The Waterstone (20 page)

A gust of wind ruffled his hair and rattled the tall stalks of dried brown grass.
Whisper . . . whisper . . . whisper . . .

A sudden shower of pebbles rained down from higher up on the cliff, bouncing sharply off the tops of stone heads and the bridges of stone noses, spattering across the ground at Tad’s feet.

“Who are you?”

It was a rough gravelly voice that sounded as if the speaker had a throat full of dust.

Willem and Birdie gave startled exclamations and Pippit, a frightened squeak.

“Who are you, Fisher boy, that you can see beyond the stone?”

It was the closest of the faces that asked the question, a deep-lined craggy face with drooping stone mustaches and an odd little cap of rust-colored lichen growing on its shaggy stone hair. As it spoke, it seemed to move slowly forward, pulling itself farther out of the enclosing rock. Tad could see the stone lips move.

The power moved inside him, warm and strong, and he realized that he wasn’t frightened at all. There was no feel of danger here.

“I am the Sagamore,” he said. “I have come to seek the Kobolds, to ask their help now that the Nixies are awake.”

The whisper ran through the cliffs again, but this time Tad could hear words in it.

“Sagamore . . . Sagamore . . . Sagamore
, . . .” said the windy voices, murmuring one to the other up and down the rocky wall.

“Nixies . . . Nixies . . . Nixies . . . awake . . . awake . . . awake . . .”

The
S
s sounded like the dry rustling of dead leaves.

“Well, you have found them, Fisher boy,” the stone voice rumbled. “Behold us, the Witches of the Mountains.”

A chorus of grating voices chimed in.

“Witches . . . Witches . . . Witches . . .”

A final pebble bounced off an outcropping and struck Tad smartly on the top of the head.

“What help do you think we can give you, Fisher boy?”

Tad rubbed his head, wincing. He could feel a lump.

“I don’t know exactly,” he said. “You helped a Sagamore once before, long ago. You gave him something that helped defeat the Nixies when they were taking all the water —”

“We do not remember,” a voice said sharply from high above Tad’s head.

Tad looked up quickly, but he could not identify the speaker. Whoever it was, he decided, he didn’t like him. The voice set his teeth on edge. It sounded like fingernails scraping on slatestone.

“Water is no friend of stone,” the scrapy voice said.

“Water . . . water . . . water . . .”

The whispers suddenly sounded louder, angry. Tad took an inadvertent step back.

“Water is no friend of stone,” the first Kobold repeated coldly. “Water wears the rock away and turns the boulder into dust. Water feeds the roots that crack apart the stones. Why should we help you? Let them take the water, Fisher boy.”

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Tad turned helplessly to look at Willem and Birdie. Willem stepped forward.

“That’s the Great Cycle,” Willem said. “It happens to everything.”

Tad stared at him uncomprehendingly, trying to send questioning signals with his eyebrows. What was this? He had never heard of any Great Cycle.

“It happens everywhere,” Willem said. “It has to. Even the water in your pond is part of it, Tad. The water doesn’t just stay there, always the same. It turns into vapor and gets pulled up into the clouds, and then it falls back to Earth again as rain. The rain feeds the lakes and the rivers and the streams and the ponds. And then it all happens again, over and over. That’s the Great Cycle. Or part of it.”

He pointed down the mountainside toward the forest.

“The trees get old and die, and then they fall over, and then they rot. They turn into mold and dirt on the forest floor, and then new trees grow up where they once stood, sinking their roots into the new dirt. That’s part of the Great Cycle too. The old trees die so that new trees can be born. Everything dies away and comes again, over and over.”

Tad felt a pang of envy. Willem seemed to know so much more about everything than he did.

So the Sagamore is part of the Great Cycle too
, he thought.
Like the old turtle said. The Mind and the Magic rest until the time is right to be born again in somebody else. Over and over . . .

“The wet and the green, perhaps,” the first Kobold said stubbornly, “but not the stone, Digger boy. Stone lasts.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Willem. “You said so yourself. Wind and water wear and wear on it and slowly turn it into dust.”

The whispers mumbled and rumbled ominously like distant thunder.

“Dust . . . dust . . . dust . . .”

“But the dust washes down the streams,” Willem said, “and piles up on the shores or settles down to the bottom of the lakes and oceans. Lots of it. And after a long long time, more time than any of us can even count, it all packs and crushes together and hardens into stone again. New stone.”

The whispers softened.

“New stone . . . new stone . . . new stone . . .”

“They seem to like that,” Birdie whispered.

“It’s the way things are supposed to be,” Willem said confidently. “If the Great Cycle stops, then everything just falls apart.”

“So that’s why everything is so wrong,” Birdie said. “When the Nixies took the Waterstone, they stopped the Great Cycle.”

The whispers sharpened into alarm.

“Waterstone . . . Waterstone . . .”

“The Water Witches may not misuse the Stone,” the scrapy-voiced Kobold said from somewhere high above him. “It is against the Law.”

“Well, it may be against the law,” Birdie said, “but they’re doing it anyway. Everything is drying up. Our pond is shrinking, and the stream above it is almost empty.
All
the ponds are drying. The forest is turning brown. Everywhere things are dying.”

A buzz of whispering arose. The voices were clearer and more distinct now. There were low rolling rumbles, staccato chatters, even one high cantankerous voice that sounded a little like Grummer. They seemed to be quarreling.

“May not misuse the Stone . . . may not misuse the Stone . . .”

“Water is no friend
. . .
no friend . . .”

“It is nothing to do with us . . . with us . . . with us . . .”

“We helped them once . . . once . . . once . . .”

The whispering stopped.

“What’s happening?” asked Birdie.

Tad shook his head.

The first Kobold spoke again. “When you came last to us, Sagamore, you walked in a different guise. The help we gave was fitting then, for you were man-grown and battle-wise. But now it is a different time, and you are not the same. You would find it of no use to you.”

“A hindrance, even,” a hoarse rattly voice said.

Birdie, beside Tad, bristled. “How can you be so sure he couldn’t use it?” she demanded. “Whatever
it
is. You don’t know what Tad can do.”

A new voice answered. It reminded Tad of heavy boulders rolling. It was so deep that he could feel it vibrating inside his chest like a skin drum.

“We gave the Silent Sword,” the voice said.

A Remember stirred in Tad’s mind. His fingers curled as if they held a polished hilt. The blade was beaten steel set with patterns of gold. It was a beautiful thing, heavy, but not too heavy for his wrist. Once the Kobold put it in his hand, it was as if he and the Sword were one. . . .

“What’s the Silent Sword?” Birdie was asking.

“The Silent Sword was forged in the long-gone days when we yet wielded hammers and tongs,” the deep voice said, “and deep within its metal was set a fragment of the Earthstone. The bearer of the Sword was shielded from the Water Witches’ song, and the Witches could not withstand the touch of its blade. A worthy weapon, the Silent Sword.”

Birdie shot Tad a hopeful look. “It sounds the very thing,” she said. “Couldn’t Tad have it too?”

A buzz of mocking laughter. Tad felt his ears grow hot.

“The boy cannot use the Sword,” the first Kobold said coldly. “He has neither the strength nor the skill for weapons. The Sword is not for him.”

“Besides, the Sword is lost,” the deep voice said.

“Lost . . . lost . . . lost . . .”

Birdie turned in dismay from Tad to Willem and back again.

“They’re supposed to
help
us,” she said in a distressed undertone. “They’re acting like they don’t even
care.
“

“We cannot help you, Fisher boy,” the first Kobold said. “Our day is past. We are of the stone now, rooted in the mountain. We will not walk abroad again, but will grow more and more silent. Soon we will not speak or wake at all, but will be one with the bones of the Earth.”

From the face of the cliff around him came a chorus of agreement.

“Cannot help . . . cannot help . . . cannot help . . .”

“Sleep . . . sleep . . . sleep . . .”

Tad’s heart sank. They had failed, then.
He
had failed. All that long journey for nothing.

“It is not so!” A new voice, its syllables sounding like a flurry of crashing hammer strikes.

Tad’s head jerked up.

“It is true,” the hammer voice said, “that we are bound here forever and can no longer walk about the Earth as once we did. But we are not yet powerless, brothers.”

Agitated whispers.

“There have been many Sagamores,” the hammer voice went on, “and no two of them the same. Each one learned to find a way. Who are we to turn our backs on this one because he is small and young?”

From somewhere deep inside, the mountain gave an angry rumble. Tad thought it sounded like a giant stomach growling.

Then there was a loud tearing sound. The cliff wall before them split open in a long jagged crack and something rolled out and fell heavily at Tad’s feet. Pippit poked his head forward and nosed at it distrustfully.

“Take it, Fisher boy,” the hammer voice said.

It was a fist-sized lump of dull gray stone. Tad bent down and picked it up.

“What is it?” he asked. He looked at Willem, puzzled, but Willem only shook his head.

The hammer voice gave a dusty chuckle. “A helping hand, Fisher boy.”

The whispers murmured in grudging admiration.

“He’s given you his right hand, Fisher boy . . . his right hand . . . with which to fight the Witch
. . .
to fight the Witch
. . .
his right hand . . .”

Tad recoiled. “This is your
hand
?”

He looked more closely at the lump of stone. At first it appeared smoothly round, but then he saw faint grooves and ridges shaped vaguely like clenched fingers, and a jutting bump that might have been the joint of an in-turned thumb.

“Your
hand
?” he repeated.

“It is the best I can give you, Fisher boy. It will help you . . .
help you . . . help you
. . .” The hammer voice dwindled and faded, then suddenly, as though it were making one last effort, grew stronger again. “I always loved the waterfalls,” it said. “Are they still there?”

“Oh, yes!” Willem answered before Tad could speak. His eyes lit up. “They’re beautiful. Like silver curtains falling over the rocks of the mountains.”

Willem’s face fell suddenly. Tad remembered the Diggers’ motionless Waterwheel.

“At least they
were
beautiful,” Birdie said, “before the Nixies stole away all the water.”

Deep inside, the mountain growled.

“Take my hand, Fisher boy,” the hammer voice said. “And set the Waterstone to do its work again, as is the Law.”

“But how — ?”

Before Tad could finish the question, the crack in the cliff sealed itself shut with a sharp snap. The whispers ceased. All in an instant, the faces froze again, seeming as they did so to blur and fade, sinking deeper into the rock.

“Thank you,” Tad said into the sudden silence.

High above him a handful of pebbles rattled and fell.

Tad, Birdie, and Willem looked at one another, then looked down at the lumpy stone in Tad’s hand, with its shadowy trace of stony fingers.

“But
how
will it help us?” Tad asked. “What are we supposed to do with it?” He threw a frustrated look at the silent cliff. “Why couldn’t they have stayed awake long enough to explain things better?”

“Well, they seemed sure it would help,” Birdie said bracingly. “And they’re Witches, too; they must know more about how to fight Nixies than we do.”

“Then I guess this is it,” Tad said unhappily.
Why
couldn’t the Kobolds have explained? “This must be what we came for.”

“What do we do next?” asked Willem.

“We go back,” Tad said. “We have to tell the others. We promised to meet at the Gathering of the Tribes. I told your grandfather all about it. The Gathering. The Diggers should come too; all the Tribes should be there.” He hesitated. His throat felt tight. “And then . . .” He swallowed painfully. “And then I’ll have to go back to the black lake. To find the Nixies.”

“
We’ll
go to find the Nixies,” said Birdie and Willem, speaking at exactly the same time.

They hesitated, turned to each other, and made youfirst gestures.

“I’m going with you,” they both said at once.

Tad hesitated. It would be wonderful, he realized, to have Birdie and Willem with him.
Friends at your back
, a voice said softly in his head. Tad bit his lip.

Pippit croaked encouragingly.

“You can’t,” he said. “You mustn’t. It’s too far for you, Willem, and anyway, it’s too dangerous. Besides . . .”
Can Diggers even swim?
he wondered.

“Just wait until I get my equipment,” Willem said. “I have some things that should be helpful. Wait till I show you. And I have to find my bat.”

He turned and began to scamper down the mountain.

“I’ll meet you on the forest path,” he called back over his shoulder. “The path you took when you first got here. Beyond the front gate.”

“What about your grandfather?” Birdie called after him. “What about your family? What are you going to tell them?”

“I’ll leave them a note,” Willem shouted back.