10: His Holy Bones

by Ginn Hale

  Loshai had said nothing to Kahlil. But when his strength had returned enough for him to resist his restraints, she had called her hungry bones down from the walls.

  They had climbed down the dangling wires like immense spiders. They’d held him as Loshai drove one of her hard sharp fingers into his stomach, clawing deep into his body. Kahlil had groaned as Loshai had whispered burning curses over his exposed chest. Kahlil had thought that she would kill him then, but she had pulled her hand back from his body.

  “You’ll die,” she’d said softly, as if sensing his thoughts. “But not quickly. Certainly not easily. You, more than anyone, deserve to suffer.”

  She’d made a short gesture to the hungry bones and they’d closed in over Kahlil. They’d beaten him and impaled him on their long, sharp bones. They’d cracked his ribs and snapped the bones of his legs. Kahlil had choked on his own blood. He’d heard himself whimper like a broken animal, but the hungry bones hadn’t relented. Kahlil’s only escape had come with unconsciousness.

  Now, he ached. He felt sick and fevered. But he should have been dead.

  Kahlil rolled his head slowly to catch a glimpse of the floor. Another boy’s broken corpse lay sprawled a few feet from where Kahlil lay. The mop of his dark hair made Kahlil think momentarily of Pesha. But Pesha was far from here, Kahlil reassured himself. Pesha was with Jath’ibaye. And Jath’ibaye was safe. If nothing else, Kahlil had ensured that by keeping the yasi’halaun out of Fikiri’s grasp. The knowledge was a small comfort against the intense fear that he would never see Jath’ibaye again.

  Loshai wanted to kill him. He had seen raw hatred in her face when she had looked at him. She hated him so deeply that it seemed killing him just once was not enough to satisfy her. Kahlil had no idea how many more times she would bother to revive him or how many more he could stand to be beaten so terribly.

  Kahlil flicked his fingers apart, searching the room for any sense of the Gray Space. Nothing came to him. Loshai clearly knew where to imprison him to prevent his escape.

  More droplets of filthy water splashed down against his bare hand and trickled down his wrist. Kahlil worked his hand against an iron restraint. Almost immediately a hot pain flared through his hand. Kahlil swore. His hand flopped limply against the stone table, his palm stinging and his fingers numb.

  He heard doors opening and for a brief moment he felt a breeze of the rough Gray Space. Then the door snapped closed, sealing the Gray Space beyond Kahlil’s grasp. He heard the rustle of heavy cloth and the click of bones against the stone floor, but he couldn’t roll his head back far enough to catch a glimpse of anything but the defaced walls and the shattered human remains that hung from them.

  Then Loshai leaned over him. Towering behind her were the spidery forms of hungry bones. Loshai raked her hand over Kahlil’s cheek, clawing a gash across his cheekbone.

  “That’s for killing Fikiri,” Loshai said quietly. She walked around the stone table and Kahlil noticed a pair of large, rusted shears gripped in one of her hands. She placed the cold metal blades down on top of Kahlil’s naked groin. Kahlil felt the blood draining from his face. He trembled as she lifted the shears just slightly.

  “This is for ruining my life,” Loshai said and then she slammed the flat of the shears into his crotch. He choked on his own cry of pain. Briefly, small white bursts obscured his vision. He struggled to remain conscious.

  “This will be for John.” Loshai turned, opened the shears, and slid the blades on either side of one of Kahlil’s fingers.

  “The ring finger seems appropriate, I think.” Loshai crushed the shears closed. The dull blades ripped into Kahlil’s flesh and he howled in pain. As Loshai worked the shears through his tendon and bone, the pain swelled into a blinding agony. Kahlil jerked his hand up into the iron restraint. He hardly felt the heat that flared through his palm but then, to his relief, his fingers went numb. He heard the low scraping sound of the blades snapping together. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something fall and Loshai caught it. Loshai scowled at Kahlil.

  “Clever, but eventually you will feel the pain.” She held up his bloody severed finger. The bone slid down a little as if it were slipping out of a glove. Nausea welled up in Kahlil, but he forced himself to calm down. He drew in a deep, slow breath. If he could stay conscious until Loshai left, then he could take advantage of the brief access to the Gray Space that the open door provided. No matter what Loshai did to him, he had to stay awake until then.

  “No doubt John will be wondering where you are.” Loshai tossed Kahlil’s severed finger to one of the hungry bones. It caught the finger between long, needle-like teeth and held it.

  “Maybe we should leave him a little trail.” Loshai held the shears up close to Kahlil’s face. “Do you think he’d still want you if you lost an eye? Your nose? Your balls?”

  Kahlil didn’t respond. He stared up at the dark spiral on the ceiling. Loshai leaned over him, blocking his view with her pretty, almost childlike face.

  “Maybe he won’t care so long as you’ve still got an asshole that he can fuck. That seemed to be all Ourath needed to keep him interested.”

  Kahlil scowled at the mention of Ourath and Loshai smiled just a little.

  “But you’re different from Ourath. You’re the one he brought back from the dead.” Loshai reached back past the line of Kahlil’s vision. Kahlil heard her skeletal fingers clink against glass. She held a small jar over Kahlil. The dull green light glowed through it, producing a faint golden shimmer.

  “John will come for you no matter what, won’t he?” Loshai asked.

  He might, Kahlil thought, and suddenly that knowledge terrified him. Loshai wasn’t keeping him alive just so she could torture him to her full satisfaction. She needed him as bait for some kind of trap she had laid for Jath’ibaye.

  “You’re wrong,” Kahlil said. “I’m not the one he loved. I’m not Ravishan.”

  Loshai’s eyes narrowed.

  “I’m Kyle,” Kahlil said. “I crossed from Nayeshi two years ago. Jath’ibaye isn’t going to risk anything to get me back. He hardly knows me.”

  “Really?” Loshai opened the jar. “Even if that were true, why would you tell me a thing like that? Hoping I’ll kill you before John arrives?” Loshai tipped the jar sideways and a golden honey-like fluid poured down into the open wound in Kahlil’s cheek. The gentle warmth of fathi began to spread out from the wound. Kahlil tried to concentrate on his situation, the pain and danger of it, and yet he found himself relaxing against the table. Loshai slid her fingers between his lips and pushed his mouth open. She fed him a sweet swallow of fathi.

  Delicious warmth spread through his entire body.

  “Would he know if I killed you?” Loshai asked sweetly. “Would he feel it through his bond to you?”

  Kahlil remembered how easily Jath’ibaye had found him at the edge of the chasm and even before that in Nurjima. But if he told Loshai as much then she would know how to lure Jath’ibaye here. Kahlil tried to say no. He concentrated intensely, and yet when he opened his mouth, he whispered, “Yes.”

  “And he will come for you, won’t he?” Loshai asked.

  Kahlil felt a rush of safety and warmth at the thought. Jath’ibaye would cross miles of land to save him. It had already happened once.

  “He’ll come,” Kahlil whispered.

  A serene expression lit Loshai’s face. She nodded and then turned and retreated from Kahlil’s sight. One of the hungry bones followed her, but the other remained standing over Kahlil.

  He stared up at the delicately carved planes of its long body. Red wires glittered between curves of perfectly articulated vertebrae. Blessings of strength and speed engraved its eight legs. It was beautiful, really. A stunning predator stripped down to its most elemental form. It was almost architecture with its perfectly white, column-like legs and arching body. It reminded him a little of a ruin he’d seen photographs of in Nayeshi.

  “I’m going to name you Parthenon,” Kahlil said
and then he found himself laughing at his own joke. Very distantly, he heard the groan of a door opening. A sense of the Gray Space tickled over his bare skin and Kahlil thought that there was something he should be doing but the notion passed easily into his contemplation of the ceiling. He heard the door fall closed.

  “Guess it’s just you and me, Parthenon,” Kahlil murmured. Then he spotted something dark above him, moving slowly between the broken remains of bones. Some creature writhed in the shadows, sliding along the blackened copper wires. As it moved, a scattering of water droplets fell down across Kahlil’s face. Despite the warmth of the fathi a chill passed over him.

  Chapter One Hundred and Four

  If he closed his eyes and concentrated, John knew he could catch a glimpse of Kyle. But previous visions had done little to reassure him. Again and again he had watched Kyle race across the flowing dunes of the northern rift, the voracious white bulk of hungry bones persuing him as he lured them toward Ji. Their long white teeth gnashed only inches from Kyle before he disappeared into the Gray Space. The sight always left John rattled and the sky above him darkened with storm clouds.

  After three days John had realized that it was better not to watch over Kyle, as much as he wanted to. Instead he concentrated on his own surroundings, attempting to bury his anxiety in the perfect interlacing of deep roots and fine threads of mycelia. John felt the miles stretching ahead of him; the stony forests of the Iron Heights slowly gave way to the sloping, tilled soil of the Bousim farmlands. Countless tiny seeds cracked open and pushed with infinite persistence through the rich soil, climbing towards the warmth of the spring sun.

  John relaxed in his saddle, moving in rhythm with his big tahldi’s gait. Now and then, he stroked the buck’s velvety jaw and murmured a few reassuring words. Even after decades, whenever he calmed a tahldi like this, he still thought of Fenn.

  Ahead of him, Hirran rode alongside two of her younger sisters, who were serving as her attendants. Kahlirash’im flanked them on either side. They all carried rifles, even Hirran. Hunting spears and bundled grenades hung from the kahlirash’im’s saddles.

  In the quiet of the forest, they seemed over-armed. Several kahlirash’im bolted their rifles as a mass of melting snow slid from the branches of a pine, causing the limb to suddenly bounce up. They were still too near the northern rift not to be nervous, especially with the signs of spring so obvious all around them. It was the season when the hungry bones hunted and they all knew it.

  But this year John noticed a renewed confidence in the kahlirash’im and among many of the shepherds they encountered in the hills. Word of Ji destroying the hungry bones had already spread. John overheard their excited comments and saw fresh optimism in their expressions. At last, they had a hope that this year would bring an end to the scourge of the hungry bones.

  John wanted to believe as much, but he knew that no matter how many Ji destroyed, Laurie and Fikiri could keep making more. Destroying the hungry bones alone wasn’t a lasting solution. John knew that and yet he couldn’t bring himself to consider harming Laurie. He couldn’t kill someone he loved, not again.

  John’s tahldi shook its head and he realized he was tensing up too much. He relaxed his legs and tried to think about the soft layers of pine needles and fallen leaves blanketing the dark soil of the forest floor. But he couldn’t quite lose himself in the play of decomposition and growth. Something felt wrong. Something deep inside him.

  He wished Kyle were here with him and not out there at the edge of the rift.

  Suddenly the shriek of the tearing Gray Space cut through the quiet forest. A flock of birds startled from the trees behind him and John quickly reined his tahldi around and brought his rifle up. Pesha staggered from the trees. She carried the yasi’halaun in her arms and her face was caked with blood.

  John immediately leaped from his tahldi and rushed to Pesha’s side. The kahlirash’im closed around them. Pesha stumbled to John. Her eyes were wide and afraid.

  “The devil came,” Pesha gasped out the words.

  “Are you all right?” John asked, but Pesha hardly seemed to register the question. It disturbed him that Kyle wasn’t here with her.

  “The devil killed Ji.” Pesha suddenly knelt at John’s feet. She clenched her eyes shut and tears trickled down her cheeks. “He killed her.”

  “No,” Hiran whispered. “It can’t be.”

  John stood frozen, for a moment unable to believe what Pesha said. It wasn’t possible. Ji had survived the fall of the Eastern Kingdom, her enslavement within the issusha’im, and even John’s ruin of the northlands. She couldn’t be killed.

  And yet there was Pesha crouched on the ground, sobbing. She gripped the yasi’halaun to her chest, bowing her head against its deeply grooved blade. John felt a tremor pass through his body. The sky above him was utterly still; not even the slightest breeze moved, as if even the air was too shocked by the loss of Ji to respond. A deep, tearing pain spread slowly through John’s chest. He wanted to scream out, but instead he forced himself to hold his hurt inside, protecting the surrounding world from his anguish. John knelt down beside Pesha.

  “Tell me what happened,” John asked as calmly as he could.

  “Fikiri was waiting in the Gray Space with hungry bones. He attacked us and Kyle’insira fought him, but I couldn’t get to the yasi’halaun soon enough. I…” Pesha’s fragile composure crumbled. She pressed her face down into the dirt and leaf litter and sobbed.

  “Pesha, you have to tell me what happened.” John heard the strain in his own voice. “I have to know.”

  Pesha drew in a trembling breath.

  “I couldn’t get to the yasi’halaun. Fikiri caught me and Kyle’insira had to rescue me but that left Ji…She protected the yasi’halaun. Fikiri cut her throat with his curse blade…” Pesha’s voice broke and she wiped savagely at the tears pouring down her face.

  “What about the others?” John asked. “What happened to them?”

  “I don’t know. I took the yasi’halaun and ran…I don’t know if Fikiri chased me or not. I just ran until I found you. It was my duty…”

  “You did the right thing,” John assured her. “How long have you been looking for me?” His worst fears already rushed through his thoughts; his hands were shaking.

  “I don’t know. I was in the Gray Space…” She glanced up to the sky. “All night and most of the morning…I think.”

  Too late for him to reach Ji. Too late for him to stop Fikiri.

  “It’s all right,” John said reflexively. It wasn’t, but Pesha needed some reassurance.

  “Do you think Kyle beat Fikiri?” Pesha asked hopefully. “They could all be all right…”

  “They could be,” John replied. But he knew that Kyle would have been here at his side already if that were the case.

  John closed his eyes and concentrated. Slowly, he felt his senses rise over the dark coniferous forest and rush north across the gray expanse of the rift. His vision swept out to the island of ruins that jutted up from the northern sea. He gazed down through dark, wet caverns to a small opal-lined chamber. He felt Ravishan’s presence rush over him, but all he saw were broken white bones. They lay on the bed of black obsidian where John had left them nearly thirty years ago. John felt his throat tighten at the sight of the shattered ribs and cracked skull. He had spent years trying to escape this vision. He snapped his eyes back open.

  His heart hammered in his chest. Where was Kyle? Why couldn’t he find him? Was he somewhere in the depths of the Gray Space, where John could not feel him? John tried to reassure himself with the idea, but another situation seemed more likely. If Fikiri fled from Kyle, then Kyle would follow him to the island. There, thousands of spells and curses twisted space and time. Some chambers even John had difficulty peering into. The areas not hidden from John teemed with deadly traps and voracious monstrosities.

  For an instant he remembered the shrieking halls of Umbhra’ibaye. The curses seeping from the walls and the bones
writhing against red wires. He remembered Ravishan’s wide, surprised eyes and the burning heat of his blood.

  Just the thought of Kyle in those ruins horrified him.

  “I have to go to the northern rift.” John turned to Hirran. She looked pale and simply nodded.

  “I will offer Joulen your condolences and your apologies.” Hirran’s voice was barely audible. She scrubbed the tears from her eyes and straightened in her saddle.

  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your company more than mine anyway,” John replied. He had no doubt that Hirran would know how to soothe the young Bousim gaunan. She seemed to have inherited as much of her uncle Pirr’tu’s charm as her mother Kansa’s beauty.

  “Chyemon,” John called to one of the kahlirash’im. “Take Pesha to the physician at Yah’hali. She can ride my tahldi.”

  “I should go with you. I should protect Kyle’insira from—” Pesha began, but John cut her off with a shake of his head.

  “You’ve done your duty, Pesha. Let Chyemon take you to a physician,” John spoke firmly and quickly. He didn’t have time to argue with Kyle’s student. He needed to get to the northern rift.

  John took the yasi’halaun from Pesha and then helped her onto his own tahldi. She sagged against the buck’s thick neck. Cheymon caught the animal’s reins.

  Briefly, John considered the yasi’halaun. Like any object that had been made from the body of a Rifter, it felt warm in his hand and familiar. And yet he felt strange holding it. The yasi’halaun was so much a symbol of the Kahlil. It belonged with Kyle. It should be returned to him.

  “Go,” John ordered Chyemon. He turned to Hirran and the rest of the kahlirash’im. “I’m going to call the wind. All of you should get a good distance clear of me as quickly as you can.”

  John saw the fear on all of their faces. Even Hirran, who had witnessed this many times already, looked alarmed. They all urged their tahldi ahead. John waited, feeling the vibrations of the animals’ hooves hammering against the soft earth until they grew faint.