Melting Stones - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,2

power, and quartz, and granite. I was brushing ocean floor.

A ridge! There was a ridge underneath the ship, three hundred yards below! I could feel basalt—good, calm, steady old basalt, long slabs of it!

Myrrhtide came back. Alongside the ship came a long arm of seawater with Rosethorn's hat on top of it. It passed the hat to Myrrhtide, who patted the tentacle as he'd pet a good dog. The water dropped back into the sea. Myrrhtide offered the hat to Rosethorn.

"Thank you." She ran her fingers over the hat. The seawater dropped out of it. I guess she made the straw chase it out: She could get plants, or things that had been plants, to do almost anything.

"Waking tremors." Her voice was quiet. "What is the earth waking up to, Luvo?"

"It may only be waking enough to turn in its sleep, as you humans do, Rosethorn. Or tremors may come from movement that began in a distant place. It is hard to say."

I could feel the ridge start to drop away from me. It was just a sharp peak, not a rise in the land under the ship, and we were sailing away from it. "Nooo!" I leaned over the rail. "Come back!" I didn't want to lose the tingle of all those beautiful rocks this soon! I had been so lonely, even with all my old stones and Luvo to keep me company. "Stay close! Stop this stupid ship!"

"Evumeimei," Luvo called.

"Let me alone!" Far below, the floor had dropped out of the range of my magic. "I'm sick of the sea! I'm sick of being away from rocks!"

"Evumeimei, if you will stop making that dreadful noise, I will show you a thing," Luvo said patiently. To be honest, I think Luvo has few moods other than patient. It's part of being a mountain's heart, I suppose. It's really annoying.

"What she's doing is called 'whining,'" I heard Rosethorn say. "I don't think you should reward her for it."

"Young mountains are restless and impatient, Rosethorn. As such, they can be dangerous. They must be kept amused. Although Evumeimei is not a young mountain, my spirit urges me to guide her as one. And that noise she makes is quite grating. Evumeimei, sit on the deck and place your hands on me."

When Luvo speaks to me firmly like that, I do as he says.

I felt ghost hands reach through his clear skin and wrap around my wrists. He pulled me into his crystal insides. We fell through the ship, ghost Luvo mingled with ghost Evvy. It is a powerful thing, being a ghost before you are dead. In Yanjing, they would say I was cursed forever for being a ghost while I was alive. So many things are different when you're a mage.

We dropped into the water. It ran through me, cool and tingly with salt, warm from the sun. I would have gasped, but I had no lungs. We zipped through a huge school of fishes, their skins slick and slippery. The water got colder as we went down. Bright flashes sparked along my insides. I looked at myself. I glittered.

They are flecks of stone borne by the sea. Luvo's voice sounded in my mind. Once the sea has ground rock down into tiny grains, it is light enough to float. The sea carries the grains. They are so little you could not sense them with your magic. I feel them all.

More fishes dashed by, blurs in the water. I was starting to wonder what they ate, to make them rush so, when I understood. It was not the fishes, but Luvo.

Is this how you see Rosethorn and Briar and Myrrhtide and me?'t asked. Dashing around like someone had turned us into crazy flies? Because we're meat creatures and you're stone?

I made an adjustment to see you as you see yourselves. It was necessary. I shall make one now, Luvo replied.

The crystal ladders and spirals that made up our ghost body seemed to go loose, then twist. The dashing fish twinkled. Suddenly they slowed. Jellyfish appeared—I hadn't even seen those until now. Luvo and I continued on down, onto the ocean floor. The ridge I had felt lay before us. Beside it was a deep canyon. Luvo took us into that. I reached my ghost hands out to feel its stony sides.

It's volcano rock. Why is there a volcano canyon in the ocean?! asked.

Volcanoes exist everywhere. Once—long before my time—the world was born of volcanoes.

Long before his time? Luvo was thousands