Melting Stones (Circle Reforged) Read online

  Luvo slowed behind me, then stopped. Do not go further. I will not stay with you. There is no good to be found down there.

  My soul was on fire. Luvo, where’s your spirit of adventure? The heart of the earth is here!

  Finally the crack was starting to open up. Power and heat filled it, welcoming me. I dropped into it, grabbing all the magical protection I could wrap around myself. I screamed with victory over the treasure of power I had found. No wonder I had been restless and half-mad, with an abundance like this close by! It was a miracle I didn’t split in two. Those first minutes of bathing in that wealth exploded in me. If I hadn’t protected myself on the way down, it might have eaten me like a chip of wood.

  Floating there, the part of me that still had sense knew I was in danger. It found a mess of spells I had made once to soften, then harden, rock to trap an enemy. I used the spells now, with some changes. I grabbed power, not stone, and turned it into a tough shell of protection around what I already had.

  Then I drifted, my magical eyes taking in my surroundings. I had come to the ceiling of an immense chamber under Starns Island. Below me was a huge pool filled with melted stone. Minerals, metals…they all swirled together in different colors of hot. The chamber squeezed them together in a stone vessel that melted even while it kept them underground. The moving colors enchanted me, calling to me. I thought I saw faces in them and hands. They beckoned me to join the fiery spirits that swam in that pool. I could feel myself melting around the edges. What would it be like down there? Maybe it would be like joining one huge lake of melted stone and magic, with no beginning, and no ending.

  I thought I would like that.

  8

  Flare and Carnelian

  I was starting to sink down through the air toward the pool when two shapes rushed out of the stone-melt. They grabbed my protection-sphere, hauling me back up to the crack I had just left.

  Hello, hello, look at you! one of them cried, twirling around me.

  You’re new, you’re not old, you’re not cold and dead, who are you? the other demanded, twirling the other way.

  You’re sparkly and you came from the cold place above, said the first. How did you get in? Show us! Take us out of here!

  They danced me around like two kids who had found a new playmate. Then they wrapped their hot, snakey bodies around my shell. Now I was really glad for my protections. Even with three layers of magic around me, these two kids felt hot. Quickly I dragged more strength from the melted rock below. I put it into my layers to keep from being eaten. My magical body was all ideas and power, controlled by my mind, but I was certain that if my magical self burned to ashes, my real body would die, too.

  Who are you? I asked. Where did you come from? Are you mages? What are your names?

  What are mages? The one who felt more like a boy slowed down. He trailed a shock of sparks and flame from his top end, like a flare. To keep them straight, I decided to call him that. We came from below to here, Flare said. Now we want to go up. We must go up.

  Can’t you feel it? The other one had a prettier voice, more like a girl’s. Her core fire was a darker, cooler orange, like carnelian. I thought it would make a good name for her. How important it is to go up, and out?

  Slowly, though they kept spinning me around, they were changing. When they’d first grabbed me they were like a pair of comets, gripping me with long, molten stone tails. Now they were shifting, their bodies getting shorter. The tails became two legs; arms split off from the trunk. The ends at their heads settled into their bodies until they had formed necks. Were they copying the shape of my magical body? I had always liked to appear human, maybe so I wouldn’t forget.

  Once they had simple bodies, they changed even more. Flare was sapphire blue, still with his trailing flame of hair. He had black-rimmed eyeholes around flame eyes. Carnelian had turned her fiery hair black like mine. She made herself a nose and mouth, as well as eyes.

  What are you? I felt like an idiot for having to ask again. A real mage would know, it seemed to me. What are you doing here?

  We’re the children of the pool. Flare spun until he was a blur, then stopped and took his humanlike shape again. We were born there. We swim there, too, sometimes, but that isn’t all we are anymore.

  We want other things than just melting together now. We want to go out. Carnelian obviously thought I was quite slow. Don’t you? Don’t you have the pool where you come from? Aren’t you bored with the pool? Don’t you want to go somewhere new?

  Don’t you want to be someone new? Someone who isn’t always from the same places?! Flare spun against the roof of the chamber, melting a hollow spot there. Liquid stone dripped through my magical body, its power making me shiver.

  No. We don’t have anything like it. I looked down at the pool and felt the tug of it again. What would it be like to give up my edges completely? To melt and join all those other spirits? I could be stone forever. Why did these two want to leave that?

  I came to myself and looked at Flare and Carnelian. I have never met anyone like you in all my travels through the earth.

  You mean the cold stuff? You travel in that? Who do you meet, then? Flare asked.

  Stones. Crystals. Metals, I said. Both of them cocked their heads at me in just the same way. How could they not know what those things were? Then I realized that if they were spirits from magma, they might only have seen the walls around them. If they approached anything that was hard, it probably melted. When all of that—I took my hand from Carnelian so I could wave to the hot world below us—goes cold, it turns into those things. It stays in one place and never moves. Like the walls that keep us here.

  But those are just rock. They aren’t like us. They aren’t even like the others, the ones who are old and never want to do anything. Carnelian pointed to the lava pool.

  The others. Flare sounded impatient. Like us, only boring and sludgy. They’re everywhere. He pointed like Carnelian had.

  Now I could see that the pool was made up of thousands of spirits. They had the shapes that Flare and Carnelian had when they first came to me. Apart from that, the spirits were every size, fat and thin, tall and short. All of them watched me with faces that looked greedy and worried at the same time.

  They made me very, very uncomfortable. I asked, But aren’t you the same as the others? What makes you different? Why do you want to go out when they don’t?

  Flare laughed. Oh, they do. They just want someone to lead the way. We’re tired of waiting for someone to come along and lead us. We’re going out by ourselves.

  Come on! Carnelian dragged on my arm. Come with us. We have a wonderful game, it’s called Let’s Find a Way Out!

  They pulled me along the roof of the big hollow chamber, above the pool. Melted stone dripped through my magical body where Flare and Carnelian touched the roof. I felt the weight of the mountain overhead, pressing down. How many tons of stone, earth, and water lay on top of me right now?

  Look, up there, Flare cried, a crack in the walls!

  Flare towed me through it, thinning himself as he did. Carnelian swam in my wake: I could feel her heat through my magic. Flare and Carnelian were groaning. It was even harder for them to move in that stone split than it was for me. They were solid with their melted rock bodies, even if magic shaped the way they looked to my eyes. At least my magical body took up no more space than the width of my arm. That was only because I’d covered myself with hard protection spells.

  All around us the rock growled as they pushed it apart. At last it refused to budge any more. We didn’t get very far.

  Failure. Carnelian sounded heartbroken, like a little girl who had lost her favorite doll. Again.

  I sent a tendril of my power up through the crack. There was poisoned air on the stones above us. In two hundred feet or so I broke through into the open, above the ground. Suddenly I wondered: What happened to the trees there? Heat from my two new friends and air from the chamber would have come from that crack in the soil. I felt
no stones washed by water, so there was no stream to poison, or a pond, but…what about the grass, and the bushes?

  Let’s go here! Flare dragged me back into the big chamber. Carnelian caught up with us and leaped on Flare. They swirled around like kittens play-fighting for a moment. Then they grabbed me.

  I thanked every god I knew, from Yanjing to Emelan, for the protections I had put on myself. Without them, Flare and Carnelian’s white-hot touch might have made even my power burn. I can move on my own! I told them. They ignored me, towing me to another crack in the stone ceiling that might lead to a way out.

  Three cracks later, I was so very tired. If magic could bruise, I was bruised. I wanted to go to my body and face Rosethorn and Luvo. I wanted a chance to think about these two lava creatures. Floating high above a pool of lava, I tried to imagine asking Oswin if he could take in two new kids. Oh, I’d say, they’re a little hot–tempered, or a little hot at hand, or a little hot under the collar…

  Let’s try the top way, Carnelian announced. The way the Oldest said some break free. We go a little farther every time.

  But it’s hard. Flare whined like any human kid. It’s hard and we push and push and only get a little farther along and it hurts!

  But now we have Funny Spirit with us, and she can help, Carnelian said.

  My name isn’t Funny Spirit. It’s Evvy. I’ve been calling him Flare, and you Carnelian. If you have real names, you could tell them to me now. I suppose I wasn’t very polite, but I did feel bruised and weary.

  Names? We never had them in the pool. Everyone knows everyone else…Flare for you, and Carnelian for me. Names… Carnelian sounded awed.

  What’s Carnelian? Flare I understand, he said. I flare all the time. But Carnelian sounds funny.

  It’s the name of that darker color she likes, I explained. Since they didn’t seem to have a high opinion of stones, I wouldn’t say what a carnelian was. Where I come from, everyone doesn’t know everyone else, so we have names.

  My color. I like it because it’s nice and it has a gentle feel to it, said Carnelian. Not hard, like the brighter colors. And you are Evvy. What kind of name is that?

  It would take too long to explain, I told them.

  Who cares about explanations? She’s Evvy. You’re Carnelian. I’m Flare. Creatures from the cold world have names, so we will, too. We are going to leave the pool and become famous, even if we die.

  Then let’s try the hardest way…Flare. If there are three of us pushing, maybe we can break out this time, Carnelian suggested.

  I’m not sure I want us to break out… I spoke too late. The problem with these creatures seemed to be that they never ran out of strength. I suppose that made sense. They did live in a constant source of it. They grabbed my hands and raced straight up with me. The chamber rose to a high peak just off the center. The walls closed in slowly as we flew, higher and higher. We were in a cone-shaped area, with Flare and Carnelian bound straight for the cone’s narrow tip.

  The three of us rammed into it. I screamed, crushed. I knew they felt the same way, but they were pushing, grinding all three of us into that tip. I saw the tiniest of cracks ahead of me. They jammed us into it. Grain by grain the crack spread. With each grain that broke free, I was forced tighter into that opening. My pro tections against them creaked and shuddered. My concentration was breaking up. If I lost that, I would lose my hold on the spells. My magical body would evaporate.

  I panicked. I fought Carnelian and Flare, wrestling until I popped between them. I sped back to the huge chamber. There I flailed about until I saw the path back to my body. I flew up through earth, water, and stones. I scrambled to reach my meat body, my meat lungs, and cooler air. When I shot onto the basalt where my shell sat, my mind went black.

  Everything hurt. Everything. There were pins in my muscles. Big, rusty needles stabbed my joints. I tried to draw the coolness of the basalt into myself, to make the hurting stop. I drew nothing. My magic was as dead as ash. Playing with Flare and Carnelian had used it up.

  I tried to lift my head off the columns and was sorry I’d ever thought of it. My neck was one big ache. I opened my eyes. Those worked, thanks to the damp cloth on my face. I tried to lift my arm, to move the cloth. A new cramp the size of Mount Grace made it seize up.

  Jayat took the cloth away and put a lantern on the rock beside me. I was surprised—it was dark. Briskly he kneaded the cramping arm. “I’ve never seen a living dead person before.” He acted like that was a perfectly normal thing to say. “She said to come back with a coffin, because that’s how she’s going to ship you to Winding Circle. She was very convincing. Should I believe her?”

  I tried to nod, and cringed as my neck locked.

  Jayat massaged my shoulders, loosening knotted muscles. “You ought to be ashamed, scaring Master Luvo like this. He’s been curled up in a ball for hours right next to you. He’d tell me you were all right, just ‘traveling.’ Then he wouldn’t say another word for the longest time. The others came past here about mid-afternoon. She came over and checked your heartbeat and your breathing. Master Luvo talked to her and said you were well. Dedicate Initiate Myrrhtide was in fine fettle, now that you’re in disgrace. Oswin wanted to leave you some food, but Dedicate Initiate Rosethorn said to let you starve. When she went away, though, it turned out she left you these.” He held up a cloth with some cold dumplings in it.

  Lucky for me he knew the signs. Jayat rolled me on my side with my head hanging over the ground, not the boulders. I started to puke.

  That went on for a time, long after I had anything to bring up. Luvo came out of his ball. He walked up and down my cramping thigh, kneading out the bunched knots. When I finished vomiting, Jayat and Luvo worked on me until I could sit without screaming, then till I could stand. I rinsed my mouth with water, and kept from looking at the dumplings as Jayat ate them.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, saddling the horses. “Your whole body was as hard as a rock. You didn’t even move when I slapped you or jostled you. I waved stinkweed under your nose. Nory fainted a year ago. I used stinkweed on her and when she came around she punched me. She has a good punch, but then, her mother was a pirate queen. I guess she comes by it naturally. Master Luvo, do you eat anything? Can I give you some water, at least?”

  I turned facedown on the basalt to let Luvo walk up and down my back. His weight pressed my spine back into its proper shape, making the bones crackle. His feet worked my bunched-up muscles. They tired of clenching, and lay like they were supposed to again.

  “I would like to have a little water poured over me, thank you, Jayatin.” Luvo stepped down from my back.

  As Jayat fumbled with the stopper on his water skin, I whispered to Luvo, “You were afraid. I could feel you, very far back in my magic. You were afraid.”

  “Do you know where you were, Evumeimei? You were below. Not in the place where all rocks are melted down, but in a higher chamber to that place. I do not understand how so many spirits of molten stone have come so close to our world, but they should not be here. Their touch on our kind—yours and mine alike—is death.”

  “But Evvy’s still here. She’s alive.” Jayat carefully poured a trickle of water over Luvo. “Tell me when you’ve had enough.”

  “Thank you, Jayatin,” said Luvo. “I am not a creature of fancies, yet I cannot rid myself of the idea that my skin is hot and stretched. The water is very good, and also sufficient. Evumeimei went as a creature of magic. Because she is not from that world, she can shield herself. I cannot.”

  “It cost me.” I sat up again. My hair fell all around my face. I had to do something about it. The stuff was down to my waist and flopping everywhere since Jayat removed my headcloth. I tried to lift my arms to see if I could wrap the cloth, but my shoulders knotted with pain. That wasn’t going to work.

  “Had you been stone, it would not have cost you, Evumeimei. It would have killed you.”

  “Instead it milked every drop of magic I have.” I couldn�
��t even braid my hair.

  Jayat saw. “My master has arthritis. And I have little sisters. Now, shall you have a turban like Azaze Yopali, or a band and braids, or a wrap like your old one?”

  “Anything, as long as it’s out of my way.” I rested my face on my hands. Jayat wrapped my hair in my cloth, and coiled and tied it as I would do it. I said, “You didn’t have to stay here. You must have been frightfully bored.”

  “Tahar gave me spells to practice. I did that for a while. Then I gathered some mushrooms and herbs she’s been wanting. And there are garnets around here I can sell down in Sustree, for extra cash. Once you were back in your body, Master Luvo told me about where he’s from, and the things you have done since you met. Your friend Briar sounds like quite the fellow.”

  “He’s usually the first to tell you so, too.” I sat up and managed to plant my feet on the ground, which was a start. “Are we ever going to meet Master Tahar?”

  “Not if she has anything to say about it. Her attitude is that it’s bad enough the people who live here know who she is and bother her.” Jayat frowned, then said, “You know, Master Luvo could mean the source of the heat that feeds the hot springs.”

  “What?” Maybe the time underground had slowed my brain. I couldn’t understand what he was talking about.

  “There are hot springs on the far shore of the lake from Moharrin. People go there for curative baths, or to get warm when the winter’s really cold. My master says they draw their heat from deep within the earth. That’s probably what you found.” Jayat hung the lantern on a tree branch and looked at me. “Can you ride? I’m starting to get really cold, and you have to face her sometime. I can maybe smuggle you into Oswin’s house, or the barn behind the inn, if you’d rather face her tomorrow.”

  I lurched to my feet, hanging on to the rocks for balance. “No. If she has to wait to tell you what she thinks of you, she just gets worse. And she’s right to be angry. I don’t know what possessed me. It wasn’t ghosts.”