Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 14
Emmy out here for the morning, and keep his men happy with
a bucket or two of well water in the face. It was a good
solution.
He was halfway down when a scream ripped the air
overhead. Jordan let go reflexively and fell the last several
meters, landing in a puff of dust next to the reflecting pool.
Surprisingly, Willam was lying next to him. "How did
you--?" Jordan started to say; but Willam was grimacing and
clutching his calf. There was huge and swelling bruise there,
and the angle of the leg looked wrong.
Everybody was shouting. Flipping on his back, Jordan
found the rest of his men plummeting to the ground all around
him.
"--Thing in the wall," somebody yelled. And someone
else said, "It took Ryman!"
Jordan stood up. The scaffold was shaking. The men
were scattering for the four corners of the courtyard now.
"What is it?" Jordan shouted in panic.
Then he saw, where the men had been working, a bright
silver hand reach out to grab one of the scaffold’s uprights.
Another hand appeared, flailing blindly. Bright highlights of
sunlight flashed off it.
"A stone mother," gasped Willam. "There’s a stone
mother in the wall. That’s what made the hole."
Jordan swore. Stone mothers were rare, but he knew
they weren’t supernatural, like the Winds. They were mechal
life, like stove beetles.
"Ryman reached into a hole and the silver stuff covered
him," said Willam. "He’ll smother."
The second hand found the upright and clutched it.
Jordan caught a glimpse of Ryman’s head, a perfect mirrored
sphere.