Stonewiser (33 page)

Twenty-five

 

T
HE NIGHT WAS
cold and Sariah was warm tucked beneath the blankets, but as inviting as the bed was, it felt vast and lonely without Kael. Sleep eluded her. She was uneasy. She draped a blanket over her shoulders and tiptoed out the hallway to the room next door where Mia shared a bed with Mara's granddaughters. The Panadanians were on guard duty tonight, but Delis, sleeping on a pallet at the foot of the bed, woke up, hatchet in hand. Sariah gestured for Delis to go back to sleep. She only needed a glance at Mia's peaceful face to know she was fine.

It was frustrating. She hadn't been able to call the beam and though she had found the source of the strange connection between Mia and her, she was at a stalemate. She hadn't figured out how to break the dangerous link or if there was a way in which they could ascertain control over it. The location of Mia's seal made any attempts at removing it dangerous and ultimately useless. A wiser's source was precious and untouchable. Tampering with the delicate core was akin to wrenching a beating heart from the flesh. It was now up to Malord and his methodical but slow tests.

Perhaps Malord was awake too. Maybe they could narrow down the scope of his approach. She found his door open and his bed deserted. She figured he would be downstairs in the kitchen, heating the oil he used to massage his maimed limbs. How wonderful that after many years of phantom aches, Mia had been able to alleviate some of Malord's chronic pain. Her stomach grumbled. Perhaps she could also find a taste of something sweet in Mara's pantry.

She heard the hushed voices before she reached the bottom of the stairs. She peeked into the parlor. Mara sat by the fireplace talking with Malord, who reclined next to her in a comfortable chair. She had never seen Malord like that, sitting like a whole man in a cushioned chair, conversing amicably with someone his age. His swarthy features looked softer when relaxed, and a shy smile Sariah had seldom seen flashed on his face at regular intervals.

“You think you're done,” Mara was saying, “finished with the duties of raising a family and making a living, old, battered and decrepit. Then life puts you in play again, and you've got to find some spark to get the old hide moving.”

Malord took a sip from his cup. “You wonder why you live when the ones who should be living are dead.”

“You had a family once?” Mara asked. “A wife? A child?”

“I don't think of it often. It's like my legs. What use do I have for that which I no longer have?”

Sariah was stunned. She had spent long hours working with Malord, learning from him, traveling with him. Yet she had never truly known him, the person who had once had a wife and child and a pair of sound legs, the friend who had lost so much and yet continued on regardless.

“I know what you mean,” Mara said. “You resent it must be you who fights the day again, yet part of you is selfishly thankful to have a reason to live.”

There was a strained pause and then they both burst into quiet, hysterical laughter, a young sound which had nothing to do with their bodies or their age, a peaceful, contagious hilarity.

“And you, you had a good man?”

“What a question you ask. Is there such a thing? He was good sometimes and very bad too. I hated him most of the time, but I must have liked him well enough some nights, 'cause I bore his children and now care for his grandchildren. He was mine, that's what I remember most, and now he's gone.”

“Do you miss him?”

“Like you miss your legs, I suppose.”

They were looking at each other, giggling like naughty children. Sariah had to wonder what was in those cups they held. She surprised herself wishing for a taste.

Mara lifted her cup in the air. “To your wife, to your child, to your legs.”

“To your man.” Malord touched his cup to hers. “However fair or not he was.”

They sipped their drinks in comfortable silence. Mara reached for Malord's calloused hand. He hesitated, then plaited his long fingers through her short stubby ones, tracing the thickened veins that ran between the dark spots on her hands. Mara's smile creased the skin around her mouth and eyes into radiant clusters.

Sariah retraced her steps in complete silence and returned to her bed to consider the many choices she needed to make, alone, because Malord and Mara deserved the rarity of the uninterrupted moment.

The Shield arrived in the morning.

After a sleepless night and a long deliberation, Sariah had just begun to tell Mara and Malord about her plan when Delis burst into the kitchen, followed by Ginia, Rig and Mia.

“A regular patrol,” Rig panted. “We were standing guard by the river when I saw them go over the hill and take the turn to the Siguird Farm.”

Sariah whirled on Mia. “I told you to stay close by the house. What were you doing by the river?”

“Auntie, please.”

“I was keeping watch on the roof when I spotted a cloud of dust,” Delis said. “It has to be those beasts they like to ride. Then I saw these three running as if the belch was after them.”

“They'll be here in an hour,” Rig said. “Half an hour, if the widow tells them about us.”

“She most surely will,” Mara said.

“She'll tell them about the strange stonewiser who came to her house,” Malord said. “Once Arron learns of it, he'll come for you like an eel lusting for blood.”

“What are we going to do?” Panic rattled Ginia's voice.

The blood in Sariah's veins turned cool as fresh water. “We'll do what we have to do. Delis, get our gear, wipe all traces of our presence here.”

“Yes, my donnis.”

“Ginia, watch the road. Rig, go tell the others to hide Mara's chill supplies. Make sure that even if they look, the Shield won't find them.”

Ginia took her place by the window. Rig darted out the door with Mia at his heels. Sariah propped her foot on the stool by the table and began to tighten her boot laces with quick tugs.

“Are you leaving?” Mara asked.

Sariah had known Mara for less than a day. Other than witnessing the woman's fortitude when facing the Shield, and her generosity afterward, she really didn't know Mara. She had made a decision based on dire need. She prayed her sense of the woman was right.

“If the Shield finds me here when they arrive, we'll all die,” Sariah said. “I don't want to leave, but I must. What do you say, Mara? Are you willing?”

“You want me to take these Panadanian youngsters into my employment and grant them room and board in exchange for labor?”

“If you employ them on your farm, they'll be well protected under your right of autonomy. The Shield can't eject them from your land, or massacre them at random. And you have the room. Targamon tenants’ houses sit empty.”

Sariah finished knotting her laces and looked up. A very stern-faced Mara stood over her, clutching a massive kitchen knife. Sariah couldn't breathe. Had she misjudged the woman's character that badly?

“Cut yourself a wedge.” Mara dropped the knife on the table, followed by a wheel of cheese. She handed Malord an old sack and threw open the cupboard's doors. She pulled out some biscuits and handed them to Malord, who packed them swiftly. Sariah breathed again.

“What am I supposed to tell the Shield when they come?” Mara asked.

“Allow the Shield to search your house and barns. Give them no reason to hurt you. Tell them that you took in the youngsters cheaply after I drove them out of the Siguird Farm.”

“But I have barely enough food to feed three for the chill. How will I feed all of them?”

The cheese was hard. The time was short. But Mara needed answers and Sariah needed Mara. “When Kael returns, he'll have coin and credit. He'll give you both. Purchase what you need to pass the chill and some seed for the new planting. Teach the Domainers to grow grain. What say you, Ginia?”

From her post at the kitchen window, Ginia's eyes didn't waver from the road. “We can do this. You'll find us to be hard workers. You won't regret this day.”

“You forget a small detail.” Mara grabbed a sausage from the rafters. “The rot. The farm's dead.”

“About that,” Sariah said. “You have a bit of rot in the back-fields, but it can be contained. These young ones can do the work necessary to stop the rot from overtaking Targamon Farm.”

Mara halted in the middle of the kitchen. “When were you going to tell me this?”

“I wasn't going to tell you at all.”

“Why tell me now?”

“It's complicated.”

“I see.” Mara hacked the sausage in two and dropped a half in the sack. “Do these children know how to fight the rot?”

“Not yet. But Kael will teach them. He's the best land-healer in the Domain. When he's done, you'll have laborers for the farm and rot fighters at Targamon.”

“Your man won't stay in Targamon if you're gone.”

“She has a point,” Malord said.

“He won't be pleased, but if I give you my stonewiser's oath, he'll honor it. He'll train the Panadanians and they in turn can train any other Domainers who come your way in both rot fighting and crop growing. With so many Domainers about, you can revive Targamon and make it as large of an enterprise as you wish.”

“What will you do?” Mara asked.

“I'll make for the mountains and set Leandro's game in three nights. The mountains aren't so far away, so Mia will be able to stand the distance. I'll leave her with you, so she can help Kael find me.”

Mara grabbed the funnel and put it to the ale barrel, refilling Sariah's skin. “I wouldn't want to be the one who tells him that.”

“You won't be.” Sariah's eyes fell on Malord.

“You're leaving me behind? Again?”

“Not exactly, not behind. I'm leaving you here so you can help Mara fight the rot and offer good counsel to the Domainer refugees who come through these parts.”

“But—”

“Hear me out, Malord. We're running out of time. The wall's broken. Nothing can stem the flood of change coming. The best we can do is to try to route it as we can. Mara will need you here, at least for a time, to wise the stones that will contain the rot and to help her direct the flow of Domainers coming into the Goodlands. And I need you to help Mia through those tests we talked about. She's bright. If you teach her, she'll know what to do.”

“But you need me too.”

“I do. Very much. To help start the legacy. Not in the future. Not when we find the tale. Right now.”

“There.” Mara knotted the sack. “That should last you for a few days. I might be able to hide Mia among the Panadanian youngsters, but how will I hide Malord?”

“That's easy,” Malord said. “I'll pretend to be a cripple. It works well. Nobody expects wisdom or wits from a disabled old man. I'll put on a blindfold to hide my mismatched eyes. We'll pretend I'm your kin, maimed and blind from a farm accident.”

“We're ready.” Delis stood by the kitchen door with their packed bags. “The Shield will find no trace of you here.”

“I know I ask a lot,” Sariah said. “You have a choice, Mara.”

“And turn you in to the Shield? Get all those youngsters killed? You didn't walk by us when we needed your help. I won't walk by you either.” Mara took the wrinkled parchment out of her pocket and laid it on the table. “Targamon Farm lives when it was dead. Let it be the beginning of this legacy you talk about.”

Sariah cringed. “Burn that. The Shield will kill you for less.”

“I'll burn the parchment, but I won't forget it,” Mara said. “Let it be known that Targamon was first to come when the stones called.”

Twenty-six

 

T
HE ESCAPE FROM
Targamon Farm didn't go exactly as planned. By the end of the third day, when she was supposed to call the beam, the Shield was too close on Sariah's heels. Shielded warriors flooded the forest like ants fleeing ahead of a fire. Sariah could barely keep up with Delis's unrelenting pace. She hadn't had much sleep, and the constant running was sapping her strength. They burst into a small clearing. She tripped on the roots of a massive tree and stumbled against the trunk, gasping for breath.

They heard the warriors before they saw them. The clang of shields and the march of booted feet came from all directions, converging on the clearing. The sound of men and horses crashing through the brush alerted Sariah to their considerable numbers.