Think! The answer might be there if she would just think. What should she think? Think about what the stone had said, or how it had said it. That would do. The stone had spoken without menace. Its tone had been inoffensive, even kindly. Kindliness should be met with good manners. Precious Wind, her teacher, had spent years teaching her good manners, and they were all there, in her head, ready for use when needed! Still, she had to swallow several times before she could say the words a little louder.
“Ah. Well,” the stone murmured when she had spoken, “go on then! About time someone came to fetch it.”
Xulai rose, brushed the squishiness off her forehead with the back of her hand, bowed again to emphasize how well mannered she intended to be, and returned to the path. The third pillar had been the last; the shrine itself was just over the bridge that crossed the water she heard chattering nearby.
“Just a moment,” said the stone.
She turned back, mouth open, suddenly fearful and furious, both at once. What now? Couldn’t they just let her get on with it?
“You didn’t say thank you,” said the stone.
Taking a deep breath, she dropped to her knees once more, pressing her forehead to the ground. “May I offer thanks, a multitude of thanks, oh stone.”
“Very pretty,” said the stone. “Not that I need a multitude, but it’s nice to know some children still know their manners. Precious Wind has done a good job with you! Go on now.”
Xulai set her feet on the path, noticing with some surprise that she was not trembling. Her feet moved quite solidly and steadily. Indeed, she felt . . . what? Not quite cheerfulness. But the stone had been approving! Approval was good. Even better was being reminded of Precious Wind! No one in the whole world was more calm and poised and well mannered than Precious Wind. And, thinking about it, as the wagon man had bid her, if the stone knew Precious Wind, then the stone knew about Princess Xu-i-lok, who had advised her to make the obeisance but had forgotten to say anything about stones that talked, though, again, if Xulai had thought about it at the time, she would have noticed that she was to ask permission. Well, if one asked permission, presumably permission would have to be granted, and if not in speech, then how? So it was clear, if one thought about it, that the Woman Upstairs had implied that the stones would speak.
Perhaps the stone even knew who Xulai was, or what she was, which would be a good sign, almost an omen, for it would mean Xulai wasn’t really alone out here.
The sound of water had grown louder. Ahead of her a streamlet came chattering from the left, bickered its way around a mossy boulder, and continued alongside the pathway, still fussing with itself.
“Nan subi dimbalic, Poxiba. E’biti choxilan, landolan,” Xulai murmured to herself in Tingawan before restating the idea in the language of Norland. “No bad creatures, elder kinswoman. Just the company of the water as it talks to itself.” Imagining herself accompanied by a group of elders was a way she had invented of keeping herself from feeling too lonely. Over the years, she had created a whole family of elders in her head, some of them quite ancient and wise. They all had names and histories and sayings, their considerable wisdom accumulated from many sources, some of them unlikely. It suddenly occurred to her that having all that wisdom in her mind might have helped more if she’d paid more attention to it! Why was she such a baby?
A dozen paces ahead of her, the brook squabbled with another boulder that forced it to turn right under the stone bridge that led onto the paved forecourt of the temple itself. All of it—bridge, forecourt, and temple—was swaddled in moss velvets and liverwort lace with ferny frills around the edges, having become, so Xulai told herself in sudden surprise, as much a living being as it was dead stone. Why, at any moment, it might creak up from its foundations and stumble off into the trees, its dappled hide dissolving into the fabric of the forest.
The thought stopped her only for a moment, and she was actually smiling as she hurried the dozen long steps that took her across the arched bridge. From the forecourt, two hollowed granite steps ascended to the temple floor. Several paces within the temple, a few more steps would gain the altar platform, which Xulai circled carefully while keeping her eyes away from the carvings around its edge. Even veiled in moss, they could catch hold of one’s eyes, captivate one, melt a person down into the stone to become one with it, or so the Woman Upstairs had said, though that threat had not greatly bothered Xulai. Things one was instructed not to look at were far less fearful than things that forced themselves upon unwilling eyes.
From the far side of the bridge, Abasio, who had followed her closely each trembling step of the way, heard a sound behind him. He slipped between two trees into a web of darkness, leapt over the quarrelsome streamlet, and circled the temple with a few long, careful strides. From among the trees behind the temple, he saw Xulai drop to her knees. Now what? She was trembling, her eyes shut, thinking. “Good for you, girl,” he murmured to himself. “Good for you, little maiden!”
The Woman Upstairs had said, “In the floor behind the altar. A triangular stone, small, not heavy, but you’ll need something sharp to pry it up
