Heroes at Odds (29 page)

“Oh, you should have seen it. That rock is huge, just huge, and we made it dance. It was fabulous. All the light and the words and notes swirling through my head and the rock went higher and higher and I couldn’t feel my feet. Seriously, I need some water.”

Taro stood in front of me, halting my progress. He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me once. “What happened to you?”

“It wasn’t working. It wasn’t working and it wasn’t working and it wasn’t working. We sang and we touched and we—oh!—we didn’t dance. Do you think it would have worked if we’d danced? Dancing is very powerful, you know. Clears the mind and works the breathing and it’s all movement to a purpose, you know. I bet that would have worked. I wonder—”

“What’s wrong with you?” Taro roared.

“Sh sh sh! Don’t be so loud, you’ll wake everyone. And they work so hard, have you noticed? Up so early and working so hard and barely able to stop even to eat and they can’t stop until it’s dark and then they sleep and then they have to get up and do it all over again. Do you ever feel badly about it, Shintaro? They work so hard and we do so little.”

Taro cupped my face in his hands and leaned his forehead against mine. “What. Happened?”

“It wasn’t working, you see. We tried and we tried and we tried and we couldn’t move the rock. We just weren’t strong enough. So Browne went back to her cottage and Berlusconi really doesn’t like me because I am a Shield but she doesn’t seem to like Browne, either, and was generally being—”

“Why did Browne leave you? Did she decide it wasn’t a good plan? Did she leave you there to do something she considered dangerous?”

“She needed to get this kyrra powder that really wakes a person—”

“She gave you a drug?” Taro demanded angrily.

“No no no, it’s not a drug. It’s a medicine. Browne uses it all the time when she has to work really really hard. And you know how hard she works. You were—”

“You can’t Shield, you realize that. If an event were to come—”

“I would be able to handle it with ease. Because the kyrra turns the mind into a needle, really, I could do anything. I could probably Shield without the spell, which would be excellent, because carrying around the ingredients is a real pain in the—”

“So the rock is up? This is all over?”

“No no no, this was just practice. We’ll have to do it again tomorrow, so Radia can get people to chain the rock to the arch. Have you seen the arch? It’s so narrow. I can’t imagine it can actually hold the rock, but of course I don’t know anything about it. Have you ever studied anything about building things? Because I think that would be really good information to have.”

“You’re not doing this again tomorrow.”

I pulled away from him. “Of course I am. Water water water.” There was the jug, gleaming white in the lightening air of dawn. I poured myself a glass and it was cool and shivery going down my throat.

“You are not. Look at yourself. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“It’s because of the rock, you know. It has to go up. Radia’s going spare because she can’t do her duty. How would you feel if something was preventing you from channeling? If you were here in Flown Raven and earthquakes were happening and you couldn’t do anything about it? I mean, you were born a Source. What if you never found a Shield and couldn’t do what you do best? Like Creol. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for him, you know. I couldn’t bear that, myself. Knowing what you can do but not being able to do it.”

“Please lie down.”

There was no way I could lie down. I had to move move move. And talk. There were so many thoughts tumbling through my mind and I had to speak them.

Hester came in with the morning tray.

“Good morning,” I greeted her. I felt fabulous. “Is it a good morning for you? How early did you have to get up?”

She didn’t answer me. She just looked at me, her eyes kind of wide. That was rude.

“Because I was just thinking—I do that a lot, you know, thinking, though that always seems to get me in trouble, because I always seem to think about the wrong things—that you’re here to wake us up, so when did you—no, wait, you don’t always bring us the tray. How do you decide when to do that?”

Instead of answering, she silently backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“Now that’s
really
rude.”

I smelled coffee on the tray. A headache just exploded into my skull, and my throat became painfully dry. The nausea created by the headache made it difficult to drink the water, and the water didn’t seem to help my throat at all. I felt disgusting.

Suddenly, it felt like every particle of strength I had just rushed out of me. I kind of collapsed into a chair. “Whoa.” The room was tilting, and I had the most foul taste in my mouth.

All right, this wasn’t good. In fact, it was pretty nasty. How could Browne go through this on a regular basis?

“Ready to be sensible?” Taro drawled.

“Ready to sleep.” If I could. My skull was pierced with pain. I pressed the sides of my head with my palms. “My gods.”

Taro stood beside me and put his hand on my shoulder. The pain flowed away. Oh, thank Zaire. “So you’re not going to take that dross again.”

The thought of having any more of the powder made my stomach slosh unpleasantly. “Just tonight, to get the rock up. Then never again, I promise.”

“You didn’t see yourself, Lee. You were like a crazy person. And your eyes, they couldn’t settle anywhere. And it was like the air around you was crackling. It wasn’t right.”

“One more time.”

“The rock isn’t your responsibility.”

“You would do the same, if you could.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Liar.”

“All right,” he conceded. “But this involves my family.”

“Exactly. They’re your family.” That couldn’t be difficult for him to understand. After all, he was jumping through hoops because of the mess my family had created.

He frowned. “I don’t like you doing this.”

“I don’t like doing it, either. This is not fun.” Actually, working with the rock had been fantastic. Anything after that had been alarming. And weird.

Though I still felt that, under the influence of the kyrra, I could channel without the spell. I wondered if it were possible to create a powder that was slightly less powerful, but had none of the side effects. On the other hand, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of taking a drug in order to perform my duties. It disturbed me as using a spell did not. That didn’t make any sense. “Just one more time.”

Taro clearly didn’t approve. I waited for further argument. Instead, he said, “Will you sleep now?”

“Will you lie with me? I have a vicious headache.”

“I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”

It took me a little longer to fall asleep than I’d expected. I was tired, but my mind was still circulating a little too quickly. Taro didn’t move, and his proximity was reassuring and comforting.

I opened my eyes and couldn’t quite decide whether I’d actually slept or not. It was late afternoon. Taro was gone. My mouth tasted putrid. I felt loose and tired as I left the bed to get some water. Normally, I was craving coffee as soon as I woke, at any time, but the thought of drinking any made my stomach curl in protest. I drank some water, splashed some more on my face, and changed my clothes.

I spent the whole day in my room, staring into space, feeling too vile to do anything. No one came to bother me. I suspected Taro had something to do with that.

I was just about feeling normal when it was time to head back out. I joined Radia, who was being assisted by two tall and broad-shouldered men introduced to me as Shipwright Neil Vejajiv, who was wearing a leather bag over one shoulder, and Sawyer Olan Ridden. Despite their size and strength, they didn’t carry Radia but supported her while she kind of walked between them. It was awkward and slow, and Radia was sweating and keeping any vocalizations of discomfort behind tightly clenched teeth.

Getting through the small twisting path that breached the high stone ridge behind the manor was particularly challenging, as Radia and the two men couldn’t walk through three across. Then the rocky shore on the other side of the ridge caused slippage under everyone’s feet.

Everyone else from the circle was at the arch, as well as a few other men I didn’t recognize. Everyone greeted the Wind Watcher with respect. There was a folding chair set up a short distance away. The shipwright and the sawyer helped Radia settle into it.

Four men climbed up the arch with a lot of slipping and quick grasps for purchase and balance. No one was used to doing this, and that was alarming.

The chains meant to hold up the rock were enormous. Used for ships, I’d been told. From the looks of it, the way the men handled them, they were damn heavy. I really couldn’t imagine how the men would be able to maneuver them in order to hang the rock, but that part of the process was not my responsibility.

Browne handed out the kyrra powder. It seemed to me that everyone was even less enthusiastic about licking their palms than they had been the night before. All I could think about was the headache I was going to have the next morning.

And that wasn’t what I should be thinking about. I had a task to perform. I licked the powder off my palm.

This time I was ready for the effects, and perhaps that was why they didn’t seem to overwhelm me to the same extent. The clarity of mind felt a little more natural. I looked at the rock, and I could be aware of other forces in my environment without being distracted by them.

And when we started to sing, I could keep the words clear in my mind and direct them with the proper pressure. As the rock lifted, I almost felt like I was touching it with my mind. A sensation that was just plain weird.

However, the hard part was not, at that point, lifting the rock, but holding it close enough to the top of the arch to be reached by the chains, yet not so close that the men on the arch lacked the room to work. Holding it in the precisely correct location was challenging, and tiring.

The first time the men tried to loop the chains, one of them shrieked and jerked his arm back and almost fell off the arch, caught by the front of his shirt by one of his fellows. He had to be helped down while we lowered the rock. Browne examined his hand, bound his two broken fingers, and gave him something for the pain. Then she was back with the circle, and we raised the rock again.

We held it. And held it. And held it.

I was aware of Coulter stumbling over the words. This caused the rock to wobble, and the men trying to thread through the chains swore and pulled back.

Thatcher, standing beside Coulter, put his hand over the other man’s mouth. Shutting him up caused the rock to straighten.

We held it and we held it and we held it.

The weight seemed to be more draining on the mind than it had been the night before. Perhaps that had something to do with the kyrra powder feeling a little less powerful.

The men trying to thread the chains through the gaps in the rock were shaking and sweating. Could they get it done?

And then they did. The huge chains were pushed through and pulled up and some sort of fastening hammered into place. Mitloehner put up a hand, and we stopped singing.

The rock held.

I let out a long breath in relief.

The others laughed and applauded and I ended up getting hugged by a lot of people without really thinking about it. Some of the laughter was a little hysterical, perhaps because of the kyrra powder, but also, I remembered, because at least some of them probably believed the rock was a talisman for good luck. And all of them put their hands on the rock, bowing their heads and closing their eyes. I felt a bit awkward being the only person not to engage in these actions, but to imitate their behavior without sharing their beliefs would be lip service, and that was insulting.

The near silence after the constant singing and jangling of the chains was soothing. I could hear the waves flowing in the darkness, a sound I’d always enjoyed. It was calming to my mind which, while not as frantic as the night before, was still whirling more quickly than it should.

The shipwright opened his bag and began pulling out and distributing mugs. “I believe this moment deserves some recognition. This is the best wine from Her Grace’s cellar.”

Hm. Her Grace wasn’t supposed to know about this. How did he get his hands on it?

“No,” Browne said quickly. “It will react badly with the kyrra.”

Radia looked disappointed. “Even just a sip?”

Browne thought for a moment and then nodded with reluctance. “All right. Just a sip.”

The shipwright took this instruction seriously, pouring very little wine into each mug. When everyone had been served, Radia stood and raised her mug. “To luck returning to the land.”

“Aye!” everyone else responded, and we all took a sip. I couldn’t really taste what I was drinking; my tongue still felt coated with kyrra. That seemed a great waste of good wine, but probably there was some symbolism involved that was more important.

“I’m sure you’re all aware that none of us is to admit to having anything to do with the raising of the rock,” said Mitloehner.

“How else could it be explained?” Berlusconi challenged him.

She was really annoying.

“It’s not up to us to explain. Let everyone think what they will.”

We broke up shortly after that. I really felt like swimming, but knew that was careless. The currents of the water were strong, and I risked losing all my strength midstroke. Then I would drown, and that couldn’t be pleasant. And it would be rude to leave Radia to go back to the manor with only her escort.

It felt like it took days to get to the manor. I ran up the stairs and into my suite. I paced. Taro came out and watched me pace. He gave me water but didn’t try to talk to me. I didn’t need him to. My mind spilled out plenty of fuel for a monologue.