Child of Flame

With that, she vanished from Liath’s view, climbing back down the ruined watchtower. The old sorcerer clambered down as well, appearing at the base of the tower, although White Feather was not with him. Liath rose to shake water out of her soaked leggings.

“She doesn’t trust me,” Liath said, surprised at the intensity of the woman’s emotions. “I don’t think she liked me either. Is that the kind of judgment the council will pass? I see no point in standing before them if they’re just going to condemn me.”

“Not even I, who am eldest here, the only one left who remembers the great cataclysm, knows what judgment the council will pass.”

“How can you remember the great cataclysm? If the calculations of the Seven Sleepers are correct, then that cataclysm took place over two thousand and seven hundred years ago, as humankind measures time. No one can be that old.”

“Nor am I that old, as humankind measures years. The measure of days and years moves differently here than there. I know what I lived through. What has passed in the world of my birth in the intervening time I have seen only in glimpses. I know only that humankind has overrun all of the land, as we feared they would.”

None of this made much sense to Liath. “What of the burning stone, then?” She would not make the same mistake she had made with the Seven Sleepers, to wait with resigned patience as they taught her in spirals that never quite got to the heart of what she needed to learn. “If it’s a gateway between my world and this one, can you call it at will? Might it be better for me to escape back to Earth rather than stand before the council?”

He considered her words gravely before replying. “The burning stone is not ours to call. It appears at intervals dictated by those fluxes that disturb the fabric of the universe. It is the remnant of the great spell worked on us by your ancestors, although I do not suppose that they meant it to appear. But a few among us have learned how to manipulate it when it does appear.”

“How might I do so?”

“Learn to call the power of the stars, and the power that lies in the heart of every object. The first you have some knowledge of, I think. The second is not a discipline known to humankind.” He paused to smile wryly. He had faint scars around his mouth and others on the lobes of his ears, on his hands, and even a few marking his heels with old white scar lines. “You must not fear the power of blood, which binds all things. You must learn to use it, even when it causes pain. I do not think you should retreat. It is rarely wise to run.”

That Anne considered this ancient sorcerer and all his kind the sworn enemy of humankind, and of her own cause, inclined Liath to take their part. But in the end it was his words that swayed her. How different he sounded from Da, who had always found it prudent to run. Who had taught her to run.

“I’ll go with you to the council,” she said finally.

“Heh.” The grunt folded into that curt laugh which seemed to encompass all he knew of amusement. “So you will. Do not think I am unaware of the honor you give to me by granting me your trust. It has been a long time since any of your kind have trusted mine.”

“Or your kind, mine,” she retorted. The tart answer pleased him. He liked a challenge, and didn’t mind sharp questions.

“Get what you need, then.”

“I’ve everything I came with.”

He waited while she coiled the rope.

“It’s well made.” The praise warmed her, but she only smiled. He had little enough on his own person for their journey. She had finally gotten used to his clothing, the beaded loincloth, the decorated arm and leg sheaths, and the topknot made of his black hair, ornamented by feathers. He was more wiry than skinny, although he did not look one bit well fed. He took the coiled rope from her and slung it over a shoulder before fishing out an arrow from her quiver. As always, he fondled the iron point for a moment, his expression distant.

“I fear what your kinfolk have become,” he said at random, “to make arms such as this arrow, and that sword.” But he only offered her the fletched end of the arrow to hold. “Grasp this. Do not let go as we walk into the borderlands.”

“Shouldn’t we tie ourselves to the tree? What if we fall off the edge? You said yourself that this fog marks the edge of your lands.”

He chuckled. “A worthy idea, and a cautious plan that speaks well of you. But there is no danger in the borderlands. We are prisoners in our own land, because all the borders fold back on themselves.”

“Except through the burning stone.”