On Wings of Bone and Glass

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  A memory: Kemses, held in the arms of his lovers. Something of that shock must have manifested in my gaze, for he said, “You can, but you won’t. Is that it?”

  “No, it’s just that it’s an intimacy—”

  Chester sighed. “Morgan Locke, you have all the flaws of your virtues, and I cherish you for it, but we have no time for this. Take what you need. Heal your wounds. We need to go now, or there will be no going at all.” At my vacillation, he found my injured hand and pressed it to his breast. Meeting my eyes, he said, clearly, “I grant you permission.”

  What could I say to that? I drew in a breath, and with it his gift. As carefully as I was able, to honor him for it, but with more need than I could control, because I did need, and only when I touched the core of magic in him did I realize how close mine was coming to guttering.

  We both shook. He pressed his face against the side of mine, to hide it. My eyes leaked, and could, because my body was mending with the supernatural speed of the enchantment we’d come so far to undo, and failed… not because we’d lacked courage or virtue or intelligence, but because we’d underestimated the power of human superstition and fear.

  “Faithful knight,” I whispered against his temple in the Angel's Gift... forgetting that he knew it until he reminded me by answering, and the word brushed my cheek like a kiss.

  “Always.”

  In that moment I knew that Guy was wrong. Chester might not want women, but it was not because he wanted men. It was because there was something he wanted more than either, and it was here in this moment now, made plain in a vow most people would not have thought modern, or earnest. In a world without kings, Chester had longed for roles long past, and now, at last, he had found his way into them. Eyre had known him and named him long before I’d had the sense to. Every prince has a few loyal knights.

  “Master?” Serendipity whispered. “Can you walk now? I worry we are here too long already.”

  “I do too,” I said, and rose, and could. My clothes were not fit for anyone’s eyes, alas, and I was soaked in my own blood, but if I survived this I would give myself over to the genets to lick clean. “They’re going to know where we’ve gone if I leave a trail.”

  Serendipity darted to me, began to drag my shirt off. “Take these off. They’ll keep dripping down your legs. Your skin will dry faster.”

  Truly I was to have no dignity left. But better tattered dignity than death. The genets wore nothing but fur and their masters’ collars, so I could do worse than to accept my temporary fate. Tying my hair into a knot, I stepped out of tattered remains of my pants and went in smallclothes and Ivy’s ring to join Chester at the door. “Safe?”

  “As safe as it will get,” he said, sighing. “Let’s go.”

  The final indignity was awaiting me immediately outside. "Should we lock it again?" I asked of the door. "In case they come. It might give them a few moments’ pause."

  "It might, if there was a lock." Chester grasped my wrist and pulled me down the corridor, hugging the wall.

  "Don't tell me that I was being held in a cell without a lock?" I hissed.

  "I suppose they felt they'd found a better way to hold you fast," was the grim reply, but even so I felt indignation stain my cheeks. Had I only been able to stumble to the door, I could have let myself out! But I hadn't, and even had I managed, I might not have found a way out of this warren before they'd attacked me again.

  "Now, quiet," Chester murmured, and I obeyed.

  I'd been correct: we were in the newly discovered wing of the excavation, the subterranean rooms off the main hall where once, long ago, humanity had betrayed the elves. Unlike the level above us, these corridors remained intact, if dusty. Rows of doors led to rooms I assumed to be similar to the one I'd lately been occupying, and the vaulted ceilings were still vibrant: maroon and midnight blue paint lined in mosaic tiles that would glitter when the chandeliers were lit. It was in keeping with the opulence I expected of the elves, but in a style more suited to a northern culture, and I found the juxtaposition strangely harmonious; I had not thought anything elven would ever feel comfortable to me.

  This place, though, I doubted would ever earn my trust, and the reason for it was around the final bend. I looked past Chester's shoulder and bent close enough to whisper. "Must we?"

  "It's the only way to Serendipity's passage," he replied, low. One more scan of the hall and he murmured, "Come."

  The great hall was great on a scale to house dragons, a room to dwarf people to the size of ants. It was open to the library on one side, via the balcony from which I'd fallen and accidentally exposed my unnatural abilities to our enemies, and its walls were studded with side corridors. Through some mystery of architecture I could not plumb, the end of the hall became the access to a hollow tower, and its ceiling was pierced with innumerable windows, dim now with the wan illumination of the stars. Our only protection in this vast and empty space was its size, and Chester kept us flush to the wall, where the shadows were so dense he allowed Serendipity, with her more sensitive ears and eyes, to precede us.

  Even in the dark, I knew the place where we'd been betrayed, could sense the memory of evil pulsing on the floor where the cup had spilled. Chester's gift had healed me, but by the time we finished our inexorable journey, I was cold in a way no clothing could have addressed.

  "Here," Serendipity whispered, and brought us into a side corridor. "Stay close."

  "Hands," Chester added, finding mine and gripping it tightly. "It's dark."

  "Ready?" the genet asked.

  "Ready," I said.

  We left what little light there was, and blinded I followed, for even the glow off my skin wasn’t sufficient to this much darkness. Now and then I smelled things: a breeze, or a mustiness, as if the closeness of the walls was something I could sense. But even elven sight and hearing and touch, so supernal, could not pierce such stygian depths, and I wondered how Serendipity had found this route at all.

  When I thought we would never leave the dark again, Chester halted before me. "Stairs, Locke."

  "It's not far now, Master," Serendipity agreed, confident. "And we are not likely to be heard now. We are far from where we began, and almost outside."

  I set a cautious foot down, found the first step, began to make my way behind them. "How in the name of all that's holy did you find this, Serendipity?"

  "Oh! I like looking for things. You know." I did, for I'd named her for her ability to find things. This, however, seemed above and beyond even her usual good fortune. "I liked sneaking down here because the ceilings are so pretty. I smelled fresh air off this hall, but didn't have a chance to really look until they came for you." A gleam of light off her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder made me realize there was light, wan but welcome after the completeness of the dark. "I was in the library when they attacked you, Master and..." A squirm as her ears flattened. "I should have stopped them, Master, but there were too many! And so much blood! It was all we could do to keep Kelu from rushing out there and getting killed...."

  "You did exactly right," I reassured her. "I would not have wanted them to kill you as animals."

  Serendipity shuddered. "No. We ran away, and they were between us and the surface, when they were struggling with you. So we went down instead, and then I decided—hoped—that the fresh air smell would lead somewhere. And it did. Once we found the others and told them what happened, we decided to use the same route to get back in to save you."

  "And like that, you found me."

  "Oh, finding you was far easier than finding a way out," the genet said dismissively. "I could smell your blood for miles, Master."

  Rather a disturbing observation, but indubitably true. "I am indebted to you for my life, Serendipity. Thank you."

  "There," Chester said. "The landing."

  I'd expected the landing to be some small platform where we could rest, much like the landings in the stairwells at Leigh. Serendipity's landing was a curved balcony in the wall of a t
ower that overlooked the northern vista where it spilled onto the plains and sloped slowly upward toward the western road, the same one we'd used to reach the city. I gasped at the view... and then tried not to groan at our elevation. "Please tell me we're not obliged to descend all the way to the valley floor."

  "Fortunately not," Chester said. "But you'll probably feel as if we're asking you to anyway. Our destination is there—” He pointed. "You see yon ledge?"

  Yon ledge was enormous, and seemed connected to the road by means of another of Vigil's multiplicity of bridges. "I do, yes."

  "The others are awaiting us just under the road."

  "Well, then," I said. "Let's be on our way."

  This leg of the journey took longer than the one through the great hall, but I enjoyed it more, punctuated as it was by a high wind perfumed by distant conifers, and if it was chill then this was at least proof that my skin was whole and capable again of registering sensation. And the view was superb, for the stairs spiraled a stone core and where they pierced the outer wall they once again were open, and the high handrail with the thick, carved balusters looked so solid I couldn't imagine them failing as I leaned out to draw in the night-shrouded beauty of the world. In this way we went until we reached the ledge, and the sight of it was instructive, for it was no less than an entrance ramp to an enormous cave that dove deep beneath the city, and all along its floor were divots and scrapes the length of a man's body. The patterns suggested talons; some were deep enough to bathe in.

  "We supposed those who wished to converse with dragons might have used this ledge," Chester said as we crossed it, striving not to look at the cavernous abyss at our sides. "But they appear only to have congregated near the bridge. I imagine dragons were large enough that one wouldn't want to interrupt their landing."

  I glanced again at one of the deep gouges and said, "I would think not."

  "It still smells," Serendipity offered. When I glanced at her, she finished, "Like burnt up coals, but mixed up with an animal smell. A little like the drake."

  And the drake was a ferocious combatant at the size of a draft horse. It beggared the imagination what it could do had it been the behemoth these prints implied. Had dragons also fought the dead on the battleground?

  On which side?

  "Your brother should be back soon," Chester added. "He was close enough that the Vessel sent half her men to escort him to our hiding place. And if you are about to ask me how she knew—”

  "I am," I admitted.

  He drew in a breath, eyes closed. "Then I would tell you that all of us can feel him now." Looking at me. "The magic, I assumed."

  Since Amhric had become their king as well as the elven one now that the Church had seeded humanity with the divine gift... "Yes."

  "Hopefully we'll have time to bathe you first."

  Since the last thing I wanted was to greet my brother looking like something dragged out of an abattoir, I said, "Perhaps we should make haste."

  2

  The first thing Ivy did at the sight of me, unfortunately, was throw herself at me. I thought to hold my arms clear of her, but since she'd already sullied her clothes I gave up and pulled her close, resting my nose against her clean hair.

  "We brought him back, as you can see," Chester said, satisfied. "Only a little worse for the wear."

  "A little worse!" Radburn exclaimed. "It looks like you dipped him in—”

  “We know what it looks like,” Chester interrupted. “But he’s fine.”

  “Oh, Master!” Almond said from behind Ivy. Kelu was trembling at her shoulder, and Emily wide-eyed, but none of them moved toward me... save Almond, who darted to me to capture my hand. “Master, we are so sorry we didn’t save you! We ran away! We shouldn’t have... I shouldn’t have!”

  “You did exactly as you had to,” I said, pulling her into my embrace with Ivy. “Had you stayed, they would have killed you and then no one would have survived to lead Chester into the hall to rescue me.” I kissed the top of her pale head. “I am grateful that you did run.” I looked around. The camp my friends had made was ruder than the ones we’d enjoyed on the road, for they’d dared not light a fire, and we lacked many of the conveniences we’d found on our travels, like trees we could sit on or use to make lean-tos. Fortunately we seemed to still have all our gear and mounts, but—

  “I suppose it’s much to ask that I might have a bath.”

  “Not unless you want us pouring canteen water over your head,” Guy said dryly, arms folded.

  Ivy looked apologetic as she drew away from me. “We could escort you down to the stream, but... it’s not really big enough for washing in. It’s less a stream and more... well, a trickle.” She pinched a small area off with her fingers to demonstrate. “You could fit your foot in it, maybe.”

  “If you turned your foot parallel to it,” Radburn muttered.

  “Then if you will give me a little privacy,” I said, “Perhaps the genets and I can solve my problem.”

  The genets were more than willing, and my friends turned their backs on us and went far enough that I felt comfortable sitting and gathering them close. “I meant it,” I murmured. “I am not angry at any of you. And if licking what’s left of my blood off me strikes you as unpleasant—“

  It didn’t. And it took longer than I anticipated and was an imperfect solution, but they did well by me, and it was good to take care of them. While there were parts of me I preferred not to expose, they managed everything else, save my hair; Emily tried and wrinkled her nose, saying it was like sucking on a rope, and after that none of the others were especially eager to abrade their tongues on it. So Almond was trying, and failing for the most part, to pull a comb through it in preparation for an attempt at using Guy’s canteen when Eyre joined me. His face was composed, but his eyes revealed him.

  “I don’t blame you either,” I said, quiet.

  “My own colleagues—”

  “Think I am an unnatural creature who trucks with demons, and who can blame them? Particularly since they’re not incorrect. What afflicts us is sourced in demons.” I shook my head, tugging against the comb. “What experience do they have of creatures that cannot die? Be reasonable, sir. They are operating on what little evidence they have.”

  Eyre said, “Chester is being cagey, Morgan, but I am also capable of operating on the evidence of my senses. They didn’t just detain you out of a sense of duty. They tortured you.”

  Almond’s brushing paused, just a little hitch in her movements. I said, “It wasn’t intentional. They’d read that blood makes magic possible, so they were trying, and failing, to drain me of it so they could successfully execute me.”

  Eyre pinched the bridge of his nose against what was no doubt an incipient headache. “They tortured you.”

  “It hurt,” I said. “But I have suffered pain before, and I healed from it. What concerns me more is that we no longer have access to the library... so now, how will we find the answer?”

  “It’s your library, Morgan. They have no right to it.”

  “But now I’ll have to kill them to take it from them,” I said with asperity. “And I have no desire to kill people whose sin is arrogance and ignorance, because if these qualities deserve a death sentence than we might as well slit our own throats. They’re wrong and I’m angry at them, sir, but killing them in the place where humanity betrayed the elves is setting up the wrong pattern for the closing of this tale. We want ‘and then humanity saves the elves’ or ‘and then the elves save humanity,’ not ‘humanity betrayed the elves and now the elves betray humanity.’”

  That made him smile despite the shadows in his eyes. “Ever the folklorist.”

  “We are writing our story,” I said. “I’d prefer it not to have a dire ending.”

  “My student, the optimist!”

  I eyed him as he sat in front of me. “A jest, surely.”

  He grinned. “Yes. Or at least, the old Morgan Locke would never have admitted to optimism. I find I like t
he new Morgan Locke somewhat better for his willingness to be vulnerable.” He glanced at the crown of my head. “Speaking of which, I don’t hold out much hope that Miss Almond’s efforts will be of any help.”

  “Neither do I,” I said. “So perhaps I haven’t completed my transition to vulnerable optimist yet.”

  “Maybe the professor can help you,” Almond said from behind me. “Or Mistress Ivy.”

  “Are your arms tired, dear?” I asked.

  “Oh!” I could hear her blush without seeing it, just from the exclamation. “I meant with the blood, Master. Blood comes from living things, so perhaps Mistress Ivy can call it out? And hair is... not a living thing, so perhaps the professor could inspire it to shake itself clean?” She paused. “Is blood a living thing or a dead thing, sir?”

  Both of us were struck wordless at her innocent question, and at the reasoning that had taken her to it. We were too accustomed to thinking of the genets as childlike because of their size, and the lives that had deprived them of the chance to learn responsibility. But they were not stupid.

  “I imagine,” Eyre said slowly, “that blood is a living thing, even when dry, because of what it represents. If magic is indeed a system of symbols made manifest, then the symbolic genesis of blood matters more than its state. The matter would need a test.”

  “Maybe we should try,” Almond said. “Master would not want to see his brother like this. It would grieve them both. Shall I fetch Mistress Ivy?”

  “Or the Vessel... is she—”

  “Gone back down the road to meet the knights she sent earlier,” Eyre said. “She told Roland and Powlett she would send for more men to help them hold Vigil against your forthcoming incursion of demon-ridden elves, and they seem to have believed her. The moment she was free, she was on her way. Nothing less would do but that she meet her king at last. Given how long the Church has been waiting, I find it hard to fault her eagerness.”