The Bone Maker

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Behind her, she heard Amurra ask, “She’s going to have him read? But he needs to rest!”

  “Trust Kreya. She knows what she’s doing.”

  Kreya wasn’t certain that was true, but she appreciated the confidence. She found Jentt sitting beside Marso, who looked more alert than she’d seen him these last few days. She hoped she wasn’t pushing him too hard too fast. She knew she had a tendency to do that, and it didn’t always work out well. But she didn’t stop.

  Dropping the towel with the bones into Marso’s lap, she stepped back.

  Jentt looked up at her. “Are you sure?”

  No, she thought.

  “Yes,” she said.

  If he read what she thought he’d read . . . It will change the world. But that wasn’t precisely correct, because if he read what she thought he’d read, he’d be seeing that the world was already very, very different from what everyone believed. Reading about danger wouldn’t create the danger; it would just make it so they couldn’t ignore it.

  “You can do it, Marso,” she said.

  He hesitated, then picked up one of the bones and spun it between his fingertips.

  When he was six years old, Marso read his first bone. A chicken bone. He’d been playing in the backyard with three of his friends. He couldn’t remember now what their names had been, but he remembered one always had a smudge of dirt on his nose, as if he applied it every morning as an identifying mark. They’d been pretending to be bone workers. One friend had been the bone maker and had created a teetering structure of sticks he claimed was a water pump, despite the fact that it had zero of the features of an actual water pump. Another friend had played the bone wizard, claiming that he’d carved the chicken’s skull into a talisman that would grant him super strength—it hadn’t. And Marso was supposed to be the bone reader.

  He’d seen a real bone reader in the market, offering readings for young men and women anxious about their future, or older men and women anxious about their past. His parents had forbidden him from lingering around the bone reader’s tent, saying it did no good to know what ordinary people weren’t meant to know, but he kept being drawn back, and his parents were distracted anyway, selling their dyed wool at their stall. He’d told them he wanted to watch the puppet show, and they’d given him a coin to spend on pies.

  That day, he’d given up the pie—an unusual choice for a child his age in a market that tempting—and instead brought it clutched in his fist to the bone reader. “Will you read my future?” he asked, offering the now-sweaty coin.

  The bone reader had taken the coin, tossed the bones, and said, “Prynato.”

  “What does that mean?” he’d asked breathlessly.

  “Reveal,” the bone reader answered. “Come to the bones with an open heart and ask them to reveal secrets, and—if you are open enough—they will.” To the bones: “Show the boy’s future.”

  A mist rose from the bones, swirling above them. He’d expected to see faces inside the mist or, well, he didn’t know what. All he saw within the mist . . . was more mist.

  “What do the bones reveal for me?” little Marso had asked. He liked the word “reveal.” It felt magical in his mouth. “Prynato.” He angled himself to see the bones beneath the mist, fascinated by the carvings on them, memorizing all the ones he could see.

  The bone reader peered into the mist and then down at the bones. Scowled at them. Scowled at Marso. Flipped the coin back at him. “Read them yourself if you want to know so badly.”

  At home, he’d drawn on the chicken bone and tossed it out onto the yard, saying, “Prynato!” with as much pomp and gravitas as a six-year-old could manage. He then stared at the bone. And stared and stared.

  And saw nothing. No mist. No answers.

  His friends laughed and kept playing.

  But later, after dinner, he came out to look again. This time, he hadn’t come with any grand expectation. He’d come because he was curious. And in a wisp of cloud that swirled above the bone, he saw an image within the mist and simultaneously within his mind: a golden wheel. And with the image came the sense of soon. And journey. And sickness.

  Two hours later, a cart with golden wheels pulled up to their door and handed his father a letter saying that Marso’s grandfather was ill and the whole family had to come quickly. Marso was already packed and ready.

  After that, he never doubted that he would become a bone reader. He won his apprenticeship with the guild easily, once he was old enough, and he advanced quickly to journeyman. He wasn’t surprised either when Kreya chose him for her quest—he had foreseen that in the bones.

  His was a rare gift. While most bone readers saw a sliver of the future or the past of whoever posed a question—and an imperfect sliver at that—Marso could cast his mind farther and wider. He didn’t require the subject of his question to be present. The bones showed him hints of possible futures of whomever he wished, as well as the certain present. They answered questions, sometimes directly, often obliquely. But they always revealed truth, if not precise fact. He became adept at interpreting the images in the mist.

  The truth spoke to him, he said.

  It was he who identified the danger when other bone readers began to be murdered one by one. It was he who pinpointed the cause of the killings: constructs made by the bone maker Master Eklor. And it was he who predicted the location of the final battle.

  He never doubted himself, and that was one of the things that made him the most powerful bone reader in generations—his unshakable belief that the bones would unfold the meaning of their images and patterns to him. Until they didn’t. Until Jentt died and he hadn’t seen it. Until that moment, he’d never imagined it was possible for him to fail his friends. But he had, and after the war, when they were all lauded as heroes, he knew he was secretly a fraud.

  He quit trusting his readings.

  Especially when every bone he cast gave the same terrible reading, no matter what question he asked, no matter how hard he tried to clear his mind and focus on something else, anything else.

  And sometimes the bones would even speak to him when he hadn’t thrown them, the mist forming only within his mind, which was why the only relief he’d found in recent years was in Ocrae, where the hideous noise of the city drowned out the relentless warnings in his head.

  His mind felt too cloudy now to be open to a reading. He wanted to tell Kreya that, but she was looking at him again the same way she always did, as if she trusted him absolutely. How could she, when he’d failed her so badly, when his mistake had cost her Jentt?

  Except Jentt was here, not lost. And Marso didn’t understand that at all. He’d seen him fall. Seen him die. He knew it was no nightmare, even though he’d relived that moment night after night for months after.

  Nothing made sense—nothing but the fact that Kreya was asking him to do something. And even though he didn’t want to—wasn’t even sure he could—he knew he had to try.

  “Mint tea?” he requested.

  If he could clear his head, he might be able to understand.

  He felt a mug in his hands, though he hadn’t thought enough time had passed for water to boil and tea to steep. Lately, he had been losing moments. He knew why, of course.

  “Might not work,” Marso said. In fact, it shouldn’t. As confidently as Kreya looked at him, her faith in him couldn’t fix a broken brain. “Broke myself.”

  “I told you,” Kreya began. “You—”

  “Read so much I broke myself. On purpose.” She needs to know that, he thought. So she wouldn’t be disappointed when he failed. He’d tried to drive the voices out of his head by allowing them all inside at once. The psychic equivalent of blowing out one’s eardrums. It had mostly worked. And for the ones that still persisted, he’d drowned out the worst of them with the sound of the fountain.

  He’d liked that fountain.

  Nice trickle, trickle.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Marso, you still with us, my friend?” Stran a
sked.

  “You’re a father,” Marso said. He’d seen that sometime, a long time ago. Stran liked to take care of people. That was one truth he was happy he’d seen. “Four children.”

  “Three, but yes, I am,” Stran said. “You met my kids when you came in, though you weren’t quite alert. You can meet them again in the morning.”

  Marso looked down at his hands and wondered why he was holding a bone. He didn’t want to be holding one. He flung it across the room. And then his hands felt empty and sad. “I’m sorry,” he said to his hands.

  “Read it,” Kreya said quietly.

  He looked up, surprised.

  “Just try,” Jentt told him.

  “You don’t have to,” Stran put in. “If it’s too much—”

  “Read it,” Kreya said.

  “Prynato,” Marso said. And across the room, the bone vibrated and spun. Mist arose, like smoke from a just-lit fire. He closed his eyes and continued to see the spinning. He knew how it was done. Open yourself. And the bone would reveal an answer. But to what question? He couldn’t focus his mind to ask. It was so difficult to hold on to where he was, what was happening, even who he was.

  But Kreya asked for him, the one question he never wanted to ask yet was always asking:

  “Is Eklor alive?”

  The bone showed him, both within the mist that had risen above the bone and within the mist in his mind, and he was screaming again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Joining the others for breakfast in the morning, Zera was wholly unsurprised to hear Kreya confirm that Eklor had appeared in the mist of Marso’s reading. She was also unsurprised to hear Stran deny that it meant what they thought it meant. Readings were subject to interpretation, which was why you needed a fully functioning bone reader who could feel the intent of the bones as well as see the image. Without that, it wasn’t proof of anything. They could have seen the past, Stran said. Not the present. Certainly not the future.

  Waving Stran’s objections aside, Zera told the others, “I need to take care of a few things at home if we’re going to go off and save the world again.”

  Stran frowned at her, and she smiled sunnily back at him. He was spoon-feeding mashed peas to little Nugget, and the baby used his moment of inattention to grab the spoon and catapult the green mush onto the floor. They were all having breakfast in the kitchen, while Marso tried to sleep for more than five seconds at a time in the other room. Cleaning up the mush, Stran said, “We don’t need to save the world again. It’s already saved. Eklor is dead. Marso . . . He’s caught in the past. That’s why the reading showed what it did. He needs to let go and move on.”

  “There’s no moving on while Eklor lives,” Kreya said. She’d chewed her way through her breakfast as if it had personally wronged her. She was a bit on edge.

  “Might live,” Jentt said, correcting her.

  Kreya shot him a hard look, and Zera resisted laughing. Didn’t he know better than to contradict his wife when she’d obviously made her decision? Really, Zera thought, was there ever any question about what we’re going to do? If she was being honest with herself, which she tried not to do as a general rule, she’d known since the moment she’d heard that laugh.

  Jentt threw up his hands in surrender. “I’m only saying it’s not solid proof. There’s a possibility that Marso is not in the best state for interpreting a reading accurately.”

  “Exactly,” Stran said. “Kreya, you know I would follow you through fire—”

  “Then follow me to the forbidden zone!”

  Stran began, “Grand Master Lorn—”

  Stopping him, Zera said, “Work it out without me, people. I’ll be back soon.” She showed off two new talismans she’d made, from the bones of a rabbit, as proof she’d be quick, and then she breezed out the door before she had to listen to any more of their argument. She knew Kreya well enough to know that her old friend didn’t have any intention of involving Grand Master Lorn. She wanted to take care of the problem herself. If Eklor lived, there was no way that Kreya would be content to leave him in that condition.

  And that’s fine with me, Zera thought. But if we’re going to have a chance of succeeding, we’re going to need a lot more talismans. She could help with that—but couldn’t do it here. She needed access to her stockpile.

  Outside, only a few yards from the farmhouse, Zera was intercepted by Kreya, of course, who could never just let someone do what she hadn’t planned for them to do. Blocking the trail, she asked, “Are you coming back?”

  “Of course, darling. I’d miss you too much to be gone long!” She beamed at Kreya, telling herself she wasn’t really hurt that her old friend didn’t trust her. It was understandable for Kreya to be paranoid. “Just need to pop on home for a few additional supplies, and then I’ll pop back before you even have a chance to coax Marso into some more mint tea.”

  “You’re lying to me,” Kreya said. Annoyingly.

  “I will come back.” Zera meant it. Naturally, she was going to rejoin the team and see this through. She couldn’t simply forget the fact that she knew Eklor was alive and her greatest achievement was, in fact, un-achieved. She was going to return and by then all the unpleasant arguing would be over. Kreya would have bullied the boys into accepting whatever plan she thought was reasonable, and Zera would swoop in to provide whatever support was needed, without having to deal with all the tedious angsting nonsense.

  Kreya was studying her, and it was disconcerting. “You mean to, but will you?”

  Ouch. This time it was impossible to pretend it didn’t hurt. She’d gone into the forbidden zone with her. Didn’t that mean anything? “You have so little faith in me.”

  Glaring at Kreya, Zera met her gaze with the same intensity. It was strange to see a mix of who her old friend was and who she’d become, combined in the creases around her eyes and mouth. She wondered if Kreya still considered them a team. “You used to believe in me,” Zera said. “When no one else did, you were the one who had faith in me. What happened to that trust?”

  “I still trust you,” Kreya said. “I just think you’re lying to yourself.”

  “Well, fuck you then.” How dare she? After everything they’d been through together . . . after everything they’d just gone through . . . How can she not trust me?

  “This is more than you ever bargained for,” Kreya said. “More than you should have to face. You have your life now. I won’t blame you if you want to live it.”

  Oh, really? She was couching this distrust as being understanding? Zera clenched her fists, unclenched them, and smiled sweetly. “It doesn’t matter how little you think of me. I’ll see you soon.” She waved her new speed talisman at Kreya. She knew several shortcuts to Cerre, especially traveling alone and without heavy supplies and weaponry.

  “I hope so,” Kreya said.

  “Then you do want me to come back! Go on, you can say it.” As much as she tried to disguise it, even Zera heard the anger in her own voice.

  To Zera’s shock, Kreya didn’t hesitate. “I want you to come back.”

  For a moment, they stared at one another, and then Zera flashed another fake smile at her, wiggled her fingers in a wave, and activated the speed talisman. She felt Kreya’s eyes on her as she zipped away from the farmhouse and sped across the terraced farmlands. She even felt her eyes still on her after she was long out of view.

  By the time she reached Cerre, though, Zera had half-convinced herself she felt pity for her old friend, not hurt. I feel sorry for Kreya, she thought. I truly do. Unable to trust . . . that’s an unpleasant way to live. She passed quickly through the gates to the fifth tier and announced her presence before entering her mansion. Her people wouldn’t have let it fall into disarray in her absence, she was certain, but she wanted to ensure a proper welcome.

  She wasn’t disappointed.

  As she approached, lifted on a cloudlike mechanism, the doors of her palace flew open. Shirtless, with all his muscles on display, Guine filled the
doorway. “Everyone, she’s returned!”

  Six or seven of her dearest friends—if she used a loose definition of the word “friend” . . . and “dearest”—poured out with him into her statue garden. They swarmed around her, weaving and cooing, and she guessed that they were all quite inebriated, even though it was barely noon. She wondered how much of her liquor remained, but luckily that wasn’t the supply closet she needed.

  She greeted each of them, granting them new nicknames when she forgot a few of the ones she’d already given them, before allowing herself to be swept inside and installed by the main fountain. One of the men fetched her fresh fruit and a lemon-flavored drink. Another dabbed her forehead and cheeks with a sponge. She supposed she had gotten warm and dusty from the journey. It felt nice, at any rate. For a few minutes. Zera swatted the girl’s hands away. “Enough.”

  Guine positioned himself next to her with his harp and started to play. The others drifted to their couches and lounged on the pillows. One laughed, a sound like water falling over pebbles. It reminded Zera of the river. She tried to imagine any of these people in the valley. They’d faint dead away at the first roar of a river lizard.

  It’s nice being surrounded by people who don’t put my life in danger, she told herself. She’d chosen this life and these people. Or at least people like them—who they were specifically seemed to revolve every few months.

  “How’s business been the past few days?” she asked Guine. “Any surprises?”

  “Steady growth, as you predicted,” he said, continuing to play a soothing melody. “The flight talismans are popular with those who want a novelty at their events. And the Messenger Guild would like to renew their contract for speed talismans.”

  “Very well. Is the paperwork on my desk?”

  “Ready for you to sign.”

  “I will want to read it first.” She hadn’t become the wealthiest bone wizard in Cerre by skipping the details.

  “Naturally.”

  She’d take care of a few business items first. See to it that she had a proper bath and a full night’s sleep, and then she’d return to Stran’s farmhouse. With luck, they’d be finished arguing by the time she arrived, and she’d have skipped all the tedious hand-wringing. She could already tell that Stran’s wife was going to be a complication, no matter what Kreya decided. Amurra wouldn’t want him to leave and it was clear she was in charge of the household, which was adorable, given that he was about three times her size and could crush a hornet’s nest in one fist and a rock in the other.