Empire of Bones

by N. D. Wilson

  “I and these assembled members of the O of B, along with several of our allies, are currently operating in the field.”

  “On the run, you mean?” Flint laughed. “Sneaking about with your little gang of outlaw infants? You lot couldn’t hatch flies in a backyard dunny.”

  The temperature of Rupert’s voice dropped ten degrees. “You will therefore be tried under the rules of Field Governance and Martial Circumstance.”

  “Whoa,” Flint said, shaking his head, trying to work the blindfold loose with his cheeks and eyebrows. “You can’t do that. There’s rules.”

  “Yes, there are,” Rupert said. “The charges are murder and attempted murder. O of B witnesses stand ready to testify. A sufficient executioner for one of your rank is present and willing to perform his duty.”

  “You mean you!” Flint shouted. “You’re going to kill me!”

  “I’ll strike the blow!” the Captain bellowed, jumping to his feet. “And from the looks of the holy friar, he’d be well pleased to pry a pirate skullcap with his fingers.”

  “If execution is deemed necessary,” Rupert said slowly, “I shall be the one to carry out the sentence, though the accused shall choose the mode.”

  Flint jerked in his chair and tried to stand, but Niffy sent him shrinking back down.

  “I have the right to see!” Flint squealed. “Let me see my accusers!”

  Niffy looked at Rupert. Rupert nodded. Then the monk tugged off the blindfold and tossed it into the fireplace behind him.

  Flint already looked like a ghost. Moisture hung beneath his nose and in the corners of his wild eyes. He took in the room quickly, and Cyrus saw surprise flash across the man’s face when he looked at the Captain and again when he saw Gil.

  Cyrus understood. Gil should have been off in some sort of secret prison. Of course, maybe that was what this broken-down camp had become.

  “Cyrus Smith,” Rupert said, “did you see who shot Keeper Eric Romegas at the Archer Motel?”

  Cyrus coughed. Every pair of eyes focused on him, none more intently than Flint’s.

  “He did,” Cyrus said, pointing at the bound man. “And he shot at me.”

  “Eric defied the Brendan’s own orders,” Flint pleaded. “He turned on me. He almost killed me. But I never tried to kill you, lad. Never. I only meant to hobble you. We were supposed to bring you in.”

  “Diana Boone,” Rupert said, “did you see who shot and wounded your brother, Keeper Jeb Boone?”

  Diana exhaled slowly, and then nodded. “He did. Twice. Once when Jeb was running, and again when he was on the ground.”

  Rupert stared at Flint, who was squirming in his chair.

  “Keeper Flint Montrose,” Rupert said, “I am the Blood Avenger, bound by my duty to avenge my fallen brothers and sisters, bound to mete out earthly justice upon thieves, murderers, and beyond all else, traitors. Do you deny these charges?”

  “You can’t do this,” Flint said, his voice cracking with panic. “You can’t.”

  “John,” Rupert said, “will you lend me your blade?”

  Captain John Smith stepped forward, drawing his sword as he did. He extended the hilt to Rupert, and Cyrus stared at the bright braided steel, traced with the scales of a dragon.

  “Lean him back into the fireplace,” Llewellyn said. “I don’t want blood on the floor.”

  Flint’s face hardened; then he spat on the floor at Rupert’s feet. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Niffy jerked Flint’s head back and leaned the chair into the fireplace. The man’s jaw clenched. The lump in his throat bobbed and danced.

  Rupert Greeves stepped over Flint, extending the blade with one hand until the steel hovered just above his throat. Cyrus swallowed hard. He had felt that edge against his own neck before. He’d even used it to part the Captain’s last steel chain. It was beyond sharp.

  “Rupe?” Antigone tried to push forward, but Diana pulled her back. “Rupert!” she shouted. “You’re not really going to?”

  Rupert raised the sword.

  “Brendan’s orders,” Flint said suddenly. “Smiths were to be brought to him! Anyone aiding them was to die. Brendan’s orders.”

  The sword hung in the air, ready to fall.

  “To what end?” Rupert asked. “Why should Bellamy Cook collect the Smiths instead of leaving them for Radu Bey? Why anger the transmortals now after all the groveling he’s done?”

  “Skelton,” Flint said. “William Skelton. He hid things. He stole things. And he left them to those Smith brats.”

  “Gold?” Rupert asked. “Money? What things does Bellamy want? What’s in Skelton’s estate that’s worth enough for this Brendan to defy Radu Bey?”

  Flint twisted, gargled a laugh, and then spat again, this time on the hearth.

  “You don’t know anything, do you, mate? Bellamy doesn’t work for Radu Bey. He answers only to Phoenix. Radu and his primeval beasties can tear the world down, for all Bellamy cares. Phoenix means for them to. They’ll do the heavy lifting. They’ll till the nations under and set the world blazing to ashes. That is their usefulness.”

  “Are all villains fools?” Rupert asked, shaking his head. “What good is that to Bellamy? Phoenix is hidden. Bellamy and his version of the Order will be destroyed.”

  “Out of ashes …,” Flint said, and he grinned. When he continued, his voice was hushed. “Phoenix rises. A new race, a new species, and we will be named for our father. We must be unmade to be remade. If we serve him well, he will give us new lives and new flesh. Beside us, you’ll be the apes. Even Radu and his dragons will tremble in fear.”

  The blade flicked down. Antigone yelped, and Flint jerked in his chair. But Rupert had only notched the man’s ear.

  “What things did Skelton hide that Phoenix needs?” Rupert asked.

  “People,” Flint sputtered. “Exiles. Relics. Weapons. The Dracul Gin.”

  “He lies,” the Captain blurted. “I hid away the dragon gin with my own two hands. Lop the little hedgepig’s neck and set his craven skull a-bowling.”

  Cyrus saw Niffy look up at the Captain’s words. His grip on Flint didn’t slacken, but his interested eyes stayed on the Captain.

  Rupert studied Flint’s floury face. “Pythia,” Rupert said, “does the man lie?”

  No one answered.

  “Pythia?” Rupert asked. He glanced back at the silent crowd. Cyrus turned as well, scanning the corners. He hadn’t known the little rope-haired oracle was at the camp. Of course, he hadn’t known that Gil and the Captain would be here, either.

  “When you say Pythia,” Niffy asked, “you wouldn’t be meaning the Pythia?”

  Nolan laughed. Rupert didn’t answer. He focused on the Captain.

  “John Smith?” His voice was hard. “Where is she?”

  The Captain shrugged. “She’s just a wee lass. I don’t keep her in chains.”

  “The roof,” Gilgamesh said, and his voice rumbled like a big bass drum. Cyrus felt it in the floorboards. Gil nodded his massive head up at the beams. “She roosts above.” The giant man’s cow-size eyes rolled back down and met Cyrus’s. Cyrus looked away quickly.

  “No lie,” Flint said desperately. “I swear, I’m telling only truth, mate. Skelton sabotaged Phoenix for years, ghosting away every relic he could, every time the boss sent him after something. No one knew until he swiped the tooth for himself, and then he took off running.”

  Rupert lowered his sword and backed away. Niffy stood the chair back up, and Flint sagged with relief.

  “Oh, Lord love you, brother. I’ll do anything you ask.”

  “Arachne,” Rupert said, “put him to sleep.”

  Small Arachne slipped forward, her spider bag over her shoulder, where it always was. When she passed Cyrus, her arm brushed his and his skin tightened with the cold like he’d just touched ten years of moonlight. When she reached Flint, she unslung the heavy bag from her shoulder. Flint stared at her, confused, eyes wide.

  “How long?” Arac
hne asked. Her voice was cool and quiet.

  “A year,” Rupert said. “At the least.”

  Arachne nodded and set her heavy bag on Flint’s lap. She whistled lightly between her teeth, and Cyrus bit his lip as a large charcoal spider with white speckles scrambled out of the bag and up Flint’s chest. Smaller spiders followed, but the man didn’t notice. His eyes were lost in Arachne’s, lost somewhere distant and cold, arctic and blue.

  “Your dreams needn’t be horrors,” Arachne said quietly, and she touched Flint’s sweating cheek. “They needn’t mirror your darkness. Look beyond yourself. Dream in the light.”

  Flint jerked as the spiders bit. Cyrus wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. The man who had tried to kill him blinked slowly, his tongue crept out of his mouth, and then his head lolled to the side. He was unconscious.

  “Justice,” Llewellyn said loudly, “would have been the blade.”

  “Aye,” said the Captain.

  “You can’t be serious,” Antigone said. “Rupert’s not a murderer. We can’t just kill people.”

  Rupert turned and faced the crowd, his shoulders slumping. He held out the sword for the Captain, and his words were as weary as his eyes.

  “I am a man of blood, Antigone Smith. It would not have been the first time I have executed a man in the field.” He glanced from Llewellyn to the Captain. “But wisdom can walk beyond justice. Look at us. Many in the Order are fearful of choosing our side in this war, fearful that we are nothing but ragged scofflaws with no creed but defiance.”

  “Cowards,” grunted the Captain. “Fen-suckled foot lickers.”

  “Maybe,” Rupert said. “But while we are outlaws in fact, we will not be in spirit. If we begin the hunt for Phoenix, we will need help, and our little band is off-putting enough already.”

  Niffy began to laugh, his round face split wide. “Off-putting?” He tipped Flint’s head back and forth. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’re a right lovely lot—the spider queen herself doling out doses.” He curtsied at Arachne, and then eyed Nolan. “And he’ll be the snakeskin thief, if I know my lists, and in the same band as Gilgamesh of Uruk, the hero thug who cursed him?”

  “I am not of this band,” Gil said. He shifted slightly where he stood and the floor creaked beneath his shadow. “But I am at peace.”

  “Brilliant,” said Niffy, and he ran a thick hand over the stripe of curly hair on his scalp. “Just tagging along, then, to observe and report back to your brother beasts?”

  Gil sniffed, and his nostrils flared. “And who are you, monk? Why are you here?”

  Niffy ignored him, continuing on with a grin.

  “And of course who could forget the traitor Captain, father of the Smiths turned transmortal Dracul killer? Your O of B is even ashamed of his crest.” Niffy crossed his thick arms. “Rupert Greeves, your little band is beyond off-putting. You could execute a dozen of Phoenix’s men in this fireplace and worry no one at all. You’ve had one trial already, and as grand and dramatic and lovely as it was, it’s time for another. This time you’ll all be on the block.” Niffy looked around the room. His cheeks fell and the last residue of his smile vanished.

  “The beast of Uruk has asked my errand. Well, I am Brother Boniface Brosnan, Cryptkeeper of Monasterboice, numbered among the Brothers of the Voyager, the first and only true Order of Brendan. The Brothers sent me to make a judgment and deliver a message.”

  “Ignoring your petty rivalry, what are you talking about?” Rupert growled. “What message?”

  Niffy sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Well, that will depend on the judgment, won’t it? You have been seeking allies for your war. I am here. An ambassador. Are you to be the allies or enemies of my order?”

  “Irishman,” the Captain said, “ye’d be wise to watch your words.”

  “Sit, Captain,” Niffy said. “Please. Transmortals to my left, mere humanity to my right. This won’t take long. Will someone fetch the Pythian oracle from the roof?”

  Rupert stared at Niffy.

  “I’m a man of the cloth,” Niffy said, smiling. “And a possible friend. You need some of those, yeah? So indulge me.”

  six

  JUDGE, JURY, MESSENGER

  CYRUS SQUIRMED IN HIS SEAT until Antigone elbowed him in the ribs. Then, just for her, he squirmed a little harder. The two of them were wedged into a short wooden couch with itchy wool cushions on the humanity side of the room. Of the mortals, only Rupert stood.

  Cyrus glanced back at the door. His mother had been pretty shaken by the interrogation of Flint. Of course she had been. And Cyrus hadn’t even noticed. Not until Dan had asked that they be excused from Niffy’s little show and had practically carried her from the room. And now Antigone was angry because Rupert had told her to stay. She was even angrier because she hadn’t noticed how upset her mother was in the first place. And now her elbows were taking it out on Cyrus.

  Ten normal humans, Cyrus thought. It was hardly an army. It was hardly even an outlaw band. And that was including his mother and Llewellyn Douglas in his wheelchair. But the mortals weren’t really where this gang packed its punch. He looked across the room at the transmortals.

  Nolan was slumping in his chair with his knotted paper-colored arms crossed and his eyes almost shut. His blue veins were faint beneath the surface of his skin, like long-healed bruises. He was calm, but no one who had seen Nolan angry would ever forget how dangerous he could be. Those veins weren’t always faint. Cyrus had seen them bulge and writhe.

  Arachne was beside Nolan, sitting straight up in her chair with her hands folded politely over her saggy bag of spiders like an etiquette instructor. Her icy eyes were focused on Niffy, where he stood on the hearth, and her obsidian hair was pulled back so tight that it looked like black glass. Cyrus wondered if her spiders had done it for her. Probably. Arachne was small and quiet, and he’d never seen her move quickly, not even when she’d faced Phoenix. Wherever there were spiders, she was dangerous. And spiders were everywhere.

  Gilgamesh overwhelmed a little wooden chair, and it squealed in pain every time he breathed. His legs stuck out like felled trees, and his six-fingered hands were splayed out on his knees. His serpentine lips were sneering in his beard, and his cow eyes always seemed to be on Cyrus. He could explode like a humpbacked rodeo bull, and the small ice-eyed spider girl beside him might have been the only thing keeping him from tearing Cyrus’s head off. Of course, Cyrus had saved Gil from Phoenix in a burning cigar factory on the Mississippi. Maybe that was enough to erase Gil’s hate.

  Cyrus met the huge man’s eyes. They were still and dark and unblinking. Anger was trapped inside them, like a prisoner behind glass. Cyrus looked away quickly.

  Gil was a problem.

  The Captain stepped into the lodge, carrying Pythia on his back. The small girl with the wide eyes and the dark skin peered over the Captain’s shoulder. Her thick ropes of hair were coiled around his arms, holding her in place. The other transmortals seemed almost normal by comparison. Her hair moved and gripped like the tentacles of an octopus, and life—ancient and mossy—almost dripped from her eyes. But unlike the other transmortals, her bright eyes looked young, and her focus seemed sharp enough to bend the world and time around it. She was mute, communicating in thoughts and dreams to seers like Dan, or in mysterious words written in fire on leaves so that they couldn’t be kept and treasured.

  From the Captain’s back, Pythia cupped a dry leaf in her hands and blew it at Niffy. A fiery word sparked on the leaf as it fluttered through the air and settled on the hearth beside the monk’s feet. Without a glance, he kicked it back into the fireplace.

  The Captain lowered Pythia to a chair, but she slipped down onto the floor, wrapping her hair around herself and beginning to rock in place. Her eyes were locked on Cyrus, and he could see her lips moving in a string of endless whispers. He could guess what she was saying—the same thing Dan had been dreaming about for months, starting right before they had found their fath
er’s body and stopped Phoenix in the cigar factory where he had been using the tooth to redesign and resurrect a crop of New Men, where Phoenix had even managed to resurrect himself into the body of his nephew, Oliver.

  Dan only ever came away from the dream with a string of words about the one called Desolation, and abominations, and the darkness of his shadow, and even the dragons being afraid.

  It was about Radu Bey. Or Phoenix. One or the other, and as far as Cyrus could tell, it didn’t really matter which. They were both terrifying enough without a crazy oracle or Dan’s nightmare visions to spread the good news.

  Nolan, Arachne, Gil, John Smith, and Pythia. Five transmortals. None if you figured that Gil was going to turn on the group eventually and the other transmortals would all be kept busy trying to control him.

  How many transmortals did Radu Bey have? Rupert had been unwilling to guess, but Antigone had gotten a number out of him eventually. Over two hundred and climbing. Maybe two dozen of the great ones, at least as powerful as Gil. Two or three as powerful as Radu Bey himself. And how many New Men did Phoenix have? As many as he had had the time to make. And how tough were they? Nobody knew. Yet.

  Cyrus looked up at Rupert Greeves, feet spread, strong arms crossed, narrowed eyes focused on a grinning Irish monk with a Mohawk. He knew that of all the obstacles they faced, Rupert’s greatest fear—greatest fears—still lay beneath Ashtown, in the deepest vaults, behind hidden doors, beyond ancient seals. The Burials.

  That number had been easy for Antigone to get out of Rupert. He had insisted that they memorize it. One hundred and forty-four Powers had been Buried before the first modern treaties and the settling of the New World. All had some form of flesh, even if stolen, but many were in no way truly human. The oldest and worst were gods and goddesses of war. Necromancers. Fallen stars. Leviathan. Panic. And worse. Seventy-two more had been Buried in the five centuries since the treaties, and they were mostly modern transmortals—once human, but no longer.

  “Right,” Niffy said. “Lovely little gathering. I’d been told you had Ponce along as well.”