Motherstone by Maurice Gee

to another beach. It was just a few metres of sand enclosed in cliffs. ‘We’ll have to go inland. Will you come with me, Thief?’ She did not dare show him the Temple. Then, across the sand, she saw a cave. It was set halfway up the cliff, partly hidden by trees that blazed with red flowers.
    ‘I wonder,’ she said. ‘Do you think any Stonefolk live in there?’ She could not show pictures of Stonefolk – she had never seen them, no one had – but showed Thief an image of the cave, the blackness of a deep interior, and heard him growl. She saw the hairs prickle on his spine. She guessed that somehow he had picked up her thought of Stonefolk. He did not like it.
    ‘They’re our friends, Thief.’ She knew she must try to talk with them. Just as much as Woodlanders, they had that old wisdom of O. They might know what she had to do. ‘Thief, come with me.’ She jumped down to the beach and crossed the sand and climbed up through the trees to the cave. It might be just a shallow one, but if it was she would look for another. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of Stonefolk sooner.
    The mouth was wide enough to let her go in side by side with Thief. He set up a rumbling growl but stepped in without hesitating. It was a long cave and soon they were in semi-darkness. Thief stopped. ‘What is it, Thief? Is something there?’ She was not scared of any animal while she had the Bloodcat. But it was a rockfall that had stopped him. She saw it as her eyes got used to the dark. It blocked the cave and left no way through. She climbed it and up by the ceiling found a place where air seemed to shift. She could see no opening but put her mouth where she thought it might be.
    ‘Stonefolk, are you there?’ she called. There was no reply, and she did not expect one straight away. They took their time, they would not be hurried. But if any lived in this part of O they would answer. ‘Stonefolk, I’m your friend. We’ve met before. I’m Susan Ferris. I know I’ve got to help O again and I want to know how. Can you tell me?’
    This time an answer came. It startled her and made Thief howl. The voice was close, in the dark on the other side of the fall. It was younger, less furry, than other Stonefolk voices she had heard. ‘Susan Ferris?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You have a beast with you?’
    ‘Yes, a Bloodcat. His name’s Thief. He’s my friend.’
    ‘No one can make friends with a Bloodcat.’
    ‘Well, he’s here, right by my side. And he’s not eating me. But you sound as if you were waiting. Who are you? What’s your name?’
    ‘I have none yet, I have not earned one. I am simply daughter of Deep Delver. But Susan, listen to me. All through Stone the Folk are waiting, at every exit into Light. We wait for you, for one who has held in her hands the wisdom and strength of Freeman Wells.’
    ‘Why? Why do you wait?’
    ‘We know of your capture and escape. There is very little Stonefolk do not know. But where you escaped to was a mystery. Now you are here. And looking for us.’
    ‘Yes,’ Susan said. She swallowed. It was as if she had already seen what was to happen but could not bring it into her mind. Something she was fated to do – something that would turn O upside-down. ‘Humans are killing each other again. I made a promise to stop it. But I don’t know how.’
    There was a silence. Then the Stonewoman sighed. ‘It is worse than you know. It is worse than killing. And yes, you have a task. It is prophesied. I know what it is – but how you perform it, that will be told by others, not by me. Listen now. We have heard –’ she seemed to shudder ‘– that a human, one who was priest, has found a new way to make the Weapon. We thought that knowledge buried so deep it would never be found. Freeman Wells saw how it could be done – and if it was, he saw that O would die. So he banished it, cast it out, and gave the words of it, and all the bits of metal, paper, stone, the acid and the oil, all to us, the