a child and keep it, you think?”

Confidence.
Sariah forced herself to convey the difficult notion. She thought of her own child, of the dangers that stood in the way of her son's existence. Hope. She visualized the elegant roses etched on her bracelet's link, infusing Trea's mind with the sight of a hundred red buds blooming into stunning, exquisite wreaths. She could almost whiff the sweet scent of her own hope, perfuming both her infusion and her dreams.

Celia's whisper brought her back to the pen's stark darkness. “Don't you think we should try it tonight?”

“Not yet,” Lexia said. “We'll get one chance. It's got to be right.”

A muted clang sounded by the lower gate. Celia got up and went to meet her guard. Sariah waited impatiently. Time had no true measure in the Mating Hall. The days were long. The nights were endless. Yet the silver haze's advance on her bracelet's crystals wasn't deterred. Every day she spent at the Mating Hall was a day lost.

The prospect of another quickening was enough to squelch any attempts at optimism. Sariah made an effort to think about the things she liked, like flowers, cherries and honey. True, some of those were really Kael's favorites, but she had learned to share in his pleasures. She thought of him, of the memories they had made together. She recalled his scent, dark spices and fresh laurel draping her like the warmest blanket. She sighed like a lovesick maiden. Pathetic. If only she knew that Kael had gotten her message.

After a while, Celia slipped back into her cot.

“Anything new?” Lexia whispered.

“Fighting,” Celia whispered back.

“Against who?”

“He's not that dumb.”

It had to be Arron. He must be trying to take the keep by force. Sariah had seen him there, massing at the gates, waiting for her. At last, he had gotten tired of waiting.

Sitting on the birthing chair was an act of pure will. Sariah stilled her trembling limbs and focused on the task ahead. She had lived through several quickenings thus far, each worse than the previous one. But whereas other women returned with their bellies grown by several weeks after each quickening, Sariah's seemed to be growing at a more natural rate. It was her way of defying the mistress, the sisters and the prism's power. And after several failed attempts, a good bit of thought, and much preparation, it wasn't her only way.

“You've got to help us, little sister,” Belana said.

“You've got to let us do our work,” Telana said.

“Or would you rather the mistress's wrath?”

“For you, for us, the danger is much.”

One jolt of the prism had Sariah squirming like a half-stomped worm. She had to fight her body's desperation, before she was able to master her fumbling will. Working through the awful pain was the hardest part. She had already sweated the bulk of her body's water by the time she managed to reestablish the aberrant connection between the prism's power and her flesh, core and seal.

She wasn't sure a tale could transcend time and distance with such flimsy anchors. The seal made it theoretically possible, but only if Mia had heard her before, and if she was close enough and actively listening in the company of her amplifying stones. At best, she might get a glimpse of the tale. Surely Mia would tell Kael. It was Sariah's way of smuggling the tale out of the keep, of sharing her discoveries with someone who might be able to act on them.

She prodded the prism for a trance, lightly, so as to not to alert the sisters to her intention. The stone surprised her. It was swift like an eager harlot. Sariah had to tame the stone's strong will towards visions to keep the wising secret. She reached beyond the painful jolts to grab the trance. It was clear enough, and best of all, it announced a straightforward tale.

The tale arrived with a stormy night. The stink of ozone filled her nostrils and freshened her overheated lungs. She recognized the people right away. The four sages were fleeing through a muddy vale. They carried something heavy in a litter between them. Lightning flashed ahead, revealing a figure standing in the middle of the narrow trail. White hair. Sharp features. Piercing blue eyes. Sariah would have recognized the woman anywhere. Zeminaya—wiser, marcher and First Shield—in her time, before the execration.

“Escape is not the way,” Zeminaya said. “The rot has come and the land's dying, but as far as I'm concerned, stealing is still a trespass.”

“I've seen what comes.” Poe rested his side of the litter on the mud. “This is the only way.”

“Fool,” Zeminaya said. “We can all see what comes. Dreaming, that's easy. Change, there's a dare.”

Vargas aimed her rusty pitchfork. “Step aside. You'll have us go along with this mad journey you propose. The execration. A generation punished for trespasses against Meliahs. Do you really think it will ever be enough?”

“It has to be,” Zeminaya said. “We can't survive divided.”

Eneis shook his head. “Who speaks unity but the wall's very builder?”

Zeminaya's blue eyes skewered the teacher. “Who takes the stone in the night while I stay with the rot and the circling buzzards?”

The rain trickled like tears over Tirsis's sad face. “We don't undertake this journey lightly, my friend. We know the burdens as well as you do.”

“And yet you're still leaving.”

“We were dreamed thieves for a purpose,” Poe said.

“That could be,” Zeminaya said, “except for what you steal.” She was upon the sages in one stride. In a swift movement, she pulled off the litter's covers.

Sariah gasped. A large stone sparkled with delicate luminosity where the rain's drizzle touched it. It shimmered with an intense amber coloring that seemed to glow with the light. It was whole, complete and beautiful. It exuded limitless power. The memory of its sweet voice rose above the noise of the sisters’ torture to soothe Sariah's mind.
Wise me, wiser, tenderly, bring me to my tale. Don't you know me, child of hers, don't you know my name?

Dear Meliahs. She should have seen it before for what it was, but she had been too rushed and awed, too needy and ignorant. Poe was right. The dream had dreamed them thieves for a purpose greater than most. It wasn't an old myth, a lie, a legend. It was true.

Grimly's malicious plan coalesced in Sariah's mind, grander than she ever imagined, unholy, maleficent, sickening, not just the what, but the why and the how. How could she?

Another jolt of excruciating pain shook Sariah's fortitude. The sisters increased the quickening's violence. They had found the weaknesses that inevitably developed in the protective weave when Sariah's attention shifted to the wising. Sariah scrambled. She had to finish wising the prism.

“It's not working,” Telana said. “We've got to try the other way.”

“But I don't like that other way,” Belana bleated.

“And you like the mistress's wrath better?”

“All right.” Telana jabbed the stone prism in Sariah's navel, but Belana's hands migrated elsewhere. “I'm sorry, little sister.”

Sariah hissed. It was only a knuckle, two at the most, but the intrusive presence of Belana's forefinger in her body shocked her. The prism came alight. The jolt struck, doubled with power, skillfully routed from opposite directions to convene at Sariah's center. Her womb convulsed in agonizing contractions. She went into a shuddering rigor.

The jolts flamed through her like fire arrows. She couldn't hold the wising. She had to drop the trance. With every blow, Sariah had to yield bodily control to keep up the shreds that remained of the protective weave. Her mouth dribbled. Her bladder spurted. Even her nipples trickled clear colostrum tears. She was hanging on by a bare string of will that threatened to snap at any time.

We're here
, the message arrived with the pain.
We're near.

Shock. Elation. Agony. She couldn't think beyond the pain. Mia had heard her. She felt a renewed sense of strength. The child was fighting too, rolling and kicking in her womb, throwing up waves of surprisingly effective protection. Sariah waited for a lull in the sisters’ assault and managed to issue a rush of hope to travel on the wings of her affection.
Holding on. Together.

“I haven't seen such great strength in a wiserling before,” Telana said.

Belana agreed. “It's got secrets from us.”

Sariah found the wherewithal to be proud of Mia, of her baby.

She couldn't help but feel that affection was flowing into her as well, that like her blood, it circulated through her child and returned to her enhanced by their unique bond.

A clear sense of warning rattled her mind right before her eardrums popped. There was a surge in her womb. A bolt of stone power recoiled from within her and struck back. Light burst from the prism, blasting the sisters. The last thing she remembered was her belly, alight with ethereal brightness, and the outline of the tiny bones she glimpsed there.

Thirty-eight

 

S
ARIAH TRIED TO
ignore the grunts echoing in the chamber. A new wraith of a girl had arrived yesterday and had been put into the breeding stall. Her maddened suitor had gone at her like a stag in rut. She had been loud at first, but now it was just her occasional whimpers and his snorts breaking the hall's silence.

But not even the brutality of her last wising was enough to dampen Sariah's excitement. Mia had gotten her message. Somewhere over the keep's massive wall, Kael was near and pondering, she hoped, the half of the tale she had been able to wise. Would he understand?

It could have been a hallucination. Meliahs knew, she had been in bad shape by then. But she was fairly sure she had received a message, no, better, two. It had to be Mia. Lying there, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Celia's guard, Sariah twisted the bracelet around her wrist. She could swear that time had slowed to a trickle, yet the silvery haze was spreading faster than ever. Courage. Faith. Strength. She would need all of Meliahs’ sisters to succeed tonight.

She inhaled a calming breath. Everything had to be perfect. But the wait was hard to bear, and she couldn't keep her mind from drifting back to the amazing wising. The sages and Zeminaya. That stone. Incredible. She had been so close to finishing the job.

She worried about her child. Inasmuch as she tried to block and repair the damage, her belly was swelling bigger, her nipples had grown darker, and cobalt veins crisscrossed her breasts like an engrossment's scribbled lines. Was it nature, working its ways on her? Or were all the changes the quickenings’ untimely doings?

“He's come.” Lexia whispered from her cot next to Sariah. “After three nights’ waiting, he's here.”

Sariah squinted in the red-tinted darkness. The outline of a large figure leaned against the bars at the chamber's doors. A faint clanging came from the door. Celia rose from her cot.

“I'll signal when he's at his weakest,” she whispered, tiptoeing in the darkness.