Blood and Bone

by Ian C. Esslemont

  ‘Is that so.’

  ‘Oh yes. No doubt this is why your servant brought you to me.’

  ‘Well, thank you for healing me.’

  ‘Certainly. My wives are great healers. But enough of that for now. Rest, heal. We shall talk again.’ He disappeared in a clanking and clatter of the engraved stones hung from his neck.

  Saeng lay back to regard the roof once more. Mocking gods … how much time have I wasted? Am I too late? But no – we would not even be here if I was too late. Isn’t that so? It made her head hurt to think of it. She shut her eyes to sleep again.

  The next day she felt strong enough to try to get up. The old women who had been tending her rushed to her aid. The magus’s wives, she supposed. And thinking of that – it was they who healed her, not him. She limped out to the central commons to see Hanu there, waiting.

  He was sitting cross-legged, meditating perhaps. Before him lay clay bowls of oil, burning incense sticks, and bowls and saucers of rice, stewed vegetables and dried meat.

  ‘You seem to have made an impression,’ she said, coming up.

  ‘These are propitiations intended to appease my anger, apparently.’

  ‘Oh? Your anger? They’re afraid of you?’

  He hesitated for a time, said, ‘You are recovering?’

  ‘Yes. My leg is well. Weak and painful, but it can support me.’ She studied him. His inlay mosaic of bright stones shone dazzlingly in the light. Much of the light was a deep emerald and she glanced up to see the Visitor hanging there fully visible in the day. So close! We may have no time! ‘What happened, Hanu? Did you have to twist their arms?’

  ‘No, Saeng. It’s that mage, or theurgist, or whatever he is. He claims he stopped me from destroying the village. They’re all terrified of him here.’

  Saeng scanned the collection of ramshackle huts for some sign of the man. ‘I see … Well, not our problem. I’ll rest one more day and then we’ll go. All right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  She motioned to the offerings. ‘Wrap up the food. We’ll take it with us.’

  ‘I have been.’ He lifted their one remaining shoulder bag.

  ‘Thank you, Hanu.’ She hobbled back to her hut.

  She sat in the shade at the open entrance. Here, the women, some young, some old, were readying packets of food. Saeng watched for a time, then asked, ‘Are those offerings as well?’

  The youngest snapped a look to her and Saeng was surprised to see anger and sour resentment in her eyes. ‘You could say that,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘These go to wild men in the woods. We feed them so that they will not kill our men or rape us. Chinawa made this deal.’

  ‘Chinawa? Your … husband?’

  ‘Yes. They killed many men and women but he put a stop to it. All we must do is feed them. And now—’ She stopped herself, lowered her gaze.

  ‘And now you must feed us as well,’ Saeng finished for her. The young woman merely hunched, lowering her head even further. ‘And there is not enough.’

  ‘There is none!’ she yelled, glaring, tears in her eyes.

  The oldest of the women hissed her disapproval. ‘Would you have them burn down our homes? Eat us? Stop your complaining, child.’

  Not my problem. If the Visitor should fall everyone will be dead. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and went to lie down.

  That night the mage, Chinawa, came to her. She awoke suddenly from a troubled sleep to find him sitting next to the rattan bedding she lay upon. A single guttering oil lamp cast a weak amber glow in the hut. His eyes were bright in the dark. She sat up and adjusted her frayed skirt and shirt as best she could. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Gratitude, for one thing. Were it not for me you would be dead.’

  ‘I noticed it was the women who healed me – not you.’

  The eyes sharpened. ‘On my orders.’

  ‘They would have acted without your orders, I’m sure.’

  The man’s expression hardened into a deep scowl. ‘Do not play haughty with me, young woman. Cooperate and no one will get hurt. I will take you as my wife and with your stone servant I will sweep the wild men from the jungle. After that no one will challenge my rule here.’

  Saeng snorted her disbelief. ‘And why should I do that?’

  ‘Because if you refuse, or use your stone servant to kill me, the wild men will descend upon the village and kill everyone. All the children will have their skulls cracked open against rocks. The women will be raped then stabbed to death. The men will be hunted down and eviscerated and left for the dogs to eat. Do you want these crimes upon your head?’

  And if I do not find the Great Temple and prevent the summoning of the Visitor everyone shall die. Do I want that upon my head?

  She sensed, then, one of the Nak-ta, the restless dead of the region, pressing to make herself heard. She presumed that Chinawa had summoned the spirit to scare her into cooperating. Yet the shades of the dead held no terror for her and so she allowed the small presence to come forward.

  The mage did not react as she thought he would. He became quiet and still. He scanned the hut, his eyes growing huge. ‘What is that?’

  Saeng stared at the man, surprised. ‘What is what?’

  ‘That noise!’

  Saeng listened and after a time she heard it: faint weeping, as of a young disconsolate girl. She saw her as well and motioned to the opening where a pale wavering shade stood just outside. The weak rain fell through her shape.

  Chinawa leaped to his feet, gaping. ‘Noor! A ghost!’ And he jumped out into the rain, his necklaces of stones and claws clattering and rattling, to disappear into the dark.

  Saeng watched him go, completely stunned. By the false gods … A fake. A damned fake. Then she laughed so hard she hurt her side and had to wipe tears from her eyes. Throughout, the shade, Noor, continued to weep. After her amusement had subsided Saeng turned to her. She appeared a harmless enough Nak-ta, but Saeng raised her protections in any case, as one could never be certain of the dead.

  ‘Noor, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why are you weeping?’

  ‘Because I am dead.’

  Saeng bit back a snarled reply. She took a calming breath. Her fault; it had been too long. ‘So, tell me, Noor. How did you die?’

  ‘Chinawa killed me.’

  Saeng jerked her surprise, hurting her leg. Wincing, she rubbed it. ‘Chinawa slew you? Why?’

  ‘So that he could blame it on the wild men in the jungle.’

  Ah. All is becoming clear.

  ‘Then there are no wild men.’

  ‘Yes, there are. I could see them. They were slipping close to death themselves. Sick, hungry and weak.’

  ‘Then they have killed no one?’

  ‘Not of this village.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Noor. Bless you for your help. Rest. Weep no more.’

  The shade of the girl dropped her hands from her face. Saeng thought she must have been pretty. She gave a deep naive curtsy. ‘My thanks. The blessing of the High Priestess is an honour.’ She began to fade away. ‘I go now, released. Thank you.’

  Saeng jerked upright. ‘Wait! What do you mean? Come back.’ Shit! High Priestess? What did she mean by that? She fell backwards, draped an arm across her eyes. Gods! High Priestess? And I can’t even find the damned Great Temple!

  By the next morning she knew what she would do. The wives, young and old, offered a large first meal of rice, stewed vegetable roots, and the last of the meat from a trapped wild pig. She took only the rice, and this she kept in its broad leaf wrapping. She went out to get Hanu; it was time to go.

  She still limped, and by the time she reached Hanu Chinawa had appeared from wherever it was he slunk about. The old man was glowering at her, his gaze flicking from her to Hanu. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he hissed.

  ‘We are going.’

  ‘No, you are not.’ He crept closer, lowering his voice: ‘If you go I’ll bring the wild men in here and they wil
l kill everyone! Do you want that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall I strangle him?’ Hanu asked. She signed for him to wait.

  She peered about, saw faces peering from huts, people standing about pretending to work, but watching. ‘Listen to me!’ she called loudly. ‘When I lay near death I spoke with the shades of the jungle. They came to me because I command this stone servant.’

  Chinawa gaped at her, then eyed the watching villagers.

  She raised her arms. ‘Yes, I have communed with the dead and I commanded them not to follow Chinawa’s orders. They will no longer listen to him!’

  The old man backed away. He waved his arms frantically. ‘Oh! I see it now!’ he bellowed as if to shout her down. ‘This one is a sorceress! Begone, you seductress! I order you to go now! Leave us good people in peace!’

  Oh, for the love of … I can’t believe this! ‘Hanu – grab this wretch.’

  Hanu lunged forward. He grasped a fistful of the hanging amulets and talismans and lifted the man from his feet to hang kicking. He squawked and yanked at the countless laces of leather and spun fibres.

  ‘We go now of our choosing!’ Saeng called. ‘As for the wild men – they are no threat. I have seen them. They are just lost and starving refugees. They no doubt fear you more than you fear them!’

  She gestured for Hanu to drop the man. He did so, retaining a handful of broken laces and charms that he threw down upon him. One of the objects caught Saeng’s eye: a stone disc inscribed with the many-pointed star, a sign of the old cult of the Sun. She picked it up while the old man scrambled to his feet. ‘Where did you get this?’ she demanded.

  He eyed her while clearly considering saying nothing. Then he shrugged, gesturing vaguely. ‘From one of the old ruins. A place of great power—’

  ‘Stop pretending to be a warlock, or whatever it is. You are no practitioner.’

  He glared his enraged impotent hatred. ‘I sensed it,’ he finally ground out. ‘Anyone would. Terrible things have been done there.’

  ‘How do I get there? Tell me the way.’

  He gaped, astonished, then laughed. ‘You would travel there? By all means, do so. Go to your deaths.’

  She raised a hand to Hanu. ‘Perhaps you should lead us …’

  The man hunched, obviously terrified. ‘There is no need. Follow the lines of power.’

  ‘Lines? What lines?’

  ‘The channels. Lines. Carved in the ground! They lead to the centre. The loci.’

  Saeng stared without seeing the cringing man. Lines! What a fool I’ve been. All this time clambering over mounds and channels, searching for tall structures, when I should have been looking down. They lead to the temple. Converge there. Lines of power.

  She nodded to Hanu then waved her dismissal of Chinawa. ‘Very well. For that I shall allow you to live. But if I hear through the shades of the dead that you have done any wrong I will curse you to eternal pain. Do you understand?’ He merely stared, as if remorse or guilt was something utterly beyond him. Saeng pointed to the circle of villagers that had gathered. ‘And if I were you I would run before these people tore me to pieces.’

  He jerked and hunched even more, turning this way and that.

  Saeng started off, ignoring him. She studied the flat stone disc in her hand. Hanu followed.

  When they entered the jungle Hanu called to her: ‘Saeng …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We should’ve killed him.’

  She sighed. ‘I know … I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Besides, if those people can’t organize themselves enough to get rid of him, then they deserve him.’

  * * *

  Osserc did not think himself a vain man. One trait he did pride himself upon was his patience. He thought himself far more forbearing than the run of most. However, even his stone-like endurance was nearing its end. He felt it fraying; less like stone than the cheapest calico. And he did not know what would happen when it finally tore.

  All was as usual: Gothos remained seated opposite, immobile. His gnarled hands remained poised upon the table, long yellowed nails dug into the wood, as if ready should Osserc suddenly snap and take a swing at him. The monkey creature came and went on its constant housecleaning errands, dusting, sweeping and knocking down cobwebs. Yet for all its efforts – sometimes striking Osserc in the back of his head with its broom – the dust and grime only seemed to mount ever deeper.

  Outside, through the milky opaque windowpane, light and dark came and went. However, with each cycle of brightening and adumbration, Osserc believed he was coming to discern a disturbing pattern. The wavering jade glow shafting from above was brightening significantly.

  Eventually, when the darkness through the patinated and rippled glass was at its deepest, he rose and crossed to the window. Squinting, he could make out the Visitor glowing above and he was shocked by how large it loomed.

  He turned to regard Gothos. ‘I have never seen one come this close before.’

  ‘One did, before,’ came a low breathless observation from among the hanging strings of filthy hair.

  ‘One has? Before? You mean …’ Osserc’s gaze snapped up to the hanging threat. ‘You cannot mean to suggest that they would actually do it again.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That would be utter madness. They learned that from the first, surely.’

  Gothos snorted his scorn as only a Jaghut could. ‘Learned?’ he scoffed.

  ‘Someone should do something.’

  ‘I suppose someone ought,’ Gothos sighed. ‘But in any case you will be safe hiding in here.’

  ‘Hiding? I am not hiding.’

  ‘No? Then you are doing a very good imitation of it.’

  Rage clawed up Osserc’s chest, almost choking him, and his gaze darkened. All that leashed it was the knowledge that this Jaghut was merely doing his job in goading and mocking him. Breathing heavily, he growled through clenched teeth: ‘And you are doing a very good job of being a prick, Gothos.’

  The Jaghut inclined his head in a false bow.

  Osserc sat once again. He crossed his arms. ‘So we just sit here while fools undo all that we have striven to build and protect.’

  ‘Build? I have striven to build nothing. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  Osserc shook his head in remonstration. ‘Do not dissemble. You strove as mightily as any. It was just that your efforts were not in stone or iron. They resided in another field entirely. The battlefield of ideas and the mind.’

  The Jaghut inclined his head once more.

  Yet instead of a sense of having won a point, Osserc could not shake the feeling that he had in fact once more been manoeuvred to where the Jaghut wanted him. Once more dwelling upon ideas and the mind.

  The Nacht came shambling into the room again. This time he dragged a long pole at the end of which had been tied a dirty rag. The creature made a great show of lifting the pole to brush the cobwebs from the murky corners of the ceiling. Dust drifted down in clouds upon Osserc and Gothos. Neither moved throughout, though Osserc did grind his teeth.

  He decided a retreat and reordering was called for. What he knew from Gothos’ rebounding of questions with questions was that the Azath were insisting that the answer must come from within. An obvious path in retrospect, given that the Azath themselves were by definition notoriously inward. It made sense that they would applaud such an approach. That aside, this did not necessarily undermine any potential insight. Any such revelation would be his to accept or dismiss.

  Insights from self-reflection were beyond the capability of many – perhaps himself included. Rationalization, denial, self-justification, delusion, all made it nearly impossible for any true insight to penetrate into the depths of one’s being. And Osserc was ruthless enough in his thinking not to consider himself above such equivocations. Therefore, as he had seen in his reflections, one measure of progress was discomfort and pain.

  If this were the case then the Azath were demanding a high price indee
d.

  It struck him that all this hinged upon one plain and simple thing. He faced a choice: whether to remain or to step out. No one forbade either option. Gothos had made this clear – he was no gatekeeper. The choice was entirely Osserc’s. Any choice represented a future action. Therefore, the Azath were more concerned with his future than with his past. The choice represented an acceptance of that future.

  Osserc’s unfocused gaze drifted down to settle upon the obscured features of the Jaghut opposite. ‘I am being asked to face something I find personally distasteful. I never accepted the mythopoeia I see accreting around the Liosan. It all means nothing to me.’

  ‘Whether it means anything to you in fact means nothing.’ Gothos sounded particularly pleased in saying that. ‘I’m sorry, but I suspect it is all very much larger than you.’ He sounded in no way apologetic at all.

  Osserc found himself gritting his teeth once again. ‘It would seem that stepping outside would be an endorsement of a future I have no interest in, and do not support.’

  The Jaghut revealed his first hint of temper as his nails gouged even further into the slats of the table and he hung his head. ‘It is obvious even to me that nothing at all is being asked of you!’ He raised his head and flattened his hands upon the table. ‘Think of it more as an opportunity to guide and to shape.’

  ‘But what if—’

  Gothos snapped up a finger for silence. ‘No.’

  ‘You really cannot expect me to relinquish all control!’

  Something changed in the poise of the Jaghut. A wide predatory smile now rose behind the ropy curtain of hair. His tusks caught the emerald glow from outside. Osserc fought the uncomfortable sensation of having fallen into a carefully prepared trap. ‘Osserc,’ Gothos began, his voice now silken, ‘how can you relinquish that which you never possessed in the first place?’

  CHAPTER XIV

  The locals, I am sorry to say, are indolent and lazy. All that they need can be found in the surrounding jungle within reach of everyone, and so they lack industry and application. They are oddly content in their simple ways: an earthenware pot serves to cook foods; three stones are buried to serve as a hearth; ladles are made from coconuts; the small leaves of the chao plant are used to make little spoons to bring liquids to the mouth – these they throw away when the meal is finished. It is in vain one searches for the natural urge to a better way of life.