“Waking tremors.” Her voice was quiet. “What is the earth waking up to, Luvo?”
“It may only be waking enough to turn in its sleep, as you humans do, Rosethorn. Or tremors may come from movement that began in a distant place. It is hard to say.”
I could feel the ridge start to drop away from me. It was just a sharp peak, not a rise in the land under the ship, and we were sailing away from it. “Nooo!” I leaned over the rail. “Come back!” I didn’t want to lose the tingle of all those beautiful rocks this soon! I had been so lonely, even with all my old stones and Luvo to keep me company. “Stay close! Stop this stupid ship!”
“Evumeimei,” Luvo called.
“Let me alone!” Far below, the floor had dropped out of the range of my magic. “I’m sick of the sea! I’m sick of being away from rocks!”
“Evumeimei, if you will stop making that dreadful noise, I will show you a thing,” Luvo said patiently. To be honest, I think Luvo has few moods other than patient. It’s part of being a mountain’s heart, I suppose. It’s really annoying.
“What she’s doing is called ‘whining,’ ” I heard Rosethorn say. “I don’t think you should reward her for it.”
“Young mountains are restless and impatient, Rosethorn. As such, they can be dangerous. They must be kept amused. Although Evumeimei is not a young mountain, my spirit urges me to guide her as one. And that noise she makes is quite grating. Evumeimei, sit on the deck and place your hands on me.”
When Luvo speaks to me firmly like that, I do as he says.
I felt ghost hands reach through his clear skin and wrap around my wrists. He pulled me into his crystal insides. We fell through the ship, ghost Luvo mingled with ghost Evvy. It is a powerful thing, being a ghost before you are dead. In Yanjing, they would say I was cursed forever for being a ghost while I was alive. So many things are different when you’re a mage.
We dropped into the water. It ran through me, cool and tingly with salt, warm from the sun. I would have gasped, but I had no lungs. We zipped through a huge school of fishes, their skins slick and slippery. The water got colder as we went down. Bright flashes sparked along my insides. I looked at myself. I glittered.
They are flecks of stone borne by the sea. Luvo’s voice sounded in my mind. Once the sea has ground rock down into tiny grains, it is light enough to float. The sea carries the grains. They are so little you could not sense them with your magic. I feel them all.
More fishes dashed by, blurs in the water. I was starting to wonder what they ate, to make them rush so, when I understood. It was not the fishes, but Luvo.
Is this how you see Rosethorn and Briar and Myrrhtide and me? I asked. Dashing around like someone had turned us into crazy flies? Because we’re meat creatures and you’re stone?
I made an adjustment to see you as you see yourselves. It was necessary. I shall make one now, Luvo replied.
The crystal ladders and spirals that made up our ghost body seemed to go loose, then twist. The dashing fish twinkled. Suddenly they slowed. Jellyfish appeared—I hadn’t even seen those until now. Luvo and I continued on down, onto the ocean floor. The ridge I had felt lay before us. Beside it was a deep canyon. Luvo took us into that. I reached my ghost hands out to feel its stony sides.
It’s volcano rock. Why is there a volcano canyon in the ocean? I asked.
Volcanoes exist everywhere. Once—long before my time—the world was born of volcanoes.
Long before his time? Luvo was thousands of years old. I couldn’t imagine anything older than he was.
I have spoken with the mountains from those times, he continued. They were only pebbles by then, but they were very wise. I learned much by waiting patiently to hear their wisdom.
Is that “patiently” thing a hint to me? I wanted to know.
I would never hint to you about patience, Evumeimei.
The lower we fell in the deep canyon, the warmer the water got. Shouldn’t it be freezing by now? I inquired. What makes it warm?
Luvo said, Look, and you will see.
2
We Meet Our Guides
Below us lay a deep, deep crack in the canyon floor. Strange, death-colored plants grew there, food for the pale fishes that nibbled on them. Around one hump in the crack, bubbles streamed from an opening, boiling up through the water. It looked like a miniature volcano. I touched it with my magic, naming the minerals heaped around it: sulfur, magnesium, and other volcano leavings. The crack itself was limestone.
The vent belched. It threw out a boiling cloud of bubbles that passed through Luvo and me. Where does it come from? I wanted to know. Where does whatever air that is in the bubbles come from? What made this crack, and why did it burp just now?
It “burps,” as you comically put it, because the heart of the earth is forever in motion, Evumeimei, said Luvo. This seam reaches down to the molten heart, which is gas and liquid stone. These things come to the earth’s surface through such vents, be they under water or under the land. That is where the ocean rolls to the earth’s pulse.
So where does this seam go? Under the Battle Islands?
Many do, he replied. I have heard it said that earthquakes often take place in this part of the world. It is because many seams are here. I had thought that if I showed you these things you might have fewer questions. Instead, you have more. Are you never unquestioning?
I could tell Luvo was teasing me. I’m quiet when I sleep. Besides, you said you wanted to stop me whining. You didn’t say you wanted me not to ask questions. I’m not whining, am I?