The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Where did they go, then?” asked Liath. Abruptly Sanglant understood what she concealed with her expression: She didn’t want her mother to know that she had spoken with an Aoi sorcerer, that she had passed through one of the gates and returned. Where had she traveled on that journey?

“Where, indeed,” said Anne, echoing Liath’s question. “In Verna, where we have some measure of protection, you will see what answers we have come to.”

Twilight came and, with it, stars, like exclamations, each one unseen, unspoken, and then suddenly popping into view. Ann rose, shook out her robes, and took the reins of her mule. Sanglant made haste to get Resuelto and the other mule while Liath brought up the rear. Just before entering the stones Anne knelt and began to diagram in the dirt, using her staff to draw angles and lines. After a bit she rose and considered first him and then Liath.

“This may damage your eyes,” she said at last, and she found cloth with which to blindfold them.

“But I want to learn—!”

“In due time, Liath. You would not want to go blind, would you?”

Liath fumed, but Anne waited until it became obvious that they would go no farther this night unless they acquiesced. Sanglant had to crouch for Anne to reach him, to tie the cloth over his eyes. The procession made a complicated skein: one pack mule at the front where Anne could reach it, he behind holding Resuelto with Liath mounted on the gelding, holding in her hands the lead for the other mule and the reins of the mare. In this way he waited. He heard Anne’s staff scratching in the dirt. A thrumming rose from the ground. The dog whined, ears flattening. The horses stirred nervously, although the mule merely stood with stubborn patience, waiting it out. Even through the cloth he thought he saw light flickering.

Without warning, the mule started forward. He kept one hand on its girth and the other on Resuelto’s reins and managed to move forward into the stones without stumbling. The ground shifted under his feet, disorienting him. The night air had a gentle touch, like spring. His ears buzzed, and it took him a moment to realize that he was hearing voices, like the servants’ voice, but many more and all in a jumble.

Shapes brushed past him. Fingers pinched his body. At once, he tore off the blindfold. The night sky shone clearly with no trace of cloud except for huge dark shapes that were not cloud at all but mountain. Three figures were walking up a path to greet them, but he could not see their faces. Anne walked down to speak with the people below, who had halted on the path. He saw now the shimmer and dance of aery spirits flocking around him, and shying away from Liath.

“She drew down the power, from what she read in the heavens, and opened a pathway,” breathed Liath. She had also pulled down her blindfold. “Da spoke of it, but he never attempted it. Sometimes I thought it was just a story he made up. But it is true. There are threads woven between the souls of the stars. The sage Pythia said that if you listen closely enough, you can hear the song made by the spheres as they turn. Each one striking a different note in relation to the other, always changing. An endless melody.”

“Hush,” he said softly. “I hear them.”

“The music of the spheres?” She strained, listening, but obviously heard nothing, probably only faint sounds of wind and small animals rustling in the leaves.

“The servants.”

She had dropped the reins of her horse, leaving it to explore the luxuriant grass, and now she touched his elbow, began to speak as she peered around her, trying to see them. But he touched a finger to her lips to still her.

And he listened.

Slowly their voices came clear, or perhaps only the ones that had traveled with them had modulated their tone enough that he could now begin to understand them.

“Where are we?” he whispered.

But they only answered. “Spring.”

They were very excited, clustering close, shying off, always coming back. They circled round in a dance that was not a dance, half seen against night and blazing stars.

Suddenly it all became clear, not in words precisely but in the way they fluttered in and out, venturing to touch Liath but frightened of something about her, cautious, yet curious, pulled by that curiosity in the same way that the servant had hovered around the dead mule. They were attracted to something never before experienced and strange to them, who were not formed of earth.

He laughed with a sudden wild happiness and pulled Liath against him to whisper in her ear.

“They say you’re carrying a child.”

4

ZACHARIAS poked at the skinned and spitted squirrels and watched clear fluid dribble down. “We can eat.”

This night they had made camp beside a stream, within the shelter of trees grown up among a tumble of boulders: shelter, defense, and water. For the first time in days, she had allowed Zacharias to make a fire while she snared squirrels. They had seen no sign of Quman raiders since the burned village, uncounted days ago. Once, as a churchman, he had kept track of the days and always known which saint’s praise to sing at Prime and Vespers. Now he watched the sun rise and set, that was all. Today had been a day like any other summer’s day, made more pleasant because he had not yet been killed and beheaded by his enemies.

She crouched beside him and took the larger portion of the first squirrel, as she always did. He did not begrudge it to her. “You are always looking over your back,” she observed. “Are you a prince among your people that the Quman should pursue you so? You do not seem like a prince to me.”

“I am a freeholder’s son and grandson,” he said proudly, “not a lord.”

“Then why do the Quman want you?”

“Among the Quman I was a slave, but I publicly mocked the war leader of the clan who owned me, the one called Bulkezu. I mocked him in front of the begh—the chieftain—of a neighboring tribe, in front of his wives and daughters. Bad enough for a man to do it, but for me—Bulkezu cannot let the insult go unavenged.”

She licked her fingers and sat back on her haunches. “You are not a man?” Fat dripped from the cooking meat and sizzled on the coals beneath. He did not answer, “Ah,” she said suddenly. “You are missing the man-thing. The man part. I do not know what it is called in this language.”