For a moment, even though he’s little and skinny, Fusspot seemed majestic. Like he was cloaked in the wisdom of those long-ago mages. Like he was worthy of respect, even as they had been.
“I don’t understand this at all.” The Master Herder was a woman. She was wringing her hands. “I know the herds have been odd for days, skittish, panicky—I thought it was so many earthquakes. I just don’t understand, why us, why our mountain? Have we offended some god? We try to pay respect to all the ones we know of, but perhaps we missed one? Our mountains have always been so quiet.”
“Nonsense.” Luvo actually sounded cross. “I know that you meat creatures are exceedingly short-lived, but you are supposed to have minds, and memories, and eyes. You are supposed to use these things.” He looked at me. “Are some breeds of human more stupid than others?”
“Luvo, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard you be actually rude.” Rosethorn kept her voice quiet but direct. “I don’t understand what has upset you.”
Luvo turned his head knob so his invisible eyes were on hers. “I have known you for three or so of your mortal years, Rosethorn. I have seen what happens in these situations in which you involve yourself and Evumeimei. For reasons which are unclear to me, you will insist on remaining in this place to reason with people who will not heed you. They will delay your departure until you, and thus Evumeimei, are in peril of your lives. How long until these volcano children find a way out, and lead all their kindred through it? A week? That is very little time. It may not give you enough chance to get out of range. If these meat creatures argue and deny and quibble as I saw those others do, back in Gyongxe, I am certain it is not enough time. Now that I see there is a chance that I—we—will survive this volcano, I do not wish the bleatings of human sheep to delay our escape. Perhaps I am a bad mountain. Perhaps I should resign myself and wait for the earth’s cycle to take me. But I have grown attached to Evumeimei, and to you. I would like to see more of your world. I would like to see Lark and Briar again.”
“We don’t have to sit here and be insulted.” This time it was the Master Miner who spoke. I knew he was the miner. Though his clothes were clean and his face well washed, grains of stone were worked into his wrinkles. I reached out to see what the stone grains were. It was like trying to take a deep breath, only to find your lungs won’t open up. I hugged Lark’s blanket around my shoulders, trying not to cry. How long would it take my power to come back?
“I have sons at home who will insult me for nothing.” The miner was still talking. “Forgive my saying so, Master Luvo, though I don’t mind telling you I feel funny, calling a little fellow like you ‘Master.’ But I’ve been in the mines all week. Nobody enjoys the ground-shakes, but we’ve weathered them. It just seems like Mount Grace is missing her lover more than usual. But she isn’t the volcano sort. I’ve seen two of the volcanoes we have in these islands, Sharyno and Kieta. Our Mount Grace has never been that sort.”
That made me perk up. “Never? Never?” I looked at Jayat and Tahar. “You know the spell for looking at a thing, right? The one where you tell it to show its nature? My book mage friends say it’s like your ABCs, you all learn something like that.”
“I know a curst sight more than my letters, you pepper-mouthed minx.” Tahar glared at me for good measure. “My Jayat, too.”
With Lark’s strengthening blanket around me I could walk. “I’ll be right back.”
As I was climbing the stairs I heard Luvo say, “All of these islands are volcano-born. How can you not know that? The lines of power that your mages called on, they are but tributaries to great faults in the earth. Those faults lead to the furnaces in which everything was made.”
In my room I got the rocks I had collected the day before: mica, obsidian, quartz, and feldspars. All had been shaped far below the earth, where they should have stayed. I carried them downstairs, my knees wobbling.
“It is a small undersea volcano, seven miles off your shore and one mile deep.” Luvo was telling them about the vent we had found under the ocean. I could see the village councilors didn’t believe him. I wasn’t surprised. One thing I had noticed in my travels with Briar and Rosethorn. People took to them because their magic was ordinary. So Briar and Rosethorn talked to plants and played with them like pets. At the end of the day, they had dirt under their nails, stickers in their clothes, and a crop to show, like everyone else. Unless people witnessed it when they did some great magic, calling out huge thorny vines from a gravel slope, or turning a tiny tree into a giant one, they seemed like everyday people. They were the kind who got invited to meet daughters or say the blessing over the new grandbaby.
But Luvo was not like that. Luvo was not everyday. I wasn’t everyday. I was Luvo’s friend, and I had no liking for people. They were fine as long as they left me alone, of course. I preferred cats and rocks.
I put my stones on the table next to those I had gathered that day. Azaze and the carpenter moved aside so Tahar and Jayat could see them. “Ask the stones, Mage Tahar, Jayat. Stones don’t lie or make up pretty stories. Ask them what their nature is, where they came from. What they came from. Don’t ask me, I’m a lying chit trying to get out of being in trouble. Ask the stones how they got made.”
I sat at the table where Luvo stood. Even with Lark’s blanket around me, I guessed I had overdone things. I was feeling cranky. I’d been up at dawn to traipse all over their silly island. I had tried to see where their precious source of mage-strength had gone. Then look what had happened to me! Catch me warning people their stupid home was going to blow up again.