She says she will drown you in the lake tonight, so say your prayers. Luvo’s voice in my mind was a cool bath that softened the roar of the power in the mountain stone. I sighed in relief, it felt so good. She is very, very angry. She cannot defend your actions to the others, and that makes her angrier.

I couldn’t answer him. Crystals—moonstone, quartz, garnet, the indigo-in-green gem called black moonstone—sang through the roar. Their power was raised to heart-piercing levels by what had passed through them. I had found the place where the magic was loudest.

Hands helped me off of my horse. My legs crumpled. I wasn’t used to riding a grown horse bareback for so long.

“Evvy, here are some rocks.” I think that was Jayat. My memory wasn’t good for anything but the voice of my magic. “Luvo, she can’t walk. Does she have fits like this often?”

“Never. However, I know the nature of what possesses her. If you wish to ride on, Jayatin, I will remain with her. We may be here for some time.”

“You said yourself you couldn’t run for help and get to it in time for anything. And you can’t ride. Oswin can show them the old power trail as well as I could have. I don’t like the way you’ve been acting, either. I mean, our acquaintance hasn’t been long, but you’ve been quiet and tucked into yourself this last bit of the road like you’re ailing. Do you even get sick?”

“I do not. Moreover, I cannot tell you what it is that makes me so uneasy. I only know that Evumeimei pursues it.”

Jayat helped me onto a tumble of basalt—cool, black, rational basalt. In this shape it was six-sided columns, broken in spots, lying in a pile. He shooed away some lizards and arranged my body so I could sit, then dribbled water between my lips.

“My master goes on spirit quests sometimes, and her body gets like this.” After a moment he closed my eyes—I dimly remember they were starting to hurt, they were so dry. He yanked off my headcloth. Soon after that I felt cool wetness on my forehead, cheeks, and eyelids. He had dampened the cloth and laid it over my face.

I pulled my magic in from all around me. Two hundred yards or so under the ground, about fifty yards downslope from the basalt, there was a new crack in the earth that bled strength. It would take me closer to all that wonderful magic. I gathered my power and fell into it.

Evumeimei, you do not know what you are doing. Luvo followed me. He didn’t sound like the Luvo who had taken me down into the Pebbled Sea, or the Luvo who had fled with me through Gyongxe mountain canyons. He sounded…old. And frail. The earth’s molten heart is too close to the surface here. It may overwhelm us.

Don’t be silly! It’s melted stone! How can melted stone be anything but wonderful for the likes of us? Honestly, Luvo, if you’re going to natter and scold, don’t come with me!

You are young. You do not understand the great forges below the blanket of rock. None of us do. We are all born in fire, with no memory of that birth but pain.

That’s what I mean about nattering and scolding, Luvo! In my magical shape I swooped through a vein of rockwater, the indigo crystal cooling me as I passed. I had reached the depth that was usually as far as I could go. This time, though, I could keep traveling through the earth. I could do the same as Jayat and his master, using the power I had followed here. I wrapped it around me like a shell of fire. It threw off colored flashes to rival the ones from the crystals I passed through: scarlet, violet, flaming orange, amethyst, sea green, midnight blue.

Luvo slowed behind me, then stopped. Do not go further. I will not stay with you. There is no good to be found down there.

My soul was on fire. Luvo, where’s your spirit of adventure? The heart of the earth is here!

Finally the crack was starting to open up. Power and heat filled it, welcoming me. I dropped into it, grabbing all the magical protection I could wrap around myself. I screamed with victory over the treasure of power I had found. No wonder I had been restless and half-mad, with an abundance like this close by! It was a miracle I didn’t split in two. Those first minutes of bathing in that wealth exploded in me. If I hadn’t protected myself on the way down, it might have eaten me like a chip of wood.

Floating there, the part of me that still had sense knew I was in danger. It found a mess of spells I had made once to soften, then harden, rock to trap an enemy. I used the spells now, with some changes. I grabbed power, not stone, and turned it into a tough shell of protection around what I already had.

Then I drifted, my magical eyes taking in my surroundings. I had come to the ceiling of an immense chamber under Starns Island. Below me was a huge pool filled with melted stone. Minerals, metals…they all swirled together in different colors of hot. The chamber squeezed them together in a stone vessel that melted even while it kept them underground. The moving colors enchanted me, calling to me. I thought I saw faces in them and hands. They beckoned me to join the fiery spirits that swam in that pool. I could feel myself melting around the edges. What would it be like down there? Maybe it would be like joining one huge lake of melted stone and magic, with no beginning, and no ending.

I thought I would like that.

8
Flare and Carnelian

I was starting to sink down through the air toward the pool when two shapes rushed out of the stone-melt. They grabbed my protection-sphere, hauling me back up to the crack I had just left.

Hello, hello, look at you! one of them cried, twirling around me.

You’re new, you’re not old, you’re not cold and dead, who are you? the other demanded, twirling the other way.