Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

“I can’t make him, Toca, it’s only what I saw.” What did the child think, what interpretation had he found in that six-year-old mind for the ability they had? “It’s only what I saw, not what I can make it be.”

The little boy looked unbelieving. “I can,” he said, almost sullenly.

“You can what? What can you do?”

“I can . . .” The little boy stared at him hard. “I could make him come here, if I’ d seen him!”

“What do you mean? That you can make animals do things? Like what?”

“I can—I can make Dess kick Nida,” the little boy said slowly.

“Why not make Nida kick Dess?”

“It’s easier the other way. Nida doesn’t like to kick.”

“Show me.”

Toca turned toward the two donkeys and became very still. Nothing happened for a long time. He remained motionless; then all at once Dess turned, lay back her ears, and let fly so hard that poor Nida dodged only just in time.

They all stared at Toca. No one said anything. Toca looked back at them with quiet superiority. At last Thorn said, “Can you do that whenever you want? Any time?”

“Only—only since we ran away, more. It used to only work sometimes.”

“What else can you do?”

“Just with animals, mostly. I can make birds come to me.”

“It’s as if,” Thorn said to Zephy later, “as if your very escape from Burgdeeth has in some way made each of you stronger. Or maybe it’s our all being together, maybe each of us draws strength from the others.”

When they left the little valley, it was to travel slowly, Tra. Hoppa insisting Thorn ride when he wanted to be walking. Though as much as he growled at being treated like an invalid, his respites on Dess’s back were welcome enough, for his leg still throbbed when he used it much. Zephy had cleaned Nida’s saddle so it smelled better and mended the rent in the skirt so the straw had stopped coming out, using Thorn’s knife for a punch, and twine unravelled from their rope. But after a day of the sharp-cornered saddle. Thorn put it back on Nida to carry pack as it was intended, and rode the cantankerous Dess bareback. He would ride behind, watching Toca and Bibb wedged atop Nida’s pack, and watching Zephy’s dark brown hair, sleek as a river otter, where she walked beside him. The flush on her cheeks and the brightness in her dark eyes seemed to have increased since their journey began. He put it down to her sudden freedom, away from the stifling influences of Burgdeeth.

Each day he was able to walk longer distances, but still their progress was slower than he liked. For one thing, they must stop early in the day, whenever they could find a resting place, for they were travelling along a steep, dizzying drop, and often there was no wide, safe bit to be seen for many hours. The mountain was blanketed with fog much of the time, so their way was more uncertain still. The drop looked less alarming hidden so, but in reality was the more dangerous. When the fog lifted briefly one day, they could see Kubal spread out just ahead, for they were now crossing above the low hills that separated Kubal from Cloffi.

Their food was growing short, though Elodia was clever at finding morliespongs, and twice Toca had called down the fat otero so that Thorn could snare them. There had been wild scallions and tammi where the mountain was gentler; but on the precipitous parts, little grew. One night they slept head to toe in a thin line on the narrow path with the donkeys tied up short and the rock dropping away sheer and terrifying just feet from their blankets. They tied the baby to a stone outcropping to keep him safe.

Zephy slept, that night—if I slept at all, she thought afterward—very conscious of their frailty there on the edge of the cliff. And conscious, too, of Thorn’s closeness. She felt the warmth and protection of his thoughts surrounding her, touched an assurance in him that seemed to be sharper because of their danger.

The next day the path began to drop, to make its way lower along the mountain; they were descending toward the banks of the River Urobb.

The fog was only a mist when they reached the river’s edge, and dusk was coming on. They came around a sharp curve so that the river was before them quite suddenly; and Zephy caught her breath and stopped to stare. It was exactly like her dream.

The river fell foaming between black rocks to swirl in pools, then fall again. The boulders that formed the pools were nearly white, smooth-washed. And along the river’s edge ran a path of pale stone, smooth, disappearing above in the mists.

It was her dream; it spoke to her so she trembled. No one said anything. Thorn looked at her and felt a tightening of his throat as if something he feared, or longed for, lay up that mountain.

At the sight of the river, Toca flung off his clothes and raced in, paddling about as happy as a river-owl. They were all in need of a bath, and Thorn had pulled off his bandage and his boots and was about to take off the rest when Tra. Hoppa and the girls hastily departed up-river.

When they had bathed they made a small fire to cook supper, its smoke quickly lost in the fog, and the flame hidden by stones so it could not be seen from any distance. They were now almost halfway to the River Voda-Cul and the border of Carriol. And they were, all of them felt it, close to a place of meaning, perhaps coming closer to where the Children were held. For they were above Kubal now; and they were, in some way, attuned with the darkness that beckoned. Elodia felt it; she was so quiet, as if she reached out again and again in her mind toward that darkness, touching, probing. But all of them felt a lightness, too, a lightness about this place that had nothing to do with the dark—that was the opposite of the dark—as if two forces met here.

When Zephy went to sleep, with her head cradled next to Elodia she dreamed of Meatha in the fog; and the dream was so real she could well have been awake, standing by the fog-shrouded river, then moving up the pale stone path.

EIGHTEEN

It was a dream that was not a dream. Afterward Zephy could not say whether it had been a vision, or whether she had been fully awake. And if what she saw was true, then somewhere in Ere, Meatha was surely alive.

In her dream she had risen and slipped out from under the blanket shelter and was standing on the bank of the river in the fog. She felt a sense of movement without effort that was dreamlike, and the fog swirled like water around her as she began to walk forward up the smooth path.

When the fog thinned, she could see that the sun was shining; and soon it became so bright she could hardly look. Then through the glare the dark shapes of mountains began to appear close around her. And she was approaching a rough spire, a monolith. It rose pale against the dark mountain; and as she drew near, she knew it was the death stone.

Meatha was there, tied to its base. She was dressed in smeared rags. Clytey was being led forward by red-robed Deacons. As Clytey was being bound, Zephy tried to go to Meatha, to speak to her; but she could not. She was held unmoving by something—as if she were not real there, as if she were on another plane.

The Deacons were saying a prayer over the captives, performing some last ritual unknown in Burgdeeth. They appeared to be genuflecting to each other rather than to the sacred valley of Eresu that she knew lay in the mountains above. They turned at last and, leading the two donkeys, started down the path toward Burgdeeth. They passed so close to Zephy she should have been brushed aside, but they did not see her. She saw Nida’s saddle on Dess, the straw sticking out, and both donkeys smeared with dung and blood. Then the vision was gone, the air shimmering and the mountain and death stone indistinct—all was clear again and it was late evening, the light soft and welcoming. Meatha and Clytey were still tied, looked exhausted as they slumped against the cutting bonds.