Stonefather

He emerged from the tower through the hole the waterclants had made. Outside, the streets were deserted. He could see that the sun was low, nearing the horizon — it had taken him longer to swallow up the lake than he had thought.

Where were the people? There were a few, kneeling at what had been the shore — the docks now hung over bare stone. But not the watermages.

Of course, he thought. They’ve gone to the holy place. To the spring near the peak of Mitherjut.

“It’s working,” said the rockbrothers. Runnel did not know what they meant — nothing was working.

Runnel’s stoneclant strode up the steep, rocky slope and walked directly over the spot where his real body, his inself, lay buried in stone. He could feel his clant tread over him. Then it went down to the spring.

There they held Brickel in the flow of the stream. Brickel was gasping.

The watermages shouted at Runnel’s clant. “We’ll sacrifice him! We’ll drown him if you don’t return our water!”

In reply, Runnel turned the streambed porous and soaked up all the water there. The spring ceased to flow.

The watermages wailed.

Brickel rose to his feet. To Runnel’s great admiration, Brickel immediately resumed his role as spokesman for the stonefather.

“It is time for you to abide by the ancient treaty,” he shouted. “When first the stonemages allowed the waterkin to settle here, you made the vow that stonemages and watermages would dwell in peace here together, in a place holy to us both. You were the ones who broke that vow! You were the ones whose treachery murdered the best of us a hundred years ago! No more will a single cobblefriend live like a prisoner in order to tend the ancient walls and bridges that were built by ancient stonemages. Either we live here together in a place of stone and water, or it remains as it is now, a place where only stone can live.”

“We will!” answered the leader of the watermages. “But only if you give back the sacred Mitherlough.”

“When you have taken the solemn unbreakable oath in the treaty tower,” said Lord Brickel.

“How can we get there from here?” said the watermage. “The Stonemages’ Ditch blocks the way.”

“Only because you broke down the living bridge we made there.”

“It was a tunnel!” said the waterfather.

“It was a bridge!” roared Brickel back at him. “We all know what a tunnel is — it’s where your water is now, in millions of tiny tunnels through stone! A bridge that leaves many yards of air between the water and the stone is no tunnel! We will have bridges wherever the stonemages wish to have them. Bridges of living stone that will never break down!”

With that, Runnel began to walk his stoneclant down the dry streambed, and Brickel followed him. When he reached the broken-down wall that had once been the inner defenses of a peninsula, and now marked the edge of the Stonemages’ Ditch, Runnel led them along the wall to the place where once a living bridge had crossed the canyon — where soldiers had poured over the bridge to slaughter the Verylludden.

While his clant stood on the surface, Runnel himself reached into the living stone and extruded a wide bridge that reached out over the open air and finally met the stone on the other side. Then he walked out onto it with his clant, Lord Brickel following him, and all the watermages after. They walked on through the forest until they reached the tower that Runnel had seen on the first day, when he was trying to find his way into Mitherhome. This was the ancient temple of the treaty, which had long since been converted into a temple of Yeggut.

Runnel reached into the tower and made it, also, a thing of continuous, living stone.

Then he turned and looked out over the sheet of stone where once the little lake had been. To his surprise, he could not see the stone at all. Instead, thick steam rose from the whole surface.

What is happening?

The rockbrothers answered him: “You brought the water down to the flowing stone and cooled it. We are turning it to granite, deeper and deeper, by pouring the heat of the magma into the water.”

“I didn’t know it would do that.”

“The flowing stone is already far below where it used to be. Soon we will need no one to keep it from bursting through. You have saved the holy city.”

But at the treaty tower, the watermages saw the steam and wailed. “You’re making our holy water vanish!”

“Will the rains not come?” said Brickel. “When the stonefather restores the stone of the lake bed, will the rivers not flow and fill it again? Now in your hot blood and mine, the mixture of water and stone that flows in all of us, we will sign again the treaty that you broke.”

The ancient document was sealed under clear quartz; Brickel did not need Runnel’s help to separate the quartz from the surrounding stone and lift it off. There he and the watermages opened their veins and dipped pens in blood and signed their names again.

When it was done, Lord Brickel replaced the quartz and fused it again to the granite pedestal.

“Now give us back our lake!” they said.