The Fire's Stone

Twelve

"Have you heard, Aisha? Have you heard?"

The sandal maker continued to placidly stitch, not even glancing up as old Cemal tottered in through the open front of her shop. Two or three times a nineday he picked up a hot rumor from his cronies and gleefully spread it about the marketplace. Aisha had long ago ceased to get excited. "Have I heard what?" she asked, eyeing her work critically.

"Well..." Cemal carefully lowered his brittle bones to the rug, then took another moment to rearrange his robe over his skinny legs. These trousers that the younger people were wearing; he just couldn't see the point. "Well, Barika—you know her, the sausage maker's youngest daughter—has a friend, Habibah, who has a little brother who is a page to His Excellency the Lord Chancellor at the palace."

He paused and Aisha grunted, measuring out a length of leather strapping.

"Well, Habibah's little brother, the page at the palace, told Habibah, who told Barika, who told her father, who told me."

"Told you what, Cemal?" Aisha asked, because she knew it was expected of her, not because she wanted to know. It was possible she had enough of the tooled leather left for one more pair.

"Told me that The Stone is missing."

Her reaction was all that Cemal could have wished. She actually stopped working and looked at him, her eyes wide and her mouth open.

"Missing," he reiterated with a cackle of humorless laughter. "We're all going to die."

Aisha closed her mouth. The Stone missing? "Nonsense," she snapped.

"Not nonsense." Cemal shook his head, his few remaining strands of hair flapping emphatically. "And they sent Prince Darvish out to get it back."

"Darvish?" The sandal maker smiled. "That proves it's nonsense, old man. No one in their right mind would send Prince Darvish to the well for water."

"He hasn't been seen in the usual places for over a nine-day," Cemal muttered peevishly.

"No mystery there, he's in seclusion in the temple. Something about his upcoming marriage and a case of crotch."

"But Habibah's brother..."

"Is a kid. Besides," she reached over and patted his knee, "the King, and the Heir, and even His Excellency the Lord Chancellor are still at the palace. You think they'd still be there if there was any danger of the Lady blowing?"

Cemal sighed. "You're right," he admitted, heaving himself to his feet. "The Stone missing and Prince Darvish gone after it. I must be getting old to believe that." And shaking his head, he tottered out of the shop, an occasional muttered, "Old," drifting back over the noise of the market.

Aisha finished attaching a buckle with tiny meticulous stitches, then set the strap down beside the almost completed sandal. Drumming her fingers against her thighs for a moment, she frowned. From where she sat, she couldn't see beyond the stonework edging the building across the way and it had suddenly become important to see farther. Still frowning, she rose and stepped out into the street, waving an absent greeting to the basket maker in the shop next to hers.

She couldn't see the palace, the street angled too steeply for that, but she could see the spreading edge of smoke that had been hanging over the city for days. It was a very little smoke, but, born and raised in Ischia, the sandal maker could not remember smoke like it before. There could be no truth in old Cemal's words, but she felt a strange sense of disquiet touch her nevertheless. She had seen an execution at the volcano, seen what the molten rock would do to flesh if it ever broke the bonds that held it captive in the crater.

Her brother, long moved to a village on the south shore, had always said she would be welcome. Perhaps now would be a good time to visit.

"My prince."

"Lord Chancellor."

"The lava has risen another body length. The wizards say it will soon be up over the cup and when that happens," the lord chancellor spread plump hands, "they may not be able to hold it further."

Shahin scowled. He knew the wizards had been using the golden cup The Stone had rested in as a focus point for their power. He hadn't realized they were so dependent on it. The cup was a good distance away from the rim of the crater and if they could hold the molten rock only that far, it drastically cut the time they had remaining. And when the captive volcano finally broke free, the wizards would be the first to die. "Will they stay? If any one of them breaks and weakens the block..."

"The wizards will live or die as one, my prince." The lord chancellor's bearing was smug. "Their powers are now woven too tightly together for any single strand to break free. They may give in to terror as they wish, but they cannot withdraw their power."

"You knew that would happen?"

He bowed his head, the expression on his round face unreadable. "I have always excelled at planning ahead, my prince."

So the wizards were trapped. Shahin tapped his thumb against his lip and came to a decision. "We must begin evacuating the city. Immediately."

"My prince! And cause the very panic we have been trying to prevent?"

"Better a panic now than a thousand deaths later," Shahin snapped, rising and striding to the windows.

"You would sacrifice your people now for a later that may never come?" the lord chancellor asked quietly.

The prince turned and, just barely visible beneath his beard, a muscle jumped in his jaw. His voice had the brittle edge of a man holding onto calm by strength of will alone. "You seem to have great faith in my brother considering you have never had much use for him before."

"Your royal brother, my prince, is not meant for court life. He is not now at court."

It sounded reasonable, it was the truth after all so it should, but...

"We begin evacuation. Now. The guards will do what can be done to prevent panic."

"I am sorry, my prince," and he both looked and sounded sorry, "but that is your most exalted father's command to give. Not yours."

Shahin drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It would do him no good, it would do Ischia no good, if he antagonized this man who held the king's trust. It was a lesson Darvish had never learned. "Then I will go to my father."

"I am sorry, my prince," the lord chancellor said again. "But he will not see you."

Out in the gardens, the peacocks screamed.

"He will not see me?" Shahin repeated.

The lord chancellor stepped back, away from the expression on the heir's face, suddenly reminded of how much like the king this eldest son was. "He feels, my prince, that until the crisis is over, given the suspicions against your lady wife..."

Shahin's eyes narrowed and one fist came up. With an effort so great it left him trembling, he managed to hold his reaction to that. "You will never speak to me of my wife again." His voice cut off each word and threw it at the lord chancellor. "Now, you and I together will go and see my most exalted father."

The small room in the king's apartments did not contain a throne, but it held a high-backed chair that served. The king sat, fingers steepled, his brows drawn down so that his eyes were hidden deep within their shadows.

His own eyes blazing, Shahin touched his knee to the carpet, then hurriedly stood. "Most Exalted," he began but the king raised an imperious hand and cut him off.

"Do you realize how close to treason you come?" he asked.

Shahin jerked back, blinking as though he'd been hit. His chest felt as though a block of marble had been dropped on it from a great height. He fought against the weight for the breath to speak but only managed a single word. "Treason?"

"Or were you not told that I would not see you?"

"Yes sir, by the lord chancellor, but..."

The lord chancellor came forward, knelt, then rose and moved to stand behind King Jaffar's chair.

"He speaks with my voice in this."

"But why, Father?" Shahin spread his hands, anger overcoming shock. "We must work together if Cisali is to survive."

"Do not tell me what we must do!" The king rose a little out of his chair, then settled again, his face the expressionless mask he ruled behind. "I can no longer trust you. Your wife..."

"I sent Yasimina to the country a nineday ago and even were she here, I do not make her privy to state secrets."

"Did you not allow her to write to her brother, King Harith, before she left?"

Shahin felt a coldness growing in his gut. Until this moment, he had heard that tone only when the king spoke with Darvish. It was all king and no father and in all ways denied any blood tie. "She wrote only to tell him she was going to the country. I read the letter, Most Exalted, there was nothing treasonous in it! He is her brother. She was homesick."

"To write to such a man at such a time is treason; the contents of the letter do not matter. To allow her to write the letter is treason. To come here to me when I have ordered that you will not is treason. Thrice you stand accused."

When Shahin had given in to his pleading bride, he had known trouble would come of it. But this, this he had not, could not have, foreseen.

Behind the throne, the lord chancellor bowed his head, his expression unreadable.

"I will be merciful. This time. You will remain in the palace and you will continue to perform those duties that do not include the throne. You will not speak with me nor in any way contact me until this crisis is over and the traitor has been found."

Shahin dropped again to his knee, but his chin came up as though he answered a challenge. "Am I suspected of being the traitor, Most Exalted?"

The two men locked eyes and after a long moment, King Jaffar looked away. "No," he said. "But you have been tainted by your outland bride. I can no longer trust you."

"Ytaili is hardly outland, Most Exalted!" Shahin protested, even though he knew it would have been wiser to keep silent.

"Ytaili tries to destroy us!" the king roared, rising to his feet. "What I do, I do for the good of the realm!"

Knowing he must choose his next words with care, lest his father reject them out of hand, Shahin laid his forehead on his upturned knee, the position of the penitent. "Then for the good of the realm I ask a boon before I am denied your presence."

Still breathing heavily, the king lowered himself back into the chair. "Ask."

"For the good of the realm, Most Exalted, order the evacuation of Ischia."

"Do not tell me what is for the good of the realm."

Shahin's head snapped up. "Then the people of Ischia will die!"

"If the gods will it. But they will not die by my order nor will we show Ytaili weakness to be used to their advantage." Within the depths of his beard, the king's lips thinned to a hard line. "And that is our final word."

His face a mirror of his father's, Shahin rose, bowed, and, moving with careful control, left the room.

"His Royal Highness is very angry, Most Exalted." The lord chancellor came forward into the king's line of sight.

"If you have counsel, speak. I do not need to hear you state the obvious."

Sighing deeply, the lord chancellor laced his fingers together across the curve of his stomach. "You taught him to rule, Most Exalted."

The king snorted. "He's my heir, of course I taught him to rule."

The lord chancellor bowed. "Now he wishes to."

"Do you suggest Prince Shahin plots against the throne?" The question had an edge as sharp as the knives of the Fourth.

"No, Most Exalted. I only warn that history is full of angry young princes deciding to inherit before the gods determine it is time."

Knuckles whitened as royal fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. "I have heard your warning."

Anger sustained him until he reached his own apartments and then reaction set in.

Although he had never been a good father—and Shahin as heir had seen more of him than any of his siblings—King Jaffar had always been a good king. Every word he had said had made sense.

What if the king was right? What if he had been tainted by his Ytaili bride?

He had read the letter. It had been harmless.

Shahin rested his head against the window's edge as out in the garden the peacocks screamed. His heart felt like a rock in his chest. He ached for Yasimina's touch. He hadn't believed he could ever love someone so much. Or so foolishly.

For the first time, he thought he understood why Darvish drank.

"Gracious Majesty, a runner has come in from the South Road."

"And?" The King of Ytaili leaned back against the brass and lacquer peacock tail—an inexpensive copy of the jewel—encrusted gold tail that backed his throne—and glared at the man standing before him.

"They have not been found, Gracious Majesty, and five of your guards have been killed in the search."

"Then it seems to me they were found, if only temporarily."

Lord Rahman, who had acted as intermediary between the King and the Captain of the Guards—through two kings and six captains—hastily rejected several entirely inappropriate reactions. "Do you wish more men sent, Gracious Majesty?" he asked just before the pause grew dangerously long.

"No." King Harith scowled, dark brows drawing down to meet at the bridge of his nose. His perfect plan...

Remove The Stone, wait for Ischia to be destroyed, and, with the royal family dead—or in hiding, having run like frightened children to the countryside and unable to mount a resistance—move a few shiploads of troops in and take over. A pity about his sister, her marriage to the crown prince had been very helpful to him, but he had six others and, frankly, wouldn't miss one. His people might not want to pay for a war, or so the old men on the council kept telling him, but they'd support an easy victory. Cisali would be his.

... seemed to be unraveling.

A perfect plan, except they traced The Stone. Traced The Stone and instead of declaring war, which would have served his plan as well—given new taxes to raise more troops he could defeat Cisali without having to resort to subversion—they sent two men to steal it back. Two men, a drunkard and a thief, and neither the navy nor the guard seemed able to stop them.

He drummed blunt fingers on the padded chair arms. The thief seemed to be the greater danger, although with five guards dead young Darvish was not the lightweight appearances had indicated. He'd have never suspected it at the wedding, never suspected Darvish consisted of anything behind the drinking and the sex, but this seemed to prove that not only could his young relative by marriage wield a sword, he could wield it to his advantage. He could do no more to stop the prince, but, he smiled, there was more than one way to skin a thief,

"Get me a scribe," he barked. "And have someone inform the Most Wise Palaton that he might better place a guard of some kind on The Stone."

King Harith had little use for wizards and less for their artifacts. Removing The Stone had been a way to conquer Cisali under the strictures his council had placed around him, nothing more. As he'd needed a wizard to do it, he'd used one, paying him with The Stone itself. He no longer cared about the wizard, or what the wizard did, but as Ischia retrieving their safeguard would ruin his plans, he would warn the Most Wise Palaton.

"Let them come, I do not care."

Lord Rahman, who had decided for security's sake to take the warning to the wizard himself, steepled his fingers and sighed. "Most Wise, The Stone has been stolen once already."

"I know." The hint of a smile added a curve to the wizard's thin lips.

"When a thing has been stolen once, Most Wise, it can be stolen again."

The wizard spread his hands, the deep blue cuffs of his robe falling back to expose thin wrists. "It was not stolen originally from me," he pointed out.

"The prince does not travel alone," Lord Rahman told him a little sharply. "He has a thief with him..."

"I know who travels with Prince Darvish, I have been watching them, off and on, since just after they left Ischia." Palaton's smile broadened. He had been watching them, off and on, since that child-wizard had drawn attention to herself by trying to trace The Stone. That King Harith remained ignorant of the girl did not surprise him, the man remained ignorant of a great many things. He was politically astute, Palaton would grant him that. He knew better than to start a war his people—or more specifically, his wealthy merchants—would not support and his plan for the conquering of Cisali was well considered. It was not his fault, and surely he could not have foreseen, that the third prince would have a thief leashed at court.

Palaton considered Ytaili's king a fool because he treated the most powerful relic in existence as merely a means to an end.

"They say you're the most powerful wizard in my kingdom," King Harith had said bluntly when Palaton obeyed the imperial summons and appeared before him.

"Who says, Gracious Majesty?"

"Other wizards," the king told him sardonically. "I assume they should know."

"And if I am, Gracious Majesty?" He saw no reason to either confirm or deny it and while he resented being pulled away from his studies, he'd lived too long to show it. Much.

"If you are, I require your services." The king drummed on his chair arms, the sound strangely loud in the small room. "I want Cisali. The reasons need not concern you."

Palaton had not even wondered. The reasoning of princes never concerned him.

"I have access to the palace at Ischia. I need a wizard to help me steal The Stone." He'd paused then, in a voice that said he was through with explanations, continued, "If you're as powerful as they say, you will steal it for me."

At the mention of The Stone, Palaton's heart began to throb harder and faster although he carefully kept the reaction hidden. Even here in Tivolic, the power of The Stone called to him. He had never been to Ischia to see it for fear of what he might do. "I am a Wizard of the Nine, Gracious Majesty, not a thief."

King Harith shrugged burly shoulders. "I'm told it needs a wizard and a thief. Thieves are easy to find. I have two in the Chamber of the Fourth right now."

Palaton ignored the hint of threat. "And if I assist you in this, Gracious Majesty, my reward...?"

"Reward?" The king snorted. "I should've known it would come to that. What do you request, Most Wise?" He mocked with the honorific, but the wizard didn't care.

Only long years of practice kept the desire from Palaton's voice as he answered. "The Stone. If I take it and give you Cisali, you will give The Stone to me in payment."

"Oh, I will, will I?" The answer hung between them for a moment and then the king laughed. "Take the wizard's bauble, I've no use for it. And here I feared you'd ask for gold or jewels or land or something else my council would bitch about." He looked the other man up and down. "If it's useless things you're interested in, you can have one of my sisters as well, I've still four left to get rid of."

"No, thank you, Gracious Majesty." Palaton had bowed, his face impassive. "Only The Stone."

Only The Stone. ,..

"You may tell your king that I will guard The Stone and keep it safe." He moved to stand by the study door, one hand holding it open in invitation, and Lord Rahman had little choice but to take his leave.

"If Ischia recovers The Stone..." he began, but the wizard smoothly cut him off.

"Ischia's prince will not recover The Stone. If and when he and whoever travels with him arrive, they will be dealt with, never fear. His Gracious Majesty's plans for conquest will not be overturned." To a servant hovering in the hall, he added, "See his lordship out." Then he firmly closed the door.

His Gracious Majesty's plans for conquest interested him not at all. Two of the three on their way to wrest The Stone from him interested him even less, although he would take steps to strengthen the safeguards already on his house. The third, the child-wizard, had a potential he wished to investigate but for all her power, if she would not listen to reason, she was too young to be a danger.

Knowledge was the ultimate weapon, for power without it was hollow and strength without it was brute and blind. Nine Wizards of the Nine had taken nine years to create The Stone; Palaton could access only a small fraction of it so far, but that tiny portion showed him an infinite number of doors that awaited his opening.

Kings and princes and wizards and thieves; he no longer had any interest in dealing with anything but The Stone.

"Now I don't want any argument from you, young lady." Aba grasped Chandra firmly by the arm and hoisted her to her feet. "You are going to sit in the garden whether you like it or not." She pulled the girl out of the room and began chivvying her down the stairs. "Two full ninedays is long enough for anyone to sit and sulk. I know you don't want to marry this Darvish, but he's a prince and handsome and a lot of girls have to settle for less. Your own second cousin married a man she'd met but twice and he was fat besides. Mind you, they get along as though the Nine themselves had picked the match and your cousin, One forgive me for saying it, is now well on her way to topping her husband's girth."

Aba guided her unenthusiastic charge outside, noting as she did that footsteps once light now plodded and even Chandra's hair seemed heavy and dull; a physical match for the newly sullen disposition. "You sit right there and get some sun. A bit of sun'll give you a different outlook on things and maybe I'll get the Chandra back I nursed."

The golem, having a rudimentary intelligence at best, quietly did as it was told and sat down on the stone bench, tucking its legs between the carved trolls that crouched beneath each end.

"Humph, yes, well..." Catching up the edge of her veil which threatened to take off in the freshening breeze like a great purple bird, Aba gave the still figure a baleful glare and stomped off toward the main house. She'd done what she could. She was not going to sit there and hold the girl's hand while she sulked. Chandra could without a doubt be the stubbornest... it was all that wizard Rajeet's fault, filling the child's head with nonsense no young lady should be expected to learn. Although Aba wished no harm on any living man, she rather hoped this war Rajeet had been called home to would go on for a good long time. Or at least until Chandra was safely married.

The golem sat. It didn't so much think as it existed, but it noted a difference between this place and the place it had sat in for so long and as much as it was capable of it, it liked this place better. This place felt right.

It continued to sit while the breezes grew and brought clouds to cover the sun. It made no move toward shelter when the first tentative drops of rain speckled the stone bench with darker gray. It stayed where it was as the clouds let go their burden and the garden hid itself behind sheets of rain.

"Oh, Nine Above and One Below!" Aba clicked her tongue and peered out at her nursling who was no doubt wet through. "Sulking is one thing, but you'd think she'd retain enough sense to come in out of the rain. She'll catch her death out there!" Stepping so close to the edge of the porch that stray gusts spattered water against her layers of veiling, she shrieked at her charge to come inside immediately.

There appeared to be no response.

"Ignoring me, is she?" Black eyes snapped and wrapping her yards of fabric close she stepped out into the rain. "You'll feel the side of my tongue for this, my girl," she muttered as a puddle proved deeper than the sole of her sandal.

"Chandra!"

Still no response.

Stretching out an arm, Aba grabbed a shoulder with one plump hand and shook it hard.

Her shrill screams brought guards and servants running, but it took some time before they understood that the pile of dirt, rapidly turning to mud and washing away, was all that remained of their lady.

Lord Balin was waiting outside the stables for his mount when the guardsman arrived on a horse white with sweat and almost floundering.

He's in my colors. Lord Balin frowned at the wet uniform, steaming slightly in the heat of the late afternoon sun, as the man threw himself out of the saddle and, in an extension of the movement, onto his knees at his lord's feet.

"My lord..." The words were almost unintelligible, strangled in the guard's labored breathing. "The Lady Chandra..."

Strong fingers tangled in the uniform tunic and hauled the guard to his feet. All hints of vagueness were gone from Lord Balin's eyes and his voice held an edge it had not held for five long years.

"What of my daughter?"

"Struck down by wizardry, my lord. You must come at..." Suddenly released, he let the last word trail off into silence as his lord raced for the stable, snatched the reins of his bay stallion from an astonished groom, flung himself into the saddle, and thundered out of the estable-yard, guards scrambling to mount and catch up.

One Below, not my daughter, too, pounded through Lord Balin's head in cadence with the pounding of the hooves. Images of the bright and laughing child she had been and the silent young woman she had become chased each other around the memory of his lost Marika and for the first time in five years the living became more important than the dead. One Below, not my daughter, too.

He rode onto the grounds of his country estate just as the setting sun bathed the sky in red.

"In the garden, my lord!" called a guard at the gate.

He forced the exhausted horse a little farther, over lawns and through flower beds to the tiny figure huddled in purple veiling at the base of Chandra's tower. One moment he was in the saddle, the next he had the wailing woman by the shoulders and was shaking her as he cried, "Where is my daughter?"

Aba's wails grew louder as she tried to point a flailing arm at the pile of muddy clothing lying on the path.

Lord Balin felt his heart stop. Almost gently, he set the old nurse aside. Dropping to his knees, he lifted the russet tunic. A curled and filthy strip of vellum dropped from it to the path, the script covering it barely visible in the fading sunlight. It took a moment for recognition to penetrate the pain, then his heart started beating again.

"This wasn't Chandra," he said, holding the tunic tight against his chest. "She made a golem. This wasn't my daughter."

"A golem?" Aba crept forward, and peered down at the smear of mud.

"Yes." Lord Balin stood, then immediately sat again on the stone bench as his legs threatened to give way beneath him. He beckoned a groom out of the knot of watching servants and almost smiled as she waited for no further orders but raced to the stallion and led it carefully away. "A golem," he explained to the puzzled old woman, "is a creature made of earth. Chandra created one in her own image so we would think her safely here."

"While she is where?" Aba demanded.

He did smile this time, at the indignation in the question. Chandra alive had no business being where her nurse could not get to her. For his part, Lord Balin felt almost supernaturally calm as his memories of Marika finally settled into the past where they belonged. "My guess is that Chandra is in Ischia, trying to talk Prince Darvish out of marrying her."

The black currant eyes above the veil narrowed. "That would be just like her," Aba agreed. Then her eyes widened again. "My poor baby, alone in that great big city. What are you going to do, my lord?"

He stood. "I'm going after her."

"Well, you'd better hurry." Plump hands pushed at his arm as though to prod him into instant action. "She has two full ninedays' head start."

"She has five years head start," Lord Balin corrected quietly. "But I'm going to get my daughter back."