THE STONE MAGE & THE SEA

CHAPTER 1: "Light on the Sand"

Father and son were on the run again when they came at last to Fundelry, a small, coastal village on the stretch of the Strand known by its ancient name of Gooron. The sun was low in the sky, shining wanly through a spattering of wispy clouds. Kneeling on the front seat, the boy clutched the roll bar with one hand to keep his balance as the buggy bounced along a winding path through the dunes. Its engine grumbled when his father tapped the accelerator; spiky bushes and scrub crunched loudly under its wheels. The boy couldn't hear the sea over the racket.

His father didn't like being this close to the sea and, although the boy didn't know why that was so, some of that dislike rubbed off onto him too. It was impossible to avoid. Tension showed in the way his father drove. His knuckles were white around the wheel, his movements quick, almost curt: accelerating sharply when a wheel lost traction, then braking just as quickly when a slope turned out to be steeper than expected. Despite his focus on the way ahead, his gaze flicked restlessly to the fuel gauge, to the gear lever, to the scrub whipping by, to his son, as though nervous or uncertain about which way he was going.

"How much longer?" the boy asked. The dunes around them were too high to see over, even standing on the seat.

"I'm not sure, Sal. Have you been counting the milestones?"

"Yes. One hundred and thirteen."

"The man in Gliem said less than a hundred. He must've been wrong." Sal's father shrugged. "Still, we should be there by sunset. If it's light, we can have a look around and see what's on offer. Maybe grab something to eat. And then ... "

His voice trailed off. Sal knew what would normally have followed: find a room for the night at least, a few nights if possible; find a job the next day to help replenish the buggy's alcohol reserves; find another destination -- the next town along the Strand, or even the next region -- then move on. Most important of all, they had to avoid drawing attention to themselves. What would happen if they were found, Sal didn't know exactly, but he had had it drummed into him from an early age. They had to stay hidden from the Sky Wardens; that was the most important thing of all.

And that was how it normally went, as they travelled across the Strand together: they came, they stayed briefly and unremarkably, then they left. Only this time, Sal was coming to suspect, was different than the others.

The sandy road doglegged sharply, took them back almost the way they had come. Through a gap between two particularly large dunes, Sal saw the sky as it would appear closer to the horizon, a markedly lighter blue than it was overhead. Grey specks wheeled over something in that new distance. He thought he could hear the harsh cries of birds.

Gulls.

If Sal had ever been so close to the sea before, he couldn't remember. Why they had come now, he didn't know. All he knew was that it couldn't be good.

#

The path joined a worn but sealed road before entering town. Its waysigns were faded; the road clearly saw only a few travellers. Still, Fundelry promised similar facilities to the thousands of other towns along the Strand, among them a hostel, a bathhouse, a School, a fishery, a grain silo and an ironmonger who doubled as a mechanic. No surprises, apart from the last; engineers of any sort were rare so far from the Interior. But that detail was welcome; the buggy had clocked its odometer many times over and could always use a proper service. The last had been four months and a thousand kilometres away, in Nuud.

They followed the sealed road at speed, relishing the relative smoothness of the ancient tarmacadam and the wind sweeping through their hair. Sal whooped for the joy of it, and his father smiled at the sound. So few ancient roads survived the ravages of time, and those that did rarely saw motorised transport any more. Sal and his father were alone the entire length of it; it was theirs to enjoy, for the moment.

Then they hit the edge of town, and they were forced to slow. The road disintegrated almost immediately, as though an age-lost machine had run out of tar at that point and never returned to finish the job. With sand once again under their wheels, and acutely conscious of the sound of the motor, they trundled slowly into town.

The ironmonger-cum-mechanic wasn't far within the municipal border. At the familiar sign of crossed spanners, they drew off the road and under the shelter of a low, rusted verandah. With a crunch of gears, the buggy jerked to a halt. Sal's father climbed out and removed his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

A dark-skinned man in heavily patched overalls stepped from the shadows under the verandah. Young but worn, as though he had endured life rather than revelled in it, he wore a charm of polished brown stones tied in a thong around his neck.

"That's either a Comet or a fair copy," he said, indicating the buggy.

"A copy," Sal's father replied, "but it serves us well enough."

"That's all that matters. You've obviously looked after it." The mechanic strode forward, holding out his hand. "Josip."

"Gershom," said Sal's father, his voice economical, wasting no energy. They shook hands firmly. "This is Sal. Short for Salomon."

"But getting taller by the day, eh? How old are you, boy?"

"Twelve."

"A good age."

Sal nodded politely, more fascinated by the mechanic's charm necklace than by anything he had to say. Like the man's trade, it was an oddity along the Strand; even odder that he didn't have the fair skin of someone from the Interior to go with it, as Sal did.

"Are there rooms near here?" his father asked. "We'll be staying the night."

"See Von. She runs the hostel on the main square. It's not much, but she's reasonable and you look like you could use that."

"Work?"

"Harvest is over, but ... " Josip the mechanic thought for a moment. "Come back tomorrow. I'll see what I can rustle up."

Sal's father nodded thanks, put an arm around Sal and together they headed back to the buggy.

The mechanic's call followed them: "You can leave that in here, if you want." He was pointing at an open shed full of boxes and tools next to the verandah. "I can make space, and you'll keep the keys, of course. It'll be less obvious than parking in the open."

Sal's father hesitated for a second, automatically reluctant to trust a stranger too far. But --

"True," he said. "Thank you."

The mechanic smiled as though they'd bestowed an honour on him, and moved off to find room for the buggy.

#

As far as welcomes went, that was it. No-one else greeted them upon their arrival. If anything, they were actively avoided.

Sal studied the town as they walked along the main road. In one sense it was the same as all the others he had visited over the years; in others, though, it was very different. There was sand everywhere he looked: underfoot, piled in drifts against buildings, filling up corners where it hadn't been swept away. The air smelled strongly of salt. They passed homes like outback shanties leaning in hollows by the road, as though made of drift-wood deposited by a freak storm that might return at any moment to sweep them away again.

Having spent his entire life on the move, Sal quite liked Fundelry's air of impermanence. It felt natural to him.

Few people came out to watch them pass. He supposed the others were working: fishing, or repairing nets, or teaching children, or doing whatever else the villagers here did this late in the day. The ones they did see were darker in colour than his father, whose skin was light brown rather than black, and much darker than Sal. A couple stared openly at them, although Sal wasn't sure if it was because they were strangers or because of the way they looked. For whatever reason, it made him feel uncomfortable. They stood out wherever they went, but they rarely encountered such open curiosity.

When they reached the local census building, they stopped to check in. The Sky Wardens were as strict about procedure as they were about democracy. But the forms they completed were yellow with age, so clearly such formalities were rarely observed here.

"You just passing through?" asked the young woman behind the counter with an air of distaste.

"Maybe." Sal's father's signature entwined around itself like a snake. "Is there much to see or do around here?"

"No."

"It's lovely weather, anyway."

"It can change overnight."

Sal's father smiled, but said nothing.

"Do you know where you'll be staying?"

"We're looking for a hostel run by someone called 'Von'."

This only seemed to confirm the woman's poor impression of them. "Up the road, on the far side of the main square."

"Thanks." Sal's father made to leave, then stopped as though a thought had just occurred to him. "I don't suppose you know a man named Payat Misseri?"

"Should I?"

"He was an old friend. I heard he passed through here, once."

"If he's not from here, I don't see how you can expect me to have heard of him."

"I thought it was your job to know these things."

She sniffed. "I'm only filling in for Bela. She's gone home."

"Well, maybe we'll come back in the morning."

"We're closed tomorrow."

His smile didn't falter. "Another day, then. Goodbye."

#

When they emerged from the office, the sun was setting. For the first time, Sal consciously noted the sound of the sea. He recognised it instantly, even though he had never heard it before. It hissed like an asthmatic giant trying to sneak up on them.

His father stood on the steps of the office for a moment, looking around. "Now where? Bed or browse?"

Sal shrugged, tired from the long drive but too nervous to sleep. He didn't think a third option -- to leave -- was open to him.

"It'll be dark soon," his father said, answering his own question. "We should at least find a room before they close their doors."

Sal shifted his pack into a more comfortable position as they walked along the street. Everything they owned, apart from the buggy, rested on his and his father's backs. It would make a pleasant change to sleep indoors, if they could find somewhere to take them. Part of him hoped they wouldn't.

As they headed deeper into town, the buildings became more solid, as though the outer fringes were a temporary afterthought. Nothing appeared to be open. The main square was instantly recognisable, even though it wasn't a square at all. It was a large, circular space of densely packed sand surrounded by shop-fronts and store-houses. A pump at its centre marked the focus, several low benches gave it character, and eight metal poles taller than a person and topped with glass or crystal globes delineated its edge. Well-worn lanes issued from the square to the town's outskirts.

One of these lanes led to the sea. Through the growing gloom Sal could see the grey mass of water heaving and shifting barely a hundred yards away, with little but a slight rise and a stretch of dunes to keep it at bay. The sight -- or perhaps just a sudden chill in the air -- made him shiver. It looked dangerous.

There was only one hostel facing the square, a squat, two-storey building that might have been the oldest in town. Its windows were shuttered. Sal's father strode up to the door and knocked once.

It opened immediately. Light spilled out into the square, silhouetting a woman with wild, orange hair. With the light behind her and her face in shadow, she looked alarmingly tall.

"What do you want?" she asked with a voice like two rocks scraping together.

"A room."

"I guessed as much. Can you pay?" Sal noticed that her hand was firmly on the door, ready to slam it in their faces.

"With coin."

"That'd make a nice change." The woman's eyes seemed to glint although no light shone on them. "Show me."

Sal turned around. His father reached into his pack and produced a small number of toughened glass disks. Sal heard them sliding over each other in his father's palm; he could almost identify them by sound alone, they were so few in number.

They seemed to satisfy the woman. "Come in, then." She turned and let them into a low-roofed reception hall lit by gas lanterns and smelling of stale bread.

Pulling a thick book out of a drawer in a desk along one wall, she noisily cleared her throat and wrote down the answers to her questions.

"It'll be fifteen per room. One or two? It's not as if I have a shortage this time of year."

"Just one. Two beds."

"How long for?"

"As long as we need."

She grunted. "I'm Von. Breakfast is included. You pay me one night in advance every morning and I'll let you stay."

The book slammed shut. Carrying a lamp, she showed them up a flight of stairs. Noticeable for the first time was a slight limp in her left leg. Sal wondered how she had come by the injury, and whether it had anything to do with the roughness of her voice.

At the top of the stairs were several guest rooms. Von led them to one in a corner of the building. Inside were two single beds, a chest of drawers, and a door leading to the floor's common bathroom. The air smelled of dust and starch. Through the sole window, Sal could see the sky turning from red to grey with the last rays of the sun, then rapidly to black.

Something flew past the window with a glint of eye and feathers, and he jumped, startled.

His father touched his arm. "What?"

Sal shook his head quickly, feeling stupid. "Just a gull."

"I probably don't need to tell you to keep it down," Von said, less gruffly than before. "Just be aware that I do have another guest at the moment, and he likes his privacy. So if you need anything, use this," she said, showing them a bell-pull by the door. "Otherwise, I'll see you in the morning."

Sal's father nodded. "Thank you."

With one last long look at them, the woman put the lamp down on the chest of drawers, closed the door and left them alone.

Sal picked the bed furthest from the window and hefted his pack onto it. His father sat heavily on the other bed and removed his boots.

"It's not so bad," his father said, testing the mattress springs. "Better than the ground, anyway. See if you can get a breeze in here."

Sal went nervously back to the window and confronted his own reflection: black hair vanishing into the darkness of the falling night, light skin standing out like parchment on a puddle of ink. Glinting on the left side of his face was the silver ear-ring he had worn longer than he could remember, its three tiny holes looking like flecks of dust.

The window had been painted shut. No gulls surprised him this time. Without turning, he asked: "Dad?"

"Yes, Sal?"

"What are we doing here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you really looking for that man -- the one you asked about at the office?" Although his father had described him as an old friend, Sal had never heard the name in his life. "Is that why we've come here?"

"Misseri? Maybe." His father smiled. "If I say 'yes', then you'll just ask me why I'm looking for him and I'll be no better off."

Sal was about to press harder when light flickering in the square below caught his eye. A lantern of some kind -- although he could see no tell-tale flicker of flame -- burned on one of the poles like a miniature yellow star. An oval-shaped pool glowed on the ground below.

Another light flared to life, an eighth-turn around the square. This time Sal saw a dark figure stepping away into the shadows.

"There are some things you can't run from, Sal," his father went on. "It's time I faced them head-on. They would've caught up with us in the end, anyway, here or elsewhere ... "

In a darkened corner of the window, Sal's father's reflection stared back at him. Where Sal was all lightness and dark, his father was the pale tan of kangaroo leather. Hair and skin and eyes were the same colour, making it hard to tell his age. His father said Sal had inherited his looks from his mother -- most especially his eyes, which were many shades of blue mottled with white flecks. But Sal's father rarely spoke about her.

"What sort of things?" Sal asked, not understanding what his father was talking about. That was nothing unusual, of late. His father had been annoyingly cryptic since Gliem. Even before then, he had seemed distracted and concerned about something. At first Sal had thought he might have done something wrong, but his father wasn't angry; he just seemed worried. The fact that he wouldn't talk about it only made Sal worry too.

Another light flickered into life below, and another, and the reflection of his father vanished, leaving only faint hints of movement through the glowing pools. Sal tried to follow them, but could not. Maybe they hadn't been there at all.

Eight lights now burned on the square, and he noticed a handful more scattered through the town. They didn't banish the night but they at least pushed it back a few metres. The town felt slightly friendlier for it.

But there was still the sea, churning away at the edge of his hearing -- and a nagging feeling that he was being watched.

He realised only then that his father had failed to respond to his last comment. Sal turned and saw that the man who called himself Gershom -- which meant 'exile' in a very ancient tongue -- had fallen asleep, fully clothed. Clearly no questions would be answered that night. Again.

Sal turned down the lamp and wished he could silence his own doubts so easily.