Papa Lucy & the Boneman

by Jason Fischer

  It took two full days for the Boneman to repair the whaling ship. He peeled great slabs of flesh and skin from the shark, wedded them to gaps in the hull, and tricked the mouldering flesh into joining with the wood. The bones of the shark helped to shore up the weak spots, and soon the dead townsfolk were hauling the ship out of dry dock and launching the refitted monstrosity.

  “Safest boat I’ve ever sailed on!” the Boneman exulted. Attached in place of the rudder was the dead shark’s tail, thrashing around to drive the ship forwards.

  “This is just disgusting,” Lucy said. “I used to have a fleet of nice boats up at the lake. Good ones, too.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” the Boneman said, and with a simple gesture, he dropped Bertha’s harbour chain to the ocean floor.

  The shark-ship lurched forward, the great sweep of the rotting tail obeying the Boneman’s commands in only the most literal of manners. Spending many moments with his eyes fixed to the scatter of islands before them, Sol did his best to fight off the nausea.

  To the far right, he could just make out the fuzz of the delta, an almost permanent miasma where the Niven spilled into the sea. A growing metropolis peered above the mangroves, dominated by a Before-Time skyscraper.

  “Mawson got big,” he said. It looked to be double the size of Crosspoint and spreading.

  The bizarre ship was in the open sea for less than an hour when trouble struck. The Boneman did his best to stop all the leaks, but the boat was incredibly old and the shark skin halfway to rotten. He gave up the bailing bucket and spent the rest of the voyage cranking the Archimedes screw.

  Between his efforts to keep the shark-ship afloat and command the thrashing tail, he didn’t notice the swarm of eels keeping pace with the ship and trying to decide if it was food or not. Their simple minds went with “food.”

  The boat began to rock. One of the sea-snakes threw itself at the ship and crunched the deck rail into splinters with foot-long fangs before slipping back into the churning water.

  “Ah, the sailing life,” Lucy warbled, whistling a jaunty maritime tune.

  Using his electric torch to examine the hold, the Boneman spotted a dozen new leaks. As the planks bent underneath the assault of the eels, he abandoned the primitive water pump. Braving the deck, he sat cross-legged by the mast. The ship lurched and began to list. The Boneman watched the water nervously and wondered how long the ship had before it broke apart. Casting out his mind, he searched through the life that surrounded them.

  It was a shock to suddenly perceive the scale of life in the ocean. His mind’s eye reeled before the inhospitable soup around them, crammed to the brim with enormous monsters. He sensed the eels circling the ship, pummelling the hull, tearing confusedly at the shark flesh.

  “Won’t work,” Lucy said. “Eels are cunning things. Too smart for you or me to possess.”

  “I don’t want an eel,” the Boneman said. Frowning with concentration, he found what he was looking for then put the right insinuation into his target’s mind. He called it forward, gently, then let the animal’s instincts do the rest.

  The water around the boat bubbled with movement, with the ink of spilled blood. After many moments, the rocking of the boat ceased and all was quiet.

  “What happened? Let me see,” Lucy said. A long shadow passed across the surface of his mirror, then another. A forest of pink trunks emerged from the sea, rising above the ship before snatching it up. Chitin-crusted limbs wrapped completely around the ship.

  The Boneman met the enormous eye of their saviour, an alien orb set in a wall of interlocking plates. It regarded him dully. He fought off the sudden panic and impressed the creature with the notion of swimming toward the islands before them.

  The dripping brush of its mouth was above the waterline now, a broad gash ringed with smaller tentacles that was capable of swallowing the ship whole. He repeated the telepathic instruction, hoping that the sea monster wouldn’t be confused by the shark parts of their vessel. He wasn’t sure, but he thought this creature preyed on the killer fish.

  The ship began to glide through the water, moving sideways now as the sea monster tightened its grip. The hold was almost completely full of water, and big chunks of the ship had washed away, leaving a wooden trail that smaller monsters snapped at.

  “Which way?” the Boneman yelled into the mirror as he squinted into the spray. Lucy bobbed around unable to find a point of reference.

  “Small island,” he said. “Rocky plateau, trees, beautiful sand.”

  The Boneman tried not to think about what had happened on that beautiful sand and did his best to chart the islands by prodding at the monster’s simple mind. Once, he caught a glimpse of a large island riddled with rude dwellings and people running inland as the sea monster came within sight of their shores.

  There were rocks bare of life and other islets that seemed habitable, but none of them matched Lucy’s description. Finally, he saw the island and its distinctive ridge that could only be the hiding place of Lady Bertha.

  The colossal sea creature placed the broken ship gently onto that perfect shore and then slipped away, a forest of thick tentacles sinking back beneath the waves.

  “That’s it. No more seafood for me,” Lucy said quietly.

  — 15 —

  The Boneman clambered awkwardly down a rope with Lucy’s mirror lashed to his back. He fell to the sand and moved quickly out of the shadow of the ship. A plank fell, and he flinched. The crustacean had been less than gentle, and the hull was riddled with cracks. The whaler would never sail again.

  The beach was littered with broken wood, and some of his supplies began to wash up in the foam. Most of it was waterlogged and useless. A handful of Lucy’s treasures glittered in the sunlight, and the mirror man insisted that his brother gather it all, broken or not.

  “That’s my backgammon set. Look, you remember this, my valedictorian plaque from the Collegia. Quickly now, we’re not leaving these for the crabs.”

  As he worked, the Boneman was conscious of the thick treeline over his shoulder with the almost impenetrable undergrowth. Strange animals gave voice in that rainforest: a burbling hiss like a kettle boiling dry, answered by a rapid clicking from somewhere up in the canopy. Something was on the hunt. An agonised screech, and he felt the tickle in his mind as a small life was snuffed out.

  Shading his eyes against the sun, he searched the island for any sign of habitation, any hint of Bertha. From here, the island looked untouched by man, but choked by an alien jungle of multicoloured trees. The underbrush was dominated by sweating tubers half again as tall as he was.

  “Let me see it,” Lucy said. The Boneman pointed the mirror on his back towards the jungle.

  “Yes, definitely the right place. She’s let things go a bit, but we’re here. Her beachhouse is round the other side.”

  “She had a beachhouse?” the Boneman said, but Lucy kept his own counsel.

  “No, you don’t get to ignore this. Tell me about the beachhouse.”

  “Stop making so much out of ancient history. I brought us here for the right reasons.”

  “She is my wife.”

  “Ex-wife.”

  The Boneman trudged along the ribbon of beach, eventually kicking off his boots and letting his see-through toes sink into the sand. The island was perhaps three miles across, and the plateau overlooked everything. The summit was as straight as a razor.

  Finally, he rounded a headland and came upon the crumbling relic of a dock. A handful of shipwrecks were scattered around the calm bay. An old road, nearly reclaimed by the jungle, led into the island’s interior.

  With an ear to the cacophony of the bush, the Boneman grimaced as he pulled an old revolver out of his belt. He’d found it in a fishing hut in Cape Baun and he didn’t know if it would fire or not.

  The last time he’d held a firearm was back at the Collegia, a day at the gun range with John Leicester and Hesus. That was a little over seven hundred years ago, he calcu
lated. He’d never liked guns and always relied upon his mastery of the magical arts in a tight spot. Now he was the master of nothing but bones and dust. He gripped the pistol gratefully.

  The Boneman trod carefully through the gloom, the light swallowed by the canopy, watching everywhere as he advanced along the cracked asphalt. He felt a hundred sets of eyes upon him, meat eaters from species not discovered yet. He pushed away as many of the beasts as he could, but many of the animals shook off his invisible touch and crowded closer. A python curled around a branch overhead but watched him pass with its own alien bemusement, unwilling to stir from the beam of sunlight it had found.

  Then the road came into a clearing and the Boneman stopped still, his heart beating rapidly. Even though it was almost completely embraced by the jungle, the large manse nestled into the side of the hill, its crumbled roof flush with the lip of the plateau.

  It was a perfect replica of their old house.

  “Sol, you might want to move,” Lucy said. The Boneman looked behind to see the bulk of a great shape slowly creeping forward, a pair of hungry eyes and the shifting of at least a dozen legs. His weak attempts at repulsing the beast did nothing, so he ran, huffing as the road wound up the steep hill at the island’s centre.

  Passing the ruins of an outer terrace, he felt the boundary and saw a set of old marks etched into the paving stones. The big animal kept its distance from this invisible fence while it snarled at the Boneman from the depths of the jungle. With shaky hands, he slid the gun back into his waistband and sat for a long moment on the mildewed steps.

  The gardens were overgrown now, but he recognised the layout, down to the banks of shattered terrariums and curving gravel walks. He’d taken a turn at amateur sculpting when life in the Moot got too stressful, and he recognised his own efforts at art, blasted and featureless by the passage of time.

  This wasn’t a replica. Bertha had used the Cruik to bring this building over from the heights of Langenfell, down to the last brick. He’d left with good grace, but this was needless, a twisting of the knife.

  “You spiteful bitch,” he whispered as he walked into the ruins of his own house.

  “Careful now,” Lucy said. “I know things got weird for a while there, but don’t say anything we all might regret.”

  “Shut up,” the Boneman said with a ragged edge to his voice. “You knew what she did. You’ve been here!”

  He stalked into the atrium, horrified at the sight of his ruined furnishings, the slime encrusted tepidarium, the shattered mosaic floors. The aviary had been torn apart, the great holes in the wire mesh spoke of violence and anger. Everywhere was filth and neglect, pointless vandalism.

  It was bad enough that she’d left him. Left him for Lucy. This was a new level of heartbreak though. This had been a home built with love, back when they were young and brave. Then she had stolen it for lust and hidden the history of their marriage on this island while he’d been broken and grieving.

  She could have built any structure with the power of the Cruik, but she had chosen to live in this shell of their broken love.

  He searched every wing of the manse, but the building was empty and every sign indicated a long abandonment. It had been many years since Bertha raged through these halls, a vibrant woman reduced to an animal shell. Finally, the Boneman sat down in the ruin of his solar, gaining some satisfaction in laying Lucy’s mirror face down on the floor.

  “Very funny,” his brother mumbled.

  He cast out his mind once more, hoping to find a sign of her, any clue to her whereabouts. He felt the presence of the animals in the nearby jungle held at bay by the house’s enchanted perimeter, but there was something else. He turned his attentions downwards where he felt the faintest glimmer of life.

  Excited, he gathered up the mirror and strapped it to his back. Searching through the vaults and basements, he found the opening in a far corner of the ruined wine cellar, earth and paving stones scattered as if by giant mice. A waist-high tunnel curved downwards into the hill.

  The Boneman switched on the electric torch and began to crawl. In one place where the tunnel was choked with tree roots, he spent many uncomfortable minutes forcing his way through them. Rocks dug into his ribs as he blunted his knife on the woody tendrils.

  Soon the tunnel emerged into a larger chamber where the walls and floor were fused glass. The Boneman slid out of the grimy hole and gazed around with wonder at the fluted ceiling, daylight and fresh air entering the cave from a series of well-placed skylights.

  “Taursi,” he said, admiring the tall glass spires. Above his head spread an elaborate structure that was paper-thin in places. He recognised the whorls of memory-glass and felt the presence of generation upon generation of alien thought captured in the glass. A cathedral, a library, and a museum all in one. The art of casting this glass had been lost to the natives long before the settlers had arrived, and a complete installation was rare indeed.

  Much could be learnt here, he realised, touching the nearest spire. It glowed a rose-pink under his hand, and he felt the gibbering of its captive dead, eager to rush forward with their teachings. The Taursi spirits had difficulty meshing with his mind, and he lifted his hand quickly. His head was already twinging with pain. The voices fell into sullen silence, denied the chance to impart their wisdom.

  Once more the Boneman thought of Sad Plain and the guilt at what had been lost. Of what they had done. Some of the blame fell on Hesus, but the Boneman was just as culpable, following Papa Lucy into his madness. Into vengeance.

  “Well, I didn’t know this stuff was down here,” Lucy said.

  Then the creatures rushed in. The Boneman heard the shrieking, saw the pasty white of their flesh. Mad Millies, Bertha’s foot soldiers. Where once they had been the stern vanguard of the Family force, here they had fallen into the same madness as their mistress. Their tunics were in rags, and the stink was incredible.

  “Back!” he shouted as one hissed in his face, darting forward with foul claws. Panicked, he squeezed the trigger. The revolver cracked once, punching a hole into the woman’s chest.

  The gunshot reverberated against the crystals and glass of the ceiling, which emitted a painful high pitch. The rest of the Millies scattered, clutching their ears as they stole away to their hidey-holes and crevices. Soon, the chamber was empty.

  “I’m sorry,” the Boneman said to the dying Millie, who looked up at him with confusion and perhaps a crumb of recognition. The Cruik had touched all of Bertha’s women, granting life far beyond their years. But one look at the woman’s dead animal stare proved to the Boneman that he’d always been right.

  The cost was far too high.

  As the woman’s spirit passed into the Underfog, he felt the wind in that holy cavern move and heard the heavy tread behind him. The Boneman turned to see an enormous creature bearing down on him. It was eight feet of ropy muscle, a body wreathed in a foul mat of hair, eyes that swam with madness and a primal fury.

  His gun wavered. The Boneman held his fire.

  Bertha fell upon him like a bear. She knocked him down and slammed his head into the glassy floor. His vision swam with stars as she tore at his flesh, screeching like a banshee.

  The Boneman felt the mirror crack underneath him and heard Lucy cursing frantically. Still he did not fire. But when that hateful face descended towards his, its rotten teeth gnashing, he raised his pistol butt and struck Bertha square in the temple. She fell across him, dazed. He pushed her aside then straddled her sour-smelling body and hammered at her face with the pistol butt, sending her into unconsciousness.

  Breathing heavily, the Boneman looked down at what was left of his wife and shivered.

  He tore his shirt into strips and used them to hog tie Bertha, hand and foot. She slumped across the floor where she’d fallen, a bruise spreading purple across half of her face.

  “She always thought you had a temper,” Lucy said. His mirror was cracked in three places, but the large shards still sat within t
he frame. Smaller images of his face floated in each piece.

  “Be quiet,” the Boneman said. He watched Bertha closely, shocked by her appearance. The Cruik’s influence lingered, expanding her over the centuries into a gangling beast with hands a twist of claws and feet like big thorny slabs. At some stage she must have dispensed with clothes altogether, and only the mat of hair gave her any modesty, a wild tangle growing untended for hundreds of years.

  He remembered the young girl with the quick mind, the slender dancer, and he wanted to weep. Despite everything, despite the betrayals and the cruel grindstone of time, the man called Sol still held a sliver of love in his heart.

  He still remembered seeing them together in the Moot, Lucy and Bertha, as she appeared in public carrying the Cruik on his behalf. When she’d met Sol’s eyes, there was nothing in them but lust and the pinched look of an addict.

  Was it the Cruik that broke our marriage? Was she tempted by that power or did it happen afterwards?

  When Lucy had first appeared with the staff, Bertha had expressed the same concerns Sol did. It was too powerful, barely in Lucy’s control, sinister in its origins. A few years later, she was clutching to both the staff and the fool who claimed it as his own.

  “We are perfect,” Bertha had told John Leicester and Hesus, glassy-eyed and smiling.

  The giant Bertha on the floor stirred, howling in pain and confusion. She strained against her bonds, her face knotted with effort. But the Boneman had soaked his makeshift ropes in the cave’s spring, and even with her unnatural strength, the wet fibres proved impossible to rip.

  Finally, she gave up and stared at him in sullen defeat, grinding at her teeth and muttering. The Boneman remembered her sorceries. She’d been his equal in power and in some areas his master. There was a time when a simple rope would never have bound the Lady Bertha.

  He regretted the loss of his own power, even though he’d never been much of a healer. It might have taken him extra effort, but he’d have been able to lead her back to sanity past the darkness and fog in her mind.