Stonefather

I have to free him, thought Runnel. I did this to him by disobeying him. It’s my responsibility now to get him out of it.

Runnel followed until they came into the main city, which clung to the southwest shore of the Mitherlough. Most of the city was outside of the walls, which ran much higher up the slope of Mitherjut. They took Lord Brickel to a single tower that stood at the far point of a stubby peninsula that projected into the lake. When Runnel tried to follow them inside, one of the watermages stopped him.

“I belong with my master,” said Runnel.

“Where he’s going, you don’t wish to go,” said the watermage.

“What will you do to him?”

“What he agreed to by the contract he signed when he first came here,” said the watermage. “He knew the penalty.”

Runnel wanted to shout that Lord Brickel was not a stonefather, that he had only discovered Runnel’s abilities last night, that there was no way he could have known or prevented Runnel’s foolishness. I’ll undo it, Runnel wanted to say, I’ll make it back the way it was. But that would accomplish nothing — except to get Runnel inside the tower, subject to the same penalty that Lord Brickel was now facing.

He thought of going back to the stonemage’s house and asking Lark’s advice. But what would that accomplish except to take him farther from Lord Brickel? Lark wouldn’t know what a stonefather could do, or ought to do.

He thought back to her story of the stonemages in the great war. What had she said? “They bared again the rocks of the holy place, and lay naked upon the stone, and the rockbrothers sank into it as the cobblefriends sang.” He had no cobblefriends to sing for him, nor did he have any notion what their songs might have been. But he was a stonefather — if the rockbrothers could sink into the rock, so could he. Sink into the rock of the tower wall, and come out the other side — the inside, where Lord Brickel is held. I can bring him out again the same way, or tear open a door if I want to.

He walked around the tower to a spot that was not observed and pressed his hands against the stone. But this was not living rock. He could climb it, and gaps would open for his fingers and toes, but he could not merge with it, as he could with living rock.

Just as well that he had failed, for as he leaned against the wall, someone walked around the tower into view. Demwor.

“I wondered where you’d got to,” said the former steward. “See what your fool of a master has done now?”

“I don’t know what he did,” said Runnel.

“He revealed himself,” said Demwor. “And he’ll die for it. Now come with me — I’m to dispose of all the stonemage’s property.”

“I’m not his property,” said Runnel. “I’m a free man.”

“Man?” said Demwor. “You’re a boy, and barely that. But a free one? That’s your choice. A free boy will have nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep. You can eat the stones in that bag, for all I care. Come with me now, and you still have a place; stay here, and I’ll have you ejected from the city under the vagabond laws, for you have no place here, neither a master nor kin.” Demwor reached to take Runnel by the shoulder.

Runnel dodged away, then reached into the bag and pulled out a cobble of sandstone. “Don’t make me throw this at your head,” said Runnel. “I don’t miss.”

“Are you threatening a citizen?”

“I’m protecting myself from a man who wants to lay hands on me,” said Runnel.

Demwor backed off one step. “Is that how you’ll have it, then? Fine. When I return, it’ll be with soldiers, and you’ll be ejected from the city by them. I don’t have to lay a hand on you.”

As soon as Demwor walked away, Runnel dropped the bag and began to run. Back the way he had come, till he was through the walls and up to the highest point of the road that led around Mitherjut. But instead of continuing down to where the bridge was, Runnel scrambled up the steep slope, away from the road, up toward the peak.

It might not have been the smartest move. For he soon discovered that near the peak, a spring gave birth to a stream, and it must have been a place very holy to Yeggut, because the stream was lined with the huts of sacred hermits, who would come out several times a day and immerse themselves in the stream, letting it flow over them until they were so cold they could barely move. And around the spring there were the houses of priests, and several temples, and a constant stream of visitors coming and going.

But it was the very peak that Runnel wanted, not the spring or the stream. And at the peak, there was just the ruined stone circle that had once been a dome of living rock, in Lark’s story. Here it was that the bodies of the stonemages were burned alive inside that stone oven, as their payment for saving the city. A place of treachery. Mitherhome had first been built by stonemages; the watermages dispossessed them and ruled over them, then, when the stonemages might have thought they’d earned the right to be brought back into equality in their own city, they were murdered.