Stonefather

“Because if Demwor challenges me, I will betray you, do you understand? It’s the only way to keep him from thinking I did all this. So yes, I’ll tell him the truth about you — that you clearly didn’t know what you were doing, that it was an accident. But do you think they’ll care? A stonefather, here in Hetterferry, at the very base of the Mitherjut.”

“What will they do?” asked Runnel.

“What they do to stonemages: drown you, then burn your body to ash and stir it into the living water.”

“And you’d let them do that to me, just so you don’t lose your job?”

“Stupid boy, it’s not my job. It’s the only connection the stonefolk still have with the Mitherjut. Even if they don’t kill me, they’ll never let another stonemage into this whole valley. My only hope of keeping trust is to denounce you myself. Now get out of here, out of the house, out of the garden, onto the street, while I take apart the mess you’ve made down here.”

The “mess” was living stone, and it made Runnel sick at heart to think of it.

“I can’t go,” he said. “I can’t let you do it.”

“What?” demanded Lord Brickel.

“I can’t let you kill the stone.”

“And yet you will,” said Lord Brickel.

Brickel laid his hand on a stone and Runnel could feel what he was doing — feel the cracks growing where they had originally been, the stones separating. Dying.

And without even trying to, Runnel flowed the stone back together again.

“Tewstan!” whispered Brickel. “I said get out.”

“And leave the stones to die?”

“Stop being such a child,” said Lord Brickel. “These stones would gladly die, for the sake of the stonemages someday returning to Mitherjut. I’m not killing them, I’m helping them make their sacrifice. Now go, upstairs, out. We’ve talked for far too long.”

Runnel tried to make sense of it all. He could feel the death of the stones under Brickel’s hand; yet he could also understand that it might be necessary. Didn’t cobblefriends work with dead stone all the time? Weren’t streets cobbled with it? And didn’t those dead stones feel warm and good under Runnel’s feet? Dead wasn’t dead, not the way people died. A stone could be cut off, but it could then be put back and joined again to the living rock, and it would live again itself. He must let this happen.

I’m a stonefather. I must do what’s good for all the stone, the way the packfather in the story willingly died in his clantbody to save the pack.

He went to the stairs and climbed to the main floor. He owned nothing; there was nothing to take with him but the clothes he wore. And maybe a single obsidian knife from the kitchen.

Runnel walked quietly across the floor to the back door that led out to the kitchen. When he opened the door, Demwor was standing there.

“What are you doing up?” asked Demwor.

“Had to pee,” said Runnel.

“Where were you?”

“Asleep,” said Runnel.

“I went to the attic. You weren’t there. I came out looking to see if you were peeing. I wanted to talk to you about last night. About our guests.”

“I am peeing.”

“Where were you when I looked in the attic?”

Where could he claim to have been that would put him inside the house now, still needing to urinate?

Runnel raised his voice a little louder as he stepped out onto the stone steps leading down into the garden. “Lord Brickel wanted to talk to me about tomorrow’s work,” he said.

He pressed his feet into the stone and felt the connection of living rock all the way to the hearthroot where Lord Brickel was working. He found a section that was still alive and pushed it, squeezed it out so it bulged. Surely Lord Brickel would see it and realize it was a warning.

“He wanted to take me instead of Ebb,” said Runnel, loudly enough that if Lord Brickel would just come up from the cellar, he’d hear. “To work in the city.”

“You asked him, didn’t you?” said Demwor.

“Why would I, sir?” asked Runnel. “You already told me I’d bear half the burden of touchstones.”

Demwor glowered. “Why would he want to talk to you about it? You’ll do what you’re told.”

“He doesn’t know me that well, but I’m. . well, quicker than Ebb. Or at least he wanted to make sure of it. Maybe there are things he needs that Ebb has never been able to do. I don’t know, sir. I just do what I’m told.”

“What did they talk about last night?” demanded Demwor.

Suddenly Lord Brickel was in the doorway behind Runnel. “What did you just ask my servant?”

Demwor clamped his mouth shut.

“Are you spying on me, Demwor?”

What, thought Runnel, was that a secret? No, it was a pretense that he was just a steward. Now the pretense is broken.

“Is this how the Mithermages treat me? Have I not performed every service and kept faith with every term of our agreement?”

“You have these visitors,” said Demwor.

“I’m allowed to have friends come to see me,” said Lord Brickel. “It’s in the terms.”