Stone of Tears (45 page)

He should have taken the Wizard’s Second Rule into account, but he had been intent on doing something good for her. That was the way it worked with the second rule; it was usually hard to tell if you were violating it.

“You know the price of magic, Adie, almost as well as a wizard. And besides, I made it up to you. For the pain, I mean.” He knew it wouldn’t take as much magic to make the ankle longer as it had to grow the foot back, but after what she had suffered, he could understand her reluctance. “Perhaps you are right. Maybe I have done enough.”

Her white eyes settled on him again. “Why be you here, wizard?”

He gave her an impish grin. “I wanted to see you. You are a hard woman to forget. And I wanted to tell you about Darken Rahl being defeated, by Richard. That we won.” He frowned at her stare. “Why do you think the grippers are coming here?”

She shook her head with a sigh. “You talk like a drunk man walks: in every direction but where he be headed.” She flicked a finger toward the table, indicating she wanted him to get the bowls. “I already knew we won. The first day of winter has come and past. Had Rahl had won, things wouldn’t be so peaceful as they are. Though I be pleased to see your bones again.”

Her voice lowered, became even more raspy. “Why be you here, wizard?”

He strode over to the table, glad to elude the scrutiny of those eyes for a moment. “You didn’t answer my question. Why do you think the grippers are coming here?”

Her voice lowered into a deeper, harsher rasp, bordering on anger. “I think the grippers be here for the same reason you be here: to cause an old woman trouble.”

Zedd grinned as he returned with bowls. “My eyes don’t see an old woman. They see only a handsome woman.”

She regarded his grin with a helpless shake of her head. “I fear your tongue be more dangerous than a gripper.”

He handed her a bowl. “Haven’t the grippers ever come here before?”

“No.” She turned and began spooning stew into the bowl. “When the boundary be in place, the grippers stayed in the pass, with other beasts. After the boundary went down, I not see them for a time, but when winter came, so did the grippers. That not be right. I think something be wrong.”

He exchanged the empty bowl for the full, holding it to his nose and inhaling the aroma. “Maybe when the boundary finally failed, there was no longer any hold over them, and they simply came out of the pass.”

“Maybe. When the boundary failed, most of the beasts went with it, back into the underworld. Some were freed of their bonds and escaped into the surrounding country. I never saw any grippers until the winter came, nearly a month ago. I fear something else happened, for them to be here.”

Zedd knew very well what had happened, but didn’t say so. Instead, he asked, “Adie, why don’t you leave? Come away with me. To Aydindril. It would be …”

“No!” Her mouth snapped closed. She seemed almost surprised by her own voice. She smoothed her robe with her hand, letting the anger leave her face and then took the spoon out of the hand with the bowl and returned to dishing out stew. “No. This be my home.”

Zedd watched silently as she worked over the kettle. When finished, she carried her bowl to the table, set it down and retrieved a loaf of bread from over the counter, from a shelf behind a blue and white striped curtain. She pointed with the bread to the other empty chair. Zedd set his bowl on the table and sat, hiking his robes up as he folded his legs underneath himself. Adie lowered herself into the chair opposite him and sliced off a chunk of bread, using the knife point to push it across the table before she looked up to meet his eyes.

“Please, Zedd, do not ask me to leave my home.”

“I am only worried for you, Adie.”

Adie dunked a chunk of bread in her stew. “That be a lie.”

He looked up from under his eyebrows as he picked up his bread. “It’s not a lie.”

She ate without lifting her head. “‘Only,’ be a lie.”

Zedd went back to his stew and ate in ernest. “Umm. Thish ish womerful,” he mumbled around a hot chunk of meat. She nodded her thanks. He ate until his bowl was empty, then took it to the fireplace and filled it once more.

On his way back to the table, he swept his hand around at the room, pointing with his spoon. “You have a lovely home, Adie. Quite lovely.” He sat and picked up the bread she passed to him. He put his elbows on the table, his sleeves slipping up his forearms as he broke the bread in half. “But I don’t think you should be living here, all alone. Not with the grippers and all.” He gestured with the bread to the north. “Why don’t you come with me to Aydindril? It’s a lovely place, too. You would like it there. There’s plenty of room. Kahlan could see to it you have your choice of places to live. Why, you could even stay at the Keep, if you preferred.”

Her white eyes stayed on her meal. “No.”

“Why not? We could have a good time there. A sorceress could have a grand time in the Keep. There are books and …”

“I said no.”

He watched her as she went back to eating stew. He pushed his sleeves up further and did the same. He couldn’t eat long. He set the spoon in the bowl and looked up from under his eyebrows.

“Adie, there is more to the story, more I haven’t told you.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I hope you do not expect me to look surprised. I not be good at pretending.” She bent back over her bowl.

“Adie, the veil is torn.”

Her hand paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth. She didn’t look up. “Baa. What do you know of the veil. You do not know what you speak of.” The spoon completed its journey.

“I know it’s torn.”

She scooped up the last piece of potato from her bowl. “You speak of things that are not possible, wizard. The veil not be torn.” She stood, picking up her empty bowl. “Be at ease, old man, if the veil be torn, we would have a lot more than grippers to be worried about. But we don’t.”

Zedd turned, putting a hand on the back of his chair, watching her limp toward the kettle hanging from the crane in the fireplace. “The Stone of Tears is in this world,” he said in a quiet voice.

Adie halted. Her bowl fell to the floor, clattering in the thick silence, and rolled away. Her hands were held out before her as if she still held it. Her back was stiff. “Do not say such a thing aloud,” she whispered, “unless you be certain beyond doubt. Unless you be certain on your honor as First Wizard. Unless you be willing to offer your soul to the Keeper if you be lying.”

Zedd’s fierce, hazel eyes watched her back. “I pledge my soul to the Keeper if I’m telling you a lie. May he take me this instant. The Stone of Tears is in this world. I have seen it.”

“Dear spirits, protect us,” she whispered weakly. Still, she did not move. “Tell me what fool thing you have done, wizard.”

“Adie, come and sit down. First, I want you to tell me what you are doing living here, in the pass, or what used to be the pass. What you have been doing living at the edge of the underworld, and why you won’t leave.”

She spun to face him, one hand gripping the skirt of her robe. “That be my business.”

With his hand on the chair back, Zedd pushed himself to his feet. “Adie, I must know. This is important. I must know what you have been doing, so that I may know if it can be a help.

“I know very well the pain you live with. I saw it, remember? I don’t know what caused it, but I know how deep it is. I would ask you to share the story with me. I ask you as a friend to confide in me. Please don’t make me ask as First Wizard.”

Her eyes rose to meet his at the last of what he said. The flash of anger faded and she nodded. “Very well. Perhaps I have kept it to myself too long. Perhaps it would be a relief to tell someone … a friend. Perhaps you will not want my help, after you hear. If you still do, I expect you tell me all that has happened.” She thrust a finger in his direction. “All.”

Zedd gave her a small smile of encouragement. “Of course.”

She limped to her chair. Just as she sat down, the largest skull on the shelves suddenly thudded to the floor. Both stared at it. Zedd walked over and picked it up in both hands. His thin fingers stroked tapered, curved fangs as long as his hand. The skull was flat on the bottom; it shouldn’t have been able to roll off the shelf. He replaced it solidly as Adie watched.

“It seems,” she said in her rasp, “that the bones want to be on the floor lately. They keep falling down.”

Zedd returned to his chair after a final frown to the skull. “Tell me about the bones, why you have them, what you do with them; everything. Start at the beginning.”

“Everything.” She folded her arms across her lap, briefly looking as if she wanted to run for the door. “It be a painful story to tell.”

“Not a word of it will ever touch my lips, Adie.”

Adie drew a long breath. “I be born in the town of Choora, in the Land of Nicobarese. My mother did not have the gift of sorcery. She be a skip, as it be called. My grandmother Lindel be the one before me to have it. My mother be grateful to the good spirits she be a skip, but bitter at them that I be gifted.

“In Nicobarese, those with the gift be loathed and distrusted. It be thought the gift be allied to the the flows of power not only from the Creator, but also from the Keeper. Even ones using the gift for good be suspected of being a Baneling. You know of the Banelings, yes?”

Zedd tore off a piece of bread. “Yes. Ones turned to the Keeper. Sworn to him. They hide in the light, as well as the shadows, serving his wishes, working to his ends. They can be anyone. Some work for good for years, hiding, waiting to be called. But when they are called, they do the Keeper’s bidding.

“They are also called by different names, but they are all agents of the Keeper. Some books call them that: agents. Some are important people, like Darken Rahl, used for important tasks. Some are everyday people, used for dirty little deeds. Those with the gift, like Darken Rahl, are the most difficult for the Keeper to turn. Those without it are easier, but even they are rare.”

Adie’s eyes widened. “Darken Rahl be a baneling?”

Zedd lifted an eyebrow as he nodded. “Admitted it to me himself. He said he was an agent, but it’s the same thing, whatever the word, and I’ve heard any number. They all serve the Keeper.”

“This be dangerous news.”

Zedd sopped up some stew with the piece of bread. “I bring very little of any other kind. You were saying about your grandmother Lindel?”

“In the time of grandmother Lindel’s youth, sorceresses be put to death for anything that fate brought: sickness, accidents, still births. Put to death, wrongly, for being Banelings. Some of the gifted fought back at being wrongly persecuted. They fought well. It deepened the hatred, and only served to confirm the fears of many of the Nicobarese people.

“At last, there was a truce. Nicobarese leaders agreed to let the gifted women be, if they would give a soul oath, as a way of proving they not be Banelings, an oath not to use their power unless permission be granted by a governing body, the King’s circle of their town, for instance. It be an oath to the people. An oath not to use the gift and bring the Keeper’s notice.”

Zedd swallowed a mouthful of stew. “Why would people think sorceresses were Banelings?”

“Because it be easier to blame a woman for their troubles than to admit the truth, and more satisfying to accuse than to curse the unknown. Those with the gift use power that can help people, but it can also be used to harm them. Because it can be used to harm, it be believed the power must be given, at least in part, by the Keeper.”

“Superstitious nonsense,” he growled.

“As you well know, superstition needs no grounding in truth, but once rooted, it grows a strong though twisted tree.”

He grunted his assent. “So no sorceress used her power?”

Adie shook her head. “No. Unless it be for some common good, and they went before the King’s circle of their town first and asked permission. Every sorceress went before the circle of their town or district and swore an oath to the people, an oath on her soul, to abide by the wishes of the people. Swore a solemn oath not to use her power on or for another unless asked to do so by the agreement of the circle.”

Zedd put his spoon down in disgust. “But they had the gift. How could they not use it?”

“They used it, but only in private. Never where anyone could see, and never on another.”

Zedd leaned back in his chair, shaking his head in silent wonder at the Wizard’s First Rule, at how stupid people could be, while Adie went on.

“Grandmother Lindel be a stern old woman who lived by herself. She never wanted anything to do with teaching me about using the gift. She told me only to let it be. And my mother, of course, could teach me nothing. So I learned on my own as I grew, as the gift grew, but I knew very well the wickedness of using it. I be lectured on that almost every day. To use the gift in a manner not permitted was made to seem like touching the taint of the Keeper himself, and I believed it so. I feared greatly going against what I be taught. I be a fruit of the tree of that superstition.

“One day, when I be eight or nine, I be in the town square with my mother and father, on market day, and across the square, a building caught fire. There be a girl, about my age, on the second floor, trapped by the flames. She screamed for help. No one could reach her because the fire be all through the first floor. Her screams of terror burned every nerve in me. I started to cry. I wanted to help. I could not stand the screams.” Adie folded her hands in her lap and looked down at the table. “I made the fire to go out. The girl be saved.”

Zedd watched her placid expression as she stared at the table. “I don’t suppose anyone, except the girl and her parents, were happy?”

Adie shook her head. “Everyone knew I had the gift. They knew it be me who had done it. My mother stood and cried. My father just stood looking the other way. He would not look at me, at an agent of the Keeper’s evil.

“Someone went for grandmother Lindel; she was respected because of how she stood by the oath. When grandmother Lindel came, she took me and the girl before the men of the King’s circle. Grandmother Lindel switched the girl who I saved. She bawled a good long time.”

Zedd was incredulous. “She beat the girl! Why?”

“For letting the Keeper use her to bring forth the use of the gift.” Adie sighed. “The girl and I had known each other, had been friends, of a sort. She never spoke to me again.”

Adie hugged her arms across her stomach. “And then grandmother Lindel stripped me naked in front of those men, and switched me until I was covered with welts and blood. I screamed more than the girl had in the fire. Then she marched me, naked and bloody, through the town, to her house. The humiliation be worse than the beating.

“When we got to her house, I asked how she could be so cruel. She looked down her nose at me, looked at me with that puckered, angry face of hers, and said, ‘Cruel, child? Cruel? You got not one switch more than you deserved. And not one less than what it took to keep you from being put to death by those men.’

“Then she made me give the oath. ‘I swear on my hope of salvation, never to use the gift on another, for any reason, without the permission of the King or one of his circles, and upon forfeit of my soul to the Keeper, should I ever use the gift to harm another.’ And then she shaved my head bald. I be kept bald until I grew to the age of a woman.”

“Bald? Why?”

“Because in the Midlands, as you know, the length of a woman’s hair shows her social standing. It be meant to show me, and everyone else, that there be no one lower than I. I had used the gift, publicly, without permission. It be a constant reminder of the wrong I had done.

“I lived with grandmother Lindel from then on. I only rarely saw my mother and father. At first, I missed them greatly. Grandmother Lindel taught me how to use the gift, so I would be able to know it well, to be able to know what I was not to do.

“I did not like grandmother Lindel much. She be a cold woman. But I respected her. She be fair, after a fashion. If she punished me, and she did, it be only because I broke her rules. She switched me, hard, but only for an infraction I be warned of. She taught me, she guided me in the gift, but she never gave me a kindness. It be a hard life, but I learned discipline.

“Most of all, I learned to use the gift. For that, I will always be thankful to her, for that be my life. The gift be touching something higher, something more noble than what I be.”

“I’m sorry, Adie.” He started eating his cold stew because he didn’t know what else to do. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

Adie rose from her chair and walked to the fireplace, staring into the flames for a time. Zedd waited silently for her to find the words.

“After I reached the age of a woman, I be allowed to let my hair grow.” She smiled a small smile. “At that age, as I filled into my form, I be thought an attractive woman.”

Zedd pushed the bowl of stew away and went to stand by her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “No less attractive now, dear lady.”

She put a hand over his without looking from the flames. “In time, I fell in love with a young man. His name be Pell. He be an awkward young man, but a good and noble man, and he be kindness itself to me. He would have brought me the ocean, one spoonful at a time, if he thought it would please me. I thought the sun rose to show me his face, and the moon came out to let me taste his lips. Every beat of my heart be for him.

“We wanted to be wed. The King’s circle of Choora, led by a man named Mathrin Galliene, had other ideas.”

She took her hand away and gripped a knot of robes at her stomach. “They had decided I was to be wed to a man from the next town, the son of their mayor. I was a prize to the people of Choora. Having a sorceress bonded to a people by her oath was seen as a sign of the virtue of those people. To give me to an important man from a larger town was cause for excitement, joy, expectation. It would seal our towns in many ways, not the least of which was valuable trade.

“I be in a panic. I went to grandmother Lindel and begged her to intercede for me. I told her of my love for Pell, and that I did not wish to be a prize in return for trade. I told her the gift was mine, and not to be used to bind me into slavery. A sorceress not be a slave. Grandmother Lindel was a sorceress. The gift in her be disdained, but people respected her because she be devoted to her oath, and they held more than a healthy respect for her: she be feared. I pleaded for her help.”

“Doesn’t seem like the kind of person to help you.”

“There be no one else to turn to. She made me leave her for one day, so she could think on it. It be the longest day of my life. When I came to her at the end of the day, she told me to kneel before her, and give the oath. She told me I had better mean it more than any time I had ever said it before, and she had made me say it often. I knelt and said the oath, meaning every word.

“When I finished, I held my breath and waited. I still be on my knees. She looked down her nose at me, that sour frown of hers still on her face. And then she said, ‘Though you be wild of spirit, child, you have worked to tame it. The people have asked for your oath, and you have given it. May I not live to see you break it. You owe no debt beyond that. I will take care of the circle and see to Mathrin Galliene. You will wed Pell’. I wept into the hem of her dress.”

Adie was silent, staring into the fire, lost in the memories. Zedd lifted an eyebrow. “Well, did you wed your love?”

“Yes,” she whispered in her soft rasp. She took the spoon off its hook and stirred the stew while Zedd watched her. At last, she hung it back at its place. “For three months, I thought life be beyond bliss.”

Her mouth worked soundlessly as she stared into nothingness. Zedd put and arm around her shoulder and gently led her back to the table. “Sit, Adie. Let me bring you a cup of tea.”

She was still sitting, her hands folded together on the table, staring off when he returned with the steaming cups. He placed one in her thin hands as he sat opposite her. He didn’t press her to go on before she was ready.

At last, she did. “One day, the day of my birth and nineteen years, Pell and I had taken a walk in the country. I be with child.” She lifted the cup in both hands and took a sip. “We spent the day walking past farms, thinking of names for our child, holding hands, and … well you know the foolishness of love at that age.

“On our way back, we had to walk past the Choora mill, just outside of town. I thought it strange no one be there. Someone always be at the mill.” Adie closed her eyes for a moment and then took another sip of tea. “As it turned out, there be people there. The Blood of the Fold. They be waiting for us.”

Zedd knew of them. In the larger cities of Nicobarese, the Blood of the Fold were an organized corps of men who hunted Banelings; rooted out evil, as they saw it. In other Lands, there were men like them, who went by other names, but they were the same. None were especially picky about proof. A corpse was the only proof they need show of their job well done. If they said the body was that of a Baneling, then it was. In the smaller towns, the Blood were usually self-appointed toughs and thugs. The Blood of the Fold were widely feared. With good reason.

“They took us …” her voice broke, but only that once, “into separate rooms in the bottom of the mill. It be dark, and smelled of the damp stone walls and grain dust. I did not know what be done to Pell. I be almost too terrified to breath.

“Mathrin Galliene said Pell and I be Banelings. He said I would not wed as I should have because I wished to bring the Keeper’s notice to Choora. There be a sickness, a fever, in the country that summer, and it brought death to many a family. Mathrin Galliene said Pell and I brought the sickness. I denied it be so, and spoke the oath to show proof.” Adie turned the cup in her fingers as she stared at it.