The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

She bows her head. In this gesture he sees both submission and respect.

But he is not altogether sure whether her submission is for him, her master, or for the circle-god whom she considers God of all Creation.

Yet, truly, he cares not which it is as long as she serves him on this earth. Where her feet will take her after death is no concern of his.

At last the SwiftDaughters come forward. Their hair shines in the sharp afternoon light, with gold like that of the sun, with a silver-white as pale as the moon, with the copper and tin and iron veins of the earth. No son of the tribe may enter OldMother’s hall without her invitation, and her invitation comes only to those sons who will lead, breed, or die.

He might still die. OldMother may find him unworthy. But he doubts it.

He crosses the threshold and walks into OldMother’s hall, into a darkness dense with the scent of soil and rock, root and worm, the perfume that marks the bones of the earth. The floor turns from beaten dirt to cool rock beneath his feet, a transition so abrupt that his head reels and he has to pause to steady himself. Air breathes onto his face, stirring like a great beast, and from where he now stands he gains the impression of a vast space opening out before him. He feels as though he stands on the edge of a vast abyss. Behind him, although he has made no turn, although no wall has come between his back and the wall of the house, the door has vanished. He stands in utter darkness.

Above, impossibly, he sees stars.

And below, too, beyond him and spread out like so many pinprick watch fires, he sees stars, glittering, bright and unattainable.

“Who are you, Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter?” He cannot see OldMother, but he feels the whisper of her dry breath on his lips, feels her weight, that which makes her formidable, that which reveals her as a child of earth. “By what name will we call you when we dance the measure of our tribe? When we sing of the life of the grass, which dies each winter, and the life of the void, with lives eternal?”

Long ago, months ago as the human kind measure the passing of days, he met the youngest WiseMother on the path to the fjall. There, she spoke to him: “Let be your guide that which appears first to your eyes.”

He believed then that she meant the funeral he saw on his way down the valley, because it was the first event he witnessed after leaving her. But he dreams, and in his dreams he listens when Alain Henrisson speaks of his dreams. Like the serpents on the shields carried by his soldiers, he and Alain are interlocked, wound each into the other, with no ending and no beginning.

In a dream he heard Alain speak: “It wasn’t the funeral at all. It was his own hand.”

His own hand.

Bloodheart did not trust his own strength, or his own cunning. In weakness, he sought the aid of magic. But magic is only bought for a price, and it is never something you can truly possess: That is the lesson he learned from his father. He knows better than to rely on magic.

He can rely only on himself, his own strength, his own cunning.

He bares his teeth, what the Soft Ones would call a smile. He holds up the hand with which he laid the offering on the palm of the youngest WiseMother. He cannot see it, even so close before his face; that is how dark it is. But he does not doubt that OldMother can see, for her sight is not like that of her children.

“Call me by this name: Stronghand.”

He hears her movement on the rock, as heavy as the groaning of the earth beneath the weight of mountains. “Let it be done. Let the WiseMothers speak of it, and let this name be known through all the fjalls.”

“And farther,” he murmurs. “Let it be known to the four corners of the earth.”

Her reply, like the knife she wields, is sharp. “Their voices are heard farther away than you can know, my son. Now go. Stronghand will rise or fall through his own efforts.”

Thus is he dismissed.

Where rock turns to beaten earth, he pauses, blinking, as the door appears before him out of nothing. Enough light trails in that he can turn and look over his shoulder. The chamber behind him, the long hall of stone and sod, lies empty. He sees no heavy chair, no sign of OldMother at all, only raked dirt, dim corners, and the rough topography of the stone walls.

Not even his footsteps mark the dirt.

Alain woke at dawn. In the distance he heard Lauds being sung, and as he lay in the bed with one hand outstretched onto the cold space where Tallia had not lain the night before, the voices celebrating Lauds finished, paused, and began the service of Prime for sunrise. Was that Tallia’s voice among them? He could not make her out among so many. Of her, in this chamber, there was no trace.

He heaved himself out of the bed and staggered outside to find Lavastine already up. Geoffrey, looking bleary-eyed, gave orders to men-at-arms and servants. Lavastine talked with foresters brought in from the nearby lands which lay under the rule of the convent, and now glanced up. “You are awake, Alain. We’ll go out again. He can’t have vanished utterly.”

They went out again, lines of men beating the undergrowth and walking in staggered groups so that every stretch of ground near the convent was covered. Alain was exhausted; he stumbled on fallen logs and upthrust roots, saw a heap of houndlike leaves that scattered every which way when he dug through it. By midday they still had found no sign of Bliss.

Lavastine called them in for their meal, but Alain could not give up, not yet. He stayed out with a handful of servants, Sorrow, and Rage. They backtracked to the field where the geese had first set up the alarm, and he tried again to follow Bliss’ trail into the forest. The hounds were no help at all. They barked at every squirrel and bird that crossed their path, or gulped down beetles, or dug holes in the dirt.

At last, by midafternoon, he had mercy on his exhausted servingmen, and they trudged back to the guesthouse. He was so terribly tired, perhaps more from heart’s pain than actual bodily exhaustion. What had Bliss gulped down, out there in the field yesterday? Why had he run off like that afterward? Why hadn’t he returned?

Sorrow and Rage followed him back to the chamber set aside for Count Lavastine and his servants. Two servingmen crouched outside in the corridor, but they jumped up at once, seeing Alain, and let him in. In the small room he found Lavastine asleep on the bed. The shutters stood open to let in light and air, and the sunlight lay in a bright patch over the lower half of the bed so that the folds of the blanket had two tones. Lavastine’s head lay in shadow still; his sandy-blond hair had slivers of white in it. His eyes were shut and he breathed evenly while Terror, Steadfast, and Fear lay on the flagstone floor around him, his faithful attendants. Terror snored lustily, sprawled on his side, while Steadfast dozed with her head cushioned by her paws. Fear kept watch.

Alain sat on the bed. Moved by impulse, he reached to brush hair out of Lavastine’s eyes. Sun, wind, and age had taken their toll on the count, chapping his face and hands; tiny wrinkles perched at the corners of his eyes, little crow’s-feet, but in many ways his face had remained smooth. Lavastine was a man who offered both smiles and frowns sparingly, and thus those expressions had not left their tracks on his face.