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FINN HACKED AT THE quarry wall with his pickaxe, imagining Jorun Jorunson's face in it. The shackles around his wrists and ankles made it hard to strike with any accuracy, and the pickaxe wedged itself in a crack. He sighed. Jorun annoyed him even as an imaginary face in a rock.
At least it felt good to be out here by himself. Finn had a couple of guards to keep an eye on him, but the quarry had only one entrance and sheer walls all around, so they mostly left him alone. They were probably lounging in the shade at the quarry entrance. Jorun intended the forced labor to humiliate him, but Finn preferred the fresh air to some damp cell in Gilgin crowded with drunks and thieves.
Finn pulled on the pickaxe. It didn't budge. Damn. The guards were bound to check on him if they didn't hear anything for a while, and then they were bound to be annoyed that he'd made them get up. They'd prod him and hurry him along and ruin his quiet afternoon. He grabbed the handle of the pickaxe with both hands, braced one foot against the quarry wall, and heaved. A rock broke loose, freeing the pickaxe, and Finn staggered two steps back.
He straightened and wiped his brow with his sleeve. The piece of rock that reminded him of Jorun's nose was still there. Finn swung the pickaxe again, and this time, the nose came off with a satisfying crunch that reminded him of how he'd broken Jorun's nose the previous night. Jorun had deserved it after what he'd said about Kelsa.
Finn hefted the pickaxe for another swing. Suddenly, the whole quarry wall shifted. Rocks loosened and slid in an avalanche towards him. He stumbled backwards in an attempt to get out of the way, but tripped over a rock and fell on his back, his heart beating in his throat as a boulder three times his height broke free. It filled his vision as it crashed towards him. Finn rolled into a ball and threw up his hands in a meagre attempt to protect his face. The thunder of falling rocks filled the air.
Then silence descended on the quarry, and somehow, he was still alive. Finn lowered his arm just enough to find out why.
The slab hung a foot from his face. Two deep grey eyes stared back at him.
"Good afternoon, sir." The voice was deep, and joy sparkled on the edge of it. It used a strange dialect that made it hard to follow. "Thank you for digging me out. Took you people long enough, I have to say."
Finn lowered his arm a little more. Either luck had saved him, or he'd died and his spirit was imagining this.
The eyes were set in a grey slab of stone two or three times his size. It was rounded at the bottom and tapered to a point at the top. Otherwise, the rock was all straight lines and angles, giving it an unnatural look. Lichen covered the top and back of the slab. It was held off the ground by two pillars that came up to his chest.
"What..." he began. He cleared his throat to recover his voice. "What are you?"
"I'm Henge. Nice to meet you." A piece of rock moved in cadence with the voice. That must be the thing's mouth. Crystals the size of Finn's thumb glittered like teeth inside it.
"Wh-what's a henge?"
"Not a henge, just Henge. It's my name."
"But what are you?"
"What do you mean?" Henge straightened to his full height, towering over Finn.
"You... you look like a talking rock!"
"Well, yes. I'm Manhir, after all," Henge said.
Finn scrambled backwards and got his feet under him. He raised the pickaxe defensively. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing. With his feet shackled, he couldn't make a run for it, so he needed to stall for time. The guards would notice the quiet eventually. "What do you want, monster?"
"Monster?" Henge asked quizzically. "You act like you've never seen a Manhir before."
"The Inquisition purged you from the Earth a thousand years ago, heralding in the age of peace!" It was a phrase Finn had heard many times from priests during the annual Ragnarok festival.
"Purged us from the Earth?" Something like an eyebrow rose on its equivalent of a forehead, and the creature sank to the quarry floor with a thump. "A thousand years, you say? That can't be right. I know I've been hibernating for a while, but it can't have been that long."
Finn needed a moment to understand the creature's ancient dialect. It looked nothing like the monsters depicted in the Inquisition paintings. This was no hulking black demon with burning eyes, bent on destroying cities with its bare hands. And it definitely didn't look like it was about to eat a child. In fact, it didn't seem aggressive at all. It might even have completely missed Finn raising his pickaxe.
He tilted his head. The slabs of rock at its sides sort of looked like arms. And that clump of grey-green lichen at the top of the rock could be hair. Then the rocks on its sides spread out; they were indeed arms. "Why were you looking for me if I was purged?" Henge asked plaintively.
Finn lowered the pickaxe. Either the Manhir was a great actor. or it posed no immediate threat. "I wasn't." Finn held up his arms to show the shackles. "I'm out here digging up rocks as punishment."
"You're a criminal?"
"No," Finn said. "I broke someone's nose for insulting my fiancée."
"Pretty harsh punishment for getting in a fight," Henge mused.
Finn shrugged. "He's a pretty important guy."
"That just means he should know better."
"I wish it worked that way."
Henge was nothing like the Inquisition's description of the Manhir. For one thing, he was far too civil for a child-eating demon. There was something strange here. Finn swung the pickaxe at the quarry wall, just to make some noise to keep the guards away. He wanted to hear more. "Are all Manhir like you?"
"As much as all humans are like you, I guess," Henge replied. "Are you sure you've never seen a Manhir before?"
"Well, they're a common subject in Inquisition paintings, but you look nothing like those. For starters, you don't have glowing eyes."
Henge bowed his head. "Where did all the Manhir go?" he mumbled to the ground. He looked up at Finn again. "Still, I thank you for digging me out, even if you didn't mean to. I am in your debt."
"If you've got a key to these," Finn held up his arms again, "and can get me out of here, we'll call it even."
Henge reached for the shackles. He took the iron bands around Finn's wrists between two fingers the size of Finn's forearm and squeezed. The iron groaned and snapped. Henge reached down, and a moment later the shackles dropped away from Finn's ankles.
"Hey!" a shout came from the quarry entrance. One of the guards had come to check.
"Climb on my back," Henge said. He lowered one shoulder and Finn clambered up. Henge's back was rough against his face, and warm like a rock that had lain in the sun all day. "Ready?" Henge asked. "Hold on."
Henge ran at the quarry wall and jumped. He slammed his hands against the stone, finding hand- and footholds with the ease of an experienced climber. Finn was tossed back and forth, but held tight as Henge scaled the quarry wall, punching into the rock with a hand or foot if there was no natural hold available. In moments, they were at the surface.
The guard had made it halfway across the quarry floor in the time it had taken Henge to climb to the top. He shouted to his companion that Finn had escaped, and that they needed to get to the surface right away.
Finn dropped from Henge's back. "It's time to go. That guard will be here in moments, and I don't want to be around when he arrives." Being caught chatting with a Manhir would give Jorun an easy excuse to get rid of him completely, he figured. Best not wait around for that to happen. An alder and birch forest started a few feet from the edge of the quarry, so Finn picked out a game trail running up the mountainside and took off. The quarry quickly disappeared behind a screen of willow and cherry bushes.
When Finn looked over his shoulder, Henge was no longer following him. He must have had trouble getting through the undergrowth. There was no time to go look for him; Finn knew he could spend the rest of the afternoon searching and still miss him in the dense forest. He wanted to put as much distance between him and the guards as possible.
The land flattened out, and Finn burst out of the forest. A grassy meadow lay in the afternoon sunlight. Ahead, the land ended in a sharp cliff that ran down to the valley floor below. Gilgin, the ancient home of the Inquisition, lay in the hazy distance across the valley, the spire of the Inquisitional Palace visible even from this distance.
He had veered too far west while wandering through the forest. Instead of running away from the quarry, he had run parallel to it! He was only a little further away than when he'd started. He headed toward the forest edge on the other side of the clearing.
"Halt!" came a voice from behind him.
Damn. One of the guards, the slighter, dark-haired twit, stood at the far edge of the clearing. He had an arrow nocked on his bowstring, ready to draw. At this distance, even a child would be able to hit him.
"Walk towards me," the guard said. "Very slowly."
Finn started inching towards the guard. He glanced around the clearing. If he walked to the side of the guard instead of straight at him, then he could make a dash for the forest once he was closer. The short distance would give the guard little time to react, and his bow would be useless once Finn got a couple of trees between them. The guard would be no match for him when racing through the undergrowth.
Finn's exit point drew closer. Just a few more steps, and he would be close enough to the forest edge to make a run for it. The sound of something moving in the forest drifted into the clearing. "I've got him!" The guard never took his eyes off Finn. "This way! You, stay right where you are." The guard said this last part to Finn.
Finn stopped. This complicated matters.
Another guard, an evil-eyed blond brute, stepped into the clearing, axe in hand. "Go tie him up while I cover you," the first guard said.
The brute walked towards Finn, grinning widely. Finn knew he would only get one chance to make a break for it. The brute would block the line of sight for the guard with the bow if he timed this right. Finn just needed to surprise him.
The guard reached Finn and grabbed his arm. Finn jerked his arm away. The guard reacted by gripping Finn's arm again, tighter, and pulling Finn towards him. Finn jumped forward, partially propelled by the guard's pull, and shoved his shoulder into the brute's chest.
The guard fell backwards and let go of Finn's arm. Finn dashed towards the forest.
Something struck his heel and he stumbled, getting his feet tangled up. The fallen guard had thrown his axe at Finn, hitting him with the handle. He was already up again by the time Finn recovered, and with two steps had closed the distance between them. He kicked Finn's legs out from under him and dropped him to the grass. A kick in the side drove the wind out of him. The guard then planted a knee in the small of Finn's back and pushed his face down, filling his mouth with grass.
Branches snapped as someone else entered the clearing.
"What's that?" the first guard shouted.
The weight of the blond guard disappeared from Finn's back. Finn pulled his head up from the grass; Henge's stony feet filled his vision. "Leave him alone," Henge rumbled.
The guard from Finn's back lay crumpled on the grass halfway between Finn and the first guard. The first guard shot Henge, striking him in the middle of his chest. The arrow ricocheted away from him, landing in a nearby juniper bush. Henge shook himself. The arrow hadn't even made a dent in the Manhir's stone-like body. Henge took a step towards the dark-haired guard; the guard took another look at Henge, then turned and ran. The blond guard scrambled after his companion.
"Thanks." Finn got up and brushed off his leather jerkin.
"Who were those guys?" asked Henge.
"Them? Just some Inquisition guards doing their jobs." Finn turned and headed away from the quarry. "Coming? They're bound to return, and bring friends with them."
A game trail led into the forest at the far end of the clearing. Even so, it was slow going through the brambles and juniper bushes, especially for Henge. After a while, though, the forest thinned out, letting them walk side by side.
"Do you know what happened to the Manhir?" Henge asked.
Finn shook his head. "Which version do you want to hear? The only thing they agree on is that one day, the Manhir simply disappeared."
"How can a whole people simply disappear?"
"Dunno. The Inquisition teaches that they sided with the dark gods and were punished for it."
"Impossible. We fought alongside your people for the light during the Ochloroc wars," Henge said. "We would never side with them."
Finn shrugged. "I didn't believe Manhir existed before I saw you. War does strange things to people's beliefs. Maybe your people got tired of fighting."
Henge fell silent. The afternoon shadows were lengthening when they hit on a dirt track, half-overgrown by knee-high weeds.
"What will you do now?" Henge was becoming easier to understand. He seemed to be learning fast.
"I've got an uncle in Trolldalen." Finn pointed down the track. "It should be an easy two-day walk that way. I'll hide there until everyone in Gilgin has forgotten I punched Jorun. What's your plan?"
"I'm heading to Gilgin, to talk to this Inquisition. They must know more about what happened to the Manhir."
"They'll kill you!"
"Oh, I'm sure they'll be reasonable."
"No, you don't understand," Finn said fervently. "A core teaching of the Inquisition is that the Manhir were evil, and it's a good thing they disappeared. Inquisitors devote their lives to hunting down and destroying any remaining Manhir artefacts."
"Aw, they just never met a real Manhir," Henge said. "If I can just sit down with them and let them get to know me, they'll see that I'm not a monster."
"You're crazy, Henge."
"Perhaps. But I need to know what happened to the Manhir, and at the moment, Gilgin is the only place I know of where I could go to find out."
Finn threw up his arms. "Suit yourself. Gilgin is that way." Finn pointed the opposite direction, away from Trolldalen. "When you hit the larger road, just take a left, and follow it until an Inquisition patrol finds you. They'll take you to Gilgin without too much asking."
Henge placed his arm across his chest and bowed to Finn. "Thank you, Master Finn. I'll remember your help."
Henge turned down the dirt track and took off at an easy jog. Finn stood looking after him; in moments Henge disappeared from view. "Poor guy," Finn muttered. He turned and headed towards Trolldalen.