Stonewiser (66 page)

“Did you lose the teacher's treasure?” Lexia asked. “Answer me, mistress. I belong to the Hall of Numbers. We have a right to know.”

“A right?” Lorian scoffed. “What has happened to the Guild when a ragtag wiser like you thinks you can question me?”

“Times have changed,” Lexia said. “We must all ad just.”

The chamber rallied behind her, including Lorian's own escort.

“I'm not incompetent,” Lorian said. “I didn't neglect the vaults. I've been a good First for my hall. When all the halls have scattered, the Hall of Numbers endures whole. Will no one see that? I didn't give the game to Grimly. She took it. It was there one day when we toured the vaults together. It wasn't there the next. I couldn't very well go to the hall and announce that our treasure had disappeared, but I couldn't accuse the Prime Hand either. So I did the next best thing. I started looking for it.”

And for her, Sariah realized. Lorian would have gone after Sariah, because she suspected Grimly wanted Sariah to find the teacher's treasure. It made sense. Grimly had stolen Leandro's game, Eneis's carved druses, from the Hall of Numbers and put it into play precisely because she wanted the stone reunited. Sariah had been Grimly's tool all along.

Beware of he who plays the stone and not the game,
the old crone in Alabara had said.
His tales are your demise.
A caught Domainer roamer would have been easy to turn for someone as cunning as Grimly. It was all becoming clear. Grimly's scam. Arron's catch.

She met Kael's eyes. He had figured it out as well. Grimly had turned the Domainer roamer Leandro and forced him to take Eneis's game into the Domain to bait Sariah. The ordeal caused Leandro to go mad, but still, he put the tale out there and Sariah followed it dutifully. Arron must have discovered Grimly's plan, at least in part. He knew enough to track Leandro. So he sent his Shield into the Domain to find Leandro, and once found, held him prisoner as evidence of Grimly's plot.

“Ilian took you to see Leandro,” Sariah said. “Uma and Olden went with you. But Leandro is completely mad now, and you weren't convinced.”

“And now, after playing all your games, you want to rule the keep?” Lexia was unable to conceal her contempt. “I don't think so, mistress. There's no vote that will ever elect you.”

A murmur of agreement rose from the stonewisers in the hall.

It struck Sariah hard how quickly allegiances changed in the keep, how fast Uma, Lorian and even Lexia had positioned themselves for a quick ascent to power. It must have struck Lorian even harder, because her head hung low on her stringy neck.

Sariah had succeeded at splitting Vargas's proverbial timber, but so far she had only managed to speed destruction's crafty ways. She was keenly aware of the time. The numbness was advancing up her wrist. The little she had gained could be lost in a moment's balance.

On the other hand, what would happen to the Goodlands if the Guild crumbled? What would happen to a leaderless Guild? How could she favor the Domain over the Goodlands or over the land beyond the Bastions without a trace of remorse? Could she just let the Guild die?

In that instant, she had the wherewithal to wonder if the seal was influencing her thinking, propelling her to protect the lives and livelihoods of stonewisers across the centuries. She supposed anything was possible when considering Zeminaya and the sages. But she was different from them, and seal or not, her thoughts and emotions were clear. The Blood could only thrive in unity.

She might have been sealed with someone else's legacy, but looking at her fellow stonewisers’ expectant faces, she realized that she had her own legacy to impart. She believed in the power of a united people—Domainers, Hounds, Goodlanders, stonewisers—to defeat the rot, restore the land and return to Meliahs’ ways, labor and sweat. She had been elected by her fellow stonewisers. Elected. That was no intrusion trick, no sages’ meddling.

She made up her mind. She took the wrinkled parchment out of her pocket and held it up with her left hand, because her right hand wasn't working anymore.

“Do you know what this is?”

No one spoke. There was no room for long explanations or lengthy discourse. She had to do this now and move on, or risk forsaking everything she had pledged to protect, everything she cared about.

“This is an old-fashioned document. It was addressed to the Council, yet I have a copy of it, and others, apparently many people, have copies of it as well. I wonder—is there a person in this hall who hasn't read it yet?”

Nobody met her gaze. She unfolded the parchment and read it aloud.

“I, Sariah, free stonewiser of the one Blood, formerly of the Guild's Hall of Scribes’ sixty-sixth folio, hereby swear and affirm that I have wised the seven twin stones before credible witnesses and that the tales confirmed that we are all of the one Blood. It is a discovery which frees all of us to reconcile, to stop the bloodshed, to build a new tale together; for what is the call of the stones if not justice for all?”

Absolute silence met her reading, until at last Lexia cleared her throat and broke the chamber's tense stillness. “Anybody who had access to the Council could have copied that document.”

“Are you saying that you know who copied it?” Sariah asked.

“I've been in the Mating Hall for five years,” Lexia said. “I couldn't have.”

“Yet you knew of it.”

“No—”

“When we first met you told me you had hope until they caught me. Perhaps your hope came from reading this?”

“My hope came from word of mouth, rumor.”

“As you once said to me, information was hard to come by at the Mating Hall.”

“The goddess spare me, Sariah. I'm your friend. You don't think I could have written all those copies, do you?”

“I'm trying to make a point. Somebody capable of commanding hundreds of copies thought of it. The head of a hall, perhaps?”

Uma started. “But that would be—”

“Treason?” Sariah smiled. “Aye.”

“Do you know what could happen to a treasonous hall?” Lorian said. “It could be disbanded, scattered, ruled out of existence.”

“Yet someone thought the message in this document was important enough to run such risks.”

“How does this have anything to do with who rules the keep next?” Uma asked.

Why were they so obtuse?

“The person who copied and released this document wasn't working with Grimly or Arron,” Sariah said. “It makes both Grimly and Arron look like divisive warmongers. To ensure that the parchment would survive the rot, many copies were made. To make sure the message reached everybody, including people who were not stonewisers, parchment was used instead of stone. The person who commanded those copies was willing to risk status, position and hall. Whoever did this wanted to put a stop to the bloodshed and had the Guild's best interest at heart. Sometimes treason is not a choice. It's a responsibility.”

Uma didn't hesitate. “I must confess. It was I who commanded those copies.”

Someone cried out from the benches, “For all anyone knows, I commanded them.”

Lorian's pronounced Adam's apple bobbed up and down her throat. “It can't be.”

Lexia snapped. “We're back where we began.”

“Not quite,” Sariah said. “Lorian, will you care to explain?”

An uncertain hush fell over the hall. Sariah could almost hear the wheels of Uma's mind creaking as she tried to come up with a credible tale, but it was Lorian who spoke up first.

“It was a fair exchange,” she said.

“Go on.” Sariah's forearm was completely numb. “Quickly now.”

“I heard through my…”

“Spies?” Sariah offered.

“Helpers.” Lorian gulped. “I heard through my helpers that the mistress had received a stone from you. It was addressed to the Council, you understand. We had a right to know what it said. Mistress Grimly had stolen my treasure, so I stole the stone from her desk, copied it and put it back. I knew the sorry state of affairs. Your stone message wasn't going to be addressed by the Council. Arron and Grimly were warring. I had to find another way.”

“Oh no, not her,” Lexia said. “How can you know she tells the truth after so many lies?”

“Proof, yes,” Sariah said. “The bane of our time. I can call on some of that. It's the ink, you see. The Hall of Scribes favors spider webs for thickening. The Hall of Epics likes sparkling sand. The Hall of Numbers prefers a composition of heavy lead mixed with water soluble gum which comes from the sap of the Domain's enduring wood, the bulbous tupelo. It has a very dark reddish tint and a particularly fragrant and distinctive smell, sweet but citrus-like.”

Sariah waved the parchment before Kael's nose.

He inhaled. “Very nice. Lemons, I think.”

“All this time,” Lorian said. “You knew?”

“I suspected it when I saw the first copy, but now, it all makes sense. You sent your Hall of Numbers’ agent to the Domain's forester. It was easy to combine his two tasks, masking one with the other. Let's not pretend we're all appalled at the thought of a Guild hall doing business with the Domain. We all know it happens. As usual, your agent went to the forester to trade for the gum the Hall of Numbers uses to make its ink. While there, he persuaded the forester to set a trap for me.”

“The forester set a trap for you?” It was Kael and he wasn't pleased.

Oooops. Sariah went on. “Lorian's agent pretended to come from Grimly in order to conceal her identity and protect the Hall of Numbers. She was looking for me, just like Arron and Grimly.”

“Should I have abandoned the Guild to succumb to Grimly and Arron's ambitions?” Lorian said.

Sariah considered the woman before her with new eyes. In a time of greed, a little loyalty couldn't be harmful. Sariah didn't like Lorian, but all she knew about the woman suggested she cared about the Guild, at least enough to refuse both Arron and Grimly. During these troubled times, Lorian had chosen to stay at the keep. She had tried to keep the rot's appearance a secret to protect the Guild. She had risked her neck and her hall to copy and distribute the call. Considering the circumstances, those were no small feats.

But Lexia was nowhere near as forgiving. “Lorian isn't fit to rule. She lost the teacher's treasure. She conspired with traitors. She must be expelled from the hall.”

A murmur of approval suggested Lexia had won over Lorian's followers. Given the mess at the keep, change had become attractive to these weary stonewisers. Sariah couldn't blame them. They would be much more willing to support the woman who had busted out of the Mating Hall and challenged Lorian, than the mistress who had led them for twenty years. But the choice wasn't theirs. Not yet. It was hers. And it needed to be made swiftly.

The burden pained Sariah. She thought of Lexia's long stay at the Mating Hall, of her own time in the horrible place, of the friendship Lexia had offered, of the comfort she had taken in that friendship. She remembered how Lexia had cared for her through her recent sickness, how she had defended Sariah when she couldn't find her own voice. Then she steeled herself for what she had to do even though she didn't like it. It was a day of truth, a day to tackle all lies.

“Is a lie always a betrayal?” she asked.

“Of course it is,” Lexia said. “What else could it be?”

“A way out.”

Lexia was suddenly subdued. Fear glowered in her stare, but tears dampened her eyes as well. She realized that Sariah knew.

How? her eyes asked silently.

A memory of the words that Grimly had said the day Violet died flashed in Sariah's mind.
The gall of the wench, to tell the mistress you were turning wising tricks in her pen.
Lexia had used the same exact words offhandedly just a few days ago. How did she know something Sariah had never told anyone?

Sariah was sure that Lexia had seen the parchment before, not just because she could spy the truth in the other woman's eyes, but because Grimly had likely showed it to Lexia when recruiting the woman to assist her. Grimly, who never left anything to chance, had handpicked Lexia to escort Sariah to the pen, to befriend her, to watch her. Sariah should have seen it all before, but she had been too sick to put it all together. It was strange. Sariah didn't doubt Lexia liked her. But it didn't change the facts. It wasn't Violet who had told Grimly about Sariah's plans. It was Lexia.

“Sariah, I—”

“Don't say anything, Lexia.”

“But—”

“Don't fret. We both know it can't be you. Not yet.”

“You won't—?”

“No, Lexia. I won't.”

“But why not?”

She wiped a tear from Lexia's cheek and whispered. “To save my baby's life, I might have done the same.”

Time to end it. Sariah turned to face the stonewisers before her. She knew their anguish, the conflict between blind obedience to the Guild and loyalty to the self, the struggle between service to the stones and compassion for others. Need it always be so?

“She who issued the call of the stone should be the first to follow it,” Sariah said. “I appoint you to the task.”

Lorian jerked. “Me?”

“You had the right idea. But remember, Lorian, it's the stonewisers who make the Guild, not the other way around. You'll do fine if you learn to care for your stonewisers as well as you care for the Guild. If we can all learn to care for each other as much as we care for the stones, we'll be all right. Do you think you can do that?”