Oswin came to me leading Spark. Once I took Luvo and his sling, Oswin gave Spark to a couple of kids. They climbed into the saddle with relief. I figured Oswin would wander off—he looked distracted—but he didn’t. Although he carried that immense pack, he walked like it was filled with feathers. His hands were tucked in his pockets. He gazed off into nowhere, his lips moving silently.
Since Oswin didn’t seem to want to talk, I turned to Luvo. How did the shield building go? I asked in our magics. Will it fool the volcano spirits? Will it keep them from finding Carnelian and Flare?
The shield is made, he said, granite on one side, obsidian facing outward. It will reflect only the volcano spirits, should they find it. I do not know how long it will hold. The volcano spirits might come too close, and melt it, or enough of them may decide to ram it. Has Myrrhtide said if more ships have arrived in the seaport?
I didn’t ask, I replied.
“Question,” Oswin interrupted.
I was so fixed on Luvo that Oswin’s voice made me jump. We both stared at him.
He didn’t realize he’d startled me. “You said Flare and Carnelian wanted to play when you first met them. They wanted to show you things, and they wanted you to help them escape.”
“Ye-e-ess.” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. I didn’t want him springing any word traps on me.
“What if you went back to them now, and said you want to go out with them?” Oswin asked. “What if you told them you’d found them the perfect spot to do it? An easy spot? Then you led them to it—away from Starns?”
I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at him. Luvo stood up on his back legs inside his sling to get a better look at Oswin.
It seemed like Oswin was used to reactions like ours. “No, wait, listen a moment. You said they want to come out. They never insisted on where, did they? In fact, Mount Grace was their last resort. Some old faker of their own kind sold them that old wheeze. You know, the one that if they struggle and fight through tons of solid rock, they’d be worthy to break into the open air.” Oswin said “worthy” like it was a very bad word. “Flare and Carnelian were smart. They’re looking for faults that will take them close to the surface, so they can save their strength until the last moment. You know they’ll break free eventually. Why not do it where they won’t kill thousands of people and make whole islands unlivable?”
“I have never heard of such a thing in all my millennia, Oswin Forest,” Luvo said flatly.
Oswin looked at Luvo and shrugged. “You led me to believe you came along with Evvy for new experiences. This would be one of them.”
“You propose to tamper with the great cycle of birth,” Luvo told him with a little outraged thunder in his voice. “Mountains enter life in this manner. There is always the struggle, violence, destruction, fire. Things die, things are born, the old is buried in the rush of the new. So it has been from the very beginning of this world.”
Again Oswin shrugged. “Once, if a baby started to come out backwards, the choice was to see if it could be born that way alive, to bring it out that way and risk the mother’s death, or to try to turn it and risk the baby’s death. Then a midwife learned how to turn the baby in the womb. More babies and mothers live because nature never minds a little extra help.”
“How did you find that out?” I asked, curious. I’d never met a man who could talk midwifery.
“Jayat hasn’t been around to help Tahar for long,” Oswin explained. “Before that she was without an apprentice for a couple of years. I helped her. We are talking about volcanoes, Evvy.”
“Blasphemy.” Luvo was rocking from side to side. His weight shifts made him hard for me to balance.
“I’m not proposing an end to the process through which mountains are born. This is just a new wrinkle.” Oswin was being very patient. “Could many stone mages even do it?”
“Evumeimei’s skills are unusual,” Luvo said, distracted from his crankiness. “I believe the fact that her first instructors were green mages influenced her power. Her magic follows more flexible channels than those of the stone mages I have encountered.”
“I am standing right here,” I told them. “I can speak for myself.”
“I was wondering about how Evvy does things. Most stone mages I’ve encountered seem very, very settled,” Oswin commented. “They only deal with their immediate circle of stones and learning. Certainly they aren’t flexible. I never heard that a mage’s first teachers have an effect on how their magic works, though.”
They would remember me eventually. In the meantime, the refugees were drawing away. Luvo calmed down as I started walking, and Oswin caught up. He and Luvo kept talking about first teachers. I turned Oswin’s idea over in my head. Hadn’t Rosethorn mentioned something similar? She’d been joking, but Oswin wasn’t.
Flare and Carnelian didn’t know I had tricked them. If they did, their anger would be enough to blow the quartz trap to pieces. They might suspect. If I showed up before they broke out, though, if I set them free, I could convince them it really was just a game.
Worse, I didn’t know if I could keep them from the surface. They were big before they went into the quartz. If they were bigger when they came out, I might not be able to control them.
I might die.
The road crested a high point in the ground. Below us was the long line of refugees. Rosethorn was riding back, a little boy behind her, a little girl in front of her. She looked tired and thin.