Flesh and Bone

by Robin Lythgoe

  Sherakai bowed his head. He had questions about the traditions and religion his people practiced, but to disparage them so bluntly was insulting. “There is something to be said for customs.”

  “Do tell.”

  “It offers structure and familiarity.”

  “For the weak, yes.” He gestured impatiently. “You have no need for such nonsense.”

  Sherakai glanced aside to the smoke-spewing braziers and the runes on the floor. Structure. Familiarity. What made Bairith’s habits and traditions better than the Sunset Cup? He blew a small breath through his nose and bit his lip lest he voice the hypocrisy. “No, lord.” No, in strange territory he was without any comfort at all. There was nothing for it but to go on. Consequences would happen either way.

  “You will summon Iniki dan Sorehi for me.”

  Oh, dear gods above and demons below! “Mage Iniki?” he echoed. The question earned a suddenly affectionate smile and a caress from Bairith.

  “Of course.”

  “No.” Instinct made him want to clap a hand over his mouth to shove the blurted word back inside. Instead, he folded his arms tight against his chest. Blood stained his hands, his shirt, his soul…

  Bairith let out a sigh. “I am not certain whether to be aggrieved that you disappoint me so with your lack of cooperation, or if I should congratulate myself for predicting it with such astounding accuracy. Would you like a little encouragement from your shadow friends?”

  “No. Please.” Stark aversion filled him. “No, lord. Why Iniki, though?”

  “For truth.”

  They both knew that if Bairith wanted the truth of Iniki’s death from Sherakai, he would have it—had already taken it. “What if he lies?”

  Bairith’s knuckles moved up and down Sherakai’s cheek, his expression pensive. “He won’t. He may try to deceive or mislead, but he must tell the truth.”

  “Is that a rule?”

  “It is a law of magic when a Spirit mage uses his Gift to compel anyone, alive or dead.”

  “Can a dead Spirit mage resist the compulsion better than other people?”

  “Yes, if he is strong enough. Come, then.” He gestured with one hand.

  When they began this thing what would it lead to? How could he transform Bairith’s lessons to his own purposes? He did not want the mage’s darkness to taint him. Every day, every trick that he learned, made him more dangerous, and still Bairith controlled him completely. Would use him completely. He could not let innocent people die because he was stubborn and confused. “Whichever way you go there is danger, Sherakai. Immense power haunts you. You will either claim it or it will claim you.” The nameless woman should have kept her horrible prophecy to herself. He was not Tasan, Imitoru, or Fazare with their great strength of character. He was not Papa with his knowledge and experience.

  “What if I can’t do it?” he whispered.

  Bairith pursed his lips. “You will. If not today, then you will practice until you do.”

  “You won’t let me die?”

  “Never.”

  The promise hung over him like a curse. May the forces that molded the world protect and guide me.

  The magic came to him sluggishly.

  Bairith chastised him for his lack of will, his lack of focus. “You devote too much attention to your fears. There is only here. There is only now. Begin again.”

  Sherakai began again, and again. The jansu watched with his arms folded and an expression that grew more angry with every failure.

  Only here, only now, he repeated to himself over and over. He used the mantra to block out Bairith’s temper—and finally found the aro. It responded all of a sudden, strong and captivating. It made every thread in his essence vibrate. This was what the true power of magic was like. He tried to suppress the delight that washed through him, but he doubted it escaped Bairith’s notice. Not with the bond. He recited a small focusing spell, then stretched his awareness outward.

  The anger dissipated like fog beneath the morning sun. Bairith’s hand on his shoulder supported him. His magic guided Sherakai toward that indefinable boundary describing the plane of spirits. ~Slow and steady. Anchor yourself in the here and now. That’s it. Touch the space. Reach into it with the magic.~

  He marked the way so he would never have to rely on his captor again. Knowledge was power. “Iniki dan Sorehi.” His voice trembled only a little. “Graced with the Gift of Air, Captain of the Chiro Guard—Heed my words and attend me.”

  ~Shed yourself of the useless fear you harbor,~ Bairith hissed in his head. ~Iniki is but a shadow of his former self. Insubstantial. You’ve drawn his claws, little dragon.~

  He moaned with dread. He’d had a healthy respect for Iniki when he was alive. Seeing the man he’d murdered—spirit or not—would affix in his mind forever the image of the horror he’d committed. Murder, not once, but twice. Would Iniki appear to him as a bloody specter? A wraith howling his claims for justice? Forever haunt his waking hours along with his sleep?

  ~Speak the spell again. Steady this time. Be strong.~

  If he did and Iniki came, and if he broke—

  “Sherakai.”

  The word lashed him out of his despair. For a moment he stared at the way his hands glowed. The energy of magic wrapped around them and extended into a mist he could only make out with his inner eye. He swallowed. The only other choice was pain.

  He repeated the summoning, lacing his voice with every ounce of authority he could dredge up, using the magic to strengthen it.

  A tremble went through the energy.

  ~Again,~ Bairith instructed after several long minutes.

  “Iniki dan Sorehi, graced with Air—”

  Brightness suffused the space before him. He fell silent, heart thudding in combined dread and anticipation.

  Gleaming with an eerie light that went all the way through him, Iniki materialized. His bow left a slow glow of motion behind. “I aaam heeere, Maaage Sherakaaaai.” The words dragged out as if they must cross a significant distance.

  “Oh.” He blinked, astonished at the apparition and the unexpectedly respectful form of address. “Why do you call me that?”

  “Yoooou are a maaage.”

  “Only in training.”

  “Stronger now thaaaan ever you were.” Iniki inclined his head. “Stronger with eeeeach passing day.”

  “Tell us the manner of your death,” Bairith interrupted.

  Iniki remained silent, waiting. His intent focus made Sherakai quiver. Could he avoid hearing the grim tale from the lips of the victim? Remembering sickened him, but what if he’d remembered it his way and not the way it really happened? He wiped his hands on his shirt.

  “Come, boy. He is nothing more than a spirit, and can smite you with nothing but words.” Bairith rested his hand on Sherakai’s shoulder.

  Brisk little zephyrs pulled and tugged at his hair and clothing. He could not quite make out Iniki’s eyes for the brightness, but the spirit’s face turned to Bairith. He did not bow to him.

  “I haaave more power than you might imagine.” Mockery edged his voice, and the words came shorter, easier to hear. Pointedly, his attention returned to Sherakai. “What would you aaaask of me?” The spirit completely ignored the jansu—an occasion that would only result in temper and pain. Sherakai’s.

  As if to prove his apprehension, Bairith’s merciless fingers dug into his shoulder. “How did you die, Mage Iniki?” he blurted. His voice quivered. He clenched his teeth in mortification.

  “I underestimated yoooou.” Appreciation effervesced around him like tiny, glimmering bubbles.

  “P-please tell us your story.” He braced himself, grasping at the pain, focus wobbling like a newborn foal on spindly legs. Bairith would have his way and do his best to make Sherakai suffer. Still, Iniki didn’t appear to resent him or hold him to blame for his untimely death. Was he glad to have crossed over? The thought confused him.

  “I walked besiiiide you on the road to Tanoshi and we spoke o
f your reluctance to return to the Gates. You turned to me, touched my neck, and every sense of the magic deeeeserted me…” He made a descriptive gesture across his throat. “And then I stood beside the pair of us, wondering what had happened.”

  He’d expected a more vivid description. Even so, the terse explanation bound together memories that came to him piecemeal. “I’m sorry.” Unwelcome, pain-inviting tears stung his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “My fault. You are a better student than you realize. I hope you remember my words as well as our sparring lessons. Now tell me, Mage Sherakai, what questions would yoouuu ask me?”

  “How will I know he is ready?” Bairith cut in, impatience lending strength to digging fingers.

  Sherakai’s focus wavered and he lifted a hand as if to hold Iniki in place. He struggled to turn the pain into energy he could use—energy that would keep him upright instead of driving him to his knees. “Will you,” he asked at last, breathless with effort, “forgive me?” Please stop haunting me.

  Bairith cuffed him. “Fool boy! Would you waste this opportunity?”

  He should have staggered, but the link warned him and he tipped his head to lessen the blow. He could not, however, have predicted Iniki’s reaction.

  His entire being flared blindingly. The temperature dropped, turning Sherakai’s breath into clouds. In the space of a single heartbeat, Iniki advanced upon Bairith, bringing them nose to nose. Bairith’s skin gleamed blue in the brilliant light.

  “You have brought him here, Bairith Mindar. You have commanded him to summon me,” he thundered in a deafening voice. “Accept the consequences of your choice and punish him no further.”

  Bairith took a step backward with a sudden intake of breath. He reclaimed his composure immediately, his beautiful features marred by a sneer. “Or what, spirit?”

  The light around Iniki crackled with little bursts of lightning. “Reprisal.”

  “You have no power here,” Bairith scoffed. “Do you think I have not spoken to spirits before you?”

  “I haaaave witnessed it, but there is more to this side of the veil than you realiiiize. Your years and learning are useless if you do not know the questions to ask.”

  “Enlighten me, I beg of you.”

  Though the demand had not been directed at him the power in Bairith’s Voice brought a flush to Sherakai’s face, an undeniable need to answer. His mouth worked vainly.

  Iniki had no such trouble. “Hurt him for his part in this and you will discover.” He drifted backward and his aspect shifted, became even more imposing. “I bear a warning and a promise for both of you. Sherakai dan Tameko is marked. He is the Wrath, and he is the Restoration. This is the first Crucible. It is called Paaaiiin. The second is nigh and heralds the end of his imprisonment. Its name is Transformation. When it begins the Watchmen will take note, but theeeey will mistake the truth. Be wary of them. The first Crucible will not finish until after the third has begun. The third is the longest, the deepest, the most profound.”

  His words ended there with no name given to the third Crucible. He offered no explanation of what it included or how long the awfulness might go on. The pronouncement filled Sherakai with mounting horror. “I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to be marked or—or to be wrath or restoration!” However those two things might be interpreted, they were a far and terrible cry from his earnest desire to be a lowly Master of the Horse. He had never wished for anything more fervently in all his life.

  Bairith wanted it though. Triumph replaced his anger. The pain in Sherakai’s shoulder vanished as the mage shifted his hand to his neck. “How long until victory is mine?”

  “You are young,” Iniki said to Sherakai, again ignoring Bairith. “There is much to learn. You have been given the first key.”

  “What key?” Desperation overlapped panic.

  “Give me the words, Iniki dan Sorehi,” Bairith spoke, his words laden with throbbing magic.

  “No, Bairith Rilsingyr Mindar.”

  “I insist.” Power crackled from him, lancing the specter. “And you will not call me that name.”

  Iniki shuddered but did not surrender. “What you choose to call yourself does not change the ties of blood, and your battle keeps them alive. As to the other, you have no authority to insist. Sherakai summoned me, and Sherakai I answer. I am dead and you no longer have any hold on me.” His light obscured expression, but distaste hung in the icy air, thick and pungent. “Ignore the laws at your own peril.”

  “You are bluffing. You can do nothing to me!”

  “What key?” Sherakai repeated, fearing the pair would erupt into a battle before he had the answer.

  “It is within you, Sherakai, for as long as you hold it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What does any of this mean?” Bairith asked, wrapping himself in enforced calm. “As you so eloquently reminded us, you are required to answer the boy.”

  “It is not given to me to translate, Ssssherakaiii.”

  “You will answer my questions,” Bairith insisted.

  “Unless I don’t release him.” He should not have said that out loud. It earned a shaft of approval from Iniki and a glare from Bairith. The summoning spell would eventually fade; until then, Iniki would be trapped. Here or just near? Would it pain him? It would likely pain Sherakai, for Bairith would not forgive such rebelliousness. Abruptly, he dropped to his knees, drawing his wards tight.

  “Ask him the questions, boy!”

  Bairith’s command struck hard enough to knock him sideways and make his ears ring, but the wards held—for the moment. The link gleamed with fury, impossible to miss.

  Something else must have happened as well, for he heard the jansu’s hiss of surprise and perceived the echo of a sting. Whatever it was, his wards would not hold long, especially here in the spellbound circle.

  The circle…

  The runes magnified power not for Bairith alone, but for any mage who might use them. Another blast of magic struck him. It hurt down to the bone. His wards shuddered, but Bairith had trained him to accept the pain and work through it, in spite of it. Sherakai seized that hurtful energy, fixing his grip with the magic of the rune circle.

  The air crackled electric blue and white and violet.

  “Confound you, dan Sorehi! Leave off your meddling. It is too late for you to change the outcome of this course now, and your pitiful attempt to exercise illusion on one such as I is useless.”

  The aro buckled and twisted, thickening between the living and the dead.

  “Sherakai, I will not tell you again.” The jansu had excellent control of his emotions. Calm and necessity wound around Sherakai like velvet ribbons.

  Still on his knees, he gritted his teeth together until his jaws protested. What had he been thinking to tap into the rune circle? Bairith and Iniki could do the same.

  When the next blast struck his wards shattered. He fell back and back, into the embrace of searing pain and inevitable unconsciousness. It was a bizarre thing, slow and gilded with details never imagined: light, texture, smell, motion… Impossibly glittering shards of Air piercing the jansu. And best of all, Bairith’s mouth opened in an interminable scream.

  Chapter 15

  The impenetrable darkness of the Hole wrapped around Sherakai like a second skin. Cold, he pressed into a corner and hugged his knees to his chest. He stared at nothing. Waited for nothing.

  Or so he tried to convince himself.

  He would not wait until the jansu was inclined to free him. His jaw ached from clenching it against anger and against Iniki dan Sorehi’s awful words. What did they mean? Marked by what? For what? Yes, wrath and restoration, whatever that involved. Perhaps he could find out…

  “Master Iniki,” he whispered, half hoping and half dreading the spirit’s appearance.

  Nothing happened. He spoke again, louder. “Master Iniki dan Sorehi.”

  Energy crackled. A jolt of anticipation, of exhilaration, went through him. Getting to
his feet, he stretched his senses toward the obscure border separating the living from the dead. Though he had paid careful attention to the jansu’s instructions and thought he had memorized the particular path he needed, it wasn’t as easy as it ought to be. He could remember the sense of it across his skin and his heart, and reached for that. Groping was likely a better word for it, he imagined. When at last he did find the space, his first instinct was to withdraw. Chill without being frigid, it slithered as if it did not want to be touched. It was not meant for the living. "Hear me, Iniki dan Sorehi. Heed my words and come to me."

  He sounded much braver than he felt.

  The air shifted, and the temperature plummeted. He could see no spirits, but he was conscious of them as a growing collection of presences, curious and yearning. A score or more unseen eyes watched with unnerving intensity. Through the rocks?

  And him trapped there with them.

  A pinprick of light split the darkness. The hairs on his neck stood on end as it grew, swirling like fog in a breeze. Within moments, Iniki dan Sorehi appeared. Exquisite, every detail blue-limned, he extended one gleaming hand. The space did not cramp him, nor did he seem any smaller than he’d been when alive. A violent rush of power stirred the air, and Sherakai put up an arm to protect his face.

  "Suuuuuch brightnesssss…" The phrase echoed through the chamber, loud as thunder, rumbling then dying away.

  Sherakai cried out, clapping his hands over his ears. If Bairith did not see, hear, or feel that, it would be a miracle. And if he did, they hadn’t much time.

  "I would have served yooooouuu…"

  Such was the regret in the spirit’s voice that Sherakai could only stare, sad and strangely confused.

  "Speeeak, Mage Sherakai, and I will give you what answers I am able."

  The first thought that came to him was that Bairith had not asked the right questions. “What,” he began, thinking frantically, “am I to restore, Master Iniki?”

  The spirit did not answer.

  Sherakai chewed on his lip. “Why can you not tell me?”

  Iniki inclined his head, the light rippling with the movement. "A fortress is strongest when the base is broad and solid. To build a doorway too early is to invite invasion and defeat."