The Bone Houses

by Emily Lloyd-Jones

  For a few terrible moments, they were frozen on the wall. He could feel Aderyn’s hand on his ankle, her grip tight as she tried to tell him to move, to keep fleeing, but he remained still. Then her hand fell away.

  He felt her begin to climb past him—and he understood. She was getting around him, escaping before the bone houses could drag her down.

  Good. Relief crashed into him—not for himself, but for her. He would fall, but she did not have to. She could go on, continue their task, and perhaps save everyone else. Her journey did not have to end in the damp and the dark, to rough fingers and snapping jaws.

  And then he felt her hand on his arm. She wrenched his grip from the wall, and she hauled him upward to the next rung.

  It hurt. Like molten fire being poured into the shoulder joint. He may have screamed, but the noise was lost in the caverns. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to continue.

  The climb was a blur—feet and arms, cold metal and slick rock. Ellis heard Aderyn give a sound of surprise, and then fresh air caught in Ellis’s shirt. He felt the chill of it, the cold sweep through his collar and down his chest, and it was welcome.

  He scrambled out of the mine. One moment he was surrounded on all sides by rock, and then he stood beneath splashes of crimson and gold, light spilling through the trees.

  He sank to his knees, one hand on the soft moss of a forest floor.

  CHAPTER 21

  RYN HAD HEARD many tales of Annwvyn. How it was the Otherworld, the Not-Place, where Arawn had ruled over his court at Castell Sidi, where red-eyed hounds caught game for their master, where men vanished for a decade only to reappear not a day older, where maidens heard songs so beautiful they wept, where Gwydion fought a great battle and called the very trees to fight on his behalf, where Arawn finally turned away from the isles and sailed far beyond the reach of humanity.

  But for all the stories, Ryn was unprepared for the beauty of the mountains.

  These trees had leaves of gold. Not autumn-brown or rust-red, but gold as the dawn. White lichen crept up the trunks, catching the light. The ground was thick with moss, and delicate flowers studded patches of sunlight. It was the kind of beauty that could not be created by human hands.

  And for the first time, Ryn understood why a human might have coveted this place.

  She crouched on the mossy ground and watched as the first rays of dawn crept through the trees. She wanted to wrap herself up in that daylight.

  “We need…” she said, and her voice faltered. She tried a second time. “We need to dry out our clothes. Eat something, rest.”

  Ellis did not reply, but he gave a small nod.

  He was bent over, chest heaving and clothes soaked through. He trembled hard, and he made no move to rise or speak.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He kept his eyes averted. “My pack is wet, but I’m fine.” The pleasant rasp of his voice roughened. He offered nothing more, and she did not press.

  “I can hear running water,” she said. “I’m going to refill our flasks and take a look around.”

  She was almost glad of the solitude when she walked deeper into the woods. There was a profound silence in this forest, a stillness that she dared not break. The trees themselves were broad with age, their trunks whorled and knotted, untouched by axes. Their thick canopy kept the sunlight at bay, and the undergrowth was not overly thick; it wasn’t difficult to walk among the trees, her steps muffled by soft ferns and mosses. She followed the sound of water, descending a small ridge.

  The creek was small, likely fed by a mountain spring. She knelt beside the water. It was the kind of cold that made every muscle seize. But it was also clear and clean, and she used it to scrub the mud from her face and arms. She pulled off her tunic, rinsed the garment as best she could. It still smelled of the mine—copper and rust. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she tried to re-braid it, with some success. Once her fingers were clean, she drank handfuls of the water. A small fish darted by and she twitched, wishing she had brought a net with her.

  “Oh—I’m sorry.”

  She looked up. Ellis stood a few paces away, his gaze averted. She frowned. “What are you on about?”

  Still he would not look at her. “You’re—ah—” He waved about, the gesture meant to encompass all of her.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m not naked. There’s cloth covering all the relevant bits.”

  “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you.”

  She rose to her feet. Ryn knew how she looked: freckled arms corded with wiry muscle. A pale stomach, and a chest that was easy to bind with a strip of cloth. Her body was like her axe—perhaps not the most beautiful, but it was useful and familiar and comfortable. “I’m not embarrassed,” she said. “Seems you’re the one out of sorts.”

  His mouth made a funny expression, as if he were trying to laugh and grimace at the same time. When his gaze finally met hers, it was with the hesitance of someone trying to look at the sun. A glance and then away, then another. “What,” she said. “I’m not terrible to look at. Not one of your fine ladies, perhaps.”

  He made a noise. As if that laugh snagged in his throat. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Not one for the ladies?” she asked. “If you prefer the lads, that’s fine. Though you’re not Gareth’s usual type. He likes blonds.”

  “I have not been eyeing your brother, either.” Ellis finally managed to hold her eyes. He exhaled a sharp laugh. “The reason I could not climb—why I froze back there.”

  “Are you dying?” The words came out in a rush. Ryn’s doubts rose up to meet the memory of Catrin’s words.

  Ellis looked taken aback. “Well. I know I don’t look so dashing after being doused in coppery water and climbing through a mine, but—”

  “Ellis,” she said.

  He laughed, but it was small and short-lived. “You’re one of the few people who never make my name sound as if it’s lacking something—a surname or a title.”

  “Probably because I’m irritated,” she replied drily. “Ellis the Elusive.”

  “Fair enough.” He inclined his head. “I’m not dying. It’s my shoulder—it pains me. It always has.”

  Ah. Suddenly things made more sense. “Old injury?” she asked.

  He touched his chest gingerly, fingers sliding along his collarbone. As if testing it. “The prince’s physician thought so. She thought the bone had broken and never been set right.” For a moment, a vein of bitterness slid into his voice. “Sometimes sliding my arm into a shirt is more than I can stand, and other days, it’s merely a throb that I can ignore. I always have willow bark with me, so I can dull the pain if needed. I chose mapmaking not only because I love it, but also because I needed a trade that wouldn’t injure me. I’ll never be a soldier, or a smith, or anything that requires full use of both arms.” He shook his head. “And if you think of pitying me—do not. For the most part, I truly enjoy my life. But there are limitations.

  “Sometimes I wonder if this is the reason my parents abandoned me,” he said in a low voice. “If perhaps they could not afford to keep a son who would never be able to help on a farm.” And she knew, by how he said the words, that this was the secret he took with him to bed. This was the most raw, most painful thing he could have entrusted her with.

  Fallen kings. It made her heart ache for him—and suddenly she hoped they would find his parents so she could yell at them. Perhaps she could help find them. She could ask the village elders, see if anyone had lost a child around Ellis’s age.

  If they survived this, of course.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  He blinked. “Pardon me?”

  She gestured at his muddy clothes. “You said it hurts to put your arm in a sleeve. And you need to wash out your clothes, unless you want that muck to dry and harden. Can I help?”

  Silence fell between them, and Ryn was sure she had overstepped. Gareth would have known not to push, and Ceridwen would have been too polite to ask in t
he first place. She felt the beginnings of an apology on her lips, but then Ellis said, “I—if it’s not too much trouble.”

  She stepped closer, placing her fingers on the hem of his mud-spattered shirt.

  Getting it off took a few minutes—it was a matter of not straining his arm too badly while not ripping the garment. In the end, he gave a small grunt of pain, but the shirt slid away. Ryn tossed it into the shallows, where it snagged on a fallen branch. Mud began to sluice away on small currents of water.

  As they stood beside that creek, clad in little more than their smalls, she chanced a look at him. True enough, his left arm had less muscle than his right, and there was a thin scar just beneath his collarbone, as if the bone had pierced through the skin. And yet, there was a strength to him, a stillness that bespoke quiet confidence.

  “You could have told me before,” she said.

  His gaze was on the creek and the small fish. They had come to investigate the dirty shirt, touching it, then darting away and back again.

  “To tell people is to invite pity,” he said, a bit wearily, “or worse, advice.”

  “Advice?”

  “Herbs to try,” he said. “Stretches. Leeches, one time. People cannot simply let me be. They have to find a way to fix me.”

  “You’re not broken,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “But it’s difficult to convince the world of that most of the time. That’s why I’ve enjoyed solitude. People think pain makes me weak—or worse, strong. If I have to endure one more person telling me that I’m ‘so strong’ simply for living…” He shook his head.

  Ryn knew something of pain; she had seen enough of it. Death and pain were close companions, often twined around each other.

  “Pain doesn’t make a person weak or strong,” she said. “Pain just—is. It’s not a purifier, it’s part of living.”

  That made him laugh. It was a good laugh—the kind that scrunched up the corners of his eyes. “Ah. Well, I suppose I should be glad of it, then. I quite enjoy being alive.” When he looked at her, it was through the fringe of his hair. “And thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Not leaving me to die in that mine,” he said.

  She snorted. “As if I would.”

  “You could have.” He tilted his head, and his dark hair slid out of his eyes. It was a steady look he gave her, and it felt as if it went deeper than skin. As if he had peeled away flesh and bone and was looking at the heart of her. “Most people would have. When faced with darkness and terror, most people will run—and forget those around them.”

  “Death doesn’t frighten me,” she said. “It never has.” She closed her eyes, feeling the bitterness of the lie on her tongue. “Losing people is what I fear. The uncertainty and the… not knowing.” She pressed a hand to her forehead as if she might push back the memories.

  “I understand,” he said simply. There was no I’m sorry, no awkward silence.

  Because he did understand. He’d lived with his own uncertainty for most of his life.

  She smiled, just a little. “Come on, you. We need to eat.” She reached into the creek, retrieving their clothes: soaked but clean. They would dry in the sunlight.

  He walked after her. “And what are we to eat?”

  She gestured about the forest. “Look around us. There’s plenty.”

  That earned her a skeptical noise. “Truly?”

  She flashed him a grin. “Watch me.”

  She had the provisions in her pack—the flour and the pickled seeds, the berry preserves, and even a small iron pot. She could eat out here for weeks, if she had to. She made for the trees, bending to pick handfuls of sorrel. She used the edge of her cloak to take some nettles—which would taste just fine after they’d been cooked. Mushrooms were riskier fare, but Mam had taught her which sorts were dangerous. She found a clump of hedgehog mushrooms clustered about the base of a tree. She pulled a small knife from her belt and went to work harvesting them.

  “Hold these,” she said, giving Ellis the mushrooms.

  He cradled them gently in both hands, as if afraid to crush them.

  She built a fire as best she could with green wood. It took a few locks of her own hair and several tries before a trickle of smoke trailed between her fingers.

  They dined on a soup of sorrel, nettle, and mushrooms. The pickled seeds were sprinkled atop, and they sharpened the flavor with mustard and pepper. It was a good meal, but Ryn saved the last mouthful, scraping it into a thick leaf. She carried it several steps away, and then she set the food on one of the mossy rocks.

  “For later?” asked Ellis.

  Ryn shook her head. “You would probably call it superstition. After all, this forest is supposed to be abandoned.”

  He nodded, understanding. “Pwca.”

  Her brows shot skyward.

  “We have the old tales in Caer Aberhen,” he said mildly. “I heard them, too. I just never believed them—until a dead man tried to strangle me.”

  “That does tend to change one’s worldview.” Ryn threw him a smile, then went back to their small camp. Well, to call it a camp seemed overly optimistic—it consisted of their packs, her axe, and their cloaks strewn across branches. She’d scrub out the iron pot later, refill their flasks with water, and clean the mine muck from their boots. But for now the food was settled comfortably in her belly, the sunlight felt warm on her back, and it was a simple matter to curl up on the mossy ground.

  “Aren’t we supposed to move?” said Ellis, but he sounded as exhausted as she felt. “Keep going?”

  “We won’t do ourselves any good if we’re too tired to think,” she replied. “We’ll rest a few hours, then find our way.”

  He grunted a soft acquiescence. She felt him curl up beside her—his back to hers, and the warmth of him was a comfort.

  She closed her eyes and fell asleep swiftly.

  They began the true journey that afternoon.

  Rather than try to forge their own path, Ryn decided they should keep to the banks of a small creek. It had cut a swath through the rock, so deep in some places that naked cliffs surrounded them on both sides. Rays of sunlight pierced the canopy overhead, illuminating the mists and mosses. The water was shallow, coming up to just below her knees. With the autumn foliage all around them, Ryn could only hope they would find Castell Sidi before snowfall. Winter would fall upon this place like a wolf on a fresh carcass. Its jaws would close and it wouldn’t let go.

  By keeping to the river, they wouldn’t run out of fresh water. Ryn kept her axe in hand at all times, striding through the mud and the rocks.

  Ellis followed a few paces behind. The rest seemed to have done him well; he moved more easily, and he appeared raptly interested in the trees and in the slope of the mountain. When they stopped to get their bearings, he withdrew a small, damp book from his pack and wrote down numbers. “Distances,” he said, when he caught her looking. “If I can make a map to Castell Sidi…” He seemed at a loss for words. “Well. I don’t know what the equivalent would be to a gravedigger.”

  “Burying princes?” she said with a wry little smile. “We still don’t get much recognition for that.”

  The forest was clotted with moss and ivy, and the trees themselves were so wide she could have stretched her arms around some of the trunks and not touched her own fingers. Their thick roots shaped the very ground, jutting into the air before descending into the earth. The golden-leafed trees were some variant of oak, she decided, with perhaps a touch of magic.

  The afternoon passed quickly, as Ryn fell into the rhythm of walking. Her calves burned pleasantly, and the heat of her body kept the river’s chill at bay.

  “There’s no sign of people,” said Ellis, when they stopped to refill their flasks. The water was bright and sharp against Ryn’s dry throat, and she gulped it down.

  “We’re in Annwvyn,” said Ryn. “Of course no one is here. Only we’re fool enough to try.”

  His gaze swept across the for
est. “Exactly. We got in—I thought it would be more difficult.”

  “Nearly dying in the mine wasn’t enough for you?”

  He frowned, but the expression was directed at the forest, not at Ryn. “This place is… well, the lumber here could be worth a fortune. If the cantref could bring in workers, we might manage to enrich the villages nearby. Bring in trade. Make this place a center of commerce, rather than a nowhere. Surely if people could come this far, they would have.”

  “You think we’ve had too easy a time of it?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “Which means there’ll probably be more monsters ahead.”

  “Cheerful thought.”

  She remembered the tales of red-eyed hounds chasing lone travelers, of the monstrous boar that took ten knights to bring down, of lake-dwelling maidens who would drown those who came too near, and of keen-eyed dragons. If the otherfolk had left the cauldron behind, there could be other magical artifacts, as well.

  “We’ll be careful,” she replied.

  That evening, they dined on dried meat, both too tired to seek out fresher fare. She brewed a tea of pine needles and laughed when Ellis grimaced. “I suppose it’s an acquired taste, Aderyn,” he said.

  “Ryn,” she said.

  He looked at her sharply.

  “None of that Aderyn nonsense,” she said. “When you’ve seen me covered in mud and without a tunic, I think you’ve earned a bit of familiarity. Besides, every time you call me that, I twitch. Usually when I hear my full name, it’s someone scolding me.”

  “Ryn.” Ellis threw a look over his shoulder, searching the forest. “You think bone goat will catch up?”

  “Of course she will. She didn’t let death keep her from us. She’ll find us.”

  If they lived through this, Ellis thought, perhaps bards would sing the tale. The gravedigger and the mapmaker, and their dead goat.