Evadeen Brickwood - The Speaking Stone of Caradoc

“You wait here,” the captain of the guards said roughly.

Had the dreaded moment arrived, were they taken to prison?

“Please tell us what you’ll do to us,” Katherine begged. “Citadel guards, athenai. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

No answer. The guards remained stone-faced. Chryséis panicked and lifted her hand to press the button on her aliceband.

“No Chryséis !”

She let her hand fall. The voice had sounded familiar. Trevor and Katherine were studying the ironwork of the door and nobody was speaking or even looking at her. So who had called out? Chryséis listened and understood.

“The Lady of Cydonia tells me not to do it,” Chryséis said in a low voice.

“Do what?” Trevor and Katherine stared at her.

“Not to turn invisible and flee.”

“How does she know you want to do that?”

“She read my thoughts.”

“Seriously?”

The guards gave Katherine reproachful looks and she lowered her voice.

“What else did she say, what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, I lost her. Maybe I’m too scared to keep the contact going.”

“Great!” Trevor hissed. “What are we gonna do now?”

In an answer to his question, the door opened with a loud creak into the Lady of Kamûk’s audience room. An elevated chair was mounted against the red wall opposite the door between two windows.

The Lady of Kamûk sat on the throne, looking sternly at them. It was clear that she sat in judgment of the three young travellers. Kheton had placed himself to her right, dressed in the formal tunic of a judge. His face was unsmiling and his arms folded across his chest over the embroidered red feather.

“Enter.”

The Lady was a stocky woman and much younger than her Cydonian counterpart, but she wore the same robe of authority. Her eyes were large and slanted in a startling hazel brown and her thick blonde hair was pulled back from her face in a high bun. There was no trace of the friendliness she had displayed the day before at dinner time.

Katherine could feel her heart pounding in her throat, doo dum, doo dum. The guard carrying the translucent white egg stepped forward, cradling the precious object in his large Gabari hands as if it was a raw egg. He put the stone egg into a metal holder on a table next to Kheton and retreated. They didn’t move.

“Enter,” the Lady said again. Her tone was impatient now.

“Oh, I wish that the Lady of Cydonia were here,” Katherine whispered before they were pushed through the door by the guards. The door closed behind them. The room was big enough to hold everybody, including some citadel officials in white robes, who joined the proceedings. They waited with bated breath.

“Young visitors from Cydonia,” the Lady of Kamûk addressed them formally without further ado. “You are accused of the crime of stealing and smuggling the ‘Speaking Stone of Caradoc’ to D’ântilla. Explain yourselves.”

The Lady’s words came flying at them like darts. They looked puzzled and Kheton repeated in simpler terms what the Lady of Kamûk had said.

“Oh, we don’t know, honourable Lady, we don’t know a…speaking stone,” Trevor stammered and saw that Lelani’s expression was anxious.

The Lady of Kamûk didn’t mince her words.

“Let me be more specific, then. Are you spying for the Highpriest of Shuruk?”

They had heard much of the evil Edfunian leader, of course. Katherine and Chryséis had even seen him with Túvar in the dungeon of Shuruk, but being accused of spying for the giant sorcerer, who had tried to abduct them at the Moti Market? Please!

“No, no of course not,” Chryséis flared up. “We would never do such a thing.”

“Then why did you smuggle this precious stone out of Alesia in your bag?” the Lady asked with pitiless urgency, pointing to the white egg.

Katherine suppressed a giggle. An egg made of stone, how comical! She concentrated hard on a carved flower in the window frame. Luckily the urge to giggle vanished. This was not the time or place to break out laughing.

“We didn’t, why would we?” she said.

“You tell me.”

Kheton had been observing them closely the entire time, no doubt reading their minds. It was his job, wasn’t it?

“Kheton, tell her that we didn’t do it,” Chryséis blurted out.

But before Kheton could say anything, the Lady of Kamûk lifted her hand. She listened for a few moments.

Katherine thought she would surely faint if this went on for much longer. Chryséis slipped her hand into Katherine’s and squeezed hard. Katherine started breathing again.

“I understand that you, young friend,” she addressed Trevor, “…fell into the harbour basin in Aztlan before your departure. Just as the harbour guards had located the suspected Gabari thieves.”

“Yes, Lady, I…fell into the…water,” he answered the question in broken Alesian. “I don’t know about…thieves.”

“Explain.”

Trevor was very pink in the face, feeling strangely guilty. What did his accident have to do with all this?

So Trevor explained how he had felt a push and toppled into the water as they waited with Lelani on the pier. That he had seen something big and black fluttering past just before. That everybody had been very helpful and he was lifted out of the harbour basin by their Gabari guard.

Trevor felt embarrassed all over again. Chryséis opened her mouth to try and help Trevor out, but Kheton lifted his hand and she closed her mouth without saying anything.

“So you tell us that someone in a black cape was nearby as this happened?”

Trevor thought about the question. “Yes, honourable Lady, I think so.” What was she getting at?

“Did you see a black spider tattoo?”

Chryséis and Katherine looked at each other. A spider tattoo like the one they had seen on the sorcerer’s forehead before? Did that mean that the Highpriest of Shuruk had been in Aztlan on the pier?

“No, I didn’t see anything else, really.”

“The stone hasn’t spoken yet,” the Lady said randomly. Perhaps she was discussing the situation with someone telepathically. She closed her eyes. Had she gone to sleep?

Katherine felt like giggling again. The stone hadn’t spoken yet? It was a STONE, hello!

Eventually the Lady opened her eyes again, but it was Kheton who spoke.

“We have concluded that you did not steal the Speaking Stone. You were merely used as couriers. We have our suspicions as to who the culprits are.”

Katherine looked triumphantly at Trevor and mouthed, “See!” pointing to her eye.

Lelani looked at her husband and closed her eyes with relief.

“We believe that you athenai were used by the thieves to hide the ‘Speaking Stone of Caradoc’ from the harbour guards. And you, young friend Trevór, were pushed into the water as a distraction. We believe that the Highpriest of Shuruk is behind the plot.”

The tension in the room lifted with a collective murmur. There was a perfectly good explanation for all this: it was the fault of the Edfunians. The children were innocent!

The Lady of Kamûk spoke with the captain of the guards and he left briskly with some of his men to carry out her order. Slowly the truth sank in.

“We won’t go to prison. We’re safe.”

“They must have spoken to the Lady of Cydonia. She came through for us!”

“That’s amazing!”

Oh thank you! Trevor thought intensely. He was not a klutz…and a thief. Did he hear the words ‘It’s a pleasure.’ in his mind?

“But what is a speaking stone and why did the Edfunians steal it?” Trevor couldn’t hold back any longer, “Why is it so important? Stones cannot speak!”

The Lady’s stern look softened. The foreign children were obviously ignorant. She gave orders to clear the room until only the children stood before her and Kheton. Then she nodded and Kheton enlightened them at last.