A Tree of Bones

by Gemma Files

  Now here she was, a killer herself, by commission as well as omission. A maker of orphans and widows, just like Chess, and Mesach Love, too.

  Was it such a crime, to refuse the place that the world had made for you? And was the price of that refusal, ever after, to never find any other place for yourself at all?

  She still hadn’t found an answer to either question, but then again, pondering them over while stuck on Tse Diyil probably wasn’t helping matters much. Though the sheer age and silence of this place would have been exhausting by themselves, for anyone, from the very moment Yancey had touched the butte’s topsoil, shallow over stone, she’d also known that there was far more to reckon here than simple history. The air atop the upthrust megalith smelled of a lightning strike; when she took off her boots, the rock itself tingled beneath her bare feet, seeming to hum.

  Like Bewelcome, in other words, this too was a thin place — another point on the endless “Crack” in the world that Grandma was always going on about. And even though she now knew just as well as any hex how often things mystical had to be understood more poetically than literally, Yancey had to admit she’d still half-expected it to be some kind of physical chasm, a tangible rift in the earth. It wasn’t until reaching the butte that she’d finally understood the sheer scale of the damage, a winding, miles-wide line of hexacious force which bestrode the land from north to south.

  “Web of the Spider,” Yiska had called it early on, one night around the cookfire. “Warp and woof of Changing Woman’s loom. Bilagaana Rook’s witch city lies on it, as does the salt-man’s Welcome-town reborn, and this place too — even the Mexica capital, that place your red boy wrecked when he first came up. It is all the same.” She’d snorted then, not unkindly, at Yancey’s appalled look. “What, dead-speaker? Did you think our task would be as simple as finding some big rock, and stuffing it into a hole?”

  “. . . no.”

  “Oh yes, you did — you bilagaana all think that way, just as the White Shell Girl’s people think in circles, devious as coyote. But if things were so easy we would not need both of you, nor the Spinner as well.”

  “If it’s all the same, then . . . why here, ’stead of anyplace else?”

  Yiska shrugged. “There has always been much power here, a spiral that hides us from Rainbow Woman’s sight; it should help the little ghost to heal, too, if she ever unstiffens her pretty neck enough to accept the Spinner’s counsel. Just as it helps the Spinner stay . . . in Balance.”

  Was that the exact right sense of the word, though? Yancey’s gift might help her understand much of the Na’isha tongue, but some concepts still eluded her.

  “Besides, here we have long sight and fresh water, game to hunt if we are sparing. And most of all, here it should be easiest to send out the Call,” said Yiska.

  “Call . . . to who?”

  Yiska had only stared steadily at her, not needing to make her thoughts loud, or think at all. Yet “saying,” nevertheless: You know who.

  The Chaco Wash flowed northward within walking distance of the butte’s foot, running unseasonably high and fast. Yancey went to bathe there most mornings, not letting the water’s increasing frigidity as months wore on deter her from her ritual cleansings — and “ritual” was the proper word. They had become a touchstone, a reconnection with the flesh, a grounding, calming process which washed away most — if never all — of the bone-deep weariness of her work.

  For similar reasons, Songbird performed her own set of daily ablutions, though usually much later on and in hiding, with water Yiska brought her. Unused even to dressing without help, she had at first tried to beat her embroidered red satin outfit clean against the cavern walls until it began showing signs of wear and tear, at which point she’d given up, and gone silent and filthy. When Yancey tried to help she’d spat at her, claiming that when she regained the full extent of her magic, she would punish all interfering white ghosts accordingly.

  By mid-July, a month into their stay, the realization she still wasn’t yet strong enough to reweave her outfit from its own decaying components — and didn’t seem likely to recover such strength anytime soon — finally sank Songbird into despair, prompting Yiska to take charge. The war-shamaness began to bring presents, some probably traded for on provision-gathering trips, others made, with painstaking skill: a pair of deerskin breeches and gartered leggings, neatly stitched, to replace her worn-through pyjama-pants; moccasins beaded in red and white, with rawhide soles; even a “squaw-dress” woven on a blanket loom with sides and shoulders laced together, leaving room for armholes and a poncho-style neckline. A full blanket, once added overtop, made for far better shading than Songbird’s original scarlet silk wedding veil — and provided a stylish accoutrement, too, ’specially when fringed with a hundred pierced abalone shell slices that rattled as she walked, announcing her queenly tread.

  At first, the hex-girl greeted these overtures with grumbling, sarcasm . . . what sounded to Yancey like outright insults, for all she was careful to keep to her own language for those. But as time wore on, persuaded that tolerating Yiska’s aid was her only hope if she wanted to stay presentable, Songbird finally allowed the woman to touch her long enough to braid her white hair back into two tight plaits, then coil and pin them into a bun at the back of her head, protecting her delicate nape. She settled into the game, appearing to accept such tribute as her due. Adopted a murmuring, musical tone, gave compliments, even favoured Yiska on occasion with an occasional flirtatious glance from under bleached eyelashes.

  These gifts were a form of courtship, as all involved well knew; hell, Yancey recalled receiving much the same treatment from (the late) Marshal Uther Kloves, though his love tokens ran to colourful store-bought frippery, the kind her Pa’d probably assured him all young maids dreamt on. He’d hoped to gain her hand in the bargain, with her heart following somewhat after — not quite the same sort of outright transaction Miz Songbird was no doubt used to from her time on San Francisco’s Gold Coast, but not so very far away from it as Yancey might’ve once been comfortable to think, either.

  Marriage for money’s not but one step away from outright whoredom, in my opinion, Chess Pargeter had told her in the desert outside Splitfoot’s, just before she’d pasted him one ’cross the chops. Back then, it’d seemed like deadliest insult; now it just rang like wisdom, hard-won, hard-worn.

  According to fled Pinkerton Frank Geyer, Yiska had a reputation for being “like” Chess — a lover of fellow women just as Chess’s own urges leaned only to other men, which suggested a fairly good idea of what the martial squaw hoped to gain from whatever bargain she and Songbird might negotiate. Seeing them together at close quarters, however, Yancey found she wasn’t so sure. Her own upbringing hadn’t kept her overly innocent, after all. Lust she knew, well enough to recognize, but love as well, in several varieties.

  “This Old Woman in the rock we squat on,” she heard Songbird say now, sponging herself clean with the remaining length of her veil, while Yiska leaned on guard against the canyon wall, carefully angling her gaze to keep the girl’s modesty intact. “Is that this Changing Woman of yours, the . . . Ash-da Nah-lay?”

  Yiska shook her head, black mane swinging. “Asdzaa Nadleehe, Three Ages in One, the woman who is transformed time and again — this is somewhere she watches over, yes, like all thin places. But Tse Diyil’s Old Woman is another thing entirely, to be feared, not worshipped. Almost Anaye.”

  “A ghost, then.”

  “Perhaps. When I was young, my grandfather told me no one was allowed on top of the butte, or even allowed to lean against its sides. A long time ago, they used to say a lady lived there, called She Who Dries You Out. Every so often she would go to a nearby canyon and fill her jug with water, then carry it back. Sometimes, she would take a man up to the top of the butte with her. Next morning, her beauty would be gone; she would be old and ferocious, very hungry. The man would be tied up in the sun, dry and dusty, and when he asked for water she’d piss into a
bowl instead, telling him to drink it. Soon the man would make his way back down the butte, get thin, and then die.”

  “Ah, so she is a jiang-sh’i, beautiful suck-blood demon: a corpse who never withers, with only its lower soul remaining. We also tell this story, but better.”

  “Since Ch’in stories are always better, uh?”

  “You are learning, barbarian.” Done with her toilette, Songbird squeezed out the last of the water, tucking her silks away once more into her narrow bodice. “And was she very dark, this Drying Lady in your grandfather’s tales, the way you and your men are — like something carved from wood, or cast in copper? Do you still fear to meet her, having disobeyed his advice and occupied her home?”

  At this, Yiska smiled, wide enough to show her eyeteeth. “In fact, I had always heard that she was fair, White Shell Girl,” she replied. “Like the moon, or a cow’s hide without one flaw, brushed until it shines. And no, I do not fear to meet her, or her reflection. I dream on it.”

  Songbird sniffed. “Thus proving only that you are as foolish as I have always thought.”

  “One more idiot barbarian savage,” Yiska replied, nodding, “in a nation of long-nosed ghosts. Is that the way this song goes?”

  “You have said it, not I.”

  “You are the one who says it over and over, trying to make it hard for me to like you. But when have I ever let that stop me?”

  With a hiss, Songbird snatched up her blanket, wrapped it so as to leave only her eyes visible and flounced forth, striding into the morning sunlight with her fringes all a-jangle. Yiska just stood and watched her go, still smiling.

  “Has trouble with saying thanks, that one,” Yancey spoke up, after a moment, “and more trouble yet with feeling grateful. Or needing someone.”

  “I have noticed.”

  “Seems to me she got raised to think pretty much every way people deal with each other is just . . . business. People like that — they don’t tend to treat any kind of affection too gently. They can be hurtful, whether or not they mean to be. And very hurtful, when they do mean it.”

  “Is it the little ghost you describe, dead-speaker, or your friend the red boy?”

  “How you think I came to figure this all out?” Yancey shot back. “Songbird’s got way too many scars for a girl as young as she is, and she’s way too used to power. This . . . she . . . isn’t safe for you, ma’am. Or any of the rest’ve us, something goes awry.”

  The Diné woman’s smile went lopsided. “If I liked only safe things, the track of my life would not run where it does. All I know is that some wounds cannot heal, if left on their own.”

  “Or some people, either?”

  Yiska rolled her eyes, snorting — but whatever she was about to say next was lost in a sudden ripping crack like a tiny thunderclap, followed by a high-pitched scream that jerked her ’round. “Ai-eh, now?” she snapped, grabbing up her spear, and bolted back up the path; barefoot and weaponless, Yancey tore after her, on sheer reflex.

  They rounded a curve behind a rise in the rock, and stopped, gaping. In front of them, something like a dog bounded back and forth — but no dog stood near as tall as Yancey at the shoulder, nor clawed at its victims with leathery five-fingered hands like an ape’s, ruff of black glass spikes bristling with every growl. Around it, dozens of deerskin- and wool-clad albino Chinese girls shrieked as they ran in all directions, crab-walked backward or stood paralyzed, hands to hidden faces. The creature took the head off one in a single vicious swipe, only for both head and headless body to burst in a damp cloud of ectoplasmic mist and vanish; it sent up its own cry of cheated hunger, an unnatural soprano yipe.

  Illusion! Yancey thought, throwing the word straight at Yiska’s mind. She focused her Sight, struck through hexation’s layers to find the real Songbird perhaps ten feet away, backing just as slowly and silently away from the monster as she could. A damn good plan, in Yancey’s opinion. But you couldn’t say any shred of the Enemy was without sense, and maybe realizing Songbird’s intent was enough to draw attention to it, for the dog-thing paused, hunkering down — cocked its head and shifted, nostrils flared wide, dragging in deep, snorting breaths, ignoring the ghosts in favour of the girl’s real scent.

  Without thinking, Yancey found herself leaping forward, waving both arms wildly. “Hey!” she screamed. “Here, you son of a bitch! Here!”

  The thing whirled, drawing bead on Yancey, and she went still — not in fear, so much, as sheerest concentration. Danger slid her senses to their highest pitch, so far she could see lines of power like greasy tendrils running from beast to the Crack and beyond, from whence it came. Even if she had no hexation herself to smite it with, those power lines she could seize . . . could, and did.

  Contorted in mid-leap, the creature crashed to earth, flailing at her feet with those inhumanly human hands while its soul pressed hard ’gainst hers, tight as any lover. Yancey shook with effort, alternating blasts of rage and hurt lighting her mind with dreadful images: Chess Pargeter and Sheriff Love in full array, tearing at each other hopelessly; the reborn Sheriff under her gun, his skull bullet-hollowed, wife screaming his name like she had Uther’s. Ed Morrow sprouting claws and fangs, savaging her. The creature hunched itself closer, flooding out hunger so fierce it was its own agony. Yancey tried to step back but found herself paralyzed, her grip on the spirit lines slipping.

  The monster began to rise — then slammed back down as Yiska drove her spear hard through the back of its neck, pinning it to the earth, before dodging away. Ear-scraping squeals drowned to gurgles; it writhed, spewing gushes of stinking black blood Yancey avoided only by inches. Songbird’s many selves winked out, leaving a single version, striving hard to seem unimpressed. And when Yiska saw that she laughed out loud, triumphant — wheeled back, poised to count coup, eager to show off in front of at least one of them.

  But it wasn’t to be. Without warning, a massive foot made of dirty bone crashed down on the thing, flattening it to silence in a single stroke.

  Angrier looking than she’d seemed at any previous point, Yiska glared up at the only vaguely human figure towering over her and Yancey. “You broke my spear, Spinner!” she shouted, fists on hips. “Am I to slay the next foe with my knife only?”

  Grandma looked blankly down without speaking, then turned, trudging back up the slope. Yiska grimaced and muttered under her breath; Yancey couldn’t catch the sense of it, but felt a hint of fear under the anger. Which, given how little fear she felt from Yiska generally, was worrying enough.

  “Hell was that, anyway?” she asked her.

  “Huehueteotl,” said Yiska. “Tools of the Enemy, when he wishes; more dangerous still, when he gives them no orders.” To Songbird: “A good tactic, White Shell Girl. You remembered what I said.”

  “Which was?” Songbird called back, shrill and breathy, arms wrapped ’round herself with the blanket fallen from her white face.

  Yiska’s smile returned, wide as ever. “If you can’t be strong, be clever.”

  Songbird opened her mouth to refute this, but found Yiska half-gone before she could — slipping past Yancey, shattered spear already snatched up, following in Grandma’s wake to meet her braves, who’d come running down to “help.” She yelled something raucous at them, earning laughs in return.

  Songbird stared after her, face shaded, yet bewilderment plain.

  “Spend half our time killing whatever comes out of that damn crack,” Yancey complained to Songbird, later. “Dogs with hands, fish walking, snakes with a head at each end, what’s it gonna be next? And for all the . . . stuff . . . comes out of that Goddamn thing, you’d think it’d be easy to send one thought halfway into it, right? Well, no such luck. Like trying to cast a fishing line through mud.”

  Instead of snapping, Songbird actually cast her an amused look. “Are you sure you have not yet contacted English Oona’s son? Your imitation astonishes.”

  Against her will, Yancey found herself laughing — and was surprised as all hell
, after a moment, to find Songbird had joined her.

  “As for this-all with . . . Yiska, and you,” she said, finally, “I just hope . . .”

  Songbird bristled. “Hope what?”

  “. . . you’re not taking advantage, that’s what. Not trifling with her affections, such as they are, since she’s treated you well in harsh circumstances. That you’ll consider how she’s an honourable creature, in her way, and act the same, if you can. But I’ve said my piece, so that’s where I’ll leave it.”

  Schoolmarmish in the extreme, Yancey chided herself; she’ll never fall for it. And indeed, the albino first stared at her askance, before having the grace to seem just a touch guilty.

  “Look at me,” she said, at last. “This place . . . I am hardly suited to it, or anywhere else. I have spent my whole life in a box, surrounded, always a possession; I cannot take care of myself. I must have a protector, especially now, and — she wants that role. Shall I deny her?”

  Though Yancey could hardly object on moral grounds, she nevertheless heard herself say: “Might be kinder.” To which Songbird only laughed again, this time more bitterly.

  “Do I seem kind, to you?” she demanded.

  “You could be. Could try to, anyhow.”

  Songbird nodded slightly, as if to say: I know it. “Yes,” she agreed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  There were no clocks in Hex City, no more than newspapers, so what information Reverend Asher Rook got on the outside world came mainly from the mouths of dying men with a side order of illusory infiltration and spying-by-proxy, since there were those to hand who could throw their consciousnesses up and peep through passing birds’ eyes, or cast ’em down into the narrow minds of a whole stealthy hoard of creeping things. Or cough out bits of ’emselves to fashion fetches from, tiny jewel-eyed sickness-bugs they’d let loose to float across to Pinkerton’s encampment, there to gather what intelligence they might before being spotted and squashed.