Under Fragile Stone Read Free

help me! Please …’
    He had his elbows on the edge of the hole and it took all his strength to hold himself up. More debris slipped down from the pile of ore and skated along the ground towards him, flowing over his arms and shoulders and into the pit. He shrieked again and heard boots running down the tunnel. His right elbow slipped over the brink and he reached back up and dug his fingertips into the tunnel floor. As more of the ore filled the hole, he could feel the grip lessen on his feet, but now he was buried up to the knees and something was still tugging at his boots.
    ‘Jussek … Balkrelt! Somebody, help!’ His other elbow was slipping and the fingertips of his right hand were sliding back. A light appeared and then another, the headlamps of his workmates. Moments later, strong hands were seizing his arms and pulling at him, but at first it seemed the ground’s hold was too strong. Then he felt something give and he was hauled out of the hole. He thrashed out, knocking away their hands and backed up against the wall, shivering and close to tears.
    ‘What was it, Noogan?’ Balkrelt asked. ‘What had a hold of you?’
    Noogan’s chest was too tight to speak. He knew if he tried to say anything he would start to cry and that would be too much, so he just shook his head and pulled his knees up to his chest. He stared down at his socks and ground his teeth to stop a sob escaping. The earth had taken the ankle-high boots right off his feet.
    ‘I’m going to have to dig all that out again,’ Balkrelt moaned. ‘What were you up to?’
    ‘Leave it,’ Paternasse told him.
    ‘What are you talking about? We’ve got quotas to make.’
    ‘Fill it in. Put it all back in. Whatever’s in there can bloody stay in there. The lad didn’t bury himself. Fill the hole in.’
    They stood around the small pit, staring down into it in bewilderment and unease. Then they grabbed their shovels and dumped the ore back where it had come from.
    * * * *
    Mirkrin Archisan was returning to his village from a market in a local town when he came across a triangle scraped into the clay of the track ahead of him. Glancing around, he frowned, and then rubbed the mark out with his foot. As he wandered back into the glen where their tribe, the Hessingales , spent part of the mild Sestinian summers, he spotted his Taya and Lorkrin coming out of the trees nearby. He sighed and beckoned to them.
    ‘You’re late for your lessons,’ he chided them. ‘Where were you? If I find out you were up at the miners’ camp …’
    ‘We weren’t, Pa!’ Taya answered, automatically.
    ‘… I’m going to be very annoyed,’ he continued, ignoring her. ‘You know you’re not supposed to be wandering out of the village with all those Noranian thugs hanging about. They’re a bad crowd, and I don’t want to see you …’
    His voice drifted off as he caught sight of his wife, Nayalla. She was striding towards the elders’ lodge when she saw them. She spun on her heel and marched straight at them, her face a mask of fury. If looks could kill, Taya and Lorkrin’s remains would have been spread over a wide area.
    ‘By the gods,’ Mirkrin muttered, looking at his wife’s expression and turning to his children. ‘What did you do?’
    Nayalla stopped in front of them and went to say something , but took a breath first. She was almost too angry to speak. Lorkrin and Taya both turned pale.
    ‘You two are …’ she started, then took another breath. ‘It is going to take you a long, long time to make this right.’
    Mirkrin’s face darkened.
    ‘What is it?’ he asked.
    ‘It has taken us three weeks to get a meeting with the Provinchus,’ she growled at the two children. ‘It is the first chance I’ve had to talk to him without having to hold a mob back at the same time. The tribe was counting on me to make him understand the damage he is doing to Absaleth, to our land. I walk in there and have to wait for him to finish being shaved and