Brood of Bones

by A. E. Marling

  “Elder Enchantress Hiresha,” Mister Obenji said, “Lady Sri wished you to speak with her.”

  Determined to leave as soon as I had dealt with the Once Flawless, I entered the sickroom to find Sri on her side, her gasps short and shallow. “So little breath fits inside me nowadays,” she said. “I think I’m being crushed from the inside.”

  “All mothers feel such, and your age worsens it.”

  “Sometimes I forget how old I am.” Her thick-jointed fingers ran over the sheet covering her mound of a belly, and I tried not to think of the Bone Orb. “It was foolish, yet I had hoped to be a mother.”

  “I predict you would have made a good one.” She would have done better than I, certainly.

  “Now I understand I’m to be a mother of death. I’m afraid, Hiresha. Afraid I’m the cause, that the Ever Always blighted us because of me.”

  “This is not the work of a god.”

  Sri clawed at her hair, distraught. “I disgraced us! Shamed the God’s Eye Court with my thoughts of nudes!”

  “Thoughts of what?”

  “I was fated to be weak. All through the court proceedings, I imagined the handsome petitioners undressing themselves. Sometimes I stayed up nights thinking about them dancing, their bronze skin oiled and gleaming, and when they touched—”

  “How thoroughly indecorous!”

  “Only I should have been punished. Alyla and the rest shouldn’t have to die.”

  “I will not permit that to happen.” I took her hand, as I had seen the servant do to reassure Alyla. Sri’s arm felt far too light. “I will undo the mass pregnancies.”

  “But how can you? They’re the work of a god.”

  “They are not,” I said. “And neither are they the result of your scandalous thoughts.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Your belief is not required, for it to be true.”

  “Then,” Sri asked, “you can cure me?”

  “Once I find the source of the pregnancies, I will cure them all at once.”

  The Bone Orbs all connected to the Soultrapper, or to an object of magic focus he possessed, and if I could bring this keystone into my dream then I could commandeer his magic to channel the red diamond’s enchantment into each woman.

  She closed her eyes, holding her distended belly. “I’m not sure I understand. Instead, I will trust you. I am glad I wrote you to come to Morimound.”

  Her confidence only worsened my nervousness. I could disappoint so many.

  Leaving my manor, I learned from an acolyte that Abwar of the Ever Always still oversaw the destruction of the Flood Wall. On the way to him downhill, we stopped at the Bazaar, as I needed a chain to safely wear and hide the red diamond. The merchant stalls bustled, although few spoke; this was the Flood Moon, a time for whispers, which gave the market a ghostly feel. A staggering brightness burned down in-between the clouds looming on every horizon.

  I found a chain of gold that held an opal of similar size to the red diamond, and Maid Janny paid for it. The merchant weighed the coin in his hand and grinned, leaning toward me to whisper.

  “I like to think you’ll enchant that, Lady Flawless. It’s the best gold of the Skiarri Mountains.”

  “Do not call me the Flawless.” At any other time, I would not exchange whispers with a man, yet Flood Moon tradition demanded it. “You trade with the Skiarri Mountains? Did they have a warm spring?”

  “A real melter.” Half his face and neck tightened with concern. “I worry we’ll be missing your Flood Wall all too soon.”

  I feared the same. If higher than average temperatures in the mountains liquefied too much snow then the rivers would overflow.

  On the way back to the carriage, I heard a muffled chiming behind me, and I needed two seconds to interpret the noise as an enchantment triggering in my golden hump. That sound meant something had been accelerating downward, toward my head.

  Deepmand clanked around to look above me, where a brick slid forward and back in the air like a falling leaf. The enchantment had Lightened the brick and saved my life. Maid Janny puffed out her cheeks and blew the brick away.

  The Spellsword Lightened himself and leaped upward, turning as he did to scan the surrounding buildings. He must not have seen anything of note because once he touched down he jumped a second time to survey.

  The sight of a man in gilded plate armor hopping about had stilled the Bazaar. Everyone watched Deepmand and me, some with suspicion, which I felt was unfair, given that a brick could have recently crushed my head.

  Deepmand spoke in a growl. “Couldn’t spot the thrower. Wait here, Elder Enchantress.”

  While he tromped away to question a few onlookers, Maid Janny cupped a hand to my ear.

  “Did someone just try to murder you?”

  “Do not be ridiculous. A brick merely slipped loose from a wall.”

  “Must’ve been one slippery brick. The walls aren’t that close.”

  The Spellsword returned with a scowl, and the way his eyes shot over the onlookers convinced me that he believed someone had thrown the brick. I found the concept unpleasant to the extreme, that one of my own people would attack me when I was working so hard to save them.

  In the carriage, I stripped my gloves then reached into my mouth to remove the red diamond, which I had hidden under my tongue. With the jewel and chain in one hand, I descended to my laboratory.

  Using a chisel spell of Repulsion, I broke the opal from the gold chain, and Attracted its clasps to fit around the red diamond. The necklace floated from my palm to wrap around my neck.

  I disliked having to wear the red diamond on a necklace because any who saw it might falsely believe me engaged; however, a bracelet would risk displaying the jewel far too often, and I could not allow any to deduce who had given me the jewel. An anklet would provide an excellent place of hiding, yet foot jewelry was never more than trinkets; I could not insult the gods who had created the red diamond by shackling it so far from my heart.

  I had considered implanting the jewel into my flesh, the most conducive spot being my breast, yet the whole premise struck me as lacking a certain refinement. A necklace would serve because none would ever see the stone, except for perhaps Janny, who hardly counted.

  The necklace’s clasp sealed as I enchanted the gold chain, Attracting the metal to itself and making it next to unbreakable. The removal of my head would be required before someone could steal the red diamond. While I found this concept not altogether agreeable, at least the diamond was safe.

  I opened my eyes and shoved the red diamond necklace under the ruffles around my neck. Relieved, I gazed outside the carriage window of Stilt Town, where men covered with mud clanged their pickaxes against the Flood Wall in a horrifying racket. Sections of the wall had been demolished, revealing stretches of skyline and black clouds dragging rain. I imagined water surging through the rents in the mortar, lifting nearby shacks off their wooden posts and sweeping the splintering wreckage into Morimound, to smash apart buildings and drown children.

  Seeing the breaches in the wall felt like pieces of tissue carved out of my intestines. Salkant of the Fate Weaver might have wished for his prediction of the Seventh Flood to come true, yet Priest Abwar risked actualizing it. I remembered he had announced the scheme the day after I discovered the Bone Orb in Faliti, and now I wondered if he might have wished to distract me from the true threat of his Soultrapping.

  Deepmand opened the carriage door to a view of Priest Abwar, his robes wet and dark up to the thigh; water trickled into Stilt Town from a break in the wall. Dots of brown mud and perhaps dried blood splattered up to his bulging paunch.

  “Can you feel the will of the god between your toes? This water was sent by the Ever Thriving, Always Dying, and only by placing our fragile bodies in His merciless hands may we earn mercy.” The priest whispered as loudly as most men spoke. “Quickly now, remove the last impediments.”

  He rolled his hands in the air, beckoning men to pry
up the stones at foot level. As they did, water flowed over Priest Abwar’s sandals.

  I lowered myself to the carriage step but would go no farther. Water stinking of ox dung spread under the carriage.

  Deepmand splashed his way to the priest and tapped his shoulder with a gold-plated finger.

  “The apostate.” Priest Abwar had turned to me. “I’m surprised to see you down here with us simple, god-fearing men.”

  I could not reply to him from this distance, out of respect for the Flood Moon and the drowned ancestors. The priest tromped forward, splattering my gowns with mud.

  “As little as you deserve your position,” he said, “you can still service me and satisfy the god.”

  I whispered with a hiss. “Exactly what are you suggesting?”

  “Priest Salkant has the backbone of a stick insect and won’t consent to the sacrifices. He says it would damage our reputation and decrease trade, but what good is reputation if everyone dies to a god’s culling scythe?”

  “Reputation is more valuable than life,” I said. “If Salkant of the Fate Weaver forbids you from doing something, he must have reason.”

  He gestured with raised fists. “I must appease the Ever Always, before the women birth His judgment of death. I’ve torn down your abominable wall and sacrificed a hundred oxen. It is not enough. I must give the god people.”

  I blinked three times. “How does one ‘give’ the god a person?”

  “By chanting as their blood flows down the ziggurat steps.”

  “You do not mean...you cannot mean—Oh, how monstrous!”

  “Not at all. It’s an honor to die to save your nation from flood, and our ancestors approved of the ritual. The city has a rich history of priests preventing floods with human sacrifice.”

  Aghast, I struggled to find the breath even to whisper. “I do not recall ever reading of that.”

  “Salkant has cobwebs for guts, but with the support of the Flawless, I could do what needs doing.”

  I had no intention of accommodating Priest Abwar, yet his willingness to harm others increased my resolve to test him for being the Soultrapper. “You will have my support, if you can produce two outcomes. First, I wish to know more of Bone Orbs. What can you tell me of them?”

  “Bone Orbs? You did say, ‘Bone Orbs?’ Yes, well, of course I know of Bone Orbs. They’re the lumps where broken bones don’t heal properly.”

  I had forced my sleepy eyes open to watch his reactions, although I would have to wait to evaluate them. By his words, he seemed to know nothing of the unchildren, yet words could be false.

  “Very good,” I said. “Second, you must cut your palm. The waters of the Ever Always should taste your blood.”

  “My—my blood?”

  Soultrappers bled themselves, Tethiel had said, and I wished to observe the ease with which the priest shed his own blood. He had little problem with the blood of others, as the dark crusts on his sleeves attested, not to mention the rust-colored grime under his fingernails.

  “The Ever Thriving, Always Dying,” he said, “would have no wish to see my blood. I embody Him, and to cut myself would be to cut His divine personage.”

  “Nevertheless, I refuse to condone human sacrifice, unless you begin with your blood. A prodigious gout of it.”

  I was grateful to Tethiel for reassuring me that no god had created the unchildren, freeing me from considering the option of human sacrifice. Now, I would condemn it in any event.

  Priest Abwar lifted a knife to his palm then lowered it again to sharpen it against a whetstone on his belt. He dropped the knife into the mud and cursed.

  “Arse worms!”

  Wiping the blade against his robes, he rested the edge on his palm. I believe his hand trembled. He closed his eyes and eased the blade forward and back as if cutting a piece of lettuce.

  I was not sure if he had pierced his skin until three red drops rolled down his wrist, their color contrasting with the sudden paleness of his face. His arms drooped to his sides, and his three chins rolled upward as he tilted. Only when he had impacted into the mud and speckled me did I realize he had fainted.

  “Spellsword Deepmand, my business here is finished. Inform the acolytes that it will not be human sacrifice that saves our city. It will be me.”

  In carriage and in dream, I confirmed that the priest’s terror at cutting himself had not been feigned. I might have interpreted this fear as worry that I would discover his identity as the Soultrapper, yet his eyes had not dilated and demonstrated similar fright when I had mentioned the Bone Orbs.

  Glee had elevated Priest Abwar’s face at the proposition of human sacrifice. As noxious as the idea seemed to me, I believed he relished killing and bloodletting others.

  My search was for another variety of despicable. After Burdening the grime from my gowns, I decided that Abwar of the Ever Always was probably not the Soultrapper: By demolishing the Flood Wall, he endangered not only the citizens of Morimound but the Bone Orbs as well. The Soultrapper would wish the mothers protected, a position upheld by Salkant of the Fate Weaver.

  Salkant's command of the pregnancies would explain why his daughter had avoided the condition. My mirror scrutinized him. He gave both women and men calculating glances out of the corners of his eyes. When he regarded me, I read veneration in his face. That was reasonable enough, given my station, yet he unsettled me by having to repress expressions of eagerness at the mention of the Seventh Flood. He hoped it would come; he wished for a catastrophe that would kill the greater majority of the Morimound people.

  Priest Salkant had predicted the Seventh Flood, and he would have an interest in seeing his prophecy occur. He might have gone as far as to cause the disaster himself, by implanting the city’s women with Bone Orbs.

  I wondered if I now had sufficient cause to summon Tethiel, or if I should wait for additional proof. Not knowing how Priest Salkant could have touched so many women still galled me. I could mention “Bone Orbs” in front of him to see how he reacted, yet he struck me as a more calculating person than Abwar of the Ever Always; he might assume my motive and harm me to guard his secret. Deepmand might not be able to protect me from the Soultrapper’s magic.

  Tethiel commanded power, illusion or not, and I wanted him by my side when I confronted the true Soultrapper. The more I thought about Tethiel, the more advantages I saw in contacting him tonight; with him accompanying me, I could think with clarity. If Priest Salkant revealed himself as the Soultrapper then justice would fall on him in one second.

  Once I left my carriage, the balcony over the front door of my manor sheltered me from a downpour. Amid the rush of water, I heard a splashing and crunch of gravel, no doubt from a gardener running to escape the rain.

  Two servants paused in opening the manor door to glance behind me, and I sensed Deepmand Lightening his scimitar. Not knowing why he would activate the enchantment, I twisted and leaned to see past my golden hump.

  An acolyte approached at an irreverent speed, and I worried he would not be able to stop himself before colliding with me. Only then did I notice the glint of a dagger in his hand, and I had no time to ponder what impropriety he hoped to commit.

  The scimitar swooped down, Burdening as it dropped through the acolyte. I flinched as Deepmand attacked and was relieved to see that the scimitar had encountered no resistance in its swing. He must have missed.

  Maid Janny was screaming, and the acolyte now rested on the ground in a most extraordinary position. One arm, his head, and half his torso lay perpendicular to the remainder of his body. A red substance mixed with the rainwater as it spread from him, seeping into the gravel.

  An open-mouthed moment elapsed before I realized that Deepmand had not, in fact, missed. I did the sensible thing and advanced a few more steps toward the door, pulling my gowns away from the blood. After discerning that a minimum of splatter had reached me, I lifted my chin to the Spellsword.

  “That was rather brash, Deepmand. I was hardly in any danger.�
��

  He peered at the surrounding gardens then glanced from his bloodied scimitar to my golden hump, which he should have known would have protected me from the attack.

  “My apologies, Elder Enchantress. There could’ve been more than one assassin.” His words ground against each other with tension, almost in a growl. I disliked his tone.

  Although Deepmand had defended me from highway robbers before, this occasioned the first definitive attempt on my life, and I admitted a measure of satisfaction that someone deemed me important enough to assassinate. This acolyte must have been one of the Soultrapper’s followers, sent out of fear that I would soon expose him.

  I was on the brink of discovering the Soultrapper.

  “Mistress Enchantress,” a servant asked, “are you well?”

  Realizing I grinned down at the corpse in an unseemly manner, I corrected my expression. “Maid Janny, turn over the portion of the body with the head. I wish to see his face.”

  Janny had pulled her bonnet down over her eyes. She did nothing more productive than weep.

  I said, “Oh, you are quite useless.”

  Spellsword Deepmand nudged over the corpse with his scimitar, and I saw the dead man wore a surprised expression. I did not recognize him yet, although I noticed his robes bore the eight-sided stylized depiction of the Fate Weaver, with her spider body adorned with human face and hands.

  Inside my manor, I wasted no time in falling asleep. I confirmed in dream that I had never before seen this acolyte; in addition, his face portrayed less hatred than I would have expected for an act of blind passion. Rather, he seemed focused on the goal of ending my life, suggesting he might have acted under orders.

  I decided his Fate Weaver vestments did not necessarily implicate Priest Salkant. The assassin might have stolen his garb, or his membership in the order might be supplanted by his pact with the Soultrapper. Still, this bore mentioning to Tethiel, and I hoped to see him imminently.

  Upon waking, I took a mid-afternoon lunch with Alyla. She waited until after I had finished eating before she spoke. “Dhatrod told me someone tried to hurt you.”