Set in Stone (The Petralist Book 1)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Set In Stone
Acknowledgements
Map of Obrion
Map of Alasdair
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
What Comes Next?
Igneous
Sedimentary
Metamorphic
Author's Note
Other Works by Frank Morin
Set In Stone
Book One of
The Petralist
Frank Morin
Set In Stone
Book one of The Petralist
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Frank Morin
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
Whipsaw Press
ISBN: 978-0-9899005-4-6
A Whipsaw Press Original
Edited by Joshua Essoe
(http://www.joshuaessoe.com/)
Cover art by Brad Fraunfelter
(http://www.bfillustration.com/)
Illustrations by Jared Blando
(http://www.theredepic.com/)
First Whipsaw printing, May 2015
Author photo by Jennifer Morin
Acknowledgements
As usual, there are more people to thank than I could hope to remember, but I'll make the attempt. First and foremost, my family. Kate and Kyle for helping generate the original idea and providing brutally honest feedback, Emily for her undying enthusiasm, and Jacob for comic relief. And my sweet Jenny for loving me, the biggest kid of them all.
Many people provided feedback across several versions as I tore apart the story and reassembled it like a Frenkenstein project. Special thanks to Michelle Wilber for asking the hard questions I sometimes wished she wouldn't. And for my very own team of Fast Rollers for feedback over ice cream: Jeffrey Steele, Adam Smith, Matt McLaughlin, and the Johnston clan. Remote members of the team included Truli Wright, Jesse Rudd, and Lee Ann Setzer. So much enthusiasm in such confined spaces can be dangerous.
Thanks to Joshua Essoe for a brilliant edit, Jared Blando for illustrations so much better than my hen-pecked, stick-figure drawings, and Brad Fraunfelter for a magnificent cover.
Many people influenced me for good and don't even know it. Or at least didn't openly mock me for my strange eccentricities. I count both as forms of support.
Prologue
The warm-faced midwife swaddled a screaming newborn baby boy, wrapped him in a homespun blanket, and handed the tiny soul to his eager new mother.
"You're lucky. He looks healthy despite the difficult labor."
Hendry, dressed in the worn, but clean clothing of a laborer, leaned over the birthing bed and wrapped his arms around Lilias, his wife, and their child. He blew out a relieved breath and his knotted muscles relaxed.
As they marveled at the baby's perfect, tiny hands and feet, Lilias whispered, "Welcome to our family, Connor."
The midwife crossed the whitewashed room to a small table next to a row of blocky stone cradles. She opened a thick ledger and thumbed to an empty page.
"With the rush to save the baby, I don't even have your names registered." Nodding toward the stone cradles she added, "We'll want to proceed with the testing straight away."
"Of course," Hendry said.
"You have the birth tax?"
"Of course," he said again and reached for the small leather purse at his belt.
"Good. You're a nice looking family. I hate seeing firstborn taken. Now, your formal names, please."
Before Hendry could respond, something crashed, like a door being slammed somewhere in the building. Shouting voices pounded past the birthing room, and another door slammed.
The midwife frowned and put down the quill. She headed for the paneled wood door that led into the rest of the birthing center, but it flew open before she reached it.
A young woman, barely more than a girl, stepped through, eyes wide and cheeks flushed. "It's High Lady Elspet! She's here, and the baby's coming early." She wrung her hands in her simple white linen dress and continued in a terrified voice, "There's problems."
The midwife's face paled and she rushed for the door. Pausing in the entrance, she called back to the new parents, "Wait here. I'll be back." She waved one hand toward the stone cradles. "Pick one and we'll test your son as soon as I return." She pushed past the young woman, who pulled the door closed behind them.
The parents shared a surprised look. "I hope the high lady and her child are safe," Lilias said as she cradled her baby tight and arranged him to try nursing.
"I'm sure she'll be fine." Hendry caressed her sweat-streaked face and gazed into her eyes. "I'm just glad you are."
An hour later they still waited. From the urgent footsteps that regularly passed their door, the situation with the high lady's birthing did not seem to be improving.
Finally Hendry stood. "Enough.
Let's get this over with." He took the now-sleeping Connor and turned to face the row of stone cradles. After a deep breath, he marched across the room, his face determined.
The four cradles looked as different as the stones from which they were carved. Hendry approached the first, a crude thing made of a solid block of Alasdair White granite, the top chiseled down into a rough depression to hold a child. It was ugly and cold, perfectly suited to its onerous task. He frowned at the slipshod workmanship and his hands itched for his tools. He'd never seen a block of precious granite so ill-treated.
The next two cradles were little better. A much smaller cradle fashioned from dark basalt seemed to huddle beside the larger white granite block, while a shiny black obsidian cradle next to it glinted with reflected lantern light.
Hendry ignored the fourth cradle entirely and faced the blocky one of granite. No son of his would be first tested in anything but granite, no matter how rough the stone might be carved.
"Wait."
He turned at Lilias' voice. "It must be done, love."
"I know." She spoke calmly despite the worry lines wrinkling her forehead. "Put him in that one."
She pointed at the last cradle in the line, the one he had not even considered. Set apart from the others by workmanship more than space, it was fashioned into a beautifully sloped depression formed by six distinct stones, fitted together perfectly. The polished surfaces were lovingly carved, with colors merging so beautifully, it all but shouted aloud the blessed state of the highborn children who would be tested there, children like High Lady Elspet's imminent newborn.
"We can't, love."
"Why not?"
"You know why not." He glanced nervously at the door. "If anyone found out. . ."
"No one's coming any time soon." She cocked her head and added, "This way we only test him once. Do you really want to put our Connor, in those others?"
After another glance at the crude stone cradles, he sighed. "You're right."
He then moved to stand before the beautifully crafted one, slipped the swaddling blanket off the child and placed the infant onto the merciless stone. At the first shock of cold air, the baby began wailing. He shook his little arms and legs angrily and bellowed at the chill touch of the stone.
Then he stopped.
An ominous silence descended over the room. Hendry bent over the cradle, while Lilias sat up in the bed. The baby lay silent, his little hands and feet pressed down against the cold stone as if stuck there. His mouth opened, but he made no sound. His little body began to shake and every tiny muscle tensed until they all stood out clearly against his naked skin.
"Oh, no," Hendry whispered as his worst fears were realized in the tiny body of his son.
Connor began to swell. His body grew, as if he'd taken an impossibly huge breath of air, and the muscles of his limbs bulged to twice their normal size. He started to rock side to side, and the cradle began to rattle in time with his movements until it bounced against the wall. The movement spread to the other cradles and they thumped against the wall like caged beasts trying to escape.
Panic-stricken, Lilias stumbled up out of the bed. "Get him out of there!"
Hendry, who had stood rooted in place, reached for the baby, but flames exploded to life from the very stone of the cradle. He yelped and pulled back from the intense heat.
Lilias shouted with terror and tried to rush across the room. Her legs, still weak from the difficult labor, buckled, and she sprawled to the floor.
The flames disappeared as quickly as they had started, replaced by a fountain of water as thick around as Hendry's waist.
Now on hands and knees, Lilias gasped, "How can he make so much?"
He gave her an incredulous look. "That's not his water, love. It's the stone doing it."
A powerful gust of wind sprayed the water across the room over the parents, chilling them to the bone. Hendry pulled the baby into his arms as Lilias crawled toward them. For three heartbeats, silence reigned. Tiny Connor hung limp in his grasp, and the two of them shared a fearful look over his prostrate form.
Then he started to cry. They swaddled him quickly and Hendry helped Lilias return to the bed. She clutched Connor with shaking hands. Hendry hugged his family close, and for several minutes he stood tense, breathing fast, eyes clenched to hold back tears.
Lilias buried her face against his neck and whispered soft words until he slowly relaxed. "It's not your fault."
"It's my blood, love," he said, voice thick with emotion. “It's Cursed."
She sniffled and gave him a weak smile. "It's not all bad, dear one. If he's accepted, Guardians give important service."
"I won't risk it," he snarled. "They'll kill him at a whim." He released her and savagely wiped his eyes. "They won't have him, not yet. Not until he can face them as a man." He squeezed her shoulder, his face determined. "No one knows. We're leaving, right now."
Hours later, the midwife slowly entered the birthing room, her face drawn, shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Tears shone in her eyes. She stared at the empty room for a couple seconds before realizing the family was gone, although several small coins lay on the blank page of the register.
She grunted and took up the coins of the birthing fee. She shouldn't be surprised at the lack of names. Most commoners couldn't write. Out of habit she glanced in the three crude stone cradles, but saw nothing of interest.
A gasp turned her around. She hadn't noticed the young apprentice enter behind her. The slender young woman stood before the cradle intended for highborn children, one hand at her mouth. The midwife frowned and stepped over to see. The sight struck like a blow to her stomach.
Indented in the very stones was a perfect outline of a baby's body.
"Impossible," she whispered.
"Where are they?" the young woman asked.
"Gone."
"What are their names?"
"I don't know."
"Where are they from?"
She only shook her head. She'd never seen anything like this, and lacked the emotional strength to grapple with the situation so soon after losing Lady Elspet's son.
"We have to tell someone," the young woman said.
"Tell someone what?"
They spun at the deep, cultured voice that spoke from the door behind them. High Lord Dougal stood there, his face lined with grief, but his intense blue eyes bored into them.
Without a word, the midwife gestured at the cradle. He crossed the room and, although he remained calm but for a widening of the eyes, he grabbed the midwife's shoulder and forced her to meet his gaze.
"Tell me all you know about this family. I must find that child!"
Chapter 1
Connor leaped out of bed and yanked on his hunting leathers. The dim light of dawn glowing through the one small window of the attic he shared with three of his four siblings showed the other beds already empty.
How could he have slept in so late? He'd be grouted if he didn't take something today.
His mother's voice called from downstairs, "Connor, where are you? Are you sick?"
"Coming!"
Couldn't she think of a different question, just once?
It didn't matter that the itching had already begun, a constant irritation just under the skin that already tugged at his resolve. Tomorrow, two days max, the Curse would strike hard.
Not today, he vowed.
Today he felt strong, but the very thought it might strike tomorrow made him snarl into the shadows.
He almost landed on Lilias, his mother, as he slid down the ladder to the main floor. At almost sixteen, he stood tall enough to look down into her brilliant green eyes, but he couldn't avoid her warm hug.
"Mom, I'm late," he protested, but did not pull away. She gave the best hugs in the world. Still, he wasn't ten any more.
Unruffled, she pushed his sandy blond hair out of his face. "Eat before you leave."
His siblings clustered around the table, already eating the usual hot breakfa
st of porridge, eggs, and dried rabbit. Hendry, Connor's father, must have already left for the quarry.
As soon as Connor entered the room, four year-old Wallace shouted, "Connor, shoot me a pedra today!"
"You don't eat pedras," Roderick said, disgusted. At eight, he was an expert in everything.
"I want to fly it." Wallace sprayed porridge from his mouth as he talked, and Roderick gave him a dirty look.
Blair, his black hair already combed said, "Starting this late, I doubt Connor will shoot anything."
"Eat rocks," Connor punched his younger brother on the shoulder.
No way he'd come back empty handed. Not today.
He wolfed down a bowl of food, grabbed a chunk of yesterday's bread, and headed for the door. He belted on his hunting quiver and carefully checked his bow and string.
"Good luck, son." Although now holding baby Fiona on her hip, Lilias still managed to hug him again. She didn't have to voice the question he knew she was thinking.
"I'm fine, mom."
"Are you sure? It's been almost a week."
"I know. Hunting's been good."
Of course, that was all just build-up for today. Today's kill had to be something special.
She didn't need to know about the growing itch. If things worked out according to plan, he'd escape the next bout of crushing sickness. He'd know tomorrow.
Connor slipped out the door and jogged toward the town square of Alasdair. Their house stood at the southeast corner of town, at the end of a long, straight street of similar, if slightly smaller, homes set close to the river-facing wall. The houses here stood tall enough to enjoy the spectacular views of Alasdair valley.
The street was known as Wall Street, and was one of three main streets running parallel east to west through town. He passed a couple of smaller lanes to reach Merchant Street that ran through the center of town, straight between the two gates and the town square.
Men and women were already beginning preparations for the next day's festival. Several of them called to him and he waved but did not stop to field the inevitable questions about his health.
In the square, Cinaed, the foreman's wife, called out to him from where she monitored the setup of tables in what would be the cooking area for the feast. "Connor, what are you still doing in town?"