By the time I had rinsed the soap from my burning eyes, she was gone. I cursed in every language I knew, then grabbed some towels. I promised myself I’d tie her up if I had to.
I followed Meryem’s wet footprints down the stairs and out of the house. They were still clear in the dirt of the path to the dead pond. I ran, then. I was scared she might fall into the water. The acid water would burn her.
The sight of dead animals in the pond stopped her on its shore. When she saw me, she ran to the far side of the water and stuck her tongue out. I was thinking of a plan of attack when bubbles rose to the surface of the water. They popped with the stink of rotten eggs. Slowly I approached Meryem. As I did, other bubbles burst. They smelled less like rotten eggs and more like other kinds of bad air.
Bad air.
“I’m not coming!” cried Meryem. “You’re not my family! I’m not leaving! People always make me leave!”
“Maybe they’re trying to save your life!” I didn’t want to argue. I wanted to think. What might bubbles of bad air mean? If they were coming up, what was coming after them? “Go back to the house. Go back and wait! Go!” Bad air went hand in glove with Flare and Carnelian. How close to the surface were they? What if they were right behind these bubbles?
“OOOMMMM.” The sound made the air quiver. “OOOUUUUUUUMMMMM.”
Meryem shrieked. “What was that?”
That was Luvo, getting serious. The boys must have tried to play some trick on him. The sound would be even worse to them, trapped in the same house with Luvo.
A large bubble popped with a stink that made my throat close. I moved away from it. I couldn’t let myself be distracted. “That sound is a warning that you’d better get back to the house now!”
She didn’t make me repeat myself. She ran to Oswin’s as fast as she could.
“Finish your bath and get dressed!” I yelled after her. Then I lay on a dry patch of ground, away from the mud. I put my hands flat on the earth and drew from the rocks all around me. Even though I had built myself up again with my stone alphabet, I wasn’t as strong magically as I was before I had come to Moharrin. I needed whatever power I could gather. I could find magic in ordinary stones—they were the heart of my power. They wouldn’t hold as much as ones I had fiddled with, but they could still help.
Today I was lucky. To my left was a pocket of feldspars, forged in that volcano. All of them held some of its ages-old strength. Rainbow, plain, and black moonstone, plain feldspar crystals and gaudy sunstone, I drank all of it in, then thanked the rocks. In the ground I searched out the heavy, dense granite, dark and stubborn basalt, and the cruel edges of gabbro. I spread my net wider for stones filled with holes: scoria and pumice. I needed them so the drag of the volcano spirits would pass through me instead of pulling on me.
Once I was armed, I glanced at the pond. It bubbled like a kettle boiling on the fire. “Don’t wait any longer, Evvy,” I told myself. I let my magical body fall out of my flesh one, seeping into the ground.
There I saw as clearly with my magical eyes as I could with my real ones. The power of the volcano spirits shone in tiny wisps from a crack on the bottom of the pond. I dove into it, following the power back down into the earth.
12
The Quartz Trap
It took me a long time to track the traces of their magic until I ran into Flare and Carnelian. When I had noticed those bubbles in the pond, then seen their power under it, I had been afraid they were close to the surface.
Both of them had kept their humanlike shape and seeming. I hoped that was a good thing.
Where were you? Flare circled me so fast I began to spin like a top. We looked all over the chamber but you were gone! We thought you had left us with everyone old.
Why did you go? We know you did. We didn’t like it. Carnelian stared at me. The stone around us softened and dripped down the sides of the crack where we drifted.
You almost crushed me up there. Although we were deep underground, I somehow knew where Mount Grace was. I pointed to it. I’m not like you. You have to see that. You nearly killed me. Of course I ran away. If you start trying to crush me against this roof here, I’ll leave again, I promise. You’re big and strong. I’m not. I have a right to preserve my life.
We couldn’t crush anybody here. The roof is weak, can’t you tell? There’s more bounce. Flare pushed the stone over us with his arms. It didn’t bounce, though parts of it melted away. I think it bounces. If we push…
The shimmering waves around him streamed into the thin crack in the stone. That was the poisoned air, I knew. It would speed to the surface far in advance of him, bubbling into the pond. Could it widen the crack and open the way for Carnelian and Flare?
I didn’t think Nory would like it if a volcano, or even a slowly leaking lava flow, came up out of Oswin’s pond.
Maybe if I help. Carnelian rose to put her shoulders against the crack. It widened under her pressure. More poisoned air rose into it.
I felt heat rise below us. I looked down. At the far end of the crack, where it entered the underground chamber, the others had noticed something was going on. A handful of them had swum up to stare at us. I had to get Flare and Carnelian out of here. The others might not follow if we moved quick enough. They weren’t as curious as these two. I wished I could get Luvo down here with his big noise. Luvo could teach them!
Luvo. Teaching. I thought of the crystals I had seen, the ones whose strength I had borrowed. Something about Luvo teaching crystals…