The Lair of Bones

by David Farland

  “Sesame cakes!” the little boy cried.

  The girl squeezed his hand and nudged him, begging the boy to be quiet, as if fearing that he asked too much.

  “Anything,” the girl pleaded. “Anything you offer.”

  “Ah,” Turaush said. “You are that hungry?”

  “I have two sisters to feed, and a big brother who is hurt,” the girl said. “My father was killed by bandits, and my mother went to her sister's, and we have heard nothing since. We would be grateful for anything.”

  “And what if I offer you a trade?” Turaush asked. “What if I offer to feed you all the food you want, every day, for as long as you live, and give you a beautiful home to live in?”

  The girl hesitated. She must have been warned about sinister men. She studied him warily, but at last put a hand over her empty stomach, as if by pressing it she could assuage the pain. “What house?”

  “The finest in all Ghusa,” Turaush said, waving toward the Dedicate's Keep. “Good food, as much as you can eat, every day for as long as you live.”

  Turaush was one of Raj Ahten's most persuasive facilitators. With five endowments of glamour, he could use his smoldering eyes to lure young women. With three endowments of voice, he could mesmerize the simple-minded. He bent his whole will upon the child now.

  “Think of it,” he said. “Fresh fruit—tangerines and melons and dates for breakfast. Fine lamb ribs basted with honey and cumin, cooked over apple-wood coals; red bass fresh from the sea; peacocks stuffed with rice and mushrooms.”

  “I want some,” the little boy at her side said, tears coming to his eyes. She squeezed his hand, warning him to be quiet.

  “And what if I did it?” the girl asked. “Would you feed my brothers and sisters.”

  She was only a child, and perhaps knew that by custom, if a man or woman gave an endowment, their children would be well cared for, for life. Turaush shook his head sadly. “If you were a grown woman, we might make such a deal. But you are only a child half-grown, and so your endowment is not worth much to us. Being so small, you don't have as much stamina as an adult,” he lied. After all, he had a quota to fill. “So, if your little brother here wants food also, he will have to give up his endowment.”

  He smiled kindly at the boy. Turaush had rarely resorted to taking endowments from children so young. But these two looked healthy enough.

  “I hear that it hurts,” the girl objected.

  “Only a little, and only for a moment,” Turaush said. His tone promised a lifetime of joy afterward, though to be sure, it would not be a long life. Raj Ahten needed stamina, and a starveling like this was not likely to live through the winter plague season.

  “But what of my sisters?” the girl asked. “Who will take care of them?”

  “How old are they?”

  “One is three, and the other barely a year.”

  Turaush frowned. Such children were too young to surrender endowments. A Dedicate had to want to give his endowment with his whole soul, and small children, not understanding the consequences of their decision, could not muster the proper resolve.

  Still, Turaush thought, we could raise them for a couple of years, until they are old enough.

  “I will make you a deal. If you and your brother give your endowments, perhaps I could arrange that your sisters get fed, too. In fact, I know a nice woman who has long wished for a daughter of her own. She would count herself fortunate indeed to be blessed with two.”

  “And my big brother?”

  “Tell me about your brother.”

  “His name is Balimar. He's big enough to work. But he was gored by a water buffalo last summer, and is only now beginning to walk.”

  “So Balimar is mending?”

  “Yes,” the girl answered. “He is very strong.”

  Turaush considered. Balimar might not be able to give stamina now, but he might give his brawn. He would of course feel accountable for the younger children, and if they were suddenly spirited away to the Dedicate's Keep in the palace, he would be easily persuaded to follow. “I'm sure that an arrangement can be made. Come now, let us go take your endowments and get some food in you. Then I will talk to Balimar.”

  Turaush took the girl's tiny hand. In the distance, borne on the dawn winds, he could hear the keen piping of a facilitator as he coaxed the stamina from someone, followed by a howl of pain as the attribute was wrenched away. To him, the sound seemed sweeter than the coo of the wood doves as he led the children to the palace.

  29

  A BEND IN THE RIVER

  There is nothing more noble than to give of oneself out of love. There is nothing more humiliating than feeling compelled to take that gift.

  —Kingjas Laren Sylvarresta

  Dearborn rowed the boat steadily in the late afternoon, his eyes dull from fatigue. Beads of perspiration trickled down his cheek and off his nose, and sweat liberally stained the armpits of his work shirt.

  “Almost there,” he said. “We should see the castle as we round this next bend.”

  For hours he had rowed, seeming never to tire, never stopping to rest. He watched the currents, keeping the boat in the center of the V each time he rounded a bend, in order to borrow more speed from the fast water.

  A chill shook Chemoise. She tried to ignore it. Instead, she watched the flat green water and rejoiced in the warm sunlight on her skin. It made her feel clean, as if its heat could burn the infection from her.

  “Have you decided what to give?” Dearborn asked.

  “Metabolism,” she said at last.

  It was the least dangerous endowment to grant. It wouldn't hurt Chemoise's child, and would hardly inconvenience her. She could give it easily. If Gaborn won, and killed the reavers, then she would wake in some distant day when the war was over, only a bad dream, fading into insignificance.

  “Hmmm… “Dearborn muttered. He was obviously displeased. By giving metabolism, she would leave him in a way. She'd sleep as he grew old. But she wasn't about to let some minor attachment deter her.

  Her journey downstream had been almost like a pleasure outing. The banks of the River Wye were overgrown with cattails along the route, and trout could be seen slapping the water in their quest for midges. Mallards paddled near shore, ever vigilant as their ducklings followed behind. Once, Chemoise saw a huge stag leap up from its bed beneath an apple tree.

  All of the sudden, they rounded the bend, and Chemoise spotted Castle Sylvarresta ahead, a walled city built upon a long hill; the tall watchtowers looked like gray arrows taking aim at the sky. From here, you could hardly see the damage wreaked by the Darkling Glory. The Graak's Aerie hid most of the wreckage of the King's Tower and the Dedicate's Keep, and the burnt front gates remained concealed by the castle walls. Only blackened grass on nearby hills reminded one that a battle had been fought here.

  Chemoise felt surprised to see crowds surrounding the castle. Tens of thousands of bright tents and pavilions were pitched upon the nearer hills. The smoke of cooking fires hung above the fields like gray cobwebs. Horses were tethered along the riverbank ahead.

  Chemoise had lived in the city before the Darkling Glory came. Four hundred thousand people or more had camped in the fields round about, eager to meet the Earth King. They'd fled at Gaborn's warning, fading into the forest to hide from the Darkling Glory. Now it looked as if nearly everyone had returned.

  “Look at them all,” Chemoise said in wonder. “It's like Hostenfest.”

  Dearborn craned his head as he rowed, glanced over his shoulder, and grunted in dull surprise. Soon, they passed along shores where hundreds of women and children were washing clothes or fetching pails of water.

  Chemoise shouted to one washwoman, “Why is everyone at Castle Sylvarresta?”

  “The Earth King needs endowments,” she replied.

  “That can't be it,” Chemoise whispered to Dearborn. “That many people wouldn't give endowments. There must be another reason. Maybe they came to hide from the rats.”
<
br />   “Did the rats come last night?” Dearborn asked the washwoman.

  “They came,” she answered. “Drowned trying to swim the moat. The ferrin took those what made it over the city walls.” She seemed little concerned, and Chemoise envied her. In Ableton the rats had given them a bitter struggle.

  So it was that Dearborn beached the rowboat, and Chemoise climbed the banks of the River Wye, up through oat stubble, looking for signs of a great struggle like the one fought back home. The city looked peaceful.

  “The rats didn't kill your horses?” Chemoise asked the old woman. “They didn't ruin your tents?”

  “We were all in the castle,” she answered. “Hiding. We filled every tomb and every cellar.”

  “There was room for everyone?” Chemoise asked, unsure if she believed it.

  “Och, no,” the old woman said. “Some folks went up to the old iron mines in the Dunnwood, and stayed as cozy as peas in a pod. The rats never even made it to their door. The ferrin folk had them all, I suppose.”

  Chemoise stared in disbelief. There was no sign of a struggle. The sun shone golden over thefields. The cottages by the river sat undisturbed. The farms spread out along the road in a patchwork quilt of colors—white of oat stubble, the forest green of a field of mint, the yellow of mustard flowers, the ruddy gold of winter wheat.

  It wasn't until they had walked a hundred yards toward the castle that Dearborn discovered sign of the attack. With his boot he pointed out a dead rat curled up under a clump of grass beside the road, a ferrin's broken spear still in its gut.

  A chill shook Chemoise, and she noticed a bit of sadness in Dearborn's eyes and a thoughtful look on his face.

  “What is it?” Chemoise asked.

  “We're the lucky ones,” he said. “It's only little rats we're fighting. Imagine if this thing was as big as a farmer's cottage, lumbering about. That's what our folks will be facing at Carris.”

  It was worse than that, Chemoise knew. Rats didn't have hide as tough as armor. Rats didn't have mages that cast foul spells. Rats weren't as cunning as men.

  She peered into Dearborn's face in wonder. “Our folks,” he had called the people of Carris. But they were strangers, hundreds of miles beyond the city's borders.

  It's the war, she realized. A common foe had made brothers of them all.

  She hurried her stride, reached the city gates. There were boys beside the moat, using rakes to pull drowned rats from the water, then throwing the nasty things into wicker baskets.

  One boy had waded into the depths up to his chest, and used a spear to try to fish some rats out of the lilies that grew in the shadow of the castle wall.

  The vermin would have been able to crawl over the moat on the backs of their dead, Chemoise imagined.

  She glanced behind. Shadows were growing long. The sun loomed on the horizon, splendorous among some golden clouds. Soon it would be night. Chemoise hoped that she still had time. She raced up Merchant Street, where vendors hawked food, filling the evening air with scents of fresh bread and meats that made her mouth water.

  It wasn't until she passed the King's Gate, out of the merchant's quarter, that she saw how strange the world had become.

  She heard the distant birdlike singing of facilitators as they took endowments, and found that just inside the King's Gate, a crowd had formed.

  A thousand people stood waiting to give endowments, jostling one another in an effort to be first. One woman called, “Tell the facilitators to hurry. We haven't got all night!”

  The King's Tower and Dedicates’ Keep were naught but ruins after last week's battle with the Darkling Glory, and little had been done to clean up the pile of broken stone. But the old barracks and attendant Great Hall still stood, and these had been turned into a makeshift Dedicates’ Keep.

  Pavilions in a riot of color covered the green, and everywhere Chemoise saw hundreds of people lying in their shade, as if in a faint.

  Dully she realized that the barracks was full, and the tents were full, and there was nowhere else to put the Dedicates except to lay them on the grass until something better could be arranged. Those without brawn lay as slack as newborn babes while attendants clustered around them. Dozens of blind men and women sat beside a cooking fire, strumming lutes and singing an old ballad, which had served as a call over the ages:

  “Come give yourself, come give yourself,

  Before it is too late.

  Together we stand when darkness falls.

  The need is growing great.

  “Come give yourself, come give yourself,

  We know the cost is dear.

  Together we'll stand when our lord calls.

  Let's have a rousing cheer.”

  “Are all of these people Dedicates for the Earth King?” Chemoise asked in wonder.

  “Aye,” a young man called out. In the crowd, Chemoise hadn't spotted him. But at a nearby table sat a facilitator's apprentice with a quill and inkpot, writing on a long scroll. He was a young man, no more than thirteen.

  “How many endowments does he need?” Chemoise asked.

  “We'll give him every forcible we've got, and hope that its enough,” the apprentice answered. “With any luck, we'll make him the Sum of All Men.” Chemoise gazed out over the field in wonder. There weren't just hundreds who had given endowments. Instead, thousands of people lay on the green. And as she glanced back downhill, she could see carts and horses coming from afar—from Bannisferre to the south, and Hobtown to the east, and a hundred villages to the west—people bringing all that they had with them to Castle Sylvarresta. Tens of thousands would offer them-selves as Dedicates. And those who didn't win the honor of going under the forcible would gladly hold the walls against any enemy that might try to take them, making themselves human shields between the enemies of the Earth King and the source of his Power.

  It was grand and glorious to see so many people coming together to create the stuff of legend: the Sum of All Men. For a moment, Chemoise was swept away. The young facilitator cleared his throat, and asked, “Are you here to give an endowment?”

  Chemoise's stomach fluttered nervously. “Aye.”

  “What can you offer?”

  “Metabolism,” she volunteered. “Metabolism won't hurt my unborn child.”

  “We're full up on that,” the facilitator said. “He's got more than a hundred now. We really need stamina, grace, and brawn.” He listed the greater endowments. Chemoise thought he sounded like a merchant in the market who demands more for his wares than one can easily pay. Giving any one of those endowments could kill a person. Chemoise was already sick from rat bites. She didn't dare offer stamina, lest her current illness take her. And those who gave brawn sometimes found that their hearts stopped, or their lungs quit working, simply because they hadn't the strength to go on. Chemoise didn't think she could face the terror of that, to lie helpless, unable to breathe, knowing that death was moments away.

  “Grace,” Chemoise said, struggling to sound more eager than she felt. Perhaps by giving Gaborn my grace, Chemoise thought, I can atone for my father's transgression.

  Her father had once given grace to Raj Ahten, Gaborn's most feared enemy, who had also sought to become the Sum of All Men.

  The scribe made a mark in his book, adding her endowment of grace to the Earth King's tally. She was but one of thousands. He didn't ask Chemoise her name or thank her profusely or make the normal promises of care and compensation for the rest of her life.

  Her endowment was a gift, and the giving of it was its own reward.

  “And you, sir?” the scribe asked, peering behind Chemoise to Dearborn.

  “Oh,” Chemoise explained, “he's my friend. He just brought me—”

  Dearborn put a hand on her shoulder, gently pushed her aside. “Brawn,” he said with a deadly resolve in his voice. “I'll give him my strength. And may the Powers grant that he deal a blow… “He made a fist and shook it, as if he'd strike with his own hand if he could.

  Che
moise looked into Dearborn's face and saw a hardness she'd never imagined. She'd thought him a moon-sick pup. But now she recalled how he had rowed the boat all day without rest. Something in him had changed.

  The plague of rats was sent to break us here in Heredon, Chemoise realized, but instead we have only fixed our resolve.

  30

  THE GLORY

  The Glories speak not as men speak but whisper words that can only be heard in the heart of one who yearns for understanding.

  —Erden Geboren

  Gaborn raced down a seemingly endless winding stair that a commoner would have spent days trying to negotiate. Hot winds from the Underworld swirled up it, blasting his face. There was no water here, no refreshment.

  In Heredon the battle was over, and those that would die had died.

  Now Carris was braced for the slaughter.

  Gaborn could sense Averan, still alive, far below.

  Over the past few days—as Gaborn sensed time—the Consort of Shadows had led him through doors that no commoner could open, climbed down chimneys and up stairways that no human was meant to follow.

  More than just reavers burrowed in the Underworld, and the Consort of Shadows was as likely to take some route formed by the passage of a great-worm as follow the reaver tunnels. Gaborn had run past huge waterfalls and through drowned caverns. Twice he had lost his way and managed to find it again.

  As he ran, days seemed to pass, and he pondered what he would do when he met the One True Master.

  She would be prepared. She was strong in the ways of sorcery, strong enough to challenge the very Powers. More than that, she harbored a locus that had existed from the beginning of time.

  Had Erden Geboren planned to fight her with his spear? Gaborn hefted the ancient reaver dart, studied its diamond tip. Runes were carved into it—runes of Earth Strengthening to keep the shaft from breaking. Beyond that, the weapon was nothing special. It was only a spear carved from bone.