Bones of the Past (Arhel)

by Holly Lisle

  The bones of my enemies do not

  Hang at my belt;

  My heart holds no joy.

  “I am unworthy; I am no fit Hoos.

  I relinquish my b’dabba.

  I relinquish my people.

  I relinquish my place in Yarwalla—

  My spirit will wander without rest.

  Turn your faces from me,

  Gods of my better days.

  I am none of yours.”

  She lifted the remainder of her war-necklaces and laid them on the altar. She pulled the sslis from her nose and threw it to the floor and crushed it under her boot.

  She turned—and saw the silhouette of someone crouched in the doorway. In the darkness, she could not make out who it was, until she realized the stranger had been—still was—touching her mind.

  “I followed you,” the voice said in the darkness, lilting in its soft, accented Sropt. “You looked so sad.” The voice belonged to the Wen sharsha, Choufa.

  Medwind waited, still feeling the touch of their minds linked by the girl’s magic.

  The girl’s mindvoice whispered through her thoughts. I heard you, she said. You gave up everything you had to save your friend. I understand.

  Choufa stood and walked to her and said softly in her Wennish tongue, “Now you have no people. I have no people. You have no child—I have no mother. But we have saved each other’s lives. We are bonded. If you will take me as your daughter, I will take you as my mother, and then at least we will have each other.”

  The slender girl stopped a short distance from Medwind.

  So brave, Medwind thought. She would have made a glorious Hoos.

  Medwind closed the distance between them and opened her arms and embraced the child.

  “You are my daughter,” she whispered, and pulled the girl close, and held her tight.

  * * *

  “It’s hard to believe that really is Delmuirie,” Roba said.

  Kirgen had been staring at the two men encased in the pillar of light. He looked at her when she spoke, and gave her a wry half-smile. “Nearly impossible,” he agreed. “You’re certain it is?”

  “Yes.” Roba shivered, remembering her plunge into the pillar of light and her eager embrace of the self-dissolving consciousness existing inside of it. “I have no doubt Thirk has joined his hero.”

  “That’s fitting, I suppose. I wish the bastard was dead, though, instead of Nokar.” Kirgen stared into the shimmering light to the two forms inside. “It galls me to see that stupid smile on his face.”

  “Not me.” Roba shivered. “He could be in there forever, beyond time—he can’t move, he can’t do anything. Forever in prison.” She turned her back on Thirk and Delmuirie.

  Behind her, Kirgen muttered, “Forever isn’t half long enough.”

  Roba wanted to think of something else, anything else—and the bright-painted statue in the corner near her caught her attention.

  She walked over to it and brushed the cool, smooth stone form with her fingertips. “Look at it” she said. “It almost seems to weep.” She studied the way the monster bent over the tablet clutched in its talons, and sighed. “Look at how its head hangs, and how its wings droop. And its face is so sad.”

  Kirgen joined her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Every one of them down here looks the same,” he remarked. “They seem appropriate for this place and all that’s happened.”

  He hugged her hard. “You nearly gave your life saving the life of my daughter—and if old Nokar hadn’t done what he did, I would have lost you. I owe you both everything I have.”

  Faia had finished healing Kirtha’s wounds. She sat across the cavern from the pillar of light, holding the little girl. “I also give you my thanks, Roba. What is mine is yours, in thanks for my daughter’s life. We will be going back to Omwimmee Trade as soon as we can find a way—I was wrong to bring her here. I thought nothing could hurt her with me to protect her; I am fortunate to still have her. But before we go, if there is anything I can do for you, or anything I could give you, you only have to ask.”

  Roba sighed. “You saved my life first. We are now merely even. But if you don’t mind, I would ask you a question.”

  “Ask.”

  “Do you love Kirgen?”

  Faia smiled sadly and shook her head in a slow negative. “Kirgen and I met at a terrible time, and found some comfort in each other, and went our own ways. We did not love each other then, and we do not love each other now.” The hill-girl brushed a lock of hair out of her daughter’s eyes. “We share our child—but you and Kirgen are free to take public bond—or whatever is the custom of your people. I will wish you only happiness and health.”

  “Thank you. I will wish the same for you.”

  Roba looked around her, at the sharsha children who were tangled together in little lumps on the sand, sound asleep. They were safe, she thought, and free from the horrors they’d endured. Dog Nose and Seven-Fingered Fat Girl curled in a tight ball with Runs Slow tucked between them, acting like a tiny new family. They had a home at last, and each other. She studied the body of the old man sitting by the doorway in the next room. She would miss Nokar. She had been fortunate to know him.

  Medwind would be back soon—Roba supposed once her friend had a chance to deal with her grief, she would take over the expedition.

  In the meantime, it was warmer in the cavern than it was at the campsite, and Roba could see no purpose to be served in waking sleeping children. So she would wait for Medwind’s return—or morning, whichever came first.

  She thought perhaps she ought to rest. The day had been long and hard, and her body ached with weariness. But too much had happened, and the excitement had not yet worn off. Too much strangeness still beset her. From the meeting in Medwind’s house to the terrors of the Wen tree village to her near-death and healing to the incredible library filled with mysteries—and finally to this seeming burial ground where so much had come to pass—she could not take it all in.

  She looked from dead Nokar to Thirk embedded in the light like a bug in amber to the sad-faced drooping monsters who clutched their tablets. Too much. She couldn’t believe she was still alive. By all rights, she shouldn’t have been.

  Kirgen sat in the sand, exhausted. Roba paced. After a while, Kirgen’s head dropped to the sand and he slept. Roba still couldn’t rest. She traced her fingers over the inscriptions on the luminous white boulders. She wandered over to the nearest monster. She touched its face—cold stone, lovingly carved, lovingly painted. She studied its downcast eyes and looked down at the tablet it seemed to be staring at. It held the tablet in one huge, taloned forefoot. It seemed to be pressing the claws of the other forefoot into the tablet itself—

  “Kirgen!” she shrieked, waking all but the dead in the cavern. “Oh, my gods, Kirgen, you have to see this!”

  Kirgen leapt up, groggy and awkward, and ran to her side. He stared around the room; then, when he could find no impending danger, looked at her as if he suspected the stress had been too much for her. From the expression on his face, she suspected he thought he was watching her lose her mind. “What is it, Roba?” he asked. His voice was rough from sleep.

  She pointed at the monster’s left forefoot. “Look at that,” she demanded.

  He looked at the tablet, and shrugged, and looked at her, his eyes questioning.

  “No. I mean really look at it. Look at the claws. Look at what they’re doing.”

  Kirgen looked—and Roba could almost see the instant when he woke completely up. He gasped. “It’s pressing the First Folk letters into the tablet with its claws. By the gods, Roba—its claws are made just right to form the First Folk alphabet—three on the top, one on the bottom! Dots and slashes—of course. What else could it make with those claws but dots and slashes?” He stared at the monster and whispered, “But then—then could it be that the First Folk weren’t human?”

  Roba wrapped her arms around herself—excited beyond all imagining at the bizarre
possibilities. “This is almost certainly a burial ground, Kirgen. Why don’t we dig up one of whatever’s buried here and find out?”

  Kirgen stared at the rows of carved boulders. “Let’s see if we can even move one of those,” he said. “I don’t see how we can. They’re huge. We’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow and dig under one.”

  They walked to the nearest boulder. They pushed on the side—and it rolled over instantly. It was hollow, and Roba realized it was made of the same stuff as the tablets. Beneath it, lying on the sand, was something dark. A mummy bundle, she thought, wrapped in glossy black wrappings. She and Kirgen exchanged uncertain glances and began to tug at the wrappings.

  Roba heard a thin, sticklike snap, and the “wrapping” pulled back, and back, and still further back—it was not a wrapping, but a huge wing. Beneath it, sunken in but still covered with tight black skin, was a face very much like the faces of the statue monsters.

  She and Kirgen stood a long time staring at that face. Roba was faintly aware that she heard the rumbling of stone and footsteps coming down the corridor. She realized, in a dim way, that Medwind had come to stand beside her.

  “What is this?” The Hoos woman’s voice cut across her reverie.

  “One of the First Folk.”

  “No—one of their pets or sacred beasts, more likely,” Medwind said.

  “One of the First Folk.” Roba knelt and pulled the mummified wing away from the foreleg. “The incised writing on the tablets is theirs. Look at the claws.” She pointed to the curled forefoot with its huge, sharp talons. “Three on top, one on the bottom. Pressed into whatever medium they used for their tablets, those claws would create exactly the impressions we’ve found.”

  “But they’re saurids. Beasts. Survival creatures, like the hovies or kellinks.”

  Medwind knelt beside Roba and touched the mummy. She touched the stone bracelet it wore high on its huge foreleg, and the rows of metal rings that pierced the edges of the creature’s neck-rilles. She reached a tentative finger out to brush against one of the huge, pointed teeth that showed through cracking, flaking flesh.

  The Hoos woman pulled her finger back, and crouched, staring at the giant monster. She asked aloud the question that already nibbled in the back of Roba’s mind.

  “If these are the First Folk, from which folk are we descended?”

  * * *

  Medwind hugged Faia, then Kirtha. “There should be enough money left to keep you and Kirtha for a long time, even if business is bad. You know where we kept it—” she said, and Faia laughed.

  “I know. I remember. You have told me a dozen times.”

  “I don’t want you to lack for anything.” Medwind smiled at the hill-girl. “Take a husband or two,” she suggested. “Have more children—you can, after all. Be happy.”

  “I would rather only take a husband if I can find a man I honestly love. But Kirtha and I will be fine. And we will be happy. You and your daughter do the same.”

  They hugged again.

  “Are you sure you will not be coming back?” Faia asked. “If you even doubt, I will tear up the letter of possession for the house.” She looked uncertain.

  Kirtha watched Medwind and her mother, wide-eyed. “Home now?” she asked.

  “I won’t be coming back,” Medwind said. “That house has too many memories and too much of the past for me. I’m done worshipping the past. I’m done carrying its bones around on my back. I won’t even be staying here in the First Folk City after the Wen kids are settled in. Others will have to decipher Arhel’s past.” She looked down at her feet. It is hard to describe freedom to one who has never suffered bondage, she thought. “Kirgen and Roba have high hopes for research here, but Choufa and I will be moving on.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll find something.”

  Faia gave Medwind a wistful smile. “Will I see you again?”

  Medwind shrugged. “Someday, perhaps. If not in this world, then maybe in the next.”

  Kirgen joined them, and asked Faia, “Are you ready? I need to start transporting the Wen kids’ food—so we need to be going soon.”

  Faia nodded. “Gentle winds, warm hearth and dry roof wherever you travel, then, Medwind.”

  “Happiness, Faia. Happiness, Kirthchie.”

  Kirgen, Faia, and Kirtha vanished from the ruins in a cloud of smoke that the day’s gentle breeze quickly dispersed. Medwind watched the last wisps and tatters vanish. Then she turned away.

  The future waited, wide open, uncertain, full of promise. And for the first time in her life, she was free to walk toward it.

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  (Including Several Words

  Your Mother Won’t Approve Of)

  Baofar (Arissonese) Name for any member of the class of trees made up of multiple ramets, or individual trunks, connected by a complex underground network of roots. The entire organism is referred to as a genet. The majority of Arhel’s baofars produce both an edible fruit and a short, round seed-pod from which long, trailing silklike threads depend at maturity. The individual ramets are usually small, but the genets can grow quite large. Of course, there are always exceptions.

  Braxille Largest city in the Fisher Province of Arhel. Built mostly underground. Subject to severe cold and months of darkness at mid-winter. Has the reputation, possibly deserved, of being the most miserable “civilized” spot in Arhel.

  D’leffja (Huong Hoos) (n. pejorative) A goat-molester. The verb is “d’leffik.”

  Dludergaad (Huong Hoos) 1. A member of the Dludergaadar, the association of Huong Hoos thieves. 2. A term of admiration bestowed upon successful goat-thieves or horse thieves in a Huong Hoos tribe.

  Dooru (Wen) Any of four varieties of large, saurid flying predators that still inhabit the area above the Wen Tribes Treaty Line. Below the Treaty Line, such beasts have been extinct at least since the Second Purges.

  Drum-Tongue (Wen) Version of Sropt that can be “spoken” by playing a tuned drum. The method long-distance communication used by the Wen Tribes.

  Easho (Huong Hoos) Unit of measure equal to the length of the thighbone of a tall man. Not standardized.

  Entreg (Arissonese) Fifteenth letter of the Arissonese alphabet. Sound is “nt.”

  Etyt (Huong Hoos) God of war. Consort of Thiena.

  Evastevoffuschrom (Wen) Literal translation is “smoke-monster-sleep”; a hypnotic agent released into the air by burning the ground seed pods of the split-leaved baofar.

  Fanghare (Arissonese) Small, predatory ground marsupial common to the desert of the Fey Plateau. Has very large ears. Is nocturnal, a mammal, and four-limbed.

  Farsight (Arissonese) Term used to describe the magical arts of future prediction or prediction of concurrent events in far-off places. Little discrimination is used in separating the two meanings.

  Fern-madness (Wen) A form of insanity brought on by ingestion of fronds of the rare white fern. Intensity of the madness varies with dose, and sufficiently large doses can cause death.

  Fnaffigchekta (Wen) Sropt—literally “drum-trade.”

  Fnaffigglotim (Wen) Sropt—literally “drum-speaking.”

  Genets see Baofar.

  Gornat Wilds (Fisher) Village near Big Tam. Very small and primitive.

  Gram (Arissonese) Esp. saje. One of the Seven Ugly Gods thought to inhabit the lowest and most horrible of the saje hells. The others are Makog, Dramfing, Shelfud, Torling, Keknok, and Wilmer, The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken.

  Hai (Hraddo) Pronounced hay’-eye. The word of common greeting in Hraddo, the Trade Tongue, which bears overtones of both “stay and talk a while” and “I mean no harm”—it has made its way into common speech in other languages in Arhel.

  Hekpeknu (Wen) Sropt—literally “woman-thing-that-looks-like-people.”

  Hout-Cadhay Quarter The cheap-rent quarter in one of the outer circles of Ariss, home of whores and thieves and poor scholars and equally poor writers and far too many medioc
re musicians.

  Hraddo The official trade tongue of polyglot Arhel. An extremely limited artificial language made up only of those sounds pronounceable by all the peoples of Arhel, uninflected, lacking all articles and pronouns, and with a grammar that changes tense by tacking the word “yesterday” or “tomorrow” onto the end of the sentence. Even so, fifty-seven of the roughly one thousand words of Hraddo are profane, and wars have been fought over misunderstandings the language has caused.

  Hrogner (Arissonese) Esp. saje. Chief Saje god of Mischief. Also the name of Faia’s handed cat.

  Hrun (Huong Hoos) Extremely pejorative. The verb is hrunik, the noun hrunja. The base word refers to the act of kakophagery. The subject is one of the few taboos in the Hoos culture, which views all thirteen of its official sexual orientations as completely normal and considers religion a weird but unavoidable obligation.

  Imitation-Proageff artwork Arissers have an appalling admiration of the artworks of Shumt Proageff, a Ralledine artist who lived during the House Five Renaissance. Proageff’s subjects during his entire prolific career were the same five women, who, from the record his paintings left, appear never to have owned or worn a stitch of clothing in their lives. But while Proageff was prolific, demand for his works far outstrips supply. Thus, there is a brisk market for cheap reproductions of his more famous works—especially the ones that also include the horses.

  Keaddaba (Huong Hoos) 1. Large or sturdy bones. Rare usage. 2. Unmitigated arrogance, gall, insolence, chutzpa, or nerve. Definitely the more common usage.