Under Fragile Stone Read Free Page A

perfumed by his barber, then wait again as he reads some … some … I don’t know – some periodical. Then, when I finally have his attention, he turns around and tells me my children have been scaring the living daylights out of some of his miners. This, as far as he is concerned, is all that we need to talk about. I am there to try and stop our land being desecrated and end up getting told off for not keeping control of my children!’
    ‘Ma, it wasn’t us …’ Lorkrin began.
    ‘Don’t even try it!’ Nayalla snapped at him. ‘Don’t even open your mouth! Your class is starting, hurry up over there or you’ll be late again. I need to talk to your father.’
    Lorkrin and Taya trudged on towards the communal lodge that stood in the centre of the glen. The village was made up of domed lodges; each one roofed with sods of grass and dug in so that part of it lay below the level of the ground. For the children, it was the least interesting place in the world. Mirkrin watched them walk away, and then put a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
    ‘They were down in the mines?’
    She nodded.
    ‘He said they were hidden against the wall of a tunnel. One of the men almost hit Lorkrin with a pickaxe.’
    Mirkrin grimaced and shook his head. He was a burly man, with a mop of dark hair and a strong, square face. He was of a mellow disposition, in stark contrast to his wife, but even he had limits.
    ‘We’re going to have to do something serious this time,’ he muttered. ‘They have to learn. I thought that disaster in Noran would have taught them some sense, but they’re as bad as ever. I don’t know where they get it from.’
    ‘They get it from us,’ Nayalla smiled tiredly. ‘Not that they can ever know that, of course. When I think of the stuff we got up to … But they have a habit of getting into trouble with the wrong people. I mean, the Noranians for goodness sake.’
    Like their mouldable flesh, Myunan children had very impressionable natures. It would be all too easy for them to pick up bad habits from their new neighbours – particularly Lorkrin, who was developing an unhealthy interest in swords and all manner of other dangerous weapons.
    ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ Mirkrin looked at her. ‘Emos is here. He left his mark on the track for me.’ 
    ‘I wonder what he wants. It’s not like him to leave the farm so close to Harvest Tide.’
    ‘Well, we’d better go and find out; it can’t be good, whatever it is.’
    ‘Before or after we punish the brats?’
    ‘Oh, before,’ Mirkrin nodded solemnly. ‘Best to let them stew for while. Nothing like a bit of anticipation to put a lively fear into them.’
    * * * *
    Emos Harprag was Nayalla’s brother. He was an outcast, exiled from his tribe and forbidden to have any contact with Myunans after he had mysteriously survived an epidemic that had killed his wife. They feared that he might still be infectious; even if the disease had not killed him he might still be a danger to others. It was believed that he had survived by practising the black art of transmorphing – manipulating lifeless materials like metal or wood as if they were his own malleable flesh – a crime punishable by exile. Transmorphing was considered an assault on nature itself. Nayalla and Mirkrin had kept in contact with him – discretely, so as not to embarrass their tribe – and they knew there was no danger of infection. They had helped him recover from his wife’s death and his exile, and he was always there for them when they needed him.
    Emos had become something of an enigma. He still practised the transmorphing and he had travelled to more strange lands than any Myunan alive. He had eventually settled down on a farm in Braskhia, giving up the nomadic Myunan lifestyle, but he still went wandering when the mood took him. It could not be a coincidence that he was here now, when the Myunans were facing an invasion of their territory.
    Mirkrin and Nayalla walked until they were