by Lena Coakley
He gave a short laugh. “Why does a witch do anything? Why does a witch pretend to throw the bones when she can’t—ruining lives, leaving chaos in her wake—?”
“Stop! I know what I have done. Do you think I don’t? Three witches died in this attack. And one was an elder!”
She looked to the ground, and Ryder saw a tear fall into the snow. Pity washed through him again, but he tried not to show it. It was her fault. It was all her fault. It was only her beauty that made him feel sympathy for her, and her beauty was a trap—dangerous as a Baen song.
When she spoke again, her voice, so long unused, began to crack painfully. “A year ago, I foretold a few events—small things, really, but Sodan and the elders were very excited. They gave me the title of Aata’s Right Hand. They said I had the gift.” She cleared her throat, lifting her eyes to Ryder’s. “My mother had it, but she died when I was born. My father said I had it too, that the gift was in my blood.” She paused. “Ryder, I tell you now what I have never told anyone. Those prophecies—I never made them. They were thrown by someone else.”
“By the red!” Ryder swore.
“There is another witch in the coven—one who isn’t allowed to throw the bones. She told me some prophecies and said I could pretend they were my own.” Her face twisted with grief. “When I say it out loud I hear how horrible it is. Even at the time, I knew it was stupid. But it all started so innocently. This woman kept telling me that I really did have the gift and that soon I’d be able to make prophecies of my own. I have wanted to be a boneshaker since I was a little girl. I performed Aata’s prayer every morning; I took the vow of silence. I didn’t see any harm in pretending. I thought it was only a matter of time before I became the witch everyone thought I was.”
Ryder’s voice was hard. “And when you came to my cottage, why did you say my mother’s prophecies were false?”
The witch pursed her lips, hesitating. “When we saw your mother’s firecall, I consulted this witch. She . . . she didn’t say anything about monsters! She only said I would find the bone in the fire and with it I would finally be able to read for myself.”
“So you only came down the mountain to steal my mother’s bone,” he said. “And you never stopped to think she could be giving a true warning?”
She shook her head. “Ryder, she seemed so . . . I’m sorry, but it all seemed so unbelievable. I couldn’t . . . And Visser was so sure she had gone wild on maiden’s woe. . . . Oh Goddess, I’m so stupid. Sodan is always saying that the magic is in the witch, not in her bones. I should have listened!”
“The witch was wrong, then. You got the anchor bone and still couldn’t read?”
“I . . . I’m not sure.” She crossed her arms against the cold. “I’ve stared at those bones so long I think they’ve driven me mad. I spent my life studying the teachings of Aata and Aayse, memorizing the patterns and relationships of bones, waiting for visions of the future that never come. I left my father in the Dunes so I could study here. I left my family. And it was all for nothing!”
Ryder had forgotten that she came from Dunes coven. It must have been lonely for her here, not being able to speak to anyone. She’d always be a stranger. “There aren’t any boneshakers in Dunes who can teach you?”
She shrugged and dried her eyes with the corner of her shawl. “There aren’t any boneshakers anywhere. I went to all the covens. Sodan convinced me to study here because he taught your grandfather and Lilla Red Bird—but he doesn’t have the gift himself.”
Ryder felt his stomach drop. No boneshakers? No boneshakers at all? He remembered he had once asked Visser why she didn’t send messengers to other covens to confirm his mother’s prophecies. Now he remembered the look on her face, as if she wanted to stop him talking at all costs. But he couldn’t blame Visser for wanting to keep this secret. The covens were blind. If there weren’t any boneshakers, the Witchlands were completely unprotected.
Suddenly the girl stiffened, her gaze fixed somewhere over his left shoulder. “Goddess, help us,” she breathed. “Don’t move. There’s something behind you. There, in the trees!”
Ryder turned and at first saw nothing. Then, from out of the forest at the high end of the coven, a gray blur came hurtling. Bodread the Slayer. The dog stopped, lifted his great head, and howled—a chilling sound. Aata’s Right Hand grabbed his arm.
“I know this dog,” said Ryder. “He’s not . . .” He was about to say dangerous, but the word caught in his throat. Ryder searched the trees for Falpian. Had the Baen crossed the border? Could he be that foolish?
Bo lifted his head again, and it came to Ryder that he couldn’t be howling at the two of them. With a sickening foreknowledge of what he would see, he turned around. A huge white figure was slouching toward them from the clearing.
“The gormy man,” Ryder said softly. The term Falpian had used seemed appropriate—a creature from a child’s nightmare. It was like the mud creatures that had attacked his village—a huge, rough shape, at least a man and a half high—but it was different now.
“It’s made of snow!”
Bo galloped toward them down the steps, leaping over debris and fallen torches as if he might take flight. Aata’s Right Hand cried out as he hurtled by, but the dreadhound was fixed on the creature and didn’t even slow his pace. Without hesitation, he hurled himself at the gormy man, raking his saber teeth over its blank face.
“The caves,” Ryder said. “Where are they?” The girl released her grip and ran inside the hut. “Where are you going?” he yelled. A moment later she came out again, and Ryder saw she was pushing his mother’s bone into a pouch at her waist.
“Follow me!” she said.
They took off up steps, tripping over the wreckage of fallen huts as they went. At the top of the settlement the steps ended, but Aata’s Right Hand continued running, quick as a deer, toward the trees.
“Come on!” she yelled.
Ryder had trouble keeping up with her. The incline was steep, and Aata’s Right Hand was so light and graceful that she ran on top of the crusted snow, while his heavy steps broke through. He pressed on, but running uphill was like running in water, and after all the climbing he’d done with Falpian, he was on the brink of exhaustion. Behind him, cracking branches told him that the creature was following—Bo hadn’t been able to slow it down for long.
Breathless, Ryder stopped, the entrance to the caves just visible through the trees. Ahead of him, Aata’s Right Hand was a smear of white against the snow.
“Keep running!” she called back to him. “It’s right behind us!”
Ryder knew they shouldn’t lead that thing to the caves, but he was too tired to shout a warning, and the white witch tore on. At least she’ll make it, he thought. But what protection would the caves give her if the creature followed? Ryder pulled the Baenkiller from its sheath. It seemed small and flimsy, a child’s toy. Fear and exhaustion weighed on his shoulders. He couldn’t win a fight now—if he ever could, against that thing.
Then the gormy man was upon him, barreling straight through the brush and snapping young trees at the base. For a moment Ryder was paralyzed by its sheer size—taller than any man. The creature threw back its white head, opening its round mouth hole. Ryder would have thought it was howling with the delight of capture, except that it didn’t make a sound. Feebly he swung the sword, but the creature pulled back, easily avoiding the blow.
Bo must have been following right behind, because now he hurtled out of the trees and threw himself onto the creature’s back, gripping its body with his claws and plunging his saber teeth into its neck—but the creature had no arteries to sever, no jugular vein. Ryder heard a snap as the gormy man threw Bo to the ground. The dog gave a painful yelp—one of his saber teeth lay broken in the snow.
Ryder rushed forward with the sword, but the gormy man felled him to his knees with one swipe of its arm. If only Falpian were here with his humming stone. But then Ryder remembered: He was the one with the stone—he’d forg
otten to give it back when they parted at the border.
A flash of white shot past—Aata’s Right Hand. She had doubled back and was coming at the creature with a thick branch, using it as a battering ram. Incredibly, the snow creature lost its balance for a moment, dropping to one knee.
Ryder cast the Baenkiller aside and fumbled with his pack. It was probably a mistake—all his knowledge of humming stones came from Dassen’s stories—but he knew he’d never kill the creature with a sword. He blew on the stone as he’d seen his sisters do with Dassen’s stone, but nothing happened.
“Wake up!” he croaked. He shook it up and down frantically.
The gormy man had regained its balance and was driving Aata’s Right Hand backward, though she was still swinging her branch like a wild creature. Bo had joined the fight again and was snapping and snarling at the creature’s legs. Aata’s Right Hand fell to the ground, but now Ryder stepped forward, holding the stone in front of him. Knowing it was his last chance, he blew a long, even breath. This time the stone came to life with a low thrumming. That’s right, he thought, I’ve done this a thousand times. He didn’t stop to wonder when. In moments, music was rolling out of his mouth like honey.
Aata’s Right Hand turned to him, and Ryder caught the look of shock on her face. Singing, he stepped toward the creature. He knew this song, knew it like an old friend, but his tongue was slow and thick; it didn’t make the sounds he wanted.
The creature backed away at the sound of his voice, disappearing into the trees. The witch stared at him in amazement, then darted away, a white blur.
It was too easy. The creature was unharmed and probably hadn’t gone far. Ryder knew he should stop singing and bolt for the caves, but now that he’d started, he couldn’t make his tongue stop moving. Everything had become bright and blinding—the snow, the trees, the stones, the purple clouds. It was as if a skin had been peeled off his eyes and he was seeing the world for the first time in all its frightening beauty. He didn’t want to see it. He hadn’t asked for this. Skyla wanted magic, not him. There was too much to know. The snowflakes falling languidly around him all had names. Why couldn’t he stop singing, for Aata’s sake?
At the edge of his consciousness, Ryder began to hear another voice, a voice he knew almost as well as his own. He was drawn toward it, seemed to float. Falpian. Falpian was coming up from the coven path.
Now this was magic. Ryder could feel that their two voices together dwarfed the magic of the humming stone. Falpian was the same person Ryder remembered, but he was someone else, too, someone stronger and darker, someone Ryder knew from a thousand dreams.
Bo howled ecstatically, bounding around the two young men in great circles. The black branches of the trees shivered, and snow-covered stones lifted off the ground to hover in the air. All Falpian’s thoughts, all his secrets were coming toward Ryder in a rush—too many to understand at once. He tried to hold them back. Again he tried to stop singing, but couldn’t.
With a loud crack the humming stone broke in two, sending a spasm of pain through his arm. It made no difference to the song, but Falpian’s jaw dropped, and he stared at Ryder with a look of joyful recognition on his face.
“No, no,” Ryder tried to say. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not your tally-whatever.” The words came out like music.
Falpian grabbed his arm. The gormy man—no, now two gormy men—were coming fast. Falpian’s song changed, and the two creatures froze in their tracks. He was controlling them, or trying to. In fact, he was doing some incredibly complicated things with his voice, and somehow Ryder could predict every one of them, meeting Falpian’s tenor with a deeper harmony of his own.
They were simple things, these creatures—Ryder saw that now. They drew on whatever matter was at hand to give themselves form—before it had been mud, now snow. At their core, though, they were just a dark, hateful spell. But whose hate was it? Whose spell? The things in front of him thought nothing, wanted nothing, except to destroy.
Falpian was trying to kill them, trying to squeeze their hearts, but it wouldn’t work; the creatures had no hearts, only snow and hate. Ryder closed his eyes, focusing only on the song. Somehow he could still perceive the world around him, even without his eyes. He saw the seeds sleeping under the earth. He saw the cells of his own body humming with life. He saw the gormy men in front of him, frozen, and yet writhing with dark energy.
Stir a wind, Falpian, he thought.
Ryder, is it you? Are you really my talat-sa?
Stir a wind. They have no hearts. We have to blow them apart.
Falpian seemed to understand. Wind. I’ll use a winter key.
Ryder opened his eyes. He had no idea what a winter key was, but all at once their song shifted as if it had a life of its own. The tips of the trees bent toward them, and a wind began to grow. It swirled around and around the horrid things, pulling at their snow limbs, blowing away their twisted branches.
The creatures resisted, tried to pull the snow back to themselves, but Falpian’s voice was strong now, full of buried rage, rage as hard as needles. The key of slivered glass. Now Falpian held nothing back. Emotions, too many to understand at once, swept through Ryder’s mind: Falpian’s father, the pain of betrayal that was like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Ryder and Falpian unwound the creatures like scarves, smaller and smaller, until they were nothing but that frigid core of hate. Still they sang.
Falpian had found a well of new strength, but it was dark and full of anger. It frightened Ryder. It reminded him of the hate he sensed inside the gormy men. For the first time Ryder understood just how powerful Falpian could be, how dangerous. But Falpian’s anger made their voices strong, and Ryder had no choice but to try to sing with him as best he could. Their voices blasted what was left of the creatures into shards, spreading them thinner and thinner on the wind until the spell inside them flew apart—and the gormy men were gone.
Ryder dropped to the ground and put his hands to his ears. He didn’t want to hear anymore, he didn’t want to know anymore, but he couldn’t stop singing—and Falpian couldn’t stop either, couldn’t stop until Ryder did.
Falpian pulled him toward the mouth of the cave, and Ryder caught a glimpse of Kef standing near the entrance, staring at him in amazement. Aata’s Right Hand was screaming something, but Ryder couldn’t hear her over the sound of his own voice. It hurt, it hurt his brains, this music. I’m just a farmer, he wanted to yell. He’d been a fool to want something more, something bigger than his own small life. This was too big.
All at once, Ryder became aware of a rumbling, a deep quivering in the air, as if the mountain itself wanted to join their song. Falpian grabbed him by the arm and pointed up toward the mountain’s crooked spire. He and Aata’s Right Hand tried to pull him into the cave, but Ryder resisted. Bo didn’t think they should go in there either. He was pulling frantically at Ryder’s coat with his teeth. He must be afraid of the mountain, Ryder thought. The mountain is going to sing. There was a word for this, he knew, but he couldn’t think what it was. There were other witches at the entrance now, some beckoning, some pointing up and screaming silently, their voices overwhelmed by the song. It was a trio now—Ryder, Falpian, and a rumbling bass note that seemed to shake the world. One witch grabbed Aata’s Right Hand and pulled her deeper into the cave.
At the same time, Falpian bent down and gathered up a great wad of snow. He grabbed hold of Ryder’s hair and shoved the snowball into his mouth. Abruptly, their singing stopped. Ryder fell back, choking. Thank Aata. He could hear himself cough, could hear the screams of the witches, but mostly what he heard was the roar of a . . . He looked up and saw that a great wall of snow was careening down from the top of the mountain. Snowslide. That was the word he’d been looking for.
“Run!” Falpian yelled.
CHAPTER 18
IN THE CHAMBER OF AATA AND AAYSE
Falpian lay with his cheek pressed against a cool stone floor. His hands and feet were tied. I found my ta
lat-sa. A feeling of joy swelled inside him, despite the pain of his bonds. Ryder was the presence he’d been feeling all this time; Ryder was the reason his magic had finally crystallized. Ryder was his twin in spirit.
Falpian didn’t even mind that his talat-sa was an unbeliever. The great God Kar plays the best jokes; he understood that now. Even deep inside these witches’ caves, he could hear the echoes of the God’s laughter.
“I don’t know what you have to smile at.”
Falpian sat up abruptly, feeling dazed. Next to him was a witch, a male witch in reds. Falpian had a vague memory of more witches, frightened witches—a hundred frigid blue eyes piercing through him—the fear that they would tear him limb from limb right there. Someone had taken him to this quiet chamber, pushed him through winding tunnels, tied him up with rough hands. Falpian had the strangest feeling that he knew the witch who had spoken, but of course that was impossible. An impressive braided beard stuck out like fingers from the man’s chin, but he probably wasn’t many years older than Falpian himself.
“The snowslide,” Falpian said. “Was anyone hurt?” The witch scowled but didn’t answer. Falpian had seen Ryder inside the caves, he was sure of that, but . . . “My dog! Do you know if my dog is all right?”
He tried to recall what had happened to Bo, but his memory was fuzzy and blurred. He and Ryder had run one way into the caves, and Bo had gone the other—but whether the dog had made it out, or been crushed under that wall of rock and snow, Falpian couldn’t say, and the bearded witch didn’t seem to want to tell him. Bo must have made it, Falpian decided. He was a smart dog.
“What are you going to do to me?” he asked. The witch was nervously fingering a blue bead at his neck, a gesture that seemed familiar. Falpian found a name that was on the tip of his tongue. “I know you. You’re Kef!”
The witch gaped. “I was told not to let you speak.”
Falpian barely heard him. He was distracted by the thought that he’d actually known this man’s name. He knew it because when he sang with Ryder, they’d shared things. Faces, knowledge, secrets. In fact, he realized, they’d been sharing thoughts for a long time, mostly in their dreams. How could it have taken him so long to figure it out? Even Ryder had known. Even his dog had known. Amazed, he tried to search his mind for other useful bits of information, but it was all a tangled mass of images. He did seem to know some farming techniques he hadn’t before.
