The Waterstone by Rebecca Rupp Page A

while Pippit, croaking frantically, tried to hide behind their legs. The weasel lowered itself once more, front paws dropping to the ground, so that the children could see the rider on its back: a Greller armored in leather and bronze, with a black feather thrust in his silver-banded cap. He held a black leather whip in one gloved hand. The tips of the whip thongs were capped with wicked little metal points.
    When Tad whirled to look about him, he found that all avenues of escape were cut off. A ring of spearmen had silently closed in behind them, their weapons leveled and poised. For a moment no one spoke.
    Then one of the spear carriers lowered his weapon to point curiously at Tad’s webbed toes. “Be this the boy, Captain? The swimming boy the Lady do be seeking?”
    “Mayhap, Ulrid,” the weasel-rider said. “We will take him to Hagguld and he will tell us.” He raised his whip and gestured toward the circle of dark stones. “Bring him into the circle. Bring these others with him.”
    A spearman stepped forward and prodded Tad between his shoulder blades. Another poked threateningly at Birdie. Tad stood his ground. He felt as if his stomach were boiling hot. He felt tingly all over, as if he had come instantly and intensely awake and alive. He seemed to have extra senses popping out everywhere. He could see and hear more acutely than ever before. It was as if he had extra nerves in his skin. The hot feeling rose higher and higher, boiling up into his chest. Tad realized in astonishment that he was furiously angry.
    You are the Sagamore!
    It was as if a voice had spoken sharply in his ear.
    Me?
Tad tried to thrust the Remember — was it a Remember? — away. But the voice came again, angrily now, a voice sounding not quite, but almost, familiar.
    You are the Sagamore! Stand, Fisher, and show them what you’re made of!
    Tad folded his arms across his chest. Something strange was happening. The hot feeling kept growing, spreading into his toe- and fingertips, crackling across his skin. Something was waking inside him, struggling to break free. He felt like a butterfly straining to wriggle out of its cocoon.
    “You have no right to take us prisoner here in the Open Forest,” he said. “The paths here are free to all. It is against the Law.”
    Is this me?
he wondered.
Did I know this?
    Birdie, trembling beside him, gave a start of surprise.
    The black weasel pulled against its leather harness, and the rider tightened his grip on the reins.
    “I don’t know of no law,” he said. “All I know is that High Priest Hagguld — and the Lady, worshipful her name — do be wanting you. A boy who swims, she said, and if my eyes do not fail me, you do be a Fisher boy.”
    The weasel bucked and tugged, and the captain slashed at it with his whip, struggling to bring it under control.
    “Take them into the circle!” he shouted. “Right up to the altar stone! We will show the Lady who her faithful servants are! Go! Swiftly now!”
    The weasel pawed the air and danced, then plunged off into the forest. Tad and Birdie followed it, driven by the jabbing spears. They were thrust between the dark stone slabs into the very center of the circle and forced to halt before the tablelike altar stone.
    The soldier named Ulrid stepped up beside them and tugged off his round leather cap. “We do bring him, Hagguld,” he said. “There do be three of them.”
    “I can count, Ulrid,” the fish-scale-masked figure said. It was a different voice now, Tad noted, a deep irascible elderly voice. The awful mask with its empty-seeming eyeholes turned toward Tad.
    “What be your name?” the High Priest said. Then he drew himself up taller and spread his black-draped arms out wide. The fish-scale mask glittered silver in the torch light.
“What is your name?”
    Behind the children, the gathered Grellers gave a long low moan.
    “The Lady,” voices muttered.
    “It be the Lady.”
    “The Lady comes again.”
    And Tad suddenly felt