Stonewiser (5 page)

“It's done then.” The executioner accepted Kael's pack. “Remember. Nine months to the sunrise. One last thing. A sentence for a sentence. We require an irrevocable condition to the entire agreement in the form of an edict.”

“An edict. Of course.” Rage burned in Kael's gaze and simmered in Sariah's soul like a twin.

The executioner smiled in naked triumph. “I hereby decree the wiser banished from the Domain.”

Four

 

P
ETRID WIELDED THE
banishment bracelet with a snake charmer's deliberate care. At first sight, it seemed to be no more than an intricately ornamented band adorned with precious stones, the type of ancient trinket the wealthy and the powerful liked to flaunt to each other in the Goodlands. Nine square links connected to each other by smaller round hinges made up the sinuous gold bracelet. Each link was filigreed and decorated with different and elaborate designs. Stunning opalescent red crystals of a kind Sariah had never seen before were expertly inlaid on each link.

Sariah had never worn anything like it. She had never fancied rich dress or ornamental jewels. She was a stonewiser, for Meliahs’ sake, pledged to the stones’ austere ways. But she had to admit to the bracelet's outstanding workmanship, to its exuberant if gaudy beauty, to the shock that the mere sight of it provoked. It evoked the Blood's sumptuous past, the luxury and prosperity of the Old World, the catastrophic losses to the rot. The bracelet was not only incongruent with herself. Like a knife to the heart, it struck a painful contrast between the promising past and the barren present.

When Petrid laid it carefully on her arm, Sariah realized she had allowed herself to be misled by the bracelet's striking appearance. It was by no means a harmless trinket. It was an object of treachery. It didn't feel like any metal Sariah knew. On the contrary, if felt warm and malleable, oddly resolved to cling to her skin and peculiarly heavy.

Whispering a ritual prayer in the old language, Petrid brought her wrist close to his mouth. His lips hovered over the bracelet's ornate clasp, a tenth link, smaller than the rest, shaped like a striking red-pupiled eye. He kissed the golden pin dangling from the little chain with a lover's passion, with a believer's zealous faith. Then he slid the pin into the clasp's hinges and pressed it into place.

What happened next was more than strange. It was astounding. In one subtle pulse, the eye on the clasp disappeared under a silvery lid. The bracelet's round hinges contracted and vanished. Like a coiled serpent settling to feed on its kill, the bracelet fit itself snugly around her wrist.

What mysterious force fueled the remarkable bracelet? Sariah couldn't begin to guess. She didn't believe in magic. Instead, she believed in ignorance, a condition which rendered people vulnerable to the unexplained. Could there be a wising on the bracelet? Where stones lurked, wisings could easily hide. Aye. It had to be. She couldn't wait to discover how the bracelet worked.

The chief executioner exhaled a long breath, all too glad to finish the job. “Nine months to honor Meliahs’ nine sisters,” he said. “Nine months to find and submit the tale you seek. Pray thus for their gifts to Pride, Courage, Strength, Hope, Shrewdness, Loyalty, Generosity and Faith. But never trust on the last of the nine, Mercy, for she squanders her gifts on others and has little compassion for her bearer. When the time comes, she will not hesitate. She'll suck you dry of your essence before abandoning you to your sworn fate.”

Sariah couldn't repress the shiver that ran the length of her spine. She didn't understand Petrid's strange words, but she remembered every one of them. She would have to think more on that later. The gaudy bracelet felt too heavy on her arm. It was a mark of her banishment, a warning to all Domainers that she was nonexistent in their world and that a meeting with her, however brief, was liable to cause great losses.

“My brothers will complete the transaction,” Kael said in a flat tone, as if he was vying for a sack of flour or a load of potatoes. “We'll be taking our leave now.”

“Not just yet.” The broad-nosed, bearded man who had shot at Sariah stood on the executioner's deck blocking their path. “I want my turn at her.”

“If I recall correctly,” Kael said, “you shot your last stone and killed the other woman.”

“I paid to shoot at
this
woman.”

Kael's eyes narrowed on the man's face. “I know you.”

“What if you do?” The man squared his bulky shoulders.

“You're Josfan. You used to be a roamer, until Leah ran you out.”

“That was a while back,” Josfan said. “I follow the executioners now.”

“I can't imagine you had many options after the roamers’ gathering upheld Leah's view.”

“What does that have to do with anything? I demand my shot.”

“I'm afraid it can't be. I have no quarrel with you, but we've struck a settlement with the executioners. The execution is off. Stand aside.”

“I paid good coin for four shots at her. I'm still owed one.”

“My brothers will refund your coin.”

“Do you think coin will buy her way out of this?” The man's spiked club bounced against his palm. “Think again, Son of Ars. Princes and lords are a thing of the past in the Domain. I'm afraid they're all dead.”

It happened too fast. A blur of half-moon swords exploded from Kael's weapons belt. The clash of steel prevailed over the crowd's cries. The man's club flew from his bleeding hand. His belt dropped to the ground in lieu of his guts. When it was over, he writhed at Kael's feet with twin swords angling at his throat.

“Next time, take the coin,” Kael said. “Princes and lords are a thing of the past, but I am here to stay.”

He wiped his swords on the man's tunic and returned the weapons to his scabbards. Before Sariah could say a word, he plucked her from the executioners' deck and, heaving her over his shoulder, carried her through the grumbling crowd. Without a weave to protect her legs from the dead water, Sariah had no option but to accept the favor.

The rabble was even more incensed than before. Some were bitter because they had been denied the spectacle of her death. Some were mad because they had lost their bets or their chance for profit. Some were friends of the defeated shooter and some were simply angry at the injustice. Yet they didn't dare pelt her openly as they had done before, mostly because they respected and feared Kael.

Kael's traveling deck was just arriving, pulled by some of his fastest runners, loaded and ready to go. Kael dumped her feet-first on the deck and pointed toward the shelter. “Don't come out unless I say so.” He turned and huddled with the runners, whispering muted orders.

Sariah swallowed an angry retort and did what she was told, only because she realized the situation was precarious. She didn't have to wait long. Kael wore his pulling harness when he entered. He ignored her thoroughly, going about the shelter with his usual methodical efficiency, inspecting the goods stored there with a measure of haste.

He must have known that the executioners didn't feed their wards, because he dropped a skin full of the strong drink Domainers favored on her lap. The spicy brew soothed her parched throat and warmed her empty stomach. He also produced a huge chunk of dark bread and a wedge of buttery cheese from his pack. Sariah didn't realize how hungry she was until she bit down on the glorious offering.

He poured water from the barrel in a bucket and parked it in front of her. “Clean those eel bites. They like to fester. Eat and rest. We have hard going ahead.”

He was gone from the shelter right away. The deck began to move, first slowly and then increasingly faster, until it ran at a good clip. Daft man, not overly expressive either. No sense in complaining, though. He had come.

She took stock of the shelter while she ate. Kael must have arranged to have provisions retrieved from Ars before he came to the executioners' camp. She was glad to see some of her things as well, the few garments she owned, her pack, her stones, her leather-bound engrossments and annotations, her scribing floor desk and her tool baskets. The man was a stubborn ox, but she had to admit that when it came to planning, he was brilliant.

With a lick of her fingers, she finished her meal. She washed her wounds, and in doing so, discovered the grime of the last two days. She scrubbed herself mercilessly. She may be a rogue stonewiser, but she had always abided by the Guild's cleanliness rules. Besides, she liked to smell fresh.

Clean and fed, she clad herself with a fresh shift from her pack and sat down on the pallet to examine the banishment bracelet. It was an object that defied reason. Its mysterious power evoked the stones, yet it was obviously a thing of the Domain. A number of Domainer coppers could be seen engraved in Generosity's link, a Domainer buckler was emblazoned on Pride's link, and two Domainer half-moon swords were crossed on Courage's link. She found no trace of the hinges and clasps that had been there before. She tried to pull the thing over her knuckles, but it wouldn't fit. On the contrary, it seemed to tighten in proportion to her efforts. Strange. Was her imagination playing tricks on her? Nay. When she fiddled with the bracelet, it stuck to her arm with the grit of a thousand suckers.

Nine links. Nine months. That's all the time she had to find the tale that the executioners' required. At the breaking of the wall, Mistress Grimly, the Guild's Prime Hand, had appropriated the seven twin stones that contained the tale of the Blood's split. By now those stones were buried or worse, destroyed. But what Sariah needed now was different. She needed a tale that would help unify the divided Blood, heal the wounds of a broken world, and build consensus among the fiercest of foes. By Meliahs, she needed a miracle, a stone tale capable of fostering peace on a warring world.

She didn't have much in terms of promising leads, only the work she had done this last year and the fragmented information she had wised from other stones. She also had Zemi's words, the final ranting of the intrusion created by Zeminaya, the most powerful stonewiser of her time.
The justice of the execration ends with me
, the intrusion had said.
The Shield dies with me. The Blood we split and the proof is with the bane of the pure. The rot we made ourselves, because we created simmering fire and flesh, we broke Meliahs’ pact, we forsook labor and sweat.

She remembered the shock of realizing the truth, the desperation of knowing what neither one of the Bloods was likely to accept—that they were both part of the same blood. Old Blood wisers had created the New Blood to labor in its stead. But as the rot destroyed the Old World, the oppressed New Blood had turned on their creators, expelled the Old Blood from the Goodlands, and condemned them to die in the Rotten Domain under the false belief they were the New Blood.

She had known then that the revelation would be hard to accept for both Bloods. What she hadn't known was that both Bloods would find her discoveries beyond disagreeable, untenable. Far from crumbling, the powers that had ruthlessly ruled the world survived to terrorize it. Her formidable foes had doubled and multiplied. The Guild. The Shield. Mistress Grimly. Master Arron. In the throes of a changing world, her enemies, and yes, even some of her friends, favored her death for different if valid reasons. The executioners' bid for her life was just one example of the dangers that stalked her. Kael, the inveterate cynic, had seen it for what it was. Sariah had to be careful. She didn't have Kael's battle-honed instincts.

Was there a lost tale out there, a forgotten stone capable of bringing unity to a divided world? And if there was, would she be able to find it before it was too late? She had one sentence from the intrusion to guide her.
The Blood we split and the proof is with the bane of the pure.
Who were the pure? What and where was their bane? How could it lead her to find the tale she sought?

Unable to find a way to undo the bracelet, Sariah fetched a needle chisel from her tool basket and began to probe the clasp for a weak point.

“Ouch!” She dropped the chisel. Had the bracelet just stung her? With the pain fresh in her mind, she couldn't blame her imagination, but she grabbed the chisel and tried to force open the silvery lid again. The pain returned, like a wasp sting, only worse.

What kind of power did the bracelet conceal? And where was the power hidden? It had to be in the stones. Anticipating a trap, or at the very least, a snaring trance, Sariah braced for a bruising contact. Cautiously, she tapped on one of the red stones. Nothing. Perhaps it needed a firmer contact. She tapped harder. Nothing again. She rubbed the stone against her palm, first lightly, then more firmly. Complete and utter blankness. Odd. Maybe the wising was concealed in one of the other stones?

Surely the stones had to be the key. She tried all the tricks she knew. She queried all the stones individually and then together. She did it gingerly at first, then more forcefully. Nothing. The nine stones on the bracelet were cold and silent like the dead. The eye on the clasp remained stubbornly closed.