Brood of Bones

by A. E. Marling

  I wondered how the men would react if they knew they were dancing with something more bones than flesh. They lifted her with ease yet gave no sign they clutched the sharp ridges of her ribcage, nor did they shrink back from the touch of her skeletal hand. To them, the illusion had to be compelling.

  For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine that the same magic would banish my sleepiness, would turn me into the same affable dance partner. Swallowing, I set aside the idle thought.

  My silence had caused the guests to disperse, and apart from Deepmand, the tiles surrounding me were empty space. The Lord of the Feast strode into the clearing to avoid a crowd of women. He said, “My daughter is well behaved tonight.”

  I lowered my voice, hoping the other guests would not step closer to hear. “Have you not even a spicule of shame?”

  He whispered, “I try not to indulge in shame.”

  “There lies the weakness of your character.”

  “Then I wish I was weaker.”

  “You mean, you ‘wish you were.’” I made no attempt to hide my smugness at correcting the Lord of the Feast. My satisfaction diminished when he gave no sign of embarrassment. I realized that most everyone was watching, although at least they stood too far away to hear us.

  “We do all have our failings. And yours, Enchantress Hiresha, is dishonesty.”

  “I have no such problem.”

  “Then why do you insist everyone call you ‘elder?’ You do the word injustice.”

  I had expected to be offended, yet not in this manner. He had no right to speak to me this way. Although I might be younger than I preferred people to treat me, the matter did not concern him.

  “‘Elder,’” I said, “is merely a title. Of deference.”

  The pale blue of his eyes, I decided, most closely matched the absorption spectrum of aquamarine: Not a particularly valuable variety of beryl jewel, I took pleasure in noting.

  I swerved my attention back to the dancers, feeling increasingly agitated at the sight of so many engaged in this ritualized vulgarity. Whenever the lady Feaster held up her hand in protestation that she must rest to catch her breath, ten men pleaded for her next dance.

  Worse still, the Lord of the Feast remained uncomfortably close to my dais, and the guests might misconstrue that I wanted him there. The thought locked my throat with humiliation. I braced myself to tell him to remove himself from my person, yet he spoke first.

  “No point in putting it off any longer. We must dance.”

  “Dancing is a pointless activity,” I said.

  “Making it a necessity.”

  He spoke the ridiculous statement with the utmost seriousness. My heart rate surged, and all the heat of those in the room, along with the humidity, threatened to broil me. I remembered Deepmand’s admonishment that every time I acceded to a request, I would have more difficulty refusing the next, yet I feared to give the Lord of the Feast a direct refusal.

  “This room is thronged with women. Why would you ask me to dance?”

  “Because no one else has.”

  “If you must stack nonsense onto falsehood, dance with your ‘daughter.’ You deserve her.”

  “Physis does whatever I say. Naturally, I can’t abide her.”

  “I—I cannot dance.” My composure sifted out of my wringing hands. “I must watch the guests, for signs of wrongdoing, you understand.”

  “Oh, for the would-be god? He won’t be here.”

  I inhaled through my nose with such force that my head stung. “What? He must be.”

  “Scant chance of that. Too few of your people.”

  “He cannot be from Morimound.”

  “Why would he be a god of another city when he could have his own?”

  I controlled my breaths, and the Fate Weaver spared me from heat stroke. Keeping my voice low, I asked, “How can you be sure he thinks of himself as a god?”

  “That would make delightful dancing conversation.”

  The Lord of the Feast wanted to be seen dancing with me, I was certain, so he could later threaten scandal by revealing his identity. He must wish to control me, to train me to go along with his increasingly degrading requests. I wanted to hear him say so directly.

  “I have difficulty imagining a man in your position, and physical limitations...” I glanced at his lifeless arms. “...dancing. There must be a reason.”

  He shrugged, the gesture exaggerated because his shoulders started and ended slumped. “After losing everything, one must either find enjoyment or die. And death is too easy.”

  His words rankled me, because I doubted he knew anything of true loss. He had immense power, in the waking world.

  “These gowns prohibit my dancing,” I said. “And how would you partake without lifting your hands?”

  “A thing isn’t worth doing unless it’s impossible.”

  “Your self-conflicting statements demean the air with which they are spoken,” I said. “It is impossible, and you need not have asked.”

  “I believe I could lift one hand and maintain control.” He raised his voice and said, “And you needn’t wear all those ridiculous gowns.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I grew dismayed at the number of guests swiveling an ear toward us. If only I would turn to stone then I could be rid of the twisting feeling inside me. More than anything I wished to be gone, yet I could not flee my own ball.

  “Your gowns are overdone. And I say that as a man with rubies on his shoes.”

  “I have never been so offended!”

  “I am sorry,” he said, “to hear it. You should have been offended more often.”

  “Well! Those are spinels on your shoes, not rubies.”

  I stomped off the dais with as much force as my slippers would allow, leaving the Lord of the Feast to the mob of foolish women. I wished I could banish him from my ball.

  As I drew closer to the edge of the ballroom, my vision fogged as my heart slowed; I had spent so long beside the Lord of the Feast that I must have expended most of my adrenaline.

  I found one of my mimic women, yet I could not remember to whom I had already introduced her...or him, rather. With no other choice but to risk appearing foolish, I presented him to everyone again; I hoped the words coming out of my mouth conveyed some manner of meaning because I was losing all awareness of them.

  My cane slipped on the smooth tiles, and I stumbled. I accepted the first hand that offered assistance, yet as the gloved, misshapen fingers closed on mine, a chill shot up my arm.

  The Lord of the Feast lifted me with one of his hands. “A gift for you, Enchantress Hiresha.”

  My pulse thumped in my ears, and the world snapped into focus with the shock of seeing that hand reach into his coat pocket. Having one arm raised strained him visibly; his other arm remained thrust downward, his shoulders trembling, and his porcelain teeth clicked against each other.

  “In—in thanks—for you opening your lovely home to us.” A gold chain snaked out of his coat, ending with a red jewel. “The king of gems, for its queen.”

  Although rubies were commonly referred to as “the king of gems,” a glance told me the red jewel did not reflect enough light in the green part of the spectrum to be one. I was more concerned with all the eyes darting between us; the lady Feaster grinned with unmasked delight.

  I could not accept a gift from the Lord of the Feast, in front of so many witnesses, least of all a jeweled necklace. Morimound men gave such jewelry to those they wished to wed.

  As the jewel—a topaz, I judged—dangled before me, the white glove above it darkened. Blackness like spilled ink soaked out of his fingers. Although the guests might ignore it as a trick of the light for a few more seconds, I knew that his magic stirred. I needed to snatch the topaz, before his hand became something terrifying.

  Deepmand gripped the hilt of his scimitar. The lady Feaster inhaled, the gowns over her belly beginning to expand. Her jewels darkened to onyx.

  The Lord of the Feast likely did not un
derstand the implications of a jeweled necklace. Even so, refusing meant risking the lives of everyone in my manor, as well as all the women of Morimound. I still needed his knowledge.

  His black fingertips narrowed and elongated.

  If gaining his aid meant accepting his every whim then I could not refuse him anything. I would have to dance with him. I would have to follow him to bed to regenerate him and perhaps even to commit further improprieties. He claimed that my enemy would enslave the city, yet he could do the same, through me. Once the world saw Morimound as his ally and despised us, we would depend on his Feasters for protection, or die when he abandoned us.

  I would have to deny him sometime, and to do otherwise here would infect me with regret. I only hoped that he spared Alyla and Sri, who were hidden away in the manor’s family rooms.

  My tongue as dry as chalk, I struggled to form words. “You are wel—welcome to my home, Ambassador, yet I cannot accept this gift. It is inappropriate.”

  His hand dropped, and as the blackness seeped out of sight, I had to blink fast to avoid crying in relief.

  I checked his face for anger. If anything, his brows crept upward in amusement.

  “Many women wear such necklaces in Morimound,” he said. “Or is the stone flawed?”

  My voice was a whisper. “In Morimound, jeweled necklaces are engagement presents.”

  “What! You’re sure? Pox me, of course you’d be sure, and I see my children have played a prank.”

  He glanced to a doorway, where the lady Feaster and her spinel gown slipped out of sight.

  “I hope you will forgive them, Enchantress Hiresha. My children live in such misery, I can hardly begrudge them their mischief.”

  “Then you make yourself complicit, Ambassador. I bid you goodnight.”

  I had borne far too many shocks for one evening and needed rest.

  “Should you search, you won’t find me in the city,” he said. “I will be gone with the dawn.”

  “That is the most pleasant thing you have said all evening.”

  My exhaustion caught up with me, my consciousness shrinking and darkening. Even as I strode out of the ballroom and into a hall, I felt myself sliding backward and down toward dream. I shouted, yet my words came out a mumble.

  “Deepmand...take...sleep.”

  Servants and the Spellsword assisted me to my room. I knew I had forgotten to say goodnight to my other guests, and a lady Feaster was still loose in my halls. Drowsiness pulled me down, preventing me from doing anything but descending the stair into dream.

  By custom, my guests would stay until daybreak. If one of them had showed any confusion over the women mimics, I would catch him before he left.

  Night Thirty-Eight, Third Trimester

  The Lord of the Feast had been right.

  Search as I might, I found nothing in the miens of the foreigners to suggest that one was the magic user responsible for the unchildren. I was no closer to the truth than when I had begun.

  Slipping out of sleep, I said, “I need...the ambassador.”

  Maintaining consciousness was a struggle. Drained, I felt I had not slept in weeks, and I continued to feel that way, even while sleeping through morning and into the day.

  Maid Janny helped me eat, as I was unable to focus on my fork long enough to track its progress to my mouth. Nausea gurgled and fermented within me, from the stress of knowing I would have to seek out the Lord of the Feast. I could not wait for him to return in another month: Alyla and Sri would die by then in premature labor to the unchildren.

  “There, there.” Janny wiped my chin and gave me water with which to rinse my stinging mouth. “My enchantress will be better soon. I know she will.”

  I passed my time in the laboratory crafting jewels, even chancing upon a snow diamond. I cut it into a white stone of fifty-eight facets. While polishing topazes, I realized that the jewel the Lord of the Feast had tried to give me had been darker than pink topaz but lacked the orange undertones of red gems of that class. I wished I could have held it, to determine its relative weight; the stone might have been a variety of sapphire, if it had been real and not illusion.

  The indicator amethyst flashed, and I woke up, expecting to find Deepmand or Mister Obenji in my room with a lamp. Instead, the room was dark.

  I waited for my earrings to rouse themselves. Their blue light shoved shadows into the corners as I searched for the one who had spoken my name.

  “Hiresha.”

  The room burst with red and green light: Jewels on a scandalous gown blazed. I saw the lady Feaster grinning with fang teeth, ribbons of energy flowing from her hands in pulsing coils of color.

  Surprise wrung all the air from my lungs, and I flailed, trying to free my arms from the harness.

  “Shhhh!” Ropes of crimson power reached from her palms to caress my throat. “I am an invitation from the Father.”

  “An invitation?” I gasped for breath. “From the Lord of the Feast?”

  “Yes, and he would love you to call him that to his face.” She lowered herself against the door, sniffing close to the keyhole. “Whisper it in his ear, and then lift his hands to your breasts.”

  “I should think not!” Feasters were the most improper group of degenerates I had ever encountered, even more so than actors.

  She opened the door and beckoned me to follow her into the hall. Instead of walking, she floated a foot above the ground.

  “No proper enchantress can do that,” I said. “Not in this world.”

  “Goody for me, I chose the stronger magic.”

  As she spoke, her glow faded, and the hall’s shadows enlarged to cover her. Guards patrolled my manor at night, yet the Feaster guided me around the first two.

  “Take off your earrings,” she said from the darkness as another guard neared. “Oh, you’re hopeless.”

  I scurried around the corner, yet twenty feet of gowns still trailed behind.

  The guard called out. “Elder Flawless? Er, Older Enchantress? No, wait, er....”

  “‘Elder Enchantress,’” I said.

  After he apologized and clomped away, the Feaster reappeared and led me outside the manor, into the rain. Her feet floated above the gravel path, gown fluttering. I frowned at her pretentiousness in performing so easily the abilities I had always wished for in this world.

  I asked, “Did you stay here? I mean, during the day.”

  “I’m good at finding dark places to hide.”

  The raindrops that fell on her chest shone with red light, glowing as they ran down her cleavage. If there was one thing worse than a Feaster, it was a gorgeous one. With my attention focused on her contours, I tried to bring to mind the gaunt figure last seen at the inn. I could not recollect her. This woman bore no trace to that woman, and of the two, the illusion before me seemed more real.

  “You no longer have guest rights at my home,” I said. I would prefer to find a nest of cobras in my wine cellar.

  “Can’t take those back, you silly prig.” Physis pinched me, her nails sparking and popping with orange light. She motioned to a gazebo. “Wait in there.”

  Rubbing where she had shocked me, I trudged toward the gazebo. My gowns had begun to weigh down with rain. Droplets ran between my fingers; I had forgotten my gloves. I wished to go back for them, although that was out of the question. As I neared a garden statue, I noticed that it was not a statue but the dandy brute.

  “Oh,” I said, with all the eloquence I could gather.

  He crossed his arms above abdominal muscles that bulged in twelve places, and water glistened like glass beads over his sofa-sized chest. I felt him staring after me as I scurried into the gazebo. The empty interior permitted me to drag inside the full train of my sopping gowns. Rain pelted the roof and formed curtains of droplets. I was rather exposed, without my gloves on, and for modesty’s sake I hid my hands in my draping sleeves.

  Two figures stepped into the gazebo, splashing in the puddles my gowns had shed. A swordsman pulled a cloak
from the shoulders of the Lord of the Feast then left us alone.

  “You promised to leave the city,” I said, “yet here you are.”

  “I did leave, Enchantress Hiresha. Then I returned.” His eyes gleamed in the blue light. “Time is dwindling. You discovered me with little trouble, and now you will ferret out the would-be god. I’ll put you on his trail.”

  His confidence emboldened me to envision all the women with unencumbered bellies, free of unchildren. Anticipation of their safety fluttered up my spine.

  I pulled my mind away from the future to the present danger clad before me in lace. “First, Ambassador...But I can hardly call you that, can I?”

  “My name is Tethiel.”

  “And your last name? Your family name?”

  “I no longer have one.”

  “How does a man lose his family name?”

  “The same way he loses anything,” he said. “By trying to save it.”

  His nonsense displeased me, although I was sorry to hear he had lost his family name. I recalled him saying last night that he had lost everything, and I wondered if this was what he meant.

  Having but one name always made me feel impoverished. As a woman of Morimound, I had lost my family name at birth, and I would gain one only after marriage.

  “Before we proceed,” I said, “I wish to know the cost of your assistance.”

  “I never mentioned a price.”

  “You said you were not here for our sakes.” I fought to hold my voice calm. “I believe you covet my regeneration services, and, if true, you will admit it now.”

  The Lord of the Feast glanced at one of the gazebo’s benches, in which I had no chance of sitting. He remained standing.

  “I do want to be whole,” he said, “that’s why I adopted Physis. Once she learned what you did in the Academy, what was involved, I realized it was impossible.”

  Regenerating teeth and ears was easy enough. Instead of blurting that out, I lifted a brow.

  “You would have to share my dream,” he said, “and my nightmares would shatter your mind.”

  I very much doubted that, and he would be in my dream, not the other way around. Again, I was proud of how I held my tongue.