There is a tiny mote moving along that road that looks, from this distance, like a person walking downhill. But it can’t be. No sane person would stay so close to an active, deadly blow that had already killed thousands.
She squints more, moving to the ship’s stern so that she can continue to peer that way as the Clalsu peels away from the coast. If only she had one of Innon’s spyglasses. If only she could be sure.
Because for a moment she thinks, for a moment she sees, or hallucinates in her weariness, or imagines in her anxiety—
The Fulcrum seniors would not leave such a brewing disaster unmitigated. Unless they thought there was a very good reason to do so. Unless they had been ordered to do so.
—that the walking figure is wearing a burgundy uniform.
* * *
Some say the Earth is angry
Because he wants no company;
I say the Earth is angry
Because he lives alone.
—Ancient (pre-Imperial) folk song
21
you’re getting the band back together
YOU,” YOU SAY SUDDENLY TO Tonkee. Who is not Tonkee.
Tonkee, who is approaching one of the crystal walls with a gleaming eye and a tiny chisel she’s produced from somewhere, stops and looks at you in confusion. “What?”
It’s the end of the day, and you’re tired. Discovering impossible comms hidden in giant underground geodes takes a lot out of you. Ykka’s people have put you and the others up in an apartment that’s situated along the midpoint of one of the longer crystalline shafts. You had to walk across a rope bridge and around an encircling wooden platform to reach it. The apartment is level, even though the crystal itself isn’t; the people who hollowed this place out seem not to have understood that no one forgets they’re living in something that leans at a forty-five-degree angle just because the floor is straight. But you’ve tried to put it out of your mind.
And somewhere in the middle of looking around the place and putting your pack down and thinking, This is home until I can escape it, you’ve suddenly realized that you know Tonkee. You’ve known her, on some level, all along.
“Binof. Leadership. Yumenes,” you snap, and each word seems to hit Tonkee like a blow. She flinches and takes a step back, then another. Then a third, until she’s pressed against the apartment’s smooth crystalline wall. The look on her face is one of horror, or perhaps sorrow so great that it might as well be horror. Past a certain point, it’s all the same thing.
“I didn’t think you remembered,” she says, in a small voice.
You get to your feet, palms planted on the table. “It’s not chance that you started traveling with us. It can’t be.”
Tonkee tries to smile; it’s a grimace. “Unlikely coincidences do happen…”
“Not with you.” Not with a child who’d scammed her way into the Fulcrum and uncovered a secret that culminated in the death of a Guardian. The woman who was that child will not leave things to chance. You’re sure of it. “At least your rusting disguises have gotten better over the years.”
Hoa, who’s been standing at the entrance of the apartment—guarding again, you think—turns his head from one to the other of you, back and forth. Perhaps he is watching how this confrontation goes, to prepare for the one you have to have with him, next.
Tonkee looks away. She’s shaking, just a little. “It isn’t. A coincidence. I mean…” She takes a deep breath. “I haven’t been following you. I had people follow you, but that’s different. Didn’t start following you myself until just the last few years.”
“You had people follow me. For almost thirty years?”
She blinks, then relaxes a little, chuckling. It sounds bitter. “My family has more money than the Emperor. Anyway, it was easy for the first twenty years or so. We almost lost you ten years ago. But… well.”
You slam your hands down on the table, and maybe it’s your imagination that the crystal walls of the apartment glow a little brighter, just for a moment. This almost distracts you. Almost.
“I really can’t take many more surprises right now,” you say, half through your teeth.
Tonkee sighs and slumps against the wall. “… Sorry.”
You shake your head so hard that your locks slip loose from their knot. “I don’t want apologies! Explain. Which are you, the Innovator or the Leader?”
“Both?”
You’re going to ice her. She sees that in your eyes and blurts, “I was born Leadership. I really was! I’m Binof. But…” She spreads her hands. “What can I lead? I’m not good at things like that. You saw what I was like as a child. No subtlety. I’m not good with—people. Things, though, things I can do.”
“I’m not interested in your rusting history—”
“But it’s relevant! History is always relevant.” Tonkee, Binof, or whoever she is, steps away from the wall, a pleading look on her face. “I really am a geomest. I really did go to Seventh, although… although…” She grimaces in a way you don’t understand. “It didn’t go well. But I really have spent my life studying that thing, that socket, which we found in the Fulcrum. Essun, do you know what that was?”
“I don’t care.”
At this, however, Tonkee-Binof scowls. “It matters,” she says. Now she’s the one who looks furious, and you’re the one who draws back in surprise. “I’ve given my life to that secret. It matters. And it should matter to you, too, because you’re one of the only people in all the Stillness who can make it matter.”
“What in Earthfires are you talking about?”
“It’s where they built them.” Binof-Tonkee comes forward quickly, her face alight. “The socket in the Fulcrum. That’s where the obelisks come from. And it’s also where everything went wrong.”
* * *
You end up doing introductions again. Completely this time.
Tonkee is really Binof. But she prefers Tonkee, which is the name she took for herself upon getting into the Seventh University. Turns out it’s Not Done for a child of the Yumenescene Leadership to go into any profession except politics, adjudication, or large-scale merchantry. It’s also Not Done for a child who is born a boy to be a girl—apparently the Leadership families don’t use Breeders, they breed among themselves, and Tonkee’s girlness scuttled an arranged marriage or two. They could’ve simply arranged different marriages, but between that and the young Tonkee’s tendency to say things she shouldn’t and do things that made no sense, it was the last straw. Thus Tonkee’s family buried her in the Stillness’s finest center of learning, giving her a new persona and a false use-caste, and quietly disowned her without all the fuss and bother of a scandal.
Yet Tonkee thrived there, apart from a few raging fights with renowned scholars, most of which she won. And she has spent her professional life studying the obsession that drove her to the Fulcrum all those years ago: the obelisks.
“It wasn’t so much that I was interested in you,” she explains. “I mean, I was—you’d helped me, and I needed to make sure you didn’t suffer for that, that’s how it started—but as I investigated you I learned that you had potential. You were one of those who might, one day, develop the ability to command obelisks. It’s a rare skill, see. And… well, I hoped… well.”
By this point you’ve sat down again, and both your voices have lowered. You can’t sustain anger over this; there’s too much to deal with right now. You look at Hoa, who’s standing at the edge of the room, watching the two of you, his posture wary. Still gotta have that talk with him. All the secrets are coming out. Including yours.
“I died,” you say. “That was the only way to hide from the Fulcrum. I died to get away from them, and yet I didn’t shake you.”
“Well, yes. My people didn’t use mysterious powers to track you; we used deduction. Much more reliable.” Tonkee eases herself into the chair opposite you at the table. The apartment has three rooms—this denlike central space, and two bedrooms leading off. Tonkee needs one room to herself beca
use she’s starting to smell again. You’re only willing to keep sharing your space with Hoa after you get some answers, so you might be sleeping here in the den for a while.
“For the past few years I’ve been working with—some people.” Tonkee abruptly looks cagey, which isn’t hard for her. “Other ’mests, mostly, who’ve also been asking the kinds of questions no one wants to answer. Specialists in other areas. We’ve been tracking the obelisks, all of them that we can, for the past few years. Did you notice there are patterns in the way they move? They converge, slowly, wherever there’s an orogene of sufficient skill nearby. Someone who can use them. Only two were moving toward you, in Tirimo, but that was enough to extrapolate.”
You look up, frowning. “Moving toward me?”
“Or another orogene in your vicinity, yes.” Tonkee’s relaxed now, eating a piece of dried fruit from her pack. Oblivious to your reaction as you stare at her, your blood gone cold. “The triangulation lines were pretty clear. Tirimo was the center of the circle, so to speak. You must have been there for years; one of the obelisks coming toward you had been traveling the same flight path for almost a decade, all the way from the eastern coast.”
“The amethyst,” you whisper.
“Yes.” Tonkee watches you. “That was why I suspected you were still alive. Obelisks… bond, sort of, to certain orogenes. I don’t know how that works. I don’t know why. But it’s specific, and predictable.”
Deduction. You shake your head, mute with shock, and she goes on. “Anyhow, they’d both picked up speed in the last two or three years, so I traveled to the region and pretended to be commless to get a better read on them. I never really meant to approach you. But then this thing happened up north, and I started to think it would be important to have a wielder—obelisk-wielder—around. So… I tried to find you. I was on my way to Tirimo when I spotted you at that roadhouse. Lucky. I was going to trail you for a few days, decide whether I’d tell you who I really was… but then he turned a kirkhusa into a statue.” She jerks her head at Hoa. “Figured it might be better to shut up and observe for a while, instead.”
Somewhat understandable. “You said more than one obelisk was headed for Tirimo.” You lick your lips. “There should’ve only been one.” The amethyst is the only one you’re connected to. The only one left.
“There were two. The amethyst, and another from the Merz.” That’s a big desert to the northeast.
You shake your head. “I’ve never been to the Merz.”
Tonkee is silent for a moment, perhaps intrigued, perhaps annoyed. “Well, how many orogenes were in Tirimo?”
Three. But. “Picked up speed.” You can’t think, all of a sudden. Can’t answer her question. Can’t muster complete sentences. Picked up speed in the last two or three years.
“Yes. We didn’t know what was causing that.” Tonkee pauses, then gives you a sidelong look, her eyes narrowing. “Do you?”
Uche was two years old. Almost three.
“Get out,” you whisper. “Go take a bath or something. I need to think.”
She hesitates, plainly wanting to ask more questions. But then you look up at her, and she immediately gets up to leave. A few minutes after she’s out of the apartment, with the heavy hanging falling in her wake—the apartments in this place have no doors, but the hangings work well enough for privacy—you sit there in silence, your head empty, for a while.
Then you look up at Hoa, who’s standing beside Tonkee’s vacated chair, plainly waiting his turn.
“So you’re a stone eater,” you say.
He nods, solemn.
“You look…” You gesture at him, not sure how to say it. He’s never looked normal, not really, but he’s definitely not what a stone eater is supposed to look like. Their hair does not move. Their skin does not bleed. They transit through solid rock in the span of a breath, but stairs would take them hours.
Hoa shifts a little, bringing his pack up into his lap. He rummages for a moment and then comes out with the rag-wrapped bundle that you haven’t seen for a while. So that’s where he put it. He unties it, finally letting you see what he’s been carrying all this time.
The bundle contains many smallish pieces of rough-hewn crystal, as far as you can tell. Something like quartz, or maybe gypsum, except some of the pieces are not murky white but venous red. And you’re not sure, but you think the bundle is smaller now than it used to be. Did he lose some of them?
“Rocks,” you say. “You’ve been carrying… rocks?”
Hoa hesitates, then reaches for one of the white pieces. He picks it up; it’s about the size of the tip of your thumb, squarish, chipped badly on one side. It looks hard.
He eats it. You stare, and he watches you while he does it. He works it around in his mouth for a moment, as if searching for the right angle of attack, or maybe he’s just rolling it around on his tongue, enjoying the taste. Maybe it’s salt.
But then his jaw flexes. There’s a crunching sound, surprisingly loud in the silence of the room. Several more crunches, not as loud, but leaving no doubt that what he’s chewing on is by no means food. And then he swallows, and licks his lips.
It’s the first time you’ve ever seen him eat.
“Food,” you say.
“Me.” He extends a hand and lays it over the pile of rocks with curious delicacy.
You frown a little, because he’s making less sense than usual. “So that’s… what? Something that allows you to look like one of us?” Which you didn’t know they could do. Then again, stone eaters share nothing of themselves, and they do not tolerate inquiry from others. You’ve read accounts of attempts by the Sixth University at Arcara to capture a stone eater for study, two Seasons back. The result was the Seventh University at Dibars, which got built only after they dug enough books out of the rubble of Sixth.
“Crystalline structures are an efficient storage medium.” The words make no sense. Then Hoa repeats, clearly, “This is me.”
You want to ask more about that, then decide against it. If he wanted you to understand, he would’ve explained. And that’s not the part that matters, anyway.
“Why?” you ask. “Why did you make yourself like this? Why not just be… what you are?”
Hoa gives you a look so skeptical that you realize what a stupid question that is. Would you really have let him travel with you if you’d known what he was? Then again, if you’d known what he was, you wouldn’t have tried to stop him. No one stops stone eaters from doing what they damn well please.
“Why bother, I mean?” you ask. “Can’t you just… Your kind can travel through stone.”
“Yes. But I wanted to travel with you.”
And here we come to the crux of it. “Why?”
“I like you.” And then he shrugs. Shrugs. Like any child, upon being asked something he either doesn’t know how to articulate or doesn’t want to try. Maybe it isn’t important. Maybe it was just an impulse. Maybe he’ll wander off eventually, following some other whim. Only the fact that he isn’t a child—that he isn’t rusting human, that he’s probably Seasons old, that he comes from a whole race of people that can’t act on whims because it’s too rusting hard—makes this a lie.
You rub your face. Your hands come away gritty with ash; you need a bath, too. As you sigh, you hear him say, softly, “I won’t hurt you.”
You blink at this, then lower your hands slowly. It hadn’t even occurred to you that he might. Even now, knowing what he is, having seen the things he can do… you’re finding it hard to think of him as a frightening, mysterious, unknowable thing. And that, more than anything else, tells you why he’s done this to himself. He likes you. He doesn’t want you to fear him.
“Good to know,” you say. And then there’s nothing else to say, so you just look at each other for a while.
“It isn’t safe here,” he says then.
“Figured that, yeah.”
The words are out, snide tone and all, before you really catch yourself. And then—w
ell, is it really surprising that you’d be feeling a bit acerbic at this point? You’ve been sniping at people since Tirimo, really. But then it occurs to you: That’s not the way you were with Jija, or anyone else, before Uche’s death. Back then you were always careful to be gentler, calmer. Never sarcastic. If you got angry, you didn’t let it show. That’s not who Essun was supposed to be.
Yeah, well, you’re not quite Essun. Not just Essun. Not anymore.
“The others like you, who are here,” you begin. His little face tightens, though, in unmistakable anger. You stop in surprise.
“They aren’t like me,” he says, coldly.
Well, that’s that, then. And you’re done.
“I need to rest,” you say. You’ve been walking all day, and much as you’d like to bathe, too, you’re not sure you’re ready to undress and make yourself any more vulnerable in front of these Castrima people. Especially given that they’re apparently taking you captive in their nice understated way.
Hoa nods. He starts gathering up his bundle of rocks again. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Do you sleep?”
“Occasionally. Less than you. I don’t need to do it now.”
How convenient. And you trust him more than you do the people of this comm. You shouldn’t, but you do.
So you get up and head into the bedroom, and lie down on the mattress. It’s a simple thing, just straw and cotton packed into a canvas sheath, but it’s better than the hard ground or even your bedroll, so you flop onto it. In seconds you’re asleep.
When you wake, you’re not sure how much time has passed. Hoa is curled up beside you, as he has done for the past few weeks. You sit up and frown down at him; he blinks at you warily. You shake your head, finally, and get up, muttering to yourself.
Tonkee’s back in her room. You can hear her snoring. As you step out of the apartment, you realize you have no idea what time it is. Topside you can tell if it’s day or night, even despite the clouds and ashfall: it’s either bright ashfall and clouds or dark, red-flecked ashfall and clouds. Here, though… you look around and see nothing but giant glowing crystals. And the town that people have, impossibly, built on them.