“Malachite for protection from peril.” I was getting cross.
“A moon cut from it would not be enough to guard you from Carnelian and Flare.”
“You’re not helping,” I told him. “Garnet for strength and vigor.”
“Piffle, all of it.”
“You learned that word from Rosethorn.”
“These stones are useless,” Luvo argued. “Worse than useless if you rely on such toys instead of your own power.”
I glared at him. “I am relying on my own power. It’s the power of the spells I made and stored in these ‘toys,’ you stubborn chunk of rock!”
“This is folly, Evumeimei. Let these meat people flee this island. Let us make our escape with them. Oswin does not understand the immensity of power held by just one of these spirits. Beings like Flare and Carnelian and their kindred are the agents that make and unmake the surface of the entire earth.”
“You worry so because you can’t imagine tricking the forces that gave birth to you. I understand. But look here. The force that made me sold me for a handful of coppers. I’m not as awed. If I get in over my head, I’ll just run away.” He doesn’t understand, I thought. I put Carnelian and Flare in a trap that ended up making them stronger. I have to limit the damage I did. I don’t want to be one of Rosethorn’s destroyers, even by accident.
I patted Luvo on his head knob, which I knew he hated. Then I made myself comfortable and closed my eyes.
The fault that ran under the Makray, up under the lake and Mount Grace, was warm. I gathered power from it as I raced through the ground in my magical body. I headed for Moharrin and the quartz trap. Travel was so much faster without my meat self. Of course, I couldn’t haul anything useful when I moved like this. I paid a price in exhaustion when I returned to my real body. Still, if I’d had to go to the trap by foot or horse, I would have given up before I even tried. I probably would have reached the trap too late for us all.
A new earth shock picked me up. It threw me from the place where the river left the lake all the way to the far end. The volcano spirits were traveling in a fault just three miles from Carnelian and Flare. With my senses spread wide through the ground I could feel them. They rooted in the fault like pigs hunting truffles. I jammed myself through the ground past them. My claim to be Flare and Carnelian’s friend wouldn’t sound good if I didn’t set them free.
I smacked into Luvo’s black obsidian wall. It curved above, below, and to either side of me, a glossy black shield in the earth. A sparkling ghost floated in it: me. Flare and Carnelian were on the other side. I’d kept careful track of their location. They were just three hundred yards beyond this wall, with its granite back. The volcano spirits would only see this—at least until it began to melt.
I flowed through the cool black shield. Behind it was the thick granite slab Luvo had set there. That was guaranteed to slow the volcano spirits more than easily melted obsidian. From it, and from the earth around it, I collected what I needed for my new appearance. I made a girl shell from crystals and minerals, fitting them around me. I built a stone tunic of olivine and fashioned green tourmaline leggings. Black tourmaline served me for hair and eyebrows. I shaped rose quartz into a mouth. Black garnets worked as my eyes, and gold feldspar became my skin. By the time I reached the quartz trap, I was an Evvy made of magic and stone.
I had come in time, barely.
Tiny lightnings sparked around the quartz. They melted the earth and cracked the crystals themselves. Several dozen drops of blue and carnelian-colored fire broke free. They flowed together to join with others of their color. I didn’t wait to see how big those combined drops had to get before they began to think on their own—though I was curious.
Would you release all the pieces of my friends? I asked the quartz crystals. I think they’ve overstayed their welcome, don’t you?
It is our pleasure, said the biggest crystal. She sounded like an unhappy housekeeper. Just look at how they’ve ruined our order!
Your guests have been very rude. That crystal was one of the smallest, but it was also very old. No matter how many times they were asked to settle, and find their places, they just wouldn’t listen.
I felt bad. I knew crystals loved organization. It’s their nature. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to turn out so badly for you.
Oh, no. We have benefited immensely. The thing the mountain did to keep them here, when he united both ends of our vein? asked the friendliest of them.
Oh, that was splendid, the housekeeper said.
It was too exciting. The grumpy old one was determined to be unhappy. There’s been altogether too much excitement going on around here of late.
The thing the mountain did, the friendly one said firmly, it made quite a few of us better able to resist heat. That was good.
And many of us have stolen power from your rude friends, the housekeeper crystal added.
But we will still be happy if they never return, the old one told me. They do not know how to behave. Not like you.
The crystals split. Out squirted hundreds of drops of indigo and reddish-brown fire. They formed a single, mixed-color pool in the soil, the big drops calling to the small ones that had already escaped.
I waited. The pool sloshed and stirred. The rocks and earth around it softened and shifted. At last the blue drops slid to one side, the carnelian-colored ones to the other. Slowly Carnelian and Flare took on the shapes they’d held when I saw them last. There was one difference. This time, they were taller than me by a head.