Wrought of Stone (Dustsong: Len the Wanderer)

A preview of Chapter Five of Len's novella

Len reckoned he might as well have been on his lonesome. Egwae had said more to him in the first moments of their meeting than on any one occasion in all the seven-days since. As he trudged through sandy soil a dozen paces to her right, he recounted to himself the sources of his discontent.

These wastes. The parched air. The punishing heat. The scarcity of green and growing things. The sun blistering my flesh, excepting my mark. The mark—this disfigurement.

He wearied of the endless wandering. He regretted that he couldn’t feel his feet anymore and that he could feel the ache in his legs with every step. He wished he could be rid of his goat-hair cloak, but he’d need it when he convinced the Wright to ease this curse off him. In the meantime, he felt suffocated, even with it tied about his waist instead of hanging off his shoulders.

Mayhap I also hate the demon who led me this way. Egwae was likely right that heading south was the best way to avoid other folk and the trouble they brought. And the trouble me and the demon would bring them. Less trouble meant he’d avoid mistakes—the kind of mistakes that would keep the Wright from lifting the curse and the mark that came with it. That’s the only way to rid myself of the demon who comes with the mark, too.

“How much farther you reckon we’ll go this direction?” he asked Egwae. I’m not sure I’ll ever get the scratch out of my throat. Livyat take this dryness!

After leaving eastward out of the valley, they’d turned due south. From there, they’d hugged the edge of the lesser Fangs. Keeping close to these bleak, worn-looking ridges gave Len meager comfort that they wouldn’t lose themselves in the wastes. He didn’t know if a demon could lose herself. Then again, he wasn’t certain she’d save him from dying of hunger and thirst the way she was bent on protecting him from every other hazard. Anyhow, I don’t favor the notion of having naught to look at but these sorry excuses for mountains the rest of my days.

Egwae hadn’t hastened to answer him. She never did. “Farther,” she said at last.

Len quashed his frustration as best he could. “As you say, demon.” He’d discovered quick how much that word rankled her. Egwae bristled, though she kept her long, gliding stride.

Len shifted subjects. “So, how does an unseen spirit get to being a dem— get to having a body earthly folk can see?

He’d tried this sort of question afore and received naught in reply. This time, after several paces of silence, she responded. “Scions of the Wright are given many parts to play. A mundane form these roles sometimes require.”

Len mulled this over a spell. “Has he ever afore given you this sort of part?”

She didn’t answer. Still, she’s more talkative than her wont. Might as well ask her something I truly want to know.

“Is it possible for a body to get to the sky-realm? To the heaven-realm, I mean.” That was what the demon called the Wright’s domain. It’s what my folks call it, too.

Len didn’t expect a reply, yet she gave it within three paces. “Not for a soul that wasn’t born there.”

He supposed she was telling him true. Demons can’t lie, can they? But the truth of it made little difference to him. I need only be allowed back to the shade of the greater Fangs, where the soil’s fit for growing. Mayhap as far as the hollow one day. Wright willing.

The second of the sparsely vegetated foothills they approached had a mass of rock atop the waste side. When they drew closer, Len saw the protuberance wasn’t a natural part of the hillside; it was a structure. A dwelling. A cluster of them. The round, thatch-topped stone buildings nestled comfortably among shrubby trees and patchy brush. The smallest of them could swallow up our cottage.

“Barbarians dwell this far out?” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say as much, demon?” Len was at once fascinated at the spectacle and poised to flee. But where to? His mark was all a-tingle.

“Human-folk run amok all the earthly realm over,” Egwae said drily. She didn’t cast her eyes his way, but instead surveyed the stone structures, boulders, and brush.

“Then how in— how am I to keep from trouble? I can’t make amends with the Wright if folk come to harm on my account.” He felt the shame of those words at once. A chill rippled through the ridges of flesh on his brow.

The demon barked an awkward laugh. “You think you are the one to make things right, son of Ghrem?” she scoffed. She didn’t take her wary eyes off the hillside. “Even death would be insufficient.” Now she looked to him directly. “If some soul aims to harm you,” she lilted, “they are no more innocent than you. But instructed I am to avoid unnecessary unpleasantness.”

Len supposed the demon was trustable, as far as her priorities went. He couldn’t see anyone moving around the dwellings. Where are they?

“As it happens,” Egwae continued, “your cause for concern at present ought not to be human-folk.”

What is she going on about?

A pair of long-toothed prowlers emerged from some hidden cleft in the base of the hill nearest Len and Egwae. Their vine-like tails swung to and fro as they stalked toward the two-legged beings.

“Look lively!” Len cried. “They’ll close thirty paces afore I can run ten.” And they’ll put two holes in me the Wright himself couldn’t mend.

Egwae sniffed lightly, as if to dismiss his panic. Yet she produced her fiery blade just the same. Grateful though he was to see it, Len shuddered.

One prowler leapt, and the other followed a split instant after. They were brawny as bears, but with fangs to make Livyat jealous. Len rushed to put Egwae betwixt him and the beasts.

Two leaps in, with only one more needed to close the gap, both critters halted in their tracks. Their heads snapped to the southeast, into the wastes. Almost as one beast, they sprang to motion again, leaping wide of Len and Egwae afore racing back toward the hill. The prowlers didn’t stop there, either, but bounded upslope and disappeared over the crest.

It wasn’t the demon that scared them off, like she did the jackal that morning. But something fierce enough to frighten prowlers… Egwae might have had a similar notion, as she kept her blade alight and pivoted in the direction the prowlers had looked.

They didn’t have to wait long. Is that a tree on the move? Slow but steady, the grey tree became a grey hillock. It’s a critter. As soon as it was near enough the sun’s glare didn’t obscure Len’s vision, he got a good look at the gargantuan beast lumbering in from the wastes. The biggest critter I’ve ever seen.

“Do not move,” Egwae directed him. “Safer is it to hold your ground until it passes. Else it is liable to crush you accidentally.” It seemed sound advice. Len stayed put and watched.

The critter crossed some forty paces in front of them, shuffling toward the nearest hill, where the prowlers had disappeared. Each of its trunk-like legs was as big as a man. With its tree-like neck, it was about thrice Len’s height in all. Its sunbaked grey skin was wrinkly and hairless, so far as Len could tell. Compared to its massive overall proportions, its wriggly tail and twitchy ears were almost ridiculous. A beaked snout completed the downright oddity of the beast.

He'd listened, more or less, to his father and brother describing all manner of critters over the years. They talked about tooth-nosed critters and tree-noses and tree-necks. Horses and hump-backs—I’ve seen those for myself now. But this one seems like all of those grafted together. The Wright has a sense of humor after all.

Len hadn’t the slightest what the proper name for such a beast was, if ever it had one. Naming critters couldn’t be any harder than naming plants. At a distance, it looks to be wrought of stone, like most everything hereabouts. Stone-beast.

It stopped at the base of the hill to munch on scrub. While chewing a leisurely mouthful, it arced its long neck to and fro. Its black eyes swept over Len and Egwae without concern. What kind of being or beast would dare trouble it?

Len sat in the dust for a respite while he watched the critter eat its fill. At last, it turned and began moving south. The selfsame way we’re headed. He clambered to his feet.

“We will wait here until it has gone ahead a ways,” Egwae said curtly. “Usually these creatures travel in a small herd. It may be ill-tempered or unwell.”

“Human-folk usually move in herds, too, but I don’t,” he retorted. It’s a wanderer, like me. Or a big, naked sheep. A passing thought of Sceg and his bighorns brought him a pang of woe. It also gave him a sudden notion.

“I’m going to try something, demon. Only, it won’t work if you insist on helping me after your usual way.” He hesitated afore adding, “You’ll have to trust me.”

Egwae snorted. But she didn’t object.

The first thing to do was follow the critter till it stopped somewhere. For a drink, hopefully. There was no activity or further sign of barbarian presence as they passed the hill with the stone structures. Len and Egwae trailed the stone-beast at a hundred paces. They walked in its three-toed tracks, afore wind and dust could erase them—Len on the right and the demon on the left, with only silence betwixt them. As usual. It seemed Egwae’s earlier verbosity hadn’t been a sign of more conversation to come.

The sun moved a good way across the Wright’s blue dome as they followed the grey giant. Has it been here afore? Does it have a notion where it’s headed, or will it know when it sees it?

Sun-dazed weariness was setting in when a smudge on the horizon became an oasis. The first signs were the telltale treetops overlooking the watering hole: short branches, spread like the fingers of a hand, bore broad, feathery leaves. The beast waddled over to one of the palm trees and tugged off one of the lower-hanging fronds. After swallowing its snack, it arced its neck down to lap the water.

Len knelt at water’s edge and drank several greedy handfuls himself afore filling his water pouches. He kept watch all the while to ensure the beast wasn’t fixing to leave. A critter that big in a country like this ought to take its time here. He looked to Egwae, too, to make sure she was staying put. She glared back at him, motionless, from just outside the circle of palms. Good enough.

He approached the stone-beast from the far side of the watering hole so it could see him coming. At twenty paces, it retracted its snake-like tongue and tilted its head up to look at him level. Len continued forward, cautious-like.

The beast didn’t go back to drinking; it stared at him till he got within ten paces. Then it raised its neck abruptly, stamped so as to shake the ground, and bellowed. Len re-trod his steps fast as could be, till he felt he was at a comfortable distance. The beast kept stamping and belting out its grating roar till Len stopped moving. Then it dipped its head to the water and resumed slaking its thirst.

Egwae hadn’t budged. She’s uncommon patient today. Let’s try again.

This time, he took a more roundabout path to the beast. From everything he’d ever learnt about critters from his father and brother, it was imprudent to approach a dangerous one from behind. I reckon I’m less than prudent. Still, he gave its legs a respectful berth. He went to the palm the beast had tasted earlier, which leaned so its top partly shaded the beast’s back. He shimmied up the tree, ignoring as best he could the way the bark scraped and chafed his bare legs and arms. But the roughness gave him easy purchase for a rapid climb.

As he reached the palm’s leafy pinnacle, he saw Egwae had moved closer to observe him with arms folded. Does she walk, or just disappear from one place and reappear in another when I’m not looking? He was grateful for the leeway she was giving him, whatever her reasoning. Time to take full advantage.

He pushed himself off the trunk and let go. Wright almighty! The moment he landed on the beast’s back, it loosed a horrendous bellow. Len grabbed hold of the biggest wrinkles he could reach. In his grip, the critter’s hide felt like grey leather.

The stone-beast stomped all four legs. It wiggled its hindquarters and shook its whole hulking body side to side. For good measure, it slammed its side against the tree several times. That knocked Len’s right hand loose, but he held fast with his left.

Any moment, he expected Egwae to appear with sword blazing. Except she’s being careful. Because if she wounds it, it’s liable to crush me.

When none of its exertions served to throw Len off, the beast reared its prodigious bulk onto its hind legs. Len’s mind went through every oath he knew and started inventing new ones. But thank the Wright its hide is so dry. Else I’d have slid off from the sweat of my hands. He felt he was clinging to the beast by a twig.

Len lost any notion of how long this continued. After a while, it occurred to him the sun had sunk close to the horizon. He ceased his silent cursing and pleading and simply hung on for his life.

Is the beast tiring? He thought it must be his imagining at first. But sure enough, its tossing and lurching grew more sluggish. Its bellows became less frequent.

Finally, sides heaving, the stone-beast stooped for a drink. Relief overtook Len like a deluge. He chortled hoarsely and then stopped himself. It’s tolerating me, but I oughtn’t press my advantage too far yet. He crawled up closer to the beast’s bony shoulders. Grabbing hold of the massive folds of grey flesh, he pulled himself to a seating position.

Egwae stood beneath the next tree over and said naught; her expression was equally unrevealing. He grinned in triumph. “I needed another soul to talk to.”

She just stared, tight-lipped, until he gave up and focused on the thrill of sitting so high off ground. Next best thing to being back in the Fangs. Now he could roam more freely and range more widely. Further into the waste, where folk don’t build and settle.

Better yet, Len had a new companion. He patted its hide lightly. One as ugly as I am. Who doesn’t know aught about a curse or a mark.Circumstances were looking brighter. He relaxed his posture and watched the sun set from atop the stone-beast’s back.

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Note from the Author

In the original serial, it’s mentioned after the fact that Egwae brought Len the stone-beast for a mount. When it came time to fill in that gap in the story, however, I realized it would be much more satisfactory to retcon that particular detail!

As it happens, I took most of a day to draft the first half of this, even being a morning person and caffeinated—but took only an hour after dinner to draft the second half. I had to clean it up the next morning, but still, it’s funny how the flow of writing works. Sometimes, there’s nothing like low self-expectations to make me especially productive. Well, that and publishing deadlines.

I hope you enjoyed the read. Check out this post to download and read the full novella for free!