Weight of Stone by Laura Anne Gilman Page A

voice.
You Are Vineart.
    The Guardian could not reach him over this much water; he had, reluctantly, accepted that. Even in Aleppan the stone dragon’s voice had been muted, its range limited beyond the borders of Master Malech’s vineyards. And yet he heard the Guardian’s advice, its cool reminder, and it settled him, allowed him to think clearly, without panic.
    Even as an echo of memory, the Guardian protected him.
    “If the Washers are involved, we will need proof that someone has been stirring trouble. Proof that even the Collegium could not deny.”
    The three looked at one another, all at an obvious loss.
    “Let me see the map,” Jerzy said, and Mahault went to the wheelhouse, where it was tacked to a post, and brought it back. Jerzy skimmed it, trying to fix locations in his mind. “If we continue south, we pass Atakus.” Something about the name stirred his memory and made him uneasy. It was an island principality, he knew that, and home to a powerful Vineart, in addition to being one of the safe ports for ships traveling to the Southern Isles. But what …
    Jerzy closed his eyes, trying to remember. He did as his master hadtaught him, opening all his senses, letting taste and smell and sound bring forward the missing memory the way a decantation pulled the magic from
vin magica
.
    Something had happened in Atakus. He remembered his master speaking of it: They had closed the port, withdrawn? That was the sort of mischief and out-of-ordinary occurrence he had been sent to Aleppan to discover. It did not matter now, save that they would avoid Atakus. They needed to find the source, not where it had already done damage.
    “Traveling farther south leads us to the desert lands.” His master hailed from there, before the slavers had taken him up and left him with Master Josia in The Berengia, decades past.
    “Is that good or bad?” Ao cocked his head, waiting for Jerzy’s response while seated next to the Vineart; Mahault did the same, making them look like a pair of inquisitive cats.
    Jerzy considered the question, looking down at the map again, comparing it to his memory of Master Malech’s maps, and his history of the Lands before the Breaking. “The grapes there took a full dose of Sin Washer’s blood: firevines and aethervines, fierce and bitter.” He tasted firewine in his memory, tried to remember what he knew of aethervines. “The taint … yes. It might have come from there.”
    “Might … and might not.” Ao sounded dispirited. “Either way, I don’t think this girl could make it there, Jer.”
    Ao was right. There was no way their little ship could make it to Atakus, much less past there, even if the harbor were open. They would have to take larger transport, which meant interacting with others … and where would they find the money to buy passage for all three of them? Not even a master trader could transform this ship into that much coin, and Ao had been third in his delegation, a self-described fetch-and-carry boy, before his actions had cast him in with Jerzy’s fate.
    “We could go east,” Mahault said doubtfully. East was back to Corguruth. Aleppan was only one city-state; there were others who had no ties to Aleppan, no obligations—and who would in fact be just ashappy to shield someone or several someones running from Aleppan’s maiar. But Corguruth was a Vin Land.
    “If we go east, through Corguruth, we would reach Altenne,” Jerzy said, thinking out loud. “The city of scholars, they hold the entire history as we remember it, the study of the First Vine and all its legacies. They might protect us … but Altenne is also home to the Collegium. Rot and blast.”
    He got up and started to pace, feeling the deck move under his feet and noting again how his body adjusted to match it, smooth and steady, the same way Mahl and Ao seemed to have picked up after their first day. Had it been his dousing in the seawater that had accomplished that? Or was it related to his sudden