The Bones of the Past (Books of Dust and Bone)

by Craig A. Munro

  Jenus rose early the next morning, or at least he guessed it was early. The pale light of the city was only just starting to rise to the levels he’d first seen the day before. Now to find somewhere to train my men and keep them from thinking too much about where they are. He opened his door and saw a procession of the iron-masked slaves walking through the street, placing heaving bundles of foodstuffs on the ground outside each home. They moved in eerie silence, never complaining, never speaking with one another. And this despite the fact that no guards accompanied them.

  A bundle was placed next to his own door as the gray-robed men and women filed by pulling large carts. Jenus nodded his thanks but got no response. He reached down to pick up the bundle and was surprised by how heavy it was. Nearly the whole bale was filled with grains and dried beans. And they are offloading them as if they were nothing. Not a groan, not a complaint, not one of them out of breath dragging carts full of such bales. . . . Not one out of breath . . . or even breathing, he realized in shock. Menial labor in Ischia wasn’t done by slaves but by the dead. Jenus shuddered. This was another of the terrible evils the priesthood had taught them about for his entire life. Necromancy, and it was placed in the service of everyone in this city—of all things delivering food to its living inhabitants.

  Jenus shook himself. I’m not doing any good just standing here, and if I know my soldiers, they’ll need to be kept busy. He found a clear space halfway down the street that had been turned over to the refugees, a nice wide square of well-cobbled stone with only a well breaking its clean emptiness. Yes, this will do. He returned to his temporary home and brought back an empty barrel. He pulled the iron bands off and split the staves apart. And so I return to childhood. A grown soldier swinging around a barrel stave like I did as a boy, dreaming it was a sword. I wonder if the others will come. He started going through training sequences, the movements as familiar to him as breathing.

  It wasn’t long before his countrymen started to rise and step out of their homes. Traven was the first to join him. His old friend walked up and picked up a stave from the pile before falling into step with Jenus. One after another, the other soldiers joined them. Many of the noncombatants crowded around to watch for a time as hundreds of their countrymen silently moved through sequences of moves. There was no sound but the message was being screamed as loudly as the prisoners could manage it—We are together and we will not give up.

  That morning, as she lay down to sleep, Zuly felt herself fall. Her mind and Nial’s fell far beyond the normal realms of sleep. They fell into a deep, perfect darkness. . . . And something was waiting for them there. They couldn’t see anything, but they could feel it. Something vast and hungry had pulled them down to this place, and now it searched for them in the blackness. They could feel its immense hunger like the breath of a great beast. They woke screaming. Even Zuly had been deeply affected by the nightmare.

  “What was that, Zuly?” Nial asked, half remembering the nightmares they had had when they were poisoned and feverish.

  “I don’t know, my sweet Nial. Just a dream.” She was trying to sound unconcerned, but Nial could sense the worry in her. “Just a bad dream. Nothing to worry about. . . .”

  But the dream returned the following night, and again the night after that. Each time the thing that hunted them in the dark seemed closer—more terrible in its fury and power. Nial asked Skeg about the dreams when they got to his shop but he seemed unsurprised.

  “You girls have been through so much these past months. You’ve seen some of the worst things that humans can do to one another. Let’s continue with your studies and try to take your minds off the bad dreams. Shade has left you another gift.” He held up a thick leather-bound tome. “I found this book on the counter when I came down to the shop today.”

  Interested despite herself, Nial looked up. “Is it something good?”

  Skeg smiled. “The details are a little beyond me, but this is a tome of pattern carving.”

  “What’s that, Uncle?” Nial asked.

  “Kind of what you did with the obsidian globes.”

  “You mean we can do other things that way?”

  Skeg was once again at a loss for words. It was so hard to believe that the girls’ perfect mastery over the complex carving and enchanting process had been nothing more than the imitation of something Zuly had witnessed. “All kinds of things are possible with this skill,” he said. “Making a simple pattern object will help it to weave energy for you so you only need to focus your power through it to get the same effect each time. That’s how I do most of my magic, I use pattern items that others have made. Other pattern objects can be used to store energy. They’re usually called Sources. Greater pattern items have their own power and continually produce their effect. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about magic swords and such. They are extremely hard to make and the materials are very expensive. But it’s a very useful skill for a mage with the knack.” Skeg looked down at his hands. “I even used pattern items and spell anchors I traded for to do my little imp-eating ritual.”

  Nial’s eyes lit up. “Maybe we can make some for you then.”

  “That would be wonderful, girls. But don’t waste too much time on me. You have another tough target to take care of before we’re rid of Shade.”

  The girls took the book from him and ran off to their usual spot in the ward circle to read.

  Days passed, but as interesting as the new book was, the girls’ nightmares continued to get worse. They were starting to feel the strain. They drew more and more power from the souls they had captured, trying to avoid sleep as much as possible. The timing couldn’t have been any worse. They had heard Shade’s target would be taking ship to Noros soon, which would put him beyond their reach for months.

  That night, when the girls closed their eyes, it was waiting for them. Zuly’s mind was pulled down into the blackness and Nial’s went with it. This time was different. This time was much, much worse. The thing that stalked them in the darkness had caught them at last. It clutched Zuly’s mind and touched her with its thoughts. It was too much, too vast, too dark to comprehend. The brush of its consciousness threatened to shatter their sanity. Foreign knowledge swirled into her thoughts. And all the while, she was aware of its hunger. Tightly controlled, but infinite in its depth. A hunger that wanted to consume her utterly. They woke screaming and did not stop until their throat was raw.

  The girls dressed quickly and set out for Skeg’s shop. It was barely midmorning. They had only slept a couple hours, but they couldn’t risk lying down again. They knew the thing waited for them. It was Zuly who finally figured out what it was. The echoing pain the thing had subjected them to held a message—a message in the tongue of the Karethin demons. They ran as fast as they could, desperate to speak with Skeg. He woke when they arrived. His eyes were red and swollen from lack of sleep.

  “Girls, you just barely left—” He stopped abruptly when he noticed the look on Nial’s face, then asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “The dreams won’t go away, Uncle Skeg. We need to stay awake all the time now. . . . We can’t let him touch our mind again.” Tears were welling up in her eyes. “H-h-he wants Zuly to go back home,” Nial stammered. Her lower lip trembled.

  “Who? Home?” Skeg asked.

  “The demon lord Amon Kareth,” Nial answered as their tears started to fall.

  Skeg watched her cry in silence for a time, desperately trying to think of something, anything, to do to help. “I don’t know what old Amon wants you girls for, but do you think you could reason with him? Is there any reasoning with a thing like that? Could you offer him souls? I really don’t know the first thing about demon lords but they sound a lot like gods, just a little nastier than most.”

  “You may have a point, Mister Skeg. Souls are all the lord ever really wants. But to give them to him, I’d still have to return, and Nial with me.”

  Skeg was chilled. He couldn’t begin to imagine the realities of a demon world, and
for a mortal girl to set foot on one . . .

  “We’ll have to think of something. For now, why don’t you go sit in the ward circle? The mages who carved it for me said it would keep out an angry god. We’ll have to see if it will hold out a demon lord.” The girls sat down in the circle. Despite their fear and desperation, exhaustion pulled them down into a deep sleep. Skeg hesitated to wake them up. He watched for a time, but when their sleep seemed untroubled, he left them to get some much needed rest and went out to his shop to pore through a few relevant tomes and try to think of a solution to their new problem. As if we needed another one! Skeg went up to his room and brought back a stack of blankets. He’d make the girls as comfortable as he could. Until they found a solution, the girls would stay with him. Besides, Nial’s father would probably be relieved she was gone. As Skeg moved about the room he noticed the wards around the circle were glowing faintly, but getting brighter. He froze, his nerves on edge. Something was trying to get in, and it was very, very strong. He thought about waking the girls up. But then the glow of the wards slowly dimmed again and went out. Skeg breathed a sigh of relief.

  So the wards held. . . . For today at least.

  The girls slept through the day and well into the night. Skeg was pacing with impatience while he waited. He hadn’t slept a wink himself. The worry that the demon lord would return kept him close to Nial and Zuly the whole time. When they finally woke up, he rushed to their side.

  “You’re finally awake! I hope you feel better, because I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

  The girls sat up looking a little guilty. “Thank you for letting us sleep here, Uncle Skeg.” Nial looked at him quizzically. “You look terrible.”

  “That’s because I had to watch the wards all day while Amon Kareth tried to batter his way through them. I can’t say how lucky we are he’s in a whole different realm. The power he’s using . . .” His voice trailed off when he saw Nial’s face blanch.

  “You are safe for now. You can sleep here from now on, and I’ll watch and wake you up if the wards get too hot.”

  Zuly looked at him. “But we cannot continue this way forever. We will have to find a way to go back.”

  Skeg nodded glumly. “Only if we can’t find another way. I’ve sent out messages to some of my contacts. I’ll try to find someone who can build stronger wards, or . . . or something,” he said, frustrated. Nial walked into the shop.

  “We’ll help look. There might be something in one of your books.”

  “That might be true, but I think our best bet would be to find a book of Sorenak lore,” Skeg said, following her out of the back room. “A few thousand years ago, some fool who called himself an emperor of a little island on the South Sea got his whole little empire eaten by demons. The Sorenak demonologists were the ruling caste. Gates and demon wards have been used often enough before. But this was a whole empire devoted to demonology. If you can call a little island with a handful of cities on it an empire. The power-crazed idiots even used demons as familiars. Made them powerful, there’s no doubt about that. But every time one of their mages died, its familiar would eat their soul and go insane. Wasn’t long before the place tore itself apart, and that was the end of Sorenak.” Nial was looking tired and resigned.

  “My point is, girls,” he said, “that I learned about all that at the Arcanum. Some of the Sorenak tomes must have survived. If anyone had the ability to stop an angry demon lord, it was them.”

  “But, Uncle Skeg, we’ve seen demons moving around the city before. The knowledge can’t be that rare.”

  “You saw some very minor demons under Arcanum control. So tightly controlled that the summoners probably have to petition the Closed Council every time they want to assign the creature a new task. The Arcanum mages don’t encourage any of their students to practice demonology. They tolerate small uses because of its obvious advantages, but playing with wards that would affect a greater demon is a far cry from summoning an imp.”

  Skeg looked at his nieces with concern. “This won’t be a quick process, girls. If I ask questions too directly, the Night Guard will be at my shop before I can blow out a candle. They give me some leeway, but the weaves we’re looking for are way past what they’d turn a blind eye to. Even if we get what we’re looking for, we’ll have to figure out how to do it ourselves. Gunnar Danekor will have to wait.” The girls agreed glumly.

  “Now, you go ahead and read through the books in the shop. I need to get a few hours of sleep myself or I won’t be able to stay awake when you need to sleep in the morning. Just wake me if any customers come in.”

  The girls looked through book after book with little luck. They stopped now and then to help the odd customer who wandered into the shop. Enough of Skeg’s regulars had caught a glimpse of Nial in the past that no one questioned where Skeg had gone to. When dawn was finally near, Zuly and Nial walked back to the ward circle and made themselves comfortable.

  “What are we here for, Zuly? We can’t sleep yet. We need to wait for Uncle Skeg to come down.”

  “We need to make ourselves stronger before Amon gets his hands on us, Nial. We need to feed, deeply.”

  “But I thought you said that feeding would make us go crazy?”

  “Only if we consume the souls completely. But we can drink more than we have been.”

  She started to siphon power from the souls they had captured. It was sweet beyond description, pleasure beyond reason. The very memory of their hunger was swept away like a leaf in the wind. Nial trembled and gasped with pleasure. The feeling went on and on until she could barely remember a time before it. Then slowly, it started to ebb.

  “More! I want more!” Nial screamed. Zuly was almost as lost in the moment as Nial, but the memory of their nightmares kept her focused.

  “We can’t. If we do, we will consume the souls themselves. Better to wait and feed again tomorrow.” Reluctantly, Nial agreed. They slowly became aware of their surroundings again.

  Skeg came into the back room to see what the shouting had been about. He flushed and looked away as soon as he saw them. “I’m . . . I’m sorry, girls. I’ll be . . . right back. I need to find you something to wear.”

  Nial looked after him in confusion. The euphoria slowly fading, she looked down at herself and gasped. Feeding so deeply had changed her. She jumped to her feet and tottered unsteadily. She was taller than before, her limbs longer, her body less childlike. Her little dress no longer covered her body properly. Only then did she understand Skeg’s discomfort. She blushed furiously and tried to cover herself as best she could while she waited for him to return.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Korant ant thrashed around as Carver’s magic peeled the chitin off its body. There was a kind of poetry to using the Tolrahkali’s insect servants to build their suits of armor. The realization that the ants were a perfect source of raw materials had struck Carver the moment he had walked back into his rooms and looked at his captive ant. The Korants had impressive strength and endurance. Their musculature was far more efficacious than standard mammalian muscles. Their outer chitin was also surprisingly strong and light. Though the final form still eluded him, Carver had a vision of chitin-armored Tolrahkali soldiers who would be stronger and faster than normal humanoids. He immersed the plates of chitin and loose strands of muscle in a vat of alchemical fluids he had prepared. With time and a little creative use of his magic, he would mold the fragments into a shape that could fit over a person’s body. The question remained of how to keep the armor alive once it was taken out of the nutritive solution.

  Symbiosis in nature usually involves one of the organisms feeding the other. . . . No reason to change something that works. The soldiers themselves would have to feed the new armor they would be wearing. Carver briefly considered adding in a digestive pouch that the soldiers would need to fill with food of some sort, before dismissing the idea. Nutrients would need to be transferred directly by blood. For the armor’s muscle structure to augment and work wi
th the wearer’s own, the armor would need to be linked directly to the wearer’s nervous system as well. Unsure how the Drokga would react to such an invasive solution, Carver shrugged. The avenue of experimentation was worth pursuing either way. He would need to make a very basic armor plate with a few functioning muscles and try to link it to a slave. The formation of a full suit would wait until he had worked out the details.

  The first four attempts to bind chitin breastplates to slaves ended in failure. The bonding process worked quickly, and the test subjects were able to control the extra muscle he had provided, but in only a matter of days, the slaves weakened and died. I expected the trauma of the binding to be a problem, but all of them live long enough for that not to be an issue. . . . All four slaves had followed the same progression—successful bonding and early signs of increased strength and faster recovery, black spots then developed on their hands and feet within a couple of days, followed by debilitating pain and bleeding from various orifices, and finally death.

  Carver looked at his slave assistant, Roga, in frustration. The living suits of armor he had developed were genius itself, far more impressive than anything he had ever created before. The bonding to humans was a complex process. It required the armor to burrow tendrils into the host to link with its nervous system as well as to draw nutrients. The armor even left the reproductive faculties of the host unharmed since no magical fleshcarving was performed directly on the host. It was frustrating to say the least, and time was fast running out. He’d done the impossible and developed his first prototype in a matter of days, and yet here he was almost two weeks later without a living host to show for his efforts.