Kreya tried again. “It’s important.”
“To you. Not to me.”
“If you knew why . . .”
“Will you tell me?”
“I . . .” Kreya wanted to say the words: I can bring Jentt back! He can live again! But the words stuck in her throat. Could she trust Zera? Years ago, she would have said, Yes, no question, I trust her with my life. This wasn’t Kreya’s life, though; it was Jentt’s. Given Zera’s flair for theatrics, combined with the prohibition against using human bone for magic, she couldn’t guarantee that Zera wouldn’t immediately rush to the guild and kill any chance that Kreya ever had of restoring her husband. Or rush to her tower and destroy Jentt’s body. “I . . . can’t. I ask you . . . I beg you, in memory of the friendship we once had, to please help me.”
She couldn’t trust her with the truth, but Kreya would happily sacrifice her pride.
Gripping a skeletal pillar for support, Kreya lowered herself to the floor and knelt. “Please, Zera. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. I would have left you in peace—”
“You left me in war. That was worse.”
“I apologize. On my knees.”
Zera wrinkled her nose. “Yes, I see that. It’s pathetic. Stand up.”
Wincing as her back twinged, Kreya stood. “Zera. Please give me another chance.” Another chance at happiness. At hope. At the life she was supposed to have.
“You had your chance. We all did. And now it’s time for you to leave.”
Quick thoughts flashed through her head: she could beg more, explain more, try to overpower her, try to blackmail her, try to steal from her, but looking at Zera’s painted face, Kreya knew she’d do none of that. She’d find another way that didn’t involve her old friend. I’ve hurt her enough, Kreya thought.
She walked past her without a word and kept walking out of the fifth tier, out of Cerre, and did not stop until night fell on the mountains. Only then, in the darkness, did she stop and cry. Not for herself. Not for Jentt. But for Zera.
She had not realized until now that the war had also broken her best friend.
Chapter Four
Zera had her old nightmare, the one she’d banished many years ago, for the next three nights: She was back on the plain, facing Eklor’s army. Jentt was dead. Kreya was gone. Stran was using his talisman-fueled fists to pound soldier after soldier made of armor and bone. Marso was whimpering as he stabbed and slashed the smaller bone critters with his knife. And she was searching through the pockets of a coat she’d trashed long ago, the twin to the one Kreya still wore.
In reality, twenty-five years ago, Zera had drawn on her entire arsenal of talismans, supplying Stran and Marso as fast as they could use them, and all three of them had fought with the strength of a thousand bears and mountain lions combined. But in her dream, she could not find a single one. She searched, and her friends died beside her—sometimes Stran would be impaled by the antlers of a skeletal deer, sometimes Marso would be sliced across the sternum by a sword, more often he’d be cut to ribbons by one of Eklor’s bone-powered metal monstrosities. Sometimes Kreya would be there, bleeding at her feet and trying to form words that Zera could never quite make out. And sometimes Jentt would be just beyond reach, dying again and again as the army overwhelmed him.
It was, to say the least, an unpleasant dream.
She woke after each one drenched in sweat and screaming.
“Fuck me,” Zera said the third night.
“Gladly,” the naked man beside her said sleepily.
She ignored him, stood, and stretched her neck. She felt stiff and sore, as if she’d been fighting in her sleep. An odd feeling, since she hadn’t thrown a punch or held a knife in years. She’d seen no point in keeping up with the training that Kreya had insisted they all get.
She heard a harp strum. “Perhaps some music will relax you?” her lover offered.
“Make it appropriately melancholy.”
He played an arpeggio in a minor key and then shifted to an old tune, one about a goatherd who pined for the miller’s son. Or was this the one about the weaver who lost thirteen sons and six daughters in a series of implausible tragedies? She liked that one. Very gory. A death in each verse, followed by a lament. Sometimes it was refreshing to hear about someone who had suffered worse than you. He sang softly, his voice still a bit rough from sleep but pretty.
She listened for a while as she looked out her window at the stars over the mountain. On the sixth verse, she spoke. “Guine, what do you think Kreya needed my talismans for?”
The harp didn’t cease. Guine knew better than that. “She did not say?”
“She did not.”
“Curious.”
“Not for Kreya,” Zera said. “She always delighted in being cryptic as she ordered us around.” The nightmare, in contrast, had been remarkably unsubtle: her failing to give talismans to her friends and, as a consequence, her friends’ dying horrifically. She didn’t need a dream reader to tell her she felt guilty for not helping Kreya.
“She doesn’t deserve my help,” Zera said.
“She does not,” Guine agreed.
“You weren’t there. You don’t know.”
“I cannot possibly understand,” he agreed again.
Zera shot him a glare across the shadow-laden room. “By the bones, it’s irritating when you do that. You’re allowed to have a mind and produce your own thoughts. You’ll still have those lovely muscles even if you express an opinion.”
His fingertips danced over the harp strings. “And if my opinion differs from yours?”
“I’ll toss you off an aqueduct.” She held up a finger. “No. I will have someone toss you off an aqueduct for me. Perhaps I should hire a servant who specializes in convenient murders. Is that a thing?”
Politely, Guine said, “I believe that’s called an assassin.”
“I am teasing you, you know,” she told him. “In case it’s not clear. When I tire of you, you’ll be set up with your own house on the fourth tier, with servants of your own. No murder servants, though.”
“I hope you’ll never tire of me.”
“That’s unlikely.” Zera patted his bare shoulder. “But it’s good to have hope. Makes for a sunnier disposition.” She resumed staring out at the dark mountains, made darker by the glare of torchlight from the city tiers below. At night, the city glowed brighter than the moon. She couldn’t see the mist-covered valley beyond and below; it was sunken in shadows. “She could be in trouble. Must be, if she needs my talismans.”
“Ask her.”
“She left.” After I kicked her out.
“Then follow her.” He played an arpeggio in a major key.
“Kreya is in hiding.”
“You must know where she is.”
And the truth was, she did.
She was, perhaps, the only one in Vos who knew. A few years after the war, she’d locked herself in her workroom and created tracking talismans, made from the bones of an elite hunting dog. She’d sold most of them for a fortune, but she’d used one herself, to locate Kreya. She had tracked her scent out of Cerre, across several mountains, beyond villages too remote to have ever heard of running water, to a lonely tower, picturesquely perched on a cliff. Zera didn’t know whether Kreya had built the tower herself or inherited it from a hermit who liked clichés and nice views. Zera had stared at that tower for a solid hour, watching Kreya read an old, weathered book by a window. Kreya never saw her, and eventually Zera left. If Kreya was still living in that same tower, then yes, Zera knew where to find her. “What do I say to her?”
“What do you want to say?”
Zera thought she might tire of Guine sooner rather than later.
Guine continued to play, the harp music wafting around the room like a pervasive perfume. “What would give you peace?”
That was at least a more helpful question.
She considered it a moment. “To know Kreya is safe. I wasn’t able to protect her in the war. S
he chose to face Eklor alone. If I can be certain she’s safe now . . .”
“Go then. Give yourself that peace. And then come home to sleep the night through. Or”—he smiled prettily—“do things other than sleep.”
She liked that idea. Very much. Drawing him into her bed, she amused herself and him until dawn spread its lemon fingers through her bedchamber.
Zera’s new coat was the envy of every bone worker in Cerre, or so she believed. Made of the softest lambswool and trimmed with the finest leather, it was embroidered with gold thread that depicted the skeletons of the birds, fish, and animals of Vos. Each gold skeleton had rubies sewn in for eyes. Before leaving to visit Kreya, she filled the pockets with talismans, unsure of what she’d need. She didn’t intend to simply give Kreya unlimited talismans, obviously, but if the situation was dire enough . . . She wanted to be prepared for whatever she’d find.
She gave Guine specific instructions to lie about where she’d gone: to source new material for her talismans, he’d say, and he’d blame her famed eccentricities for the suddenness of her departure.
Walking out onto the balcony, Zera let the glow of the morning sun wash over her. She had no railing on her balcony, despite the fact that the city fell away beneath it. She knew some of the servants would dare one another to venture out onto it, and her guests avoided it completely, but she loved it. There was nothing between her and the sky, between life and death.
Plus it looked so delightfully dramatic when she stood on it.
Stepping to the edge, she spread her arms. The sleeves of her coat draped down like wings. Catching the sunlight, the gold and rubies sparkled. In her left hand, she held a talisman made from a bird bone. She imagined the men and women on the lower tiers watching her, silhouetted against the sky.
She called out the activation word: “Renari!”
And then she leaped from the balcony.
Wind rushed against her, and the talisman of flight lifted her. Zera felt the current buoy her up, and she laughed out loud. There was no rush like flying! I should get out more often, she thought.
Arms spread wide, she breathed in the air: fresh, clean, empty of all the scents that clung to her palace. She felt the sun warm her back, even as the wind chilled her skin. Her sleeves were puffed with air, and the fabric of her pants fluttered around her legs. Below her, the city of Cerre glistened in the early morning sun, and she saw people beginning to bustle in the streets. From this high, they looked like dolls.
She flew, with swallows swooping around her. “Hello, fellow citizens of the sky!”
Her words were lost in the wind, but that didn’t matter since birds couldn’t speak.
Angling herself, Zera soared over the gap between mountains. She aimed for a cable car that was trundling up the next mountain. Wind pushed her from side to side, but she steadied out. Using her sleeves to slow herself, she landed on top of the cable car.
She hit hard, and the car rocked beneath her from the impact. Inside, the passengers screamed. “Apologies!” she called to them. “But if you could have seen that from outside, you’d have been impressed.”
Lounging against the mechanism that held the cable car to the wire, she tossed the flight bones over the edge. They were spent. The talismans could handle decent jaunts, but they had limitations, such as durability and lift. Technically, they were more “glide” than “flight”—she hadn’t succeeded in creating talismans that could fully overcome the density of a human body—but so far, none of her customers had reported any fatal splats, so she counted them as a success.
From another pocket, she withdrew a sticky cinnamon pastry, wrapped in paper. She ate, licking her fingers and enjoying the ride up the mountain. She even had a nice view of the valley mist below, swirling ominously as usual. Luckily, her path wouldn’t take her anywhere near that morass.
At the docking station, Zera climbed down the ladder and was helped off by a nice-looking young man in a sleeveless shirt. She thanked him and then signed autographs for the passengers as they disembarked. One little girl wanted to touch Zera’s cheek, which was charming. She requested soap and water after the girl and her family had departed.
Her duty to the public complete, Zera waltzed back to the sleeveless handsome boy, dropped a pouch of coins into his hand, and bought his mountain horse.
It was named Rock, the boy told her.
She renamed it Merridia, because it sounded nicer.
Only distantly related to the horses who raced through pastures at lower altitudes, mountain horses were stocky, with thick, fluffy fur to protect them from the wind and snow, and surprisingly nimble. She didn’t even have to use a talisman for steadiness on Merridia. “You’re a good girl. Or boy.” Twisting in the saddle, Zera tried to check, but the horse’s fur blocked her view.
The horse snorted until she pulled herself back up.
“You’re a fussy one.” She decided that meant it was a boy.
Using a bit of a speed talisman, Zera urged the horse to move faster. Unlike bones carved by a bone maker, a bone wizard’s creations couldn’t animate any kind of inanimate transportation, but her talismans could imbue living things with particular properties. Her enhanced mount galloped over the road that wound around the mountain. Soon, she passed the passengers from the cable car. She sat up straighter as they gasped and pointed, amazed at her speed. She was glad she’d left her multicolored hair loose so it could stream dramatically behind her. They’d return home with a tale to tell.
Soon, though, she had to slow, as her route took her away from the civilized, stone-lined road and into the thick pine forest. Birds sang out from the trees, and Zera whistled back at them. She wasn’t meant to be out on her own, with no one to talk to or to entertain her. She wished she’d brought along Guine or one of the others.
The problem with being alone was that it gave you time to think.
And worry. And regret. And experience all those other inconvenient emotions.
But she muddled through, and thanks to a judicious use of talismans on Merridia, Zera reached the tower by late afternoon. She hitched the horse to a tree, dismounted, and rubbed her thighs, which were unaccustomed to this much travel. Perhaps she should have taken a more leisurely approach. “Enjoy the grass,” she told Merridia. “I’ll ask Kreya for a bucket of water. She might even have grain or oats, but I wouldn’t hold your breath for that. Looks like she’s embraced a more austere aesthetic.”
Looking up at the tower, Zera realized it was decidedly more shabby than the last time she’d checked on her old friend. Moss grew over the stones, and grasses were knee-high around the path to the door. Inside it was dark, though that could have been only because it was so sunny outside. She hoped Kreya was home.
Scooping up the hem of her coat so it didn’t drag in the dirt, Zera climbed the steps to the door. She searched for a bell or a door knocker or anything to signal her arrival. Has Kreya ever had a visitor?
Making a fist, she knocked.
It barely made a sound on the massive door.
“Kreya? Oh, Krrrreyaaaaa?” She sang the name. “Darling, I’ve traveled a long way to see you, and I would like some tea for me and some water for my horse. Or vice versa.”
The tower was silent.
“I know our last conversation didn’t go as either of us imagined a reunion would go,” Zera said. “For my part, I apologize. I could have come visit you sooner as well.”
Still, nothing.
“Are you here?”
Perhaps she’d moved.
Or Zera could have beaten her home. She had taken a rather direct route.
She tried the door. It creaked and clanked, and, to Zera’s surprise, swung open. Stepping forward, she peered in. The lock mechanism swung free, barely held by one screw. Whatever Kreya had been up to, it hadn’t been home repair projects. Or security. “Helloooo? Kreya?”
Her voice echoed up the dank stairwell. It was a toss-up which was thicker: the shadows or the cobwebs. As Zera stepped ins
ide, she tried not to touch anything. She noticed a hatchlike door, presumably to a cellar, as well as a door to a shadow-laden bathroom. She was distinctly disinterested in viewing how clean or unclean it was. Lifting the hem of her coat, she climbed up the stairs.
One turn up, she shrieked.
A spiderlike creature made of metal, cloth, and bone was scrubbing one of the steps. She stopped shrieking when she realized it wasn’t attacking or even trying to move off its beloved step. She wondered if it could move. It had worn through the stone so badly that the step was more bowl than stair.
As Zera carefully stepped around, it paused and “looked” up at her. It had no eyes, but it twisted its body so its empty metal eye sockets pointed toward her.
“You’re doing a fabulous job,” she told it.
It purred and kept scrubbing.
Exhaling, she tiptoed past it. All right, so Kreya had made a cleaning construct that had malfunctioned and had just left it there for possibly a decade. That didn’t mean her friend—Ex-friend, Zera corrected herself—was in mortal danger.
That construct was a prime example of why she preferred being a bone wizard to being a bone maker. The power in her talismans was temporary, burning itself out in a few beautiful and pure minutes of glory or, if she was bragging about her skills, hours of use. But a construct made by a bone maker could linger creepily for years before it eventually wore down. Unnatural things.
She was huffing by the time she reached the next level. It was stifling inside the stairwell, and it stank like three-day-old fish left out on the table. She felt the stench and the dust and grime seeping into her skin. When I get back home, I’m taking a bath that lasts for three days, she promised herself.
Which better be sooner rather than later.
“Kreya?” she called as she pushed against the door and poked her head in.
Zera expected more darkness and grime, but this room was light and airy and surprisingly clean. It had high rafters, plus several windows with open shutters that let the sunlight stream in. A canopied bed in the center was piled with linens.
The Bone Maker Page 5