Breath and Bone

by Carol Berg

  “He prefers to be alone as he recovers,” she said. “It takes him an hour or so to gather himself, somewhat longer to heal from whatever has brought him to the point of death. He likes it quiet.”

  Not quiet, I thought. Private. I could hear the groans of pain and despair that burst through his choking silence, only to be buried in his thick arms and in layers of bloody linen and leather.

  “I need to get out of here,” I said, as the torches that lit the long passage swelled into glaring banners of hell. The entire weight of the fortress pressed upon the back of my neck.

  “You did well,” said the physician, hurrying her steps and pointing to a stair that I knew led to light and air. “I was worried about your tolerating the chamber. But for me to attempt such a working anywhere else would have been—”

  “Never again,” I said, taking the steps three at a time, leaving her behind. “No matter who commands or who begs, I won’t be part of that again.” The enchantment clung to my spirit like dung to a boot. I had touched earth with magic and glimpsed its patterns of life and death and growing. Nowhere in that grand display was there a place for what I had just experienced.

  Saverian rejoined me in the well yard where I sprawled on the dry grass inhaling great gulps of air and sky. Despite the hazy blue overhead, evening had already come to the little garth and the stone-bordered well, enclosed as they were in the heart of the fortress. “Osriel and his magics seem to have that effect on everyone.”

  “Are there others like Voushanti?” I said.

  “Osriel says Voushanti is the only one.”

  “Is this what he plans for the solstice, Saverian?”

  “That’s impossible,” she said, averting her eyes. “Osriel does not collect bodies. This enchantment cannot be worked on those dead more than a few hours.”

  But the weakness of her denial only made my conviction stronger. I rolled up to sitting. “I’ve little enough knowledge of sorcery or natural philosophy. But I know that such magic as we just aided will not repair what’s wrong with the world. I won’t let him do it.”

  Her color flamed like a bonfire. “You cannot leave Osriel with Sila Diaglou! The danger, if she identifies him…”

  “I’ve said I’ll do my best to get him out. But if none of you will explain what he plans, then he’ll have to tell me himself, and I’ll be his judge before I set him free to do it.”

  What if Sila wanted to bleed him? Osriel had said that sacrificing a body consecrated to Navronne might have consequences beyond the poisoning of one sianou. I needed to ask Kol if that was true.

  Of a sudden my chest tightened with a longing that left me breathless, a wrenching ache I had known since childhood, never able to name its cause or its object. I had believed it only another symptom of the insatiable disease that drove me wild. But now images raced through my mind: of my uncle’s grace and beauty as he strode through boundless vistas of earth and sky, forest and sea. Of the power he had brought to healing one small garden meadow. Ah, gods, I wanted to be in Aeginea dancing and not setting out to war.

  “Valen, are you ill?” Saverian seemed to speak from a vast distance, as if the few steps that separated us were the Caurean Sea. “What’s wrong?”

  “Naught,” I said, blinking rapidly and stroking the blade of healthy winter-dry grass that grew in this little yard. Tears were surely but stray remnants of my long madness. “Naught.”

  From Renna’s walls the watch called the second hour past noonday. So late in the year, sundown would follow in little more than two hours. Time to be traveling.

  I left Elene’s retiring room bearing a small case with my extra clothes, the vials of Saverian’s potions—some for me, some for Osriel, some to use as weapons should the opportunity arise—and the fervent prayers and good wishes of Elene and Brother Victor.

  The lady and the monk had read me the letter to Bayard they had composed while Saverian and I had been engaged in murder and resurrection. Had I not been so disturbed at my own part in Voushanti’s ordeal and this entirely ludicrous bout of homesickness for Aeginea, a home I had known but a few hours, the scroll’s contents might have given me a laugh.

  I have enjoyed controlling Magnus’s infamous streak of rebellion, but find him much less interesting without it. His myriad lacks—reading, writing, education, combat training, and even rudimentary sorcery—leave him somewhat bored and lacking purpose. As I cannot imagine what use the priestess has for him, I have decided that his best use might be to discover her intents.

  Though my life’s purpose remained determinedly unclear, the past few weeks had been anything but boring. Elene and Brother Victor had sealed this missive with Osriel’s signet. I wondered which of them had come up with the wording.

  I hurried along the Great Hall gallery, where Saverian and I had spied on the warmoot. The hall sat dark and deserted, smelling of old smoke, old ale, and the old wood of the massive ceiling beams.

  Our ragged little cabal of three had agreed that Elene and Brother Victor would send a long-planned alarm to Prior Nemesio at Gillarine. The coded message would bring the prior and his flock to shelter at Magora Syne—Osriel’s most remote stronghold, deep in Evanore’s mountains. A sevenday without word from me, and they would command Osriel’s warlords to muster at Caedmon’s Bridge on the winter solstice.

  I had insisted that Elene and Brother Victor, as the last lighthouse warders, should not attend that solstice confrontation, but retreat to Magora Syne as well. “You guard Navronne’s future in many ways,” I said. “You must keep Saverian informed of all circumstances…see that she goes with you.” I made sure Elene met my gaze and caught my double meaning. Should Osriel fall, she carried Eodward’s rightful heir.

  My footsteps clattered and echoed on the downward stair, and I emerged into late afternoon. Wind whined and blustered about the fortress arches and towers. Despite the hazy sunlight, the smell of the wind promised snow before morning. Halfway along the covered walk that led past the Great Hall to the kitchen alley, I switched the small, heavy case to my left hand, as it was irritating the cut on my thumb.

  “I can carry that, sorcerer.” Mardane Voushanti appeared at my left side, matching me step for step. Impeccably garbed in a spruce green cloak and a silver hauberk blazoned with Osriel’s wolf, he kept his gaze straight ahead as he held out his hand for the case.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  I did not slow my pace and did not stare. I’d not quite believed he would meet me here as Saverian had promised when she left me in the well yard.

  “You should take this, though.” I passed him the scroll bearing Osriel’s seal. “Max—Prince Bayard’s pureblood—will meet us at my family’s house with a small escort. If you sense anything amiss, we’ll turn right around and come back here.”

  “And once you are in the custody of Sila Diaglou, I am to wait for some signal from you—a bonfire or magical explosion—at which time I am to charge into Fortress Torvo and pull you out. That is, unless you have burst from her dungeons with the prince and the thane or crawled out along some escape path given you by a generous not-brother who has always loathed you. That is a fool’s plan…no plan at all.”

  If it sounded ridiculous, it felt impossible. “I believe I can do this,” I said. “But I’ve no idea how long it might take to discover where Jullian is or to find the opportunity to get to the others. If I think of anything else between here and there, I’ll be sure to tell you. Just stay close and be alert.”

  The mardane halted. I kept walking. “I’ll give you two days,” he called after me. “Mistress Elene has given me a well-filled purse. Bring the prince out before midnight two days hence, or I’ll buy me some fighters and come in after you.”

  I stopped and looked back at him. The scarlet centers of his eyes had heated in defiance, but I had not even asked Saverian how to call up the power I had over him. I had no desire to wield Osriel’s red lightning. “Three days,” I said. “But buy your fighters and have them ready beforehand
.”

  “Done.” He jerked his massive head and caught up with me. The unscarred half of his face was the color of chalk. We resumed our walk and rounded the corner into the alley that so resembled the lane in Palinur. “You will abandon me and get the prince straight back here if we cannot rendezvous,” he said.

  “I will. I assumed that’s what his sworn protector would wish.”

  When we reached a certain dark little gap between two deserted storage buildings, I stopped and set down my case. “If you’ll be so kind as to keep prying eyes away, I need to…uh…change my clothes.”

  Perhaps Saverian’s summary description of my new talents had not included the required livery, for Voushanti’s startled visage hinted that he’d not expected me to emerge from the gap lacking all accoutrement save light-drawn rocks and sea creatures.

  “Strange, are they not?” I tossed the bundle of wool and velvet atop the case and stretched out my arms. With every passing moment in this shadowed alley, my gards brightened and their color deepened. Somehow the sight of them…or perhaps the gards themselves…left me feeling stronger, less battered by the wretched day, and if not exactly warm, somewhat warmer than my state of undress would promise. “Can’t say I know what exactly they are. But they don’t work if I keep them hidden.”

  His terrible eyes traveled up my body until they locked on my own. The red centers pulsed faintly, very like his blood as it had leaked out of him. “We are two of a kind,” he said, his mouth twisting in his grotesque semblance of amusement. “Neither here nor there.”

  Squirming inside, I picked up my case and my clothes bundle. “We’d best move. Wouldn’t want to be late.” The ways in which I did not wish to resemble Voushanti were beyond numbering.

  Shoving worries and plans aside, I stepped forward, my eyes on the stone walls and banks, on the overhanging trees, my ears on the dribbling conduit that piped water from the well yard. I inhaled the scents of the fortress cookfires and refuse heaps, and recalled the stink of fear as the ragged folk gathered on the hillside lane near the Cartamandua house. The air would be thicker in Palinur…and a wetter cold than here…with more snow on the ground—old, wet snow, freezing as the night approached.

  We walked slowly along the alley. At a particular well-shadowed length of the wall, I threw my bundles over and climbed up the old stones…

  …straight into the brushy, snow-clogged beech grove in Palinur where I had undressed on my way back to Renna earlier in the day. Voushanti topped the wall and immediately spun in his tracks, for the babble, clatter, and stink of the beggars’ encampment fell on our heads like a bludgeon. Fires had driven more people into the purebloods’ lane. Enchantments vibrated on every side of us, shielding the fine houses that stood back from the lane.

  “I’ll be ready to go in just a moment.” As I bent down to retrieve my clothes, my foot broke through the crusted snow, scraping my ankle and shin. A youthful voice cried, “Mam, it’s the angel come back again!” And Saverian climbed over the wall.

  “Gods’ teeth!” I said, as running feet crashed through the underbrush from farther down the lane, and bodies gathered just at the point we’d topped the wall—cutting off my return route. We had nowhere to run. This particular grove crowded between my family’s garden wall and the lane. I shoved Voushanti and my case behind the largest tree, then grabbed my cloak and Saverian and dived into the underbrush. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Saverian crawled on top of me, spreading her own cloak wide and enfolding me in her arms. “Just be still,” she whispered. “Your gards shine like a watch fire.” I drew my legs up under her, while she proceeded to tuck all the straggling bits of me and my distinctively colored cloak out of sight.

  “Over there in the trees,” piped the child. “By the saints, I swear it. Knew he’d come back!”

  “’Tis a sign! The god’s not forgotten us.” Murmurs swelled from the lane beyond the grove. “He sends his holy legion to drive out these Harrowers!”

  “Blue fire, ye say, child?” said a man with a voice like gravel. “My gammy told me of those who wear naught but blue fire…”

  “And wings, boy, did ye see wings or no?” Boots and bodies crashed through the dry brush.

  Saverian hissed. “Do something, sorcerer. Move, else they’ll think we’re dead and not just preoccupied.”

  The warm weight of her body pressed my bare backside into the twigs and snow. How like Saverian to lie close in a thorny bed…which thought led me to remember Elene in my bed, sunlight bathing her golden skin…which led me to recall Saverian’s capable hands, guiding me through my nivat madness…touching me everywhere…Of a sudden, fear and strangeness and this ridiculous situation, lustful memory and a barrage of sensations—earth and snow and woman and oncoming night—enveloped me in such a fever, I could not control it.

  “Deunor’s mercy, mistress,” I choked, “I dare not move.”

  But I did. Safely hidden beneath her cloak, I snaked my arm up her back. Fingering her neck, I pressed her head gently downward, until her face rested in the crook of my neck and shoulder. Her breath so warm…so inviting. Her bones so firm and straight. My alter hand stroked her rigid spine to yielding…then found its way to her backside, while my knee drew up between her legs and nudged them apart…

  Her head popped up. “Villain madman!” A sharp blow stung my cheek…and waked me from my fog of lust to shuffling bodies and laughter all around our ungainly heap. “Get your hands off—”

  I pulled her head downward, crushing her lips against mine. Her hands scratched and gouged my arms and pulled my hair as she tried to wrestle away. Scrabbling, wriggling, she drew her knee up sharply, and I shifted to preclude disaster, praying her cloak would not fall aside and display my glowing feet.

  “No angel here, young Filp,” said the gravel-voiced man. “’Tis only ones searching for a bit of heaven fallen in the midst of hell.”

  “Could ye not give a man a quat to ’imself?” I shouted, squeezing Saverian’s face to my shoulder before she bit my lips off. “Yea, laugh as ye will…get ye all to Magrog’s furnace and take all pinchy wives with ye!”

  The men shoved the pale-haired child behind the women. Ribald comments all around and they decided the fun was over. Murmurs and laughter faded into the evening noises of the lane.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, still muzzling the squirming physician. Torn between annoyance that she had intruded her peculiar self into an already precarious activity and a fear that I’d committed an unpardonable sin and forfeited her skillful and sensible aid, I couldn’t stop talking. “My head just went off…well, not my head exactly…but it’s been a long, weary autumn…yet I meant no ill to you. I would never—Well, I don’t think I would. I do appreciate your hiding me—damnably awkward to light up like this when I can’t afford attention. Though one might say you invited this problem by coming along where you were not expected—though certainly you did not invite my inappropriate reaction—but I’ve no idea what we’re going to do with you or how we’re going to keep you safe when you cannot possibly go with us. What the devil were you thinking?” Hoping she had enough fodder for conversation beyond withering my manhood, I released her.

  She climbed to her feet without the least care where her elbows, knees, and fists found purchase. Were her discomfiture a bit more intense, her complexion might have lit sigils of its own in purest scarlet.

  “I thought that the people who were most likely to need my care happened to be in Palinur—three men with somewhat specialized needs that no hedgerow leech or back-alley surgeon is capable of tending. I thought that you and I had come to some kind of mutual respect, untainted, for the most part, by the brutish instincts of those who prefer action to reason.”

  “Well, of course, we—”

  “As for my safety, you are most certainly not responsible for me. Nor is anyone but myself. After a discussion with Brother Victor, I decided that I might better be close by as you attempt this rescue, and that as long as
I was here, I could bring news of these ventures to your sister, the Sinduria, who seems to care what becomes of you, though she’s not yet been informed that she is not your sister. And I brought these.” She pulled a vial and a scrap of stained canvas from her pocket and shoved them into my hand. “Elene told me that touching blood enabled you to track a person more easily—a detail that you failed to mention to me. While you and Mistress Moonhead exchanged your overwrought farewells, I was retrieving a sample of Prince Osriel’s blood, which I keep on hand to formulate his medicines. I also managed to acquire this scrap cut from one of Thane Stearc’s old jupons, though I don’t know that dried blood has the same useful properties for pureblood magic.”

  “Blood…gods, yes. It makes tracking much easier. I just never imagined anyone would have any.” Thickheaded and embarrassed, I brushed twigs and ice crystals from my skin. “And, yes, Thalassa should be told. All right…yes, that would be kind of you…”

  Happily for me, Voushanti joined us before I could get too tangled up in words or recollections of the sensation of Saverian’s breath on my skin. The sun was sinking. I turned my back to her and donned my finery as quickly as I could. Nothing like the luxurious restriction of buttons and laces for taming lustful mania. Gods, Saverian…of all women in the world…

  So do as she says, fool. Attempt to reason, instead of acting blindly. I fastened my cloak with the ivory-and-gold wolf brooch.

  “You can’t traipse alone through Palinur, mistress physician,” I said, tugging the mask from my pocket. “No matter how easily you can ensorcel those who aim to harm you, it’s too dangerous. I wouldn’t let any friend of mine do so. I’ll come up with some explanation for Max, so Voushanti can deliver you to Thalassa.”

  Voushanti, his own attire impeccable despite his sojourn in the shrubbery, glared at me as if I were a particularly stupid infant. “To change your arrangements this late risks the entire plan, such as it is. And I must follow you to the Harrower priestess, so we’ll know where you and the prince are held. I’ve no time to coddle foolish women.”