The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  Edgar and Vincent exchanged glances; what was the relationship between the guard and Amon?

  Brennan led them to the northernmost cell. He lifted an ancient key from his soiled pocket. With two hands and half the cuss words available to him, he unlocked the door and kicked it open.

  On the other side, a Night Terror sat on the floor, manacled at the wrists and ankles. The short chains that held his body to the wall rattled as he shifted to see his visitors.

  “I can’t believe it,” Edgar said.

  He and Vincent stepped back, shocked by the creature’s face as it leaned into the light.

  The Night Terror wore the skull of a large eel as a mask. All the scales and flesh had been stripped away. Two hateful eyes shone behind the bones, as the brothers knelt and looked on with intrigue.

  “I can’t believe it,” Edgar repeated.

  “Is that a mask? Is it somehow attached?” Vincent started forward, hands outstretched as though to touch the Terror. “Can we take it off?”

  Amon propped himself up against the cell’s cobblestone wall. “Do you know what will happen?”

  Vincent shook his head and, with Edgar, rose to his feet.

  “Then maybe you should stick to words for now.”

  “Will you tell Father?” Edgar asked. He tried to tame the thoughts running through his head. “Do you think it understands us?”

  “I’m sure your father already knows,” Amon said. “And I expect it understands us better than we understand ourselves.”

  The Night Terror grunted. Its right arm, free of Corruption, tugged on the shackles.

  “What do you think?” Vincent chewed on his thumbnail. “What do you think, Edgar?”

  “I want to know why they hunt us, where they came from, what we did to deserve…” The words spilled over Edgar’s trembling lips. So many considered the Night Terrors savages for their actions against humanity, and yet he couldn’t help but feel in his most honest moments they were somehow justified.

  “Where they’re from? The Nameless Forest, Edgar,” Vincent scoffed. “Let’s not waste time on that.” He paused. “I have to see what’s under the mask. Brennan, my tools please.”

  The Archivist stopped the guard. In the booming voice that had often frightened them as children, he said, “Another time, my lords. If you spend too much time in the presence of demons, you will become a demon yourself.”

  Vincent groaned. “Did you get that from your book?”

  Amon flipped over the book, the worn-down cover of The Disciples of the Deep facing him. “No, but I rather like the line. Come—” He waved them out of the cell, his attention never wavering from the Night Terror. “—It’s been through enough. Let’s be better than the beasts that hunt us.”

  CHAPTER III

  In the nightmare haze that followed the Trauma, the world reformed itself. Those that remained crawled out of the chaos and cruor and, once again, gave themselves to subjugation. The weak went to their knees, the strong to their feet, and kingdoms were cast in the forms of Old. All that changed became as it had been, and all lessons learned were lost on those left alive.

  Time passed, and on the hottest night of the year, the capital city of – courted tragedy. A maiden, the king’s own daughter, who was known for her beauty and wit, was taken. No note had been left, nor ransom made known. No one knew anything, and it seemed nothing could be done to bring the young woman home.

  Then the stories started.

  Stretching from the eastern shore to the midland marshes, the Nameless Forest sat shrouded in rumor and myth. Around it, several villages had been established with the intention of collecting the rare, vein-like roots found on the trees. It was here, in the outskirts populated by the destitute and desperate, that the maiden was seen, bound by rope and to the man of violence at her side. But by the time the stories had reached the young woman’s father, it was too late to respond. The Nameless Forest had called to the maiden and her captor, and when they answered, it swallowed them whole.

  They never emerged. There were only the tales of woe none could know, and yet were told as truth. Five sons, the maiden gave to the man five sons. Born of rape and fed on hate, the boys grew quickly. When they came of age, they divided the Forest into five wards, ruling as kings over the outcasts that had congregated there.

  Edgar didn’t sleep, because he feared what he would find when he woke. As the first light of day broke across the cerulean sky, he wondered where the night had gone.

  His stomach voiced its hunger in all the ways it knew. After a while, he gave it the rest of the food from the dead man, mostly so no creature could find him by its growling. He stared at the Nameless Forest, so vast and unyielding, and considered the niceties of death.

  “I won’t do it,” Edgar said, as though anyone or anything here actually cared. He rose, sword in hand. He glanced at the blade and gasped.

  “Holy Child!” He dropped the weapon, jumping as it clanged against the cave floor. He leaned over, all sweat and consternation, and watched as Old World images were reflected on the metal.

  “How is this possible?” He watched a helicopter disappear over a cityscape horizon, into the murky swathe of dusk that colored his blade orange.

  He ground his teeth as the cityscape crumbled into dust. “I have to get out of here.”

  He slowly reached for the sword and grasped it. The images fled at his touch, into the silvery depths of the steel.

  Edgar gathered his belongings and left the cave with newfound purpose. He had heard many terrible stories about the Nameless Forest, and this gave him hope; if the place were truly larger on the inside than on the outside, then that meant the explorer who had discovered this had escaped.

  Similarly, if the philosophers who insisted the place to be a living lobotomy of time and reality were right, then that meant they had noted the disturbance and returned to tell of their findings. Better yet, if the tales told of children becoming fanged beasts and blood raining from the sky weren’t true, then he had even less to worry about.

  All in all, it was a pathetic hope, and Edgar knew this. It was the kind of hope tailored by naivety, but for now, for now it would do.

  With no stars or landmarks to guide him, Edgar decided on one direction and followed it religiously. The sun had worked itself into his skin; no amount of shade would see it freed. His mouth burned as though a fire had been built inside it. The best he could do was guzzle the water from his pouch, but all that managed was to soothe the ache in the desert his lips had become. He sighed, turned inward, and marched onward.

  How did I get here? The question echoed through Edgar’s mind while he searched for missing memories. As he pushed past trees and bushes, he moved from childhood to adolescence.

  It’s all here, he thought, arriving at the memory of the Night Terror in the dungeon. Except for how I got here. It seemed too generic, too cliché, his conveniently inconvenient amnesia. No, this place wants me to forget for a reason, he decided, slipping into a copse. But it doesn’t matter. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and I’ll be dead by dawn, no matter how hard I try.

  Edgar emerged from the copse, onto a road paved with white satin. He stumbled backward, careful not to let his feet touch the fabric, afraid that he might spring a trap. The road twisted through the trees, like a snow-covered snake slithering toward a kill.

  He gripped the hilt of his sword and followed beside the road. Blood drops dotted the winding ribbon, and they turned his stomach.

  He trailed the pale path to a hill. At its crest, he found a woman in white sitting atop a rock. She wore a bloodied dress. It was from the ends of her garb that the road had been formed, so that all who followed it would find her.

  Edgar approached slowly, afraid to startle the woman. She had a blank look on her face as she stared off into the windswept distance.

  “My lady?” he said softly. He noticed a bit of worn beauty beyond the long, dark hair that whipped about her head. “Are you okay?”

  T
he woman in white’s gaze slid to the side. Edgar saw, in those large, black pupils, himself, and hate.

  She made a subtle gesture with her fingers. From her bodice to her skirt, all the blood that stained her dress came to life.

  Edgar tripped over his feet going backward. The crimson streams poured off the dress and onto the white road.

  He ran alongside it, and they followed. As the stinking fluid pooled, he drew his sword. The blood puddle began to rise out of the satin, became solid. Hands rose out of the puddle, followed by arms, a shoulder, and a head.

  A shape in blood pushed itself free of the wicked weave and stood on two dripping legs before Edgar.

  The wayward royalty swung his sword at the blood-borne body. The blade passed through, slinging a wave of red onto the greenery.

  The creature grabbed Edgar before he could make another pass.

  He punched the blood beast as hard as he could, in its featureless face and churning gut. But the shape could not, would not be stopped.

  It wrapped itself around him and, together, in a bloody embrace, the two sank into satin and white nothingness.

  CHAPTER IV

  Forty-Two Days Ago

  Edgar sank into his chair, while Vincent and Lena argued over him. He looked across the dinner table to the twins, Auster and Audra, for moral support, but they were ensnared in a political debate with the oldest sibling, Horace.

  He sighed, and stuffed some food into his mouth. Even his father, King Sovn, and his mother, Queen Magdalena, were too busy talking to each other to see that he, the youngest here of them all, had no one.

  The royal family of Eldrus seldom ate dinner together, even when they were eating dinner together.

  “What are you going on about?” The force behind Vincent’s words projected a few berries from his mouth onto the table.

  Lena scowled; it was an expression she had mastered, and the only one which she seemed to possess. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

  Vincent laughed, stabbing his fork into the mutton on his plate. “Oh, I see,” he said, cutting off a piece of the meat. He prodded it with his fork and pointed the hunk at his sister, almost hitting Edgar’s nose as he did so. “Well, then I apologize for all transgressions I’ve made, haven’t made, and will make in the unforgettable past and unknowable future.”

  Edgar batted the fork away. “Will you two shut up?”

  “Such violence,” Lena goaded, her scowl curving into a smile. “Vincent—” she returned to her victim, “—when will you stop wasting your time on experiments and do something useful for once?”

  “Do something useful? Does that include the servant girls?” Edgar added, with a stupid grin on his face; he was, after all, a part of their conflict now.

  “Mother Abbess, Holy Child,” Vincent said, shaking his head. “I’ve been relegated to outcast. When you’ve discovered a new fault of mine, sweet Lena, let me know.” At this point, he became very animated. “I’m already aware of the burden that is my great intelligence, and even greater libido.”

  “Edgar, if you would, cut out his tongue,” Lena pleaded. “No one will mind, and no one will miss it. Not even the servant girls.”

  Edgar smiled at his sister. “Especially not the servant girls.” He liked being in her good graces, even if it wouldn’t last for long.

  “Servant boys it is, then,” Vincent said, not missing a beat. “I can adapt, unlike you two.”

  Lena lifted a cup to her mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Vincent’s eyes glinted. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

  A creak disturbed the room as the dining room doors opened, and more courses were carried in by the servants.

  Edgar twisted his mouth at the various shades and shapes of excess that were offered to each of his family members. He waved away the sauces, meats, and fruits, and avoided desserts entirely. He sensed the unsaid offense taken by the servants from his dismissal, but he didn’t care. He did it for them, and for those who would better benefit from leftovers than their vomit.

  “How goes your work at the suffer centers?” Horace asked Edgar.

  “The ‘food banks’ could be better,” he said, correcting his brother.

  Auster’s spoon clinked against his bowl as he stirred the spiced slush inside it.

  In a voice deader than the dead’s, he said, “I heard there are more beatings than bread being given out in those places.”

  “We need more men to keep the peace, and more food to keep everyone calm.” Edgar’s face went red. “A good deal goes a long way. It all adds up.”

  Lena looked past Edgar. “It all adds up, but to what?” She wasn’t speaking to him, but their father, King Sovn. “Let the people run the suffer centers. The last time we tried, they accused us of poisoning the food to thin out the poor. Which, granted, is not the worst idea in the—”

  “It would take a considerable amount of effort to disguise the taste,” Audra said, her words wispy syllables.

  Edgar looked at the twenty-one-year-old, and smiled a pathetic smile that told the girl now was not the time to prove to the others her talents as a botanist.

  The twenty-one-year-old girl looked back, the heat of pride draining from her face, and asked with wide and welling eyes, “When?”

  King Sovn muttered behind his clasped hands, “My children would have this city reduced to skeletons.”

  Edgar turned to his father. It comforted him to see that the king smirked when he spoke.

  King Sovn, sovereign of Eldrus and the Heartland, Blood Drinker and Heart Eater, and all those other titles and profanities that often followed his name was, despite these things, an average man. He was neither large, nor small, nor was he grossly scarred or excessively scrubbed. He did not strike his wife, nor his children, and because he was neither violent nor villainous, the privileged felt judged in his presence.

  He was a good man, Edgar knew, but his reluctance, his indifference, made him a terrible ruler.

  “It all adds up,” King Sovn said, repeating Edgar’s earlier words, “but not everything can or should be measured in coin.” He squinted at his wife, the Queen Magdalena. “What do you think, my dear?”

  Edgar’s mother’s head turned as the dining room doors opened again. Servants entered with refills and refreshments. “I think Edgar is trying to make the rest of us look bad.” She tilted her head at Edgar. “I think I would like to be proven wrong.”

  “For once,” his father chirped.

  “That goes without saying.” She took her husband’s hand. “Think on what you need, and we’ll see what can be done.” She trained her gaze on one of the servants nearest the twins. “Does that sound fair?” She sounded distant, too absorbed in her own thoughts.

  “It does. Thank you.” Edgar would have felt triumphant, but his mother’s sudden concern soured the moment.

  Lena let out a laugh. “Aren’t you the savior of the people?”

  Vincent nudged his shoulder. “Pay her no mind. Mother and Father both know that if they gave her what she wanted, we’d all be begging at one of your suffer centers.”

  Edgar nodded at his brother, though he had hardly been listening to him.

  The servant which had attracted his mother’s interest now had his father’s, as well. The man was young, tanned; his hair redder than the soup he carried.

  Edgar couldn’t place the man. By the confusion that spread like a sickness across Audra’s, Auster’s, and Horace’s faces, he saw that they, too, didn’t recognize him.

  “My Queen,” the servant said, making his way toward her.

  By the glint in his mother’s eyes, it was clear to Edgar she had seen something they had not. The servant rushed forward, knife in hand. She leaned back in her chair as the man stabbed downward, where her head had been. She stood up, dark tendrils of hair falling from their weaves, and kicked the man’s legs out from under him.

  With a shout, he fell forward. His chin slammed against the table. Blood blew out of his mouth as
he bit through his tongue.

  Choking on the fleshy hunk, he hocked the severed muscle across the table, onto a plate.

  Magdalena lifted the man up by his collar—her thin arms had never looked stronger—bent him over the table, took the large knife that had been used to cut the mutton, and drove it through his neck.

  She released him, but he didn’t move. He stayed pinned there, to the wood, like a bug to be dissected.

  “As you can see, no matter what you do,” the queen said over the assassin’s blood-choked cries, “you cannot make everyone happy.”

  She sighed. Her tongue found a spot of blood on her lips, and she licked it off. “Go to your rooms. Dinner is done.”

  CHAPTER V

  Long were the nights and dark the days, that had followed the Trauma and its malaise.

  Under swollen skies, the weary-eyed searched for gods and guidance amidst the lies.

  They found a place that scabbed the land with trees like veins torn from man.

  In its breast, demons waited, with dark hungers to be sated.

  They whispered promises they could not keep.

  They desired sacrifices none would reap.

  “Royal blood,” thus they spake, sick of the poor upon which they’d slaked.

  “As you wish,” a brave queen said, giving herself to slow the dead.

  The demons brought her into that nameless place,

  and wept when they gazed upon her face.

  Too beautiful to eat, this they knew,

  when children she could give to them, strong and true.

  Quickly, they learned the folly of their plan;

  the queen’s blood had been cursed by her own hand.

  From seeds on satin, sons did rise,

  five in all, with jet black eyes.

  They set on fathers when they could,

  and with mother took the wood.

  Edgar woke in a bed that was not his own, naked and alone. The sheets were sticky with drying blood.

  As he sat up, they peeled from him, like butcher’s paper. His skin was cold, damp, as though someone had recently tried to wash the gore and smell of metal out of it.