The Fire's Stone

Thirteen

Blinking rapidly to shake the rain from her lashes, Chandra studied Tivolic. Not a very attractive city, she decided. Most of the buildings, at least those she could see above the city wall and the less desirable structures outside it, were dirty yellow brick or wood or a combination of both. Only the palace appeared to be made of stone and at this distance and in this weather she couldn't tell if it was Cisali marble or the soft gray stone of her own homeland. Nor, she had to admit, did she much care.

If it would only stop raining. She tossed her sodden braid back behind her shoulder. Adventure was one thing, but she was tired and wet, her clothes clung to her, her hair weighed a ton, Aaron hardly spoke, and Dar, while he hadn't had anything to drink, was certainly indulging in other vices. And it didn't make her any happier that the Shoi had stopped her when she'd tried to push the rain away.

"The rain will stop when the Lord and Lady choose," they'd told her.

It wasn't fair.

"Feeling sorry for yourself?" Fiona asked, falling into step beside her.

"I am a Wizard of the Nine," Chandra replied haughtily. How often did she have to tell people that. "I am not feeling sorry for myself."

"Good." Fiona nodded curtly, but her eyes twinkled. They walked in silence for a moment, then she asked, "What will you do after you have returned The Stone to Ischia?"

"Not marry Darvish," Chandra said emphatically stepping over a puddle. She'd spent the day before choking on dust; at least the rain had taken care of that.

"And after?"

"Go back to my tower!" Where she'd been comfortable. And dry.

"And?"

"And what?"

"And what will you do in your tower?"

"Well," Chandra spread her hands and frowned. "I'll be a wizard."

"Aren't you a wizard now?" Fiona asked mildly.

"Yes, of course I am!"

"Then why do you have to lock yourself in a tower?"

"I am not locked in the tower," Chandra told her angrily. "Nobody bothers me there and I can search for knowledge without distractions!" The words sounded pompous in a way they never had when she'd declaimed them to Aba.

"Oh. So you have learned nothing since you left your tower?"

"Of course I have! I didn't say I hadn't! I... I just... Oh, never mind. You're not a wizard, you wouldn't understand." No one understood her. Her father certainly didn't. Not even Rajeet did, really, Rajeet might be a wizard, but she wasn't a Wizard of the Nine. She just wanted to get back to her tower where people would leave her alone. Except that in her mind's eye view of her tower, Darvish stretched indolently in the chair by the fireplace and Aaron perched on the window ledge. Startled, she banished them from the vision and refused to acknowledge how empty it now looked.

"I am not feeling sorry for myself," she repeated, but Fiona had slipped away in the irritatingly silent fashion of the Shoi and only the rain remained to hear her protest.

Darvish watched Tivolic growing nearer and wondered how much longer he'd be able to use the Shoi as a distraction. The training Edan had bullied him into at dawn and dusk—added to the willing bodies that filled his nights, added to the day's walk strung out alongside the carvans—kept him too tired to do more than long for a drink. And when the longing grew particularly intense he could throw his strength behind a jammed wagon, lift a child to his shoulders, and spend the next few miles answering impossible questions—he discovered, to his surprise, that he liked children and, to his pleasure, that they liked him—or toss the ever-willing Fion behind a bush.

Many eyes and many hands kept him from self-destruction. He'd spent the three days with the Shoi doing nothing and thinking of nothing but surviving for those three days—one day at a time. Soon he'd have to face the real world again, face it without a curtain of wine around him, and he wasn't sure he could. Find The Stone and save Ischia; didn't a burden like that deserve a drink?

When they reached the city, only Chandra and Aaron would stand between him and the wine. He couldn't use them like that. He'd failed them once already. He had to be strong for them. Chandra was so young in so many ways and Aaron...

Darvish looked ahead to where Aaron's bright hair, even darkened as it was by rain, stood out amidst the blacks and browns of the Shoi. It had grown longer and now curled against the sunburned nape of the younger man's neck. Darvish suddenly longed to run his fingers along that edge and rub some of the tension out of the shoulders below. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly; he would keep that thought very definitely to himself. He'd strained the fragile relationship he had with the outland thief enough already. The comfortable camaraderie they'd shared on the ship had disappeared when he'd so stupidly fallen in the sea.

Aaron wrapped himself in silence and glared when any of the Shoi approached. As they had for the last three days, they left him alone. Except he wasn't alone. The soul-link meant that Darvish was always present and so the memory of the fire, of the dance, of the burning that had nothing to do with the flames could not be completely suppressed.

His walls were so desperately fragile now, they took all his strength to maintain. Older memories slipped out through the cracks; the way Ruth's hair had shone almost blue-black in the sunlight, her screams echoing and reechoing within the stone walls of the keep, the taste of blood on his lips...

I feel nothing, he reminded himself. I am a dead man waiting to die.

But as fast as he emptied the void, it filled again.

Just at the place where farmland became the outskirts of the city, the Shoi turned east onto a track so faint it no longer held the mark of wheels, only the memory of their passing. The rain had turned to mist and westward, the sea lay like a sheet of silver in a gray world. The three non-Shoi stood together at the turn and watched the wagons go by; their way led into the city, to The Stone, and whatever came after their finding of it. The children waved and shouted farewells, some of the younger adults blew indiscriminate kisses which Darvish chose to catch, but only Edan stopped to talk, flanked, as usual, by the twins.

"Come to offer sage words of advice?" Darvish asked, twisting the damp leather of his sword belt. He needed a drink. But then, he always needed a drink these days.

"No, no." Edan grinned and shook his head. "No one ever listened, so we stopped giving sage advice some time ago. We just wanted to tell you that the family will be back in this part of the world in about six years. If you survive this little adventure you're on, perhaps you can travel with us again."

Behind his uncle's back, Fion seconded the invitation with a decidedly lascivious wink.

"Are we likely to not survive?" Chandra asked, her voice rising shrilly for all she tried to keep it even. She's almost died in the sea, but that had been by chance alone. At no time since she had decided to rescue The Stone had it occurred to her that she could be walking blithely toward death. She was going to prove to her father that she was a Wizard of the Nine and a force to be respected. She wasn't going to die.

"You're planning on taking a powerful artifact away from a powerful wizard who has the backing of a powerful king." Edan spread his hands expressively. "May the Lord and Lady watch over you."

"I think I'll stay with the Nine and One," Darvish said sardonically. "From the sound of it, we'll need the eight extra gods."

"Hold it." Aaron's voice cut through the sound of the city and his tone rooted both Darvish and Chandra to the spot. "Where are you going?"

"To the palace?" Darvish offered, both eyebrows rising.

"It is," Chandra added, "where The Stone is."

"Is it?"

"Well... uh..." When she'd tried to reach The Stone from just outside the city, all she'd touched was POWER.

It had raced along her nerves, vibrated through her bones and, even now, still pulsed redly behind her temples in such a way she remained constantly aware of it. "I don't know," she admitted, almost shrugging. "It's so close I can't find anything beyond the power signature that's hanging over the entire city."

"This city wide power signature belongs to The Stone, right?" Darvish asked. "It isn't the power signature of the wizard we're after."

"Actually," Chandra tried an unsuccessful smile, "they seem to have become the same thing."

"Wonderful. Look..." Darvish sighed and moved out of the way as a pastry vendor pushed past, the last of his soggy wares having been given to half a dozen skinny children and a dog. "We know," he stepped closer and dropped his voice, "the palace is involved. It's the logical place to start."

"Granted." A part of Aaron wanted nothing more than to follow blindly along with what the others decided until he got some distance back, but the greater part could not sit by and watch while the two of them stumbled around in the dark. Not when he knew how to light the lamp. Time was running out, for Ischia and for Darvish. If Darvish failed, it would destroy him as surely as it would destroy the royal city. Aaron didn't care about Ischia. He didn't care, he reminded himself, about anything, but as long as he was here... "If you go to the palace looking like that," a terse nod managed to take in all three of them, damp and travel-stained and woefully ill-equipped, "the guards will move you on, or worse, find you a place to stay. Unless you plan on declaring yourselves. Which would be worse still."

"All right, then." Darvish swept off an imaginary hat and bowed. "What do you suggest?"

"An inn, a bath, and a change of clothes. Then we go out with a plan. No aimless wandering."

"But aimless wandering's what I do best."

"Dar..." Aaron raised his head and locked eyes with the taller man. No bullshit, he suddenly wanted to say, or I walk to the edge of the soul-link and throw myself off. I don't like it when you dig at yourself. He didn't say it. The thought alone sent him scrambling to raise defenses, something very much like terror lending him strength.

Darvish scratched at his almost double nineday's worth of beard and the self-mocking smile slid into an honest grin, teeth gleaming white against the black. "You're right," he said. "I'm wrong. I'm sorry."

"But the sooner we find The Stone..." Chandra began to protest.

Darvish, having made up his mind, raised a weary hand. "You're going to walk up to the first wizard you see and ask him if he has The Stone of Ischia?"

"Well, no." She glanced over at Aaron, who, fighting desperately to regain control over himself, didn't notice.

"If they suspect we're looking for it," Darvish explained, "they'll move it. Then we'll have to follow it, and then this whole mess starts all over, taking up a lot more time than an inn, a bath, and a change of clothes." He spread his hands. "We'll have to be subtle, so we'll have to listen to Aaron." He reached over and tugged gently on the end of Chandra's braid. "Neither you nor I are particularly skilled at subtle."

Chandra bridled, opened her mouth, then closed it and caught what she had been about to say behind her teeth. Honesty forced her to admit he had a point. She sighed. "I could use a bath."

Darvish stepped back and motioned for Aaron to precede him. "Lead on, then, we're in your hands."

Aaron nodded. The walls, fragile and tottering though they were, were back in place.

"Beg pardon, gracious Lords, gentle Lady." The boy was small and undernourished and when they turned in response to his call, he cringed as though he expected to be struck. "P-pardon, Lords and Lady, but you looks like you just come in to the city."

"Good guess," Darvish said, sarcastic but not unkind, "as we're standing in the middle of the street arguing not five body lengths from the South Gate."

The boy looked unsure if he should smile at this and compromised by twitching his entire face through a change of expressions too rapid to identify. "It's just that if you're lookin' for an inn, Lords and Lady," his shoulders hunched and his bare feet shuffled against the wet cobbles, "I know this place. The old lady what runs it lets me sleep by her fire if I brings in people to stay..." His voice trailed off and he managed to look both hopeful and completely without hope at the same time.

"Well," Darvish's voice had picked up a gentling tone, falling on Chandra's ear much the way her father's had when he tried to calm a highstrung colt or a nervous hawk, "I can't see why not."

"No."

"But Aaron..."

"We're on our way to The Gallows."

The boy snorted. "Powerful expensive at The Gallows."

"We're willing to pay the price," Aaron told him.

With a shrug that involved his entire body, the boy suddenly seemed less small and less undernourished. "Can't blame a guy for tryin'," he told them cheerfully, spun on a callused heel and trotted away. There were very few people on the street, but he vanished from sight almost between one heartbeat and the next.

Chandra and Darvish exchanged puzzled looks.

"Can I safely assume we missed something there?" Darvish asked.

Aaron got them moving with a jerk of his head. "If there's an inn," he told them leading the way down a narrow street where the windows almost met just over Darvish's head, "it isn't one you'd want to use. Likely, he'd take us to an alley and several of his larger friends."

"But we don't have anything to steal," Chandra protested as they flattened against a building to allow a wooden cart of glistening fish to rumble by. She tried not to gag. The smell of the street was bad enough.

"Your hair, Dar's sword, my pouch." Aaron listed their salable assets as they began walking again. "If we were very unlucky, there'd be a Wizard of the Fourth looking for semiconscious bodies to practice on."

"And if we were lucky?"

"They'd kill us."

Chandra shuddered.

"Hey, don't worry," Darvish laid a huge and comforting hand on her shoulder. "If some kid tries to kill you, I'll protect you."

"If some kid tries to kill me," Chandra snapped, twisting out from under his hand, "I'll turn what tiny brain he has to pudding."

"Can you do that?" Darvish asked, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. The rejection hurt a little. His sword was, after all, the only skill he really had to offer in the saving of his city, but he knew bravado when he heard it.

She hesitated. If truth be told—unbidden, a memory surfaced of the five dead guards covered in their own blood and discarded like meat on the grass—she didn't think she could kill anyone, not by magical or other means. There was, however, no point in letting Aaron and Dar know that. Her chin went up. "I can take care of myself," she declared, every inch a Wizard of the Nine.

"Never doubted it," Aaron said quietly.

Chandra turned to look at him in grateful surprise and he raised one demon wing to half flight in acknowledgment.

The rapport between his companions no longer cut at Darvish as deeply—his defeat of the guards had given him back his place—but he felt a faint stirring of jealousy at Aaron's easy acceptance of the girl. He never lowers his guard that much with me. He was beginning to wonder why, when, from an overhanging window, came the unmistakable smell of strong wine. How much could it matter, he wondered instead, if I only had one drink?

A dozen narrow doorways later, the street dumped them out into a market square. In spite of the rain that continued to fall intermittently, a brisk business went on at wagons and packs and neat little booths that leaned together for support. The square obviously didn't belong to the rundown neighborhood they'd just passed through but to the wider streets and cleaner buildings that fronted the other sides.

Aaron led them straight across the market although there were paths around the edges that looked clearer. They had to push their way through a wildly gesticulating crowd attempting to buy live lobsters pulled that morning from the sea, and at one point they were stopped completely by three very fat women who blocked the entire aisle while they screamed in unison at a spice merchant.

Chandra tried to act as if she'd seen it all before, but the markets her father had taken her to as a child were nothing like this. Few people shouted and no one threw overripe tomatoes when their lord and his heir walked among them. She almost resented this market for dulling a cherished memory of her father.

Taller than most of the crowd, Darvish scanned the stalls for the familiar racks of clay bottles. No wine merchants. He tried unsuccessfully to work up enough moisture to spit. My mouth tastes like an ash pit. Just one drink so I can peel my lips off my teeth. That's all I need. Just one.

The Gallows stood in the middle of a row of slightly seedy, middle-class, three-story, yellow brick buildings, its name the only disreputable thing about it. The louvered shutters that covered the front wall of windows were latched closed and the entire facade had a kind of "don't bother me" air about it.

The door opened directly into the common room, cool and dim and empty but for two men pushing ivory game pieces about on a comer table. Wooden-paddled ceiling fans hung motionless in the damp air.

"What?"

The question originated from behind the bar. Chandra and Darvish exchanged unsure glances—the voice hadn't sounded friendly—but they followed Aaron toward the huge ebony-skinned woman who loomed over the counter. She didn't look friendly either.

Two kegs of ale and a barrel of wine lay against the back wall on a deep shelf. Rough clay mugs and goblets lined the narrower shelf above. Darvish tried not to stare.

"We need rooms," Aaron told her, both hands out in plain sight. "Two of them. The back rooms on the third floor if they're empty."

She smiled. And still didn't look friendly. "You've been here before."

"I have."

"Then you know those rooms don't come cheap."

"We're willing to pay the price."

"Humph." She grunted, relaxed slightly, and named an amount.

Aaron reached into his pouch and pulled out a handful of silver coins. "Three days," he said handing them over.

"You want the boy to stoke up the boiler?"

"Yes." He added a copper coin to the pile.

"You know where the rooms are," she waved a hand, nails gnawed to the quick, at the stairs. "And, Wizard!"

Chandra started at the sudden shout.

"Fires get lit with a tinder in here."

With effort, Chandra managed to hold onto her aplomb.

"Of course," she said, pulling the end of the braid from her mouth and tossing it behind her.

"How did she know?" she hissed at Aaron as they walked to the stairs.

"The door's glyphed. She knew the moment you walked through it. Some inns won't serve wizards."

Chandra bridled. "Why not?"

"Do too much damage when they're drunk."

They were on the first step when Aaron realized Darvish hadn't followed. He knew what he'd see, but he turned back anyway.

Darvish set the empty goblet carefully down on the bar and wiped his mouth defiantly. "My throat was dry," he threw the words out like a challenge. "I just needed to wet it."

There was a number of things that could be said. From the look on Darvish's face, they'd all occurred to him so Aaron forced his lips together and said nothing. Head high, Darvish strode across the room, heels ringing against the floorboards. He kept his eyes fixed on the middle distance as he pushed past his silent companions, but his hands were fists and his jaw was tight.

"Dar..." At Aaron's touch, Chandra quieted and the three of them climbed in heavy silence up the two flights of stairs.

The back rooms on the third floor were connected. One held a single bed, a few hooks for clothes and a three legged stool. The other held two beds—one large and piled high with embroidered pillows, the second narrow and plain—an armor stand and a number of low, serving tables as well as the wall hooks. The smaller room had a single window, long and narrow with louvered shutters now latched against the rain. The larger had three, the center one opening onto a tiny balcony.

Chandra went into the single room, threw the latch, then came and stood in the adjoining doorway, arms crossed and fingers tight against the damp fabric of her sleeves. Aaron sat on the edge of the narrow bed and Darvish walked across the room to stare out the window.

"Well, why don't you say it?" he growled.

"Say what?" Chandra prodded. I hate weakness. My father is weak. Why can't I hate Dar? Because she'd seen

Darvish fighting his weakness, even if he lost occasionally, and that was more than she could say for her father.

"Say what a weakling I am, what a stupid fool. Say how I could be destroying any chance I may have to save my people. Say you don't need a drunken sot traveling with you, messing things up, getting you killed. Nine Above, say something!"

"We don't have to," Aaron told him. "You've said it all."

"Is that supposed to be helpful?" Darvish asked without turning.

Aaron's voice was almost neutral as he replied. "No."

The prince threw open the shutters and drew in a deep breath of rain laden air. It washed over the taste of wine still in his mouth and he tightened his fingers on the wood to keep them from trembling. "It's worse now. I've reminded my hands and my mouth and my throat of the motions and I'm afraid they'll go on without me. I remember how much easier life was with the edges washed away."

There didn't seem to be anything to say after that. The silence stretched and hardened around them.

"That boy," Chandra said at last, and her voice broke the silence into pieces small enough to ignore. "He called us Lords and Lady. How did he know?" She plucked at the stained fabric of her trousers. "We look like beggars."

"Beggars." Aaron almost smiled. "You look dirty and badly clothed, but neither of you," his voice softened, "can look like any less than what you are. You don't know how."

Darvish turned to face back into the room. The rain had divided his eyelashes into damp spikes. At least they all agreed to believe it was the rain. "The boy said Lords. Plural," he pointed out.

Aaron snorted and the demon wings rose. "I'm a thief," he said, getting to his feet. His tone closed the conversation, but just in case Chandra refused to drop it, he moved to distance it further still. Onto the bed, from various places in his clothing, he dumped six fat purses, a beautifully crafted silver belt buckle and an ugly gold chain.

"We need new clothes." Apparently oblivious to the stunned reactions of the prince and the wizard, he hefted a purse, dumped the contents in his belt pouch and tossed the now empty silk bag back to the bed. "While you're bathing, I'll send the innkeeper's boy." He'd prefer to go himself, but the soul-link made that impossible. "The bathing room is beside the kitchen. She only has one tub so we'll have to take turns. If there's no hot water, complain. We paid extra for it." His tone was so matter-of-fact that it carried him out the door and almost to the stairs before either Darvish or Chandra could react.

While Chandra bathed, Darvish sat on a bench in the hall and stared at his hands twisted in his lap. He could hear her muttering and splashing and imploring the Nine for assistance through the thin wall. From the kitchen came the controlled cadences of Aaron's instructions to the innkeeper's son, a stocky lad of about ten whose complete vocabulary seemed to consist of "Yup," "Nope," and "I gotta ask my ma." He could smell something cooking although he had no idea what it was. An uneven tile caught his attention and he rubbed the sole of his boot along the raised join.

Singly and collectively, none of it was enough to keep him from thinking of the wine. He couldn't smell it, he couldn't see it, but he knew it was there. It was close. So close.

Chandra wouldn't know, and Aaron...

Darvish sighed. It always seemed to come back to Aaron. How many thoughts had he had recently that ended with, and Aaron?

The Nine take him anyway! I haven't even slept with him and he's running my life.

He stood up. He sat down again. The bench was too hard. The air was too close. He couldn't breathe in this soup! His fingers twitched against his thighs. There would be men and women in that tavern soon, having as much to drink as they wanted. It wasn't fair.

He wanted a drink.

He needed a drink.

He drew his legs under him to stand again and Aaron came out of the kitchen.

Their gazes locked and just for a second the heat in Aaron's eyes burned away all thoughts of wine. Then they were cold again and Darvish was left trying to catch his breath and wondering if he'd imagined the fire.

With his face resembling more carved marble than flesh, Aaron settled himself beside Darvish on the bench.

He despises me now. Darvish rubbed sweaty palms against his thighs. I can't say as I blame him. He looks like he did back at the beginning, before The Stone was stolen-stone himself. I've destroyed everything between us. Bugger the Nine, I am such an ass!

I want to help him. Aaron clenched his teeth so tightly the pressure pushed against his temples and he couldn't understand why they didn't shatter. It's been too long. I don't know how. The knowledge was behind the wall. Faharra, help me. I'm afraid. But no comfortingly caustic voice came out of memory, only the faint sound of screams.

The tension grew until it could almost be seen, wrapping around the two of them like spiderwebs.

"Dar..."

The prince jumped, landing on his feet out in the passageway, facing the bench, fists up.

The tableau froze that way for a moment, then Aaron started breathing again and, speaking loud enough to be heard over the wild pounding of his heart, said, "You hungry?"

Darvish's mouth twitched, then he snickered.

Aaron began to sputter and bit his lip to hold it back.

Then they were both holding their sides and roaring with laughter.

Sometime later, when they were burning their fingers on skewers of spiced lamb, Chandra opened the bathing room door a crack and stuck her head out. "I am not putting those clothes back on!" she announced, snatching up Aaron's last piece of meat and popping it in her mouth.

The demon wings rose to their full extension. "Would the Most Wise like me to find her a robe until the new clothes arrive?"

"Yes. The Most Wise would." She chewed and watched him leave, then looked down at Darvish, one bare shoulder extending into the passageway. "Are you all right?"

"I've been better," Darvish said honestly.

Chandra nodded in understanding. "Hey, me too. I've never had to wash my own hair before."

Darvish grinned. "Neither have I."

"Yours," Chandra snorted, "is short." Then she retreated to wait for the robe.

It was five sizes too big when it came, but she wrapped it around her and managed to sweep regally to the stairs without tripping. Three steps up, she paused and looked back. Darvish was laughing at Aaron's description of how to refill the tub, every inch the useless princeling. Maybe Aaron was right. Maybe screaming at him wasn't the answer. Would've made her feel better though.

Darvish was in the bath when the new clothes came. Aaron, tied by the soul-link, sat on the bench fighting to keep the finger exercises he was doing the only thing in his mind. It wasn't easy. The sound of a large body moving in water kept intruding. He sent the boy upstairs with Chandra's packages and, when he came down, into the bathing room with Dar's. He had, for a moment, thought he might deliver the second set himself, but his courage failed him.

When Aaron's turn came, he stayed in the water until his hands and feet were pink and wrinkled and the scars on his chest puckered purple. It was a breathing spell of sorts. Away from Darvish, he didn't have to fight so hard to maintain his walls.

The water was nearly cold when he finally pulled himself out, dried, and dressed. He twitched the dark green vest into place, raised his chin, and stepped into the hall.

Darvish, dressed as a private bodyguard, sat on the stairs, one leg braced against the other, stropping his sword. He smiled a welcome which turned to a laugh when he saw what Aaron wore.

"So I'm to be your hireling, am I?" he asked.

Aaron nodded. "As an outland merchant and his guard, we can go almost anywhere in the city."

"And what part does Chandra play?"

"Consulting wizard maybe. If she's willing to be less than a Wizard of the Nine."

Darvish laughed again and sheathed his sword, shoving the palm-sized whetstone into a trouser pocket. "I want to be there when you ask her that."

They were at the connecting door when Chandra began to scream.