* * *
It wasthree more weeks before the walls were finished and plastered and whitewashed, the stairs and railing completed, the counter, booths, and table rebuilt. Summer was waning, and the teeth of autumn gnawed at them, morning and evening.
The lumber and materials kept manifesting, and Viv told herself when it was done, she’d ferret out the source from Cal and pay her benefactors back just as soon as she could afford it.
She kept sleeping on Tandri’s floor, albeit with a bedroll and pillow. Viv felt guilty for staying, yet simultaneously reluctant to leave. She made a few tentative attempts to move to an inn or to rent a room with her meager remaining funds, but each time Tandri told her she was being foolish, and Viv didn’t have much interest in arguing.
* * *
Viv stoodwith Tandri and Cal in the waning light of another hard day’s work, staring up at the face of the shop and the dark sockets of its glassless windows. As she was debating whether to temporarily tack cloth over them, she sensed someone approach.
When she looked down, Durias, the elderly, chess-playing gnome, greeted them with a nod. She wasn’t surprised when Amity padded up behind him and loomed like a sentinel, half again his height.
“Glad to see you’ve decided to stay.” He smiled up at her. “It would’ve been a shame to be robbed of such a fine cup of coffee.”
“No thanks to me,” said Viv. She nudged Tandri gently with one arm, and she thought the woman might have leaned into it, just a little. “It’s these two who made sure of it.” She indicated both of her friends.
Tandri continued to stare at the shop thoughtfully. “Maybe the Stone never did anything,” she murmured.
“Hm,” concurred Cal.
“Stone?” asked Durias, his bushy white eyebrows high on his forehead.
Viv didn’t suppose there was any reason to be evasive. “A Scalvert’s Stone. I feel like a twice-blasted fool about it, but I once heard–”
“Ahhhh, yes,” interrupted the old gnome, with a nod. “I’m very familiar. There’s a reason there are so few, these days—scalverts. Unfortunate. Nearly hunted to extinction, they were.”
“Really?” That got Viv’s undivided attention.
“Been many a year, but too many old legends and songs mythologized them. ‘The Ring of Fortune,’ and that foolishness.” He shook his head sadly. “Like lodestones for luck or wealth, or so many believed.”
“And they aren’t?” asked Tandri.
“Well,” replied the gnome, tugging at his mustache. “Not the way folk hoped.”
“So… itwasfor nothing, then.” Viv shook her head bitterly. “Hells, all it managed was to get the place burned down. If I’d never kept it here, Fennus would’ve left well enough alone. We could’ve avoided all this.”
Durias tipped his head and pinched his face in a speculative way. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
“But you just said–”
“I said ‘not the way folk hoped.’ Didn’t say it didn’t work atall.”
“What’d it do then?” asked Cal.
“That old song was a bit misleading. The Stones never granted fortune, but theywere… gathering points, you might say. You’d find few who know it, these days, but ‘the ring of fortune’ is an old sea-fey phrase. It means… adestined cadre,I suppose. Individuals brought together, like to like. Which canbefortunate, of course. Sometimes, nothing’s more fortunate than that! But that wasn’t what most were seeking. Although maybe they should’ve been, eh?”
Viv murmured, “Draws the ring of fortune, aspect of heart’s desire.”
His speculative look sharpened. “Yes… well… it seems to have worked out well, here, I think.”
Viv looked from Tandri to Cal, and back at the shop.
“Getting late!” said Durias. He doffed his little sack-cap. “Must be getting on, with the cold setting in. My old bones complain if I’m not at a fire by dusk. I don’t think it’s too early for congratulations, though? Or maybe it is, I do tend to get a little muddled over timing.”
“Congratulations? On rebuilding?”
“That, too! That, too. No, I was referring to… well. Never mind. Sometimes, I’m not sure which go-round this is. Could be I’m polishing the stone before the cut! A good night to you all!”
