The Bones of the Earth

by Rachel Dunne

  More moving sounds, and then the scraping started up again, still getting closer. “One of you,” a voice said, and she recognized it.

  “Boy?” she asked. What was it the black-robe had called him? “Etarro.”

  “Yes,” the boy said. She heard a heavy sound of fabric, probably him wrapping himself up with the quilt. Snide little bastard. “Rora.”

  That put the chill right in her. “What?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as surprised as she felt.

  “He talks about you. Whispers your name when he sleeps.”

  “The witch?” Anger was enough to warm her a bit, to make the surprise leak away in a trickle. “You tell him to come say my name to my face.”

  “You’ll kill him.”

  “You’re damn right I will.”

  “Then I won’t let him come here. Not yet.”

  Rora snorted. “What, are you his new master?”

  “Life binds people together unexpectedly. He and I are bound—not master and servant, but equal parts of a whole.”

  “How old are you?” Rora asked after a pause. The kid spoke a lot like Joros, all big words and measured paces and a tone like each sound he gave you was a gift you should be thankful for.

  “Fourteen in three full moons.”

  And there he was, talking like a kid, counting down the days until he was one step closer to grown up. The kid was damned weird, no doubt about that. “How long since they brought you here?”

  “We were born here. The mountain itself raised us as surely as any other hand.”

  “Gods above, so they’ve been twisting you your whole life. You need to get away from this place.”

  “We’ll leave soon enough.”

  “Let me out of here, and I’ll show you what a real life is like. I never much had the chance to be a kid, but I bet I could still show you better’n what you’ve been doing. I’ll even let the witch live. Just get us out of here.”

  There was silence for a while, long enough she thought maybe the boy’d slipped away somehow while she’d been talking. “You told me not to trust anyone.”

  “Yeah, I did. No one but yourself. So be truthful with yourself, that’s the most important thing. You can’t really be happy here.”

  That quiet again, and maybe he had the thoughts to back up his big words. “Will you be truthful with me, Rora?”

  “Sure, kid. I’ve got no reason to lie.” She’d tell him anything he needed to hear to get him to let her out.

  “Tell me the honest truth, and I’ll let you go. I’ll even go with you. Just tell me the truth.” Another pause, and she could hear the chattering of his teeth, maybe the sound of his bones clacking together under his skin. When he spoke again, he sounded a lot more like a kid than he had so far—a kid with a big, scary question that was eating away at him. “Do you ever hear them?”

  “Hear who?” You had to step careful around kids with big scary questions—Aro’d had his share of them, and a wrong word was like enough to break a kid.

  “The Twins.”

  For the first time, Rora was glad for the dark—she didn’t think she could’ve kept a straight face for that, no matter how hard she tried. “Do you?”

  “You said you’d answer my question.”

  She wished Aro was here—he was better with people than she was, and he always seemed to know the right thing to say. He usually told the truth, but he could lie well if he had to, and he always knew when he had to. He’d know what to say—hells, he’d probably understand the kid, make him feel safe and not so alone so that whatever answer he gave, the truth or a lie, wouldn’t matter so much.

  “I do,” she said.

  There was a sigh, loud in the empty dark. “The truth is important, Rora,” he said quietly. “You should learn when to give it, but you need to learn when you hear it.”

  “The truth doesn’t matter as much when you’re slowly freezing to death.”

  “You won’t die, so long as you hear the truth when it’s given.”

  His footsteps left then, whispering across the floor and disappearing up the tunnel. The kid spoke too old, and too mysterious. There’d been a man in the Canals, who’d got hit on the head so his eyes went funny, one pupil small as a knifetip and the other so big you couldn’t see any color around it. He’d started talking like the kid, spewing up nonsense, his talking going in circles, using bigger words’n most anyone else knew, words he’d never used before in his life. They’d all started listening to his nonsense, though, after he babbled something about Firren with black eyes and hair like snakes. They’d found Firren drowned, her long hair caught and tied up in canal weeds, and two fat leeches on her eyes. They’d all definitely listened after he said rats’ claws were enough to kill a dog, because then some spy from Rat Pack that’d been hiding in Whitedog had gone on a stabbing spree before sneaking back to his masters. The Far-eye, they’d called the man, and if he ever looked right at you with his mismatched eyes, you damned well listened. He’d only looked at Rora once, but he’d said something about shadows, and that was enough for her.

  “Hear the truth,” she muttered, but that was less helpful than rat-claws or snake-hair. She went back to the cell lock with her shitty picks, but on the way there she stumbled over something. Big and soft and still with a little warmth to it. Somehow, the kid’d gotten the quilt through the cell bars.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tears had frozen to Anddyr’s cheeks, heavy lines that drew his skin tight. His tears came away in fractured pieces when he scrubbed at his cheeks, falling like a sparkling storm onto his black robe. Breath came hard through his nose, and he found snot frozen on his upper lip. He was disgusting, an utter mess.

  He peered through the sheet of ice before him, thick enough to distort the chamber beyond, but still offering a good enough view of the place. It was clearly empty. That was wrong . . . he knew that much, though his mind and memory were slow coming back from the skura-haze. There was something important he needed to be doing, something he needed to have his full awareness for. It was all about the timing; Cappo Joros had said that again and again . . . the timing was vital. They’d carefully planned Anddyr’s dosing of skura, so that he could shrug away his madness and be coherent for . . . whatever it was. He squinted through the ice, knowing there should be people out there. If he could just see someone, he knew that would spark his memory. Here he was, coherent and ready to act, needing only to be pointed in the proper direction. Why in God’s name was his head so damned fuzzy? It usually took a moment or two for his mind to readjust, to get a good grasp on sanity, but memory was proving more elusive than usual. It must be the timing . . . yes, the cappo had told him it was all about the timing, that he’d have to be strong and fight against the madness, so that he could be ready when the time came.

  But he hadn’t . . . no, he’d been weak, and he’d stolen skura, scrabbled too soon after sanity and poisoned himself in the process. That had thrown the timing off . . .

  Memory hit him then, like a fist to the gut.

  The Cavern of the Falls, Rora and her doubt and all the hidden knives. He’d gone to shelter behind the Icefall, tucking himself out of the way so he wouldn’t ruin the surprise . . . and so Rora wouldn’t see him descend deeper into madness. It had clawed at him, the rising skura-hunger and insidious insanity that came with it, and the deeper twisting scream of the unbonded skura inside him—but all he’d needed to do was hold a cloaking for a while, keeping Rora and the knives hidden until the moment was right. He could cast a cloaking without thinking, which was good, since rational thought leaked away quickly. He’d sat behind the ice, wedged uncomfortably in the small space Etarro had told him about, and he’d waited as the madness took bigger bites out of him. It was all the timing . . . “You’ll have to be sane once the killing starts,” the cappo had said. “You’ll have to be ready to do anything to help—distract the Ventallo, freeze a few feet, give one of the knives a boost of speed. You’ll need to be ready for anything, and you’ll
need your wits about you. It has to be timed just right.”

  Skura was a thing of habit, an unshakable regularity. He always waited the same amount of time between his doses, the hours trickling by. And so he’d waited, because his stolen dose had been his last, and when madness had ahold of his mind, there was no room for reasoning or logic or bravery. He’d waited, lost in madness, watching impassively as the knives were slaughtered by the hidden swordsmen he hadn’t seen, hadn’t thought to look for. He’d watched through a blue haze of madness and stupidity as the carefully laid plans fell to pieces. Watched the Ventallo walk away, alive. Watched Rora hurt, defeated, captured. All because of him . . .

  He only got himself half-unwedged from his hiding place before his stomach burst out of his mouth. It left a foul taste, the skura much less pleasant coming back up than it had been going down. He was glad the cavern was empty, glad there was no one to witness his shame as he hung half-stuck behind the Icefall, covered in sour vomit, fighting to draw in air without retching.

  It was all wrong. He should have gone quietly mad, hidden behind the Icefall, and then swept in with confidence and sanity to save the day, to save Rora. It would have worked, if he hadn’t been so weak, if his fear of the cappo’s orders—Burn the leg. Learn their secrets. Kill the boy.—hadn’t twisted his stomach, twisted his mind. He’d been weak, and he’d ruined the timing, ruined everything. Because of him, Rora had been taken . . .

  “There is no one,” he told himself softly, “in all the world, worse than you.”

  Anddyr had freed his head from the space behind the Icefall, one arm and half his chest—enough that he could probably pull himself free of the icy cage. Ignoring the sick-smell surrounding him, the pain in his side where the ice held him tight, the way his breath scraped into his lungs and bubbled out his nose . . . he deserved those things, and worse. He ignored them, and pressed his body back into the ice, back into the prison he deserved. It would be easier if he just died. He would never have to feel the shame of facing Rora . . . of learning what they’d done to her . . . if they’d even let her live . . . He curled into the small, pathetic thing that he was, cocooned by the ice. The tears froze once more on his cheeks, sharp, cold lines. He left them there this time, as they hardened and drew his face tight like a mask.

  He would have startled more, at the touch on his shoulder, if the ice cage had left him any room for startling. As it was, he scraped his forehead and cheek trying to turn his head enough to see out the opening of his hiding spot.

  The fire-demon standing there would have startled him doubly, but again, not enough room for a proper startle. Or maybe there was, and he’d just gone so numb with cold he couldn’t feel his body jerking in surprise.

  Regardless, the demon took its very human hand off of Anddyr’s shoulder and knelt down. Anddyr wondered if the fire-demon would melt away all the ice before burning Anddyr up, and that thought was almost enough to make him cry. The ice was so pretty. “Anddyr.” There were only the pale ghostlights, more flickering shadow than light, but they were enough for him to see the fire swirl away to reveal a boy beneath, a boy whose face he knew.

  “Etarro,” he croaked, the letters dropping from his mouth like larvae. A shiver rolled through Anddyr, as much as it could with no real room for movement. He would have thought his eyes too clogged with ice to allow any more tears, but they burst out of him, warm against his cold, cold cheeks. “I failed.”

  The hand touched his shoulder again, stayed there this time. He could feel the flesh shifting and bubbling atop his, but he couldn’t flinch away. “You did,” Etarro said softly. “Why did you fail, Anddyr?”

  “Because I’m weak.”

  “Weak is what others call us. We should never say it of ourselves.” Fires burned in the boy’s eyes, glowing embers that made the tears on Anddyr’s cheeks steam away. “You can be strong, Anddyr. I can see it in you. Do you believe that?”

  Anddyr shook his head, the ice scraping away more of his skin. “No.”

  Etarro bowed his head, rested his cheek next to his hand on Anddyr’s shoulder. It burned, where he touched, burned away the cold that the ice had clawed into Anddyr. “That makes me sad.”

  They sat together for a while, both their bodies shaking, Etarro’s form wavering between his own and the fire-demon, burning-hot until the flames faded into the boy and the cold drew back in, a deeper burn.

  “Anddyr,” the boy said, “what do you want from the world?” Anddyr only shook his head, the ice shaving away at his chin. “There must be something. Everybody wants something. Don’t think, just say it.”

  “Rora,” he said.

  Etarro lifted his head, ember-eyes piercing. He nodded slowly. “Do you want to be free? Free of all of this?”

  Anddyr could remember, long ago, that the cappo had asked him a similar question. Then, he’d had only a vague memory of what “free” had meant, riding on horseback through the mountains, weaving spells for noblemen’s children, feted at any town he graced with his presence. It had been like looking at those memories through a hole the size of a needle’s point, enough to grasp the shape, the sense of them, but not able to reach out and touch them. Now . . . now the word fell like a stone into an empty well, echoing hollowly all the way down. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want to go back to Cappo Joros?”

  Even pressed tight by the ice, Anddyr found enough room to shudder. “I am the cappo’s loyal servant.” Quick words, deeply engrained.

  “He scares me, too,” the boy whispered. He looked away, looked somewhere Anddyr couldn’t follow. “If you were free,” he said, “you could be with Rora.”

  Anddyr’s tongue swept around his dry mouth, darting like a snake to lick at his lips. “I . . .”

  Etarro’s eyes swung back to him, burning so bright Anddyr had to squint to see the boy’s face around the light. “What, Anddyr?”

  “I . . . would like to be free.”

  The boy smiled, a soft thing, though the light fell from his eyes. “That’s good, Anddyr. I can help. Do you have your skura?”

  Of course he did; he knew exactly where it was, and there was enough space for one hand to find the jar, pull it free, lift it to his mouth. With the world bubbling and shifting shape, the edges of his sight writhing with monsters made of shadow and blood, it was a challenge to instead twist his arm around and give Etarro the jar.

  “You’ll still have to go back to Cappo Joros,” the boy said as he twisted open the lid of the jar. The scent of the skura sent a river running from Anddyr’s mouth, made the ice encasing him pulse like a quick-beating heart. “Anddyr,” Etarro said, soft and stern, and Anddyr tore his eyes from the jar. “You’ll have to go back, but it will be different. You won’t belong to him anymore. You’ll be free.” The boy reached out, his hand shaking in the cold, and pressed his fingers to Anddyr’s cheek. “But free is something you have to fight for. Are you ready to fight, Anddyr?”

  “Yes,” Anddyr said, his gaze drifting back to the jar.

  Etarro pulled an icicle free from Anddyr’s prison, slim and sharp. Then he pressed down so it bit him, snake-like, teeth sinking into the pad of the boy’s thumb, fangs pulling back bloody. Etarro chewed his lip, a wince and a single whimper. He held his thumb above the skura jar, blood gathering, swelling, dropping. Anddyr counted five drops before the boy stuck his thumb in his mouth, looking more a child than he had even when he’d been younger. He dropped something else into the skura, a thing like a bead, solid but no larger than a drop of blood, and the blue of a summer sky. It fell into the skura and was swallowed by the black paste, no trace of its warm blue left. With the icicle, Etarro stirred blood and bead into the skura. An ignominious moan slipped past Anddyr’s lips at the scent of it, nearly made him start clawing his way free from the ice. He’d been resolved to let himself freeze to death for the shame of his failure, but now, awakened and restored, his mind was complaining that it had been much too long since his last dose, the air was reaching heavy down
his throat, suffocating . . .

  Etarro held the icicle out to him, its point glistening with the black paste, and Anddyr latched on to it like a babe to a teat. The sweetness of it flowed through him, suffusing him with warmth, his eyes glossing over . . . and then a rock dropped into his stomach, and a second slammed into the outside of his stomach as if trying to join with the one within. A scream erupted out of him—or would have, if it weren’t for the icicle sealing his lips together. The sound that did emerge from him was more choked-cat than scream, and died quickly in the face of the pain in his midsection.

  It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, the pounding rocks fading away to leave nothing more than a faint ache in his belly, and the icicle melted away under the warmth of his lips. It allowed Anddyr to open his mouth, his eyes finding Etarro in the light-speckled darkness, and croak, “What did you do?”

  “I’m helping you,” the boy said.

  Anddyr met the boy’s eyes, held them with his own, and refused to look away. His mind was sharp, sharp as it ever was after a dose of skura. “What did you do?” he asked again.

  Etarro looked away, fidgeting with the skura jar in his hands. “I’ve been watching. I’ve seen how they . . . enthrall . . . your people. Mages. I’ve watched, and I’ve seen how it works.” He met Anddyr’s eyes, a trace of defiance flashing. “You belong to me now.”

  “I thought you said I’d be free.” Anddyr could hear the petulance in his own voice, the whine of a disappointed child.

  “No, Anddyr. I said you’d have to fight to be free. I’ve given you the tools. Now fight.” Etarro stood, slipping the skura jar into his own pocket.

  Anddyr wailed a wordless protest, and Etarro raised a single eyebrow at him. Over the surging panic brought on by his empty skura jar pocket, the best Anddyr could manage was, “I need it!”

  The boy gave a dispassionate shrug. “You can’t have it. You have a choice to make now, Anddyr. You can leave here and fight to get back some sort of life, and the fighting will be horrible and painful and the hardest thing you’ve ever done. You can go crawl your way to a new master and spend the rest of your life as a miserable slave. You can stay here, and die a slow death that’s every bit as painful and miserable. It’s your choice. This is your life now, Anddyr, and yours alone.”