The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

He screamed, and then he was running and panting and, finally, falling. He knelt there with grit on his knees while the horse nosed his back. He smelled scorched cloth and felt the sting of a burn along his back and on his cheeks.

“Come,” she said, and he heard fear in her voice although she had never seemed afraid before. “The veils are thinning. We must go on.”

It wasn’t easy to flounder after her, and yet although the burning gate was lost along the curve of the wall, he was afraid to stay behind. What if they had followed him? What if they touched him again and he was burned to ash? She walked with a stride that never faltered, never doubted; she had thrown it all into the pool and truly left it behind. Had he?

“Pale Hunter,” he breathed, steadying himself with a hand on the horse’s reins. It plodded stolidly along beside him, flicking one of its ears impatiently. “Give me strength. In the name of my grandmother, lend me some of your power now.” Was that the wind, or the breath of the Moon? Was it night now, or day? A cooling wind breathed across his neck, and his aches lessened. The path sloped steadily downward.

She had gotten so far ahead of him that she was already leaving the malachite gate when he first caught sight of it around the opening bend in the path. Had she paused there? Had she spoken again to the voice that had called her “cousin?” He was bolder, now. Hadn’t he, too, cast away his doubts? Either the old gods would protect him, or they would not, and she had never warned him against this gate whose multicolored bands of green made him think of meadows cut by the spring fields sown by his people, in the land of his birth.

He paused to catch his breath before the malachite gateway, and pressed a hand against the cool, gleaming stone.

There is a silver-gold ribbon running through the heavens, twisting and turning through the spheres until he cannot tell one side of the ribbon from the other, or if it even has two sides at all but only one infinite gleaming surface without end, ever-dying and ever-living. The cosmos streams around him, great billowing clouds of black dust, bright flocks of blue-white stars so brilliant that they can only be the birthing ground of angels, vast expanses of void so intense that he feels an abyss yawning at his feet, a huge spiral wheel of stars spinning in an awesome silence that might be the future or the past or merely the prayer of the gods. Yet the planets and the Moon and the Sun still chart their interminable course, he hears the chiming sweet melody of the wheeling heavens, and he reaches out to touch it because it is so beautiful. But his hand cannot pass through the gate. The green stone dims and fades, and he sees on the silver-gold pathway winding through the heavens the shape of an island whose size he cannot comprehend; it could be as small as his hand or as large as Earth because the universe has no boundaries he can make sense of, he can neither measure nor span its girth.

Seeing the island far, he sees it as suddenly near, as though he were briefly an angel, set free to wing his way through the churning heavens. It is a dry land, green fading to brown fading to dust. There is no rain. The animals are dying. The corn no longer sprouts.

There are no children.

The horse nudged him, hard, and he lost his balance and stumbled to one side, hand slipping off the stone. The vision was gone. He stood alone on the dusty path with marble walls rising high on each side. He had never felt more alone in his life and yet with solitude came a kind of freedom. He had given away his past freely, tossed it into the deep tidal pool of mortality where all things are lost in time. He could stand here forever, if he chose, and himself turn to dust to be walked on some day by another pair of feet. But the palace of coils touched all three worlds, the world beneath, the world above, and the world between, and so he, too, had touched them. He had thrown away his doubts. He could walk on without fear.

“Come, friend,” he said to the horse, giving a tug to the reins. It followed him as he set off, down, himself following Kansi-a-lari although he had long since lost sight of her.

When he came to the fifth gate with its luminescent and faintly perilous glow of palest violet, he did not falter; he walked past without trying to look beyond it. She had warned him before, he had been attacked when he’d ignored her, and he wasn’t fool enough to ignore her warning a second time.

Although he walked steadily, and his back no longer hurt, he did not see her when he came to the fourth gate. The lustrous amber surface called to him as though it had a voice of its own. He could not resist it, could not help but stroke its burnished surface, almost oily under his palm. He saw.

A boy on the cusp of manhood lies asleep in a cave full of treasure, attended by six sleeping companions. But there is something swelling and shifting in the darkness of the cave, like a malignant beast coming awake.

He hurried on, unwilling to see more. The horse dragged him along, eager to go forward—or else it had smelled fresh water. The walls curved away before them and, in an infinity of time that lasted no more than an instant, he saw her on the path before him where the azure gate rested, set into the high, pale walls.

She had paused, hesitated, a hand raised but held cautiously no more than a finger’s breadth beyond the ice-pale blue stone. He came up beside her, although she said nothing nor even appeared to notice that he was there. Beyond the gate, the sea boiled and lashed under a cloudy sky, torn by storm. Foam sprayed the rock walls, and he could not see the shore because of the white spray and the low clouds and the surging sea.

“Who is there?” she asked, and as she laid her palm against the pale blue stone, he pressed his against the gate next to hers.

Banners fly outside a fine wood hall. Ranks of young men wait restlessly, talking among themselves, handling their spears as grooms walk among the horses tightening the girths of saddles and making a last examination of hooves. A few wagons are still being loaded with royal treasure: mantles and rich vestments; thin bars of gold and silver wrapped in linen; small iron chests full of minted coins; gold and silver plate and utensils worthy of a king; tents sewn out of a heavy imperial cloth more deeply purple than violets. A chest heavy with royal regalia and crowns. As the sun rises, the full moon sets. The grass grows high beyond the hall, and the trees are dense with leaves.

The doors of the hall are flung open and the king strides out, escorting a pretty young woman half his age who has the bearing of a queen. He laughs delightedly at something she says. His courtiers swirl around them like the tidal currents, some in, some out. A servant lifts a mantle woven of a plain gray weave and swings it open over her shoulders, but his attention is caught by the Eagle badge at her shoulder. It is his sister, and as the cape swirls and settles around her torso, he is spun by that motion

into the gray surge and slap of waves against the hull of a lean, long ship. He swims in the salty seawater and heads bob around him but they have faces so inhuman that he shudders, stroking away. They have eels for hair and no true noses, only slits for breathing and their teeth glitter with menace. But as he turns and dives, tail slapping the surface, he realizes he is one of them, coursing alongside the ships toward some unknowable destination. The sky is dark without even stars to mark their course. A light flares from the stem of the foremost ship, a signal echoed on a distant, unseen shore

that he watches as a rider escorted by three men bearing torches dismounts outside a large pavilion of white cloth. The torches spit and hiss in the drizzle. Rain wets the ground, and grass squelches under the messenger’s feet as he pulls off his hat, loose fitting and curled to a point at the top, before stepping out of the rain and into the shelter of a striped awning that makes a sheltered entranceway for the pavilion. A tall bronze tripod stands under the awning. A bowl of thick glass sits on the tripod, and a candle burns inside the bowl with a muted, cloudy light. After a moment, a burly man staggers out of the pavilion, tying up the strings of baggy trousers.

are no children.

The horse nudged him, hard, and he lost his balance and stumbled to one side, hand slipping off the stone. The vision was gone. He stood alone on the dusty path with marble walls rising high on each side. He had never felt more alone in his life and yet with solitude came a kind of freedom. He had given away his past freely, tossed it into the deep tidal pool of mortality where all things are lost in time. He could stand here forever, if he chose, and himself turn to dust to be walked on some day by another pair of feet. But the palace of coils touched all three worlds, the world beneath, the world above, and the world between, and so he, too, had touched them. He had thrown away his doubts. He could walk on without fear.

“Come, friend,” he said to the horse, giving a tug to the reins. It followed him as he set off, down, himself following Kansi-a-lari although he had long since lost sight of her.

When he came to the fifth gate with its luminescent and faintly perilous glow of palest violet, he did not falter; he walked past without trying to look beyond it. She had warned him before, he had been attacked when he’d ignored her, and he wasn’t fool enough to ignore her warning a second time.

Although he walked steadily, and his back no longer hurt, he did not see her when he came to the fourth gate. The lustrous amber surface called to him as though it had a voice of its own. He could not resist it, could not help but stroke its burnished surface, almost oily under his palm. He saw.

A boy on the cusp of manhood lies asleep in a cave full of treasure, attended by six sleeping companions. But there is something swelling and shifting in the darkness of the cave, like a malignant beast coming awake.

He hurried on, unwilling to see more. The horse dragged him along, eager to go forward—or else it had smelled fresh water. The walls curved away before them and, in an infinity of time that lasted no more than an instant, he saw her on the path before him where the azure gate rested, set into the high, pale walls.

She had paused, hesitated, a hand raised but held cautiously no more than a finger’s breadth beyond the ice-pale blue stone. He came up beside her, although she said nothing nor even appeared to notice that he was there. Beyond the gate, the sea boiled and lashed under a cloudy sky, torn by storm. Foam sprayed the rock walls, and he could not see the shore because of the white spray and the low clouds and the surging sea.

“Who is there?” she asked, and as she laid her palm against the pale blue stone, he pressed his against the gate next to hers.