by Sarah Chorn
He needed her.
Those three words determined her fate and sealed her doom.
She shimmied down off the roof, waited until the coast was clear, and cut through Lord’s Reach. It took some time. She had to dodge around corners, hide in shadows. At one point she had to hide under two dead bodies to avoid being seen by patrols. It was gross, but she was desperate to not get caught, to get to the Bone Lord, to stop hearing the call of that voice under the city. Desperate for this to all end, for her journey to be over so she could finally rest and be her own woman again. She missed being Mouse. Hunger was cold and impassive, a strong hand and a calculating presence, but Mouse was actually alive and vibrant with it.
She missed herself.
The city was nearly empty, everyone either hauled off by guards or in the square. The streets felt as haunted as her heart, and as dark as her mind. She ran through them, avoiding guards, drinking in the sights she’d spent most of her life looking at, running toward her future as fast as she wanted to run away from it.
He was there, near the Eastern Gate, still wandering lazily through the city. She wondered if anyone noticed him. It would be hard not to see a walking skeleton; but with the streets this empty, she doubted anyone was around to see, and even if they were, what could they possibly do to him? It wasn’t like they could kill him. He had no body to die. If his bones were pulled apart, it would probably just be a mild inconvenience.
Hunger was excited about this meeting. Mouse wanted to throw up.
The souls in her belly boiled.
Life was fragile and fickle. It was a spider’s web of infinite possibilities, meetings, goodbyes, love, loss, pain, and pleasure. Her life had been short and sweet. It had been hard, and then it had been great. She’d lived on that spider’s web, strung between two poles, drifting in the breeze, enjoying her days. She’d been one creature, until she’d Become another. Now…
Now, she saw her life flash before her eyes. She stopped. She knew the Bone Lord was right around the corner. Could feel him there the same way she felt her heart beating in her chest. The souls in her belly were raging now, and his pull was almost too much to deny; but she needed this, this one quiet moment, her forehead pressed against the wall. She needed to be Mouse again, just for a second.
The stones were cold against her skin. The sky was full of a waiting storm above her. The city was full of shouting somewhere far away, and all she wanted was someone to hold her, to tell her it would be alright—but it would never be alright again. There are some paths a person must walk alone. She missed her father. She missed Vadden.
She missed being a headstrong girl.
She missed being Mouse.
She drew in a deep breath, and felt the crossroads she was standing in the center of, but there was really only ever one path she could possibly take.
Hunger? The Bone Lord called.
This was it. She squared her shoulders. Hello, future, I am ready for you to devour me.
She turned the corner. “Bone Lord,” she replied in her coldest voice.
The ground rumbled under them, and the earth drew taut, waiting.
The Bone Lord
He entered the city under the cover of a night made thick with an approaching storm.
The gates to Lord’s Reach had been left open and unmanned. He didn’t wonder why. It didn’t matter. There was nowhere for anyone to run, and nothing they could do against him. So he just walked into the city like he owned it, the streets rolling out around him, bare earth turning black and dead under his feet. He felt all those bodies, a few here and there, people who had avoided whatever had summoned them, whatever had emptied out these streets. His plague was spreading. He could feel it weaving itself into the fabric of the city, unmaking it. All it needed was some dry tinder to make it burn. He was famine in motion. Desire boiled down to its most base components. He was the catalyst this city needed to ignite. And he planned to ignite it. He was going to step onto those empty city streets and be the change that devoured.
He surveyed the city with his unique sight and smiled his skeletal smile.
Home. The Bone Lord was finally home.
It didn’t matter that he’d never been to Lord’s Reach before. It didn’t matter that he was from the far eastern edge of the Sunset Lands. He could taste the virus in the air, feel it in the soil and in the hungry, starved, depressed gazes of the few people he sensed on the streets around him.
More than that, though, he heard that voice calling to him. He felt Taub stirring inside, and felt more like a man again, rather than a creature, rather than the Bone Lord. Taub was still there, buried deep within his soul. He was sleeping, slumbering, but starting to move, ready to wake up. He was still changing. He was no longer pure instinct with no thought. Now he was thinking again. It seemed like the instant he’d stepped into the city a fog had lifted from his mind.
He had one purpose now. A voice down in the earth was calling his name, and he meant to find it; but first, he needed to find Hunger. She was his other half, the other side of his nature that would make him complete. He couldn’t continue on without her.
He felt her here, in this city, wandering around the streets, full of souls and dark emotion. He sensed a storm approaching from the south—all that rain would rip the world apart. There was moisture in the air, beading along his bones. Heard the thunder. Somewhere in the distance, in the heart of Lord’s Reach, something was happening that was shaking the earth itself. The night was full of a building potential waiting to be released.
Hunger? he called out.
“Bone Lord,” she said, her voice cold as winter frost. She was behind him he realized, and he turned slowly to face her. He couldn’t see her, but he perceived the impression of her in the air, small and wiry. They stood like that for some minutes, just studying each other. Her voice washed over him, and he both heard it and didn’t hear it. The Bone Lord felt the vibration of her words, the way they shaped the air, and understood. Taub, that fleshy part of himself that was just starting to kick around again, actually heard her with the ears the Bone Lord didn’t have anymore. It shocked him. Frightened him.
They were both changing, he realized as he faced her. She was Hunger, but she was also Mouse, two souls in one body, much like himself. Somehow, they’d need to unify both sides of themselves, or they would devour each other and what would be left of them after that?
“Something is happening in the square,” Hunger said. She paused. “The storm is almost upon us. This night feels heavy.”
What do you mean?
“Can’t you feel the weight of it? Like everything is happening. The string has been pulled tight. It’s ready to snap. What will happen next? I am full of souls, Bone Lord. What do I do with them? You are full of plague and famine. Your bone army roams the countryside without souls to drive them, without thought. When the string snaps, what happens to my souls and your bones?”
It hadn’t phased him until now, how different both of them were. It was instinct and animalistic need that had driven him this far, not thought. He spread and increased his numbers, while she devoured. They saw things differently. But now that she’d engaged his slumbering thoughts, he could feel the earth under his feet, tensed and eager. The heart of the world was beating, and it was ready for whatever would come next. Now that he was thinking again, he was starting to wonder why.
Why was he out here? Why had he done the things he’d done?
Why was an uncomfortable question. Why was a word that could break men far stronger than he.
The moment hovered in the air around him, thin as glass, and as sharp as a sword. In an instant, it would shatter, break like that storm hanging over their heads, dark and full of promise; and then everything would be different. They would be different. Suddenly, that call under the city became more intense, more anxious; and an overwhelming need surged up within him, matching that voice’s desperation with his own desire.
He pushed these thoughts to the back of his
mind. Later. He’d think about all of this later. After.
“We need to move,” Hunger said. “Whatever is happening in the center of the city is about to boil over. The dam is bursting, Bone Lord, and this storm is fierce.”
There was a pause. He felt something cold and wet on his skull. Then more of it. Tears. The sky was crying. The world was howling.
“It’s raining,” Hunger observed, and then he heard Mouse’s small, confused voice. “The storm is going to drown us.”
It didn’t matter. Rain, after a year of drought, was both a good and bad thing. The drought needed to end, but a storm breaking during a night filled with this dark expectation, coupled with that voice calling them from far down below, felt too ominous to be coincidental. This was not a natural storm.
On the other hand, let it rain. Let the heavens open and pour down. It wouldn’t matter. None of it would matter. All things had to end eventually, and he was ready for this particular part of his story to be over with. He wanted to know what was next. He wanted to know what was calling him, and what happened when he brought his bones down into the belly of the city and pounded on the earth’s heart with his fist, demanding answers.
He took one step, and then another. Hunger fell in beside him. They hadn’t gone far when the earth started to moan under their feet. At first, he could hardly detect it with the way the storm had started howling all around them, but there it was—an earthquake, almost like the land was shrugging her shoulders, shifting around, and getting comfortable. Stones fell from the walls and toppled to the ground, adding to the thunder that roared across the heavens. He thought he felt the heart of the world stop for an instant, one beat, maybe two, and then start again.
Everything clicked into place in an instant.
It was time, and he was here, ready. He felt victorious, like he’d just climbed a mountain. If he’d had vocal cords, he would have been shouting in triumph. He’d made it.
The earth rumbled. There was one last thing he needed to do. Either this storm killed the people of Lord’s Reach, or he claimed them as his own. The Bone Lord focused his energy, and pushed it out, killing the city with a step and a thought, infecting everyone in it with a blast of his will, adding to his bone army in a flash. The storm above was ripping them apart, but he’d just done what he could. His creations couldn’t die, not really, not like mortals.
They would break. They would Become.
Hunger was watching him, he realized. Her eyes were on him. Wet and bedraggled as she was, she was less Hunger and more Mouse right now; scared, worried, full of uncertainty and so very human.
The entrance to the tunnels is in the palace, he said.
He wasn’t sure how he knew this, he just knew it. The voice was calling him and he’d just sent out all the plague he could, and killed the land under Lord’s Reach. His job was done. He could feel that as well. Felt Taub rising, as the Bone Lord grew empty and exhausted. Purged. He’d reached the end of what he was meant to do in this form. Now it was time to turn the page to see what happened next. There were no more souls for Hunger to suck up, either, and perhaps that’s why she seemed more like Mouse now. Hunger was done, as was the Bone Lord.
They turned toward the palace. He figured it was fitting that he was returning to the place where the man who had turned him into this resided. Maybe he’d even see Eyad, and thank him for the opportunity to become what he’d become. He was so much more than a mortal now, so much more than flesh and bone, with sight and understanding that Taub had never had. It had been horrible, this transition, but he was glad he’d undergone it. Eyad was the one who had given him this gift. He hadn’t meant to, but the best gifts are never really planned. Eyad’s greed, his ignorance, had given Taub wings.
Yes, he should thank Premier Eyad for everything.
Hunger walked with him, silent and filled with souls. It was delicious, this moment where he was so full of anticipation, so anxious for whatever was about to happen. He’d been full of purpose before, but now that purpose had been honed, sharpened to a point that was ready to cut. Now, he was actually going to find out what he had been walking toward for so long. What he’d sacrificed his humanity for.
He moved through the city, not really paying attention to anything, letting his bone fingers brush the walls as he slipped past them, letting the pressure and temperature tell him what was there. Feeling satisfaction as the fingers of his plague, his famine, burrowed deep into new bodies. Vibrations bounced off the surfaces around him, forming a picture in his mind. He turned into one street, and then another, dimly aware of Hunger trailing after him, reticent, almost reluctant.
She would come with him, because that’s what she had to do. He was the current, and she was too weak to fight him, driftwood caught in his stream.
The city seemed to stretch and yawn all around them. He felt bodies, people he hadn’t infected soon enough, and he felt some remorse for them but they were unimportant. People were dying or changing all around him, and the streets were flooded, getting harder to navigate. Whoever had brought this storm was raging, an insane god bent on destruction. They had to hurry, lest the water pull them under as well.
Taub sent his senses out, and felt his consciousness rub up against someone else, another male like him, Becoming, but not quite done yet, both of them on the cusp, about to fall off the edge of that cliff. The storm pounding against the city had this stranger’s feel to it. Taub wondered if he could reach out and touch this god’s mind. Perhaps they were connected the way he and Hunger were connected. He drew back. If that voice under the palace was calling to this destroying god like it was calling Taub, and some instinct told him it was, they’d meet soon enough. He’d rather not confront an angry divinity in the strength of his element. They were equals in strength, but for now the other reigned supreme.
They arrived at the palace and moved through a wide doorway, cold marble pressing against the bones of his feet. He used the Bone Lord’s sight, and felt nothing. The palace was cold, large hallways, full, but not at the same time. Dead bodies lying like forgotten decorations here and there, the survivors busy eating their way through the palace like mindless beasts. He wandered the galleries, ducking into and out of rooms. He made his way through the cold kitchens, the store room which had no food in it, more corridors full of the dead and devouring. He had no idea where the entrance to the tunnel he needed was. That voice was so loud now it was almost yelling in his ear, loud enough to rattle his bones.
More hallways, more rooms. Then he came to a set of double doors. He ran his bone fingers over the timber panels and felt raised and lowered surfaces. Carvings. He let his fingers touch them, running over the surface, trying to puzzle out what was depicted. Whatever it was, it felt like it was well done, perfected art. The kind of art you’d put on a door that led somewhere important.
He figured the doors were probably closing off some sort of formal area, by the ornate carvings he’d felt. That kind of effort wasn’t put into a door leading to the privy or the stables. They’d save it for somewhere special. Somewhere meant to be noticed and appreciated.
He pulled the doors open, surprised by how heavy they were. A whoosh of air caressed him, and he took a step forward, walking into the unknown. His bone feet sank into soft carpet. He cast his senses out, and realized that the room was large, too large, and without eyes he would have a hard time knocking on every wall, checking every potential spot for a hidden door. It would be hidden, he rationalized. If there were tunnels, that meant an escape route, and if there was an escape route, the old royal family wouldn’t have wanted just anyone to know about it. He needed Hunger’s eyes. He needed her skin. He needed her help.
Can you find a tunnel entrance? he asked her.
She hesitated. She didn’t want to do this, that much was obvious in her stony silence, the nervous anxiety he felt threading through their bond. She didn’t want to help him or go with him, but she was powerless to stop herself. He could almost taste the war within her. H
er silence said more than words. She was terrified. She was eager. She was helpless against him. No matter how much she wanted to run, she’d do exactly what he required of her. Finally, he felt her move, crouching on the floor and knocking on walls. It took what seemed like decades before she said, “I found it.” Her voice was cold, impassive, devoid of emotion.
He moved to where she was standing, put his arms out and felt a space about as tall as a regular door, if a bit narrower. The immediate flooring around the doorway felt like some kind of smooth stone, no doubt it would turn into dirt soon enough. “The door was hidden behind one of these painted wall panels,” Hunger explained. “The tunnel looks easy enough to navigate.”
How far can you see?
Silence. He sensed her moving ahead of him a bit. “It’s dark, Bone Lord, but I suppose that doesn’t bother you, does it? The tunnel heads sharply downward, right into the ground. It’s got some steep stairs that are paved with stone, but I assume that changes at the bottom. It smells like earth, and its damp. I can’t see where the stairs end.”
Let’s go, he said. He was excited. He’d never been this excited before. He was so very close to what came next. A gust of stale air that carried the earth on it hit him in the face, and he leaned into it. It was healthy earth, still alive, vibrant, and eager to grow. Not like the surface, up above, not like the ground he’d turned black and dead. No, this loam was bursting with latent potential, just waiting to be used.
He started to move forward, but Hunger’s hand on the bones of his wrist stopped him. No one had touched him since he’d been Taub. Her skin felt both hot and cold, and her touch was firm.
“If I go down there,” she said, her voice shaking, “I will not come back up. I will never see the sky again.”
She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t explain why she felt this way, or what gave her those dark thoughts. He was too full of anticipation, and the voice down there begged at him to come, just come. He was needed and so close to what he’d come all this way for. She had wild ideas, and that was fine, but he had more important things on his mind. He needed her to come with him to accomplish whatever he’d been called here to do. He couldn’t do it without her. He’d known that from the moment their minds touched all that time ago.
