Everything—journeymen, tidal wave, water bowl, fog, everything—crashed back into the ocean. Rasim's feet hit bottom and his knees buckled, surprise striking him harder than earth. Kisia went completely underwater and came up again coughing and panicking until she realized Rasim was standing. She got her feet under herself and stood, thigh-deep in surf and gaping.
Dawn burned pale gold on the eastern horizon, sending faint blue shadows against a muddy, rocky shore only a dozen feet away. White-coated mountains swooped up from the shore, riddled with black holes that suggested safe passage, or at least protection from the elements. The air was so cold it felt scrubbed, and Rasim's breath turned to billows of steam on it.
Behind Rasim, Milu struggled to his feet and wheezed. Rasim startled and turned from the view to search for Telun. The big Stonemaster boy was a few yards farther out, also coughing. Rasim waded over, caught his collar, and dragged him in to shore. Kisia followed, water draining from her hair and skin. Milu came last, his long limbs awkward in the water. He dropped to his knees when he reached the muddy beach, squelching his fingers in the muck. It crept up his arms in welcome, the weight of stonewitchery hanging in the air.
Rasim squeezed Telun's collar, sending rivulets of water streaming off him, and shed the wet from his own clothes as well. Before Milu stood, Kisia touched his hair too, sending the last of their damp adventure back into the ocean. All of them were shivering. It was warmer to be dry, but not nearly warm enough. "Get up," Rasim told the Stonemaster lads. "We have to get out of the wind, into one of those caves, before we're too thick-limbed to move."
Kisia swayed, her skin taking on a burnished gleam in the slow-rising sunlight. "Don't you want to talk about..." She waved a hand at the ocean. "About that?"
"What happened?" For such a big boy, Telun's voice was thin and very small. Rasim helped him up, but even with help he was clumsy, and his weight sank him deeper into the mud than any of the others.
Milu barked a laugh. "You slept through it, my love, so you're never going to believe it." He shoved himself to his feet, stumbled to Telun, and hugged him hard. "The good news is we're alive and no longer on that wretched ship."
Rasim smiled faintly. "Tsha, Milu, the Waifia is a very fine ship. Yes," he said to Kisia, "I want to talk about it. But we won't talk long if we die of exposure, and I'm starting to feel warm."
"Me too," Telun mumbled into Milu's shoulder. "Thank Coluth."
"Thank Siliaria," Rasim and Kisia both said under their breath, and exchanged the briefest smile at that correction. Then Rasim shook his head. "Warm is bad. We're losing feeling. We have to get into those caves now."
Milu, without letting go of Telun, extended one hand, palm downward. Mud popped and splorched, making a huge sucking sound as it began quivering beneath their feet. "Come closer," he ordered, sounding nothing like the exhausted, sick youth he'd been for weeks. Kisia and Rasim skittered closer, neither of them fully trusting the shaking muck. "This mud goes down forever," Milu said dreamily. "There's no bedrock for at least half a mile."
"Milu, it's mud," Telun warned, but the gangly boy smiled, hugged Telun tighter, and said, "Hang on."
Mud ripped away from the shore, rising upward like a sea witch water spout. Kisia screamed and collapsed, lying on her belly. Every muscle in Rasim's body clenched. He forced himself to bend his knees, trying desperately to imagine the wobbling mud was nothing more than a rolling ship deck, but a glance down made a lie of that.
They rose on a column of grey clay. It bent toward the mountain faces, more mud rising to support it. The weight of witchery was terrific, and the sea ran to fill the gaping holes left by such massive stonemastery. Clumps of mud fell away, splattering to the ground, but the great bulk lifted them upward at remarkable speed. By the time Rasim remembered to breathe again, the clay slide had carried them to a cave mouth dozens of yards above the beach. Telun grabbed Kisia and pulled her into the cave, and Milu nodded at Rasim, who forced himself forward to join the other two. Milu came after him, his witchery fading away. Mud collapsed down the mountainside and slid back toward the ocean.
Before they could take a single step into the cave's depths, Telun whacked Milu's shoulder. "Mud, Milu?"
Milu laughed. "It worked, didn't it?"
"But mud! It's not stone, it's not—"
"But it might someday be, through the pressure of time." Milu grabbed Telun's hand as he threatened another hit and drew him closer, speaking more softly. "It worked, and I won't do it again." Telun relaxed a little, putting his forehead against Milu's shoulder, then nodding.
Kisia, staring between them, wet her lips. "I take it you're not meant to work with mud."
Milu shrugged. "It's not stone, but it's earth. Metal, now, metal is hard to work."
Telun lifted his head to roll his eyes. "He means for most people."
"Shush, Telun." Milu walked several feet into the tunnel, sunrise bleeding into the cave and lighting his way. The weight of stonemastery filled the space again, though Milu wasn't doing anything visible. Rasim glanced at Telun, but he watched Milu with just as much expectation as Rasim or Kisia. After a moment, Milu turned back. "It runs deep, and it would be warmer deeper in, but we have no way of knowing what's back there. I think we're better off staying close to the surface."
"The wind will kill us," Rasim said grimly, but Milu chuckled and shook his head. Stone flowed behind them, closing them away from the tunnel's unknown depths, then sealed up its mouth as well, leaving only a thin arc near the top, for air to come through. Then the space inside the witch-made cave shifted, shrinking until there was barely more than a long arm's length from one side of the cave to the other. It warmed up noticeably as the four Ilyarans crowded together, but Rasim rasped, "Stop. Please. Stop."
Shuddering waves washed over his skin, different from the shivers of cold. His stomach thumped sickly, like his heart had taken up residence in it and neither was happy about it. The walls were too close, pressing on him, and there wasn't enough air in the cave.
"He's got stone sickness. That didn't happen to him in the island cave. Open it up a little, Milu."
Even in the semi-darkness, Rasim saw the sympathy in Milu's eyes before stone flowed back again, making a little more room. It was still too close, the mountain's very size threatening to crush him, but it was better than before. Rasim bit his lip and nodded, then sat down to bury his face in his knees. Stone sickness, like sea sickness. He hadn't know there was such a thing, though it was clear the Stonemasters were familiar with it. "There was water in the island cave," he said against his knees. "I know water. It's not as..."
"Alarming," Kisia offered. It was a nicer word than scary, which is what Rasim had been thinking, so he nodded. "It's still cold in here, Milu. Really cold." She had a hard time getting whole sentences through chattering teeth. Rasim reached for her hand, pulling her down to huddle with him. Telun, the biggest and probably warmest of them, hunkered down too, and a little more heat bloomed from their shivering bodies.
"Let me concentrate. Maybe I can find sparkstone somewhere in this mountain." Milu spread his hands against the walls while Rasim tried to remember what he knew about warming up.
"Tunics," he finally said, feeling thick. "Take them off, sit on them. A lot of heat gets lost through the wood. Rock." He frowned at the cave floor. "Whichever. But we always sleep with more blankets under us than over, on deck. And skin warms skin faster than cloth." He pulled his shirt off, spreading it out so it would cover the most floor space. Telun and Kisia did the same, and Telun tugged Milu's shirt off him when it was clear the other journeyman was too involved with his witchery to do as he'd been told. He was colder than Rasim, his thin limbs carrying no extra fat, especially after weeks of sea sickness. They made a triangle around him, squishing close. Telun draped his cloak over their heads, making for a lopsided tent that went farther in covering and warming them all than Rasim would have expected.
Once in their puddle of warmth, Kisia peered under Milu's arm at Telun. "Shouldn't you help?"
"Me? No, if Milu can't find it it's not here to be f..." The big journeyman trailed off, considering the shivering, slender young man they crowded around. "Ah. He's been so sick you wouldn't know. It's Milu who has the power, between us. Master Lusa brought him, not me, to work witchery for the Northerners. I've no great strength at stonecraft."
Rasim, rubbing his chest, muttered, "Then why bring you at all?" and then made a face. "I didn't mean it that way."
Telun chortled. “No, I understand. Milu wouldn’t go without me. What, ah." His smile disappeared entirely. "What happened to us?"
"Someone threw us overboard. Siliaria rescued us." Rasim thought he sounded ridiculous, but his tone was so flat and matter-of-fact that Telun only blinked.
"Siliaria? The sea goddess?" At Rasim's nod, Telun looked flummoxed. "She's real?"
Kisia made a small strange sound. "More real than anything I've ever seen. What, don't you believe in Coluth, Telun?"
"Of course, but...well, no." Telun shrugged his big shoulders. "I mean, we pray to him and we swear by him, but it's not like he drops by for dinner. There's never been any proof to believe in. I could swear by my sand lizard, too, but that doesn't make him a god."
Kisia's face, in the shadowed light of their little tent, was still incredulous. Rasim thought he under-stood, though. Gods and goddesses were from old stories, not things that appeared in everyday life. Cursing someone in Siliaria's name might relieve anger, but no one expected the goddess herself to rise out of the sea and strike the offender down. The idea of them was real enough, but even in the midst of storms, they didn't seem entirely...real.
Or they hadn't until last night, anyway. Since Siliaria had come for him, Rasim thought maybe some part of him had always thought she did exist, even if he understood Telun's point of view. "Siliaria is real," he said with quiet conviction. "I'm guessing Coluth and Riorda and Tilarea are too. She saved us. She—"
"Kissed you!" Kisia said with the outrage of having just remembered. She sat up straight, bumping the top of their tent around, and thrust an accusing finger around Milu and toward Rasim. "You kissed her! A goddess!"
Scarlet heat started around Rasim's chest and raced upward until his face felt alight. "It seemed like a good idea. It seemed like she...wanted something. And what did she say to you?" he demanded. "She said something, I just couldn't hear what!"
"She said—" Kisia hunched back down, arms folded around herself. "Never mind. She called you Seamaster, Rasim. I heard that. What does it mean if the goddess of the sea calls you Seamaster?"
"That I'm forever hers," Rasim said, and frowned as Kisia hunched down even more. "I don't know what it means, Kees, except..." He drew a deep breath, tasting the salt water on the air, then sank down as he exhaled. "Except I guess you were right. I guess it was me who saved you when the serpent attacked. I guess I did throw witchery all that way. I remember getting dizzy afterward, but...what?"
Kisia's gaze was on him again, eyes bright. "I knew it was you. I told Captain Asindo. It felt like you, like you were catching me. He said it couldn't be, but I knew it was. That was the first time I knew how strong you were. That's why I think it was you who set the ropes on fire, too, Rasim. I think you have to balance it, that's all. You were starting to learn sunmastery and it broke down the walls holding back your sea magic. Sun and sea, don't you see? It makes sense. Who knows," she said breathlessly, "maybe we can all work two magics, and we've just never tried because of how the guilds are set up. Maybe we all have complementary witchery in us."
Telun breathed, "Hah. I'd like that. Tilarea did me only one favor by guiding me into Coluth's arms." Milu, although half asleep, made a pleased sound, and Telun smiled at him before speaking to the other two again. "If it's sun and sea, stone and sky, maybe I can find a real gift for skywitchery in myself, rather than being weak at one alone."
"See?" Kisia demanded triumphantly. "That's just like how you are, Rasim. Not very strong except when you really needed to be, but getting better now that you've been studying another magic!"
"Have you ever done unexpected witchery?" Rasim asked Telun dubiously. "Called more power than you imagined you had? I guess I did once or twice..."
"Nah. But until this journey I've never done anything unusual at all. Give me a chance." Telun smiled, and Rasim's heart twisted in sympathy. He knew exactly what it was like to be underrated, and he wasn't sure Telun's big build had done him any favors. At least being physically slight fit Rasim's witchery skills. Telun looked like a Stonemaster, like he should be able to move mountains. Fiddling with pebbles might be even harder, in those circumstances.
"Can you feel it now, Rasim? The ocean? You said you never could, before..."
Rasim nodded before Kisia finished the questions. "I can feel all of it, in my blood. It's moving there. It's a...it's not a song, but it's like one. Constant sound, inside me. I can..." His face heated again and Kisia reached over to poke him, curiously. "I can almost hear Siliaria's voice," he mumbled. "Which doesn't make any sense, because she only sounded like the ocean, really, but..."
"Good." Milu opened his eyes. "If you're feeling the ocean, that means you can feel some driftwood in it." He opened his hands, too, revealing chunks of sharp-edged, opaque rock. "I've found sparkstone and we all carry steel knives. Now all we need is something to burn."
"I'm just barely warm," Kisia said in despair.
"I'll go with Rasim," Telun volunteered. "You two wrap up in my cloak. Milu's too thin to keep warm in the wind right now anyway. Close the cave up after us, and shape a chimney from the stone, Milu. We'll be back with wood in no time, and then we can rest beside a fire until we're warmed through."
"Easier said than done," Rasim muttered, but with the stone witch's help, it was easier done than he imagined. Climbing up and down the mountain on his own would have exhausted him, but Telun shaped ladder rungs for them to climb, and rolled the wood they collected up the mountainside in a bowl of stone not unlike the watery one they'd spent the night in. Rasim sent him ahead with the wood, and went fishing.
All his life he'd watched others walk easily into the ocean, carrying warm air with themselves. For the first time he did it as easily, reveling in Siliaria's comforting grasp. Within minutes, he found a large, flat white fish lying quietly on the muddy ocean floor and scooped it up with witchery, carrying it, water and all, to shore. He killed it there and hauled it up to their cave, which was so much warmer than outdoors he started shivering again once inside. The big white fish's skin and bones had to be cooked out rather than cut with a knife, but none of the others complained, especially after Kisia roused herself to go down the shore again and came back with a palmful of fresh sea salt. Finally warm, full, and feeling safe, they dropped into sleep in their small protected cave. What to do next could wait another day.
A steady banging from within the mountain disturbed Rasim's dreams. He opened his eyes in confusion as the back wall of their cave shattered and a monstrously hairy creature stepped through. A wide grin split the hair, turning the monster into a man, and in the same moment, irons were clamped around Rasim's ankles.
They were all taken prisoner before any of them were fully awake.