slid it freely over the smooth stone. 'Look at these hips! What magnificent thighs! Have you ever seen such breasts? If she were real, can you imagine what mighty children she would bear a man?'
As Daj and Estrella hung back from this terrifying thing, Liljana stared up at it and said, 'Ages ago they made such sculptures of the Great Mother. Though I've never seen one with a face so forbidding.'
'The eyes are the worst of it,' Berkuar said with Shudder. 'Truly, they're cold enough to turn a man to stone.'
'Ah, I don't know,' Maram said again. 'There's something about her eyes. Cold, yes, I suppose, but can't you see how they conceal a great fire? What kind of maker could have sculpted such strange, deep eyes?'
His brow suddenly furrowed with perplexity. He moved close up to the statue as he peered into its eyes and breathed into its dreadful face.
'Strange, very strange,' Maram muttered. Then he announced: 'It looks like there's a thin layer of stone enamelled over some sort of gem, like amethyst, I don't know, but if I can just chip it away with my knife then — '
As he was reaching for the dagger on his belt, his voice suddenly choked off, and I felt the breath freeze in my lungs. I felt my own eyes rigid as stone, for I could not credit what they beheld: the statue's arms seemed to soften and change color to a dusky gold as they came alive and tightened around Maram, pushing him against its breasts. Maram stood gasping and struggling to move, his arms pinioned helplessly against his sides. The statue — or whatever it really was — seemed possessed of an insane strength. It lifted Maram off the ground as easily as I might a child Its stonelike lips pulled back from long white teeth and red gums in a terrible smile. Its eyes began to clear. The enamel carapace dissolved into a brilliant violet that I finally understood to be of pure gelstei.
'The Stonemaker!' Berkuar shouted out. 'It is the Yaga!'
He lifted up his bow and sighted his arrow on this demonic thing. Kane, standing twenty yards farther back, called to him: 'Hold your arrow! You'll hit Maram!'
But Berkuar ignored him. In a sudden snap of releasing tension, this great archer loosed his arrow. It flew straight and struck the Stonemaker's neck. But the point broke against the stony skin there, and the arrow glanced off, skittering into rocks beyond.
'Back!' I heard Atara cry out. 'Liljana, Master Juwain — help me get the children back behind the trees!'
The Stonemaker let loose a deep, belly-shaking laugh, almost dulcet and pleasing in tone, but terrible in its promise of torment. She turned her violet eyes toward Berkuar.
'Back!' Kane called to me as he sprang away from it. 'Val — get yourself behind a tree!'
I stood frozen on a slab of naked rock gripping my sword in both hands. If the Stonemaker could move as it did, I reasoned, then her facade of stone must be thin enough that I could cut through it to the living flesh beneath. But I was too far from Maram to strike at the thing that embraced him.
'Back, I say! Back, Val!'
The Stonemaker fixed her gaze upon Berkuar, who whipped another arrow from its quiver. He never had time to nock it. The Stomemaker's eyes came alive with a hideous, incandescent light. Berkuar's face lit up with a violet glow as he froze motionless with his arrow trapped inside his hand. I watched in horror as the flesh of his hand, face and neck turned to stone. Even the thick hair of his face and head grew grayish black and hardened.
'Back, Val, back!' the Stonemaker said to me a sweet, mocking voice. 'Go hide behind a tree — if you have time!'
She began to turn her ponderous head toward me.
I believe I never moved so quickly in all my life as I did then. I fairly flew across the rocks and took shelter behind a great oak tree. I stood with my side pressed against hard bark. If the Yaga sought me out behind the curve of the tree, I would stab her through the throat before I died.
'Ha, ha — you're quick, little man, and you may have your little life, if that's want you want,' she sang out. 'I've meat enough for ten years, and anyway, it's this great dragon of a man I want.'
I heard Maram grunt in terror. There came a sound as of stone-hard boots scraping against rock. The Yaga seemed to be walking away from us. Then I heard her sing out a song in mockery of Maram's beloved doggerel that she must have overheard:
Her voice died off into the soft wind, and so did Maram's cries; I stood stricken with a terrible fear that my best friend would be finally and forever lost.
Chapter 18
When it seemed safe, we gathered near the form of the petrified Berkuar, nearly frozen ourselves with disbelief over what had just occurred.
'Well now we know,' Master Juwain said, running his hand across Berkuar's head, 'that it is possible to turn a man into stone.'
I turned my stare from Berkuar to Master Juwain. It was the only time in my life that I wanted to strike him.
'If it's possible to do this,' Liljana said, rapping her knuckles against Berkuar's hardened hand, 'is it possible to change him back? As the Yaga seemed to change herself back?'
None of us knew. But it was clear that if there was to be any help for Berkuar, we must somehow persuade the Yaga to do this work.
'In any case,' I said, coming to a decision, 'we cannot abandon Maram. Our only course is to go after him.'
I looked up through the gap at the sun where it descended like a knot of fire toward the west 'We have less than two hours of day left to us.'
'But what about the children?' Atara asked. 'Wouldn't it be better if I waited with them here? At least until you determine where that thing is taking Maram?'
I looked Daj and Estrella, who fairly clung to Atara's side. I did not want to remind Atara that she was in no state to protect them.
'All right,' I finally said. 'But let Master Juwain and Liljana remain here, too. Kane and I will move more quickly by ourselves.'
It was a hard decision, and note of us were happy with it. But it seemed the wisest course for Kane and me to track the Yaga to her lair, and then decide what must be done.
'I doubt if she'll return,' I said to Liljana. 'But if she somehow flanks us and comes back here, you must try to use your gelstei against her mind.'
