The Temple of Heart and Bone

by Evren, S. K.

  The heightened tension passed quickly once the bread had been exchanged and the two parties returned to their own territory. Once back, both realized that nothing evil or painful had happened, and both felt slightly more confident. Drothspar looked at the bread in his fingers. It was soggy. He looked again at Chance, and she moved her hand to her mouth and nodded her head, trying to let him know it was okay to eat.

  Squaring his shoulders and looking straight at her, he opened his mouth and inserted the bread. It caught slightly on his front teeth, but when he separated them to try and get a better bite, the bread fell through the bottom of his jaw. He looked quickly at Chance and noticed her eyes widen as the bread hit the floor.

  “Well,” she asked, “could you taste it?”

  Drothspar shook his head and wrote “no” on the floor. He picked up the piece of bread and moved to give it back to Chance.

  “That’s okay,” she waved him off, “you go ahead and keep it. I’ve got more.” She smiled weakly and Drothspar kept the bread. He couldn’t really blame her.

  “It seems like you’ve got about three and a half or so senses out of five. Touch doesn’t seem to be working entirely, so we’ll call that the half. That’s not too bad, all things considered. What happens when you try to talk?”

  Drothspar opened his mouth to speak a few times only to hear his own teeth clatter against one another. “Nothing,” he wrote on the floor. Chance watched his attempt at speech and was reminded of the marionette puppets she had seen as a child. It was eerie, she thought to herself, but no more so than anything else about this encounter. She had dozens of questions about the creature before her, if it even qualified as a creature. There were so many questions that she hadn’t sorted out the next one before he wrote something else on the floor.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  She was taken slightly aback by the question. She’d been asking so many questions herself, she wasn’t really prepared to answer one. She thought about the situation. She was in a dead man’s home, and he was here, before her, asking why. It wasn’t really the kind of question you could ignore. She sighed.

  “It’s a pretty long story,” she replied, “are you sure you want to hear it?” Her voice carried a pleading tone, bearing the hopes that he might wave off his question. He nodded his head, however, letting her know that he was sure. Of course he was, she thought to herself, I’ve invaded his home. She sighed and considered the best way to explain her situation to the stranger across from her.

  “All right then,” she told him, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She smiled at him ingratiatingly, trying one last attempt at charm. The skeleton sat quietly in its robe, devoid of all expression. He’d make a great gambler, she thought to herself.

  “I come from a wealthy, noble family. My family is very old and very structured in its traditions. I sometimes think that my parents had my life plotted out a year before I was born.” She paused, waiting for a response to what she had felt was a joke. No response came, at least none that she could see, so she continued.

  “I used to say that to people as sort of a joke, but as I got older, it didn’t seem very funny anymore. As I grew older, boys and I began to notice each other and my father sent me off to school in the North. He had attended the very same school himself, as had my mother. I’m fairly certain they didn’t meet there, though.” She smiled wryly to herself, again responding to some personal joke. She looked at Drothspar to see if he’d react, slightly disappointed that he didn’t.

  “I spent four years attending lectures and classes and then returned home. I was a different person when I came home, four years older, certainly. I was sixteen years old when I went to school, just a girl, really. I came home as a twenty year-old woman. I guess my father didn’t realize that the education he’d planned for me might not coincide with his plans for my life.

  “About six months after I got home, my father called me into his study. His study was his sanctum all throughout my life. I was never allowed in there.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I snuck in there once, when I was about nine. I earned a moderate lashing and a month without sweets for my transgression.” She leaned back and continued in a normal tone of voice. “The lashing was quick and the pain didn’t last that long. The month without sweets was a nightmare,” she smiled.

  “I was pretty nervous about being asked into his study. I began to wonder what punishment I’d earn this time. Thinking about it now, I guess I wasn’t too far off the mark, as the saying goes. My father congratulated me on my graduation. He told me he was very proud of me. He said I’d become a fine young woman. He also told me I would soon be meeting my husband.

  “I was,” she paused, searching for the correct term, “surprised.” The tone of her voice indicated that she was being somewhat reserved in her choice of phrasing. “Certainly, in my life and my education, my father had been preparing me for this ‘momentous’ occasion. I smiled at him. I thanked him. I left the study feeling far worse than I had when I was nine.

  “A month and a half later, I had the distinct displeasure of meeting my would-be husband. He was intolerable. He was rich enough, I suppose, even handsome. His manners were appalling, to say the least, and he thought himself overly clever. He told me what our lives would be like, drawing me a quick sketch of our life together. Like my father, he had it all planned out.

  “As politely as I could, I excused myself, having come down with a terrible headache. Leaving the room, I heard my father play off my exit as ‘a young girl’s nerves on meeting so fine a young man.’ I could hear the veiled displeasure in his voice. While the men continued to drink to our health and their heirs, I packed.” She paused for a moment, noticing the rain streaking down the walls around the windows. She gazed off into the distance, looking for the trail that had led her to this explanation.

  “I bundled up a few things in this shoulder bag, wrapped myself in the biggest, darkest cloak I had, and slipped out of the house. I could still hear the crystal clink of their glasses as I closed the door on my family.

  “Getting out of the house was one thing. That had been pretty easy, actually. The problem was finding someplace to go. I took a room in the city for the night, asking to be awakened before dawn. I knew I’d have to be away from the city before my father got up and found that I was missing. Whatever I might think of my father’s plans, he’s actually a very intelligent man,” she explained. “Once he found out I was gone, I knew he’d turn out the family’s retainers, even the soldiers in our own regiments to search every inch of the city.

  “The innkeeper’s wife woke me about an hour before sunrise. I paid her quickly for the room and a little food for the road. I bought myself a seat on a carriage headed south and rolled out of town before the light of the sun cleared the horizon. For the moment, I was one step ahead.

  “While we were driving to Arlethord, I tried to make some plans of my own. Getting away was one thing, staying ahead of my father would be something else entirely. At first, I hoped he might assume I would turn north toward school and my friends there. I dashed the hope almost as soon as I felt it. I had to plan as if he were right on my heels. He would have no qualms about dragging me back to my ‘fiancé’ kicking and screaming.

  “Help from my family was out of the question. Aunts, uncles, and cousins would never stand up to my father on my behalf. They’d sell me out in a heartbeat, knowing that they would not only avert my father’s wrath, but probably gain a fat, greasy reward out of the deal as well. I didn’t really know anyone in the capital, a few friends from school, but I had no idea where they actually lived. Even if I could have found them, there was no way I could be sure where their loyalties might lie. I began to get a bit more nervous as we neared the city-gates.

  “Once I was in the city itself, I wrapped myself in my cloak and decided to visit the market square. I needed to walk, to clear my mind. The merchants hawking their goods actually clamored over my ability to t
hink. They were just so loud. I wandered almost in a daze, just looking for some way out of the marketplace. Then the church bells rang, and they were so near that they even drowned out the shouting merchants.

  “The bells must have snapped my wits back into order, because I remembered the one family member who might not turn me over to my father. Petreus. He’s a distant relative, a cousin of my father’s to some greater or lesser degree. He was occasionally invited to family gatherings, though most of the family didn’t really care if he had been invited or not. Truth be told,” she said, smiling, “he didn’t much care either. The family didn’t concern themselves with him because he was not of financial substance. I suppose he didn’t care much for the way they chose money over blood.

  “I walked straight to the church and got myself admitted to see Petreus. We had a few drinks and talked. When Petreus did attend family gatherings, very often the two of us would wander away from the mingling crowds and talk about all kinds of things. When I started school, we started debating my lessons in religion and philosophy. When I was old enough, he let me have a few drinks with him. I think it was because I lost more arguments after I’d been drinking,” she said seriously. “Either way, it was fun.

  “I told Petreus what my father had planned for me and what I thought about it. He was a bit taken aback by my language, but he agreed to help me. I told him I needed someplace to get away from all the eyes that would be looking for me. He told me about a little cottage in the woods, one that had been abandoned quite some time ago. He told me that I might find a vagrant squirrel living there, or maybe a restless spirit…” She paused for a moment looking at Drothspar. “He said I might find a restless spirit, but if I did, it would probably be a nice one. I was certain that he was just joking. I told him that I didn’t believe in spirits. That set off another one of our ‘discussions,’ and then I left. He gave me the directions to get here—otherwise I’d never have found this place.”

  Drothspar looked at her then leaned forward to write her a question.

  “Spirit?”

  “I honestly think he was joking, just trying to tell me a little ghost story. I mean, I don’t think he knew you were here.” She thought for a moment. “He did seem to know an awful lot about the place, and his directions on how to get here were amazingly detailed.”

  Drothspar nodded.

  “Do you know him?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he wrote. “He performed my marriage.”

  “He told me that the cottage had belonged to a nice couple. He said that they were very loving, but also unlucky. He told me your names, and,” she thought about the best way to phrase her next statement, “your falling out with the Church.”

  Drothspar nodded. “What else about us?” he wrote.

  “Not too much, really. He told me that you and your wife were, as he called you, ‘a magical couple.’ He said you were both and together ‘beautiful creatures of body and soul, damn me if they’re not,’ and he took a long drink in their, well, your honor. He also said you’d had some difficult times with your love, not with each other, but with the, how did he say it, ‘jealous jackal-pigs’ of this world and the ‘damned Fallen filth’ of the other. He made a sign to ward off evil and had another drink to make sure it stayed.”

  “What else?”

  “After he’d had enough to drink, he started telling me how much he had loved you both. He talked about how beautiful your wife had been, and how she’d have been ‘a damn-better priest than most of the rabble serpents that befoul the church with their scum-licking tongues.’ He’s very excitable when he’s drunk.” She smiled.

  Drothspar nodded briefly, acknowledging her statement but obviously looking for something more. After a moment of consideration, he wrote again.

  “What about death?”

  “He didn’t tell me what had happened to you, only that the cottage had been abandoned since shortly after the invasion.” She paused, trying to remember what she could of her conversation with the priest. “He told me he knew of a good, secluded place, one that had been a ‘focus of love and goodness.’ His eyes rose right toward heaven as he said it, as if he’d been testifying before the Maker of All. It was as if he’d sobered up for a second, then fell from a happy, occasionally bitter, drunk to a very sad one. When he looked back down at me, his eyes were watering, but he just blustered all the more to cover it. He said it was a shame for the place to go unoccupied for all this time, that there was the lake nearby, and that I could even fish for my dinner if I was so inclined. Which, he said, was a good thing, because the farm where they’d gotten their food fell under ‘the flaming sword.’” She blinked for a moment, remembering that this haunting presence was one of the couple that had made up “they.” She went on with her story, trying to reconcile with the reality of the moment.

  “He wasn’t wrong about the farm, either. I tried to take shelter there when the storm first hit. It was a nightmare. The people there must have been tortured before they were allowed to die. There were bones and skeletons everywhere.” She looked directly at him, “they didn’t move, though, not like you.” She turned around and looked at the door and the blood-stained floor. “That’s why I didn’t really think too much about your bones on the floor.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully.

  “I’m not really all that blasé about death,” she said, trying to explain, “It’s just that when I was at the farm, I’d seen how some of those people had died. It was dark, and it felt like I wasn’t alone. I thought to myself, ‘there’s no such thing as spirits,’ which seems pretty foolish in present company. In the end, I ran out of there as if all the Fallen were hot on my heels. I tried to gather myself together as I came the rest of the way here. When I saw your body on the floor, you were in some light and right out in the open. You seemed to have all your pieces, and except for the blood, there didn’t seem to be any real sign of your death.”

  “Not my blood,” he wrote.

  “What?”

  “I did not die here,” he explained.

  “If it’s not your blood,” she asked, “whose blood is it?”

  “Don’t know,” he answered.

  “Um,” she started awkwardly, “where’s your wife?” She looked around the room suddenly, wondering if someone, or something, might be hiding. “Do you know?”

  “No,” he wrote, “do you?” His hollow skull focused directly on her face.

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. Petreus didn’t say what had happened to you. Once he’d gotten drunk, he just kept telling me what great people you were… are. He drank a little more than his usual that night, finally falling asleep, snoring, in his room. You know, now that I think about it, I’d never seen him drink that much, not even when he’d challenge me to keep up with him.” She pursed her lips in thought. “He might know more about you. I was only looking for a place to hide, I wasn’t really asking about you.”

  Drothspar nodded. He looked out the window at the dimming light. The rain was still falling, but it was not as heavy as it had been before. He reasoned that the darkness was probably evening coming. He wasn’t tired, but he had much to think about. He looked at Chance and noticed the darkness under her eyes. Remembering what she’d said about the farm, he realized she probably hadn’t slept at all the night before.

  “You’re tired,” he wrote.

  “No, no,” she answered, stifling a yawn. He could sense the fear in her. How could she sleep with a dead man staring at her?

  “Could you sleep if I left?” he asked.

  “Where would you go?” Her voice mixed fear and concern. Her mind wrestled with the ideas of a skeleton stalking outside the door and having him leave completely.

  “Farm,” he wrote.

  “Alone?! Now, in the dark, at night?” Her memories of the farm raised the pitch of her voice. “Do you know what’s out there?” she asked exasperatedly.

  He tilted his head slightly, gesturing with his hands. He pushed them, palm outwards and fingers down. Looking
at him, she realized he could be asking her to trust him, or just displaying the bare bones of his hands.

  “Well,” she said, unconvinced, “can I have my dagger back?”

  Drothspar got up and walked across the room. He picked up the dagger by the blade and walked over to Chance. He knelt on the floor close to her, extending the dagger’s handle toward her. She looked uncertain for a moment. Fear and trust flickered in the set of her eyes. Slowly, as if she were offering her hand to a strange dog for the first time, she reached for the dagger. As she took the handle, Drothspar opened his hand, and she pulled the weapon away. She looked at Drothspar’s skull. Her eyes, he thought, were searching for expression where none could be. He thought he could detect a little more trust in them as they looked, though, and that was something.

  “The tip is bent,” she said, trying to fill in the silence.

  Drothspar nodded his agreement.

  “I guess I hit you pretty hard.”

  “It’s okay,” he wrote, picking up his burned stick once more. “No pain for me.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t hurt you,” she offered.

  “I’m going to go now,” he replied. “Will you be okay?”

  “Are you coming back?” she asked.

  “I am not sure.”

  “If you do,” she said, “could you wait outside until I wake up? I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I’d be able to handle waking up and staring at a skull.” She blushed. “That sounds terrible, I’m sorry, this is your home.”

  “It’s all right,” he wrote. “If I come back, I will wait outside. I’d be scared, too.”

  “Thank you,” she said gratefully.

  “Get some sleep,” he replied, “and thank you.”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For not running, not being afraid.”

  “I’m very afraid,” she smiled weakly, “and I’m already running. I just don’t know what else to do.”