Like Fire Through Bone

by E. E. Ottoman

  Bearing a sword was a symbol of manhood, and Vasilios hadn’t been considered a man since he’d been fifteen and they’d cut and sold him. On the other hand, his body would soften fast, like all eunuchs’ bodies did, unless he worked at keeping strong.

  Vasilios dropped back into the original stance, swinging an uppercut with enough force for him to feel it all the way down his arms to his shoulders. It helped clear his mind too, and dispelled the fear that had curled at the edges of his thoughts since he’d woken.

  The dreams were probably nothing, he thought, spinning and twisting, ducking and parrying an imaginary adversary. It was not like he was a seer. When he had been younger, he’d had many bad dreams, and they had faded as years turned into over a decade. Still, the disappearance of these children was awful enough that it could have made the fears of his childhood reemerge.

  “Vasilios,” someone called.

  He pivoted and saw Bröndulfr and Eòran as they stood watching him from over by the spot where the courtyard met the guards’ quarters.

  “You’re out here early, even for you,” Bröndulfr said, striding across the courtyard toward Vasilios.

  Vasilios let out a long breath through his nose and shook his head. “I was having troubling dreams, so I thought I might as well come out and practice.”

  “Dreams about what?” Eòran asked, coming to stand by them. He held two practice swords. He put them on the ground and stripped off his short tunic as Bröndulfr did the same.

  Vasilios glanced away. Bare chested, it was easy for him to see how soft his muscles had become, even with constant practice, even if his shoulders and chest were broader than Eòran’s, making Vasilios almost as large as Bröndulfr.

  “There is a figure,” he said, dropping his gaze to the ground. “It is wrapped from head to toe in a cloak so dark it could be made out of darkness itself, except for its mouth and hands. From what I can see, its skin is gray and dead, rotting away in places, and its teeth are pointed and decaying. It takes children, and when I look upon it, I feel nothing but terror and horror.” He shuddered a little at the memory.

  “And was this the only night you’ve had this dream?” Eòran asked, watching him closely. Vasilios hesitated and then shook his head.

  “I’ve had this dream twice.”

  “Seiðr,” Bröndulfr said, looking worried and unhappy. “I would never think so dishonorably of you, Vasilios, but you must be careful about such a thing. Power like that will corrupt your heart.”

  Eòran snorted dismissively and shook his head. “You people always think everything is forbidden, seiðr,” he said to Bröndulfr, his tone making it clear what he thought of that particular belief. “There is no doubt evil here, this thing in your dreams, and the children going missing. But the dreams themselves, they could be the gift of a seer, and that is something to be cherished.”

  “No.” Vasilios shook his head firmly. “I am no seer.”

  “Not every form of seiðr is forbidden,” Bröndulfr said to Eòran, sounding genuinely hurt. “It is just that there is a time and a place, and a balance to such things, and those who act outside of that, even unwittingly, will only be led to sorrow.”

  Eòran put his hands on his hips, expression unconvinced. “Spar with me,” he said instead, turning toward Vasilios, and picking up one of the practice swords.

  Vasilios nodded, falling into the familiar stance.

  Thirty minutes later, he was sweating, his shoulders and chest covered by what were likely to be bruises in a few hours. Vasilios might practice every day, but Eòran was a trained warrior and bodyguard.

  “If you’re done beating up on poor Vasilios,” Bröndulfr said with a smile, as Vasilios dropped his practice sword to the ground and tried not to openly wince, “you can fight me.”

  Eòran turned smoothly to face him, and Vasilios picked up his wooden sword and headed to the storeroom to put it away before heading for his own room. He needed a bath and to get properly dressed, and then there was the rest of his duties to attend to. He was in a much better mood than he had been when he’d first woken, and by the time he slid into the warm water of the bath, he’d almost put the images from his dream out of his mind.

  However, that night he dreamed again.

  Once more, the creature slipped into a sleeping house and again took a baby from the arms of its mother. Vasilios felt helplessness and dread wash over him as the creature moved silently back into the night. The surroundings changed, and the room the creature now stood in was cool and damp and made of stone. The baby began to cry, squirming in the creature’s moldering grasp. The thing bent over the crying child, bending lower and lower, mouth with its rotting lips and pointed teeth, descending.

  Vasilios jerked up in bed and stumbled to his feet. He made his way blindly to the basin against the far wall before he vomited. His stomach heaved, waves of nausea hitting him over and over again. He tried to push the images away, block them from his mind, but that made them play out again and again in every vivid, horrific detail. There was nothing left in his stomach now, and his mouth tasted of bile. His throat felt rough and ached like he’d been screaming. He held on to the edge of the stand with hands that shook, and he leaned forward so he could rest his forehead against the cool wall. Everything in him rebelled against the dream. Vasilios shuddered and leaned over to retch into the basin again, tears filling his eyes.

  Even when he had been younger and plagued by nightmares, they had never been this vivid or horrifying. Everything about this felt different, unnatural and wrong.

  He thought of what Eòran had said about the dreams being seeings. The thought that the things in his dream might actually be real and happening made his whole body try to curl in on itself, and he retched again, shaking uncontrollably. Finally, when his body stopped trying to force up food that was no longer there, Vasilios ran one shaking hand across his face, wiping at the mixture of tears and mucus.

  After pushing away from the wall and the basin, he made his way to the couch and fell onto it, letting his head drop into his hands. In all actuality, he knew little about the disappearing children. There was what Bröndulfr had told him and then the conversation he’d overheard from the servants. He stopped and really thought about that second conversation, and how similar it had been to what Markos’s aide had said when Vasilios had been there. Rubbing his hands across his face, he considered. If he were the Emperor, and there was something—something evil—stealing away children and killing them, not simply from the lower classes but from aristocratic families too, who would he turn to? Markos made sense, a powerful military leader, known for being able to think one step ahead of his enemies and for his discretion. Also, he would go to the Bishop of the Golden City who, presumably, would have the power to destroy or cast out the creature.

  Vasilios pressed his fists against his eyes as if to physically block out the images from his dreams. If these were prophetic dreams and he had the ability to give useful information to someone who might be able to stop it from happening, Vasilios could not stand by without acting. If they weren’t, though, and this was a symptom of stress and his overactive mind, he didn’t know what he would do. He would be in deep trouble. In fact, if he went to Markos and this turned out to be nothing, Markos would be well within his right to see Vasilios lashed. Not that he thought Markos would do such a thing, no matter how angry he was, but the idea of having Markos think less of him was deterrent enough.

  Yet children were dying, possibly in one of the most horrible ways imaginable. Vasilios’s hands clenched into fists. He stood, still not sure what he wanted to do, then lit a lamp before making his way down the stairs to his bathing room.

  The bath could be filled with water piped into the city through the aqueducts, and Vasilios knelt to light the fire in the small furnace under the tub and then drew up the water allowing it to fill the small tiled pool. He paced around the room, waiting for the water to heat, and then he headed back up to his own room to choose his clothes for the
day. He made his way back down to the bath and undressed, before sliding into the water and relaxing against the side of the tub.

  The bath was his favorite thing he’d ever been given by Panagiotis.

  “You bathe as much as a concubine,” Panagiotis had told him once with a laugh. “If you manage to secure this buyer for me, and at double the price he wants, I will get you your own bath, like my concubines have.” When Vasilios had managed to secure the contract for more than double the original price, Panagiotis had made good on his promise. In those days, too, Vasilios still went to Panagiotis’s bed when his master felt like having him, and Panagiotis preferred for him to be well bathed beforehand.

  Vasilios reached for a soft cloth and scented oil, washed carefully and then picked up the small stone jar of sapo. He worked it through his short, close-cropped hair, then leaned back, and slid almost low enough into the bath to duck his head under the water. Eyes closed, he took a breath and then dropped beneath the surface of the warm water.

  The sensation of hands gripping at him, putrid and rotting, pushing him deeper under the water and holding him there, assailed him. Vasilios thrashed to the surface, eyes flying open as he twisted and turned, looking, searching for any sign of the thing, anything out of place. The lamp on the side of the bath did not give off much light, and most of the room still lay in shadow or outright darkness. The water in the bath was dark, and Vasilios got onto his knees and moved his hands through it, but could find nothing.

  Finally he stood and got out of the bath, pulled the stop to drain the water, and knelt to extinguish the fire. He dressed quickly and took the lamp back up to his room. His bed was an unkempt mess, and he’d knocked a pitcher of water off the table during his initial dash for the basin. Vasilios went to the door to summon a servant to deal with the mess in the basin and to bring a cloth to clean up the water. He made the bed and smoothed his hand across the linen of the blankets a few more times than needed before making up his mind.

  He went to the clothes chest, fetched out a headscarf, and pulled it up over his hair before twisting and tucking it around his shoulders. Then he pulled on a pair of slippers and headed for the door. No one stopped or questioned him as he traveled through the house. Only the guard at the front gate seemed to pay him any mind at all.

  “Vasilios?” The guard’s brows furrowed. “It’s early for you to be going out.”

  “I know,” Vasilios said. “But it is urgent. Please tell the kitchen staff that I will not be there for breakfast, and tell Bröndulfr to make my apologies to our master if he should need me while I am gone.”

  The guard nodded, still looking confused, but he did not hesitate to pull open the gate for Vasilios. The street beyond the house was quiet this early, with the occasional servant running along the road, probably to fetch something for their household’s morning meal.

  Vasilios hurried up the road, and he was within sight of Markos’s house before what he was doing caught up with him. What did he think he was doing? What would Markos think, and for that matter, what would Panagiotis think? Had he so lost sight of his own station that he truly thought he might be able to have a seeing? To know something one of the Emperor’s most prized generals and the Bishop did not know?

  Before he was fully aware of what he was doing, he’d turned to head back the way he’d come. He forced himself to stop, take several deep breaths, and think. Children were in danger, dying, and if there was even the shadow of a possibility that Vasilios might be able to help make sure it stopped, he was honor bound to do so. He could not let his own self-doubt and a foolish and completely inappropriate crush stop him from doing what he needed to do. If the dreams turned out to be nothing but ordinary, if horrifying, nightmares, then he’d accept whatever punishment Markos or Panagiotis chose with equanimity. He turned around and headed toward Markos’s house once more.

  The soldier at the gate to Markos’s villa gave him a confused look.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I am Vasilios Eleni, from the house of Panagiotis Xarchakos,” he said, hoping it would be enough to get him inside. “Please tell General Markos that it is of urgent importance.”

  “Just a moment.” The soldier turned, and Vasilios watched him walk to the door, which was opened by the same older woman, Phyllis. She glanced up, frowning when she saw him. She ducked back into the house and was gone a few minutes before coming back out. Phyllis and the soldier exchanged words, and then the soldier made his way back toward Vasilios.

  “The General says to let you in and he will speak with you,” the soldier said and swung the gate open.

  Vasilios ducked through the gate and made his way across the courtyard. Phyllis opened the door for him. She led him down the hall to the same receiving room he’d been in earlier.

  “Vasilios Eleni for you,” she said, swinging the door open.

  Vasilios took two steps into the room and dropped to his knees. He placed his hands on the floor and bent forward so his forehead nearly touched the cool tile. “I am so, so sorry, my lord General Markos, for disturbing you at this early hour, and I beg that you will forgive me for anything I am about to say and know that I throw myself at your mercy, but I could not see clear to act in any other way.” He realized after the speech had tumbled out that he was talking too fast, the words sliding and running together.

  “Vasilios.” Markos’s deep voice was tinged with confusion. “Calm yourself and stand up, please.”

  Vasilios found he was shaking again when he got to his feet, and he flinched when a warm hand grasped his arm.

  “Come.” Markos’s voice was soothing and gentle. “Sit down.”

  Vasilios opened his mouth to object and apologize again, but Markos was already leading him over to the couch. He pushed Vasilios down and then sat in the chair opposite.

  “Now,” Markos said, voice still gentle, “tell me what has brought you all the way out here this early in the morning and in such a state.”

  Vasilios’s hands flew to the scarf he still wore up over his head and then down across his long tunic. He realized for the first time that morning, nothing he was wearing matched and he looked as if he’d randomly pulled each piece from his clothes chest without thinking, which to be fair he had. He clenched his hands in his lap to stop from flushing in mortification. Here he was, doing nothing to uphold his image as the calm and collected castratos, and in front of Markos too.

  “I….” He twisted the fine wool of his tunic between his fingers, then forced himself to look up at Markos and not to flinch away. “For the last several nights, I have had recurring dreams of a creature cloaked in darkness who stole into people’s homes and took their children.” He swallowed the bile that tried to rise at the memory of what the creature did to the children afterward.

  “I see.” Markos folded his hands in front of him and carefully watched Vasilios. “And you came to me.”

  Vasilios took a breath. “I have heard of the children who have been going missing through the city,” he said. “Based on what I knew of the situation, and what your aide, Patros, said to you while I was here that first time, I believe you are either involved in the investigation of these children’s disappearances or are well placed to know those who are.”

  “And you think your dreams are connected how?” Markos asked, his expression unreadable but not, Vasilios thought, unkind. Vasilios took another deep, calming breath, his hands clenching in the wool covering his lap.

  “These dreams are like none I have ever had before. They are more vivid and terrifying,” he said. “I think there is a chance I might be seeing whoever or whatever is taking these children, and what it does with them afterward.” He let his gaze drop to the floor and waited for Markos to either confirm or deny it.

  “And what does this creature in your dreams do with the children?” Markos asked, leaning forward toward Vasilios.

  “It eats them.” Vasilios’s voice was low enough to be almost a whisper. “While they are still ali
ve.” His stomach churned, and his hands began to shake even harder at the memory of the dream.

  Markos was quiet for a long moment as Vasilios looked at the floor, tracing the outline of blue and white tiles with his eyes and waiting.

  Markos finally sat back and looked away. Then he turned back to Vasilios. “Now, of everything you have told me, that is one detail you could not have found out any other way. I have suppressed the information ruthlessly, so as not to cause widespread panic.” He shook his head. “I am going to have to swear you to secrecy regarding this. Understand that the punishment for breaking that oath will be death.”

  Vasilios looked up at Markos, trying to make his mind catch up to what he was hearing. “So you think these dreams really are… really are prophetic?”

  “Yes.” Markos ran his fingers through his short gray hair so it stood on end, and Vasilios wanted to reach over and smooth it back down. Markos stood and made his way to the doorway, said a few words to Phyllis outside, then returned to Vasilios.

  He sat in the chair again and turned to Vasilios. “Tell me everything in these dreams you’ve been having.”

  Vasilios nodded and then took a breath. “The creature is cloaked in darkness,” he started. “The only parts of it I could make out clearly were the hands and the mouth. The skin of the hands was gray and stretched like that of a corpse, and the lips around the mouth had rotted away. The creature’s teeth were pointed and yellowed. It would touch the mother’s eyes before taking the child, I think to keep her asleep.” He took another breath. “The babies were afraid of it, they would cry and scream when it touched them, and it didn’t seem to be stopped by locked doors or walls.”

  Phyllis pushed open the door then, and set a tray down on the table. As it had been during Vasilios’s first visit, an urn of tea and cups were on the tray and several small plates with fruit, cheese, and fresh bread. Vasilios’s stomach heaved at the idea of food, and he lowered his gaze to his lap so he wouldn’t have to look at it.