Bones of a Righteous Man
Michael Ezell
– Has the life of a righteous man been taken?
– We find that it has, Excellency.
– And what shall become of the killer?
– He shall carry the bones of the righteous man until their weight does cause his death.
*~*~*~*
The setting sun reflected in a million rose-hued sparkles across the surface of the Glass Desert. The slit in Traveler’s eyeshades cut everything down to a thin panorama. A glittering expanse of heat glass, marked only by the crushed tracks of the Apostates’ road. In those tracks travelled the wagon he’d been following for days. Weeks, really. With a start, he realized it was more like months. Wasn’t it?
Through the shimmer to his right, he saw either a town, or a mirage that would lead him astray, wasting precious time.
Bands of red and purple from the western sky reflected in the glass to his left. Not long till dark. A man could wander off course at night out there. Wander into the ruptured plates of glass in the deep desert, where a simple trip and fall could easily mean decapitation, or at the least, the loss of some fingers.
Given the options, he’d take the mirage.
*~*~*~*
There were at least forty rough timber buildings dominated by the high rock walls of a Foundation Church. An impressive settlement this far out. Fortunately for folks so close to the Glass Desert, the Apostates considered the Foundation a group of silly children. That’s the only reason that rock-walled behemoth of a church wasn’t rubble and dust right now.
The shimmer he’d seen came not from heat waves, but from an immense salt lake behind the town. A foul wind off the dead water carried the steady ka-chunk ka-chunk of a steam machine.
Though he knew they were there, as certain as his own ribs were, Traveler still patted the pistols under his cloak. People with technology this far from the Known would have made a deal with someone powerful to acquire it. And those deals were not always written in ink.
He looked for signs of wagon tracks coming from the deep glass into this town, but saw none. Not Apostates, then. Who else would give these people a steam engine? And more's the worry, what could they possibly have to trade for it?
For a long moment, he just stood, his black journey cloak making him a twin of his shadow. Something about the foul wind told him this was not a place to rest his soul. But he’d been awake for days, or weeks, or possibly months. And the straps of his burden weighed heavy on his shoulders.
He entered the town at the farthest point from the water and followed the steam engine’s sound.
The few people he saw on the street openly stared. With his journey cloak, floppy hat, face covered by a breathing cloth, and his eyeshades, he probably looked like Carnon the Death Angel to them.
They all dressed in flowing lines and bright colors like Elites from the Known. Desert rubes trying to imitate the moneyed folk.
A boy of about twelve walked right up, his curiosity pure and without malice. His mother made weak noises of protest, but she was too afraid to come after him.
“Say, Mister, did you come outta the Glass Desert?”
“I suppose I did. You get many folks from there?” He hadn’t spoken in so long, the words came out a little ragged around the edges.
“Nope. The Traders come across the water. We don’t get no visitors from the desert side. Momma says the wagon-riders don’t like folks who truck with the Traders. Say, is that a real journey cloak?”
“It is. You know about these?”
“Well, sure. Pastor Gilliam says when a man has to pay a penance, the Church gives him a journey cloak and sets him to walking.”
Traveler unhooked his breathing cloth and worked up enough moisture to spit in the dirt.
“My cloak don’t come from the Church, kid; I don’t truck with them. Beg pardon, but can I ask you a question now? What sort of machine is that I hear?”
“Oh, that’s the desalva- er, desaler- something that takes the salt from the water so you can drink it.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’? All the way out here in the Wilds.”
The boy reached out to touch the journey cloak and his sleeve fell away from a pale, bony wrist. A brand stood out on the tender skin. The scar was old. But how could that be? For a boy this age to have a scar that old—No. He was mistaken.
“That’s a strange scrape on your wrist there.”
The boy’s hand dropped immediately.
“Oh, it’s nothing. When I was small, I burned myself by accident on my mother’s cooking stove.”
Traveler felt the eyes on him now. Not curious, but hostile. The adults were clearly afraid to speak outright. They glared their reproach at the mother and she dashed into the street to grab the boy.
“Come now, we must go.” She said.
The boy waved goodbye from behind her skirts and Traveler smiled for the first time—in how long? His life, it seemed.
Standing still reminded him of the throbbing in his feet. They longed to be out of his heavy boots and propped up high for a few hours.
Raucous laughter from inside a building down the street caught his attention. He followed this new sound through the middle of the town proper. Aside from the massive church, no structure taller than two stories, all made of solid timber that was never meant to know a desert like this.
When he reached the source of the merriment, Traveler saw a weathered sign over the door. The hand-painted symbol came from the Old Language. It meant food, board, and companionship were available here.
He entered and ignored the stares he already expected. He stepped up to the highly polished bar and removed his eyeshades. The bar and the thick oak tables occupied by the ten or twelve townies meant these folks had quite a deal going with the “Traders,” whoever they were.
A stout man with long whiskers on the point of his chin stood behind the bar. “Help you, Mister?”
“Sign outside says food and lodge. I’ll take both.”
The dull thud of a gold coin on the bar made everyone relax. Food appeared, along with a beer that was weak, but passable. Some sort of vegetable stew, spiced with peppers and Terpin flowers, which definitely didn’t grow here. He hadn’t seen any sign of crops being fed with their purified water, so they must trade for every scrap of food.
As quick as the food was on the bar, a woman was at his elbow. Pale breasts rode high in the neckline of a dress you’d normally see on a saloon girl back in the Known.
“Care for some company, Mister?”
“Nope.”
Her false smiled died, leaving only the hard glitter in her eyes. “Won’t cost you much more than that meal.”
“From the looks of your sallow skin, it’d stay with me longer, I suspect.”
Now the room grew quiet again.
Did they think him a damn fool? Maybe dressing like Elites made them believe he was the rube here. A woman with the Mark was never hard to spot. Once you knew what to look for.
“What did you say, you son of a bitch?”
“Your skin. And the tinge of red around the color of your eyes. I’m no fool, woman.”
“Bastard!” She shoved Traveler hard and the leather pack on his back hit the bar. Her hands were clawed to go for his eyes, but she stopped short when she heard the dry rattle from the pack. Open fear replaced the hardness in her eyes and she backed away from him.
A man near the far wall stood in the silence. He also carried whiskers on the point of his chin, but his were white, with beads of desert glass woven into them.
“I am Pastor Gilliam, the spiritual leader of this town. May I ask what you carry, sir?”
“You may.”
A long silence followed while Traveler spooned the rest of the vegetable stew into his mouth. No need to let it go to waste. It was already clear that he wouldn’t be given sleep here, and he needed the meal. He wiped his lips on a sleeve and downed the weak beer.
A barrel-chested m
an stood and slapped a long cudgel in his palm. “What the good Pastor means to say is, what exactly do you carry, desert rat?”
Bound by the spell of his journey, Traveler sighed. He swung the pack onto the bar and the movement opened his journey cloak, revealing the twin-barreled wheel-lock pistols.
He heard the metallic click-clock from the back of the room. Two men in opposite corners, each armed with a wheel-lock rifle. He marked them as dead and felt the hollow guilt in the pit of his stomach.
Tired.So tired. This journey had no end; the man running from him was only a spirit that lived in his mind. But he was bound. They asked and he had to tell.
“I carry the bones of a righteous man.”
Shouts and screams—The good Pastor called on his riflemen.
Might as well try to out-strike a desert rattler.
The pistols appeared as if called to his hands, the left locks already cocked, according to the rules of the journey. At the rough bark of the guns, the two riflemen men fell like string-cut puppets.
Motion from the left made him twitch to the side, narrowly escaping the crossbow bolt that buried itself in the doorframe.
His last two shots took the bowman and the chin-whiskered bartender, who suddenly appeared with a black sword in his hand. Traveler had a fleeting thought that he’d never seen material like that blade, and then stars burst into his vision as the cudgel laid his scalp open to the bone.
He fell hard, dragging the leather pack below the bar with him. He used his legs to fend them off as best he could. He heard a couple of knees pop under his walking boots, but they just kept coming at him, swinging wild, clipping him now and again. One eye swelled shut and he felt his consciousness slipping away.
The whore leaned in and spit in his face. “Now you’re the low one, ain’t ya?”
The man with the cudgel caught him good in the ribs and Traveler knew he’d die on the floor of this inn.
Not if the pack is opened.
“Stop! Leave it be.” He begged the voice in his head as much as the people beating him. But the people just laughed and continued. As his vision went dark, Traveler felt hands grab at the pack.
“Stoke the furnace in the smithy!” Pastor Gilliam shouted.
“No!” Traveler clutched the pack tight to his chest. Like a burrowing animal with a mind of its own, his right hand crept inside. His body took the punishment while his fingers slid over the dry bones, landing finally on a tiny one. Felt like a toe bone.
When he pulled the bone into view, he heard a high-pitched scream. Hard to tell if it was a woman or man.
The white symbols written on the yellowed bone seemed to force his mouth open as he read the ancient word aloud.
The word didn’t rush across his vocal chords with the wind of his lungs; rather it crept out, like a vile toad, and hopped from his lips bristling with warts and disease.
They reeled back from him, already screaming and trying to claw the burning from their skin.
The man who split Traveler’s scalp with the cudgel swallowed his tongue and fell dead on the spot. A throbbing power filled the air with a whum-whum-whum sensation. The desert-glass windows exploded outward, whirling scimitars of glazed sand slashing random people on the street.
Searing fire on his scalp as his wound healed over, and Traveler vomited his hard-won meal on the polished wood floor. Still dizzy, he forced himself to stand and gather his belongings.
Pastor Gilliam lay on the hardwood planks, his eyes as dead as the glass beads in his whiskers. The prostitute had her back to the wall, shivering with fear.
“P-please… don’t kill me.” She whispered.
“Woman, I’m truly sorry. That’s all I can offer.”
The spreading blood on her skirt registered on her and she saw the puddle on the floor. Her screams accompanied Traveler into the street.
People ran from him, leaving those wounded by the exploding windows to fend for themselves. His scalp blazed with pain and his tongue felt like someone stuffed a sock full of sand in his mouth.
But he traveled on. That was his task. Like all the other places he’d been on his journey, he’d get no sleep here tonight.
*~*~*~*
Shuffling through crushed glass powder in the tracks of the steam wagon again. He should have known better than to stop, should have just stilled his growling belly and kept moving.
Not long after sunrise, he thought he heard the ghosts of dead townsfolk treading through the powder behind him, but when he turned he only saw the wavering form of a lone person in the distance. Small. The boy he’d spoken to in the street.
It took most of the morning for the boy’s short little legs to catch up, but they did. Traveler wondered at the lad’s determination.
Finally, when he heard the boy panting not two steps behind, he spun with his pistols in hand.
“What do you want, boy?”
The boy didn’t flinch, didn’t back away. He just gulped dry desert air in an effort to catch his breath, and held up his wrist. The strange brand stood out on his pale skin. A double-helix design Traveler had seen before, in a book back in the Known. But this one had a star at one end.
“Well? What’s this to me?”
“It’s the mark of the Traders.” The boy said.
He swung a small pack off his shoulders and retrieved a skin of water. He took a long, healthy pull and offered some to Traveler, who took a polite sip. Rude to turn down any hospitality in the desert. But he handed it right back to the boy. Might give him an extra day or two out here.
“So? The mark of the Traders.”
“It’s put on certain kids when they’re little. The Traders pick which ones. I dunno why.”
“Pick? Pick for what?”
The boy looked up at him with hollow eyes. “When those with the mark are sixteen, they’re given to the Traders. Nobody knows, or says, why. That’s just the deal the oldsters struck to be rich out here, and safe.”
“They would throw their own children away for that?”
The boy shrugged. “Pastor Gilliam says– said that we’re like the son of Ehai, offered up as a sacrifice for the good of many.”
“So why are you followin’ me?”
“I don’t wanna be a sacrifice. For nobody. I’d rather travel with a warlock than do that, so you can cast what spells you will.”
Beneath his breathing cloth, Traveler smiled. Kid had a backbone, that was for certain.
He travelled on and the kid followed without invitation.
“What makes you think I’m a warlock?”
“Folks say you killed everyone with a spell in the tavern.”
“Not exactly. I just said its name. That’s all.”
“Pastor Gilliam says—said that we should always burn the dead, ‘cause angels can be captured in human bones by people with evil purpose.”
Traveler studied on that for a while as the two walked along in the crushed track of the steam wagon that was days, weeks, or months ahead of him.
“I wouldn’t say that the things inside these bones are angels, and it ain’t as simple as Pastor Gilliam made it out to be. The deed’s got to be done by a strong witch back in the grand temples of the Known. And the bones have to be those of a righteous man.”
“Why a witch? Can’t you do it?”
The rich baritone laugh felt like poison being spewed from a festering wound. It emptied Traveler of the ugliness from the town.
“Believe me, son, I’m no warlock. In fact, some say there are none. They say only a woman can trap the life-force these bones hold, ‘cause only a woman carries a life inside her.”
“Okay.”
After that, the boy said nothing for hours. They walked in silence until they heard music drifting on the dry air.
*~*~*~*
The long, twisted finger of sand ran in from the north, widening into a natural road as it went back toward its origin, showing that even the great Glass Desert can die and be reclaimed.
They wat
ched the gypsy camp from far enough away that the people looked like shivering shadow puppets through the heat waves. Of course, they would already know Traveler was here. But he’d have no trouble from them. These bones would be the last thing they’d want to see.
Maybe he could ask them to take the boy. Their bands sometimes took in orphans. The boy would certainly be safer with them. Once he caught up with the man he pursued, there would be bloodshed. All around.
The gypsy men were waiting when the two traveling companions arrived. Casual enough, but with hands close to ornate knife hilts. One of them, the tallest, had an ancient flintlock pistol in his belt, the checkering on the grip worn nearly smooth by generations of gypsy hands before him.
He was the one who spoke. “I see by your cloak that you Travel. Will you not rest here for the night?”
Gypsy hospitality was well known, despite some old fairy tales about them stealing kidlets and such. But something about them being this far into the Glass Desert felt wrong.
His silence might be considered rude in a few more seconds.
“I hope to, friend.”
The taller man smiled and waved a welcoming hand toward the small camp. Two steam wagons that doubled as living quarters for the women, and two tents staked into the sand for the men.
They shared dried dates, some hard cheese, and a wonderful stew made from mushrooms and a fat hare.
The fire burned down low and the stars wheeled overhead. The eldest male, an oldster with wispy white hair, told the tale of the Stone of God. Being raised in the Foundation Church, the boy had of course never heard this before.
He hung on every word about the world-sized rock that passed by the Irth eons ago. How it dipped just its very tip into the air of our world right on this spot, burning the sky and creating the Glass Desert. Entire oceans were moved by its pull, and newborn mountains shrugged off cities like so many fleas. And then the Stone of God flew on. Into the black. Destined to someday circle back and do us proper next time.
A peppering of questions from the boy made the wizened gypsy laugh, and he started the story over again, explaining how each part came to pass.
Fantasy For Good: A Charitable Anthology Page 35