A Lair of Bones
Page 21
The hour was late when the duo could work no longer. They collapsed on the dirt, grimy and exhausted, hands blistered, tugging down their makeshift masks.
‘How much more?’ Roh panted.
Odi pushed the sweaty hair from his eyes. ‘I think that should do it for the sawing.’
‘Are you sure?’ Despite the tight soreness wrapping around her body, she wasn’t sure she was ready to be finished with the brunt of the physical work. It meant that she was all the closer to having to make a decision on what to do about the damn strings they needed. Her mind was already pulling her in a hundred different directions.
‘No. We’ll cut more if we need it, but I don’t think we can do any more tonight.’
Roh hated it when he was right, so she said nothing as she reached for the rucksack once again and made them eat, though neither of them wanted to. The flatcakes she’d packed were bland, but it was just as well. She couldn’t have stomached anything more decadent if she’d wanted to. They passed a second water skein between them, resting with their backs against the discarded offcuts of timber.
‘We’ll rest here for a few hours,’ Roh said.
‘Here?’
‘Do you fancy the trip back to the Upper Sector, only to come back down?’
Odi glanced at the door, clearly calculating the time it would take to get to their chambers, pulley systems and tunnels included. ‘Fair point.’
With a terse nod, Roh got up and checked the locked door back to the passageway. She returned to their patch of dirt, dropped to the ground and shoved her rucksack into a makeshift pillow.
‘Roh?’ Odi said, voice filled with trepidation.
‘What?’
‘I’m not trying to trick you.’
Uneasiness roiling in her gut, Roh closed her eyes and didn’t reply.
Roh awoke bleary-eyed and aching to a sudden hammering at the door. With a moan of pain, she staggered to her feet, her muscles protesting loudly as she stumbled towards the persistent pounding.
‘We don’t have all day,’ Harlyn’s voice called through the thick timber and iron.
With callused, blistered hands and no sense of the hour, Roh fumbled with the bolt.
‘Finally,’ Harlyn said as the door swung open, her lute strapped across her back as usual.
To Roh’s great relief, her friends stood with a wad of light metal sheets between them. ‘Odi,’ she called. ‘Come and help.’
Odi was as bleary-eyed as she was, but he stumbled over to them all the same and took up Orson’s end of the metal sheets.
‘Is this what you needed?’ Orson asked worriedly, following them inside.
Harlyn let out a low whistle. ‘What is this place?’ she asked, taking in the sight of the tree graveyard.
‘An old sea-birch forest,’ Roh told her, watching as Odi flexed a single sheet and it warped to his touch. ‘What do you think?’ she asked him, ignoring the tightness in her chest.
He looked to Harlyn and Orson. ‘This is perfect,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Roh added, knowing how little time her friends had to run around Saddoriel helping her. ‘How did you manage to get it?’
As they carried the metal sheets to the far corner of the cavern, Harlyn gave Orson a conspiratorial wink. ‘Our Orson here sweet-talked old Nusgaard the head welder —’
‘Did not —’
‘Did so. Why else would he give us all this stuff?’
‘He —’
‘He fancies you, that’s why. Sweet little Orson,’ Harlyn mocked, batting her eyelashes.
Roh laughed; the sound of their teasing soothed her. ‘Everyone does.’
Orson gave an exasperated sigh as she often did. ‘It’s times like these when I truly feel the decade between us,’ she said.
‘Nonsense.’ Harlyn slapped her on the back. ‘We make you feel young again.’
Roh grinned as she spotted the familiar smile tug Orson’s lips. So often she tried to remain stern and serious, but Harlyn always knew how to put a crack in her resolution.
Taking advantage of the light mood, Roh gestured to their workspace once they’d placed the sheets on the ground. ‘Do you want to have a look?’
‘Actually,’ Odi interjected, ‘we could use your help for this next bit.’
‘More help?’ Harlyn quipped with a brow raised, but turned to survey their work anyway, hands on her hips.
‘You’ve done so much already,’ Orson said, taking in the tree stumps and the pile of timber they’d prepared.
‘There’s still a lot to do,’ Odi explained. ‘We have to make the case, which is what this metal’s for, then the soundboard and the keys.’
Harlyn removed her lute from her back, placing it carefully out of the way, and folded her arms over her chest. ‘Well, quit your jabbering and tell us what to do.’
Roh could hardly believe her eyes as they set about following the human’s instructions, clamping the metal sheets into place so they formed a large curved mould. It was an impressive structure, but Roh had no idea how they were going to get the timber they’d so painstakingly felled and cut into it. But Odi moved about the structure with complete calm and confidence, checking his measurements as the three cyrens held everything in place.
‘Where’s the glue?’ she heard Odi ask.
Standing beside the others, she pointed, intrigued. Odi proceeded to slather thick layers of glue along the thin planks they’d cut and sanded, placing them together to form a thicker sheet. Then, he picked up each one, bent the wet timber to his will, to the metal mould, and fitted it within the curved shape they’d created. Roh watched on as he painted the timber with more glue and fitted the final pieces of wood to the template.
‘This will be the case,’ he told them, ignoring their stares.
‘How that is supposed to make music is well beyond me,’ Harlyn said.
To Roh’s surprise, Odi laughed.
‘Speaking of music,’ Roh ventured, knowing Harlyn always felt a little more generous after she’d made someone smile, human or not. ‘Do you think you could play us something?’
Roh could have sworn she saw Harlyn’s cheeks flush, but she shook her head. ‘Orson and I should be getting back. We have lots of work —’
‘Oh, come on, Har. Please?’
There was definitely a pink tinge to Harlyn’s face as she looked to Orson, who allowed a smile.
‘I’m sure a song or two won’t put us too far behind.’
Roh gave their friend a grateful smile. Had she been spending too much time in the Upper Sector that she now felt the absence of melody so keenly? She watched Harlyn gently take her lute from its case and sit cross-legged on the ground. The bulky instrument always looked awkward in her friend’s long, elegant arms, but as soon as she balanced it on her thigh it became a part of her. Without looking up, Harlyn placed her fingers over the frets and began to play.
Something greater than relief, greater than gratitude filled Roh. A creation of Harlyn’s own making danced between the skeletons of trees, the sound so rich, so vibrant that Roh could almost see it. The melody passed through Roh like a phantom breeze, and though the notes poured from but one person, the sound was that of a symphony. Roh had watched Harlyn play the lute countless times before, but here, with an audience of just three, her expression changed from her usual scowl. Here, she looked at ease, graceful even, and the music at her fingertips was a collage of colour.
The piece was over before Roh was ready. She stared, along with Orson and Odi, but it was Odi’s gaze Harlyn’s eyes met.
‘What?’ she snapped.
A smile played on Odi’s lips. ‘You’re … you’re good.’
‘I know,’ Harlyn quipped.
‘If you adjusted the pegs at the top there …’
‘Did I ask for your opinion, human?’
Odi raised his chin. ‘You didn’t mind so much when it was complimentary.’
But Harlyn was already packing away her lute and ge
tting to her feet. She turned to Orson. ‘We’re due back at the workshop,’ she said curtly.
‘I was only going to say that if you adjusted the pegs slightly, the sound would be more expansive,’ Odi pressed on.
‘Orson,’ Harlyn barked. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Har, surely you’re done with your shift?’ Roh interjected. She wasn’t ready for the music to end and for her friends to leave. She’d barely seen them.
‘Actually, no. We’ve caught up on our usual work, but an order’s come through that Ames says must be attended to, so we’re due back at the workshop any minute.’ Orson sounded unusually bitter.
Roh didn’t miss the consoling pat Harlyn bestowed upon her arm as they made for the door.
‘Thank you,’ she heard herself say. She pointed to the metal frame she still didn’t fully understand. ‘We really needed that, so thank you.’ She wondered if they could hear it in her voice: her gratitude amplified by guilt. Would they be helping her like this if they knew what she had done to secure her place in the tournament? Roh had desperately tried not to think about that question, but on the receiving end of her friends’ kindness and generosity, it penetrated her mind with a vengeance. Roh walked them to the door, thoughts churning so loudly that she didn’t realise Harlyn was speaking.
‘… you know?’
Roh blinked, slowly returning to the present. ‘Sorry?’
Harlyn lowered her voice and gave Orson a sideways glance. ‘I’m just saying … you’re putting a lot of faith in him.’ She jerked her chin in Odi’s direction; he was hunched over the metal frame once more, lathering glue across the timber.
‘I know,’ Roh said hoarsely.
Orson gave a sad smile and Harlyn shrugged. ‘So long as you know …’
The door clicked shut behind them and Roh bolted it. When she turned back to their project, Odi was already sanding another plank of timber. According to his drawings, which she glanced at over his shoulder, he was now working on the soundboard, whatever that was.
‘Harlyn doesn’t like to be told what to do,’ Roh explained.
Odi quirked a brow. ‘I don’t think that trait is specific just to Harlyn.’
Roh ignored this; instead, she watched him work for a moment, studying his half-gloved hands as they guided the rough paper across the wood, patiently smoothing out its imperfections.
Harlyn’s words still fresh in her mind, Roh paused by their tools. ‘Odi?’
‘Hmm?’
‘About these strings.’
‘What about them?’
‘What could we use as a substitute?’
Odi frowned as he smoothed over a particularly rough part of the timber. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think anything else would work. They have to make the right notes. Otherwise, the Eery Brothers won’t be able to play it.’
‘Well, what are the strings like? I’ll ask Ames if we have anything similar – like the wood. We didn’t have maple and we managed.’
‘The case of the instrument is different. But if you really mean to find a replacement for the strings … Well, to start, they’re more like wire than string, I suppose. We just call them strings.’
‘You humans are always calling things by the wrong name.’
Odi raised his brows. ‘Do you want my help or not?’
‘Fine.’
‘They’re more like wires. They’re struck by hammers, which create the unique sound.’
Roh’s heart was already sinking. She couldn’t think of a place in the Lower Sector where she might get her hands on wire of all things. Rope, perhaps, but not wire. ‘How many do we need? Of these wires?’
‘Two hundred or so.’
‘Two hundred?’
Odi’s hands stilled and he looked up at her, his dark hair falling into his eyes; he pushed it back. ‘I told you, they’re not just any strings. We need three for the tenor and treble notes. For bass notes the number of wires per note decreases from three to two. When you approach the lowest bass notes, it decreases to one. The strings are different lengths, too, shorter for going from low to high notes, and the thickness changes as well, depending on how high in pitch the note is.’
‘What …?’ Roh said. ‘There’s … there’s nothing like that here.’
Odi shrugged and turned back to the timber he was sanding. ‘I said from the beginning we’d have to get them elsewhere.’
And he had. He’d been honest with her from the start. She just hadn’t wanted to listen. Despite what her kind had done to him, despite being trapped down here, he had done a great many things for her, not the least of which was saving her life. She began to pace. There was no rule about leaving Saddoriel or Talon’s Reach stated in the tournament orientation … She shook her head. I can’t possibly be considering this.
The question left her lips all the same: ‘How long do you think it took you to get to Saddoriel from where you entered the tunnels?’
Odi frowned. ‘It’s hard to say when there’s no natural light down here, but I wouldn’t have guessed more than two days?’
What he didn’t know was that time moved differently in the outskirts of Talon’s Reach. There was a magic to those tunnels that warped one’s sense of the days, hours and minutes. But it was a start. ‘How far from the entrance of the tunnels is your home, and these supposed wires?’ she asked.
‘Under three hours at a walk, less at a run.’
Two days there, six hours of Odi being out in the human realms. Two days back … If he came back … But with Roh at his side, the journey would be quicker, if all went as she wished. With her inner compass, she could navigate the passages easily, and she did have a general sense of where Odi had been found. Roh surveyed the skeleton of the instrument before them. ‘Does it leave us with enough time? To build the rest of the … piano?’
Odi looked from the framework and elements assembled on the ground to his drawing and calculations on the crumpled piece of parchment.
‘We have three weeks left until the end of the moonspan?’ he asked.
‘Two weeks, six days now.’
‘Then that should be enough time. It won’t be my best work, won’t have the same finishes a true piano made in our shop would, but it will work. It will sound as it should.’
Roh took a deep breath. ‘And tell me, why should I trust you?’
Odi stood and wiped his hands on his already dust-covered trousers. He met her gaze. ‘If this is what you want to build, you’ll just have to.’
Roh studied him carefully, her green eyes boring into his amber gaze. ‘It’s not in my nature to trust anyone. Least of all a human.’
Odi didn’t look away. ‘And yet, here we are,’ he said, his voice calm and steady. Then he did something that Roh did not expect. He offered her his hand, palm upturned.
They had come this far … Nerves roiled in Roh’s gut as she grasped his hand with her own and shook it. ‘Here we are.’
They returned to their chambers in the Upper Sector to bathe and pack for the journey. They made quick work of their tasks, Roh snatching food from the dining hall that she thought would last the trip: flatbreads, hard cheese, cured meat and oatcakes. Her main concern was water, and so while Odi used the bathing chamber, she loaded their packs with water skeins, praying to Dresmis and Thera that it would be enough.
From what Odi had told her, Roh knew the place where he’d been found by Taro and Bloodwyn Haertel and which passage to take. The real test would be what came after, once they started out into the real outskirts of Talon’s Reach.
When they were ready a few hours later, cyren and human shouldered their packs and slipped out of the Upper Sector residential quarters, determined to remain unseen. Though their plans weren’t against the rules, Roh very much preferred that her fellow competitors and the Elder Council judges remained in the dark when it came to their journey. They managed to get through the residences, the foyer and the Great Hall without being seen, but at the entrance to the lair Roh stopped in her tracks.
‘We’re not skulking,’ Roh snapped. ‘And it’s none of your business.’
Finn’s eyes narrowed with dislike, his menacing gaze shifting between her and Odi. What was his problem? Before the tournament, Roh had never clapped eyes on the highborn, had never even set foot in his sector, and yet he was intent on sabotaging her, on infiltrating the only space she had known as home, on speaking to her friends as though they were dirt. Roh had had enough of the bastard. He’d taken every opportunity to hurt her and Odi, and had used his position, or rather, his parents’ position, as a shield. He was nothing but a coward.
‘Stealing Odi’s token was a low move, even for you, Haertel,’ Roh said, venom coating her words.
‘Well,’ he sneered, eyes brightening at the challenge. ‘You’d know all about low moves, wouldn’t you. Being what you are. Your despicable mother being what she is.’
It seemed an unnatural moment to bring Cerys into things, but he did it often, Roh realised. All of his snide remarks and insults led back to her mother, and suddenly, it was clear to Roh: this was personal. How had she not recognised that? It was not just Finn flexing his superiority over her, it was not just some sport he enjoyed. There was something deeper here that mattered to him, in a way he hadn’t let slip, until now. That knowledge fuelled the fire within her even more. ‘What is it that you have against me? Why do I get under your skin so badly?’ she taunted.
‘You?’ Finn laughed darkly. ‘You are nothing to me. A speck of mud on my shoe, perhaps. But your mother … That murdering piece of filth rotting away down in her cell … The Haertels owe her a death debt.’