Dead Bones

by L. J. Hayward

  “If you’re a sterling example of humanity, Tonio,” he said, “then I’m sure I’d rather be a savage Valleyman.”

  Hands the size of Gabe’s face curled into massive fists as Tonio faced him. He clenched his cigar so hard between his teeth it bent up at a sharp angle. Two brows like duelling brooms clashed together over a nose that had been broken many times and never fixed by anyone more skilled than a back-alley bone-setter. Beside the giant Smith, Lobo and Quico weren’t as impressive, but that was like saying next to a cannon, a rifle was harmless.

  The forward momentum of anger was stalled when Tonio recognised Gabe. He was a mage and Second Estate, but Tonio’s immediate deference was tempered by the fact Gabe was neither part of their military hierarchy nor de Ibarra. All three Smiths hesitated on the brink of answering his insult, no doubt gearing up their heat-dulled brains to decide if Gabe was free for the pummelling.

  Gabe smiled and indicated the cigarillo dangling between his lips with a nod. “Could I possibly bother one of you morons for a flame?”

  #

  Gabe blearily watched as Jacinta turned a bowl of water into small spheres, which Ruben then turned to ice. Dina placed the ice into a waiting towel, gathered up the corners and then placed it against Gabe’s jaw. It stung more than the impact of Tonio’s fist. Gabe hissed and pulled away. Pitiless, Dina caught his aching head and held the ice-pack to his swelling jaw.

  “I never knew that,” Ruben said to no one in particular.

  “It’s very common knowledge that Bone Mages can’t heal themselves,” Dina said seriously.

  Ruben grinned at Gabe. “No, I mean that our fancy Bone Mage here was such an accomplished fist fighter.”

  Water Mage Jacinta Consuela Nieto Saiz de Ibarra slapped Ruben’s arm as she stood. “Don’t tease him. I think it’s impressive he lasted as long as he did against Tonio.”

  “Impressive or stupid.” Ruben reached out to touch Jacinta’s hand as she turned to leave. “I won’t be long. Just make sure this fool is going to be all right.”

  Jacinta nodded and left the surgery, the Fire Mage watching her every step, Gabe doing the same. Jacinta was worth the effort of focusing his eyes. Slender but generous on the curves under her aqua coloured robe, with glossy black hair falling to her waist and a wide, full lipped mouth that suited her very naughty smile perfectly. The familiar touching between her and Ruben was new and if Gabe hadn’t been feeling so miserable, he would have demanded details.

  As it was, his jaw ached so atrociously he was halfway certain Dina lied when she claimed it wasn’t broken. His nose throbbed and wheezed with every breath and his left eye was well on the way to sealing itself shut. His knuckles, bruised against Tonio’s granite-hard head, hurt almost as much as his jaw. Dina shifted the ice-pack to a new, more painful spot and ignored his moan of protest.

  “Serves yourself right,” Ruben said. “Witnesses said that despite your feeble insults, Tonio restrained himself admirably. I’m surprised you still went ahead and threw the first punch when Tonio didn’t take your bait. Whatever made you think you could take on Tonio and survive?”

  “Good question, Mage Rico.”

  Ruben and Dina stood and faced Captain Meraz, bowing neatly. The captain was a tall woman, still lean and strong in her sixth decade, black and red uniform immaculate. Row after row of medals weighed down her sash and the symbol of Tejon Company, a brass badger, sat proudly above them all. Steel-grey hair was swept back from her face and tied in a bun at the nape of her neck and small, round spectacles sat firmly on her straight nose. A red tasselled sabre rode on her left hip, the leather grip well worn. On her other side, a long barrelled pistol sat in a low slung holster.

  Meraz nodded to both of her people and then looked at Gabe. He met her gaze as best he could. Regret surged through the aches and pains, tinged with shame. The captain had been forgiving of his more troublesome manners and this was how he repaid her.

  “I trust the mage hasn’t suffered any permanent damage,” Meraz said to Dina.

  “Nothing that won’t heal in a day or two, Captain. I’ve already done everything I can. The rest is up to nature.”

  “Good. You may leave.” She gave Ruben a quick glance. “You too, Mage Rico.”

  Dina made Gabe hold the pack to his face, then she and Ruben left. The moment the door to the surgery shut behind them, Gabe dropped the ice-pack and gently touched his cold, numb skin.

  “I do believe, Mage Castillo,” Meraz said, picking up the pack, “that it would be best if you kept this applied.”

  “Who’s the Bone Mage here?”

  It was out before Gabe thought about whom he addressed and what it would cost him physically. His jaw creaked and pain flared up the side of his face. Meraz gently pressed the pack to his jaw.

  “I fought in the Battle of Soledad Pass,” she said. “One of the first real fights of my career.”

  Gabe took over holding the pack, eyebrows raised in surprise.

  “Yes, I was part of the de Ibarra company that crossed the border into Giron.” Meraz sat in the chair Dina had vacated. “I’m sure you’re well aware of history but I want to tell you a different side to the story from what the text books recount. My company and I were patrolling the border where Ibarra, Giron and the Talamhian Ranges meet. Our Earth Mage intercepted a message from the Soledad Redoubt in the pass. A quake in the mountains had diverted the message from Giron City. Our Earth Mage redirected it but we knew that in the time it took the message to reach the city, the Redoubt would be lost.” She sat back, one highly-polished black boot on a footstool as she took off her spectacles and cleaned them with a pristine kerchief. “Some still say we were wrong in crossing the border but none of us protested when our captain made the decision. The Churches of Ciro and Aciano approved it, after the fact, of course. So we marched to the Redoubt and managed to get inside before the greenmen closed their siege.”

  Giron’s eastern border held the best pass through the Talamhian Ranges and was the main trading route between Delaluz and Talamh. Years before Gabe had been born, Duchess Rolon of Giron had decided to tax traffic through the pass. The Talamhians—or greenmen as some called them—took exception to this and as was their habit, lodged their protest with arrows and swords.

  “I’m sure you know most of the details of the siege, but one thing I’ve never heard mentioned in the stories or seen in the text books, was that before the food began running out, before the greenmen poisoned the springs, our Bone Mage worked herself into exhaustion and died.”

  Just like a crazy Talamhian waving his sword about, Meraz made her point. She must have seen his protest coming because Meraz held up a calloused and scarred hand to stall it.

  “Let me finish.” Meraz replaced her spectacles and looked at him over the top of them. “When I say she died, I mean she was killed. We killed her. It was time for my menses and the last pause the mage had put on it was weakening. I went to her to have it reapplied and found her sawing her arm off. She was convinced it was gangrenous, confusing herself with her last patient. There was no other Bone Mage in the Redoubt so she lost the arm. Her perfectly healthy, left arm.”

  Involuntarily, Gabe looked down at his left hand. The glove had been removed so Dina could check his hand, exposing the pallid skin and the stump of his little finger, capped in pewter. The left hand of every Bone Mage was sensitive to the magic, opening conduits between the mage and anyone they touched. They had to keep it covered when not using the power. Likewise, the tip of the little finger was removed to expose raw flesh and bone. It never healed, allowing the mage to use his own tissues in his work.

  Loss of the left hand would cripple a Bone Mage. They wouldn’t be able to connect to their patients, couldn’t take on their wounds or illnesses in order to heal them, diagnose blood born problems, or match them with a suitable blood donor.

  “She kept trying to heal people, using her knowledge and experience, if not her magic. More a Sacerdio than a true mage. She tried to co
nvince us she was back to her old self.”

  Gabe shook his head in mute denial. Meraz nodded sadly.

  “The day we killed her, we found her trying to attach the severed arm of a soldier to herself. She’d killed the woman, just to get the arm.”

  Empty stomach rolling, Gabe swallowed hard. Captain Meraz hadn’t been happy Duke Ibarra seemed to consider her supply camp as a place of punishment but she was loyal. While she didn’t regard Gabe as a full member of her company, she didn’t treat him like a prisoner either.

  “You’re a good Bone Mage, Castillo.” Meraz put her foot on the floor and leaned forward. “One of the finest I ever worked with. Dedicated, committed to your patients. For all you’re de Roque, I would hate to lose you.”

  “This is where you tell me I need some distance.” Gabe tried to smile and made it part way to a horrible grimace.

  “I believe Dean Rios had that discussion with you earlier, so no.” She stood and adjusted her sabre. “What I will tell you is this. I hope this conversation helps steer you off this self-destructive path you’ve chosen. If it doesn’t, and I find you brawling with my company staff again, then I’ll have no choice but to discipline you.”

  Gabe didn’t want to think what that might entail.

  Meraz paused at the door. “I believe the new decoration in the central yard was partly your doing.”

  “Mostly Kimotak’s. He had his reasons.” If speaking didn’t feel like a series of hot blades being shoved into his head, Gabe would have offered up those reasons.

  “I will allow it to remain for now, to keep the Valleymen happy. But the moment it interferers with the running of my camp, it will come down.” Then she left.

  Alone, Gabe dropped the ice-pack and prodded at his jaw. Provoking Tonio had been stupid, but at the time, all he’d wanted was a reason to be hit. A reason to feel pain that was solely his.

  And, he decided miserably, when Meraz spoke about taking down a possible hindrance to the smooth running of her camp, he didn’t think she meant the skeleton.

  Chapter 3

  Duke Sol Lasaro Deleon Delarosa de Roque resisted the urge to kick open the door and stop the torture. His boots sounded a rhythmic beat on the polished floor of his lounge as he paced from cold fireplace to window and back again. He tried not to look at the door to the bedroom, tried not to wonder what was happening beyond his sight and understanding, tried not to blame his best friend for all this agony.

  He managed two of those things.

  “Damn you, Gabe. You were supposed to be here for this.”

  “Calm down, Sol.” Marquis Sergio Federico Duarte Delarosa de Roque, Sol’s cousin, sat in a chair before the fireplace, picking over a tray of pastries. “Master Mage Carrasco is more than capable.”

  “I know.” A twinge of guilt made the words hard and fast. “It’s not that. It’s just...” That Mage Carrasco was getting old. Her eyesight was failing, her hands shook and she tended to be asleep well before this time of night. “Gabe promised he would be here for this.”

  Sol leaned on the windowpane, taking several deep breaths to calm his nerves. Outside, the night was complete. Total dark covered Sol’s palace and Roque City. Even the harbour lights had been extinguished and the navy ships sat cold in their berths. The airfield outside the city walls was also dark, and on Sevastian’s Point, the church, a miniature city itself, was invisible in the night.

  A nearly full moon rode low over the ocean, feathered in soft, silver clouds. Milky light fell through the window, their only illumination, bar the slice of yellow lamplight coming from under the bedroom door.

  “You know what Gabriel is like.” Sergio came to stand by Sol. “He went off to Ibarra in one of his moods. Probably trying to teach you a lesson by not being here.”

  “Me? I’m not one of those who told him his opinion of himself was overly inflated.”

  “No, but you didn’t exactly defend him, either.”

  “He’s big enough to defend himself. But instead he runs off to Ibarra and misses the most important night of my life. And now I have that antique mage who can’t even read the labels on her own bottles delivering my first child. Listen to that, Sergio!” He gestured toward the bedroom door. “Do you hear anything?”

  Sergio shook his head.

  “Exactly. Isn’t my wife supposed to be cursing me for putting her through this? Isn’t there supposed to be screaming and yelling?”

  The door opened and a Sacerdio stepped out of the bedroom. She bowed to Sol.

  “Your Grace, Mage Carrasco said to inform you everything is proceeding well. Your wife is doing fine and the babe will be born shortly.”

  From the bedroom Mage Carrasco commanded, “Finish the message.”

  Blushing, the Sacerdio said, very apologetically, “Mage Carrasco also said while her eyesight may be failing, her hearing is as sharp as it was the day she delivered you from your mother’s womb. And if you wish there to be screaming and yelling, then by all means, continue to do so yourself.” The young woman retreated to the bedroom before Sol could do more than gape.

  Sergio chuckled but refrained from commenting when Sol gave him a hard glare.

  Time crawled. Sergio ate and Sol paced. He stopped by the door, ear pressed to the wood, trying to hear something to justify the tension in his belly, the quivering in his hands. All he got was a faint murmuring and what might have been a muffled grunt.

  Aracelle was strong and sensible, not prone to bouts of dramatics. It was her quiet seriousness that first drew Sol to her, her subtle humour and playful wickedness that caught his heart. If there was no need to announce the pain of childbirth in screams, then she wouldn’t. Sol just had to convince himself of that.

  He found himself back at the window, looking at his dark city. Had he been anyone other than the duke the city wouldn’t have shut down for the birth. It was an old tradition and Abbess Orellana had insisted it be followed should the labour happen while she was away. When new spirits first left the Shadows it was felt they might be distracted by bright lights. A wandering spirit would leave the newborn free to be taken by the dark and become a demon. While no one wished their child to become one of the Fuerza Oscura, it was counted as much worse if a prince or princess was risked at birth.

  There were thousands of births each year not accorded the same care as that of a royal, and yet Delaluz wasn’t overrun by demons. It was an old superstition, kept alive by traditional Abbots and Abbesses, some of whom still authorised inquisitions into suspected demons.

  So, when light blossomed out on the airfield, Sol didn’t pay it much mind. Above the airfield were the lights of an incoming dirigible. It was too far away and too dark to make out the insignia, but at this time of night, it was usually something important.

  As Sol straightened, wondering what it meant, he finally connected the light to the possible danger it put his baby in.

  “Sergio,” he snapped. “A dirigible is landing at the airfield. Go find out what’s happening and get those lights extinguished immediately.”

  His cousin raced from the room. Moments later, Sergio and several constables galloped across the courtyard and through the palace gates into the city. Sol watched them go, his anxiety rising. It wasn’t as if he believed the story about new spirits being distracted by other lights, but what if...?

  A lusty, loud cry broke his worry. Sol sagged, the tension leaving him so fast he felt lightheaded and weak. Then, as the cry hiccupped, paused and resumed, louder and more insistent, a big, sloppy grin crawled across his face.

  He was a father.

  Dear Luz. He was a father. After all these months, all these hours in the dark, it had finally happened and it was too soon. Far too soon. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know what to do, how to hold a baby or change its swaddling or how to teach it to walk and talk and read. Saint Sevastian preserve him. What if he was a horrible father? What if the child hated him and argued with him the way Gabe argued with his father? What if his baby got sick and Mage
Carrasco was dead and Gabe wasn’t here? What if Alarie finally made it across the border and attacked Delaluz outright? What if—

  “Duke Deleon?”

  Sol swallowed his fears and faced the Sacerdio. She stood by the open door to the bedroom, smiling.

  “You may come in.”

  His legs wouldn’t work. He would fall all over himself and no one would trust him to hold the baby.

  The Sacerdio came forward and put her hand on his elbow. Her touch was warm and comforting, offering strength and assurance—the gifts of a Sacerdio.

  “Come, Your Grace.”

  He walked with her to the door, where she stopped and let him enter alone. Another Sacerdio was in the corner, tidying up the birthing area. Mage Carrasco sat by the bed, her hunched shoulders curved under the seemingly too heavy weight of her bobbing head. She rested gnarled hands on the head of her walking-cane, breathing slowly and evenly.

  Aracelle sat on their bed, surrounded by pristine sheets, her honey-gold hair tumbling about her shoulders, face pink from exertion. Dressed in a clean nightgown she was propped against a veritable mountain of cloud-like pillows. In her arms was a tiny, green wrapped bundle which she gazed at adoringly.

  Sol tiptoed to the bed, not wanting to disturb this beautiful scene. Mage Carrasco grunted sourly.

  Aracelle looked up at him, her smile growing wider. “Sol,” she whispered, tears sparkling in her sapphire eyes. Never lost for words, they seemed to escape her now and she mutely gestured him closer.

  Gently, Sol sat down. She was the most exquisite woman in the world. Glowing like blessed Luz, perfect and beautiful. Her smile made his heart stop. He kissed her, still awed that she loved him, that she had married him and now, given him a child.

  He looked down at the babe and all of his fears vanished. The child was awake, looking back at him with Aracelle’s eyes and her sweetly bowed lips, still red from the trauma of birth, but soft and perfect all the same.