Cry of Metal & Bone

by L. Penelope

  Kyara closed her eyes. There was little chance she would find a way out of captivity in time to save him. A thorny sensation pricked her eyeballs, and she squeezed her lids tight.

  The outer chamber door opened, but Kyara did not bother to open her eyes until she heard a familiar voice. “I’m sorry the doctors will not help him.” Kyara looked up to find Asenath standing before the cell, bearing another tray of food.

  “Will not or cannot?” Kyara asked weakly.

  “It is all a part of their experiments. Without the studies they’ve been conducting, the Analysts would have killed him and his family long ago.” She shook her head sadly and slid the tray into Kyara’s cell.

  “What kind of experiments?”

  “I do not know precisely, only that twins are very rare here. The Physicks have been very … curious.” Asenath stood expectantly, looking at the dinner tray.

  “I can’t eat now,” Kyara mumbled. Her jaw felt so heavy, and her mouth was dry. “Perhaps in the morning.”

  “Come. Try anyway.”

  Kyara sighed. Sensing there was more to Asenath’s request than care for her nutrition, Kyara fell to her knees. A bowl of stew, meaty and aromatic, greeted her along with a thick slice of bread. Her stomach grumbled, but she could not imagine taking a single bite. Then a glimmering bit of metal next to the plate caught her eye. Kyara stared at it, confused, before picking up the delicate, gold-colored hairpin. An empty setting for a jewel sat at the end, and inside, tiny gears were visible.

  She stood, a question furrowing her brow. Kyara’s hair was done in dozens of thin braids to keep it out of her way. Plaiting it also passed the long hours in the cell, but she had no need for a hairpin to keep it together.

  “It’s a translation amalgam,” Asenath whispered. “Keep it in your hair. They won’t check each of your braids.” In Kyara’s palm, the hairpin seemed to vibrate as the gears moved slowly inside the bare setting.

  “Why is she speaking Yalyish all of a sudden?” Roshon asked as he approached the bars between them, suspicious.

  “She is?” Kyara took a step back, closing her fingers around the pin. “Why give me this? Is it a trick?”

  Asenath darted a glance at the door. “There are some of us who don’t agree with what’s been happening.”

  Kyara’s only clue that the language she was hearing was not one she natively understood was the subtle vibration in the pin.

  Asenath’s gaze shot to Roshon. “If you can truly reach the spirits, then one of the renounced prophecies is coming true.” This time when she spoke, it was definitely in Lagrimari. The pin was motionless. Asenath’s indigo eyes were fearful as her gaze shot back to the chamber’s outer door. “The Physicks believe Saint Dahlia guides their hands. She was the patron of healers and aided the sick. But she foresaw the perversion of her followers. We were not meant to live forever. Some of her prophecies were disavowed by those who sought to benefit from eternal life.” Asenath’s voice grew more urgent. “But there are those among us who did not turn away from that which was not convenient.”

  “Are you a Physick also?” Kyara asked, bolted in place by the woman’s intensity. She’d thought the woman merely a servant, dressed in gray as all the other workers were.

  Asenath nodded.

  “What is the prophecy?” Roshon asked.

  “‘The one who walks in the Dark will embrace the Light.’”

  Kyara stumbled backward. The words were so similar to her dream. “Embrace the Light? W-what does that mean?”

  “Our scholars believe the Dark is the World After, and the Light is the Living World. You’ve walked among the spirits, have you not?”

  Rendered mute, Kyara merely nodded, her body beginning to shake.

  A visible shiver also went through Asenath. She donned the hood of her gray cloak. “I will do what I can to help you,” she whispered just before the door opened.

  A tattooed guard stood there peering into the prison chamber. Asenath motioned for Kyara to take the tray and then shuffled away under the watchful gaze of the guard.

  When the door slammed shut, Kyara eyed the bit of jewelry in her palm. The ability to understand what was being said around her was priceless. A grim smile stretched her face. If the old woman could be trusted, then it meant none of the others would even know she understood them.

  “What is it?” Roshon asked.

  She explained to Roshon and Dansig what the tiny pin did as she placed it at the base of her head, hiding it among her braids. This could all be a trick—perhaps Asenath was merely a test, a way to give her false hope—but she was willing to risk it. The prophecy and the message from the dream were too similar for it to be mere coincidence.

  Dansig’s expression was thoughtful. He reflexively rubbed Varten’s head as the boy tossed fitfully in his sleep, and Roshon stared at the door the woman had left through. Then his gaze fell on the food.

  “I can’t eat this,” Kyara said, sliding the tray to the wall of bars separating the cells.

  Roshon looked back and forth from the food to her, ensuring her permission. She waved her hand and hobbled to her bed. By the time she’d sat down, he’d eaten it all.

  More than once she’d given the teens part of her rations to supplement their own. Their appetites far exceeded what they’d been living on these past two years. But even with the extra nutrition, Varten had still fallen ill, and his heavy breathing labored on. She missed his easy laughter and attempts to lighten their situation. While Dansig was generally quiet and Roshon irritable, Varten brought balance with his good-natured energy.

  Perhaps with the hairpin, she would actually be able to help him.

  * * *

  Kyara didn’t remember even closing her eyes, but she soon found herself in the dark place, standing just in front of the Sad Woman. The whispers rose in volume to surround them, and the words in the ancient tongue were now clear. “Poison Flame,” they repeated over and over again.

  It was an accusation.

  Kyara felt the gaze of the shrouded woman bore into her, and a chill shot up her spine. “Are you a spirit? Are you my mother?” she whispered.

  The Sad Woman glided closer, as though her feet didn’t touch the ground. She stopped an arm’s length away. This close, Kyara could make out more of the woman’s features through the inky mask that coated her.

  “Your mother has gone into the Eternal Flame,” the Sad Woman said, her dual voices competing.

  “The Eternal Flame? What is that? Is she being punished?” Horror at the possibility of being responsible for her mother’s damnation speared Kyara.

  “No, not punished. Consumed. Reborn. The Flame is life, death, the before, and the after. All souls are meant to become one with it when they reach the World After, but some of us resist.”

  The woman’s face was even clearer now, as if it was breaking free of the shadows binding it. There was something familiar about her.

  “But why resist? Who are you?”

  “I resist to keep the watch; others have their reasons. I am called Mooriah.”

  Kyara had heard that name before but struggled to remember where.

  “My strength wanes,” Mooriah said, her arms fluttering around her. “Remember our Light is the only salvation. It is all that can stop what is coming.” Her face was clear enough for Kyara to recognize the grimace that crossed it. Then Mooriah shrank in on herself as if in pain.

  “What light?” Kyara pleaded. “I don’t understand.” Mooriah looked up, her brows climbing in surprise.

  “You don’t know?” she whispered, panic penetrating the melancholy that surrounded her.

  Kyara’s eyes widened. “How would I know?”

  “You must know,” Mooriah breathed.

  The memory of where Kyara knew the name from was just at the edge of her grasp when Mooriah dropped her head and the whispers quieted. “They’re coming,” Mooriah moaned as she vanished.

  “Wait!” But it was too late. Kyara turned, steeling herself to
face the arrival of those she’d sinned against.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The seeker chose a path that led toward the forest and set off on foot in search of her purpose. The road was dark and lonely, but her breath of fire lit the way.

  —THE AYALYA

  “Another round,” Tai called to the waitress who was passing by as he slammed his tankard on the table. The pub was a block from their hotel and seemed to be doing a brisk weekend business of locals and tourists in for the races.

  Darvyn shook his head emphatically, motioning that he didn’t want any more. He looked sideways at Tai, who ignored the disapproving glance. “How many have you had?” Darvyn’s voice pierced the din.

  “Who knows,” Tai said. “Not enough.” He rubbed his head, which had begun to ache a few pints ago, but that was no reason to stop—not when Lizvette’s sobbing was still burned into his memory.

  Clove tossed back the last of her drink and wiped her lips. That little woman sure could hold her liquor. Vanesse, no longer in her garb from the Sisterhood, still abstained from drinking, though she made fine company, if a bit on the quiet side. They’d left Lizvette to grieve in private, all of them discomfited by the sounds of her anguish.

  Tai took in the revelry around them, pausing at the table just across the way where a Summ-Yalyish woman smirked at him. Even in the dim interior, her dark-blue eyes were bright against the rich shade of her skin. He raised his eyebrows in a silent question, and her smug expression turned lascivious as her gaze traveled down his body. Tai looked away, uneasy with an appraisal from the opposite sex perhaps for the first time.

  It was disturbing, but he did not want to dwell on it. When the waitress brought around two more drinks and set them in front of Tai and Clove, he grabbed his immediately. “To the race,” he said, lifting his mug high. Clove matched his toast. “May you be speedy and have the wind always at your back.” Her qualifying heats for the Yaly Classic started the next day, and he truly wished her well. They clinked their glasses together, then downed the cold beers.

  The liquid sloshed in his stomach uncomfortably, and he listed over to the side. “Perhaps that was enough,” he drawled as two Cloves sat before him, laughing at something Vanesse had whispered into their ears.

  “Here.” Clove tossed something small and dark to him. He reached out to catch it but missed. Darvyn easily plucked it from the air and held it out to him.

  “What’s this?” Tai muttered. It looked like a short length of black rope.

  “Wrap it around your wrist. It will take away some of the pain. The bartender gave it to me.”

  Tai blinked and tried unsuccessfully to wrap the thing around his wrist.

  “What is it?” Darvyn asked.

  “An amalgam,” Clove explained. “It will last for a few hours and prevent hangovers, too. Apparently they’re good for business.”

  “You’re not wearing one,” Tai accused.

  Clove grinned. “I don’t need one.” She gulped her remaining beer.

  Vanesse reached over and affixed the strap to Tai’s wrist. It had a simple loop that he really should have been able to manage on his own.

  “Thanks,” he grumbled.

  Both women laughed. Darvyn merely shook his head, keeping a keen eye on the other patrons.

  The crowd appeared mostly made up of Administrators, the bureaucratic class of Yaly, who made things run. Investors, the upper class, didn’t populate this part of Melbain City. The outer territories were assigned to the poor souls who toiled in the fields—Bondmen, who most likely would never move past their station.

  Everyone in the pub seemed comfortable, well fed, well clothed, and likely ignorant of the world that lay beyond his or her caste. Tai reached for his glass again, surprised to find it empty. His head began to swim, as did the room.

  “How long is this thing supposed to take?” He tapped the band around his wrist.

  Clove frowned. “Should be instantaneous. You’re not feeling any different?”

  “Yeah, I feel worse.”

  The roiling in his stomach became a nasty bile that rose up his throat to coat his tongue. He stood abruptly and ran for the back door, breaking into the alley in a rush just before the vomit spewed from him.

  When he was done, he coughed, feeling spent. The buzz from the beer was waning, and his head felt as if it were full of cotton. If only Mik could see him now. His first mate would have a good laugh at Tai’s expense.

  Was this really all because that princess was crying over her murdered fiancé? Tai had been both shocked and unsurprised to learn that Lizvette had been betrothed to the former Prince Regent of Elsira. She seemed the perfect choice for royalty; his teasing nickname of “duchess” had hit closer to the mark than he’d even known. But realizing that her prospects had been so high … It stung and reinforced what he’d known the moment he had set eyes on her in the hallways of the palace of Rosira: she was far outside his reach.

  Better for him to accept the unspoken invitation of the woman inside than to be burned by the sun. He had no desire to be reminded that some things were not for him. He already knew it well enough.

  And if Lizvette’s sorrow cleaved him and sawed at his heart, left him wanting to take on an army just to ease her sadness … well, then he just had to ignore it. He was neither a soldier nor a therapist, and he’d only known her for a day. He repeated that statement to himself until it sunk in and turned to go back inside.

  A noise at the mouth of the alley caught his attention as two men walked into the pool of illumination cast by the streetlamp. Both looked like average Administrators, dressed in starched button-down shirts and ties as if they’d just come from their offices. The shorter one was Daro-Yalyish, given his wan complexion and golden hair. The other was Pressian-Yalyish, with sun-toasted skin and shoulder-length black hair tied in a queue. Something glittered in his hand in the lamplight. The two appeared to be arguing, though Tai could only make out the angry tone of their voices, not their actual words.

  He blinked, and in that briefest of moments, the Pressian disappeared from sight. But the man had not walked away. He was simply there one moment and gone the next.

  The Daro walked toward Tai, apparently headed for the back entrance of the pub. Tai leaned against the wall again and closed his eyes, listening to the man’s footsteps. He strove to seem in his cups—and in truth, he was—but what he’d seen could not be blamed on the drink.

  He waited a few minutes before following the man back into the pub, stopping in the restroom first to clean up. Returning to the table, he noticed that his little band had grown tense.

  Darvyn was wound tight as a sail’s rigging at full wind, and Clove and Vanesse looked poised for escape. Darvyn’s eyes darted to the opposite side of the room where a large group had gathered in Tai’s absence. He noted the Daro from the alley among their number.

  Sitting down, he whispered to Darvyn, “Who are they?”

  “Dominionists,” he answered through clenched teeth.

  A chill went through Tai. “I saw one of them in the back with another man who disappeared into thin air.”

  Vanesse raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Clove leaned forward. “Was he using an amalgam?” Her eyebrows rose significantly, and a ripple of confusion swept through the table.

  Tai thought back to what he’d seen. The Pressian had been holding something. “Could be.”

  She nodded. “The Physicks keep the best ones for themselves. I’ve seen one do that trick before. Handy.”

  In Tai’s trips to Yaly, he’d never purchased any of the magical contraptions. Raunians generally scoffed at such things. And if this useless band around his wrist was any indication, they weren’t all that reliable. But the general public in Yaly and Fremia loved them. The items available on the market—translators, devices somewhat like portable telephones for talking over long distances, coins that changed into different currencies, and the like—were all relatively weak and ran out of power in a few days, needing t
o be either replaced or recharged at Physick-run shops.

  But the mage who had boarded Tai’s ship two years ago, and apparently had made off with Dansig and his sons, had possessed some very powerful mech—amalgams that weren’t available in stores. If one of these things could make someone vanish from sight, that might explain what had happened to his passengers.

  “But if the man in the alley is a Dominionist,” Tai said, peering at the group across the room, “why would he be associating with a Physick? Dominionists hate magic. They shun amalgam.”

  The other patrons in the pub grew quiet as a voice from the Dominionist group rose. “Raise a glass in honor of the true path that The Book of Dominion offers us.” The speaker was hidden among the others, but his voice was high and clear. “Our way does not rely on the supernatural. It is righteous, for right-thinking men. For hard workers who labor for every scrap and coin. No mage or saint or goddess has carried your burden. They have not bled or sweat or cried for you. But they deserve worship? Exaltation? Each man walks his path alone. We are the ones who should be praised, not some long-dead mystics or devious witches.”

  The group cheered and toasted the speech. Tai looked to the questioning faces of those at his table. The others didn’t speak Yalyish, and he translated briefly.

  “Dominionist diatribe,” Clove said, shaking her head. She took a sip from her cup, which was filled with water now. That was a good idea, Tai decided. He flagged down the waitress and ordered water for himself, as well.

  The Summ woman who had been ogling him before stood suddenly, a fierce expression on her face. She opened her mouth and began to sing.

  “I’m seeking the land where dear Melba has gone

  Her courage was mighty, her faith carries on

  She left us with hope that we would stay strong

  Walking the trail both narrow and long.”

  Even the Dominionists were quiet as the woman’s achingly sweet voice rang out.