Page 85 of Into the West

When word got around that there was a helpful Elemental here, though, Pebble had no lack of requests. Kordas finally made a ruling: no jobs for Pebble that could easily be done by hand. That cut back on the requests, but there was one that Kordas particularly supported. It turned out that Pebble understood what scale was. After some quick sculpting of a model and some coaching, Pebble walked into the river. Not half a mark passed until the first of many bridgetowers to come erupted from the icy span, with a giggling Pebble atop it. Steam roiled off of the stone as it moved and blended into layers, each stretching laterally a little more than the last until a surface wide enough for three wagons ramped up from the riverbank. Then Pebble rolled sideways into the river with a tremendous splash, and the next one came up the same way. The “little” Elemental was apparently having the time of its life, casually making bridgetowers that would have taken Kordas’s people years to even attempt. The Tayledras didn’t use bridges—they probably had Gates if they needed to get across the river—so Kordas had been resigned to his people only having access to the other side of the waterway via boat, and only at certain times of year. If need be, the Gate-arches could be employed for the “short hop” across the river, but they’d decay away eventually. Now, Valdemarans could reach the far shore via bridges that looked like they’d last a thousand years, and reach the beautiful Grove there that he’d seen on brighter days.

It turned out that Pebble had helped the livestock just in time. That afternoon, a blizzard moved in, and if Pebble had not cleared the fields, the animals would have been in real danger. As it was, Pebble and the mages together were able to make three-sided snow shelters, roofed with branches hastily cut from anywhere that they could be spared without killing the bushes or trees, that all the various herds could huddle together in. Pebble extinguished most of its warmth in order to plow snow rather than melting it, the mages packed it down, and Pebble then warmed up just enough to melt the surface of the wall and let it freeze hard again, so the walls would hold up almost as well as walls made of stone.

Pebble did not like the cold, however, and came back up to the Vale. Inside the Vale, the mages had figured out a way to manipulate the Veil to shed the snow instead of melting it into rain. Whether this was a good idea or not—Kordas wasn’t entirely sure. It could mean they’d end up with a wall of snow overtopping the rock wall, or worse, ice. But for now, this seemed to be the best temporary answer, because otherwise they’d all be ankle-deep in water with nowhere for it to go.

Kordas had another “meal” set out for Pebble in that strip of meadow it seemed to like, and as soon as the Elemental got there, it fell on the dried dung as if it was starving. Literally fell on the dried dung—its legs disappeared into its body and the dung vanished underneath it.

“Good. Good,” it sighed when it was done. “Good eat.”

“We’ve got thousands of people, and plenty of livestock. We’ll make sure you’re not hungry,” Grim told it, patting its side with caution.

Kordas got a sense that it had turned its attention on the Horsemaster. “Who?” Pebble asked.

“Grim. This is Grim, and he is a friend,” Kordas replied immediately, just as Sydney appeared, scrambled up onto the Elemental, kneaded with his paws for a moment, and settled down, purring loud enough to make everyone smile. Sydney was followed to Pebble by Jonaton, dressed at last in one of his fancy, embroidered robes. Jonaton’s ability to grasp almost any task meant he was always in demand, but he had finally come to have a look at the creature. Jonaton strolled around it, fascinated.

“It makes legs?” the mage asked Kordas, eyes wide. “Can you get it to do that now?”

“Not make legs,” Pebble said, startling Jonaton so much the mage jumped. “Not wake rumble friend.”

Rumble friend? Oh! The cat!

“That’s a cat,” said Kordas. “One of the things we call him is ‘Sydney.’”

“Like cat,” replied Pebble. “Sydney is good boy.” And as they said that, Kordas noticed that Pebble had dished its back a very little bit, the better to cradle the now-dozing Sydney.

“You wouldn’t like it very much if you weren’t made of rock,” Jonaton muttered, looking at his scratched hands ruefully. “Kordas, why is it that damned cat lets your boys toss it around like a rag ball, but when I try to pet him, he lacerates me?”

Kordas tried not to laugh. “He’s your cat, Jonaton. Why ask me?”

“Good cat,” rumbled Pebble. “Who?”

“My name is Jonaton, Pebble,” Jonaton replied. “A friend.” He was already grinning; Pebble, Kordas had noticed, tended to have that effect on people.

Well . . . it’s a very sweet creature. And resilient. It seems to have recovered very well from being a tortured captive for so long. Perhaps that was the nature of Elementals. They were so long-lived, practically immortal, that “a long time” by human standards might just have been the equivalent of a short while to Pebble.

By this point, most people seemed to have gotten over their fear of Pebble, and had come to the strip of grass to have a look at the heat-emitting, talking rock. And more cats than just Sydney had decided that Pebble’s back was the best place to sleep, ever. In no time at all, Pebble was playing host to almost twenty cats, and the Elemental was surrounded by the curious. Kordas left Jonaton and Pebble to answer their questions, and returned to his family barge, only to meet a barrage of questions from his boys. The youths had all been kept away from Pebble until it had been determined that the Earth Elemental was safe. And they wanted to know everything he knew about it.

As long as it wasn’t raining, people still living in the barges preferred to spend as much time on their barge as in it. So Kordas gathered the lads up and took them to sit on the roof. Moments of rest, or even just calm, had been rare in his life for too long. He wasn’t prepared to settle down too much, but at a time like right now, it was appropriate. Taking a moment is all right. I let the Plan and this expedition steal too much away from me. I resent it, and I damned well will have time with my family now. We made it here. I don’t have to feel guilty over doing anything even for a minute that isn’t for the people of Valdemar. I can ease up.

But he hadn’t even begun to answer their questions when Rose came sprinting up the path to their barge. “Baron! Baron!” she called, and for the first time he could remember she had fear in her voice. “Pebble is calling for you!”

She stopped below him before he could reply. “It thinks something bad is coming. And—we feel it too!”

Delia was fascinated by Pebble, and she wished with all her heart that Jelavan was with her to see the “little” Elemental. Jelavan would have been beside himself, and asking all sorts of questions. Pebble’s vocabulary wasn’t large—at first—but the more people asked it questions, the more it seemed to learn, and learn quickly. It made an odd little interrogative “Uh-errr?” when it didn’t understand something, which was strangely charming, and always elicited the response of the questioner carefully rephrasing their question in simpler terms.

It was impossible to tell Pebble’s “head” from the “tail”—if, indeed, there was any meaningful difference—but most people were clustered around the end where the voice seemed to come from. There wasn’t anything like features to read, and yet, Delia was absolutely certain that Pebble was curious about the people around it, delighted with the purring cats lined up on its back, contented with its surroundings, and—even though the poor thing had been held captive and tortured by other humans—trusting of the people around it. Did it have some sort of Empathic sense, as Healers did? Was that why the Dolls all loved it?

She had the irresistible urge to pet the thing, even though it was taller than she was, and about as long as two horses and carts, and looked like nothing more than a big, water-smoothed boulder. Finally, she gave up trying to resist the impulse. Gingerly, she reached out to put her hand on it, and found that it was about the temperature of sun-warmed rock. Just comfortable, although if you leaned against Pebble for too long, or sat on it, she reckoned you’d probably be sweating and overheated before too long.

The cats loved the heat, though. And even some of the encampment dogs were coming to Pebble, putting their backs to it, and curling up for naps—with one wary eye on the cats.

And in the space of a breath, all that changed.

Beneath her hand, Pebble—stiffened. That was the only way she could describe the feeling. Pebble’s surface texture changed from smooth to undulating waves of stubby points. The dogs immediately alerted, jumped to their feet, and fled—perhaps back to their masters. The cats woke up, all at once, and scrambled en masse.

A throng of Dolls appeared from nowhere.

“Kordasss!” Pebble wailed. “Need Kordasss! Need Kordassss!”