“But you said…”
“No, you read into my words.” Rekarafi’s dark eyes became slits. “You gather stones to ease your mind of a burden. You have responsibility for all the lives here. The threat they are under is because of you. If I accept those stones, I am agreeing you have done all you can to save them.”
“I have!”
“Have you?” The Viruk cocked his head. “Here is the question for you, Keles Anturasi: have you done all you can to show these people how to live, or have you just shown them how to delay death a little longer? How you embrace death means nothing. How you live your life is everything.”
Keles tossed the waterskin aside, peeled his robe down, and knotted the sleeves around his waist. “You think that’s it? You think I’m ready to die?”
“Talk, talk, talk. An epitaph echoing.”
“Fine, let’s go.” Keles bent over and dug at a stone. “You want stones, you want to earn stones, let’s go. I’ll match you stone for stone.”
The Viruk laughed. “This is not a fight you can win.”
“But it’s the best fight I have, until they come.”
Fury and shame raced through Keles, coloring his cheeks. He ripped stones from the earth and staggered to the walls with them. He shrugged off attempts to help him carry them. He placed a stone and twisted it, fitting it to those below tightly, then returned for another, again and again.
Rekarafi matched him, stone for stone, curse for curse, harsh laugh for harsh laugh. They laughed at how silly they looked, caked with dust and streaked with sweat. They laughed at the Eyeless Ones who couldn’t see how hard they labored at a futile task. They laughed at their own mortality.
And yet somewhere within the futility and defiance, a thought took root in Keles’ heart. One more stone. One more stone. Somewhere there was a stone, the stone, the stone that would make the defense work. The stone that would hold the enemy back, the stone that would turn a sword or crush a head and break the back of the enemy advance. There would be a stone worth nine men or nine times nine.
All around him the others began to work anew, as if his energy rejuvenated them. Though they had already worked themselves to the point of death, they rallied and worked harder. Those who fell were pulled aside, given water and revived, while others stepped up and accepted their burdens. A few did die, and a few others were too exhausted to continue working, but most returned to the construction with a few minutes’ rest.
Someone began to sing. It was a simple song, an old song normally sung by farmers as they plowed their fields and cast aside rocks. The song spoke of their battles against weather and insects. The irony of it all prompted laughter, which people spun into singing even louder. As long as the song kept going, so would they.
After nightfall, as the clouds rolled in to hide the stars and moons, Keles himself collapsed. He wasn’t aware of when he’d gone down or how long he had been unconscious. He realized he was dreaming when he heard thunder crack and echo through his skull. He opened his eyes and found himself in the bottom of a pit.
It’s a grave.
People passed by him on both sides. Lightning flashes revealed their faces. Some people he recognized from among the refugees even though their skulls had been crushed or faces slashed open. The children were the worst, for the wounds left by spears and sword were so much bigger. As each of them passed by they opened a hand above him and released a stone.
A black stone.
Ghoal nuan. Damnation stones!
He struggled to escape the grave, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. Lightning flashed again and Rekarafi dropped a huge black stone in that smashed his legs. Majiata tossed another black stone. His brother and sister, his mother, uncle, and grandfather also pelted him. Even his father, shrouded in silhouette, gave him a black stone.
Then Tyressa came, and with her Jasai. Worse than the stones they cast were the looks of pity. They mourned not only the loss of their lives and his, but the loss of what their lives could have produced together.
Thunder exploded again and rain began to pelt down. He raised a hand to wipe his face and opened his eyes again. Cold rain hit him. Fat, heavy drops exploded on stones. In the backlight of lightning he saw everyone surrounding him still working, though the song had died and the rain was beginning to erode their strength.
Not yet half-awake, Keles rolled onto his stomach and began to claw at the midden that had once been the fortress’ central tower. “One more stone, one more stone, one more stone…” He tore at the dirt with his fingers, cast aside rocks and handfuls of mud. The rain splashed a ragged edge clean and he dug his fingers in.
He tore at the rock and his hands slipped. Flesh ripped. “One more stone, one more stone.” This was it. It was the stone. He was sure of it. Once he had it, they would all be saved.
But it would not come up. More rain revealed that the crack ran several feet, then turned across a clean edge. The stone he was trying to pull free would have filled the grave he awoke in. He could no more have moved it than he could have felled a moon by throwing a rock.
“But it is the stone!”
He pounded his fists against it as he screamed into the storm. Blood and tears and rain stained it, then flowed into the crack. He screwed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, screaming louder to defy the storm. He hammered the stone harder than the rain and felt the distant pain of bones breaking.
It wasn’t right.
It was the stone!
In his mind’s eye he could see where the stone belonged, where all the stones belonged. Tsatol Pelyn lived, incarnated again in all its glory. Towers tall, pennants snapping, its promise undiminished as the Empress and her heroes rode past toward Ixyll. The garrison stood tall on stout walls, sunlight reflected from the moat. It would take hours for her army to pass, but no man or woman would waver or turn away. Always alert, always ready, those defending Tsatol Pelyn would never be defeated.
Yes, this is how it must be. If Tsatol Pelyn were once again what it had been in its youth, we would not die!
Thunder crashed again and again, but the quality of it changed, muting and echoing. Wind whistled and shrieked, then something snapped above him. Keles looked up through rain-blinded eyes, then wiped them and stared again.
Pennants snapped on the tower above him. He knelt on a walled parapet. He pressed his hands flat to the stone, ignoring the pain of fractured bones sliding against each other. It seemed solid enough, and the pain meant he wasn’t dreaming. He scrambled to his feet and rushed to the parapet’s edge, to look out.
Tsatol Pelyn had been born anew. The moat had been hollowed and the rain struggled to fill it. The walls, which had just been rubble middens, again stood tall and strong. Towers had risen at the eastern corners and the west, and he stood in the tallest of them all. The handful of ministry warriors ran up to the top of the eastern wall, and Rekarafi laughed defiantly from atop the northeast tower.
And beyond, the Eyeless Ones came. The uniform tramp of their feet rivaled the thunder. Lightning flashes moved them forward in jerks, closer, ever closer, with their hindmost ranks still hidden by distance.
Keles clutched the stone. This is not enough! The fortress is worthless without its garrison. We must have the garrison.
A sheet of rain whipped across his face, driving him back and blinding him. He shook his head to clear his vision, then stepped up to the parapet’s edge again. He narrowed his eyes against the rain, and though it washed away his vision more often than not, he clearly saw what was happening below.
The adults stood, some frightened, some resigned, staring up at him. As lightning strobed they changed. They shed years as a snake sheds skin. Twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty years sloughed off, returning them to their prime, when they were hale and hearty, brimming with courage, determination, and confident in their immortality. Hair darkened, bodies thickened and shrank, straightened, and gap-toothed smiles became whole again.