Brood of Bones

by A. E. Marling

  He likely only received a vague sensation of my attention. I refrained from saying this aloud for the sake of my replica, as I was not in the habit of responding to myself.

  The red diamond lifted itself out from my collar to my hand. I expanded its enchantment to search out traces of the Soultrapper throughout my body then eradicate them. Having a piece of him inside me made me feel filthier than if I had eaten all the dust in the Academy, which I had calculated at never less than a total of seventy pounds.

  This bone mote was the seed, the connection between Soultrapper and each woman that initiated the Bone Orbs. By cutting out a piece of himself and tricking us to eat it, he had touched us without touching.

  “What about Tethiel?” The replica gazed up at me with my own eyes. “Do we trust him?”

  Irritated that I would interrupt myself, I waved my hand, and the replica vanished. I refocused on the trails of inference, knowing with every moment that I converged on pinpointing the Soultrapper.

  If I had swallowed the bone mote in a bolus of food then I might have expected to find it transported into my circuitous intestine before it touched my flesh and formed a cyst. I had begun to suspect that it was not eaten but drunk. Most women in the city ate rice, yet not from the same seller, removing any ready method for the Soultrapper to pollute the grain with his bones.

  The city had three water reservoirs, which pumped into a hundred and thirty-five public wells. With the help of followers, the Soultrapper might have visited all the wells in one day, lowering into the flows presumably empty urns that instead contained thousands upon thousands of bone motes.

  Even with the diminutive size of the motes, the total volume of bone required staggered me. Some motes would dissolve in stomach acid before touching, and many would be drunk instead by men and animals. Allowing for a wide margin of loss, I estimated that at least six pounds of bone would be needed, far more than a few finger bones, closer to the combined weight of the bones of a hand, the arm attached to it, four ribs, and one foot.

  In fact, I knew exactly which bones had been sacrificed because an image of the Soultrapper now stood in my mirror. Reviewing my memories had revealed him in less than a second.

  Anlash Niklia, wine merchant of the “Liquid Diamond” vintage, had hefted wine barrels with his one arm the night I first saw him. The arm appeared to be compensating for the missing one with a length that bordered on grotesque, his fingertips reaching within an inch of his knees. He favored his right foot, and his left never flexed, and the boot struck the brick street with a subtle “clack” of woodenness. His potbelly hung out of his open vest, and on occasion, the vest slid back on a hairless chest and revealed scars on either side of his bulging navel: The jagged white lines provided evidence of his self-inflicted rib amputation.

  He had flinched in fear at his first sight of Spellsword Deepmand, causing his hand to slip on a barrel; a brass hoop had slit his thumb, from which he had sucked the leaking blood. That alone would have convinced me he shared none of Priest Abwar’s hemophobia, even without the fan of white scars on his palm, from repeated, self-inflicted cuts.

  The merchant had done more than bloodletting. I imagined him deep in a wine cellar, sweat trickling through tangled clumps of his oiled hair as he sawed off his own foot; he would have screamed and used a torch to cauterize the wound. Extraction of his ribs would have been even more agonizing and laborious; he must have lain in a puddle of his own blood, strapped to a table and struggling against the pain and the desire to faint, as his followers bent over him with serrated knives.

  Anlash Niklia had admitted that he missed a cut on a paragon diamond, and his arm had been removed in punishment. He must have recovered the limb and kept the bones, storing them until he could find a use for them.

  I had first encountered him in the crowd hunting the Feaster. His black eyes had glinted from within flabby skin as he snatched glances at the night’s shadows. Only now did I appreciate his enmity at the mention of the Feaster boy: He must have understood that the Lord of the Feast wished to hunt him down and kill him.

  He had warned me of the herbalist who was overdosing the women. By arresting the herbalist, I had saved lives but I had also protected the Bone Orbs the mothers carried; without knowing it, I had done a service for the Soultrapper.

  In exchange for the information he provided about the herbalist, I had agreed to purchase Anlash Niklia’s wine. He might have defiled most of the women in Morimound by poisoning wells with bone motes, yet he had needed to deal in wine to blight the daughters living in the Island District, who drank water from private, guarded wells. This explained why the wealthy women had grown pregnant later; the Soultrapper had needed time to sell his Liquid Diamond wine to the various houses.

  I had served his wine at my ball, yet I had not drunk any there, only touching it to my lips at the toast. Salkant of the Fate Weaver had unwittingly inoculated me by insisting I taste the “second best wine in Morimound,” the label of which I now read in my mirror as Liquid Diamond. Maid Janny had swigged wine that day but just the priest’s estate vintage, only later indulging in the Soultrapper’s concoction at my ball. If she was pregnant now, it was merely by days.

  Priest Salkant only drank his own wine; by extension, he served nothing else to his daughter, who had thereby escaped the epidemic. Many women living in Stilt Town were too poor to buy wine and too far from the public wells, thus avoiding pregnancy by drawing water from rain barrels or straight from holes dug in the mud.

  No doubt remained in my mind that I had identified the Soultrapper. I scowled at him in my mirror, wishing to replicate him so I could dual Repulse his heart into two pieces, or Burden him until his remaining bones shattered.

  I never permitted myself to indulge in Creating replicas of people for gratification in my dream. I would have to content myself with watching Tethiel annihilate the Soultrapper’s mind with waking nightmares.

  At last, the Lord of the Feast would lift his hands.

  Day Forty-One, Third Trimester

  “You should allow me to execute him, Elder Enchantress,” Deepmand said. “The less we involve the Lord of the Feast, the better.”

  “Tethiel has promised to neutralize him in one second. The Soultrapper will not realize what is happening until it is too late.”

  “I could behead him in one swing.”

  “His disembodied head would have several seconds before it lost consciousness. During that interval, he could kill women out of spite.”

  “Those without bodies tend not to be in the right state of mind to cast spells.”

  “You mock me, Spellsword Deepmand. I should not have informed you of anything.”

  Deepmand’s tone suggested he expected me to change my mind now, when awake, something he should know I dared not do. Whereas my thoughts flowed like a river in dream, they now trickled in a desert of drowsiness. I struggled simply to string words together, and analyzing the merit of his argument was quite beyond me.

  “I meant no offense, Elder Enchantress. I am only concerned for you, and the rest of us. Remember, this is the Lord of the Feast.”

  “I am no forgetful invalid, thank you very much.”

  “Elder Enchantress, I could brain the Soultrapper.” Five plated fingers closed on the scimitar hilt over his shoulder. “Split his skull in half.”

  “One more word, Deepmand, and I will petition for your immediate retirement without pension.”

  The Spellsword’s face changed in a peculiar way, although I could derive no insight from it yet.

  A servant knelt before me. “Mistress, a man in funny clothes is in the west gardens. Said he was waiting for you.”

  “You are not educated enough to judge clothes,” I said, irritated. “However, you may take me to him.”

  While I walked into the gardens, four servants held a canvass sheet above me with poles to shield me from the downpour. So little light penetrated the rain clouds that my earrings shone, and when I found Tethiel in the gazeb
o, I was reminded of the night he had given me the red diamond.

  Tethiel stood as my gowns squeezed into the gazebo’s arched entrance. When my servants had departed from earshot, he said, “By your glowing face, Enchantress Hiresha, I judge the night a success.”

  “The Soultrapper is Anlash Niklia,” I said in a whisper, out of respect for the Flood Moon. “He ground his own bones into powder then sprinkled them into the city’s wells and his fine wines.”

  “A wine merchant? And instead of blood glyphs, he bound with bone. Promising. Most promising.” His lips spread halfway to a red grin of hunger.

  “Will you confront him in the Bazaar, or at night?”

  “People feel too safe during the day for my taste, and the overcast will make casting more manageable. Go to him now in the Bazaar. I’ll follow on Eyebiter.”

  “I will depart without delay.”

  “Before you do, Enchantress Hiresha, I would ask you for a promise.”

  I felt a crushing sensation. Tethiel had said he would not ask anything of me, and I feared he would renege on his word and demand I sleep with him. To regenerate his teeth...or something equally scandalous.

  “You must promise,” he said, “not to betray my presence to the Soultrapper until I strike.”

  I exhaled in relief. “Is that all?”

  “If the Soultrapper is on his guard, he may realize I attack him only with illusion. He might resist long enough to scourge me with his magic.”

  “Or long enough to activate the Bone Orbs and mutilate the women.”

  Sadness tempered hunger, at the edges of Tethiel’s face. “You will promise, then?”

  “I wonder that you even asked. Of course, I promise. And...I wanted you to know something.”

  My direct address had almost been of his first name, which would have been most improper. Now, uncertainty fluttered through me about my phrasing, or even what I wanted to say.

  “I think that I wish to thank you. I could not have located the Soultrapper without you.”

  “Nor I without you, Enchantress Hiresha.”

  Not knowing how to thank him for more, for the red diamond, I trod out of the gazebo. My servants covered me from the rain on the way to the carriage.

  The patter of hooves on brick streets accompanied by the louder sound of the rain lulled me to sleep. To pass the time in my laboratory, I considered Deepmand’s offer to decapitate the Soultrapper. The suggestion was impractical, as the Soultrapper would see the scimitar drawn, and I was uncertain he could not activate the Bone Orbs all at once, with one thought. No, we needed Tethiel to cast a nightmare of instant death.

  Deepmand’s peculiar expression, when I had mentioned his forced retirement, had been of fright and betrayal. He had no right to look at me that way after I had discovered the Soultrapper and would free the city within hours, and I felt wronged by his lack of confidence.

  I blinked awake, seeing the carriage door open and Deepmand’s beard dripping in the rain. Striding out, I gazed around the Bazaar for sight of Tethiel.

  A man rode toward me, with another on horseback beside him, yet both these horses had black coats, while Tethiel’s mount had been brown. The cloaked men dismounted.

  “We speak for the Father.”

  One lifted his hood, revealing the pockmarks and scabbed skin of a leper, and I recognized him as one of Tethiel’s dandies, although he now only wore a plain leather vest.

  I peered through the bursts of rain. “He is close?”

  “Close enough. The Father can’t let himself be seen by the Trapper.”

  The second leper said, “He has to be sure, before he lifts the black chalice. He wants you to scare the Trapper into admitting he’s who he is.”

  “I thought he trusted my judgment,” I said. “Tell him to strike the moment I speak to a wine merchant.”

  “No. You’re to scare the Trapper.”

  This made a measure of sense, as his Feasting would perform better if the Soultrapper was frightened, yet I had thought Tethiel wished to attack at the first available moment. I had not expected to have to converse with the Soultrapper, and I found my stomach tightening and my breathing sharp.

  Deepmand pointed across the Bazaar, and I dragged myself between the merchant stalls. The rain began to weigh down my gowns.

  Maid Janny said, “What’s going on?”

  “You have nothing to fear,” I said.

  “Great. Now I’m terrified.”

  I spotted a banner reading, “Taste Liquid Diamond,” and another, “Anlash’s Fine Wines, A Life-Changing Experience.” His arrogance disgusted me.

  The one-armed merchant sat in a rope chair, while two assistants—two followers—lounged on barrels. At the sight of me heading toward him, he started, then tried to hide the reaction by rising to his feet.

  “Madam Enchantress, a rare pleasure. I trust my wines have satisfied you?”

  The sight of him filled me with revulsion. He lifted his single, overlong arm in greeting. His beady black eyes squinted out at me from between drapes of hair as oily and slick as seaweed, and raindrops skidded down his oiled potbelly and between breasts more voluminous than mine.

  I said, “I know what you are, Anlash Niklia. I pronounce you under arrest for the death of Faliti Chandur and the endangerment of every woman in Morimound. Your execution will be summary.”

  “I—you must’ve drunk too much of my stock. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  His face flashed with shock, and his eyes darted to Deepmand in fear.

  The whispers died out in the Bazaar, and merchant and customers alike looked up from wares as I shouted.

  “Anlash Niklia, tell me you are not a Soultrapper!”

  “I’m not a Soultrapper. Whatever that is, I’m not one. I’m just a vintner.”

  His eyes held mine the whole time, to see if I had spotted his lie. I had: Both sides of his mouth turned down in a facial shrug, indicating no confidence in his words; his remaining arm reached toward his neck in a sign of desperation, and his voice dropped in pitch, whereas in a nervous but innocent man, it would have climbed.

  “You lie.” I raised my voice high enough that Tethiel would have to hear me. “You are a Soultrapper!”

  “Nah-no-no! I’m not even a gemcutter now. I have no magic. If Soultrappers have magic.”

  I wondered why Tethiel waited. Behind me, one of the cloaked lepers spoke.

  “Threaten the roach.”

  “Let’s see how he squeaks,” the second one said.

  My vision had begun to swim and not merely from the rain. This encounter was not going as I had planned: Tethiel should have attacked, and any threatening move made overtly against the Soultrapper might frighten him into slaughtering the city’s women. I did not wish to follow the advice of the dandies behind me, yet I did not see what choice I had.

  “Spellsword Deepmand....”

  “Elder Enchantress?”

  I leaned both hands on my cane, feeling unstable and close to tipping over sideways in front of all the onlookers in the Bazaar. Within moments, I might see the Soultrapper kill every woman in Morimound. I could not order the Spellsword to decapitate him, yet I had to do something. I glanced around once more for Tethiel on his horse, and after seeing nothing, I screamed at Deepmand.

  “Seize him!”

  Lightening his armor, the Spellsword launched himself through the air. His gilded gauntlet clamped onto the Soultrapper’s throat, lifting him off his feet.

  The Soultrapper opened his mouth, and a wail filled the Bazaar. I dropped my cane to cover my ears while the shriek echoed from every direction, a high sound of sudden pain rising from many throats. All around me, women gripped their bellies and collapsed.

  I too clutched my abdomen, anguished in knowing the worst was happening. Tethiel had to strike now, before the Soultrapper killed the rest of the women, and I glanced about for signs of illusions descending from the clouds, of nightmares running across the Bazaar. I saw nothing but stunne
d citizens gaping at the sprawled women, where blood spread over rain puddles.

  Lifting my chin, I screamed at the sky. “Kill him!”

  “You really mustn’t,” the Soultrapper said, his voice now relaxed, almost a purr. “Or Morimound will lose all its women.”

  “They,” I asked, “they’re not all dying?”

  “If I die, they all die.”

  He spoke the truth. I could not believe it, yet I could see he did. The Soultrapper had not killed all the women, only those nearest, I presumed; the Fate Weaver had spared the rest so far.

  My chest stung as if I had inhaled a fume of burning poison ivy; I had not anticipated that killing the Soultrapper would activate the Bone Orbs. I had not, because that meant we had no way to stop him; it meant that Tethiel, who knew so much about Soultrappers, had engineered a plan that never could work. Killing the Soultrapper would only mean killing half the populace of Morimound, all in one second.

  The day’s drowning heat fled from me, and I felt frozen. Tethiel could destroy Morimound in a second, through the Soultrapper, yet he would never do that. I could not believe he would do it; I had seen sadness in his face. He must have been delayed, maybe attacked elsewhere. I could not think that Morimound was in the chokehold of not only one man but two.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and past the golden hump, I saw the two dandies dragging Maid Janny away, an arm stump pressed over her mouth and a knife over her throat. One leper hushed me with a finger to his flaking lips, and then he drew a thumb over his throat.

  “No!” I called after them, although I could not say if to entreat them to release Janny, or for the Lord of the Feast not to strike.

  Turning back to the Soultrapper, I saw Deepmand lift his scimitar and rest its blade between the folds of the Soultrapper’s chins. The Spellsword glanced to me, for orders.

  I said nothing, knowing nothing that could save Morimound now. Despair lanced through me in a line of pain from throat to hip. I had failed once again.

  The Soultrapper touched the Spellsword’s neck.

  Deepmand gasped and flinched away, a welt blackening his skin where the Soultrapper’s finger had fallen. The scimitar dropped from his hand to smash against the wet bricks, and the rest of Deepmand followed it, his arms slackening and his massive torso tipping back like a leaning tower; he landed with a crash.