Breath and Bone

by Carol Berg

  No mistaking the crone’s voice that gave the orders, or the stick that fell so brutally on Thokki’s shoulder, or the shapeless form that moved into our circle from the night. Underneath her hood, golden eyes smoldered with hate, and her thin lips broke into a smile that none but I could see. Ronila.

  Chapter 33

  “No!” I yelled as a Dané with an unmarked face hefted a dazed Thokki to his shoulder and disappeared into the night beyond the circles. “Don’t harm her. Please, you don’t understand!”

  The glare of sigils and starlight became a blur as I tried to wrestle free. But the owner of the well-muscled arms that gripped my shoulders locked his hands behind my neck. No matter my kicking and writhing, another Dané bound my ankles. If I could not walk, I could not escape.

  The youth glanced up at me and wrenched his knots tighter. My heart sank as I recognized him as Kennet, the initiate whose legs were twined with oak leaves, Tuari’s attendant who had bound me to a tree intending to break my knees. His tall, strong companion with the wheat-colored hair was likely the person crushing my neck.

  The other three dancers of our circle gawked in disbelief as the two young Danae bound my wrists behind my back. “My kin-father, the archon, has charged me to root out the causes of our failing life,” Ronila said to them. “What more cause could we discover than a halfbreed flaunting illicit gards in the Canon?”

  “Don’t let her do this,” I said. “She wants to destroy us all!”

  Ronila touched each of the three dancers on the shoulder. “Human interference has corrupted the long-lived, even he who is Chosen. I have paid the just price to preserve the Canon, and so must every violator. Go. Dance Freja’s Round and restore innocence to the change of season.”

  The three glanced back uncertainly as they moved off to join Freja’s Round or the Round of Learning, where one dancer would move about the inside of a wheel of light, striving to match every other dancer’s most difficult steps.

  “This is no violation!” I shouted after them. “Kol brought back the Well. It lives in your memory again.”

  Kennet’s comrade hefted me onto his shoulders and carried me down the hill, past circles and spirals that twisted and turned like jewels of heaven strung on silken threads. Ronila hobbled alongside.

  “I am made new by the Canon,” I said, recalling Kol’s teaching. “You cannot hinder me.”

  “The archon will render that judgment,” said Kennet. “We but ensure thy attendance.”

  With only a few hundred steps we traveled far from the dancing ground and the Center. This pond lay in a nest of meadowlands in the lee of a gentle hilltop, very like the lake at Dashon Ra. But here spike-thin pines and dark spruce mantled the surrounding hillsides. Snow lay deep upon these meadows, frosting every twig and needle of the trees. And the new-risen moon set the crystals sparkling and laid a path of silver light across the rippling lake. The splendor of the scene pierced my heart.

  Two Danae walked out of a rainbow flare and joined us at the lakeshore. “What urgency demands our absence from the Canon, Llio-daughter?” said Tuari. “The change approaches. The dance beckons.”

  My captors threw me to the ground at Tuari’s and Nysse’s feet. I rolled to the side, spitting out snow and dirt that filled my mouth. My cheekbone stung, sliced by a protruding rock.

  “Behold, Tuari Archon,” said Ronila, “all has come about as I warned thee. You asked me, as your kin, as one who has paid the just price of imperfection, to uncover evidence of the corruption that cracks the world. Here is the halfbreed Cartamandua found preening and prancing in Stian’s Round. Canst thou mistake whose work this is?” Ronila’s stick poked my back, where the second remasti had etched Stian’s rock, and my arm, where the cat lurked amid Kol’s sea grass.

  “Thou dost accuse the Chosen and his sire of willful violation?” Sounding truly shocked, Tuari stooped to examine me closer. “How can this be the Cartamandua halfbreed? He wore no gards when I saw him.”

  “Clearly they have forced his body through some corrupt remasti,” said Ronila. “Canst thou not feel the storm wind rising in the human realm? Look out upon the beauty of Aeginea, Tuari Archon, and tell me that human violence and filth do not threaten its annihilation.”

  “Good archon, gracious Nysse, I bring you hope of healing,” I said, struggling to my knees. “Your kind were given guardianship of both Aeginea and the human realms. Surely no mere chance caused the first four Danae guardians to arise at the points of our joining. I beg you heed what you have felt this night. Kol has given you back the Well, where my mother was poisoned by this harpy and her minions.”

  “Who can say what deceptions Stian and his brood have wrought in our minds?” said Ronila, sneering. “The daughter who gave a child of our blood to a human. The son who steals the Center, as he stole this halfbreed from your just breaking. The father who once condemned you—Tuari Archon—to live as a crawling beast. They have brought a halfbreed to the dance, as your own proclamation of the Law forbids.”

  Tuari looked from Ronila to me, his rust-colored eyes flaring with anger and mistrust. “Did Kol and Stian bring thee to the Canon, halfbreed?” he asked.

  “Ask him about Thokki, as well, resagai,” said Ronila eagerly. “She who has lusted after Kol since he was nestling. Corrupted, as are all those touched by Stian’s get.”

  “More pain and vengeance will not repair what’s done,” I said. “But I can help you heal the Canon without breaking it further. All I ask is your hear—”

  “Thou art halfbreed, Cartamandua-son,” said Tuari sternly, interrupting. “Thou hast reached maturing this night, thus the Law forbids me to break thee. However, those who brought thee illicitly to the Canon are forfeit. Answer truth, if thou wouldst have me hear another word from thy lips. I will judge silence as agreement. Did Kol and Stian bring thee to the Canon, using Thokki to shield thee?”

  How could I weigh the consequences of my answer? I, who was a master of lies, could likely devise a reasonable story. But Ronila had built her life on lies, corrupted Sila with lies. We stood at the brink of the abyss, and I needed this man to believe what I told him. Surely it was the time for truth. Kol and Stian…and Thokki, too…had known the risks they took.

  “Yes,” I said, “because they believed—”

  “There, you see?” crowed Ronila.

  “Silence, Llio-daughter.” Tuari held up a warning finger to the old woman. “I have sought thy forgiveness for the wrongs I’ve done thee and thy dam, and thou hast offered me generous service in return. But I am archon and would hear what healing this Cartamandua-son believes he can bring to the Canon. Despite our hard experience of him, Stian is no mindless actor.”

  Ronila pressed her hands together and bowed. “It is but sincerest concern for the Canon that drives my crone’s tongue, resagai. Thou art most generous to allow thy flawed kin to be of use.”

  “Speak, Cartamandua-son.”

  “I am born of a line of cartographers—human sorcerers who can find their way through the world with magic…” With cautious hope and urgency, I told the archon of my bent. Of finding the Well before I knew of my parentage. Of my ability to follow the paths of kirani laid down on this day or those long past. Though I dared not mention that the Well had chosen me as guardian—not with Ronila present, not when I was captive—I told him how I had walked my mother’s kiran to build Kol’s memory and understanding of the Well, and what Kol believed about my talents.

  “I know not what to believe,” said Tuari, throwing up his hands. “How can I accept that a human-tainted abomination, one ignorant of the Canon, can accomplish what our finest dancers cannot? We feel the chaos of humankind; we suffer these poisonings and betrayals, and blind though we are, we know our lands diminished. To hear thy claim that we are responsible for this great imbalance drives me to fury.”

  “Allow me to show you, good Tuari,” I said. “I can help you restore what is lost.”

  “This halfbreed is poison, Archon,” snapped Roni
la, growling with hate. “Stian has set him to bring you down in—”

  Tuari silenced her with a gesture, then turned to Nysse, who had been quietly attentive throughout all. “Kol’s and Stian’s violation—deliberate and well considered—risks the very survival of Aeginea…of our kind,” he said in anguished indecision. “How can I allow it? And yet this halfbreed’s sincerity rings true, and Kol’s kiran hath bespoke a marvel this night. I must consider: What if his claims be true, and I refuse to heed?”

  Before Ronila could burst or Tuari shatter with his vacillation, Nysse laid her hand on Tuari’s shoulder. “The season’s change is upon us, my love, yet clearly these matters cannot be settled in haste.” Her clear voice rippled with light, just as the pond did. “Stian and Kol have certainly trespassed the Law. Thokki to a lesser guilt. Yet unless we can prove, without doubt, that their violations have done damage, Kol must dance the Center. To force him out on uncertain grounds could be judged an equal risk to the Canon. Nor will I have it said that private jealousy spurred me to take his place. His kiran was flawless, and none other can approach our level. Only in the dance and its consequences can we judge truth.”

  As a snarling Ronila clutched her walking stick and muttered indecipherable venom, Tuari kissed Nysse’s forehead and gazed adoringly on his consort. “Nysse’s wisdom frees my own thoughts, good Ronila,” he said, his relief blinding him to the old woman’s burgeoning malice.

  But the archon immediately quenched my own surging hope. “By the halfbreed’s own word are Kol and Stian guilty,” he said. “We shall hold the Cartamandua-son as surety for their guilt until the dance is finished. If they value him sincerely, they will step forward to accept the consequences of their violations—myrtle and hyssop and forever unbinding. Then shall we give the halfbreed an opportunity to prove his promise of restoration. If they do not step forward, we shall judge their violations frivolous and force them to their punishment, proceeding with whatever is necessary to rend our unwholesome bond to the human realms.”

  “Whatever is necessary?” I cried. “You mean you would lock the guardians of the Mountain and the Sea in their sianous, and allow them to be slaughtered as was my mother. But, of course, Ronila will see them dead in any case. Tuari Archon, Ronila despises human and long-lived alike. In the human world, she names herself the Scourge. She has corrupted her granddaughter and taught her to poison sianous. She wants to destroy all possibility of recovery for the Canon, condemning the world to chaos.”

  But the weak-livered fool would hear none of it. “None shall be slaughtered,” he said, insufferably condescending. “If you are what you say, we shall discover it. Ronila has long suffered the consequences of her mixed blood and aspires to naught beyond her place. I sought her aid to recognize human-tainted corruption, and by your own word, she has done so.” He took Nysse’s arm. “Kennet, Ulfin, secure the halfbreed until we are ready for him, and see that Thokki is returned to the Canon undamaged.” The two regal Danae strolled toward the lake…fading…

  “Archon,” I called in desperation, “I can restore the Plain!”

  Tuari paused and looked back, shaking his head in disbelief. “Bring us to the Plain in the hour of Kol’s trial, halfbreed, and I shall deem all transgression worthy.” He and his consort vanished in a streak of light.

  Despite my futile struggles and impotent pleas, the two young Danae seated me on a jumble of rock so that I had a place to rest my back for the long night to come. Ulfin left to find out where their third companion had taken Thokki, while Kennet gathered a handful of reeds from the lakeshore and spread them on the rocks as if to sort them. Ronila crouched in the lee of a pine tree, watching us and jabbing her stick repeatedly into the crusted snow.

  Urgency near drove me wild. Kol danced the Center and would do as he promised, but all would go for naught did I fail to let Osriel know. And even then, I must persuade the prince that allowing dead souls to devour the Harrowers must surely violate the Canon we were trying to heal. Then must I bend my thoughts to finding the Plain before Kol could be imprisoned. I twisted my hands in their bindings of braided vines until warm blood welled from the raw scraping.

  As I tore my wrists, Ronila drew a bundle from her voluminous robes. “Those of us half human can suffer from the cold,” she said. “The gards are never quite enough. I would lend the Cartamandua-son my spare cloak. No ill in that, eh, lad?”

  “Come ahead,” said Kennet, who perched cross-legged beside me, head bent, braiding his reeds into a mat.

  “I need naught from you, Scourge,” I said, cursing the bindings that would not stretch.

  “Oh, you need this.” As the old woman approached our rocky perch, she juggled her bundle of brown wool and stumbled awkwardly over her walking stick.

  Kennet reached out to catch her, and she fell forward into his lap, a shapeless heap. Startled, he looked down at her and grunted wordlessly. Ronila wrenched and twisted as if to free herself of his grasp, but his hands had fallen limp. She stepped back, and the young Dané shuddered and slumped sideways, his lifeblood gushing from the ragged hole just below his breastbone, his gards fading. His head rested on my thigh.

  “Murdering witch!” I cried, horrified. Twisting my shoulders half out of their sockets, I slid my bound hands under me and around my legs to the front. Too late for Kennet. I pressed my shaking hands to his face and felt the surety of death.

  Ronila backed away, laughing at my contortions. Dark stains covered her brown robes. “The long-lived take exception to those who slay their young. As you do. My faithful monk sends word that he plans to shred thy archangel before he bleeds him. He has only to choose which sianou to poison.”

  She turned her back and hobbled away.

  I bellowed in wordless rage. The knife lay on the rock in a pool of Kennet’s blood, and I fumbled it into my grasp. I sawed at the ropes on my ankles until they fell slack. Heedless of the blade’s lethal edge, I cut my hands free. Some of the blood that slathered them was certainly my own. Weapon in hand, I sped after the retreating demoness…

  …only to have the old witch shift and lead me past a different lake…

  …and again, so that I pursued her alongside a broad, sluggish loop of a river…

  …and again, to find my feet on a rutted cart road, skirting a river bend. Inside the river’s loop, a jagged ruin loomed darkly through a driving snow, and in the moment I spun, blinking, to confirm that we had come to Gillarine, Ronila vanished in a burst of red light. Hand of Magrog!

  Hate and fear driving me, I pelted toward the ruin, leaping the jagged foundation walls that were all that remained of the infirmary. I cut across the buried herb garden, and sped past the great chimney of the bakehouse and around the corner between the refectory building and the dorter. Then caution slowed my feet, and I crept through the ruined east cloister. I could not hide myself in the dark, but at the least I didn’t have to announce my coming like a maddened bull. What better way for these demon gatzé to gain entry to the lighthouse than to prick Valen Blunderer into a mindless rage and send me charging forth to rescue Jullian?

  Breathing deep, I called on my finest senses. The air tasted of fear and torment, and reeked of blood and nivat, so strong it came near choking me. No surprise that Gildas would wield my weakness as a weapon. Reawakened hunger ground my gut. But I would not run away.

  I crept around the ruined scriptorium and down the alley toward the sounds of tight breathing and rapid heartbeats, grabbing up an iron torch bracket to supplement the bloody knife. The lighthouse door stood open, a soft light emanating from inside, illuminating a vision of horror in this once-holy precinct. Brother Victor’s body dangled from the arch that bridged the alleyway. The pool of blood underneath him had long clotted and frozen.

  Ah, merciful Iero, cherish your faithful servant. Yielding time only for this one prayer, I pressed my back to the broken stone, and crushed both deep-welling grief and an explosive lust for vengeance. Gildas and Ronila must have planned this damnable sight
to send me further into frenzy. But my best honor to a man of reason would be to hold on to my own. My rage froze as cold as the night. I acknowledged no fear, as I considered spells…

  “Right on time, friend Valen!” Black cloak, hood, and boots made it difficult to identify the man who stood behind the shadowed arch. But Gildas’s condescending humor was unmistakable. “We’ve not even gotten too cold awaiting you.” He jerked one shoulder, and Jullian stumbled up the stair and into the light spilling from the lighthouse doorway. The boy’s hands were bound behind his back, and a rope encircled his neck. “Did I not tell you that an archangel would be my shield when the last darkness fell?”

  “The Tormentor readies a special pit for you, murderer,” I said, tightening my limbs to pounce.

  “Oh, I would not risk a move just yet,” said Gildas. The monk waved a small knife, smeared with black, at Jullian’s face. The boy tried to pull away, but the taut leash held him close. “Throw away your weapons, Valen, then proceed down the stairs and seat yourself on the stool beside the worktable. I expect to see your palms flat on the table when I bring our young friend down. One move of disobedience and I prick him with this blade. Doulon paste prepared from your blood would be a nasty balm for a wound, would it not?”

  “Don’t do it! He plans to—” A jerk of the rope silenced Jullian’s anguished warning.

  No curse seemed sufficient to the occasion. I tossed Ronila’s knife and the iron bar into the rubble and did as he had instructed. The lower doors were thrown open, so that a table sat in plain view of the stair. In the center of it sat a bowl of nivat seeds. The scent near caved in my skull. Beside the bowl sat a leather pouch, a rushlight in a small iron holder, and a lidded calyx of silver, the size of my fist. No doubt the pouch contained linen threads and silver needles and enchanted mirror glass.

  As I sat on the backless stool and laid my palms on the table, I summoned images of Victor and Kennet to divert my cravings into anger and purpose. I recalled the collections of tools and mapped out where knives, axes, or any other sharp implements could be found and estimated how long it would take me to reach them. Always too far and too long.