The Bones of the Earth

by Rachel Dunne

  Keiro held his hand up near his head, and Cazi obediently stepped into it. Keiro brought the Starborn to eye level, his one eye staring into the two small red ones. “Cazi,” Keiro said in a whisper that even the grasses might not catch, “can you show me the way inside the hill?”

  There was a glimmer in the mravigi’s eyes, and then he was off, leaping from Keiro’s palm with his stunted wings flailing. Cazi landed with a puff of dirt, but seemed unharmed and scampered away, the forked tip of his gray tail disappearing in the grass sea. He sang as he ran, or Keiro would call it singing, the Starborn’s tiny voice rising and falling in a melodic warble. With a grin splitting his face, Keiro raced after the sound.

  It wasn’t the same place that Keiro had first been led beneath the hills; this hole was smaller, more overgrown, a place that looked more forgotten than hidden. Cazi sat at the edge, practically glowing with pride. Keiro crouched down, measuring the hole with his eyes, trying to decide if his shoulders would fit through. “Do you know how to get to the Twins?” Cazi’s answering chirp sounded of confidence, and so Keiro reached into the opening, feeling around with his hands. It seemed a sloping tunnel, rather than a hole like he had fallen through the last time. “After you,” Keiro said, and Cazi slipped into the darkness. Taking a bracing breath, Keiro followed him.

  Keiro had to squirm along on his belly for the first stretch, shifting arms and hips and knees to inch forward, trying very desperately not to think of how small the space was. The tunnel finally widened as it angled downward, enough that Keiro could crawl on his hands and knees with Cazi scurrying just ahead. A thrill ran through Keiro as they went, something made of rebellion and excitement both.

  That thrill was snuffed in the sudden glow of red eyes.

  Keiro nearly ran headfirst into the Starborn. Its scattered white scales like stars began to glow, giving the dark tunnel a dim illumination. Cazi was trying very hard to become a shadow beneath Keiro. “Godson,” the Starborn said, and he recognized Tseris’s voice, as well as the reproach in it. “I would have come for you, had you waited.”

  “Forgive me,” Keiro said quickly, wanting very badly not to anger the only mravigi besides Cazi who would come near him. “It’s only . . . I have been waiting. I’ve called your name, as you told me, and . . . I thought perhaps it was a test.” The lie sounded lame to his own ears, and he flushed a deeper red.

  “I told you to call for me if you had need. You have questions aplenty, but that is not a need.”

  Keiro could read beyond her words easily enough—it had been a test, one of his patience, and he had failed it spectacularly. “Forgive me,” he said again, and this time followed it with no justification.

  “You are forgiven,” Tseris said easily. “Though I would ask one thing of you in return.” She leaned forward, nearly touching her rounded snout to Keiro’s nose. “Leave Cazi be. It is not good, for either of you, to be so close.”

  It took a few moments for Keiro to find any words, and the first that came were, again, “Forgive me. I . . . feel alone here, sometimes. Cazi is a good companion.”

  “I understand.” And there was indeed knowing in her eyes, and a deeper sadness than Keiro could ever know, the sadness of centuries. “Still. I would ask this of you.”

  Keiro bowed his head, lifted one fist to press it against his brow. “I will do as you ask.” As a show of good faith, he reached down to nudge Cazi forward into the glowing circle of Tseris’s scales, though the little Starborn’s confused trill came near to breaking his heart.

  Tseris inclined her head and reached out one long-clawed foot to scoop Cazi closer to her. “Thank you, Godson. Follow me. I will take you to them.” She turned smoothly in the tunnel, narrow as it was, body flowing like dark water. Cazi moved ahead of her, low to the ground, the joy gone from his quick steps.

  The great cavern where Sororra and Fratarro lay imprisoned was full of the soft sounds of breathing and bodies brushing, the glow of a thousand stars as mravigi moved throughout the open space. Keiro followed Tseris through the darkness, to the end of the cavern where his gods sat sleeping. Bound at the wrist and ankle by mighty chains that were sunk deep into the stone floor, Sororra seemed somehow to ring with watchfulness, as though she weren’t really sleeping—merely waiting, patient as a summer storm. But she was sleeping, her eyes closed and her breaths so shallow they made almost no sound or movement. Next to her, Fratarro reclined—though such a word implied comfort, and there was no rest in the lines of the god’s body. Even in sleep stiffness was written into him, and rigidity, and an everlasting pain that made Keiro want to weep. Fratarro, with his limbs torn away, was held up only by the sharp spike of stone that pierced him through his chest, binding him as surely as Sororra’s manacles. Straz, their ever-present guardian, lay curled before them, white-scaled sides like a bellows as he slept deeply. Keiro wondered briefly if Straz’s sleep was tied to the Twins’, drawn down with them by whatever divine sleep kept them subdued.

  “They will wake soon,” Tseris murmured, as though too loud a voice would wake them early. “It is a gift, that they can wake at all.”

  Keiro kept his own voice low. “They haven’t always been like this?”

  “No, Godson. Only for a short while, in the great measure of time. Only since Fratarro’s arm was restored to him. Before that, they slept—restless sleep, angry sleep, but still only sleep. With Fratarro’s arm, they gained back a portion of their stolen power.”

  It made Keiro’s heart swell with a strange, unfamiliar hope. He had told Tseris before that he’d never truly thought the Twins could be freed . . . but here was proof, not only of their existence, but that their powers could be returned to them.

  Chains shifted, the heavy sound of metal brushing stone, and Sororra’s eyes opened slowly. She looked to her brother first, waiting until his eyes had opened as well, and her chains clanked as she reached to grip his shoulder with one hand. The smile they shared carried more layers of depth than Keiro could hope to count, and he felt an intruder, watching it.

  Tseris stepped aside, leaving Keiro to approach the Twins alone. He did so with his head bowed, and dropped to his knees when he stood before them. He only knew that they had turned to him by the red glow that washed over him. “Forgive me my impatience,” he said, the apology tumbling out. “I am eager to serve you, honored Twins.”

  “You will,” Sororra said, and in her voice was the harsh promise of the desert. “You are the first of the faithful to find us. That is a thing we will not forget.”

  “There is great purpose for you, Keiro,” said Fratarro, who could smile through his pain, smile with an endless love.

  Sororra lifted a hand, the gesture speaking of caution. Her eyes, red on black, bored into Keiro. “The future is not written in stone. It is a changing thing, and even we cannot grasp the full breadth of it. There are many threads pulling at you, and they do not all lead to greatness.”

  “The choices are yours to make,” Fratarro said earnestly, though his sister’s eyes still held Keiro pinned. “That was my Father’s gift to mankind, and I will not gainsay it. The path to greatness lies before you, Keiro Godson.”

  “There are other paths. Many paths into many futures, and we cannot see where all of them will end.”

  They fell silent, and Keiro felt very much a child as he cleared his throat. “I have spent my whole life choosing paths, honored Twins. It . . . it seems to me as though my path has always been leading me to you.”

  Fratarro’s smile was like the sun breaking through clouds, but Sororra’s face remained passive. It was she who spoke again, and there was something dangerous in her voice. “You heard our summons as you left the desert, did you not?”

  Keiro felt his face flush. He had turned away from the Twins only once in his life, after he had escaped the killing sands of the Eremori Desert only to feel a reverberating call pulling him back into the desert’s heat. The thought of likely meeting his own death there had been a stronger deterrent than his w
ill to serve the Twins. “I . . . I feared my death, merciful Sororra—”

  Her sharp laugh cut him off. “Brother, have I ever been called ‘merciful’?”

  “I do not think you have.”

  “You doubted us, preacher. Our powers may be broken, but they are not entirely gone. Yet you doubted that we would keep you safe.”

  “My other arm lies buried in the desert’s sands,” Fratarro said softly.

  “I would have had you bring my brother a gift, as proof of your faith.”

  The flush faded from Keiro’s face, and he suddenly felt very cold in this place beneath the earth. He could find no words to defend himself, held under two red gazes, and the slow movements of the mravigi were unspeakably loud. He had quailed at venturing back into the Eremori Desert, but now he would gladly take its sands beneath his feet once more and its breath burning through his lungs.

  Finally Fratarro broke the silence, his smile coming again, though it was lined at the corners with sadness. “It is no matter. The past is done, and there are paths yet to walk. Others will find my limbs for me.”

  “If you would serve us,” Sororra said, “you must learn to trust us.”

  “I will,” Keiro said vehemently, pressing his fist to his brow. “I do. And I swear, I will never disobey you again.”

  “Then you must bring the faithful to us.”

  Keiro’s thoughts whirled; he had been banished from Mount Raturo, from all of Fiatera, but he would face the wrath of the Fallen to do the Twins’ bidding. He would not lose faith in them a second time. “I will leave tonight, go gather the Fallen—”

  “No,” Sororra said, stern and implacable. “We may yet have need of you here.”

  “But . . . forgive me, I have no means of contacting the others, of telling them you’ve finally been found . . .”

  “A test, Keiro,” Fratarro said with a gentle smile. “We have waited long centuries here in our prison. We can wait a while longer, to see what kind of man you are.”

  Keiro knelt, with his head bowed low, staring at his clasped hands. “As you wish, honored Twins. I . . . I will do my best.”

  “Thank you, Keiro.”

  “You may go now.” Sororra waved a hand in dismissal. “We will summon you, if we need to speak with you again.” That was a message Keiro could read clearly enough.

  He rose and backed away slowly, keeping his head bowed, until he nearly tripped over Tseris. She led him in silence through wider tunnels, and they emerged together near the summit of the largest hill that swelled among the Plains.

  Before she could leave him, disappearing once more into the ground, Keiro blurted, “Tseris? May I ask you one question?”

  “I will grant you a second one.” It took him a moment to realize the glimmer in her red eyes was something like laughter.

  “Why does Cazi have wings? All the old stories say the mravigi could fly, but none of the rest of you have them.”

  The laughter vanished faster than a falling stone. She shook her wedge-shaped head. “Do not trouble yourself with Cazi.”

  “I only wonder . . .”

  “You wonder too much. Mankind was not given the secrets of the world. Some things you are meant not to know.” And she was gone, the forked tip of her tail the last he saw as she returned to the earth.

  Keiro walked alone through the hills, and the long grass. The sun hung in the sky, low and bright, stretching his shadow out ahead of him. How to summon the Fallen to this place where none of them had ever walked before? Even if he could think of a way, Keiro doubted they’d listen to him; he was banished, apostate, condemned to death if he ever returned to Fiatera. The Twins had set a test for him, but it felt like one he was doomed to fail from the start.

  With nowhere else to go, his feet led him back to the tribehome. The women were there, and the children, working together to tend fires, strip the skin from roots, crush the tough seeds that made a strangely sweet paste. Keiro sat at the edge of the tramped-down circle where the tribe lived, the grasses tickling his back, welcome among the tribe but not truly one of them. He often caught Poret staring, but she had kept her distance since Yaket had pulled her aside some weeks ago. None of them had been cold, not even Yaket with her disapproving stare, but there had been a shifting, a gentle rebuff, a punishment for ignoring the elder’s request to keep the truth from them. He doubted Yaket had told them the reason behind the shunning, but she wouldn’t need to—they were her tribe, and her word was law. It stung, some, the rebuke in this place where he’d finally felt a sense of belonging after so many wandering years.

  He could spend the day wallowing, or he could turn his mind to the problem at hand. The past is done, and there are paths yet to walk. Fratarro had spoken truly. There was no point in letting his mind gnaw on memories like a dog with a bone.

  Keiro almost smiled to himself—he was a man very much given to examining the past, his memories worn smooth as river stones, chewed down to shards of bone. But perhaps he could change that, become more worthy of the trust his gods had placed in him. He could be better, so that the next time the desert called to him, he wouldn’t think of his fear, of the heat so great it made his sweat steam on his skin. He could keep the past behind him, so that it did not cloud his vision as he walked forward.

  One of the women placed a mat of food in his lap, startling Keiro badly; he hadn’t noticed the plainswalker men return, or the sun set. He shook away his reverie and took his meal closer to the central fire, closer to the rest of the tribe. He joined their conversations, laughed at the stories the men told, gave Poret a gentle smile when he felt her watching him.

  Sororra had used her powers to shape men’s minds—it was the crime for which the Parents held her in greatest contempt, her twisting of minds until the people were unrecognizable, virtual monsters. She had instilled thoughts and feelings into her chosen people, along with no suspicion that those thoughts and feelings were not their own—a certainty that those alone were the proper way of things. Though Keiro didn’t have the powers of a god, and would not want them, words held their own power. There was a thought, slowly sprouting at the back of Keiro’s mind, that he might begin to shape the plainswalkers to his cause.

  The children begged him for a story, as they did each night, and Keiro gave them a bright smile. He held up a hand to cut off their pleas for their favorite tales, and he said into the waiting silence, “Listen well, children, for tonight I will tell you a new story.” The adults leaned forward as eagerly as the children, their eyes bright as the stars sparkling overhead. Keiro reached up to touch the black eyecloth that was tied always over his brow, easy to lower when he needed to preach—but he stopped and lowered his hand instead, left his eyes uncovered, the good one and the one that was gone. There was a rightness to it. The plainswalkers noted it, and a murmur rippled through them. They fell silent, though, when Keiro opened his mouth once more. “You know of the mravigi. They are Fratarro’s proudest creation, creatures of such beauty that Patharro could not contain his jealousy at the sight of them. The Father cast them from the sky with angry fire, and he smiled as he watched them burn. Smiled as he destroyed the truest things the world had known.”

  It was unwontedly dark of Keiro, and he could see the unrest in the plainswalkers. He saw suspicion on Yaket’s face, and he looked beyond her. “Patharro sent his fire to destroy all that Fratarro had created . . . but fire cannot burn deep into the earth. Fratarro shaped his children well, gave them long claws and mighty shoulders and slim bodies that could twist through the earth as easily as the sky. Patharro sent his fire, but the mravigi fled before it like the moon before the sun, and they dug themselves deep into the earth where the fire could not touch them. They hid, and they lived.”

  The shock went through them, eyes widening, mouths hanging, skin paling. It seemed as though they hardly breathed. He didn’t look at Yaket; he could picture how the anger would twist her face, clear eye and blind eye both narrowed around the brightness of her fury.


  “This is as true a story as all those I have told you,” Keiro said, voice low and urgent. “The mravigi live, and they live here. Has Yaket told you of the Starborn, who live in the hills she has forbidden you from walking?” He thought, perhaps, he heard Yaket’s voice raised to silence him, but she was drowned out by cries of affirmation, the plainswalkers raising their voices in surprise and joy. “You have lived near them all your lives, without ever seeing them. They are one and the same, the mravigi and the Starborn. Fratarro’s finest creations. They live.” The plainswalkers were weeping, and Keiro grinned like a fool, and he did not look at Yaket.

  There was pain in his back, in his shoulder, and the plainswalkers cried out once more. The small weight settled onto his shoulder with a soft trill. Cazi was there, like a fallen star, his scales the faint glow of metal cooling after being pulled from the forge.

  “They live,” Keiro said again, and the plainswalkers surged forward, and Cazi stretched his head to the stars and sang a high sound of joy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Parro Modatho liked to talk. Liked more that he had an audience that had no choice but to listen. Eagerly he said Scal was a child of the Parents and would receive all the aid a priest could provide. He said it often, like a thing he did not want Scal to forget. Said it most often to Scal’s back, when Scal tried to block out the parro’s constant voice. It did not seem like any of the wardens or convicts chose to keep the parro’s company. Scal could begin to guess why.

  Modatho said it would be months for Scal to recover, months before he could do more than sit and sip broth. Scal did not argue with him, but after three weeks—once he could throw the bowl of flavorless broth without it pulling at his side—Scal began the painful process of standing.

  Sitting came first, his wound a line of dull fire along his side. He slid to the wall and pressed his back against the wood, the cold of it seeping in quick. He gathered his feet beneath him, gripped the sill of the window to his right. Pushed with his legs, pulled with his hand, and slowly his back scraped up the wall. Modatho fretted, fluttering his hands, pacing. He had tried, at first, to push Scal back down, but even hurt and weak, Scal was stronger. Modatho kept his distance now but hovered, bothersome as a fly.