The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“What is it?”

“I have to walk.”

He walked back to where the dead mule lay at the side of the old road. Its gear had been stripped and taken forward to the campsite. It had collapsed beside a mile marker, a small granite post barely poking out above the litter of forest fall. With a finger he traced the number carved there. Lichen had grown into the chiseled lines. Moss made a little hat on the flat top of the marker, damp and soft. The dead animal had a faint putrescence, and the sheen of light that marked the presence of one of the servants hovered round it, inquisitive, as if it had never seen death before and did not know what to make of it.

In the morning Anne had the servants transfer the baggage from the dead mule to her own, and she insisted on walking even when Sanglant offered her Resuelto.

It was hard going. Roots had torn up portions of the old pavement; water and ice had shattered others. Liath stayed on her horse and didn’t complain. Eventually the woodland opened out, and beyond a river they saw a thread of smoke marking a village. The old bridge had fallen to pieces, planks lost or gaping. Sanglant scouted the shore but could find no boat, and in the end he volunteered to lead the horses and mules across one by one. In some places he had to shove planks together. In others, he simply laid his shield down over the gaps so they could get across. In this way they made it to the other side. Of the servants he saw no sign, but one of them blew in his ear teasingly.

The old road forked one last time before the village, and here Anne took the fork that led away from the first strip of fields.

“We are not going to the village,” said Anne when he objected. He was tired, damp, hungry, and wanting a fire. But they pitched back into woodland again, trudged up through rugged country torn by rock falls. The old road thrust gamely along, finding purchase through a series of switchbacks and supporting arches. Long after midday they reached a ridge. Wind blew incessantly and broke the cloud cover into a patchwork, ragged clots of blue among the gray-white clouds. They struggled along the exposed road for what seemed hours. The footing was terrible, loose rock, pebbles, slick moss. To the right lay a deep and narrow valley, thick with trees. At last the road skirted a hollow sunk into the ridge, and there, in the hollow below, stood nine stones, one of them listing badly. The other eight were squat and square, dark-grained, colored by lichen. It had long since stopped raining, and most of the cloud cover had blown on to the northwest, but the wind cut wickedly here on the height. Anne slipped back her hood and started down where a path cut away from the road and curved down the slope to end as a dirt ring around the stones.

They made camp outside the crown of stones, somewhat out of the wind. Liath winced as she put weight on her foot, but she could walk on it now. Sanglant diligently applied another poultice. He loved touching her, even if it was just rubbing ointment on her swollen ankle. It was quiet except for the wind. Too quiet.

He looked up suddenly, stood, and listened. “The servants are gone.”

“They cannot enter the halls of iron,” replied Anne. “They will return by a different road. We must wait for night. That is the measure of the darkness which taints us as long as we exist on this earth: that we can only see into the world above when night lies over us.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“The arts of the mathematici,” said Liath abruptly. She had barely spoken to her mother since the incident at the crossroads. She closed her eyes and got that look on her face that meant she was remembering, “seeking in the city of memory,” she called it. “‘The geometry of the stars,’” she said slowly, as if quoting. “‘Through their shifting alignments the mathematicus can draw power from the highest spheres down below the sphere of the moon.’ The stone circles are gateways that were built long ago, even before the Dariyan Empire. Da spoke of such pathways. But we never used them.”

“He did not have the knowledge, or the strength,” said Anne. “He was not patient enough.” She seemed about to say something else, but did not.

“They were too dangerous,” retorted Liath. “They can find you there, just as in the vision seen through fire.”

“Who can find you?”

“Anything that’s looking for you. If there is a gate, then anyone who can see it can also pass through it. Isn’t that right?”

“Many creatures walk for a time upon the earth, it is true, and some have the ability to pass through into places where humans cannot wander. These crowns are gateways, but not just for creatures who are made of a different substance than we are, and not just for those of humankind who have struggled to master the arts of the mathematici. There are yet others who know sorcery and practice its secrets for their own gain, because these gateways open into places far distant from here, even beyond what we understand of earth itself. Did Bernard never tell you of what else has sought to use these gateways for their own ends?”