They ate. They waited. The sun climbed higher and they had to retreat into the tent to escape its heat. Inside, it was stifling as well as hot, but at least their skin did not burn.
Some time after the sun had passed its zenith, the tribesman elder who had spoken for the group the previous night stepped into the tent.
“When we speak as one voice we are nameless,” he said. “But I now speak as one. I am Yem.” One bony hand touched his chest briefly, then his expression became serious. “We talked until the sun came back, then we decided. We put our decisions to the test of sleep and a second talking. They remained the same. We will give our answers to one only.” He turned to Dannyl. “Ambassador Magician Dannyl.”
Dannyl looked at Achati, who shrugged. I suppose he can’t be surprised by that. The Duna hardly have reason to trust him. But then, they don’t have reason to trust me, either. Tayend had opened his mouth as if to protest, but said nothing. Yem’s gaze shifted to him.
“Do you have questions as well?”
Tayend shook his head. “No. I’m just curious to hear the answers.”
“It will be Ambassador Magician Dannyl’s choice if you may hear them,” Yem said. He looked at Dannyl expectantly.
Dannyl grabbed his notebook and stood up. “I am honoured that you have chosen me to hear them from you and your people.”
Yem smiled, then beckoned and stepped out of the tent. Glancing back once, Dannyl saw that Achati was smiling his encouragement, and Tayend already looked bored. He turned away and followed Yem through the tents.
“We have found a Keeper of the Lore willing to speak to you,” Yem told him. “Do you swear not to seek her name or tell others of her?”
“I swear I will not seek or reveal her identity,” Dannyl replied.
They rounded yet another tent and suddenly were striding out into the grey desert. Ahead, Dannyl could see that a shelter had been erected out of poles with a large sheet of cloth stretched over them and tied at the corners to stakes in the ground. The soil beneath his feet was hard and dusty. Is it technically a desert, if there isn’t any sand? Dannyl wondered.
The sun beat down mercilessly. Dannyl felt sweat break out on his forehead and wiped it away with the back of his hand.
Yem chuckled. “It is hot.”
“Yes,” Dannyl agreed. “And yet it is winter.”
The old man pointed to the west. “Long way that way the volcanoes are covered in snow. It is high and cold.”
“I wish I could see that.”
Yem’s shoulders rose. “If the volcanoes wake, the snow melts. Then we have floods. Very dangerous. Not as dangerous as the floods of molten rock.” He glanced at Dannyl. “We call the floods ‘volcano tears’ and the red rivers are ‘volcano blood’.”
“And the ash?”
“Volcano sneezes.”
Dannyl smiled in amusement. “Sneezes?”
Yem laughed – a quick bark that reminded Dannyl of Unh. “No. I lie. We have many names for ash. There are many kinds of ash. Hot ash and cold ash. New ash and old ash. Ash that falls dry and ash that falls wet. Ash that fills the sky. We have a Duna name for each kind. More than fifty winters ago one of the volcanoes exploded, and the sky was full of ash for many months.”
“That must have been the eruption that caused the long winters in Kyralia.”
“Its reach was that great?” Yem nodded to himself. “It is a powerful volcano.”
Dannyl did not answer, for they had reached the shelter. He sighed with relief as he stepped into its shadow. The same old men that he’d spoken to the previous night sat in a ring on a blanket, but there were two male additions and one old female. Yem indicated that Dannyl should sit in a gap between two of the men. He himself moved around the circle to fill a gap on the opposite side.
Yem looked around at each of the men, then turned to the woman.
“Speak, Keeper. Give Ambassador Magician Dannyl your answers.”
The woman had been staring at Dannyl, her gaze keen and assessing. Though her expression was unreadable, there was something anxious and disapproving in her demeanour.
“You wish to know what stones can do?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“They do whatever a magician can do,” she told him. “They turn magic into heat. They can be like a dam or shield. They make light. They can hold something still.” Her eyes focused on a distant point, and her voice took on the tone of a teacher reciting a familiar lesson. “Two kinds of stone may be made. One can be taught a task, but the magic must come from the holder. One can be taught a task, and holds magic for the task. Both can be made to use once, or many times, but the store must be filled again when it is emptied.” She blinked and looked at him. “Do you understand?”
“I think so,” he replied. “So if a stone can hold a store of magic, is it a storestone?”
Her chin rose. “Not such a stone as you spoke of last night. A careful stone-maker makes a stone hold only enough. Most stones hold only so much, then they break. So to stop the breaking, they are made to hold only enough.” She cupped her hands together. “The stone you spoke of had no stop to it.” She threw her arms wide, fingers splayed. “Stones that don’t break are rare. We do not know how to tell if they won’t. And even if they don’t, they are still dangerous. The more magic inside, the more dangerous – like if a magician takes and holds too much power it is dangerous. Easy to lose control.”
Dannyl straightened in surprise and interest. “Are you saying that a black magician – a magician who knows higher magic – can take so much power that his control over it starts to slip?”
She paused, obviously taking time to translate the less familiar words he’d used, then nodded.
“Long, long ago many peoples lived where the Duna and Sachakans are. They had cities in the mountains where the stones were made, and were always at war with each other. Whoever had the most stones was strongest. One queen lost her stone caves and sought to be a stone herself. She took more and more magic from her people. But she lost control of that power and burned, and that was when the first volcano was born. It turned her people the colour of ash.” She pinched the skin of her arm between finger and thumb and smiled. “Storestones are like magicians. Better to keep a little power, then use, then restock.”
I wonder how much power it takes for a black magician to lose control, Dannyl thought. Clearly more than what Sonea and Akkarin took to defend Imardin. Hmm, I had better let Sonea know about this. We don’t want Imardin turning into a volcano.
“Do not fear,” the woman said, mistaking his worried look. “Nobody makes storestones any more. They stopped trying because it was too dangerous, and then they forgot how to.”
He nodded. “That is good to know.” Then something occurred to him and he frowned. “If a stone can be taught anything a magician can do, can it be taught black magic – what Sachakans call higher magic? Can a stone take magic from a person?”
She smiled. “It can and it can’t. A stone can be made to take magic, but it would not work unless the skin of the person touching it was cut or they were tricked or forced into swallowing it. It will only take as much magic as it is made to take, or it would break. It would have to be able to hold much magic to kill a magician.”
Dannyl shuddered at the thought of having a black-magic-wielding stone in his stomach, sucking out his life. But perhaps it wouldn’t be able to take enough power from him to kill him, and it would soon pass through his system. Still, it would weaken a person, and might do a lot of damage to their insides if it broke.