We waited and did nothing, only listened. Luvo and I sent our magics into the ground, feeling for more waves. We found nothing. On the mountain and in the canyon, more stones fell. Big ones, little ones…They welcomed the chance to change themselves. I wished them well on their journeys to new shapes.
“That was very, very close.” Jayat, like me, had covered his horse’s eyes to keep it calm. He began to unwrap his shirt from his horse’s head.
I stared at the long scars on Jayat’s back. He shrugged and said, “Not everybody was sad when the foreign lords killed as many pirates as they could find.”
I nodded. I could see that he wouldn’t be too upset at that. “Luvo? Are you all right?” I asked.
Luvo wandered over to the ledge to look down into the dead canyon. “The crack in the earth beside the road closed, but a new one opened down below. I do not recommend that you try to use the new line of power, Jayatin. There are seams of quartz crystal around and below it. They will make any magical strength drawn by a human somewhat irregular.”
“Are you sure we would do so badly, Master Luvo?” Jayat smiled patiently, as if he spoke to a child. “We’ve gotten pretty good at finding ways to draw on this stuff, you know. We have to, you see. We’re just a little bit desperate at the moment. Perhaps our skills don’t look like much to you, being stone…”
“The strength you used is affected by certain laws, including those of crystals, Jayatin.” Luvo was in his teaching mood. I was glad it wasn’t me who brought it on. “Magic passes into quartz as light does. It is reflected from the inner walls of the crystal. You would gather it up quickly, if your magic passed only through one crystal. However, along the seams below and around the crack in that canyon are large clusters. Within each cluster the crystals are turned in their own arrangements. They will reflect each bit of power back upon itself, then to other crystals. You would be trapped here, chained by your magic, until it wore out.”
I heard a grinding noise above our heads.
So did Rosethorn. “Luvo, be quiet.” Her brown eyes searched for the source of the sound. “Everyone, back up—”
Higher up the mountainside, a huge slab of granite gave way. The shock had broken it from its roots. It slid toward us, collecting a train of smaller boulders and gravel as it came. As it fell, it gathered the strength of its falling, picking up speed.
And then it flipped, like a coin in a street magician’s hand. In my head I had been set to send it on a neat detour around us—until that flip. When it leaped high in the air and came down like a six-ton ax, there was no time to be pretty. I even forgot Luvo was there. I just threw up my hands and my power, sucking the strength of the mountain granite in through my feet. I hurled it around that slab and the worst of the boulders.
They locked into place over our heads. They were as solid in the air as they had been on the mountainside. I held them still, wondering what I was going to do now.
Luvo’s power slid into place over mine, cool opal slabs over my thin mica sheet. “I have it, Evumeimei. We are fortunate that you are so quick.”
He gently lifted all that stone away from me. I’ve seen parents set infants in bed with a careful gentleness, as if one slip might break the baby. That was how Luvo settled the slab and its boulder friends in the canyon below, as if they were his children, and he didn’t want to disturb their sleep.
“Still wishing she had stayed at Winding Circle?” Rosethorn raised an eyebrow at Fusspot. One of the smaller rocks that escaped me had bruised her cheek. I winced in shame—I should have caught those stones, too. She took a little pot of something from her saddlebag and dabbed some of its contents on her skin. The bruise faded to a yellow spot. Then she did the same for Jayat, Fusspot, and the horses, who had all been dinged by smaller rocks. Jayat gaped at me even when Rosethorn was mending his cut.
“What?” I was feeling cross. “Are the flies lonesome? Are you offering them a warm, wet home?”
“Hunh?” Jayat blinked at me.
Rosethorn pushed Jayat’s chin up until he realized his mouth hung open. He closed it.
“It’s just raw power. There wasn’t any art to it.” Fusspot was red-faced as he fiddled with his horse’s reins. “Thank you.” He said it to the horse’s side.
Despite the banging in my head—it hurts to work so fast and so hard—I had to grin. I bet the horse didn’t get thanked every day. That night it would probably tell all the other horses about the strange human who snapped one moment and said thanks the next.
Jayat was still staring. “Stop goggling,” I snapped. “You don’t do that to Rosethorn or—” I almost said Fusspot, which Rosethorn wouldn’t like. “Myrrhtide.”
“They’re dedicate initiates. You’re my age.” Jayat tugged at his collar like it was suddenly too tight.
“Luvo did the really hard work. I just stopped it. Ogle Luvo,” I ordered.
“Ogle no one.” Rosethorn gathered her mare’s reins in her hand. “Let’s go someplace safer and eat our midday. I don’t know why it is, but sudden peril and rescue always improves my appetite.”
7
Fizzing
We returned to the trail. Jayat led us up a few hundred yards, to a broad open space covered with grass and flowers. “This is as high as we will go,” he said as we stared at the huge peak of Mount Grace towering over us. “The road circles the mountain but doesn’t climb. We can’t clear it in the winter. But there are advantages to keeping it open this far.” He gestured for us to look toward the north side of the clearing.