Bones of the Past (Arhel)

by Holly Lisle

  The building was empty.

  “These places may not have anything good in them,” Dog Nose said.

  “But there are so many of them. Maybe this is the only bad one.”

  Fat Girl had assigned herself the little buildings because there were more of them than of any other type of construction in the city, and they were all clustered together. She was sure there would be something worth trading in many, if not most, of them.

  “Let’s go on to the next, then.” Dog Nose was already at the entryway. He cast one disgusted look around the inside of the building, and snorted. “I don’t think you should have picked these places, though. I’ll bet the good things are in the buildings you gave to everyone else.”

  Fat Girl shrugged. A dozen buildings later, however, she was ready to admit he was probably right. Every one of the little buildings was plain, and ugly, and empty.

  After the twelfth disappointment, Dog Nose sighed. “We’re wasting our time.”

  Seven-Fingered Fat Girl leaned against the cool, curving outside wall and nodded. “I know. Dog Nose, I don’t think there is anything here to find. Not just here, in these little places, but anywhere in the whole city. No one would leave trade things behind.”

  Dog Nose came over and leaned beside her on the wall. His arm felt warm and comforting against hers, and she pressed closer to his side.

  “You were right to make everyone look,” he said. “We have to at least try to get away from the Silk People. The peknu were kind to us when we carried the Silk People’s trade-packs to them. They gave us a lot of food. I think you had a good idea.”

  He rested his arm lightly across her shoulders, and in spite of his warmth, she shivered. “Even if we find nothing?” She looked up into his face.

  He was staring at her with an expression on his face she didn’t understand. Or perhaps, she thought, she was afraid to understand. He pulled her to his chest and held her and stroked her hair. No one had held her like that her since her mother, on that long-ago Tree-Naming Day. Then, her mother had looked at her so seriously, and hugged her, and stroked her hair—and her mother had cried. Fat Girl, at that time still Aredne, had been confused and a little frightened; her mother, wordless and inexplicably sad. Her father had taken her to the ceremony. She’d never seen her mother again.

  Remembering, Seven-Fingered Fat Girl cried, too.

  Dog Nose backed away and looked worried. “What’s wrong?”

  Fat Girl shrugged and moved back against him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. She saw him smile and felt his body go hard against hers. He shivered and whispered, “Want me to be your remmi?”

  Her breath quickened, and she felt her pulse pound in the veins of her neck. She nodded her head “yes,” but said, “Not yet. We have to go through the jungle to get to the peknu village. The jungle kills remmu tagnu. You’ve seen it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe the remmu just got careless.”

  Fat Girl pulled away from him. “You may be right—but what if we get careless, too? We can be remmu when we’re safe back here and we have the gods’ dirt-trick. With that, we’ll never have to go back to the jungle again. Then if we’re careless, it won’t matter.”

  He looked disappointed, but nodded agreement. “Let’s look through the rest of the buildings, then. If I have to wait until we’re back here for us to be remmu, that means we have to find something to trade.”

  Fat Girl grinned. “Yes. It does. So let’s go.”

  They continued their search—silent with each other in a suddenly awkward way. She watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking, and he turned to catch her eyes on him. Her face burned; she glanced quickly away. She searched the small buildings; felt him watching her; caught him staring. The excitement of being near him, of knowing that she could touch him, even though she didn’t, made the constant swings of hope and frustration as they searched building after empty building bearable.

  Finally, though, Dog Nose threw up his hands in disgust.

  “There’s nothing here. Why don’t we go back to the meeting place and wait for the rest of them? Maybe they found something.”

  “We still have both monster buildings to go through.” Fat Girl twisted the braided rope of her dart pouch between nervous fingers and looked down the hill at the two giant buildings just beneath them. Huge carved-stone monsters crouched in rows on either side of the entryways to both buildings—gape-jawed and many-fanged, with half-furled wings and glaring eyes. From where she stood, the entryways were hidden; both buildings faced away—downhill and north. But the worn, moss-patched monsters were plain to see from where she stood—as they were from almost anywhere in the city.

  When the tagnu had hunted for food, they had crossed the paths of those big stone beasts—once. Once only. By unspoken accord, they had, after that time, always chosen another way to walk from one place to the next, a way that did not carry them in front of the glittering black eyes set into the white stone heads. Those eyes had watched every move the tagnu made—and Seven-Fingered Fat Girl put no stock in the fact that those eyes rested in the bodies of stone beasts. If trees could eat people, so could stone monsters.

  Dog Nose stood beside her and stared down the hill at the monsters, too.

  “There’s probably not anything to trade in either of those buildings,” he said finally.

  “I know,” Fat Girl agreed.

  “The rest of the tagnu have probably had more luck than we had,” he added.

  “I know.” Fat Girl twisted harder at the rope that held her dart pouch. The big winged monsters waited on their stone pillars. They looked very hungry. She wondered if the reason the city was empty was that they had eaten everyone in it.

  “We could say we looked inside,” Dog Nose whispered.

  “I know.”

  They studied each other in long, painful silence.

  Fat Girl took a deep breath. If she wanted Dog Nose, she braved the monsters. There was no other way.

  She wanted Dog Nose.

  She started down the hill. He’d evidently reached the same conclusion an instant before her. He was already working his way down the steep grade. She eased her way down the slope after him.

  The monsters waited. When Fat Girl and Dog Nose reached the the point where the stone path branched off to both the monster buildings, they faced a hundred black, watching eyes—patient, wily, crafty eyes set high on lean, long-muzzled faces that bore a variety of toothy grins.

  Fat Girl swallowed hard. Her mouth was suddenly dry, but the palms of her hands sweated.

  “We could each take one building,” Fat Girl said. “That way we could get done faster.”

  Dog Nose looked at her as if she had eaten white fern and was babbling in the throes of fern-madness. “I don’t think so,” he finally answered.

  She felt relieved. “Which building first, then?”

  He held out a closed fist “Rocks, bones, and roots—winner picks.”

  “Yes. That will work.”

  “Ready?” Dog Nose looked away for an instant, into the flock of grinning stone faces, and cringed visibly.

  Fat Girl held out her own closed fist. “Ready.”

  “Rocks break bones,” they said together.

  “Bones dig roots.

  “Roots crumble rocks—one—two—three!”

  Seven-Fingered Fat Girl held her hand outspread.

  Dog Nose displayed a closed fist. He grinned. “Roots crumble rocks—you win.”

  “Well enough. That one.” She pointed to the larger of the two buildings, the one on her right. Best, she thought to get the worst over with first—it left less to worry about.

  Dog Nose nodded and took her hand. “Fast,” he said in a suddenly low, hoarse voice.

  “Yes,” she agreed, and tensed. “Now!”

  They bolted down the path, between the towering ranks of monsters. Fat Girl imagined she felt the huge beasts’ breath on the back of her neck and ran faster. Dog Nose paced her, neither in front nor b
ehind. The two of them practically flew up the ramp and between the carved stone pillars into the huge, dark interior of the building. As one, they flung themselves against the closest wall and crouched, breathing hard.

  Slowly, Fat Girl’s eyes adjusted to the relative darkness inside. At first, it seemed that she had led the two of them into another entrance to the caves—what appeared to be paths split in front of her in a handful of directions. But as the darkness became less confusing, she realized the paths were rows of huge shelves like the ones that grew inside the trees of the Silk People. But these shelves were stone, carved with strange, twisty designs on the sides and decorated with little slashes and dots along each base. Slabs of some sort rested edge-on from the floor to the ceiling, filling every available nook.

  There were no big monsters inside the building—at least, not that Fat Girl could see from her limited vantage point against the wall.

  “What is this place?” Dog Nose asked.

  Fat Girl laughed. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  Dog Nose shook his head and spread his hands out, palms up.

  “Then let’s see what’s stacked on the shelves.”

  They crept to the nearest shelf, trying to watch in all directions at once, wary of creeping monsters. Fat Girl tugged and struggled with a slab. It came loose suddenly, and she staggered back. It was lighter than she expected, but bulky and awkward—almost as long as her torso, and somewhat wider. The slab was hard as stone, but thin, with a silky texture—smooth and white. When she tapped it with her fingernail, it rang slightly. She held it up to the light that worked its way in from the high, slit openings in the wall. She could see the shadow of her hand through the slab.

  “Take out another one,” she told Dog Nose.

  He worked loose a slab from farther down the line, and held it out to her. She compared the two.

  Both were covered with slashes and dots carved in rows on one side, but the patterns were different. She compared the marks to those carved into the shelves and picked out many that matched.

  She put the slab she held down and wrapped her arms around herself, hugging herself and bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet while a broad grin spread across her face. Her whole body tingled. She wanted to shout, or scream, or run in circles until she got dizzy and fell down.

  “What is it?” Dog Nose asked.

  “It’s something we can trade.” She gave in then to her delight and flung her arms around Dog Nose, and pressed her nose against his scarred one. “We can trade two or three of these for enough food to feed us for a whole winter. And look—there are enough here to last forever. We won’t even need the gods’ dirt-trick.”

  Dog Nose pulled away and stared at her. “Why? Why would anyone give us food for these?”

  She laughed. “I don’t know. But in the market in the peknu village, I saw an old man with a long beard and braids almost down to his feet, who gave a man three bags of grain and a goat for a little square with symbols on it. I asked him what he got and he said it was—” she paused, fishing through her memory, for the right words, “—beck… bhak…” She sighed. “I don’t remember now. But he said it was a thing of great power to those who knew how to use it. He showed the thing to me. It had little marks in rows all over it just like these.” She laughed again. “But it was very small. These are much bigger. We will take some of these to him, and we will make him give us so much food we could feed a whole city full of tagnu.”

  Dog Nose looked at the white slab doubtfully. Then he looked at Fat Girl, and his expression of doubt was replaced by one of trust. “We will carry these things to him, then. Your good fat will make us all fat.” He hugged her, and pressed his nose to hers.

  Her pulse picked up again, but her excitement was no longer because of their wonderful find. She gave in to the urgings of her body, and pressed herself against the boy, and ran her hands over his warm, smooth skin.

  “Let me be your remmi now,” he whispered in her ear.

  She wanted so much to say yes, but she shook her head “no” instead. “When we get back here. When we never have to go near the Keyu again.” She pressed her body hard against him, and added, “Soon.”

  Chapter 3

  MEDWIND shivered and shook herself out of the trance. The vha’attaye were once again nothing but gleaming, lifeless bones. She put down the sho, and carefully blew out the altar candles.

  Noises of cattle and vendors and laughing, shrieking children from outside the compound told Medwind she had been in the b’dabba too long. She felt drained, bled dry—almost as if she would crumble to dust in the first slight breeze. The vha’attaye always left her tired—but this time was worse than usual. She felt they’d tried to suck her life away.

  The Hoos part of her life was falling into ruin—dying. She’d failed her people; the vha’attaye; even her gods, Etyt and Thiena. She’d failed to keep the promises she’d made.

  For a moment, she was twelve again, standing in the darkened sacred place, at the moment of the choosing of her gods. She stood, head high and shoulders thrust back, and to the pale and ghostly presences of the vha’attaye who questioned her, she demanded to present herself to the service of the gods of warriors. And the vha’attaye had accepted her choice and had given her their burden. The onus of Etyt and Thiena, gods of war, whispered by the waking dead, echoed again in the corridors of her memory:

  So say the gods, your gods—

  ‘You, who ask our bounty,

  Wear our mark on you.

  In all things, live large.

  Not one child, but five;

  Not one lover, but ten;

  Not one enemy, but a hundred.

  In battle, wear bones at your waist,

  Drum on the skins of your defeated foes,

  Drink from the skulls of your slain.

  Fuck merrily,

  Fight heartily,

  Never die in bed.

  She thought it more than she could endure, to be abandoned by such jovial gods as those.

  Barren. She looked with loathing at her flat, empty belly. She had to face the fact that she would never have a child. She’d had ten husbands, countless lovers—and never even the hope of a pregnancy. It was time to find another way to satisfy the gods and the vha’attaye, before she lost them both.

  She might be able to pacify the vha’attaye with an alternative. Perhaps Faia would let her train her daughter Kirtha in the Hoos Path. The gods would not accept a child who was not Medwind’s own, but the waking dead might. After all, anyone who could call them would guarantee their immortality. And Kirtha was two years old—more than old enough to meet the waking dead and begin learning the language.

  Medwind went to dress, then walked from her own room to Faia and Kirtha’s.

  The door was open—Faia and Kirtha were already up. Faia sat cross-legged on the woven-rush mats that covered the floor of her main room, her daughter seated on her lap. A basket rested at their side, and a handful of small, round red fruits—shaffra—spilled across the woven reed mats. Faia and Kirtha were concentrating on something Faia held in her hand. The hill-girl looked up when Medwind entered, and the intent expression vanished from her face. She grinned.

  “Hai, Medwind, you will not believe this. Watch Kirtha.”

  She shifted and positioned herself and Kirtha so Medwind could see the fruit the two of them held together. It was bruised, rotted, far beyond edible. The tiny child looked at her mother, waiting. Faia nodded. “Go ahead, Kirthchie. Fix it.”

  The child laughed and closed her eyes, and Medwind felt stirrings of power—subterranean rumbles so tiny, and so like the first terrifying rumblings of an earthquake in both sensation and import that the mage leaned against the nearest wall to keep herself from falling.

  After an instant, Kirtha opened her eyes and reached out for the shaffra, smiling brightly. Her mother handed the fruit to her. It was perfect, unbruised, fresh.

  Two years old, Medwind thought with a barely suppressed sh
udder, and possessed by more magic than most adults will ever have. Precocious—but then I should have expected that. Kirtha is more than her mother’s daughter. She’s the result of the first mage/saje union in over four hundred years. Her mother was the strongest wild talent anyone ever saw. Her father was a promising saje student.

  And magic runs in the blood.

  Medwind closed her eyes, as if doing so could make the situation go away. When she opened them, Faia was watching her with silently laughing eyes.

  “Impressive, do you not think?”

  Medwind bit her lip. “Impressive, agreed. But possibly not well thought out. Have you considered the consequences of teaching her to tap the magical energies when she’s so young? A two-year-old—Faia, she’s as incapable of taking responsibility for her actions as… as… as a cat! What if she decides to ‘fix’ something besides fruit? One of the village children, for instance. Someone who annoys her—”

  Faia waved away Medwind’s objections with a flick of her hand and a lithe shrug, and Medwind’s ire rose. The apparent indifference wasn’t Faia’s entire response, however.

  “I caught her setting fire to the flowers in the garden by looking at them,” the hill-girl said, voice dry and eyebrow arched. “I thought perhaps training was better than no training, under the circumstances. She may have the ethics of a cat—but even a cat can be taught the meaning of ‘no.’ So now I am teaching her the things she is permitted to do with magic.”

  Medwind swallowed hard and felt her mouth go dry. “How did she learn to start fires?”

  Faia’s bemused shrug spoke volumes. “For that matter, how did she learn to make books fly across the room? She saw one of us do something similar and figured it out, I suppose. So long as she has not given the handed cats wings, I will not worry too much.”