The Bones of the Earth- The Complete Collection

by Scott Hale

  “You saved me,” she said. She went in, as if to kiss him, but with her break, it was never going to happen. She pressed her forehead to his, instead, and whispered, “Not going to lie. Figured it’d always be me saving you.”

  Aeson snorted, sucked up some saliva. “You did. You are. Right now.”

  “Tell me what happened,” Vrana said. “How the hell you and Bjørn… did this.”

  Aeson tried to wrangle his memories together into something more manageable. This journey had a definite beginning, and so far, a definite end. She knew about the Dismal Sticks. She’d been the one to… save him from the flesh fiend. But did she know what she was? That she was born on Lacuna? Did she know about her father? Or that Bjørn had saved her from Death Herself? If he hit her with too many revelations, would she be ripped apart? And if she was, did he even have the right vocabulary to comfort her? Did anyone?

  “You first,” he said, instead. “I always go first.”

  Vrana’s hands made the shape of scissors, to beat the paper he always picked. “Play you for it.”

  Aeson laughed; he noticed he’d stopped shivering. “You know I’ll lose.”

  “Maybe not.” Vrana’s breath smelled of blood and gore, and every fluid and substance with which the Witch had been made. “I spent every day preparing myself for this.”

  “Rock-paper-scissors?”

  Was that a smirk? He couldn’t tell. “No. Seeing you… I mean, you seeing me. I know I’m… fucked up-looking.”

  He wanted to compare himself to her, to show her she wasn’t as bad as she thought, but whereas he had scars and cuts and fresh wounds, she had transformed entirely. Sure, maybe he had undergone a transformation himself, on the inside, but how could he articulate that? Besides, he didn’t even know what it was.

  “You’re still Vrana,” Aeson said. “That’s all that matters.”

  “It’s not,” she said, running her talons down where her breasts used to be, to her feathered stomach and emaciated hips, “but thank you.”

  “I don’t care about that,” he said.

  Vrana’s eyes moistened. “I do. I care about everything those fucking bitches took from me.”

  Aeson pressed himself closer to Vrana; the cold had found him again. “Did you think it would be me who came for you?” He shook his head. “The scared Archivist who never left home?”

  Vrana cleared her throat, let her eyes wander over the mountain range.

  “Wow,” Aeson said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “At first, I thought maybe it would be R’lyeh… but when I saw you at the Dismal Sticks… god, I wanted so badly to go with you. To even talk to you.” Vrana held his hand as carefully as she could. “I knew you wouldn’t stop.”

  Changing the subject from the Dismal Sticks, he asked, “R’lyeh sent Caldera a letter saying the Witches took you.”

  “That was Pain and Joy, not R’lyeh.”

  Aeson thought back to the day the letter arrived; he remembered how strange it felt to hold, and a purplish hue to it, as if it had been written in the colors of the cosmos. It seemed so obvious now, but then, it had just been a piece of hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.

  “Pain wanted Caldera to send more people looking for me, to keep spreading word of the Witches, because it’s belief that powers them.” Vrana snorted. “Look how well that worked out for Pain.”

  “Probably didn’t expect to see me,” Aeson said.

  “I think I’m good to fly again,” Vrana said.

  “No, I can walk—”

  “Come on, it’s freezing. After everything, you want frostbite to be the thing that takes you out?” Vrana rose to her feet and stretched out her wings. “We can find a cave, at least; build a fire.”

  Aeson, brushing the snow off his soaked backside, stood and dropped his arms to his sides. “How do you do it?”

  “Be so positive?”

  “Yeah, actually. Yeah.”

  Vrana stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around him. She held him so tightly that it hurt, but he wasn’t about to complain. Her talons hooked his armor, and some of his skin, to keep a better hold on him. If she dropped him, he wasn’t sure if she could recover him mid-air. But he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. That was enough.

  “It’s not that I’m being positive.”

  Her body tightened; holding him, she crouched down, to push herself off the mountain.

  “A lot of things happened to me I couldn’t stop. And if I’d stopped to beat myself up about it, I would’ve been a bloody pulp my first week into the Void.”

  She began beating her wings.

  “I’ve numbed myself to everything; everything except you and the few people I actually care about. The Witches knew that, and tried to use it against me, but it was worth it.”

  She flapped her wings forward; her feet left the ground. “They couldn’t kill me, so instead, they just tried to kill every part of me. I gave them almost everything.”

  Higher and higher, she flew into the whitened sky.

  “But I wouldn’t give them my love. They wanted, and hated, that the most.”

  Vrana flew them through Kistvaen’s range for another thirty minutes before winding down into the naked, pale woods somewhere outside of Rhyfel. As promised, she found them a cave. They’d seen what appeared to be flesh fiends in the area in their fly-by, so they scouted the cave before building a fire. They heard the creatures killing animals, or one another, but by the time the sun began to set, the sounds of slaughter had died away. It turned Aeson’s stomach to think of where the flesh fiends were headed next, but he didn’t care. At last, he could say he was done with them.

  Aeson sat as close as he could to the fire without sustaining first-degree burns. Down to his plainclothes, and glistening with sweat, he felt purified by the flames. But it wasn’t just the heat that was healing him; it was Vrana beside him, not above him or below him, or reaching out to him from the darkest recesses of his most terrible nightmares. She still had the Blue Worm’s necklace—she kept in a fleshy pouch in her side—but not once had she made any attempt to use it. She was a child of Lacuna, with the possibility of some flesh fiend cross-contamination playing havoc with her genetics, and yet she had been nothing but gentle, as she had always been. Yes, she had literally eaten Pain whole, but he was pretty sure she would’ve done something similar whether she was half-raven or not.

  “Alright,” Aeson said, clearing his throat and nose, “I’ll do it.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ll tell you everything. From the beginning.”

  Vrana nodded, and held his hand. “I know where I was born, how I was born. I know about my dad.” She paused. “You don’t have to hold anything back.”

  And Aeson didn’t. He told her everything. From the day he left Caldera, with the list of Lacunans, to the Dismal Sticks and Ichor’s deranged dinner party.

  “Do you want to… talk about it?” Vrana asked, regarding the flesh fiend who’d raped him.

  Aeson shook his head. “I’ve been over it enough,” he said, as he smelled the female flesh fiend and her rank lust. He heard nails scratching on the cave of the floor, and claws, clicking, carrying out the Choir’s piercing tune; the deep dins of desire. They were calling to him, even now, when he was at his strongest, safest.

  He took a moment for himself, and then told Vrana about Death, Her daughters, and the dagger She’d made to kill one of them.

  “That makes… so much fucking sense,” Vrana said. “They never mentioned Death, but that makes… I can’t believe you and Bjørn did that.”

  Aeson placed the bear skull on his lap. “He loved you. More than anything else, I think.”

  “Yeah,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I’ve killed so many people. So many people have died because of me.”

  “It’s not your fault—”

  “I know,” she said, cutting him off. “I know.”

  While Vrana sat in contemplation, Aeson removed The Blood of Before from hi
s bag and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, taking it.

  “Anguis gave it to me. It’s supposed to be our history.”

  She opened the book, screwed up her face as she tried to read it.

  “It’s encrypted. I’m almost finished. My parents wrote in it.”

  “Shit.” Vrana handed it back to him. “They did?”

  “When my parents killed themselves, they tried to kill me, too. They tried to hang me with them, but Bjørn cut me down. They thought something was coming; they wanted to spare me—”

  “The Vermillion God,” Vrana whispered, still stuck on his previous statement. “Aeson, I’m so—”

  “There’s something wrong with the Night Terrors. Something very wrong.” He chewed on his lip. “Everything we do seems to just lead to our extinction. If we get too old, we lose our minds. And I think we brought something back from the Dead City—”

  “The Dead City?”

  “Yeah. The elders sent Night Terrors to search for something. And then they came back diseased, and birth rates plummeted. And then there’s this shit with Lacuna and Corrupted and flesh fiends? And you know… you know Caldera was built under Kistvaen for the sole purpose of eventually being wiped out? It’s like… it’s like our ancestors knew we were fuck-ups, knew this shit had to end, but someone kept it going all these years. And we haven’t done anything worthwhile since.”

  Breathlessly, Vrana said, “I didn’t know that. But, hey, Aeson, are you talking about our people, or us?”

  “I just… I look at you and I… every second I’m convincing myself things are better. And then I remember. And I don’t even know what you had to go through. I… I just—” he swallowed hard and started to laugh pathetically, “—you know, we judge the Corrupted because of their Corruption and what they’ve done.”

  “You want to be judged?”

  “No. I just… don’t want to hurt anymore.”

  Vrana scooted closer to him, wrapped her arm and wing around him. “Neither do I, but that’s not always up to us. Best we can do is hurt the ones who’ll try to hurt us.”

  “Then it’s just that same circular shit again.”

  “Pain and Joy are always going to be with me,” Vrana said.

  Aeson cleared his throat. “Well, you did eat Pain.”

  “Would it have helped if the flesh fiend had a name?”

  A choking ball of anger rose through Aeson’s chest and throat. What the hell? he shouted inside his skull. What the hell does that mean? But he knew what she was getting at. Her tormentors were two of a kind; with names and faces and well-defined legacies. The ghost that owned his body was none of those things. She was one of many, and identical to the many she was one of. He would never see her coming, and in each flesh fiend, she’d be coming.

  “Bjørn saved you, too,” Aeson said. “He said he ran into Death once, while he was carrying you home from Lacuna.”

  “And Death stepped aside,” Vrana said, finishing his sentence. Her eyes were brighter now, with or without the flames in front of them. “I don’t even know…” She laid her head on Aeson’s shoulder. “I don’t think my story is going to make you feel any better, but can I tell you it?”

  Her head was heavy, and her bones cut into his skin. Afraid to move or complain, he said, “Of course,” and tried his best to stop thinking of his goddamn self.

  “I killed fifty-three men, forty-one women, and ninety-nine children for Pain and Joy,” Vrana started. “They were saving the hundredth child for something special. Pain thought it would be funny. Joy couldn’t wait.

  “I think I’ve been to every town, village, and city at this point. I helped them track down Lacunans, and I convinced most of them to leave their homes and families to join the Cult. Pain and Joy used fear and manipulation to convince regular Corrupted to follow them; some people were part of the Holy Order of Penance, others were from The Disciples of the Deep. I lost track of how many we’d converted, but not everyone came to Angheuawl. There are still supporters out there.

  “The Choir was Joy’s idea. Pain called the flesh fiends angels, and I think because Pain approved of them, Joy wanted to make them part of the family. Pain twisted things, but Joy wanted to make things, form her own bloodline. The flesh fiends are perfect. Night Terror and Corrupted fuck? One month, and there’s a kid. Flesh fiend and flesh fiend together? A few weeks, sometimes less. They just had… pits… everywhere. They’d throw people in. Cultists, or people they made me capture. Flesh fiends would fuck them, or eat them, or both. Some of those pits are still out there, still going. Flesh fiends develop quickly. Their children can give birth shortly after they’re born.”

  Aeson remembered the Horrors of the Womb, how Pain had sent all four of them not to attack the Marrow Cabal, but to terrify them. A sacrificial offering in honor of the god of fear.

  “Those were the offspring of the Cult, from Lacunans, Night Terrors, Corrupted, or flesh fiends. Joy collected them, like dolls. She was going to build her family with them, and then, like we did on Lacuna, when they were ready, she was going to release them from the Void into the world.

  “Pain thought it would be better if the children were turned into the Horrors and used as instruments of fear. Joy… I’d never seen Joy so mad before.”

  “She let me kill Pain,” Aeson whispered.

  “She saved herself. Pain was always obsessed with being with her sister. But Joy always did better on her own. She ran the Nameless Forest for hundreds of years, Aeson. She’s… she has connections with Eldrus. And all these other families from the Old World.” Vrana squeezed the sides of her head. “You—”

  “I killed the wrong Witch,” Aeson said, realizing what Vrana was getting at.

  “You got me away from them.” She made a sniffing sound. Did she still have a nose? “But this isn’t over.”

  What did they do to you, Vrana? Aeson held her hand tighter. You can’t even say it.

  “Joy is going to come for you, Aeson,” Vrana said. “Even though she let it happen, you still killed Pain. All they had was each other. It doesn’t make sense, I know, but she’s going to want revenge. I know she will.”

  He could hear them again—the flesh fiends—calling for his skin. “Does she… still have enough power to?”

  Vrana’s voice was barely above a whisper. “She can’t control the Lacunans anymore without me or the necklace. But she still has her followers, maybe the Choir; and… the portals.”

  “But everyone who came to Angheuawl has to be dead by now,” Aeson said.

  “That was for show,” Vrana said. “They didn’t need to do that. But I guarantee you Joy will start spreading stories about what happened there, and her power will… skyrocket once people see the proof. I think she can still manage to open another portal.”

  “Caldera.” Aeson tipped his head back; tears ran down the side of his face. “The mark in Caldera.”

  “They set up outposts in these mountains.”

  Llyn, Trist, Marwaidd, Rhyfel… Angheuawl. I knew it.

  “Whether she can control them or not, this place is going to be swarming with flesh fiends soon.”

  “I don’t think Death is going to give me another weapon to defend myself,” Aeson said, the statement making him laugh. “I don’t think I want to ask again, either.”

  “We’ll figure out something,” Vrana said. “We’re together. That’s all that matters.”

  Aeson nodded and cast his eyes into the heart of the fire, where he should have cast any notions of hope as well. How the hell was he thinking that this was over? His days might’ve begun and ended with thoughts of Vrana, and that was okay for him, but the rest of the world? It wasn’t going to stop, and nothing was going to be the same. He remembered the day he had given her the third trial, and wondered, if he hadn’t, would they be here, in this cave, contemplating ways to kill the inevitable? His parents had wanted him to die with them, to spare him from the wretched world to come. They weren’t wro
ng.

  Stop it, he said to himself. Get it together. “Should we go after R’lyeh?”

  “No, I think she’s found her people. She’ll be okay. The woman I saw her through, Hex, had a lot of love for her. Listen, I don’t know if you noticed—”

  “Maybe we could spellweave some of the feathers off you. Shorten the beak.”

  “Aeson—” Vrana touched his neck, “—we have to leave.”

  “Right now?” He turned away from the fire, faced her. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Aeson’s ears pricked; he picked up sounds outside the cave—rustling in the overgrowth; something crunching through the accumulating snow. He smelled shit and blood and the stomach-churning musk of damp, matted hair. Movement stirred on his lap; shocked, as if he had been bitten, he screamed and jumped to his feet, as he grasped for the sword that was nowhere nearby.

  “Hey…”

  With a mouthful of spit and a fistful of sweat, he checked the cave entrance and found it empty. Vrana was staring at him. Her eyes, dark like a bird’s, considered every inch of him. Slowly, she rose, shedding feathers from her body, which the wintry wind fed to the fire. She was taller now, lankier; stretched out; her form inhuman enough to be unsettling. The closer she came to him, the closer her beak came to piercing him like a bladder, so that she could guzzle out the gore, the same way she had with Pain. The farther she moved away from the light, the deeper the darkness around her became. It wasn’t new. It was as if it had always been there. A piece of the Void she had brought with her, visible only when he was at his weakest, his most embarrassed. She would comfort him, until she would consume him.

  “Aeson.”

  Clenching his eyes shut, he shook his head and blubbered, “I’m sorry. I lost everything, too. I’m not as strong as you.”

  “Don’t start that.” Vrana took a deep breath; he could tell she was losing her patience with him. “Look outside, to the west.”

  He gulped like a child.

  “Go,” she said. “We’re safe, but look to the west, man.”