Stonefather

Of course, as far as anyone knew he was only the stonemage’s boy, carrying on his back a heavy load of many different kinds of rock — small samples of each, but in the aggregate, it felt like he was carrying a wall. Yet he could carry it, and he wondered if it was because the stone was somehow lighter for him than for other people. Or perhaps there was enough stone in him that he was sturdier and could bear more of a burden. That would explain why he could carry a full waterjar, even though he was not a full-grown man. Maybe everything about him that mattered came back to the stone in his heart.

They were poled across the water to Mitherhome, and then began the long trek up the endless stairways to the upper level of the city. Their course wound around the steep slopes of Mitherjut, and as Runnel’s bare feet trod the stone steps he could feel a throbbing inside the mountain, not like a heartbeat, but rather like the slow fluttering of a huge bird that was trapped and could not get free. He thought of trying to find the source of it, but Lord Brickel had warned him to do nothing, seek nothing, think nothing about stone. “It’s too dangerous,” said Brickel. “Look what you did to the stones of this house — in your sleep, without even meaning to.”

So Runnel did not explore the stone. Instead, he trod the steps upward, upward, with the well-maintained city wall on one hand and the buildings clinging to the steep slope on the other.

They came to a gate in the wall and went through it. In only a few steps they were at the brink of a cliff — not the steep drop-off of the Stonemages’ Ditch that he had seen on his first day, but a natural channel cut by water. A stone bridge with a single arch led across the water. It was this bridge that Lord Brickel had been brought to strengthen. And without even trying to, Runnel could see why. All the vibration of carts and pedestrians crossing the bridge had vibrated the stones, making them rub against each other, shrinking them. The arch was sagging, putting outward pressure on the stones near the edges. They were going to break free, and the whole bridge would come down as the loss of a few stones weakened the rest. Maybe in a year. Maybe in a month. But the bridge was not strong.

Lord Brickel walked out onto the bridge and knelt, then lay on it, facedown, as if he were staring into the stone. Runnel stood by him, the bag at the ready. Brickel raised a hand from the surface, and Runnel brought the mouth of the bag to his hand. Brickel rummaged through it and came out with a cobble of granite and another of quartz. These he now held in each hand and pressed them into the stone.

He’s not doing a thing, thought Runnel. This bridge is failing, and he’s doing nothing but making a show. It’s fakery.

When it falls, people will die.

But if Runnel fused a few of the stones together, right in the center of the bridge, so they were one piece, no one could see from the outside, but the stones would no longer rub against each other, and the pressures would return to being vertical instead of horizontal, as the bridge was designed. As long as he was careful not to let the fusing go right to the living rock at the ends of the bridge, the stone would not come to life.

It was so simple, so subtle, to link stone to stone.

But it got away from him. Runnel hadn’t the skill or self-control to stop himself in time. The fusing went beyond his intention. The bridge linked to the living stone at both ends of the bridge.

Lord Brickel raised himself up on his elbows, and cried out, “No!”

Underneath the bridge, the water suddenly roiled and splashed, as if it were angry.

“What have you done!” cried one of the watermages.

“He’s tunneled the stream!” shouted another.

At once they reached down and dragged Brickel to his feet. One of them made as if to drag him to the edge of the bridge and cast him off, but the others held firm and did not let him do it.

“You’re no cobblefriend!” said the leader of the watermages. “You roofed the stream with living rock! You made a tunnel of it! Sacrilege! All along you’ve lied to us. You’re a stonefather!”

Lord Brickel looked long into Runnel’s eyes. But he did not say, It wasn’t me, it was this boy. He said nothing at all as they dragged him from the bridge, back through the gate, and on up the stairs into the city.

Runnel followed, carrying the bag of stones, cursing himself for a fool. It did not help Lord Brickel that Runnel had made the fatal error by accident. Nor was it an excuse that he did not know that water hates to be roofed and tunneled, that it constantly struggles to break free. And how, above all, could he have known that the watermages would sense the moment the bridge became living rock?

It would do no good to declare himself to be the stonefather, Runnel knew. For then Lord Brickel would be charged with knowingly allowing another stonemage to practice in the city, and the penalty would be the same. They would both be punished then.