Breath and Bone

by Carol Berg

  Earth’s Holy Mistress… Bathed in the steep-angled sunlight, the land fell away in the familiar giant’s steps to the river valley far below. But here, the grass was not crushed with early snow. Rather it rippled in golden, ankle-high luxuriance. The great forests of the Kay, thicker, taller, stretched well beyond the boundaries I knew, so that swaths of red-leaved maples, of deep green spruce and fir and russet oak lapped even these upland slopes and spilled onto these grassy meads. A kite screeched and dived from the deepening sky, only to soar upward in an arc of such exultant grace as to bring a lump to my chest.

  No evidence of the human travelers’ road scarred the autumn landscape. No warriors’ refuge had been hacked from the rocky pinnacle where Fortress Groult had loomed only moments before. I spun in my tracks. No human work existed anywhere within my sight, nor did any prince, warrior, physician, or beast.

  “Lord Prince!” I called, hurriedly retracing my path toward the gorge, out from under the tree…back from golden afternoon to indigo evening and snow. When Osriel and Voushanti came back into view, standing not twenty paces from the barren crossroads, I grinned and beckoned, shouting as the wind billowed my cloak. “You’d best stay close!”

  Osriel’s eyes gleamed as hard as garnet. The deep twilight left Saverian, the soldiers, and the horses as anonymous smudges by the broken pillars of the bridge approach. “You’ve found your way, then? We lost sight of you.”

  “Ah, lord, it is a wonder…” Osriel’s somber visage stilled my desire to babble of music and sunlight. As did Elene, I feared his soul already lay beyond the rock gate without hope of heaven.

  Reversing course toward the oak, I walked more slowly this time, relishing the passage, feeling the land and light shift all around me. I sensed a strip of woodland to my left before I could see it, smelled the intoxicating air of Aeginea while human paths yet lay beneath my feet. Voushanti’s mumbling told me he saw the tree well after it had come into my view.

  When we reached the tree, Osriel touched the craggy bark, and his gaze explored the spreading canopy. It grieved me that I could read no wonder in him.

  “I would venture the opinion that we stand in Danae lands, Lord Prince,” I said softly, as the dry leaves rustled in the breeze, a few drifting from the branches above us, “and that the meeting you have sought is at hand.” For indeed another marvel awaited us.

  Striding upslope from the valley were five Danae, their elongated shadows gliding across the rippling grass as if they flew. A big, well-muscled male led the party, his ageless face reflecting unbounded hauteur. A wreath of autumn leaves rested on a cascade of rust-colored hair that fell below his slender waist. A female walked alongside him. Though taller than most human women, she appeared but a wisp beside his imposing height and sculpted sinews. The skin beneath her blue sigils glowed the softest hue of sunrise, and a cap of scarlet curls framed her delicately pointed face. Her lean body spoke of naught but strength.

  Slightly behind these two, almost as tall as the male, walked the disdainful female we had met here two months ago—she whose angular face was scribed with a coiled lizard, her flat breasts with intricately drawn moth wings. The Sentinel, Gram had named her. Woodrush and willow, mold and damp—did I truly catch her scent at such a distance or was it but memory?

  These creatures value human life less than that of grass or sticks, I reminded myself, summoning disdain and repugnance, lest the empty yearning of that magical night overwhelm me again.

  Two other males trailed behind. They seemed younger, less…developed…than their leader. Or perhaps that was only my assumption as they had no sigils marked on their unsmiling faces. They carried bundles in their arms.

  “Let us walk out, Valen. Best let them see us.” The prince’s command startled me, and my feet obeyed without consulting my head for a reason not. Osriel and I stepped beyond the oak canopy together, Voushanti so close behind I could feel his breath on my neck.

  The five Danae halted ten paces away, wholly unsurprised, as if they had come here purposefully to meet us. The hair on my arms prickled, as my true father’s warning crept into my memory: Go not into their lands ’til thou art free…not until eight-and-twenty. My belief that Danae other than Kol did not know me dulled with the fast-failing sunlight, for it could not be mere imagining that five pairs of aspen-gold eyes had fixed on me.

  “Envisia seru, ongai…engai.” Prince Osriel inclined his head to the two in front.

  “My lord,” I said softly. “What is—?”

  “So a human knows of manners…and how to keep a bargain,” interrupted the small female as if I did not exist. The breeze wafted the sweetness of white pond lilies. “Awe embraces me. But I cannot return thy offered greeting. The sight of thee doth not delight my eye, Betrayer-son.”

  “As ever, the long-lived honor their word,” said the prince, nodding coldly to the Sentinel. “Thus I presume it is Tuari Archon”—he acknowledged the male—“and his consort, Nysse”—and the female—“who honor me with their hearing. I regret that my presence offends. My sire reverenced the long-lived and their ways, and rued the division that grew between him and thee. As do I. As thine eyes attest, and the call of thy blood will surely affirm, I have brought thee that which was stolen.” His slender hand pointed at me.

  No heat, no fire, no explosion of astonishment ignited my soul. Rather a deadly cold crept upward from my toes as floodwaters swamp a drowning man. This quiet betrayal should no more surprise me than should the sharp bite of Voushanti’s dagger now threatening to pierce my spine. Would I never learn? Ignorant, gullible, damnable simpleton. My family…my true parents…Luviar…Elene…Gildas…Osriel…they were all the same. Only a sentimental fool could have imagined that Osriel the Bastard, master of secrets, might possess some trace of honor and friendship and set me free as he had promised. A prince who had used an innocent boy to gain my oath of submission would not flinch at using me to gain—what?

  “What is my blood-price, Lord Osriel?” I snapped before they could complete their inspection of me. “Now you’ve had your use of me, you might as well explain. At the least may it be some magic to avert the world’s end, for of a sudden I’ve lost all confidence that you are capable of illuminating your lighthouse for any Scholar. And I’d surely not wish my life to feed the evil that lies beyond Renna’s rock gate.”

  He did not flinch. Neither did he offer me further assurances that my life was not at risk. “You will not be alone in your sacrifice,” he said.

  The two younger Danae had glided to either side of us, cutting off what escape paths did not lie through the Danae or Voushanti’s knife. They laid aside what they carried—loops of braided rope tangled with some thick articles of wood—and stood alert. Watching me. Yet for that moment, as I met my master’s hard gaze, bitterness outflanked fear. “Perhaps those who have no sorry history as liars and renegades will be given a choice as to their sacrifice—along with the grace of their lord’s trust. Despite your dark mysteries…I would have served you willing, Prince, had you but asked.”

  At that, a tinge of color did touch his cheeks. But he did not waver. “Life is pain,” he said. “Only movement—purpose—can make it bearable. As your life’s path has now brought you here, I’d recommend you summon what resources you possess to meet your fate. You are not helpless.”

  He turned his back on me, opening his palms to the Danae in invitation. “Shall we proceed with our exchange? The day wanes. The world wanes. Our people suffer—both yours and mine. Our alliance promises hope for all of them.”

  Tuari opened his palm in acceptance. “Let us walk, Betrayer-son. You bargained news of the Scourge.”

  “There is a woman named Sila Diaglou,” said Osriel, moving to Tuari’s side. “She and her followers wish to return humankind to a primitive chaos…”

  Heads together, the archon, his consort, and Osriel strolled into the evening meadow. Voushanti and the Sentinel trailed after them at a respectful distance. An owl soared through the air and settled
on Moth’s shoulder—an owl just like the one that had tricked me and my companions into the bogs.

  The two young Danae stepped toward me. At once Janus’s warnings took on a firm and terrifying reality. I’d come to Aeginea before turning eight-and-twenty, Osriel had mentioned sacrifice, and these two had muscles that looked like braided iron. No one was going to help me.

  I bolted. I’d covered more than half the distance to the Sentinel Oak before one of them brought me down. Spitting grass and dirt, I slammed my elbow into the naked, wiry body on my back. He grunted, but did not let go. Writhing, twisting, I reached back in hopes of capturing the arm that was locked around my neck like an iron collar. I lifted my hip and bent my leg in unfortunate directions in an attempt to trap his feet. But my foot got tangled in my cloak, the Dané clung like a leech, and he caught my flailing arm with his free hand and pinned it to my side. His legs felt like steel ropes about my hips.

  I wrestled my knees underneath my belly and prepared to lurch up and back, relishing the prospect of slamming him to the ground and crushing his balls. But as I rose, his friend pounced, and the two together flattened me again. Air escaped my chest in a painful whoosh.

  While I fought to get a breath, the two Danae trussed my wrists and knees. Manhandling me as if I weighed no more than dandelion fluff, they dragged me toward the great oak on my back.

  “Is this how the long-lived treat their kin?” I gasped as I bumped across the rocky meadow. The glowing pattern of oak leaves on one fellow’s legs pulsed an angry purple in several spots. I hoped that meant they hurt.

  “You’re but a halfbreed,” said the youth on my left as if I might have the intelligence of a stick. “Scarcely kin.”

  Entirely inappropriate laughter welled up from my depths. “Twice cursed!” Surely no man had ever been so afflicted with purulent family. Both branches of my ancestry grasped to hold on to a wretch that neither of them wanted.

  When the dragging stopped, I assumed I’d be left until they were ready to take me wherever they thought to keep me. Did Danae have prisons? But the two uncoiled their loops of braided rope—vines, I thought—shoved me upright, and bound me to the massive trunk. I smothered a smile. No unspelled rope had held me for long since I learned how to make a voiding spell when I was eight. I just needed a little time and something to distract these two.

  Yet as twilight dropped its mantle over this landscape, I could not focus on my spellmaking. Once they had secured my upper body to the tree, they spread my ankles apart and fixed them in place with loops of rope, a wooden block snugged firmly behind each knee.

  “I would do this in thy stead, Kennet,” said the taller of the youths, whose wheat-colored hair was braided with firethorn berries. “I’d not have thy gentle heart troubled by the deed.”

  The other youth, he of the bruised oak leaves, knotted the rope that fixed my thighs in place and looped it behind the trunk again. “I’d gladly give over the task,” he said when he reappeared, “but I’d best not refuse Tuari. Give me leave to settle my spirit and strengthen my arm. I would make it fast and clean.”

  A third chunk of wood, long and narrow like a club—a very heavy-looking club—lay on the ground behind them.

  A fluttering panic rose in my belly. “Great gods of mercy, what are you doing? I can be persuaded not to run again. Once sworn, I keep my word.”

  They wrenched the bindings tighter yet. I strained at the braided rope, but could shift neither legs nor torso so much as a quat. “What offense have I given? I’ve ever honored the Danae. I’ve left offerings even when I had naught for myself. Told your stories with reverence.”

  Their blue sigils glowed like traces of sapphire in the lowering dusk. A last tweak of my positioning and the Dané with the firethorn braid picked up the club and moved to one side.

  “I did not make my father lie with one of you,” I said, panic stretching my voice thin. “I’ve done naught but be born!”

  The other youth, Kennet, extended his hand upward as if to grasp a fistful of leaves above his head, then coiled his body into a knot close to the ground. As I watched, breathless with fear, he unwound himself, spun once, and leaped into the air higher than my head, legs stretched fore and behind, as light and quick as a frighted doe leaps a fence.

  My heart leaped with him. For a moment the sheer power of his body’s feat overshadowed my foreboding. But as he sank to one knee, took a deep breath, and stood up again, terror came rushing back. No time for pride. “Please, I beg you—”

  “No deed of thine has brought this trial on thee,” said the one holding the club. “Only the Law. Halfbreeds cannot be allowed to corrupt the Canon again. Thou must never dance in Aeginea. Thou shalt not.”

  “Dance?” My eyes latched on to the brutish stick of wood as he passed it to the dancer Kennet. “I don’t even want to stay with you! I’ve no intent to dance anywhere…don’t know how…save in a tavern brawl…crude stomping to pipe and tabor…nothing like what you do. I’ll swear it…swear obedience…kiss your archon’s feet…whatever you want. If you cripple me…gods, what gives you the right? If you do this, I’m a dead man.”

  I’d seen what happened to cripples in famine times. For a man who could not read, the only labors that might keep him eating required legs that worked.

  “We cannot take the chance. No argument will change that. But be assured, once thou’rt recovered, we’ll help thee make a useful life.” When I opened my mouth to beg and curse him, he shoved a strip of leather between my teeth. “Bite down hard.”

  Kennet stepped toward me, the club poised on a line with my left knee. I slammed the back of my head against the ridged oak bark, squeezed my eyes shut, and all at once the sky fell and lightning struck…

  Chapter 12

  Stripes of lightning blazed on my breast. On the ground before me writhed a snarl of blue light…thumps, groans…quickly silenced. Beside me a dark shape yanked away ropes and my arms fell free. Dazed…confused…I spat out the strip of leather, but a hand clamped over my mouth, demanding silence before moving back to its other tasks. A whisk of cold steel sliced through the extra loops holding my thighs and knees, and I was free. My knees…intact. Of a sudden my every joint felt like mud.

  My senses began to pick the truth out of the darkness. Blade strokes, not lightning strokes, had sliced through the braided rope across my breast. The spreading warmth dampening my shirt was my blood. And I had two rescuers…

  Bright blue sigils faded to a dull glow, outlining my captors’ sprawled bodies, then winked out. The third Dané, the one who had fallen…or jumped…out of the tree, fumbled at my arms. “How hast thou—?” Hissing enmity spewed through the night as if it were the glowing dragon on his face that spoke. “Who else walks here?”

  “Stay away from him!” Saverian’s brisk command whipped through the night as my ankles came free, the binding ropes hacked apart by her blade. “Run, Valen!”

  Though I could not see the physician herself, her weapon—a dagger the length of my forearm—appeared to my right, reflecting the Dané’s blue fire. I stumbled, weak-kneed, to join her.

  “No!” Kol stretched out his leg and spun. The dagger went flying. He grappled with the shadowy figure, cutting off her growl of fury, and threw her to the turf. Then his iron hands clamped on to my arm and propelled me away from the oak. “Come with me, Cartamandua-son, or count thyself captive of the archon once more and be broken. The remedy I’ve given thy captors will not quiet them long.”

  “Wait! What have you done? The woman…” Recovering some semblance of strength, I wrestled free of him and returned to Saverian, relieved to feel the beat of life in her neck. “I’ll not leave her.” She had thwarted the prince’s will and jeopardized his bargain with the Danae, and I trusted neither Osriel’s mercy nor his friendship.

  “The human is no concern of mine.” Kol’s voice shivered my bones. “She interfered where she had no business.”

  So did you, I think, uncle. Though not for love of me. The mem
ory of his grieving at Clyste’s Well remained as vivid as on the day I’d witnessed it. Duty, not care, had brought him to my rescue.

  The Dané moved away, the words trailing behind him. “Stay if thou willst. Gratefully will I be finished with thee.”

  I had only a moment to decide. Kol seemed honest at least, both in his dislike and in his grief. He held out some hope of evading Osriel, whose perfidy had sapped all faith. No vow, no pledged service for whatever cause, should require a man be crippled. I scooped the limp physician into my arms, heaved her over my shoulder, and hurried after the Dané, praying the gods to forgive my presumption of divine benevolence in the face of my oath breaking.

  We moved west on undulating ground, the river a constant rush on our left, and the bulge of land and rock that formed the pinnacle of Fortress Groult a swelling blackness against the starry sky on our right. I fixed my eyes on the blue-limned shape ahead of me, while concentrating every other sense and instinct on my footing. The Dané acknowledged my presence with neither glance nor speech, but the distance between us did not vary, no matter that I flagged under Saverian’s weight on every uphill pitch. He could have vanished in an instant. I had no choice but to trust him.

  The night deepened. My shoulders ached. The wind grew into a constant buffeting, whipping my face with the hem of Saverian’s cloak and the flaps of her leather skirt. The physical effort and the concentration required to avoid a fall made thinking impossible. So it was only when a sudden gust from my left staggered me that I noted the change in the air. The wind smelled vaguely of fish and felt odd—cold, yes, but heavy and sticky. A quick look around staggered me as well. Not three steps to my left, the earth plunged precipitously into the night. The far side of the river gorge had vanished. And beyond those black depths…the river’s voice had changed into a rhythmic pounding crash. “Kol,” I called. “Where are we?”

  He did not respond. I repeated the call several times, especially once the path began a twisting descent that ofttimes seemed more vertical than not. Sand and gravel on the path set my boots skidding and my heart galloping. Immediately after one jolting slide, when only a nubbin of crumbling rock had saved me from skidding off the path and plummeting the rest of the distance to the bottom of the cliff, Saverian began to squirm, mumbling something about hands and castration. Her heavy cloak, leather overskirt, woolen riding breeches, and leggings were all in a bunch about her thighs, half obscuring my vision.